Bump in the road

[General POV]

Along the road walked a young man who looked to be around 23-24 years of age.

His orangish-red hair was dirtied to the point that it looked more brown than its natural color.

As he walked his steps were heavy, emphasizing the extreme fatigue he felt coupled with the excruciating thirst and hunger, the man didn't know how much longer he could go, especially considering how dirty he was with mud and dirt spread all over him.

The man who kept walking, no, at this point, it could only be described as trudging along, noticed that he passed a sign saying 'Welcome to Tallapoosa Georgia!'

Along the road he walked were dozens of crashed and stationary cars, dotted all along the road, and even some in the grass either flipped over or damaged beyond use.

As the man kept moving along, the burning sun above him was entering its final stages before it officially set for the night, bringing even more dangers than those that already surrounded the man.

Speaking of dangers, as the man kept moving, another figure came to the right of him, out from the grass, wearing equally if not even more tattered clothing, the person in question was not even a person, but a corpse that was still moving.

[Erik POV]

'How... how much longer can I go at this rate?' I thought to myself, each word was accompanied by a slight headache, but the worst part was the groans, oh god how annoying and aggravating those groans were.

As I kept walking, at this point no faster than the biter coming at me, I lazily looked over, no, lazy wasn't the right word... I painfully looked over, my whole body screaming at me as my head moved.

'Ha, I can barely feel my body much less my arms, how the hell will I get my machete to kill this bastard?' I thought wearily with a grim chuckle accompanying the thought.

Just as the biter came upon me, my arms still hanging at my side, I knew I had to do something, or else all of this painstaking effort would be for nothing.

On one hand, it would be nice to see my family again in whatever awaits us after this life, but then again, there it was, that damn voice telling me 'Nut up bitch, your family didn't die just for you to quiet here now did they?'.

'Ha, maybe Lukas killed himself since he knew under your leadership it was a lost cause anyway.' The voice laughed as I felt my teeth clench, what little strength I had left I used to sidestep the biter and trip it over, taking its compromising position to my advantage and stomping its head out, something I've done countless times at this point.

Looking down at the poor soul who once was a human, I could only let out a groan of my own as I kept moving, what little adrenaline my body could produce being burned through with every step.

For the last few days I've been constantly moving, not because I was a glutton for punishment or what have you, but because I had run out of food and water and the cities I've encountered were still far too... crowded, for me to go in and find supplies.

The only reason I was in this damned town, to begin with, was because I finally reached my breaking point and decided that if I was going to die, it would better be due to a biter as opposed to succumbing to the elements or hungry/thirst.

Continuing the way I was heading, I caught sight of what could've been heaven for all I care.

In front of me about a hundred yards away was a small supermarket, one that didn't look too trashed, which meant that god or whoever might be out there may have just given me a massive boon.

Picking up my pace as much as I physically could, within minutes I was in front of the store, if my throat wasn't bone dry right now I would be salivating at the sight in front of me.

'It looks like lady luck is with me today.' I thought with a weak smile growing on my face as I went into the supermarket and grabbed the can of blueberries, weakly reaching for my knife to open the can's lid.

with a slight hiss from the pressure being released from the can, I fully opened it and immediately dug in, savoring the sweet flavor and relishing in the hydrating juices that came from the berries.

"Much... better." I weakly said, barely being able to get the words out as it was the first time I talked in what felt like ages.

eating the whole cans worth of berries and drinking the juices that came with it, I let out a sigh of relief at my bettering condition as I felt the life rush back into my body.

Just as I was about to grab another can and look for some water as well, I felt what could only be the barrel of a pistol touch my upper back as someone from behind spoke.

"Hope it was good because it's the last thing you'll eat for a while unless you give us all you have."

'For fucks sake.' I thought with an internal groan

"Now turn around and slowly, don't even think about going for that piece at your hip." a second voice ordered as I did just that, slowly facing my captors.

In front of me stood two men and a girl, all three looked to be around my age, maybe a bit younger.

"I don't want trouble, I'm just t-trying to get something to eat and drink." I cough out, stammering a little as my throat is still unbearably dry but getting better

As I looked at the two men, I noticed only the one holding the pistol up to my chest actually had a firearm, the other two were holding a baseball bat and a golf club.

