Mother figure, Nis'ku

[Graham Devlin]

Where was Graham some may ask? His reply would be "Shut the hell up and go away." He was traveling south from Elko, on his way down the highway. He had his rugged back pack on, a machete in his hand, dragging slightly on the ground behind him. He was always careful not to travel right on the road, some people still had working vehicles and the last thing he needed was to get himself run over. He didn't survive this long to make a stupid mistake like that.

He had been traveling alone for quite awhile now, and that was how he preferred it. He didn't want people to slow him down and waste what little supplies he had managed to scavenge. Not to mention in times of trouble it was much easier to be stealthy by yourself rather then with a group.

He had just hit the local Walmart in Elko, not for food or weapons of course, all of that would have been looted a long time ago, instead he had grabbed a pair of skinny jeans and a t-shirt that clung to his torso. He had even managed to find himself a new sweater which was tied on the back of his back pack so it didn't take up a bunch of room. What he really needed more then new pants and a shirt had been shoes, but either then little kids shoes, there hadn't been any there.

He was vigilant and careful, always watching and listening, and even smelling. You could never be too careful at a time like this. You had to be a good fighter, or just plain lucky, to survive out here.

He was hoping to make it to a town, or some where that had a high building he could barricade himself on top of for the night. Some people might think it was a waste of time for him to spend hours locking himself up on the roof of a building, and having to break it all down again in the morning before he could leave, but he had survived with out a scratch so far. Or at least not a scratch from one of the undead that were wandering around.

Graham had his gun slung over the front of him, it was his prized sniper rifle, and he only had limited bullets so he didn't use it unless he needed too. The night vision scope was a life saver at night. He also had a pistol tucked into his belt, though there weren't many bullets left for that either. If all hell broke loose he would use his guns, but most of the time he used his machete, or any other sharp, or even blunt, object that he could use to beat a zombie down with. He had kept the machete in his hand for a surprisingly long time, most of the time the weapons wore out after awhile from use, but this particular weapon had stayed with him for a while, he had even carved a name in to the wooden handle. 'Carmen'.

Carmen was his mom's name, he wasn't sure if she was alive or not, but he hoped she was, and he wanted to find her. Or maybe it would be better if she wasn't so she didn't get turned in to one of those things, or have to try and make it on her own.

[Nis'ku Bariss]

[takes place before thread with Billy; she's heading towards Elko]

He’s dead.

She was still having trouble accepting it. The idea of it was much harder to wrap her head around than that of those…things. That they were out there, killing people, eating them. Somehow, that was more okay than this. She could handle it. She could survive. She could sleep, knowing he was there with her. But he wasn’t anymore. She was alone.

Because he was dead.

She had nothing now. No one. No one to help her. Protect her. As far back as she could remember, she’d never been alone before. Not like this, never like this. She’d never had to completely rely on only herself. She’d always had the backup support of friends and family whenever a relationship…ended. She’d never had to deal with this sort of thing alone before. And none of her boyfriends had ever died. None of them had ever been killed. None of them had ever been her husband.

It had been pure instinct, running away. He had told her once while they were boarding up that house that those things couldn’t run very fast, or very far. If they had to get away, if there were too many of them, they should run. Most of those things couldn’t even walk properly…two healthy adults could easily outrun them. He’d made her feel safe with those words, but the moment they’d broken through the door, climbed in through the windows, grabbed hold of him, all coherent thought had left her. All she could think about was escape. All she could hear was her husband’s screams, shouting at her to go, to run. She couldn’t fight them all, they would only get her too. And so she ran.

She was still running, with no thought of where she was going. She knew the general direction they had been headed in and she kept going, stumbling along, too wrapped up in her own thoughts to pay much attention to what was out there. None of it mattered anymore, not to her. They would get her eventually. She would share his fate. Why hadn’t she stayed there with him? It would happen anyway, it didn’t matter how far she went or how fast she could run, they would catch up while she slept. She might not even wake up.

She stopped, spotting a shape up ahead. It was one of them, she told herself. One of those things, stumbling towards her. It looked like it was carrying things, maybe even a weapon, a pack of supplies, but it was one of them. It could have died on its feet, resumed its previous journey without even realizing anything had happened. And now it had spotted her, and was coming for her.

