3 Episode 3: Just Another Day

A young Dex awakens on shore, he ended up washing up not long after the bombings, it is the next morning already, and there is a dead silence that fills the air. He slowly gets up, coughing a lot, he sees nothing but a bunch of smoke and a few car alarms off in the distance. He climbs up the hill slowly, he sees a few shambling corpses roaming the streets aimlessly, they seem burnt up, there are a bunch of fires raging still from the napalm, he doesn't even feel as scared anymore, it's almost as if he lost all sense of fear after the nightmare the night before. He walks down the street, shivering, he walks past some corpses on the ground and leaves the city limits on a freeway nearby. He sees blood everywhere, he is confused as to how everything was peaceful one minute and hell the next.

He passes by a car with a small radio on the hood next to the corpse of someone who took the easy way out. He listens in and it is a repeating message from officials listing cities to have evacuated, "Los Angeles, San Francisco, Baltimore, Atlanta, D.C., Pittspurgh, ..." The batteries seemed to have died at that moment, he keeps walking, he picks a blanket off of the ground and wraps himself in it, he continues, coughs a little, that's the only sound he hears. He makes it a decent distance away from the city and begins to get very tired since he was hungry, thirsty, weak, sick. He climbs on a car and looks at the city from a distance, great skyscrapers now at ground level, places that were once tourist attractions, now unrecognizable, he sees how society collapsed and it was a quick and very painful downfall. He begins to close his eyes and begins to fall over, a man catches him and calls some people over.

"Shit, guys come and help me out here, this kid needs some help." another man rushes over with water and looks at LA, "How the hell did he make it outta there." a woman saying, "A goddamn miracle, that's how" they see some fresh walkers and they make quick work of him, the man carries Dex to their van and they drive off, they were a travelling group of friends pre apocalypse and ended up stuck in the apocalypse together with no way of crossing the country.

PRESENT DAY:

Dex stares off into the distance, Jack joins him in staring and offers him a beer, he takes it and opens it. "You ever think that this shit with the Raiders will be over Dex?" Dex takes a drink and looks at a walker eating a bird, "I've seen many conflicts like this throughout my journey across the country, it always ends with both sides suffering crippling casualties." Jack looks at the walker as well and responds with, "I don't know, it just feels like I'm not doing enough or good enough for these people, I care for them all, it's just I see no change in this conflict." Dex takes note of his worriedness for his people and says, "Ya know that means you are doing things right, you care about these people so much that you begin to doubt it all when there still is a threat looming... You are doing good because these people are still here, they're still breathing, they are still thriving and I doubt that they could do it without you man..." Jack looks at him and says, "Ya know you got real leader vibes in you man, you would make a great leader one day." He and Dex continue to drink as they watch walkers do walker stuff in the streets.

Sarah hoes some farming soil when she spots one of the people with her rubbing their arm a bit, she walks up to them and asks if she was okay. The woman looked at her, she wanted to lie and say that she was but she couldn't, she rolled her sleeve up slowly to reveal a bite that she received a day prior. "It's a day old Sarah, I'm not gonna make it, I didn't wanna mention it because I didn't realize it was a bite until after I returned from walker duty on the walls, I don't wanna waste health equipment when others need it more, I'm getting old, I was bound to die of something soon anyway." Sarah looks at the bite and wraps it up with her sleeve that she cut off of the flannel shirt that she just got, "At least wrap it up, when you feel the fever get worse leave a note by your door and cuff yourself to your bed, the least you could do is make sure others are safe." She nods and agrees with her, she mentions that she'll tell Hailey after work so Hailey can prepare her for a peaceful goodbye.

Sarah walks back to her spot and rolls both her sleeves up to make her shirt look less cut up, she continued to work. She looked at the woman one more time, she was getting sickly with her paleness and redness around the eyes. Over at the meeting building Hailey and her good friend Lamar sit there discussing things with the community and the Raiders. "Ya know I say that we walk up to them and take them all on, they seem all big, tough and scary but to be honest they are all just a bunch of crybabies with big guns, trust me Hailey, I've watched so many shows and movies back in the day to know that the bad guys are always weak as hell and only exist to make their boss seem all big and tough." Hailey chuckles at his pop culture references and jokes he makes a lot, she responds with, "While I admire your confidence and all that fun stuff, I can't just march in on an enemy we know little about, except that they have a vulnerable science building and really no leadership except their more experienced rapist, murderer, thieving assholes bossing them around." Lamar looks at her and says "Not to be a buzzkill or anything but these guys are so cliche, every bad guy is so one dimensional and ruthless" Hailey chuckles and says, "They're still people with feelings and weaknesses, they just don't show it, they refuse to do so... Trust me, they are not as big and tough as you make them out to be." Lamar mentions how she is impossible to beat in an argument and a few friendly jokes later, Lamar leaves to continue his shift on parameter watch.

