Pain

[General POV]

As the Reinhardt's were sound asleep upstairs in their rooms, the same couldn't be said for the three survivors who were set up in the living room.

Out of the three only one of them had managed to fall asleep, with the other, sitting in the kitchen drinking away his fear after he found where Erik kept his liquor.

The last of the three was a woman by the name of Amanda who was currently sitting on the couch, her knees up to her chest as she slowly rocked back and forth, fear still gripping her heart, every little faint noise from the house settling to the barely audible groans of the undead setting her off.

As she sat on the couch, muttering nonsensical things while her eyes were wide open and bloodshot, something within her psyche finally snapped, Amanda with a sudden quickness, got up from the couch, and flung herself toward the front door, banging on it and yelling as she frantically undid all of the precautions Erik had set earlier.

She first flung the chair that was set up under the handle to the side as she swiftly moved on to the various locks, her fingers fumbling and her body trembling the whole time as Will, the man who was drinking in the other room was alerted to her antics and in his drunken stupor stumbled his way over there only to be met with the door being slammed right into his face.

With the only thing stopping the dead from coming in being gone, accompanied by the loudly crazed Amanda, it was no surprise when after she had already been grabbed and eaten, the dead in the vicinity started to shamble into the home.

First Will had gotten killed, completely too intoxicated to do anything, then, the last person, Andrew, was given a rude awakening when he shot up from the couch only to be met by the scene of multiple biters coming for him, being a quick thinker, he got up off the couch and ran toward the stairs.

He may be a quick thinker but no one said he was a smart one.

As this was going on, Erik, who hadn't really been able to stay asleep for more than an hour or so at a time, thankfully had woken up after the initial commotion of Amanda yelling and banging on the door, so, armed with his machete and combat tomahawk, Andrew was able to make it upstairs thanks to Erik who took out a couple of biters with his machete and tomahawk.

[Erik POV]

'For the love of- could we just get a single damn brake, fuck!' I roared in my head as I finished the last closest biter and helped Andrew get up the stairs, yelling for my parents and brother to get their asses out of bed and to get to the window in my room that led to the back porch roof.

"Can y'all please hurry the hell up more and more are coming in and these damn things can climb the fucking stairs!" I yelled in frustration as I had to let go of my tomahawk as it was stuck too far in the biter's skull.

After taking out a couple of more biter's who made it to the top of the stairs, Erik backed up to his room, telling Andrew to barricade the door as he opened the window for their escape.

Well, following his track of bad decisions, Andrew opted to simply put his back to the door and hope for the best, not even locking it, that dumbass.

By the time I realized his folly, Lukas and Dad had already gotten out of the house and onto the porch roof and I was about to go so I could help Mom through when Andrew suddenly buckled, flying forward and the door coming with him.

'The biters are dead for fucks sake how weak is he!' I thought as I went through the window motioning for Mom to follow, only for Andrew to grab onto her arm and throw her back into the biters who poured into the room.

following that he quickly dove out of the window onto the porch roof and quickly rolled off taking a tumble down onto the ground, his fate not being much of my concern.

Registering what just happened, I quickly ran back to the window and tried to get back in only for my mom to shake her head and say something that crushed my soul.

"No, please my beautiful baby boy, no, just go, I'm sorry and I love you!'" She yelled just as my view of her was finally fully obstructed by the biters, her screams of pain the last thing I heard as Lukas, through heavy tears quickly closed the window from the outside.

"NO what are you doing!" I yelled pushing him away and trying to open the window again only for Lukas and Dad who were also crying to pull my arm off, giving me a slow shake of his head to stop.

"But... But, mom she-" I stammered out as my dad put his hand on my shoulder and shook his head again, this time with a solemn look in his eye, something that was foreign to me as he never had anything short of an optimistic look to him, even when we were at the campus running from those things when this first kicked off.

After taking a moment to collect my thoughts and wipe my eyes clear, I remembered that our situation was about to go from bad to worse if we didn't get off of this porch roof and make a run for it.

"I-I'm going to jump down and I'll help you two down," I said with a slight hiccup in my voice still processing my mom's death.

After getting nods of confirmation from my equally shaken-up brother and dad, I went to the edge of the porch roof and slowly let myself down by hanging on the edge and then letting go to minimize the distance I would need to jump.

I quickly helped my brother and dad down and then we all prepared for any biters by tightening our grips on our machetes, seeing no biters were in the backyard, we breathed a sigh of relief and I looked toward the dickhead who was lying on the ground moaning in pain from what looked like a broken foot. 

