I only got a few reviews for this shot. And all of them requested a continuation. And since life sucks royaly right now - nothing new there - I decided to add another shot. Don't know what this means but I haven't written anything for months. I'm getting rusty. Sigh.

"Briiiiii-iiiick, are we there yeeeeeet? We've been walking for houuuuuurs." Boomer knows he's being annoying. He knows Brick hates it when he whines, he also knows that the left eye twitching is a good warning for him to stop before Brick actually turns around a mashes his face into the cracked concrete underneath their tired feet.

"Hate to say this Brick, but Boom's got a point, Where the heck are we going again?" Butch says behind the red head as he lumbers with a pack on his back. That's where all their precious food is stored. Boomer still thinks he should be the one to hold it. Not Butch - they'll be lucky if Butch doesn't eat everything before they actually stop to take a breather.

"I told you morons. We're following the signal." Bricks snaps, irritation showing on his fine featured face clearly now as he shakes an old cracking scanner in his gloved hands. His red eyes narrow dangerously as if he wants to burn a hole through the thing with them. "That message had a signal and this scanner will track it, the message had to come from another radio on the same frequency as ours. So we'll stop when we find - "

"Yah but what if it's old and the ones who sent that message are already dead?" Boomer cuts in, pushing his sweaty golden bangs out of his eyes. He needs a haircut - but Brick's the only one he trusts to cut it without killing him. Butch would well - butcher it if he tried. But they broke their last switchblade and Brick keeps the small dagger in his boot, no one's allowed to touch that dagger.

"Hate to agree with Boomer but - yah, what if they're already dead?" Butch says, kicking at a crack, his green eyes downcast at the thought.

Boomer watches Bricks shoulder line go tense and squared. He's already thought of this. Of course he has. Boomer should have known better, Brick is smart - really smart, and he's probably thought of every eventuality already. What surprises Boomer though is that Brick probably knows that the likelihood of the person who sent the message is still alive is very, very slim.

"Why are we looking then?" Boomer finishes his thought out loud and Bricks tenseness gets worse, the scanner crackles in his tightening grip, and they all fall silent, the only sound is the wind making weird hollow sounds as it blows through cracks and caverns of fallen buildings.

Boomer flickers his eyes to Butches face, his older brother is tense too, mouth set in a grim line as he looks forward, eyes glazed over in thought. Which is bad - Butch only thinks when something is desperate.

And they are desperate aren't they.

Yah - Boomer sighs sadly, they are all desperate. None of them realized the empty dry void of loneliness and fear that they had until they heard that glimmer of hope over the radio. It was like that small broken voice had cracked their dams they've built to be numb to their misery and now - they're desperate.

A low horrifical rattled groan startles them all out of their melancholy silence. Boomer winces as Butch turns around, fighter mode flipped on like a switch.

Brick has the dagger in his hand and they all fall back to back in a triangle formation. The blur that is the sun behind the thick grey smog is low - but - but it's not low enough for Zombie attacks. Why are they here now? What's going on - they still have a few hours before sundown and -

"Something's wrong." Brick's eyes narrow as the creatures - five of them - come closer. "They shouldn't be out here now - this isn't normal behavior."

Boomers heart jumps in his throat as he digs his shoulder blades into his brother's.

"Ya think?" Butch grits, his boots dig into the broken concrete. "What do we do now? These guys could be scouters - we're miles away from shelter and - and there's probably more coming."

Boomer lets out a shaky breath. Brick is silent. That's never a good sound. They are so dead.

"Butch you take center, Boomer left - I'll get the two on the right. You know the drill - don't let them get a bite in." Brick orders - and that's not really a good plan but - ok.

"Works for me." Butch grins, that glint he gets in his eyes when he's keyed up shows viciously.

"Of course it works for you, you're not cute and small - you're insane and bloodthirsty and - " Boomer rant is cut off when he screams as a Zombie swings at him faster than expected.

"Woah - " Butch kicks at the ones attacking him. "Did you see that?"

Brick slashes at the Zombie "They've gotten faster."

Boomer gulps, dodges another swipe and locks the grotesque arm of the creature, he twists quickly and hard and the limb cracks brittlely and he yanks it out with a sickening tare of rotting flesh. The blond boy shudders, "They're still breakable."

Butch snorts and kicks a zombie head clear off. "Yup - still breakable."

"Um - guys." Boomer stops breathing.

Brick slashes the last Zombie and turns towards Boomers eyeline. "What's - oh."

Butch swallows - "that's - that's a lot of Zombie."

Boomer nods numbly. The shadows morph into moving mounds of undead creatures as they crawl out of them. But there's something different about these ones. They're moving faster - they're climbing over debris almost agile.

