Whatever It Takes: Mutations

Chapter Six

Ready, Set, Go 

September 30th; 5:28pm

Current Location: Baltimore/Brooklyn Park, MD 

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William's POV 

I was almost bitten. It got to the point where I began to panic, but I was very fortunate that Navarez had my back. If he hadn't shot him right before the Goul sunk his teeth in my forearm...man, I don't even know. 

"Hey, Will," Navarez called out to me over the raging gunfire. "We need to track your kids down to make sure they're okay. Follow my lead!" 

I sighed deeply. The thing was, I wasn't that worried about Jeremy having the children. I knew that he was capable of protecting Braxton and Olivia from the several types of zombies that have emerged from the darkness. He did it before when we were separated in Atlanta, so he could do it again, but this time, not nearly as long. 

Reloading the assault rifle and following Jordan out of the giant horde, I gunned down anything that got in our way. Once we were inside of a building, I found a broomstick and immediately slid it through the door handles. A couple of Gouls tried to throw their bodies against the  wooden door. The broomstick did its job, but we both knew that it wouldn't last forever. 

"You okay?" asked Navarez. 

I caught my breath and rubbed my knees, which have been hurting since the Greenville incident. "Yeah, I'm good. We should start heading south; that's where I saw Jeremy take the kids." 

"You're right. I saw him head down past Interstate 895. Let's head out the back way to get away from those things." 

I was actually pretty impressed on how Navarez was taking this. You know, after what happened to Sgt. Brown. Albeit, he probably didn't have much time to think about it, since hundreds of zombies were currently trying to kill us. It still lingered in the back of my head though. If he was telling the truth, which he was recalling the journal, then why didn't he turn before? This hasn't made very much sense to me. 

As we were walking down the road past I-895, Navarez gave me a sideways glance. "You're still thinking about Tyler, aren't you?" 

I smiled sadly. "Am I that easy to read?" 

"No, actually, you're quite difficult to read," he said, biting his lip in thought. "I've always sorta thought you were that guy that kept his emotions to himself most of the time. I guess you just give off the negative or positive vibe that told us whether to stay away from you or not." 

I nodded slowly before glancing at him again. "I've been told that before. Jeremy is like that too, if you haven't noticed. He's typically pretty quiet, keeps to himself majority of the time." 

"I see him hanging around the kids a little more than usual lately," Navarez said. 

I nodded. "Yeah, but the only reason is that he simply loves them that much. If they died, or something else extreme happened, he would definitely be the one most affected by it. I mean of course I would be heartbroken and depressed, even if just one of them was taken away from me." 

Navarez gave me a sad look. "They're like a piece of your heart." 

"And I'm sure it's the same with Jeremy," I said, fighting back emotions.  

"Tyler was like the brother I never had," he said, kicking a rock that skipped down the road. "Sure, he could be mean sometimes, but it wasn't always his fault. Brown had a wife that was forced to leave to help with evacuations. He still hasn't heard from her like Sandra promised she would."