Apologies for the massive wait, my summer job exhausts me at the end of every day, it's real hard to find the time and motivation nowadays, but here we are!

Different is on temporary hiatus, but I'll try and get some more chapters in, hopefully longer!

Now please enjoy my longest chapter yet! Don't forget to favorite, follow, and review!

Chapter 4: Escape Plan

"You guys really found a Tank THAT big?"

"Aw, hell yeah, this thing was at least half the size of an eighteen wheeler."

While Kyle exaggerated more of his stories to Francis and Louis, I sat in the corner of the next safe house with Bill, checking the supplies. Well, most of it was just spent watching the bullshit come out of the Smoker's mouth.

"And then, John was going 'Oh shit, we're gonna die!' But I said 'Nah, we got this.' I guess the pack of Hunters we were running from had a grudge with the Tank, because they forgot about us completely and made a mad dash for the thing!" Francis seemed to be so glued to the story, I wouldn't be surprised if he sat criss-cross in front of Kyle with a box of juice.

Louis was more humanely interested, sitting in a folding chair opposite of Kyle, half focused on the story, half focused on the partially made pipebomb in front of him, making periodic grunts of acknowledgment. Since Francis was a complete idiot, Zoey was still scared of me, and Louis was working on something far too complex for me, I assumed Bill would be the best option.

I gave the veteran a quick glance. He wasn't like what I'd assume the elderly would be like. Strong, not very healthy but enough for this, and a short, darkish gray mess of hair. His beard was all over the place, not that I blame him, and I noticed 'Overbeck' stitched to his green jacket.

Louis, despite his leg injury, was not all that bad. From his precise work with all the tech gear, sloppy red tie, once-crisp white uniform shirt, and dark khakis, I assumed he was a tech guy of some sort. Quite the damn optimist, even with a deep leg wound, and a disturbing good shot with close range firearms. He told me he used to go to firing ranges a lot, 'Just in case.'

Gotta hand it to the guy, he was damn well prepared.

Francis seemed to be the problematic one of the group, and it didn't seem like he was all that great before this. Tattoos littered his arms, and he wore a dark leather jacket with a small splotch of vomit on the side. Judging from how old the vomit stain looked, I'd guess he hasn't considered at least attempting to clean it. He was probably in a biker gang once, and his breath reeked of a history of alcohol.

From where I was sitting, I could smell it. That was the sad thing.

Zoey didn't look built for a fight of any kind, but at the same time she was pretty damn intimidating. She had a light red hoodie that was battered from the past few weeks, and her ponytail was a little messy. She had a small but noticeable bruise on her forehead, but looked otherwise OK. I wasn't sure if it was from her group protecting her or if she really was that good at escaping wounds.

The hunting rifle in her hand concerned me. Despite her argument with Bill about helping innocent Survivors (Although I guess I can't count myself in that group), she seemed wary about our presence.

I chose to ignore it, though. It'd be better to act like it wasn't a big deal than to look clearly worried about it.

"Hey, kid, you got HEP-A or something?" Bill's rasp broke me from my thoughts, and I looked over to see him watching me. "No, not that I know of," I responded, a bit confused, when it hit me.

My eyes.

Fucking hell.

"Huh," he huffed, but didn't seem overly interested on it, and went back to cleaning his M16.

He didn't notice HOW bad my eyes looked?

Last time I ever checked, they were a dead giveaway of infection, yet the old coot barely payed attention.

"Hey, this shit all true?" Francis interrupted, nudging me. I looked between him and Kyle, who was giving me a wink, and mentally sighed. "Yeah, yeah we see lots of crazy shit."

That was enough for Francis to believe, and he continued his conversation with Kyle. I turned back to look outside again, shaking my head.

Bikers...

Zoey continued to watch me, and I nervously did everything not to look back.

Didn't matter, she must've remembered my face, because she stood up and pointed a finger at me. "It was you..." she whispered. I stared at her with a blank face, but inside I was freaking out. What the hell was she going to do? "I-I'm sorry?"

"You broke in to our safe house last night," she said louder, getting Kyle's attention. "Miss, I was on guard duty last night when we were alone, he was out like a light," he lied. I wasn't sure if he could remember all his lies, but I went with it anyway.

"Y-yeah, plus, you should really get some rest." It was true, I could see the bags under her eyes and the fatigue plastered across her face. She must not have slept after I snuck out, and has probably been awake for two-nearing-three days.

Bill stood up, calmly placing his gun on the table. "John's right, I think we all could use some sleep before tomorrow," he said, gesturing deeper into the small building to sleep.

Francis almost groaned like a child, getting up with his shotgun as he left the room, mumbling something about it.

Kyle and I, of course, offered as guard duty for the night, and apparently we earned enough trust for them to be fine with it, except Zoey, who kept giving me a Luigi evil eye as she walked to an empty bedroom.

I sat in front of the safe room door, watching the Commons mindlessly stumble around. One tripped on something and fell down, tore open its arm as it nicked a rusty fence, and got up as if nothing happened.

Depressing.

I was VERY glad I wasn't that kind of Common.

"'Ey, John," I heard the Smoker whisper from his corner of the room. I turned to look at him, barely able to keep his head up. "Yeah?"

