Living in an Undead World

Weeks go by and she slowly begins to realize that she can't spend the remainder of her life within these four walls. Although they are her safe haven, her barrier to the outside world, she knows that she'll die eventually without much needed supplies.

She had gone out, days before the infection had spread into the US zone, and in her haste, picked up as many canned goods, toiletries and bottled water that she could possibly handle. Many people had the same idea; some even ripping the goods from people's hands just so they could get a head start when the impending apocalypse decided to descend upon them.

The goods were in hand, but she hadn't left unscathed. Even on the way home, in the safety of a cab, her cab driver had tried to lock her in the car while he ran off with her precious supplies. She had managed to realize his trick when he took a wrong turn, and demanded that he pull over, and as he reached for the lock control, she escaped, taking the goods with her.

It was a dog eat dog world, and she wouldn't be the underdog, not this time.

Locked, safe away in her apartment, she hid her supplies; she estimated that she had enough for a few months, if she rationed properly, but she had miscalculated.

Looking at the two remaining bottles of water on her kitchen table and only a few packets of nuts, she knew she'd have to go out and get more.

But out there?

She glances over her shoulder and stares at the curtained windows. She hadn't been able to look out for weeks, not since the familiar streets she once walked upon had begun to stain with blood and gore.

If she can't look out of a window, how does she expect to make her way to the nearest store?

And what would happen if the store had no supplies to speak of? Looting had been insane the few days before and after the first spread of the infection. She could be walking to her death, but staying here is just damning herself to an even worse death.

The thought of starvation, the thought of dehydration, curling her way onto her bed and never moving as the cramps in her stomach refused to die down, or the way her vision blurred made the room twist and seem demonic, or the stage she can't even begin to comprehend; the insanity, driven mad with lack of food and water, muttering to herself as her life slowly begins to ebb away.

She may be a victim to the infection, but she refuses to go out without a fight.

Quinn gathers a backpack, the one that she had used at her time at Yale, a time that seemed so distant in the past. Was her old college even still standing or were the infected walking the halls; students and teachers, the ones she had used to know, searching for another meal.

With a shake of her head, she packs a bottle of water and a pack of nuts for the road. It isn't much, but if she does happen to lose her bag on the trip, she wants at least something to come home to.

She tries to map the location in her head, the bodega that she'll infiltrate and grab supplies from, but weeks of sitting in a dark apartment, doing nothing but waiting for impending doom has twisted her thoughts. She can't even remember what the streets were called.

The curtains. The window. Quinn knows she has to pull the curtains away, pull away the barrier that cloaks the vision of the world outside, but the thought of looking down at those streets and seeing all that death makes her stomach turn.

Hands trembling, they clutch the curtain, and she wills herself to pull.

"Do it…" She whispers to herself, voice raw, throat dry. Her whole body is shaking, an early sign of malnutrition and she knows she has to do it. She won't die here, not now. Her name sake may not hold much anymore, but she's a fighter, she always has been.

She has to desensitize herself to death, to blood and to gore, she has to look upon it as if it was any normal day to day thing. If she falters, even for a moment, she's gone, and she'll just be another one of the infected that wanders the streets.

Quinn pulls the curtain.

Instinctively, she shuts her eyes tight. Then wills herself to open them.

She cries out and collapses back against the couch.

The blood…

She cries unabashed, then realizes the noise she's making, and hears the infected outside her door murmur. She covers her mouth with her hand and chokes her sobs into the palm of her hand.

How had everything been destroyed so quickly?

With shaking legs, she stands from the couch, hand still to her mouth, walks to the window, and looks down upon New York City.

Dashes of red cake buildings and streets, mixed with bumper to bumper cars, fallen bodies and the trembling infected that stand around, dotted around the plane. From above, it looks almost as if it's a macabre painting; a trick to the eyes that some brilliant artist has depicted for her. The devastation is simply incredible.

She sniffs softly and wipes the tears from her eyes.

