A/N: First, I want to thank all the reviewers who have been very supportive. It is appreciated.

Secondly, I changed something slightly in chapter 6. Part of the whole thing I wanted to convey is the learning curve that the students are going through with the zombies, so I dont really have them figure out all the answers from kids who play video games.

Chapter 10: The City of Bestine
(May 4th --- 29 day after Outbreak)

It's almost time, Sally thought as she glanced out the window of the gym, looking for any creatures that might be lurking about. They had chosen the gym because it was the farthest point away from the creatures concentrated at the front of the school; she, like many others who had participated in the fighting exactly one month ago, felt that calling them zombies was inappropriate. They are evil hellish creatures, she thought angrily, mystical names like that do not belong on anything so horrible.

Subconsciously Sally stretched out one of her heavily tanned arms, feeling around for her pouch of throwing knives. Feeling the reassuring touch of the dark grey pouch at her side, she reached up and ran a hand through her thick raven colored hair. Sally knew that the pouch was there, but it was always safe to check; it had been a gift from Dave when he had appointed her as a Captain in the Intrepid Defense Force and ever since it had been like an extension of her own body.

Hearing a telling metal clanking noise, Sally turned away from the window and headed for Dave and the newly arrived Lord Jacen. He had become a celebrity after the outbreak, and many girls that Sally knew had become obsessed with him, recently they had gossiped jealously about him being seen in the lunchroom with what many had now assumed was his girlfriend. Sally had never been into talking about such things -about celebrities or otherwise- and did not share her friends fantasy's of marrying him and becoming a queen; at the moment as she approached the nation's ruler, all she could see was an ordinary kid.

As she neared the two, the armor clad figure turned and faced her. "Ah, you must be IDF Captain Sally," the ruler said politely.

"And you must be Jacen, Lord of Intrepid," Sally replied with a hint of mockery. "I must say that I disapprove of your title." Dave gave the Captain a sharp look from over Jacen's shoulder.

Much to Sally's surprise Jacen almost fell over laughing. "That would make two of us, the whole Lord Jacen thing is just something that a certain jackass yelled after my acceptance speech, unfortunately it kinda caught on," Jacen replied approvingly after he stopped laughing. "I try to discourage it every chance I get, but the name is like a cockroach, it just won't die."

"Oh… umm sorry about that; I don't know what came over me," Sally apologized as she mentally chastised herself. You shouldn't make assumptions like that. Bad Sally. No biscuit for you!

"Think nothing of it, I actually find your candor quite refreshing."

Sally let out an inaudible sigh of relief as Dave's glare ended. "Thanks…I suppose we should be leaving, shouldn't we?" she added after a quick glance at her watch, revealing it was five thirty. Im going to miss this thing once the battery dies.

"Damn it!" Jacen muttered to himself, cursing the loud clanking noise the suit with each step as Sally led him and the rest of her comrades closer to Bestine. They had been traveling on foot for nearly three hours now and where within sights of the outskirts of town. So far they had encountered no undead, but that was not too surprising; the area between Intrepid and Bestine was mostly woodlands. Supposedly when the school had been constructed in the late 1960's the founder purposefully built the school ten miles away from Bestine just in case it was nuked, which was a ridiculous notion. Damn ironic though, since the crazy old coot probably saved all our lives.

They reached the town by eight forty and all stood at the threshold in awe. Jacen had come expecting a mob of hellish creatures around every corner, collectively emitting that horrible moan as they attacked; what they found was just the opposite, and somehow seemed worse to Jacen. The town was empty and devoid of all signs of life, there where no birds chirping, no music blaring out of some jerks stereo, there was nothing but the sound of creatures moaning in the distance.

"This…this changes things..." Sally began as the shock started to wear off, her voice sounding much louder without the background noise that they where all accustomed to. "E-everyone spread out and try to find a few working cars with some keys in it, we can use this to our advantage."

As the ten other IDF troops began to search, Jacen walked up to Sally's side. "Are you sure about this? The noise mig-"

"You said it yourself; you give us objectives and then I figure out how we do it. So let me do this my way," she said coldly, with an air of authority that reminded Jacen of friendlier version of Gina.

"Holy Shit!" one of the younger IDF members yelled, getting the attention of all the others. Everyone drew their swords and raced over. Sally and the rest reached the distressed boy shortly before Jacen, -who was slowed by his armor- obscuring his view of whatever they where crowding around. Why are they putting their swords away?

Sally was the first to reach Andy and arrived ready for a fight, holding the gladius sword in her right hand, and a throwing knife in her left. She found the boy standing at the entrance to a long alley that was cut off by a brick wall roughly twelve feet in. "What is it?" she asked as the others approached.

Andy pointed to a patrol car that was parked at the end of the alley with a bony finger. "There's a creature locked inside; I was walking over to see if the car was usable when the thing jumped up and rammed its head into the rear windshield."

Could he even lift that if he needed to? Sally asked herself as she looked at the sword sheathed at the thin boy's side; it doesn't really matter I suppose, his job is to run for it if things go bad. Still, Dave could have given the sword to someone who could actually use it. Sally shrugged the thought off and looked at the car closely, she could make out a bloody smear on the back of window, but there was no creature. "Where is it?"

