A huge shoutout to muffinbandit and GrimWayne for their reviews! I've read your suggestions, comments, and critiques and I really appreciate you taking the time to write them. I agree with some of your points and I'll try to use them to improve my writing in future chapters.

Quick comment on addressing GrimWayne's point that the disease progressed too fast in the span of a couple hours. If you read back, you should notice that the disease actually took a few weeks to spread, and most people didn't know what they were dealing with.

A short recap on the progression would be something like: Disease discovered in Pakistan and spreads mass hysteria and chaos throughout the country. A couple hours later, countries issue quarantines to stop the spread but it fails. Somehow, the disease spreads to the US despite the countermeasures and spreads quickly through the city. If you look closely at the story introducing Abby, you can see that they brought in a man with the disease to the local hospital, but that doesn't necessarily imply that he was the only infected at the time. HOW the disease entered the States and HOW it spread so fast, is a story for another time.

P.S I know Pakistan is in South Asia. I was just making a joke at the boy's geographical ignorance. :P

All in all, thank you for your comments and I hope to continue getting these chapters out for you on a regular basis, hopefully with the implemented improvements.

P.P.S I'm just going to keep calling them the infected XD

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Chapter 15: Law and Order

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John and the others had detained the man in a small office room to the side of the warehouse. John walked into the room, sitting down at the other side of the table as the man. David walked into the room with his rifle resting on his front as he stood by the door. They weren’t planning on using it. They’d decided to do a huge bluff to act as if they were do or die types of people to scare the newcomers into order and destroy any ideas of just taking over and stealing everything they had.

John had a quick meeting with Sophia, Rick, and the people back home on how to assimilate the people. They had decided the best way not to get taken advantage of was to use the carrot and stick method. John had taken the role of the stick, using the warehouse of food as the carrot. The combative man was a bonus in sealing the entire act together. John was really nervous at the time while he was confronting the man, but after asking Sophia and the others how he did, they’d said he performed stupendously. They had successfully whipped the others into line. Now it was all a matter of settling things with the man. If they could convince him to obediently join the fold, that would be great. But if not, they’d have to send him away. That would basically be killing him off and would not look good for John. He wanted order but not at the cost of everyone looking over their shoulder at every turn.

He sat there and offered the man a mug of coffee. They had found instant coffee mix and so they’d brought mugs from other homes to pass out coffee to the new members as a form of giving a hint of normalcy. It was a method of keeping them from being tense and an act of kindness such as that would go a long way after the show they had put on in front of the warehouse.

The man didn’t take it.

“We need to settle some things. We’re going to be calling most of the shots but if you feel like you can give advice, we will gladly take it into consideration when making decisions. I’m pretty sure we are very rational and won’t do anything that would endanger the safety of the group.” John said calmly and slowly. He wanted to diffuse the situation and not aggravate him further. If he couldn’t win him over with words, he would find another method. If that failed as well...the man was not crucial to their current operation.

The man spit out to the side. “I’m not taking any orders from a boy who still gets weaned from his mother’s teat.”

John thought that this man may be a man of actions more than words. If he could assert dominance, it may prove enough to make the man submit. John didn’t like playing alpha dog as he viewed it as a pointless game that amounted to little more than measuring dicks and how far they could shoot their pee.

He nodded and got up. “Alright. Let’s see who can win in a fight.”

Minutes later, the two were in a ring of crates, standing a few feet away from each other. They looked into each other’s eyes, sizing up their opponent. Except, John was doing most of the sizing up, while the man seemed to greatly underestimate the boy.

They circled around before moving in. John had grappled with Sophia for a day and had been working on building his strength, but a few days workout and a few spars couldn’t do much for his battle sense.

John decided to go in for the legs and topple the man, hoping that he would fare better on the ground. The man just dodged out of the way and gave a quick jab to the boy’s ribs. John stumbled from the hit and he felt the bruise forming already. He rubbed at his side and looked back at the man.