New York City is a ghost town for the first time in its history.

Quickly, she maps the bodega's location and finds the quickest route there. Two blocks down and one block up.

Using a car is completely out of the question; there was no way she'd be able to get a car out onto those streets without hitting a roadblock of piled up cars. She has to move on foot.

Quinn grabs her backpack and slides it over her shoulders, fastening it tightly to her body. She realizes, quickly, that she can't go out there unarmed. She glances around the apartment to find something that she could use, and comes up empty handed.

In her rush to find supplies, she hadn't thought to grab a weapon.

She can't exactly use her old high school pompoms to fight off the infected, can she? With a sigh, she heads into the kitchen, glancing around at anything that could be used handheld.

Her eyes narrow in on a long slender pipe that runs across the skirting board, attaching to the oven. Determined, she attempts to unscrew it, but the jagged metal rips at her skin and she pulls back her hand as if it was burnt.

She doesn't have a wrench; she's always been useless at home repair.

Distressed, she panics and rushes around the apartment, hoping to find something of use.

The knives.

An expert cook, thanks to her mother, Quinn had been gifted with a state of the art knife set for her birthday. She pulls the longest one free and dabs the tip of her finger against the pointed edge. Sharp as ever.

She stands in the kitchen, feeling the weighted metal in her hand, and she jabs it forward. It's awkward at first, but she continues. One jab, two jabs, three jabs, three in quick succession. The weapon isn't as long as she hoped; she doesn't exactly want to be in close contact with the infected, just in case she happens to breathe in whatever they have, but it's better than going out with her bare hands.

Quinn had grown up reading books, watching television, sitting on the edge of her seat as she watched a zombie movie, and she knew what the infected could possibly be. She wasn't deluded, or stupid, or naive; she knew they were the walking dead, and that the only wake to take care of such a threat was to destroy the brain.

The infected were zombies, and they ate other humans to feed their growing hunger.

There had always been talk of a zombie apocalypse; how a virus would suddenly take hold of the human populace and turn them into mindless automatons with only the need to feed. There had been fiction, there had been movies and television programmes, and Quinn had always taken them in jest, but now?

Was everything she watched, heard and read a sick predicament of what was to come?

She grips the knife tighter, and heads to the front door before she can talk herself out of it. The ache in her stomach is too much to ignore now, the dryness in her throat needed to be quenched eventually.

Pressing her ear to the door, she listens to movement on the other side, and clenches her jaw when she hears the telltale heavy footsteps of the infected.

She makes out two separate patterns and takes a shuddering breath as she pushes herself away from the door. She can't walk out there with just a simple knife; it would be enough later on, but right now, she's just a simple rookie. The thought of actually stabbing a once living human being in the head is too much to bear right now, instead, she'll take the silence route.

She pulls open the window and almost gags at the smell of death that infiltrates her apartment. The smell is almost indescribable, a mixture of old blood, grime, guts and decay, a smell simply pegged as death.

The air was death itself.

She doesn't know how the infection started, but just in case it was airborne, she grabs a dishcloth and wraps it around her mouth and nose, almost like a mask, tightening it around the back of her head. She takes a few breaths, and when she realizes she can breathe freely, if a bit warmly, she glances down at the fire escape that wraps around her apartment complex.

It's a good nine floors down, but if she's quiet enough, she should be able to make it down without alerting anything. She glances around the street, marking four undead at the end of the block, on the opposite side of which she's travelling in and sighs with relief.

Two undead walk slowly and monotonously up the block she's travelling up, and her grip tightens around her only weapon. They seem not to really pay attention to the world around them; their eyes don't even seem to move as they bump into dead bodies and cars. They just continue on, listlessly, dragging their feet along the asphalt.

She has to push herself a few times to scale over the window frame. The emergency staircase has seen better days and when her foot presses upon it and it creaks almost maliciously, she has send thoughts about climbing back into her apartment, but she has to do it.