At first, every impulse within my body was screaming at me to just end his life then and there with a single swipe of my machete, but just as I was about to I got a great idea.

[General POV]

Erik went over to Andrew and helped him onto his feet, telling him they needed to move if they wanted to survive, at first, Andrew had flinched heavily expecting to die for his impulsive move but seeing that Erik was smiling slightly, he let his guard down.

Lukas who was a little to the side, was overwhelmed with the urge to kill Andrew and he was about to after Erik didn't but then he noticed the look that was in his older brother's eyes, from what he could guess, their father did too as he just shook his head, knowing that Andrew's time on this earth wasn't for much longer.

As the four men walked to the side yard of the house, they reached the yard gate and Erik looked over the fence, what greeted him was the scene of biters hoarding together into a group in the dozens, thankfully they seemed to be mainly focused on the front door of the house and only a couple were close to the side gate.

Erik quickly unlatched the door and the men all left the backyard, dispatching the two biters that were close to them before fleeing down the street.

However, just as they were about to clear the horde, Erik pulled out his pistol and dropped Andrew who let out an involuntarily loud grunt from his foot, falling to the ground, Andrew had a look of pure terror as Erik pointed and aimed the gun at Andrew, slowly squeezing the trigger, Andrew was ready to die at that moment, that was until a sharp terrible pain erupted in his shoulder.

Instead of giving the man who caused his mother's death a fast end, Erik opted to shoot him in the shoulder and leave him for the masses of dead, hopefully also serving a use as to draw some of the other biters to him and away from the Reinhardt trio.

"W-W-Wait no, please! D-Don't lea-leave me here, I'm s-s-s-s-sorry please!" Andrew shrieked as he tried with all of his feeble might to crawl away, although he tried, he ultimately failed as only one good arm got him nowhere, and he was quickly engulfed in biters.

"Let's go," Erik said in a low tone as the three turned around and swiftly started to move, Lukas and Frederick following Erik as he led them somewhere that they would ultimately need to stop at before attempting to leave the city.

[Erik POV]

As we started to move away from the clamoring crowd of biters, I had only one house in mind, and that was Old Man Stevens's place, knowing him he would have a decent amount of ammo and possibly even a couple of guns that we could grab.

Running down the road we passed pockets of biters that dotted the neighborhood, taking out a good dozen on the way to the house as we went.

"Where are we headed to?" Dad asked as we kept moving

"Although I want to get out of this god-forsaken city and even this damn state, we need some more firepower, plus we need a vehicle and I know just the place," I said after he prompted me to continue I explained where we were going and what I was hoping to find.

"You want to head back to Georgia, is this because of that girl, what was her name, Mary? I mean, we have enough problems as it is here, how will we get all the way to Georgia when the world is like this now?" Dad asked still not bothering to remember Maggie's name

"How the hell do you not remember her name, she and I were together for four damn years, actually you know what, I know why, because all you and mom saw was the daughter of a farmer and nothing else, you thought that she 'wasn't worthy of me' well if she isn't then i don't know who is," I said with some annoyance snapping at my father

"That was because we wanted better for you, I mean, son, a farmer's daughter, what could she have given you that you didn't already have?" He asked which made me curl my fist a little

"She loved me for fucks sake, and I loved her, she was there for me even when I was at my lowest, with her I felt more complete, at home, I felt like there was a reason to be on this stupid fucking planet, a reason for me to continue living even when I didn't feel like it!" I yelled at my dad as we stopped moving, there being only a couple of biters nearby who started coming toward us at a snail's pace.

"You know, I may have had friends and you guys and all those people around me, but I never felt more alone in my life, it was like I wasn't even a participant in my own life like I was detached from everything around me, and yet, she brought me out of that, she was my rock, and I'm a dumbass for ever letting go of that, no matter the circumstances," I said with frustration and a hint of sadness

"These past couple of years without her, they have been, well for a lack of a better term, these past two years have been shit for me, all I hope is she's still out there so I can fix my mistake, I should've never let her go."

"Son I... sigh, I'm sorry," Dad said in a low tone, not knowing just what to say to me in that moment.

After a little more ranting to him on my part and getting something off my chest, I let out a heavy sigh and looked around, thankfully the whole time the few biters near us hadn't gotten very far, the one that did had been dispatched by Lukas sometime during my rant.

"Let's move," I said in an even tone as my dad and brother just nodded and followed after me