(Anne Marshall belongs to AquaDestinysEmbrace!)
(I DO NOT own The Walking Dead, Code Lyoko or any kind of names or brands that appear in this story. I do own all OCs unless specifically named as they appear above this message.)
Josh had only one thing on his mind right now - revenge, and the fact that he was finally free from that godawful tree.
... Ignore the fact that those were actually two things.
The young psychopath didn't leave the farm after he got free, however. No, he had some things to do before he'd get out of this shithole... fun things.
That British bitch... what was her name? Rebecca? A girl with a perfect body like that had to be used only the right way, and he was certain that Dylan Enheart was too limp-dicked to have what it takes to give her what she wanted. Maybe he'd find her sleeping in one of the tents at the campsite. All Josh needed to do was to get into her tent and have his kind of fun with her whether she wanted it or not. The thought of her fighting back filled him with excitement. So did the thought of her screaming into a gag...
And what about that Jap? Yumi was her name...? Maybe Josh would kill that grumpy prick she was with so he could have her all to himself...
The pink-haired girl? Dylan and Chase's sister? She'd be fun to toy around with...
Then of course there was the one-eyed freak... Anne was probably lingering around somewhere by the camp or the farmhouse. Once Josh found her, he'd have some fun with her too. The rough bedroom kind of fun first, probably, but then other kinds of fun too. The idiot farmer who owned this dump had to have some tools around to help him with that. He was gonna make Anne feel a level of pain that she had never felt before...
Her friends were the reason he was stuck by that fucking tree all this time... what better way to get them back than to hurt the bitch they cared about? Josh had to be quick and quiet, though. If he got caught, who knew what they'd do with him...
He wasn't doing anything wrong... why couldn't those morons understand that?! Some people just had to be punished!
The psycho used the dark and the tree cover to his advantage. It was hard for even a well-trained eye to see in the darkness of the forests around the farm. So long as he played his cards right, he should be able to sneak around and get to where he needed to go. He had to play it safe and avoid getting cocky...
Josh saw some people gathered in front of the farmhouse. That boy... Chris was his name? Carl? Josh forgot the little idiot's name but he was crying about something. That big guy, Shane, he hurried off to a car and drove away after he spoke with some of the others. Who knew what was happening with the group and who gave a shit. Each and every one of them could become a biter's dinner as far as Josh was concerned.
The idiots at this farm were clearly freaking out about something... hey, where's that bitch that Grimes is married to?
Before he could sneak closer, Josh saw two figures come out of the trees. He recognized them as that Jap and her grumpy boyfriend, Yumi and Ulrich.
The two teens were pretty far away from where Josh was and it was very dark for him to see, but even he could see the blushes on the couple's faces as they walked back to the camp together. Josh blinked at the sight before his face contorted with a deep, rageful frown...
... did those two fuck?
Josh growled to himself, having wanted to do that to Yumi ever since he met her on that trail days earlier. In Josh's completely deranged mind, he had convinced himself that Ulrich had "violated his property", and that was something he couldn't let go unpunished. Ulrich was high up on his revenge list now. Up there with people like Anne, Miranda, the Enhearts - some of his worst enemies...
Ulrich would get what he deserved... Josh was certain of it.
Hearing some leaves rustle nearby, Josh's eyes widened and he backed himself up until he was certain that no one could see him. Luckily, it turned out to be just a squirrel. Josh punished the noisy creature by picking up a rock and throwing it at its head, causing the squirrel to whine in pain before fearfully hurrying away. Josh chuckled at the sight, as it amused him to no end...
The psychopath still kept a watchful eye on the people at the farm as he retreated back into the trees, awaiting his time to strike...
"Are y'all gonna come on out of there or do my friends and I have to go in...?"
The group had no idea what to expect when it came to a man like William Carver. Everyone except for Odd and Nick. After all, Odd was viciously beaten by that monster and Nick was forced to flee for his life alongside his uncle and his friends. Carver was an evil man who couldn't be trusted. The group had to find a way to get away from him.
Rick cautiously kept his head low as he took a look out the window. The car lights were blinding, but he could still make out a figure in a fur-lined jacket... along with nine or ten other figures by their vehicles. All of them were armed with rifles, so trying to actually fight that kind of force was simply out of the question for the group. There had to be something they could do to escape this place...
Something... but what?
"We have no quarrel with you or your people!" Rick told the man outside. He hoped that there could be a peaceful way out of this mess.
"Yeah, you kinda do. You've been harboring my runaways after all..." Carver replied, speaking with venom and hate. "I've driven through most of Tennessee to get here. I've searched up and down this shithole of a state for weeks... So, with all of that shit in mind, I'm not leaving without my people." he made it clear where he stood on this issue.
"All those people don't wanna be with you anymore." Hershel tried to reason with the madman as well.
"Too bad."
Nick looked like he was close to freaking out. If Carver had finally found them then it would be only a matter of time before they zero in on the farm. The group may have the numbers to beat Carver, but the madman was certainly crazy enough to try to pick a fight with the others at the farm. He and his men will all die but so will a hell of a lot of the people back home. They couldn't let that happen...
"Bill, just go! We don't want any trouble!" Nick called out as he clutched his uncle's rifle.
"Ah, Nick! I'd recognize your stupid voice from anywhere." Carver chuckled when he heard Nick speak. "How about you come on out of there and we can chat face-to-face, huh? I hate to make a joke as dumb as this, but I promise that I won't bite..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"... get it? Like the walkers? How they bite?"
