Discernment

Chapter 9

We walked down a dirt trail in the forest, we kept going and going, looking for an opening. I had filled in everyone on what happened with Fay and those hordes of biters after us. I even filled everyone in on where we were planning on going. Then a few minutes later, Jess then walks up to me and taps my shoulder. "Can we please take a break, Thomas?" She asks. I think about it and everyone looks at me, seems like they wanted to stop too. "Yeah, fine. Only for a few minutes though, okay?" I asure her. She nods and sits against a large boulder. "I'm going to scout the area, anyone have binoculars?" I ask. Washington comes up to me and hands me his scope for his gun. "Thanks." I say and then climb up on the rock that some of the group was leaning on.

While looking through the scope, I looked left to right, right to left, repeat. I saw nothing, though I kept on looking. That's when a dirt trail caught my eye. It was the trucks that were holding the packs of biters; The ones who took Fay. They were heading passed the city, somewhere in the distance. "Everyone, that group that kidnapped fay and released those hordes on us are heading passed the city." I fill them in. 

"I say we hunt those assholes down for trying to kill us." Sandra says while cleaning the dried blood on her machete. I jump down from the boulder. "We need to discuss a few things, everyone." I say to them. "We need to reach shelter before it gets dark. We can figure things out there." I command. "That group is obviously out to get us for some reason, we need to do something, Thomas! We can't just sit around here, waiting for shit to hit the fan again!? They already have Fay? What's next? They snatch up my son? I'm not letting that happen!" Washington yells at me. 

"Keep your voice down" Sandra says to Washington. "I said we need to find shelter first, Washington!" I yell at him. "Once we find shelter, We will start planning things out. Got it?" I brought forth. "Whatever, we just need to hurry before these freaks come around to get us." Washington says.

I get back up on the boulder, "I'm going to scan the closer buildings in that city for shelter. We'll stay in one of those if they seem safe enough." I say to everyone. They nod and sit down in their little groups. Minutes pass and Jess steps away from Sandra and climbs on the boulder with me and stands next to me with her arms crossed. "Any ideas on where we're going to stay, Thomas?" She asks. I nod and I look through the scope again. "There's that sporting goods store, it's elevated and surrounded by a fence.. Though we should set up on one of the taller buildings, because I plan on cleaning this town of the infected, set it up, make this our home." I say to her softly.

"You know, you're doing a good job leading these people so far." Jess says. "It's only been a few days with them, though." I reply to her with a small laugh. "Yeah, but still. You got the majority of them out of bad situations." She adds in. "That's the thing.. I don't want it to be the 'majority', I wanted all of them to make it; To be here with us... I've never led a group like this before." I sighed. "Do not let that get to you. Seriously, Thomas. Not everyone is going to live, you should know that by now." She informed. "Yeah.. I do know that. Thanks for the talk, we'll be leaving soon." I say to her.

I decided to look more, through the gaps between buildings. "There's gotta be about over 100 biters in there." I say to everyone. "I'm thinking we go to one of the buildings, draw those biters toward us, and kill them before they got in the building. What do you think?" I suggest. Washington nods and looks out toward the city. "That middle one. We sneak in throught the back, Thomas, Sandra, and I will go up top, Thomas and I will take out some in the distance with our rifles, as will Sandra but with her bow and Arrows. The rest will be on the first floor, using melee weapons to those we couldn't get with the guns. When we're out of ammo, or nearly, we'll come down and use melee weapons as well. Sound good?" Washington says. We look at him and nod, I then tilt my head slightly. "That's actually pretty good, but where'd you learn to think about battle tactics like that?" I ask. He laughs and looks at me. "Back when everything was normal, I watched Craig play a lot of video games. Who would have thought those strategies would have worked."

"Alright, anything else we need to discuss before we start our rampage?" I question. Craig steps up, "Yeah, some of us don't have good range with these melee weapons.. What can we do about that?" He asks. "We'll figure something out.." I say. I looked more into the building as we headed down the hill. "Looks like there could be a few weapons in there you guys could use; just up to you to see which one you want when we get in there." I say to them. Craig smiles softly as we reached the building. "How do we get in?" Craig asks. I look back at him. "Watch me, you should know this." I say and do my usual routine. Knocking on the door, wait and listen, kick the door in.

"All clear, Thomas." Sandra says after looking in the rooms on the first floor. Craig walks passed me to the staircase with something in his hands. "What do you got there, kid?" I ask him. He smirks and reveals a rifle and some bullets. "Nice, man. You'll be up top with the big guys.." I say to him. Sandra looks at me with a smirk. "Yeah.. Big guys." She says and shakes her head as she walked up the stairs. "Woops, guess I forgot about you." I laugh. 

Sandra and I are scoping the area, waiting for the others to finish boarding up. Minutes pass and I look back to see Washington to come up and crouch by a window. "Hey, Thomas, they're all done down there. They'll start killing once you take the first shot." He informs me. I nod and grab my gun, taking an aim on one of the biters, and gently pulling on the trigger. That's when everyone with a gun starts shooting, all infected within a mile or two are coming in, and we know that we're prepared for anything.