CHAPTER 9

I'M WITH STUPID

"What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world remains and is immortal." -Albert Pine

In a situation where you don't know what's coming, fear is often a very evident factor in your emotional state. While Mason and Tyler felt no fear with their LMV parked up against the Trail County Hospital's doors, it was quite a different story for the people inside.

Tyler popped the rear hatch and Mason swung it open. He hopped out with the Commando slung against his chest; expecting a warm welcome. He was surprised when he saw the barrel of a Glock pointed at his face by a nervous-looking black cop.

"Let me see your hands!"

"What the fuck's your problem?" Mason grunted; unimpressed. Tyler climbed out of the LMV and joined with his own scowl. Mason crossed his arms and smirked. "Ours are bigger than yours Tupac." Tyler let out a cackle and turned back to the LMV. He grabbed a bag of canned food and a jug of water and turned back to the tense situation behind him.

"Did you guys order food?" Tyler looked at the cop, then at a guy wearing glasses who was hovering behind the officer. "Hey, Rick Morannis, did you order the food?" Mason hissed with laughter as the guy frowned.

"Hey," Mason interrupted; trying to keep a straight face, "We talked to Tom Lund on the radio. He said you guys needed food and water." Mason shrugged. "Well, we're here."

"Yeah guys," The Cop holstered his Glock and turned to walk down the hall, "Sorry about that. You can't be too careful. Follow me."

"Grab some stuff Rick." Tyler motioned to the truck and the guy with glasses, now named Rick, grabbed as much as he could and began to follow them down the hall. Mason took the lazy route; walking confidently with his weapon in hand, looking cool and leaving the labor to everyone else.

It was a short walk to the branch-off in the hall way. There was a nurse's station and then two hallways. One branched left and one branched right. The one to the right was blocked off by doors and countless medical machines. The other seemed untouched. Tyler and Rick put there stuff down at the Nurse's station and looked around. The Cop had disappeared.

"Gave us the slip." Mason grunted. "Hope he comes back." A moment later, the Cop reappeared from a room on the left; looking calmer than before.

"Right in here man." The cop pointed to the room and Mason nodded; turning to Tyler and Rick. "You heard em' boys. In there." Mason walked off toward the room and Tyler rolled his eyes as he picked up the supplies again and followed.

Mason felt all the eyes on him as he entered the room. It appeared to be a type of lunch room. There were plenty of faces turned to him as he walked in. He tried desperately to scan them all and look cool at the same time. He noticed about twelve children. Their age groups varied. Everywhere from infancy to 12. Then there were teenagers; five of them. Two of them were sitting right by each other; probably dating. The girl was holding a baby.

Mason took a deep breath and tipped his head slightly as Tyler stepped in behind him. Everyone's eyes lit up as they saw he had supplies. They were obviously in dire need of both water and food. Mason smirked and looked at Tyler.

"I bet everyone's hungry."

It didn't take long for half of the food to disappear. They got happy looks from everyone, and curious looks from a lot of the kids. As Mason stood and talked to Lance Young, the cop, a little girl walked up to him with a foam cup in her hands; staring up at him. She was cute. Probably five years old with pig-tails and a little dress. She didn't look very concerned.

"Are you in the Police?" She asked confidently; staring up at him like he was any person she knew. Mason just smiled and knelt down. He shook his head; making sure his gun was on safe.

"Nope, but I should be."

"Are you an Army Man?" She ground the toe of her ballerina-type shoe into the floor as she took a sip of water and Mason chuckled.

"Nope, but I should be." He felt a flood of warm joy building inside him. He needed this.

"Then why do you have a big gun?" She stared at her empty cup and shrugged impartially; causing an even harder laugh to escape Mason's lungs.

"Well there are some bad guys outside who want to hurt everyone, and it's my job to stop them." Mason smiled and she looked at him with a worried frown.

"Are they going to hurt me too?" As she stared at him with her big, sad, brown eyes, Mason hesitated. He swallowed hard and took a deep breath.

"Well sweetheart, they're going to try, but I'm not going to let em'." As Mason looked at her, a big smile formed on her face and she twisted around and wandered back to her mother who smiled and mouthed a "thank-you" to him. Mason nodded and stood up as a wide-shouldered man with chops and glasses walked up to him. Mason nodded and the man smiled politely.