Swallowing back the sick feeling in her stomach, she stopped in the middle of the road. This was the end for her, because she had resigned herself to this fate five miles back. It was only fitting that she die the same way James had, and to her there was even a certain amount of peace in that. She wouldn’t be alone for much longer. She’d be with him soon.

And so she stood still, waiting. Her hands loose at her sides, her own shotgun strapped harmlessly to her back. She waited silently, eyes closed, face almost peaceful, the soft shuffling of the figure up ahead and the whistling of the wind the only sounds for miles.

[Graham Devlin]

Graham's eyes caught the figure in the distance, still a good distance from him. The thing looked the same as one of the undead, slow moving, that is until it realized there was a live human in front of it. Normally Graham would shoot and then ask questions, but there was something about this figure that confused him. It seemed absent minded, and yet there was something..

He lifted his sniper rifle, switching the scope to infrared. He had discovered that the zombies had a lower body temperature then a human. He stopped in the middle of the road, kneeling down on one knee, he lifted the scope to his right eye and squinted in to it. His finger on the trigger, ready to shoot if needed. The color wasn't what it was suppose to be, it was too red to be one of the undead. He lowered the gun, not moving from his ready position, finger still on the trigger. No one could be trusted.

The figure stopped and stood there, and Graham looked at the person as if they were nuts. Did they have a death wish? Not only did they have a gun pointed at them, but there would probably be zombies narrowing in on their position as they stood there.

"Hey! Are you fucking nuts!?" He yelled, his voice echoing around the empty area. He rose himself from his crouching position and let the gun drop back to where it had been hanging earlier, but his machete went right back into his hand. He started walking quickly towards the figure, fingers tightening around his machete. For all he knew this could be a trap.

As he got closer he saw that she was older then he was, and his heart sort of dropped , she looked so lost and disheveled. A sudden picture of his mother wandering alone like she was made him sigh and shove the machete in to his belt. He walked over to her, he was far enough away that if she decided to whip out her shot gun and fire off a couple rounds at him, he would be able to chop her head off before the thought even entered her mind.

"What are you doing? Do you want one of those bastards to get you?" He said, his eyes already scanning the area, but making sure to keep her in his line of vision. He eyed her shotgun wearily, but she didn't seem to be making a move for it.

"You know. I'd feel a hell of a lot better if you at least grabbed your shot gun. Are you waiting for one of them to get you and turn you?" He growled, his voice low so he didn't attract any unwanted attention, his yelling earlier had probably been enough for the moment, he would be surprised if some of the zombies weren't on their way right now.

[Nis'ku Bariss]

[ugghh a little icky, but I wanted to tag you <3]


The wind tousled her hair slightly, catching in the lashes of her closed eyes and tickling the side of her cheek in a way that made her feel uncomfortable. This was certainly taking a long time, she mused, though she knew those things didn’t move very fast. Funny, the ones who had killed James seemed to have moved a lot faster than this.

Hey! Are you fucking nuts!?

The voice was unfamiliar, and she startled a little at the unexpected sound of it, but her eyes stayed closed. Somehow, she assumed it was her, or her mind, trying to shock her out of this death wish. This acceptance of her fate…even if it wouldn’t happen now, even if she could somehow kill this one…there would be others. They would outnumber her, they would kill her. In the face of something that was going to happen no matter how hard she fought or how far she ran…she thought it just easier, just to let it happen.

But this was wrong…the longer the silence stretched out afterwards, the more she was convinced that it hadn’t been her own troubled subconscious she’d heard. That had been a real human voice. Her eyes opened and took in a figure walking towards her, far too sure and steady to be one of the infected. He was real, and he wasn’t sick. He wasn’t dead. And he was holding a knife. She took an involuntary step back.

What are you doing? Do you want one of those bastards to get you?

She was looking at him, watching him, but thinking about her feet. His knife, his gun…she had moved to protect herself. She had moved away, because he could be dangerous and it was logical to avoid danger. Moments before she had been ready to die, and yet this…puzzled her. It pulled her back into her head again, that action. It could only mean that she really didn’t want to die. That there was something in her that still wanted to keep going. That wanted to fight. To live.

You know. I'd feel a hell of a lot better if you at least grabbed your shot gun. Are you waiting for one of them to get you and turn you?

