Sorry for the wait. There was a bunch of crap that needed my attention, so I had to do all of that before I could actually get started on this. But I'm here now, so that's what counts…right?

I'm introducing some more OC's in this chapter, just for the sake of making it look better. So please don't rip my head off with the abundance of them. I don't plan on introducing any more characters after this, mainly because I don't want to get too crazy with this. I'm pretty much pushing it as it is right now. But don't worry, this will all tie in with Resident evil. You've just got to wait and read.

Also, I'll be giving names to places. I'm just coming up with these names off of the top of my head, so any similarities to actual places is purely coincidental.

Safety

Both of the survivors could breathe easily now that they had started moving. The ride was going well so far, and they hadn't spotted many zombies wandering the streets. Those they did spot were easily dodged caused no problems for them.

"Don't actually hit them with your car. Sure, it's funny to watch them pop against the hood of your car, but you risk damaging your only means of transportation." Leon had explained this to Mark as they after they had exited the garage. Too many times had Leon seen someone hit a zombie, only to have their car stop working afterwards. Those survivors usually ended up having their entrails used as a zombie's snack. You had to watch out for these careless little things when all hell broke loose.

It had been about five minutes since they had exited the garage. Mark was driving around with no clear destination in mind. They were supposed to be looking for other survivors, but he was just glad to be away from those things. He would just wait until Leon came up with another plan. His quick, crude plans had a way of somehow working out in the end.

Leon stared ahead for a long time doing nothing. He didn't even so much as make eye contact with Mark. He was deep in thought, trying to figure out what to do next. There were a million places they could go, but which would be the safest. Sure, they wanted to look for other survivors, but they didn't want to deal with too many people. That always ended the same way; with the group getting killed or killing each other.

After a few minutes, Leon finally spoke up. "Where's the closest grocery store?" he asked.

Mark thought for a few seconds. "There's one not too far from here. About five minutes actually," he replied.

"Is it big?" Leon asked, his stoic face never changing.

"Nah," replied Mark. "All's it is is a small building, couldn't hold too many people."

Leon smiled. "Perfect, that's just what we need."

Mark raised his eyebrows, confused. "It is?" he asked.

Leon turned towards him. "Of course, we don't want to deal with too many survivors, so we want to avoid large stores. But with a smaller store like that, there are bound to be a few survivors without there being too many."

Mark nodded. He understood now. Of course, he should have never doubted this man in the first place. He had experience with these kinds of things; he knew what he was doing.

Mark drove to the place he had mentioned. It was an uneventful ride ruled by silence and the maneuvering around obstacles. Leon had adopted the stoic expression on his face once again, never once letting it waver. Mark glanced over every now and again, trying to read his face, seeing if he could pick up on what he was thinking. He gave up on doing this though. It was like trying to read the thoughts of a brick wall.

"Park here," said Leon when Mark started slowing down. He did as he was told. He turned the car off and engaged the parking brake. Leon instantly disengaged it. Mark saw this and stared at Leon, demanding an explanation. Leon smiled and said, "If we need to get away in a hurry, this will just cost us more time." With that he exited the car. Mark remained behind though, running what Leon said through his head. Leon saw this and knocked on the car window, getting Mark's attention. "You coming?" he asked.

Mark nodded and got out of the car. He went to lock it, but remembered what Leon had just told him and left it unlocked. Now that he thought about it, it seemed like a pretty smart idea. He pointed down the street. "It's not too far from here," he said. "Just up the street, a place called 'Dell grocery."

Dell grocery, Leon had been there before. It was a pretty small building. Leon had always wondered how it had qualified to be a grocery store. Nevertheless, he knew there wouldn't be a lot of people there just because it was small. Most people preferred big stores because it had supplies that lasted longer. Or so they thought, at least. When everything went to hell, you usually didn't have electricity. Without electricity, most the freezer units don't run, and all of the meat spoils. Then you end up with less than you though having to be distributed between more people than it can feed.

"Let's get going before we get attacked," Leon said to Mark. They started walking down the street, passing by a zombie every now and again that would be oblivious to them. The walk was going pretty nicely without the zombies noticing them until they actually got to the store. Outside the entrance was a large group of zombies, 30 from what Leon could count. They were all clawing at the front of the store. The only reason they weren't getting in was because of the metal covers over the store windows.

Leon walked forward and started shooting. All of his bullets found their marks, whether it be in the heads or bodies of the zombies. They started to turn their attention towards the two survivors that weren't in the store as they were being killed off.

"What the fuck are you doing!" screamed Mark.

