Post by AceTheMercenary on Feb 6, 2016 23:41:23 GMT -6
Hello and welcome once again to a brand new story by yours truly, set in the Walking Dead universe. It will involve all new, entirely original characters made by myself, and follows the tale of a group of survivors stuck in the state of Georgia during the apocalypse not unlike Rick and his people. Influence has of course been drawn from the comic books, so I hope I can do justice to the universe that Robert Kirkman created. Without further ado, let us begin. This will be a very very long story, but check back often for updates. I plan to crank one out at least every two weeks.
Kitchen pans and dishes clattered as the body of Ken Wilkerson came crashing into the bar separating the stove and sink from the table and eating area, causing the light overhead to flicker as it swayed back and forth. He gripped at the upper thigh of his right leg as tightly as he possibly could, ignoring the pain that the action caused to surge through his body as best he was able, while his blood continued to flow over his fingers. Realizing that pressure alone would not be enough to stop the bleeding after a few moments, he finally stopped, hobbling over to the sink and rummaging through the drawers.
When the outbreak began, people had naturally gone wild. Most had taken refuge wherever they could, some left for the government-maintained shelters, others resorted to raiding stores and businesses, and a select few had managed to get on planes out of the country, before the government had grounded all flights in a desperate attempt to contain the virus. Ken had been one of the people who had been so lucky as to get on a plane right before the order to cease all flights had came down from the government, and had been on his way to Georgia to check on his older brothers Mickey and Job, who as far as he knew still resided on his family's farm on the outskirts of Atlanta with their father.
Things had been relatively okay for almost the entirety of the journey, beyond the tenseness shared by the people on the plane that was expected along with the crying of those who had lost family members, loved ones and friends. As the plane flew into the state boundaries of Georgia, however, Ken had gotten a front row seat to the events that had transpired. One of the passengers further up had been bitten, and had managed to hide his wound from the airport's security before getting on the plane. He lurched out of his seat and attempted to attack one of the hostesses, who began beating on the door leading into the cockpit. Against airline regulations, the co-pilot opened the door -- sealing both his fate and the fate of all of those on the plane, as the infected individual quickly abandoned the hostess and entered the cockpit, killing both the pilot and co-pilot and sending the plane into a nose-dive.
Frowning, Ken opened one last drawer, finding little more than a single dish-rag and a large chef's knife contained within. The house seemed to be entirely looted for the most part save a few overlooked things such as pots and pans, but looking down at the knife once again, an idea began to form in his head, however barbaric it may have been. A bandage alone wouldn't staunch the bleeding of his wounds -- they were far too deep, and it was a miracle he had even survived this long. Grabbing the handle of the knife, he pulled it from the drawer and stared at it for a moment, working off of old survivalist instincts he thought he had buried years ago. He knew what had to be done, and reached for the stove's burner controls.
The plane had went down as expected, despite the attempts of several passengers to avert a complete crash by bludgeoning the zombie to death and fumbling blindly with the controls in vain. It smashed through a residential district, taking out several houses and other buildings in a raging whirlwind of destruction, breaking apart piece by piece and killing others on board near-instantly. Ken had smashed his head against the wall from the sudden force, which had knocked him out for the remainder of the crash and probably played a major part of why he had survived to begin with. He had woken up some time later (though how long he had remained unconscious, he didn't know) still buckled into his seat as he had been in one of the parts of the plane that wasn't totally wrecked, only now with a piece of metal from the plane jutting out of his leg and another bad cut on his arm, surrounded by the dead and the reanimated outside.
He had worked his way free from the seat and had pulled the sheet of metal from his flesh before making his way through the plane, grabbing a sharp crash axe along the way and using it to cut his way out of the death trap. He fought his way through the reanimated remains of the former passengers and airline workers, all the way outside, dodging and weaving though the throng of grasping, dead hands and snapping teeth before escaping into the woods and eventually coming to the house he now found himself in. Very few of the biters seemed to be hanging around the neighborhood he was located in, possibly due to the fact that the plane had caused so much noise when it went down. The fact that the house he was in was looted was likely evidence of the fact that this particular town had been a graveyard for quite some time -- of the few things still moving around in the street outside, none of them were alive anymore.
Pulling the now red-hot knife off of the stove burner, he gazed down into the metal, swallowing a bit nervously. Apart from movies, he had seen this only one time -- one of his father's hired hands had gone on a hunting trip with him and his older brothers, and the hired hand had foolishly provoked a bear, who bit his hand clean off at the wrist. He, Mickey and Job had watched as their father heated a knife on the camp fire before pressing it to the wound. Though excruciatingly painful-looking, it had stopped the bleeding quite nicely. They took the man to the hospital afterwards, where he had made a full recovery -- though he still lost the use of his hand either way.
Rolling up the dish rag into a tight knot, Ken placed it in his mouth and bit down as hard as he could on it, before bracing his body against the counter and pressing the blade of the knife against the wound on his thigh. He screamed loudly, though it was muffled by the rag in his mouth as white-hot pain flooded his entire being from the action, his vision going blurry as he heard the flesh cooking beneath the knife blade while it did its job of crudely cauterizing the wound together. The smell of singed flesh reached his nose and made him want to vomit all over again, but he pressed onwards, until finally the bleeding stopped entirely. He dropped to his knees, the knife clattering to the tile-covered floor while the rag dropped from his mouth, and for a moment, all that could be heard within the kitchen was his ragged breathing. He closed his eyes, resting his head against the counter behind him as his body twitched involuntarily, still remembering the pain he had just went through on a muscular level.
Finally, however, the pain began to dull, and as his vision returned to normal and the room stopped spinning, Ken opened his eyes and glanced down to examine his work. The flesh around the wound that was still good had been blackened and burnt by the heat of the blade, but though the cut itself was still nasty-looking, raw and painful to the touch, the bleeding had stopped entirely. Ken smiled, revealing his still-clenched teeth. It seemed as though the survivalist "nonsense" his father had shoved into his brain as a child finally found a use at last.
Grabbing the counter, he pulled himself to his feet, making sure to put as little weight as possible on his injured leg, before turning his arm to the side to examine the cut on it. It was certainly not nearly as bad as the steel that had penetrated his leg, and would likely close up and heal on its own. Still, he picked the dish rag up from the floor and wrapped it tightly around it to staunch the bleeding as a precaution. Rubbing at his dry throat, Ken proceeded to raid the cupboards for a glass, before filling it with water from the sink and drinking it down, examining the kitchen as he did so. The entire house, in addition to being looted, seemed to be in a complete and total state of disarray -- the back door wasn't even attached to the door frame, and several windows in the hallway had been smashed. It was hardly the most defensible location in the area, but he would get nowhere by hunkering down in a house in the first place. He still had to get to his family's farm.
Walking back to the bar in the middle of the kitchen that separated the stove and sink from the kitchen table and chairs, he glanced down at his current weapon of choice, which he had momentarily dropped to tend to his wounds. The crash axe he had ripped from an emergency kit on the plane had already saved his life more times than he could count, if the flecks of zombie muck slowly encrusting themselves on the still razor-sharp blade were any indication. It was a brutal weapon to be sure, capable of splitting heads in two with a hard enough swing or chopping limbs off of the body, but such was a necessity at this point, he assumed. It had certainly proved its usefulness enough for him to keep it around.
Picking the axe up, Ken allowed it to drop to his side before he hobbled over to the door leading outside, taking a cursory glance about to ensure that no walkers were in his immediate vicinity. While he would have much prefered to stay inside the house and rest until his leg had healed up, staying in the house and waiting for walkers to come inside and attack him was not an option. It was time to move on.
As Ken rounded the side of the house and came to a painted iron gate bridging the gap between the one he had just came from and the former neighbor's property, however, he heard a loud, rumbling car engine coming from the street, shortly before it cut off abruptly and a couple of car doors slamming reached his ears. His eyes widened in response. Survivors? Here, of all places?
Gripping his axe tightly, Ken lowered his body to the ground, creeping down the small alley between the house before coming to the gate. Standing in the middle of the street amidst the ruined cars were a pair of men, a large moving van that appeared to be in decent shape behind them. They examined the cars around them with frustrated looks; evidently the abandoned vehicles had blocked their path, or perhaps they had merely ran out of gas. Either way, while happy to see survivors, he had to be absolutely sure that they weren't the type to go around harming other people with their looting. He had seen plenty of it in Boston before getting on the plane.
Reaching up, Ken gently grasped the latch of the gate, pulling it free from its hinge before pushing it open. The gate gave a creak as it swung on its hinges, prompting Ken to stop in his tracks and hold his breath, but it seemed as though the two men didn't seem to hear it, given that they never looked up at him. As he sneaked closer, ducking down beneath a car, he strained his ears as much as he possibly could, and was finally able to pick up on their voices.
"I told you we were getting low on gas, Nate!"
"Not like I had a choice, Harry! What, ya wanted to get stuck in the herd we just rolled by on foot?"
"Ugh, forget it! We need to get back to Davis and the others, so let's hurry this up."
Ken watched as the two men went back to their van, opening the doors and climbing inside before getting back out with a long, plastic tube and a gas can each. As they got to work siphoning gas from the cars nearby, Ken slowly began to emerge from his hiding place behind the car just as one of the men came over to it. Standing on the opposite side of the trunk, he crept around to the side, axe raised slightly in his hand, before speaking the first actual words he felt he had said since he'd gotten on the flight out of Boston.
"Are you friendly?"
A chain reaction of things happened after that as the man below him screamed in terror and nearly rocketed out of his shoes -- though he settled for falling on his ass and gripping his heart -- while the man that had been with him dropped the can he was carrying and ran over, a bloody chef's knife gripped in his hand.
"Not dead! Not dead!" The man on the ground beneath him yelled, one hand outstretched in a vague attempt to keep Ken at bay while he used the other to push himself backwards and away from him. Ken looked down at him, then at the man across from him armed with the switchblade, and finally lowered his axe, noting with some pleasure that the man threatening him lowered his weapon in kind. So they weren't dangerous after all. That was a good thing. Caving a living man's skull in and caving in a walker's skull were two entirely different things, and Ken wasn't entirely sure he was prepared to do the first one.
Stepping back, Ken reached a hand down to the man he'd nearly floored, who accepted it after some hesitation and allowed him to pull him up to his feet, before taking a step back to take in the appearances of the two men. The first, who had fallen onto the pavement, was a young man of Asian descent, roughly a few inches shorter than he was, but there was something undeniably...nerdy about him. As if he belonged in a basement somewhere playing games on the computer rather than out attempting to survive the zombie apocalypse. His hair was brown and neatly cut and well-kept, his bangs parted in the middle of his forehead and coming to rest just above his eyebrows. He appeared to be fairly scrawny in terms of his build, and wore a dark blue button-up shirt not unlike Ken's -- though this man's was short-sleeved -- along with jeans and a pair of dark brown loafers.
The other man, the one with the switchblade, was black in ethnicity, and appeared to be a fair bit older than his compatriot in the face. Unlike his friend's hair, which was slightly long, this man's hair was cut fairly close to his scalp, while a neatly-trimmed goatee covered his mouth. A pair of friendly-looking brown eyes met Ken's, while a few wrinkles creased his face, signifying his more advanced age. His build was still quite muscular despite his age, however -- while not to the extent of a bodybuilder, he likely spent time in the gym or a significant amount of time outdoors at the least. He was wearing a green and white flannel shirt, which was tucked neatly into a pair of well-maintained, albeit faded blue jeans, and a pair of black boots.
