If the walkie-talkie had been alive, Shawn would have strangled it to death by now. But it wasn't, so it sat quietly in his grip while he stared anxiously at the blank computer screen. He wasn't worried—he'd set up security cameras by himself tons of times, and he'd never run into any unmanageable danger—but being out of the loop tended to set him on edge.

He squeezed the button on the right side of the walkie. "Out there, Ames?"

"Obviously I'm out there, worrywart," came the static-ridden response of his roommate. "You need to chill. I can't set up this camera unless you stop calling me every few minutes."

"A few minutes is all it takes," Shawn retorted. He leaned back in his chair. She was fine. There was no reason she shouldn't be fine. The sun was out, the streets were clear, and Amy was getting better at defending herself.

Finally, Amy reached back out. "'Kay, now the camera's ready. Do your code stuff, hacker man."

Shawn almost chuckled, but instead he concentrated his efforts in the computer semantics needed to add this next security camera to their expanding collection of eyes in the sky.

He didn't even bother checking on Amy this time. If she got eaten, it was her fault for being rude to him.

The computer screen filled with live feed from security camera nine. Looking up at the camera stood Amy, a pair of pliers in one hand, a walkie-talkie in the other, and a baseball bat strapped to her back.

"Success!" Shawn radioed to Amy. "Thanks for doing that. You can head back if you want." She flipped him off, and he added, "Hey! I saw that!"

Amy lowered her hand as she raised her walkie-talkie to her lips. "Heading back now. And since I'm going to be biking, don't be surprised that I don't respond to my walkie."

"Okay, okay, I get it." Shawn finally set his walkie on the desk and watched the camera. Amy mounted the bike and pedaled away, disappearing out of frame.

Crazy how far she's come. That very first day they'd met, Shawn would never have considered sending Amy on solo missions, but look at what they'd orchestrated today. Everything had gone according to plan, and now she was on her way back.

When it came to learning about anything related to zombies, Amy had a one-track mind. Three days ago, when Shawn had mentioned setting up another camera in a residential area, Amy had demanded that Shawn explain every step of the process so that she'd be able to rewire it perfectly on the first try.

"I'm a parfait," she'd told him offhandedly once. "That's German for perfect."

Shawn had snorted and directed her to the dictionary he used as a paperweight.

She was adapting in a way not many people could. Take, for example, the afternoon when he'd explained the 'no deodorant' policy to her.

"The grime and grease masks your scent, makes it harder for them to track you," Shawn had explained.

"Makes it harder for me to live with you," Amy had snapped.

Although she'd argued and howled in protest, eventually, Amy had given in, muttering about the sacrifices she made to be the best at surviving the apocalypse. From there, she hadn't made a fuss about the 'no soap' policy, or the 'rub dirt on your clothes when you leave the bunker' policy.

Amy rarely smiled; her most common expression was a scowl, like it was a personal insult that she had to borrow his clothes (and that's how things would continue, because no way Josè was Shawn taking her to the mall to shop). After the first week, she'd stopped talking about how much she hated his clothes and started talking about other things, like martial arts and zombie-killing techniques and the qualities that made honey such a good apocalypse food.

She's pretty great, Shawn thought. It hadn't seemed so at the time, but he'd lucked out on that day they'd crossed paths.

With the bunker secure and the next meal not due for another few hours, Shawn settled himself at the table to wait for Amy's return. It was boring, but boredom was a blessing. It meant they were safe enough to allow themselves a few hours of leisure.

Shawn shifted in his chair. The apocalypse was bleak, but at least he and Amy had adjusted to it.

"What is the point of owning a van if you have to use a bicycle anyway?" Amy muttered as she pedaled down the lane. She and Shawn hadn't actually used the van since the day they met, which pissed Amy off to no end.

"'It draws too much attention,'" Amy continued, deepening her voice in a mockery of Shawn's. "'We need to save it for an emergency.' Cut me a break! That guy probably doesn't even have his driver's license."

"Shawn, Shawn, Shawn," she said. Despite how often she made fun of Shawn, she didn't hate him. Amy had hated a lot of people, like lepers and extended family and baristas who spelled her name wrong, but she tried not to think about any of them anymore, because they were all dead and she was still alive and kicking. She'd had the last laugh after all.

The handle of the baseball bat bumped against the back of her head, and Amy rolled her eyes. "Gee, wow, I sure do love the concussion this thing is going to give me! Any day now, I'm going to get disabled by my own weapon."

