(Obligatory disclaimer: This is for fun, the characters are not mine, I wish they were, everything is owned by, unfortunately, not me, except this story.)

Dawn to Dawn

Chapter 2

Peter lowered the gun slowly. "Good answer." He said. The woman in front of him shrugged a little as she lowered her arms.

"Its one I've had to give before."

"You alone here?" He knew there was at least one other person, but the question more of a test than anything else. They had fought to keep their haven within the mall – he fully expected this woman and her companions to be ready to do the same.

"No," she said. "There's fourteen of us. Fifteen, if you count Andy across the street."

Peter and Fran shared a quick look. Fourteen. They hadn't expected nearly so many. "So I'm guessing you've got this place secured."

"As best as possible, yeah. We've been here a while." The woman looked him up and down. "I guess the next logical question is where did you come from, then? If we do have this place secured, and I think we pretty well do, then I'm more than a little curious as to how you got in."

"The roof. We have a helicopter." He hurried on at the look of almost desperate hope that came into her eyes. "Not to disappoint you or anything, but it's nearly out of fuel. We're not a rescue squad."

"Oh." Her shoulders fell. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised, huh. I don't know many military rescue squads manned by one man and a pregnant lady."

"Sorry." Peter didn't know why he was apologizing, but he was genuinely sorry he had to disappoint this woman.

"Not your fault." The blonde smiled thinly. "I'm Anna."

"Nice to meet you, Anna. It's been a while since we've seen anyone else – alive, that is."

"Thanks."

"Fran." Fran said at Anna's look in her direction. "Nice to meet you."

"You too." Anna headed back behind the counter. "A couple of the guys went to go restore the power – the generator went out. You'd probably better wait here until they get it back on. Not that it isn't great to see a few new faces, but they don't know you – and most of us keep a gun on us all the time. I can make you a coffee or something…or get you something to eat. We can do introductions when the lights are back on and the rest of us are back."

"Good idea." Peter found himself warming to this woman, who obviously had a head on her shoulders. That was good. "Food sounds great."

"It sounds heavenly." Fran agreed with a sigh. "We've been eating out of cans – cold – for three days. Not to complain or anything, but I'd love a hot meal. Warm would do it, even."

Anna smiled at her, a genuine smile that for some reason surprised Peter. "I think we can manage hot. I –" a gunshot cut her off. Anna looked up sharply, and Peter and Fran both instinctively raised their weapons. Several more shots were fired. In a flash Anna had burst into a run, heading towards the sound. Peter and Fran followed.

"Anna? What was that?" A young man came running towards them, followed others. He nearly came to a stop at seeing Peter and Fran. "And who are they?"

"No time for questions!" Anna ordered as she headed into a store that advertised the word Carousel over it. Again he felt himself liking this woman. She was practical.

"Norma? Norma!" Anna dropped to the ground beside an older woman who would have looked like a friendly retired gym teacher if it hadn't been for the gunshot holes that had bloomed in her chest.

"Bastard…shot me." The woman said in a voice that bubbled, and Peter coldly determined she was already dead. There was blood in her lungs, and unless they had a fully staffed emergency room available to them – which they obviously didn't – she didn't have a whisper of a chance. His trained eye told him that she probably wouldn't have, anyways. Immediately he dismissed her and his eyes searched the room.

"Peter." Fran said in a small voice. "What the hell happened here?"

"She's dead." Anna announced, standing. The young man drew his gun. "Terry, no."

"She's gonna get up, though, right?"

"I don't think so. She was killed by a gunshot. She wasn't bitten."

Peter had already begun to walk to the bed. The horrific sight may not have affected his features, as he had already trained himself to mask his emotions, but he felt a wave of terror nonetheless. A young black man lay horizontally across the bed, legs dangling. In his arms he held something wrapped in a pink blanket. Beneath him laid the body of a woman, her head shot clean through. She had been bound hands and feet to the bed, and a leather gag was in her mouth.