Nick rolled his eyes. "Yeah, Bill, I think we all got it!"
Jeremie and Aelita looked at the back door of the bar again and they resumed crawling over towards it, the other teens following suit. If they could get outside without being noticed, then they could run into the woods and hopefully lose Carver and his men somewhere in there. That was the best plan that they could come up with at the moment.
Meanwhile, the adults kept talking out by the front of the bar.
"Look, you guys don't have a lot of options here!" Carver sounded pretty annoyed. "Either you all die right here, right now... or you come on out of there with your hands in the air and your guns in your holsters. I think the decision is pretty fuckin' clear here!"
"Carver, enough!" Nick frowned, trying to hide how scared he looked. He didn't want to go back up north with that monster outside. He couldn't. "Just get outta here before someone gets hurt! We don't want more of our people to die!"
"'More'? Who'd you lose out there?"
Nick tightly shut his eyes. "My mom... she got bit by some guy we tried to help... He was bitten and didn't tell us, and..." he trailed off, the memories of what happened to his mother being too much for him.
"Oh..." Carver sounded a bit relieved, as if he figured that Nick's mom wasn't much of a loss to himself or his community. "Anyone else die out there, kid?" he asked, needing to know how much manpower the Cabin group have lost in this stupid mess. He didn't feel too sorry for them. If they just stayed home and listened to him like they were all supposed to, then no one would've died... probably.
Of course Carver cared very much about his people, his runaways... who else would do the heavy lifting if they got killed? There was a lot of shit for them to do back at Howe's Hardware.
"Alvin lost his wife too..." Nick sighed. "She got bit a few hours after we crossed state lines. Nothin' we could've done for her... Rebecca's gone..."
For several moments, only silence was heard from the outside. Finally, Carver spoke again. This time he sounded unnerved. Saddened, even...
"... 'Becca's dead, huh ...?" Carver hesitantly asked as if he couldn't believe what he had just heard. "... Fuck ..."
The Lyoko teens approached the back door. As he crawled, Odd accidentally pressed his hand down on a beer bottle which broke apart during that mess with Dave and Tony, and a bunch of glass splinters went into his hand. The cone-haired teen couldn't hold back once he felt the searing pain.
"AGH!" Odd exclaimed and clutched his bleeding hand.
"Shit! Is that the weird kid who's ass I kicked?" Carver sounded like his old self once he heard Odd's scream. "Hey, kid with the stupid name! How's about you come on out here and we can talk? It's been too long since we've 'chatted'..."
Odd gulped as he listened to Carver speak to him. He felt great fear and worry as Verity crawled over to tend to his wound.
"I promise I'll go easy on you this time, Odd. So long as you tell me everything I wanna know, that is..." Carver continued to talk to him. "If you don't... well, let's just say that there's things out there which're far scarier than the biters..."
The raven-haired girl ripped off a little bit of the hem of her shirt and she tied the cloth around his hand, serving its purpose in lieu of a bandage. It wasn't perfect, but it'll do the job until they could properly tend to the wound back at the farm.
His hand now bandaged, Odd couldn't hide how scared he was right now. Fighting XANA's monsters was one thing, but being beaten and having a gun pressed against your head was something else altogether. Odd had never felt more terrified in his life than when he was being beaten by Carver in that forest weeks ago. He didn't want to be anywhere near that monster ever again. The other teens in the bar shared his sentiments. They had to get out of here while they still could...
When Odd didn't respond to him, Carver simply shrugged. He must've scared the shit out of that weirdo...
Anyway, enough playing around. Back to business.
"Enough with this shit!" Carver frowned and readied his revolver. "Give me any of my people who're in there and tell me where the rest of 'em are so that I can collect them! If you don't, then bad thing's are gonna start happenin' to all of you. I ain't fuckin' around here."
"You're not taking anyone with you!" Rick shouted in defiance. He'll die before he surrenders any of his people to that psychopath outside.
The group could hear Carver scoff at Rick's words, then they heard him sigh with annoyance.
"Have it your way then!" Carver told Rick and the rest of the people in the bar. His next words were to his own men. "Start shootin, everyone! If there's any survivors then we take them with us!"
Immediately thereafter more gunfire began to hit the bar. By then, the bar had been riddled with so many bullet holes that much of the decor was unrecognizable. Rick, Nick, and Hershel tried to shoot back whenever they could but there was so many bullets flying that it was practically suicide to raise their heads. The teens all recognized this, so they all kept low to the ground. Jeremie jumped on top of Aelita to protect her from the gunfire.
A stray bullet from one of Carver's men hit a kerosene lamp somewhere in the bar. A spark from the bullet set the kerosene on fire, and the fire began to spread through the dry interior of the bar very fast. Smoke soon began to fill the inside of the bar, forcing Rick and Nick to break open what was left of the front windows in an effort to force as much of the smoke outside as they could. Everyone could hear Carver laughing...
In the back of the bar, Patrick forced open the back door. The teens hurried out into an alleyway behind the bar, gasping and coughing as the filled their lungs with fresh air.
The teens didn't even get a moment of rest before someone started shooting at them. The Lyoko Warriors all dived for cover as they saw a few of Carver's men coming in towards them. The adults, all still busy fighting Carver at the front of the bar, didn't notice.
"FUCK!!!" Patrick exclaimed as bullets riddled the dumpster he was hiding against with Verity.
