Zack was more than halfway through the bottle of Mountain Dew he'd discovered when Cody finally woke up and joined him on the screened-in porch. He'd contemplated waking him up hours ago but decided against it. If Cody needed to sleep in, Zack was content to let him.

"So, um, about last night," Cody said as he sat down beside Zack.

"If you're okay today, I think we can forget about last night."

"Well. I...yeah, I'm okay. I guess everything finally caught up with me last night."

"It's okay, Cody. Seriously."

"One more thing and I promise I'll let it go." Zack nodded and he went on, "I just wanted to say thanks. So thanks."

"You're welcome, Cody. Want a little pick-me-up?" Zack offered the two-liter to his brother. "I wish they'd had the red kind, or even the Taco Bell kind, but the green will do."

"Caffeine is caffeine," Cody told him as he took a drink from the bottle. Zack snickered as he took it back. "What?"

"You didn't even wipe the lip off or check to see if I'd backwashed in it."

Cody sat up straight as an arrow in a fraction of a second. "You didn't, did you?"

"No, of course not. The old Cody would never drink after me. You have changed, you know. Maybe not in major ways, but in small ones."

"I thought we weren't talking about last night?" Cody replied, trying to keep a grin off his face while he took another hit from the bottle.

"Touche, Cody, touche. Now give me my Dew back."

It was slightly before eleven when the boys set out for the day. Zack kept the pace slow while they looked for a car that they could borrow until it ran out of gas. He'd seen how bad Cody had been limping the night before and wanted to keep that from happening again. As they walked, Zack wondered exactly why just about every last person seemed to take their keys with them when they abandoned their cars.

"This would be so much easier if they'd just leave them," Zack exclaimed as he thumped his fist on another car window. "I mean... look at that minivan over there with the Delaware plate on the back. Did they think they were going to walk home and let themselves in or something?"

"I don't know, Zack. Maybe they're trying to maintain the smallest hint of normalcy. You park your car, you take your keys. I guess even if there's no chance of ever coming back for it."

"I'd just leave the keys."

"I know you would. Normal and Zack aren't two words that I'd ever put together in the same sentence unless I was trying to-"

"Yeah, I get it." Cody grinned back at his brother. "The next one for sure."

"You've said that about the last seven cars we've come across.

"I'm a glass-half-full kind of guy, Cody." Zack's optimism was put to a serious test as they passed another two dozen cars and trucks cast aside and had no luck. He growled and smashed a rock through the window of the final car.

"Okay...," Cody said as they walked past it, "let's take a little break before you get mad or something. We need to figure out where we are before we drive off anyway so let's find a gas station and hope they have a map."

Zack agreed to this and they soon found themselves stepping through the glassless doors of a BP. Zack immediately made his way to the junk food while Cody searched the counter and the displays around it. He spun one, gritting his teeth as its squeak shattered the quiet, and instantly looked up and scanned the area outside the building. They hadn't seen more than a handful of zombies all morning but it didn't pay to be careless.

"Find one yet?" Zack asked as he walked with a mouthful of SlimJim. Cody noticed another dozen or so sticking out of one of his shorts' pockets.

"Just now," he replied as he picked one up. He began unfolding it and spread it out across the counter.

"So where are we?"

"Just outside of Scranton, Pennsylvania as far as I can tell." He gestured to the few remaining newspapers sitting in the window. "I honestly thought we'd be a bit further along but whatever."

"Can we go steal a car now?"

"Not yet, Zack. We should plan our route first."

"West."

"Yeah, thanks. I'd prefer something a little more concrete than that. If we plan ahead a bit, we can save ourselves a ton of trouble by avoiding or skirting the bigger cities. Unless you want to drive through the middle of downtown Zombieville."

"No no, you go ahead and plan it out." Zack swept an arm and cleared himself enough room to hop up and sit on the counter and watch Cody go over the map. "SlimJim?" Cody politely declined.

"Now if we hit 81 and take it south, we can hit 70 and take it west. That'll put us well south of Pittsburgh. Or, we could stay on 81 a little longer and then take 68 then 79 and finally get on 64 and go through West Virginia."

