"We really shouldn't get our hopes up too much," Yuuri said, drumming her fingers on the table in a vain effort to rid herself of the extra nervous energy. "It just seems too good to be true."

"Well, yeah, but we can't just ignore it," Kurumi answered.

"Obviously not, but we don't really know much about this 'safe zone' other than the fact that it might exist." Yuuri turned to Miki, who had been examining the papers. "Is there any other information about it?"

Miki shook her head. "According to these notes, my parents were trying to use a modified radio to pick up any sort of signal they could. Eventually, they managed to pick up some sort of broadcast. The signal was spotty, but it kept repeating, so they were able to piece it together. All it said was that a safe zone had been established, and then the location." She began to rifle through the pile of maps until she had found the one that showed the bulk of the region. "Here."

Kurumi looked at where Miki was pointing. "A military base?"

"It makes sense, I guess," Yuuri said. "I'd guess they'd have a pretty good shot at defending themselves, and if the virus was the result of some government project, they'd have the best ability to keep it from infecting them. But… do you think it's still there?"

"According to this, it hasn't been very long since they managed to catch that broadcast," Miki said. "It looks like they were getting ready to leave when…" She stopped, and all three girls were quiet.

"So do we want to try to get to it?" Kurumi asked, largely to fill the silence.

"Well, we can't stay here," Yuuri said. "And it looks like it's in the same general direction as the university, which is where we were heading anyway. If there's anyone there, maybe they know more about this safe zone. If it is out there, it's definitely where we want to go."

"I guess we should get back to packing then," Kurumi said. "It's going to be a long drive."

"You mean we're not going to the university?" Yuki asked as she passed another box of freeze-dried food through the hatch on the roof of the RV. "I thought our whole reason for leaving the school was to go there."

"We're still going there," Kurumi answered through the hatch. "It's just not our final destination anymore. Just a stop on the way."

"So we're stopping to see if there's anybody else there?"

"Pretty much. Maybe see if they want to go with us. Or maybe they know more about it. We won't know until we get there."

"How long will it take us to get there?"

"No idea." Kurumi shrugged. "It depends on… traffic. You know, and road closures and stuff. Yuuri and Miki are trying to map out the best route."

"When are we leaving?"

"Probably as soon as we finish packing up. We've spent enough time hanging around here. Besides…" she paused. "I think Miki would appreciate a change of scenery."

"I guess so…" Yuki said as she passed another box of food onto the roof. "It's probably hard for her to hang around here after everything that happened."

"That's true."

"We should try to think of some way to cheer her up!" Yuki poked her head through the hatch. "We should bake her a cake!"

"Sure," Kurumi muttered sarcastically. "Let's bake a cake. If you can get the ingredients for it, why not? But that can wait, I think for now we need to give her some space. I know you're always trying to keep our spirits up, but we should be careful not to go overboard. For now, just let her know that you're there for her and leave it at that, okay?"

Yuki nodded.

"Great. Now bring up the next thing."

"Will do!" Yuki ducked back down into the hatch. "Uh, Kurumi? I have a question."

"Yeah?"

"Are we really bringing this?"

"Huh?" Kurumi looked over the edge to see what Yuki was holding. "Of course we're bringing that! We've got plenty of space."

"Okay. I don't know if Yuuri and Mii-kun will be happy about it."

"What they don't know won't hurt them."

"Alright." Yuki shrugged and passed the pigeon trap up to the roof.

Kurumi accepted the box with a grin. "I told you I'd be back!"

"It looks kinda like a turtle, doesn't it?" Kurumi put her hands on her hips and surveyed the top of the RV. The massive stack of boxes that she and Yuki had hauled to the top was no longer visible. Instead she just saw a large blob held in place by a lot of rope.

"Are you sure it's secure?" Yuuri reached up and plucked one of the ropes. "It would be a shame if anything fell off."

"Unless the whole roof comes off the van, that stuff isn't going anywhere," Kurumi said smugly. "I strapped all the boxes down, threw a bunch of tarps over it, and then tied it all down again. It'll be a bit of a pain in the butt to unpack it, but it's mostly food anyway. If we're lucky, we won't have to use much of it."

"If we're lucky." Yuuri repeated.

"Hey, we've done pretty well so far. I mean, yeah, things kinda suck, but we're doing way better than most people."

