"What do you mean you don't know? The way these two made it sound," Connor said, waving his hand at Danny and Carlos, "you were the brains of the outfit. Now you don't know what to do? Just fucking great."

Aaron sighed. "It's not like I can snap my fingers and come up with the next great plan for staying alive. There's a lot to look at and plan for. For example, we're not going to be able to stay here forever. We need to find somewhere more secure and more long term."

"What's wrong with here?" Pat asked.

"Nothing right now. But what happens when we run out of food? What happens if we hook up with more people? We need something bigger. Something that'll give us room to expand."

"Yeah, like what?" Connor asked. "With all those dead things out there, you're gonna need a castle or something."

"Well, if you know one we can get to by boat, you can be the hero, how's that?"

"What if it's not a castle?" Carlos asked.

"Huh?" Aaron asked.

"I mean, what if I know somewhere that's got a big ass wall? It's got lots of room and it's right on the river with its own marina and private dock for the casino cruise boats," he answered.

"Don't dick with me, Carlos," Aaron said. "Just spit it out."

"Well, I work construction. We just finished on those Riverview Condos a couple of months ago, up by 5th Street. It's some really pricey shit and it's not in the best neighborhood so they wanted it secure. The walls are like ten feet tall and the two gates are strong enough that when Dave hit one with the truck it didn't move. It was pretty funny; Dave busted his nose on the steering wheel."

Aaron thought about it. He knew the condos Carlos was talking about. He'd read something in the paper about them being too expensive and they were having trouble getting people to buy. There would be plenty of room for everyone and then some. It might not be a castle, it might actually be better.

"I want to check it out, but not today. It's getting dark anyway," he said. "Pat, I'd like you to run me and Carlos up there tomorrow. We can check it out and if it looks good, we might be out of your hair."

"Oh, isn't that nice of you?" Connor asked. "You'll get out of our hair after eating our food and borrowing our boat. Are you planning on leaving us anything at all?"

"We'll compensate you. After we get situated at Riverview or wherever we wind up," Aaron said.

"If we live that long," Connor said, storming out of the room.

"Maybe you should hit him again," Shannon suggested. "I know I enjoyed that."

"Don't tempt me," Aaron said.

"Shouldn't you be sleeping?" Lisa asked, sitting down next to Paul. Most of the rest of the crew had passed out all over the living room. Aaron had them sleeping in shifts to keep an eye on things.

Paul shrugged and said, "Can't. I'm too scared of what I'm going to dream about."

Lisa patted his arm and said, "I know the feeling."

"Listen," Paul said, "I didn't get a chance to thank you for getting my ass off the boat earlier. I guess I was pretty bad there for a while."

"Yeah, you were. Had us all a little worried. I know Aaron's glad to have you back."

Paul looked away from her and said, "I don't know why. All I seem to be good at is fucking things up."

"Knock that off," she said, grabbing his chin and making him look into her eyes. "Some bad stuff happened at Big 5. You couldn't be awake and everywhere twenty-four hours a day. You're only human."

She let go of his chin and shook her head. "No wonder he and you get along so well. You're exactly alike."

"What do you mean?" He asked.

"You both blame yourselves for everything that goes wrong. Even the stuff you couldn't possibly have done anything about. It's cute but it's stupid and you both need to stop doing it."

Paul thought about it for a moment and said, "So, essentially, you're saying I'm cute."

Lisa rolled her eyes and smiled. "Delusional too. Now get some rest, Romeo."

Paul smiled for the first time in, what felt like, forever. A little flirting to take the mind off of how fucked up the world was. It helped that Lisa was blonde and nice on the eyes. Very nice on the eyes.

Connor eased the door closed and whispered, "Okay, she went back downstairs."

The four teens had decided to sleep together in Pat's room. Shannon wasn't happy about it and had made her opinion very clear to everyone. Connor had bitten his tongue to not bite her head off and his patience had, finally, been rewarded.

"We need to be ready to get out of here before they wake up in the morning," he said.

"Oh God, this shit again?" Shannon asked.

"It's not shit," Connor hissed. "What do you think they're going to do to us once we give them everything they want? You think they're really just gonna say goodbye and call it good?"

"Yes, I do," Shannon answered. "What do they gain by killing us, dumbass?"

"Everything! The house, the truck, the cars, the boat and all of our goddamn food, you stupid bitch!" He snapped.

Pat stepped between the two and held his arms up to keep them apart. "Connor, just calm down. You too, Shannon. Why can't you two be civil for two minutes?"

"Cause she's a bitch," Connor answered.

"He's a fucking idiot," she said.

Pat sighed and said, "Let's just hear Connor out, okay? I'm really tired and want to get some sleep this year."

"Thank you, Pat," Connor said, glaring at Shannon. "I think we should get the hell out of here first thing in the morning. Grab some food and water and take you dad's truck and head to my place."

"Why your place?" Sherry asked. "My place is bigger."

"You just want to see if your parents are there," Connor said. "And we can do that too. But my place is on the river and they said those things out there don't like water so we should go to my place."

"That's stupid," Shannon said. "So what if your place is on the river? You don't have a boat."

"One of my neighbors should," he said. "We can just take break into their place and get the keys for it."

Shannon laughed and said, "So you don't trust them but you'll do all of the stuff they've already done and believe them that zombies don't like water? You're just a freaking genius, Connor."

"If you're so smart, what's your plan, bitch?" Connor snapped.

"Duh! I'm staying with them."

"Shannon!" Sherry cried. "You can't! We have to stay together. Please stay with us!"

Shannon walked over and sat down with Sherry. "We're going to stay together, sweetie. All of us are going to stay with Aaron's group. They've been out in this and know what they're doing."

Connor barked a laugh. "You believe their stupid story? For all we know they made the whole thing up."

"This from the guy basing his whole plan around that same stupid story," Shannon bit back.

"Enough," Pat said. "I'm not going to sit here and listen to you two fight all night. Let's get some rest and see what happens in the morning."

Connor stared open-mouthed at his friend. "You're going to do everything they want, aren't you?"

Pat turned to his friend and said, "Connor, I just think we shouldn't rock the boat. They haven't done anything to hurt us and I really don't think they're going to unless we do something stupid…."

"Oh! So now you're saying I'm stupid too," Connor interrupted. "Thanks a lot,buddy. Nice to see how good a friend you really are."

Connor stomped toward the door. Pat grabbed his arm to stop him but Connor jerked away.

"Don't fucking touch me!" He yelled. "Just stay the fuck away from me."

He yanked the door open and stormed out of the room. He knew Shannon wasn't going to go along with him. Not after she had been drooling over Aaron all afternoon. He just couldn't believe Pat wasn't going to either. So much for ten years of friendship.

If they weren't going to listen then fuck 'em. He'd save his own ass and to hell with the rest of them.