(Anne Marshall belongs to AquaDestinysEmbrace.)
(Chris Rudy, Misty Rudy, and Chelsea Jernigan all belong to Chris Rudy!)
(I DO NOT own The Walking Dead, Code Lyoko or any of the names or brands that appear in this story. But I do own my OCs)
(Thanks to AquaDestinysEmbrace for helping with a scene for this chapter! You're awesome! :))
After driving for about two hours all while day turned to night, the supply group had finally made it to the first hospital on their list.
Chris parked Kenny's pickup truck in a parking lot, and one by one the rest of the runners climbed out of the truck with their weapons at the ready. Thankfully they didn't see any walkers in the vicinity, but they did see a bunch of corpses scattered around along with a few burnt-out National Guard vehicles crashed across the parking lot. Among them was a big armored vehicle blocking the front doors...
The sight of such death and devastation reminded Chris of the early days of the outbreak, especially how he and his girlfriend and his sister all miraculously escaped some of the worst horrors imaginable. Had they not been lucky enough to stumble across that drug store in Macon and the people inside who became his fellow survivors of the motel group, they definitely wouldn't have survived.
Likewise, the people in the drug store were lucky that they decided to let Chris and the girls inside. Had the three teens not been there when the burglar alarm went off, Lee wouldn't have been able to save both Doug and Carley once the walkers tried to storm inside.
Chris soon shook himself out of his thoughts of the past. Right now he had to focus on getting what they came for and saving that hurt guy's life.
Odd cautiously approached one of the soldier's corpses and he gave it a light in the leg with his shoe while aiming his gun at its head. Thankfully, and much to his relief, it didn't move an inch. These corpses had to have been dead for days already...
"I think we're alright for now..." Odd turned and informed the rest of the group.
The others were relieved to hear Odd say this but they still kept a watchful eye over all of the corpses. Ain't no telling if they really were pacified or not...
The group noticed that some of the dead were actually Georgia National Guardsmen. And most importantly, they noticed that several of the guardsmen were laying dead with their rifles or pistols still next to their corpses. Some even still had their combat knives as well.
Both the Lyoko Warriors and the motel group could use some extra weaponry... as morbid of a task to gather all these weapons up as it would be.
Dylan and Odd both hurried over and began stabbing the heads of the corpses that still had the rifles, not daring to take any chances, and both Lee and Chris followed close behind to collect the rifles and pistols themselves. Chase, Anne, and Aelita kept an eye out for any walkers.
It was morbid work for the others, but all these weapons were certainly going to be a big help for all involved. The guns even included the ammunition magazines found on some pouches attached to the combat vests of the corpses.
These guns will save a lot of lives in both the motel group and the Lyoko Warriors down the line...
"Thank you, sir..." Dylan mournfully said to one of the corpses, a gesture of genuine respect as he grabbed the corpse's rifle from its hands. Dylan was a part of a family tree which included a lot of veterans in its branches, so he made it a point to respect America's fallen as much as he could. He owed that to his dad and grandpa most of all.
As Dylan lifted the rifle, he suddenly froze for a moment because he noticed that the corpse looked a little bit like his Uncle David, who he last saw at the airport in Paris before he, his brother, and the others of Kadic Academy all left for their trip to America.
Dylan didn't like the similarity one bit, and he found himself unable to look at the corpse any longer...
... he hoped Uncle David was still alive back in Paris.
"These are a lot better than the guns we got now..." Lee commented, referring to the mostly-shitty guns that he and the motel group had. The rifle he had in his hands was a lot better than his old hunting rifle.
Chris nodded in agreement as he set his load of rifles and pistols in the bed of the pickup truck. Lee and Dylan then hoisted their collected weapons in their hands and they set them down on top of the ones Chris got. They didn't have enough room in their dufflebag for all these guns, so they'll all just have to be stored loosely in the back until they return to the motel.
After a quick count, they found that they acquired fourteen rifles, seven combat knives, and eight pistols. Along with those treasures, they scrounged up a few dozen full rifle and pistol magazines from the pouches on the dead soldiers. Although the entire team was sure that at least some of the weapons they grabbed were probably not in a good enough condition to shoot anymore.
They'll sort out the good weapons from the bad ones later though. Right now, their main focus was on finding the medical supplies and antibiotics on Lilly's list. They wanted to be as quick as possible.
Lee and Dylan both volunteered to stay behind and watch over the truck and the newly-acquired guns while the rest of the group headed for the front entrance of the hospital to begin scavenging. Unfortunately, since a huge ass armored vehicle was obviously blocking the doors, they realized they had to find an alternate route inside.
They went around the side of the hospital and through the parking garage and they were lucky enough to find another entrance in there. It was an emergency escape door, but there was no need to worry since there was no longer any power to trigger the fire alarms.
Once they got inside the hospital, the teens spread out through two different hallways to look for supplies. Aelita and Chase went down one hallway together while Chris, Odd and Anne went down the other.
Since the hallways were very dark 'cause of the lack of power, the runners had taken some flashlights out of their backpacks and turned them on as they cautiously walked and searched whatever rooms they came across. They all made sure to keep their weapons at the ready...
If there was medical supplies still at this hospital, they damn sure were going to find them.