"I vote for the first one, Cody. I'm not in the mood to deal with a bunch of redneck zombies."

"I'm leaning toward the second one. Redneck zombies aside," Cody snorted slightly, "it's longer but there aren't as many people that way as there would be if we went by Pittsburgh and through Ohio. Less zombies that way."

"Redneck zombies it is," Zack agreed. "But if we hear any banjo music, we're not stopping."

"I'm pretty sure Deliverance wasn't set in West Virginia, Zack."

"Whatever. Let's grab what we can from here and beat feet. This little town is starting to give me the creeps."

Cody silently agreed with his brother as they pulled the remaining bottles of Gatorade and water from the useless coolers. There hadn't been nearly as many zombies walking around as he'd expected to find in a city of this size. Where were they? Did most of the people manage to make it out before they were overrun? He didn't know and figured it was likely that he never would. He shrugged the question off and put a warm bottle of Pepsi into his bag.

They left the gas station with their new map and supplies and got back out on the main road. Almost immediately, Zack was back looking in every car they passed and having just as much luck as he did before. Cody was about to tell him that he didn't mind walking when Zack called out with success as he stood beside a Volkswagen.

"Um, Zack, that's a stick shift."

"I don't care. You know how they work, right?"

"In theory? Yes."

"Good enough. Get in." Cody started to protest but stopped himself. Truth be told, he wanted to do it just to know if he could. If Mom could drive one... They loaded their gear in the back seat, keeping a pistol apiece and the shotgun within easy reach, and buckled up.

"Okay, I can do this," Cody said as he got situated. "Step on the clutch, turn the key, put it in gear and go. Easy."

"Just do it, professor."

Cody soon discovered that it was anything but easy. He jerked and lurched the car forward a foot or two at a time before stalling it, but that was the extent of his abilities. How the hell did Mom make this look so easy?

"At this rate, we'll make to the end of the street by tomorrow," Zack snickered.

"I will put you in the trunk," Cody shot back as he took a deep breath and tried to calm his nerves. "I can do this. I can drive a stupid stick."

By the time Cody finally managed to put all the actions into effect, Zack was laughing so hard he was crying. Cody's face had turned a bright red and he'd cursed the car with words that Zack would never have guessed his brother knew and he'd beat his fists uselessly against the steering wheel so hard that Zack was surprised the airbag didn't deploy. But he got it to work.

"Are you done?" Cody asked as he ground gears searching for fourth.

"Cody, I'm sorry, but it was funny. You sounded just like me when I get mad at a video game."

"No I didn't." It was a weak argument and Cody knew it.

"Yeah, dude, you did." Zack wiped a tear from the corner of his eye. "I wish I could have that on video." He went into a terrible imitation of Cody berating the car. Cody eventually cracked a smile.

"Okay, so I did sound pretty stupid," he admitted.

"A little."

Cody had been driving for less than five minutes when they crested a hill a few miles from the Interstate. He happened to glance to his left and saw a farmhouse in the middle of a field surrounded by...an enormous herd of cows? No. Cody let the car roll to a stop as he looked.

"Oh my God, I think we just found all the missing zombies," he said softly. He turned the car off and pulled the brake handle. Zack whistled softly, grabbing the binoculars from the back seat. He leaned out and hoisted himself up so he was sitting on the door and trained them on the farmhouse.

"Yeah we did. There must be thousands of them down there. But why?"

"Because there's smoke coming from the chimney, Zack. There's people in there!"

"Oh what a terrible way to go out. Trapped like rats."

Cody got out of the car and took the binoculars when Zack offered them. "We've got to help them," he said after he scanned the scene.

"Cody..." Zack paused and pushed the hair back out of his eyes. "We can't." It hurt his heart to say it but it was true.

"We have guns, don't we?"

"We don't have that many bullets." Zack slid out of the car and walked around to Cody's side and put an arm around his shoulders. "I know, it sucks. No, it more than sucks. It's not right. But-"

"There's nothing we can do," Cody finished. "I know. I don't like it but I know." Cody hung his head for a few seconds. He put the binoculars in Zack's hand and climbed back in the car. "Come on, let's go." Zack took one last look through the binoculars and then began trying to convince himself that he didn't see someone on the roof waving at him just before he lowered them from his eyes.

