Chapter 2 – 20 years later – July 12th 2033

I woke up from a rough nights sleep. Nowadays every night was a rough nights sleep. I was hoping to get a few extra hours on the mattress but a harsh knocking woke me up. I recognized the knock straight away, it was Quaid. The sunlight was refracting through the windows straight into my eyes, making me squint. I hated early mornings. I picked myself up from the mattress, the heat had made me feel wearier than usual. I walked towards the door to my apartment and looked through the peep-hole just in case I was wrong.

It was Quaid.

I proceeded to unlock the door, unhooking the many chains that I had positioned across the door. I didn't trust most people any more, except for Quaid. No telling who would burst into your room in the middle of the night, and put a bullet between your eyes; just to steal your shoes.

"Shipments coming in this afternoon, we're meeting the fireflies near the South tunnel." Quaid burst through the door to my apartment.

"Morning to you to brother. South tunnel? That's John's end right?"

"Yeah, we better set off in the next hour. We'll want to avoid curfew, army will be all over the place." Quaid was straight down to business.

"It's getting harder and harder to smuggle shit in." Army seemed to be patrolling more and more, I don't know how, seeing as a few get killed every week..

"I'll meet you outside. Don't forget to gear up." With that comment he was gone.

I got up and walked towards the mirror, damn I looked old. Thirty nine years old. It seems like yesterday I was just some kid ready to start learning. Twenty years of hell ages you considerably, my once youthful face was gone. My mohawk, which used to be black, was now dotted with grey hairs. Seems pretty ironic now, I was going to be learning about criminals, now I am one. Guess I got to learn about criminals anyway, seeing as me and Quaid have been smuggling this shit for the past ten years. Weapons, clothes, food, whatever. Long as we get our ration cards and a share of the goods we really don't care what it is. I always thought at the age of thirty nine I'd still be bodybuilding, tough reality is that gym's aren't easy to come by in a post-apocalyptic world, and most people don't want a set of dumbbells smuggled into the city. I took Quaid's advice and geared up, I put on my black boots I'd took from a soldier I'd killed, combat trousers Quaid had found me, and a tight fitting navy blue T-Shirt. Baggy shirts could easily be grabbed by the infected, at least that was my excuse, I just like tight T-Shirts.

"Took long enough." Quaid was just as world weary as me, but it hadn't affected our friendship, he was still by best friend, more like a brother. Quaid looked much younger, the apocalypse hadn't affected his appearance as much as it did me. He looked ten years younger than he actually was and has kept his hairstyle a simple grade five all over. His brown hair was still as messy as ever.. He wore the same boots and camo combat trousers, but also wore a dark grey hooded jacket that was zipped half way up to his chest.

"Yeah well, I like to be thorough. I dreamed we were back in England last night." It had been twenty years since the evacuation, it was supposedly safer in America. How wrong we all were, coming to America for nothing. Three and a half thousand miles away from home, and nothing to show for it.

"Me too. I dreamed that we were on Cannock Chase last night. Remember when we had our own little base?" Quaid couldn't help but let out a chuckle, and neither could I.

"Damn, I forgot all about that place. The one filled with asbestos? I'm surprised that didn't end up killing us." Reminiscing was one of the ways we kept ourselves sane, dreaming of the old country. Damn I missed England. I missed home.

We had started walking towards the checkpoint leading to the south side of the city, the south tunnel was only five minutes away. The place was in ruin, graffiti, people half starved, no rations half the time, no wonder people paid us so well to smuggle goods into the city.

"Know what I miss the most?"

"Breaking my toys like an arse-hole?" Quaid always used to break my toys by accident when we were toddlers, I never let him forget it.

"Fuck you. Friday nights at Gaz place." Quaid said with a slight hint of sorrow. At the mention of Gazes' name I must have twitched ever so slightly as he registered it straight away.

"I know man. I miss him to." Shortly after we got into the helicopter Gaz had called Quaid, and we said our goodbyes, just in case we didn't see him again. He'd been taken to a different Quarantine zone in Texas. Anthony, the oldest brother, would be fifty five by now if he was still alive. Last we'd heard from the fireflies, they'd joined the Army. Hopefully if we crossed paths, they wouldn't try to kill us.

We continued to walk through the streets towards the south tunnel, people littered the streets going about their day to day business as normal, well as normal as things could be nowadays. Eventually we reached the south checkpoint, the army had set up checkpoints at the North and South of the quarantine zone to monitor movement throughout the city. There was no queue, so me and Quaid walked straight up to the security gate guard. The steel wall and gate were at least fourteen foot high and felt more like a concentration camp.

"Business?" The soldier was straight to the point, and his thick Texas accent reminded me of Anthony.

"Going to see a friend. Haven't gone to see him in a while." Quaid responded, also straight to the point. We didn't want to stand here and chit-chat.

"Go on through."

As the gate moved a sharp sound reverberated from it's wheels as the years of rust and wear scratched against the ground.

"FUCK!" Just as me and Quaid had walked through the gate an explosion had been set off North side, and the soldiers ran off towards the commotion.

"Marlene's distraction, keep the soldiers on the fireflies and away from us why we get the goods." We had a long history with Marlene, a mutual friendship of sorts. We helped her supply the fireflies inside the city, and she made sure that were well equipped.

"You need to keep my updated with this shit, but damn. Haven't seen that crazy bitch in a while. How is she?" Me and Marlene had our own past.

"Since you abandoned her? She's well." Those days were behind us. We all held on to some sort of hope of a cure at first but, there was no cure for something on this large a scale. The naive of youth. We walked in silence towards the South Tunnel, we navigated our way through buildings that had long since been reclaimed by nature, it was beautiful in a surreal kind of way. Grass and vines had grown over man-made roads and buildings, our creations were falling apart. We walked into the house that contained the south tunnel, and walked through it's corridors of rooms to find John.