She focused her attention back on him then, her epiphany behind her. She found it in her to favor him with a humorless smile. ”I was,” she admitted without apology. She didn’t want to turn…she didn’t want to become one of them…but she was just tired. She didn’t want to do this anymore, be here anymore. It was all too much. But all it took was the mere suggestion of a threat from a stranger to bring it all back for her, put her back in the game. ”And you were going to cut my head off,” she added with the same sad smile, glancing down to where he’d sheathed the knife and back up at him.

And that was when she noticed him, really noticed. He was young, not quite the age she was used to working with, but younger than her. Something about him reminded her of home; maybe his features were similar to one of her students, or even a boy she knew in high school. Maybe he just reminded her of a time when she would have met people like him and been in a position to help them, rather than being the one in need of help. Either way, his face, his clothes, his expression, even the way he carried himself, were comfortably familiar to her. ”I’m Nish,” she said without thinking, without realizing what an odd thing it was to introduce yourself to someone who would have killed you moments before.

He was, after all, he only other living person for miles. She might as well say hello.

[Graham Devlin]

((Sorry its so short lol <3))

"You.. want to be one of those? Well all the power to you lady, but I'm not going to feel pity for you when I'm the one to kill you." He said, thinking that she was probably the most insane person he had ever met, sure life was shitty during a zombie apocalypse, but who in the hell wanted to be one of the undead? He wondered how many other people had just given themselves up and allowed themselves to be eaten by the things. He knew that there was no way in hell he was going to ever go down with out a fight.

She spoke of him about to chop her head of, and he smirked. He was going to, but it turned out she was a human and it would have been a bad idea for him to chop her head off. He hadn't killed a human yet, only the undead sons of bitches that had brought about the end of the world. He looked her in the eyes as he spoke, no mercy showed in his eyes, letting her know that if she tried anything he wouldn't hesitate to kill her if he needed to. He was all about his own protection and doing what was best for him instead of any one else.

"I thought you were one of them, what did you want me to do? Give up like you and allow them to kill me? Yea right. Your just lucky my sniper has infrared or I would have killed you first and asked questions later." He said. She was lucky he wasn't one who would freak out and kill anything that moved. She was also lucky that he noticed her before she had the chance to surprise him, or she would be dead by now.

"Cortez. Now let's go, the things are going to be noticing our presence soon and if we don't move to either a better area for me to protect us in, or just get our asses going down this road then we are both going to be zombies." He said, turning and heading back the way he came, he was heading south, and they needed to hurry if they were going to find some where to stay for the night, he wasn't going to get stuck on the highway past dark with only the night vision on his sniper to keep them safe.

[Nis'ku Bariss]

[sorry it's...crap lol <33]

She wanted to set him straight. She wanted to argue that no, she didn’t want to be one of them, she was just…tired of running. Tired of fighting. Prolonging the inevitable. But she didn’t say these things, partly because she didn’t see the point in it, and partly because he kept talking.

She found her eyes drawn to his rifle while he spoke. Infrared? It had never occurred to her that such a thing might be useful. Then again, a lot of things had never occurred to her – like what she would have to do if she was ever left alone. Like this.

This guy…this kid…she was embarrassed. Here he was on his own, doing so much better for himself than she was in the same position. She was older, and presumably ought to be better able to take care of herself, and yet she was lost. She’d spent much of her life in the safety of her little community up north, with her circle of friends and her family and her job and her husband. This…was so far out of her comfort zone that she had nothing, no context for this sort of thing. No training or experiences to fall back on that even remotely resembled where she now found herself.

And yet this kid…

Cortez. Now let's go, the things are going to be noticing our presence soon and if we don't move to either a better area for me to protect us in, or just get our asses going down this road then we are both going to be zombies…

She blinked, and then began to follow obediently. Cortez. The kid’s name was Cortez. He was telling her how it was and heading away, assuming she’d follow. And everything in her wanted to do what he said. Every fiber of her being was in agreement with him, because it’s what she’d always done. In her office, when she was the counselor, when she was the one in charge, she was the one giving orders, advice. She was the one in charge. But outside of that environment, she was always on the other side of the desk. Whether it was her parents telling her what courses she should take in high school, her brother cleaning up her drink-induced messes or her husband guiding her through life, she had always been the follower. And that part of her sincerely wanted to follow Cortez.

