(A/N): That massive reception from everyone in the group has sent me into overdrive! Let's see how many chapters of this I can crank out before Monday! The reception is heart-warming. It means so much to me when readers enjoy my work and let me know how you feel about it everyone! Don't be shy. Leave a review or PM me a comment on it! It helps me improve my writing!

With that said, let's get right back to it shall we?

EDIT: Did a few adjustments to make the conversations a little more clear. So sorry if you were confused before! I was trying a different way of transitioning perspectives. For future reference, wherever you see this:

~ o ~

It means it's a perspective transition so you should start trying to figure out who is talking (if it isn't obvious already). I'll clear it up here but from here on out, you're on your own :P

There was also a line missing from one of the paragraphs! Might be important :)

Chapter 2: The Trading Post

Early The Next Morning

"Everyone sleep well?"
"It was a little cold...but I'm okay otherwise,"

The man nodded but much to his surprise, he heard an audible gun cocking.

"Raise your hands and don't move,"

The man swallowed hard as he obeyed the voice. The two women who were with him obeyed him as well.

"What are you doing here? How did you get past all the traps?" he asked.
"We're just trying to find somewhere to stay man...we don't mean any harm," said the man.

Jordan approached him and quickly patted him down to ensure he wasn't armed. He then looked down to see a girl no older than 14, still sleeping. He lowered his weapon, realizing that they truly meant no harm.

"You can put down your hands...someone with a child can't be all bad," he said.

The man lowered his hands and breathed out a sigh of relief.

"Thanks...we were going to come to your compound once Frani here woke up but I guess we slept in a little," he explained.
"What's your name?" asked Jordan.
"Kyle," he replied.
"I'm Jessica," said the woman.

Jordan noticed that she was wearing what appeared to be a waitress outfit beneath her jacket. She rolled her eyes.

"Don't start with the stares...I didn't exactly get to change out of this before shit hit the fan," she snapped.

Jordan raised his hands.

"So you were a bartender?" he asked.

She nodded, still with an unamused look on her face.

"How about you Kyle?" he asked.
"I was studying to be an actor...till people starting going ape shit and attacking each other," he explained.
"Sorry you had to go through that," said Jordan.

He nodded in appreciation. The trio looked down to see that Frani was still fast asleep. Jordan shook his head and smiled.

"This will be the third child I've seen this week," he said.
"You have children at the compound?" asked Kyle.
"My little sister Flora and another child I found yesterday near the borders of the park," he replied.

Kyle looked to Jessica and she nodded.

"I know that this is sudden...but we honestly have nowhere else to go," he began.
"Say no more, as long as you two can contribute something to the compound, we have plenty of room...though we're going to need to make a trip to the trading post tomorrow to get mattresses," said Jordan with a sigh.

Kyle smiled and lay a hand on his shoulder.

"We won't let you down," he said.
"I guess I can make everyone drinks...is there a bar in there?" asked Jessica.
"It used to be a military outpost but it's been abandoned for years...it was on the larger side so there's a leisure room where there's foosball tables and an actual bar counter," he replied.

Jessica smiled.

"I'll do my best!" she said.

Jordan approached Frani before touching her cheek. Much to his surprise, Frani looked at him and wasn't at all scared.

"Are you the man who runs the compound?" she asked.
"I wouldn't exactly say run...but I'm from there yes," he replied.

She rose to her feet but stumbled on her left leg. Jordan quickly held her up and looked at Kyle.

"She sprained her ankle yesterday...we didn't have any bandages or anything to try and help her so I was carrying her for a while," he said.

Jordan nodded and picked Frani up on his back.

"Let's get inside; my sister can have a look at her ankle," he said.

Later That Evening

"Thanks for cooking for us Jordan!" said Maria.
"Vivian did most of the work," he said chuckling.

Vivian gave everyone a grin as she took the plates into the kitchen.

"You're pretty lucky to have found this place abandoned...I mean this is a pretty good place to hole up," said Kyle.
"I'm assuming the military cleared out to try and contain the threat and they just never came back...Flora and I have been here for nearly two months," said Jordan.
"So that's how everything's up and working?" asked Jessica.
"I have friends at the trading post who come back with me sometimes to help where they can," replied Jordan.