"You got no idea how good it is to see a friendly face out here, buddy," He was also the one to speak first. "Me and Harry here have been drivin' around for hours, and I think you're the first guy who hasn't tried makin' a sandwich out of our faces." He extended his hand for Ken to shake, which he promptly did after switching his axe to his left hand. "Speak for yourself, Nathan. This dude scared the shit out of me. I thought I was dead for sure..." The Asian man, 'Harry', blew out a heavy breath in response, unconsciously bringing a hand to his heart. Ken nodded at him, an apologetic smile on his face. "Yeah... Sorry about that, you guys. Just saw a lot of people running around looting stuff, you understand. I'm Kendrick Wilkerson, but please, it's just Ken." Nathan's grin grew even wider, if that was even possible. "I'm Nathan Harris, but if ya want, ya can call me 'Nate'." He responded. Ken nodded, then glanced over to the Asian man, who offered a small smile as well. "Harold Kyun. Good to meet you." Ken smiled, and the two also shook hands.
"Did you happen to see that plane go down, fella? That was insane. Drew every walker in town over there, I believe." Nathan asked, pointing towards the carnage the plane had left when it had smashed through the buildings off in the distance. Ken frowned, exhaling a heavy sigh and looking down at his feet. "Yeah. I...had a front row seat. It's a miracle I survived and didn't even get all that beaten up, considering the circumstances." Ken gestured to his leg, before holding up his crudely-bandaged forearm as well for proof. Nathan and Harold stared at him in amazed silence for close to a full minute before Harold finally managed to find his voice. "You...survived a plane crash?" He asked, voice tiny and small.
"Yeah...I was flying in to check on my family down near Atlanta before we crashed. I ended up surrounded by the dead, so I ran through the forest and ended up in the house behind us. Then I patched myself up and ran into the two of you." Ken replied, keeping his gaze firmly pinned on the pavement beneath his feet. Now that he'd had the time to reflect upon it, the crash was horrible for all involved. So many dead, all because of one pilot's carelessness...
"Tough guy... Pretty impressive. Hope your family's okay, by the way. We heard Atlanta's got a shelter still runnin' down there. Maybe they got there in time." Nathan said, the hope evident in his voice. Ken gave a short chuckle in response, shaking his head. "My old man and my brothers? I'm afraid you're wrong. They're survivalists. We own a farm just outside of Atlanta. Odds are they'd be there, if anywhere." He explained, frowning as a mixture of various emotions coursed through his body.
The relationship he had with his father and brothers had always been difficult. He'd never taken to the survivalist lifestyle nearly as well as his father or older brother Michael -- or 'Mickey', as he always called him -- had, nor had he been as business-minded as the oldest brother of the family, Job, was -- considering he ran a local moonshine empire that made the Wilkerson name famous both inside and outside of Atlanta and also dabbled in gun running on occasion alongside Mickey. While he had remained on relatively decent terms with Mickey despite it all before he left, his lack of interest in the survivalist lifestyle had put him at odds with his father, and focusing on his studies in school and leaving home one day to eventually become a professor at a university had effectively severed all ties with both his father and Job.
Ken had never expected to return home in all honesty, but with the advent of the zombie outbreak, he found that he desired to be no other place more than his family's corn farm. While he loved each and every one of his students in Boston, the vast majority of them had similar ideas and had returned to theirs as best they could as well. Though, whether they would welcome him back or not was another question altogether.
"Look, if you survived a plane crash and ran all the way through the forest to get away from the walkers, you must be one tough son of a bitch," Harold remarked, breaking Ken free from his moment of deep thought. "You should join our group, Ken. We need more people who can actually get out and scavenge." Nathan nodded eagerly at Harold's words, giving him a bright grin. "Got that right. So far only me, Harry here, and Oscar can get out here and grab stuff for us. The others, well..." He trailed off, prompting Ken to shoot him a look of confusion.
"You guys got a lot of wounded people with you, then?" He asked. Harold shook his head. "Nah, nothing like that. Oscar's wife -- Melina -- she can't speak a lick of English, so we gotta get Oscar to tell us what she needs. Davis Cray, our group's leader, he's in a wheelchair, and Ulysses Ford's our only doctor, so no way we're risking him." Ken nodded, pleased with that explanation. "I see. And you guys are headed to Atlanta?" He asked. "That was the plan, yeah. Like I said, Davis heard it's not as bad in Atlanta as it is out here. If they've still got a functionin' shelter, it's as good of a chance we've got as any." Nathan replied. Ken looked back down to the ground, considering their proposal for a moment. Part of him felt as though it likely wouldn't be as easy as this group thought it would be, simply waltzing into Atlanta, but on the other hand, he certainly had few options available. It was either going to Atlanta with them, or going on his own and trying his luck, and considering how tough the walkers were to fight and avoid -- especially in swarms, which he had experienced outside the wrecked plane -- it would likely be best to travel in numbers. "Okay, Harold. I'll join up with you guys."
The two men shared a relieved smile, and soon after that Harold held out a gas can and a plastic tube for him to take. "Great. Take these and see if you can siphon any gas out of these old cars. They look pretty wasted, but maybe they've got some left that we can use. Not like they need it anymore." Ken took the items with a frown, which Nathan apparently noticed, as he clapped him on the shoulder. "Don't worry man, we'll be doing the same thing. The three of us can get to know each other once we're in the van and out of the open." He remarked. Ken's frown disappeared at the man's words, and he moved over to one of the cars, pulling open the gas nozzle cover.
He supposed he could have picked worse guys to hit the road with. They certainly seemed nice enough, if nothing else, particularly Nathan. Hopefully the rest of their group would be as well, but even if they weren't, Ken was merely happy that more people had actually survived the outbreak. As quiet as the town was, he was seriously beginning to wonder whether or not that was the case.
Surprisingly, some of the vehicles actually had gas still left in their tanks, to the point of where they had managed to fill up a single can of gasoline and had a quarter of another can between Ken and Nathan's syphoning. After finishing their task, the three met up in the middle of the street once again to discuss what their next action would be.
"Well, we have gasoline for that van of yours...but how are we supposed to get past that?" Ken asked, pointing to a pair of abandoned cars blocking the street in front of them. There was no way to drive around them with the way the houses were smashed on top of each other, and with the hilly terrain around them, cutting around it was an impossibility given the size and lack of stability that the moving van they were driving had.
"Maybe we could ram on through? This is a pretty big truck we've got, after all." Nathan suggested with a shrug of his shoulders. Harold shook his head vigorously in response, waving off Nathan's idea quickly. "Too risky. We could damage something in the motor. We'd be hitting cars, not walkers, and I'm pretty sure you guys know cars don't give as much." He responded. Ken glanced back to the cars with a forlorn expression on his face, knowing that if the keys weren't in their switches, that could only mean one thing. "Guess we're just gonna have to push them." He sighed, already resigning himself to such a fate. Harold took the can of gasoline from his hand, frowned at the small amount contained within, and then placed it on the ground before grabbing Nathan's.
"I'll go get us gassed up. Maybe the two of you can do something? I'll be back in just a minute." Ken watched as Harold darted off for the van, leaving him and Nathan standing behind in the street, before looking to the man in question with a skeptical look. Nathan gave another shrug of his shoulders, and the two walked over to the vehicles, shouldering up against the door of the sedan first as they figured it would be the lightest of the two vehicles. After a few shoves, however, Ken had to stop, grabbing at his injured leg with a hand.
"Stop," He rasped, leaning heavily against the car with gritted teeth. While cauterized, albeit crudely, the wound was still extremely tender to the touch, and such heavy exertion caused pain to course through his body once again. Nathan leaned a bit closer to examine the wound, and after catching a good view of it, he whistled in appreciation. "Damn. That come from the crash?" Ken nodded, closing his eyes and running the back of his hand across his sweaty forehead. He had forgotten how humid the air of Georgia was, having spent so many years in the crisp, cool climate of Massachusetts. His body would take time to adjust -- but time was certainly something he would have plenty of considering he had no real obligations anymore, outside of surviving the zombie apocalypse. "Feels as bad as it looks, too." He told Nathan, shaking his head.
"Well, we better get Ulysses to take a look at you when we get back to pick everybody up. Think you feel up to pushin' some more?" Nathan asked, gesturing towards the cars once again. Their efforts had moved it a small bit, but there was still a fairly long ways to go before it would be out of the way of their vehicle. Ken sighed heavily, bracing himself against the front end of the sedan and putting as much weight as he possibly could on his uninjured leg. "I suppose there's no other way around it..." The two renewed their efforts once again, and were starting to actually make some vague form of progress with moving the car inch by bloody inch when Harold yelled over at them. "Guys! We've got company!" The two stopped as the Asian man came running up to them, and seconds later the smell of dead, rotten flesh reached their noses and groans filled the air. Looking past Harold to the rear of the truck, they watched as no fewer than eight walkers emerged from the houses further down the street, firmly locked on their position as fast as their shambling gait could take them.
"Shit..." Ken swore under his breath before he and Nathan slammed their bodies back into the sedan, this time joined by Harold, but still the car moved as slowly as it ever did, even with Harold's less-than-considerable muscle mass thrown into the mix. After a few seconds, Ken slammed his palm against the hood of the car in frustration before shoving past Harold on his left. "This isn't getting us anywhere, damn it!" Walking to the driver's side as fast as his leg would allow him, Ken took a deep breath before drawing back and smashing the handle of the crash axe in his possession against the window with as much force as he could muster. The sound of glass shattering into innumerable shards filled the air as the the window gave way beneath his strength, just enough for him to be able to fit his arm into the door and unlock it from the outside. Leaping into the seat, he slammed the gear shift down into 'reverse', before hopping back out and pushing alongside Nathan and Harold. The car gave way much more easily this time, and as soon as the rear tires hit the sidewalk, the three turned about and dashed back to the moving van, Harold leaping into the driver's seat while Nathan hopped into the passenger's side, leaving the door open for Ken to follow.
As Ken reached the vehicle, however, one of the walkers had been shambling at a significantly quicker pace than the pack behind it, and grabbed a fistful of his shirt's sleeve just as he was about to climb inside, causing him to shout in alarm as he was dragged slightly away from the van. His left forearm came up defensively, coming to rest across his attacker's chest to create some distance between him and them, and soon after that he found himself face to face with a walker for the very first time.
It was certainly a memory that would be forever burned into the confines of his brain, especially given how destroyed the corpse of this one seemed to be. The scent of decayed flesh was stronger than it ever was -- even when he had been surrounded by the dead outside the airplane -- and made him want to vomit, while the single milky-white, dead eye staring at him from out of its remaining socket sent chills down his spine. Most of the left side of the walker's face had been eaten off before its reanimation; only one eye remained in its head entirely, while its cheek had been devoured to the bone, revealing the yellow teeth, rotten gums and jawbone beneath it. It was also missing its right arm, which had been quite literally ripped clean off at the bicep, with stringy bits of muscle sinew and flesh hanging off of the stump that remained.
Though sickened and utterly revolted by the sight of the dead corpse that was attacking him, the desire to stay alive outweighed the desire to throw up, and so he began to fight back. Applying a little force, he was able to shove the walker out of biting range, before hooking his fingers into the collar of its shirt. Getting a firm grip, he twisted his body, using the momentum the action generated to bash the walker's head into the side of the moving van, splattering bits of blood and walker muck across it. He did this several times until the walker finally released its grasp on him, and just as Nathan jumped back out of the van to help him, Ken smashed the walker's head into the vehicle one final time before following up with a devastating swing of his axe, burying it in the walker's skull and putting it down for the second time. He wrenched it free with a wet, squelching sound as blood sprayed from the wound and splattered his shirt before turning around to face Nathan, who regarded him with slightly raised eyebrows.
