(Author's Note: Phew! It's been awhile, but I'm back! 8D I'm sure the story is long forgotten since I haven't updated since - a little over one year ago haha. Thanks for those who have read the previous chapters and I hope you will all enjoy this chapter along with the future chapters that will surely come!)

The blazing sun was shining upon the sandy beaches of the island. Everything seemed to be simmering under the warm ultraviolet rays of the heat, including a particular car being ridden by particular survivors. These two survivors were sitting in a crashed car that was mashed against a telephone pole. One of the survivors had a very stressed expression on her face and was leaning her head against the window while massaging her forehead with her thin fingers. The other survivor was hunched over and his face was covered by the back of his hands that were still gripping onto the wheels that were supposed to be used to control the car – that is, if the entire vehicle wasn't destroyed like this. After what seemed like infinite silence, the girl finally spoke.

"Logan."

The man shivered slightly as he heard his name being uttered by Xian. She was naturally friendly and always spoke with enthusiasm. Although her tone of voice was similar to how she usually spoke, he could hear the rage that was hidden deep within his name. He decided it was best to not reply and hoped that she would mistake his silence as his death and eventually walk away. It was a silly thought, but anything would be worth a try than to piss off a woman with deadly accuracy when it comes to throwing sharp blades at anything that moved.

"Logan, I'm not mad."

Logan finally looked over at her with hopeful relief in his eyes, but averted his eyes immediately. Xian had her arms crossed over her chest now, and was looking at him quite sourly.

"Not mad my ass." Logan grunted. He was still a bit drunk and was developing a slight headache. He knew he shouldn't be giving her an attitude right now, but his lack of sobriety failed to restrain him.

"I'm not mad. I just want to let you know, it's quite difficult to find a working vehicle on this island." Xian nudged her head at the broken glass in front of them. She noticed how some of the sharp chips of the glass were still dropping into her seat, so she unbuckled her seat belt and stood outside of the car. She resumed crossing her arms over her chest. Logan successfully suppressed a chuckle at how Xian expressed her anger. He was used to women screaming at the top of their lungs at him whenever they were angry, but he still felt a bit guilty. He had been drinking prior to finding the car and when Xian offered to drive, Logan refused because he insisted he drove well while drunk. After successfully driving for about five whole minutes, Logan mistook a telephone pole as a giant zombie and attempted to run over it while shouting 'GO, TEXAS!". Luckily, the crash only made the two jolt forward and nothing more. It was a miracle that they were short of injuries aside from Logan receiving a light scratch on his cheek due to one of the many flying glass shards that seemed to have exploded everywhere after the impact.

Logan sighed and looked at Xian who had her back turned against him. She was just standing there. If it were anyone else, they would probably walk away from him right now. Lucky for him, Xian was not just anyone. She was an overly kind soul who would probably throw her life away to save a fly if it meant no harm and would willfully become devoured by soul-less creatures such as the zombies that infest the island. Logan opened the door on his side and tried to step outside, but felt something pull him back into his seat. He looked down at his chest confusedly to see a seat-belt laying across it. He had not worn such a contraption in awhile since it wasn't particularly his style when he drove around. It wasn't a macho thing to do, but Xian must have persistently buckled it in for him while he was in a drunken state. He chuckled in amazement and shook his head as he unbuckled the seat-belt and walked out of the vehicle to approached Xian.

"Listen, I know you're mad, but-"

"I said I'm not mad." Xian's cheeks were getting a little puffy from pouting now. "We should get going."

As she started to walk, Logan instinctively reached out to grab her arm but paused as his fingertips barely touched the surface of her milky colored long sleeve. All he wanted to do was to apologize for wrecking the car, but he remembered at the last second that this was not the behavior of how he usually is, nor is this the time to try to impress a pretty foreigner. He allowed his hand and head to fall.

He heard the sound of broken heels stop in their tracks.

"Come on, Logan."

Her voice sounded so soft and sweet. She must have forgiven him or noticed his guilt despite his attempt to hide it. He glanced up at her and ran back to the car to fetch his wrench. The two continued on foot. In two hours, they managed to ransack several bungalows, successfully snagged the key, and managed to kill a handful of zombies. Xian had to pry off a few zombies that had attached themselves to Logan during their search. It also took Logan a lot of strength and courage to be able to actually kill the zombies, but after some encouraging words from Xian and some practice, he managed to suck in his guilt and realize that the zombies were lifeless and that this was the right thing to do. Now they were standing in front of the gated area of the Lifeguard Station.

