Thank you all for continuing to read and leave awesome reviews! Here's the next chapter :)

Now, where would you NOT want to be just as darkness was falling?

Wading through an alligator-infested swamp. In a crowded stadium just before the bomb goes off.

Or here.

The gloom fell over him immediately. Kenny looked around, blinking and trying to adjust. The trees were huge, towering up to a couple of hundred feet. They were old, in fact there was an eerie feeling of stillness and conspiracy. A strange type of vine ran through the trees, knitting them together and tangling over the ground in rope-like formations. It would be easy to trip up here; he would have to pay more attention to his feet than anything else.

He snorted. Walkers before him, and gun-toting yahoos behind. Oh, jumping, joyful Jesus!

It was cool, though. Kenny realised just how hot he was when the deep shade passed over him. He was drenched with sweat and it prickled his face and back. He felt light-headed. He needed water, now, and a good rest, but he didn't have the time.

As if to emphasise his unmet needs, he heard the voices of the two men, a little muffled.

"Not going in there. Here, give me some of that water."

"We gotta."

"Nah, we don't gotta. He's a dead man."

There was a pause as someone glugged from the water bottle.

"You shouldna worn your red jacket, Mike."

"Why?"

"If he's got a gun, he'll see your red jacket in there and shoot you."

Damn straight, thought Kenny. You've got me in a corner here, boys, and I do believe my options are limited. Though, I'm gonna be really pissed at having to fire a gun in here; that would make me as stupid as the two of you.

"He's got more to worry about than I do."

"Whatta we tell the others?" asked the voice Kenny now knew was Jack's.

"What I said we was gonna say, when we was at the river. We killed him."

"Jim ain't happy with us, Mike."

"Jim can go and…oh, shit. We gotta bring proof. Jim will wanna know he ain't coming back."

"Yeah, and if this asshole comes back again, we're dead."

Kenny thought they must be no more than thirty feet away as they psyched themselves up into entering the dense, jungle-like depths. He knew that he had an advantage – the darkness. They would be coming in from the light. His eyes had adjusted; theirs would take a minute or so as they stood in the darkness. They would be outlined by the dying sunlight.

He drew his gun and waited. His heart began to pound in anticipation.

He saw them through the trees; the red-coated, cow-minding man who must be Mike and the other man, Jack, wearing khaki. Mike had his shotgun. Jack had a revolver. They crept forward, past the boundary where the dead leaves gave way to the vines, peering about cautiously. They obviously knowing as much or more about this place than he did and expected a walker attack at once.

Kenny lined the red-coated man up as well as he could with a one-handed grip. He slipped the safety off and placed his finger alongside the trigger. As soon as they were past the first line of trees he would shoot them both, then run like hell past them and get out of this creepy old place.

Mike stopped in his tracks.

"Wait, I got a better idea," he said, hefting his weapon meaningfully. "I got plenty of ammo. He ain't far."

Through the concealing trunks, Kenny saw him make a movement and heard the shotgun being pumped. The dude was going to fire indiscriminately into the forest, spraying shot everywhere, just as Kenny had feared he would when he had been spying on him and the cow.

But they knew about the walkers! What the hell kind of dumb kids had their mothers raised?

Kenny took off once more.

"Hey!"

"Get him!"

"Damn it…"

He passed a tree with an impressive girth and jumped sideways to get behind it. He heard the blast and the hen under his arm squawked in surprise, trying to flap her wings under his coat. He heard the shot strike the ground around him. He took off again towards the next tree, leaping over an uneven lump of vines that had climbed over something on the ground. The hen began protesting like an outraged old matron.

"Sorry," he whispered to her.

He made it to the tree in time for the next blast. He felt the hen jump in fright this time. He didn't wait but ran again, trying to keep both his destination and his intended path in his limited field of vision.

The vines were as treacherous as he'd feared. He turned his ankle when his foot came down in between two thick ropes that criss-crossed the ground. He ran on, praying his ankle wasn't wrenched, and offered up a prayer of thanks when he found it wasn't. It held magnificently as he made it to the next tree, a smaller specimen than the last but still up to the task of shielding him from the shot.

And then he heard the rasp.

He pointed his gun around the dimness but could see nothing coming towards him. Where had the walker come from? His blood pounded in his ears, which didn't help. Where the hell was it?

He heard the scream and froze.

"Kill it, kill it, kill it, oh Jesus, just kill it!"

"Yeah, I'm…just wait, I'm…"

Kenny crouched low and peered around the tree.

He saw the two men, just behind and to the left of the tree whose company he had just left. Mike lay screaming on the ground in his red jacket, right on top of the lump of vines Kenny had just leapt over. The ragged, rotting torso of a walker arose from the vines, its upright position allowing it to loom over him. The walker was bald but for a long fringe of hair around its head and wore only the remnants of a garment, which hung around its neck. One of its hands was clamped around Mike's ankle; the other grasped at the man's stomach.

Mike's shotgun lay three feet away, where it had flown out of his hands.

Jack fumbled frantically with his revolver. In a panic, he pointed it at the walker's head and there was a bang as he fired a shot at the walker's face. The walker's ear and part of its hair blew away into the mess of vines but it barely seemed to notice as it continued to claw at Mike's body. It succeeded in plunging a withered hand into his abdomen.