"Tough bastard..." He remarked again before hopping back into his middle seat. Ken merely regarded him with a smirk, glancing back to gauge the distance of the walkers from the van before hopping in himself, where Harold was busying himself trying to start the engine. After a few tries it finally roared to life, just as the walkers had reached the van and began banging on the sides with their hands. "Fucking drive!" Ken shouted at Harold just as a walker smashed its hand into his window, cracking the glass slightly. Harold slammed his foot down on the gas pedal, and the tires of the moving van squeaked loudly before it took off like a bullet, smashing into the front end of one of the cars blocking the road and breaking the headlights of each as the parked car moved beneath the sudden force it was hit with, and soon after that they were flying down the road, leaving the walkers behind.
The three allowed themselves a collective sigh of relief as the walkers finally disappeared in the distance, and a comfortable silence settled between them for a moment until Nathan broke it. "Man...that was close." He remarked. Harold frowned, slowing the speed of the vehicle now that they were relatively safe. "Too close. We were just out here to scavenge, not go running around fighting walkers," He sighed heavily before shooting a sidelong glance at Ken in the passenger's seat. "Still, I say we came out pretty well. A good haul and a new guy for our group who can handle himself. Definitely offsets the risk." He replied. Ken raised an eyebrow out of curiosity. "What were you guys out here looking for, anyway?" Nathan flashed a friendly smile in his direction.
"Food, water, gas, weapons if we could... The usual stuff you'd expect during a zombie apocalypse. We got a decent-sized group, so we needed enough to last us 'til we get to Atlanta." He explained. Ken nodded in response. "I see. And the two of you have enough, now?" He asked. "With any luck, more than enough," Harold responded, weaving around a few more abandoned cars on the road. "It was Davis's idea to kind of stock up. Just in case."
"And Davis is your leader, you said?" Ken asked, glancing back to Nathan, who nodded vigorously in response. "Oh yeah. I mean, unofficially, anyways. Davis keeps us runnin' as best he can, but it's always a struggle. Like I said, man's in a wheelchair. It's hard for him to do much outside of point everybody in the right direction." Nathan explained, shaking his head at their predicament. "Nate's right. If it wasn't for him and Oscar, I'd be dead by now. They pulled up and got me out of a walker-infested store." Harold added. "What about you, fella? You said you were here for family, right?" Nathan asked, looking at Ken in curiosity. "That's right. My father and brothers have a farm outside of Atlanta. I grew up there, but I left to be a teacher. Got myself a job as a professor at Boston University, and I've been there teaching history for seven years now. This is the first time I've set foot in Georgia since I left for Boston at age twenty-two." Ken replied, deciding that he may as well get to know his current companions a bit better on the drive back to (he assumed) their present hideout.
"I'm a real estate agent, myself," Nathan began with a smile. "I've always been pretty good at making sales, so I kept at it and even managed to open up my own agency," He shook his head, and for the first time since Ken had seen him, a genuine frown spread across his face. "Then the dead showed up and put an end to it all. I hadn't even had the place open for half a month. I came down here from South Carolina to buy a boat because I love fishing, then I got stranded by the walkers. Davis and Oscar got me off the highway we were stuck on, and I just sorta stuck with 'em." Ken patted the man on the shoulder out of sympathy, wondering just how many of his students in Boston had ended up in similar situations.
"At least you seem like you're keeping a pretty positive attitude despite it all, though." He observed, prompting the smile to return to Nathan's face. He shrugged half-heartedly, getting comfortable in his seat. "I do what I can. Doesn't do much good to mope, so I try to keep things light. I think it helps everybody a little." Ken nodded, before glancing over to Harold. "What about you, Harold?" The Asian man frowned a little in response, but answered nevertheless. "Not really as glamorous, but...I worked in IT before all of this happened. At a call center. Most boring job in the universe," He shook his head. "I got pretty heavy in debt before all this happened though. Credit cards maxed out to make ends meet, loans to pay off other loans, that sort of thing. As much as I hate to say it, all of this saved my ass," He cringed. "I get that's a pretty bad thing to say considering how many people have died and all, but..."
"Don't worry about it. There's nothing we can do now," Ken nodded at Harold before settling his eyes back on the road. The areas they were passing through seemed eerily calm, with the complete and utter lack of people around. Apart from abandoned cars and the occasional walker on the side of the street, they were the only living things for what was likely miles around. Driving out of the small town, they entered the countryside, and not long after that, Harold pulled off onto a dirt road leading to a small, two-story farm house behind the treeline and stopped in the gravel parking lot. "We're here," Harold announced, cutting the engine and glancing over at Ken. "Ready to meet the rest of the group, Ken?" Ken shrugged, waiting for Nathan to climb out of the truck before following him. "No time like the present."
The house was beautiful, painted white with a black shingled roof, surrounded by a white picket fence that seemed to stretch for miles on end with bright green grass and a few hedges. To Ken it appeared to be the ideal American home -- the kind one only saw in magazines or pictures of on the internet, and the idea that he would actually be able to go inside filled him with the tiniest bit of excitement.
"C'mon, let's get inside and get Ford to take a look at that leg of yours, Ken." Nathan said, clapping Ken on the shoulder and drawing him out of his silent revelry of the house's beauty. He nodded, following Nathan up the stairs to the front door and waiting as Nathan rapped his knuckles on the aluminum a few times. A moment passed in silence before they heard the distinct sound of a door lock clicking open, followed by five more in rapid succession. The door opened, and a man seemingly of Latino descent appeared in the screen of the second door. A bright grin overtook his features upon seeing the three standing there, and he flung the screen door open. "Thank God the two of you have returned at last!" He clasped hands with Nathan, then glanced over at Ken. "And who is this? A friend of yours?" His Spanish accent was thick, however his English seemed entirely flawless.
"This is Ken Wilkerson," Nathan introduced him, patting him on the shoulder. "He's one tough guy -- survived a plane crash all on his own when me n' Harry found him. He's gonna be joining our group." Oscar's eyes widened slightly, though his grin failed to falter at all. "Then allow me to be the first to welcome you as a friend. Believe me, anyone tough enough to survive a plane crash and the dead is someone I would rather have on my side than against me," He chuckled, bringing a smile to Ken's face, and the two shook hands together. "I am Oscar Guzman. A pleasure, truly. We have had difficulty finding friendly faces for quite some time." Ken nodded in response, sticking his non-axe-wielding hand in his pocket. "Yeah, I bet you have, considering how bad things seem to have gotten."
"Is Ford here, Oscar? Ken's got some wounds we have to get looked at." Harold asked, lugging their remaining supply of gasoline back up into his hands. Oscar looked down at Ken's hastily-bandaged arm, then his leg, and nodded quickly. "Of course, of course. He was in the kitchen last I saw. Follow me, Ken." With a quick gesture, Oscar disappeared back into the house, Ken following close behind him.
The inside of the house was just as quaint and lovely as the outside, Ken was happy to find out -- in fact, it appeared to be seemingly untouched by the outbreak entirely. Old family photos still hung on the walls in pristine condition, and the couches and chairs appeared to be almost new. Ken doubted that the family who owned this place were still around, unless they were part of Davis' group -- perhaps left for the shelter in Atlanta, or in worst case scenarios they were dead or gone.
As he stepped into the kitchen, Ken found himself face to face with the rest of the group. Davis he recognized immediately, considering he was sitting in a wheelchair, and the pretty Hispanic lady by the sink must have been Oscar's wife, which meant that the man sitting in a chair by the kitchen table and smoking a blunt must have been Ulysses Ford. Each met him with a friendly smile as he walked in behind Oscar, taking the chair at the table that Oscar pointed to.
"Senor Ford, we need your assistance, if you please." Ford got to his feet, exhaling smoke from his lips that reeked of marijuana before stubbing the blunt out in the ashtray in front of him. "Let's do it. This new guy the one hurt?" He asked, voice sounding as rough as sandpaper as he knelt down in front of Ken. "Yes. I was in a plane crash before Nathan and Harold found me. My arm and leg got busted up pretty bad." Ford nodded, before walking over to the kitchen counter and grabbing a large duffel bag filled with equipment. As he did so, Ken took the opportunity to study the other members of the group in detail.
Ford himself struck him as a kind older man, perhaps in his late fifties to early sixties, wearing a white polo shirt tucked into a pair of khaki slacks with a pair of brown loafers on his feet. Wrinkles creased his forehead, and his grey hair was surprisingly long for a man of his age, stretching down to his neck and tucked neatly behind his ears. His blue eyes were weathered and old, yet still sharp, though he appeared to have some form of a sight issue considering the oval-shaped glasses over his eyes. His mouth was set in a firm line as he approached with the bag filled with medical tools, though he seemed friendly enough nonetheless.
Davis himself also seemed quite kind at a glance, albeit much more warm than Ulysses Ford was. Though lines had likewise begun to crease his face, he was younger than Ford -- perhaps in his late thirties to early forties. His ear-length light brown hair was neatly-trimmed and well-maintained, the bangs of which were combed to the left side of his face. His eyes were blue and held a certain kindness to them that Ken had only ever seen in teachers who truly loved their jobs, and he seemed a fairly handsome man to him in the face. Like Ford, Davis was similarly dressed -- a white button up dress shirt tucked into a pair of black dress slacks, with black dress shoes. Surprisingly enough, Davis was incredibly muscular to be wheelchair-bound, a fact that Ken found rather curious as he watched the shirt he was wearing strain to contain his biceps.
Oscar was dressed much more simply than the older members of the group, wearing a simple white t-shirt and a pair of ragged jeans, along with tan-colored construction boots. His build was nearly as muscular as Davis's, leading Ken to believe that he most likely worked in a blue-collar job of some sort before the zombie outbreak began. He was young -- perhaps younger than Ken, even -- with neatly-trimmed, slightly spiky hair and a thin beard covering his face. His skin was light brown in color, and his brown eyes were kind and had an easy-going tint to them.
His wife Melina appeared to be even younger than he was, in perhaps her early twenties. She was a beauty to be sure, with long black hair tied into a messy bun and brown skin, bright brown eyes and an adorable smile, and was easily the shortest person in the room presently. Unlike the others she was wearing a black and white checkered flannel shirt, along with form-fitting jeans and a pair of black tennis shoes; clothes they had likely scavenged from the house considering Nathan and Harold were dressed similarly.
"Well, as far as survivin' a plane crash goes, I'd say you're the most intact victim I ever saw," Ford grunted, bringing Ken out of his silent observations. "Arm should heal in a day or two, we just gotta keep it bandaged. That leg, though... Probably one of the crudest cauterizations I ever saw." Ford poked the wound, causing Ken to wince in pain. "Yeah... Hot knife off of a stovetop. I saw my dad do it to one of his farmhands in the wilderness once, when I was a kid. It was either that or bleed to death." He replied, shaking his head as the man's screams echoed in his memory once again. "Given those two options, I'm glad ya did it. Mind ya, it's gonna be raw and hurt pretty bad for a while, and it'll leave a hell of a scar, but no worries about bleedin' to death. Let's get some real bandages on ya, maybe a pill for the pain, then ya should be good. Unless, of course, ya like weed?" He asked, and Ken thought he could hear vague hopefulness in the old man's voice. In another life, he would have laughed. A doctor more than double his age smoking marijuana? It was unthinkable. Yet here it was.
