I awoke around 7 A.M. and I was still dizzy, not as bad though. After I blinked a couple times I stood yo my feet and noticed that DeAndra was gone. I began to panic and I started looking all over the room with no luck. I opened the door and saw her in the truck blaring music, I hesitated at first but a smile broke across my face. I went back in and heated up some oatmeal. I sat on the porch and looked into the distance. Today was December 26th 2001 and I had no-one besides DeAndra. The sky was a foggy blue and the sun wasn't visible. Street lights filled the grass filled with liquid crystal. I looked ahead and trees spanned as far as the eye could see. Very few birds flew above me, scattered like those graphs we made back in high school. Small animals around me burrowed into the ground blanketed in a layer of snow. I saw a mother deer and a fawn I was about to zone out but DeAndra's voice broke my impartial tranz.
"Patrick....Patrick you there? Whats on our agenda?"
I snapped back to reality,
"What?"
She looked at me like I was stupid.
"I said whats on our agenda?"
I thought about it for a second and truth be told I didn't even know.
"I'm not sure yet but we have more we need to explore before we can head to Harvest Valley"
I stood to my feet and walked back inside. I walked to the sink and rinsed my bowl out, grabbed my dufflebag, and headed back out.
I got to the truck and put a couple shotgun shells into my gun. I turned the key in the ignition and laid the gun down on the leather seat. I laid back in the seat and waited for DeAndra. I temporarily closed my eyes for what felt like a few minutes and when I opened them I noticed something in my rear view mirror. I stepped out of the truck and reached for the revolver. I turned around and began to walk towards the road and about 10 feet from the man, I stepped on a stick, and his head snapped around and glanced at me.
I tried to focus on what he looked like and I noticed blood dripping from his mouth.
I staggered back and began to utter 3 words on repeat,
"What..the fuck"
The man began to run at me. As he sprinted towards me I saw a little girls corpse on the ground. I froze in terror! I couldn't bring myself to reach for my revolver. He gained speed and tackled me to the ground and started scratching at my face. He overpowered me and pinned my wrists to the cold asphalt. I thought this was the end of me. He began to thrust his hands into my chest. As I felt my sternum begin to crack and pulse with a sharp pain a shot rang through the empty streets.
The mans body hit the floor and I began to cry. DeAndra walked up to me with a Desert Eagle in hand.
"Patrick what the fuck was that?!"
My voice was broken and fear stricken,
"I have no fucking clue..."
DeAndra reached down and helped me up.
"Get in"
I stepped into the truck. We drove down the road and we didn't look back. We were driving down interstate 301 on our way to Harvest Valley. The time was 3:00 P.M. and the cloudy sky was all that the horizon revealed. We reached the only stop near Harvest Valley about 30 minutes from the city limit. It wasn't very welcoming. The sign near the villages entrance was burned and corpses impaled through the skulls were lining the streets. We drove up a small dirt path encased with bushes leading to the summit of Mt. Perdition. We got close to the top when DeAndra had spotted a cave. We needed shelter and it was too dark to continue climbing or to even dare descend. On top of the lack of light a storm was coming.
