Madeline Grable's Story

"Madeline get your ass move'n dammit!, you'd swear this was something new. Fuck! we've been doing this long enough for you to know when to get up" a male voice growled.

Madeline felt heal of a boot press down on her hip bone, shoving her a little, not the most pleasant of wake up calls but better them some her father had given her before. "Dad, your not drill sergeant you don't have to scream at the top of you lungs. You want every creep in a hundred mile radios to know where the hell we are." she said as she turned and sat up on the old nap sack she had been sleeping on. Half the lining was falling out and it was covered in stains of blood dirt and God knows what else.

"Fuck the creeps I'll just put a God damn bullet between their eyes and the problem's solved Henry said as he proceeded to grab up equipment and erase their existence from the dirt around them.

Madeline sighed that was her fathers solution to everything, don't know who or what it is, put fucking bullet through it and see what happens. She had heard him say many times you can find out allot about someone character if you shoot at them. Now this concept to her was completely illogical but it made all kinds of sense in her father war wearied mind. She loved him with every fiber of her being but he had a few screws loose, Madeline proceeded to help pack things as well. She was still tired as hell, she had taken first watch the night before and still felt like she hadn't gotten any sleep. But it was hard to sleep when you had to worry about whether something would come up and kill you. Everyday they walked the fine line between life and death, and it was beginning to take it's toll on Madeline, her slumber attacked by nightmares of what she had witnessed since end of everything she had held dear.

But when she thought about it, it was going to happen eventually man had grown too powerful and forgot what was truly important. It was a never ending cycle that had been going on since God had brought man into existence.

Man is blessed with wealth and power for all the good he's done.

Man forgets where his blessings come from and becomes complacent.

Man gets stupid and fucks up.

God get pissed and reminds man who's in charge

Man humbles himself and strives to do good.

Man is blessed with wealth and power for all the good he's done....

Madeline was beginning to wondering if there was a God, it just seemed like the world was dragging along the same day after day. Maybe God had finally given up on man, and this... this was hell.

The sun was already pounding down on them and it was about 0700 hours. She soon had everything packed away, they would try to get several miles in before they would stop for breakfast so if she wanted to eat she had to get moving. Her father trudged ahead taking point, he always insisted that he do but frankly Madeline was the better shot.

"There's an old settlement just over those hills I want to get there before we stop for breakfast... then we can do some savaging" said Henry not even turning to talk to Madeline.

She had noticed the pause in his breathing, it was getting harder for him lately to go long distances before he needed to stop and take a break. Madeline could only imagine it was something she couldn't see, at fist glance Henry looked to be a strong, muscular man no one would ever guess him to be in his late 40's. It had to be something inside that wasn't working like it used to and she wasn't going to find out any time soon. Henry never talked about his problems and especially not with his daughter.

"Yes, sir" was all Madeline said there was no use in arguing or prodding him with questions about what was wrong cause he'd never tell her. She was just waiting for the day that she wakes up and he didn't. For a long time she had fought with that thought in her head, the first time she though she sounded so terrible, who would think such a thing about their father. Only a soulless, hateful person would ever say something like that about their father. But this was the real world people died every day, so what if it was her father she just prayed that when he did die she would be ready to take care of herself.

As the made it over the hills of rubble and debris she saw the bombed out ruins of what had once been a town or a city, either way there wasn't much left but they had made it. "Can we eat now?" she asked.

Jesus girl you'd swear you fucking never eat, come on lets find us a spot so you'll stop you bitching Henry growled.

Madeline sighed as they sifted through another pile of rubble, they really hadn't found anything of use but this wasn't uncommon places like this were picked over all the time, eventually your not going to find anything.

"Shit! I'm tired of this, every fucking time I find something it crumbles", said Henry as he through down the shovel he was using.

Madeline stood up from the look of the shadows on the ground it was about 1300 hours, "Dad we need to start thinking about finding cover for the night".

Henry turned and looked at Madeline a aggravated look on his face, he knew she was right but he would never admit it. "You found anything?" he asked.

Madeline sighed and walked over to him "I found, what looks like an old tin box, and some old shell casings" she handed him the box with the small casings inside it.

"It's an old lunch box, but we might be able to get something for the casings if someone were willing to refurbish them. It's better then nothing", he closed the lid and stuck the box in his backpack. "Alright lets go find cover for the night", he said as he slung the bag over his shoulder.