Hesitantly, Aelita poked her head out from an alcove doorway to see the people shooting at her and her friends. She raised her revolver, took a deep breath, and fired a shot which hit one of the shooters in the thigh, sending him down to the ground screaming in agony. Aelita shuddered from horror at her own actions as she watched the man get dragged away to safety by his friend. From the sheer amount of blood on the asphalt she guessed that she must've hit an artery...
Before the pandemic, Aelita wouldn't have hurt a fly. Killing and inflicting pain just wasn't in her DNA... and now here she was, shooting people and killing people. All to keep herself and her loved ones from being killed themselves.
God help her.
The wounded shooter was dragged away by another of Carver's men, but two more stayed behind to fire at the teens. None of the kids wanted to kill anyone... but if they wanted to get back home alive, they were going to have to kill tonight.
Following Aelita's lead, Patrick reluctantly aimed his pistol and fired off two shots, one of which hit one of the shooters in the head. The shooter's body crumpled to the ground as the other guy kept shooting. This second shooter was taken down with a shot to the neck from Odd, who could only watch with shock as the man fell to the ground and clutched his gushing neck in a desperate attempt to survive. He died moments later. Odd and Patrick didn't even get a chance to comprehend that they've just killed living people.
"Fuck!" the teens heard someone else shout. Odd recognized it as the voice of that guy Troy, the guy from the group he, Rick, and Lee saw on that road days earlier.
Soon enough, the teens saw the man himself come into the alleyway as he fired his AK like a madman. Shockingly, none of the teens got hit even though Troy wasted a whole magazine worth of ammo on them. When the teens started to shoot back, Troy just dived for cover behind an old car. It was foolish and stupid of him to have charged in like that and now he was paying the price for his own idiocy.
Though the teens wanted to help the adults who were still stuck in the bar, they couldn't risk getting shot or burnt alive trying to get back there. They had no choice but to run as fast as they could away from this terrible place.
The teens hurried as quick as they could down the other end of the alleyway after they suppressed Troy with more gunfire. They ran out of the alleyway and towards another that was on the other side of the street. The teens wanted to try to lose their pursuers through the town and surrounding forests and eventually make their way back to the farm on foot. Maybe they'd get lucky and survive long enough to do that.
But Aelita was having trouble keeping up with the others. As she ran, Aelita felt a sharp pain in her stitched-up gunshot wound. A moment later she tripped and fell down onto the street, adding more on to the pain she was feeling. Aelita couldn't push herself this hard while she was still healing... who knew what hell she was playing on her healing gunshot wound right now.
The teens saw what happened and they hurried back to help her and keep her safe from Carver and his men. Odd and Jeremie ran to Aelita as Patrick and Verity kept an eye out for Carver's men.
"Aelita! C'mon! We can't stop here!" Odd yelled as he and Jeremie ran over to help her up.
"We have to go! Don't stop yet!" Jeremie pleaded as at the pinkette as he and Odd helped her up.
Aelita cringed deeply and hugged her stomach as she was pulled up to her feet by the two boys, the pain from her abdomen growing more and more worse with each passing moment. Soon, the sharp pain had become so bad that it felt like someone was stabbing her insides with a white-hot knife.
Something was wrong. Aelita was exerting herself and her wound far too much. She had to get herself back to the farm and get some medical attention before something really bad happened to her. The pinkette was in so much pain that she could barely walk, and Odd and Jeremie practically had to drag her the rest of the way across the street.
Carver's men at the front of the bar noticed them running, so Verity and Patrick now had to try and keep them covered as the two boys helped Aelita. But the couple were starting to run out of bullets as they kept firing at Carver's men - opting to try to suppress them and force them to stay in cover rather than kill them.
Patrick and Verity kept firing off shots as Odd and Jeremie helped Aelita cross the rest of the road. The two helpers left Aelita's cane and revolver behind since going back to get them wasn't worth their lives. As Aelita was helped the rest of the way across the street, Patrick and Verity ran out of ammo completely. Carver's men charged right at the teens when they heard the clicks of the couple's empty handguns.
The teens hurried as fast as they could into the second alleyway but it was all for naught. Carver's men caught up to them very quickly.
One of Carver's men rushed at Odd. He pushed Odd to the ground before he could properly raise his pistol and shoot him. After Odd hit the asphalt below him, Carver's man started to kick the poor boy over and over again to force him to submit. Verity and Patrick couldn't help him as they were forced to run down the alleyway for their own lives while three or four men all chased after the couple.
After the fight was beaten out of Odd, he was dragged out of the alleyway by his hair. Who knew where Carver's man was bringing him or what would happen to him...
Jeremie protectively put himself in front of Aelita as another of Carver's men rushed at them. Jeremie raised his revolver and prepared to shoot him, but the man just yanked it out of Jermeie's hand and he pushed the genius to the ground. He didn't pay much attention to Aelita.
Then, seemingly more out of a sense of fun than getting Jeremie to stop resisting, the man started to viciously beat the blond's face with the butt of his own revolver. Aelita watched as her boyfriend was savagely beaten, an expression of shock and growing fury on her face.
No... no, she wasn't going to just stand there and watch the love of her life be beaten to death like this. Not him.
The scowling pinkette forced herself to push past the searing pain in her abdomen as she approached the man from behind. Aelita, ignoring everything she had previously felt about purposefully hurting anyone, unsheathed her knife and she plunged it straight into the man's shoulder to save Jeremie.
