Peter's Journey/Issue 46

“Get it” yelled the man at the door, Peter’s group all get up from behind the cars and run inside the church. Peter nods at the man, he holds his hands out “name’s William Martin, but everyone here calls me Billy” said Billy “Peter Armstrong, everyone calls me Peter” replied Peter as they shared   laugh “this is Henry, my brother, Scott and Garry McIntyre, Ben Moore, Sarah and Andy Jackson, Shannon and Michael Johnstone, Gareth and Laura Jackson, Jess Humphrey, Nathan Reid, Judy Hartin, John Clarke, Falco Hunter” said Peter as he told Billy the survivors names, “look, I’m not in charge of this group, so don’t get too comfy here” said Billy, just then another door opened at the back of the church and a man around 5”11 and had two Glock 17’s in his holster and a female and another male, both the same height came behind him, he walked over to Peter’s group “what the hell is going on here?” asked the man “we’re just looking for a place to stay for the night” said Peter “we don’t take in people, you have to go” said the man “Bruce, come ‘on, these seem like good people” said Billy “do I care? No, you’ll have to go” said Bruce. Billy then gives Peter a wink and pulls Bruce away from Peter and his group. “Bruce, they’re desperate, look at them, they look shattered, their clothes are all bloody, they’ve obviously been attacked by lame-brains, give them a chance, they’ll be safe for the night” said Billy “NO!, we don’t take in strangers, desperate or not” said Bruce “look, if they stay the night they’ll go in the morning” persuaded Billy. Bruce paused for a minute, then looked over to Peter and his group who were all standing around in a group chatting amongst themselves, “one night, any trouble, they’re gone, or dead” said Bruce “thank you” said Billy, the two walked over to Peter “one night, gone by dawn” said Bruce “thank you” said Peter as he held his hand out, but Bruce didn’t act on anything, he then turned back to walk into his room again, but stopped and looked to Billy who was with the group “oh and Billy...you let anyone in again, you know what happened to Jimmy, don’t you? So don’t let any more shots off without my go ahead” said Bruce and he then walked into his room. “right, I’ll take you to an area where you can sleep, as you can see we’ve got a lot of room, we did have forty odd survivors, then the lame-brains got here, took out half of us, we fled our camp, came here, then we only have twelve now, lost six the other days, Jimmy included” said Billy “what happened?” asked Sarah “we don’t talk about the ones that we lost, Bruce’s orders” said Billy “here will do, there’s a toilet in the choir room, if you want to pray then you can go to the Alter, as you can see we don’t play the organ, but the front right even pews up is all your space for the night, you’ll have to be gone by dawn” said Billy “thanks’ for that” said Peter “it’s okay, Bruce doesn’t like strangers in our group, we’ve had too many casualties and doesn’t want to be responsible for any more” said Billy “you wouldn’t happen to have any food, would you?” asked Shannon “we have our own system, so we won’t be able to give you any, sorry” replied Billy “don’t worry about it” said Peter. Billy then walked away, leaving the group alone.

Peter, Scott, Ben, Nathan and Sarah walk over to the Alter “what next?” asked Ben “we could take our chances in the forest?” suggested Sarah “where about’s though?” asked Peter “what about heading to Stormont building in Belfast?” asked Scott “no, we’re done with Belfast, we need to stay around the back roads, even go into the forest, we could cover the perimeter with walkers, or something like that, keeping the smell out?” suggested Ben “that’s a great idea” said Peter “so we’ll go at dawn, then move west to the headlands forest, camp there, capture a few walkers, hang them around the place, keep the walkers out, get wire and place it around the perimeter, and possibly other booby traps for walkers, we could live in this world if we try harder” said Peter “we should get some rest now, we’ve had a hard day today, lots of moving around” said Sarah “what are we like on fuel?” asked Nathan “we’ve got a full four litres of fuel left in the boot of the Hyundai and in the Nissan” replied Sarah “that’ll keep up going for a few more miles” said Peter “but for now I do think we need to get some rest” said Nathan. The four then walked back and got into their sleeping bags.

Next morning the group where all at the main door with their stuff by their feet “we can’t thank you enough for t=what you did for us last night” said Peter, Just then Bruce came out of his room and walked towards Peter’s group “what the hell are you lot still doing here?” asked Bruce “we’re just going now” said Peter “Bruce, they don’t want any trouble” said Billy “we just want to get out of here, we aren’t looking for trouble” said Sarah, Bruce then walked off into his room. “We ready now?” asked Peter “yeah, we’ll just follow you” said Scott “that’s fine, let’s get outta here now” said Peter. Two men then opened the church door and the group walked out, Peter walked to Billy and shocks his hand and walked out of the church and over to his bike, he put all of his sleeping gear into Scott’s boot and went to the bike, he started up the engine and drove off.

Trivia

 * This is the first Issue were the remaining survivors' surnames are said by Peter.