Feet planted, she grips the window frame with all the strength she has; she can't let go. "You're going to die if you don't go." She shudders out a breath and lets go. She settles on the staircase, and except for a groan from the aging metal, nothing else happens. She breathes out a sigh of relief.

Slowly and quietly, she scrambles down the staircase, floor by floor, making sure not to look into the windows that she passes. She isn't ready to stare straight at a dead body, or even an infected as it passes by the window. She keeps her eyes on the steps and follows each and every one of them down.

She reaches ground level in only a few minutes, and by the time she's settled her feet on the ground, the two infected that blocked her path up the block, have passed on. She knows she won't be far behind them, at the pace they walk, so she takes into consideration the noise that she makes as she walks.

Abandoned cars litter the street, and as she ducks in between every one she passes, blocking her view from potential threats, she takes the few seconds of downtime to regulate her breathing. Her heart pounds dangerously in her chest and she feels as if she may have some form of panic attack, but the seconds tick by, and she counts them one by one, and with each passing second, her heart slows.

She takes a maze like route, reaching the nearest car, perching down, then dashing once more. The routine is continued until she reaches the end of the block, pressing her hand against the cool metal of an abandoned cab that sits diagonal against the street.

There's no sign of movement as she glances around the cab and as she prepares to move, she stops.

Her fingers flex against the metal and her brows furrow; the metal doesn't feel right, unlike the knife in her other hand. It feels…

She pulls her hand away.

She looks.

She holds back the scream that almost erupts from her throat.

In her mad dash, she hadn't seen the blood that smeared along the trunk of the car, still fresh and wet. It cakes her hand and the urge to throw up is too much to bear. She has nothing to wipe the blood off, but she refuses to walk further with it on her hand. She rests her knife on the ground and reaches back to unzip her backpack.

It's a waste, but she knows that if she's going to keep going and not freak out, she needs to wash the blood off. She pours a small amount onto her hand, but if anything, it smears the blood even more, and it spreads almost as it's a paint. Her breathing hastens as she pours more onto her quaking hand, and she can finally see pale skin once more.

She instantly regrets her move though, when she realizes that she's wasted almost three quarters of the precious water. She wipes her clean hand off on her shirt and downs some of the liquid to quench her thirst; she refuses to waste anymore.

Popping the bottle back in her bag and retrieving her weapon, she scouts all angles around her.

No movement.

She moves, dashing away from the cab and pressing her body along the body of buildings that lines the left side of the street. She follows it all the way up and stops when she hit's a four way junction. She knows she has to move up, one more block and then one block left, but the open space is daunting.

There's only a few cars dotted in the centre of the junction, and to reach the first alone, she'd have to travel a good fifteen feet.

She glances around once more, checking to make sure she's clear, and dashes.

The car is in reaching distance, and she's about to feel the metal against her fingertips when she hears it.

"Uggggghhhh…"

Her legs cease and she crumbles to the floor, scurrying on her hands and knees life a defenceless child to huddle behind the safety of the car. She makes it, barely, as the moans continue to grow in both volume and length.

Has she been caught?

She urges herself to try and glance around, but her whole body is trembling and all she can do is cling to her knife for dear life. She's not cut out for this; she's not a hero in a book that can stare a zombie in the face and stab it right through the head. She's not as strong as she likes to believe, she's only survived out of pure fear and cowardice. Deep down, she knew it would come to this; kill or be killed, and she wasn't sure if she could kill.

They used to be people. Living breathing humans just like her. They once had lives; jobs, families, friends, loved ones, worries and cares. How could she look one in the eye and take the rest of their 'life' away?

But it brought her to the question that had plagued her for the past few weeks; if she was infected, wouldn't she want to be killed before she became one of those things.

Any life would be better than being a monotonous undead being that thrived on human flesh.

Death would be better.

She owes it to these people to end their suffering, doesn't she? As a journalist, she brought countless items to public knowledge, to enlighten and teach, and although it was only a tiny bit of information, it helped the public make decisions regarding certain subjects.