Verity was pacing back and forth in the motel parking lot with worry. Patrick was still stabilized but his infection was still a very serious threat. He also still had that blasted fever and it was only getting hotter and hotter...
Cool bottles of water and an ice pack or two weren't going to cure an infection no matter how many times you put them on Patrick's head. But there wasn't much else they could do for him unless the team came back with medical supplies.
She couldn't help but begin to mentally panic as she considered the circumstances unfolding at the moment... She simply couldn't comprehend a life without Patrick in it.
They've literally known each other since the day they were born! They've been best friends throughout their entire lives, and they only recently just became boyfriend and girlfriend! What the fuck was she going to do if he just dropped dead?!
She couldn't even sleep due to how worried she was!
Thankfully, the other Lyoko Warriors quickly picked up on Verity's worries, and they tried to help her calm down a bit.
"It's gonna be okay, Verity. He's not going to die so there's no reason to worry." Ulrich assured his friend.
"I know, but I just can't help it. I just don't know what's going to happen to Patrick. " Verity sighed as she forced herself to stop pacing and sit down on a chair. "God, what if they don't make it back in time?"
"It's best not to think like that. They'll all make it back and Patrick's life is going to be saved. You'll see." Jeremie predicted in an effort to calm her down a little.
Verity didn't respond. She appreciated what Jeremie, Urich and the others were trying to do, but she decided to just silently contemplate everything...
Amy... William... Patrick... the walkers and the death of civilization...
Jesus Christ, how could all of this have happened...?
The other Lyoko Warriors left her to her own devices. A few moments later, Lilly came out of Patrick's bedroom and drew everyone's attention. All of the teens turned their attention to her and they hoped she had some positive news about their friend...
"How is he doing, Lil? Is his condition improving at all?" Jennifer asked, dreading the all-but-assured answer that was going to come.
"First off, don't call me 'Lil.' That's stupid." Lilly icily replied to the Texan. Seriously, who the fuck has ever called her 'Lil'? "And secondly, no, I'm not seeing any improvement." she continued in the same icy tone. "In fact, your friend is getting worse."
The teens looked alarmed as Lilly continued. "His fever is worsening and his breathing is getting short and shallow. His heartbeat is beginning to become a little weak as well. I don't have anything to help combat his infection and I believe his condition is going to worsen much more severely before the runners get back. If they don't get back soon, then..." she explained, trailing off at the end of it.
The Lyoko Warriors silently took in this upsetting information. Verity's eyes were wide and her face had suddenly turned very pale as she silently collapsed back down in her chair. She and everyone else in the room knew exactly what Lilly was saying:
Patrick was likely going to be dead long before the supply runners ever get home.
Lilly rolled her eyes at their reactions. She was already impatient and annoyed enough by this entire situation.
Still though... she couldn't help but feel at least a little bad for that girl with the amethyst eyes... It was clear even to Lilly that Verity cared a lot for the boy.
The woman shook the thought out of her head, finding it to be needlessly distracting. Right now, she had to fulfill her end of the agreement she made with Jeremie. And to do so, she needed some medical supplies, and she also needed to know the exact cause of Patrick's wounds no matter how reluctant these teens were to tell her.
"I need to know how your friend got hurt if I am to continue working on him." Lilly demanded, crossing her arms and glaring down at the teens.
"Why does that even matter?" Rebecca inquired.
"Because teenagers don't usually lose half the blood in their body for no reason." Lilly deadpanned, her facial expression a mix of annoyance and impatience. "Now tell me how he got hurt or I'm just gonna stop working on your friend. I need to know if there's any trouble coming our way over this."
The teens all glanced at each other as if to ask one another as if to ask each other if they should tell Lilly about what happened. Would she even believe their story?
Reluctantly, the group mutually decided after a few moments to just tell Lilly all of the events that had occurred at the CDC and simply hope for the best.
"We were in the headquarters of the Center for Disease Control. It's in Atlanta." Jeremie began to explain on behalf of the group. "Our group headed there with one of our people who was bitten. We thought that there was people there who were making a cure... but unfortunately we were wrong."
"There was only one guy at the CDC. A doctor named Edwin Jenner. He was suicidal and he tried to take us all with him, but thankfully we got away..." Miranda added to the story.
Lilly rose an eyebrow as she listened to them. Whatever she thought about how Patrick getting hurt, it was definitely not something like this...
"That crazy motherfucker locked us in the underground of the CDC and tried to blow us up!" Jennifer added, a frown forming on her face as she remembered the events that occurred just yesterday. "We made it out of the place with only a couple of minutes to spare..."
Kenny and Doug both turned their attention to the teens and Lilly after overhearing the story from over by the RV, peaking their interest. Larry, who was leaning against the railing of the second story walkway to get some fresh air, also turned his attention over to the teens. And so did Carley and Mark, who were on guard duty that night.
"Tried to blow you up?" Lilly blinked, her grumpy expression being replaced with visible confusion. She supposed they could have been lying to her face right now... but something about them told her that they weren't.
"Yes, with some sort of fuel-air bombs." Rebecca explained. "Jenner was working with other scientists on a cure, but they all either left or killed themselves. Jenner's wife was also a scientist, but she got bit and he had to put her down." she added.
The group could see some of the others coming over to get in on this conversation. Among them was Larry, who looked pretty annoyed by what he has heard so far.