"Yeah, I think I'm starting to get the hang of this." Logan held his blood soaked wrench in the air and used his free arm to flex. Xian smiled lightly at him before looking at the building. "Something doesn't feel right..."

Logan walked up to the card reader with the card in hand. "Ah, don't worry about it. We went this far without dying. I can take on any sons o' bitches in there." He slammed the card against the card reader and watched as the fence opened for them. Logan ran into the premises with Xian following behind him cautiously. Sure enough, there were a pack of zombies waiting for them at the entrance of the garage. Xian's eyes widened as she stopped in her tracks.

"Logan-!"

Logan did not listen. He started hammering the zombies with his wrench and threw a bunch of pipes at their heads. He was glad that he kept up with his weight lifting even after he had stopped playing football. After the last zombie fell down, he turned towards Xian with a big smile on his face. "See that? I can take care of myself! I can even take care of you if I wanted to."

Instead of seeing a proud smile reflecting his on Xian's face, he saw a look of terror as she clumsily fumbled for her knives. It was then that he felt the hot breath of something behind him. He looked at the two shadows on the floor in front of him. He recognized the closest shadow to him as his own, but the silhouette of something very tall and muscular was standing behind him. It was bigger than any football player he had ever encountered in his life. Logan was completely frozen. He could hear the sound of Xian saying something, but her voice was muffled. Logan thought he would be standing in fear forever until he heard the thing behind him emit a low but loud roar. He spun around to see a ginormous zombie who had muscles the size of Logan's head. The thing could have been considered as another one of those zombies they've already encountered before if it wasn't for their height and that abnormally deep but loud sound they gave away. Logan's ears were still ringing from listening to that thing scream in front of him, but it definitely snapped him out of it.

"Logan, run!" Xian yelled at him. He could finally hear her. He repeatedly cursed as he tried to sprint from his location but it was too late. The thug-like zombie had his arm high in the air before Logan could take a step forward and brought that arm down onto Logan, causing him to fall onto the ground.

"AH! FUCK!" Logan screamed in pain. His shoulder was in incredible pain as he felt the concrete ground grinding his skin as he crashed against it. His vision was getting blurry, and he saw the zombie gazing down at him. It raised its arm again. Logan prepared for the worst, but was saved by Xian who threw a huge knife at the zombie's head. Despite her impressive aim, the zombie merely glanced over at her direction before looking back down at Logan. He heard a worried cry from Xian. She was saying something in Chinese. He looked down at the zombie's feet. Ignoring the crust and dull veins that laid upon the dead gray skin of the zombie's dirty feet, there were some small knives next to them. Xian must have exhausted her weapons for Logan when his eyes were shut while he was yelling from getting hit by the zombie. There was no way she could take that thing on by herself. He forced his body to turn around and gave out a dry yell, "Get outta here, Xian!"

Of course, Xian would not abandon someone in need of assistance. She charged towards the two with her fists clenched beside her. Logan stared in disbelief and horror as the zombie reached over and grabbed Xian by the neck, raising her above Logan. Now they were both going to die. He knew it. It was pathetic of him to even think that they could have made a difference. Logan could not save anyone. He was only good for dragging Xian down. He failed those people at the beach. He failed Xian. He failed himself.

Logan had prepared for the worst when he heard the sound of a gunshot from the distance. He looked over at the entrance of the gate where he and Xian just entered. There were two people standing there, and to Logan's surprise, he recognized them during the night before this incident. The man was the rapper Sam B. He was a gruff looking man as he held a baseball bat high into the air, seemingly surprised to see the ginormous zombie. "Aw, what the hell!" He exclaimed. "How the hell are we goin' to get that thing down?!"

The woman next to him told him to hush. Her presence wasn't as memorable as Sam B's, but he did remember seeing her pretty face at the club. It seemed she was with a guy at the time. He figured she was dating him at the time, but judging from how skilled she seemed with her gun that she was currently holding in her hands, she might have been more of a bodyguard. Her gun was raised towards Logan's direction. She was obviously pointing the gun at the zombie above him, but he noticed her eyes kept darting from him, to Xian, to the zombie, and to the knives below them. Before Logan could figure out what she was thinking, she started to empty out her handgun. The bullets were flying into the upper torso and head of the zombie, causing the thing to drop Xian back onto the ground and stumble away from the two. The woman shouted over the loud sounds of her firing bullets,"Hurry up and get over here!" Xian quickly helped Logan off his feet and helped him walk to the two people in front of them. As they did so, Sam B ran towards the weakened zombie and started smashing his bat into the zombie's torso until it made a hollow hole into it, sending the body to crash onto the ground below along with other organs and bones that no longer served any functional purposes in that body the is supposed to be dead. Logan heard the sound of a skull cracking open as it fell. It was over.

