It had been an interesting afternoon after the twins had left the old couple's house. Cody's bandage had leaked through and he was becoming lightheaded and irritable as they searched for the proper supplies to patch him up. He was ready to find an old fashioned sewing needle and some thread and just get it over with when Zack saw the veterinary clinic ahead. It was hardly the place he'd figured on getting stitched up but beggars couldn't be choosers.

"This is going to hurt, isn't it, Cody?" Zack asked as he was busy scrubbing his hands in a sink.

"Yeah. Probably a lot."

"I can't do it."

"Yes you can, Zack. You have to. I can't do it to myself or I would."

"Why not?"

"Because it'll hurt too much." Zack frowned before replying.

"I'll be hurting you, Cody."

"This will be a good hurt. Sort of, at least. A necessary hurt." Cody was sitting on a counter with his legs handing over the side. He'd tossed his bloody shorts aside for the time being and leaned back against a cabinet in just his shirt and underwear. He'd cleaned the area around the slash as well as he could and doused it liberally with betadine while Zack cleaned up and tried to talk his way out of performing surgery.

"Are you sure you want me to do this?" Zack asked as he shook his hands dry and walked over. "Last chance to back out is now. Remember that pillow I had to make for Home-Ec class?" Cody snorted.

"That monstrosity? No one will ever forget your dinosaur-kangaroo hybrid. It's probably still on display in the room."

"It was supposed to be an octopus."

"Of course it was. And to answer your question, yes, I want you to do this. I trust you."

Zack winced when Cody used the 'T' word. It used to be that Zack could be trusted to come home late for curfew or be trusted to forget his homework but now he was being trusted to sew up his brother's leg. He sighed.

"Sure you don't want to use any of that animal tranquilizer?" Zack's eyes drifted over to a shelf on the other side of the room.

"I do but I don't know how my body would metabolize it. I could guess wrong on the dose and it wouldn't matter how well you stitched me up. Let's just do it."

"Right." He picked up what his mind refused to call anything other than a fishhook and placed the tip against his brother's leg, a fraction of an inch below the cut. He felt Cody tense up. "Okay, on three." Cody nodded. Zack went on two. "Hurt?"

"Holy shit, yes."

"It must have. You don't swear very often."

"It honestly didn't hurt as bad as I thought it would but it still hurt a lot."

"Well that's good because we've got another forty or so to go."

"Hooray," Cody said, faking as much cheer as he could. He moved his hands back and held the edges of the cut together and waited for Zack to stick him again.

The first few stitches looked like they were done by an inexperienced fourteen year old but Zack was a quick learner and the last half looked nearly perfect. Cody daubed away the excess betadine and a few rogue droplets of blood and examined his brother's handiwork.

"Not bad, Zack. Not bad at all." Zack tried to hide it but he was beaming with Cody's compliment. Cody tactfully didn't comment on it.

"How long do you have to keep them in?"

"About a week, I guess. Maybe a little longer. After that, I just cut the threads and pull them out and I'm as good as new. Hopefully the betadine stain will go away by then, too." Cody gingerly hopped down from the counter and dug through his pack and pulled out his last pair of shorts.

"We're going to have to make another big-box store trip soon," Zack said as he saw the emptiness of Cody's bag. His, aside from the hidden porn and still-unopened beers, was almost equally low. He'd wanted to take a lot more from the house than they had but it had come down to carrying either their newly acquired guns or more food. Guns were hard to find but food was sitting on thousands of shelves so there really wasn't much of a choice.

"We might as well drink as much water as we can before we head out," Cody told him, pointing to the stockroom and the racks of giant water bottles. "I'm willing to bet that we aren't that far from being dehydrated."

"Probably not," Zack agreed. The twins spent the next ten minutes forcing as much water into their bodies as they could. By the time Zack was on his fourth glass, he felt like his molars were floating. He bounced up and down on his toes and could hear it slosh around in his belly. He manned up and finished the last of it and set the glass back down on the counter. "I don't care if I dry up like an old corn cob out there. I'm not drinking any more." Cody belched his agreement.