"Sounds like a bunch of horseshit." Larry spat, "I can't believe you all are fallin' for this nonsense!"
"Larry, with all due respect - fuck off." Kenny deadpanned at the senselessly angry old man.
Larry's eye twitched from a sudden rage. "You fuck off, you dirty no good Floridan piece of rotten redneck shi-"
"Both of you stop!" Lilly snapped at her father and at Kenny. They were getting very off-topic because of this annoying shit!
Miranda rolled her eyes at all of this. "Kenny and Larry argue like an old married couple, don't they?" she muttered to Jeremie, who was standing right next to her.
"What married couple on earth acts like that?" Jeremie deadpanned back at her.
"A couple which could use some serious counseling."
Now it was Jeremie's turn to roll his eyes. If Miranda didn't realize that this wasn't a good time for a joke, then he didn't want to bother trying to tell her as such.
Before Kenny or Larry could pick up where they left off, Misty and Chelsea came over and joined the discussion, getting everyone's attention.
"Look, their story is pretty wild, but it doesn't matter how Patrick got hurt." Chelsea logically told the others. "They're not harming us, and if there was anyone after them then they probably would've found the motel by now."
"Exactly." Misty agreed with her brother's girlfriend. "These people clearly aren't threatening us. If they want to keep some stuff to themselves, I don't see why not."
"You two don't know what the hell you're talkin' about." Larry frowned at the two girls. But before they could reply, he threw up his arms and just stormed off.
The Lyoko Warriors cringed at the exchange. In their eyes, Larry was certainly a jackass...
"Alright, so what happened with that doctor?" Carley crossed her arms and directed everyone back to the conversation. She and Mark both had gotten up from their seats by the front "gate" and went to join the others listening to the teens.
Real or fake, this story of theirs was too interesting to stop now.
"Well, after that, he lost the will to live." Jeremie continued. "He was going to kill us all because he thought he was going to save us from whatever we experience out here, but we convinced him to let us go free..."
"A woman from our group decided to stay with him rather than venture back outside. The rest of us got away before the building exploded, but unfortunately we were separated from our group and Patrick got hurt." Ulrich finished the story. "Once Patrick gets better we're gonna try to find them again..."
Ulrich shut his eyes as the memory of escaping the CDC came back to the forefront of his mind. How they all nearly died in there, and how he and the others got separated from four of their friends after the building was vaporized...
And, to Ulrich, one person he was separated from was the love of his life...
Yumi...
She, Robert, Charles, and Kyra were all hopefully still with Rick's group, wherever they all ended up... Ulrich wouldn't rest until he found them again. Found her again.
"So he was injured by some debris from the explosion?" Lilly correctly concluded.
"Yes." Alexandr confirmed. "Most of us escaped with just some cuts and bruises to show for it. Pretty lucky, all things considered."
"And then you guys just wandered away from the explosion until you ran into Lee and us?" Kenny guessed after the story ended.
Rebecca nodded in confirmation. "Yes, exactly that."
The motel group were astounded by all that they had heard. Some felt that way because they truly believed the teens, others felt like that because they just thought this was a very creative lie on their part. And then there was Larry, who simply didn't give a shit over what the teens had to say to begin with.
Whatever the case, the kids wouldn't be here for much longer anyway. As soon as Patrick gets fixed up, they'll presumably be on their way to who knows where. Whatever happened to them before coming across Lee, Mark, and Kenny simply didn't matter.
The Lyoko Warriors were all just as dejected about telling this tale as some of the motel group was about hearing it. But they deliberately left out the worst part, if only to spare the people of this motel a bunch of avoidable heartache and dejection...
Jenner had failed to make a cure. And as far as the late doctor knew, no one anywhere else on earth had made one either... The French had apparently come close, he said, but by that point their facilities ended up just like the CDC Headquarters in Atlanta, destroying all their work...
For the foreseeable future, there would simply be no end to this global outbreak. Years upon years probably were going to go by without a cure... perhaps even decades. Perhaps even longer than that...
... every last human being on this world is on their own. Outnumbered by the dead.
Lilly shook her head, deciding to focus on treating Patrick some more. "I've heard enough of this..." she told the teens with an emotionless tone of voice. If she believed them or not, she didn't make it known. "Mark, you come with me. I'll need some help, and Carley can hold down the fort for a couple of minutes."
Mark nodded, setting his hunting rifle next to one of the chairs by the front "gate" before walking with Lilly to Lee's room, where Patrick was being kept.
Soon, the other adults all went back to what they were originally doing before the conversation, leaving the Lyoko Warriors to just stand in the parking lot and silently contemplate Patrick's situation and the pandemic in general...
This whole world was fucked...
Before she went back to guard duty, Carley stopped to speak to the teens.
"Mark's a good guy, and Lilly's... Lilly..." Carley politely described Mark, then cringed as she described the not-so-polite Lilly. "But both of them are gonna do everything they can for your friend. He'll be back on his feet before you know it, you'll see." She assured to try and cheer up the teens if only a little bit.
The teens were thankful for her words but none of them replied to her. Carley simply flashed them a smile before heading back to her chair by the front "gate", taking her rifle back into her hands. Gotta watch for walkers out there...
As Carley left, the teens glanced at each other out of concern for Patrick, but they were still fully aware that there wasn't anything any of them could do aside from hope and pray that the others get back with the medical supplies as quickly as possible.