She didn't shout, she only mumbled. That way, she could keep herself entertained without entertaining a horde of zombies as well. The constant chatter kept her sane.

"Isn't it crazy," Amy said to no one, "how often I talk to myself? I sound like a lunatic at this point. At least Shawn hasn't said anything about it. He is in no place to judge me."

She smelled them before she saw them, the decaying carcasses lying on the street up ahead. The odor of rotting flesh assaulted her nostrils and Amy wished that she'd brought a clothespin to pinch her nose. Thinking quickly, Amy turned onto a new street. Better a detour than a reminder of how foul this whole situation really was.

Sure, it was a zombie apocalypse, but Amy left the bunker so rarely—and only in the daytime—that she hadn't seen zombies up close since the incident that had forced her out of the British Columbia in the first place. She didn't like to think about it.

"So don't think about it," Amy said aloud. "'Kay, first order of business, security camera has been installed. Second order of business is to find makeup." That was part of the reason why she'd insisted on going out alone today. Without Shawn's constant nagging that makeup was a waste of time, she could swipe some.

She and Shawn worked well together. Like last week, they'd gone into an old convenience store to grab more supplies. He'd stayed near the front, acting as lookout, while she'd grabbed a backpack for herself and dumped supplies in. And then a few days later, when she'd spotted the bicycle, Shawn had managed to ride it back to the bunker even with Amy precariously balanced on the top tube between him and the handlebars. That took some serious skill.

His one obnoxious flaw was that he refused to scavenge for anything that was necessary to survival. During their convenience store raid, Amy hadn't seen him take even an extra candy bar for himself. It grated on her nerves. What was the harm in makeup or new clothes or even a freaking soap bar?

Amy kept a sharp eye on the houses she passed, looking for one that was ripe for looting. Most zombies, Shawn had told her, stayed in the dense part of the town, so out here in the suburbs the danger was lower. It always paid to be watchful, though.

Finally she spotted one at the very end of the street: a pretty two-story house with a balcony. And across from the balcony, literally a meter away, was a tree house.

"Bingo," Amy murmured. She propped her bike on the edge of the property and climbed up. The good thing about wearing Shawn's old jeans was that they'd been broken in already, and the climb wasn't too hard.

"Thank you to whatever middle-aged dad built this thing," she wheezed as she reached the entrance of the treehouse. "Hope you escaped before your children were eaten by zombies."

According to Shawn, it was better to start with the high ground and work your way down. That's why jumping from the treehouse to the open balcony was a stroke of genius on her part.

Before she made the leap, Amy surveyed the treehouse. Half-melted crayons had oozed into the cracks in the floorboards. Children's books were stacked against the wall. Yellowed magazines and papers gathered dust on the floor. Amy picked one up. It was a crayon drawing of two small girls holding hands.

Her breath caught in her throat, and Amy's hands shook as she crumpled up the drawing and threw it out the window. "Really crappy art, anyway. Using yellow as a skin tone is so kindergarten."

The jump from the tree house to the balcony was easy for a cheer captain, even if Amy didn't have time to practice anymore. Thanks to Mr. Shawn "I hide in a bunker" Hobo Man, she didn't get out often. Sure, they'd started sparring upstairs, above the bunker, but whacking chairs with a baseball bat was different from performing the splits.

"Flawless," she sing-songed after landing on the balcony. "As usual."

Amy crept through the house, baseball at the ready. She didn't dare whisper her thoughts aloud. If there's makeup anywhere in this house, it'll be in the master bedroom.

All the doors on the top floor were ajar, so the search was quick. It was at the end of the hall, all the furniture matching shades of grey and cream. The vanity was colored the latter, and Amy pulled open its drawers. Here were some used lipsticks, more on the neutral side than what she usually preferred.

No time to be picky. Amy pocketed a reddish one, then several compacts at random. And since her pockets were full, she snatched an eyeliner stick and shoved it down her shirt.

"Shawn is not gonna recognize me when I fix my makeup," she murmured. She could picture the scene: he'd be annoyed at first, but it would be followed by a begrudging compliment because she was Amy and she deserved one.

She had the sudden urge to check the mirror. "Keep my head down," Amy muttered. She'd decided she hated mirrors, which only reminded her of how far she'd fallen. She didn't need confirmation of her sunken eye bags or her windstorm hair.

There was a tug on her ponytail.