Yuuri sighed. "I wish we didn't have to rely on luck so much. It can't go on forever. It'll have to run out eventually. Though I suppose that's what all that extra food is for. It's not like we're relying on luck to get us through this. Even if we're lucky, we can still try to stack the deck in our favor as much as we can."

"That reminds me," Kurumi said, "we should bring a pack of cards with us. Gotta have something to do while we're on the road."

"You're sure we've got everything we need?" Yuuri asked. She drummed her fingers on the table. She couldn't think of anything else they could pack, and she didn't feel like she was forgetting something. But that was no reason not to check. If you could forget something, you wouldn't remember that you had forgotten it.

"As much as we could fit in the RV," Miki answered. She carefully closed the folder where she had stored all of the information that her parents had accumulated. "Within reason, anyway. We've got food, first aid kits, camping equipment, spare sets of clothes, the works. Do you have the route planned out?"

"Pretty much." Yuuri spread the map on the table. "This route should be clear to get us onto the highway, and from there it should be a straight shot for a while. To actually get to the university might be a bit of a challenge since it's in the middle of town though, and we have no idea about blocked roads in that area."

"How long do you think it will take?"

"Probably a few days at least. Maybe over a week depending on how it goes."

"I see." Miki chewed on her lip for a moment. "And the safe zone?"

"I honestly have no idea," Yuuri said. "We don't know anything about what the roads are like up there. If we're lucky, we might be able to get there within a few days of reaching the university. If not, it could be another few weeks. Maybe longer. There's no way to say."

"Ugh," Miki wrinkled her nose as she began to fold the map back up. "I hate not knowing. Even if it did turn out to be a long trip, I'd rather know. I can't stand it."

Yuuri nodded. "I understand. I think."

Miki didn't say anything. Then she stood. "I'm going to go check on Yuki and make sure she's got all of her stuff together. I'll be back in a few minutes, okay?"

Yuuri nodded again. "Of course." She watched as Miki left the breakroom. "I wish I understood better," she mumbled to herself.

Miki settled herself in her sleeping bag. She didn't feel tired or sleepy, but she knew she was. They had spent the whole day packing and loading, and it couldn't take too long for all that effort to take its toll. She heard the tent flap open and Yuki's head poked in.

"I can't believe we're leaving already," Yuki said. "We just got here!"

"Well, we can't stay here forever," Miki answered with a shrug. "Besides, it was never the plan to stop here. We were just trying to get to the university. It was just luck that we ended up here."

"Yeah, I guess it was pretty lucky. We got an RV and a ton of food and stuff, which is nice, even if the food wasn't that tasty. Although, I guess in some ways it… wasn't all that lucky."

"It's okay," Miki mumbled. "I'm fine."

"Are you sure? It's okay to not be fine. You shouldn't pretend to be okay when you aren't."

"How ironic," Miki mumbled to herself. "I'm not… happy about it, but I think I'll be able to deal with it. You can still be okay even if you're going through something painful." She rolled over and pulled her head into her sleeping bag. "I'm not trying to pretend that I'm happy."

"I guess not." She heard Yuki wriggling into her own sleeping bag. "You think you're ready to leave?"

"I think so. There isn't anything else to do here. We have everything that we need, and we did what we came here for. Hanging around here would just be a waste of time. Anyway, we should get to sleep. We want to leave first thing tomorrow morning."

"I am pretty tired after moving all of those boxes around all day." Yuki yawned. "I wonder where we'll be tomorrow night at this time."

Miki sighed. "I'm wondering the same thing."

None of the girls slept particularly soundly. Everyone's heads were too full and the thoughts wouldn't stop. It was too hard not to think about what would happen next.

Miki couldn't push away the fact that once she left the store, she would be leaving the last part of her old life behind. The place might have been shattered by the end of the world, but it it still had at least a trace of familiarity. But she couldn't stay. Not in the place where she knew her parents had… she refused to finish that thought. At least she knew what had happened to them. She could abandon the hope of ever running into them. It hurt, but she had always known that it was futile. Now she could mourn and move on. If only she had gotten a good look as they were leaving the school… then she could've put another memory to rest.