Madeline nodded there were some old buildings not too far away so they had plenty of time before the creeps started coming out. Thats when she noticed what looked like red flames, she pulled out her gun and looked through the scope. "Dad what the hell is that?", she asked.

Henry took the gun from her and looked "Well fuck if it ain't flares, I haven't seen shit like that since I left the military. Somebody knows what the hell their doing. Thats really close to the old subway system I bet it's a maintenance tube, I also bet your ass that there's a shit pot load of creeps in there too. Whoever they are they got some balls going in there", said Henry handing the sniper rifle back to his daughter. "Come one we want to stay the fuck away from there" he said as he began to walk in the opposite direction of the flares.

"But dad what if their in trouble and need help?" she asked.

Henry turned and gave his daughter a confused look "So what, if the dumb ass went in there he obviously had a fucking death wish. We don't give a fuck so lets move on, thats and order". Madeline gave him a worried look, Henry growled There's no way in hell I'm helping someone that has the mental capacity of a piss ant. Now lets get the fuck out of here before, those creeps get done with whoever it is and come after us for desert", he said as he turned on his heal and practically began to march away.

Madeline sighed, her father was right but she just had this feeling of shame of leaving someone that might be in need of help. But this was the world they lived in, sometimes people made mistakes that got themselves in trouble, and if you got sentimental or emotional then they were liable to take you with them. Madeline fell into line behind her father and tried to put the same out of her mind, her mother had taught her to try to help those in need and it was a hard thing to unlearn.

"Damn I thought we'd never get here. I swear to God old man your calculations on distance suck" said Madeline as she adjusted the strap of the pack on her shoulder.

"Don't be such a pussy, we still got here didn't we. An now we can find out if any of that shit we turned up is worth a damn" said Henry who was walking just ahead of her.

Madeline rolled her eye, her father forgot he was talking to a girl sometimes and the comment of someone being a "pussy" really didn't hold the insult it would with a man. But he was old and set in his ways, and had spent the vast majority of his adult life giving orders and insults to men, "I really need to teach you some better insults" she said mockingly under her breath.

As they walked up to settlement where the weapons dealer resided, it wasn't the only one around but it was the closest. Madeline would be glad to have a place to sleep for the night that didn't involve jumping at every sound she heard in the darkness. Even though the settlements had there own evils to fear, and sometimes the people who are living are worse then the mutant creeps that roam the wastes.

Madeline was looking around when she was stopped by her father "Somethings not right we should have been patted down by gate guards by now..."

He was right the settlement was eerily silent even getting this late in the evening there would still be people milling around, trying to secure things for the night. Madeline pulled the gun off her back, the sniper rifle wasn't much good in close quarters combat, but it still got the job done when she wasn't able to find a vantage point quickly enough.

They soon came across a gory sight, the smell of blood clung sickly in the air Madeline could see people with aghast looks on their face hiding in the surrounding buildings "Well I think these poor schmucks are the guards" she said "They look like they got the bad end of a hatchet or something". One of the men was barely breathing and slowly dyeing the other looked even worse with his arm gruesomely ripped off. Both men were going to die... there were a couple of pops and the deed was done. Henry reloaded his his gun after putting the poor guys out of their misery, and then he turned towards the weapon dealers compound.

"It was the Albino Man..." Madeline turned at the sound of a mousy little voice behind her, the woman was obviously a "working girl", her breasts spilling out of the dirty tattered shirt she was wearing. "He just came in like a maniac and took out the guards. Then he headed for the weapons compound" when Madeline got a good look at the girl who wasn't much older then herself, she was saddened to see the burned flesh on her face. Like someone had taken a hot branding iron to her cheek for what means Madeline couldn't surmise. The burn had healed horribly was oozing puss and gave off a horrid smell, Madeline was disgusted with whoever could do something like that to anyone let alone an innocent young woman. It's changed her first thought when this girl started talking to her, she wasn't a whore she was a slave. Some other unhealthy looking men came and began to ransack the two dead men and the girl scurried away with a bit of money she had pulled out of the guards pockets.

Madeline shook her head and caught up to her father who was almost to the gates of the compound "Sir, the culprit is in there are we still going in" she said.

Henry turned back and looked at her "Damn straight we are, we need the money dammit..." It was then a very large man came out of the bunker. He was massive, and the armor he was wearing just made him look bigger. Madeline and her father stood before him, she kept waiting for her father to pull back and let the man aside but he didn't. Surely he was nuts, well she knew that but this was suicide "Saw your handiwork back there... so how much money did they cheat you out of" said Henry with a smirk.

