Work Text:
It's only been two days since they veered off the path into the woods because of a horde, and Wade's already losing his mind.
They've been walking around for hours and yet Wade isn't even sure if they've covered any ground from where they set up camp last night. Every tree looks exactly the same as the ones they saw yesterday, nobody thought to carry around anything to mark trees with despite both Wade and Patrick mentioning it would be beneficial multiple times beforehand, the Sun is almost below the horizon already, and now Jp and Entoan won't leave each other alone. The only sign of there being any civilization is a half-buried piece of cardboard with graffiti on it.
"I'm not paranoid!" Jp exclaims from behind him. His voice carries throughout the forest as he yells in that familiar outcry of his.
Entoan huffs out a laugh, "You freaked out over a squirrel."
"Oh, I'm sorry for taking extra precaution in the middle of the apocalypse! Those infected are everywhere," Jp argues. He throws both of his arms out to the side as if to prove his point.
The leaves underneath their feet crunch loudly, the dull brown color disguising whatever lies beneath it. The summer heat is finally beginning to disperse for autumn, and Wade can already feel the start of a soft chill against his arms. Patrick rummages through the backpack around his shoulders. Wade catches a glimpse of a few plastic water bottles poking out the top from when they ran into a neighborhood. He's been trying to find a map for a while now, but everything before the outbreak was mostly digital, so paper maps are almost unheard of. It didn't take long for the internet to go out, and then hardly any longer for power to stop working.
What he would do for access to the internet right now. He'd probably try contacting his friends first. Some of them are (hopefully) still back at the neighborhood where they originally split off. He trusts Bob to watch out for Molly until they can make their way back.
If they can make their way back.
But he has no idea where Mark could be, if he's even still alive. It's been at least two years since the outbreak started—maybe more. Molly's the one whose been keeping track of time, not him.
God, Molly's probably worried half to death.
"Road!" Jp shouts, ripping Wade out of his thoughts.
He glances up. A deep grey pavement peaks through the trees ahead of them. Trailing alongside it is a vibrant yellow sign with a deer in the center of it to warn past pedestrians to watch out.
Wade lets his shoulders drop dramatically, "Finally."
"Surely it leads back to the neighborhood," Patrick says.
The road's concrete is littered in cracks, the pavement worn from time and having nobody there to repair it. Plants snake their way through the road, flowers sprouting every fifty feet as if they were stepping stones. Wade checks up and down the road to make sure it's clear of anybody before cautiously stepping out into the open. A few yards away sits an abandoned car with the hood still up and one of the back windows rolled down.
Wade reaches over and grabs the hatchet from off of the backpack Patrick's carrying.
"Wade?" Pat asks as the older starts making his way toward the vehicle.
"I'm just gonna see if they have a map," He replies simply.
The first thing he notices is that the engine looks particularly well taken care of despite the obvious abandoned state the car has been in. A large crack splinters off from the center of the windshield, but even without it, the windows are covered in too much grime to see anything inside anyway.
The other three come up behind him and circle around toward the back. Entoan reloads his gun and starts to keep an eye on their surroundings while Wade rubs off some of the dirt on the passenger side window with his sleeve. Dim sunlight filters in through the cracks. It illuminates dust particles as they fly through the air, and Wade spots a suitcase in the backseat as well as the corner of a piece of paper poking out from the glove compartment.
He pulls down his sleeves so that they're covering his hands before he rams the handle end of the axe against the window. A loud shatter meets his ears as the window explodes into chunks of glass shards. He grimaces as one brushes his cheek despite the fact that he had turned his head away. He ran it into the window a few extra times to make sure no ragged edges were jutting out before he reaches in and tugs at the slip of paper. A wave of disappointment washes over him. It's just expired insurance papers.
In the corner of his eyes, he sees Patrick and Jp work to get the trunk open. It didn't take much effort, but if the smile that breaks out on Jp's face is anything to go by, they found something more fun than useful.
Pat lifts a duffel bag out of the trunk and unzips it to reveal a somewhat neatly stacked pile of clothing. He takes out a pink tank top and holds it up in the air over Jp's torso. "Look, Jp. It's a perfect fit for you!" Pat exclaims.
"Ha-ha! Very funny," Jp says, snatching the very-obviously-too-small-for-him top. He shoves it back inside the duffel bag and instead fishes out a thin, black tube. "Oh, hey Entoan. There's eyeliner in here."
Entoan practically perks up from his spot, "Really?"