"Say, if you guys are running low on anything I have a 9mm on me." He looked cautiously over each shoulder. "No one else knows I have it." While he was very calm and intelligent looking, Mason raised his eye brows.

"Why doesn't anyone know you have it?" Mason tipped his head and crossed his arms. It seemed a little fishy that someone would keep that a secret.

"Well then everyone would want it!" The guy said as if dumbfounded by Mason's question. "Everyone would think they were more qualified than me to have it on them. While I'd never give it to them, I'd still have to listen to an uncountable amount of reasons come from a bunch of guys who could talk the ears off a jack-rabbit… and I just don't need that." He exaggerated a shrug and Mason let out a hard, wheezy laugh.

"Well dude," Mason shook his head," We've got several guns and about a thousand rounds of ammo or more. You can keep your pistol. I don't think we'll need it."

"Well," The guy said thoughtfully, "Got any long-guns to spare? I see you have your Colt Commando with the ten inch barrel and your friend has a Benelli Super Black Eagle and an H and K UMP 40. Have anything else like that?"

"Gun guy?" Mason took a step back; half surprised and half excited. The guy just nodded.

"Absolutely. My view is that if you know how many you have then you don't have enough."

"Fucking right dude!" Mason shook the guy's hand firmly as he nodded confidently. "What's your name man?"

"Aaron Riesen." Aaron shook back just as firmly.

"I'm Mason Krauss, that's Tyler Thompson." Mason motioned to Tyler who was talking to the guy they'd named Rick Morannis. "We're the fucking Cowboys from hell."

"I too would like to be a Cowboy from hell." Aaron grunted. "That would go good on a résumé."

"Fuck yeah man," Mason turned back toward the door, "Come on and we'll get you saddled up."

When Mason and Aaron left the room, Tyler turned his attention to Lance. He walked up to him and put his hands casually in his pockets.

"So Lance, where's this Tom Lund? I figured he'd be the guy to meet us at the door." Tyler knew the answer when he saw the disappointed look in Lance's eyes.

"He thought you guys would be here right away. When you didn't show up for a while, he said we needed to go out and get supplies ourselves or we'd pay the price when we were too weak to move. I told him no. I said we should give you some more time, but he wouldn't listen. He went out on his own. He wouldn't even take a gun. We haven't heard from him since."

"That's kind of like jumping out of an airplane without a parachute and expecting it to be an adventure." Tyler sighed. "We kind of got cornered out there." He shook his head. "I didn't think we were going to make it for a minute, but then we hit the jackpot with a bunch of guns and came back with that truck." Tyler looked around the crowd of people who looked brighter and more confident after their food. "After seeing everyone, I'm really glad we came."

"I'm glad you came too man." Lance agreed; taking a drink of water. "I'm down to under one magazine and I haven't slept in two days. I don't think I could have pulled another 24 hours."

"Here," Tyler handed Lance another magazine for his Glock 17, "I've got five more fully-loaded." Lance nodded and took them as Tyler wrinkled his eye brows. "You know, I figured the National Guard would be out shooting at us right away. Where the hell are they?" Tyler looked at Lance and Lance shrugged.

"We heard a big gun-battle yesterday and since then it's been quiet. Every once in a while there's a gun-shot or two, but its nothing like before. We haven't heard their helicopter either. Its like they just disappeared. The only reason that's weird is that before they just rolled around the streets shooting their machineguns at everything, then they'd drive off and come back later. I don't know where the hell they are."

"Weird." Tyler said flatly. "Good, but weird. I hope they don't come back."

In the hall, Mason was letting Aaron go through the guns. He'd picked up the M-4 with the Master-key almost immediately; ignoring the Hunting rifle and the UMP-40 left over. He looked at Mason.

"How much ammo do you have for this?" Aaron set it down and as Mason grinned, he put a dip of Copenhagen in his lip.

"Not enough." Mason shrugged. "If we split it in half we'll have six and a half magazines each, or one of us will have six and one will have seven. Pretty good I guess if you can keep it off of full-auto fire. It's 195 kills if you're good."

"I don't know if I'll be able to help myself." Aaron chuckled; looking over the shotgun attached to the under-barrel of the M-4.

