Wow, this chapter was a long time coming! Sorry guys, but I was having one of those moments where I hated what I wrote and re wrote this thing about 6 times, no word of a lie! Anyway, my wrist taht was broken is now well enough that I can type properly, so expect another update soon!

Alice pressed herself against the rocks and scanned the small village with her binoculars. Nothing was moving aside from the occasional animal that appeared from the tree lines.

"Anything?" Creedy's voice sounded in her ear.

Alice jumped and almost lost her binoculars. She made sure they were safe before turning and punching his arm as hard as she could in her position. "You jack ass! What did you do that for?"

Creedy giggled and rolled away from another punch. "You should have seen your face!"

Alice glared at him and turned back to what she was doing. "How someone as lanky as you can sneak up on a person is completely beyond me."

Creedy rolled his eyes and stretched. "Come on Alice, you've been up here for almost a week." He whined. "If there hasn't been any movement I think we can move down there."

Alice rolled her eyes, she despised when Creedy was right. "Fine, let's go."

It took them several hours to reach the small campsite where everyone else was. The sun had begun to set and they both knew that they would have to wait until morning before everyone could be moved into the small village.

"Well anything is better than this." Quinn muttered when they discussed their options for the next morning.

"There are almost thirty people with us now Quinn." Ricky pointed out, "We might have to separate everyone, and that could be dangerous for everyone if a dragon comes along."

"Well there is a building there that looks like it might have been an inn or something." Alice said. "It should have plenty of room for everyone."

Quinn sighed. "I have to admit that after 7 years it would be nice to find a place to settle down for more than a week."

They finally agreed that at first light they would wake everyone up and would move as a community down to the village. They held a quick meeting and planned out a way to bury anyone who might have died and to clean up the small village for anyone who might come along after them.

Three Months Later….

Alice looked around the small entrance way before opening the door and stepping out into the sunlight. Creedy had seen her open the door and he followed Alice outside. "Where are you going?"

Alice rolled her eyes and stopped walking. "I have to pee, Creedy. Is that alright or do I need to get a note?"

Creedy crossed his arms over his chest. "You know the rules, no one is supposed to go anywhere alone. Besides, we have a working bathroom."

"Yeah, that Jacob has been in for the past twenty minutes, and my bladder can't wait anymore." She turned to walk away, but Creedy grabbed her arm. "Look, there's a house with working plumbing six doors down. Come with me if it will make you feel better, but I'm going."

Creedy sighed and scanned the sky. "Fine, let's go."

They hopped over the railing and moved quickly to the house. "By the way, there's a woman dead in there that Ricky and I couldn't get out. So the house smells kind of bad." Alice said, covering her face with the bandanna she was wearing around her neck.

Creedy stepped into the house and gagged as the smell of decay flooded his nostrils. Alice turned back when she heard him coughing and pulled the bandanna she was wearing over her hair off and handed it to him. "Thanks." Creedy said, covering his nose and mouth.

They made their way slowly up the rickety stairs and Alice walked into a room, closing the door behind her. "What month do you figure it is, Creedy?" She called through the door.

"Oh, I don't know. June, maybe July. Why do you ask?"

"My birthday is July 28th." She told him. "I was doing really well at keeping the days straight at first after I found that Palm Pilot, but once the batteries died, I lost track really quickly. They got lost, just like everything else."

Creedy heard the toilet flush and could hear pipes groaning somewhere below him. "I guess you could make any day July 28th now." Creedy said when she opened the door. He watched her stare at her reflection for a few minutes and moved in behind her. He stared into the mirror at his own reflection. Neither one of them really recognized themselves anymore.

Alice had matured into a beautiful young woman. And although they didn't get to shower as often as they would have liked, her red hair was shiny and healthy. Creedy's own brown hair was long and curly and his face was covered with a beard.

"I think when the snow falls, I'm going to keep track of the moon. At least the lunar cycles never change." Alice said, still staring at their reflections.

"Do you think I should shave this off?" Creedy asked suddenly.

Alice laughed and gave him a funny look. "Yeah, you and Quinn are starting to look too much alike."

"What about the hair?"

Alice stared at him silently for a few minutes. "No, leave the hair."

Creedy put his hand on her shoulder and guided her out of the bathroom. "So, how did you know about this place?"

"Remember when we were first looking for supplies?" Creedy nodded. "Well Ricky and I were assigned this house. We found the dead woman, she had only been dead a few days, but she was caught underneath a ton of debris that we couldn't move without the rest of the house coming down on us. So we couldn't bury her like we did the others.