"You two alright?" The woman looked down at the two of them who collapsed in front of her, both of them were breathing heavily in exhaustion.

"Y-Yes, thank you." Xian replied in pure gratitude. "We wouldn't be alive if it weren't for you two. We're forever in your debt."

Logan stood up. His shoulder was still in pain, but he was getting used to it thanks to the amount of tackles he received during his football games back then. At the very least, his shoulder was not sprained or broken. Otherwise, he'd be doomed to become zombie food real fast. Or at least an incredible coward who can only run away. There's no way he'd want Xian to see that. He nodded his head in appreciation towards the two people.

"Yeah, thanks."

He then looked at Xian. "Hey, you okay?" He looked at her neck where the zombie was gripping onto. The area was red from his grip, and the there was a scratch on the side of her neck that was bleeding slightly. Probably from the zombie's nail digging into her skin. Logan suddenly felt horribly guilty for putting her into such danger.

"Oh, I'm fine!" Xian was quick to reply, seeing the look on Logan's face. She rubbed her neck slightly as she looked over at his shoulder where the zombie attacked. "Are you okay?"

Logan didn't respond for awhile and simply stared at her quietly. He nodded a bit before walking back to the zombie's corpse to gather their weapons. The guilt has not gone away yet, but he was doing his best to not express it. He was sick of letting others protect him and he felt like such an ass for letting harm befall her. He had to do something to repay her, even if she was unaware of how awful her selflessness was causing him. He walked back with her knives and handed them to her. He looked at the two people who saved them as Xian collected her knives from Logan.

"So I know you're Sam B. I listen to your jam on the radio while I worked out back in Texas. Nice performance back there last night. And ah, who are you, lady?"

There was a slight look of annoyance as the dark skinned woman placed her gun back into the holster. She responded quite coldly. "You'd better watch how you address me. I just saved your god damn life."

Logan blinked. He hasn't talked to this woman for five minutes and he already pissed her off. What's more is that she has a gun and is damn good with it. He didn't realized he was silently stunned in shock until Xian spoke. "Thank you again for saving our lives. My name is Xian and this is Logan."

"My name is Purna and oh yeah, I've heard of you." Purna's eyes narrowed at Logan. "You're that spoiled brat who thinks just because he tosses a football around real' good thinks he owns the place and decides to crash a car and killed off a girl you probably don't even care about, right? This is why I hate rich assholes like you..."

"Hey, hey, hey! You shut the hell up, bitch!" Logan roared as he attempted to confront her with his wrench raised high above him. Xian was quick to keep the distance between him and Purna with her arms stretched. Her small hand touched Logan's chest but she obviously lacked the strength to actually push him away from Purna. Sam B was running to them, helping Xian by pushing Logan aside with the strength he actually has. Logan was still yelling furiously."You fucking don't know me! You don't know anything!"

"Hey! Cool it! We just saved your ass!" Sam B shouted over Logan's booming yells. Logan was still red in fury, but was calmed down when he felt two pairs of gentle hands around his cheeks. He looked down at Xian who looked up at him with care.

"It's okay, Logan. It's okay."

Logan would have enjoyed the moment if he wasn't so angry. Her angelic voice was truly soothing, but the fact that a stranger had insulted a traumatic event that he was trying to recover from all this time made it difficult to calm down entirely. He simply grunted and pulled himself away from her. This was the first time he had been so angry at a girl, but it was true that she had just saved him and Xian from danger. He was willing to let go of something he was so sensitive about just this one time. For Xian. He kept his distance away from Purna and spoke lowly.

"So what were you two doing here?"

Purna glanced over at the Lifeguard Station. "We were hoping to find some supplies. I happened to find this big guy here prying off the zombies with a microphone stand at his stage and figured we could team up and find a way to get off this hellhole."

Xian's eyes brightened up a bit. "Maybe all four of us can team up!"

Logan looked at her in disbelief. Sure, those two people may have skills that could be of use to them, but that Purna seemed impossible to get along with. There was no way she would even consider such a proposal –

"Sure."

Those words came straight from the lips of the woman he was currently enraged with.

"At least...with you, Xian. We could always use the help." Her eyes were now locked onto Logan. "But I don't know about you."

"What are you trying to say now?" Logan said a little too loudly. He was doing his best to keep his composure for the sake of Xian and his sanity. Purna was slowly circling around him while her hands were on her hips.