Madeline's eyes went wide, how could he talk so nonchalantly to this guy that had practically murdered those guards "Sir,shouldn't we let him past" she said in anxious tone of voice.

Henry shrugged her arm off "Shut the hell up I'm trying to figure out who he's working for so we can maybe get some work and not starve to death" he was aggravated with her and she knew it. Madeline looked down at the ground "Yes sir", she kept glancing up at the man, the girl had called him the Albino Man but it was hard to tell under all the armor, but that would explain why he would cover himself like that. Obviously at one point she had seen him without some of the armor to know. Madeline cringed at the thought, how could anyone... she didn't want to think of it.

Madeline swallowed hard when he handed her the gold nugget, her father stood there half smirking at the scene. Her father looked down at the rotting hand that had been given to him. "Come on we're following him" he said as he set the hand down by the kid that had just lost his in the mayhem.

Madeline blinked "What... you've got to be kidding me" she muttered.

"Did I stutter soldier" said Henry as he tightened the straps on his back pack and began to follow behind Cain.

"No sir but... he's..." she didn't want to continue saying what was on her mind out of fear for her own life.

"He's exactly what he needs to be a survivor, and it's people like him that could help keep you alive... I'm not gonna be around forever Maddie and I don't want you to have the same fate as that poor girl in town. You got to learn to forget all the little pleasantries that you were taught before all this shit happened cause none of that is going to keep you alive" he said solemnly.

She was surprised her father had never spoke like this before "Sir, I don't understand, you would have me learn from a soulless monster how to survive. Whats to stop him from doing exactly like the people that tortured that other girl. Your heard what he said..."

"You know why dammit... cause your smarter then that girl you already know how to handle yourself. You just need to learn how to tune all this sentiment out and stay alive! Now shut up pick up the pace something tells me we're gonna be going pretty far before we stop with that he turned and concentrated on the path ahead of him.

Madeline shook her head this was a bad idea, a very bad idea but what other choice did she have. If she stayed in town she'd end up like that girl with the burn but following this man named Cain, felt as though it were a trip to the gallows. So it was die for real die inside, or a little of both either way she didn't want to be left by her father so she would follow...

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It felt like they had been traveling for hours, yet her father continued to follow Cain and she followed her father. "Does he even sleep" she said with exhaustion in her voice. She felt like she was about to fall over, yet her father didn't say a word about stopping for the night.

"Quit your bitching and keep moving" said Henry.

She gave him a glare that was full of detest, something he rarely saw "Well if your not going to say something I am, if he kills me so be it but I'm not gonna live much longer if I go non stop with no rest. And you especially, your already breathing heavy I don't need you passing out" she pushed past her father. Cain was a ways away from them so she had to jog a bit to catch up with him. "Hey, Cain I don't know what the hell you are but we're just human so we have to stop for the night that was our plan when we came across the disaster you created in the settlement..."

She was abruptly stopped by a yank on her ponytail "Shut up dammit, just keep your ass moving and don't think about how tired you are. If we stop and he doesn't we're doomed out here. So we're better off going to wherever he is and then passing out there got it" growled Henry.

Madeline rubbed the back of her head the pain still lingering where her hair had been pulled "Dad this is insane and you know it"

"That an order dammit!" yelled Henry.

"I'm not a soldier, Im your daughter God Dammit!" Madeline yelled.

"Hey, Cain I don't know what the hell you are but we're just human so we have to stop for the night that was our plan when we came across the disaster you created in the settlement..." The nineteen year old girl had the balls to tell him how it was going to be. Just shortly before Cain stopped in his tracks, his masked visage turning around just as her father had withdrew her from his proximity. Either he was afraid of Cain, or he had learned to trust no one--in either case he'd be right.

"Shut up dammit, just keep your ass moving and don't think about how tired you are. If we stop and he doesn't we're doomed out here. So we're better off going to wherever he is and then passing out there got it" Henry tried to quiet his daughters fiery temperament.

"Dad this is insane and you know it" The girl attempted to placate her father.

In the end, neither really won this argument. The girl was just as stubborn as her father, the only real difference was--she had no idea where they really were. They had been trudging along through a dried up gorge for all they knew. Hell, they were probably used to having to fight people, not creatures that could paralyze you, or rip your arms off or completely gore you through Kevlar and ceramic plating. She had only seen the surface of this world; rapists and thieves at your back, while a murderer or two at your front. Humans were dangerous because they were so unpredictable, but they were not the apex predators anymore. They hardly were to begin with.

