"Happy birthday, dear Emily," her new housemates sang in unison, "Happy birthday to yooooou!" With a huge smile on her face, and a tear in her eye, Emily blew out the candle stuck in the Twinkie Riley had found the day before.

"I love all you guys," Emily said happily. "I mean it, you guys…" She started to get choked up and a tear fell from her eye. "I thought I was gonna be alone for the rest of however short my life may be, but you all…you saved me."

Riley knelt down and gave her a hug. "You're family now," he said with a smile. "Well go ahead and have your 'cake'."

"Did you really have to bogart the other one?" Donnie asked sarcastically. "We all know those come in packs of two!"

"What can I say," Riley responded, equally sarcastic, "I wanted to test that whole 'Twinkies-survive-the-apocalypse' thing."

The others laughed. "No other way to test that than this!" Alan quipped.

"I got you a present," Julie jumped in. "Riley and I found it on our last run, and I remember you told me it was your favorite movie, so…I was hoping you'd like the book too." She handed Emily a crudely-wrapped paperback book; Emily unwrapped it, and was ecstatic.

"You actually found 'Jurassic Park'?" She asked incredulously as she held it up for the others to see.

"It was in a house that was still pretty much intact," Riley explained, "and it was just sitting on the shelf."

"I wish I could've found one that wasn't so old and worn," Julie added, "but…y'know…"

"Don't worry," Emily said, "I'm happy to have it! Thank you."

"You're welcome," Julie responded, smiling.

"I call dibs after Emily reads it!" Alan announced.

Emily ate her birthday Twinkie, and the group started chatting.

"So first thing tomorrow," Riley said, "we gotta get to work on breaking up the ice."

"Why bother?" Melissa jumped in. "It's too cold, it'll just refreeze anyway."

"She's right," William said, "and besides, they've been slow these last few days."

"Agreed," Alan added. "We've had two storms and sub-freezing temperatures in the last week and a half. The goons can barely move."

"I'm with Riley on this one," Donnie said, "this is something we should stay on top of."

"It IS a lot of work," Theresa added.

"What," Donnie snarked, "you got something else going on?"

"Shut up Donnie," Melissa said with an eye roll, "it's long and tiring and not to mention DANGEROUS work. We don't need to right now."

"I don't know," Julie said, "we need to at least do something."

"I got an idea," Jason jumped in, "what if we set up some kind of, like, barricade or something?"

"Like what?" Melissa asked.

"We could take some of the houses that have been destroyed, take their scraps, and just build stuff up. Obviously it wouldn't be perfect, and some would occasionally get through, but it's better than nothing, right?"

Alan smiled, impressed. "That's what I vote for. Good idea, kid!"

"Yeah, I like it," William agreed. "Nice one son!"

"What if," Emily finally spoke up, having finished her Twinkie, "we just take some debris and build it up around us?"

"Yeah," William said, "it's a smaller work area and I can build it steady."

Riley smiled and nodded. "Who'd have thought, the kids are the most clever ones among us!" Jason and Emily both smirked. "We'll get on it tomorrow. I'll make a run to the mainland, try and find some hardware stores and see if I can scrounge up some nails, maybe even more tools."

Julie hesitated. "I'm not sure I'm ready to start walking on the ice again just yet."

"I'll go," Emily said. "As you saw, I'm pretty good at scavenging, and on top of that, I know where there's a few hardware stores and I can take you there."

Riley paused, but realized that she was right. "Okay, but you stay by me, do what I—"

"Riley!" Emily interrupted. "I was on my own for months and I came out fine. I can take care of myself, don't worry about me."

Riley smirked. "Yeah…I guess you're right."

After a few more hours of chatting and laughing, the group decided to settle down for the night, resting up for what was sure to be a long day.

Across the lake in front of the cabin, in the town of Moultonborough, he was hard at work preparing, covered head to toe in winter gear, including a ski mask. He was lucky that no one from the cabin group ventured across the lake to this town; the group had previously gone through the town and found it totally ransacked, and had no reason to go back. So it was the perfect place to hide.

The perfect place to plan.

The stalker had been luring walkers into a walled-off area, dragging them up a staircase and dropping them inside. He had so far accumulated nearly two hundred of them. After dropping a female inside, his friend approached.

"Tomorrow, then?"

"Tomorrow Nash," the stalker said. "This is just step one, a warmup until it…warms up."

"And they're all bad?" Nash pondered.

Through his mask, Nash watched his cohort's eyes narrow in anger. "One of them is," he said, with a tranquil fury in his voice. "And if they're willing to stick with that fucking cunt, then FUCK THEM TOO."