"I know the feeling." Mason grinned. "I kind of wasted some ammo a couple blocks from here about a half-hour ago. I needed to blow off some steam though."

"Yeah," Aaron beamed, "I like the Church Key. Makes it pretty flashy." He looked at Mason who had raised an eye brow in confusion.

"Church Key? You mean the Master Key?" Mason chuckled as Aaron nodded.

"Yeah, I know its called that, but I like to give everything a name… that's wrong. Like when I'm lifting weights and I do Skull-Crushers… I call em' bone mashers."

"Fucking aye," Mason shook his head; laughing, "All right man." He looked at the Master Key and raised his eye brows. "Oh yeah, you'll have to get shotgun ammo from Tyler. He's got it all on him. Don't let him try to scare you off."

"Oh, I wont." Aaron said politely. "If he's a d-bag I can get along without it."

"Mr. Krauss-" Lance said as he walked up with Tyler.

"Just call me Mason." Mason shrugged. "It's easier."

"Ok," Lance nodded, "I forgot to tell you right away, but we got a call on the radio while we were waiting for you. It was from the woman you left at the farm. She said to let you know she was leaving."

"What!?" Mason's jaw dropped open as he looked at Tyler; shocked and worried. "How long ago?"

"Over an hour." Lance shook his head. "I tried to reason with her, but she sounds like a very stubborn woman. She didn't want to hear any of it."

"Fuck!" Mason turned toward the LMV. He didn't know what to do. He had no idea where she was going. He turned back to Lance. "Did she say what vehicle she was taking? Fuck, none of them have fuel. SHIT!" Mason sat down on the bumper of the LMV and slouched. She'd never make it alone. Not with a Glock and two and a half mags. "Son of a bitch." He croaked. They never should have left her.

"She said she can shoot man." Tyler said reassuringly; trying to keep Mason optimistic. "Maybe she'll be ok."

"Yeah." Mason said unenthusiastically. "I don't think we'll ever know." He took a deep breath and grunted; forcing visions of her being devoured out of his mind. "Well if she gets into a bind she'll probably head back to the farm. We just have to hope for that." He let a trickle of optimism overtake his senses. He didn't want to believe she'd die.

"Just don't dwell on it." Tyler patted Mason on the shoulder. "Keep to the task at hand."

Mason jumped off the bumper and walked away. Tyler just shook his head sadly. He didn't blame Mason for being upset. He'd kind of hit it off with Aya and that was something Tyler had never seen happen before. It was more than a hit at his pride though. It was a hit at his heart. Through all of the carnage Mason had felt something good. Tyler just sighed and looked at the floor. It was like what he'd felt when he'd seen all of the innocent faces in the lunch-room. It was a feeling of doing something that was right.

"Hey, Mason said you had some extra shotgun shells." Aaron broke Tyler's train of thought and he looked up from the floor.

"Yeah, I can cover you dude." Tyler began handing Aaron loose shotgun shells from his Tac-Vest's pockets until all he had left was what was in his gun and what was in the bandoleer.

"Thanks." Aaron said politely and put the last few into the pocket of the green vest he was wearing. He was about to walk away when Tyler stopped him.

"So what's your story?" Tyler cleared his throat; looking up at Aaron.

"Oh," Aaron shrugged and sat down again, "just unprepared I guess. I usually have a gun or two in my car and I have tons of guns at my house… my last count is thirty-three I think- at least for handguns. I have about half as many rifles and probably twenty-thousand rounds of ammunition. Bad time to be on vacation." Aaron grunted and set his S&W 5906 into the rear-hatch of the LMV. Tyler eyed it and nodded.

"Yeah, no shit dude. Where you from?" It felt good to be in a conversation about nothing important. He hadn't really had one of those since the whole dead-people thing had started. It was a trickle of normalcy. It made him feel like he'd have to do homework soon.

"New Folden, Minnesota." Aaron sighed. "Far, far north near the-"

"N-O shit?!" Tyler gasped; amazed. "I'm from Hallock." New Folden was approximately fifty-five miles southeast of Hallock. Tyler had be en there many times and was familiar with its lay out. His High School football team had squashed them countless times.

