Birth of a Little Devil

While Robin and Richard gathered up their things, Grant also prepared himself for their little excursion.

Grant had briefly considered delaying the outing for a few days so that his arm had some time to heal, but he knew that if they delayed for too long, then the monsters would continue to scale while they remained stagnant.

Before they left, Grant sat down at the dinner table in the kitchen and brought out his extra bandages to re-wrap his arm, Throughout the night, the bandage which was originally wrapped around the wounds, had been dyed red with his own blood. Thankfully the pain had started to lessen gradually throughout the night so he could move it around a bit more freely. The mobility of the arm was still severely limited, but it wasn't nearly as bad as it had been originally.

He hadn't seen what the damage had looked like when he was first injured because he was so focused on fighting the giant javelina that he didn't even have time to glance down and check his arm.

After removing the bandage and finally seeing what his arm looked like though, Grant couldn't help but suck in a deep breath and swallow the lump forming in his throat.

His arm, even now, looked like shredded cheese. Strips of flesh hanging on to his muscles by a thread while his visible muscles clung to his bones in just a few places.

[HOLY SHIT! No wonder I was in so much pain. This wound is horrendous! How is my arm still working?! I thought I just had a few deep gashes... this is way worse than I anticipated..

It looks like I stuck my arm into a fucking wood chipper!]

While Grant was freaking out, Ally limped out of her bedroom. Grant was surprised to see her up and about but she paused when she saw that Grant's arm was unwrapped. Seeing his arm, she suddenly looked like she had seen a ghost. Surprise and confusion were evident in her expression.

"How has your arm healed that much!? It looks twice as good as it did before, if not more so!"

It was Grant's turn to put on an expression of surprise and confusion. He was having a hard time believing the words that had just come out of her mouth.

"This is twice as good?! What the fuck did it look like when you dragged me back here?!

Ah, sorry for my language. This is just so horrible right now it's hard to believe it's healed that much!"

The idea that his arm had actually healed by a large amount and still looked this way, was just too hard to believe.

"I swear to you, it is way better than what it was before. As for what it looked like before... please don't make me think about it. I can tell you right now, if it was anyone else, I have no doubt that amputation would have been the only solution. Frankly, the only way I didn't do that was because I didn't have the tools needed to amputate it.

It is a miracle that it has started to heal. Let alone the fact that you can still use it."

Grant looked at her with incredulity. He could understand her thought process when it came to wanting to cut off his arm. She was probably concerned about infection and the fact that it would be dead weight.

But she was looking at it from the perspective of a normal humans body standards. His body, with his new stats, had far outstripped any logical sense when it came to how it functioned.

"Well I am grateful for you providing the best first aid you could given the circumstance. Although I am still in pain, I can actually use it sparingly already. The fact that I have gained so many stats from killing monsters is probably the main reason why."

Ally just gave a short nod before she spoke about what she had really left her bedroom to discuss.

"I do not know how the whole stat concept works, or at least I only understand now after Richard and Robin told me about the information you had shared with them. Thank you for that by the way.

That aside, Grant, I will let Robin go with you today only if you make me a promise that nothing will happen to her.

I beg you, do not let anything happen to her. I love my son but Robin is my light on a dark night. I cannot lose her. If I lose her, I will never recover."

Grant just stared at the desperate expression on Ally's face for a few moments. He could understand why she was so desperate not to lose her little girl. Especially since her husband had just died and her kids were all that she had left.

"I will not promise you she will remain unharmed, because even I am not all powerful.

I mean, just look at my arm."

While waving his injured left arm around the best he could, Grant continued,

"If I had made one mistake, I would be dead. That is how cruel the new world is now. But I will promise you this, I will die before any harm comes to her.

I know you don't want her to go, and frankly I don't want her to come with, either.

Kids should be worried about being kids, not soldiers. However, her conviction and desire to protect you and her brother has moved me. I will honor that conviction by helping her to reach her goal."

At first Ally looked scared hearing what Grant was saying, but by the time he was finished speaking, she looked ever so slightly relieved.

"Thank you Grant. I will put my faith and trust in you because the I can tell you are not a bad person. If you were, I have no doubt my kids would hold you in such high regard after such a short amount of time."

Grant couldn't help himself and thumped his chest with his one good hand and said, "Don't worry! Your faith is not misplaced!" and then put on the smuggest look he could muster.

After watching him make a fool of himself, Ally couldn't help but laugh a little. Clearly she was relieved at Grant's confidence.

After their short exchange, Ally ended up limping over to the table and helping Grant re-wrap his arm so that it was done correctly.

"Thank you. You're wrapping is way better than mine. Richard said you used to be a nurse, what kind were you?"

Ally just smiled at the compliment, "I was a scrub nurse over at Chandler Regional Medical Center. I used to work mostly on open heart surgeries so my skills are no joke if I do say so myself.

My husband was the real hero though.. he was an actual surgeon.. we met in the operating room.."

Ally looked more and more depressed as she talked about her deceased husband, so Grant tried to lighten up the mood.

"You two met over the open chest cavity of a patient?!"

"No! We met after the surgery! I had just been assigned to his operating room but during the surgery it's all business. Afterwards though, was when I first introduced myself."

