She stayed another night in the cottage, too exhausted to leave that day. Then she packed up her things and checked Henry's map again before Radio Abel was on. Still uncertain as to where exactly she was and what road she ought to follow, she could only hope that she was getting closer. There was a big city on the map in the area that Henry had circled. Perhaps it was the one she had been in yesterday.

Not daring to think too much about that lest she might panic again, Viv quickly switched her attention to the radio and turned it on to find the white noise. It only lasted a couple of minutes, however; she was getting good at the timing. Then the well-known radio hosts began their show.

"Hello, listeners, and welcome back to another segment of Radio Abel!" Eugene began. "Jack and I were just talking about the things we miss the most. And Jack was saying that he would very much love a soft bed again."

"Yes!" Jack replied. "You know, I'd love to be able to actually buy a brand new bed again instead of that old thing we sleep in now. Not that I could really afford to do that a whole lot before, but let's not lose focus."

"Right." Eugene sounded amused.

"I even suggested to Janine that we could send Runners out to get new beds for everyone at Abel…"

"Everyone being him."

"Shut up, 'Gene. Anyway, she said they are too heavy and that, I quote, 'If you want a new bed, Mr. Holden, you're going to have to drag it back here yourself'. Well, thank you, Janine. Most kind of you. I will do that as soon as I find a radioactive spider to bite me."

"A radioactive spider?"

"Yes! I mean, we've got zombies. They have to be around here somewhere, don't they?"

This made Eugene laugh.

"Alright, listeners, and on that hopeful note, here's a song for you."

The song started playing and Viv recognized it; it was one that she had on her mp3 as well, the first song from her playlist she had heard them play. She could not wait till the day Jack and Eugene would have more of them.

"I remember tears streaming down your face

When I said 'I'll never let you go',

When all those shadows almost killed your light …"

Viv hummed along to the soft melody, wishing, not for the first time, that the music would never stop playing and the voices go on forever. But it did stop, eventually, and she put the radio into the rucksack, checked that she still had her mp3 in her pocket, then picked up the bag and went out the door.

She had figured that she must need to get to an area on the other side of the city, and even though most of her greatly wanted to go in as big a ring around it as possible, the sensible part knew that the quickest way was to follow its outlines fairly close. So she kept sight of the many houses as she walked between the bushes and trees and flowers growing wild, more wild, she supposed, than they would have been allowed to had there still been people living around these parts. Somewhere ahead, she could see what looked like a road, possibly a freeway, and she smiled. The map had one like that too. Maybe she really was getting closer! If Henry had been right, she would soon arrive at her destination. If not …

She shook her head. Of course he had been right. There could be no room for silly thoughts in her mind, especially not know. She had to believe that in a couple of days at most, she would be at Abel Township. The mp3 player in her pocket felt steadying and comforting as she reached down a hand and squeezed it.

It took her half an hour or so before she reached the freeway. She noticed the small hill up ahead before she saw the fence on top of it that had once made sure that drivers stayed on the road and did not accidentally go off to the side and down into the ditch, risking their lives by crashing their cars and the lives of others by risking an explosion that might set the place on fire. She trod carefully as she moved through the grass and, reaching the man-made hillside itself at last, took a firm hold of whatever she could find that may hold her weight and started climbing.

It was not that steep, yet the bag and her spear weighed her down, and twice she lost her footing; she felt her heart reach her throat in those moments, afraid that she might fall and injure herself, but both times she managed to hold on and could keep climbing. At last she could crawl under the fence and onto the asphalt that made up the road. Here she stopped to look around at the remains of what had once been the main route into the city.

So many cars still remained here, yet the place looked desolate and sad, and the strange surrealism of her current surroundings made her feel lonelier than she had in the country side. Some of the cars were missing parts of their windows or were otherwise broken, others had been stained with blood that had long since dried, but most cars seemed only parked, as if their owners would soon return, unlock them, and drive away from the insanity of the apocalyptic world that was now their reality. Viv stood there, among the deserted cars, and did not, for a long moment, know what to do with herself. Then she firmly reminded herself that she ought to get going. She had places to be. So she made her way through the line of ghost cars to the fence on the other side, taking great care as she did so to keep an eye out for any of the undead that might still be left here, stuck somehow, along with their vehicles.