They hoped that the others would get back to the motel soon...
Aelita and Chase cautiously made their way down a dark hallway of the hospital, their guns and their flashlights tightly in hand in case anything happened.
When the two got to a pair of doors on opposite sides of the hallway, they'd stand back to back and aim both the flashlights and their guns through the doorframes. They didn't find any walkers yet, luckily, so they just focused on watching each other's backs as much as they could.
After clearing the hallway the two teens checked a storage room together to try and find any sort of medical supplies.
"Alright, look around. Do you still remember the medicines you need to look for, Chase?" Aelita inquired as she opened a cabinet and found some antibiotics.
"Sulfamethoxazole, Cephalexin, nitroglycerin pills, and a lot of other stuff whose names I can barely pronounce without the aid of an insanely good dictionary." Chase joked as he opened a box and began rummaging through it.
Aelita chuckled at Chase's reply as she continued to load her bag with more antibiotics and whatever other supplies she could find in the cabinets. He was always good company.
There was a lot of things that Patrick and the motel group needed in these cabinets, but unfortunately it wasn't everything that was on the list. She, Chase, and the others would all need to keep searching the hospital.
It was a great sign that they found some supplies already though. If this hospital had in fact been looted, then clearly not everything had been taken.
"And don't forget to look for dog and cat antibiotics as well if they have them here." Aeita informed as she took and stashed in her backpack whatever antibiotics she could find. "I know this isn't an animal hospital, but those kind of antibiotics are more or less the same as antibiotics for humans."
Chase nodded in reply to the pinkette as he found some more medical supplies to stash in his own bag. Dog and cat antibiotics could work on humans too? Guess you learn something new every day, especially when in the company of a supergenius who had been stuck inside a virtual world for ten years.
After about fifteen minutes the siblings had cleared the entire room of whatever medical supplies they could find. The two then decided to search another storage room which they had seen down the hall.
They again kept a tight hold on their guns and their flashlights as they left the storage room and resumed their trek down the hallway.
"Places like this give me the fuckin' creeps..." Chase stated as he kept a watchful eye out for any signs of walkers. The dark surroundings weren't doing him any favors. "It's like when you're at the factory really late at night, y'know?"
"Yeah, I know what you mean. I feel crept out as well..." Aelita replied as she aimed her flashlight down the hall. She wasn't liking the darkness any more than Chase was.
"You think the others are having any luck with their search?" Chase inquired while momentarily taking out his magazine to remind himself how many bullets he had in it. Eight rounds, a full magazine.
Aelita shrugged. "Well, we found some supplies. It stands to reason that if one part of the hospital wasn't looted, then more of the hospital may not be looted either." she told him as she shined her flashlight into a nearby room, seeing it was empty.
"Yeah, that's a fair point, 'Lita..." Chase shrugged as he put his magazine back into his pistol.
Aelita and Chase continued walking until they reached the door down the hall. Hopefully Aelita's suspicions would prove to be correct and there would be a lot more medical supplies in there, but there was only one way to be sure...
The two siblings approached the door together. They were about to open it up when they suddenly heard a noise come from a room on the opposite side of the hallway.
Before the two teens could react, a walker had stumbled out of the room and grabbed Aelita by her arm. The creature snarled as it pulled her straight down to the ground and dived upon her!
Aelita gasped as she tried her hardest to keep the walker from biting her, even after she accidentally dropped her gun. She barely managed to hold back a scream.
"Aelita!" Chase gasped as he raised his pistol to kill the walker.
Just seconds before the walker could sink its teeth deep into Aelita's neck, Chase fired his pistol and hit the walker in the back of the head, pacifying it, but unintentionally also causing a ton of blood and brains to be sent flying directly into Aelita's face. Chase's face scrunched in disgust over this accident.
After a silent moment, the poor pink-haired teen pushed the corpse off of her. She sat upright, but she nearly vomited right then and there due to the unfathomably-disgusting taste of the walker blood and brains in her mouth.
"Shit, are you okay?!" Chase asked as he set down his gun and ran to check up on her. "I'm so fucking sorry, Aelita! I didn't mean for that to happen!"
Aelita couldn't reply at first since she began to gag from the terrible taste. She spat out what walker blood she could and then took a swig of water from her canteen, swished it around in her mouth, and spat it all out to wash the rest out of her mouth. Then she poured out a bit more of the water on her face so she could clean the remaining bit of the blood off.
She was NOT going to be kissing Jeremie for at least a couple of days, that's for sure.
Oh, what Aelita wouldn't give for some mouthwash or even a pack of cheaply-made mint gum right at this (terrible) moment...
"I- I'm fine... I'm fine." Aelita managed to say after clearing her mouth of the walker blood and set the canteen back in her backpack. God, she hoped she didn't accidentally swallow any of that stuff. She didn't want to technically have become a cannibal because of this...
"You sure? There's no bites? Scratches?" Chase inquired once more out of worry.
The pink-haired super genius looked down at her arms and legs while Chase checked around her neck and her face. Thankfully, it seemed that Aelita didn't get a single bite or scratch from that walker. She wasn't going to die just yet.
After a mutual sigh of relief, the two teens stood back up from the floor and brushed themselves off before they hugged each other.