She owes it to herself, and to the people, to end their suffering.

If she can bear to stand and face them.

Adjusting the rag around her face, she prepares herself to face the problem at hand. She has to release the misery that's come across this poor person. She grabs her knife and glances at it, watching as the sun, consumed by an oncoming dawn, glints across the blade. The black handle feels secure in her hand, and with it, she climbs to her feet.

On the defence, she raises the knife, extending her arm to keep the threat away from her. She see's the infected almost immediately, a lone victim, a boy, probably only around six years old.

Eyes wide, shining with tears, she lowers her knife down and watches as the boy ambles toward her. His clothes, a simple pair of cargo pants and a ragged shirt, are soaked in blood. His arms hang listlessly beside him, and his eyes are glazed as if he hasn't really seen her, but he continues his slow amble toward her. She sees the flesh wound against his neck, a wide tear, and the muscle beneath it, caked in dried blood.

"No…"

She had never truly taken the time to realize that children were part of the equation as well. She never realized that while all those adults were running around, ripping resources away from other people, they were probably trying to get food and water for their children, to give them the best shot at life they could possibly have.

The cab driver, the one that she had run from as he tried to steal her food and water, she'd seen the picture of his wife and two kids on the dash. They looked so happy, carefree and content, put the eyes of the driver no longer matched the ones of the man in the picture; he had a mission to protect his family and he would stop at nothing to do it.

She half regrets not giving him at least something…

Then she wonders if he's still alive, somewhere, in this once bustling metropolis, or had he joined the ranks of the damned?

"I'm so sorry…" She whispers, voice husky, as the boy continues to close the distance between them. "I can't imagine what happened to you, but I won't let you continue like this."

She raises the knife, and notices the way her hand trembles as the boy drags his feet, closing that small distance between them inch by inch.

"I'm sorry," She repeats, and her whole arm trembles as she takes a step forward. "I h-have to…" Tears prick at her eyes as this defenceless boy before her lets out a quiet, almost indescribable moan; the sheer pain in his tone.

He's getting closer and she knows she has to do something, but looking at him, this child, with his floppy blonde hair, caked in dirt and grime and blood, she feels herself falter.

He's just a child.

She runs as fast as she can and cries in anguish at the life lost.

She manages to avoid another six infected as she rounds up on the bodega. She tries to keep away from them as much as humanly possible and dashes between cars and fast food stands (which she checks for any sign of nourishment and finds nothing), before finally arriving at the store.

The window is completely shattered and the door booted down, laying discarded on the floor amongst shards of glass. She clambers through the window, careful to lighten her steps so the crack of glass doesn't alert any nearby infected.

Safely in the store, she peers out and watches as one of the infected, a woman, drags her broken ankle across the ground as she walks. Chewing down on her inner cheek, Quinn continues to watch, steadfastly ignoring the almost separated ankle bone, and watches as the woman slowly heads down the block.

Quinn feels her balance about to go and shifts her weight ever so slightly, but the infected woman is too close, and the sound of cracking glass alerts her. Quinn, eyes wide, clambers away and hides behind one of the many bare shelves that dominates the tiny convenience store, and waits for the woman to come to her.

"Oh god…" She whispers quietly to herself, clutching her knife to her chest. She can only just make out the right side of the woman's body, before being completely obscured by the shelving. The infected stands there, looking around, jaw hanging lifelessly, eyes glazed and white, bones cracking in her ankle every time she shifts.

Quinn presses herself against the shelf and says a quiet prayer to herself; please let her pass, please let her pass, please let her pass…

The woman groans softly, sways softly from side to side and then turns, heading back down the street.

Quinn doesn't move for the longest time, and only when she can't hear any noise except for the own pounding of her heart in her ears, does she move, staring down at the glass, careful to avoid it.

The shelves are completely bare, and the only things that litter the floor with even a little bit of worth are a crushed box of tampons. She eyes the trodden on packet of cookies with interest, but then decides against it. She doesn't really fancy eating a cookie with foot ick on it.