Lowering his XM8, Cain did something very unusual for Cain. In a moment that would extremely tense for any parent regardless of situation, he marched on past Madaline and Henry but as he did so--grabbed the girl by the back of her head and singlehandedly lifted her from the ground as he kept on walking, unhindered by her weight added to the heavier armor he wore strapped around him. He carried the girl to a tree, or what looked like one. It was a stalk of some kind seemingly growing out of the ground--there were many around them. The closer they got, the more putrid the smell.

Cain needless to say, was unaffected. He roughly planted the girl against one of the 'stalks'. There was a mucous like resin, it was a highly sticky substance akin to a jelly that simply would not come off the skin and left a feeling like there was something crawling on her. There wasn't--yet. Holding her there like bait, he slipped out his curved Kabar knife, it honestly looked like a chef's knife that curved twenty degrees at the tip. Despite any of her thrashing, she would be helpless in the end result. The stalk began opening up, splitting with a sickening sound like flesh being peeled from the bone. Much to her horror, Madaline would realize, the stalk was actually once a human being and that coming up from its gullet, into its throat and out through its mouth was what was called a 'Spiderling' They came from much larger species spliced between a human an arachnid.

Pulling her back slowly, he bated the spiderling out. It had eight legs--eight legs that were eerily reminiscent of the human hand and fingers. Its eyes were human-ish. While they were round and did hive an iris color like a humans they remained fixated. It had a bulbous abdomen with spinerets at the end. The spiderling launched itself with quick resolve, but throwing down Madaline his knife hand came up and impaled the creature which sounded almost like a human in agonizing pain. He twisted the knife before he knelt down in front of Madaline with the knife and the spiderling.

"Radiation...doesn't just go away you see...It bleeds into the ground, the water, the air. Why, you're mutating as we speak---one cell at a time. You think a starving human is bad--try letting your guard down with one of these in the area. See, the first thing they do is paralyze you, then, the suck out the pulp in your bones--you know, the bone marrow? With no bone marrow you can't create more cells to fight of the infection--oh and did I tell you how incredibly painful it is? Cause you'll be alive with the hatchlings start to eat you from the inside." Cain took the spider off and tossed it in her lap before standing.

"You're bitching and moaning about being human is fair game for the wild life that is in abundance here. I know of a place up ahead. Until then, we keep moving." Cain told Madaline gravely before his head turned swiftly to the direction they had come from. "Wait here." He commanded, he then took off sprinting--sprinting in two hundred and plus pounds of armor and equipment. He stuck close to the ridge of the river bed. His acute hearing picking up the sound of an engine running--it was not in great condition he might have added to the thought.

Cain crouched low to the ground when the vehicle had drawn near. His silhouette blinding in with that of a tree stump's. As the vehicle continued on, his gloved hands with careful measure grabbed a hold of the edge of the riverbed and scaled it very slowly. Once on top top of the bank, he was in a crouched position. He pulled back the the bolt on his XM8 and stood up, as he began walking--he opened. Some of the bullets ricocheted, but some also found their mark. The rear tires blew stalling the jeep. He let the AR fall as it was on a sling and in a second he had an 870 pump-action shotgun in his hands. He came around to the side of the car already on target. His shoulders were tightly compacted against the weapon and he was somewhat hunched.

"Why are you following me? Are you a bounty hunter?" Cain would inquire, though the man wouldn't see how solemn his face was due to the neoprene balaclava and thick goggles and the shemgh wrapped around his head beneath the helmet that he wore.

Madeline sat there in shock after what Cain had done to her, the putrid smell from the spiders filled her nostrils and she almost felt the need to vomit. But she wasn't about to do it in front of Cain she wasn't going to act like he had scared. Of course she was scared to death but she didn't want to show weakness. She swallowed hard and looked down at the spider in her lap, standing up is slid down and landed in front of her. After a deep breath she crushed what was left of it under her boot, it made a cross between a crunch and squishing sound. She barely noticed the going on between Cain and the bounty hunter, it was like she had tunnel vision and her sight were set on one man.

"I told you should have kept your damn mouth shut. But no you had to be a big balls, bad ass and look where it got ya, your my daughter but I can't help you if your gonna be stupid. said Henry shaking his head.