The twins packed up their supplies and headed out, wanting to find a more comfortable place to spend the night than a vet's office. Zack led the way and carried most of their weight. Cody protested that he could shoulder his fair share but Zack wouldn't give in.

"I'm sure you can, Cody, but you're not going to. I really don't want you walking around in the first place with your new stitches but a mile or three probably hurt."

"Zack, I appreciate you trying to look out for me and all but I'm not five. Yeah, my leg is sore but I can walk."

"I know you can but I'm older so I'm making the rules."

"When does that stop counting, anyway?" Cody laughed, giving up on the argument.

They walked another mile before Zack decided they'd gone far enough for the day. He'd stolen glances at Cody and saw his brother was trying his hardest to not let any pain show on his face and disguise his limp with a shuffling gait.

The sun was barely hanging in the sky when Zack decided that the next red house they saw would be where they spent the night. He was starting to wonder if this part of the country had gone through a red paint shortage when he stopped dead in his tracks and squinted into the setting sun.

"What is it?"

"I'm not sure, Cody. I think I saw something moving across the street way down the road." In all actuality, Zack didn't just think he saw something. He was all but positive he did.

"What was it? A dog?"

"Maybe. I just caught a glimpse of it just before it disappeared behind a building but it looked like a truck."

"Do you think it was-"

"I'm not sure, Cody. It might be them or it might not be. Either way, I think we've gone far enough for the night. We'll sleep in a red house tomorrow."

"Huh?"

"Don't worry about it."

Cody watched as Zack let them into the side door of the nearest house and was amazed at how far his brother's lock picking skills had come. He still didn't want to know where Zack had learned it in the first place but he was becoming very good at it after all their recent practice. They slipped in through the door and closed it silently behind them. After they secured and explored the house, Zack shooed Cody to the couch and had him get off his feet while he made a small meal.

"How's your leg?" Zack was sitting in a chair by the window with the blind angled a few degrees away from vertical. Cody's form was partially lit by a handful of candles that they'd found in a drawer.

"As much as I hate to admit it to you, a lot better now that I'm not walking on it," Cody told him.

"I won't tell you that I knew that," Zack grinned.

"Do you think whoever you saw is going to come back?" Cody changed the subject.

"Probably not. I've been looking at this dumb street for twenty minutes now and I haven't seen a thing." Zack got up and disappeared into one of the bedrooms came back with pillows and a bundle of blankets and sheets. He tossed a sheet to his brother and made a small bed for himself on the floor.

"You know what I want to do?" Zack asked as he shifted to a slightly more comfortable position. They'd undressed and had been laying down for a short while, exchanging small talk in the soft candle light.

"I have an idea but I'm laying right beside you so I hope I'm wrong," Cody said, yawning.

"Hardy har har," Zack retorted. His eyes still darted to his bag to assure himself that it was still fully zipped up and his secret stash still safe. "Who knew you were the funny twin? Anyway, no, that's not it. What I want is-" Zack stopped in mid-sentence and was on his feet with a pistol in his hand before Cody could do more than look surprised.

"What is it?" Cody mouthed. He didn't hear anything but had come to trust Zack's instincts.

"Engine," Zack said as he stole to the window and bent one of the blinds slightly. After a few seconds he motioned his brother over. Cody made his own peephole and the boys watched a truck slowly cruise down the road away from them. At the end of the street the truck paused and turned around and began heading back toward them.

"Is that the same one you saw before?"

"Yes," Zack answered. He felt trouble coming their way.

"Do you think they're looking for us?"

"If they're not it's one hell of a coincidence.

"Is it the traders?"

Zack took a second to ponder before he answered. "I doubt it, Cody. I guess it's possible but—shit! Get the candles!" Cody dashed across the small living room and blew the candles out. "Stupid, stupid, stupid," Zack said to himself. "Might as well have had a neon sign out there saying here we are with half a dozen arrows. Shit."

"Maybe they didn't see it."

Zack bit his tongue. Of course they saw it. Even a few candles would put out enough of a glow to be noticed through a window on an otherwise dark street. Careless, that's what that was. Careless. You don't put lights in a front room where any damn geek off the street could see it. Zack was glad the room was nearly pitch black so Cody couldn't see him shiver as he thought about the possibility of the men in the truck actually being the traders. He knew nothing about them except what they dealt in and it still made the skin on his balls crawl.