She was about to descend the other side of the hill when suddenly, she heard something that she had not, for a long time, experienced while out here. She heard voices.

Hesitating, she stopped and looked around. At first, she could see nothing different from before. But the voices got closer, and so she got up again and tried to locate them. They were not coming from the city itself. Instead, they were nearing from the part of the road that led out into rural territory. Heart beating fast, Viv waited, uncertain of what to expect from a meeting with strangers. She had tried no such thing when she had been with Henry, not since the very early days in which Aunt Iris had still been with them, and that had led to nothing but parting ways. What could this lead to?

As the voices got closer, she could tell that they were male. Less than a minute later, she saw them approach, on foot, three sturdy men with backpacks, one of them holding an axe, one with a knife in his belt, the third with a branch in hand. She grasped her spear harder, but her heart beat a hopeful melody despite her caution.

"Hey." One of them had noticed her. "Hey, look. Isn't that a girl? Over there. No, over there, you idiot, can't you see where the fuck I'm pointing? There!"

The second man held up his hand to shadow his eyes and make him better able to see.

"Shit, I think you're right, Damon. What, d'you think she's a walker?"

"Fuckhead, why would a walker be holding a fucking stick?"

"Shut up, both of you!" the last man cut in. "Can't you see you're bloody scaring her?"

He was right. Viv was looking at them with suspicion clear in her face. She did not like the way they spoke. Henry and his friends had never spoken to each other in that tone and with those words, at least not any time she had listened to their conversations. The only reason she had not yet moved from her spot was because part of her was hoping that these men might be able to help her find Abel Township, that perhaps they knew people there and could point her in the right direction, even, perhaps, bring her there. Because could it be that she was being too quick to judge them, simply because of the language which they used?

"Hey, girl," the one who had spoken last took a few steps forward and held out his hand, although she was not yet within reach of it, "what's your name?"

"What are you doing, Earl?" the man called Damon asked. "We can't bring a kid with us; it'd be too much trouble. Bet she can't do nothing useful!"

"Shut the fuck up," Earl hissed back at him, lowering his voice to a tone that Viv knew that she was not supposed to be able to hear, yet still she caught the words, "I just want her, man. I haven't had a woman in months!"

"But …" the first man eyed her uncertainly, "… she's a fucking kid, Earl."

"So?"

"So that's just sick, man!"

"Who's going to stop me? You?"

A threatening movement with the axe in his hand made the doubter step back and shrug in reply, eyeing the weapon nervously, as if he had seen it used one too many times on other things standing in the way of the wielder. Viv, understanding their conversation and suddenly feeling sick, began to back away. But then Earl turned back towards her and as he saw her move away, he took another couple of steps forward.

"Don't be scared, hey," he said, with a coaxing voice as if trying to lure in a prey to his trap. "We're not going to h- … Aw, shit, man, she's running!"

And so she was. Viv had turned her back on him and was sprinting down the freeway toward the city. She knew it would be crawling with zombies like she had seen just yesterday, but if she had to choose between the two evils, she had no doubt what she would prefer; at least the zombies could only kill her. She heard the man give chase, his heavy footsteps resounding through the ground, getting closer to her. The backpack was slowing her down, she realized with a sense of dread, and suddenly, her movements were halted for a second as the man managed to grab a hold of her bag. Despairing, Viv, in some way that she later did not fully comprehend, succeeded in freeing herself of the rucksack and sped on, leaving both it and the spear that she had had to let go of in the process behind. She heard the man swear behind her and take up chase, but without the bag she was smaller and lighter and faster, and she ducked her way past cars and other obstacles and quickly got a way ahead of him.

