Risen World

Chapter 22: How not to be a Leader

Jacob was smiling as he led his two buddies through the forest towards their destination. He was still a bit happy at being able to let out some of his built up frustration on the little brat. In his mind since he was stronger than him the pipsqueak should have just done as he was told, but instead he had mouthed off to his betters.

After throwing the punk into a locker where no one would find him until they got back he walked out of the front gate under the pretense that they were going out on patrol. Luckily the three Carsen brothers were already out scouting for supplies, so there was no one there that found it strange for the young folks to want to help out for a change. In fact the old guy at the gate opened it for them as quickly as possible and told them good luck.

Now that they were out and running through the forest all they would have to do was find a road and figure out the quickest way to their destination. "So boss you think there will be anything good still there?" Matthew asked already having to breathe hard at the pace they were making through the forest. He had been putting on a lot of weight ever since the two of them had stopped playing football and his tiredness put that on full display.

"Of course it's still there man. Marty always hid stuff at his place. Knowing all the people he had coming in and out of his house he must have always had to hide away the good stuff." Rick replied to Matthew instead of Jacob being his normal suck-up self. Rick was always Jacob's yes man and would pretty much go along with anything he said ever since middle school. Although Rick didn't play any sports like Jacob since the last time he tried out for the basketball team it was like watching a giraffe trying to dribble the ball, he still ended up being good friends with him. Matthew on the other hand hadn't become a part of the group until high school.

"No doubt about it. Marty always had extra weed hidden away for his self. We'll just have to check the place thoroughly. Then we can have a quick smoke before heading back and letting the little brat out. He may be easy to bully but that big bastard would be a problem." Jacob said getting slightly angry at the thought of someone else trying to lead him and his friends besides him. He had always had a complex about being the leader whenever he was in a group. Back when he was in elementary school he remembered beating up some wise ass kid who tried to take his spot as the leader on the pee-wee football team. In middle school he would always aim to be leader on any group projects so that he could give out all the work and do nothing while getting a free ride. Even in high school he was the leader of his own group and for a time was a captain on the school football team.

Now in a situation where strength means more than anything in his eyes, there was someone else stepping up to be the leader. At first he thought George might have made a move for the position, but since he was younger and more in shape he thought he would be able to challenge him. Joshua on the other hand was a whole different story. So he quickly became jealous of the man who held such a commanding presence not only because of his size, but also because of his attitude. Even when George died he was able to make people feel guilty about the whole situation instead of trying to tear into each other in arguments over who to blame for the whole thing.

Soon the group found themselves out of the forest and could see one of the many dirt roads leading to different farms nearby. Now knowing where exactly he was Jacob lead the group down the right path towards some of the older homes out in the rural area. Along the way he noticed how deserted the place was, but he could tell most of the places nearby had already been scavenged for resources. He could only hope that Marty's house was far enough away that the scout teams hadn't yet checked the house out yet. It took them close to an hour to find the place since they had gotten lost a couple of times following some of the wrong dirt paths.

When they arrived they could see an out of date old run down building that looked like it was probably on its last legs. The front yard was a hodgepodge of weeds and wild flowers along with grass that was nearly waist high. Jacob had a bright smile on his face as he could tell no one had been to the place recently with the door still being locked and no signs of foot prints trampling their way towards the front porch. "Well looks like were in the clear boys. Nobodies been here yet so the goods are probably here somewhere." Jacob said with a bright smile.

"Alright, but how do we get in? It looks like the place is locked." Matthew asked as he glanced around the building.

"Just break a window you idiot. It's not like anyone left behind in this crap hole town will care." Rick said before looking towards Jacob. He got a nod for the go ahead and then immediately started searching the grass for a big sized rock. They all had brought a pair of Knives to protect themselves just in case they ran into anything unfriendly, but none of them wanted to end up chipping or breaking their only tool of defense.

When Rick found a heavy enough rock he threw it towards one of the front windows causing a loud crashing sound as it shattered and poured glass all over the place. The noise was so loud that everything in the area could hear it, even some things they would rather not get involved with. "Watch your hands when climbing through." Jacob said as he carefully pulled his self through the broken window. "We don't need to be getting hurt and having to explain it when we get back."

His two friends nodded and carefully climbed their way through the window after him. The place they found themselves in would be considered rather creepy if it was night time, but during the day it looked like an old beat down dusty house. The floor boards would creek with every step they took, and anything touched would leave dust covering their hands. Many of the walls were covered in graffiti and some had holes in them letting you see into the next room. It all seemed like it could just fall apart at any time. "Well where do you think he would keep it?" Rick asked as he looked behind an old television.

"Who knows, but we're going to find it. You guys spread out and check every room. There's only one floor so it shouldn't be too hard to find." Jacob responded. The other two nodded as each began looking under tables or sofas trying to find any signs of a stash. It took them half an hour to search the whole place and they eventually found a large amount of weed already bundled and ready in separate pieces under the bathroom sink. "Here we go!" Jacob shouted with glee as he pulled out the bag from its hiding place.

"Man that's enough to last us quite a while." Matthew said as his eyes grew wide at the amount in Jacob's hands.

"Well are we going to smoke some now or what? Let's get in a quick round before we have to go back." Rick said as he also looked as though he had stars in his eyes.