"Terry, hold this." Anna said, handing over the flashlight to the young man behind her. She started to pass by him, and a flash of unreasoning anger overcame Peter. He grabbed her arm roughly. Someone behind him – his guess was the redhead, though the blonde didn't look all that tough either – made a frightened whimper.

"What the hell is this?" He growled at her. "You strapped one of those things to the bed? What kind of sick fuckers are you?"

Anna looked up at him calmly, her gaze direct. "The kind of sick fuckers who didn't have a clue about this. And you can take your hands off of me. Trust me, after what I've been through, what we've all been through, you're the least frightening thing I've seen in days."

Peter released her with some surprise. She hadn't even seemed touched. But how could they have not known about this? Why in God's name had they let it get to this point?

"Oh my god, Peter…she was pregnant." Fran's voice carried a stunned horror in it. He had already deduced that and communicated it with a short nod.

Anna stepped up to the dead man and carefully began to move the pink blanket. Peter wished Fran wasn't here to see this, but he knew better than to try and tell her to leave. The face that was slowly revealed was not the healthy pink of a human newborn, but gray, ashen and lifeless – almost. A moment after it's face was revealed the dead child began to scream. The sound was chilling, all the more so because the tiny mouth it came from should have never made such a sound.

"Oh, god." Anna breathed. This had definitely cut through her apparent armor. Peter shifted his gun and started to take a step forward. She wasn't going to be able to do this.

He was wrong about that, though. His forward momentum stopped before it had ever really began as Anna began to raise her gun. "Fran." He said, turning her away from the sight. She let him. That was no surprise. Peter wished he could turn away too, but a certain sick fascination compelled him to watch.

The single gunshot reverberated through the halls of the mall, seeming to make the sound much longer than it was. The child's head was gone – obliterated by the weapon. Fran sobbed behind him, and he glanced to make sure she was still turned away. She was. One of the girls – the redhead – began to cry.

A moment passed. "Lets get out of here." Anna said, her voice breaking the silence. "We can take care of the bodies when the guys get back." There was an unspoken addendum to her words. Though she didn't say them, they hovered in the air anyways, like black balloons filled with deadly gas instead of helium.

If they get back.

OoooOoooO

"I let Bart die."

Michael looked at CJ in some surprise. The man's voice had sounded almost regretful. He felt a sudden cruel impulse to remind CJ of his words on the roof. I'll kill all of you if I have to. But Michael wasn't a cruel man. "He was dead the moment that thing fell on him. There's nothing any of us could have done."

CJ glared at him. "I know that, asshole. But he was my responsibility. If I'd had to kill him, well, then I would have, but leaving him to be eaten by those fuckers is an entirely different thing. I shoulda shot him. That's all I meant."

Michael ran his fingers through his hair wearily. He should have known CJ would stay true to form. "Fine. Forgive me for thinking you might have a human emotion or two still living in that thing you laughingly call a heart."

They were in the stairwell, nearly to the door. CJ grabbed Michael roughly by the shoulder and spun him around so hard Michael nearly lost his footing on the stairs. Higher up the steps, Kenneth stopped and raised his gun. "Better not, man." He said to CJ, his deep voice carrying a command in it that Michael wished he had. CJ ignored him.

"You think you're the only one who's got problems?" The anger on CJ's face seemed to be almost a living thing, and Michael felt a surge of real fear. "The only one who's lost someone? Well, fuck you. All of you might hate me and think that I'm just a piece of shit security guard with a fucking dirty mouth, but I had a life before this, too. I had kids. I didn't get to see them often, 'cause of the bastard lawyer my ex-wife hired, but I had 'em. Two girls. And it drives me fucking apeshit to think that they became some fucking corpses' breakfast and are probably trying to have a cannibal sandwich right now, too. But I can't do anything about it. And all the shoulders to cry on in the world ain't gonna change that. I'd be stupid not to try as damned hard as I can to stay alive. If it comes to me or you, I'm gonna choose me, 'cause I don't wanna fucking die! But I'm sick of you goddamn hypocrites who seem to think that you wouldn't do the same damn thing. This is about survival, not group therapy. You can lock me up till fucking judgment day – oh, wait, too late – but the truth is, if you had to, you'd put a gun in my face and pull the fucking trigger as quick as I would."