"Wow, really?" Aaron laughed; just as shocked. "It's a pretty small world. It's funny how often that happens. I usually make it awkward somehow though cause its usually someone I'm not really at level-5 with." Aaron did his exaggerated shrug again and chirped out a grunt in a really high tone of voice. Tyler nodded and yawned.

"No guns in your car then?" Tyler crossed his legs and looked down the hall where Mason was sitting at the Nurse's station.

"Nothing with ammo." Aaron shook his head. "There's a Yugoslavian M-76 with a range-finding scope in the trunk, but its in 7.92 and you don't just find that ammo lying around."

"Right." Tyler said passively. He didn't really know that much about bullets or what was common. He just let Mason figure all of that out. "So before all this shit started, did you see any gun stores around town?"

"Well, I saw a Pawn and Gun store down-town, but it's a ways off. I hear there's a good hunting store in town though and I was going to go check it out when all the shit hit the fan, but then I got side-tracked before I got the chance. I'm afraid I don't know the address."

"Fuck." Tyler shook his head. Why couldn't anything be easy? Every single step seemed to have a blunderbuss of issues that came a long with it. While it was annoying and all, he was kind of getting used to it.

"I know." Aaron agreed passively. "It's gayer than semen-flavored toothpaste."

"O-H," Tyler covered his mouth as he groaned in disgust, "Dude, that's fucking gross! Don't ever say that again! Bad, Bad!" Aaron just laughed.

"Ok, sorry, that one's on the "banned" list."

"Ugh," Tyler wrinkled his nose and shook his head, "Yeah, that's not something to go saying all the time. Ish."

"I hear it's the new "Crest" in San Francisco though."

"Ahhhh!" Tyler jumped up from the bumper and walked quickly away as Aaron laughed behind him. He walked straight ahead to the Nurse's Station and sat down in an office-chair next to Mason.

"I can't believe she left." Mason said sadly in a near-whisper. "If we'd just trusted her enough to take her along, then this wouldn't have happened." He looked at Tyler with tired, desperate eyes.

"You never know dude." Tyler shrugged; knowing just as well as Mason that she stood a very small chance of survival. "Women are tricky like that. They like to make it look like they're all weak and incapable, but then they're pushed and they surprise you with their drive." His ex, Angie, was like that. She'd just use her brain and figure out what she had to do under the given circumstances. Tyler pointed at Mason's vest. "Have a smoke. You'll feel better."

Mason nodded and put a Lucky-Strike into his lips. He lit the end, then offered Tyler the pack. Tyler shook his head; no.

"Nah, death is close enough." Tyler cleared his throat and spit a loogie onto the concrete wall beside them. "Are you going to be able to function? You have to be able to function dude."

"Yeah, yeah I know." Mason nodded; understanding Tyler's concern. Falling under the stress could have dire consequences and could easily result in the death of himself or the people he'd come to save. He didn't want that on his soul. "Yeah, I'm good to go." Mason stood up and looked over the desk as Aaron walked up.

"I see you guys have some Tactical Vests in the back of the truck. Mind if I slip one on?"

"Go ahead man." Mason waved his hand passively. "We're not going to wear more than one at a time; minus well use them." Aaron nodded and walked back to the LMV. "Its nice that the LMV fits right into the hall." Mason took a drag of his smoke.

"Yeah," Tyler agreed, "its heavy enough than they can't push it out of the way too. I wonder how that front door is holding up though." They could see the dead through the windows of the LMV at the end of the hall. They seemed to have formed into a horde; fighting to get inside where they'd seen the two heavily-armed vigilantes go. The LMV was rocking slightly, but it stayed put.

"We're not going to be able to move the truck." Mason grumbled. "We'll have to leave the building some other way and clear up a good portion of them." Mason raised an eye brow and began searching each accessible hall.

"What are you looking for?" Tyler stood and began looking where Mason was looking. "What's wrong?" He didn't see anything of interest; at least nothing that stuck out.

"Elevators." Mason said in almost a whisper. If they could get to a different level and to a room with a better view, they could pick the corpses off carefully; making it possible to move the truck and eventually escape. It had its risks though. Even if they did make it to another floor, there was no telling how many access points there were from the unsecured areas of the ground-floor. The other floors could be crawling with the dead.