She circles around the whole store, pushing empty shopping baskets away to see if anything lurks at the back of the empty shelves. She only comes up with a small packet of lunchbox crackers and one bottle of water that had rolled so far under the till she had to lay on the floor and use her knife to reach it.

With a sigh, she sits cross legged behind the counter and glances down at her collected goods. Tampons, one packet of crackers and one bottle of water. Hardly an exciting haul, but it was the first store she had been in, there had to be other stores with more goods.

But right now, the sun had almost disappeared over the horizon and it was time to head back. She could barely deal with the thought of being out in the day, but the thought of being out at night? Hell no.

She stuffs the goods into her backpack and zips it up tight, slinging it over her shoulders once more. The rag that rests across her lower face begins to slip as she stands, so she takes the time to quickly adjust it, and kept up a little hope that it was actually protecting her from the infection.

The floor presses against her back and for the second it takes her to realize why she's on the floor, she hears that terrifying groan and the stench crawl above her. One of the infected, a man, who bore the nametag 'Johnny' collapsed on top of her, and she realizes that she hadn't checked the back room.

His jaw flaps open and closed, his groaning turning almost into a hiss, and she's terrified, using the palm of her hands to push his head as far away as she can. It's easier than it looks, but the sheer terror that overwhelms her from the predicament is enough to hamper her strength.

Her knife lays only inches away, scattered beneath the counter and with one hand, she reaches out to grab it, while the other tries to push the infected away. He's relentless in his attack, blood dripping from his gaping mouth, eye hanging low, dragging along his upper cheek.

With a loud cry, she uses her legs and kicks him away harshly. He careens back and his back slams against a nearby shelf. Instinctively, she gets into survival mode and grabs the knife that had alluded her grasp. She stands, tall and ready, and raises the knife.

"Stop, now."

With some realization, she knows that he won't be able to understand her, but she tries regardless, and when he begins to crawl toward her, she backs away.

She has to learn how to use this damn knife and now is the perfect time.

She uses the tip of her sneaker to shove him back down to the floor, face first against the tile. In a split second, he grabs for her ankle, and in the struggle, he pulls her. She falls, trembling, on top of him, and the grip on her ankle is gone.

She rolls off, chest heaving, and takes a few moments just to regain her composure. What had happened?

Then she realizes that her hand is still gripping the knife, and she follows the line of her arm, up toward his skull, where her knife lay imbedded. A yelp escapes her lips and she loosens her grip, pushing herself back with her heels.

She sits, back pressed against a row of shelves, and stares at the knife that stands tall in the now dead skull of 'Johnny'. She had done it, by some form of miracle, she'd actually killed an infected.

Then she realizes, she could have just died, and crumbles beneath the weight of both relief and anguish.

She had to kill to be saved, and she didn't regret it for one second.

What had happened to her?

Before the infection she could barely kill a spider without feeling guilty, and now, she could snuff out a human life?

But they weren't human, were they? She climbs to her feet and carefully grips the handle of the knife, careful not to touch any part of the infected man, before squeezing her eyes shut and pulling the blade free.

The sound is unbelievably disgusting, but she doesn't dwell on it. She just cleans the blade on his shirt and heads toward the door. The sun has now set, and the dead are coming out to play; she needs to get back to her safe haven.

She'll try again tomorrow.

She dumps her backpack through the window before climbing through. She doesn't hesitate to seal it, just in case one of the infected saw her climb the staircase and tried to follow. She closes the curtain, and pulls out the matchbox from the coffee table to light the candle that sits upon it.

It's the only light in the house, and it's dull enough to have on at any time during the night and not attract attention. She found out the hard way about light, when the electric grid was still online; the infected somehow felt the charge of electricity and her neighbours who had since turned, banged relentlessly on her door.

They gave up after a few hours, but only after the lights had been turned off.