Again Michael nearly lost his balance as CJ released him. Kenneth still had the gun trained on him. CJ looked up at him with a twisted smile on his face. "You gonna shoot me now, shitface? I wasn't lying, was I."? He held up his hands in a mock gesture of surrender. "Might be easier if you didn't have to deal with me anyways, right? Save the food, at least."

"Don't think I'm not tempted." Kenneth said, the gun still steady in his hands.

"I know you are. Hell, I wanted to shoot you the second I saw you on the monitors. But that was me, not one of you pansy-asses. So watcha gonna do, you bleeding heart piece of shit? Whatcha gonna do?"

"How about getting you out of the security office?" Michael heard himself say.

"What?" CJ said in shock.

"What?" Kenneth echoed in the same tone.

"Yeah." Michael said. He looked at CJ for a moment. CJ had been a father. Somehow that made Michael feel a little closer to the man…not that he wanted to explore that feeling, but CJ had somehow become a cookie-cutter jackass to him. He had nearly forgotten that he was still human – and that was a commodity that was becoming rare. "You have a point. Survival. You can't very well help us if you're locked up in a cell. And I wouldn't mind someone who wouldn't hesitate to shoot me if I turned into one of those things that just killed Bart." Michael smiled humorlessly at CJ. "Let's just say you wait until I do before sticking a gun in my face again, all right?"

A moment passed. "You serious, man?" CJ finally asked.

"Completely serious." Michael said. "Out of the cell, just another part of the group. There are plenty of opportunities to die out there, but the ones that have to do with living are drying up fast. Any help's appreciated." He cocked his head. "So? Deal?"

CJ was silent for a moment, and then barked a harsh laugh. "Shit, yeah, it's a deal! If I'd've known, I'd have offered to shoot you days ago!"

"Like I said, wait until you're sure I'm one of them." Michael said with a small smile.

"So I get my gun back, right?"

Michael exchanged a quick look with Kenneth. The big man shook his head slightly. "Sure." Michael said, ignoring the stony stare Kenneth directed his way. "Can't very well shoot me without one."

"Good fucking deal! You're not half bad, Mikey." CJ punched him on the shoulder lightly.

Michael just kept that small half-smile on his face. "Don't call me Mikey, okay?"

"Sure, whatever."

CJ had already started up the stairs, whistling as he passed Kenneth, a slight smirk on his face. Kenneth looked down at Michael. "What the hell are you thinking, Michael? You really wanna give that bastard a gun?"

"Survival." Michael reminded him. "And really, we're probably not going to live real long anyways. I don't want to have a man's last days be trapped in a mall security holding cell."

"But why the hell do you want to give him a gun? That's just fucking stupid."

Michael shrugged. "He's lunch if it comes down to it and he doesn't have one."

"I don't like it."

"Sorry."

"You assholes coming or what?" CJ called from the door.

"Yeah." Michael answered. Kenneth's eyes bored into his a moment more, then they started up the stairs.

Michael wasn't really sure he had made the right decision, but CJ's will to live would make him fight those things like a demon, he was sure. And they already outnumbered them thousands to one. Another person could only help.

He just hoped the others would see it that way.

OoooOoooO

"You okay?"

Fran glared at the other blonde woman. "Are you okay?"

"Not really." Anna said simply, not seeming to take offense. This killed the small spark of anger that had prompted Fran's attitude.

"Sorry, I-"

"No need to apologize." Anna offered her a small smile. "Totally understandable."

