Chapter 26: Please do what I could not
The family restaurant was a keepsake, passed down from father to son, throughout the generations.
Throughout the fifty years of its existence, the store did well, encountering all kinds of people and stories on its journey. The owners couldn't be prouder of their little store, considering it their pride and joy.
Joe Jr was proud of his father, Joseph Sr, and who he was named after.
He was a typical American man, liked hunting, proud of his guns, loved football.
But he had always wanted to do something else besides run the family store. It was boring and hardly anyone his age turned up there.
What was so much fun about standing around, waiting for customers to come to you? Nothing, really. It was a tedious mess.
It was boring and dull and he didn't know how to take it. He wasn't sure that his father wasn't bored, either. He must be.
As he got older, he realized he lacked in patience. Oh well.
Maybe his dad will eventually get over this whole store thing and we'll find something else to do with our spare time. It was boring.
Oh, how he resented his thoughts about his father when his father got bitten by one of those things.
"Dad, no!" He cried.
"Shoot me." His father begged. "When I become that thing, shoot me."
"I can't."
"Joseph, please, shoot me. I don't want to be one of them."
He shook his head, tears in his eyes.
When his father became that thing, he winced as it lunged at him.
"Dad?" He asked, a hopeful tone to his voice.
"RAAGHh!" Was all he got in response. Oh. There was not a trace of Dad in there. It was just a monster.
He left the husk that used to be his father there, in the store he loved, with the note he had written.
"Please do what I could not." As he ran into the woods, desperate and alone, he found a group of survivors and they accepted him into the Saviors as one of their own. Joe Sr stayed with his store until the day he was put out of his misery.