She stores her goods away, then rips off the makeshift mask from her face, and finishes off the opened bottle that sat dejected at the bottom of the bag before throwing it into the sink. She tries the taps, but nothing flows free; the water had shut off within the first week of the infection.

With a sigh, she collapses on the couch and drapes her forearm across her eyes, feeling the oncoming headache shatter across her temple. It had been such a long day, and the exercise, and the constant adrenaline that pumped through her, had completely exhausted her.

Her stomach growls, but she decides to wait to eat tomorrow. It'd give her something to look forward to.

As she drifts into a light sleep, she wonders if her neighbours apartments would hold any bounty for her. After her first kill, she realized she could do it, and become adept at it, if she just tried harder and didn't psyche herself out.

She could deal with the two infected in the halls, if they were still there.

Hopefully.

The next day, she wakes soon after dawn, and stretches the aches and pains out of her body before standing from the couch. Immediately, she takes three controlled sips of water and opens the pack of crackers, stuffing two in her mouth. The salty taste erupts across her tongue and she almost moans at the taste; it's not a three course meal, but its better than peanuts. She eats another three, but takes her time eating them, to savor them, and packs them away with her stock.

Today, she'll go outside and check her neighbours apartments. She's heard no movement outside, so she assumes they've moved on, but she doesn't count her lucky stars just yet. One infected was easy enough, but two at the same time, could hold some form of issue.

For extra protection, she grabs another knife, slightly shorter than her other, but just as deadly. She practices with both knives, jabbing and slashing, and when she gets used to the extra weight, she decides she needs some sort of holster. In a sticky situation, she may need use of both hands, and she can't really use them if they're clutching onto knives, and God forbid if she dropped them.

Her bedroom offered an assortment of clothes, and she wonders what she could use. Sifting through the countless drawers, she feels the material of shirts and dresses within her hands and disregards them. She needs something thick, like the leather holster her grandfather had when he tended to the fields on his farm.

Leather.

She heads into her closet and finds the closet leather jacket, black and incredibly worn, her favorite jacket and feels the material in her hands. She'd had this jacket since she joined the Skanks, and although her time there was cut short, she liked to hold onto some sort of memento of her past life.

She pulls the jacket on over her white shirt and leaves it unzipped. The New York heat could be brutal, but the extra protection, especially around her arms and neck, would be an added bonus. She continues to sift through and eventually happens upon a brown leather bomber jacket that she'd bought almost two years ago on a whim during the winter. She'd worn it only a handful of times, but the condition of the material could be of use to her.

Throwing the jacket onto her bed, she continues to sift through her drawers, hoping to find something to draw the whole holster together. The bottom drawer, right at the back, she happens upon a pair of suspenders that she had bought for a Halloween costume one year at Yale.

The material, stretchy and durable, finished off with strong metal clips, were perfect.

Using her knife, she cuts into her leather jacket, making long pouches from the inside pockets to fit her knives, and after making some makeshift holes with the tip of her knife, she threads the suspenders through them. They're hardly state of the art, and they look like they could fall apart, but after tearing her kitchen apart, she finds super glue and sticks the errant ends together to create perfect pouches for her weaponry.

She pulls off her jacket and runs the suspenders across her shoulders and under her arms, clipping them in place to two pouches settle just at her ribs on both side of her body. She pulls her jacket back on and tests whether she can grab the two knives quickly.

She can, incredibly quickly. Right hand to grab the left, left hand to grab the right; she pulls them out in perfect sync and sighs with relief. Something is going right today, thankfully.

Next stop, backpack and then to unlock her door. She hesitates at first, and tries to listen to any sign of movement, but she hears nothing. It's quiet; too quiet. Slowly, quietly, she unlocks her door, pulls back the deadbolt and takes it off the chain.

The door swings open effortlessly, and doesn't even creak, thankfully. She peers out, shoulders still behind the door frame and glances up and down the corridor. You wouldn't even be able to tell that the infected had even been in this building. Doors were shut, some were opened, but the halls were clean, except for a few bags of trash that had been waiting for disposal for weeks.