The man clearly had slightly better experience so he needed to do some sneaky maneuvers to get the man to submit. They circled each other and started drawing closer. If John didn’t think of something soon, he’d be losing support from his group. If he couldn’t take down one man, how could he take on the world?

John decided he’d try one of the moves Sophia used. Just as they were getting closer, John whipped out his two arms, smashing them against the side of the man’s head. The man had raised his arms and blocked, slightly too slow, which only managed to lessen the impact and not negate it. John then swept his leg underneath the man and using his shoulder, pushed the man to the ground. His other leg, after losing a bit of balance, landed squarely upon the man’s lower stomach, causing the wind to be knocked out of him. John then made a quick jab at the man’s throat, causing him to choke. To finish it off, John pretended to take out a gun, making the shape with his hand, and put it to the man’s head.

“Pew.” He said before getting up. John reached out his hand and the man took it.

“I may have underestimated you, kid. But that doesn’t mean I’m completely okay with this. I’ll see how you do and then make my decision from then on.” The man said before walking off, rubbing his throat.

“Fair enough” John smirked before sitting back down in exhaustion.

“That was sloppy.” A voice commented from on top of a crate.

“Yeah, well, it got the job done, didn’t it?” John said, turning his head to see Sophia.

“You still need a lot more practice.” She said.

“Yeah? Where did you learn how to fight?” When he asked, Sophia’s face darkened and she became more somber. Her playful smile disappearing from her face to be replaced by an impassive one, she replied. “My father taught me.”

“Oh. Can I ask....what happened to him?” John asked tentatively.

She shrugged her previous sad expression away. “He was a veteran. Two tours in Afghanistan. He used to teach me martial arts and guns.” she chuckled. “He said he was preparing me to become a super soldier so I could join the academy once I graduated high school. He just didn’t want to pay and the military would have covered it.”

She sat down next to John and continued. “He’d used to come home with souvenirs from all the places he’d gone to on his tour and tell my mom and I stories. But one day, he came back and he just wasn’t the same. He’d been so lively, but one day the light in his eyes just disappeared. He’d start coming home drunk and getting into huge fights with my mother.” Her eyes slightly reddened and watered.

John was panicking. He didn’t realize he’d just stepped on a landmine in this girl’s past. He simply did not know what to do in this situation. Give me an infected or a hundred to fight any day, but this? John thought to himself. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked if I’d known…” he began. His sentence trailed off as he didn’t know how to finish.

“No. It’s fine.” She said. Wiping her tears. “My mother and I left the house when I was 14 and we moved from North Carolina up to Boston. We stayed there for a few years and then my mother got really sick. She passed away a month ago. The doctors say it was stage four breast cancer. There was no saving her. I lived at my aunts in this city afterwards and came to the school soon after.”

John didn’t know if he should say sorry. Didn’t people who told stories like this not like it when the listeners say sorry? Something about them saying it that ticked people off thinking it was a cop-out for showing sympathy.

John just wrapped his arms around her and brought her into a hug. She tensed up for a second before returning it. They stayed like that for almost a minute before letting go. She wiped her eyes. She slapped her cheeks and stood up, turning back to John.

“Enough of that. You fight like a girl. Come on, let’s spar.” She said. John grinned and got up as well. They began their sparring lesson while Sophia gave pointers on how to move faster and respond to certain attacks by the opponent.

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After practice, John returned to the group. Everyone was given new blankets and a new set of clothes. They all had an opportunity to wash themselves and everyone looked a lot more presentable. Currently, they were sitting around eating food from one of the crates. Collectively, they had decided to splurge on a big feast the first day to satisfy their hunger and to celebrate and would returned to rationed meals going forward. There was gravy, mashed potatoes, ham, cereal in powdered milk, beans, corn, and even a bottle of fine wine being passed around.

“Quite the feast.” John remarked as he sat down next to James, David, and Rick. He looked to see that his mother had summoned her inner hostess skills and was passing out the food and mingling with the people, quickly making friends. His mother was nothing if not excellent at making friends fast. She would always surprise his family by saying she’d been invited to the dinner party or wedding of some famous movie star or politician. It was like she somehow maintained the image and lifestyle of a housemom, but had more connections than the mafia.

