From the journal entry of Manny Stone, May 13

This journal entry was brought out of the Rocky Mountains by the writer, Manny Stone. He had been a hermit and was rarely seen in town. He survived with a couple who he rescued near his cabin.

May 13,  2017

I hadn't seen anyone, alive, dead or undead, in months. I had been living off the land and  raiding the hunting cabins for what food they could provide.  I hunted, I scavenged and I survived.
Then, two days ago, I was out hunting, a couple of miles down from my cabin and higher on a neighboring mountain, and heard something stumbling through the trees. I positioned myself and waited. A couple of minutes later, a man and a sobbing woman crashed into my clearing. They were moving as fast as their out of breath state would allow and both kept urging the other to keep moving faster. But they were always moving forward and glancing behind.
I let them pass and waited for whatever was chasing them. I didn't have long to wait. Three men in leather jackets, huffing and puffing, appeared. They were doing their best to follow their tracks and had followed them this far.

They paused in the middle of the clearing, fell to the ground and declared a ten minute rest. Then they started talking about what they were going to do with the man and woman when the caught them. The man was going to be tortured with knives, a torch, pliers, and anything else they could think of to use in creative ways. The woman would be made to watch for a bit, then the man would be made to watch as they enjoyed his girlfriends company, them and the other twenty or so men in their group. Then the man would be worked on some more and if they were strong enough, he would live long enough to watch another round of enjoyment of the woman.
I decided at that point that these sick men needed to be taken out and the two on the run needed my help. I put the first man in my sights and pulled the trigger. Three times in quick succession. The two only had moments to feel anxiety about being shot at, not long enough to form any defense, though.
I quickly searched their bodies and took any supplies or anything useful they carried. I also took something visually obvious from each of them as proof that I really did kill them. The runners might need the reassurance that their current pursuers are dead.
I know I should have felt something having to shoot those men, but their evil intentions made me not regret taking them out. I thought about this as I followed the very obvious trail the two had left, cleaning it up as much as I could while following them. If that group sends anyone else to follow the trail, it needs to be as hard as possible to follow from this point on. When I catch up to them, I will help them to lessen their trail from that point on.
It took me about 45 minutes to start to hear them bumbling through the foliage ahead. I circled around them and got ahead of them, then positioned myself in their paths, choosing another clearing for our meeting place.

When they stumbled out of the trees and saw me, they both almost fainted from fright and exhaustion. I held my hands out in front of me to show they were empty and jumped into my explanation of living in the mountains, watching them run by and the whole debacle. I showed them the stuff I had taken from the leather clad men and told them that they shoud follow me and I would help them to leave a fainter trail. I could get them through the mountains and near the closest town, which is probably overrun with zombies by this point but first we could stay the night in my cabin. They accepted and we moved off together.
I asked them how they had met the group of men following them and if they thought the group was likely to send more men after them. They said they litteraly ran into them on the  road through the mountain when the two of them we with a bigger group. They were able to sneak out a back side window of the RV their group was locked up in and they were able to make it into the trees and a short distance away before anyone discovered they were missing. That was yesterday late in the afternoon and they had been running ever since.
We made it to the cabin, taking a slightly longer route than I would normally take so I could circle back and rub out as much of our trail as I could. I made them some food and set up some booby traps to draw attention to anything moving near the cabin.
Alex and Marny are really nice people that found themselves in a bad situation. Who hasn't in this new world, post pandemic. We have been talking for the last couple of days and I have been going on patrol to see if anyone followed them. They want to try to find somewhere closer to a town so they can find more supplies and have asked me to go with them. I explained that I really don't like people and they replied that most people are dead or undead now, so we wouldn't really see anyone. I thought about it and have decided that it is nice to have someone to talk to, so I think I will go with them.
Now we just have to decide where we want to head.

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