Madeline grabbed her father by the shirt and spat in his face "You sorry son of a bitch, I'm your God damned daughter and you just sat there and laughed while that fucking maniac tossed me around like a rag doll. I've done nothing but respect you and save your sorry ass from getting mauled while your digging through piles of shit. Once we get to the next settlement Im done, if you want to follow him that fine by me but Im out" Madeline flung some of the slime off her arm and on the ground. And started walking in the direction the were heading before.

Henry wiped the spit off his face, and smirked "Thats more like it..." he said "You might want to wait for this pair or you may find yourself spider chow" Henry called after her.

Madeline stopped in her tracks.

"You know I'm right cause you have no fucking idea where your going, Cain's the only that knows where he's going" he laughed.

Ryan raised an eyebrow when Argo whimpered at the man. Already Ryan could deduce a few things about this person, and none of them were very... normal. For starters, he was highly intimidating - although anybody could when they held a shotgun to your face - and very aggressive. Argo rarely whimpered, but when he did it was in the shadow of another predator, one that was usually extremely fierce and dangerous. The man had shot out his tires without any rhyme or reason, and the worst part? The man had the audacity to start lecturing him about the terrain.

You would be better off walking, loud noises stir things best left undisturbed Once again, Ryan raised an eyebrow. It was as if this man thought he was the only one that had been living in the wilderness for the past 5 years, scrambling through the barren wastelands and fighting off monstrosities. Yet even if that was what his words meant to Ryan, the tone the man gave off was just that of a man warning a fellow of the dangers around, with quite good clarity if Ryan could add. Oh here, the currency is blood, nothing else will suffice. Ryan couldn't stop himself, so he burst into a little laugh. The whole thing was simply amusing.

"Like the rest of this world isn't." The laughter stopped slowly, and Ryan jumped out of his jeep and began to walk to the back while Pat yawned. The cat really didn't care about the situation, for he knew he could simply just hide if anything felt like bothering him. Argo, who was a little too big to hide in cramped areas, was still scared of the masked man and Ryan rolled his eyes. " Let's be frank here mister: Currency doesn't exist anymore. Survival is the new currency, and how you achieve your survival is your business. However, mine usually requires a ride of some form, so this jeep here is one of my survival tactics, along with a few others." He began changing the tires with extreme speed when the most bizarre question he had ever heard came from the masked man's lips.

Are you going to eat that dog? Ryan stopped what he was doing, an incredulous look on his face, mixed in with a little shock. Ryan could never imagine eating Argo, that was just.. completely insane. I mean, this guy even sounds like he would! I... am at a loss for words. When Ryan finally got his train of thought collected, he shook his head and said to the man with that incredulous look still on his face. "Nope. Wouldn't dream of it. Argo's been with me ever since I was a kid, and he's really useful for tracking scents. Besides, " he paused, unsure if he should continue. "I rarely have to eat anything anymore. I guess you could consider that another survival tactic of mine. I believe the last time I ate was about a week ago..." He tried to see if he could think back that far, but his thoughts were interrupted by a man and a lady talking in the background. From the harshness of the man's voice, he could only speculate that he was in the army, and the lady was his daughter. He also picked up the masked man's name: Cain, or something like that. He turned to this Cain person and asked him his only question.

"So, since we are stopped, might I inquire where you would be off to with a man and what I am guessing is his daughter?" He said it loud enough that the two others could hear him as he finished up the first tire and moved onto the next.

"Like the rest of this world isn't." The man would laugh in his face. His complacency...bugged him. It made his eye twinge. He hated disrespect, rudeness. Yet, with his mask on, the man couldn't see his jaw, swiveling back and forth--grinding his human-enough looking teeth very tensely against one another. However, his leather glove betrayed his otherwise calm demeanor, groaning as it stretched. It stretched because his hand tightened around the pistol-grip of the 12 gauge pump. " Let's be frank here mister: Currency doesn't exist anymore. Survival is the new currency, and how you achieve your survival is your business. However, mine usually requires a ride of some form, so this jeep here is one of my survival tactics, along with a few others."

Drawing in a deep breath of air, his lungs inflated and chest pressed outwards before he exhausted the air supply and he gradually went back to his normal self. Calm. Keep yourself calm. He thought. There is no need to shoot him, you're certain one way or another he will learn what happens when you put a loud noise next to a hornets nest, right? Cain suddenly, and although it was hidden, smiled. Strangely enough, he lowered his shotgun. He even released it before he revealed his master plan--logic. " Tell me, as a fellow traveler--I am sure you are accustomed to various tribal 'pockets' of human activity, right?" His fingers loosely threaded with one another and although unarmed, he was not without the capacity to squeeze of the fletchette round.

