FATHER AND SON

After clearing out the first house he did not find anything of use, just more pent up anger and annoyance. He follows gets into more houses and nothing, all there is are rotting houses and corpses, the stink of putrefaction. He follows the houses until he comes by a church. The rotting wood made the church much more creepier, the small bell tower on top has fallen on the ground, the bronze has started to 'rust' away. The pieces are falling apart, he walks up to the front door of the church and looks into the door.

He grabs the doorknob and forcefully opens it, and it broke off. The door easily opened when he pushed it open. He gets in and the closes seems to not close, he ignored it and walked in. He sat down pew and laid on it, he allowed his drowsiness to take over and rested. He faced the east as he rest so that when the sun rises, it will wake him up.

"Well, so much for the end of the world, only if you can save us"

A familiar voice spoke near Craig, he opened his eyes and he cannot see the man as the light shines brighter, he can only make out a silhouette. The man seems to be praying to something, or rather someone. Craig sat up straight but the bright light still blinds him. He stood up and walked towards the window and closes it. The man is still sitting there perfectly still, as if he does not want to get off the sit. Craig leans over to see the man's face but he cannot make it out unless he steps closer. As he get closer to the man, he turned to the opposite and said 'so much for a church'. Craig also looked over to where the man was staring at.

He walked past the man and continued to walk over to the direction of his sight. He gets near to the man and stares at him but the man kept moving away from his sight. The man does not want Craig to look at him, or rather talk.

"okay.. guess I'll leave you that"

He continued past the man and he sees what he was looking at, a corpse, the priests holding a rifle up to his mouth. His cranium blew open, Craig grabbed the gun and the arms fell off. He checked if it has ammunition, and it has only one magazine. He turns towards the left of the corpse and there seems to be more corpses, nuns who were obviously shot dead, presumably by the same man.

"So much for a holy place... damn"

"Indeed, goodbye kid... see you when I see you"

Craig heard that familiar phrase from Harry, but the voice was not his but instead his father's. He turned around to see the man gun, he looked around to see that it was empty. As he was about to take one step, the priest jumped on him and try to eat him. He screamed and screamed but it only awaken the nuns, he woke up and he is drenched in sweat. He was lying down with the same position as the priest had.

He was back at the same church but it was destroyed unlike his dream. He instead continued to sleep, his body is too drained of energy to move again. He just laid there but he cannot catch some sleep because of the sheer cold, with his extreme exhaustion earlier, it was powerful enough to knock him out to sleep. He just laid down there in place, he keeps closing his eyes over sometime thinking it was the fatigue seeping in. After 5 hours he has given up on trying to rest and decides to move ahead on his way back home.

His neck seems to have stiffened a bit and it caused some nuisance, but he kept pushing and did not bother him as much. He grabbed the rifle and tear off both sleeves of the priest's cassock and tied it on the rifle as a strap. He put it behind him and he starts to march on forward. He got out of the decaying church and noticed the snow on his feet with tracks, horse tracks, about 3 horses has passed through the town without him noticing. The howling and screaming of the wind as the hours passed must have deafen him from these sounds.

Instead of following the snow tracks he went the opposite as the tracks were heading to where he was earlier. He starts to walk in the deep snow that has increased up to half his shin. He treaded the difficult the path and it quickly drains him of energy, his steps has gotten heavier because of the snow.

Dylan has ordered some of his men to look for Craig as his disappearance has already reached the town. The horse tracks earlier were proof of their expedition on finding him, but he obviously did not know. His footsteps disappeared in the snow making it hard to detect, half of the men made their way to Washington and they cannot find him, half if the group found his car and made their way back.

"He must have been in the town earlier, we need to search the houses"

"Sir can we risk it? The horses, their mouths are freezing"

"We go there and set a fire for them okay?"

"...."

"Let's go"

The men rode back to the town and they first searched for an empty house that they can use as a pseudo-stable for the horses. They found the biggest house and a part of the wall has been destroyed, the hole is enough to fit a horse through. They found a barrel among the snow and used it as a fire pit, they put pieces of wood in the barrel and used rum as a lighter fluid. The room was filled with the bold smell of the rum but it quickly dissipated. The cold pieces of wood they found took a while to burn.

"Do you think this two will be fine?"

"Its a little sleep, don't worry"

Bryce and Zach took out 2 of the men and has pretended to be men.

"Well, anything from Toby?"

"yeah, he's on his way here"

"...."

"Glad to know you took his 'revival' well"

"Yeah, I was confused but.. glad you know, he is alive and well"

"Yeah, I'm guessing she really is immune"

"Rodrick, how did he take it"

Rodrick gets in with them.

"Not that great... here.. You kids smoke?"

"No"

"I do"

"Here"

Rodrick finished being checked and steps around the helicopter, they gave him his things and he holds it firmly, only to drop it on the sight of Tobias who seems to be pretty well. Zachary has taken the 'news' pretty well, but Rodrick did not. Tobias noticed him and the 2 walked towards each other. Rodrick swung towards Tobias and it was strong enough to knock him down on his back, his men just stood beside on his order.

"C'mere"

Rodrick offered his hand and pulled Tobias towards him to give a hug. The family that he has after his late brother and sister-in-law. Tobias fully gave himself up to his pent up grief and he starts to burst in tears, 5 years has passed but it was not enough to rid him of his mourning. Earlier before Rodrick's arrival to West Alexander he and Tobias went to Washington to pay his respect to his late brother-in-law.

"Well, I guess I never got to say a proper goodbye to you huh? Fuck..."

"....."

He gave his gratitude and fond, late farewell to Harry. Both men fell in tears but Rodrick pushed himself back quickly.

"Well, where will I meet with the 2?"

"There's a census-designated town not too far from here, just follow the 70th interstate, you'll get by it.... go before the blizzard hits"

"Yeah"

"And leave the horse... I'll take it back"

"You sure this Craig will agree?"

"Yeah, his father and I were great friends"

"Were?"

Tobias pointed to Randall's grave.

"Hmm, fair enough, see you when I see you"

"Right back at ya"

Rodrick left on foot and finds the town.

"Well, I saw Craig earlier, he didn't find me... I guess the corpses worked a treat.. although I fucking stink now"

"Good, we pin him and get an answer, we need to go to the main city to take over the whole community"

"This will be hard"

"Yep"