She adopts her face mask and leaves her apartment, making the decision to shut the door. It would be easier to escape into an open door, but she didn't want an errant infected to wander into her apartment when she wasn't around.

The door directly opposite, her neighbor and friend, Jackie, who lived with two cats and a dog, had welcomed her into the apartment block when she first moved in. She had been charming, funny and someone she could really talk to. Had Jackie survived?

She tries the handle, and sighs when the door swings open effortlessly.

With a shake of her head, she disappears inside and quietly shuts the door behind her. After what happened yesterday, she made sure to do a sweep of the apartment, making sure no infected lingered within. Thankfully, no one was there, but it just solidified the fact that Jackie was gone. Had she run? Had she gotten out of the city?

Hand resting, ready, on her knife, she headed back into the main living area. Thankfully, she had been in this apartment more than enough times to know where Jackie stocked most of her food and drinks.

Three cupboards later, Quinn knew she'd hit a dead end.

Every cupboard and drawer was bare, and after looking around some more, she realized that even the pictures on the walls had been taken down. Jackie had run, without telling her, and taken all her food and water with her.

"Fuck,"

She tries another apartment. Two doors down, the door is open, and Quinn pulls out her knives as she enters. Half crouched, she quietens her movements and listens for signs of life within the apartment.

There's a low shuffle and Quinn nods to herself, working herself up for the oncoming struggle. She'll deal with it better than yesterday, that much is a given. She's prepared; she knows that they're weak, sluggish and withered. A healthy woman such as herself should be able to take out an infected without losing her cool.

She would have to learn.

They're the threat.

She can't run away like she did with that little boy.

Both knives held out, she heads further into the apartment, and it doesn't take her long to come across the source of the sound. One of her neighbours, Tom, now infected, arm down to sheer bone, sat on the bathroom floor.

"Tom…"

Her voice alerts him and he looks up toward her, before releasing the groan that she so despised to hear. He isn't even up on his knees before she brings both knives down on his skull.

"I'm so sorry…"

She sheathes her knives and continues the search of the rest of the apartment, and when she finds no other threats, she heads into the kitchen. She finds two water bottles, two small bags of trail mix and a pouch of dry milk.

She bags the resources and after taking one more glance around the room, she leaves, shutting the door behind her.

She continues the sweep, apartment after apartment, cursing at the locked doors and silencing the infected that claimed the apartments of her old neighbours. She glances at the stairs and wonders if she could make a quick dash upstairs, and after peering through a crack in the door to see no threats, she makes the decision to go up.

Jackie had told her on more than one occasion, being the apartment blocks resident gossiper, that a man who was once an ex-Marine owned one of the apartments one floor above them. Quinn couldn't remember the number, but if Jackie's info was correct, perhaps the man was still alive, especially with military training under his belt.

She sweeps the rooms, more doors locked than her floor, unfortunately, and on her sweep, picks up a few bottles of some energy drink that she'd never heard of an a few packets of chips. Every little helps.

The last apartment on the floor has its door wide open, and Quinn meticulously searches it for threats before she searches. She assumes that the Marine had a locked door, but when she sees a picture of a man, looking distinguished in his dress uniform, on the mantle piece, she knows that he too has succumbed.

But there's no sign of him.

He looks burly, and incredibly strong, so she takes extra precautions. If he was to get the jump on her, he could potentially infect her. She searches each room, looks in each wardrobe, each closet, but finds nothing.

"Thank God…"

She hastens her search, eager to get back to the safety of her own apartment, and ransacks the man's kitchen cupboards.

Jackpot.

A pack of eight water bottles and military grade MRE's for her to consume. She shoves each one in her backpack and heads to the door. She stops as her hand reaches for the handle and glances down at a bowl, stood upon a small table. Keys fill it, along with mindless knickknacks and a phone.

She snatches the phone and leaves as quickly as she arrived.