"I'm sure they were very dangerous; killing one another for bullets, and food, and clothes--hounding you for the same I bet." His words were of course, all true as he had traveled the many islands and bits of continent left. Even the ones where radiation was highly lethal for any human to go. But he also seemed highly educated, very unlike the normal rabble of today's society where most couldn't even spell their names. "I'm sure it must have been very scary for you, to be shot at--had rocks thrown at you--maybe a fashioned stick or two?" He was now being his own form of condescending, the very worst kind. A truth filled kind. The kind that would speak volumes about a person.

"There is a margin that exists," Cain said to Ryan. Though rather than being flat out pompous with it--his voice was very sincere. " Between predator and between prey. One does not simply become a predator because he unts something else. Tsk, tsk, tsk. Oh no, that's not how it works. He slowly reached back, pulling out what looked to be a red bandanna. Hunting something simply makes you a hunter, it does not make you a predator. What makes you a predator, is simply--survival of the fittest." Cain stepped very calmly, perhaps unnervingly towards Ryan and while he was knelt down paying his attention to the tire exchange--laid the hand right in front of him. Whispering into the young man's ear. "Whatever I catch, I eat. Flesh is flesh. Human. Dog. Mutant. There are things here that are not out in those other places. You had best have a lot of guns when you attract the spiderlings...Or you're going to wish you had never had a dog once it gets bit by one."

He quickly tore off a finger, simply snapped the bones to such a degree that the shards severed whatever flesh, muscle and tendon was in the way. It was like he was simply chewing on jerky as he walked away. The crunch of bones sickeningly found their resonance from his mouth muffled but eerily loud enough to hear from the close proximity. He left the remainder there as he stepped away from Ryan, with his back turned to the man he headed for the gorge before he heard Ryan call out to him, and the others.

"So, since we are stopped, might I inquire where you would be off to with a man and what I am guessing is his daughter?"

"You might inquire, but then I again I might decline. You see, that man and his daughter have two things in common with being in my fellowship--one they aren't nosy, two they don't make a lot of sounds. At least, I hope I got through her head. The girl does still have some naivety in her, but she'll grow out of that in a hurry when her belly's empty. People tend to do a lot of things to survive that they wouldn't otherwise." Cain replied, before turned and jumped the twenty or so feet to the bottom of the river bed. His hyper dense muscles contracted upon impact, absorbing the recoil from it. He was only knelt one knew before he rose to both feet and carried on to Henry and Madaline.

"I'm afraid we might have a change of plans, this place will be crawling with spiderlings if he keeps that infernal machine running. We'll have to climb up the other side of the gorge and make a rather large outward sweep to get out of range of the vibrations that thing gives off. That is what they are attracted to. That webbing is everywhere, and wherever it is they can feel. But there has to be enough pressure to set the trap so to speak. I don't know about you two, but I want to well clear of them when they start to fester and roam."

Madeline looked over at Cain with a look of detest, because her father had chosen to follow him they were in this situation.

"I'm afraid we might have a change of plans, this place will be crawling with spiderlings if he keeps that infernal machine running. We'll have to climb up the other side of the gorge and make a rather large outward sweep to get out of range of the vibrations that thing gives off. That is what they are attracted to. That webbing is everywhere, and wherever it is they can feel. But there has to be enough pressure to set the trap so to speak. I don't know about you two, but I want to well clear of them when they start to fester and roam." Cain said after leaving the man in the Jeep behind.

Madeline looked back at the other man, and then looked at Cain "So your just gonna leave him" she said.

A growl came from Henry "He was the one stupid enough to come barreling through here with that damn car let him be spider chow the idiot" he said as he trudged along behind the two younger people.

Madeline shook her head And continued following Cain in silence, she didn't want to ensue any kind of reaction from him before they got to wherever he was taking them. After the stunt he pulled with the spider before, she wondered if he wasn't just leading them so he could off them. Either way she was going to keep her eyes on him just in case she had to take matters into her own hands.

It was nice to finally sit down and Madeline still sat in silence as her father pulled out some food tossing it to her. She kept glancing over at Cain, what was it about him that made her father decide that this was a good idea. "Eat dammit I don't want to hear your bitching later" said Henry as he pulled the aluminum lid off of whatever he had decided to eat. Madeline looked down at her what her father had tossed in her lap, and soon began to eat it.