She wielded her skills like a champ and soon enough, the ice was broken and the group was laughing and eating, quickly becoming friends with the old group. The kids were running around and playing while exploring the place. Jacob acted as the chief of the group while Lucas acts as lieutenant, strutting around and showing the place to the younger kids.

“Yeah. It seems like ages since I’ve had gravy.” James said. He took a cracker and dipped it in the mashed potatoes, soaking it in gravy before stuffing it into his mouth.

“mmmm...I could turn right now and I wouldn’t even mind.” James mused in pure ecstasy. John and Rick laughed at his antics and began eating as well. They’d been on meager rations as well so they took advantage of the opportunity to stuff themselves silly.

Soon, everyone was lying around in their nests of blankets and fell asleep from food comas. John and James took the first watch, while Rick and David would be assigned the second. They didn’t leave it to the others as they wanted them to enjoy a relaxing day and probably would just fall asleep on the job anyway. They had set up the watches in pairs to keep each other awake and accountable.

They talked about little things throughout the night. John talked about his family, his dreams before the event, and his high school. James described his job and how he’d joined the group early on, helping them find and set up their base in the parking lot before bunkering down. John never brought up the topic of James’ daughter. He didn’t want a repeat of what happened with Sophia, except with a fully grown man.

If he was going to talk about it, he’d do it on his own time. John learned much about other things from the man. He had been an electrical and mechanical engineer, but after having lost his job after the recession, took up work as a general contractor, doing physical labour building houses and office buildings while applying his knowledge to help give him an edge over his coworkers in getting job assignments.

The basement parking lot had actually been one of his jobs to build so he knew it was safe and led the people there. His finding the shelter was what had primarily boosted him to the position of leader.

“I’m not built to be a leader. Never was and never will be. I’m just not the charismatic, take-charge type. I guess I was just in the right place at the right time.” He paused in thought. “Seeing how much of a pinch we were in before you guys came along, I guess I failed my destiny to lead my people.”

They chuckled. “But then again, you led them to the promised land.” John added.

Like this, they continued to talk, when John suddenly silenced James.

John listened carefully and in the distance, he could hear a faint groaning.

“Wake up David and Rick. Tell them infected are coming. David will handle the rest.” John whispered to James. John didn’t want to actively attract the infected so he slowly unsheathed his katana. James ran inside and soon, David, Rick, and James came outside, armed with pistols and an assault rifle each.

“Have you told the others?” John asked David.

“Sophia is waking them up and bring out any of the people that are ready for action and can use a gun.” David replied.

“Alright, great. I’ll go thin the crowd, you guys just hold off any that get too close.” John said.

They turned on their flashlights and beamed the light into the darkness beyond. What showed up terrified them. In the distance, they could see at least two hundred infected coming towards their general direction. In a few minutes, they would hit their location.

John turned to Rick. “Get Sophia to bring every able bodied man and woman who can use a gun out here. NOW.” Rick went in and a minute later, 9 men and women from the new group, Sophia, Abby, and Rick came outside. Each were armed with a standard assault rifle and pistol.

“Listen up, we’ve got a horde of hundreds of infected coming towards us.” John said. The others became restless and fearful. “Calm down. We can handle this if you keep your cool.” Each of you should have two magazines. We already showed you all how to fire it earlier today so it won’t be much different. There are 14 people here, each with 60 bullets. That’s more than enough ammo to take them. Remember to aim for the head, and only spend one bullet for one kill. If you start missing, stop and take a few deep breaths before starting. You’re in good company and as long as you take down one every second or two, we can pick them off in a few minutes. Ready?” The others nodded a little, adjusting the straps from the guns on their shoulders. They got into a two row formation, staggering their bodies to give a clear line of shot into the direction of the horde. The rows were curved at the ends, with people checking the sides for any infected that may sneak in from their blind spots.