Jp tosses it in his direction and Entoan catches it with ease before inspecting it. "Looks cheap. Probably from a drugstore kit."
Wade doesn't know anything about such makeup kits, but he knows Entoan has a specific nostalgic tenderness toward them from when he was younger. He used to shoplift them with a few friends, keep the eyeliner for himself (plus maybe a few other things), and then trade the rest to the girls at his school for things he definitely should not have had at that age. It's also not uncommon for Patrick to borrow and use whatever eyeliner they do find.
The next thing that gets pulled out of the bag is a blonde wig. Nobody says anything for a few minutes, but he can see the mischievous glint in Jp's eyes. Pat is the one that opens his mouth to say something, but Wade immediately jumps to cut him off, "There is no world where I put that on."
They start laughing, and Wade can't hold back a smile as it spreads across his face. It's moments like these that he appreciates the most nowadays. Being able to joke around with his friends like he used to do before the outbreak started. With all the violence going around, it's hard to find moments of peace.
The smile falls only a few seconds after that thought as he walks over to the duffel bag and catches a glimpse of everything else inside. Dresses, jewelry, another wig.
His brows draw together and an uncomfortable feeling unfurls in his gut. A suitcase with wigs that are suspiciously well kept, the engine not looking a day over a few months old, the windshield looking surprisingly clean compared to the other windows, and clothes that still look moderately washed.
"Someone's still using this car," Wade concludes. He looks up and watches as Pat seems to come to the same realization.
"But why would they leave it here?" Jp asks.
"The fuel tank is empty," Entoan says from up front. He's putting on the eyeliner by using the rearview mirror. When he's done, he closes the tube and slips it into his pocket before joining them at the back.
A small breeze drifts through the air, tugging at the loose bits of his sleeve as he circles to the other side of the car and tries the back door. It's locked.
What a shocker.
He rams the handle into the glass again and reaches in to pry open the door lock. He opens the leather suitcase on the back seat. Inside lies some more clothing, two granola bars, and—
"A map!" Wade exclaims. He practically snatches it out of the suitcase without even bothering to search through the rest of its contents. He walks over to the other three before opening it up.
The map consists of half the entire state of Ohio. A few of the towns are circled with scribbled half-thoughts written over road names in a pen that bleeds through the thin page. Good news: despite this, he recognizes a few of the roads from brief glances he shared at the street signs when their group first found the neighborhood to settle down in. Bad news: their neighborhood is circled with the word "people?" next to it.
"Maybe it's the wrong neighborhood?" Jp tries hesitantly.
A loud crack echoes off in the distance. All four men snap their heads toward the road ahead, now shrouded in a cloud of darkness as the last remaining sunlight dips beneath the sky.
Wade searches the map for the road they're on and instead finds a giant lopsided star labeled "FIRELIGHT" in all capital letters miles up the road from them. There's no houses or anything it's labeled over. It's just sat in the middle of nowhere with tiny stars all over the rest of the map that vaguely resembles a night sky.
Whoever these Firelight people put in charge of this map is really bad at drawing stars. Half of these can be classified as a circle from certain angles.
"Who's that?" Jp asks.
Entoan hums, "I think I saw something about them on the way over here?"
Another gunshot from up the street, closer this time. Wade hands the map off to Jp, slips the hatchet onto his backpack instead of Pat's, and then draws the pistol from his holster as the four of them duck behind the back of the car. It doesn't sound close enough to be shooting at them, but if there's one thing he's learned since this whole mess started, it's that you can never be too safe.
"I don't think they even know we're here," Pat says.
Wade contemplates their options. The neighborhood where all their friends are waiting for them is too far of a journey for their supplies to last. But if this 'Firelight' is a base of sorts, there's a chance they might be able to sneak inside.
"How are we on water?" Wade asks as a way to soft-launch his idea.
Patrick catches on instantly, "Oh, shit."
A bright light flashes in the corner of Wade's vision and he turns to find Jp looking at the map with a flashlight that miraculously hasn't run out of battery. He must've just found it recently when they were scoping out a house.
"These could be outposts or something," Jp says. "We can try this one" he points at the star on the map closest to them, "see if it has anything."
"That's probably where we're hearing shots come from," Pat agrees.
"But why would they be shooting? You'd think after two years people would know by now that sound attracts Infected," Wade says.
Pat shrugs, "Guess we'll find out."
Peeking back out over the top of the car, Wade pauses to watch the darkness in case of any movement. After a moment of silence, he fully stands up, giving the others the hint that it's safe. Jp ticks the flashlight off, and they get moving.