"When we made our second trip back here to look for cloth to make clothes out of Ricky wasn't feeling too good and she wound up in the bathroom while I searched the place. Out of habit she tried to flush the toilet; shocked the hell out of both of us when we found out the plumbing still worked."

Creedy grinned as they reached the main floor. "Well, it's good to know that if anyone else needs some privacy they can come here. Provided the smell doesn't kill them first."

They stepped outside and they pulled the bandannas off their faces. "To tell you the truth the smell doesn't really bother me anymore."

Creedy glanced at her in surprise. "Why not?"

"When you guys first found me, I had just tunnelled my way out of the Underground. Down there, nothing you did made the smell of the bodies go away. It was something that we learned to deal with as more people died around us." Alice said, sounding older than her nineteen years.

"So that explains why you smelt so bad."

Alice's jaw dropped and she shoved Creedy. "You know, you didn't smell like a garden of roses either. Come to thing of it, you still kind of smell."

Creedy's eyebrows twitched in amusement and he pulled Alice into a headlock before she could run away from him. Alice laughed and pretended to gag as he pulled her along back to the compound they lived in. He looked down at her when he heard her gasp and saw that her eyes were wide and she was staring at the sky. His breath caught in his throat when he saw the shape of a dragon growing larger as it drew closer to the village.

"Shit!" He grabbed Alice's hand and tried to pull her along, but she dug her heels in. "Alice what are you doing? We need to get back!"

Alice shook her head. "If it sees us, then we put every single person in that house in danger!"

"So what do you suggest? Sit here and let him make an aperitif out of us!"

Alice looked up when she heard the dragon roar. "No, we should run. Now!"

She grabbed his arm and ran with him back to the house they had left only moments earlier. Something wet hit the back of her neck, but she didn't dare check to see what it was. The dove through the door as the dragon circled above them.

Alice pulled off her jacket and wiped at the sticky substance on her neck. Creedy was staring out the window across from where she was crouched, staring at the sky. "I don't get it, why isn't the damn thing spraying the place with fire?"

Alice stared at the shimmering substance that now covered her jacket. "Maybe it can't."

"What?"

Alice thought for a minute. "That Bio-Chemist that we picked up a few months back; didn't he have a theory about their glands? Something about it had two chemicals in its neck that when mixed on contact created the flame?" Creedy nodded. "Quick, find me some matches or a lighter."

Creedy reached into his pocket and pulled a Zippo from it. Alice tossed her jacket into the fire place and lit the lighter. She shook it a few times making the flame grow more than triple its size. As soon as the flame touched the jacket, it was engulfed quickly.

"What are you doing?" He asked as she grabbed a poker and pulled the flaming jacket from the stone fireplace.

"Where's the dragon?"

Creedy turned back to the window and stared up at the sky. "The bastard's still circling around above us."

Alice carefully manuvered through the room and out the door, she moved as quickly as she could and placed what was left of her jacket in the middle of the street. She didn't have to hear Creedy's shouts to know that the dragon was coming. She ran back for the house as hard as she could and slid next to him.

"Would you mind explaining to me what the hell that was all about?" Creedy asked her.

"Look at those flames, those are Nitro flames Creedy. The dragon spat that at me. It can't breathe fire." She told him. The dragon landed in the street, sniffing the smouldering cloth before licking it. "The bastard's hungry."

"And it's missing an eye." Creedy muttered. "That half of its face and a good chunk of its neck are gone."

"That means it's missing a secretion gland." Alice muttered.

The dragon turned in their direction and with a roar it swung its tail towards the front of the house. Creedy pulled her under him and covered her body as the muscular tail smashed through the windows. Alice bit back a scream and pulled her body closer to Creedy's as another roar came out of the dragon's mouth.

They stayed like that for several tense minutes, listening to the sudden silence. "Creedy! Alice!" They heard Quinn's voice.

Creedy pulled up from her slightly. There was blood on his forehead where a piece of glass had embedded its self in his skin. Alice and Creedy stared at each other quietly, their faces mere inches apart, before Creedy pulled away from her completely.

He stood and helped her to her feet and they stared at the carcass in front of them. Quinn and the others had used some of the weapons they found along the way and someone had gotten off a lucky shot in the dragons eye with a high powered rifle. The bullet had been going fast enough to embed its self in the dragon's brain, killing it.

"Are you alright?" Ricky asked, hugging Alice tightly.

Alice stared at Creedy, a mixture of amazement and adoration on her face. "Yeah Ricky, I'm fine."