"How long do ya think we'll be able to stay with these guys?" he asked. If it weren't such a serious risk at this time, I would grab his tongue and pull on it to wake him up.

But it was a serious risk at this time, so I ignored it.

"Dunno," I responded quietly, staring back out into the infected, moonlit streets. "Guess as long as we can keep our cover. Maybe longer if they don't freak out."

"Like that'll happen..." he yawned, slightly drooping down in the corner. "Dude, get some sleep," I said, "everyone needs to stay sharp for the morning. We still got lots of Tanks in this city."

"Don't remind me..." he muttered, and I didn't hear another word from him, just quiet, deep breaths.

I spent the rest of the night leaned back in a folding chair, feet on a small table, watching the dead world outside.

It got me wondering how many were out there like us and actually intelligent, but with my luck it was only probably us two.

Probably for the best, I'm not up for fighting Tanks with even remote intelligence.

Morning came quicker than I anticipated, but before I knew it we were in a makeshift kitchen within the building discussing what we knew about the area to the Survivors. Kyle offered to cook breakfast, and everybody was more than fine with him doing it.

"... And if you cross through the alley here, the Witch would almost never know you were there," I heard from the Smoker as he passed around plates of food. I was surprised how many perishables were here that haven't spoiled, and Kyle quickly went to work using them. It mostly consisted of bacon, scrambled eggs, and near-expired sausage. None of it might have tasted great, seeing how the electricity was unstable and cooking was hard when the power would periodically go out, but to us it was heaven.

Bill paused as he absorbed Kyle's information, and cleared his throat as he spoke again. "Alright, but how about the bridge over here? I don't expect many Infected to spend time near so much water."

"Pfft, you have no idea," I scoffed, swallowing a forkful of eggs. "So many Survivors go to the docks and bridge, but Infected almost completely ignore water. Hunters actually hide in the windows and leap at anything that comes by, knowing the humans will either fall off the bridge or drown."

Bill nodded slowly, drawing a red X over the docks on the map in front of him. I barely notice he had one.

"Brrt rrvrythrng ulse rs wurse wrth th zumbrs," Francis blurted through a mouthful of sausage, and we all glared at him, waiting for him to swallow. "Beg your pardon?" Louis asked, who found time to tuck his shirt back in. Not that it'll last.

"I said everything else is worse with the zombies," Francis said, swallowing his food. I took another look at the map. Everywhere we discussed to get to the sailboat they were trying to reach was marked with a big X, varying in size depending on the severity of the Infected there. The bridge had the smallest X, and I was pretty sure there are the least amount of Infected there. But there was one problem.

"Hey, guys?" I said, "The bridge is probably your safest bet, but the generators that power it are more than guaranteed to be either dead or empty. We'd have to start them all back up, which'll call every Infected in the city."

The whole room fell silent as everybody took it in.

Infected either really loved or really hated noise, and swarmed where there were noises, such as car alarms, or in our case, age-old generators. If we were to get to the bridge, one small house stockpiled with ammo and a machine gun would be the only form of defense if the hordes got too big.

"I say we do it," a small voice spoke up from the corner, and I turned to see Zoey standing up. "I don't think we have any other choice. All the food here will expire within the next day or so, and we're far too low on ammo. It's our only chance." She looked to me with a nod of approval of my idea, which absolutely surprised me.

I guess she got over what happened, and was more than glad to get back to the main problem of survival.

"Alright, we'll take a vote," Bill said, folding up the map and retiring it to his backpack. "All who want to risk the bridge, raise your hand."

Francis and Zoey immediately raised their hands, being with the idea from the start. Louis slowly brought his hand up, and I noticed Kyle bring his hand up too. All eyes were on me as I gave in and shrugged. "Alright, I'm in."

"Alright, guys, this is it," Bill said, "Grab your gear and get ready, we regroup at the safe door in fifteen minutes."

Everybody scattered to their own room in the building to collect whatever they needed, as Kyle and I stayed behind.

"You think this plan'll work?" he asked me, and I shrugged. "Only one we got rather than sitting here. You and I both know that'll end bad."

Kyle nodded in agreement, taking a seat on the torn couch by the door. He used his tongue to grab all of his gear on the other side of the room, and quickly shot it back to him before anyone came in and saw. I noticed the multiple boxes of unspent ammo stuffed inside his backpack, along with a G36 strapped to the side. "Damn, you've been busy," I said, and he merely smirked. "Where the hell did you find this stuff?"

"It's part of my interesting story," he replied, laying down on the couch. I watched him, waiting to hear this story about a hoodie and guns, but he said nothing. "Sorry, bud. You'll have to wait until we're in the clear before I'll tell ya," he said, and I waved him off as I left to find my gear in my room.

For once, I actually felt exhausted as I entered the room.

Were we actually going to go with these guys to the Keys? I'm not sure how we could tell them we're staying if we were going to be up against half the Infected in the city at the same time.

I may be intelligent, but now I think I was batshit crazy joining these guys in the first place. 'Told you,' the voice stated sarcastically, and I huffed in annoyance as I collapsed on the bed.

Why couldn't I just get my head blown off already?