They were sitting at Hallowed Grounds with the others. The power had come back on mere minutes after the sound of gunshots, so they knew at least the guys –Bart, Michael, Kenneth and CJ – had made it to the generator intact. The return trip was still in question, though. Anna had given her and Peter the rundown on the Crossroads mall crew, although Fran couldn't remember which man was Tucker and which was Glen for some reason. Names would come in time.

Peter was sitting with stony stillness. He'd barely said a word since his outburst in Carousel. Fran herself tended to believe this Anna – she didn't seem to be lying, and the others seemed just as stunned with the events of the last hour as she had been. But she agreed with him on the point of how they could have not known about it. How on earth could that man and his wife had hidden it?

"How far along are you?"

Fran looked at Anna in surprise. "Excuse me?"

"Your pregnancy. It's not exactly a secret, you know." Anna held up one hand. "I'm not trying to pry, and I'm not going to ask to rub your stomach or anything. I'm a nurse. I guess you could say I'm the Crossroads doctor, now. Or the closest thing to one."

Knots of tension she hadn't even known she had been carrying suddenly loosened. Fran had tried hard not to think about how she would handle the birth without medical facilities. People had been having babies for hundreds of years without hospitals, but she felt a large comfort that at least she'd have one trained medical professional to assist her birth.

If she lived that long, that is.

"Six months," Fran said.

Anna nodded thoughtfully. "That's good. You having any problems? Morning sickness or anything?"

"The morning sickness was pretty bad, but its passed. Otherwise I feel like a bloated cow, but fine."

Fran surprised herself by laughing too as Anna chuckled at her comment. "Wait till you start nursing, then talk to me about feeling like a cow, okay?" Anna frowned. "Are you going to try and nurse?'

"I honestly haven't really thought about it." Fran admitted. "I've been kind of going through this pregnancy with blinders on. I'm not even sure I want to bring a baby into the world as it is now. How could you?"
Anna nodded slowly. "I can understand that. But you really can't do anything about it now, I suppose."

"I could have aborted it."

"Well, yes, but that was before all this happened. There wouldn't have been a reason then, but –"

"No, I mean I could have aborted it after." Fran said. Maybe it was because she had been in the company of men for so long, or maybe it was because of Anna's open attitude, but suddenly she felt the need to speak about her pregnancy – a thing which she had until now avoided at all costs. "Peter knows how. I really don't know how he knows, but he does."

Fran couldn't help but notice the cold look Anna sent Peter's way. "I take it he's not the father, right?"

Fran shook her head with a soft laugh. The idea of Peter and her had never really crossed her mind. "No, he's not the father. The father's dead."

"I was guessing. I'm sorry." Anna said. "My husband was killed too. By a neighbor girl I used to go skating with from time to time. She had been changed, then, of course. She had been one of them."

Them. Fran had noted how these people didn't seem to want to use the word 'zombie.' To some degree she understood that. The word had become trite. Horror movies and spoofs had robbed it of its power, and a zombie had become the butt of a joke. She didn't really see what else these things could be called. Zombie. The word no longer held humor for her. Seeing Steven's face, his dead, uncomprehending face had imbued the word with a hundred times the power it had held in former years. Suddenly she became aware that Anna was still speaking.

"Excuse me, I didn't catch that."

"I thought you might not want to answer. I just asked if they killed your husband too."

He wasn't my husband. Fran hesitated. "Yes."

Anna nodded sympathetically. "It's become a standard story, but that doesn't lessen how much it hurts."

"We weren't-" Fran began but was stopped by a deep man's voice coming down the corridor. The others shared looks of relief, but her and Peter just straightened up in apprehension.

"We lost Bart." The deep voice said as its owner came into view. "The fuckers were in the parking garage. It fell on him from the rafters. I – who the hell are they?"

