Southern Surivivor Part 15

The foursome traveled along a slowly decaying highway, there were a few wrecked and abandoned cars in the road but they were easily avoided by the group. They were around forty miles from the new government but they really weren’t in a hurry. No one said anything out loud but none of the four trusted this so called new government. Joe sat silently in the passenger, watching the countryside go bye. They would probably rather take our guns and force us to work for them than help us in this new battered world, Joe thought. He thought about telling the others that they shouldn’t travel into the government’s area of control but he held his tongue. Just him acting paranoid, he hoped.
But, the others were all thinking the same thing, except for William who was hoping the government could protect them from the zombies and life could get back to like it was before the first outbreaks. All were lost in their own thoughts when gunfire could be heard. The sudden, sharp sounds jolted them out of their partial daydreaming and snapped them back into reality. Blake slowed down to a snail’s pace as they tried to identify the source of the shooting. He glanced to both sides of the road while he kept both hands on the jeep’s wheel, ready to haul ass at a moment’s notice.
The group continued crawling slowly forward for another five minutes. Suddenly, a group of men and women came out of the forest to the jeep’s right. The lead man in the group rose one of his hands’s and called out in a loud voice, “don’t be alarmed we’re friendly, we mean you no harm.” Blake started to reach for his Mossberg but Joe grabbed his wrist, “there really friendly Blake, trust me. I know the old man who just talked from a couple of months back when he came into contact with my old group and then he passed on, he’s a great guy.” Blake laid his hand on the shotgun’s stock for a few more seconds then shrugged and picked up the weapon and stepped out of the vehicle.
Blake, Joe and the others got of the jeep and walked towards the group of armed men and women. Blake shook hands with the old man who was apparently the group’s leader and when the old man saw Joe he gave a boyish grin which took years off of his old and tanned face. William shyly stepped towards the man and the man shook William’s hand and the man bent towards William and whispered something that caused William to laugh. The man took Jenny’s hand then looked at Blake and Joe and winked.
Blake and Joe then went on to tell the group about the new government they had read about on the paper and how they were trying to get to the government’s area of control. Several of the people in the group muttered audible curses or muttered other highly uncomplimentary things about the government. The older man who had introduced himself as Donald shifted his weight to one foot and slung his old Thompson Sub-machine gun. Donald then explained that the paper they had saw must have been an old one and that the government now controlled an area of fifty square miles. He then went on to explain how the government was bullying citizens into moving to areas so the land could be “reclaimed” and how the government was seizing weapons from the people who lived within the new government’s borders.
The adults of the foursome shook their heads as William stood to the side, watching and listening to the conversation. “Also, the government sends out heavily armed patrols outside of their bodies checking out new land that they can claim and sometimes they even force people to come back with them. And besides the military there maybe around two thousand people in this are that are loyal to the government and their wacky ideas. Me, this group with me, and thousands more in this area are opposed to this new government and we’ve all been labeled as “rebels,”” Donald said then jerked his hand in a masturbatory manner.
Blake curses and knew he had be right in having a bad feeling about not going into the new government’s area. Donald then went on to explain how the group labeled as rebels were often engaged by the government’s military and the government loyalists. He also said the new government was named the Allied State Coalition. Both groups went on to talk for a few more minutes then Donald invited the four to come back to their camp and stay for the night. The foursome agreed and the two groups went towards the camp to spend what they hoped would be a mostly uneventful night.