The next morning was the start of a new life for the both of them. Chris was woken up to the sound of thunder and explosions off in the distance. Something serious was going down and the only thing Chris knew is that they needed to get away as soon as possible. He just sat there for a second staring up at the ceiling while he was on the couch, "What are we going to do?" He sat up and looked out the window and watched the devastation occurring only miles away from their location. "This isn't right, things like this just don't happen in a matter of hours, this has to be something huge about to happen. We can't afford being around here whenever this goes down. I gotta find Rachel."

Chris began looking around for Rachel in the other rooms where they were staying but she was no where to be found. He started to become worried about what could have happened to her but eventually found a note on one of the desks in the room that kind of eased his mind. Chris sat down on the torn up leather seat and leaned back as he started to read.

"Heyo, by the time you're reading this you're probably flipping out about where I've gone but that's okay. I had to do a few last minute errands before we headed out today on our last crazy job but no worries. By now I have all the other gear we need to drop off at our last location. Meet me downstairs in the shed outside the back of the building and we'll head out." - Rachel

"Why do you always do stuff like this on your own?" Chris facepalmed and sighed real deep. He grabbed his gun and slung the backpack over his shoulder as he headed out down the hall. Things were getting more and more hectic as he looked out the window while walking down the hall towards the set of stairs. Closer to the downtown area of the city there were flames lining the streets and seemed to eat up everything they touched. He was starting to become uneasy about all of this going on while he and Rachel were going to be traveling through the city. No way could they easily navigate around here and it seemed to get more dangerous the more he watched the window.

"Enough of that. We need to drop off those packages and get the heck out of this forsaken place and finally be done with all of this." Chris said to himself as he made it to the door, entering the stairwell as he began his descent downstairs to the bottom level of the building. It was longer of a walk down than he remembered going up the first time. He was trying to count how many seconds between each of the explosions that were occurring in the city and it was about every 30 seconds. "What the heck is going on?" He pushed the door open and saw Rachel waiting at the door of the shed out back for him.

"Where have you been? I thought you'd be here already." Rachel had an upset tone in her voice, partially shaky and seemed like she had been running recently.

"What do you mean? I just finally woke up and read your note!" Chris said back, squinting his eyes to see her better. It was just barely light enough outside to see but still was pretty dark. He began noticing there was a good amount of dirt all over Rachel's clothes and had an extra backpack in her hands.

"You sure do sleep in long you old man!" Rachel laughed out at him and threw the other backpack to him. She could see the amount of concern in her best friend's eyes with everything that was going around the city but she seemed to be relatively collected together about all of it. She knew something that he didn't. "Anyways, so I have some news Chris. You might be wondering what in the world is all going on in the city." Chris looked up with a look of confusion all over his face. Rachel kinda laughed nervously and scratched the back of her neck and continued on, "Well... Um. Specifically I'm not sure but I heard something about gang wars happening that are going down throughout the city and the military is trying to basically take out anyone who is causing an upset throughout the city. Basically long story short, people are dying and places and being burnt down to the ground and so things are extremely dangerous right now." Rachel let off a sigh but then smiled back at Chris. "But I think we'll be fine. I've planned out a way we can get through the city on this map." Rachel handed a piece of paper to Chris's shaking hands, the map was pretty crude but it had most of the main buildings they needed to go around and had a few notes here and there explaining different routes if anything happened.

They walked from the back of the building and to the front parking lot. Rachel put her hand into her backpack and pulled out a pair of binoculars and handed them to Chris as she looked at the map. Rachel brushed the hair out of her eyes and put her pink bandanna on and then put Chris's green one from his backpack on his head, purposefully messing up his hair a little bit.

"Hey I'm trying to focus here, okay?" Chris said to Rachel looking through the binoculars, "It looks like there's not much activity going on that far down the street but we better keep our heads low."

"Alright, sounds good." Rachel put her hand on Chris's shoulder, "Stay close and keep up with me this time, ya old man." Rachel laughed back at Chris as she hopped over the iron link fence and dashed towards the nearest shop that was along the street. Chris followed her behind as close as possible and made sure he was constantly checking around them in case anyone was behind them.

They reached the first shop along the street and they could already hear someone in the store talking with another person in the store. It was pretty loud considering all the windows throughout the street had been broken and most of the shops throughout the downtown had all been robbed already.

Rachel shuffled down the edge of the front of the store and peered in through broken windows and saw the two men discussing between themselves about something.

"What are we supposed to do? There's no one left here, everyone else has been killed around here so our job is done." Said the guy with his back to Rachel, he had a rifle strapped to his shoulder and had his arm around it as he talked.

"Well I suppose we get whatever we can from here and scavenge for anything else we can find. There's several water bottles, snacks and socks that I grabbed throughout these stores. I don't know what all we can find but it wouldn't hurt to try." Said the one that was facing Rachel a little more, he seemed to have more of a chest rig on that had the supplies for both of them, he carried a handgun on his right side.

Rachel moved back over to the side where Chris was waiting. She had a face that Chris had trouble figuring out because it was one she made for several things whether it was nervousness or uncertainty. Either way it was clear that she was coming up with a plan.

Just then the both of them heard a sound that was very familiar to Rachel. It sent chills down her spine and she got still. It was a low gurgling and clicking sound that would change from low to high pitches that was worse than scraping your nails down a chalkboard. Even the two in the store had heard it but it sounded like it was closer to them.

"What is that?!" One of them yelled out. It sounded like something was moving in the ceiling above them. "Get your gun out you fool!" The other yelled. There were gunshots and finally a crash as whatever was in the ceiling came down followed by absolutely horrifying screams by the men and shrieks from whatever this creature was. After that, was silence. Rachel was like plastered up against the wall and had her hand over Chris's mouth.

The creature moved from the center of the store towards the front of the store and stopped in the doorway. He started back its clicking and then there was the sound of several more of these things that echoed down the rest of the street. They must have been communicating.

Rachel and Chris stood there stone cold and didn't dare even make a single sound as their hearts felt like they were about to beat out of their chest, not knowing what it was going to do next and the fact that they were only a matter of feet away from it. It decided to move away from them down the street, deeper into the downtown part of the city. Rachel and Chris had to go in that same direction but no way are they going to be following that close behind whatever this thing was.

After a while Rachel peered over into the street and watched a dozen of these creatures walking down the road, stumbling around. She noticed that their faces no longer looked human and that it was taken over by the fungus that had infected the country years ago. It was what most referred to as a Clicker, several had spores seeming to be growing out of different places in their bodies and their faces were split apart as it seemed to mimic some sort of flower, it was definitely a hideous sight for sure.

Rachel grabbed Chris by the arm and ran into the store to see what they could do about these two dead guys, she at least realized they had supplies on them but having to see the carnage of what just happened wasn't appealing to her.

"Okay, grab his chest rig and their two guns. I don't think we'll need everything here so just get the essentials. We don't have lots of time that we can spend here because I don't know if those things will be back or not so we have to be able to run if needed. We also can't be carrying so much that we get slowed down with all of our gear." Rachel was taking things out of the backpacks and evenly distributing it between her and Chris and leaving a few extra things behind that were unnecessary.

"Well, whatever those things are... I don't wanna be running into them anytime soon again, that's for sure." Chris said looking at the rifle in his hands from the guy that just died. "I think this will definitely do. Here, you'll get both of our pistols and I'll have the rifles." Chris said handing over the handguns to Rachel.

Rachel stood up and put her backpack back on and put the guns in her holsters and made sure the coast was clear outside. She turned over to Chris who was still fumbling around with his gear with determination in her eyes, "No time to lose, we have to travel deeper into the city. Let's move!"