The Walking Dead: Return to Paradise Part Two

Chapter Sixteen: Going Rogue

"Fan out, everyone. I want them found. Gina, you're with me to the left. Duane, check the right. Alec, Mae, Tony, you take upstairs." Lilly ordered.

Everyone got to work right away, each group going to sweep their designated area.
Alec was in the middle, behind Mae, as they carefully crept up the stairs.
He had to keep his pistol low, otherwise he would be flagging Mae with the muzzle. The tight environment wasn't exactly ideal for fighting.
As Mae stepped onto the landing at the top, her foot snagged on something and a metallic twang rang out.
Alec saw something swing down from the ceiling in an arc and hit Mae in the face. There was an awful crack and she instantly went limp, dropping her gun and tumbling backwards down the stairs.
Her lifeless body almost tripped Alec over, but he sidestepped, letting out a cry of terror.
In a panic, he fired blindly up the stairs. Smoke filled the air, making it even harder to see in the darkness.
He squinted through it, looking for any movement. Nothing.

"What the hell's going on up there?" Lilly shouted from downstairs.

Alec took a moment to compose himself. He examined the object that had swung down, it was a fire axe on some kind of lever.

"Fuck. Mae's dead... There was a trap at the top of the stairs." He replied shakily.

"Careful, there may be more." Lilly yelled again.

Alec took a few deep breaths and turned to Tony behind him, nodding.
They continued their advance up the stairs, much more carefully this time.
Alec kept his head on a swivel, searching for hidden tripwires or anything of the sort. Seeing nothing, he continued up the landing and into the hallway.
There was a door on the right and the hall continued before bending to the left.
Tony stacked up on the first door to the right and gave a nod. Alec continued down the and around the bend. There were two more doors. He decided to take the one at the end of the hall, which had a faded sign on the door that said 'office'.
As he got closer, the sound of light bumping could be heard.
He slowly turned the handle, levelling his pistol with his chest and peeking through the crack.
Carefully, he stepped in, pushing the door open all the way.
Alec suddenly felt something slam into his shins, followed by a searing pain.
Opening the door had triggered another trap.
A board with sharpened wooden spikes on it had swung around and impaled him through the legs.
He screamed and dropped the gun, holding onto the doorframe to balance himself.
Seconds later, a loud bang echoed from down the hall.
Before he had a chance to process anything that had just happened, the source of the bumping appeared. A walker, wearing a rotted campaign hat, shambled towards him.
Alec let out a yelp and fumbled for his knife. He unsheathed it just in time to be grabbed by the walker. It's teeth snapped at him and the putrid smell made him gag, but he quickly brought the knife up, piercing through its jaw and straight up through the brain.
It went limp and fell backwards, it's head splitting open on the floorboards from the impact like an old watermelon.

***

Tony watched Alec go around the corner and checked the lock on his door. It turned smoothly, but he carefully turned it back around so that the door stayed closed.
If someone was behind that door, he needed to get the jump on them. It looked like it opened inwards, so he took a step back, then kicked the door right next to the lock.
The wood splintered and the door swung inwards. Tony heard a scream from the other room, but before he could react, a blast of buckshot ripped into his abdomen.
He clutched at his stomach, dropping his weapon. Blood poured through his shirt, drizzling onto the dusty floorboards and pooling quickly.
Tony coughed, spitting out blood. He tried to breathe, but each time he inhaled, a sharp pain jabbed him in the chest from inside.

That's not good...

Tony's vision blurred and he lost his balance, falling forwards onto the ground, continuing to bleed profusely.

***

Lilly jolted at the sound of the gunshot upstairs.
Her first assumption was that someone had found Clementine and her friend, until the screaming started.

"Help me!"

Lilly turned to Gina and gestured to the staircase.
Without words, Gina nodded and the two of them ran upstairs, flanked by Duane.
They had to step around Mae's body, which was lying face up in the stairwell. The scene upstairs wasn't much better. Tony was lifeless in a pool of his own blood.
In the doorway of the room he had stood in front of, was a shotgun strapped to a chair. There was a string connecting the trigger to the door handle. Evidently that was what killed him.
They followed the screams down the hall and into the office, where Alec stood. A small amount of blood was trickling down his legs, soaking into his pants.
Gina ran up to him and crouched down, the expression on her face turning to horror.

"What is this sick shit?" She hissed.

"Get me out, please." Alec begged.

Duane stepped forward on the opposite side of Alec.

"We gotta pull him off it or something."

"No. Those spikes are the only thing plugging his wounds. You take them out, he'll bleed to death in a minute." Lilly said, holding him back.

"So what do we do then?"

"Break the whole thing off the door. We'll carry him out."

***

While Alec lay on the ground in agony, Gina fished through a first aid kit and Duane sawed the still attached trap into smaller pieces, Lilly stood in the snow and stared off into the distance.
The wind was picking up and visibility was getting worse. Clementine was long gone by now, they had been duped.

"Lilly!" Gina suddenly called.

Lilly turned slowly, giving her a confused look.

"Did you hear me? I said, he's not going to survive without proper medical attention. And we're further from the Delta than we ever should have gone."

"They can't be that far ahead of us , if we beat the storm we might be able to pick up their trail." Lilly said in a deadpan tone, ignoring what Gina had said.

Gina was livid. Her fingers tightened around her rifle and she took a few steps towards Lilly.

"Enough! Those two have gotten into your head, you're obsessed. This bullshit has to end." She exploded, her voice echoing through the woods.

Lilly's eyes narrowed. She squared up to Gina, glaring down at her. Gina may have been stronger, but Lilly was taller and more imposing.

"They killed our people back at the camp, and on the boat. You want to just let them get away with it?"

"I didn't. But now I don't care anymore. Yeah, they killed our people. But how many more died chasing them? There were twenty of us when this started, now I only count four. That's not on them, it's on you."

Lilly faltered, taken aback by the last comment.
Gina was one of her most loyal soldiers, she had always had her back when she needed it most.
The comment cut deep, even deeper because of who it was coming from.

"We meet to at least try to get Alec medical attention. The Delta is back that way, I say we start walking."

"If we lose that trail, we lose them forever. If those two get away, everyone who died will have died in vain."

"They already have." Gina replied, her voice a low, venomous hiss.

She slung her rifle over her shoulder and helped Duane lift up Alec.
The three of them began walking back in the direction they had came, leaving Lilly standing alone in the snow.