Day 4: Growing Up Too Fast

Nikolai decided to be the first to open the door as no one knew what could be found inside the cellar. Kalinic had a gun in hand while with his free hand he gently turned the door handle to proceed to push the door open and see what was inside. Nikolai saw what he expected: boxes of candy and unopened packages of goodies, neatly packed on the shelves and also what appeared to be a log anchored to one of the shelves with the product number and date of arrival, indicating that the product had arrived on December 11.

Behind Kalinic came the policemen and Megan, who were looking at the warehouse with a certain amount of curiosity. Megan thought for a moment that perhaps they had arrived too late, since the civilians she had spotted were nowhere to be seen. It was then that Nikolai, while walking to one of the corners of the warehouse, heard what sounded like a gun safety being removed. That characteristic "click". As he turned he could see a child, a boy who was pointing it at him and had no intention of lowering his weapon.

"I see."

Nikolai kept eye contact with the boy. As Nikolai had his mask on this caused the boy to be wary.

And he wasn't alone either as behind him were two girls, one of them resembled the boy in front of the group.

"Move away or I'll shoot!" The boy held his gun steady. "I won't let you do anything to them!"

"Calm down, calm the fuck down"

Nikolai raised his hands in surrender.

The noise attracted the attention of Greg and Matthew who were shocked to see what the outbreak had turned people into, especially the younger ones.

"Take it easy, boy! We're police officers. My name is Gregory Phillips. We've come for you."

Greg tried to maintain a dialogue but it was useless as the boy was now pointing at him.

"That's what you all say! A cop attacked a lot of innocent people and killed them! I don't trust any of you!" The boy was not going to drop the gun under any circumstances.

"Are you are aware that if you shoot you will attract the horde, right? The fallen will come and eat us all because of the noise you'll make when you shoot. The fallen are going to rip the guts out of those girls behind you and if you're lucky you'll be dead before you can see it."

Matthew was grinning mischievously, but the boy couldn't see it because Matthew had a wolf mask on.

The boy didn't know what to do as he had three large, well armed men in front of him who didn't seem to budge and leave as he had ordered.

"Let's start with the dialogue, what's your name, little one?" Greg asked as he tried to approach but the boy didn't lower his gun and put his fingers close to the trigger.

"I'm not a boy or a little one anymore! My dad told me I'm a man now and I should be seen as one!"

"Wow, at least he's straightforward" Nikolai laughed. "Alright boy-man. You sure have a pair of big and hairy balls to take aim at not one but two cops, and generally three armed men who can easily and simply pull out their guns and kill all of you, because we can do that. Yet you lie here, with your toy gun against real rifles that can take the shit out of you in a matter of seconds!"

"I just want you to stay away! We don't want you here..."

"Let's see, you little fuck, clearly there's no room for the dialogue we'd usually give a... someone like you. I admit I really like your bravery, and your dad is absolutely right, you are no longer a boy, but a man, and as a man your duty is to protect them, right? I deduce that at least one of them is your sister, and I know it because you so fucking look alike, am I wrong?"

"No... you're not wrong."

"See? And I'm not wrong about the fact that you're a man now, you were a boy who had to grow up too fast, right?"

"Yes! My dad made me promise to protect Tina and Lisa. My dad got bitten and got out... he got out because he said he was a danger to us and left me his gun to defend us. He told me that now I had to take care of Tina from anything not only because I was the older brother, but because I became the man of the family."

"You lost your father and that gives you the responsibility to do something about it and act, right? I bet it does. I guess your father also entrusted you with that because he trusted you to make the right decisions, am I wrong?" Nikolai moved a little closer to the boy as he pulled back his mask so the boy could see him better.

The boy was shocked to see Nikolai's burned face and let out a sigh.

"Oh! What happened to you?"

"I survived an explosion. I had to fight a bad guy who did bad things."

"Your other eye is closed!"

"That's because I've lost the vision in that eye, little buddy. And I've also lost some hair because of the burn. Do you want to touch my skin?"

"Cool! Can I?"

"Go ahead."

The boy lowered his weapon and reached out his hand on Nikolai's face, feeling the blisters that made on his skin and also the hairs that formed around the burn. That was anything but skin, it didn't feel like skin.

"Look, little buddy, I'm going to be honest with you. I think among the four of us men here you're the one with the biggest cock, just look at you, you're protecting your sister and her friend, you've challenged three men three times your age and I'm sure you would have been able to pull the trigger the first moment you felt those girls' lives were in danger and not only that, you're experiencing things at your age that are making you grow up way too fast for the rate you should be growing up."

"Thank you, sir."

"Let's do something... What's your name?"

"Eric... I'm Eric Shepherd."

Eric Shepherd"Eric... I like your name, it has presence. And just look at you, dude, you've got a great jaw, you've got your little man features pretty well defined and your tone of voice isn't squeaky and loud like some of the others, the veins in your hands are marked... Is there anything that doesn't look good? Very well, my little friend. I'll tell you what. We have a shelter, we have food and we can give you shelter, a roof, a place to rest from all this. All you have to do is follow us, okay?"

"Why should I trust you?"

"Damn it, Greg! We'd better teach our friend well because he's going to be a good one when he grows up. You just have to trust, kid. I'm not telling you again."

"What do you girls think?" Eric turned to ask the girls in his group and they all nodded without saying much about it, although they looked scared. Eric understood the situation and nodded. "We'll go with you."

Nikolai smiled. Each member of the shelter group took one of the children and escorted them to the safe zone. Nikolai looked sideways at Megan and finally understood why she was so insistent.