There's a silent agreement amongst them to get off the road. Even if it's dark, the pavement is way too open in the scenario that a fight breaks out. Plus, they don't know anything about this group. They could have night vision for all they know.
The quiet chirp of crickets gives him a faint sense of déjà vu of the first night everything went to hell. News outlets were talking about a virus a couple weeks before the outbreak, but it didn't get too severe until later. Fortunately, it happened when everyone had come over to his house for some kind of celebration—he forgot what it was. But they were all out at dinner when everything outside the restaurant became a chaotic mass of running and screaming. Everything after that is kind of a blur, but he remembers having to trek through the woods that night.
The crickets are also the only sense of calm their journey to the star on the map had.
They didn't want to announce their presence to whoever is at the outpost, so with no flashlight to guide their way, it was nearly impossible to see where they were going at first. Jp ran into at least two trees—much to Wade and Entoan's amusement. Entoan started laughing, though, and then proceeded to get instant-karma'd by tripping on a branch and falling face first into a pile of leaves. Wade got slapped in the face by a branch Patrick sent flying his way after ducking under it himself.
Somehow, Pat was the only one of them to come out unscathed by the forest's wrath.
Things went a lot smoother the minute their eyes adjusted, thankfully, but still.
About halfway into their walk, Entoan spotted a billow of smoke slowly begin to emerge from the top of the trees in the distance. And then a good few minutes later, Jp spotted another one in the direction they're heading in. It's not much, but eventually they got close enough to see the orange glow of a fire sticking out amongst the darkness around them. It illuminated the walls of a man-made wooden structure surrounded by camping tents.
What throws Wade off, though, is the closer in proximity they get, the quieter everything goes. There's no chatter he'd expect from a camp ground like this, no drunken shouting from rowdy men with nothing better to do than get wasted and waste each other. Not even the bugs are singing.
They come across one of those pathways that are only created by people trampling over it a million times. It stretches all the way to the start of what looks to be a fire lookout tower staircase. There's a car parked a few feet away and a few sandbag walls he's only ever seen in military movies scattered around the perimeter. Now that he's looking at it, there are a shit ton of tents everywhere. The only ones that are lit are the ones along the pathway where the campfire sits, but there are some that go even deeper into the woods.
Wade's about to hold a hand out to stop the other three from approaching when a gunshot splits the air. It hits the tree right by Jp's ear, bark flying off it. They all immediately duck down behind an overturned bench as more bullets ricochet off the wood—one even managing to hit a nail.
Entoan tries to fire back once the onslaught dies down, but the second he attempts to poke his head around the corner, another bullet barely misses him.
"Well, shit," Wade whispers, but it carries in the silence. Someone taps his shoulder and he looks over to find Pat handing him another round for his pistol. He nods his thanks and tucks it away into the pocket of the backpack he's wearing.
Jp pops his head out and manages to fire off a shot, but one is equally returned. He looks at them and points vaguely in the direction of a tent near the campfire. Before any of them can question it, he emerges again and fires once more. A pained grunt is the response this time. Entoan uses the distraction to shoot the glass at the top of the tower. It shatters, shards raining down onto the grass below. They shimmer dimly in the moonlight.
Wade takes the opportunity of the fight and, being the closest to the edge of the bench, starts to search for the best route forward.
The car isn't that far away, and if they can make it to that, they'll at least be behind better cover. The only problem is that the side facing away from the tents is facing toward the watchtower. And this group would be stupid if they didn't have people up there trying to catch any intruders at a nasty angle.
He dips back behind the bench right as a bullet pierces the place his head just was. Bits of the bench continue to splinter off, wooden chips landing in the grass around them. He turns toward his friends and relays the idea. "We can make it to that car," he gestures relatively in the direction of the vehicle.
Entoan, who's closest to him, pauses his retaliation spray of firing and glances in the direction Wade mentioned. "Are you sure? That seems far."
"As long as you watch the sky we should be fine," Wade replies. Another bullet breaks through the space between them—so close he can hear the whizz as it zips by. They both reel back.
Entoan looks like he's contemplating their options before nodding and delivering the plan to the other two while Wade manages to take down one or two guys. Hopefully it gives them more room to work with because this bench isn't gonna last much longer.
"On your go," Pat shouts over the commotion.
Wade holds up a fist and peeps back around the corner to make sure none of these 'Firelights' have moved any closer. When the next bullet hits a tree in front of them, he drops his arm.