Lamar walks down the street some and sees Sarah, he walks to her and asks where Dex and Jack were, when she points them out she asks what they were doing. He just mentioned that they were going on a little supply run into a nearby town, away from Raiders, Sarah offered to join and he didn't argue with extra help, Sarah stabs the shovel into the ground and picks her bag up to follow. They eventually make it to Dex and Jack, Jack looked down on them and asked, "We headed out on the weekly supply run?" Lamar looked at him and said, "Yeah, we're running low on corn starch, beans, and we need some clothes and any other interesting loot." Jack hops down and picks his gun up, Dex follows with his bag, they exit Willmington to begin their run.

They begin to walk down the main road for a quarter mile of silence, Lamar kicks a rock across the road and then says, "So, how long have the pair of you been together, Hailey didn't really say much about you when we were talking." Dex looks at him and says, "Uhhh maybe like 4 to 6 days, so like a week, we ended up at the right place at the right time and ended up together for the long run." Lamar sees that and mentions how they seem to be able to take care of themselves well on the outside, Jack stops them and they see town limits, "Alright, we get in and out, easy, now what do you guys suggest, teams of two or strength in numbers?" Sarah looks at the big town and sees the walkers in it, "Not gonna lie, I like working alone at times but we may have a fighting chance if we head in together." Lamar agreed quickly, they head into town slowly and begin their search for the supplies that they needed.

They slowly go through the streets and encounter a massive herd roaming the streets, they are caught by surprise but aren't noticed at all, they jump onto the side of an old clothing store. They try to keep heavy breathing to a minimum but they are really scared and that doesn't help, Dex signals to them to head into the gas station next door, they head into the back and get low. Dex looks at the walkers and then at the small crew, "Okay, I've had to do this once, all the way back in Birmingham, the city was a warzone, walkers everywhere, turns out that walker guts can help to blend in, that gross and very smelly trick may come in handy just about now." Lamar looks at the herd and then bac at Dex and says to him, "Great plan, but how the hell do you expect up to lure one dead guy without alerting the entire herd that would be more than happy to rip us to shreds, I don't wanna die just yet." As soon as their small conversation ended, Sarah gets up to get a walker, they whisper to her to stop but she ignores.

Sarah leaves the building and heads to the side of the street, there is a walker by the clothing store, she sneaks to the wall and looks at it and sees the surroundings to see if it's safe to lure. She whispers quietly to it, it and 5 other walkers go to her, she walks behind the building and takes her knives out. "Shit, this better work." she says to herself as she starts to kill, the first two get blades to the skulls, the next gets one through it's face, the next two are kicked in the legs and stomped on. Sarah wipes her knives on the corpses and puts them away, she picks the biggest one and drags it into the gas station, she drops it by the others, "There, we have our walker, let's gut this corpse" Dex and Jack cut away at the walker, Dex hesitates before smearing it everywhere, they all do it, Lamar says after covering himself, "Man,I loved this hoodie, now I'll never look at it the same... Mainly because it'll be blood stained..." They all slowly get up and walk to the entrance, they see all the walkers and Dex takes a deep breath slowly.

Dex slowly walks out and the others follow, they walk slowly, breathing slow and quietly, they fight the urge to do anything that would endanger them. They slowly walk, some walkers inspect them but they are good for now, they walk into the clothing store and shut the door slowly. There are only a couple walkers, Dex and LAmar kill them quickly and then pack clothes into their bags quickly, the stores are pretty untouched since there are so many walkers. They finish up quickly, the cloud coverage grows by the minute, "Of course it's about to rain, of all days." Lamar comments about the situation, they leave the building slowly. They walk for a bit around the corner and enter the food market, Dex felt a raindrop as he walked in, and had the "wtf" look, they right away go for the food they needed. Lamar grabs the food, Sarah and Jack take anything extra there, Dex looks at his wore out machete and then at a new one, still packaged on top of a shelf after he climbed it. He removes the old one and puts it in his bag, and takes the new one, he sees how clean and sharp it is and puts it on his side. They all regroup eventually and see that the rain is pouring heavy enough to blow their cover, Jack looks at them and says, "Okay, if things get dicey, and they sure as hell will, you run like hell and regroup where we came into this hell town from." they all nod and they leave the store slowly.