"Not since I was a trouble-making teenager, I'm afraid. Maybe I'll take you up on it sometime or other, though." Ford shrugged, getting to his feet and sticking another blunt in between his teeth. "Suit yerself." As he left to retake his chair, Ken glanced over to Davis, who had been talking with Harold, Nathan and Oscar during his examination. Davis met his eyes, and shortly afterwards a smile graced his features, before he waved the three survivors off and rolled his wheelchair forward to place himself face to face with Ken.
"Nathan and Harold were just informing me of what happened out there. It seems you played a big part in ensuring they returned safely. For that, you have my personal thanks, Mr. Wilkerson. We certainly can't afford to lose anyone we have." Ken returned the wheelchair-bound man's smile, giving a meek shrug of his shoulders. "I just did what any decent person would do. Besides, they helped me out just as much. I'd still be stuck in that neighborhood if not for them."
"Kind of you to say, but with your apparent penchant for surviving situations most people wouldn't, I'm not so sure if that would be the case," Davis replied, quirking an eyebrow in his direction. "But whatever the case may be, we're certainly glad to have you here. I'm Davis. Davis Cray," He gestured to himself. "It seems you've already gotten to know Harold and Nathan. The man who just doctored on you is Ulysses Ford," He gestured to the older man currently getting high at the table across from him, who gave a grunt of recognition. "And this is Oscar, of course." He gestured to the Hispanic man, who smiled and nodded in Ken's direction as he led his wife over by the hand. "I'd like for you to meet my lovely wife as well, Ken. This is Melina." The pretty Hispanic lady smiled and waved at him sheepishly, before quickly babbling something to her husband in Spanish. At Ken's confused expression, Oscar's smile grew a bit wider.
"You'll have to excuse her, friend. She doesn't speak English so well yet. I was teaching her, but...kind of hard to find good textbooks when the dead come back, eh? If you ever want to tell her something, just let me know and I can translate." He explained. Ken nodded, before returning Melina's smile. "Still, it's very nice to meet you, Melina." Oscar repeated the sentence in Spanish and the girl's grinned brightly at him before saying something in return. Oscar chuckled good-naturedly, glancing back to Ken. "It seems she's taken a liking to you. She's happy to meet you as well, and hopes your arm heals soon." He told him. Ken nodded, drawing on his two-word Spanish vocabulary to thank her as best he could.
"So, Ken, Nathan and Harold tell me you're bound for Atlanta to find your family. Is that right?" Davis asked. "Yeah, that's right. They own a farm outside the city limits." Ken replied, adjusting his weight in the chair to make himself more comfortable. "Well, as Nathan and Harold might have told you, we're on our way to the city ourselves. They've scavenged enough supplies to last us until then, and I'd like for you to join our group for the trip. It's not safe to travel on your own, as you've seen, and frankly, we could use the extra hands. So, what do you say?" Davis asked, extending his hands slightly as an invitation.
"No need to even ask. I've seen what's out there," Ken replied, shaking his head as the appearance of the walker he had killed along the way replayed in his mind's eye. "Besides, I owe you guys one for getting me out of that neighborhood. I'll help out as best I can." Davis smiled brightly, resting his hands on the armrests of his wheelchair. "Wonderful. Harold tells me we have enough supplies to last us the rest of the way, as I said, so we should begin moving out as soon as possible. Would you care for a change of clothes first, though? You seem as though you could use it, and the dressers upstairs have a few shirts left." He offered, taking in the bloody, dirty and torn appearance of Ken's clothing. Ken glanced down at himself, wrinkling his nose a bit at his appearance before carefully getting to his feet. "I think I will. Thanks." Davis nodded as he turned to walk out of the room. "Meet us outside when you're ready. Try to make it quick, though. This place isn't particularly defensible -- it just suited our needs for the time being."
After a quick change of clothes, Ken stepped outside wearing a red and black flannel shirt and a pair of jeans, pulling at the collar a little in discomfort. While not exactly a bad fit, it was made for a man a shirt-size smaller than he was, so it hugged his form slightly uncomfortably. The people who had owned this house must have enjoyed flannel greatly, considering it was almost entirely what was available for him to use. Still, it was worth not being covered in dirt and grime to wear something a bit more unusual and less comfortable than his normal wardrobe.
Davis was waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs, while the others busied themselves with loading what few personal effects they had into the back of the moving van in the background. Tugging at the shirt collar once again, Ken descended the stairs to meet him,. "That's a little better, at least." Davis smiled at his remark, then gestured towards the van. "I know it probably sounds like a bad idea to you, but most of us are going to have to ride in the back of the truck with the supplies. I just thought I would take the time to tell you that it can be a bumpy ride. Harold can drive very well, but," He chuckled. "Let's just say he enjoys going a little too fast for my taste." Ken laughed lightly as well, reaching into his shirt pocket for his pack of cigarettes and his lighter before sticking one between his teeth and lighting it up. It was an awful habit to maintain, he knew that much, but with the dead rising from their graves, somehow lung cancer didn't exactly seem like that much of a tangible threat anymore.
"So how did you end up leading these guys, Davis? You just happen across them, or something?" Exhaling smoke, Ken decided to finally ask the question he had been waiting for. The wheelchair-bound man shrugged in response, a frown gracing his features. "It just sort of ended up that way, as best I can tell. My wife and I ended up stuck in traffic on our way out of Savannah. When the dead came out of nowhere and began attacking everyone in sight, we tried to flee as best we could, but as you can tell with my...condition, that was a challenge," His expression took on a more somber tone as he stared off into the distance at nothing in particular. "My wife was so preoccupied with attempting to get me into the chair, she forgot to mind her own safety, and one of them..." Ken frowned, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder as he trailed off. "Hey, if you don't feel like you should --"
"No. Thank you for being concerned, but...I consider it quite unhealthy to dwell upon sad memories. The good memories of my wife far outweigh the bad," Davis responded, waving him off gently. "Oscar and Melina happened to be close by, and they killed the walker attacking my wife. We tried to save her, but...it was too late. We stuck together and ran out on foot, and joined up with Nathan in the process. We didn't find Harold until much later on trapped in a grocery store, and Ulysses Ford soon after that, hiding out in his clinic when we went there for medical supplies. As for why they consider me their leader..." He shrugged again. "I suppose I was able to at least stay relatively level-headed. I managed to keep everyone calm and focused on the task at hand, and I believe they respected me for it."
"Police officer?" Ken asked, an eyebrow quirked in curiosity. Davis smiled up at him, folding his hands in front of him on the armrests of the wheelchair. "Teacher, actually. Nothing nearly so exciting." He replied. "You too? I used to teach at Boston University before the outbreak." Ken told him, both eyebrows raised in surprise at the revelation. The two stared at each other for a moment before sharing a laugh, finding that they had quite a bit of common ground between them in regards to their profession. "I was a high school teacher, myself, but yes. It wasn't really my first choice for a job, though." Davis paused, shooting Ken a confused look. "I'm surprised you haven't asked about the chair yet, though." Ken's eyes widened, and were it not for the cigarette in his mouth, his jaw would have dropped. Had he given any indication that he was blatantly curious about it? He didn't think so, but he could have been wrong.
"I-I'd never... I mean... Ya know. Mom always said it wasn't polite to stare at anyone with...disabilities." He sputtered out quickly, feeling his cheeks flush gently from embarrassment. Davis merely gave a loud laugh at his reaction, a laughing fit that lasted all of about ten seconds. "Gets them every time..." He chuckled a few more times before finally calming himself and centering his attention back on the others. "I was a firefighter before, you see. One pulled my mother and I out of a car wreck when I was a boy, and it made such an impression on me... I wanted to be like that. Do what he did for my family for other people. When I grew up, I got my chance, but it wasn't a lasting thing," He shook his head. "About a year after I joined the local crew, I went into a burning building with my partner to pull a family's daughter out. We succeeded, but...a beam fell on me and broke my spine. Paralyzed me from the waist down. I've been this way since I was in my twenties. Still, I've certainly made the best of it. I took up a job teaching, and my life has continued on just as it always has." Ken smiled at him, taking one final drag off of his cigarette before tossing the remaining bit away.
He found it a hard thing to wrap his head around, but at the very least Davis seemed to not let his disability get him down. The fact that he was keeping these people together despite all that he had lost in the zombie apocalypse in particular was remarkable, and he could see why the others looked up to Davis in that regard. He was charming and quite charismatic, but even so, Ken worried for his safety. The wheelchair put him at quite a disadvantage when it came to fighting walkers, to say nothing of carrying out other duties.
"At least you're keeping a positive attitude. I'm not so sure I would be doing the same in your position." Davis smiled up at him again. "Oh, it's a real challenge. Some days are better than others. But even so, my life hasn't ended just because of the chair. Believe me when I say I plan on living as long as I possibly can." He replied.
"Davis!" Harold's voice caught both of their respective attentions, and they turned to look at him almost in unison. The Asian man gestured to the moving van, the engine of which was now running and ready to go. "We're ready whenever you are." Davis nodded in response, setting his hands on the wheels of his chair. "Good. Let's not waste any time, then. Would you mind helping me into the back of the truck, Ken?" Ken nodded, grabbing the handles of the chair and wheeling the man around to the back of the van. With a little extra help from Oscar, the two were able to easily lift him into the back, and in short order everyone was accounted for and safely contained within the back of the truck with the supplies they had gathered while Harold and Nathan rode in the front.
"Get comfortable, everyone. Atlanta is a long drive from here." Davis announced just as the truck began to move with a low rumble of its engine. Ken sat down on a box full of what he assumed was canned food judging by the clinking, tinny sound the action made. "Oye, Ken," Oscar spoke up suddenly, and Ken looked up just as the Hispanic man sat down on the box across from him, digging into his pants pocket before pulling out a small box. "You play cards? It's a great way to pass the time now, since the dead kind of knocked out the television." He questioned, holding up the pack of old Bicycle playing cards with a bright smile, which Ken returned. "I used to be pretty damn good at poker back when me and a few of the other professors would get together in the lounge after hours for game night," He reached into his pocket, retrieving another Morley from the half-empty red and white pack contained within his breast pocket and lighting it. "I say bring it on."
"That, my friend, sounds like a challenge," There was a competitive gleam in Oscar's eye before he busied himself stacking up several boxes between their sitting area to act as a makeshift table of sorts. As he was tearing open the package of playing cards, Davis rolled over to their table, giving them both a smirk. "Surely you weren't planning on playing cards without me?" He asked, looking between the two, who both smiled back at him. "Ah, wouldn't dream of it, Davis." Melina sat down next to Oscar, hugging in close as he dealt out the cards.
The ride to Atlanta was, as expected, long and bumpy, but the group still managed to make the best of it despite the less-than-ideal, cramped riding quarters. Eventually the moving van slowed to a halt, however, and the rear door of the vehicle flung itself open not long afterwards to reveal Nathan standing there in the afternoon sunlight. "Is something the matter, Nathan?" Davis asked, tossing his cards down on the box in front of them. The salesman's face was grim, and it was obvious that something had affected him visibly. "You guys...you should come take a look at this." He told them quietly, before walking off to the side. Ken exchanged worried glances with the rest of the group in the back of the van, before taking the lead and hopping out of the back. His boots thumped against the pavement of the highway as he landed, and he walked around the side of the van to find Harold and Nathan standing in front of the vehicle, staring off at something in the distance. "What is it? Is something..." Ken trailed off as his eyes finally fell upon what Nathan had been talking about.