Amy whirled around to see a female zombie reaching for her gorgeous hair. Her scream caught in her throat and the memory of that day almost blinded her. Nevermind makeup. Her primary goal came screaming back: to survive. With a war cry, Amy swung her bat around. The zombie's head squelched at the force, but Amy didn't stop there. She beat at it until it collapsed on the ground. Amy's chest heaved as she stared at the mangled body, green-tinted and speckled with sores.

She couldn't stay. Amy sprinted out and didn't stop until she was out of the house and on the bike. If more had been attracted by the altercation, she didn't see them.

"I was so smart to bring this along," Amy said as she pedaled away.

Despite her chatter, by the time Amy arrived at the bunker, she'd spent too long thinking about that zombie. Squelch. Its greasy falling-out hair. Squelch. The bloodstained blouse it wore. Squelch. Had that zombie been the very woman whose makeup Amy had stolen? Or was it some other unfortunate soul that had made a home in the closet?

"Stop it." Amy touched her pockets. "You got what you came for."

After taking another minute or so to fix herself, Amy went inside. Shawn had entered her into the system weeks ago, and she bypassed the retina scanner with ease. The entryway registered her at two point six percent, below the threshold. Amy descended into the bunker and found Shawn at the desk, fiddling with the rest of the walkie talkies.

"Hey, you're back," he said. "Took longer than I expected."

"I ran into a walker," Amy said nonchalantly.

Immediately Shawn stood and crossed the room, anxiety in his grey eyes. "You good? No bites?"

"No bites," she confirmed, staring up at him. Shawn wasn't super tall, but he still had a few inches on her. Amy didn't think about it often. "I'm gonna make dinner, okay?"

"Really," said Shawn.

Amy matched his tone. "Yes, really." She hadn't volunteered to cook dinner yet. But hopefully it would take her mind off that nasty, ugly zombie. As an added bonus, she'd be able to prove she'd been paying attention the past three times Shawn had explained how to cook rice.

As Shawn returned to the other side of the room, Amy bent to retrieve a pot from the drawers. As stealthily as possible, she set the makeup aside. Tomorrow she'd wear it, but for tonight, in the pot cabinet it would stay.

While Amy slaved over dinner in the kitchenette, Shawn worked through a crossword puzzle. They helped keep his mind sharp, but maybe Shawn should have stocked up on sudoku games instead. In a post apocalyptic world, some answers were lost forever.

Imprisoned reality host? Shawn squinted at 9 Across. He hadn't paid attention to reality TV even when he had the chance. How was he supposed to fill this in without Internet connection?

Shawn glanced up at his roommate. "Hey, Amy. Do you remember any TV show hosts that went to jail?"

"Reality TV was for losers that didn't have anything going on in their own boring lives." Amy flipped her ponytail as she glanced over her shoulder. "My—this girl on my cheer team wouldn't shut up about it, though. Only names I remember are McLean or O'Halloran."

The row was six letters long. "McLean fits." Shawn penciled it in.

"Um, you're welcome?"

"Right, right, thanks." With that solved, Shawn continued working. Amy helped him answer a few more pop culture answers, but even some were beyond her. By the time she announced dinner was ready, Shawn had just over three quarters of the puzzle solved.

"What's on the menu?" Shawn asked as he sat down at the table.

"Rice with honey."

Huh? Shawn squinted at the two steaming bowls of rice Amy set down before them. Sure enough, she'd drizzled honey over the top.

In his crossword, 14 Down was seven letters, its clue 'puzzle.' The answer had been the word 'flummox', which was the only way Shawn could describe himself at the moment.

"That sure is… something," he said, sticking a fork into his rice. He considered waiting to eat until Amy had taken her first bite. What if she was trying to poison him? Honey? In rice? Who did that?

"We have the same stuff every day," Amy said, as if this made perfect sense. "I thought I'd try to make dinner fancy for once."

"Dinner doesn't have to be fancy, it just needs to be edible," Shawn pointed out.

"Well excuse me for putting some thought into it." Amy shot him a dirty look before stuffing a forkful of rice into her mouth. Reluctantly, Shawn did as well.

It tasted about as bad as he expected. Honey had never been his favorite—he preferred caffeine to sweets, and he'd only stashed it away because of its nonperishable reputation—and the way it seeped into the rice did not sit right with him.

He was going to eat every single bite, though. Food was food.

"Well? How ya liking it?" Shawn asked. Lately their dinners had included more conversations instead of just silent eating.

"It is great. So glad I thought of this." Amy grinned from ear-to-ear before taking another bite.

That means she hates it. There was something so comical about her adamant denial that Shawn couldn't help but laugh.