She nodded in comprehension as Jordan approached Flora.

"Did she come back yet?" he asked.

Flora shook her head and Jordan sighed as if in disappointment.

"Did who come back?" asked Kyle.
"On our last visit, we traded for a hawk who was trained to carry messages; it's how I stay in contact with the post," said Jordan.
"What kind of stuff do they have there?" asked Frani.
"All sorts of things...but she's a little late," said Jordan.

As if on cue, a loud screech indicated the presence of a bird. Jordan whistled loudly and much to everyone's surprised, a dark brown hawk flew through the window with a piece of paper attached to her right leg. Flora untied the note and Jordan took the hawk to her perch at the back of the room.

"What's her name?" asked Doan.
"Freya," replied Flora.

Doan nodded as Flora smiled.

"Zack said we could come tomorrow," said Flora.
"Did he get everything together?" he asked.

Flora nodded with a smile.

"But he said he wanted to talk to you about something serious when we get there," she said.

Jordan's face turned pale and his eyes narrowed for a moment until he shook his head and plastered a fake smile.

"What's wrong?" she asked.
"Something we were talking about before...I'll explain tomorrow," he said.

He turned to everyone.

"We're going to take a trip to the trading post tomorrow so everyone needs to be up bright and early," he said.
"What're we getting?" asked Frani.
"Everything we need; Flora and I went out and gathered things from abandoned camps to trade a month back just in case...so everyone take a portion and get some things you need," he said.
"What did you get?" asked Doan.
"Mostly bandit camps that were unguarded so I scouted and managed to get some things that are high in demand like coffee and cigarettes," he replied.
"Are things really that tough?" asked Kyle.

Jordan nodded.

"People will do and trade astonishing things for a bag of coffee," said Flora.
"Such as?" asked Maria.

Flora pointed to the the crate of beans behind the counter.

"Got all of that for two bags of coffee," she said.
"Is food that plentiful?" asked Jessica.
"That post gets a lot of traffic so it's a pretty reliable way to stock up on just about everything," said Jordan.

He gave Freya an affectionate head rub as he picked up his jacket.

"Let's get some sleep; long day ahead of us tomorrow," he said.

Later That Night

"Mom! Don't come any closer!"

She didn't appear to be listening in the slightest as she looked at Flora. Flora continued to put anything she could between her and her now infected mother. The door fell to the ground as I landed a hard kick, snapping it from the hinges.

"MOM! DON'T DO THIS!"

My shout seemed to have brought her attention to me as she turned and immediately broke into a sprint. She managed to tackle me and I could see the golden irises, indicating that was indeed infected. I held her back as far as I could.

"Mom...please...don't make me do this..." I cried.

I managed to throw her off of me as I rolled to my feet and removed the wakizashi from it's sheath on the display. I stood between Flora and her. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I unsheathed the sword. She ran at us and I plunged the sword deep into her chest, aiming for the heart. She stopped moving and screamed in agony until finally, she ceased her movements. I closed my eyes and shoved her off of me as I turned to Flora.

"We need to get out of here...I need you to be strong for me...alright?" I said.

Flora's face was deep red and she was crying probably ten times more than I was. I hugged her, doing my best to calm her down.

"You...you just had to...kill...m-m-mom..."

~ o ~

I jolted awake from my nightmare, wiping the sweat from my face and trying my best to calm my breathing. I turned to see that no one appeared to be awake, not even Flora who was sleeping right beside me. I glanced at my watch and noticed that it was 6 AM.

"Got about an hour before everyone has to get up...I'd better go set the truck up,"

I left the room as quietly as I could.

50 Minutes Later

Jordan managed to load the majority of the provisions into the back of the truck. Satisfied with his work, he turned to pick up the large box of spare parts only to see that Doan had somehow awoken and was sitting on a bench, watching him.

"You work really hard...you know that?" she said with a giggle.
"I figured I could just do it...I mean I woke up an hour ago," he replied.
"Dream was that bad huh?" she asked.

