A/N: Thank you all for your reviews and support! I got so carried away with writing this week, I actually had to break what I thought would be one chapter into two. Don't worry, I will post the second tomorrow.

Disclaimer: I don't own Junior Mints or Poloroid or Pringles or any of the other brand name stuff I mention. I'm sure that is a huge surprise.


What am I doing out here? This isn't really where I meant to end up. I just kind of kept walking, and here I am.

The dead zone.

The other guys would never come out here alone. You know why? 'Cause that's crazy. I mean, everything is dirty and broken and once in a while you come across a dead body. Not to mention there are still a few boneys wandering around. Julie says it's super creepy. But I kind of like it. It's quiet. Feels like I have room to think. If being still is a habit, maybe quiet is, too. Sometimes I feel like I fit in better out here than I do in there.

What the hell am I doing? Why do I have to be so weird?

I wish I had a job. That's kind of weird, I guess, but I think it would be nice to have something to do. Sitting around waiting reminds me too much of the airport, how it was before. I'm just not quite sure how I fit in. They tell me I'm still supposed to be "acclimating", whatever that means. To living, I guess. I'm still kinda working that out.

Sort of like a lot of things.

So I have a ton of spare time. I listen to a lot of music. I read sometimes, but it's kinda hard to focus, separate the letters on the page. I watch DVDs on the computer. I tried to learn to cook, but Julie made me promise I'd only do that when someone else is home.

I mean, I guess I lit my sleeve on fire, but that was just the one time.

I try to find ways to help, not get in the way. Julie just started with the animal husbandry unit, helping the veterinarian at the farm. Between that and patrols, she's been working a lot and I haven't really gotten to see her, lately. But Dr. Slocum is nice and doesn't seem too weirded out by me, so sometimes I'll go down there and help them feed the cows or carry water or collect chicken eggs. Chickens aren't too hard to understand. They kinda remind me of me, before—all appetite, eat anything, hang out in groups. They don't even blink very often. Just more feathers and no taste in music.

Sometimes I go visit M. His landlady, Mrs. Hackett, has a huge collection of old radio shows that she lets us listen to. M likes detective stories, but his favorite is War of the Worlds. Mrs. Hackett likes Gunsmoke. Mrs. Hackett also likes her cats, the gin she keeps behind the Encyclopedia Britannicas, and beating everyone at poker. That's about it. What's more brutal than losing at cards to a sixty-seven-year-old woman with a limp and a bad wig? Pretty much nothing.

Sometimes I'll visit Nora at the medical tent and help with the new intakes. People like me, some more undead than others. Every once in a while I'll recognize someone from the airport, and I don't really know if I should say hello. That can be kind of awkward. Most of the time, I just wonder what they're thinking. Do they remember? Do they feel any different?

Am I the only one?

I guess I've been thinking about that a lot, lately. Julie was gone when I got up this morning. I just kind of started walking, wound up out here in the dead zone.

I'm not really sure how long I've been wandering around, but now I realize that I'm in the neighborhood where Julie and I stayed, before. I shuffle up to the house, stand for a while on the lawn. Don't really know why I'm here. It's raining pretty hard. I forgot to grab a jacket and my clothes are kinda soaked. Apparently, I'm not really that great at paying attention to the weather. It's definitely cold—I can even see my breath. I'm freezing. Score one for functional nerve endings, I guess, and having an actual body temperature.

I should probably try to dry off, get warm. Julie worries that I won't remember stuff like that—that I'll let myself get too cold or I'll go too long without sleeping or I'll forget that I'm perfectly capable of bleeding to death, given the opportunity.

Alright, so I guess I haven't exactly given her no cause for concern, there.

She also wants me to carry a gun, but I don't. For one thing, my coordination's really not that great. By "not that great", I mean the seven year old kid next door is probably a better shot than me. But mostly it just feels kind of… wrong. I think most of the boneys have been cleared out, anyway. So I just try to be careful.

I stumble up the stairs into the house. Doesn't look like anyone has been here since we were. Not that much of a surprise, I guess. Nobody sane comes out here, if they can help it. It's probably just me and whatever boneys are left. Boneys'll eat anything with a heartbeat, and if it doesn't have a heartbeat, well, they're not really that interested.

