Chapter 34 "Steve"
Day 94; Group C
It was morning. The group had just awoke, and they were loading up to start scavenging the town. The first place they were going to go to was the grocery store they said the scavengers said they would hit up.
"What makes you think they'd still be there?" Otis asked.
"I don't think they are," Sierra replied. "But this is the only place we're certain they've been. This could at least tell us if one of them died here or something… Maybe."
Xavier nodded. "If they came back and found they place in ruins, they may have come back to stay here."
"I don't think they're dumb enough to stay in a place like that," Otis stated, slightly frustrated. "That's the first place scavengers go."
The argument was dropped and they finished making sure all of their supplies were secure.
They arrived at the grocery store minutes later and they parked next to a few cars that seemed to be in good condition. Everyone exited the car and stretched, happy to be free from its small confinements even if they were in there for only a few moments. Gabriel took the keys out of the ignition, put them in his pocket, and they all headed towards the store with their guns up and ready.
They entered the store cautiously, Sierra and Otis going in first. There were two walkers around, and Otis recalled Robert's trick. As Sierra took down the two walkers, Otis shot at the ceiling, making a loud clang. After a few seconds with no return, they assumed they were safe and split into two groups of two and one of three to search the building.
After half an hour of unsuccessful searching, they decided to call it quits. "There ain't shit here," Otis said. "And clearly, if the scavengers ever made it here, they cleared it out a long time ago."
They met back at a pair of doors that led to the side of the building, and they walked out, headed back around to the front. Sierra froze them, and put her gun up. There was a man in the car. It was unclear what he was doing, but he seemed to be hotwiring it.
"Damn good thing I took the keys," Gabriel said quietly as they all raised their guns at the stranger, following Sierra's lead.
"Stop what you're doing!" Sierra yelled when everyone was prepared.
The man looked up, revealing bright blue eyes on a long, triangular face, framed by curly blonde hair. He seemed to be quite strong, though his cheeks were very sunken in. Clearly, he had gone hungry for some time now. His face read anger at first, as though he would retaliate. That was quickly drained from his face, though, as he realized there was seven people standing in front of him, each with a gun trained on him. He gulped, and put his hands up in acquiescence. "Don't kill me!" he yelled, looking among them.
"Why shouldn't we?" Xavier yelled, trying to intimidate the man.
"Because he was only trying to get a ride," Otis shrugged to Xavier. "Didn't hurt nobody." Xavier gave Otis a furious look, who said "Oh," understanding that Xavier was just trying to scare the stranger into complying.
The blonde man felt eased. They were not going to kill him. These people are some of the good ones, he decided. "Because you wouldn't kill strangers for no reason," he said. "I'm just looking for a ride to get out of here. Look for food. I didn't know this was y'all's, though. It just looked like it was used most recently," he shrugged, gesturing to the other cars with dust and grime collecting on them.
They all looked among themselves, silently asking what should be done. "Bind him," Xavier said. Sierra nodded, and look to the others. They all seemed to be on board. Gabriel tossed Sierra a rope, and they all headed for their car. Everyone but Sierra had their guns trained on the blonde man as they walked to him.
"You put your arms down, we'll shoot them off for you," Sierra threatened. "Then we'll be sure you can't do it again."
The man chuckled. "Alright," he complied. Just because they were good does not mean they won't protect their own. It does not mean they would take any risks. They made it to him, and Sierra opened the door. Xavier grabbed the man by the hair, and pressed him onto the car. "You a cop?" the stranger asked as Sierra took the rope and bound him at the wrists, then used the excess to tie around his torso and arms, even further confining him from resisting.
"Nope," Xavier replied. "Just played one on TV once."
"Wow," he said. "You famous?"
Xavier half-frowned. "More famous than you, I bet."
"I'll take that as a no," the blonde laughed.
The man was now tied up, and Sierra turned him over to face them. She reached into his pockets, finding a gun. She checked it. Three bullets. In his other pocket was a rusty dagger, stained with blood, presumably belonging to walkers. "Firstly," she said, "you're going to tell us your name."
The stranger paused, being reassured they were good people. If they were bad, they wouldn't have asked him name. Bad people didn't like to humanize their victims. At least, the ones he'd encountered hadn't. "Steve," he said.
"You thought about it," Sierra said. "Are you lying to me?"
"No," the blonde said.
Sierra gave him a prying look, trying to determine whether she was being lied to. "Well, Steve," she eventually said, "you're coming with us. Hungry?"
The man nodded. "Starvin'."
She looked back behind her to Amanda. "Give him some of those berries we picked the other day."
"But," the stoner began, unsure of whether or not they should be feeding a stranger.
"You heard me," Sierra said. Amanda frowned and grabbed a handful of berries from the small pocket on the side of her bag, and she handed them to Sierra. The blonde woman looked to the man with the berries in her hand. "Do you mind?"
"Not at all," he said, opening his mouth wide as Sierra pushed them into his mouth.
