Episode 3: Alliance

Episode 3

"Alliance"

(Elise)

I sat by the campfire at night, it was a clear night outside. The stars twinkled above me, giving off a peaceful feeling, but I didn't feel peaceful. I've forgotten what peace felt like. Ever since my son Ryan and my husband Terrence were killed by Jeff's group, I've never rested. I've had a constant anger that will never go away. I still remember the horror of Terrence's death like it was yesterday. It was a long time ago though. I remember bringing Jeff's group into my cabin in the winter. It was so cold, they would have frozen to death if I hadn't. That was the biggest mistake of my life. I was stupid and gullible. When Jeff lost it and plunged a knife into my husband's chest, my whole world stopped. Everything was taken away from me that day. Ruined by some asshole who I let into my home. Who could do that to somebody who just wanted to help? I clenched my fists in anger and stared into the campfire, the fire was warming my face, but the feeling of anger was warmer. Whenever I think of that day, it puts me in an awful mood. My mind then flashed back to me sitting in the mansion with Ryan by my side. His head severely damaged from the trauma that Brandy caused. Ryan's life slipped away from me that day, and there wasn't a thing I could do about it. I wasn't sad anymore, the only emotion I had left in me was anger. All because of Jeff's group.

While staring into the fire, I heard footsteps coming up behind me. I grabbed my hunting knife and turned around, pointing the knife at whoever was coming up behind me.

"Whoa there pal careful." Said Ryder.

"Dammit Ryder, you gotta stop sneaking up on me like that." I sighed, sheathing my blade again.

I had been staying with Ryder for quite some time now. I had been living in the forests ever since Ryan died, and I ran into Ryder later. He was by himself, and really beaten up. I gave him some of my food I gathered while living here and decided it wouldn't hurt to have a little company. At first I wanted to kill him, but he talked his way out of it. I had a bad experience with letting people in before, and I was wary of making the same mistake again. Thankfully Ryder hasn't freaked out on me like Jeff did.

"So did you find any food?" I asked him.

He set down four squirrels on the tree trunk next to me.

"Good work, that should keep us fed for a few days." I said sarcastically.

"Well sorry Elise, I'm not an expert hunter alright? We're a little limited on weapons too. The best thing we have is this hunting rifle and this damn things barrel is bent. It's hard to hit anything with it. Plus you don't really want to shoot a squirrel with a rifle, there'd be nothing left of it!"

"I bet you I could catch twice the amount of squirrels than you in just one hour." I challenged.

"Then why don't you do it Miss Expert Hunter?" He asked.

I walked over to him and snatched the rifle out of his hands, I checked the mag and made a mental note of the bullets left. I pulled the bolt back and checked the chamber, and watched it load into the barrel as I pushed the bolt back.

"So princess, you better start hunting." He laughed.

I pointed the gun into a tree and fired, making Ryder jump. I don't think he was expecting me to fire. A squirrel dropped out of the tree along with a shower of blood and guts which landed by my feet. I smirked at Ryder and handed his rifle back. I walked over and picked up the squirrel. The rifle really ripped this thing apart.

"Would you like some squirrel to go with those guts?" Ryder asked, "There's barely anything left of it!"

"Holy shit." I said, tossing the thing away.

"See? I could definitely catch tons of squirrels with this rifle, I just wouldn't have anything left to eat. Maybe if we had a lower powered rifle. Like a twenty two calibre or something."

"Maybe you're right, we should probably stick to hunting the smaller game with knives." I confessed.

Later that night, we were both sitting around the campfire, roasting one of the squirrels Ryder had caught today. I was planning on going out to catch some more squirrels tomorrow, with a knife this time. It was going to be tricky, but if I could catch one that would be a pretty good accomplishment in my books. While I was sitting around, I couldn't stop thinking about Terrence and Ryan. I couldn't take it anymore.

"Hey Ryder," I started, he looked up at me, "do you know of a Jeff Jones?"

Ryder broke into a coughing fit the second I said Jeff's name. He held up a finger in the middle of his coughing fit to indicate he's fine and not to worry. Once he was done, he looked up at me all red-faced, with the most surprised expression.

"Jeff Jones?" He asked, it seemed like it pained him to even say the name.

"Yeah..." I said, now suspicious.

"No don't know what you're talking about." He nervously laughed.

"Don't lie to me Ryder. It's obvious you know him."

"Alright fine, I know him. I had a really big fight with him too."

"Really?" I asked, intrigued.

