A month later/ Roughly two months after the outbreak
It had been one month since Carl had watched those two men get killed like dogs.
He thought he would have felt something, anger, sadness, guilt, but he didn't.
It scared him a little how easy he got over it, but Paul said that it shouldn't scare him.
"Those two men were trash, and watching trash die shouldn't hurt," he had said.
After that, he and Paul buried the bodies. It was weird, feeling the cold skin, their blank eyes still full of horror.
He couldn't imagine if that was him or his mom one day looking into her hollow eyes.
The next few weeks after that, he went back to training, but finally, after about a month, he couldn't take it anymore.
"Are you coming or not?" Carl asked, annoyed, while taking a rough bite of his deer jerky and looking at Paul, who was sitting on a stone, eating as well.
"You gonna cry?" Paul teased while raising his eyebrows at him.
"Who's gonna cry!" Carl stood up and charged Paul, feeling confident.
Swoosh
Just as he was about to grab Paul's neck, he felt his arm get grabbed, and he found himself looking at the sky.
Thump!
His back hit the ground, and the air left his lungs, making him cough.
"Ahhh" Carl groaned and watched as Paul came into view over him, smirking.
"I'll come with you. Not like my supply guy is gonna be coming back any time soon." Paul joked
"Yes!" Carl smiled and jumped up, no longer feeling the pain of being thrown over Paul's shoulder.
"Let's go right now!" Carl felt a huge boulder of stress leave his shoulders.
Every day for the last week, he felt sad at the thought of leaving without Paul after they had grown so close.
Finally, he decided to ask Paul to come with him again, and surprisingly, he agreed, allowing Carl to breathe a sigh of relief.
"Hold your horses, cowboy. We gotta pack all of our stuff into the supply truck to take with us. Besides, you don't even know where you're going."
Carl frowned. Paul was right, he didn't have any idea where his mom could be except for the clues they had given him before he got lost.
"Luckily for you, I've been scoping the maps. Check it out." Paul waved Carl over to a huge map with a bunch of different areas circled.
"Alright, so you said your mom and Shane were going to the mountains for safety. They were here on Highway 85 when you got lost." Paul pointed to a circled part of the road.
"If you look a few miles northwest, here. This abandoned quarry has a lake, and it's secluded. It's right off the 85, not too far from where you got lost. That's where I would go if I were them." Paul said, and Carl nodded, finding it sound.
"Okay. So we load up and leave toward the quarry." Carl felt nervous.
Would he finally see his mom again?
"Yeah. I got some gear in the cabin I need to load up to. Military stuff I acquired." Paul winked.
Carl's eyes widened.
"You've been holding out."
"Just a little," Paul smirked
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"You call this just a little." Carl cried out as he lugged heavy-duty military bags full of gear onto the supply truck.
Paul had a closet full of gear with guns, ammo, body armor, thermals, and more. A single pack weighed a hundred pounds.
"This is just a little. You should have seen how much stuff I could have gotten back then, but I only took this little bit." Paul shook his head, regretting his decision.
If he had known the world was going to end one day, he would have scavenged the mountains of corpses he left behind like a rat.
"Up!" Paul was on the truck bed lifting while Carl tried his best to push the heavy bag up with his tiny frame.
"Got it." Paul pushed the bag next to the rest, and the back of the truck was full of supplies, along with food and water.
Opening one of the bags, Paul took out a blacked out HK-416 with a holo sight, suppressor, flashlight and all the goodies along with a couple spare magazines before jumping off the bed of the truck and shutting the door.
"Alright, you're on gunner while I drive."
Carl looked at the massive-looking gun Paul was holding and smiled.
"Now we're talking."
"Same as usual. Fire selector, semi, full auto, and load your magazine. Pull back the hammer." Paul shoved the gun into Carl's chest, and he took it while checking it out.
"Play with it in the truck, we gotta go." Paul made sure the lock on the back door of the truck was good before jumping into the driver's seat.
Looking back at the cabin in the review mirror, Paul could hardly believe he was leaving. He had honestly planned to spend his entire life at the cabin, wasting away.
"Fuck that cabin," Paul smirked before stomping on the gas and watching it disappear in the review mirror.