As the infected got into their fire range, John lifted his own gun.

“Ready...Deep breaths and pick your targets. One...two...three...fire!” John shouted. Everyone shot exactly one shot towards the darkness, hitting the nearest infected. Almost none of the bullets hit the heads but some glanced off the side or didn’t penetrate the skull. Cursing under his breath, he could almost laugh at how bad their aims were. Then again, he couldn’t blame them. They were regular people suddenly given guns. It wouldn’t be a surprise if their aim was bad.

“Deep breaths. Mark your targets. Fire! Fire! Fire!” John yelled fire every second. Eventually, the group were in synchronized rhythm, forgetting the tension and being lulled by the pulsating beat of the gunfire. Soon, they only needed one or two shots to take down one infected and they quickly cleared out over a hundred in less than a minute.

“Good progress! Keep at it!” John yelled. However, he forgot to account for one thing. Suddenly, everyone was scrambling to reload as several infected approached. John jumped in to buy them some time. Running around in the semi circular shape of the group, he sliced the heads off of nearing infected cleanly from the bases of their necks.

The infected continued walking for a moment before toppling over. John continued like this, going back and forth, before he was out of breath. He wasn’t slashing his way through a sea of infected. The infected were spaced out so it was more of him running around trying to keep them at bay. He would sprint to the nearest infected, stop, lift his katana, and slash sideways, twisting his body. Then, he would start sprinting to the next infected and repeat the process. It wasn’t too hard as the reach of the sword allowed him to stay away from the infected person’s arm reach. The sprinting was what really got to him. He looked over and saw that everyone was done reloading so he went back behind cover to catch his breath and reload.

The others had become accustomed to the rhythm so they started immediately after John left the line of fire. When it was time for them to reload, John used his gun to fire and once he ran out of ammo, ran around with his sword again, cutting down any infected that would come too close. The sharp edge of the black steel katana cleanly sliced through each of the necks and spinal cords like butter. He was like a reaper of death, moving back and forth, causing heads to fly every time he swung his sword.

Unbeknownst to him, the others had actually slowed down in shock and awe to see the young man fighting the horde by himself. On the third repeat of this process, no more infected could be seen and John nearly collapsed from exhaustion. The high suspense and adrenaline rush crashed his systems as he almost blacked out after finishing the fight. He had to be carried back inside by Rick and David and given almost two liters of water before he recovered. James had returned inside while Rick and David continued the night patrol.

“What you did out there...it was amazing. Without you, we would all have been goners.” James pointed out. The others in the group around all nodded and looked at John with respect and admiration he felt uncomfortable with receiving.

“I still never thought about reload times. I’m still far from receiving such words.” John rebuked himself.

He walked off and dropped into his sleeping nest, exhausted. Before he went to sleep, a soft voice could be heard.

“John…”

He turned around to see Abby.

“Oh, hi. What’s up?” John asked groggily. He was already half asleep so he had responded very casually as if he was meeting a friend at the mall.

“I just wanted to say that you were really cool out there. You were like a hero.” Abby said the last sentence in an almost whisper.

“Yeah...thanks.” John responded a little confused. He didn’t remember doing anything extravagant to be getting such praises from her.

“No. Thank you, John. Really.” With that, Abby left.

Although John was too frantic to protect his group and too tired to notice, he had singlehandedly taken down more than 30 infected with his sword alone, moving through like a righteous bolt of lightning as he cut them down.

It wasn’t some magic or superpowers that had amazed them. His sharp sword was more than enough to easily cut through any infected. It was the perseverance, the dedication, and the frantic wish to protect his comrades evident in his actions and eyes that had inspired them.

He had quite literally thrown himself in the line of fire for them and had risked his life. With that action alone, in the hearts of all the men and women present that night, he had become respected and admired. Even the aggressive man decided to follow the boy after seeing him that night risk his life for the group. They put their full trust in him because they knew he would put his life on the line for any of them in a heartbeat.