VAGABOND

As the hunger and pain starts to settle in, everything becomes ablur. Zachary tries to move crawl using what little energy he has, he feels that he is gaining distance. In reality he hasn't even moved a bit, only in his head that he has imagined how far he has went. The tips of his fingers starts to roughen up and wounded so did his chin. He tries his best to get up but his arms and legs seems to be unresponsive. All he can do now is look at the outline of the town, he raised his arm as if he can catch it. He stopped reaching and dropped his hand and head on the coarse road as the cold dessert breeze carried sand into his eyes. He moved his arm to cover his face, and sleeps.

He barely slept in that cold as the pain was too much and the wind howled as if death is behind him. He slowly opened his eyes as the sand and the blinding sun makes it harder for him to see. He slowly got up with the energy that accumulated during his sleep, the sand stuck to his skin and he starts to sweat. 'Water' He thought to himself, he pulled the dirt bike up with his all and it stood up. He gets on it but the soreness of his thigh makes it hard, with few attempts he finally got on top of it. He looked at the key and it is still intact, he turned the key and the ignition started. He started to drive.

With his boy barely keeping up at what he is trying to do everything seems much harder. He remembers the map that Kane showed him and remembers the unincorporated community of Childs, the silhouette that he thought was the town of Ajo. As he drives on forward, the four men that he met yesterday was trailing near him. They slid down on the little hill and told what they saw.

"Well, where'd he go?"

"Childs, a hundred percent"

"You sure?"

"Yep, he cannot risk it to go to Ajo, either way there is nothing for him there but a bunch of corpses"

"Let's go back, we also need to find the first Vagabond"

"The man with the bite?"

"Yeah"

"How do we know that he hasn't turned yet?"

"Don't know"

They all got into their cars and left back to Tacna.

Zachary arrives at the small community just as soon as the dirt bike became completely useless. He dropped the bike and started to walk towards the small houses as he needs shed. He looks at the sun and can clearly tell its high noon, without water everything will be hard. He pulled the window up and quickly got in head first, he landed on a few shards of glass but not enough to be worried about. He put his palms on the ground and got up, some of the shards dug deep into his palm. He scoured the whole house only to find beer which will only make him need water even more, still he kept it. He moved on to the next house to find nothing, he finished all houses that are still intact and only found wire gauze and the beer.

He starts to get angry and threw the bottle down to the ground. A person stood in front of him carrying planks of wood from the destroyed houses. 'Help, finally' He thought, he then walked towards the person only to be knocked out.

"Why did you do that?"

"He might have attacked you"

"No-"

"He broke the bottle"

"He might be thirsty"

Two voices that seemed to sound the same are arguing about him. He then starts to feel as if he is being drowned, we woke up and spew the water that was being forced to him. He panted heavily, he then sees that bottle of water, grabbed it, then chugged it down completely. Zachary then asked for more and so they gave him, two more bottles and he inhaled it. He then asked for food and they gave him a sandwich, he ate the food slowly this time. He looked around to see that they are in a little tent made out of tarpaulin.

"Are you okay?"

"No, I almost died.. so yeah I am"

The two looked at each other, confused as to where this conversation will lead to.

"Thank you.... for this.... I appreciate it"

"No problem"

"If you need more you can ask us"

"Yeah.... your names?"

"We don't have one"

"What? What kind of pe- shit"

He finally gets to see the two kids properly and they are wearing the same lab coat that Natalia had when he first met her. A boy and a girl with scars that ran throughout their body, they look younger than him about 4 years or lower. But not too young to be stupid. Despite it being a long time ago he can still remember it. He then asked for their code to which they replied.

"I'm N-02, and she is O-32"

"Where did you come from?"

They then explained how they ended up in the small community. Like Natalia they were also being helped by SPECTRE, but theirs were attacked by a much more terrifying staring of the virus. They described a man with massive proportions and would spew their own blood as if they are sneezing but the distance is greater. They also encountered turned Coyotes that would chase them down, this circumstances led to the complete downfall of the southern subgroup of SPECTRE which was based in El Paso.

"Well, I will give you guys some names, so that I get to remember you two"

"Sure"

"You with the N, Nevada, and you with the O.."

Zachary looked everywhere to come up with a name and he sees a post card of Florida.

"Orlando, yeah.. is it good?"

"Yeah"

"Thank you"

The two smiled and started to call each other by their names. Still feeling a bit of exhaustion Zachary fainted. The kids tried to wake him up but he stopped them.

"I'm okay, just... tired"

The two kids nodded and they also slept near him, the cold night once more came and something sinister steps outside of their tent.