"Yeah, you see Elise. I don't like to open up about my past too much, mostly because my past is never really good. All you need to know is that I used to be the leader of a much bigger group, and our group clashed with Jeff's, and it didn't end up pretty for either of us. We both lost a lot of men, but in the end Jeff's group won. That's why you found me alone and beaten up, I was defeated. If it weren't for you I probably would have died."

I had to take a little while to process all of that. Ryder had never told me that before, it was a lot to take in all at once. I felt like Ryder was a whole different person now, being with someone for so long and not knowing so much really messes with you. Why would Ryder hide all of that from me? It doesn't feel right.

"Wow that set back my trust in you a lot further back." I said.

"What? Why?" He asked.

"You had all of that bottled up and didn't tell me. There was a whole other side to you that I never knew. That's a dick move Ryder."

"Well sorry! I'm just not comfortable opening up to people, that's all."

I took the squirrel off of the stick, it looked about done. I cut it in half and handed the bottom half to Ryder.

"Man, you always make me eat the ass." He moped.

"The legs have a lot of meat, you should be happy." I replied. "So anyways, back to this Jeff story. A long time ago, Jeff did something really awful to me. He took away two of my loved ones. I want him dead."

"So what's your plan?" Ryder asked, looking nervous.

"I think you and me should go back to the mansion he lives in, and kill him."

Ryder almost choked on his squirrel when I brought that up.

"No! Are you insane Elise? His group will kill us both in seconds! I was lucky enough to be spared by his group when they beat me in the war. I just want to live the rest of my life in this apocalypse in peace, and if that means eating roasted squirrel ass every day until I die, then so be it!"

"Wow, you became a major wimp didn't you?" I asked.

"No I haven't, I just don't want anymore conflict. I see what it does to people. I'm not gonna lie to you Elise, I'm not a saint. I've done bad things in my past, but I'm putting all of that behind me. I'm going to live a peaceful life from now on. I only want to deal with stranglers, nothing else. Conflict only destroys, it never heals. Even if you do manage to kill Jeff, you won't feel better. Your two loved ones are still gone and they're never coming back. You need to heal in peace."

I thought a lot about what Ryder said. Those were some pretty wise words coming from him. I wasn't expecting him to be like that. I thought he was just some low life punk, I only stayed with him for some company. I went to sleep that night with a lot on my mind. I still wanted Jeff dead badly, that feels like the only way I can release my never ending anger. I must have revenge. I clenched my fists again, I didn't care what Ryder said, I was going to kill Jeff. I would walk right up to that mansion and put a bullet into his head. Or maybe I could just sit back with the bolt action rifle and just snipe him from the bushes. A clean assassination, his group would never know it was me. I just want the satisfaction of seeing him dead. During the night, I rolled over and tapped Ryder on the back. He woke up in a panic.

"Settle down, I just want to tell you something." I whispered to him.

He relaxed again and turned to face me.

"What?"

"I thought about what you said earlier, but I still can't bottle this anger up any longer. I need to kill Jeff Jones. Can we at least scout out the mansion tomorrow?"

Ryder made a long sighing noise, then came to a conclusion.

"Fine, we'll scout out the mansion tomorrow, but nothing else. Got it?"

"Thank you." I said, I kissed him on the cheek and turned away to get some sleep.

I was silently freaking out in my head though, I can't believe I actually kissed Ryder. I never planned on doing that, I just got the best of myself. I'm sure I caught Ryder off guard too.

I woke up the next morning with Ryder still asleep beside me. I got up and looked around, it was another sunny day here in this empty forest. I didn't even hear any birds chirping, that was odd. Sometimes I heard that the forest gets real quiet when something bad is about to happen, but that's probably just an old wives tale. I nearly jumped out of my skin when I heard,

"GOOD MORNING!"

I turned and saw Ryder, who was now laughing like a madman.

"Thanks a lot jerk off, you scared the shit out of me!" I whined.

"Oh you're fine. So you wanted to go scout out the mansion now?"

"Yeah, just let me get some of my things together." I reached for the rifle.

"You better not try anything while we're there," he said, "I promise we'd only scout the place out, nothing more."

"Yeah for sure, don't worry." I said.

Ryder seemed to be satisfied with my answer, and once I loaded the rifle (just incase of a strangler attack) and sheathed my knife I was ready to go.

While walking through the forest, Ryder brought up the subject I knew would come up eventually.

"So about last night." He said.

"Yeah, it was nothing." I finished his sentence.