Carver's man screamed as he felt Aelita's knife be embedded into his shoulderblade. He dropped Jeremie's gun and turned to see who stabbed him. When he saw Aelita, the man flung his fist into the pinkette's stomach and sent her flying back with such force that she was lifted off of the ground for a moment or two. Aelita landed a few feet away next to a dirty dumpster, wheezing and trembling from a renewed explosion of pain across her body.
Leaving a dazed and hurt Jeremie for the moment, the man turned his attention to his stabber. With a loud cry of pain the man yanked the knife out of his shoulder and he stormed towards Aelita, her eyes widening in fear as she realized what the man intended to do to her.
She was going to die tonight.
"W- Wait!" Aelita tried to plead to her would-be executioner. She was barely able to speak. Barely able to breathe. God, everything inside her body felt like it was on fire...
The man ragefully kicked Aelita in the face before she could say anything else. The back of Aelita's head banged hard against the metal dumpster because of it, but the man wasn't done with her yet. A boot to this stupid girl's face wouldn't make up for what she had just done to him. The bitch had to pay.
Dazed and with her nose spewing out blood now, Aelita could only gasp as she felt the man roughly yank her hair and pull her up to her knees. Tears welled in Aelita's eyes as she felt her own blood-covered knife be pressed up against her neck. Just one harsh cut was all it would take to-
*BANG!*
*BANG!*
*BANG!*
The hold on Aelita's hair loosened. The blade of the knife slid down her skin and the weapon out of the man's hand before clattering on the ground. The man who was about to kill Aelita himself fell over with three fatal gunshot wounds in his back...
Aelita fell to her hands and knees after Carver's man was killed. While the blade left a small cut after it slid down the length of her neck, it wasn't deep enough to have cut an artery. Aelita violently coughed as she struggled to recover after all that had just happened to herself and Jeremie...
... Jeremie ...
When Aelita looked up to see who had saved her from death, she saw a pale-faced Jeremie sitting upright with his gun back in his hand. He looked as bewildered as he was horrified about what he had just done to save her life...
Jeremie just killed a person...
"J- Jeremie..." Aelita managed to say before her arms and legs completely gave out under her.
Jeremie forced himself into action despite how badly he was beaten and he forced himself to focus on Aelita instead of how he had just become a killer. He stuffed his revolver back into his holster and stood up, hurriedly stumbling over towards Aelita so he could check on her. When he got to her, Jeremie found that she was semi-conscious and in a really bad shape. Her face was caked in her own blood thanks to the kick from that monster, and she was in great pain...
The supergenius heard the sounds of people running towards the alleyway. They must've heard his gunshots...
Thinking quickly, Jeremie went to lift open the lid of the dirty dumpster near Aelita. The smell from inside the dumpster was as foul as a walker's BO, but they would have to deal with it since it was their only option. Their only chance at survival right now.
After opening it, Jeremie hurried over to Aelita and he strained as he lifted her up bridal-style. He carefully lifted her into the dumpster, then he climbed in with her. Jeremie readied his revolver after he shut the lid. He only had two bullets left in the gun... If Carver or his men found them then there wouldn't be much he could do to keep Aelita safe. He shut the lid only moments before several of Carver's men entered the alleyway.
Jeremie could hear them talking. How angry they were at finding their dead friend out there... The genius slowly cocked the hammer of his revolver while he tried to keep as quiet as he possibly could. Cautiously, he lifted the lid of the dumpster slightly so he could see who was in the alleyway. He could see several men...
A chill ran up Jeremie's spine when he could see that Carver himself was among the men in the alleyway right now.
"Well... shit..." he heard Carver mutter to himself. He must've noticed the body like how his men did.
"Oh fuck, they got Hank!" one of Carver's men exclaimed.
Jeremie could practically feel the rage radiating off of Carver. The boy flinched hard when he heard a gunshot. They must've shot that man in the head before he could turn...
"Take a few guys and comb through the next few blocks. Find who did this and bring them to me alive... I want them to pay." Carver ordered after he pacified Hank himself.
Most of the men ran off down the alleyway to try and find Hank's killers, though Carver remained behind to examine Hank some more. Though Jeremie was relieved to see those men running off to who knew where, he just hoped that Carver would leave as well. He couldn't shoot that monster without drawing attention here again and likely getting himself and Aelita killed in the process...
Jeremie's eyes widened when he heard Aelita start coughing, so he pressed his hand against her mouth to keep her from giving them away. Jeremie wasn't quick enough, as he saw Carver turn and glance at the dumpster with a suspicious look on his face. Jeremie closed the lid and aimed his revolver upwards since he was certain that Carver would come over to open the lid and look inside.
If he and Aelita were going to die tonight, he was determined to take the man responsible for it with them...
The poor boy was terrified and he felt like his heart was going to blow up on account of how fast it was beating. It was certainly a struggle for Jeremie to keep calm and silent. However, the lid of the dumpster didn't open up again. Instead, Jeremie heard Carver mutter just one sound...
"... heh."
Jeremie heard Carver walk away from the dumpster. Though he was relieved, the genius couldn't shake the terrible feeling in his gut that Carver knew that he was in there...
As soon as he was certain that Carver and his men were gone, Jeremie opened the dumpster lid and he lifted up Aelita by wrapping her arm around his neck.
They had to get out of this town...
Jeremie stumbled out of the alleyway with Aelita in tow. Both of the teens were in horrible pain. The couple was traumatized and tired, and they just wanted to go home...