"Thank you for taking care of that walker..." Aelita expressed her gratitude before the hug to grab her dropped handgun and flashlight again.
"No problem, Princess. I'll be damned if something happened to you or Dyl..." Chase assured, happy that Aelita was safe and unhurt.
Aelita smiled at this as she knew that he was completely serious about what he just said. However, the moment didn't last. The two teens heard another noise that sounded like footsteps from around the corner that led into another hallway.
More walkers...
Both Aelita and Chase readied their pistols again as they heard the footsteps getting closer and closer. Rather than wait for the walker to get to them, the two teens decided to attack. They hurried around the corner and aimed their guns at the very first moving thing they could see.
Luckily, the two didn't fire any bullets. It turned out that instead of a walker, it was actually Anne... and now they were aiming two loaded pistols at her face.
Anne, who suddenly found herself looking down the barrels of two pistols that came out of nowhere, immediately froze and lost every last bit of the color in her face, suffering a mental heart attack and a very-near real one.
"..........meep." Anne quietly squeaked a random word while she feared for her life.
The two siblings went wide eyed and they quickly lowered their pistols away from Anne's face, much to the poor bandana-clad girl's relief.
Chris and Odd quickly ran to catch up with Anne from down the hall she ran through, and when they got to her they saw that Chase and Aelita were with her. Neither of them picked up on Anne's pale face and/or expression of continuing fear, but they did notice that the sibling's backpacks seemed to be loaded with supplies.
"Hey, nice job! Looks like you got plenty of medical supplies so far." Chris praised the two teens. Both he and Odd found some supplies of their own as well.
Odd smirked with pride when he saw the stuffed backpacks on Chase and Aelita's backs. Then he glanced over at a completely frozen Anne without having any sort of clue about what had happened just moments earlier.
"You see that, Anne? They did a great job, huh?" Odd smiled cheerfully at the teenage girl.
Noticing that Anne still wasn't looking at the backpacks... and that she was as still as a statue for some reason... Odd blinked and gently nudged his elbow into Anne's back to try and get her attention. Alas, Anne tilted forward for a second before she fell straight down to the floor like a board, still with her eyes wide open and still with her face so pale that it might as well have been considered paper white.
The group stared down at the frozen and now-planked girl, all completely taken by surprise due to her fall.
"......Huh." Chris blinked after he saw Anne hit the floor.
Her reaction was pretty unexpected... was this a normal thing?
"What's up with Anne, guys? She got to you before we did." Odd pointed out this fact to the siblings.
Both Aelita and Chase glanced at each other with feelings of uneasiness. Silently, the two teens agreed to never speak to others about the true cause of this embarrassing incident until they day they die. Last thing they needed held over their heads was the fact they nearly blew a friend's brains out by accident.
The two teens looked back at Odd and Chris while trying really hard not to look suspicious.
"Um... a walker ambushed us when she arrived and it nearly bit her." Aelita lied, trying to sound as convincing as possible. "But Chase and I both dealt with it."
Chase added to the lie by gesturing over to the dead walker that was laying on the floor a short distance away from them all. Luckily for them, both Chris and Odd seemed to buy their faux story, and the two boys then began to try and get Anne back up on her feet and to snap her out of this strange shock-induced trance.
To Aelita, Odd, and Chase, Anne's trance reminded them of Jeremie's famous freezes from back at Kadic Academy. Though the ones which Jeremie suffered were because of his huge crush on Aelita before they got together, and they highly doubted Anne felt the same way about the pinkette.
Aelita and Chase quietly watched as Chris and Odd pulled Anne up to her feet and held her there while trying to get her to snap out of it.
The two siblings each made mental notes to try and make it up to Anne once they get back to the motel...
After that whole: "Anne nearly got shot twice in the fucking face" incident, the group managed to get the poor girl back to herself before they looted whatever more storage rooms they could find in the hospital.
Aelita and Chase managed to get a moment away from Chris and Odd's earshot to apologize to Anne. To the relief of both teens, Anne accepted it and agreed to keep their near-fatal error to herself... though now they each owed her a lot of her precious soda.
With full backpacks and with more than enough supplies to go around, it was finally time for the group to head back to the motel. It looked like Patrick would have a good chance of survival now since they found a crap ton of antibiotics within the storage rooms...
As they walked down a hall, the teens all kept their weapons at the ready in case they came across anything dangerous. Their search had dragged them to the far side of the building, so they had a bit of a walk ahead to the door they used to enter.
"You guys think we'll make it back in time?" Odd wondered as they walked through the hospital.
"I hope so..." Aelita sighed with worry. "We found all the supplies we could, plus those guns. Now we just need to get back to the motel as quickly as we can..."
Chase glanced over at Anne, who had been silent for a while and who he noticed still looked pretty pale. His stomach churned in guilt as the memory of almost shooting her in the face came back into his mind's eye.
The teen hoped that Anne could forgive him and Aelita for that, even if it was genuinely an accident...
"Annie...? You okay...?" Chase hesitantly whispered to his friend.
Anne shook her head, remaining silent at his question. It was pretty hard for her to get back at ease after coming only inches away from death like that.
... it might take more than her favorite soda to fix something like this.
The group eventually left the hospital the same way they came in (though it took them extra time since Odd stopped to break open a vending machine and snatch up some snacks), and they decided to head straight back to the truck. Both Lee and Dylan were still there waiting for them, and they smiled once they saw the group was back from their search.
