Episode 2: Patrol

Episode 2

"Patrol"

(Jeff's Point of View)

I took one last shot at the dummy in the training room. The head exploded and fluff came flying out.

"Good shot." Brad said, putting his hand on my shoulder.

"Thanks," I said, "I've had a lot of experience out there."

"I think it's about time we send you out to go look for your daughter. As promised. I'll gather a crew for you and let you know by tomorrow."

"Thank you." I said.

A lot has happened in one week of being here. Before going out to look for Kayla like Charlie promised, he insisted I did some training before going out there. I was fine with it, whatever helped me go find my daughter worked for me. I aced most of the courses easily, but I learned some new things as well. Hand to hand combat especially. I learned how to disarm somebody if they are standing close to me, and to put people in various holds. I had to admit I was pretty skilled by now. Brad was the second manager of Lockwood with Lindsey. He was second in command with Lindsey, and followed Charlie's orders. I was in the armoury room, the eighth floor, just doing some last minute practice. I hung my rifle up on the rack and headed to the elevator. By tomorrow, I would be looking for my daughter again, I can't wait. I need to find her, I won't stop going out there until she is found. Brad was in the elevator with me, I hit the third floor button and we started moving down.

"Thanks again for this," I began saying to Brad, "My daughter means everything to me, she's all I really got left now."

"No problem," he began, "I used to have a daughter."

"I'm sorry, the stranglers are vicious."

"No, she died before the apocalypse, thank god. I would never want her to see this."

"What was her name?" I asked.

"Brianna," he said, "She was only twelve when she died. Hit by a truck when riding her bike."

I stayed silent, that was pretty brutal.

A tear fell from Brad's eye, he wiped it off and acted like it didn't happen.

"We'll find your daughter," he said, "We will."

"I hope, she has been missing for a long time, I don't know if it's too late."

"Can I show you something?" Brad asked.

"Sure, what is it?" I asked.

He changed the elevator floor to floor one, and we started moving down to the lobby.

"Just follow me."

The elevator dinged and we had reached the lobby. He walked out and I followed him. Brad walked through the lobby and walked out the front door. I kept following him as he walked around the building and took me to the back. It was nice at the back, it took my mind off of the apocalypse. There was planted grass around the back and a big statue of Charlie standing in the middle of all the flowers and grass. There were a few benches around, and he sat at one, I sat beside him.

"What did you want to show me?" I asked.

"Do you see that building over there?" he pointed over Lockwood's walls and out into the city.

There stood one big building a couple of blocks from here.

"And that one?" he pointed behind us past the walls, there was another big building standing in the city.

"Yes." I replied.

"Those are just two of Lockwood's many outposts. We use them to protect Lockwood, we have eight of them scattered around the city. We have eyes on most of the city, we pretty much run Kingston. We have a bunch of soldiers at each outpost, constantly watching the roads. This is so nothing can attack Lockwood by surprise."

"It's pretty amazing," I began, "glad you guys are helping people in this apocalypse."

"So what I'm getting at here, is that we will find your daughter," said Brad, "we are a very powerful bunch of people. There is no way we won't find her."

"Thank you Brad," I said standing up, "this means a lot."

"Meet me here tomorrow morning seven o'clock, I'll assign you a crew."

I headed off into the Lockwood again and got into the elevator. I went to the third floor and walked to the seventeenth room, my room. I opened the door and walked in. I took a look out of the window, overlooking Kingston.

"Don't worry," I said, "I'm coming to find you."

With that, I called it a day and went to sleep. I had another wicked dream, I keep having these dreams more often now, I don't know why. There were two big steel doors that were protecting something, I wanted to open them, but I couldn't, they were locked shut. As I got closer to the doors, I pressed my ear up against them. I heard the faint sound of a woman yelling in agony.

"Help!" I barely heard.

"Jeff!"

I then woke up with a start, it was seven o'clock already. Shoot, I'm late in meeting Brad. I got dressed into my casual clothes I wore around Lockwood, jeans and long sleeved shirt. While I was getting ready, I kept thinking about that dream. That really put me off, the woman behind the door was screaming my name. That is really messing me up. I tried to get it out of my mind, and it wasn't easy either. I ran out of my room in a hurry and took the elevator down to the lobby.

I ran outside to the back of the building, Brad was there with four other people. This must be my crew. They were standing in front of Charlie's statue visiting.

"Sorry I'm late!" I called out running towards them.

"That's okay, maybe we can get you an alarm clock." Brad joked.

I looked around at the soldiers here, one girl and three guys. I recognized one of them, Eric. He was here.

"This is your crew," Brad said, "Eric, Calvin, Cora, and Hudson."

Calvin was a tall skinny man with short blonde hair, he had a clean shaved face, and had a distinctive scar across his forehead. He held a shotgun. Cora was a average height woman, she had long black hair, and held a big machine gun. It looked pretty heavy. Hudson had long red hair, and had cuts and bruises all up his arms. He looked pretty tough, he had a small tattoo of a cross on his hand. He held two pistols. Eric held a regular pistol in his hand.

"Everyone, meet Jeff." Brad said.

Calvin shook my hand, then Eric, then Cora. I went to shake Hudson's hand, but he didn't go for it. He just nodded at me.

"Excuse Hudson," Brad said, "He likes to act tough."

Hudson snickered, and Brad handed me a rifle. It was the same one I used in training, I was really good with this one. He then handed me a backup pistol.