They had to find their friends though. Whatever happens, they couldn't just abandon them to Carver or the walkers...
Aelita focused literally all of her remaining energy on keeping herself upright. It wasn't easy, but the pinkette managed with Jeremie's help. Her legs wobbled badly as she and Jeremie left the alleyway and carefully made their way towards the other end of town together. Aelita hadn't felt this kind of weakness in her body since she was shot by Otis. The blood from her nose dripped down to the asphalt as she moved with her boyfriend.
Jeremie kept a tight hold on his revolver as he helped Aelita walk down a sidewalk leading into main street. Luckily, Carver and his men were no longer at the front of the burning bar. That was a massive relief to both teens...
The couple saw one of Carver's men was laying dead on the road among dozens of spent shell casings. Jeremie carefully set Aelita down against a newspaper rack before heading over to check out the bar for any sign of the people who were inside. Jeremie saw that the dead man had a bullet in his head, so at least he didn't have to worry about him coming back as a walker.
The bar was a complete inferno now. Jeremie hoped that Rick, Hershel, Glenn, and Nick all made it out of there in time...
Jeremie could only sigh and hope that those four and his three fellow Lyoko Warriors weren't all dead out there somewhere. He then hurried back to Aelita so that he could help her keep moving out of town. If they managed to avoid Carver and his men, they may make it back to the farm by morning. Jeremie was very worried since he had no idea how to help Aelita on their way back home.
Suddenly, Jeremie saw some headlights down the road heading his way. Cursing at yet another unwelcome sight, Jeremie hurried into a nearby hardware store with Aelita and he set his dazed princess behind the cashier counter for her own safety. He had to break open the glass door of the store so that they could get in and he earned a nasty cut to his forearm as a result, but he managed to mask his pain well. Luckily, he found some bandages in a first-aid kit behind the cashier counter, so he was able to wrap up the wound.
After he was certain Aelita was out of sight, Jeremie crouched behind a shelf in front of the front window. He then readied his revolver again, hoping and praying that he and Aelita would survive the rest of the night.
A big army transport truck suddenly stopped across the street from the hardware store. Jeremie was alarmed, but he soon realized that the truck's occupants had not stopped because of him or Aelita. As far as he could tell they had not noticed them. Jeremie saw Carver and a few of his men climb out of the back of the transport truck and he had no idea why Carver hadn't left town yet...
Jeremie's eyes widened when he got his answer. Coming out of a building near the truck was Verity, who was being manhandled by one of Carver's men. Those bastards got her...
"Well, well, well... what do we got here?" Carver grinned as he approached the captive teen. He grabbed Verity by the face as she scowled at him.
"Go to hell." Verity spat with disgust.
Carver grinned at the captive teen. "You first." he retorted before releasing her. He looked up at Verity's captor who was roughly holding onto her arms. "Put her in the back of the truck with Nick and that weird-named kid. We're leaving..." he ordered.
"But what about the others?" the captor asked.
"They'll come to us, I'm sure. They won't abandon their friends." Carver explained his plan for getting the rest of the runaways. Nick, Odd, and Verity would all serve as bait for the rest of them. Maybe he'd end up getting some extra manpower for all of the trouble he's had to go through. "And make sure to radio Tess and Emily and tell 'em to meet us at the rallying point. Tell 'em that we got what we came for and that we're all finally gonna head back home now."
The captor nodded at Carver's orders and he forced Verity to head for the back of the transport truck. From across the street, Jeremie could catch a brief glimpse of Odd and Nick tied up in the back of that thing with a few armed guards. Both of them looked like they were roughed up pretty badly by Carver's guys..
Jeremie hated that there wasn't anything that he could do for them or Verity now, as he'd just get himself and maybe even Aelita killed if he-
*CREAK*
Jeremie's eyes widened when he heard the sound of a creaking floorboard behind him. He immediately turned and aimed his revolver at whoever was there, but luckily it just turned out to be the rest of the adults from the bar. Rick, Glenn, and Hershel were okay. Thank God...
"There you are!" Rick whispered with relief. He had been worried that the kids had all been killed after the mess at the bar. "Where's the rest of your friends, Jeremie?"
"Odd and Verity got taken by Carver. I don't have any idea where Patrick is." Jeremie whispered back as he lowered his gun, then he gestured over to the cashier counter. "I hid Aelita behind that counter over there. Hershel needs to go over there, something's really wrong with her..."
Hershel immediately hurried over to the counter so that he could check up on Aelita and get a sense of her condition. Jeremie went with him since he was worried about her. Glenn and Rick stayed by the window so that they could keep an eye on Carver and his people. So far, there wasn't any indication that they knew the group was in the store. They looked like they were preparing to leave Senoia with their new captives.
Aelita groaned as she felt Hershel's hand go to her abdomen. He could feel blood. Aelita had to be brought back to the farm so that he and Carlos could examine her further...
"Is she gonna be okay?" Jeremie asked, gently placing his hand on Aelita's forehead to brush her hair out of her face.
"She tore most of her stitching open during that commotion earlier..." Hershel said to the worried teen. "I'm pretty sure that Aelita will be fine so long as we get her back to the farm, but we gotta get her back there soon. We gotta clean up and disinfect her wound and then we've gotta stitch her back up again... Give her some bedrest after that, keep her well fed and hydrated, and I think that she'll be okay."
