10

You take the exit as Jaime instructs and pull onto the town's main road, passing a parked teal minivan as you do. Before you is a small town that more closely resembles a shopping center for a suburban neighborhood. The main street divides the town, with an elongated strip mall on either side. At the far end of the town, the main road splits into a T, and several more buildings stand tall across it. Jaime points to the largest building in town—a chain grocery store sitting on the far end of the main road, on the other side of the intersection. A fallen street lamp blocks the road in front of you. Beyond it, numerous corpses lie strewn about.

"We probably won't get around that street lamp," Jaime says. "Let's park and walk over there on foot. We might have time for two trips there and back if we go fast.

Instinctively, you pull over to the right hand curb and parallel park.

"I mean, we could have just gotten out in the middle of the road, but this works fine," Jaime says.

You grab your scavenging supplies and hop out.

Jaime looks over at you. "Those bodies in the road ahead look dead. I think we can head straight to the grocery store."

You nod at the suggestion and start forward. Surveying the scene, something in your gut feels off. There's no crash by the fallen light pole that would suggest a reason as to why it fell, and the bodies strewn out in the middle of the road when no cars are present seems just a little out of place.

Ignoring the strangeness of the scene, you continue onward.

Jaime catches up to you. "I don't like the look of this," he whispers. "I think we should find another way around. Some of these corpses look pretty fresh." He grabs your arm and starts to pull you off to the sidewalk on the right.

Before you even reach the curb, three sounds ring out. You hear a metallic clang, like a frozen pea hitting a pan at terminal velocity. The next noise, a split second later, sounds like a tree branch snapping in two and ripples like thunder. You swivel your head and listen intently. Could that have been a gunshot?

A deep, booming echo follows an instant after.

"We have to get off the street," you say.

Jaime nods and points to one of the strip mall stores, a hunting shop called Colorado Camping, on the right side of the street. You make a break for it. Twisting the handle, the door swings open.

"Let's calm down and figure a way out of this," Jaime says. "Let's think this through."

The click of a pump-action shotgun silences the room. "You best quit your thinkin' and start talkin'," says a new voice, a deep baritone with a slight Southern accent. His tone leaves no doubt that he means business. "Now, y'all best turn around and let me see those hands, nice and easy, now."

You do as the man asks, turning slowly.

When you turn, you find yourself staring down the barrel of a Remington 870 shotgun, locked and loaded. At the opposite end of the gun is a pale-skinned man in his late thirties or early forties with a red-and-green baseball cap that displays a logo of an elk. A worn leather ranger jacket rests atop a forest-camouflage sleeveless t-shirt. Full length camo pants and hiking boots complete the outfit. His square jaw is clenched, dotted in the white whiskers of a five o'clock shadow, and his blue eyes stare at you with a hardened, merciless glare. This man is a survivor.

What's even more surprising than the gun in your face is what's behind him, a family. Standing in front of the others, with his arms outspread to protect them, is a man about the same age as the one behind the gun. He's a bit more pale. What's left of his balding hair is a mixture of brown and gray, with the brown matching his eyes, which reside behind large round-framed glasses. He's devoid of any facial hair, as if he's unable to grow it, and his white dress shirt is disheveled and stained. He looks like the kind of string bean that would get the lead in a drama film set during the dust bowl.

Behind him stands a woman with light brown skin and wavy hair tied back. She holds in her arms two children, a brown-haired girl around the age of ten, and a similarly-aged child with pitch-black hair.

"Don't look at them, look at me," the man with the gun demands. "You look at them one more time, I'll pull the trigger, starting with the one in front of me." He nudges the barrel of the gun towards you.

"We're sorry," Jaime says. "We didn't know anybody was in here. There's a sniper—"

"Shut it, beefcake," the armed man says with a sharp snap to his voice. "I wanna hear from the doc." He looks at you expectantly. You have no doubt that a wrong move could end in death.

In lightning fast motion, you sweep the barrel of the man's shotgun off to the side with your right arm. He fires, and though the shot is deafening in this confined space, it misses you completely. You sweep at his legs with your own. He staggers backwards, not brought to the ground by your blow, but faltering enough to give you the upper hand. He drops the shotgun, which slides across the tiled floor, disappearing under a toppled shelf.

"What do you want from us?" The man who had the gun asks.

You smile. You were made for this apocalypse.

The man looks at you, eyes flared with scorn, but his anger and determination shifts to fear. "Don't do this," he says, gesturing towards the family. "Please, there are kids here."

Behind you, Jaime speaks up. "Luth, you don't want to do this."

The woman shields the kids behind her, body shaking. The brown-haired child whimpers and buries her head against the woman. The other child stares at you with a boiling anger.

Jaime looks at you with utter disbelief. "I know you. You don't want to do this."

Before you, the woman and the men plead for their lives. The two children huddle in the woman's arms, scared, unknowing what is about to transpire.

You drag the man in glasses out from the line.

"Please don't kill me," he begs.

The woman screams in horror and shields the children's eyes.

Jaime steps in front of you. "I won't let you do this."

"Get out of the way," you say, adding a growl to your voice.

"Why are you doing this?" Jaime shouts, spittle flying from his mouth. "I just can't understand why you need to kill them. Don't make me put you down like Dillan.}

Jaime's eyes go wide. "You can't believe that. We can't turn against everyone we meet."

You eye Jaime, who's unwilling to move, and his large body makes attacking the strangers impossible.

"Let them go," he says, and then turns to the strangers. "All of you, go. Head out the shop." Jaime waves the group away, while he stands with one arm out to hold you back.

The strangers scramble out of the front of the store without hesitation, all while Jaime blocks line of sight for you. Gunshots go off, but as far as you can tell through the window, none of them are hit as they flee the scene.

"Okay, it's over. No one had to die."

You scoff. "We'll talk about this later. We still have a sniper to deal with."

Searching the hunting store may be a great option, since you came here for gear. To deal with the sniper, you could devise a plan to locate them, or you could work out a plan to escape.

With your options laid out, you decide to…

You find Jaime sitting by the front door, cleaning his gun. When he sees you standing over him, he looks up. "What's the plan?"

"If we want to search this area, especially the pharmacy, we need to stop that sniper. We need to locate their position, so we can devise a plan for dealing with them."

"This will be dangerous," Jaime says. "We could easily be shot and killed before we even catch sight of them. Are you sure you want to do this?"

"I'm sure," you say. "We need this to work or this whole trip was a waste."

"Alright. Let's do this." Jaime stands and brushes the dust off his pants.

"So, how are we going to make sure we don't get shot down the moment we leave this building?" Jaime asks.