It's not the first time I've been outside the wall. I like to look for stuff, bring back things that are useful. M comes along every once in a while, but he doesn't really have the patience to really dig through stuff. Says it's halfway between grave robbing and dumpster diving. I guess I like to think about the people who lived here, what their lives were like. Feels like maybe we should try to remember something, at least, before everything's just… gone. Maybe it'll help us learn to live, again.

Maybe I don't really know what I'm looking for.

I find a towel in the bathroom, try to dry off. I can hardly keep my teeth from chattering. My reflection looks paler than usual. By paler than usual, I mean, paler that I usually am, you know, not counting the past eight years. Mrs. Hackett would tell me I look like death warmed over.

Guess she wouldn't be that far off.

When I'm as dry as I'm going to get, I pull a blanket out of the hall closet and wrap it around myself. There's a flashlight and a backpack in there, too, so I grab them both, shuffle back out into the kitchen. The rest of the poloroids and the camera are still on the kitchen table. I flip through them, stop to look at a picture of myself. I hold the camera up and take another, put them side-by-side. Cold as I am, the second is clearly a picture of someone much closer to life. Hard to believe it's only been two months.

Sometimes I don't feel like I've changed all that much.

It's weird to be here without Julie. Feels kind of empty. Too much like the morning when I woke up and she was gone. When the rain slows down, and I'm a little warmer, I stuff the camera and the pictures into the backpack, head back outside. Takes me a minute, but I remember there's a 7/11 on the next block that I haven't been into. Seems like a good place to go look.

The glass door is broken. So are most of the big windows in the front. I step through, careful, try to avoid the shards in the doorframe (I still have stitches in the back of my hand from the can opener incident). But I lurch to one side, catch my pant leg, get a long scratch below the knee. I pull my leg free, stumble forward a few steps, straighten up. Close enough. With the clouds outside, the inside of the store is pretty dark. The floor and the counter are covered in leaves, dirt, dark stains. I swipe a few lighters off the end of the counter.

The guy behind the counter is still there. Oh man, that is some serious overtime. I lean over to get a better look, sort of wish I hadn't. Well… mostly still there. Kind of. I wonder what killed him. I mean, given the number of parts this guy is missing, I guess there's really only one possibility.

Also, it's really not that far from the airport. Half a day's walk, maybe.

That's kind of a bummer.

I dig the flashlight out of my pack, peer into the back of the store. The casing hangs off of one bank of lights at an odd angle. Almost all of the shelves are knocked over. Looks like the roof leaks. Doesn't seem like there's a lot left in here worth taking, though I do find a few boxes of Junior Mints that seem kind of dry. I've never had them but Julie and Nora like them, I think. I don't come out here that often, but when I do I try to bring something back for everyone. Julie likes candy and paint and old records. Nora likes romance novels. Mrs. Hackett likes gin and fig newtons, in that order. M likes gum and, uh… magazines. Colonel Grigio doesn't really seem to like anything, aside from his guns.

He's got plenty of guns.

I tear the corner off a box of Junior Mints, shake a few into my palm (and a few onto the floor. Jesus, I am clumsy). They look okay. They smell okay. I mean, it's not like I know what they're actually supposed to smell like, but… I toss one back, chew it. Smile.

I love food. I can't help it.

I guess in some ways, things really haven't changed all that much.

I eat a few more, tuck the rest of the box into my pocket. The other two go into my pack. I poke around some more, find some Pringles, a few cans of tuna, batteries, stuff them all into my bag. I shuffle past the first set of shelves toward the refrigerated units. Several of the doors back here are smashed, too. Most of the contents are gone. But my flashlight glints off of what looks like an intact bottle. Beer. Fourteen cans and three bottles. Not bad. Nora's birthday is coming up and this is totally gonna make me the life of the party. Or something.

I set my haul on the floor with my bag, take some time to repack everything with the beer on the bottom. Could use some paper to cushion the bottles, though. I stand and stumble toward the back room. As I get closer, I hear something move.

Shit. I freeze.