"Are you sure about that?"

There was a pause, I didn't answer him.

He wrapped his arm around me,

"I didn't mind." He said.

I pushed him arm away and acted disgusted.

"What the hell? I don't think of you that way, back off." I said sternly.

Ryder looked a little shocked by this, and I felt a little bad for doing it, but I didn't want to open up to him yet. I was starting to get feelings for Ryder, and it pissed me off.

"Well then." He said, keeping his distance from me.

I could see the clearing now, the mansion was up here. I was getting nervous as I got closer. Its been a long time since I've been here. I tried my best to avoid it, but I can't keep my anger bottled up any longer. I need to see Jeff Jones dead. I pushed through the last bit of leaves covering the clearing and was taken back by what I saw. There was no mansion, just rubble. Just a collapsed, scorched, once standing building. I panicked.

"No, no, no!" I screamed, running towards the rubble in the clearing, Ryder chasing after me.

I made it to the rubble and dropped to my knees. I started crying. Ryder came up and started looking through the rubble.

"I don't see anyone here, no trace of anyone." He said.

"What the hell happened?" I yelled in confusion.

Ryder thought for a few moments, then snapped his fingers.

"Lockwood." He said.

"What?"

"Lockwood!" He said again, "Lockwood hated Jeff. It seems like that guy makes enemies everywhere he goes. Anyways, they must have shown up and burned their mansion down. Maybe they were taken as prisoners, that explains why they're gone."

"Dammit!" I screamed, "I'm supposed to kill Jeff! This isn't fair! I'm never going to get rid of this anger anymore!"

"Hey chill, I'm sure if Lockwood got to him he's dead now. Doesn't that make you feel better? He's dead!"

"No Ryder you don't understand! That man took so much away from me! I need to see him dead, I can't let anyone else do it for me!" I cried.

"Nobody move." I heard a somewhat familiar voice behind me.

I turned to see a man who I'm sure I've seen before, he had a dog by his side. He was pointing a knife at Ryder and me.

"Whoa, whoa there buddy let's not make any crazy decisions here. Put the knife down." Ryder tried to calm him down.

"Why are you two here?" The man demanded, "where's Jeff?"

"We don't need to tell this guy anything," I said, pointing my rifle at him, "I can kill this guy right now."

"No don't!" Ryder said, "You're Ned right?"

"Yeah, and you're Ryder. You piece of shit!" Ned yelled, "Where's Jeff and the others?"

"Slow down there, you don't know where he is either?" Ryder asked.

"No I don't, the mansion was burned down when I got here. I thought Lockwood might have taken them, but seeing you here raises some questions."

"Ned, we don't know where he is either." Ryder explained.

"Then why are you here?"

"We were walking through the forest and saw that the mansion was gone. I wanted to know what happened." Ryder explained further.

Ned seemed to be calmed down just a bit when he realized Ryder didn't have Jeff. He lowered his knife and looked around. His dog kept staring at me, growling.

"Why should I trust you?" He asked Ryder.

"Elise, put the gun down. We need this trust to be mutual." Ryder instructed.

I sighed and lowered my rifle.

"So... you really don't know where Jeff is?" Ned asked.

"No clue. I was thinking you might have an idea." Ryder replied.

"Why should I trust you Ryder? You're a bad guy! You could have Jeff and the group hidden away somewhere."

"Really buddy? Where would I hide them? It's only me and the chick here!" He pointed at me, "I'm nothing now! After you assholes killed my whole group, I was left with nothing! Do you really think I could have walked up and captured your whole group, and then proceeded to burn their mansion down? Kid if I was able to do that I wouldn't have burned down the mansion I'll tell you that, I would have lived in it myself! The place was gorgeous!"

Ned calmed down, realizing that Ryder's side to the story made a lot of sense. I don't even know why Ryder bothered trying to negotiate with this idiot, I could have just blasted his head off with the rifle. It would have almost been too easy.

"So then it might have really been Lockwood." Ned said to himself, putting his knife in his pocket and clenching his fists.

"I'll tell you what, you're obviously in a shitty position Ned," Ryder started, "why don't you join us? We have food and water if you need some."

"Ryder! We barely have enough for us two!" I yelled.

Ned thought about it, he really wanted to decline, I could tell. This Ned guy really hated Ryder with a passion. He must have been really hungry though because he agreed.

"Welcome to the team buddy!" Ryder gave Ned a hug and a pat on the back, Ned cringed while he did it.