Yuuri couldn't keep herself from going over the checklist again and again. She hadn't forgotten anything, but she could never be sure. She had managed to help hold things together so far, but how much longer could she keep it up? That Miki had directed them to such a convenient place was a stroke of luck. You couldn't rely on that. They could only rely on each other. Which meant that the other girls were relying on her. That was a lot to deal with. She didn't even know where they would be sleeping tomorrow. In the RV, most likely. It was better than she expected. But it wouldn't be the same as being in a building. Maybe they could find somewhere safe. That was their whole goal in this trip, after all.

Kurumi couldn't get comfortable. Spending so much time hauling boxes around made everything ache. She was almost too tired to sleep. It wasn't just the physical work either. It was all the walking on eggshells. Miki obviously needed moral support, given all the crap she had gone through in the past few days. And Yuuri barely hung onto the frayed ends of her sanity as she tried to ensure that everything was in place. And who knew what was even going on in Yuki's head right now. Kurumi just wanted to make sure she wasn't giving anyone any more to worry about.

Yuki's toe itched. And it was one of those annoying itches that moved around whenever she tried to scratch it. With the sleeping bag so tight there really wasn't any way for her to reach down and scratch it with her hands. Why had she decided to stick with the legged sleeping bag? She could unzip the bag, of course, but that would probably wake the others. Not to mention that all of her wriggling around trying to scratch the itch was making the inside of her bag rather warm. The itch would go away eventually. She couldn't get rid of it herself, but eventually it would stop. Eventually.

Yuuri sat in the passenger seat of the RV, carefully examining her checklist.

"Everything is packed?"

"Check!" Miki called from her seat in the back.

"We have the map ready with our route!"

"Check!" Kurumi, seated in the driver's seat, gave a thumbs up.

"Has everybody used the bathroom?"

Silence.

"Yuki…" Yuuri looked back over the seat. "Did you use the bathroom before we got on?"

"Yeah. I don't know why it's a big deal though. The RV has a bathroom."

Miki shook her head. "Yes, but we can only use it so many times before it fills up and we have to empty it." She waited for the information to sink in.

"Ewwww!"

"Exactly. We shouldn't use it unless we absolutely have to."

"So are we ready to go?" Kurumi asked. "I just want to get moving already."

Yuuri nodded. "Well, everything on the checklist is good. If Miki and Yuki are ready, we can head out."

"Yeah! Let's go!" Yuki said excitedly.

Kurumi looked back over her shoulder. "Are you ready to go, Miki?"

"Yes."

"Great!" The RV roared to life as Kurumi turned the key. "Here we go!"

The RV lurched… backward, with the sound of a garbage can being crushed to oblivion. Just as quickly, it jerked to a halt.

"Whoops. The shift lever doesn't work quite the same way. Let's try that again." The RV moved again, this time much slower and in the right direction.

"Off to a great start, I see," Miki said with a grin.

"Oh, shut it. It's not the same as driving a car, okay. I'll get the hang of it. If I go slow we'll be"

A loud metallic squeal echoed through the cabin.

"What was that?" Yuki rubbed her ear.

"It may have been the RV scraping against the fence," Yuuri said.

"I said I needed time to get used to it," Kurumi grumbled.

The RV rolled onto the road. The street was empty. Mostly. Some shapes had been attracted by the noise of their attempted departure. But they moved very slowly. Kurumi sighed and shut off the engine.

"Hey, I thought we were leaving!" Yuki said.

"We are. I've just got to lock the gate behind us. We wouldn't want anybody to make a mess of the shop's parking lot."

"Oh right."

Kurumi nodded at Miki, then turned to Yuuri. "Keep an eye out."

She scurried out the RV's door, and swung the gate closed. There was a slight dent in the edge where the RV had bumped it, but it latched well enough. Kurumi checked to make sure that Yuki wasn't look, then slipped a small can of spray paint out of her pocket. On the wall beside the gate, in large letters, she left a message to match the one that they had left on the store window out front.

STORE IS SAFE

FOOD INSIDE

GOOD LUCK

She looked over her shoulder. They were still far away. She shrugged and left a small smiley face next to the message. If anybody saw it, hopefully they would believe it. And hopefully they would find the letter that Miki and Yuuri had written and left on the breakroom table about the store and safe zone. The chances that anyone was alive to find their message were unbelievably small. But maybe they weren't the only ones who were lucky.

"Might as well make our own luck," Kurumi muttered. She pocketed the spray paint and climbed back on board the RV. Yuuri nodded knowingly at her as she took her seat.

"Okay, now we can go," she said.