"You looking to go upstairs?" Tyler leaned over the Nurse's desk and looked down the cordoned hall. There were no elevators before the barricaded doors, and none in the opposite hall. The only possibility seemed to be opening the doors again and that could mean letting dozens of the infected into the safe-area. "Doesn't look good man." Tyler shook his head; looking at Mason. Mason just shrugged.

"I know, but we don't have much of a choice." He nodded toward the LMV. "Look at them all out there. They know we're in here and they're not moving. I don't know if we can do anything else."

Mason looked away from Tyler as the teenage couple from the lunch-room walked up. The boy looked impatient and anxious. He glanced at the LMV, then at Tyler and Mason; nodding his head in its direction.

"Hey, can I take your truck?" His tone was serious and both Tyler and Mason's face twisted into humored grins.

"Well, can I take your girlfriend?" Mason snickered. "You're about as likely to say yes to that as I am to your request."

"Yes," The boy turned to his girlfriend and shrugged, "You said we should stay Liz. If you want to stay and die, you can. I'm going to fucking bounce." He reached out his hand to Tyler. "Got the keys?" Tyler frowned and Mason's face became shocked, and then offended.

"You're going to leave your fucking girlfriend- and your kid, then take my truck and drive off into the sunset?" Mason stepped up to the kid and looked into his eyes. "What do you do?"

"What? Nothing." The kid shrugged. "I'm graduating this year. I play fucking basketball, I dunno." He looked at Mason like he was stupid. "Give me the fucking keys man, or I'll kick your fucking ass." As Tyler laughed, completely shocked, at the kid's threat, Mason was un-slinging his gun and setting it on the desk-top. The kid's girlfriend was begging him to stop and Mason grinned.

"You got balls man, but you're about to get fucked up." Mason clenched his fists. "You really want to get fucked up?"

"I'll fuck you up man." The kid said in a low, almost under-the-breath voice. Tyler continued to smirk and Mason laughed sarcastically.

"Man, you better back the fuck up cause this shit's about to get real." Mason put his hand against the kid's chest and shoved him back a step. "And I don't want to excite your girlfriend." The kid clenched his teeth, looked at Tyler, then stormed off back to the lunch-room. Mason watched him disappear, then looked at Liz who had a tear running down her cheek.

"Wow, your boyfriend is a fucking idiot." Tyler said; very straight-forward. He nodded for his own benefit and the girl laughed hesitantly. She dried the tears from her eyes as Mason watched the lunch-room door carefully.

"He's scared." Liz shook her head; readjusting her infant in her arm. "He thinks we should just drive until we can't anymore. He says we're just waiting here to die."

"Man, I'm stupid." Mason said suddenly; changing the subject completely. He glanced at Liz, "Hold that thought." He looked around for a moment then walked over to the bathroom that was by the Lunch-room and opened the door. On the inside of the door, there was a map. Mason smacked it with the back of his hand and looked at Tyler, who was just as surprised as Liz. "Map of the kingdom man." He turned back to the map and began to study it as Tyler walked up to him.

"Where's the elevator at? Or the stairs?" Tyler watched quietly as Mason looked carefully. He put his finger against the map and grunted.

"End of the hall, opposite side of those locked doors." Mason pointed to the barricaded hallway. "There's a stairway right by it, so we'd probably just use those."

"Well I don't want to go through those fucking doors." Tyler stated abruptly. "I want to stay right the fuck in here until they go away." He growled under his breath and crossed his arms like he was pouting. He didn't feel the need to gamble. Not yet. They weren't in dire need of taking any risks. If they were under worse circumstances, he may have changed his mind. That wasn't the case though, and until that point then he wasn't going to go. It was that simple.

"Dude, you don't have to fucking go." Mason shrugged. "It'd be nice to have a guy down here who can hold his own anyway. I'll go and I'll take Aaron or Lance with me. Two guys can handle this; no problem. You hold the fort, I'll go knock down some pawns. You dig?"

