As much as he would have loved to had find another person, a live one preferably, Eric still couldn't forget how useless or better said not threatening he and his pistol had proven against the man. Then again, whatever that thing had been, since it was not quite dead, but definitely not alive either, it hadn't even flinched at the sight of the weapon.
Regardless of the man, Eric continued securing the house, room by room, starting with the ground floor. The living room was a mess, with of the furniture looks worse than a rage room. The next place he checked was the kitchen, which surprisingly, looked relatively untouched, though the smell from the refrigerator made his eyes water.
Once Eric was sure nothing and no one was on the ground floor, he made his way towards the stairs. Up there, he started with the master bedroom, which was empty, much to his relief. However, when he went to the check the bathroom, Eric found that the mirror had been shattered, and there were quite a lot of dried blood in the sink, but other than that, the bathroom looked clear. And finally, the last room Eric checked was a child's room, decorated in bright colors that looked just as intact as the master bedroom, making him wonder just where the partner and the baby had gone.
In the end, Eric found no other infected. No survivors eithers. Just and empty house.
But as Eric completed his sweep, a more pressing problem became apparent – there was no way out. The back door, which he'd been counting on as his escape route, was blocked by thick wooden planks nailed across it from the outside. The windows were similarly secured, boards overlapping in a way that whoever had done this hadn't wanted anyone – or anything – getting in or out.
"Or they were trying to keep something in," Eric muttered, remembering the man's strange behavior. Had he been trapped in here? Was that why he'd acted so... different from the regular infected?
Standing in the kitchen, Eric ran his fingers through his hair, frustrated that right now, he too had been trapped like the man he had just killed. The front door was still protecting him, for now at least, against the horde, but the constant impacts were growing louder and more insistent. The boards on the windows were too solid to break through quickly, and the noise would only draw more attention. The second-floor windows didn't fare any better, with the added risk of a potentially falling and broking a leg, if he did manage to break through.
"Think, damn it," he hissed, pacing the kitchen. "There has to be another way out."
But just as Eric was starting to panic, the sound of a heavy engine rumbling in the distance made him freeze mid-step. His heart skipped a beat as he rushed to the front door, pressing his eye against the peephole. Through the narrow view, he could make out a green pickup truck rolling to a stop near his fallen motorcycle. The vehicle's engine wasn't particularly loud, but in the relative quiet of the suburban street, it might as well have been thunder.
Five figures got out from the truck– four men and a woman. The woman and a skinny guy had hunting rifles and aimed them at the infected, while the driver remained close to the wheel just in case, they had to bail out faster than expected.
"No, no, no," Eric whispered, watching helplessly as two of the men hoisted his bike into the truck's bed. His hands balled into fists against the door, and as much as he wanted to rush out and save his bike, he knew that it was a fool's task. Even though, that bike was his only reliable transportation, his best chance at reaching Atlanta, and these people were just taking it like it was their right.
While this was clearly bad luck for Eric, at the same time, it also was a bit of a blessing of sorts, as almost as soon as the car stopped, the infected stopped hitting the door and turned towards the "juicier" target, making the woman and the skinny guy to take shots at them, taking down a shambler every few seconds.
"Their aim ain't that good…" Eric muttered while already planning on getting back his baby from those thieves.
Nevertheless, seeing how the shamblers quickly chance their target, was interesting. They follow what they want until something distract them, then they follow that. This would definitely be useful to remember. Soon enough, the crowd of about twenty of those things made their way, shambling down the street, in various states of decay towards the car from across the street.
Still, seeing so many of them, just appear out of nowhere, raised quite a lot of questions. Where were they all coming from? Why wasn't the news reporting that this has become even bigger than before? Then again, if this is happening in a small town like King's County… God help those in the big cities.
Meanwhile, one of the men let out a sharp curse as he noticed just how quickly the infected were closing in – they weren't the sluggish, easy targets the group had expected. The shambling mass had picked up speed, driven by some primal hunger that made their rotting limbs move with terrible purpose.
"Get in! Get in now!" the driver shouted. The woman with the rifle got off one more shot, dropping a particularly close infected, before scrambling into the cab. The skinny guy wasn't far behind, nearly tripping over his own feet in his haste to get to safety.
The two men who'd lifted the bike barely had time to push it deeper into the truck bed before throwing themselves in after it. The last one's boots had barely left the ground when the driver floored it.
Eric watched through the peephole as his beloved bike – and his best chance at finding Sarah – disappeared down the road. The infected followed for a while, until they gradually lost interest, spreading out across the street.
"Damn it," Eric muttered, his forehead resting against the cool wood of the door. He'd just watched his only reliable transportation disappear to God knows where, taken by people who probably thought they were just scavenging some abandoned property. They couldn't have known someone was still alive in here, trapped behind those boards and that reinforced door.
The irony wasn't lost on him – he'd come here looking for supplies himself, and instead had not only lost his bike but found himself in an even worse situation than before. At least, now he could leave this house and… figure out what his next move would be.
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