Both men screamed.

The walker's legs weren't visible and Kenny wasn't sure it had any. It still managed to lever itself forward as it hauled bloody grey ropes out of Mike's abdomen. Mike flung up a hand to push the walker's jaw away from him. His fingers pushed a hole through the skin of the walker's face, exposing square white teeth that appeared to be in surprisingly good shape. The walker quickly turned its head and caught the base of Mike's pinkie finger in its jaws.

Jack's screaming had died down to an incomprehensible gibbering. He placed his revolver against the walker's forehead and pulled the trigger. Something unpleasant shot out of the back of the walker's head and it flopped sideways, Mike's pinkie sticking out of the side of its face.

Jack continued to fire, his revolver dry-clicking. He sobbed as he re-enacted the scene as he wished it had been; one he had prepared for. Mike's fast-paced, terrified breathing pattern finally got through to him and he dropped the gun. He fell to his knees beside his companion.

Kenny watched the red-jacketed man shaking in shock. His clothes were soaked dark with blood and he didn't have long to live, maybe minutes. It was Kenny's opportunity to slip away. And yet, he watched as Jack took Mike's hand.

"I'm sorry, man, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. So sorry."

"End. It," said Mike. "Now."

There were tears running off the end of Jack's nose. "I can't, I'm out." He picked his revolver off the ground and waved it in Mike's face. "I didn't bring enough, I'm sorry…"

"Shotgun!" Mike gasped. "Dumbass."

Jack looked around, finally spotting it lying in the vines. He scuttled over to it. He cracked it open and checked it, then brought it over to Mike.

"I can't do it, Mike, you're all I got left," he pleaded.

"Gonna die," Mike said. "Don't…DON'T…let me…be like them. I'll fucking kill you if…"

He began convulsing.

Jack pointed the long barrel at Mike's head and suddenly seemed to have trouble breathing. The barrel wavered and Kenny realised that Jack had shut his eyes. It shouldn't make much difference, a shotgun blast from this close, but Jesus, the man had to do it right.

Kenny drew his knife and stepped out of his hiding place.

"Stop," he said, just as the blast ended Mike's life.

Jack stood looking at the mess, then looked up, his face pale. His reddened eyes met Kenny's one-eyed gaze.

"You did this," he murmured. "If it weren't for you, none of this woulda happened."

"You people started this," Kenny told him roughly. "And now you got a man dead of being eaten by pigs, and another dead by walker attack. If you'd been decent folks from the start, would this have happened? Naw. Now your friend is dead. Was it worth robbing a little baby?"

"He's my cousin, not my friend," Jack said, and sniffed. "What baby?"

Kenny rolled his eye. "You robbed me the first time I came here a few months back. I asked for milk for a baby and you took my can of beans and beat me up. You were there; I remember you."

"I's just doing what the others were doing. I had orders."

"Were they orders worth following?"

This seemed to be too hard a question. Jack hefted the shotgun in his hands and pointed it at Kenny. It seemed a half-hearted gesture.

"Gonna rob the kids again, are you?" Kenny said. "They need me to feed them. A baby and a little girl. Their names are AJ and Clementine. The baby is four months old. The little girl can't provide for him on her own."

"I have to shoot you. I have to finish the job," Jack said miserably.

"No, you don't. I was gonna help you with your friend, your cousin, here. Why else did I come back? Seems you didn't need my help in the end. You did a good job. Now go home, Jack."

"I…don't wanna…home…it ain't good there. They don't treat us right. Mike was all I had, and now…" New tears began leaking from the guy's eyes. "What am I gonna do?"

"Well, we can't stay here all night. You guys have been blasting away and…"

He fell silent, his head turning. He heard it.

"Listen," he whispered.

Jack turned his head in imitation of Kenny, and went very still as he was hit with realisation. Many rustling noises. Many gasps and murmurs and dry, throaty rasps.

"You've brought them here with all your noise," Kenny said, his voice soft but urgent. "Let's both get out of this viney shit and run."

He took advantage of Jack's hesitation and bolted back in the direction they'd all come from. It couldn't be more than a hundred feet. He soon found himself slowing, placing his feet carefully, feeling for the tough, ropey vines before he trusted the ground with his weight. The light was nearly all gone; in another ten minutes, it would be as black as the inside of a lawyer's briefcase in here.

He wondered if Jack would decide to shoot him in the back instead. Up ahead, he saw the last of the rich, golden afternoon sunlight creeping through a grassy clearing and he knew he would make it.

It was only then that he realised he was alone. Jack was not following him.

He made it to the very last of the vines and turned around, trying to peer into the darkness to see whether Jack was trailing along behind him. He saw nothing. He heard the growing murmur of a walker herd and knew he had no time. Kenny considered himself to be a good man, whenever he could be. But he wasn't that good. He wouldn't go in there right now if he was promised a banquet meal and a date with a Russian bikini-model every night of his life.

There was an echoing blast, muffled slightly by the ancient trees. Kenny judged the sound had come from about one hundred feet…which meant that Jack hadn't moved from his spot. A sudden intuition told Kenny what had happened. Jack had decided not to go home, after all.

Aw, crap.

Please leave a review below if you enjoyed this chapter! See you all next chapter!