"How'd it go?" Lee inquired as he got out from the driver's seat of the truck to greet them all.
Odd smirked and walked up to Lee while taking off his backpack. When Odd unzipped the backpack to show that it was full nearly to the brim with medical supplies, Lee couldn't help but chuckle with joy at the sight.
Patrick was gonna be okay. And Doug and Carley was gonna have a field day organizing their share of the take...
The runners then started to load their backpacks into the bed of the truck. It was gonna be a bit of a cramped ride back to the motel, but Patrick's life was worth a couple of hours worth of discomfort.
As the group loaded their backpacks, Chase noticed that an ambulance was parked on the other side of the parking lot near some of the abandoned and wrecked National Guard vehicles. There could be some more supplies or medical equipment in the back of that thing...
Despite a little reluctance, he couldn't resist the opportunity to check the ambulance and the National Guard vehicles out real quickly before they would head back. What was the harm in bringing back some extra supplies?
"Y'all see that ambulance over there? I might go check that out real fast..." Chase informed the others.
"You sure? We've got a ton of supplies so far." Dylan pointed out to his brother.
"Yeah, but some extras couldn't hurt. Plus there could be some more guns in those armored cars next to it as well. Five minutes is all I need." Chase shrugged while gesturing towards the ambulance and the National Guard vehicles.
"Alright, but be quick and be sure to be careful. Five minutes." Odd replied to his friend with an encouraging thumbs-up.
Chase nodded back at Odd and the others and returned a thumbs-up to them before he hurried off to check out the ambulance and the National Guard vehicles for anything useful to take.
Chris kept an eye on the perimeter with one of the new assault rifles that he and the group found, and everyone else was just loading up their backpacks and preparing to leave. As they did so, Aelita took a break for a few moments by sitting on the passenger seat of the truck with the door still open, dangling her legs out as she took a few gulps from her canteen.
The pinkette checked her wristwatch and saw that, to her own surprise, it was nearly four in the morning by then. Time seemed to have flown by quite a bit...
The last time Aelita had actually slept was back in the underground of the Center for Disease Control over twenty-four hours earlier. She was exhausted ever since they were forced to escape the place. Then add in the fact that the group had to run through the forest for many hours after the building exploded, then add in Patrick's situation, and now this hospital search...
Aelita was hungry. Thirsty. And she was very, very tired. Once she got back to the motel, Aelita planned to simply plop herself down on the comfiest surface she could find (Jeremie) and just sleep there for as long as humanly possible.
In her opinion, the apocalypse is made worse with the lack of functioning coffee makers. What she wouldn't give even for some coffee grinds to chew...
Aelita finished off what was left of the water in her canteen before she wiped her mouth and set the canteen aside. There was still a bit of a bitter aftertaste in her mouth from when the walker's brains got blown on her, but she was pretty sure she didn't swallow any of that blood and brain matter. At least she had that going for her.
Anyway, Aelita glanced over towards the ambulance and saw that Chase was rummaging through the back with a flashlight. She saw that he managed to find a bit more medical supplies in there, thankfully. Patrick was gonna have plenty and so was the motel group.
After a few moments more of searching, Chase shut the door to the ambulance and hurried over to the armored cars next to it. He started searching through them one by one as quickly as he could.
Aelita watched him as he searched, both out of curiosity and a desire to watch his back and keep him safe. Alas, from what she could see at least, he didn't seem to find anything of value in the armored cars aside from some a pack of matches and a few more flashlights he found. The flashlights probably needed batteries, though.
As Chase climbed out the back of the second to last armored car, he accidentally dropped his flashlight down onto the asphalt below, causing him to groan with annoyance. He shut the back-left door of the vehicle and held onto the frame of it with his right hand for leverage as he reached down to pick up the flashlight.
As he reached for it, Aelita noticed something in the darkness creeping up along the right side of the vehicle, and her eyes widened when she realized what it was.
... a puppy. A tiny little husky with black and white fur.
Suddenly hearing some whimpering and whining from nearby, Chase looked around the vehicle and gasped when he saw a small puppy all by itself. It was clearly lost. It also looked hurt, hungry, and very, very scared...
"Oh shit..." Chase muttered, his eyes widening. Hesitantly he set aside his stuff and slowly stepped toward the pup. "Hey, little guy..." he said to the pup with as gentle of a voice as he could manage. "What're you doin' out here all by yourself...? Where's your momma...?"
The puppy let out some whines as he saw the teen approach. When Chase got too close, the pup panicked and ran to hide under one of the armored cars.
"Aw, don't run off little guy..." Chase quietly urged as he went to the armored car. The teen went down to his hands and knees, and then he laid on his stomach so he could get a view of the scared puppy underneath. "I promise I'm not gonna hurt you, okay...?"
Noticing that Chase was acting a little funny, Anne decided to head over there to see what he was doing. She noticed the puppy run out from the underside of the armored car and to the underside of another when Chase tried reaching for it, causing her to gasp.
"C'mon..." Chase quietly urged after he looked underneath the armored car the puppy ran under. "It's really dangerous out here, you shouldn't be by yourself..."
"Is that poor thing out here all by itself?!" Anne asked him with concern and worry in her voice.