He bolts across the terrain. Leaves harshly munch underneath his boots, the fire flickers in the corner of his vision, gunshots ring out into the night, and the car grows closer and closer in beat with the pounding of his heart. He doesn't have time to strain his ear to listen for the footfalls of the others behind him, he just has to hope they followed. He, quite dramatically if you were to ask an outside perspective, slides across the ground just in time to avoid a bullet.
Somebody lands next to him, sending a few leaves scattering around them. Wade reaches an arm up toward the car to haul himself back into a sitting position. The metal of the car is cool to the touch. He runs his hand briefly against the rustic bumps of what he's now realizing is a truck upon closer inspection.
After waiting a few more seconds and hearing no other thumps alongside the truck, he turns to find Jp trying to pick himself back up.
Only Jp.
"What the…" Wade starts. He offers an arm for the younger and practically glares in the direction of the bench they had just come from. Bullets rain down upon the ground where they had just run through, kicking soil into the air and snapping a stick in half. Entoan meets his eyes before promptly turning them back toward the distance and shooting him an "I'm not running through that shit" look.
Wade motions toward Jp who has now also turned his attention toward the other two. Pat shrugs over Entoans shoulder. Wade doesn't catch anything else as he's forced to duck and dodge a bullet that ricochets off the truck's metal and nearly takes his ear off.
"Great!" Wade exclaims with fake enthusiasm.
Jp groans in frustration, "I was literally further than both of them!"
"Yeah, I don't know what they're doing man," Wade says, trying to ignore the pit in his stomach at having to split up.
A loud cry comes from above them and Wade presses further into the car as the silhouette of a man tumbles out of the broken window in the lookout tower above them. Wade turns his head away and shuts his eyes, but it does nothing to block out the sickening sound of the body hitting the ground. Wade has witnessed a lot of death in the few years since the outbreak. Hell, he's even taken some lives—watched their eyes as the light drained out of them. Even still, he's pretty sure he'll be hearing the sound of that man's bones cracking the next time he goes to sleep.
He pushes it down and opens his eyes again. Thankfully, the man's matted hair is covering whatever damage is done on his face. The rest of his body though?
Wade swiftly turns away toward the other two by the bench, specifically Entoan. "Oh, so now you can follow the plan!"
He doesn't catch the entirety of the response sent his way, but he does manage to hear something along the lines of "aiming at you" and "you're welcome".
Wade rolls his eyes and shuffles his way toward the front of the truck.
"What do we do now?" Jp asks. He fires a shot over the back of the truck without really paying attention.
Wade checks the amount of ammo still left in his clip and swears. He fishes around in the side of his backpack for the extra round he was given earlier only to find nothing. It must've fallen out when he slid across the ground.
He can feel the way Jp brightens up beside him as he comes up with an idea. "Oh! What if we circle around and flank some of them from behind? I still have that pocket knife you gave me, and you still have that hatchet. We can do it without making any sound and hopefully give them something to work with," he explains.
Wade takes in what the other is saying and looks around the front of the truck. The area is dark enough for sure. The only thing he can even vaguely see the shapes of are trees, but he knows there are tents back here—he saw them from the bench. If he listens closely enough, he can tell there aren't any guys sitting and waiting behind any of them. All the gunshots sound too far away for that.
"Yeah, okay," Wade says, slipping out the hatchet and putting his gun away. "Wait, what about the leaves?"
"We can crawl?" Jp suggests.
"You're kidding right? Wouldn't that be louder?"
"Then walk softly! I don't know!"
Wade grabs his hatchet and then quietly sets down his backpack after, deciding it'd probably be best to get some weight off his shoulders, and rises to his knees. He takes one step, raising his heel and setting it down slowly before rolling the rest of his foot. The crunch that follows isn't nearly as loud as before, but he can already tell that he shouldn't have skipped Knee Day. Whenever that is.
Jp follows him and together they snake their way toward the first tent. Every time the gunfire lets up for a few moments, they pause their footsteps and wait for it to return not even a minute later before continuing. Wade tries to get a glimpse of Pat or Entoan every few seconds or so, but it gets harder the further away they grow, so he turns his focus toward trying to hear if the next pained shout is from them or from the enemy. His heart spikes every time he hears a man fall.
By the time they reach the first man they can flank, they've already passed by four tents unnoticed. The guy goes down without so much of a struggle thanks to Jp's blade. Wade inspects the gun the guy was carrying while Jp shifts through the dude's vest pockets. There wasn't much of anything for him to loot, but the guy was wearing a mask and had on a little metal pin with what Wade assumes is the Firelight logo. In short, it's literally just a campfire with swords for logs. Which is stupid because Wade hasn't seen a single sword in these guys' hands.