"Don't eat 'em all at once," the leader said. "If you haven't eaten in a while, you're gonna make yourself sick."
Steve nodded, slowly chewing them and swallowing them one at a time.
Sierra watched him eat, and she turned back around to everyone else. "This car won't do," she stated redundantly. "It could barely hold us, and now we have a prisoner." Steve raised a brow, being referred to as such, and he felt a bit worried. "Xavier, you're gonna watch this guy here. The rest of us, let's go search this lot for a bigger, actually usable vehicle."
Xavier nodded, and pushed Steve off of the car as they all split up into smaller groups to find a new vehicle. He led the prisoner to a wall of the grocery store that was in the shade, where he could watch the others and the stranger at the same time. "Sit down," he told the blonde, who was already trying to scoot down the wall, only able to use the wall and his back for balance.
"That's what I'm trying to do." When he finally sat down, he looked up to the brunet man. "So, what's y'all's story?"
Xavier looked to the prisoner, lifted a brow, and looked away, watching everyone do their jobs, keeping an eye on his family.
"Alright, then," Steve said and they remained silent for a while. "My name's Steven Perilloux. I'm from North Dakota. I love German Shepherds. I was with a bunch of friends in this place called Wellington for a while, until I decided to leave it to find my family. I regret that a lot. Went back up to Dakota. Found my parents shot dead in their own home. It was obvious they didn't do it themselves…"
Xavier looked to the man and shrugged. "Uh," he interrupted. "Is this...necessary?"
Steve smiled. "It humanizes me. Shows you I've been through shit, too. That I'm struggling just like y'all. So yeah, it's necessary."
Xavier gave the man a questioning look, and looked to the road. He met eyes with Sierra, who was sitting in a moving truck and talking with Kelly. "Continue," he said, curious about this guy's story.
The blonde man chuckled. "Alright. Let's see. So, I left. Tried to get back to Wellington. But someone jacked my ride. I had to continue on foot, so obviously I got lost. Spent a long time out there all alone. I met some good people, but they died trying to help me out. Most of the people I met were bad, though. One guy shot all of my friends up, saved me for last. I had to kill him with my bare hands. I went back to Wellington, but I couldn't do it. I could see the walls, but I just… I wasn't ready. So I left. Been out on the road for almost two months now. I kinda wanna go back, but… I don't know."
Xavier shrugged, but took a mental note of the place Steve mentioned. If it were still running, they could be safe there. "Well, looks like you're not gonna be going anytime soon."
Steve chuckled. "Yeah. Looks like it."
Gabriel and Shakira were going around the parking lot and surrounding roads and houses, siphoning gas out of all of the vehicles they could, including the car they came in.
Otis and Amanda were searching vehicles in the lot and trying to get vans and large trucks to work, but were having very little luck.
Sierra and Kelly had spotted a large moving truck in the road, slightly hidden by large bushes and a willow tree in front of the store. Sierra went to the front, trying to start it as Kelly searched the back for unwanted vacants and supplies.
In the trailer in the back of the moving truck, Kelly had found a single walker. It smelled foul, and was tied to a chair. It was grotesquely thin. Clearly, he was left for dead. Kelly frowned as she used a machete to put it down. "Sick bastards," she said, thinking about the people who did this to the man.
She left the trailer, the only things to find in there being furniture. She went around the front, where Sierra was still trying to get the vehicle to start using the wires. "I found a walker," Kelly said. "Put it down." Sierra nodded, busy with the wires. "Someone tied it up and left it to die."
The blonde looked up to meet eyes with the purple-haired girl, the wires in her hands inches apart from one another. She frowned. "If you're worried about it, you should know we're not going to do something like that to Steve. Not unless he gives us a reason to."
"Not even then," Kelly said. "That's no way to treat someone."
"Kelly," Sierra tried to reason with her, "you… What if he hurts one of us? What if he kills Xavier?"
Kelly looked to the ground. "Then we kill him. We don't leave him to die."
Sierra nodded. "If that's the way you feel, then fine. No torture." She looked over to Steve, who was talking with Xavier. "Besides," she said, "you don't know. Maybe he was just being punished for something, and they were forced to leave him. Like suddenly, a herd came through. Not every atrocity you see is the worst outcome you can imagine. Maybe he was a hothead, or had a muscle problem, or something. Accusing the people who did that to him is only spitting in their wound."
Kelly nodded. "I guess."
Sierra drew her focus back to the wires in her lap. She put the wires together once more, and the engine of the truck roared to life. The girls smiled to one another. Sierra turned the truck off and sent Kelly to get Otis and Amanda. The four began moving the furniture out of the back, including the chair with the walker on it. The only thing that they left was a very heavy couch and a few mattresses.
When it was ready, they went for Xavier and Steve, then found Gabriel and Shakira, who proceeded to dump most of the gas they had found into the truck.
"There's nothing for us here," Sierra said solemnly. Everyone loaded into the back, while Sierra and Otis sat up front, driving the truck out of Salem and towards the south-west, with a new prisoner in tow.