"Holy shit..."
Kitchen pans and dishes clattered as the body of Ken Wilkerson came crashing into the bar separating the stove and sink from the table and eating area, causing the light overhead to flicker as it swayed back and forth. He gripped at the upper thigh of his right leg as tightly as he possibly could, ignoring the pain that the action caused to surge through his body as best he was able, while his blood continued to flow over his fingers. Realizing that pressure alone would not be enough to stop the bleeding after a few moments, he finally stopped, hobbling over to the sink and rummaging through the drawers.
When the outbreak began, people had naturally gone wild. Most had taken refuge wherever they could, some left for the government-maintained shelters, others resorted to raiding stores and businesses, and a select few had managed to get on planes out of the country, before the government had grounded all flights in a desperate attempt to contain the virus. Ken had been one of the people who had been so lucky as to get on a plane right before the order to cease all flights had came down from the government, and had been on his way to Georgia to check on his older brothers Mickey and Job, who as far as he knew still resided on his family's farm on the outskirts of Atlanta with their father.
Things had been relatively okay for almost the entirety of the journey, beyond the tenseness shared by the people on the plane that was expected along with the crying of those who had lost family members, loved ones and friends. As the plane flew into the state boundaries of Georgia, however, Ken had gotten a front row seat to the events that had transpired. One of the passengers further up had been bitten, and had managed to hide his wound from the airport's security before getting on the plane. He lurched out of his seat and attempted to attack one of the hostesses, who began beating on the door leading into the cockpit. Against airline regulations, the co-pilot opened the door -- sealing both his fate and the fate of all of those on the plane, as the infected individual quickly abandoned the hostess and entered the cockpit, killing both the pilot and co-pilot and sending the plane into a nose-dive.
Frowning, Ken opened one last drawer, finding little more than a single dish-rag and a large chef's knife contained within. The house seemed to be entirely looted for the most part save a few overlooked things such as pots and pans, but looking down at the knife once again, an idea began to form in his head, however barbaric it may have been. A bandage alone wouldn't staunch the bleeding of his wounds -- they were far too deep, and it was a miracle he had even survived this long. Grabbing the handle of the knife, he pulled it from the drawer and stared at it for a moment, working off of old survivalist instincts he thought he had buried years ago. He knew what had to be done, and reached for the stove's burner controls.
The plane had went down as expected, despite the attempts of several passengers to avert a complete crash by bludgeoning the zombie to death and fumbling blindly with the controls in vain. It smashed through a residential district, taking out several houses and other buildings in a raging whirlwind of destruction, breaking apart piece by piece and killing others on board near-instantly. Ken had smashed his head against the wall from the sudden force, which had knocked him out for the remainder of the crash and probably played a major part of why he had survived to begin with. He had woken up some time later (though how long he had remained unconscious, he didn't know) still buckled into his seat as he had been in one of the parts of the plane that wasn't totally wrecked, only now with a piece of metal from the plane jutting out of his leg and another bad cut on his arm, surrounded by the dead and the reanimated outside.
He had worked his way free from the seat and had pulled the sheet of metal from his flesh before making his way through the plane, grabbing a sharp crash axe along the way and using it to cut his way out of the death trap. He fought his way through the reanimated remains of the former passengers and airline workers, all the way outside, dodging and weaving though the throng of grasping, dead hands and snapping teeth before escaping into the woods and eventually coming to the house he now found himself in. Very few of the biters seemed to be hanging around the neighborhood he was located in, possibly due to the fact that the plane had caused so much noise when it went down. The fact that the house he was in was looted was likely evidence of the fact that this particular town had been a graveyard for quite some time -- of the few things still moving around in the street outside, none of them were alive anymore.
Pulling the now red-hot knife off of the stove burner, he gazed down into the metal, swallowing a bit nervously. Apart from movies, he had seen this only one time -- one of his father's hired hands had gone on a hunting trip with him and his older brothers, and the hired hand had foolishly provoked a bear, who bit his hand clean off at the wrist. He, Mickey and Job had watched as their father heated a knife on the camp fire before pressing it to the wound. Though excruciatingly painful-looking, it had stopped the bleeding quite nicely. They took the man to the hospital afterwards, where he had made a full recovery -- though he still lost the use of his hand either way.
Rolling up the dish rag into a tight knot, Ken placed it in his mouth and bit down as hard as he could on it, before bracing his body against the counter and pressing the blade of the knife against the wound on his thigh. He screamed loudly, though it was muffled by the rag in his mouth as white-hot pain flooded his entire being from the action, his vision going blurry as he heard the flesh cooking beneath the knife blade while it did its job of crudely cauterizing the wound together. The smell of singed flesh reached his nose and made him want to vomit all over again, but he pressed onwards, until finally the bleeding stopped entirely. He dropped to his knees, the knife clattering to the tile-covered floor while the rag dropped from his mouth, and for a moment, all that could be heard within the kitchen was his ragged breathing. He closed his eyes, resting his head against the counter behind him as his body twitched involuntarily, still remembering the pain he had just went through on a muscular level.
Finally, however, the pain began to dull, and as his vision returned to normal and the room stopped spinning, Ken opened his eyes and glanced down to examine his work. The flesh around the wound that was still good had been blackened and burnt by the heat of the blade, but though the cut itself was still nasty-looking, raw and painful to the touch, the bleeding had stopped entirely. Ken smiled, revealing his still-clenched teeth. It seemed as though the survivalist "nonsense" his father had shoved into his brain as a child finally found a use at last.
Grabbing the counter, he pulled himself to his feet, making sure to put as little weight as possible on his injured leg, before turning his arm to the side to examine the cut on it. It was certainly not nearly as bad as the steel that had penetrated his leg, and would likely close up and heal on its own. Still, he picked the dish rag up from the floor and wrapped it tightly around it to staunch the bleeding as a precaution. Rubbing at his dry throat, Ken proceeded to raid the cupboards for a glass, before filling it with water from the sink and drinking it down, examining the kitchen as he did so. The entire house, in addition to being looted, seemed to be in a complete and total state of disarray -- the back door wasn't even attached to the door frame, and several windows in the hallway had been smashed. It was hardly the most defensible location in the area, but he would get nowhere by hunkering down in a house in the first place. He still had to get to his family's farm.
Walking back to the bar in the middle of the kitchen that separated the stove and sink from the kitchen table and chairs, he glanced down at his current weapon of choice, which he had momentarily dropped to tend to his wounds. The crash axe he had ripped from an emergency kit on the plane had already saved his life more times than he could count, if the flecks of zombie muck slowly encrusting themselves on the still razor-sharp blade were any indication. It was a brutal weapon to be sure, capable of splitting heads in two with a hard enough swing or chopping limbs off of the body, but such was a necessity at this point, he assumed. It had certainly proved its usefulness enough for him to keep it around.
Picking the axe up, Ken allowed it to drop to his side before he hobbled over to the door leading outside, taking a cursory glance about to ensure that no walkers were in his immediate vicinity. While he would have much prefered to stay inside the house and rest until his leg had healed up, staying in the house and waiting for walkers to come inside and attack him was not an option. It was time to move on.
As Ken rounded the side of the house and came to a painted iron gate bridging the gap between the one he had just came from and the former neighbor's property, however, he heard a loud, rumbling car engine coming from the street, shortly before it cut off abruptly and a couple of car doors slamming reached his ears. His eyes widened in response. Survivors? Here, of all places?
Gripping his axe tightly, Ken lowered his body to the ground, creeping down the small alley between the house before coming to the gate. Standing in the middle of the street amidst the ruined cars were a pair of men, a large moving van that appeared to be in decent shape behind them. They examined the cars around them with frustrated looks; evidently the abandoned vehicles had blocked their path, or perhaps they had merely ran out of gas. Either way, while happy to see survivors, he had to be absolutely sure that they weren't the type to go around harming other people with their looting. He had seen plenty of it in Boston before getting on the plane.
Reaching up, Ken gently grasped the latch of the gate, pulling it free from its hinge before pushing it open. The gate gave a creak as it swung on its hinges, prompting Ken to stop in his tracks and hold his breath, but it seemed as though the two men didn't seem to hear it, given that they never looked up at him. As he sneaked closer, ducking down beneath a car, he strained his ears as much as he possibly could, and was finally able to pick up on their voices.
"I told you we were getting low on gas, Nate!"
"Not like I had a choice, Harry! What, ya wanted to get stuck in the herd we just rolled by on foot?"
"Ugh, forget it! We need to get back to Davis and the others, so let's hurry this up."
Ken watched as the two men went back to their van, opening the doors and climbing inside before getting back out with a long, plastic tube and a gas can each. As they got to work siphoning gas from the cars nearby, Ken slowly began to emerge from his hiding place behind the car just as one of the men came over to it. Standing on the opposite side of the trunk, he crept around to the side, axe raised slightly in his hand, before speaking the first actual words he felt he had said since he'd gotten on the flight out of Boston.
"Are you friendly?"
A chain reaction of things happened after that as the man below him screamed in terror and nearly rocketed out of his shoes -- though he settled for falling on his ass and gripping his heart -- while the man that had been with him dropped the can he was carrying and ran over, a bloody chef's knife gripped in his hand.
"Not dead! Not dead!" The man on the ground beneath him yelled, one hand outstretched in a vague attempt to keep Ken at bay while he used the other to push himself backwards and away from him. Ken looked down at him, then at the man across from him armed with the switchblade, and finally lowered his axe, noting with some pleasure that the man threatening him lowered his weapon in kind. So they weren't dangerous after all. That was a good thing. Caving a living man's skull in and caving in a walker's skull were two entirely different things, and Ken wasn't entirely sure he was prepared to do the first one.
Stepping back, Ken reached a hand down to the man he'd nearly floored, who accepted it after some hesitation and allowed him to pull him up to his feet, before taking a step back to take in the appearances of the two men. The first, who had fallen onto the pavement, was a young man of Asian descent, roughly a few inches shorter than he was, but there was something undeniably...nerdy about him. As if he belonged in a basement somewhere playing games on the computer rather than out attempting to survive the zombie apocalypse. His hair was brown and neatly cut and well-kept, his bangs parted in the middle of his forehead and coming to rest just above his eyebrows. He appeared to be fairly scrawny in terms of his build, and wore a dark blue button-up shirt not unlike Ken's -- though this man's was short-sleeved -- along with jeans and a pair of dark brown loafers.
The other man, the one with the switchblade, was black in ethnicity, and appeared to be a fair bit older than his compatriot in the face. Unlike his friend's hair, which was slightly long, this man's hair was cut fairly close to his scalp, while a neatly-trimmed goatee covered his mouth. A pair of friendly-looking brown eyes met Ken's, while a few wrinkles creased his face, signifying his more advanced age. His build was still quite muscular despite his age, however -- while not to the extent of a bodybuilder, he likely spent time in the gym or a significant amount of time outdoors at the least. He was wearing a green and white flannel shirt, which was tucked neatly into a pair of well-maintained, albeit faded blue jeans, and a pair of black boots.