"I have a gun. Sam B knows how to hit those things with heavy objects, and judging by the knife that was in the brain of that zombie over there, Xian seems to know how to use her knives. Now you, Logan. What can you do?" Purna stopped walking and was standing in front of him. "How do I know you won't slow us down?"

Logan's lips parted slightly in shock. Sure, he can swing stuff around too, but that wasn't his strong suit. The objects fumble out of his fingers at times, and there were other times when he actually missed after swinging the stuff around. Furthermore, he didn't have the accuracy that Xian possessed, nor did he have a gun to practice with like Purna. He looked down at his hands in misery, but saw something that caught his eye. He looked up. There was a pair of bright red propane tanks sitting next to a fence. He walked over to them and picked one up. His shoulders still stung a bit from holding the somewhat heavy object, but he ignored the pain. He walked over to Xian.

"Think I can borrow one of your knives?"

Xian looked at him curiously and then glanced over at his shoulder. She whispered,"What are you planning to do?"

Logan shook his head. "Don't worry about me. Just trust me." He ignored Purna's scoff in the background as Xian handed him one of her knives. He noticed it was the dullest one she had. She must seriously have no faith in him. This doesn't matter. Her expectations will change after this.

Logan looked at the inanimate corpse and held up the propane tank. His eyes were locked onto the body and tossed the tank across the air. The tank landed loudly onto the zombie's body and within that one second of landing, Logan quickly threw Xian's knife across the air. The knife landed perfectly into the propane tank and resulted in a blaring and blazing explosion, causing the body to heat up in flames and several parts of the zombie's carcass to fly across the place. He turned around the face the group with a grin.

"That is what I can do."

Sam B was hollering in amazement at the sight whilst Xian was clapping her hands proudly. Purna looked unfazed by the sight but Logan could have sworn that her eyes had widened slightly in surprise. Nevertheless, Purna ran her fingers through her hair with a sigh.

"I guess you're not as worthless as you look." She admitted with reluctance.

Logan felt as if he should have been annoyed with what she had just said, but seeing Xian beaming brightly in the background softened his anger. Instead of retorting as he usually would, he gave a quick nod and smiled in Purna's direction, causing her to raise a brow in surprise.

"Okay then!" Sam B. said while clapping his hands loudly together. "So now that we're a happy family, what are we gonna do now?"

Xian stepped forward with a look full of determination. "We promised some people that we would clear out this place for them!"

Sam B's smiled suddenly dropped into a sour look of incredulity. "Some people? Who are they? Where they at?"

Even after the explanation, Sam B's expression did not change. "So you're telling me we gotta bust our asses for some people who can't do shit for us?"

Logan chuckled a bit. Sam B's reaction was somewhat similar to how Logan had first felt when Xian told him the same news for the first time. He walked over to Sam B and patted him on the shoulder.

"Come on. It'd be cake if we all stuck together. Just look at what we can do together." Logan nodded towards the bloody mess of what was left of the zombie corpse that had exploded earlier.

Sam B grumbled to himself for a minute before nodding his head in agreement. He grew up in a childhood filled with an empty future and yet he still made it to the top of the music charts with luck. He was on the verge of falling back down from the top since he had to be forced to become a broken record of a rapper due to his hit single "Who Do You Voodoo Bitch" and now whilst the world is turning into a zombie hellhole, here he is. Alive in a group filled with people who have skills and the intention to help others. He was blessed with luck indeed, and if he went with the flow, he was sure he can get himself out of this mess.

Purna looked at Xian. Xian seems to be so naturally kind, which could be the downfall to the group if she were to be too generous with her kindness every time they find a survivor. But Purna still had the vibe of the law enforcement and helping others who lacked the power and wealth to do so was something she sympathized with for the longest time. Out of the entire group, Purna felt as if she was the only one who put in the most hard work and dedication to get to where she is right now, and if she kept putting in the effort, maybe the world can become a better place after everything settles back down. Maybe things will be different and she can begin a new life – this time as an inspirational enforcer of the law who no longer has to serve for the corrupted wealthy men as she had done for the past few years.

"Whatever you kids want to do, I'm up for it." Purna said at last.

Logan grunted as he stretched. The pain in his shoulder was quite the downer, but his confidence boosted like crazy thanks to his new group members radiating a sense of success in actually surviving in this island.

"Okay guys." Logan said with a grin while walking back to the remaining propane tank to pick it up as he gazed onto the open garage.

"Let's go kick some voodoo ass."