The IDF member shrugged. "It hit the window really hard; I suppose it could have knocked itself unconscious," Andy pondered out loud. The problem was that no one in Intrepid had much information on the creatures, what they did know was that two times as many people died of a fast acting infection than in combat. That realization came sometime after they had been ordered to burn the bodies on the football field; at the time they had been burning the bodies to prevent any disease from spreading, as ordered by Mrs. Lipinski herself.

"Stay back," she commanded and approached the vehicle, hoping that she could learn something useful; Dave hadn't made Sally a Captain for her knife throwing ability, he gave her the job because she always strived to find out why and how behind a situation.

She found the creature floundering around on the floor of the car with its hands cuffed together. It looked like a business woman in an expensive suit, but to Sally's horror it rolled over, revealing a bullet wound where its heart should be. But it's still moving…

Puzzled, Sally looked up and saw another figure slumped over the steering wheel through the fine metal caging that divided the front and back of the car. She walked over to the front passenger side window for a better look, confident that the one in back was contained for the moment. Sally cringed instinctually as she looked at the police officer; he shot himself in the head… but why? She looked over the rest of the police officer, trying to ignore what was left of the poor mans head. Glancing downwards, Sally saw the man's right arm had been bitten; the area around the wound having a deep purple color to it.

Sally also saw a gun on the floor, and -much to the others horror- opened the door, leaning over the passenger seat to grab the weapon. "Sorry, but I need this a lot more than you do," she muttered respectfully and began to get back out, but before she had fully gotten out of the car the creature lunged at the wire caging; catching Sally by surprise. On instinct, she twisted herself around leveled the pistol at the creatures head.

From only three feet away, she pulled the trigger, causing a hole to appear right in between its eyes. The creature collapsed onto the floor of the car, Sally cringed again as she looked over at the crumpled form; the exit wound was nowhere near as neat as she had expected. Well I am apparently a good shot at point blank range, she conceded, but how will I do when they are farther away?

Hearing the sounds of the pistol going off, Jacen and the rest of the force ran to her with their hands on the hilt of their swords. Andy -being the fastest one present- was the first to arrive. "Are you ok?" he asked with concern.

"Yes, yes. Im fine," Sally said hurriedly as she held the gun up so that everyone could see it. "Now let Jacen through, I want him to take a look at the Police Officers arm." Sally took the chance to look over the pistol as Jacen went back and forth, comparing the officer and the now dead creature. The weapon seemed to be mostly plastic on the outside, and on the sides of the upper square part it had a series of vertical lines protruding out.

Experimentally she pressed one button that was just above the handle, causing the -what do the movies call that thing? Oh yeah, a clip- the clip to slide out and fall to the ground. Pressing another, she found that a small thing attached to the weapon shot out a laser; Sally quickly turned that one off and bent over to pick up the magazine. Standing up, she found Jacen looking at her somberly. "Did the Officer kill himself because he was bitten?"

"I think so," she said approvingly, having reached the same conclusion. "The creature in back had a bite mark as well, so I guess that the police officer believed that he was going to turn into one of those creatures and killed himself to prevent it."

"I guess -deep down- I always knew that something like this was behind everything, or at least since I saw the one that looked like… was Walter. You know I really liked him, he gave me free soda's whenever I went-."

Seeing that the Hero of Intrepid's episode was draining the morale out of the others, Sally elbowed Jacen as hard as she could; causing a jolt of pain to shoot up her arm as her elbow made contact with the metal links that surrounded him. The action did have its desired effect, however.

Back in leader mode, Jacen turned to Sally. "Sorry," he said quietly, so only she could hear. "But look, we need to ensure that word gets back to Intrepid."

"Got it," she replied just as quietly, then addressed the others as their Captain; "Andy, Ryan, front and center!" The two made their way over to Sally and waited expectantly. "After we show you what we discovered, you are going to take this car, drive to Intrepid and tell General Dave what you have learned."

"But-"

She shot them a glare for challenging her order. "The keys are still in the ignition, and we will help move the bodies," Sally said with acid in her voice.

Once Sally went over everything that needed to be said, they all began the process of removing the bodies from the car. The first one out was the police officer, who they placed respectfully on the ground. As she did a quick prayer for the officer, three of the others went to the rear door and unceremoniously began pulling the corpse out by the legs; after they got it out of the car they used their feet to kick it to the side.

Something about the way the three treated the body made a chill climb up Sally's spine. As much as Sally detested the creatures, this bothered her; the contrast between the treatments of the two bodies just felt wrong. "What are you doing?" she asked with distaste.

One of the three, a guard named Jay looked up with a puzzled expression. "We are moving the bodies; just like you sai-"

"No! Why are you kicking it?" Sally interrupted, her feelings of revulsion quickly developing into anger.

"What? It's just a creature; getting what it deserves if you ask me," Jay added with a hint of malice.

Bristling with fury, Sally stomped over to Jacen. "You finish up here, I gotta go cool down before I do something they might regret." It's not their fault; Sally repeated in her head over and over again as she walked back into the open street, they don't know any better… but they should.

Five minutes later as the car drove away towards Intrepid, Jacen walked over to Sally. "What was that all about?" he asked worriedly, taking care to speak quietly enough so that only she could hear it.

"Forget it," Sally said coldly as she stood up. "Let's get going."

Note: The gun that Sally found is a standard issue glock and I know that its a magazine, not a clip; she is a sixteen year old girl who gets everything she knows about guns from the movies, so I dont think she would know guns very well.