Survivors: Rise

Memory

Recap:
I looked at Jack and terror is all I saw. He was frozen, then he panicked and ran upstairs.

"Austin! Bella! You here?" I yelled.

"No!" I heard Jack scream.

He came back downstairs and ran outside.

"Jack! What happened?"

He turned around and was covered in sweat and blood,

"They're gone! There were just walkers up there, but our group is gone!"
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"Austin! Bella!" I was yelling in desperation for a response. There was no sign of them. Although there were about a dozen walkers dropped on the kitchen floor.

Jack had already gotten a head start out the door, so I ran after him.

"Jack!" I caught his attention before he got too far away. I noticed something as I walked in the cabin. One of the walkers on the floor, looked too familiar. Jack came back into the cabin.

"We can't stay here any longer, Carter. We have to go. My boy is out there, my wife is out there."

That's when it hit me, the walker that laid on the floor beside my feet, it was Dylan. The one thing I was scared of..
It came true.

"Jack, I know what happened." He looked back at me in confusion, then looked down and figured it out as well. His expression gave me chills, he was clenching his jaw and was holding back his emotions.

"Brian must've gotten scared. Got all of their attention. They can't be far, let's get out of here." He said heading back towards the door.

There was a look in his eyes, it wasn't a good look.

I followed him and we began to run, not sure where we were going, but I was hoping Jack knew where he was going.

"You following tracks or something?" I asked him as we stopped to walk for a little bit.

"Dylan and I used to argue a lot, after Brian knew how to defend himself he got comfortable going out on his own. He's got a spot about a half mile from here. We gotta check there."

"You think Austin and Bella are with him?" I asked with concern.

"Better pray to God. If not, they're all on their own."

We continued down the trail and finally stopped.

Jack walked over to a brink with a creek next to it. There was a tree trunk laying across the creek, something caught his eye.

"Son of a bitch." He mumbled.

"What is it?" I asked.

He turned around and help up a pistol.

"It's Brian's."

Shit.

He took the clip out of the pistol, and he looked confused.

"The clips full." He said quietly.

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"First of all, he wouldn't just leave his gun here and run off. He would've taken it, he knows better. Second, if he saw a walker, he would take it down."

"Jack what are you getting at?" My head was filled with questions.

"Somebody took him." He kept his eyes on the gun, then looked up at me.

It made sense, sort of. Brian was a smart kid, he wouldn't just leave his gun there, especially without firing a shot.

"Carter come over here, there's tracks." Jack pointed at the bank of the creek, whoever took Brian must've walked across the creek.

"There's three sets of tracks, come on." Jack said in a hurry. I grabbed onto his arm before he could start running off again.

"Whoa, we don't know if there's more of them. Wherever they took Brian, they probably know someone is coming after him. If we are going to do this, we need to find the others. We can't do it alone." Jack nodded and we searched for Bella and Austin.

In what felt like hours, we found no sign of either of them. I was starting to lose hope, getting paranoid, this was a terrible situation.

"Carter, where's that cabin you guys were holding up in before?" Jack asked randomly.

"About a mile from yours, it was overrun, do you think they could be there?"

"It's worth a shot." He replied. We started back for our old cabin, this was our last chance.

We were about a half mile away, exhausted and running out of daylight, we had to do this quick.

Finally the cabin came into view, my heart was beating so fast that it felt like it was going to burst.

Jack and I walked to the front porch, I crouched down and looked at the stained wood.

"I'll find him, I promise you."

"Who the hell you talking to?" Jack asked.

"No one, let's go."

Jack opened the cabin door and knocked on it loudly, no response from around the cabin.

"I'll get upstairs, you got downstairs." I said. Jack nodded and I made my way upstairs. Tiptoeing my way there, I held my gun and got to the top, the cabin looked just as empty as I last saw it.

I went into the living room and the memories swarmed my head. I made my way down the hall, I saw mine and Bella's room. The door was shut, I put my hand on the knob and turned it slowly. The room was empty, but the feeling was killer. It was cold, meaningless, depressing. I looked around and was confused.

There was a gun on the floor.

"AHH!" A scream from behind me came out of nowhere, I turned around to see a woman running at me with an axe in hand. She swung at me, I side stepped and fell backward.

"Carter?" The woman said in shock.

My vision was blurry, but I saw that it was Bella.

She dropped the axe and ran into my arms.

"I almost killed you." She cried.

"I'm so glad I found you, but where's Austin?" I asked.

Bella stepped back and looked at the floor.

"What is it?" I asked again.

"I was with him for a while, but we saw some men and they had a little boy that looked just like Brian with them, there were three of them. They took him too, Carter." She sobbed into my shoulder.

"We're going to find them. I promise."

"Carter!" Jack yelled from downstairs.

"Is that Jack?" Bella asked. I nodded and we made our way downstairs.

"What is it?" I asked.

"We got company. We gotta go, it's starting to get dark and we have to find those tracks." He said in concern.

"Don't worry about it, I know where Brian is. They took Austin too." Bella said.

I took my gun back out and the three of us set out in search for Austin and Brian.

Jack ran in front, "I'm going to find these pricks and kill them all."

I stopped, and looked at the porch again. Bella walked over next to me.

"He's gone, Carter. You have to let that go now."

"I don't want to kill anymore." I said.

"Kill or be killed, kid. Kill or be killed." Jack looked over his shoulder. Then continued on.
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Enjoy.