"You heard him, give us your shit!" The second man who held the baseball bat at the ready raised his voice at me but didn't quite yell, my guess was to not try and attract any biters.

"Come on just do what they're telling you to, I promise we don't want to hurt you, we're just... desperate." The girl said as she shakily held the golf club.

As I stood there, looking at the three with a blank look on my face, I could tell it started to piss off the man holding the gun to my chest as he raised the barrel to my face and repeated his instructions.

Not caring much about his words because at this point, if I die or not it's of no consequence, I looked at his hand and saw the idiot didn't even have his pointer finger on the trigger.

Deciding to try something I saw in that old martial arts book from the bunker, I grabbed the barrel of the pistol and swiftly turned it away from me, catching him by surprise.

Before he could adjust his finger to shoot, I hit his wrist and took the pistol from him.

As I now held the pistol in my hand, finger on the trigger, the second guy tried to rush at me, tried being the keyword as I simply pulled the trigger on the old Glock 19, shooting two rounds into his chest, causing him to yell out in pain and fall to the ground, the bat going with him.

The man who I just disarmed regaining his bearings, saw me shoot his buddy and charged at me. "Shit, Travis!" He yelled in a pretty thick Southern accent.

Turning the pistol and pointing it at him, I shot him once in the arm and another time just passed his ear as he closed the distance on me, pushing me to the ground and the pistol falling out of my grasp.

As we wrestled on the ground, I punched him several times in the nose, and jaw, before I caught his wounded arm and pressed into the bullet wound, causing him to recoil in pain as I kicked him off of me and grabbed the pistol that was only a couple of feet away and shot twice, once in the chest another in the throat.

'tch, I aimed for the head.' I thought as I looked over toward the girl who was cowering in pure primal fear at the sight of her friends being shot, one slowly drowning in his own blood and the other not long for this world.

"p-p-please don't h-hurt me I'm s-so s-s-sorry!" she cried out, tears flooding down her face, and even some golden liquid going down her leg out from her jean shorts.

Deciding I didn't feel like having another death on my conscious, no matter how justified, I relented and told her to scram, to which she promptly left behind her friends without a second thought, running down the road away from town.

Although I was still far from satisfied in the manner of eating and drinking, I decided to move on from the supermarket to avoid however many biters that were surely on their way because of the gunshots, that is, not before I grabbed another can of blueberries and checked the two now dead idiots for anything good, only finding some cigarettes and tobacco dip.

'Figures.' I say in my head as I spit on the two corpses, making sure to leave before they eventually re-animated as they were sure to do.

As I moved in a different direction from the girl, I headed into the town, making sure to dodge and weave my way through the streets and buildings as I avoided the small horde that went toward the supermarket, eating the blueberries as I went.

I looked around the town for a couple more hours before I found shelter at the old West Georgia Museum of Tallapoosa for the night, barricading the doors to a only research area to make sure I didn't have any late-night visitors.

[Next day]

"Yaaawn~"

"Damn, the fucking floor here is hard as hell," I said to myself as I got up and stretched my lower back, my old football injury nagging me just as it has since it happened freshman year of high school.

I promptly got my shit together and made sure the coast was clear as I left the research room and exited out of the museum, continuing my way toward Atlanta and hopefully after... to the farm.

*Crunch, squish*

As I walked down the road a few blocks away from the museum, I saw a couple of biters going to town on a corpse, upon a closer look, it was the girl from the day before, and in the greatest sense of irony I've seen since this shithole of a world went up in flames, the two biters munching on her corpse were her former associates.

"I guess karma truly is a bitch huh," I said, humming a tune to myself as I continued on my way out of the town, making sure to grab some canned goods and water from the gas station on my way out.

---------------------------------------

Authors Note:

Hey guys, sorry for the wait again, I didn't have my computer this past week since I was visiting family for spring break.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter, and do let me know if there's anything I could do better.

Before anyone can take to the comments, I wanted to address something with the story, as you could probably tell, or maybe not who knows, right now the MC is going through weird mood swings and sudden entire changes in his attitude, plus that little issue with the voices in his head *scary jazz hands*

I just wanted to say this i'snt some issue with my writing of his character, I'm doing this on purpose to help show how messed up he is right now mentally, of course later on the story will go deeper into his issues but I just wanted to get ahead of this so I don't need to continuously explain in the comments lol.