He opened his mouth to deny but she shook her head.

"You were saying mom a lot in your sleep and you breathed a lot louder than you thought you did," she said.

He sighed.

"I was sure you were a heavy sleeper," he said.
"I used to be a corpse when I slept...but this whole fungus people eating others kind of forced me to adapt," she explained.

Jordan nodded as he loaded the box into the trunk before securing it.

"A friend came over and managed to get these two trucks up and running again so I'm thinking three of us go in this one while everyone else hops in the other one," he said.

She nodded in agreement. Jordan was about to walk past her until she grabbed his hand.

"If you want to talk about it...you know I'm here," she said.

His eyes narrowed.

"When I'm ready...count on it," he said.

She released him as he went to wake the others up.

Three Hours Later- The Trading Post

"Alright, everyone's got their share so we meet back up here in an hour," said Jordan.

Everyone nodded in agreement as they set off to their tasks.

~ o ~

Flora

"So what did your brother need us to get?" asked Frani.
"He said that we're running low on Aloe for burns and cuts and we also need to get a lot of honey because we're out for both cooking and for wounds," I said.

Frani looked at me as if I was speaking rubbish.

"You can use honey to heal cuts?" she said.

Her face cringed at the thought, causing me to laugh.

"When honey mixes with blood, it produces hydrogen peroxide thanks to the enzyme reactions between them...so it's actually better than a lot of antibiotics because it kills bacteria and makes a pretty good layer of protection," she said.

Frani's eyes widened, as if I was speaking like an alien.

"I read a lot of this stuff..." I said with a laugh.
"That's pretty cool," said Vivian.

Vivian looked at her paper.

"I need to get spices for cooking...I didn't realize that there was so little there when I cooked last night so I need to be sure we get enough," she said.
"He said for us not to split up because not all these people are nice to kids like us," I said.

Vivian nodded as we approached the food section of the post. Loads of stalls with people walking along the streets and the scent of fresh produce filled the air. The three of us quickly got to work, filling our packs with everything we needed to get. Vivian found every single spice and herb that she needed for cooking and actually had some items to spare for trading. Frani's job was to get sharpening stones for all of the blades and she had quite an excess of trading items leftover. I found everything I needed and I grabbed some extra things just in case; cayenne pepper was a really good way to cause blood to clot and it can also double as a cooking spice and there was also comfrey root, which was excellent at helping bones to grow back if they were broken or fractured. I stuffed my pack as much as my trading goods would allow and once I was satisfied, I decided to take Frani and Vivian to see our good friend Emile, who was a worker around here.

~ o ~

Doan

"Everything okay?" I asked.
"We've got more than enough water according to the list so I think so," said Kyle.

Jessica smiled.

"I got all of the filters and one of the guys was nice enough to give me a shaker to use to mix my drinks!" she said.

I smiled at her as Maria walked up.

"I got the last of the bandages! There's enough in here to last us for a while as long as everyone doesn't go all Rambo," she said.

I laughed softly as I glanced down at my pack. My job was to ensure that we had enough soap for everyone. The man who ran the stall was really nice to me and gave me nearly double what the paper asked me to get. I guess being nice to others had its benefits after all!

"So what do we do now?" asked Kyle.
"We're supposed to meet up with Jordan in an hour by the trucks...we've got about 15 minutes left," I said.
"Then lets go find some damn clothes...I need to change out of this fucking waitress outfit," said Jessica.

I nodded in agreement as we went to see what we could get with the items that we still had left but I couldn't help but wonder one thing.

"Where the hell did Zoey disappear to?"

~ o ~

Jordan

I arrived at the shop and searched frantically for my friend. I thankfully found him in his stall, sitting at the door with his head down.

"I'm sorry to hear about her..." I said.

Zack looked up at me and nodded.

"There was nothing I could do...it all happened so fast," he said.

I jumped over the counter and gave him a brotherly hug.

"Tell me what happened," I said.

Zack then began to recall the horrible experience that befell him two days ago.