In the safety of her apartment, the door now locked, just as it has been for weeks, she sits on the couch, a bottle of water beside her and an MRE on her lap. It takes beyond disgusting, and for a second, she feels sorry for the military personnel that had to eat the damn things, but she knows its packed with the nutrients and calories she needs, so she eats every last bit, down to the chicken rice, the cheese pasta that looked like it had already been digested and a square piece of hard bread.

With a shudder, she shoves the remnants on the coffee table and grabs the phone that sits beside her. The phone had been used, and although it was locked with a passcode, the lock had saved the 6% charge that remained on the phone.

She tries for hours to unlock the phone, and after five minutes of waiting after each three incorrect codes, she's close to giving up. She's about to throw in the towel when she's reminded of the photo she had seen on the Ex-Marine's mantel piece.

He had belonged to a certain company…

"Fuck," Wracking her brain, she tries to remember the name. Wolf something… "Shit!"

She tries every combination with the name wolf and she hit's a dead end once more. Why hadn't she paid more attention? Kicking the leg of the coffee table, she stares into space and tries to remember the apartment.

She walked into the apartment, the fireplace, it had a picture there. He was stood there in his dress uniform, the US flag behind him, his hat had the insignia…

A torch and stars.

"Stars are kinda my thing…"

She shakes her head, and in the process, accidentally slams her foot against the leg of the coffee table.

"Fuck, wooden piece of shit."

Then she stops.

Wood.

She grabs the phone and impatiently waits for the lock time to finish so she can input the code. Two minutes later, she types it in and holds her breath as she hits enter.

Timberwolf.

She's in.

She almost feels like cheering, but as she lands eyes on the signal, she realizes that it isn't there. The signal towers in New York run off of the Electricity Grid. The Electricity Grid went down within the first week of the infection.

She couldn't call anyone.

"Fuck."

The phone lay dejected on her lap and she sighs, hope lost.

Minutes tick by, and in those minutes of silence, she misses the hustle and bustle of the city below her. The shouting, the sounds of conversation, she even misses the sirens, but now nothing but a low wind meets her ears.

She wonders to herself if she's the only living person left in New York City.

She frowns and shakes her head.

The phone dings.

Her head snaps down and she stares at the screen. A text message? She opens it immediately.

Verizon would like to apologize for the inconvenience the power outage has caused. We are doing everything we can possible to fix the issue, but during this time, we would like to remind you that our new towers are fitted with backup power using battery cells. Although signal usage will be limited at this time, we will have this issue sorted within a matter of days.

An automated message.

But still, a message nonetheless.

The signal bar sat at a lonely one bar, but it was enough.

She dials her mother's number.

"Verizon cannot connect your call right now, we apologize for the inconvenience."

"Shit."

She tries another number, in the city, Santana.

"I can't take your call so leave a message."

"Fuck."

The only other person in New York is…

She hesitates as she dials, but brings the phone to her ear nonetheless.

It rings.

And rings.

And rings.

It connects.

"Who is this…?" The voice is hushed, low.

"Rachel! Holy crap, it's Quinn."

"Quinn…? Oh my God, you're alive."

"Yeah, yeah, I am. I mean, barely, but I'm still here. Jesus, it's so good to hear another person's voice. How are you alive? Where are you?"

"Quinn…Shhhh…" There's a slight rustle, a few footsteps, then a click of a door, "Sorry, I thought I heard something…Anyway, I thought I was alone, and I thought I was stupid for keeping my phone on me."

"Yeah, apparently the signal keeps fading in and out. My phone is running low too, so I won't be able to talk for long. Where are you?"

"My phone is running low too, I don't know how long we'll be able to talk. I'm at the-,"

The call disconnects, and as she pulls it away, eyes wide, she sees the signal disappear once more, and then the charge on the phone. It dies in her hand, and she doesn't care what noise she makes, but after hearing the first human voice in weeks, even if it is Rachel Berry, she lets out a piercing scream.

She didn't even find out where Rachel was hiding.