Chase nodded, not looking away from the poor animal. "Sure seems like it..."
The puppy let out another loud whimper as it curled up on the asphalt, shivering from both the cold early morning air and from fear and hunger. Probably pain as well, since they could see it was trying not to use its front right leg too much.
Soon, Odd and Dylan both hurried over to see what Chase and Anne were looking at. Aelita also went to join them. Even Chris also went to take a look, leaving Lee to be the one to watch over the truck. It was only a slight annoyance for the adult.
"We can't stay here for too much longer..." Dylan warned, reminding the others of what they came here to do and how they couldn't waste time.
"We can't leave that puppy all on its own either, Dyl." Anne stated in retort. She understood his concern, but they couldn't just leave this poor thing here all by itself.
"I know, I know..." Dylan assured her. "It's just that Patrick still needs our help, and the longer we take to get back..." he trailed off with a cringe.
"We'll be quick about it, I swear..." Chase assured, not looking away from the scared animal.
From under the armored car, the terrified pup's blue eyes glanced at Chase's face and then to all of the human legs which appeared in its field of view. It only scared the poor pup even more, and the pup retreated another step or two back.
It wanted its momma back...
"Lilly won't like it if we bring back a dog." Chris stated to the others, though naturally he wanted to do it anyway like how the other teens did.
Dylan shrugged. "Fuck Lilly." was all he said in retort, something which his fellow Lyoko Warriors as well as Anne all found themselves agreeing with.
Chris shrugged, deciding to just let them deal with whatever Lilly would think about them bringing back a dog. Their choice, their problem to deal with later.
Realizing that he wasn't going to get the dog to come out with just some kind words as a lure, Chase looked back over his shoulder at the others.
"Any of you guys got anything to help bring him out?" Chase inquired. "Odd, maybe you've got something a dog would eat?"
Odd blinked in surprise at the question. "Why would I have something a dog would eat?"
"Because you and I both know that you spent as much time looting for snacks as you did for medical supplies and guns."
A moment of silence went by where Odd didn't say anything. But, in all actuality, he didn't need to speak, because he hesitantly reached down into his pocket and pulled out a stick of beef jerky which he managed to find in one of the hospital's break rooms.
Without saying a word, Odd just tossed the beef jerky over to Chase, who caught it in mid-air.
"Knew it." Chase smirked knowingly at his friend, then turned his attention back to the little husky.
Leaning back down to see the dog again, Chase opened up the beef jerky stick's wrapper and he took a bite of it. It tasted pretty good. The dog might like it too.
Chase broke apart the stick and handed a piece each to Anne, Aelita, and Dylan, instructing them to go to each side of the armored car and be ready to catch the dog if it ended up going in their directions. Chris and Odd each kept an eye out for walkers.
Not looking away from the pup, Chase held out his piece of the jerky toward it.
"C'mere, little guy... you know you're hungry..." Chase gently told the pup, trying to get it to get a scent of the food.
It didn't take long for the pup to get a smell of jerky. Hesitantly, and despite being scared to death, the pup slowly started to limp ahead. But it didn't go for Chase...
Anne's eyes widened as she saw the pup fearfully and slowly making its way toward her instead of Chase. Taken aback a bit but not protesting at all, Chase simply watched the dog make its way over to his friend. So did Dylan and Aelita on the other ends of the vehicle.
The pup reached the girl and sniffed at the jerky for a few moments. It then took a nibble of the meat, much to Anne's delight.
She reached out to try and pet the pup. Although it recoiled at first, the pup was too hungry to back away from the jerky in her hand, so it allowed her to reach out and pet him. That was all it took for the pup to finally begin calming down a little...
These were nice people... not like the predators which ate its momma, its poppa, and all of its brothers and sisters...
With great care, Anne gently took the pup into her hands and she pulled it out from under the armored car. The pup felt a brief pang of fear once again as it was lifted, but the feeling soon faded once it realized it wasn't going to be hurt.
The pup finally relaxed much more when the other teens came over and gave their pieces of beef jerky to the pup, who, naturally, was pretty agreeable with the gifts.
With that, the pup's tail finally started to wag, and it was clear that the pup was feeling comfortable and happy to be with all these friendly people. It even gave a lick to Aelita's hand when she reached over to pet it, causing the pinkette to chuckle.
Anne checked out the pup's leg, seeing that it was only a small cut on its paw which was causing him pain. It looked like it would be a quick and easy fix. Unfortunately, or maybe unfortunately as well as fortunately, she also got a view which confirmed that the pup was a boy.
"... if everyone is okay with it, then he's all yours Annie. On behalf of me and Aelita." Chase smiled, offering the husky to her as a way for him and Aelita to apologize for almost shooting her in the face. No one seemed to object to this.
"Sorry for us almost killing you back there..." Aelita sheepishly told her new friend. "... no hard feelings, hopefully?"
Stunned at the surprise offer, it took Anne a moment to formulate a response which could be considered 'coherent English.'
But soon, she was able to shake off the shock. To show how grateful she was at being gifted a puppy, she gently set the pup down on the armored car... and then jump-tackled both Aelita and Chase in a hug so tight that both teens legitimately thought that she cracked some of their ribs.
"THANK YOU GUYS SO MUCH!!!" Anne began to exclaim, not even caring if she was loud or not.