"Just incase." he said.

"Thank you, this means a lot." I said.

"Alright let's stop holding hands, let's go find your daughter." Hudson said, walking around to the front of Lockwood, we followed him.

There was a Lockwood truck waiting for us by the front gate. Hudson hopped in the back and Calvin got in the drivers seat. The truck was pretty big. Four seat truck with a big box in the back. Cora got in the back and I got in the passenger seat beside Calvin. Eric hopped in the back as well. Brad waved at us for good luck, and started walking back inside of Lockwood.

There were a bunch of gas masks in the truck.

"What are these for?" I asked.

"Those will save your life. We all know that the strangler disease is airborne as well, so you wear those so you don't get infected. We can't have soldiers coming back infected, then they get everyone else infected."

"You're right," I said, "we did something similar to this before, we used respirators."

"Strap em on." Hudson put a gas mask over his face.

We all did the same.

"We have to be back in three hours, that's the longest you are aloud out." Calvin said.

"There is a curfew?" I asked.

"Yep, if there wasn't, everyone would be all over the place, and we'd probably lose a lot of soldiers. Charlie likes to keep everything organized."

"Let's get a move on." Hudson slapped the side of the truck.

"God he is so impatient." Cora said.

Calvin started up the truck and started driving towards the gate, a few soldiers opened it with long sticks that were attached to the big metal gates. It was only accessible from inside, so nobody could open it from the outside. Calvin sped up and we drove out of Lockwood, he moved through Kingston and made it to the highway.

"Where do you suppose she would be?" Calvin asked me.

"We will look in the forest first, she might have made it to Kingston, but I want to check her last known location first." I said.

Calvin started driving down the highway, looking for an opening to pull into the forest.

"So how did you lose your daughter?" Cora started, "if you don't mind me asking."

"Stranglers attacked," I said, "we ran, and got split up. It was my fault, I should have stayed close to her."

"Similar thing happened with me and my boyfriend," she began, "we were running through Kingston, we alerted a whole shitload of stranglers. This was a long time ago, about a year ago, before Lockwood was big and powerful. I made it away, but by the time I took a look back, my boyfriend was lying on the ground being ripped apart by stranglers. It was because of him I escaped, the stranglers stopped to get at him, and I could get away."

"I used to have a daughter too." Eric said shamefully with his head down.

"I'm sorry for your loss." I said to Eric.

"How old is your daughter?" Cora asked.

"Six."

"It's not common a six year olds live this long nowadays, most of those poor little ones have died by now. It's survival of the fittest now." Cora said.

"She's definitely the fittest, she could probably beat me up soon." I said.

"Here we go," Calvin said, there was an opening to the forest from the highway and he pulled into it, "now let's start looking."

The forest had a creepy vibe to it, the snow was getting better, that's for sure. The snow wasn't as high, it was toning down and I could almost see the grass underneath. Calvin parked the truck beside the highway and shut the car off.

"This is as far as we go," he said, "let's start walking."

I got out of the truck and looked around, everything looked the same, this was going to be tough. Calvin got out of the truck, then Cora. Hudson jumped out of the back and loaded his two pistols.

"Lead the way Jeff, where do you think your daughter would be?"

"I have no clue," I said, "but I'll try to find something familiar. Everything looks the damn same in this place."

I started walking and everyone followed behind me.

"Is your daughter alone?" Cora asked me.

"No, she has her friend with her, Brandy. Around the same age, I'm hoping that's what's keeping them alive, each other."

"I don't want to sound like a buzzkill, but it is very cold, you think your daughter is still alive?" Calvin asked.

"Hell yeah she is," Hudson piped in, "If she made it this long in the apocalypse, a little snow is not slowing her down."

"Exactly, there's your answer." I turned to Calvin.

There was a strangler hanging out by a bunch of trees not too far from here, he was bashing his head off of a tree in anger. I think I remember some of the notes at the lab in Toronto, once you turn into a strangler you have extreme anger for some reason, which is most likely why they want to hurt people so bad. This strangler must have just picked a fight with a tree out of it's uncontrolled anger.

"What is it doing?" Cora asked.

"Let's see if my gun knows the answer." Hudson pointed his pistol at the strangler and I smacked his gun down.

"What the hell are you doing?" he asked me.

"Don't you know?" I asked, "stranglers are attracted by sound, if you shoot it, you might as well just shot some fireworks into the sky for them. There's only one, no need to waste the bullet either. You kill it with a knife, watch."

I pulled out my hunting knife, Lockwood supplied it for me. I crept close to the strangler who was viciously bashing it's head off of a tree trunk. There was blood pouring all the way down the tree, and the trunk was actually cracking. I better put this stupid strangler out of it's misery. I stabbed it in the back of it's head before it could hit itself anymore. It dropped to the ground and I pulled my knife back out with one big pull.

I turned to the crew and smiled.

"See? That's how you take down a strangler."

Nobody said a word, they just had a shocked look on their faces, at first I thought that it was because I stabbed the strangler, but I slowly turned around and saw what they were actually looking at. There was a strangler not three inches from me, looking into my eyes. There were about ten other stranglers with it. They slowly crept around us, trying to surround us. These guys were trying to outsmart us. Little bastards. The strangler growled slightly in my face, I slowly moved back.

"On the count of three," I said, "Open fire, and run back to the truck."

"One."

"Two."

"Three."