"I'm not going to rush in there and start begging to be let in like I did with you. We have to show that we're friendly if we're gonna get in there. The only way to do that is to start shooting."

That sounded way too dangerous for Mark, but he followed suit. Raising his pistol, he took careful aim at the zombie leading the pack. He had a lot of practice with a gun, so he didn't worry about missing. Finding his mark, he shot. The bullet struck the zombie right in the center of its forehead, killing it instantly. He stood his ground, dropping zombies as he saw them. He was thankful that he had someone with him who was equally as good with a gun. Leon was duplicating Mark: Dropping zombies as he saw them; one bullet for each one.

"We have to move forward and get closer to the door!" Leon shouted over the moans of the zombies. There were more coming now, attracted by the sounds of the gunshots. Leon reloaded his weapon before advancing closer to the group of undead. Mark kept telling himself how insanely crazy this was, but he followed Leon nonetheless.

Leon was clearing a path through the zombies. Running low and hitting them with his shoulder, they were being knocked away and to the ground. The zombies, with their less than lackluster coordination, had trouble getting up after the tackle. Mark once again wondered how Leon could be so knowledgeable and just downright ballsy when it came to these things. He himself was fine with just shooting from a distance, but that kid went right up and charged headlong into those things.

Mark traveled the path that Leon had cleared through them, clubbing them as he went through. Looking back behind him, he saw that more were closing in on them. Mark started to move a little faster, not wanting to become a main entrée. He kept pushing them out of the way as he advanced and shot those that got too close. He eventually caught up with Leon; he was just making his way out of the group of the undead and going towards the door of the store.

Leon looked behind him and saw Mark, unscathed. He nodded towards him and started knocking. "We aren't bitten!" he screamed. "Let us in!"

For a while, there was nothing, and both of them thought that they may need to figure something else out. But at the last possible second, a voice spoke up from inside. "Go around back, we'll open the door when you get there."

Leon motioned for Mark to follow him and started running. The zombies were still closing in on them, but the two survivors were resilient, killing any that got too close. Leon was resorting to knifing them, and Mark merely pushed them away, not bothering with his gun. His goal right now was to get into that building.

Entering the alleyway, Mark tipped over trashcans as they made their way to the door. He wanted to do everything in his power to make sure they had enough time to get into the building. Him and Leon were sprinting as fast as they could, almost excited at the possibility of a decent refuge. Occasionally glancing behind them, they saw that the distance between them and the zombies was increasing. Mark thanked their brief good luck.

They rounded the corner of the building at the end of the alley and saw the back door open with a man gesturing at them to go inside. They quickly complied and ran in. The man quickly closed and locked the door behind them.

"Don't relax just yet, we have a few more doors to go through before you can consider yourself home safe," said the man.

He pushed passed Leon and Mark and started walking into the store. The newcomers followed him, keeping a wary hand near their weapons, just in case this ended badly. They seemed friendly now, but people turned mean during times of terror.

After a short walk through a couple of short hallways, they went through a door that entered the main store. It was surely small, about as big as a quarter of an apartment building floor. From a first glance, it looked like there was a small motley crew of 3 other survivors. It didn't look as if they had been here very long either; the store shelves were still pretty full.

Before the man advanced any further into the store, he turned and asked, "You guys aren't bitten are you? I'm not going to check you or anything, but just know that if you are, I'll probably just kill you as soon as I find out."

"No, we aren't infected," was Leon's reply.

The man looked him over, as to see for himself the validity of that claim. After a couple of minutes, he seemed to be satisfied with that answer, and proceeded to introduce the group to the new survivors.

"The name's Jeff. I'm what you may call the 'appointed leader' of the group. It just came to be like that, and nobody said anything against it."

Pointing to a rather young and quite beautiful looking woman, Jeff said, "That's Linda, my wife. I may be the leader, but she's pretty much the asskicker of the group. Zombies don't stand much of a chance against her if you ask me." There was a hint of a smile as he said this.

Pointing to another man that looked no older than thirty, unshaven with sunken eyes that held a cold look of desperation and hate, Jeff said, "That there is Jacob. We picked him up on the way to the store. His wife was killed in the attack. Him and his son made it out ok though."

He pointed to the last person, whom Leon assumed was Jacob's son. He looked relatively young; twelve or thirteen actually. "And that's Matthew, Jacob's son, obviously. He doesn't talk much to anyone but his dad, so it's really no use trying to talk with him or anything."