"Fuck," Tyler groaned; turning away as he stressfully rubbed his face, "Dude, I don't want you to go. I don't want either of us to go. I just want to be safe for five fucking minutes before we decide to let a bunch of face-hungry assholes try to eat us! Do YOU dig?" He shook his head; concerned. "We can't even talk to each other when you're up there. I'd have no idea if you guys were dead. This seems like a lose-fucking-lose situation." He walked a few steps away then turned around. "You don't even know if Lance or Aaron would agree to go with you. You're playing this like you have infinite-fucking control again man. You've got to fucking stop that!" Mason took that to heart. He stopped, looked at Tyler, then drooped his shoulders. He looked at the ground and nodded.

"Sorry man. I'm trying too fucking hard to jump-start everything." Mason looked over at the Nurse's station and sighed. "I'll sit down and think of it all for a while. If I come to any other conclusions I'll let you know." He put another smoke in his mouth and wrinkled his nose. "My bad man." He shook Tyler's hand and Tyler raised his eye brows.

"Just don't do it again." As Tyler let out a deep breath, Liz walked up. She looked at her baby, then at Tyler.

"Are we going to get out of here?" Liz's voice was sincere and scared. Her eyes burned into Tyler's and Tyler nodded; breaking eye contact uncomfortably.

"Yeah." Tyler said confidently. On the inside he wasn't so sure. "We've been in worse situations with less people, and less guns. If we all work together, and no one's an ass-fuck, then we'll get out of this no problem." He motioned to Mason. "And we got him. If it all goes to hell, we'll just let him loose." Mason grinned as Tyler smirked. "Don't worry yourself. Leave that to us." Tyler did his best to blow her off. He didn't feel like mingling.

"All right." Liz nodded. She was used to taking charge in everything from money to parenthood. Her boyfriend, Chase, hadn't left her with much choice. Neither had her separated parents. She wasn't accustomed to someone else leading the way. She wasn't a soldier, or a cop though. The man standing before her looked to be a mixture of both. His confident eyes let her worries be swept away. "Just don't keep me out of the loop." She looked at her baby boy and then kissed him on the forehead. "I deserve to know what's happening."

"Right." Tyler nodded. "Just stay calm and everything will be ok." Tyler watched her as she walked into the lunch room and Mason grinned.

"Somebody likes you." Mason snickered; crossing his arms. Tyler rolled his eyes.

"She's just an independent woman. She wants to know what's going on so she can give her bit of input."

"Yeah." Mason nodded; seriously. "Just your fucking type."

"Whatever man." Tyler shrugged passively. "I'm going to go eat something. You?"

"Yeah." Mason fiddled with the USP in his leg holster. "Guess I could eat a little."

"All right." Tyler looked at Mason's cigarette. "I guess I could maybe use one of those." Mason handed him one and lit the end. He put the lighter in his pocket and Tyler cleared his throat. "All right, let's go."

Tyler and Mason went into the Lunch-room expecting to be outcasts from the group of survivors who had already made friends with one another. To their surprise, the survivor's were more than happy to invite outsiders into their lonesome little groups; desperate to hear news about the outside and be among those who held the chance of survival within their grasp.

Tyler and Mason sat separately. They were two very different people attracted to very different personality types. While Tyler drew himself close to the older group of teenagers and loners who had found their way to the hospital, Mason dug in deep to the people who had come with family members or friends. They both had their preferences. While being very much different, their hunger for comfort and company were very much the same, and very desperate.

"So Lance," Tyler cleared his throat and sat up in straight his folding chair, "How the hell did you all get here? Were you here in the first place?"

"Nah," Lance shook his head; habitually checking the door to the room, "I was helping the Bus-Service bring people to the High School; providing security with my Partner, Chris Collingwood. That's where the National Guard had re-positioned their base to. We were out on a run, and I got a call saying the Soldiers were killing everyone who had come to the school." Lance let out a sigh and shook his head sadly. "I had the driver come to the Hospital. I figured we could do something here, but we were out of options. We ended up in a crash with another driver and had to finish the route on foot. My partner was killed on the way along with about ten other people. I couldn't do nothing to stop it."

Tyler patted Lance on the back. He didn't really know what to say to make the man feel better. He'd done a lot to save the people he was with though. That much was obvious. If he'd just taken off, who knew where these people might be? There were no "For-sure's" anymore.

"You did good." Tyler said supportively; motioning to all the people. "Look at them all. Without you… who knows?"

"Yeah." Lance said hesitantly. "Yeah, I know. I just wish I knew where my family was man." He stared down at the table as Tyler agreed.

