Bravado
buster
MAYBE TOMORROW
Thank you so much again for picking Noah up from school for us! We love you and we'll see you at home tonight for dinner!
Love you, Mom
It was such a simple thing; a note scribbled in a hurry on a ripped piece of paper. Words drafted with little thought, and yet, for Mathew Hughes and his young brother Noah, they were so important. It'd been four weeks since the world decided it was going to have a meltdown. Four weeks since death decided it wanted to take a vacation. Four weeks since the brothers had seen their parents alive. They knew very little as to the whereabouts of their parents, and right now they felt very isolated and afraid. Mathew wasn't sure who was more scared, him or Noah. Noah had this kind of optimism that was both uplifting and extremely annoying, and he was bright, especially considering the circumstances. Mathew, on the other hand, had become much more drawn in since everything went down. He could still remember it as if it had been yesterday.
It happened right after Matty had picked Noah up. They saw three or four corpses shambling down the road towards a group of High School students just hanging out. They ripped them apart. It was so brutal that Matty had nearly crashed their car when he saw it. Worse still, those ripped apart teens rose only moments after such a brutal attack, although they weren't alive. They were dead, or at least they seemed dead. Matty thought they were dead, they had to be after what had just happened to them. The confusion got the best of him, confusion and curiosity. He pulled the car over and told Noah to wait. When he got out to check on the people, they charged at him, growls in their throats and teeth bared. Scared, Matty had dropped the keys to the car and fallen. His heart had been pounding as those things continued their death march towards him. Scrambling to his feet he made a mad dash for the car, though his keys were nowhere to be found. Panicking, he told Noah to get the hell out of the car.
Noah did as he was told, just as horrified as Matty was. "What do we do, Matty?" Noah whimpered, eyes flicking towards the corpses that were still coming for them. Matty looked his little brother up and down, his mind racing. If he'd have known then what he knew now, he would have grabbed more supplies from the car, but hindsight was 20/20. "Run. We need to leave now!" Matty commanded, reaching into the backseat of the car that Noah had just climbed out of. He grabbed his brother's backpack and then snatched Noah's hand and took off down the street in the opposite direction of the creatures.
They ran into even more of them down the road though, and it began to become clear to Matty that something horribly wrong was happening. He was armed only with the things that had been in his pockets: the keys to his job and a utility knife. Defending themselves was not something they'd be able to do, which meant they'd have to keep running. Eventually, they ran into the people that were here now. Not all of them all at once, but they'd all made it here to the timber yard. They were all here as a group now, getting by in a shocked sort of peace. But they didn't know each other, none of them did. and while some of them had been willing to share their food with him and Noah at the beginning, supplies were starting to get low. These people were going to look after themselves, and to hell with this dumb-ass 21-year-old and his annoying little brother. They needed to go on a supply run soon, not only for him and Noah but for the whole group. It would keep tensions low and people appeased.
Most of the main roads were overrun with vehicles and walking corpses. He didn't even want to imagine what Richmond looked like right now. But he needed to because Richmond was where they were going to get what they needed. Weapons, food, clothes, transportation, information. He couldn't do it alone though, he knew that much, which was why he'd passed the word around to all of the others that they needed to meet at the small shack to discuss this. They needed to figure out who was going, who was staying, and what their focus needed to be. He was sure that there'd be more brought up at the meeting if any of them even showed up anyways. Who was he to gather these people? As if he led them. As if they needed to be led. It wasn't a job he wanted, and as soon as the opportunity presented itself he'd pass it off.
Thank you so much again for picking Noah up from school for us! We love you and we'll see you at home tonight for dinner!
Love you, Mom
It was such a simple thing; a note scribbled in a hurry on a ripped piece of paper. Words drafted with little thought, and yet, for Mathew Hughes and his young brother Noah, they were so important. It'd been four weeks since the world decided it was going to have a meltdown. Four weeks since death decided it wanted to take a vacation. Four weeks since the brothers had seen their parents alive. They knew very little as to the whereabouts of their parents, and right now they felt very isolated and afraid. Mathew wasn't sure who was more scared, him or Noah. Noah had this kind of optimism that was both uplifting and extremely annoying, and he was bright, especially considering the circumstances. Mathew, on the other hand, had become much more drawn in since everything went down. He could still remember it as if it had been yesterday.
It happened right after Matty had picked Noah up. They saw three or four corpses shambling down the road towards a group of High School students just hanging out. They ripped them apart. It was so brutal that Matty had nearly crashed their car when he saw it. Worse still, those ripped apart teens rose only moments after such a brutal attack, although they weren't alive. They were dead, or at least they seemed dead. Matty thought they were dead, they had to be after what had just happened to them. The confusion got the best of him, confusion and curiosity. He pulled the car over and told Noah to wait. When he got out to check on the people, they charged at him, growls in their throats and teeth bared. Scared, Matty had dropped the keys to the car and fallen. His heart had been pounding as those things continued their death march towards him. Scrambling to his feet he made a mad dash for the car, though his keys were nowhere to be found. Panicking, he told Noah to get the hell out of the car.
Noah did as he was told, just as horrified as Matty was. "What do we do, Matty?" Noah whimpered, eyes flicking towards the corpses that were still coming for them. Matty looked his little brother up and down, his mind racing. If he'd have known then what he knew now, he would have grabbed more supplies from the car, but hindsight was 20/20. "Run. We need to leave now!" Matty commanded, reaching into the backseat of the car that Noah had just climbed out of. He grabbed his brother's backpack and then snatched Noah's hand and took off down the street in the opposite direction of the creatures.
They ran into even more of them down the road though, and it began to become clear to Matty that something horribly wrong was happening. He was armed only with the things that had been in his pockets: the keys to his job and a utility knife. Defending themselves was not something they'd be able to do, which meant they'd have to keep running. Eventually, they ran into the people that were here now. Not all of them all at once, but they'd all made it here to the timber yard. They were all here as a group now, getting by in a shocked sort of peace. But they didn't know each other, none of them did. and while some of them had been willing to share their food with him and Noah at the beginning, supplies were starting to get low. These people were going to look after themselves, and to hell with this dumb-ass 21-year-old and his annoying little brother. They needed to go on a supply run soon, not only for him and Noah but for the whole group. It would keep tensions low and people appeased.
Most of the main roads were overrun with vehicles and walking corpses. He didn't even want to imagine what Richmond looked like right now. But he needed to because Richmond was where they were going to get what they needed. Weapons, food, clothes, transportation, information. He couldn't do it alone though, he knew that much, which was why he'd passed the word around to all of the others that they needed to meet at the small shack to discuss this. They needed to figure out who was going, who was staying, and what their focus needed to be. He was sure that there'd be more brought up at the meeting if any of them even showed up anyways. Who was he to gather these people? As if he led them. As if they needed to be led. It wasn't a job he wanted, and as soon as the opportunity presented itself he'd pass it off.
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