Consequences (Warm Bodies fan fiction)

Chapter 24

John Grigio glared at the road ahead of him, wondering how everything could have gone so wrong so fast. He had lost half of his men in that mission to California. His mind, not for the first time, wandered back to the events of that week. He had reached the small town where the survivors had been hiding out at. The day had been very nice, very sunny, it had given him and his men the allusion that things would go smoothly... but that was not to be. When they met with the survivors, they should have noticed that something was off from the start. Their leader, an old man named Geoffrey, was twitchy and kept eying the goods they brought along to sustain them. Normally that wouldn't be so odd, considering they had quite a bit of supplies and most people didn't, but John should have noticed the desperation at least.

So Geoffrey invited them into the little convenience store they had been living in and explained things to him. Some of the 'corpses' had been acting strange, as if they lost their interest in them, but the Boneys had not. It was plain to see that these people, with their gaunt bodies and ashen faces, weren't the hunting and scavenging types, so some of them probably never saw a Boney up close before. The leader went on to tell them that the Boneys had been aggressively determined to get at them, destroyed the stores of food and water they had and even tried to break into the store they lived in. It had been like that for several days until it stopped. The leader told him that they needed to leave this place, needed refuge, and had heard of stadium city. John told them they needed to think about it. In the meantime, Geoffrey offered them to stay, rest, and eat with them, 'commune' in fellowship. John wasn't sure about sticking around, but decided if they offered them hospitality, even with the meager supplies they had, they could at least be courteous and accept their generosity.

They stayed and met with the rest of the people in that group. It was only two days later when Geoffrey attempted to ask them if they could join them again. John had gotten to know them fairly well the past days and they had seemed likeable people. He hadn't seen the problem with letting in a few more refugees, though as always he was cautious about it. He asked them what they could offer them. When the leader spoke of giving them their daughters, and no one objected, it was a clear indication that something important within them had been lost. John tried to politely decline and ask if they had any skills, but most of the people there were either too young and inexperienced or too old and frail to do much. At least, that's how the looked like from inside the store. They hadn't been guarding their supplies as well as they should.

John had told them that they would think about it and had tried to leave, but Geoffrey tried to stop them, offering more 'hospitality'. He tried to 'appeal' to their humanity again. John could see that the old man was trying to stall them, had been trying to keep them occupied all this time... something was wrong. John pushed him aside and went to see what his gut had been telling him all that time to see but had been ignored. When they reached their caravan, they noticed that the guards that had been stationed there were nowhere to be seen. They approached their vehicles, calling for their missing soldiers, but no one was around. Checking the supplies it was then John understood what was going on. Those 'refugees' were scavengers alright, the worst kind. Yelling for his men to arm themselves and take cover had probably saved the lives of most of them.

Out from the alleyways and street corners, shots were fired. Weapons stolen from them were being used to try to kill and rob them. These people were not simple survivors, they were highwaymen, bandits. They spent a few hours playing bullet tag until John managed to get a team around them, flank them by going through one of the old buildings. They disabled the ones attacking them on the ground but there had still been some snipers hidden in some of the taller buildings. They tried to approach the building with the snipers, but a car had been rigged with explosives and detonated as soon as they got near it. Fortunately, John and a few others hadn't been as close and it nearly sent them flying backwards with only a few scratches and one with a concussion when he hit his head on impact from the throw.