They drove in an uncomfortable silence, each boy wrestling with what they'd just witnessed. Cody was running rescue scenarios through his mind, each more implausible than that last, and couldn't help but come to the same conclusion each time. Those people, whoever and however many were in that house, were dead. It was only a matter of time.

Zack's thoughts went down a different path. He knew they were dead men and women walking and he tried to get inside their heads. What were they thinking? How long could they hold out? What was it like to know you were going to die sooner rather than later? Would they put a bullet in their heads before the zombies got to them? He would. Zack shook his head sadly. He was in deep thought when Cody reached over and turned the radio on.

"I need something to distract me," he said when Zack gave him a questioning look. "I don't want to think about it anymore." Cody pushed the scan button and watched as the numbers rapidly climb as the radio searched for any hint of a signal. The FM band came up empty and he switched over to AM and had equal luck. "I didn't expect anything but I figured it couldn't hurt," he said as he turned the volume down.

"Maybe whoever left this car had some CDs or something. This whole no-music thing is one of the worst parts about all this. Aside from the whole zombie thing, of course," Zack added after Cody gave him a raised eyebrow. "Seriously though, I didn't think I'd miss the background noise as much as I do. Aha!" He pulled a small wallet from under the seat and looked at for a few seconds. "Let's see if we get lucky." Zack unzipped and opened the wallet and laughed.

"What'd you find?"

"Well, Cody, it seems that our car was owned by a twelve year old girl."

"Huh?"

Zack pointed to the first disc and showed it to his brother. "Justin Bieber." He then went through the rest of the wallet and named off a dozen other pop stars that Cody hadn't heard of. "Who ever told these Disney kids that they could sing, anyway? Ashley Tisdale couldn't carry a tune in a bucket." Zack zipped the wallet back up and unceremoniously pitched it out the window. "Oops."

"I guess we'll have to add music to our list of things to get the next time we stop, huh?"

"Definitely. From now on our cars will have to have both keys and a CD player."

"A full gas tank would be a bonus, too," Cody added. "We're going to have to find a new car in about an hour."

"Or we could siphon it from other cars. Maybe even from a gas station's tanks. I think we only need a hose."

Cody's eyes perked up. "Just a hose for another car. If we were going to take it from an underground tank, we'd need a pump. I'd tell you why but I'd lose you during the explanation."

"Probably so. That's on our list, too."

"Want to big-box it today?"

"We'll see. If we come across something that looks safe enough, we'll do it. If it smells the least bit sketchy we'll do it some other time." Cody nodded and continued driving.

The fuel light had come on about one minute before Cody came upon the mother of all traffic snarls. He veered to the left lane and tried to see what caused the blockage but could only see more cars and trucks. He grunted out of frustration.

"What's ahead of us?"

"No idea, Zack. Just lots and lots of cars. I think there's a sign up up there but I can't read it from here."

"Drive in the grass, then. That looks clear enough."

Cody did, downshifting and steering the car into the median and into a pair of tracks. As they rolled past the line of cars, Cody couldn't help but notice that many, if not most, of them had open doors. His mind wondered what could cause that and almost instantly answered. Zombies. Lots of them. Cody's gaze shifted to the tree line on both sides of the road.

"Pennsylvania National Guard checkpoint ahead. Stay in your vehicles. Do not change lanes. Use of deadly force has been authorized," Zack read as they neared the billboard-sized sign that had been erected in front of a massive concrete construction.

"That would explain the big tire tracks I've been driving in," Cody said. "They probably had Humvees and who knows what else here in the grass. Also explains why there aren't any cars in it."

"What were they doing?"

"Trying to quarantine the area would be my guess. I'd bet this car that there's a roadblock just like it somewhere further down the road."

"Think we can get around it?"

"Not unless this car has a gear called fly."

"Figures. Let's get as close as we can and then we're on foot again."

Cody sped up as they neared the roadblock. He didn't like being stuck in the middle of what had once been a zombie buffet one bit. He shivered and repositioned himself in the driver's seat. He stopped a few dozen feet from the concrete blocks and turned the car off and had to remind himself to leave the keys.

