When the Sun Fell

Chapter 18 - Strange encounters

Joel

A searchlight from the heli illuminated the building for the time being as a new situation folded out in front of me and my companions. The propellers began to slow down and the wind started to soften a bit, which I was thankful for because having dust blown in my eyes was not the most comfortable thing.

The side of the chopper slid open slowly, revealing a small group of three passengers. A man stepped out onto the ground, ducking his head even though from what I could see, the blades were safely a foot above his head of messy, brown hair. He looked up at us with a smile, which caught me off guard. Grace almost dropped the gun she held in front of her.

"Survivors. Hey. My name's Michael." He said, turning to look each one of us in the eye. He met mine first, and a look of shock flashed momentarily over their ice-like surface. They were an electric blue, almost startling in colour. He seemed completely unfazed by the guns we held aimed at his forehead. This shocked me and I stood on the roof, paralyzed. He walked up to me, pushed my hand that held the gun down, and shook the other, pushing my over-grown bangs out of my face. I stared straight ahead; this type of human interaction seemed alien to me and so far I didn't like it. I shivered and slank away when he tried to reach for my cheek. This was not going to be good.

"It's rare to see someone so pretty now-a-days," he said. "Come with me. We can go back to Sanctuary and preserve this beauty." At this point, I was seriously getting freaked out, and was in the process of reaching for the knife in my pocket when suddenly Mason stepped forwards and spoke.

"Leave her alone." He said, his voice not the least bit shaky. I heard his gun click as he armed it.

"Who's this?" Michael asked me, still smiling although I could tell that Mason's sudden outburst had cracked his creepily-happy shield.

"None of your business." Mason responded cooly, taking aim even though I could tell he wasn't actually going to shoot Michael unless stuff got really bad.

"I wasn't speaking to you." Michael snarled, completely shattering his earlier optimistic persona. This frightened me and I began to gain some mobility when I heard the scuff of a boot as Grace stepped out from behind me.

"Don't talk to us like that. You have no right." She snapped, and I finally unfroze, pulling away from his hand as he had still been holding onto mine. He reluctantly walked over to her, looking her straight in the eyes with an icy glare. When she stared back just as fiercely, his expression softened and he lifted her chin with his hand.

"Another natural beauty. Is there a jackpot nearby?" He asked in a throaty voice, turning her head to the side and moving his face close to her cheek. She gave him a look of disgust before sharply gabbing his arm and twisting it behind his back with one swift movement. I stepped in and pulled the knife in my pocket to his throat, opening my mouth to speak but before I could, the other two members of Michael's jackass crew jumped out of the now still chopper, their unarmed hands above their heads.

I admit to getting a bit distracted when the boy my age stepped out, and I thought I saw a hint of a smile in his brown eyes when he looked at me. I was less pleased when the other man stepped out, a large, burly-looking lumberjack figure with olive skin, cold eyes and muscles that looked like they could part the Red Sea.

"We don't want any trouble, honest. We're just looking to help." Brown-eyes said, and I found his very slight southern accent somewhat endearing. But then Muscles stepped in to ruin my moment by speaking in a deep voice.

"Let us help you. We have food. Clean water. Come with us to Sanctuary. We can take care of you." He said, and although he worded his speech carefully I could tell Mason wasn't buying any of it when he stepped forwards to confront the larger male.

"Yeah, well it's gonna take a lot more convincing than that to get us to get in a vehicle with that pervert," he said, jerking his thumb in our direction when he spoke. I pressed the blade of my knife slightly harder against Michael's throat, and I felt his Adam's apple bob up and down as he prepared to speak.

"T-that's my son, Jack, and the other one is Tobias. Please listen to them. They tell the truth." He said, ignoring Mason's earlier (but very true) statement and continuing on as if he had done nothing wrong. I wasn't so sure about the situation but Grace and Mason began to show signs of Fear when Tobias flashed them a not-no-friendly looking smile.

"Promise, we want to avoid conflict. Just please, give us a chance. We mean no harm." Jack said, a sympathetic smile on his face as he skimmed by my companions' eyes, running his fingers through his messy brown hair and stopping his gaze to look longer at me, although i wasn't sure whether it was from actual interest or fear of me slitting his father's throat.

Either way, there was definitely something to be done. But if it was saying something, I was at a total loss. The direct issue was the fact that a bunch of probably armed strangers were standing in front of us, one of which I was in perfect position to end the life of at any moment. I hadn't killed any living people since this hell began though, and I really hoped today would not be the day that I would have blood on my hands. And thus far, I had discovered that speaking persuasively to people was most definitely not my strong point, so I averted my eyes to Grace, who spoke with a high-pitched voice in the face of the large man who stood no more than two yards from her.

"We'll come with you, just please, don't hurt us." She said, and I saw her flash a look at the confused and obviously objective Mason, who in turn sent me one that I gathered meant the redhead had a plan. Together, me and her released Michael to his group, and I put on my best scared face as we somewhat reluctantly followed them into the small cabin of the helicopter.

I wished I could have telepathically spoken to Grace, but even in the zombie apocalypse, shit like that doesn't just appear out of nowhere. Whatever you're planning had better be good, Grace, I thought to myself.