But instead, she stopped in the middle of the street.

”But that’s the wrong way,” she called after him, surprising herself. ”I need to go north.” He was headed south, back the way she’d come. She and James had been traveling north, from Vegas. He’d cautiously guided them through ghost towns and down deserted highways blocked with empty cars for miles to get her here. She wasn’t about to turn back now. She wanted to get out of Nevada, not deeper into it.

”I’m…I’m trying to get home,” she explained nervously, stepping forward a few paces towards him. Deep down, she feared there wouldn’t be a home to get back to, but she wouldn’t allow that thought to take root. For all she knew, this thing was only here, in Nevada. Or worse, only the southern US. Surely they would have contained it somehow, right? They were so far south now…this thing couldn’t possibly have reached so far north. She had to believe that. If she didn’t have that, she had nothing.

[Graham Devlin]

He noticed her foot steps stop and he himself stopped his walking and turned to face her as she said that he was going the wrong way. She said she needed to go North and he bit his tongue to keep from yelling at her. He had just come from the North, and there was nothing there. No food, no weapons, no shelter, no salvation. But just as he went to tell her that if she was going with him, then she was heading South, she spoke of getting home.

He sighed and ran a hand through his filthy hair. He had just come from that direction, but there was no way he was going to leave her alone, not when she was so ready to give herself up to the zombies. He would take her where ever it was she needed to go, then she had a choice. She could follow him and keep herself out of trouble or she could fend for her self. There was no way he wasn't going to protect her for much longer then it took to get her up North.

"Fine. We'll head back North." he said, heading back where he had been coming from, he passed by her with out another word. His hand went to his machete again, pulling the blade from his belt, he carried it along beside him. In the time it took him to get the blade from his belt a zombie could have ripped some of his flesh off, or bitten him and transferred the virus.

"Where exactly are you headed any ways?" He asked out of curiosity. He wasn't going to go too far North, it was bad enough that he had to back track even a couple of days, any farther then that and she was on her own.

Graham knew that where ever you went, there was nothing. There were a few groups of people, and a few loners like him, but either then that, there was nothing. So where ever she was going was bound to be destroyed. He would have said these things to any one else, but not her. She reminded him of the nightmares he had been having of his mother, wandering alone and scared. If one of those things hadn't already gotten her.

The very few minutes that Graham did sleep were spent restlessly dreaming about death and torment and his mom. It was a terrible image, and a part of the reason that he barely slept. He didn't need nightmares like that tormenting him as he travelled.

"Why are you traveling alone anyways? You don't seem the type to be able to take care of yourself out here. The fact that you were standing there waiting for something to get you proves that you aren't exactly a fighter."

[Nis'ku Bariss]

He stopped, turning around to look at her. She shifted uneasily on her feet, noticing as she did how sore they were, how tired her legs were from walking all day. It would be dark in a few hours – finding somewhere secure to rest for the night sounded like a very good idea, but she couldn’t see anything even remotely close by. It was partly why she had decided to give up not five minutes ago – even if she tried, she’d be hard-pressed to find anything safe before dark.

Fine. We'll head back North…

The expression on his face gave her pause. He looked irritated with her, but yet he still stopped. Why, if she was going to be so much trouble, would he bother to turn around, argue? What was she to him, but a defenseless woman with a seeming death wish? Why should he care if she went on alone, possibly to get eaten sometime in the night?

She stepped aside as he walked towards her, flinching slightly as he drew the machete again, though he had already walked past her. She got the feeling that he liked being in charge, and caught herself trying to figure out his motivations, his personality and drives, as she would with one of her students. Before she got very far into her analysis, however, he spoke again.

Where exactly are you headed any ways?

She fell into step with him, heading north again back the way he’d come. She shifted the pack on her back, lifting it higher on her shoulder to relieve some of the ache setting into the muscles there, the butt of her rifle rhythmically hitting against the back of her thigh while she walked, much to her annoyance. ”Uhhm…” she thought about what to say, whether she should just say ‘I’m trying to get out of Nevada’ or ‘the next town over’ or even ‘the northern States’, but while those were temporary goals, they weren’t her real goal. They weren’t home. ”I live in Vancouver,” she said, her voice somewhat hesitant, making it clear that she knew what a difficult journey that would be. But that was home, and it was all she had left. If she never made it there, she never made it, but she’d at least try. She had to try.