"We should run - yah?" Boomer knows they should but he's just checking.

"Yah we should run." Brick nods firmly and they all turn tail and run.

The Zombies may have gotten faster but they still can't keep up with them. What's worrying though is that they're so many - and it's almost dark and they have no where to hide tonight and maybe they were better off not following this signal after all.

Boomers head hurts.

"Owowowowowowowo, ow! Hey, easy will you." Boomer groans in pain as Brick yanks at his hair.

"Hold still or you'll end up bald." Brick snaps and continues to butcher his little brothers golden hair.

Boomer sighs. They found a building that's relatively in one piece and hard to get into for a Zombie horde. And why he decided to ask Brick for a haircut now makes no sense but - but they've numbed themselves again and they've gone to falling into this like normal. Zombies almost eating you is normal.

The air is stuffy in here. A place that hasn't seen a living soul in a long while. The moon - or pale opaque disk in the black sky - does little to show their surroundings. Its just black shapes and shadows jutting out everywhere like a great big broken ribs of the skeleton of the city that once was there.

Boomer closes his eyes and tries to listen for sounds. He hears Bricks blade cut his bangs. Some loose rubble rolls down the walls. Then scuffles of boots on the rough ground, fabric scraping against the debris as Butch climbs up and into the broken window.

"Anything?" Brick asks as he absently flicks loose golden strands from Boomers head.

"Naw, coasts clear for now, you alright there Boomer? You're looking a little green." Butch says, eyes flickering over to their youngest brother.

Boomer nods. He's not alright, he feels sick - it's probably the lack of food today.

"Get a grip Boom, we're moving out early tomorrow." Brick pats him on his bare neck and moves to huddle in a corner, crossing his arms over himself to keep warm.

Butch sighs tiredly and joins him in that corner.

Boomer closes his eyes tightly and tries to listen for something again.

Silence.

Ok - that could be a good thing. But he feels funny about this anyway. And cold.

He shakes his head and walks over to his brothers. The only two living people in his life - and as pathetic as it sounds - he couldn't imagine what he'd do if something happened to either of them. This world was dead, and the chance of that signal leading them to something other than more Zombies is nonexistent. They got excited for no reason.

Boomer sighs and slides down the cold wall next to Brick. Whatever does happen though - if there are more people out there or not - he still has his brothers. And it looks like that's how it's going to be until the end.

He curls in towards Bricks warmth and the older boy scowls but throws an arm out across Boomers chest like some kind of blanket, and they all fall asleep without really sleeping.

Boomer watches that little red dot.

He watches it every time Brick pulls his scanner out. He watches it blink when they're walking. When they're climbing over walls. When they're jumping across giant cracks in the streets. When Brick stops and they smack into his back. When it sputters on the faded screen and - and disappears.

All three boys freeze. Neither breathe. It's so quiet Boomer can hear their brains screeching to a shocked halt.

They've been walking for two days, they're sore from it, they're paranoid because of the early Zombie attacks, and they're hungry. And now - they're little fizzle of hope has officially disappeared on that small screen. It's dead. Nothing. The signal is gone. Brick doesn't say anything. Butch doesn't say anything. Boomer feels suddenly like he's kind of dying.

Then the groans sound off.

They turn around.

Zombies, thick swarm of Zombie death.

So many of them.

Boomer gasps and they all step back, they're stuck. A huge wall blocks any way to escape as they press against it.

If they thought they were dead before?

Boomer feels his heart sink into his empty guts. It feels like a rock slipping down thick muddy water. Brick takes out his dagger, he holds it out tightly - Butch grabs a loose rusted metal pipe on the ground and Boomer collects rocks to shoot at these things. Neither boy holds out much hope anymore. They just lost it all anyway. The thought that they were the only beings left on this entire forsaken planet just solidified. Before there was always a small glimmer of hope that maybe they weren't. But now - now - it's over.

"Let's do this." Butch says through his teeth.

Boomer doesn't know what he means, but he's pretty sure it's nothing good. He swallows thickly and take a firm stance, blue eyes trained on the moving horde. They look hungry with their gapping mouths and the few sharp teeth they have embedded in their greying gums. Most have two eyes, some have an empty socket where their eyes should be and they're just following the sounds of their horde. The stench that rises from so many of them coming forward is nearly enough to kill them.

Here it comes - there's nowhere left to run - no way to get out.

"Nice knowing you guys." Boomer mutters under his breath. Butch snorts and Brick forces a grim smile. They agree. There's no way to get out of this one.

Well at least they can die knowing they're was no more hope anyway.

Boomer swallow's again and wonders, not for the first time, what it would have been like if the world had stayed the way it was when he was five. But it hadn't and now they were going to die at the young age of fourteen and it doesn't matter because everyone else is dead too so they might as well -

A Zombie shrieks'.