"I know dude… me too." Tyler looked over at Mason. He was talking to the little girl who had been asking him questions earlier. Tyler wished he was as confident as Mason about the status of his family. If only. He knew his dad was able to make good off-hand decisions. He knew his dad could get himself out of any rut too. But what about the kinds of ruts Tyler was in himself? It was hard to say. He hoped to God that by some miracle he'd run into them. As long as they stayed rural and close to home, he knew he had a shot.

"Hey." Tyler's eyes came up from the table at the sound of Liz's voice. He looked at her face and nodded.

"Hey." Tyler said dryly. He didn't know why she'd come and sat by him, but he really didn't mind; regardless of what his sarcastic-senses were telling him.

"You look like your having a rough time," Liz said through a half-smile, "are you ok?" She eyed him closely; truly caring with her soft motherly voice.

"No." Tyler said through a deep breath. "Worrying about my family. It's kind of rough." He looked into her eyes. "You know?" She was very pretty. He had a hard time not thinking of her in a sexual way; as usual. It was funny how that worked. Even under intense and terrifying circumstances, the male mind-set wanted sex. He wished she would be a bitch so he could blow her off and not care, but she wasn't looking to play that card.

"Yeah, I know." Liz agreed; looking away. "I have no idea where anyone in my family is, but I'm ok and Carter is ok, so I guess everything will be all right as long as I look at the bright side." She looked at her son and smiled.

"How old were you when you got pregnant?" Tyler asked curiously. "I mean, you really don't look like you ever had kids at all." He wasn't kidding. She was as in-shape as you could expect anyone to be after they had a kid. There were no obvious cow-flaps at all.

"I was eighteen." Liz shrugged. "I have no idea… why I was so stupid," She looked at Carter and smiled again, "but I'm not mad. I really love my son and I wouldn't give him up for the world." Tyler raised his eye brows impartially; letting his sarcastic side take over for a moment.

"Well I'd never want a kid," Tyler shrugged, "If it kept me up all night when I had to work the next day, I'd probably throw it in the fireplace." Liz let her jaw drop open, but she wasn't mad. She had a look of surprised shock on her face with a partial smile.

"That's terrible," Liz shook her head, "But you're just saying that because you want to believe that you can't love something." She tipped her head. "I know a lot of guys like that. They've been burnt before, then they become heartless, or what they believe is heartless. They play it off that way, then someday they just let it go. And then they're happy."

"Whatever." Tyler said as impartially as ever. "I just don't want any part of it."

"That's what you say now." Liz said confidently. "But no man is a man if he doesn't have something to protect that's a part of him." With that, she got up and walked back to Chase. Tyler watched her. He didn't want to agree with what she'd said, but he knew she was right. What in life was worth fighting for without love? He didn't know. He'd let himself figure it out as needed. He looked back at Mason. He was still talking to that little girl, laughing and making her laugh. He wondered what that was like. He told people that he hated kids, but did he? He really wanted to believe it because that was sick as shit and he liked sick as shit. But what if he ignored that for a day? He grunted as he thought of it. He hated life's puzzles.

Tyler walked up to Mason's side; cutting Mason off from the story he was telling the little girl and grabbing everyone's attention.

"Come up with anything yet?" Tyler asked Mason seriously. Mason excused himself politely from the table and stepped up next to Tyler; habitually checking his USP again.

"Quite honestly man, we're down to two options. We can wait for them to disperse, which may never happen, or we can pull this rooftop shit. I can do this man. Aaron already agreed to it." Tyler took a deep breath and looked at all the people. He knew he wanted everyone in the room to live, other than that Chase kid, but they had no answer as far as how to transport them.

Tyler looked at the floor and shook his head. He didn't want to take these people on a suicide mission, and he didn't want Mason going into a suicide mission just so that more corpses could move in and replace the others. They needed more of a concrete plan before the mission could carry on. But what could they do?

"Dude, we have no fucking way to get these people out of here." Tyler said pessimistically. "If we clear the way for a moment, what the fuck is that going to accomplish? It's just going to waste ammo." Mason just grinned at his worries. Tyler knew he had an answer.