Hershel examined Aelita's face and the back of her head as well. "She's got a cut on her neck and a nasty bump on the back of her head..." he observed.
"One of Carver's men kicked her face and she hit her head on a dumpster..." Jeremie explained, cringing with anger as he remembered that monster hurting Aelita. "... he pressed a knife to her throat. I had to shoot him so that he wouldn't kill her... then we had to hide in the dumpster so Carver wouldn't find us..."
"I'm so sorry..." Hershel said with sympathy. These kids had to resort to doing the worst kinds of things to stay alive. "What you did saved Aelita's life, Jeremie... I know that everything you and her had to do tonight wasn't easy, but she's alive because of you and you're alive because of her. Don't ever forget that..."
Jeremie and Aelita had become killers tonight, but they kept each other alive. It was terrible that people had to die at all but there was no alternatives...
There was a terrible feeling that Jeremie couldn't shake. He felt that he would probably have to kill again one day...
"Aelita may or may not have a concussion... I ain't a hundred percent sure." Hershel went on to explain to the supergenius after he checked out Aelita's head. "If she does, then it's treatable. So long as she doesn't do anything too strenuous, so long as she rests and keeps herself fed, then I think she's gonna be fine after a little while."
Jeremie felt incredibly relieved when he heard the diagnosis. Aelita was going to be fine... Aelita was going to be fine... He kept focusing on that sentence in his mind.
By the front window, Rick and Glenn could see some kind of commotion happening near Carver and his guys. A few men ran into the alleyway that the captor took Verity out of. A few minutes later, they came back out with a furious Patrick who was thrashing and kicking and trying to fight them off. Patrick got a few good hits in on the men who were holding him, but a rifle butt to his stomach quickly forced him into submission.
As Patrick coughed and wheezed for air, Carver went up to him and pulled his head up by his chin so he could look the boy in the eye.
"Mad that we're taking your little girlfriend, kid ...?" Carver smirked victoriously.
Instead of giving Carver the satisfaction of any answer, Patrick simply spat into the face of that monster. Carver was silent as he wiped the spit off his face with the sleeve of his jacket, but then he broke out laughing. He truly felt respect towards Patrick's defiance to him and his men even after everything that's happened tonight.
It was a damn shame that Carver couldn't risk taking this kid back with him... He didn't want to wake up with his throat slit, after all. This kid probably could've made a good soldier for his community if he broke him enough, but whatever. Hopefully that kid with the weird name proved to be like this guy.
Carver, deciding to spare Patrick's life, gestured to one of his men who proceeded to hit Patrick's face with the butt of his shotgun. Patrick went out like a light, and the men holding onto him simply let him go and let him fall to the ground. In his last moment of consciousness he realized that he had failed to save Verity...
That'll teach the brat to spit on him...
Satisfied, Carver told his remaining men to get to their vehicles so that they can finally leave this shithole town. His men hurried off to their cars down the road as Carver hopped into the passenger seat of the transport truck. He was just about to tell his driver to get moving when he heard a loud noise from... above him?
On the roof of a nearby pharmacy, Carver saw two men running as fast as they could away from main street. Must've been those idiots he and his guys shot at earlier. Rick and Glenn recognized them as two of Dave and Tony's friends... the third guy must've gotten himself killed.
Some of Carver's men stopped in their tracks and shot at the two men on the roof. One of Dave and Tony's friends took a bullet in the throat, then he stumbled and fell off the roof of the building. The other one panicked as he was shot at and he tried to jump off of the roof of the pharmacy so that he could land in the alley next to it and avoid suffering what had happened to his friend, but he screwed up.
When the guy jumped off the roof, he didn't notice that below him there was a cast-iron fence with some decorative spear-like tips on it. The guy landed on a dumpster which was right behind the fence but his the knee of his left leg ended up going clean through one of the sharp spear tops...
Glenn and Rick cringed as they heard the guy start to scream in agonizing pain. It wasn't pretty...
"Dude didn't make it..." Glenn muttered the obvious to Rick.
Dave and Tony's friend continued to wail as the group in the hardware store listened. Carver could also hear the screams from outside, and he and many of his men couldn't hold back their laughter. It was almost comical in so many ways...
"Christ, what a fuckin' dumbass!" Troy laughed at the sight of the suffering man and his impaled leg on the fence. "Hey, bud! How bad does it hurt?! Need a Band-Aid?!" he mockingly called out to the injured man.
Carver was about to tell Troy to go put a bullet in the injured man, but he hesitated. When he saw more than enough walkers heading their way from down both ends of main street, Carver decided to just let them take care of that idiot on the fence. It'd be a waste of a good bullet to kill that idiot when a walker could do the job for him. The same could also be said about Patrick as well...
Why waste a good bullet or two? Those things are scarce these days after all...
Both Patrick and the man on the fence were left to suffer a bloody fate as Carver and his men loaded up and finally drove away from the atea. The group all hesitantly left the hardware store after they were certain that Carver and his guys were gone. They could see the walkers from afar but they knew they still had at least some time to get out of here while they still could...
Jeremie strained as he lifted Aelita and walked outside with her in his arms. Luckily, Carver's men didn't take the group's vehicles near the bar. They still had their rides out of this horrible town...
... but then Jeremie saw Rick immediately run out to check on the man impaled on the fence only a short distance from their vehicles. Jeremie cursed to himself when he realized that Rick wasn't going to leave the guy behind to die.