Zack had his bag already slung over his shoulder and tossed Cody the other. "Be alert, Cody. I'm getting one of your Star Wars' guy's I've got a bad feeling about this vibes."

Cody looked up at the sky and saw heavy, dark clouds on the horizon. "A few weeks ago I'd say that you were just feeling the change in air pressure but I can't disregard it like that anymore. But it is going to rain soon."

The boys gathered up what they needed and headed for the wall. Cars were nosed up to the huge iron bars that made up the gate so they had to climb over them and then belly crawl under the bars. They dusted themselves off and started walking down the Interstate. A half mile in front of them was an off-ramp and they made for it, each boy checking the sky after every few yards.

They reached the edge of town and passed what had probably been improvised barricade of burned out cars pushed to the side of the road. Zack passed a pile of discarded gas cans and kicked one, sending cartwheels of gasoline spinning through the muggy air. The twins reached the first knot of buildings and stopped and stared.

"What the hell happened here?" Zack asked as they looked at the bodies sprawled everywhere. Cody's eyes were drawn to a body wearing jeans and the remains of a t-shirt hanging limply out of a second story window while Zack walked over to what could only be a National Guard soldier with a line of bullet holes stitched across his chest. "What the hell?"

They walked further into the city and saw more of the same. Body after body and hundreds of shell casings laying on the ground. A wrecked Humvee sat in front of a doughnut shop. An overturned school bus with a ten foot hole blown in it spanned a library's parking lot. "I'll say it again, what the hell happened here?"

"I don't know, Zack. I have a guess but that's about it."

"Let's hear it."

"Okay, here we go. The people sealed off their town and then the military came and they didn't like it and emotions eventually ran high and then they started shooting at each other."

"That's insane," Zack said as he looked around the devastated town.

"I know but it's the only thing that makes sense."

"Nothing about this makes any sense."

They saw fewer bodies in uniform as they penetrated deeper into the town but there was just as much destruction. Houses and cars were shot up and there were remnants of fires on every block. One row of stores seemed to have had their fronts blown off. Zack's attention was snared by something across the street.

"What the...?"

"Wow," was all Cody could say. A priest hung from the branch of a tree in front of a church. God Is Dead was spraypainted across the entryway in large, red letters while Repent, fuckers! was scrawled down the nearest side in black. As they approached, Zack could see there was a sign tied around the dead man's throat.

"Liar," Cody read aloud just before the body spun away from him in the wind. The first drops of rain began to fall as he turned back to face the boys.

"This town is insane," Zack said as he looked away from the hanged corpse.

"I think that's exactly what happened. I misjudged things earlier."

"Tell me while we find somewhere to ride this storm out," Zack told him as he grabbed Cody's shoulder and pulled him along.

"It looks like the town, for whatever reason, went insane and started rioting. The priest," Cody gestured back over his shoulder, "may have had something to do with it. Maybe not. Anyway, the Guard just happened to be a mile or so away blocking the highway and were sent to restore order. From what it looks like, they walked right into the middle of a madhouse."

"I guess that works. Not that it matters any since we're getting the hell out of this nutjob town as soon as it stops raining. I don't care if it's two in the morning. We are not sleeping here. Not a chance."

"That's fine with me," Cody agreed. "This town gives me the creeps."

They let themselves in the back door of a Mexican restaurant and bolted it shut just as the sky opened up. The glow from their flashlights showed a kitchen that fit right in with the rest of the town. The floors were covered in empty cans and broken jars and the shelves were nearly bare. Cody moved his light from the shelves to the walls and whistled.

"That looks like something out of Left 4 Dead," Zack said as he ran his fingers over a section of the writing on the walls. Some were short messages to missing friends and family, some were information, but most were just random nonsense. They closed 81 take the back roads dominated the center of the wall. Fuck the Prez this is his fault one read, with another saying bullshit it is you dumbfuck republican just below it. There were at least a hundred but the pair that stood out in Zack's mind and made him laugh was no big loss the food here blows anyway followed by so does your girlfriend, bitch.

"Who do you think wrote all those, Cody?" Zack asked after he'd finished reading.