With how flustered Ally was at the idea that someone thought her and her husband met like that but Grant just started to laugh as she tried to defend herself which ultimately made Ally realize he was just messing with her so she started to laugh as well.

Knowing how tough it must be on Ally to deal with everything going on, losing her husband, and then being injured, Grant was glad that he was able to make her laugh, if just for a few moments.

While the two were waiting for the kids to get ready, they spent the rest of the time on small talk.

It turned out that Ally was had developed a slight fever due to her wound and asked Grant if he could go to one of the local stores to look for medicine.

Grant hadn't even considered the fact that some medication stock would be a good idea, so he promised that he would loot the entirety of the local pharmacies if he had the chance.

It was at that time that Robin and Richard had finally gotten there stuff together and walked over to Grant and Ally.

Grant noticed that Richard was holding a spear in his hands when he walked over.

"Is it safe to assume that was the weapon you got from your Random Roll Richard?"

"Yeah, while I was sitting in bed last night, I couldn't help myself and used my Random Roll and I got this spear from it. I'm actually kind of grateful that the system gave me something with a bit more reach than your sword. Especially since I don't have armor like you."

"Understandable. But don't worry, even if you hadn't rolled a weapon, I was planning on disabling all the monsters we find so that you and your sister can dispatch them without worry.

Are you ready too Robin? When we go outside, you have to stay right next to me or your brother no matter what.

I will protect both of you, but if something happens, he will be the last line of defense for you.

Do you understand? You must promise to follow the rules."

Grant gave her a stern glare to make sure that she understood how serious he was about it.

"I promise Mr. Carrot! I will make sure to stay near Richie or you no matter what!"

Grant gave an affirmative nod while Ally looked slightly more relieved hearing Robin's promise.

"Good, lets roll out!"

Seeing that the three of them were ready, Ally opened the garage door for them and watched them walk down the driveway and into the street before she closed the door with a complicated look on her face.

Once in the street, Grant surveyed the area. Just within range of his vision he could make out at least 100 zombies. They were scattered all up and down the street.

Grant even saw a group of mutated dogs fighting with an oversized cat not far from where he was standing. Seeing that, it just reinforced his idea that monsters grew the same way humans did which brought up one question he really wanted answered.

[Sherlock, if monsters are fighting and killing each other to grow, won't they eventually die off?]

{That is not correct. Monsters can still reproduce just as they always have. Just because they look different and their temperaments have changed, does not mean they do not have the same instincts for growing their species as they did before.

Same as humans}

[I don't even want to picture what some of these monsters mating would look like...

Fuck... too late...]

Realizing that literally every species on Earth had started to mutate and evolve while retaining their reproductive abilities, Grant was grateful that he lived in Arizona and the heat wasn't a conducive environment for a lot of bugs to live. He couldn't imagine what an army of monstrous mosquitos would look like. Giant flying bugs would be the worst thing to deal with in Grant's opinion.

Of course he knew that Arizona had some bugs and insects that were abundant but he never liked creepy crawly things so he was thankful he hadn't run into any of them yet.

Shaking off those distracting thoughts, Grant led the two kids towards the first group of zombies.

When the zombies noticed them they slowly began advancing towards their group, "As I said before, I will disable them and you will be responsible for killing them. Prepare yourselves."

While Grant was hacking off their arms and legs with his sword, Richard stood vigilantly looking at the surroundings. He knew he wasn't very strong yet but he had promised his Mom that he wouldn't let himself be distracted for even a moment when protecting his sister.

Once Grant was done mutilating the zombies, they ended up looking like slabs of meat with a head. It looked kind of funny from a certain perspective but the sight of arms and legs laying everywhere was a bit disturbing.

"Alright you two. You're up. I'll protect you from anything around us while you finish them off."

Grant handed his sword over to Robin and then turned his back to them. He wasn't the least bit concerned that they may get hurt because the zombies couldn't even move aside from a pathetic wiggle as they tried their best to move.

If the kids ended up being bitten by the immobile zombies, it didn't matter how much he protected and trained them, clearly they weren't smart enough to survive and death was inevitable no matter what he did.

While Grant had his back turned to the two kids, they both looked at each other and then nodded their heads as if acknowledging to each other that they were prepared for what they needed to do.

Before Richard could even move though, Robin was already standing next to the first zombie and swinging Wet Noodle down on it's throat.

She hadn't even stopped for a millisecond before she attempted her first kill.

While Richard stood there in a daze looking at his sister and the pure determination plastered on her face, she walked over to the second zombie and just as quickly as the first, separated its head from its body.

Realizing that he could only hear one set of footsteps, Grant turned around to check on the two kids.

Richard was rooted to the spot and Robin was going from zombie to zombie, ending their miserable existences with extreme efficiency.

[Holy hell... she's a little devil! Am I making a mistake helping her get stronger? She isn't hesitating at all to kill those zombies..]

Little did Grant know, Robin was having an extremely hard time. She could see her own reflection in their eyes and it scared her that she was killing something that used to be a human like her. She just kept thinking about her family though and that propelled her from one kill to the next.