Jp doesn't find anything interesting either, so they move on.
It's after they take another guy down that it happens. Wade was paying attention to trying to listen for Entoan and Pat to notice anything on the ground. They're literally right next to the tent, which is unfortunately occupied, when Jp gasps and whisper-shouts his name.
His next step is cut short. A loud snap breaks the silence they've been trying to maintain and a white-hot explosion of pain erupts on his right leg. He opens his mouth to shout in alarm, but a hand quickly stifles his scream and pulls him behind the tent.
Wade doesn't even know what happens next. All he knows is the suffocating wave of agony that engulfs the entirety of his leg and that he needs to keep quiet. When Jp's hand disappears, he instantly replaces it with his sleeve as a cry tears itself from his throat. He's biting down so hard that he thinks for a second the fabric is going to shred.
The faint sound of a body hitting the ground beside him breaks through the soft ringing in his ears as he stares down at the bear trap clamped around the end of his leg. The fucking bear trap—holy shit his leg.
"Hey!" Jp whispers, snapping his fingers in front of Wade to draw his attention away from the mangled, bloody mess. "Look at me, Wade!"
Wade does. Jp's face is partly covered in black spots, but he manages to keep his vision steady enough and his thoughts clear enough to note the heavy set of panic in the younger's expression.
"You're gonna be fine, okay?" Jp tries to reassure. "You're not gonna die or anything."
Wade mumbles a few words into his sleeve because yeah, he knows that. It just doesn't feel that way right now.
Another unbearable spike of pain shoots up from the wound as Jp attempts to maneuver the spikes. Wade shouts a swear in protest and Jp immediately retracts his hand with a clipped apology.
"The medkit is in Pat's backpack," Jp says more to himself than anything else.
Wade swallows down the pain radiating through his leg and lets the sleeve fall from his mouth. He gasps silently and struggles to find his breathing for a second before eventually managing, "Don't take it off."
"Wha—you can't walk with it on!" Jp responds back, realizing half way through that he's being too loud.
"Then leave me here and go finish our flank idea thingy and then grab the map and we can go home," Wade says.
Jp immediately rejects, "No way! Someone could've heard that trap go off."
"Jp!" Wade exclaims as silently as he can. "That bench is not going to last much longer if they're still over there."
About a million emotions cross his friend's face, but Wade doesn't have the energy to distinguish them right now.
"Fine. Stay here," Jp declares before leaving to head toward the next tent.
Wade scoffs, "Like I can go anywhere."
He steadies the hatchet in his hands to busy his brain with anything but the increasing amount of agony piercing him. He can't even feel his foot anymore.
He really should've been paying attention. It's not the first time they've run into something hidden underneath the leaves since they've had to leave the neighborhood. And it's also not the first time any of them have run into a group using traps. There was a close call once when him, Bob, Mandy, and Bird were scavenging through a house on a supply run, and there was a tripwire on the other side of a door Bob opened. It set off a chain reaction that caused half the room to explode and nearly brought the house down on all of them.
Wade grits his teeth and attempts to shift into an easier position. He doesn't even move it more than an inch before the sleeve is back between his teeth. The hatchet suddenly feels very heavy in his grasp. He sets it down next to him with a clank and decides instead to only twist his head.
He catches a glimpse of the bench through a netted tent window. It's almost unrecognizable from all the fragments that have been chipped away. The car him and Jp were behind doesn't look much better. The entire side facing the tents has been indented with all the bullets it was pelted with, holes littering the foundation.
He feels a lot less worried now that the amount of shooting has decreased significantly.
An abrupt outcry tears through the clearing and Wade sees a madman run toward the bench with a crowbar swung over his head. Only, nobody is there to meet the man. Which means Patrick and Entoan have probably gone elsewhere. Maybe they finally made it to the car.
In other news, if the Firelights are resorting to melee combat then they're probably out of ammunition.
A faint, but thunderous group of snarls echoes in the distance and Wade's heart surges. Not a big horde much to his surprise, but a horde nonetheless. He should've assumed the gunfire would draw them.
Man, he's really off his game tonight.
Maybe they all are.
The crunch of leaves around the tent he's sitting against alert him to a new presence. He snatches the hatchet and raises it above his head just in time to block an oncoming blow.
He meets the eyes of a woman a bit younger than him. Brown hair, greasy but not greasy enough to not have been washed recently. A handkerchief hides her mouth, but her expression is fierce and the pressure on the rifle increases with every shuttering breath Wade draws in.