Why are you traveling alone anyways? You don't seem the type to be able to take care of yourself out here. The fact that you were standing there waiting for something to get you proves that you aren't exactly a fighter…

She took in a sharp breath at that, eyes wide as memories came back to her, unbidden. James…that house…those things. She was still having nightmares; she thought she always would. ”I wasn’t always alone,” she murmured quietly, looking away from him while they walked, to the barren, darkening countryside. ”We…my husband and I were on vacation here. In Vegas,” she added, stumbling over her words. She didn’t want to talk about this, but…she was grateful to have someone to talk to. She hadn’t had anybody, not since…

”He didn’t make it,” she finished with a heavy sigh, swallowing back any further explanation, any chance at tears. She was an emotional person, but she hated crying in public, especially in front of people she didn’t know. Sometimes it happened whether you wanted it to or not, but she usually managed to keep it inside, at least until she could find somewhere to be alone. ”I’ve been alone ever since…I’m not sure how long ago that was,” she admitted. She knew it had been a while, maybe a week or two, but she’d lost count of the days, and had nothing to keep track of them with. For all she knew he’d been gone a month, or a week.

[Graham Devlin]

"Are you kidding? You plan on going all the way up to Canada? Good luck with that. I'm not traveling that far North. Besides, things probably won't be any different there." Graham said, a scowl on his face. He wasn't trying to be a jerk, but he wanted her to realize that all there was left was to wander the waste land that was the world and try to stay alive. It was a shitty life, but hey, it was life. Maybe one day, in a few years all the zombies will be killed and only humans would be left. Then it would be a matter of re-building the world.

Graham stayed silent for a bit as she talked about her husband being dead. He wasn't good with emotional moments, so instead his bright blue eyes scanned the distance, looking for any sign of movement, or any shape that might be either another human or a zombie.

"I'm sorry." He said after a couple minutes of silence. He felt like a jerk for being so rude about nothing being left in the world before, but he pushed the guilt aside. There was no room for weakness, not when it was survival of the fittest. Who ever gave in to trust and their emotions were the ones who were now walking around as half rotted corpses.

"What makes you think I'm so trust worthy any ways? How do you know I'm not leading you to a group that's going to trap you and eat you or something?" He asked. He knew that if it was him, he wouldn't trust a random person that was armed to the teeth with weapons. He didn't even fully trust her, he kept her in his peripheral vision at all times. He found it impossible to trust any one, not since his first bad experience with other survivors.

Graham's eyes looked around frantically for an escape as the frizzy haired woman came at him with a smirk and a butcher knife. Her earlier words rang through his head, as clear as if she were saying them now: "Look what I brought home for supper"...

Graham shook his head and cleared the memories from his head, along with a few other things, his dreams were haunted by memories of when he had almost been dinner for a group of people.

"People can't be trusted. They are worse then those undead ass holes that are wandering around." He stated out loud, the bitterness in his voice was obvious.

((Sorry it's so short, muse = dead but I didn't want to make you wait lol))

[Nis'ku Bariss]

[sorry for the wait <3]


Are you kidding? You plan on going all the way up to Canada? Good luck with that…

She didn’t expect him to go with her all that way. She didn’t even expect to get there herself, if she allowed that thought to fully form. Home was…a prohibitive distance away now, given that there were no planes, no busses, precious few working cars. Given that it was over a year since everything happened and she and James hadn’t even been able to make it out of the state, she knew that realistically, it wasn’t going to happen. But that wasn’t going to stop her from trying, or wanting. Home was…home, after all. She didn’t think she’d ever be happy or comfortable with anything anymore until she at least knew what had happened to her family.

”You don’t have to,” she murmured quietly, walking beside him and looking up at the horizon. ”It’s just…a goal. I don’t know if I’ll ever get there.” She shrugged, as if that was the end of it, glancing over at the kid’s still unfamiliar face. It was somewhat alarming to her how quickly she’d trusted him. She didn’t know what kind of person he was, she didn’t know if he meant her harm or not. And seconds later, as if reading her mind, he voiced those same thoughts. Why should she trust him? How did she know that he wasn’t leading her willingly towards a hungry group of cannibals? She flashed a humorless smile.