The boys shudder at the sound. Zombies can shriek?

Butch shriek's too when something come shooting through the horde and bounces off the wall next to his shoulder. Brick snatches Butch's shirt and they back up, eyes narrowing to look at the unsettling sight in front of them.

The Zombies are swarming around - around something else. And that something else was shooting loud explosions into the horde. Butch grabs his own arm - the projectile grazed him after all and he's bleeding.

"What the - "

Brick shakes his head. The Zombies are smashing together and then - then Boomer sees it.

A body - a lithe body moving so fast it can't be a Zombie. It's not a Zombie.

His heart jumps right out of his guts and lodges itself in his throat so suddenly he chokes. Butch gasps sharply and Bricks hand around Boomers arm turns to iron.

A human being.

A living, breathing, fighting human being is in that horde. Right in front of them. The hope that fizzled and then went out shoots up and Boomers almost ready to cry. Except he's too shocked to do anything right now.

Then the Zombies' do something they've never seen them do before. They retreat. They hobble away with loud rotting groans and - and they were gone.

The air is cold and stiff and suffocating as the boys watch a silhouette stand from a crouched position and start walking towards them, something heavy pointing in their direction. That could be bad.

The silhouette, the person - steps out of the smog and shadow. And Boomer forgets to breathe. They all do. It's a human being. A short, pale, dark haired human with the most intense green eyes that narrow dangerously at them in the dark, they almost glow rimmed with thick dark lashes and - and that's when Boomer realizes - this person is not like them, this person - this person is a - a - a - what were they called again?

"Girl."

Boomer startles as Brick speaks up, seemingly out of his voiceless shock first. His red eyes stay on the person in front of them. Girl? Yah - yah that was it, Girl, she - her . . . wow - they haven't seen a Girl since . . . since forever ago. Boomer's confused as to why he would forget they're a thing, were a thing.

"Who the heck are you and where did you come from?" She speaks, her voice is gravely and slightly cracking. She holds a heavy black weapon in her hand - Boomer knows what that is, Butch used to have one like it before he lost it in a stupid food raid. A gun.

"We - we come from," Brick takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. Boomer wonders if he's going to cry. But then he opens his eyes and he's the master of himself again. "We come from the remains on the other side of the railroad."

The girl stops and widens her eyes, "You're real people? You - there's more?" She sounds less threatening now.

Brick shakes his head. "No - just us. Are there - are there more wherever you came from?"

Please, please, please -

"Yah - how many are you?" She says slowly, eyeing all three of them.

"Just us." Brick says for them.

Her lips tighten in a thin line. "Right. Why are you out here for if you don't live here?" What's she so suspicious about?

"We - we got a message, on the radio, a signal and we followed it out here, but it died and we thought - " Brick trails off.

They fall silent for a moment.

Then the girl shrugs her gun over her shoulder. "Right. Come on then. Follow me if you wanna live."

Boomer doesn't like the sound of that.

"What?" He says out loud accidentally.

She glances at him like he's a insect. There aren't' many of those around except roaches, "I said, follow me if you wanna live. It's still early, those Zombies you saw back there, they were just scouters. The real hordes are coming."

Boomer shudders at how she says those words. They follow her. They fall silent - there's this weird electricity zipping through them as they follow behind another human being! Another living person! She said there was more too, Boomer suddenly feels like he could fly like - like those things back in the day, small chirpy -birds? Birds! Yah, birds could fly and he wanted to too, the hope that was snatched from them suddenly comes back and it's no longer something they're hoping for - it's fact, real, short girl fact.

And he's pretty sure his brothers feel the same as they climb over left over buildings and wined around metal graveyards and - and towards a wall so big and made out of scrap metal stuck together by rusted nails or fusion.

The girl kicks at the door loudly and then bangs in a pattern. Rap,rapraprap. Tap, tap. Bang.

Then the door opens to paradise.

Inside are more people, hundreds of people, men and women, boys and girls and - and - and they're so many and it's unbelievable and Boomer thinks they've died and gone to heaven.

"Well, don't just stand there gawking, Zombies are coming. Get in here." The girl says sternly as she walks in smoothly.

They step inside and the gate smashes closed behind them. And they stop. And they stare.

The noise is magnificent, the words are wonderful, the sounds of unfamiliar voices is heart clenching.

Boomer doesn't even bother touching his cheeks. He knows he's crying.

He swears Brick and Butch are fighting their own tears.

The girl turns around and flashes them a lopsided grin.

"Welcome to Haven."

This was supposed to end way back up there. But it got away from me. I hope it was worth it.