Zack turned back to the window and saw that the truck had closed to within one hundred feet of their building and was rolling slowly forward. It was close enough that he could make out the shadowy forms of people standing in the truck's bed. Close enough that he could make out the silhouette of a gun being raised against the moonlight. Fuck.

"Get down!" Zack yelped as he threw himself to the floor. Cody was slower to react so Zack pulled him down atop himself as the truck's engine roared. He dropped the gun when one of his brother's elbows landed in his belly.

"What? What is it?" Cody cried, the fear easily noticeable in his voice.

"Come on out, boys," a voice called from the truck. "If you come out right now we won't hurt you. Too much." Laughter split the air before the voice added, "Martha sends her love." More laughter.

"You have got to be kidding me," Zack mumbled quietly. "There is absolutely no fucking way...how did they know where to look?"

"She must have met up with them and told them which direction we went."

"You think? I should have killed that bitch when I had the chance." Zack rolled his brother off him and reached around to find the gun. Its cool metal felt very comfortable against his palm. "This is still bullshit. They must have been stalking us. Dammit." Zack pounded a fist against his thigh. "Lock and load, Cody, the shit is about to hit the fan." Both boys scrambled back to the couch and armed themselves. Zack stuck a second pistol in the back of his boxers and Cody picked up the Benelli just as the first snarl of automatic fire ripped through the upper parts of the front windows.

"Let's go, you fucks. Come get some," Zack said as he thumbed the safety off the pistol in his hand and belly-crawled to the window. His blood was running hot again and he was ready.

"Why are they doing this?" Cody asked and Zack was sure he heard the first signs of tears in his brother's voice. This was the absolute worst time for Cody to crack up. Zack swore softly to himself.

"Like I told you the other day, Cody, some people decide to do whatever they want once there isn't anyone to stop them. Those assholes outside are a perfect example of that." A longer burst tore through the glass and thudded into the wooden wall behind them.

"Why don't we try going out the back door?"

"Two reasons. One, no matter what you say, you can't move very fast right now. Two, the back door opens into a big field and then a parking lot. Nowhere to hide."

"I didn't notice the back yard when we let ourselves in," Cody admitted softly.

"That's okay. That's what I'm here for. Are you ready?"

"I guess," Cody said, bringing the shotgun to his shoulder.

"Just pretend they're zombies, Cody. And when they start shooting at me, jump in and fuck their shit up from that window over there." Zack looked at his brother and waited until he had an acknowledgment. Once it was in hand, Zack pulled his knees under himself and raised up, and pointing the gun at the truck and pulling the trigger as rapidly as he could.

Cody was expecting the usual pop-like sounds of the pistol they'd taken off the dead policeman but this gun, wow. Whatever it was, it sounded like a giant was hammering against a humungous sheet of aluminum with each shot. Zack had told him what it was called but he didn't remember. He could see the strain of keeping it steady on his brother's face with each muzzle flash.

A cry of confusion reached their ears, as if the shooters didn't expect anyone to shoot back. After a few seconds, the incoming fire increased as the attackers got over their initial surprise. Zack dove to his left and started shooting through another window and almost immediately heard some of his rounds find a home. He motioned for Cody to move up and screamed "tear the truck up!"

Cody did. He stood up and hugged the inside of the window, taking a deep breath and steeling himself before turning into the open space. He quickly saw that the truck wasn't more than thirty feet away and knew he really didn't even have to aim at that distance. Everyone's attention seemed to be on Zack so Cody just steadied the gun and squeezed the trigger over and over again as he walked the gun up and down the truck.

The gunfight lasted five seconds after Cody joined in. The boys watched the truck start to slowly drift away before nosing over the edge of the road and into a drainage ditch. One body fell out of the back as it came to a rest and another was hanging over the tailgate.

"Reload so you can cover me, Cody," Zack said as he dropped the empty pistol and pulled the one from behind his back. "I'm making sure this is over with. If anything moves, shoot it. And then shoot it again."

