The ride in the jeep to an unknown location was silent. The only sound was of the tires crunching on the gravel and dirt under them as Dallas drove to wherever they were going. It was not until they saw a street sign that Zoey finally broke the silence.
"Route four…" She said, watching as the sign disappeared into the distance, "That eventually becomes Pennsylvania Avenue… They are taking us to Washington D.C."
"C'mon Zoey, we are still friends with these guys; not hostages." Francis said turning to Hoxton, "We aren't hostages, right?"
"You know?" Hoxton said, "You guys are lucky. You haven't had to fight like this until this mess got started. But us; we had to be like this all of our lives. Since we were just teenagers we had to cheat, steal, and lie to people just to survive."
"But why?" Zoey asked, "Didn't your parents take care of you?"
"My dad was a drunk fool." Hoxton replied. "He wasted all of my family's money on booze."
"My mom was a hooker…" Chains said, "I wasn't supposed to happen so she left me on the streets as soon as she thought I could survive."
"A cop killed both my parents." Dallas said, "Shot them both when they were just reaching for their drivers licenses."
At this point they all turned to Wolf. Wolf was a man of mystery to Bill, Zoey, Francis, and Louis and the rest of the Payday Crew. He was quiet, even tempered most of the time, paranoid, and possibly the most terrifying man they ever met. Wolf didn't seem to be paying attention to anything, just staring into space blankly, possibly in deep thought. But then Wolf seemed to come back to reality and sighed.
"Guys, remember when I said my family was in the Mafia?" Wolf asked.
"Yeah. Is that really what happened?" Hoxton answered.
"Not at all." Wolf said, "What really happened was I was diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome when I was five. My parents couldn't stand it. They tried everything, they tried drugs, therapy, everything. But then the Sandy Hook incident happened when I was about sixteen or so and my parents could stand living with a potential mass murderer so they took me to an insane asylum claiming I was criminally insane and I was locked up there until I got let go fifteen years later when they finally found out my parents were lying."
They all stared at Wolf. Zoey was the first one to do something, that something being throwing her arms around Wolf in a hug. Wolf remained still and slowly put an arm around Zoey and resumed staring off into space. Leaving the rest of the group to discuss what they just heard.
"I always thought Wolf was a little bit off." Hoxton said.
"Yeah." Chains replied, "It does explain a lot."
"You know in my day we wouldn't use words like Autism and Aspergers to sugar coat the fact you are god damn insane." Bill grumbled, "If you do not remember because of his little outburst at the military base we got the whole US army is after us."
"Don't worry old timer." Dallas said. "Where we are going, it would be amazing if they dared to follow us."
They kept driving, after a while Route Four turned into Pennsylvania Avenue and Dallas pulled up to the White House front. The Payday Crew got out and told Bill, Zoey, Francis, and Louis to stay inside the car in case they need to have a quick getaway. The Payday Crew searched the White House, the president's bedroom, the oval office, every room until they finally found it. They came back out smiling and Hoxton was holding a folded up map.
"Is that it?" Bill asked, "A map? We had to go all the way to D.C. for a map?"
"Not just any map." Hoxton said, "This map is going to show us where safety is."
"How is it going to do that?" Francis asked.
"Bill should know this one." Dallas said, "The president and all the other important government officials all have access to a place called Doomsday Mountain. It is a bunker in the Rocky Mountains that is capable of surviving nuclear bombardment, but we think it can also make due as a zombie proof fortress."
Everybody looked at the map. Then everybody smiled. The Payday Crew got in the jeep and Dallas hopped into the driver's seat and stepped on the gas and blared the horn a couple times to get the attention of some infected. As the infected poured into the street in front of them they were just run over by the jeep. The infected behind them could not run fast enough to catch them.
"Woo!" Dallas shouted, "Kiss my hood ornament zom-bitches!"
Soon the survivors were out of D.C. and on the road to Colorado. A ruined American East Coast behind them, and probably a ruined American Mid-west in front of them. But that did not matter now. They had a plan, and hopefully unlike the heist at Mercy Hospital, a plan B was not necessary.