"Hey man look," Nash said, "I'm with you all the way. I just wanna make sure the others will be okay with this. If they know, or at least think, they're dangerous, they'll have our backs."

"I've been with you guys for a while now. I've seen you and your people do worse than this. Hell, these'll be the first justified kills some of you will have had since I've known you."

Nash smiled. "You've got a point about that." He paused. "Hell, if anything, your 'mission' has given us a sense of purpose."

The next morning, Riley and Emily woke at about 7:00, and set out roughly thirty minutes later.

They made it to the ice facing the town of Meredith, northwest of the island and Emily's former hometown.

"You said there's three hardware stores around here?" Riley asked.

"Yeah," she said, "four if you're willing to check the Big Spot."

"Might as well."

They started walking across the lake, both with a shotgun in hand and a revolver on their hip; additionally, Emily had a knife, while Riley had his machete. The walk across the ice between Bear Island and Meredith was much shorter than the walk to Weirs. As they walked, a male goon wandered onto the ice, and slowly started walking toward them. It tripped in the twenty inches of fresh snow that had fallen in the last week and a half, but got up and kept approaching.

"I'll race you," Riley said with a smile.

Emily smirked. "Let's do it." With that, they both started running toward the goon; they could not run as fast as they normally could, but they both kept at it. Though Riley started off in the lead, he could not lift his legs as high as Emily to get through the snow, so she got to it first. She kicked him in his knee, causing him to fall, and stabbed him in the eye. Riley looked impressed.

"Neat little trick, huh?" She said with a smile.

"Yeah…I'm gonna steal that one."

"You gonna pay me royalties in Twinkies and jerky?"

Riley laughed. "We'll see!"

They kept walking, and eventually reached the mainland. "Hey Emily," he said. "Can I talk to you about something?"

"Um, okay," Emily said as they stopped walking. "What is it?"

"I didn't mean to, y'know, imply you weren't strong enough to handle a scavenging run last night."

"What, that? Don't even worry about it, I pretty much forgot about that."

"No, that's not it, I…" He paused. "Look, before all this, I was a nobody. I'd never been married, didn't have any kids, worked in the backroom of an office building making forty-five thousand a year, lived in a medium-sized apartment with my brother…pretty boring. I hit forty, and I thought I'd never have a family. I hadn't even had a girlfriend in over a year; hell, the longest relationship I'd ever had was only for two years. Then, obviously, all of…this happened."

Emily was confused. "Okay, what's your point?"

Riley sighed. "There were times when I wanted to give up. My brother died, and I was on my own for weeks before the others found me. Maybe even a month."

"They found you too?"

"Not all of them; we didn't meet the Carltons until later. But Julie was in the group." He smiled. "She saved my ass after about six hours of knowing her, and we started talking, I got to know her more, she was kind enough to trim the Grizzly Adams look I was sporting at the time, and we ended up in a post-apocalyptic relationship, and suddenly I was happier than I'd been in years. It makes no sense. Why am I happy when the world has functionally ended?" He paused again. "Still though, I certainly never thought I'd have kids; it seems irresponsible…then you showed up."

Emily's eyes widened.

"I know, I haven't even known you two weeks, but I care about you. You're a smart, strong young lady, and nowadays, none of us know if we're gonna see the next sunset, so yeah, I guess I've sped up the process of…y'know…caring about your safety. I know your parents are gone, and I'll never replace them, but I want to keep you safe. But I know how capable you are out here, and I probably shouldn't worry too much. Doesn't mean I won't though." Riley smiled, and Emily blushed.

"Damn Riley…I don't know what to say right now. I'm…flattered." She started to tear up. "C'mon, let's…let's get going."

Riley smiled. "Yeah, yeah we should."

They started walking toward the woods and onto town, when suddenly, a loud explosion rang out from the northern side of the island, nearer to where Riley and Emily were ambushed by Louis and his crew than the cabin. They both turned around in shock.

"Holy fuck," he said.

"What happened?" Emily looked back onto the lake. Her jaw dropped. "Oh…my…God…"

She stood next to him and stared in horror at the massive horde of goons making their way to the island, attracted to the explosion set off by their unseen enemy.

Riley reached into his bag and pulled out his binoculars, and looked back at the island. He scanned to the west side of the island, and could just make out Alan and Julie running through the woods, to investigate the explosion.

"We've gotta get back," Emily said worriedly.

"Let's go!" Riley exclaimed, and they started running back.