Two days had gone by since the initial rescue. Three survivors had been saved.

There was Shannon, a medical assistant for the military.

- Dunn, a skater punk who was always quick with one-liners ; and Tex, a friendly trucker guy from Greenville.

Time passed by and the survivors got to know one and other pretty well. They spent a lot of time with each other, and, (except for a few bad seeds) they all became good friends.

An on-and-off storm had been raging down on Milwaukee for the last couple of days. But it didn't dampen the moods of the survivors.

Today, they were all in the recreation room. Tyler and Tricia were playing pool, while Craig, Dunn and Madison shot some hoops on the mini-basketball court. Tex, Craig and Shannon were all sitting around just chatting and playing cards. Eric though, was in the weight room, sparring with a punching bag.

Love was in the air as Tricia and Tyler grew closer together, and Craig and Marissa were always disappearing off to a bunker every now and then.

So for the most part, everything was going well. Except for one person in the group.. one person who made it a chore to try and creep everyone out.....

Billy almost never left his room. He would stay there all through the day and occasionally come out to grab some food from the cafeteria, before hurriedly heading back to his room.

The others kept away from him as much as possible.....

-----

Another day went by.....

Eric was on the rooftop again. He was throwing molotov cocktails over the ledge, past the walls, and watching as the bottles would crash against a zombie and light the monster's body on fire.

He was trying not to enjoy it... but failing.

"Nice hobby you've got there." said a voice from beside him.

Eric looked over to see Shannon standing there, wathcing him.

He gave her the look-over once before throwing another bottle off the roof.

Pretty cute, thought Eric. "What do you want?" he asked cooly.

At first, Shannon was a bit taken aback.

So far, everyone had been really nice to her, and she'd felt it was more of a pity thing because of what had happened to her brother. She didn't resent the others for being especially nice to her, she appreciated it.

But it looked like Eric didn't play the same tune.

"You know I've been here three days, and I haven't spoken to you once."

"That's to bad," said Eric, igniting another bottle.. He paused for a second and looked over to her. "I hear you've been in the control room a lot. If you ask me, it's a big waste of time."

"Why's that?"

Eric threw the bottle off the roof and a zombie screeched before dropping to the ground, covered in fire. Now that he was done, the soldier turned fully around to face her. "There's no help coming Shannon. My guess is the rest of the world is just as screwed up as it is here. ....... We're all that's left." Eric started to walk away.

Shannon hesitated at first, but then grabbed his arm and stopped him. "Wait.. there's something else I wanted to talk to you about."

"What?"

"You're the leader here right?"

"Hell no."- She might be hot, but she's starting to get annoying-

"Look, whatever, " said Shannon as she let go of his arm and took a step back, "It's about that Billy guy. When you found him, he was in a cell right?"

Eric nodded.

"Well, before the creatures first attacked the base. A woman, a soldier, was murdered. Three suspects were put into the holding quarters to be kept there until proper military personnel could interrogate them."

"So what?"

"So what? It means you could've let out a pyschopath."

"Yeah, well, then get your little pals and lynch that freak. Either way its not my problem."

After saying that, Eric walked off to the fire exit, leaving Shannon just standing there.

----------

Peace.

For the first time, in a long time, Madison actually had a sense of peace.

It might've been the cool waters against her skin, or it could've been the silence of the room. Either way, she felt good today.

Good enough to forget...

It was only yesterday that she found out this little base, a simple cadet training base for crying out loud, had a gigantic pool on the first floor. The waters were completely clean and a stark blue and she made a vow to come swim here everyday.

She did one more lap across the pool.

After she was done, she crawled back out onto the deck and then headed back to the locker room. It only took her a couple of minutes before she was dried and dressed and then heading back outside to the south wing corridor.

She was carrying her swim shorts in one hand, with a small duffle bag on the other. Her towel was wrapped around her shoulder.

"Madison....."

Madison nearly jumped 3 feet into the air. Her heart thumping in her chest, she turned to where the voice had come from.

It was Billy.

He was standing there, with the eeriest expression on his face. It was almost completely blank, except for his eyes, which had the strangest glint.

"Hi... Billy." said Madison, trying to stay polite.

She had caught that glint and suppressed a shiver as she turned away and started to dry her hair with the towel. "What's up?"

"Nothing, I just thought you'd maybe like to talk is all.," replied Billy

"I"m kind of sleepy right now... but hey, maybe tomorrow." She finished drying outher hair and then placed the towel in her duffle bag

"I heard what happened with your parents Madison... I'm very sorry."

"It's ok, don't worry about it," Madison started to walk in the other direction, but Billy just followed her down the hall.

"You know I lost somebody to.. somebody very important to me."

Hearing that, Madison stopped. She turned to face him.

No, she didn't like him. But those last words that had come out of his mouth........ well.. they had actually sounded sincere.

"I'm sorry..." started Madison.

"Oh, it's ok. See she used to be my friend. But to tell ya the truth... she was a cruel... cruel person.. she used to say really mean things to me... even though I thought she was my friend."

The glint lit up in Billy's eyes and Madison suppressed that same shiver again. "Oh," was all she could think of saying.

There was a momentary silence, and then Billy spoke again,"You're not cruel like that are you Madison?"

Madison didn't know what to say. She was about to just turn heel and walk away, when suddenly Dunn came out from around the hallway. At first, the skater thought something was wrong, due to the fact Billy was standing so close to Madison and she looked frightened.

Dunn quickly walked over to them.

"Yo, everything ok guys?" he asked

Billy ignored the skater's presence, and kept his eyes on Madison. Madison looked down. Then, with a grin, Billy walked off down the corridor, leaving the two alone.

"What was that all about?" asked a confused Dunn.

"Hell if I know." Madison breathed a sigh of relief and started to head back to her room.

--------

Billy slammed open the door to his quarters and then shut the door almost immediately after.

He sat down on his bed, which was covered in papers with weird drawings on them.

Beside from drawings, his room was covered in weird symbols that he had carved during his stay there. He knew that nobody was going to be coming into his room anytime so there was no point in concealing them.

See, Private Billy Burrell was one screwed up cookie.

He had been in the military ever since he was a little kid. He was known for being a loser, for being an outcast, a weirdo, and he actually prided in it. He had never had any real friends, since everyone around him decided to ignore him, or torment him.

Even here, the people ignored him, and there was even a bully, the so-called bad-ass Soldier that was always on everybody's case.

But then there was Madison. Madison wasn't like the others. She was nice to him. She actually spoke to him when he talked to her.

She's a nice person, she's not like that other girl back at the main base.... thought Billy

Billy took out a knife from one of the drawers in his room and used it to start carving another design on his wall......