Carl reached his hideout after three hours of avoiding military patrols and the few infected. While bypassing the infected who were in one of the houses on the outskirts of town, he discovered that the infected were sensitive to loud sounds.
Upon arriving at Mrs. Park's house, he decided to search it thoroughly since he hadn't done so before because he needed to return home before Lori and Shane realized he was missing. He doubted they would notice until at least 8 a.m., giving him only about two hours to return when there were fewer military patrols and infected.
While searching Mrs. Park's house, Carl found:
-a small toolbox,
-leftover food,
-blankets,
-women's clothing, and clothing belonging to her sons,
-a safe,
-a small battery-operated radio.
He wasn't sure why Mrs. Park had left such an important item as a radio; perhaps she considered it unimportant. The whole search took Carl two hours as he checked every nook and cranny. By that time, he was slightly tired and hungry, so for dinner, he ate some crackers he had found earlier and drank from a water bottle.
One of her son's rooms had inward-opening doors, so he decided to spend the night there after barricading the door with a chair. Before going to sleep, Carl spent some time playing on his portable Nintendo DSi XL and checked to see if the radio worked.
The next morning, shortly after breakfast, Carl heard the sounds of an approaching car. The vehicle stopped in front of Mrs. Park's gate. Carl cautiously approached the window, and what he saw surprised him. Mrs. Park and her oldest son got out of the car. Her son jumped over the fence and opened the gate, while Mrs. Park drove into the yard. Carl grabbed his gun and quickly left the room, making his way to the stairs leading to the first floor, waiting for Mrs. Park and her son to enter the house. Unfortunately for Mrs. Park and her son, the stairs were practically opposite the front door.
After a moment, Mrs. Park and her son entered the house, and Carl overheard a fragment of their conversation.
"Mom, what's in the safe that we had to risk coming back home? There are a lot of infected around, and if the military sees us, who knows what they'll do to us," said Mrs. Park's son.
"Bob, it's something important to us... it's your father's gun. Remember, the code to the safe is on the back of the picture in my room," said Mrs. Park.
"Mom, why did you—"
bangbang
Mrs. Park's son didn't finish his sentence because at that moment, Carl fired eight shots in their direction. Mrs. Park and her son died without a chance to defend themselves. Carl's only thought at that moment was, "What an idiot to leave the safe code written on the back of a picture." He decided to check if they had anything useful.
Suddenly, he felt sick and thought, "I killed the Park family," but as quickly as that feeling emerged, it disappeared. Carl felt no guilt; his thought was, "I couldn't have changed anything. I was mentally prepared that one day I would have to kill. There's always that first time, especially when human civilization is collapsing."
After a few minutes, he went outside to search their car. What he saw inside surprised him. Inside the car, the younger son of Mrs. Park was sleeping with headphones on. Carl knew who this boy was; it was his classmate, Damian. Carl cautiously opened the back door of the car and slowly approached Damian. He pulled out the knife he had with him and slit Damian's throat. The boy instantly opened his eyes, grabbed his throat, and tried to scream, but couldn't. Carl decided to pull the still-living Damian outside so he wouldn't bleed all over the car.
Carl immediately set to work searching the vehicle. Inside, he found:
-a small supply of food and water,
-two tents,
-a machete,
-an axe,
-a fire-starting kit.
He didn't consider clothes useful because they were either too big or too small. Even though Damian was in the same class as Carl, he was much shorter; after all, Carl was 5'1" tall, making him one of the tallest in his class. After returning home, Carl checked the safe, and the contents were quite useful. Inside the safe was a loaded Glock 17 with a spare magazine, a full box of 9mm ammunition, a military knife, two smoke grenades, and the most surprising item, an M67 grenade. Carl knew that the shots would likely attract the infected, so he decided to do something about the Park family's bodies, as he wasn't sure if the smell would attract them as well.
Two miles away, Lori started calling the parents of Carl's friends, but most either didn't answer or had long been out of town. Lori hoped that her son had a hideout that his friends knew about. Shane, meanwhile, contacted several other police officers and soldiers in the isolation facility at the former elementary school, where people caught by the military in closed zones were taken, as well as anyone showing signs of infection, but Carl was nowhere to be found; it was as if he had vanished into thin air. After five long hours, Lori managed to reach Mrs. Ava Smith, the mother of John, a classmate of Carl and Lori's good friend.
"[Ava, can we talk?]"
"[What's wrong, Lori? If you're calling to gossip, you've picked the wrong time,]" Ava replied gruffly.
"[No... Carl ran away from home. I'm calling to ask if John knows of any of his hideouts,]" Lori replied slowly and sadly.
"[Oh my God, I'll get John for you right away,]" Ava responded. A moment later, a child's voice came on the line.
"[Hello,]" John's voice indicated he was scared, as he had just been playing with his dad, but his mom said someone wanted to ask him a few questions.
"[Hi John, can I ask you a few questions?]" Lori said in a calm but sad voice.
"[Yeah, what do you want to ask?]" John replied.
"[Do you know if Carl has a hideout or any favorite place?]" Lori asked.
"[I don't know, I need to think... I remember... Carl often hung out in the treehouse,]" John answered.
"[John, that's important. Where is that treehouse?]" Lori asked quickly.
"[In the yard of that old man near the playground, and there was also that weird white building with the sign 'Cats and Dogs,' I think.]"
Without a moment's hesitation, Lori hung up, knowing where it was. She immediately started shouting, "Shane, grab the car keys; I think I know where Carl might be!" Hearing this, Shane rushed to Lori to calm her down and find out more. "Calm down, Lori; where could he be?" Shane asked. "In the treehouse near the animal shelter," Lori replied.
"That's not good; it's within one of the closed zones. Lori, stay home; I'll sneak over there and look for him," Shane said.
As Shane said, he left the house and, avoiding military patrols, sneaked toward the animal shelter. After half an hour, he found the treehouse. But Carl wasn't there; the only thing he found was a few children's books and one peculiar book about fishing and trapping them. At the last moment, on one of the walls of the treehouse, he noticed a message.
"Shane, tell Mom you found my torn-up body or some small body. It will be better that way; you can comfort her in bed, and I'll have peace with her, and you won't find me. PS. Behind the loose ceiling board is my hat and school ID, along with a torn backpack that looks like mine. To make it look worse, the hat is stained with blood from some grandma's corpse."
Carl left this message during one of his first nighttime excursions outside a few days before he ran away. He never even thought that Shane would find this message. When Shane saw the note, his only thought was, "You're clever like the cunning Carl, and I certainly won't waste this opportunity." As the message stated, Shane found these things behind one of the loose ceiling boards. He added a few of Carl's personal items to the backpack that Carl had taken after returning from the hospital when Lori was crying in her room. Since the very beginning, after Carl's escape, Shane planned to deceive Lori. And when he learned that Carl might be hiding here, he decided to bring him back, but if he couldn't find him, he would fabricate his death, and Carl decided to make it easier for him.