"You got no idea how good it is to see a friendly face out here, buddy," He was also the one to speak first. "Me and Harry here have been drivin' around for hours, and I think you're the first guy who hasn't tried makin' a sandwich out of our faces." He extended his hand for Ken to shake, which he promptly did after switching his axe to his left hand. "Speak for yourself, Nathan. This dude scared the shit out of me. I thought I was dead for sure..." The Asian man, 'Harry', blew out a heavy breath in response, unconsciously bringing a hand to his heart. Ken nodded at him, an apologetic smile on his face. "Yeah... Sorry about that, you guys. Just saw a lot of people running around looting stuff, you understand. I'm Kendrick Wilkerson, but please, it's just Ken." Nathan's grin grew even wider, if that was even possible. "I'm Nathan Harris, but if ya want, ya can call me 'Nate'." He responded. Ken nodded, then glanced over to the Asian man, who offered a small smile as well. "Harold Kyun. Good to meet you." Ken smiled, and the two also shook hands.
"Did you happen to see that plane go down, fella? That was insane. Drew every walker in town over there, I believe." Nathan asked, pointing towards the carnage the plane had left when it had smashed through the buildings off in the distance. Ken frowned, exhaling a heavy sigh and looking down at his feet. "Yeah. I...had a front row seat. It's a miracle I survived and didn't even get all that beaten up, considering the circumstances." Ken gestured to his leg, before holding up his crudely-bandaged forearm as well for proof. Nathan and Harold stared at him in amazed silence for close to a full minute before Harold finally managed to find his voice. "You...survived a plane crash?" He asked, voice tiny and small.
"Yeah...I was flying in to check on my family down near Atlanta before we crashed. I ended up surrounded by the dead, so I ran through the forest and ended up in the house behind us. Then I patched myself up and ran into the two of you." Ken replied, keeping his gaze firmly pinned on the pavement beneath his feet. Now that he'd had the time to reflect upon it, the crash was horrible for all involved. So many dead, all because of one pilot's carelessness...
"Tough guy... Pretty impressive. Hope your family's okay, by the way. We heard Atlanta's got a shelter still runnin' down there. Maybe they got there in time." Nathan said, the hope evident in his voice. Ken gave a short chuckle in response, shaking his head. "My old man and my brothers? I'm afraid you're wrong. They're survivalists. We own a farm just outside of Atlanta. Odds are they'd be there, if anywhere." He explained, frowning as a mixture of various emotions coursed through his body.
The relationship he had with his father and brothers had always been difficult. He'd never taken to the survivalist lifestyle nearly as well as his father or older brother Michael -- or 'Mickey', as he always called him -- had, nor had he been as business-minded as the oldest brother of the family, Job, was -- considering he ran a local moonshine empire that made the Wilkerson name famous both inside and outside of Atlanta and also dabbled in gun running on occasion alongside Mickey. While he had remained on relatively decent terms with Mickey despite it all before he left, his lack of interest in the survivalist lifestyle had put him at odds with his father, and focusing on his studies in school and leaving home one day to eventually become a professor at a university had effectively severed all ties with both his father and Job.
Ken had never expected to return home in all honesty, but with the advent of the zombie outbreak, he found that he desired to be no other place more than his family's corn farm. While he loved each and every one of his students in Boston, the vast majority of them had similar ideas and had returned to theirs as best they could as well. Though, whether they would welcome him back or not was another question altogether.
"Look, if you survived a plane crash and ran all the way through the forest to get away from the walkers, you must be one tough son of a bitch," Harold remarked, breaking Ken free from his moment of deep thought. "You should join our group, Ken. We need more people who can actually get out and scavenge." Nathan nodded eagerly at Harold's words, giving him a bright grin. "Got that right. So far only me, Harry here, and Oscar can get out here and grab stuff for us. The others, well..." He trailed off, prompting Ken to shoot him a look of confusion.
"You guys got a lot of wounded people with you, then?" He asked. Harold shook his head. "Nah, nothing like that. Oscar's wife -- Melina -- she can't speak a lick of English, so we gotta get Oscar to tell us what she needs. Davis Cray, our group's leader, he's in a wheelchair, and Ulysses Ford's our only doctor, so no way we're risking him." Ken nodded, pleased with that explanation. "I see. And you guys are headed to Atlanta?" He asked. "That was the plan, yeah. Like I said, Davis heard it's not as bad in Atlanta as it is out here. If they've still got a functionin' shelter, it's as good of a chance we've got as any." Nathan replied. Ken looked back down to the ground, considering their proposal for a moment. Part of him felt as though it likely wouldn't be as easy as this group thought it would be, simply waltzing into Atlanta, but on the other hand, he certainly had few options available. It was either going to Atlanta with them, or going on his own and trying his luck, and considering how tough the walkers were to fight and avoid -- especially in swarms, which he had experienced outside the wrecked plane -- it would likely be best to travel in numbers. "Okay, Harold. I'll join up with you guys."
The two men shared a relieved smile, and soon after that Harold held out a gas can and a plastic tube for him to take. "Great. Take these and see if you can siphon any gas out of these old cars. They look pretty wasted, but maybe they've got some left that we can use. Not like they need it anymore." Ken took the items with a frown, which Nathan apparently noticed, as he clapped him on the shoulder. "Don't worry man, we'll be doing the same thing. The three of us can get to know each other once we're in the van and out of the open." He remarked. Ken's frown disappeared at the man's words, and he moved over to one of the cars, pulling open the gas nozzle cover.
He supposed he could have picked worse guys to hit the road with. They certainly seemed nice enough, if nothing else, particularly Nathan. Hopefully the rest of their group would be as well, but even if they weren't, Ken was merely happy that more people had actually survived the outbreak. As quiet as the town was, he was seriously beginning to wonder whether or not that was the case.
Surprisingly, some of the vehicles actually had gas still left in their tanks, to the point of where they had managed to fill up a single can of gasoline and had a quarter of another can between Ken and Nathan's syphoning. After finishing their task, the three met up in the middle of the street once again to discuss what their next action would be.
"Well, we have gasoline for that van of yours...but how are we supposed to get past that?" Ken asked, pointing to a pair of abandoned cars blocking the street in front of them. There was no way to drive around them with the way the houses were smashed on top of each other, and with the hilly terrain around them, cutting around it was an impossibility given the size and lack of stability that the moving van they were driving had.
"Maybe we could ram on through? This is a pretty big truck we've got, after all." Nathan suggested with a shrug of his shoulders. Harold shook his head vigorously in response, waving off Nathan's idea quickly. "Too risky. We could damage something in the motor. We'd be hitting cars, not walkers, and I'm pretty sure you guys know cars don't give as much." He responded. Ken glanced back to the cars with a forlorn expression on his face, knowing that if the keys weren't in their switches, that could only mean one thing. "Guess we're just gonna have to push them." He sighed, already resigning himself to such a fate. Harold took the can of gasoline from his hand, frowned at the small amount contained within, and then placed it on the ground before grabbing Nathan's.
"I'll go get us gassed up. Maybe the two of you can do something? I'll be back in just a minute." Ken watched as Harold darted off for the van, leaving him and Nathan standing behind in the street, before looking to the man in question with a skeptical look. Nathan gave another shrug of his shoulders, and the two walked over to the vehicles, shouldering up against the door of the sedan first as they figured it would be the lightest of the two vehicles. After a few shoves, however, Ken had to stop, grabbing at his injured leg with a hand.
"Stop," He rasped, leaning heavily against the car with gritted teeth. While cauterized, albeit crudely, the wound was still extremely tender to the touch, and such heavy exertion caused pain to course through his body once again. Nathan leaned a bit closer to examine the wound, and after catching a good view of it, he whistled in appreciation. "Damn. That come from the crash?" Ken nodded, closing his eyes and running the back of his hand across his sweaty forehead. He had forgotten how humid the air of Georgia was, having spent so many years in the crisp, cool climate of Massachusetts. His body would take time to adjust -- but time was certainly something he would have plenty of considering he had no real obligations anymore, outside of surviving the zombie apocalypse. "Feels as bad as it looks, too." He told Nathan, shaking his head.
"Well, we better get Ulysses to take a look at you when we get back to pick everybody up. Think you feel up to pushin' some more?" Nathan asked, gesturing towards the cars once again. Their efforts had moved it a small bit, but there was still a fairly long ways to go before it would be out of the way of their vehicle. Ken sighed heavily, bracing himself against the front end of the sedan and putting as much weight as he possibly could on his uninjured leg. "I suppose there's no other way around it..." The two renewed their efforts once again, and were starting to actually make some vague form of progress with moving the car inch by bloody inch when Harold yelled over at them. "Guys! We've got company!" The two stopped as the Asian man came running up to them, and seconds later the smell of dead, rotten flesh reached their noses and groans filled the air. Looking past Harold to the rear of the truck, they watched as no fewer than eight walkers emerged from the houses further down the street, firmly locked on their position as fast as their shambling gait could take them.
"Shit..." Ken swore under his breath before he and Nathan slammed their bodies back into the sedan, this time joined by Harold, but still the car moved as slowly as it ever did, even with Harold's less-than-considerable muscle mass thrown into the mix. After a few seconds, Ken slammed his palm against the hood of the car in frustration before shoving past Harold on his left. "This isn't getting us anywhere, damn it!" Walking to the driver's side as fast as his leg would allow him, Ken took a deep breath before drawing back and smashing the handle of the crash axe in his possession against the window with as much force as he could muster. The sound of glass shattering into innumerable shards filled the air as the the window gave way beneath his strength, just enough for him to be able to fit his arm into the door and unlock it from the outside. Leaping into the seat, he slammed the gear shift down into 'reverse', before hopping back out and pushing alongside Nathan and Harold. The car gave way much more easily this time, and as soon as the rear tires hit the sidewalk, the three turned about and dashed back to the moving van, Harold leaping into the driver's seat while Nathan hopped into the passenger's side, leaving the door open for Ken to follow.
As Ken reached the vehicle, however, one of the walkers had been shambling at a significantly quicker pace than the pack behind it, and grabbed a fistful of his shirt's sleeve just as he was about to climb inside, causing him to shout in alarm as he was dragged slightly away from the van. His left forearm came up defensively, coming to rest across his attacker's chest to create some distance between him and them, and soon after that he found himself face to face with a walker for the very first time.
It was certainly a memory that would be forever burned into the confines of his brain, especially given how destroyed the corpse of this one seemed to be. The scent of decayed flesh was stronger than it ever was -- even when he had been surrounded by the dead outside the airplane -- and made him want to vomit, while the single milky-white, dead eye staring at him from out of its remaining socket sent chills down his spine. Most of the left side of the walker's face had been eaten off before its reanimation; only one eye remained in its head entirely, while its cheek had been devoured to the bone, revealing the yellow teeth, rotten gums and jawbone beneath it. It was also missing its right arm, which had been quite literally ripped clean off at the bicep, with stringy bits of muscle sinew and flesh hanging off of the stump that remained.
Though sickened and utterly revolted by the sight of the dead corpse that was attacking him, the desire to stay alive outweighed the desire to throw up, and so he began to fight back. Applying a little force, he was able to shove the walker out of biting range, before hooking his fingers into the collar of its shirt. Getting a firm grip, he twisted his body, using the momentum the action generated to bash the walker's head into the side of the moving van, splattering bits of blood and walker muck across it. He did this several times until the walker finally released its grasp on him, and just as Nathan jumped back out of the van to help him, Ken smashed the walker's head into the vehicle one final time before following up with a devastating swing of his axe, burying it in the walker's skull and putting it down for the second time. He wrenched it free with a wet, squelching sound as blood sprayed from the wound and splattered his shirt before turning around to face Nathan, who regarded him with slightly raised eyebrows.
