"Raise the gates!" came Sam's voice over the head gear, the gates began the normal warning sounds drawing all nearby zombies directly to the main gate. Which really isn't the best of ideas despite the covering fire, it was still a hazard that was going to make the job harder… not that it needed to be much harder.

"Oh… oh that's not supposed to happen! The gates are stuck! Can every see the gates are stuck? Do we have an engineer?" Sam roars through the headset, sighing I stretch and get up off my designated cot, putting aside Harry Potter and the prisoner of Azkaban that I borrowed from Jack and Eugene. Slipping my feet into my runners and lacing them up I move around the shared space that is for the runners, I brush my hair and pull it back into a pony tail knowing that in a second I will most likely be called to the gate being a new runner who hasn't been out on the field much these past few days, as I was leaving my shared space I sling the backpack that Sam gave to me on my second training mission. It was the old runner 5, Alice Dempsey… the person I was to replace.

"Runners this is an emergency the gates are stuck and we are open for attack, the following runners are to report the main gate immediately for lure and distract! Runners 2, 3, 5 8 go, go…go!" Runner 7 called over the loudspeakers, picking my speed up so I was jogging, almost at the gate I hear Sam address me over the intercom.

"Um… runner 5 we need you to go right now runner 5. We are pairing you up with runner 8."

"Yeah Sam, I'm on my now, be there in a sec." I reply back, as I reach the gate I see a runner dressed in a red shirt and black leggings with red sneakers, her blond hair was pulled back into a pony tail that reached the base of her neck. Runner 8 was easily a head taller than me, and was well built. As I approached runner 8 turned towards me and ended up coughing really hard, she holds out a hand for me to shake.

"Sorry about that. Hey there! I'm runner 8 Sarah Smith, how are you doing? Ready to head out and misdirect some zoms?" Sarah seemed very happy and bubbly, and over all very nice, I was looking forward to getting to know her better.

"Sure, why not?" I reply with the best smile I could muster at the thought of intentionally getting zombies to chase me, scared the ever living day lights out of me.

"No time for chit chat! Take one of the noise makers from the locker," I grab a strap with a red beacon on the back and hold it up.

"That's right strap it on your back, go out and run around distract the zombies while we fix the gate! Go… run!" Nodding to Sarah, I slip the beacon on my back and clipping it together I turn and run out the gates and into the open field littered with corpses in varying stages of decomposition. Sarah picks up her pace to match mine to switch on the beacon, and continues to run beside me.

We run for a few minutes until Abel is well and truly behind us. "Ok! Abel Township we are clear, nice steady pace. About 10 of the zoms on our tail. It's all going well. How you guys holding up?" looking back over my shoulder I can agree with Sarah's estimation. Roughly 10 zombies follow behind us, some are missing their internal organs after being ripped open, and others have lost limbs, eyes and their faces. Sarah, noticing my distraction of the zombies taps my arms and nods ahead as Sam starts to reply.

"Yeah not that so well here runner 8, we kind a… uh… motors are shot they are telling me up looks like something got in and chewed it up…" Sam replies confused, I understood why, something chewed it up?

"Chewed it up?" I ask perplexed at the situation. However, Sarah starts to cough and cuts off whatever Sam's reply was going to be.

"Sorry about that, bad chest cold, so do you guys want more time?"

"Yeah the longer you can keep the zoms away the better"

"Got that, we have a great da out here me and my buddy runner 5." Sarah begins to cough again, it doesn't sound good, I begin to worry about her.

"Yeah… that cough are you ok runner 8?"

"It's just a cough!"

"We just have to be careful that's all, you the drill first a cough then a rattle then a moan…"

"That's how you know the dead are walking, it's just a cough Sam." turning to me Sarah continues, "he always fussing about something. Hey Sam if bothers you so much I'm turning off my transmitter so you don't have to listen to my coughing."

"Oh no you don't that not hot how it works…" Sam sounds annoyed to the suggestion, however Sarah just reaches behinds me and switches off my head set as well as her own.

"There that's better now it's just you and me."

"Nothing good has ever come from that sentence." I reply back, wanting to switch my headset back on so I'm not alone. Sarah just laughs at my comment, and shakes her head as she runs ahead of me slightly. After a few minutes she speaks up again.

"So you came own in that chopper a copper a couple of days ago huh? Must have been pretty scary." she questions turning her head to look at me over her shoulder.

"Defiantly not at the top of list of thing to do again." I reply back, truthfully I was scared. Did someone want me dead? If so, why? Maybe they didn't want the supplies to make it to Abel Township, but why? With Sarah looking at me like I was a criminal, I was not going to ask.

"Seems like you were the only one to survive, at least we haven't seen any other survivors…" holding my gaze she turns slightly as groaning sounds behind me and I feel a hand brush against my arm.

"Duck down there a second honey." Sarah shoots the zombie whose hand brushed against my arm as we passed it, so lost in thought, I didn't even realise it. About to ask her, a – why she had a gun and b – if she thought I shot down the helicopter; she holds up her hand to stop the questions.

"There we go, we don't usually have guns. There's not enough to go around, but they like to try to help us out on decoy missions like this. Amazing how you turned up here, just dropped out of the sky after someone fired a rocket launcher at your helicopter. That's really strange isn't? I mean you were just brining in supplies. We have been in touch with the military base 100 miles north, they drop of meds and wet weather gear thing, so who would do a thing like that?" I shrug my shoulders, not trusting my voice, and not believing she would even believe me should I tell her about anything.

