6. A Fateful Encounter.

Leon's new cloak is surprisingly effective. Although there does have to be shadows for him to hide in, he's now able to stay mostly hidden while traveling the zombie filled streets.

Unfortunately, his cloak only applies to himself. So even while traveling, spike still gets noticed.

Later that night he finally makes it back to his apartment to see Alexis asleep on the couch. From the time he first saved her Leon hasn't been able to get very many details about her situation.

Leon walks inside and sets his backpack down next to the door. It was a rough day. First the slaughter of the survivor group, then that grotesque tentacled abomination.

He flops down on his bed and spike jumps up as well and they fall asleep.

The sun is peaking through the window in Leon's room. He wakes up and walks to the kitchen to make some coffee on his little camp stove. It's been about 3 weeks since the apocalypse started.

Hes been living pretty well these few weeks. It's kind of hard to imagine the military having so much trouble with these zombies but then again he got lucky when he got spike so early on.

It's crazy to think about all the things that have changed. It's like life has turned into a super dangerous video game.

Alexis wakes up just as Leon finishes making his coffee.

She walks over to Leon with a curious look and sticks her tiny hands out towards his cup.

"You want my coffee?" Leon questions the little girl.

Alexis nods her head up and down. "kids usually don't like coffee." Leon thinks to himself. But it's not like it's going to hurt to give her a little. He gets a tiny cup out of the cabinet and pours a little of his coffee in it.

He doesn't put anything in his so it's just normal black coffee. Alexis happily takes the cup and sits on the opposite side of the table from Leon.

Leon warns her it might be too hot. She takes a sip every once in a while. He just looks at her and can't help but think how calm and mature she is during the end of the world.

She hasn't cried or acted out in any way. She just stays in the apartment and keeps herself busy by drawing or playing around.

Before he met Alexis, Leon thought that raising a kid was very difficult but maybe he was wrong. Or maybe Alexis is just a special case.

After they both finish their coffee, Leon starts getting ready to go out hunting again. Over the past few days the streets have become more dangerous. Almost like more and more zombies are making their way to this part of the city.

As he's pulling on his boots Alexis walks over with her little backpack on. Leon found a little pink backpack in a store on one of his trips out and brought it back for her so she had something to put her stuff in.

"Alex? What are you doing?"

"I'm going too." She says matter of factly.

Leon was about to refuse but the more he thought about it the more he thought that maybe it wasn't that bad of an idea.

Shes been cooped up in this room for such a long time. Plus it's not that dangerous with him and spike killing the zombies before they can even react most of the time.

"Hmm, okay fine. But you have to stay close to me and not wander off okay?"

"Okay~." She says excitedly.

Once Leon has all his stuff together he takes Alexis' hand as they make their way outside.

Several minutes later, a large wolf made of bone impales a pair of zombies and smashes them up against a brick wall killing them instantly. Two marble sized cores fall to the ground next to their bodies.

A dark shadow moves swiftly through the darkness and a little tiny arm reaches out and quickly picks up the two cores and vanishes into the darkness once again.

Its none other that Leon and Alexis. Spike is also there running down the middle of the street destroying any zombies that come close. Leon is running through the shadows next to the large buildings. The cloak is big enough that Alexis is also able to hide inside as they travel across the city.

After turning past the corner of the building next to them, they see a truck parked outside of a house. Normally this isn't a cause for concern. The thing that catches Leon's eye is that the truck looks well taken care of and there is also some pretty valuable stuff just sitting in the back of the truck.

Leon figures it must be more survivors that are driving around for supplies. As he turns to go in the opposite direction he hears a scream and 3 gunshots ring out in quick succession. When he looks over at the building again he sees in the window on the second floor there's two people in the room.

One is holding a pistol and pointing it at something Leon can't see, and the other person is hiding behind the one with the gun.

Leon picks up Alexis as he charges over to the building and runs inside. Spike is right on his heels.

When he makes it to the stairs leading up to the room the people are in, he starts listening.

"Stay back! We're not going anywhere with you bastards!" A male voice yells out.

BANG! BANG!

Two shots fly through the floor just above Leon's head.

"Drop the gun and we'll make sure to take good care of you two hehe."

"Especially the girl..."

Leon hears the two guys move closer to the guy with the gun. He immediately commands spike to attack.

He charges up the stair almost in a single bound and slams into one of the guys with his spike covered body. They both fall to the ground with spike on top and the thug struggling for his life.

Leon runs up the stairs right after spike and releases six shots of his nail gun. The first few hit the second thug in his leg as they trail up his torso and the last nail hits him square in the forehead.

Soon both of the thugs are dead. The two survivors haven't moved from there initial spot and the guy is now pointing his gun towards Leon.

"Who are you! Stay the fuck back!"

"It's okay, I had business with these guys so you don't have to worry." Leon says with his left hand held up in the air in a surrender pose. He's carrying Alexis with his right arm.

The guy and girl pair look at Leon and the little girl in his arms before looking over to the bloody skeleton wolf with a look of fear.

"That dog is an artifact isn't it?" The girl says while peaking from behind the guy.

"Yeah, his name is spike." Leon says.

"Sigh." The guy takes a deep breathe and lowers his gun.

"So what did these guys want exactly?" asks Leon.

"They were after Julie. Who knows what kind of disgusting things were going on in their heads." The guy explains.

"I see."

"What did you mean when you said that you have business with them?" he asks Leon.

Leon thinks for a moment before saying "Let's just say that I had a run in with these guys before and we don't get along very well."

The guy steps forward and offers his hand. "I'm Ben. This is Julie." He says while pointing his thumb behind him towards the girl.

Leon shakes his hand as everyone is able to calm down a bit now. He puts Alexis down and she goes over to get the two dead guys cores. It's kind of a habit she picked up after the few hours they were traveling.

"I'm Leon, and this little angel is Alexis."

They both look over at the little girl searching the corpses with a complicated expression.

"Anyways, its getting dark so we should find somewhere to stay for the night." Leon suggests.

The group finds another house a few blocks down the road that looks relatively untouched. Leon breaks inside through a window and unlocks the door for the others. They all sit down in the biggest room in the house, the living room.

"So why were you guys out in the first place?" Leon asks.

"We are part of a larger group and we make trips out for supplies every once in a while. This time was the first that we ran into those thugs." Ben explains.

Even though they told Leon they are part of a larger group, they were being cautious by not saying where they are located. Leon was the same and never said anything about where his base was.

They chatted a bit more until it got really dark outside and called it a night. Leon went to the corner of the living room and sat down with spike laying next to him.

He wasn't able to fall asleep but with two strangers nearby he didn't want to let his guard down anyways. He closed his eyes and rested but never drifted off.

Julie took the couch and Ben slept on the floor next to the couch and they passed out almost instantly.

Alexis ended up sleeping next to Leon with her head on his lap.