”I don’t,” she answered, shrugging again. ”I guess…I don’t really have a choice?” she said, a statement and question in one. What could she do, really? She wasn’t going to shoot him. If he meant her harm he would have done it already. Perhaps that was the greatest evidence of his trustworthiness, besides the fact that she just had a feeling. She wouldn’t tell him that though, he already thought she was weird enough.

People can't be trusted. They are worse then those undead ass holes that are wandering around…

She frowned slightly, but nodded. To her, it sounded as if he’d seen first-hand just how much people couldn’t be trusted. She wondered then, what the real asshole-to-decent person ratio really was. If the majority of people who were left were mostly bad or mostly good. She’d like to believe the latter, but it sounded to her as if he already knew it was the former.

”That’s a pretty bleak way of looking at things,” she commented, more thinking out loud than inviting a lengthy existential discussion. But she took it. Ran with it. It had been so long since she’d had any sort of conversation with…anybody. ”How do you know that there aren’t good people out there? It can’t be that only the assholes survived,” she reasoned. Though there was a huge gaping hole in her attempt to make the world not seem so bleak – the dead were walking the earth. That was a pretty big damper on things.

She had meant – as she assumed he had – the living, the survivors, but any handful of good, decent people would automatically be trumped by the hoards of undead monsters ready and waiting to eat every last one of them. Suddenly, all of her training, every strategy she’d ever learned for engendering optimism in another person, had been rendered completely meaningless.

[Graham Devlin]

"You might make it there.. eventually.." He said. He didn't want to be too rude, but he didn't think she was ever going to make it to Canada, not to mention that if she did, things probably wouldn't be any better. The government hadn't been able to control the epidemic here, he doubted that they would be able to keep them out of Canada.

"You do have a choice, you have a gun. You could kill me, or you could just not travel with me." He said. He had no idea why she trusted him, she did have a choice about if she went with him or not, he wasn't forcing her by gun point to come with him. He would have liked to travel alone. He wondered why exactly he even wanted her to come with him. He would be better off if he didn't have her with him. That way he wouldn't have to try and keep an eye out for her if some of them attacked. He wondered if perhaps he was loosing his mind.

"If you've been through what I've been through, you'd understand my bleak way of looking at things." Graham said with a scowl. He had the scars to prove what he had gone through. Where his chest and stomach use to be all smooth, tattooed skin, it was now covered with long scars.

Graham let out a scream as the sharp knife sliced his skin. They were toying with him now, killing him slowly before they were going to eat him. His breathing was quick and scared..

"It's not that only the ass holes survived, it's the world that changed them all in to ass holes." Graham said, which was the truth, they could have all been good people before, but now they were all blood thirsty jerks. Graham had once been a decent guy, but that had changed after his experience with the group of people that had tried to eat him. He didn't take too kindly to being supper.

"There, we can camp there for the night. You need to rest, I'm not going to drag you along tomorrow, you're going to need energy to keep up." Graham said, looking at the building that rose up near the road. He had no idea what it had once been, but it was sufficient enough for the night. He would have preferred to have a taller building.

He headed towards the building, kicking in the front door, machete at the ready. He did a quick sweep of the building before motioning her in. He headed up the stairs, machete infront of him, ready to kill anything that moved.

They made it to the roof, and Graham set his pack down along with his sniper before looking at her.

"Stay here. There is some food in my pack, but don't eat all of it." He said, heading back down the stairs, he began the task of barricading the doors and stairs. He finished and headed back up to the roof. He was exhausted, but he didn't have time to rest. Hs eyes scanned the area, seeing a couple of undead way off in the distance, not close enough to be of any harm to them yet.

He sat himself down for a moment, his tired eyes closing, but it didn't last long before he was looking at her again.

"I don't have any blankets or anything, I've got a couple sweaters and a change of shirt, I'm sure you can keep warm and make a pillow or something." Graham said with a shrug.

[Nis'ku Bariss]

[I'm soo sorry for taking so long! I've been blahh lately :( ]

You do have a choice, you have a gun. You could kill me, or you could just not travel with me…

She didn’t answer, not with anything more than a shrug. She wouldn’t kill him. It was hard enough for her to shoot at those things that had killed her husband. It was hard for her to even imagine inflicting pain – death – on anything, even in self-defense. And the few times she had tried to shoot something, she almost always missed what she was aiming for. Twice she’d managed to stop one of those things by shooting at them, but most often when she was threatened she ran, hid. She had always been a good runner; she’d been on the track and field team in high school.