"My guess would be the people who survived the riot did some of it before they left for wherever and the rest was done by people who came after and stayed for a bit."

"Do you see a marker or something?" Zack started looking around on the ground, toeing garbage out of his way. "There we go," he said as he snatched a small black cylinder from the tile.

"What are you going to write, Zack? Warnings of where we've been? Advice that other survivors might find helpful?"

"Nope," was all his brother said as he found a relatively clear piece of wall and began crafting his block letters.

"Zombies suck? Really?"

"What'd you expect? Shakespeare?" Cody could only shrug.

They partially enjoyed a dinner of stale nacho chips with canned beans and salsa. Cody slipped a few cans of each, as well as a can opener, into his bag once they were finished. Zack stepped into the restaurant's dining room and looked out through two of the remaining windows. A gunshot rang out over the driving rain and Zack instantly dove to the floor. A second followed it and Zack began crawling back into the kitchen.

"Was that-" Cody whispered when Zack sprawled around the corner.

"Yes. I don't know where it was but it was close."

"Do you think they saw you?"

"I really doubt it but it doesn't matter. We're leaving." Zack half-expected his brother to protest over leaving in the rain but he didn't.

"Let's go," was all he said as he shouldered his pack.

"I don't want to take the time to go back to the ramp so we're going to take the direct route and get the hell out of here as quick as we can. Sound good?" Cody nodded that it sounded just fine to him. "Good. Let's do it. Keep your light off unless you really need it." Zack stuck his flashlight in his pocket and checked his pistol. Satisfied, he led the way back to the rear door and unbolted it.

It was raining lions and timberwolves when they stepped out. Zack instantly wished for a hat to keep it out of his eyes as he watched the water bead and drip from the brim of Cody's hat. He ran a hand back through his hair and led the way, heading for where he knew the Interstate had to be.

More gunshots split the night and both boys heard the unmistakeable sound of a human's death scream. Zack looked back and saw Cody's eyes were wide. With fright? Zack wasn't sure. He motioned to an alley between two derelict buildings and they quickly but carefully advanced through it. The moans seemed to multiply as they approached the hill that separated them from the ribbon of asphalt and escape. Zack momentarily questioned the intelligence of his plan but shook it off. They were committed now.

The hill looked to be about one hundred feet of sloped ground, covered in trees and shrubs and other varieties of undergrowth and both twins' eyes were busy trying to find the easiest way up as they approached. Cody saw the zombie first and stumbled, falling on his face and sliding in the mud. He cried out and Zack wheeled around, gaze falling first on his brother and then on the first of the hoard that had seemingly materialized out of the gloom a scant twenty feet away.

"Ah shit," Zack muttered as he dashed to Cody's side. "Get up get up," he said, helping Cody up with one hand while still pointing the gun at the gomers with the other. Cody got to his feet and wiped a coating of mud from his face. "Go to the hill. I'll slow them down!" Zack yelled and gave his brother a shove. He watched just long enough to see Cody start making his way up the hill before turning his full attention to the zombies.

He knew he didn't have to kill them this time around so Zack aimed lower, shooting at legs and thighs and trusting the power of the gun to knock them down and tangle the feet of the zombies behind them. The gun made its own thunder and the zombies began to drop. His plan working, Zack backpedaled, firing off the rest of the clip, and then chased after Cody. The boys pulled themselves up the slippery slope and collapsed at the top, exhausted from their climb.

"That was too close," Cody finally said when he got his wind back.

"Tell me about it. We couldn't hear them until they were right on top of us." Zack rolled over and looked down the hill and saw the zombies milling around at its base. "Looks like they can't make it up the slope in the mud. That might be useful one day."

"I hope not but it might," Cody assented. He sat up and looked himself over and saw nary a bit of clean skin. The rain was washing it away but not quickly enough for his liking. "I think I'd give just about anything for a nice, warm bath right about now," he said as he skimmed a collection of leaves and mud from his arms and flicked them away.

"No joke," Zack replied as he got to his feet. He changed clips in the pistol and put it back into his pocket, taking time to slip the empty into his bag to reload later.

"Tomorrow we rest up and clean up," Cody said as he stood.

"And see if we can't stock up, too."