The Regulator (Complete First Draft)

Chapter 35: Brad - On the Homefront

Brad walked up the steps to Andrew’s cabin and took a left to head onto the side porch. Back when the cabin was still the “Nature Cabin”, Brad had commissioned the porch be built to increase the usable space of the cabin, since the interior was rather small. It was a rather insignificant fact, but Brad liked using every opportunity he could to remind himself that there was a world before the dead started walking. As he walked on to the porch in the cold, fall weather, he saw Andrew, Monica, Nick, and Brandon already there.

“So.” Brad began, holding his arms out to indicate his confusion, “Why are we here?” He asked, Andrew.

“Too discuss things.” Andrew said. “Safety-wise.” He added.

“What kind of things?” Brad asked.

“Would you mind no longer wasting our time?” Nick added, angrily. Andrew shot him a glance, but then took a deep breathe to calm himself down.

“I think there’s a human threat to Fireside. Walkers we’ve demonstrated we can... reasonably... deal with. Armed guards, walls, all that. But I think we may be facing a form of human threat.” Andrew said.

“What kind of threat?” Brad asked curiously. Nick scoffed at the idea, though Brandon and Monica remained interested.

“The girl I rescued during the attack, Gabi, was the last person to come and speak to me today. she claimed to have been watching the cabin all day, waiting for a proper chance to come and see me. She told me that at one point during the day, Seth had been out by the fire pit when a man came out of the woods, hung around for a bit, constructed a fire and left. I talked to Seth during dinner too, and all he added to the story was what the man looked like and that he said something.” Andrew quickly reported.

“Are you serious? Some random homeless dude comes wandering out of the forest and you think he’s a security threat?” Nick laughed. Brad shot him a look this time. Brad didn’t like the situation at all, it made him incredibly nervous.

“What did the man look like?” Monica asked, concerned.

“Seth said he was big. Gray-black beard, greasy black hair. He wore tattered old dress pants, a nice jacket but no shirt on underneath, no shoes or socks. Possibly some blood on him. He didn’t sound exactly sane.” Andrew told her.

“What’d he say?” Brad asked, he was much more interested in that.

“Were it so easy, so fragile, sheep.” Andrew reiterated. Nick chuckled, but Brad gulped.

“Crazy man comes out of the woods and we act like it’s Bin Laden or something...” Nick said, jokingly.

“I think this man’s a threat.” Andrew snapped at Nick “And a human threat, to me, is much more terrifying than a zombie one. Where Zombies are stupid, Humans are smart. If this man has bad intentions, he’s incredibly dangerous to all of us and your wall won’t keep him out.”

“I agree with Andrew.” Brad said, all eyes turned to him, “We live in a time where we can’t afford to treat anything strange as non-threatening. Everything’s a threat until confirmed other wise.” Brad said, sure of himself.

“What do we do then?” Brandon asked. Andrew and Monica were listening intently. Nick was, once again, visibly annoyed with the whole situation.

“We’ll start sending search teams out into the woods for the next two days. Nothing big, just enough to cover the area and either find this man or confirm that he’s gone.” Brad said, Nick looked at him with annoyance but Brad stared right back, “We can’t afford not too.” Nick huffed one more time and stormed off, off the porch and towards his cabin.

“Thank you, Brad.” Andrew said, truly thankful.

“No problem.” Brad responded. He was stone faced. He still wasn’t happy with Andrew, the way he’d acted the past couple days, but he agreed they needed to do something.

“I’ll go take night watch.” Brandon said, slinging his shotgun over his back.

“And I’ll go make sure everyone is sleeping soundly.” Monica added. The two began walking away, Brad turned to follow them but not before nodding to Andrew. A nod Andrew returned.