Then a thought hit her. Her rucksack held everything she owned. The food. The map. The radio! Viv hesitated. Part of her wanted to go back for it, knew that she needed those things, desperately, to stay alive, to keep going. But the other part of her was scared, knew what would happen if she let the man catch her. The two sides of her fought one another as she half turned … Then her gaze fell on the man still behind her, but gaining now that she had paused, and the second part won. Her legs began to move again, faster, faster still, until she ran as fast as she could and entered the city.

She could hear the voices of the other men behind her too, now, but their words were not for her. Instead, they were calling on their comrade, reminding him that everybody knew that the city was crawling with walkers, that it wasn't worth it, that he would get himself killed in the process. Fortunately, it seemed the man's sense of survival was strong enough to make him see sense; soon after, the footsteps were no longer echoing behind her. Yet once again, Viv could not stop herself running.

In the end she had to stop when her legs almost buckled under, and she grabbed a hold of the nearest wall. She was still in the outskirts of the city, having thought clearly enough to turn right as soon as she could and keep going that way instead of continuing straight ahead towards the city center. On the way, she had seen a few zombies in the distance, but she had kept going and soon lost sight of them. Now she held on to the wall as she felt her body suddenly shaking and tears well up in her eyes. She sobbed, could not seem to stop herself, and before she really knew that it was happening, she was crying forcefully and horribly. She had lost everything. Everything! What was she going to do now? Without food, without Henry's map, without Radio Abel? How would she ever have any chance of finding Abel Township, of finding Jack and Eugene and the rest of them? How was she going to survive out here, all on her own, again, for real this time?

She had been telling herself that everything would be fine as soon as she found Abel Township, that people would be happy to welcome her in, to keep her safe. But now she knew that it was nothing but a lie; a stupid, childish lie, just to keep herself going. Without Henry, she was nothing, nothing, except some lonely girl that did not know anything about the world and how to live in it, much less now that everyone were dead and yet still walking! Well, there was no point in lying to herself anymore: She was going to die, and it would not be long. And the thought did not, at the moment, seem as terrifying as it had before. Because if she died, then at least it would all be over.

She sank down against the wall and stared at the ghostly street in front of her without really seeing it. But as she moved, she felt something strike against her side, something in her pocket. She knew what it was even before she put her hand down to feel it. Her mp3 player. The one she had planned on handing over to Jack and Eugene. The one Henry had given her for her birthday once.

Henry … She had promised him to live for them both. How could she, even now, dishonor such a promise? How could she give up when she had told him she would try to be strong, like him? There was no easy way out. She couldn't.

So Viv got up, on legs that were still shaking and threatening to give in from exhaustion. She put one foot in front of the other foot. One foot, then the other. One foot, and repeat. First of all, she must get out of the city again. The sun was still up in the sky. She still had a couple of hours before the darkness descended, and she must find a place to sleep before that. One foot in front of the other foot. One foot.

When night fell she had gotten out of the city, but not far enough yet to have reached a place in which to sleep. It was at least forty-five minutes since she had last seen a glimpse of anything that could even remotely look like housing and that had still been a way off. Her feet carried her forward, but she could not even convince her mind to change directions. One foot in front of the other foot. One step, then one more. That was all she focused on. It kept her from thinking too much of her desperate situation.

By the time she reached a small group of trees and bushes placed like a sanctuary for animals in the middle of miles and miles of fields, she was starting to give up. She was cold; the sweat from her run earlier was still clinging to her body underneath the jacket and she did not have another shirt to change into or a bedroll to help warm her up anymore. But she did not really care, because the hunger in her stomach was worse. She ought to have stopped somewhere earlier, even if it had been in the city; she should have taken the chance just for one night. Yet she had been afraid; it had been too close to the zombies, and too close to the three men. And so she had kept walking.

Then she saw it, as she reached the other side of the trees. There, in the distance: A red light, shining like a beacon in the falling darkness. Answering the call in the weary heart of the lost girl.