"Do you what I've been thinking? How do we even know you were that chopper at all? We haven't got any way to transmit pictures any more so we don't know what you would have looked like. Sure you turn up in the right uniform, but that could have been stripped from a body, you might not have been in the chopper at all, it could have been you the one who shot it down. Duck your head down just a second wouldn't want to hit you." I duck down my head and body just a bit to avoid the bullet shot from the gun.

"There got him that was a close one, better stay close." Sarah reaches behinds me to turn on my radio, after she had placed the gun back into her holster and turned on her own.

"Hey there Sam, were you worried about us? Just didn't want to irritate you with this cough that's all."

Never, ever, ever runner 8, runner 8? You know you never, ever turn your radio off… never do that Ok?" Sam sighed out frustrated, you could hear the chair squeak as he leaned back, obviously relieved to hear from us, Sarah turns to me and smirks.

"He gets lonely without us." She quipped, however Sam was in no mood to joke.

"I heard that, and it isn't about me, ok? It's about keeping you alive, 8 more have joined the pack chasing you, you're still ahead of them just keep going."

"We're heading west, we clear?" Sam groaned in response, a tell tail sign that I was quickly recognising as a 'no'.

"This is why you never ever turn off your radio, there is a swarm to the west and we think they've… oh yeah, here we go. They've heard you, that's zombies to your west, east and south."

"Huh, well time too…" Sarah's face started to break into a smile.

"Head north." Sam confirmed, Sarah just nodded and pointed into the direction we were heading.

"I've got a plan." Sarah looks to me and hums. I wanted to turn back in the direction of Abel, purely on the fact that I didn't approve of the mischievous gleam in her eyes. "Hey Sam it occurs to me that we really haven't shown 5 here the neighbourhood or the neighbours."

"You mean New Canton?" Sam's voice changed from annoyance to slightly anxious, Sarah merely rolled her eyes at Sam's antics before replying.

"I sure as heck don't mean the zombies"

"Oh I don't know, they might be great to have over for tea and crumpets." Sarah turns her head with a raised eyebrow and snorts in amusement to my quip. Sam, who is still annoyed and nervous about of direction zombie herding, doesn't laugh.

"Do we want to start a war with New Canton?"

"Just a little pay back Sam, don't you remember how they herded those zombies towards us when they were building new barracks?" this sounded like a great relationship, wanting to kill each other or cause a lot of grief; it was highly unusual. Most neighbouring settlements look after each other, or have a mutual understanding, they don't just herd zombies to each other out of spite.

"Uhhh, yeah…" And that is the 'let's not' portion of Sam's vocabulary that he doesn't out right say.

"If the major were here we would check with her, as it is new canton is to the north and our exit is to the north, you know it makes sense. Speed up, towards new canton."

With that prompt from Sarah we speed up to the great stone building that must be New Canton, it doesn't take long until we spot people wandering around the perimeter with guns.

"Stop! In the name of New Canton, not another step further!" A man's voice calls out to us over a speaker, Sarah just shakes her head and grabs my arm.

"There are zoms behind us, run!"

"Stop! Stop or we will shot to kill!" the man replied back lifting his gun, Sarah pushes me a little to the left.

"Keep going." We run for a little bit as gun shots ring across the plains hitting zombies that were shambling towards the guards.

"Township scum!" one of the guards that addressed us earlier yells through the speaker. I just turn and laugh at his annoyance. However, that doesn't last long as I see the pack that was following us stumble closer to the New Canton people. Sarah doesn't seem the bit fazed.

"Wahoo, well that's one way to take down to a bunch of zoms. Oh don't worry about new canton they have the fire power to deal with them, this means you and me are home free." She places the mic closer to her face before addressing Sam. "Hey Sam, how's the gate going?"

"Yeah nearly there, come on in if you aren't trailing a pack behind you." Sarah just hums before switching off the radio boxes again.

I guess this turned out to be a good time for a little chit chat than I hoped 5. Truth is I hoped to see if I could trust you, strange things have been happening around here. The major is called away on urgent business, someone brings down a chopper, firing from the middle of the zombie wilderness, and you turn up like a white knight, too damn convenient 5." Sarah reached behind me to turn the radio back on in time for Sam to exclaim.

"We got her working again, uhhh, welcome home runners, and great run. Not a single hostile anywhere near our gates!" Sam exhales in relief.

"Oh yeah, runner 5 and I make a great team, we will be going out together all the time right 5…" Sarah is interrupted by another coughing fit.

"Uh yeah, maybe not next time we have been getting been reports of a child stuck in no man's land. Get some rest runner 5, we will need you for a fast run again soon." I sigh and walk with Sarah, who is still coughing, to the hospital where Maxine examines us for bites.

Being in the all clear and Sarah still under the ever watchful eyes of Maxine, I leave to head to the rec room to complete my stretches and after that have a shower and get some food and a drink. Then I get to rest on my makeshift bed and try to finish reading my book.

A/N: So I noticed when I uploaded the 4th chapter that it was weird, so uploading this again to fix the issue… not that anyone noticed.