The only sound either boy heard was the wheeze of the dying engine. Must have got a round or two under the hood, Zack thought as he approached. He was taking measured steps, the gun flicking back and forth between anything his brain decided could be a threat. Zack circled the truck with Cody staying a handful of steps behind.

"Jeez, it looks like they went through a meat grinder," Zack finally said after he completed his inspection. "Told you that was an awesome gun, huh?"

"Yeah..." Cody replied, his voice flat as his eyes took in what he did.

Zack counted a total of five bodies. Well, four and a half since Cody seemed to have caught one of them square in the chest and completely removed the upper half of his body. The side of the truck that had faced Cody looked like the road signs he remembered seeing near his aunt's farm – dozens of bullet holes held together with a few ribbons of metal and flaked reflective paint. "Whoa," Zack said as he looked into the truck's bed and found the other half of a body. He looked away just as quickly.

"What is it?"

"Don't worry about it. It's not something you want to see." Cody looked like he was about to step forward and see for himself but Zack put up a hand. "Trust me on this one, Cody. Please."

Cody stopped in his tracks and, after a moment, agreed. "Do you think that's all of them?"

Zack honestly had no idea but he could see how the spectre of the mysterious 'traders' was hanging over his brother's head like a giant boulder. He might not know the answer but he knew what he was telling Cody. "Yeah, I think it is. Or was."

"We should probably go," Cody said after they stood around the truck for another minute. The engine had finally given up and the night was quiet again. The bottoms of Zack's boxers rippled in the breeze.

"Yeah we should," Zack parroted. "I don't think I could go to sleep now even if I had to."

"Me neither. And I just want to move on. I couldn't sleep here even if you paid me."

"Amen, brother, amen," Zack said.

The boys retreated inside and quickly packed their possessions. Zack tossed his clothes into his bag and was chatty while Cody dressed in silence. "Because it's still every bit of eighty degrees out there and because I can," Zack answered when Cody finally asked why he was going to walk in just his boxers and shoes. That got the smallest of grins from Cody and Zack considered it a success.

A few hours' walk put them a half dozen miles away from everything and in the mood to sleep. Zack was yawning profusely and Cody was limping badly. They called it a night and let themselves into a small house well off the main road, Zack taking care of their usual barricading while Cody searched the house for some pain reliever and came up with a bottle of aspirin. He quickly chased four of the pills with a swig of water and slipped the bottle in his pocket.

Zack had finished blocking the doors and had already pulled a big mattress out into the living room by the time Cody rejoined him. Cody hadn't said much during their midnight stroll but Zack attributed it to exhaustion and leg pain and didn't mention it. Now, as he watched his brother seem to sink into the chair instead of sit in it, he mentioned it.

"Are you okay, Cody?"

"Yeah, I'm good," Cody answered in a voice that sounded anything but.

"I'm serious. You can tell me anything, you know." Zack could tell that Cody was hurting but couldn't figure out what kind of pain it was.

"I'm good, Zack. Honest. I'm just tired and I hurt a little. Hopefully the aspirin will kick in soon and I'll just be tired."

"Okay then. I'm going to turn in. Don't stay up too late." Zack laid down on the mattress and pulled the single sheet over him and settled in.

"I won't." He did. Cody sat in the chair and let his mind go totally free for the first time since everything had fallen apart.

Zack awoke from a sound sleep with a bladder that was about to burst. He rolled off the mattress and padded his way to where he vaguely remembered the bathroom to be in the glow of a small flashlight. He did his business and returned to the living room, nearly jumping out of his skin when he saw Cody still sitting in the chair and slowly turning one of their pistols over and over in his hand.

"Hey Cody, what are you doing, buddy?" Zack's voice instantly went into wary mode when he saw the look on his brother's face.

"I've been thinking, Zack."

"About what?" Zack took a cautious step forward and was now at the edge of the mattress.

"The world we now live in and how much it sucks."

"Oh yeah?" Zack didn't know what to say but knew enough to know he needed to keep his brother talking.

"Want to know what I figured out?"

"Of course I do, Cody. Let's talk about it." Zack's inner alarms were flashing bright red. Cody wasn't right and Zack had to take care to tread softly.

"The world, as it is now, is terrible. It's an ugly caricature of its former self. A shadow. No, a parody. That's what it is."