The genius hurried over to Hershel's car and he set Aelita down as gently as he could in the backseat of it. He could hear Aelita mumble and groan to herself as she laid in a state of semi-consciousness. Jeremie shut the door to keep Aelita safe before he hurried over to check on Patrick and carry him out of there if he needed to. Meanwhile, both Hershel and Glenn kept on running towards Rick and the impaled man.
Whatever they were going to do with the guy had to happen soon, otherwise the walkers would get here before they could leave.
Patrick started to wake up again as Jeremie tended to him. The poor boy was confused about why he was on the asphalt at first, but the memories of what happened to Verity and to himself soon came back in full force. The love of his life had been taken to who knew where by a deranged psychopath...
"VERITY!!!" a horrified Patrick screamed as he sat up and looked around, desperate to find any trace of his lost girlfriend.
"Easy, Patrick!" Jeremie urged as he helped Patrick back up to his feet.
"EASY?!" Patrick shouted with disbelief at what he had just heard. "Jeremie, that fucking pig took Verity! He fucking took her!"
"And I promise that we'll get her back! But we need to get back to the farm first!" Jeremie stated. "Aelita's hurt and so are you and I! Besides that, we don't even know where Carver's going! But the runaways -the Cabin people at the farm- they know where his community is! One of them is going to have to lead us to him! And after that, we'll bring Odd and Verity back to the farm!"
"FUCK!!!" Patrick shouted in total frustration and fury, though he realized Jeremie was speaking facts. It wouldn't do Verity or Odd any good for Patrick or any other Lyoko Warriors to be running across Georgia and Tennessee like chickens with their heads cut off. They had to get back to the farm and gather up people, weapons, and a guide from the Cabin group so that they could mount a proper rescue...
It pained Patrick to think it, but Verity was just going to have to wait for her rescue...
... that fucker Carver better not lay a finger on the woman he loved.
A loud scream from the impaled man broke Patrick and Jeremie out of their conversation. Jeremie hurried back to Hershel's car to stay with Aelita while Patrick ran over to see what the hell was happening at the fence. When Patrick got there, he found that Hershel, Glenn, and Rick were all trying to get the impaled man's leg free. But unfortunately, the spike tops on the fence had these joints on their sides which extended outwards...
Essentially, it meant that the man's leg had gone in far easier than it would come out. Yanking the leg back out was simply out of the question.
"He's not going get this off in one piece..." Hershel warned the others as he kept trying to think of how to help the man.
"Guys, walkers!" Glenn alerted them when he noticed the walkers on either end of the street.
Time was running out for the group very quickly. There was too many walkers to fight off, and more were still on the way. The group has already used up most of their bullets during that whole mess with Dave and Tony, their friends, and then Carver's group. Fighting off the undead was out of the question, so they either have to get this man free right fucking now or they leave him to die a horrible death.
"How're we getting him out of here?!" Glenn asked the others.
"We're NOT leaving him!" Rick insisted. Self-defense was one thing, but leaving this man to be eaten alive was needlessly cruel.
"The fence went clean through! There's no way we can get the leg off in one piece..." Hershel told the others. He was worried about the walkers but right now he tried to just focus solely on his 'patient.'
Glenn impatiently hurried over to the impaled man and gripped his ankle, giving a cautious pull upwards to see how wedged the leg truly was in the spike. The man screamed very loudly as each little movement on his leg felt like a torch was being taken to his skin, muscle, and bone. Glenn let go of the leg immediately and he nervously apologized for the incredibly stupid thing that he had just done.
The man's screams were drawing in more and more walkers. It wouldn't be surprising if he could be heard for blocks all around them. Rick aimed his revolver at the man and he angrily gestured at him. This guy had to shut up!
"Shut up or I will shoot you!" Rick warned. He wanted to save the man but not at the cost of his life or the lives of the others.
"That may be the answer..." Hershel sighed. "We're not gonna get that leg off without tearing the muscle to shreds. He certainly can't run. He may bleed out..." freeing this man was becoming more and more of a complex thing to do. They may have to do the unthinkable to prevent his further suffering...
"Are you saying what I think you're saying?" Patrick asked, eyes widening from shock at such a suggestion.
Hershel nodded. "Maybe we should put him down..." he confirmed. Hershel realized that what he said was shocking to all, but he wouldn't have made it an option in any other circumstance. "I don't wanna see any more killing, but this is cruel!" he reasoned to the others.
"... can't we just take the leg off?" Glenn suggested.
Hershel, Rick, and Patrick all looked at Glenn as if they couldn't believe what just came out of his mouth... but then they all looked at each other. It was clear they were giving the idea some serious thought even if it was completely fucked up.
The impaled man looked at the adults and the teen with shock and horror. Were they really gonna do that to him?!
Rick turned to speak to Patrick. "Is the hatchet still in the car?" he wondered.
"No..." Patrick shook his head. How the hell were they going to get this guy's leg off without a hatchet?
"No,no,no,no,no don't! D- Don't cut my leg off! Please! Please, not my leg!" the man pleaded, beginning to panic at the thought of getting his leg chopped off.
He knew that he was going to have to feel every last second of the procedure.
Over by Otis's truck, Jeremie was still at his post and he was keeping a watchful eye on the walkers which were coming down the street towards them. He'll kill every single last one of them all before they could get near Aelita. Overhearing the others across the street, Jeremie quickly got the gist of what was going to happen to that man's leg and he felt sick to his stomach. Even though that man had just been shooting at them a short time earlier, he felt sorry for him...