"How's traffic?" Again, Quaid asked straight to the point. We liked to keep things short and simple, no emotional attachment that way. No need to get close to something you're going to lose.

"No busier than usual. Had some soldiers inspect the place, dumb fucks couldn't find a thing." John stood up and moved the arm chair he had been sitting on, the trapdoor to the south tunnel was beneath where he was sitting. He was much older than me and Quaid, he was easily sixty and from what we knew about him, it was obvious why he was guarding the tunnel. A veteran of the war of terror, he'd seen action, the soldiers that patrolled the city were kids compared to this hard bastard.

I opened the trap door and Quaid jumped down into the darkness, and I followed him in suit. John closed the trap door above us. Quaid turned on his torch and I did the same, it was pitch black in the tunnel. The tunnel was actually a sewer that people had started to use to get in and out the city without getting caught by any squaddies. I lifted up my shirt slightly to grab my pistol, a suppressed Walther P99 than Marlene had given me five years ago.

"Only have one more mag left, full mag, twelve bullets." Me and Quaid kept each other up to date with our equipment so we knew how capable we were should we get into a fight with the infected or any other foes.

The tunnel was only a five minute walk but nobody could ever be quite sure if any infected had some how got into the tunnel. We continued to walk until we both reached the end of the tunnel, and then turned right into the maintenance room.

"Wait, did you hear that?" Quaid stopped to listen. "Nevermind, I thought I heard something."

I opened the door, and as soon as I had done this I was grabbed by a clicker and dragged into the room dragged me into the room. This clicker was slamming it's fists against my body and sent waves of pain throughout my body, the damn thing was strong and I was dangerously close to being knocked out. I lifted by my gun up in an attempt to shoot it in the head but as it pummelled me with another punch to the stomach I loosened my grip and the gun

*Squaddies, British slang for soldiers.

"Damnitt! Get this fucking thing off of me!" The clicker was getting closer and closer to my face, I thought I was going to get bitten and turn into one of them. The thought of becoming one of the infected give me a new burst of energy and I managed to push the thing away from me. The clicker was only momentarily winded and it lunged back towards me in an attempt to bite me. Just before it managed to latch onto my neck it suddenly dropped to the floor.

"Took you long enough!" I looked towards Quaid with relief.

"Sorry dude, didn't want to risk shooting you in the head. Or would you rather your brains be on the cold concrete?" Quaid replied, the banter kept us two going. What seemed like hostility was in reality how we kept each other motivated. Us British do indeed have a dark sense of humour.

I walked over to my gun and picked it up off the floor and then proceeded to walk towards the now dead clicker. I aimed at it's head, and pulled the trigger. I wanted to make sure the damn thing wasn't going to get back up. God bless Marlene for giving us suppressed weapons, otherwise any infected in the area would already be in this room ripping us to pieces. We went to the far side of the room, which was now generously covered in the blood of the deceased clicker. The poor guy, or girl, can't tell any more after years of infection. We walked to the corner of the room where the trap door was located, the exit where the fireflies would be arriving.

"How long until they arrive?" I questioned.

"Two hours, we'll wait here until then."

"It's time mate." Quaid broke the silence. I had been asleep, dreaming of the events that had transpired twenty years ago, how we'd both changed so much.

"I'll boost you." With that said I climbed to my feet and I leant back against the wall and positioned my hands in front of me. Quaid took a few steps back and ran towards me, he jumped in the air and his right food landed firmly in my hands. I pushed up as hard as I could and he managed to climb through the trap door.

"Alright now help me up."

No answer.

"Dude?"

Silence.

Fuck, he hadn't been shot had he? Damnitt if the fireflies had killed him. I had to get up there. I looked around and saw an old metal shelf, I dragged it across the room, the rusty metal screamed at me as the shelf scrapped against the cold hard floor. I used the shelf as a make shift ladder, and climbed up through the hatch.

Dead. All of them. Every single firefly.

"Oh my God." Quaid was speechless, this wasn't a fire fight, this was a massacre.

"Shit, get down!" I dragged Quaid behind an old car hoping that they hadn't seen us, who had killed our business associates? Always questions.

"Hunters. Looks like Robert's guys. They're putting the weapons into the back of the truck. We can't let them take the gear we need it!" I was angry, not only had they killed our associates, but they were stealing our weapons for their own nefarious practices. Those were our guns! Not theirs!

"Dude come on, another day. We'll find other guns, there's at least a dozen of them, and they're in full combat gear. What do we have? Two pistols - half empty, an old tire iron and a baseball bat with nails through it. They'll slaughter us." Quaid was right, he balanced my rash decisions, and was the voice of reason in this sea of chaos.

Damnitt I couldn't just let them take those guns it was vital that we got them, how many fireflies would die otherwise? It would all be for nothing.

"We pick our fights, and today, we have to walk away. We'll get them back, one way or another." How did Quaid remain so calm?

"Fine. Come on, let's go, before they discover the south tunnel, then we're all fucked. We're gonna go find that son of a bitch personally." I lifted up the hatch as quietly as I could so they didn't hear us. The metal didn't make a sound luckily. Quaid lowered himself down through the trap door as quiet as he could, and I followed him, making sure to lower the trapdoor slowly as to not alert the hunters.

10 years ago

"She can't be trusted, you know she can't. We're going to get killed!"

"We don't have a choice. We're not going to let her die."

"Well whatever you do, don't, open, it."

"Whatever you do, don't, make, a sound."