If you've been through what I've been through, you'd understand my bleak way of looking at things…

She stayed quiet then too. She didn’t know him, she didn’t know what he’d been through to say that, but she knew that she had been through hell herself. She’d been living it even before the dead wouldn’t stay dead. Most of her life had been what some people would consider hell – finding her sister’s dead body in the upstairs bathroom as a child, going from one abusive addict boyfriend to another, watching her husband being eaten alive by zombies – it was certainly more than enough horror for her. The counselor in her wanted to ask what he meant by that, but the rest of her was happy to leave it alone for now.

It's not that only the ass holes survived, it's the world that changed them all in to ass holes…

She actually smirked at that. Something about the wording made it funny to her, that and the fact that she was sure it was true. These sorts of conditions can do a lot to a person, can make a previously sane, reasonable individual turn into a complete monster. She knew that out here, alone, the zombies weren’t what she really had to worry about. That in a world that’s broken and dying, humans inevitably revert back to the law of the jungle, in which women are generally regarded as objects and commodities and baby-makers. It scared her, to be sure, especially without James by her side to keep her safe, but it all amounted to just one more reason to give up. One more vote in favor of the ‘let-the-zombie-get-me’ idea. Would she rather be eaten alive or raped? Tough call, that.

There, we can camp there for the night. You need to rest, I'm not going to drag you along tomorrow, you're going to need energy to keep up…

She followed his eyes to the building up ahead, and then followed him inside as he kicked the door open and swept the area with his machete. She stayed behind him, clutching her shotgun in both hands as her eyes widened in the darkness, trying to see anything that might be moving in there before it saw her.

Apparently, they were in the clear, because soon he was leading her up the stairs and onto the roof. She wanted to ask him why they were up there, but he seemed intent on what he was doing, and she thought she already knew why they were there – he was intending to spend the night here. On the roof. Under the open sky. She shivered at the idea of being so exposed, clutching her weapon even tighter, looking around herself with trepidation.

Stay here. There is some food in my pack, but don't eat all of it…

She looked down at his pack, her mind still stuck on the ‘sleeping-on-the-roof’ part, not understanding what he was saying about his pack. And then he was gone, leaving her alone up there, clutching her gun to her chest and jumping at shadows.

After a while she relaxed a little, sure now that there was nothing waiting for her up there on the roof, and that she could see the entire expanse of it from any angle. She wandered over to the edge of one wall, looking out over it to the street below, to the countryside and all the way north she had to go. That and more. Her impossible journey that she would probably die in the middle of. She sighed and let her chin rest on her folded arms, looking out at it, the world that was broken and dead and grey. In the far distance she thought she saw movement; the slow shuffling of some living corpses. They were far though, and if she could barely see them, no doubt they had no clue they were here.

Her stomach rumbled and she turned away, slipping her own pack from her back and rummaging around inside. She still had a good supply of chocolaty meal-replacement bars, from the drug store she’d gone through in a small town a few miles back. They were small and full of nutrition and kept her full for hours, especially now that she’d trained herself not to eat more than twice a day. They wouldn’t last forever, but it was what she had for now. She took one out and bit into it, and then after some thought, took out another and tossed it onto Graham’s pack. She didn’t know what he was eating, and she wasn’t about to go through his stuff, but she thought he might appreciate it. Maybe she could think of it as payment for his help.

Then he came back, checking out the roof, looking off the roof as she had, before sitting down himself. He looked exhausted and she wanted to tell him to rest, but he spoke first.

I don't have any blankets or anything, I've got a couple sweaters and a change of shirt, I'm sure you can keep warm and make a pillow or something…

She smiled slightly and shrugged, looking down at her own pack. It was what she’d been using to sleep on, and while lumpy, it was alright. ”Thanks…uhhm, I had…I mean, you can have…” she pointed to the food she’d left on his pack. ”I thought it was only fair that I share with you. I got a bunch of them in the last town I walked through. They’re good,” she added, taking another small bite of hers. She was dying for some water though, but that was something she’d run out of earlier that day.