Jeff swept his hand over the group. "Well, there's our group," he said with a smile. "Nothing big, but we've been managing. Fortified the store and started rationing out food. We should be fine for quite a while if we just hold out like we've been doing. And if you're worried about being a problem, don't. We'll still have plenty of supplies for the both of you. By the way, do you mind introducing yourselves to us?"

Leon introduced himself first. "I'm Leon," he said extending his arm out for a handshake. "And this is Mark. We met up back at an apartment building not too far from here. I don't know about him, but I have experience with fighting and surviving against zombies. So I can be of some help if you need it."

Jeff nodded and said, "Well, that's about it. Plumbing still works, so that's a plus. The toilets are just down the hall outside of the door we just came in through."

Good thing he told him that, because Leon had to go badly. He thanked Jeff and quickly hurried out of the room to the bathroom. He got there and quickly did his business, not wanting to be away from the group too long. Exiting the stall, he heard a noise coming from a stall a few doors down.

At first, Leon thought that someone else had come in behind him. But as he continued to listen, he realized that it sounded like something wanted to get out. Something like a zombie. Leon quickly pulled out his gone and advanced towards the stall with the gun outstretched before him. When he was a few steps away from the stall, he extended his arm and pushed the door inwards. He wasn't prepared for what he saw next.

What he saw was a zombie. He had seen plenty of those, but this one was chained to the seat of the toilet in a sitting position. Chains constricted the arms to the things sides, and bound the legs together. They ran to a pole that was in the wall, pulled tight to allow little to know room for the zombie to lunge. The scratching he had heard was coming from the zombie's fingernails being scraped against the porcelain of the toilet. Leon was taken completely by surprise at this and stumbled back, almost screaming from the scare it had given him.

Still staring at the zombie, Leon didn't hear Jeff enter the bathroom. His vision was focused solely on it when Jeff said, "I see you've met my daughter."

Leon quickly spun around, surprised, and asked, "What? Your daughter?" He was completely dumbfounded. "How…why...why is she here?"

Jeff just looked at his daughter for a moment before replying. "It's because I can't let her go Leon. She's my daughter, I'm sure you can understand that. I'm not just going to leave her out there with the rest of them."

Leon didn't know how to reply to this, so he just pulled out his gun and went to shoot the zombified girl. But as soon as he did, Jeff pulled out his sidearm and pointed it at Leon .

"You see Leon, I can't let you do that. My wife and I, we've come too far to lose her. We're not just going to let someone like you take her away from us. Now, you're going to put your gun away, and then I'm going to leave the bathroom. You're going to shut that door and wash your hands before you leave this bathroom. We don't want anyone getting suspicious. But after you go back out there, you're not going to tell anyone what you saw here. Because if you do, my wife and I are going to kill all of you, are we clear?"

Leon nodded.

"Good," Jeff said with a smile. He turned around to exit the bathroom, but stopped. He turned back to Leon and asked, "By the way, how did you know she was in there?"

Leon looked over at the girl and replied, "I heard her scratching her nails against the toilet."

Jeff frowned when he heard this. "Looks like I have to pull the chains tighter," he said to nobody in particular, and exited the bathroom.

After Jeff's exit, Leon merely stood there for a couple of minutes before finally doing what he had been told. He closed the door, but not before taking one last look at the girl, who was ceaselessly trying to break out of the chains and go after Leon. As he stared at her, he felt what could be described as pity for the girl. This almost made him sad to see this. But instead of pondering that thought, he just closed the door like he was told. After washing his hands, because everyone should follow standard bathroom protocol when the zombies took over, he went back out to rejoin the group.

"Took you long enough," Mark said when Leon came back into the room. Leon simply smiled at that remark and went to sit over with the group.

They weren't really doing anything remarkable; just sitting there, looking out at the zombie masses. Leon gave them props on the fortifications. Steel shutters nailed over the windows would keep a lot of zombies out for a long time.

Since there was nothing else to do, Leon just took a seat and stared down at his feet. He did this for a few minutes before letting out a heavy sigh and stating to the rest of the group that he was hungry and would get something to eat. He asked if anybody else wanted anything, and was met with replies of no. Shrugging, he went off to find something decent to eat and to hopefully find some form of entertainment.

As he passed the boy, Matthew, he remembered, he looked down at the kid. Someone that young didn't deserve to go through the hell he was going through right now. But as he studied the kid, he noticed something amiss. It was a blood pool forming just under the shoulder of his shirt. Leon studied this for a few seconds before walking off to avoid arousing any suspicion.

Suspicion from now knowing what the kid and his father were hiding. That blood pool was coming from a bite.