Rain hits them quickly and they begin to move, walkers start to look at them more and more as they walk, they get near the clothes store when Dex is grabbed. Sarah panicks and saves her friend, another walker comes by and before she is bit, Jack shoots it, they realize how screwed they are. "Just as planned, run like hell!!" They push through the walkers quickly, Sarah and Dex take a left when Lamar and Jack take a right, they are surrounded and split up, Dex and Sarah run into the nearby motel and take the stairs quickly to go up, they go inside, Sarah kills a walker, Dex kicks one down the stairs, they get to the roof and block the door quickly. Lamar and Jack end up at an old, rundown, abandoned schoolhouse, they go in and up and out the window on the roof and then see walkers following them up, "Okay we're gonna jump to that ladder, no time for talk just follow my lead man, it'll be fine." Jack doesn't waste a second and then runs and jumps and grabs a ladder to a nearby window and climbs up to the roof and encourages Lamar. "Shit man, I've done this a million times, in video games, real life is completely different man... Screw it." Lamar makes the leap of faith and is surprised to have made it, he climbs up as Jack happily helps him up, they walk around and see Sarah and Dex down the street, 5 buildings away.

They are noticed too, Dex shouts to them, "This sounds crazy as hell but I have a plan, dangerous but our only option, take the wooden boards there for construction and make a bridge from building to building!!" Jack gives a thumbs up and searches for a board, he sees one and uses it, he throws it down and it goes to the building in front of them. Lamar sees this and says, "Oh come the hell on, first you had me jumping off buildings James Bond style and now we doin this Uncharted style, let's do it, all I gotta do is release my inner Nathan Drake." Jack jokingly responds with, "You really do have a fun reference for everything don't ya?" Lamar says with a smile, "Yes sir I do...." he is the first to cross, Jack follows, he uses the board to go to the next building, and the next, the board gets weaker and bends more and more. By the final building Jack makes it across when the board snaps, Lamar falls, Jack yells to him as his hand slips, "NOOOO!" Jack yells as he begins to blame himself for his death, Lamar falls and lands on an old delivery truck, but in the last second, they see that he is still living. Lamar shakes his head a bit as his vision gets a bit blurry, "Awww crap, I think I broke a few things and have a concussion." Jack then yells down to him, about how they will reach him, LAmar tells them to meet him at the gas station, in his bag, he pulls a firecracker that he had, he didn't want to waste it yet but it's life or death and he is badly hurt. He uses his hoodie as a shield from the rain, he lights it, and looks at the walkers, "Not today" he throws it and it goes off, it lures most away, and he begins to climb down and make a run for the gas sation.

He eventually makes it there but passes out at the front door, he begins mumbling non sense to himself. Dex and Jack help him back to base, they walk down the street and Sarah looks back at the town, "We aren't ever going back into that shit hole ever again." Dex tries to catch his breath and says, "Ya don't have to tell me..." Jack then says, "I think I'm gonna drink myself to sleep tonight." They begin the walk down the main road to get Lamar to the doctor and to finally rest for the rest of the day. They walk with a lot of blood on them still, they are covered in water, dirt and blood, a not so fun combo for them. They fight through their stabbing pains in their legs after all that climbing, running, walking that they did. They are happy to have all of the loot that they have but aren't doing something like that again.

They eventually make it to base and the doctor quickly rushes over and helps Lamar to the infirmary. Hailey runs up and looks at them and says, "I take it you found the supplies but it came with a cost." Dex takes a deep breath and says, "You could say that." the small group went home to clean up, Dex and Sarah used the bucket of water in their bathroom to wash themselves off, "That was a lot." Sarah says while washing her face, Dex chuckles a bit and says, "That's a big understatement" Sarah agrees with that, she breaks the moment of silence and says, "You ever think we're gonna find Will ever or at least liberate the compound?" Dex thinks back at his troubling past and says, "If there's one thing I've learned is that you don't ever give up unless it's truly a lost cause and you're just chasing ghosts around. He's alive, we don't wanna rush this because we wanna make sure it stays that way." Sarah nods and says, "Ya know I don't know if I've said this already or haven't said this enough but I don't regret being stuck with you, wherever this whole journey leads, I hope you find luck wherever you go next, you have a lot of good in you, I mean you didn't even know me at all and you were still willing to help me out and... I just think that you're a good person and I want you to know that I hope our story doesn't end forever, the world's not as big as it seems, it seems as if we're bound to meet again." Dex looks down at the floor and responds with, "Out of all the people I've been with, you have been the one to truly define who I am, before we met, I truly didn't know where I belonged in this world but you helped me see that I can help to make change in this dying world, I'll never forget you... Our story won't end here, we'll meet again someday a while from now."

They finish up and eventually get to bed, they were very tired from that long day of work. They fought to survive this long and don't want to stop now. Dex is a drifter and goes from place to place, group to group and prefers not to get too attached or close, but Sarah seemed to have broken him out of that shell a bit. After all of this is over, neither of them knows where they'll go but they are confident in seeing each other again eventually, but that is a discussion they'll have but first there are loose ends to tie up, and it starts with taking down the Raiders.

END