"Tough bastard..." He remarked again before hopping back into his middle seat. Ken merely regarded him with a smirk, glancing back to gauge the distance of the walkers from the van before hopping in himself, where Harold was busying himself trying to start the engine. After a few tries it finally roared to life, just as the walkers had reached the van and began banging on the sides with their hands. "Fucking drive!" Ken shouted at Harold just as a walker smashed its hand into his window, cracking the glass slightly. Harold slammed his foot down on the gas pedal, and the tires of the moving van squeaked loudly before it took off like a bullet, smashing into the front end of one of the cars blocking the road and breaking the headlights of each as the parked car moved beneath the sudden force it was hit with, and soon after that they were flying down the road, leaving the walkers behind.
The three allowed themselves a collective sigh of relief as the walkers finally disappeared in the distance, and a comfortable silence settled between them for a moment until Nathan broke it. "Man...that was close." He remarked. Harold frowned, slowing the speed of the vehicle now that they were relatively safe. "Too close. We were just out here to scavenge, not go running around fighting walkers," He sighed heavily before shooting a sidelong glance at Ken in the passenger's seat. "Still, I say we came out pretty well. A good haul and a new guy for our group who can handle himself. Definitely offsets the risk." He replied. Ken raised an eyebrow out of curiosity. "What were you guys out here looking for, anyway?" Nathan flashed a friendly smile in his direction.
"Food, water, gas, weapons if we could... The usual stuff you'd expect during a zombie apocalypse. We got a decent-sized group, so we needed enough to last us 'til we get to Atlanta." He explained. Ken nodded in response. "I see. And the two of you have enough, now?" He asked. "With any luck, more than enough," Harold responded, weaving around a few more abandoned cars on the road. "It was Davis's idea to kind of stock up. Just in case."
"And Davis is your leader, you said?" Ken asked, glancing back to Nathan, who nodded vigorously in response. "Oh yeah. I mean, unofficially, anyways. Davis keeps us runnin' as best he can, but it's always a struggle. Like I said, man's in a wheelchair. It's hard for him to do much outside of point everybody in the right direction." Nathan explained, shaking his head at their predicament. "Nate's right. If it wasn't for him and Oscar, I'd be dead by now. They pulled up and got me out of a walker-infested store." Harold added. "What about you, fella? You said you were here for family, right?" Nathan asked, looking at Ken in curiosity. "That's right. My father and brothers have a farm outside of Atlanta. I grew up there, but I left to be a teacher. Got myself a job as a professor at Boston University, and I've been there teaching history for seven years now. This is the first time I've set foot in Georgia since I left for Boston at age twenty-two." Ken replied, deciding that he may as well get to know his current companions a bit better on the drive back to (he assumed) their present hideout.
"I'm a real estate agent, myself," Nathan began with a smile. "I've always been pretty good at making sales, so I kept at it and even managed to open up my own agency," He shook his head, and for the first time since Ken had seen him, a genuine frown spread across his face. "Then the dead showed up and put an end to it all. I hadn't even had the place open for half a month. I came down here from South Carolina to buy a boat because I love fishing, then I got stranded by the walkers. Davis and Oscar got me off the highway we were stuck on, and I just sorta stuck with 'em." Ken patted the man on the shoulder out of sympathy, wondering just how many of his students in Boston had ended up in similar situations.
"At least you seem like you're keeping a pretty positive attitude despite it all, though." He observed, prompting the smile to return to Nathan's face. He shrugged half-heartedly, getting comfortable in his seat. "I do what I can. Doesn't do much good to mope, so I try to keep things light. I think it helps everybody a little." Ken nodded, before glancing over to Harold. "What about you, Harold?" The Asian man frowned a little in response, but answered nevertheless. "Not really as glamorous, but...I worked in IT before all of this happened. At a call center. Most boring job in the universe," He shook his head. "I got pretty heavy in debt before all this happened though. Credit cards maxed out to make ends meet, loans to pay off other loans, that sort of thing. As much as I hate to say it, all of this saved my ass," He cringed. "I get that's a pretty bad thing to say considering how many people have died and all, but..."
"Don't worry about it. There's nothing we can do now," Ken nodded at Harold before settling his eyes back on the road. The areas they were passing through seemed eerily calm, with the complete and utter lack of people around. Apart from abandoned cars and the occasional walker on the side of the street, they were the only living things for what was likely miles around. Driving out of the small town, they entered the countryside, and not long after that, Harold pulled off onto a dirt road leading to a small, two-story farm house behind the treeline and stopped in the gravel parking lot. "We're here," Harold announced, cutting the engine and glancing over at Ken. "Ready to meet the rest of the group, Ken?" Ken shrugged, waiting for Nathan to climb out of the truck before following him. "No time like the present."
The house was beautiful, painted white with a black shingled roof, surrounded by a white picket fence that seemed to stretch for miles on end with bright green grass and a few hedges. To Ken it appeared to be the ideal American home -- the kind one only saw in magazines or pictures of on the internet, and the idea that he would actually be able to go inside filled him with the tiniest bit of excitement.
"C'mon, let's get inside and get Ford to take a look at that leg of yours, Ken." Nathan said, clapping Ken on the shoulder and drawing him out of his silent revelry of the house's beauty. He nodded, following Nathan up the stairs to the front door and waiting as Nathan rapped his knuckles on the aluminum a few times. A moment passed in silence before they heard the distinct sound of a door lock clicking open, followed by five more in rapid succession. The door opened, and a man seemingly of Latino descent appeared in the screen of the second door. A bright grin overtook his features upon seeing the three standing there, and he flung the screen door open. "Thank God the two of you have returned at last!" He clasped hands with Nathan, then glanced over at Ken. "And who is this? A friend of yours?" His Spanish accent was thick, however his English seemed entirely flawless.
"This is Ken Wilkerson," Nathan introduced him, patting him on the shoulder. "He's one tough guy -- survived a plane crash all on his own when me n' Harry found him. He's gonna be joining our group." Oscar's eyes widened slightly, though his grin failed to falter at all. "Then allow me to be the first to welcome you as a friend. Believe me, anyone tough enough to survive a plane crash and the dead is someone I would rather have on my side than against me," He chuckled, bringing a smile to Ken's face, and the two shook hands together. "I am Oscar Guzman. A pleasure, truly. We have had difficulty finding friendly faces for quite some time." Ken nodded in response, sticking his non-axe-wielding hand in his pocket. "Yeah, I bet you have, considering how bad things seem to have gotten."
"Is Ford here, Oscar? Ken's got some wounds we have to get looked at." Harold asked, lugging their remaining supply of gasoline back up into his hands. Oscar looked down at Ken's hastily-bandaged arm, then his leg, and nodded quickly. "Of course, of course. He was in the kitchen last I saw. Follow me, Ken." With a quick gesture, Oscar disappeared back into the house, Ken following close behind him.
The inside of the house was just as quaint and lovely as the outside, Ken was happy to find out -- in fact, it appeared to be seemingly untouched by the outbreak entirely. Old family photos still hung on the walls in pristine condition, and the couches and chairs appeared to be almost new. Ken doubted that the family who owned this place were still around, unless they were part of Davis' group -- perhaps left for the shelter in Atlanta, or in worst case scenarios they were dead or gone.
As he stepped into the kitchen, Ken found himself face to face with the rest of the group. Davis he recognized immediately, considering he was sitting in a wheelchair, and the pretty Hispanic lady by the sink must have been Oscar's wife, which meant that the man sitting in a chair by the kitchen table and smoking a blunt must have been Ulysses Ford. Each met him with a friendly smile as he walked in behind Oscar, taking the chair at the table that Oscar pointed to.
"Senor Ford, we need your assistance, if you please." Ford got to his feet, exhaling smoke from his lips that reeked of marijuana before stubbing the blunt out in the ashtray in front of him. "Let's do it. This new guy the one hurt?" He asked, voice sounding as rough as sandpaper as he knelt down in front of Ken. "Yes. I was in a plane crash before Nathan and Harold found me. My arm and leg got busted up pretty bad." Ford nodded, before walking over to the kitchen counter and grabbing a large duffel bag filled with equipment. As he did so, Ken took the opportunity to study the other members of the group in detail.
Ford himself struck him as a kind older man, perhaps in his late fifties to early sixties, wearing a white polo shirt tucked into a pair of khaki slacks with a pair of brown loafers on his feet. Wrinkles creased his forehead, and his grey hair was surprisingly long for a man of his age, stretching down to his neck and tucked neatly behind his ears. His blue eyes were weathered and old, yet still sharp, though he appeared to have some form of a sight issue considering the oval-shaped glasses over his eyes. His mouth was set in a firm line as he approached with the bag filled with medical tools, though he seemed friendly enough nonetheless.
Davis himself also seemed quite kind at a glance, albeit much more warm than Ulysses Ford was. Though lines had likewise begun to crease his face, he was younger than Ford -- perhaps in his late thirties to early forties. His ear-length light brown hair was neatly-trimmed and well-maintained, the bangs of which were combed to the left side of his face. His eyes were blue and held a certain kindness to them that Ken had only ever seen in teachers who truly loved their jobs, and he seemed a fairly handsome man to him in the face. Like Ford, Davis was similarly dressed -- a white button up dress shirt tucked into a pair of black dress slacks, with black dress shoes. Surprisingly enough, Davis was incredibly muscular to be wheelchair-bound, a fact that Ken found rather curious as he watched the shirt he was wearing strain to contain his biceps.
Oscar was dressed much more simply than the older members of the group, wearing a simple white t-shirt and a pair of ragged jeans, along with tan-colored construction boots. His build was nearly as muscular as Davis's, leading Ken to believe that he most likely worked in a blue-collar job of some sort before the zombie outbreak began. He was young -- perhaps younger than Ken, even -- with neatly-trimmed, slightly spiky hair and a thin beard covering his face. His skin was light brown in color, and his brown eyes were kind and had an easy-going tint to them.
His wife Melina appeared to be even younger than he was, in perhaps her early twenties. She was a beauty to be sure, with long black hair tied into a messy bun and brown skin, bright brown eyes and an adorable smile, and was easily the shortest person in the room presently. Unlike the others she was wearing a black and white checkered flannel shirt, along with form-fitting jeans and a pair of black tennis shoes; clothes they had likely scavenged from the house considering Nathan and Harold were dressed similarly.
"Well, as far as survivin' a plane crash goes, I'd say you're the most intact victim I ever saw," Ford grunted, bringing Ken out of his silent observations. "Arm should heal in a day or two, we just gotta keep it bandaged. That leg, though... Probably one of the crudest cauterizations I ever saw." Ford poked the wound, causing Ken to wince in pain. "Yeah... Hot knife off of a stovetop. I saw my dad do it to one of his farmhands in the wilderness once, when I was a kid. It was either that or bleed to death." He replied, shaking his head as the man's screams echoed in his memory once again. "Given those two options, I'm glad ya did it. Mind ya, it's gonna be raw and hurt pretty bad for a while, and it'll leave a hell of a scar, but no worries about bleedin' to death. Let's get some real bandages on ya, maybe a pill for the pain, then ya should be good. Unless, of course, ya like weed?" He asked, and Ken thought he could hear vague hopefulness in the old man's voice. In another life, he would have laughed. A doctor more than double his age smoking marijuana? It was unthinkable. Yet here it was.