Wrong move, because suddenly Amy was glaring at him. "What is your problem? I'm just trying to put some flavor in our super lame lives, and you're mocking my rice?"

"Dude, I know you tried, but it's horrible!" Shawn shook his head, but he kept a smile on his face so she'd recognize that he was kidding around. "In the future, I'm sticking to plain rice. You can keep using honey if you want, though."

Amy stirred her rice. Her expression had softened from a scowl to a frown. "Maybe I could stop by a Chinatown market and find some sauces. That'd be much better than honey. Does this town even have a Chinatown?"

They didn't, but Shawn didn't tell her that. "We don't need to do that. It's not essential to survival?"

"And your crossword puzzles are?"

"I stashed the puzzles away long before the apocalypse arrived," Shawn said. "Leaving just to find a sauce, a luxury, is risky. And you know it!"

"You really don't appreciate the finer things in life."

"There aren't any finer things anymore, Amy."

She rolled her eyes, but that shut her up. Shawn knew he was right. Until they got found out, or until some divine intervention obliterated the zombie virus, this was life. Rice and crossword puzzles. Beans and security cameras.

Shawn stuck another bite of rice in his mouth.

Amy was used to being mad all the time. Before the zombie apocalypse, she'd harbored grudges for months, even years. She'd made sure everyone in school knew she was pissed, because when she was angry, nothing else mattered.

But considering Shawn was the only person she'd seen in a month, it was hard to stay mad at him. He pissed her off all the time, and she knew she probably did the same to him. But Amy couldn't stay mad.

Funny how that worked. You'd think that being cooped up like this would make her hate the guy. But nope: she literally couldn't afford to hold grudges anymore. When she yelled at Shawn, she was yelling at the unfairness of it all, not the guy himself.

Shawn offered to wash their bowls after dinner, and Amy immediately forgave him for his earlier rudeness. She took the opportunity to change into her pajamas and unwind on the couch. Layered in Shawn's t-shirts and sweats, Amy curled up with an outdated magazine from five years ago. The fashion and articles were a time machine. She was right back in high school, planning out her next shopping trip before she headed out to cheer practice. Damn.

"I didn't peak in high school did I?" Amy murmured, letting her gaze drift from one tanned model to the next. "I'm living with a hobo now, so maybe I did."

"Did you say something?" Shawn called.

"Nope!" Amy yelled.

She lay on her back, holding the magazine high above her head. Why did Shawn have these, anyway? Magazines didn't seem like something he'd be interested in. She wasn't gonna ask, though. Amy didn't dare invite questions about her own past by asking about his.

Eventually, Shawn finished with the dishes and sat down beside her. Amy twisted her head back to watch him brush aside papers on the coffee table and set down in their place a bunch of new papers.

"Earth to Shawn, what the heck are you doing?"

"Memorizing maps of the surrounding areas," Shawn answered.

Hmm. Amy wanted to be useful. And not just useful, either; she wanted to be the best. She wanted to memorize maps and be the best at surviving the apocalypse just as badly as she wanted to breathe.

"Okay," she said, flinging the magazine aside, "give me something."

"What, is that magazine not enough for you? Try finishing my crossword puzzle."

"No, nincompoop, give me an assignment. I need to learn about something."

A flicker of a smile passed across Shawn's face. "Okay, uh. Wounds. What do you know about first aid?"

"A little bit." Cheerleading had been a serious business.

"Cool. You get a medical textbook tonight."

Shawn hauled one over from his bookshelf alcove, and Amy busied herself with learning. Cauterizing wounds, stopping bleeding, disinfecting cuts, constructing splints. She had to admit, this was all pretty useful stuff.

The textbook was heavier than the magazine. Instead of holding it above her head, she balanced it on her stomach. Somehow, her head bumped against Shawn's thigh. Amy looked up. "Excuse you?"

"I'm excused," Shawn said without looking away from his maps.

After skimming a chapter about identifying bite marks—the animal kind, not the zombie kind—Amy asked, "Do you miss listening to music? I mean, you've got all these band shirts shoved under your bed, so…"

"I haven't really listened to any of them since high school," Shawn answered absent-mindedly. "Punk rock kept me awake while I was doing my research, but after I graduated I just… stopped."

"Mmm." Amy flipped to the next chapter. What had Shawn been like in high school? Just as dirty and run-down as he seemed now? When had the zombie obsession started? When he'd explained everything to her the very first night, he'd only talked about the facts of the outbreak, not why the hell he'd decided to become an expert on all things zombie.

