|TPEC|Glowing Embers Book 1|

Chapter 22: The Scavengers

"Hey guys! A restaurant, wanna go explore? There might be food."

"Jess, there's nothing in there. We've looked for hours."

"Come on, it'll still be fun!"

"That place might be flooded with infected for all we know."

"Don't be such a baby Damian. You need fun in your life."

"Fine! But once we see that there's no food, we're outta there."

"Atta boy! That's the spirit."

"Yeah yeah."

There was a group of scavengers, they were from a different camp. The group contained 6 people. Jessica, Damian, Samantha, Judie, Fritz, and Gavin. Judie was the quiet girl. Fritz was a bit of a troublemaker. Jessica was the bad girl adventurer, Damian was the leader, but usually was always serious, Gavin was the nerdy dude, and Samantha was the one who'd get terrified of a cockroach, but loved doing dangerous stuff with her best friend Jess. The teens scattered around town looking for food each day.

"The place looks pretty intact. I guess that's not bad."

Judie said, almost soft enough to the point where she'd be asked to speak up. The group made it to the restaurant. A sign next to it said

Carusos

"Hey I heard about this place! It's supposed to be some super fancy food. Sucks that none of it's prepared." Fritz announced. They each walked inside, the building was a little crumbled, the power was completely down, and furniture lay everywhere. There was a smell of rot in the air, and there were moldy, disgusting old meals left from customers a month earlier. Definitely not edible.

"Let's split up into groups of 3. Jess and Damian can come with me, Gavin, Fritz and Judie can go together. Sounds good?"

Everyone nodded. Gavin snatched a flashlight out of his backpack and handed it to Fritz. He pulled another one out for Damian.

"It might get dark around here, so have these."

"Yeah because in a town where the power's all out, we're just gonna be able to see like everything's covered in light bulbs. Totally."

Jess mocked.

"Oh shut up Jessie. Least I know more about this infection than you do."

Gavin complained.

"That's just because you're a nerd. I'll get you some books for Christmas."

Gavin growled, but stopped himself from doing anything bad.

"Let's just go guys."

Samantha broke up the little argument. The groups went their separate ways.

"Want to try and find some tools?"

Fritz asked.

"Sure, I just want to get back to the camp."

Judie replied. Fritz led the 2 through the broken kitchen, stepping on spaghetti stains, and pizza cheese stuck to the floor.

"What's that smell?"

Judie asked suddenly. Gavin turned towards her.

"There's moldy food everywhere, it's probably just that."

"No no, It's not that, I smell it too, guys. It smells like- death,"

Fritz searched around the kitchen, the others stayed in the same spot. They didn't move until they heard a gasp.

"Oh my god, that's disgusting!"

Fritz was staring at a dead body. The person was rotting, you could see their bones. They looked like a male, and they had enough skin to show that their neck was slit.

The man was dead. He was killed by a man he thought he could trust.

Judie and Gavin followed the sound of Fritz' gasp. Gavin held his mouth shut.

"Wow, poor guy. That- ew- I- let's go, I don't want to look at that."

Judie agreed, but pulled a poppy out of her pocket and set it on the corpse.

"Rest in peace, random man."

Judie bowed. She stood up and walked away with the others. They continued to search. Gavin continued thinking about the body. The eerie vibe in his mind only gave him more unanswered questions, however he did have some answers already.

Somebody killed that man.

Somebody took his life, a murderer.

Someone is here.

Waiting for us.

We could become that man.

He knows we're here.

We're next.