A Helping Hand

Driving the camper Jason tried his best to navigate side streets, and less used main streets in order to keep the damage to his vehicle in check. However no matter how hard he tried he just couldn't seem to avoid hitting a few zombies, though fortunately no big damage was caused, other than a few small dents and some big scratches on the front bumper. Jason was starting to feel quite worried about his brother, as even through the whole haphazardous driving session, Mark was still sound asleep. Jason wanted to pull over and wait for his brother to wake up but his reasoning stopped him. Thinking to himself that the system had promised, Jason floored the gas in an attempt to pull his focus back to getting Kyle. The manouver worked but before Jason could regain complete control he narrowly scraped by a large truck to his left, losing the side mirror in the process. Instantly regretting his actions he felt he should have tried something safer. Absorbed by his thoughts and worries he almost crashed into an abanded car in the gaming centers parking lot. Hopping out of his van he kept his head down by instinct and examined the small vomit green car in front of him. Although he had only seen Kyles car twice before he was certain this was it, he could hardly forget his surprise when he first saw this terrible car with its disgusting vomit like color. Looking around for zombies, it seemed clear, almost suspiciously clear. Taking a deep breath Jason ran towards the main entrance in a crouch opening the door as quietly as he could. It was pretty quiet in the center aside from the sound of three zombies mauling on a mangled human corpse. With a grim look on his face he took his shadow sword out snuck a bit closer to the zombies and finally when he was about two meters away he sprinted to the nearest zombie, and swung. To his immediate horror, other than an ordinary beam of light, nothing happened. Almost instantly he realized, it was his flashlight.

He kicked the zombie away and in one smooth motion pulled out his pistol and shot it in the head. Swiftly turning to face the other two zombies he shot one in the head, but before he could take aim again he felt a wet hand latching around his ankle. Yanking hi foot away he realized that the hand belonged to the mangled corpse the zombies had been eating. It was completely unrecognizable, with its face almost comletely gone, exposing the white skull underneath. The only reason it still hadnt managed to bite Jason was due to the fact that its limp lower half was still attached to its upper chest and shoulders by a spine with numerous bite marks. Thanking the god of luck for his grace, Jason shot the crawling corpse right through its bony white forehead. Stepping to the side he once more turned to face the last zombie, unfortunately for him though he had underestimated the undeads speed as it was already right in front of him. Before Jason could react the zombie had pushed him to the ground in an attempt to feast on his flesh. Losing his pistol in the process all Jason could do was to put up his hands to hold the zombie at bay as he swiftly looked around for his gun. Seeing that the pistol was way out of reach, he began fearing for his life, when suddenly a young lady probably no older than 15 or 16 ran from the direction of the bathroom and attacked the zombie with a sharpened wooden broom handle.

Sticking the makeshift spear through the zombies head she pushed it away, and without lowering the spear she asked Jason "Are you okay? Did you get bit?". Panting Jason slowly stood up, seeing that the girl was preparing to stab him, he hurriedly put his hands up and told her he was fine. Lowering the spear the girl asked him what the situation was like outside, as she had been locked in the bathroom since before the Blackout. Explaining the current situation to her he added that it was only going to get even worse. Before she could say anything else Jason described Kyle to her and asked whether she had seen him at the center. The girl nodded and brought him to the computer Kyle had been using. Things looked pretty grim there as there was a whole lot of blood and 2 halves of different fingers. Both of the fingers had obviously had the front bitten of but the rest had most likely been cut of to stop infection. One of the fingers was also wearing a medium sized metal ring with an eye engraved onto it. There was almost no doubt that both of these fingers had belonged to Kyle. Slamming the table, Jason took Kyle's ring looked at the mangled zombie he had killed earlier feeling sadness boiling over inside, but before he could stop to mourn he heard 3 simultaneous loud howls coming from 2 or 3 blocks away. Flinching, Jason froze for a few seconds thinking that he must have misheard. Shaking him, the girl had a worried look on her face, as she begged him to take her with him. Snapping back to reality Jason readily agreed, as he could not possibly leave the poor girl all alone in this infested neighbourhood. Jason told her his name and asked her to follow him closely, to which the girl replied with a shaky voice "Im Lucy. Do you need to find anyone? Could you please help me find my older sister? Our parents died 4 years ago, so I just need to find her. Please". Without answering her, Jason walked to the entrance, opening the door quietly he looked around. Still seeing no zombies or movement of any kind he sprinted to the car, opening the back door for Lucy he waited for her to get in before closing the door and getting in the driver's seat himself. Mark had woken up while he was inside the center, and fortunately had not left the car. Bombarded by questions from Mark, Jason gave him a brief summary of things. Having finished explaining Jason was ready to get back on the road when Lucy asked with a pitiful expression whether they could look for her sister. Trying to maintain a sympathetic expression Jason looked Lucy in the eyes and said "I'm sorry honey but she's not likely to be alive. I don't think we can risk it...". Mark interrupted him with a cold look and said "Are you serious? Are you really telling the poor girl that we can't even look for her sister?". Jason was ready to argue but seeing the look in his brothers eyes he just sighed keeping his thoughts to himself, and said "Fine, lets give it a try. But be prepared for anything". Still hanging onto a lot of ttoubling thoughts, Jason drove the car out of the parking lot and begun following Lucy's directions to the sister's home.