The woman kicks a foot out and it collides with the bear trap clamped around his leg.
"Motherfucker!" He screams, raw and guttural in a way that he's never heard himself sound before. The excruciating fire that darts up his body steals the air from his lungs and he's left grasping for any sense of color in the enshrouding darkness threatening to steal his eyesight.
He swings out blindly and feels as the blade of his hatchet connects with something. The woman cries out, knees hitting leaves. A frustrated growl rises from her throat as she gets back up.
Wade sees her raise the rifle above her head and can't stop the sinking feeling in his chest. He weakly holds up a hand in an attempt to block the oncoming blow as she brings it down—
A deafening gunshot breaches the calm night atmosphere. Wade flinches slightly, expecting a hole to be ripped into his side and a new kind of pain to sprout in his hip.
Instead, the woman's rifle drops limply to the forest floor by her feet. Her body stumbles slightly backward before collapsing motionless beside the tent.
Wade snaps his head toward where the sound comes from—regretting it immediately as nausea clouds his mind. He could recognize that face anywhere, though.
"Patrick," He manages. His voice is raspy at the edges and a tinge bit panicked.
Pat slings his backpack around his shoulders and crouches down in front of him, already half way to pulling out a medkit. "Jesus Christ, Wade."
"Yeah, yeah," Wade grits out. He gently pushes himself back into a sitting position and winces.
Patrick sets the medkit down on the ground and grabs at a decently thick stick nearby. "This is gonna hurt like hell, are you ready?"
"Does it look like I'm ready?" Wade replies on instinct. He registers vaguely that he sounds like a grumpy grandpa and almost laughs.
"Wade."
"Just do it," Wade says. "We don't have time."
"What do you mean we don't have time?" Pat asks carefully. He reaches down and presses against the springs with a random shirt from a tent and the stick he picked up.
"Infected—Ow!" Wade exclaims as Pat slowly but surely pulls the jaws of the trap apart. The metal makes a sickening squelch as it slips out of his leg. Wade shuts his eyes as if that'll block out the sound.
"Okay, can you move your leg?" Patrick asks.
Wade laughs incredulously, "Definitely not."
Pat nods absently and Wade gets the feeling he's gonna need to be distracted, so he asks, "Where are Entoan and Jp?"
"They're looting the camp right now. Entoan thinks there might be gasoline somewhere for the golf cart."
Wade scrunches his brows together in confusion, "There's a golf cart?"
His question comes out muffled through the fabric of his sleeve that he decided to chow down on again, but Pat seems to get what he's asking anyways. "Yeah, it's near the road."
Wade gets ready to respond again but it comes out as a yell as Pat gently lifts his leg out of the bear trap and props it up on his own knee.
Patrick apologizes, but instead of waiting to give him room to gather his strength like a normal person would, Pat decides to do everything in the span of one very long, extremely painful minute.
Wade's biting down so hard by the end of it that he feels like his teeth are about to shatter from the sheer force. But when he looks down, it's to the sight of gauze and not the mangled mess of blood, dirt, and flesh it was caked in earlier.
He lets out a sigh, "Thanks."
He allows himself a moment of peace for his brain to catch up. They've gotten rid of all the Firelights at this outpost by some miracle, there are plenty of supplies for them to gather, and there's a golf cart. They'll finally be able to travel without walking!
The fire still crackles calmly, and now the crickets have started to come out of their shelter to resume their song. A gentle breeze shakes whatever leaves remain on the trees. The sound of the horde still creeps ever closer, but they have time.
A familiar voice shatters the ambiance of the forest, "I found gas!"
Jp comes barreling around the corner of the truck. Entoan follows behind him with the backpack Wade had sat down over his shoulders.
He frowns when he sees Wade's condition, but Wade dismisses whatever comment Entoan has and takes the hand Pat is offering him.
Wade immediately picks his injured foot up and wobbles for a second before Pat slings Wade's arm over his shoulders.
"Jp you still got that map right?" Wade asks.
Jp nods enthusiastically, "Yeah. I put it in one of the backpacks."
"Ahh, finally someone who knows how to follow a plan."
"I swear to God," comes Entoan's very tired huff of laughter that blends into Pat's very amused laugh.
Wade doesn't know what the hell is waiting for them back at the neighborhood, or if anything is at all. What he does know, is that no matter how many times these three can cause him to be on the verge of insanity, they also always have his back. And no matter what, he'll have theirs.