"Yeah, but we can't take too long or they'll know somethings up and might even notice the little nanny boy is missing." Jacob explained. "Let's get one round in quickly before heading back, will have to find a better place to keep these closer to the farm so we can have more time to use them."

Jacob took an already rolled up blunt and used his old trusty lighter to start their little session and oh was he happy they came all the way out here to find the stuff. It was so much better than what they had been stuck with for the past couple of weeks that Jacob couldn't get the big dopey smile off his face even as he passed it off to Rick for his turn. For the next hour or so the group of misguided teenagers were in their own little world as they passed around their fix and made mostly small talk that made absolutely no sense half the time.

Soon Jacob took a look back towards the window and could see the sun was starting to lower. He stood up from one of the old beaten down chairs and clapped to get the other two's attention. "It's time to head back. We'll find a place to hide our stash on the way and get back before anybody knows anything happened." He said as he looked at his two followers. He watched as Rick put the bag of weed in the back of his pants and hid it with his long shirt. "Let's go."

The three boys pulled themselves through the window and caused a lot of sound as their shoes crunched the glass on the ground outside. As they gathered their bearings they started to walk through the tall grass when they began to hear loud groaning sounds. The noise caused all three boys to stop in fear at what could be making the noise and how many of whatever it was there had to be with how often they were hearing it. As they approached the gate to the beat down fence in front of the house they came out to a scene that terrified all of them.

The old house was on the side of a major road leading towards the nearest city in the area. It wasn't a large city but it still had hundreds of thousands of people living there. When the trio came out to the street all they could see was an enormous crowd of undead slowly moving in their direction. There had to be hundreds of them seeing as how they filled up a good portion of the street for quite a few rows. Before any of them could even scream in terror the closest zombie that was only a couple houses down let out an enraged scream before racing towards them. Soon a wave of zombies started making their own screams as they rushed towards them climbing over any abandoned cars in their way. The scene was like that straight out of a horror movie, but surprisingly the three fools didn't freeze up and immediately started running.

At first Jacob thought he'd be able to out run the things, but he was sorely mistaken as the zombies were keeping up with him and forcing him and Rick to push themselves to run as fast as possible. Sadly for Matthew his heavily weighed down body was now starting to become the biggest problem in his life. He was quickly falling behind the other two as his stubby legs couldn't keep up. After about five minutes of sprinting his speed also started to slow down no matter how much effort he put in and the zombies were gaining on him and looking at his backside with hungry eyes.

Before Jacob and Rick could even turn off the street and head back on the dirt road towards the mansion in hopes of getting back under its protection they couldn't help themselves from turning back to look at the screams of their larger friend. They could see the moment Matthew was tackled down by one of the zombies as it bit into his shoulder. Then their vision of him became obscure as several zombies pounced on their prey while even more kept running past tirelessly chasing their last two meals down. Even after turning their heads away in disgust at the scene they could still hear the tortured wails of their dying friend.

From that point they put in all of their effort into running back towards the mansion. Their legs pumped forward as fast as they could and they both started to break out in sweat at the effort they were putting in to stay ahead of the zombies. After fifteen minutes of sprinting they were both starting to get tired and slowing down even though their minds knew they needed to push forward. Even though Jacob use to play football he wasn't exactly an Olympic sprinter and hadn't kept in top shape since he was forced off the team. Rick on the other hand was breathing hard, terror being the only reason he was able to push his self so hard.

They turned into the forest that would lead them just outside the fence of the mansion. Jacob was in the lead as he weaved his way around any noise making traps or any wires that could trip him up while Rick followed close behind. When Jacob looked behind them he noticed the zombies were closing in on them as they didn't tire out and kept the same speed the entire time they had been chasing them. At this point they were so close that one wrong misstep or stumble would be the end for them. Occasionally some of the zombies would get tripped up as they ran into the wires causing them to fall over in groups while making large amounts of noise that had probably already grabbed the attention of the people up ahead.

Jacob kept looking back as his legs were on fire and he could see that even though a lot of the zombies were knocked over the remaining ones were gaining on them. As their running speed slowed down due to their aching legs Jacob could tell that they wouldn't make the final stretch and started to panic at the realization. His heart felt like it was going to explode out of his chest as he looked around for anything he could possibly use to get his self-more time and that's when an evil smirk spread across his face.

He looked back towards his longtime friend and saw how panicked he looked as the zombies were screaming right behind him. Jacob noticed that Rick was only looking towards his back as he followed him and was trusting him to lead the way. That's when Jacob took a deep breath and timed his footing as he approached a nearby wire. Before he had been avoiding them, but this time he made sure to pass right over it while keeping the same pace and not alarming Rick. No more than three seconds later he could hear a scream as Rick tripped and tumbled on the floor.

"Wait help me up Jake!" Rick shouted as he tried to regain his footing and reached out for help. By the time he got to his feet and started moving again he was immediately tripped up again as a zombie grabbed his leg and pulled him back towards the swarm that had been chasing them. "AHHHHHH!" Rick's screams could be heard for a few moments before going quiet once again.

Jacob sprinted out of the forest and within sight of the protected fence. A big relieved smile spread across his face as the death of his friends had given him just enough time to make it out alive.

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