No questions about the before, Amy reminded herself. She glanced up at him again. From this angle, she was treated to a view of Shawn's square jawline, which was actually really nicely shaped. As usual, he hadn't shaved in days, and the stubble was coming along nicely.

Amy looked back at the textbook before he noticed her eyes on him.

Shawn's sleep schedule was screwed. No matter what, without fail his internal clock jolted him awake at six in the morning. In this case, the 'no matter what' was that he'd fallen asleep on the couch beside Amy.

That's a first, Shawn thought as he came to his senses. The couch was where Amy slept; why hadn't she kicked him off when he'd dozed? The maps he'd been studying were splayed on the coffee table, right where he'd left them. Amy was snoozing right beside him, right where he'd left her.

Shawn shifted to look at her. She'd turned onto her side, the medical textbook knocked to the floor. Amy was snoring softly, her thumb pressed up against her lip. He'd noticed that she did that occasionally. Since Shawn had never brought up the habit in conversation, he could only assume that thumb sucking was some childhood coping mechanism that had resurfaced in response to current events.

The snoring and the thumb sucking might've been annoying, but to Shawn it was a reminder they were alive. They hadn't been attacked by zombies in the night, and they were still humans with quirks, flaws, and the ability to piss each other off.

I have been staring at her for way too long. Another first. Shawn slid off the couch as quietly as he could. Amy would be awake within the hour, but if he woke her up he wouldn't hear the end of it for the rest of the day. He ran through his morning routine: checking the security feed for anomalies, changing in the bathroom, and warming up for his martial arts practice in the house upstairs.

When Shawn had gotten a decent workout in, he left his old living room and returned to the bunker below. Amy was sitting at the table, still in her pajamas, eating a granola bar.

"Hey," he said as he headed to the pantry alcove for a granola bar of his home.

"Your martial arts woke me up," Amy said.

"What?" Shawn's brow furrowed. "You know how fortified this bunker is. No way could you hear me from down here."

Amy shrugged. "You can't prove I didn't."

She was definitely full of it, but he played along anyway. "You're right. My mistake, your majesty, I'll be extra careful next time I practice defending your life."

"That's more like it," she said, standing up. On her way to the bathroom, Amy brushed past him unnecessarily. He rubbed his shoulder after she'd passed by. Weird.

There were no outings scheduled for today. Shawn's plan was to alternate between watching security cameras and solving crossword puzzles. Maybe he'd do some more sparring with Amy if she suggested it.

Amy slammed the bathroom door behind her as she exited. Shawn looked up to tell her not to do that, but the words died in his mouth. Amy was wearing his jeans with her halter top. He hadn't seen her wear it since the first day. Even stranger than that was the fact there was makeup on her face. Her eyelids were lined with black, her cheeks were colored, and her lips were shiny.

"That's new," he said. It wasn't like he was mad, but now he was wondering if this was the reason she'd run into a shuffler yesterday. She was late getting back because she stopped for this junk?

"Thanks," Amy said, sitting down on the couch.

Shawn couldn't help himself. "Remember when I explained why leaving so much skin exposed is dangerous?"

Amy tilted her head and her nostrils flared. "Shawn, literally I'm not leaving the bunker for another three days. Let me live a little, will you?"

When Amy's idea of living got her attacked by a zombie, it was hard to be in support of it. Shawn turned back to the monitors. This whole thing would blow over by dinner time like it always did.

The security cameras were slow today. It was morning, so there were practically no zombies on the cameras. Shawn swapped to crossword puzzles. He looked over at Amy every so often; she never met his glance. What had she been thinking? Was it really that important to look nice? Was she off in some fantasy land, deluding herself that everything was okay as long as she had powder on her face?

Cut her some slack. She has a point that we're not leaving today. Shawn rolled his eyes and continued working.

Maybe an hour before lunchtime, movement on the security cameras caught his eye. Shawn set down his crosswords to take a closer look. What he saw made his eyebrows raise and his heart skip a beat.

"Welp, looks like we're leaving the bunker today after all." He felt some smug satisfaction at the fact Amy would need to change into an actual t-shirt after all.

"Why?" Amy demanded.

He pointed, and she came to look over his shoulder. On the feed of camera nine, the very one she'd installed yesterday, three people were walking along the road. Two looked fine, but the third appeared to be injured.

"Van or bike?" Amy asked.

Shawn nodded slowly. "I think it's time for the van."