As the assembly of disheveled marching feet began reacting to the shots he’d fired, Aeres tensed up, the bullets from his gun pausing as he held his breath without realizing it until he gasped. He tried not to look at what was happening in the distance, though he heard terrified shrieking and warning shouts coming from all directions. His blue eyes didn’t seem to focus correctly as the group began approaching at an even faster right, and he realized not a moment too soon that they had heard the gunfire. Looking left and right and back and forth, he finally managed to roll up his window, pulling the gun and himself safely inside just as the first walker slammed its body against his vehicle. As the undead man went in for what appeared like a headbutt directly into his window, someone hit him down, sparing the young man the anxiety of the glass cracking. However, it seemed that was not the only one waiting to try to get him from the outside; a few more thuds filled the tense atmosphere of his car as bodies lurched at it, and Aeres crouched down, hands pulled in towards his chest, gun resting in the passenger’s seat—he dared not use it more and attract further attention. When Johnny came into sight, he breathed a little more again, eyes darting around as the two men took down the group attempting to destroy his car. It seemed the BMW had survived, save for a few minor dents—while usually he would be enraged by such marks, at the moment he was pleased to have it in one piece along with his fleeting life. When the dead lie motionless outside the vehicle, only then did the boy open his door and peek out to here Johnny’s announcement. “Hundreds?” he repeated, eyes wide as the man got inside of his car. “Hundreds? From where? I thought no one lived out here!” He was too worried about surviving to watch his mouth in attempt to be more polite to the rural folk. “Are we really on our own? Just us?” Right now, he couldn’t tell if it was a blessing or a curse that he had gotten stuck in traffic on his way to the band afterparty, or that he had chosen to go at all. His brother had not been so lucky, but he suspected something had happened when he stepped out to buy liquor before they went out. Soren had looked a bit off the entire car ride but he hadn’t wanted to say anything about it. Without waiting for an answer, he started the car engine and began driving. He knew where the highway was and Johnny wouldn’t have to convince him twice. He maneuvered around abandoned vehicles and fallen corpses back onto the road and headed off from there, telling Johnny as his hands gripped the wheel, “Just let me know when I need to stop.” He paused, then added, “And thanks for killing those…things.” ----- Wiping the sweat from his brow with the back of his wrist, Wes turned anxiously towards Johnny as he made his dismal announcement to everyone. He listened to half and tuned out the rest once he remembered Sarah had been screaming earlier in the midst of the chaos. Shoving his way through the hysteric crowd, he tried to find her. The man was impatient as he pushed people aside who refused to get out of his way and he eventually found the woman he'd been searching for behind the house. Two dead bodies laid at her feet—one of a helpful bystander who'd jumped in to help at the last minute, pierced in the temple by a bullet from one of the hunters guns. Next to him slumped a body covered in dirt and grain from the fields. It must have been one of the party goers who'd made their way over the hill. Her body shook violently, uncontrollably, and salt-water tears streaked her cheeks. Wes skidded to a stop when he saw her, his eyes wide, and he shook his head when he saw her arm slicked with blood from an open wound on her neck. “No...” Sarah wiped her eyes with her hands when she saw him and gave a pained smile before he rushed forward and embraced her. “Fuck, Sarah...” he whispered as he held her. His mother. His father. His brother. In just a few minutes they were all gone—he hadn't even had a chance to say goodbye. It still hadn't sunken in. Now he stood in front of this girl, one he hadn't seen in years, but he would have once sworn he was going to spend the rest of his life with. He thought someone would have helped her—there were dozens of people around both in the house and camping outside of it—but no one had bothered. “I should have let that fucking kid die.” Her eyes widened in horror—an expression he remembered and often dreamed about—and the reason she'd broken up with him in the first place. The bad boy and the good girl—they were a trope—and while in books and movies things might have eventually worked out between them, life wasn't like that. They'd been too different. “No!” she exclaimed. “It makes me happy you helped them.” A look of shame tainted her features as she held on to him, “I had a chance to help people and I ran away. I was scared. I ran away, Wes.” He didn't like the way she was looking at him. Like it would be the last time. “You've changed.” Wes let her go and turned his back to her, looking towards the edge of the house. “We'll find a doctor. That dumb kid can give you a ride-” but before he could finish what he was saying he heard the sound of tires spinning out and knew even without seeing that they'd taken off. “God damn it!” Lashing out he punched at the nearby tree. “Everyone's fucking dying!” The bark scraped his knuckles drawing more blood, but the pain was nonexistent as he was lost in his own head. “As soon as that thing bit me, I was dead,” she said. The disease was contagious and it would only be a matter of time before she became like the others. Already her face was pallid and her eyes more dull. “Promise me something?” He didn't want to promise anything, but he looked at her with a wary, tired expression feeling like he couldn't deny her one last wish. “Promise me you'll help them. That you won't run away like I did.” Wes was not someone who liked helping others. He preferred to take care of his own and himself. It went against who he was, everything he believed in, but he found himself giving a slow nod anyway. Doubting it would be possible, he decided he would try even if he didn't think any of these assholes deserved it. “I promise.” He sat with Sarah by the tree looking out at the hill. The group Johnny had been talking about began to shamble over the peak, stumbling over one another, but he didn't move. He kept his arm wrapped around her until she closed her eyes for the last time. Propping her up against the tree, he went to one of the hunter's fallen bodies, aiming the gun at her head and pulling the trigger. Slumped against the tree she looked like a morbid angel. As they marched over the hill descending on the house, Wes had to be quick as he'd stayed longer than he should have. Most had cleared out after Johnny's warning while others had boarded themselves in his house thinking that it would survive the onslaught. He raced around towards the garage where he mounted his motorcycle. Squeezing and holding the clutch to his Indian Scout Bobber, the engine soon revved to life and took off, zipping through the diseased as they arrived and through the narrow openings out onto the highway. “Has nothing to do with me.” Elizabeth didn't know why the man was telling her his life story or why she thought she cared about him and the kid with him when she had more important things to do. But with the enemy too close for comfort she relented saying, “But I will take that ride.” Climbing into the cabin she sat beside the stone-faced girl. Elizabeth tried not to stare as silent stares slid down the girl's cheek, but her motherly instincts just wanted to take the poor thing into a hug. Considering the girl had just been through a traumatic experience, she refrained from doing so, taking to looking again at the screen on her phone and, noting the red bar in the upper left hand corner, shut it off. Turning her head to look out the window, she didn't know where this stranger was taking her or if he could be trusted, but knowing she was armed went a long way to making her feel better.