The question was not directed at her or Peter, but rather at Anna. Two other men stepped into view. One was good looking in a casual sort of way, nothing to cream your jeans over but cute. The other would have been better looking if he didn't carry himself with such a swagger. The owner of the deep voice was a black man, tall, broad, and dangerous looking. All three were covered in a light sheen of sweat and an oily black substance…soot?

"Bart's dead, too?" The boy – Terry, his name was, but he had just become "the boy" to her – said in a dull voice. It was the voice of someone whose shock circuits had burnt out, and who couldn't handle one more surprise or he would die of an overload. It was a voice that had no place on the young, innocent man she saw before her.

"What do you mean, too?" The casually good-looking man said. He, too, was speaking to Anna.

"Andre…Luda…Norma." Anna said. "They're all dead. I'm sorry, Michael."

"What…how?" Michael seemed completely floored by this revelation. "Did they get in?"

"Not exactly." Anna said.

"Then what happened?"

"That's what I'd like to know." Peter said suddenly. The entirety of the group turned to him. "Because I'm finding it hard to believe that no one here knew the woman was bit, and the fact is that somebody had obviously been prepared for her to die – and come back. Now, I could be wrong and you all are just fucking stupid enough to have missed it, but lets just say I'm assuming you're all a bit more intelligent than your average ape. So…"

"I don't recall anyone putting you in charge, friend." The black man said – Kenneth, she guessed from Anna's descriptions. "So why in hell should we explain anything to you?"

"You don't." Peter said coldly. "But from what I see here, you all have done a piss-poor job of making sure your group is safe. If that woman really did hide the fact that she was infected, then you weren't paying attention. Fran and I don't really want to have to go it alone, that's for sure, but I'm not joining a bunch of people who are going to lead us into certain death – or worse."

"Listen, fuckface –"

Michael held one hand out, and the cocky guy quieted. "We didn't know anything. I'm guessing one of the women were bitten." Fran's eyebrow's raised slightly. This one had a quick mind. "If we'd had known, we'd have taken care of it. We've done it before. It's a big place, and Andre and Luda were…distant, to say the least." He looked quizzically at Anna. "Norma…?"

"Gunshot. Andre shot her."

Michael's eyes widened, and Fran guessed that he had realized which of the three had come back after she died. "Luda, then, I'm guessing…"he seemed unable to suppress the wince of grief that passed fleetingly over his face. "We could use the help, God knows we could. But if you don't want to, fine. I don't know how you got here anyways, I'm sure Anna will fill us in, but if you want to go, no one's stopping you. You're welcome to stay. God knows we could use the help." He repeated.

Fran was bright enough to admire how he had neatly turned the tables to his favor. He'd started by seemingly acquiescing to Peter's demands and ended by turning it into an ultimatum. She looked at Peter. She agreed to a degree that these people were unorganized, but, unlike him, she had been a regular civilian before the dead had started walking. She didn't want to leave, no matter how inept the group might have seemed.

Peter kept his gaze on Michael. Neither spoke. The only sound in the room was the sound of the redhead's sobbing, which was quiet but hadn't stopped since they had left the birthplace of that monstrous child.

"We stay." Peter finally said, and Fran felt a brief surge of anger. Though her answer would have been the same, she had thought they had already had this conversation. He hadn't even consulted her. "For the time being, at least."

Michael nodded with obvious relief. "That's good – for the time being. There's plenty of food and water, beds and such. No problem." He looked at Anna. "The others…Andre, Luda…where are they?"

"Carousel."

Michael nodded. "Okay. Kenneth, CJ, Tucker…lets take care of the bodies. Bring them out here, first…we should have some sort of ceremony, or something. I don't know." He headed towards the store…then turned to Peter. "You coming? We could use the help."

Peter just stared at him. "Sure, man." He said after a moment. "I'll help."

Fran watched them as they walked away. Something in Peter's voice had worried her. He seemed to have dismissed his concerns, but she knew him better than that…and she didn't want to leave. She didn't want to be alone again.

She didn't want to be alone.

End of part 2

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