"You're right, Codes," Zack said, unconsciously calling Cody by a name he hadn't used in years, "it's not very pretty out there."

"No, it's far from it, Zack. And that brings me to my next point."

Zack inwardly sighed. When Cody got like this, it was never good. He'd occasionally fall into these introspective moods and think himself into a deep depression. But this...this sounded different. Deeper. His voice sounded flat and distant, almost robotic. "Which is?"

"Some people, you, for instance, have already adjusted to these new times. Other people, like me, haven't. I won't even lie to you, Zack. I probably never will. The things we did tonight, the things I did tonight, horrified me. I can still see one of the men in the back of the truck disintegrate from the belt up when I shot him. I've seen it in my head a hundred times already. Over and over and over again.

"I shouldn't have had to do that, Zack. Ever. I should be enjoying my last summer before high school right now. But I'm not. I'm sitting in some stranger's house in a city we don't know the name of in a country filled with zombies with stitches in my leg that my brother had to give me because there aren't any doctors left. I'll never go to high school now. I was supposed to go to college and get a degree and a job and a wife and have my two and a half kids and a dog and a picket fence and a backyard barbeque and a car payment and now none of that is ever going to happen. Ever, Zack. Ever. My bright future is gone and now the best that I can hope for is a bleak future and a terrible undeath."

"Cody, yeah, all that might be gone but we're still alive. That's what matters."

"No, Zack, it's definitely not. All that's left is a half life. Nothing we planned for is possible anymore. Our old world is gone." Cody finally took a break from his monologue and took a sip from a bottle of water. He looked at Zack and Zack had never seen his brother look so sad. Cody sighed and set the bottle on the table.

"I don't know if I want to go on with the struggle, Zack. What's the point of trying to make it through today when things aren't going to get any better tomorrow?" What's the point? Why fight?"

"Because, Cody. Those are the cards we've been dealt."

"Then I think I'm going to fold, Zack. I don't want to play anymore." Cody looked at the black hole of the pistol's maw.

Neither boy spoke for a few long seconds. Cody studied the rough texture of the pistol's grip with his thumb while Zack stood there in shock. "You don't mean that," he finally managed to say.

"I do, Zack. I killed people tonight. Not zombies, but living, breathing people."

"They were trying to kill us, Cody!"

"I don't want to live in a world like this, Zack. I can't."

"This is what you wouldn't tell me the other morning, isn't it?"

"Mostly, yes. I hadn't given it as much thought then as I have now, but yeah. Basically."

"What about making it to the farm? What about waiting for Mom?"

Cody looked at him in a way that bordered on contempt. "Zack, think about it for a moment. Mom was in New York City. Millions of people lived there before the outbreak. Millions of zombies unlive there now. Do you honestly think she could have made her way out of there? Remember how the safe zone was overrun?"

"We made it out of Boston," Zack said defensively, sidestepping the question.

"Boston would just about fit in one of New York's boroughs, Zack."

"She didn't have to fight her way out of all five of them, just one."

"I can't do it," Cody said.

"You have to," Zack implored.

"Why?"

"Because if Mom didn't make it out, you're all I have left." Zack had made it through the conversation without so much as a hitch in his breath but the last sentence poured out with anguish. He looked up at Cody and saw that he'd gotten through. Zack rubbed a hand over his eyes and rubbed his tears on his leg.

"I'm only slowing you down."

"I don't care, Cody. We could stay right here in this house and I wouldn't care as long as you're here with me." Zack felt it was safe to walk to his brother's side and sit down now that Cody seemed to have stepped back from the edge. He put an arm around Cody's shoulders and pulled him into an embrace. "I mean it, Cody. One way or the other, I want you by my side until the very end. If we make it to the farm and find Mom, I want to find her with you. If we go down in a mob of zombies I want to go down with you by my side. Brothers until the end, right?"

Cody nodded and then realized his brother wouldn't be able to see it. Cody thumbed the gun's safety back on and put it in his brother's free hand. "Until the end." Zack squeezed him harder.

"That more like it."

"I'll try to change, Zack. I can't promise anything but I'll try."

"That's all I can ask."