Back at the fence, Rick pulled a knife out of his pocket and he opened up the blade, showing it to Hershel. The impaled man was still begging, crying, and panicking.
"Will this cut through the bone?" Rick asked the elderly farmer. Patrick cringed at the sight of the half-dull knife. The man was going to go through pure hell in a few moments.
"I'll have to sever the ligaments below the kneecap and cut above the tibia. He's gonna lose his lower leg." Hershel replied as he worked on tying a tourniquet around the poor man's leg. "When we get clear of here we're gonna have to find some tinder and cauterize the wound so he doesn't bleed out." he added. If Hershel didn't do this procedure the way he was supposed to, then this man was going to die.
"All right, there's no choice... But hurry up!" Rick handed the knife to him and then he readied himself to help Hershel with whatever he needed.
"OH GOD!!!" the man tearfully screamed with panic. There was an opened gate right next to the fence that the man got impaled on, so Rick crossed through it and went to firmly hold the man down against the dumpster so that he would stop thrashing. His reactions, as justified as they were, were only going to make this terrible situation even worse for himself and for the people trying to help him.
"Hand me that stick!" Hershel gestured down at a stick near his feet. Patrick picked it up and handed it to him.
The farmer added the stick to the rudimentary tourniquet he had created, giving it some extra tightness. It wasn't perfect but it was the best that he could create given the circumstances. Hopefully it'll be enough to keep this guy from bleeding to death once his leg was removed. God, he looked young... He probably didn't even reach drinking age before the apocalypse started. Having to cut the leg off of someone so young made Hershel's stomach churn.
As Hershel finished up the tourniquet and Rick kept holding the man down, the others saw that the walkers had arrived. Not only were they on both ends of the street, they could see many more coming out of alleyways all over main street. They were outnumbered very badly.
"Guys, more walkers!" Jeremie told the others from across the street.
The impaled man let out another loud scream as his leg was jostled, making Rick firmly press his hand down against the man's mouth.
"Shut up!" Rick growled as he saw how many walkers were being drawn in.
Patrick's eyes widened at the sight of so many of the undead heading towards them. Since Carver's guys took his pistol and his knife from him when he was captured, he was left completely unarmed. Glenn, who was armed with a shotgun, tossed the teen a backup pistol that he wisely decided to take with for this trip. There was only eight rounds in the gun's magazine, so Patrick would need to make every shot count.
Both Patrick and Glenn started to fire upon the walkers which were closest to their position. Jeremie joined in from across the street even though he was down to just a few bullets. Luckily he wouldn't be entirely defenseless when he would run out of ammo since he had his knife with him still.
Rick's eyes widened as he saw walkers approaching him on his side of the fence.
"Oh god... They're everywhere!" Rick exclaimed, leaving the man so that he could shoot the walkers.
"Hershel, how're you doing over there?!" Jeremie exclaimed after he fired the last round in his gun. He tossed the empty revolver into the car through a half-open window and he switched to his knife. When a walker approached him, he stabbed the creature right in the eye.
Inside the car, a groggy Aelita could only watch out of the corner of her eye as she saw Jeremie fighting off walkers out there without her. Even in her current state she could feel worry for him, but soon her eyes rolled back into her head and she fell back unconscious once more. There wasn't anything she could do for him...
Soon, Glenn fired off the last of his shotgun shells. Then Patrick fired the last bullet in his pistol. Rick was down to just two or three bullets. They killed many walkers but there was just far too many for them to fight off. If that man wasn't freed now, they would be overrun.
"HERSHEL DO IT NOW!" Patrick shouted at the farmer.
"There is no time!" Hershel yelled back as he kept working.
"THEN FUCKING LEAVE HIM!!!" Patrick retorted.
Even despite the group's efforts Hershel had barely even begun to cut through the first layers of skin on the man's impaled leg. The man kept screaming and thrashing when Hershel went any deeper with Rick's knife. He was fighting him off each time he tried to cut, the pain was too overwhelming for the man to think clearly. It proved to be far too much for Hershel to bear. This procedure was beyond his skills.
Knowing that there wasn't enough time to cut the man's leg off before the walkers overtook them, Hershel reluctantly stepped back from the man... The situation forced his hand. There was only one option left if he and the rest of the group wished to survive this terrible night.
The impaled man realized that they were going to leave him to the walkers.
"NO!!! PLEASE DON'T LEAVE ME!!! NO!!! PLEASE!!!" the man wailed desperately at the group and he started to sob. Oh God, those things were going to rip him apart if the group left him on this fence! They couldn't abandon him to that!
Hershel, Patrick, and Glenn all prepared to run to the cars so they could get the hell out of here. Jeremie already hopped into the driver's seat of Otis's truck in preparation of a quick getaway. It was unfortunate that they couldn't save this man...
But Rick thought otherwise. Rick couldn't leave this poor bastard here even if they had been shooting at each other a short while ago. No one deserves to die such a horrible death. Cutting off this guy's leg wasn't an option anymore, but... maybe they didn't need to amputate...
Hopefully this guy will survive what Rick was about to do to him...
Without warning, Rick grabbed the man's impaled leg and then he yanked it upwards as hard as his strength allowed him to. Muscle and bone tore apart inside the man's leg as it was forced back out of the spike through the hole it had entered.
At last, the man was free... And all that he could do was scream in horrific agony.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!"