"Don't worry man. Listen, Aaron and I will go upstairs and use what we've got to move those fuckers out of there. I'll take the Remington and a UMP 40, and Aaron will take a UMP 40. We'll pop enough of them off, so you can move out and then," Mason rubbed his hands together excitedly, "You and Lance take off toward the High School."

"Hold on." Tyler stopped Mason abruptly. "The National Guard supposedly made their base there. Are you aware of that little tid-bit?" Tyler wasn't fond of the plan so far. The National Guard wasn't something he was Grade-A fucking-excited about meeting.

"Yeah," Mason nodded, "but they haven't heard, or seen the Guard since yesterday. That means they're either under-gunned, or fucking gone. SO, it's perfect man." Mason chuckled and nodded. "So that's that dude."

"Hold on." Tyler stopped him unenthusiastically. "You haven't even told me why we're going there yet." Tyler scowled when Mason's face lit up.

"Oh, yeah! There are fucking School-Buses there man. Go fucking grab one and swing back here. Its fucking ingenious! Those fuckers can't stop a fucking school bus!" He snickered as Tyler took a deep breath.

"Well, that's true." Tyler pointed an accusing finger at Mason. "But I'm the one who has to leave the fucking building man!" Mason put his hands up in defense; nodding at the factuality of the statement.

"True, but I'm the one going out the door first, and I'm the guy whose going to have to stay in an unsecured location until you get back." Mason scratched his head and took a deep breath. "We're both hitting the shit hard here man, but we can fucking do this if we take it slow." Mason pulled Tyler's original hand-sketched map out of his pocket. "I had you put the High-School on this; remember?" He grinned and shrugged. "I know for a fact that they often station National-Guardsmen in Schools and shit during Natural Disasters, so I figured why not? Well here it is." Mason handed it to Tyler. "If you want a rest right now, then take it. We're waiting on your word Boss."

"Dude…" Tyler trailed off, "Its more complicated than that. We have no supplies at the farm. We have no room for them at the farm. If this whole Bus-Plan has a single hitch, then we might be fucked." He crossed his arms and stared at the wall for a moment. "It takes a lot to feed and support over thirty people; especially kids. We need more water, more fuel, more bullets, more food, more houses." He shrugged; giving up. "I just don't fucking know how we can do it."

"Well we better fucking figure something out," Mason put his hands in his pockets, "because I honestly hate being fucking surrounded by those things. And I want to get the hell out of dodge before I end up having to blow all my ammo when those fuckers manage to bust in."

"Yeah, I know." Tyler agreed. "But there's got to be a less risky way." He sighed and looked toward the hall. "I'm going to go play on the radio for a while; let my mind free."

"All right." Mason nodded. "I'll keep talking to the guys and maybe we can come up with something else."

"Ok." Tyler waved an arm passively. He didn't want to think about it for one second. He knew there was no quick fix, but doing no fix at all would only end in disaster. He walked to the Nurse's station and sat down behind the desk; noting how eerie it was to be away from the rest of the group. He felt like a corpse would pop out of nowhere any moment and take a big bite out of his face. He shivered and took the CB off of its receiver.

"Hello, this is Tyler Thompson. Is anyone out there? Over." He traced his pointer finger in circles dully on the desk as he waited, then tried again. "This is Tyler Thompson. I am stranded with approximately thirty other people and am in dire need of food, water, and supplies. If anyone is out there, please respond. Over." Tyler waited for a moment, then shook his head desperately. He looked up as Mason walked out of the lunch-room with a smug look on his face.

"Anybody out there?" Mason crossed his arms with the Commando hanging at his side. He didn't expect too many voices to pop out of the little back box. They'd played the "radio game" earlier and all they'd received was a call for help. Mason knew they were in the sand-box and there was no easy way out.

"What do you think?" Tyler put his face into his hands tiredly and let out a sigh. Mason patted him on the shoulder and looked down the hall to where the LMV's rear-end was sitting. The corpses visible through the front window seemed to be only growing in numbers. The stench was as bad as the sight.

"We need to do something before we end up in a stale-mate. If too many more of them flood the front of the building, we're going to be stuck here for good." Mason looked down at Tyler and raised his eye brows. "I think we need rest, but we need to move before it gets much worse."

Tyler ran his hand through his hair and looked at Mason dully. He was right.