"Not since I was a trouble-making teenager, I'm afraid. Maybe I'll take you up on it sometime or other, though." Ford shrugged, getting to his feet and sticking another blunt in between his teeth. "Suit yerself." As he left to retake his chair, Ken glanced over to Davis, who had been talking with Harold, Nathan and Oscar during his examination. Davis met his eyes, and shortly afterwards a smile graced his features, before he waved the three survivors off and rolled his wheelchair forward to place himself face to face with Ken.
"Nathan and Harold were just informing me of what happened out there. It seems you played a big part in ensuring they returned safely. For that, you have my personal thanks, Mr. Wilkerson. We certainly can't afford to lose anyone we have." Ken returned the wheelchair-bound man's smile, giving a meek shrug of his shoulders. "I just did what any decent person would do. Besides, they helped me out just as much. I'd still be stuck in that neighborhood if not for them."
"Kind of you to say, but with your apparent penchant for surviving situations most people wouldn't, I'm not so sure if that would be the case," Davis replied, quirking an eyebrow in his direction. "But whatever the case may be, we're certainly glad to have you here. I'm Davis. Davis Cray," He gestured to himself. "It seems you've already gotten to know Harold and Nathan. The man who just doctored on you is Ulysses Ford," He gestured to the older man currently getting high at the table across from him, who gave a grunt of recognition. "And this is Oscar, of course." He gestured to the Hispanic man, who smiled and nodded in Ken's direction as he led his wife over by the hand. "I'd like for you to meet my lovely wife as well, Ken. This is Melina." The pretty Hispanic lady smiled and waved at him sheepishly, before quickly babbling something to her husband in Spanish. At Ken's confused expression, Oscar's smile grew a bit wider.
"You'll have to excuse her, friend. She doesn't speak English so well yet. I was teaching her, but...kind of hard to find good textbooks when the dead come back, eh? If you ever want to tell her something, just let me know and I can translate." He explained. Ken nodded, before returning Melina's smile. "Still, it's very nice to meet you, Melina." Oscar repeated the sentence in Spanish and the girl's grinned brightly at him before saying something in return. Oscar chuckled good-naturedly, glancing back to Ken. "It seems she's taken a liking to you. She's happy to meet you as well, and hopes your arm heals soon." He told him. Ken nodded, drawing on his two-word Spanish vocabulary to thank her as best he could.
"So, Ken, Nathan and Harold tell me you're bound for Atlanta to find your family. Is that right?" Davis asked. "Yeah, that's right. They own a farm outside the city limits." Ken replied, adjusting his weight in the chair to make himself more comfortable. "Well, as Nathan and Harold might have told you, we're on our way to the city ourselves. They've scavenged enough supplies to last us until then, and I'd like for you to join our group for the trip. It's not safe to travel on your own, as you've seen, and frankly, we could use the extra hands. So, what do you say?" Davis asked, extending his hands slightly as an invitation.
"No need to even ask. I've seen what's out there," Ken replied, shaking his head as the appearance of the walker he had killed along the way replayed in his mind's eye. "Besides, I owe you guys one for getting me out of that neighborhood. I'll help out as best I can." Davis smiled brightly, resting his hands on the armrests of his wheelchair. "Wonderful. Harold tells me we have enough supplies to last us the rest of the way, as I said, so we should begin moving out as soon as possible. Would you care for a change of clothes first, though? You seem as though you could use it, and the dressers upstairs have a few shirts left." He offered, taking in the bloody, dirty and torn appearance of Ken's clothing. Ken glanced down at himself, wrinkling his nose a bit at his appearance before carefully getting to his feet. "I think I will. Thanks." Davis nodded as he turned to walk out of the room. "Meet us outside when you're ready. Try to make it quick, though. This place isn't particularly defensible -- it just suited our needs for the time being."
After a quick change of clothes, Ken stepped outside wearing a red and black flannel shirt and a pair of jeans, pulling at the collar a little in discomfort. While not exactly a bad fit, it was made for a man a shirt-size smaller than he was, so it hugged his form slightly uncomfortably. The people who had owned this house must have enjoyed flannel greatly, considering it was almost entirely what was available for him to use. Still, it was worth not being covered in dirt and grime to wear something a bit more unusual and less comfortable than his normal wardrobe.
Davis was waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs, while the others busied themselves with loading what few personal effects they had into the back of the moving van in the background. Tugging at the shirt collar once again, Ken descended the stairs to meet him,. "That's a little better, at least." Davis smiled at his remark, then gestured towards the van. "I know it probably sounds like a bad idea to you, but most of us are going to have to ride in the back of the truck with the supplies. I just thought I would take the time to tell you that it can be a bumpy ride. Harold can drive very well, but," He chuckled. "Let's just say he enjoys going a little too fast for my taste." Ken laughed lightly as well, reaching into his shirt pocket for his pack of cigarettes and his lighter before sticking one between his teeth and lighting it up. It was an awful habit to maintain, he knew that much, but with the dead rising from their graves, somehow lung cancer didn't exactly seem like that much of a tangible threat anymore.
"So how did you end up leading these guys, Davis? You just happen across them, or something?" Exhaling smoke, Ken decided to finally ask the question he had been waiting for. The wheelchair-bound man shrugged in response, a frown gracing his features. "It just sort of ended up that way, as best I can tell. My wife and I ended up stuck in traffic on our way out of Savannah. When the dead came out of nowhere and began attacking everyone in sight, we tried to flee as best we could, but as you can tell with my...condition, that was a challenge," His expression took on a more somber tone as he stared off into the distance at nothing in particular. "My wife was so preoccupied with attempting to get me into the chair, she forgot to mind her own safety, and one of them..." Ken frowned, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder as he trailed off. "Hey, if you don't feel like you should --"
"No. Thank you for being concerned, but...I consider it quite unhealthy to dwell upon sad memories. The good memories of my wife far outweigh the bad," Davis responded, waving him off gently. "Oscar and Melina happened to be close by, and they killed the walker attacking my wife. We tried to save her, but...it was too late. We stuck together and ran out on foot, and joined up with Nathan in the process. We didn't find Harold until much later on trapped in a grocery store, and Ulysses Ford soon after that, hiding out in his clinic when we went there for medical supplies. As for why they consider me their leader..." He shrugged again. "I suppose I was able to at least stay relatively level-headed. I managed to keep everyone calm and focused on the task at hand, and I believe they respected me for it."
"Police officer?" Ken asked, an eyebrow quirked in curiosity. Davis smiled up at him, folding his hands in front of him on the armrests of the wheelchair. "Teacher, actually. Nothing nearly so exciting." He replied. "You too? I used to teach at Boston University before the outbreak." Ken told him, both eyebrows raised in surprise at the revelation. The two stared at each other for a moment before sharing a laugh, finding that they had quite a bit of common ground between them in regards to their profession. "I was a high school teacher, myself, but yes. It wasn't really my first choice for a job, though." Davis paused, shooting Ken a confused look. "I'm surprised you haven't asked about the chair yet, though." Ken's eyes widened, and were it not for the cigarette in his mouth, his jaw would have dropped. Had he given any indication that he was blatantly curious about it? He didn't think so, but he could have been wrong.
"I-I'd never... I mean... Ya know. Mom always said it wasn't polite to stare at anyone with...disabilities." He sputtered out quickly, feeling his cheeks flush gently from embarrassment. Davis merely gave a loud laugh at his reaction, a laughing fit that lasted all of about ten seconds. "Gets them every time..." He chuckled a few more times before finally calming himself and centering his attention back on the others. "I was a firefighter before, you see. One pulled my mother and I out of a car wreck when I was a boy, and it made such an impression on me... I wanted to be like that. Do what he did for my family for other people. When I grew up, I got my chance, but it wasn't a lasting thing," He shook his head. "About a year after I joined the local crew, I went into a burning building with my partner to pull a family's daughter out. We succeeded, but...a beam fell on me and broke my spine. Paralyzed me from the waist down. I've been this way since I was in my twenties. Still, I've certainly made the best of it. I took up a job teaching, and my life has continued on just as it always has." Ken smiled at him, taking one final drag off of his cigarette before tossing the remaining bit away.
He found it a hard thing to wrap his head around, but at the very least Davis seemed to not let his disability get him down. The fact that he was keeping these people together despite all that he had lost in the zombie apocalypse in particular was remarkable, and he could see why the others looked up to Davis in that regard. He was charming and quite charismatic, but even so, Ken worried for his safety. The wheelchair put him at quite a disadvantage when it came to fighting walkers, to say nothing of carrying out other duties.
"At least you're keeping a positive attitude. I'm not so sure I would be doing the same in your position." Davis smiled up at him again. "Oh, it's a real challenge. Some days are better than others. But even so, my life hasn't ended just because of the chair. Believe me when I say I plan on living as long as I possibly can." He replied.
"Davis!" Harold's voice caught both of their respective attentions, and they turned to look at him almost in unison. The Asian man gestured to the moving van, the engine of which was now running and ready to go. "We're ready whenever you are." Davis nodded in response, setting his hands on the wheels of his chair. "Good. Let's not waste any time, then. Would you mind helping me into the back of the truck, Ken?" Ken nodded, grabbing the handles of the chair and wheeling the man around to the back of the van. With a little extra help from Oscar, the two were able to easily lift him into the back, and in short order everyone was accounted for and safely contained within the back of the truck with the supplies they had gathered while Harold and Nathan rode in the front.
"Get comfortable, everyone. Atlanta is a long drive from here." Davis announced just as the truck began to move with a low rumble of its engine. Ken sat down on a box full of what he assumed was canned food judging by the clinking, tinny sound the action made. "Oye, Ken," Oscar spoke up suddenly, and Ken looked up just as the Hispanic man sat down on the box across from him, digging into his pants pocket before pulling out a small box. "You play cards? It's a great way to pass the time now, since the dead kind of knocked out the television." He questioned, holding up the pack of old Bicycle playing cards with a bright smile, which Ken returned. "I used to be pretty damn good at poker back when me and a few of the other professors would get together in the lounge after hours for game night," He reached into his pocket, retrieving another Morley from the half-empty red and white pack contained within his breast pocket and lighting it. "I say bring it on."
"That, my friend, sounds like a challenge," There was a competitive gleam in Oscar's eye before he busied himself stacking up several boxes between their sitting area to act as a makeshift table of sorts. As he was tearing open the package of playing cards, Davis rolled over to their table, giving them both a smirk. "Surely you weren't planning on playing cards without me?" He asked, looking between the two, who both smiled back at him. "Ah, wouldn't dream of it, Davis." Melina sat down next to Oscar, hugging in close as he dealt out the cards.
The ride to Atlanta was, as expected, long and bumpy, but the group still managed to make the best of it despite the less-than-ideal, cramped riding quarters. Eventually the moving van slowed to a halt, however, and the rear door of the vehicle flung itself open not long afterwards to reveal Nathan standing there in the afternoon sunlight. "Is something the matter, Nathan?" Davis asked, tossing his cards down on the box in front of them. The salesman's face was grim, and it was obvious that something had affected him visibly. "You guys...you should come take a look at this." He told them quietly, before walking off to the side. Ken exchanged worried glances with the rest of the group in the back of the van, before taking the lead and hopping out of the back. His boots thumped against the pavement of the highway as he landed, and he walked around the side of the van to find Harold and Nathan standing in front of the vehicle, staring off at something in the distance. "What is it? Is something..." Ken trailed off as his eyes finally fell upon what Nathan had been talking about.
"Holy shit..."