"Shhhh!" Aelita managed to say, albeit with some difficulty since she literally couldn't breathe right now. There could be walkers who heard her!
"Owwwwww..." Chase was barely heard due to how tight his chest was being compressed. Was his friend a fucking industrial baler in a previous life?
In her happiness of the moment, Anne either ignored their words or she simply didn't hear them as she tightened her hug on the two siblings, making them both gasp and wheeze in a desperate effort not to suffocate.
It took a few moments, but Anne was finally pulled off of Aelita and Chase by the combined efforts of Odd, Dylan, and Chris. The two teens gasped for air before the three of them helped the two back up to their feet.
After they got back up on their feet and brushed themselves off, a panting Chase and Aelita looked at Anne and they smiled at the ecstatic look on her face.
Clearly, it seemed Anne had forgiven them for nearly shooting her...
As Anne went to gently pick up her new puppy again, Odd approached her. He appeared hesitant to do it at first, but he took Kiwi's collar off from his wrist and he held it out to the new dog owner.
"... he can use this for now." Odd offered up the treasure that used to be his dog's collar. "At least until we can find him a new one somewhere..."
"Odd..." Anne's eyes widened, shocked and deeply touched he would be willing to part with the last thing he had of his beloved Kiwi. "I- I don't even know what to say to you..." she stammered.
"It's okay..." Odd assured her with a sad smile on his face. "Just make sure he'll be happy and that you'll take good care of him, and we'll call it even..."
With a nod of assurance, Anne nodded and accepted the collar. She put the collar on the pup, finding it to be a good size for a pup as small as him. The nametag on the collar still read: "Kiwi", but that was something easy to overlook. Especially since this was only a temporary solution.
Dylan offered to clean up and bandage the pup's foot, so Anne gently handed it over to her friend. But before Dylan could walk back to Kenny's truck, the group caught some movement in the trees not too far from where they were standing.
It didn't take a genius like Aelita to figure out what made the movement...
Walkers... lots and lots of walkers...
Anne paled in realization that she probably was the one who got their attention. "... shit."
"We've gotta go!" Chris warned, readying his two pistols for a fight.
"Run!" Odd urged everyone.
Dylan, who was closer to the truck, simply set the pup in the back with the stashed guns and medical supplies before he picked up one of the rifles. He loaded a magazine into the rifle and raised it up. He was a bit unfamiliar with how to use the thing, but he was a quick learner, and it wasn't long before he had the safety off and the rifle set to semi-auto fire.
"Get in the truck!" Dylan called to the others as he aimed and fired off some shots at some of the encroaching walkers. Some missed, some others hit an arm or a leg, but a couple of shots took down two walkers.
"I'll help you!" Lee said to the teen before he hurried to take another of the rifles for himself. Having seen how Dylan loaded it, Lee was much quicker to shoot the walkers.
Chris likewise began shooting his twin pistols as even more walkers arrived, having been drawn to the area by all the gunfire.
Odd, Aelita, Chase, and Anne all hopped into the bed of the truck before Dylan hopped in with them. Lee and Chris lowered their weapons and jumped into the truck's driver and passenger seats as the walkers grew more and more close.
Dylan stood up to fire again, but he was immediately thrown to the bed of the truck when Lee slammed his foot on the gas pedal. Because of that, Dylan accidentally lost his grip and dropped his rifle over the side of the truck bed, making him curse at himself.
A good gun and nearly a whole magazine's worth of ammo for it - gone. What a fucking waste.
Though Dylan thought that it was an avoidable loss, and although he was very angry at himself for losing the rifle, he supposed that losing that and some of the ammunition was better than any of them losing their lives to those walkers... especially since they still had all the other guns and bullets which they found.
With an annoyed sigh directed at himself, Dylan sat upright next to Anne as Lee sped out of the hospital parking lot, escaping the walkers which nearly overtook them all. Lee slowed down a little once he was down the road, then he turned on another which would lead back toward Macon.
Everyone began to relax a little bit now that they were safe again. They were all okay, and, hopefully, Patrick soon would be as well...
All they had to do was get back to the motel before he gets worse...
"I can fix up his leg now, I think..." Dylan said to Anne before he took the husky pup from her arms, being extremely careful not to hurt it more than it already was.
Anne smiled at him with gratitude. She helped to keep the dog still as Dylan reached into his backpack and pulled out some bandages. Aelita tossed him one of the bottles of antibiotics which she had found in the hospital, and she also handed him a disinfectant to clean the pup's injured foot.
A few minutes was all it took to clean and bandage the puppy's foot. The rest of the pup still needed to be cleaned up a bit, but now it was as if the dog had never been hurt or scared of his new friends to begin with.
The puppy let out a couple of happy yelps before he finally curled up on Anne's lap, finally getting a chance to sleep somewhere warm and comfortable.
"You decide on what you might name him?" Odd inquired, reaching over to pet the sleeping dog. The familiar feeling of doing so made him smile and think of Kiwi.
With a smile and a nod to Odd, Anne then glanced down at her new puppy. "I think I've got a name in mind for him already..."
The little husky tiredly opened his blue eyes and looked up at his new owner, his new momma, and his tail instantly started wagging in delight and a newfound feeling of genuine love. Anne's eyes met the pup's as she told him his new name.
"... Blaze."