"I'm going to hunt." said Cain.

It kind of startled Madeline at first she hadn't heard him speak in a normal tone of voice. Yet she staid quiet and nodded acknowledging his statement, frankly she didn't want to know exactly what he ate. But she was in an odd way curious about him as well. So cold and cruel what could happen to him to make him this way. Yes the world was harsh, but was it truly a reason to loose your humanity, what makes you different from the monsters that try to kill you.

She went back to eating and hoped that he might give up on them and move on, she could convince her father to defer if that were to happen.

Madeline cold feel fatigue begging to catch up with her, and with her hunger stated for the moment it made it even harder to stay awake.

"I"ll take watch tonight you go ahead and get some rest" said Henry as he poked the fire to keep it burning. Madeline was surprised she typically took first watch cause her father was older. But she wasn't going to let his offer got to waste.

"Alright but if something happens wake me up" she said as she pulled out her nap sack from her pack. It was old and tattered, but slightly better then sleeping on the ground. She rolled it out on the ground not to far away from the fire and zipped herself in, it wasn't long before her eyes felt heavy and she was sound asleep.

Henry sat and watched as he daughter drifted off, he was tired too but he knew that Maddie was even more tired. He was hard on her cause he loved her and didn't want her to grow soft in this harsh world. He didn't want her to die before he did, and if she was going to survive without him she had to learn hard and fast. He knew he didn't have much more time, his lungs became weaker every day he cursed himself for be so dumb when he was young, but there wasn't much he could do about it now. How was he supposed to know that one day he would live in a post apocalyptic world with irradiated monsters, and zombie like creatures that could kill you in seconds if given half a chance. The last thing he wanted was to die from cancer but... the point was moot now and it was closing in faster then he wanted it to. He poked the fire again and hoped that Cain was somewhere out there keeping and eye on the perimeter cause his eye site sucked.

Henry sat there the mans screams in his ears he just tried to ignore it and think of other things the then brutality that Cain was performing. But he knew that Madeline wouldn't stand for it.

Madeline shot up like she'd been shot when she heard a man agonizing screams, like nails on a chalk board. She looked on in horror at what Cain was doing "No stop!" she yelled, her heart sank how could anyone even do such a thing. It was inhumane, she could stand for it she thought as she started to run towards him. Henry shot up grabbed her and slammed her to the ground "Just stay put and let it be you hear, they were after us anyway best that he eats them and not us. So for the both of us keep your mouth shut and you ass out of the way" he said leaning into her ear.

"Da..ad you can't just let him do.. that. It's wrong... it's monstrous" she said from her father weight on her back.

"Then plug your ears and cover your eyes cause it aint gonna be pretty, sometimes you live longer when with the monsters then the other things much worse. A meal is a meal and I never said he was human" he said sitting down her back.

"How... can you....let him do this... No!" she yelled.

Henry went flying as she jumped up suddenly sending him flying off her back. He sat there in shock not believing that she was strong enough to knock him over.
"I'll be damned" he said, but realized she was running towards Cain and his meal. "Shit!" he jumped up again "Don't be stupid Maddie!" he yelled after her.

Madeline didn't pay attention to what Cain looked like, how he was dressed, what color he was. None of that crossed her mind, all she could think of is that he wasn't all monster there had to be reasoning with him. She ended up running and crashing right into Cain's chest, "Please... God please... don't do this... you don't have to do this. I beg you I'll do anything but please... don't do what your doing, you can think me weak or eat me yourself but don't torture him like that" she said.

"Are you fucking out of your mind! that man would have killed us and your trying to protect by offering yourself. You are so damn stupid girl get the hell out of the way and let him finish the job!" Henry yelled at a safe distance.

Madeline felt tears well up in her eyes "Whether he would have killed us or not is beside the point..." she put her hand up on Cain's chest. "Please... no one deserves this" she begged. "I can't believe that there is nothing to you... but killing. I know your not completely human, but there has to be some humanity left in you. So please... don't do this" she said waiting for her fate. She knew it was possible that he could easily kill her and eat her as this man he was "preparing" but she couldn't be witness to his complete downfall of that. In her heart she felt that if every lost compassion for anyone, that there really wasn't a point in living anymore. To totally give up on your humanity, and become a monster that is a fate worse the death.