They managed to make it to the Tartan Mart without any real trouble. Neither of them said anything the whole way back, both Marcus and Maya lost in their misery and sorrow, in thoughts on the horror that had just befallen them. Marcus pulled up next to Jacob's pickup, which was empty now, and killed the engine. Then, he simply sat there. They both remained motionless, staring straight ahead through the dirty windshield.

Several minutes passed in a slow, horrible silence.

Marcus jerked as someone tapped on the window. He looked over and saw Lily. She looked terrible, her face blackened from soot, her eyes wide and bloodshot from crying, her hair and clothes a mess. She was hugging herself fiercely.

"What happened?" she asked quietly, barely audible through the window and the closed door.

With a sigh, Marcus opened the door and stepped out. Maya joined him. "They're all dead," he replied simply.

"Oh. Good," Lily said, sounding distant.

"How's Jacob?" Maya asked.

"He's fine. He's sleeping. We gave him a bit of morphine...what do we do now?"

"I need a minute to think," Maya replied softly.

They left the parking lot and went into the Mart. Marcus looked around. He spied everyone in his crew...everyone left alive, that was. Jacob was lying on a double-wide mattress pushed up into one corner, next to a couple of magazine racks. He was lying on his side, his shirt off, a bloodied collection of gauze wrapped around his midsection. Karen sat next to him, her knees hugged to her chest, rocking gently back and forth, her gaze suggesting that she was totally gone. Ed was leaned up against the front counter, a bottle of water in his hand, his own gaze distant and lost. Maya started pacing and Lily went to sit with her brother and Karen.

Marcus also spied two other people who made up the three-person team that ran the Mart. Logan, who normally looked on the edge of anger and physically intimidating, instead looked defeated and exhausted, smoking a cigarette with a haggard expression. Daisy stood next to him, both of them leaning against a far wall. Marcus felt control reasserting itself again. He knew that they had to do something, that they had to move on. For now...he just wanted a minute of fresh air. But he decided to multi-task.

He caught Logan's eye and nodded his head towards the front door. Logan looked at him for a moment, then turned, said something quietly to Daisy, who nodded, and moved to join him. "Gonna step out for a minute," Marcus said.

"Okay," Maya replied, still deep in thought.

He and Logan stepped out front. Logan took a long pull on his cigarette and let the smoke out in a thick pall.

"I heard what happened," he said, quietly. "I'm sorry...what happened to the Wilkersons and their nasty crew?"

"They won't be bother anyone anymore," Marcus replied.

"What does that mean? Did you shoot one of them? Scare them?...kill them?" he asked.

"None of them will be bother anyone anymore," Marcus said firmly.

Logan nodded. "Huh...well, good riddance to bad rubbish," he muttered.

"We're leaving Spencer's Mill," Marcus said after a long moment. "We're going to Marshall. There's this big trucker place we were scoping out. It looked good. Huge, fenced in, lots of room for expansion. Only thing is, there aren't all that many of us. We could really use your guy's help, and your resources," he explained.

For a moment, Logan said nothing. Then he sighed. "Sophie died earlier today," he said quietly. "One of those long-armed freaks got her. We killed it but...ugh, the damned thing ripped her in two. So it's just me and Daisy now, which sucks, because honestly, Sophie was the only one of the three of us that really had our shit together. She ran the Mart. On top of that...we're running kind of low on resources. We don't have much."

"I'm sorry," Marcus said quietly. "But you'll join us?" he asked.

"Yeah. We'll come. I'm sorry we didn't earlier. We were just...scared. Sophie had actually talked us into joining today. We were going to call tomorrow," Logan replied.

"It's fine...well, we should get started. Sooner the better."

Logan nodded. He flicked what remained of his cigarette into the darkness. They went back into the Mart. "Okay, listen up," Marcus said, garnering everyone's attention. "We're all moving to the truck stop down in Marshall. We're doing this right now. Logan and Daisy are joining us. We're going to load up everything into the truck and the jeep and we're going to make one stop along the way, at Alice Miller's farmhouse, to ask if they want to join as well. Once we're there, we'll start setting up shop. Any questions?"

There weren't any questions.

Marcus nodded. They set to work.

Marcus was on autopilot now.

He felt nearly mindless and numb as he helped the others load everything into the jeep and the truck. The job took about an hour, the work slow and painful in the darkness of the night. Jacob couldn't help at all and no one tried to rouse Karen, who was still hiding her head, burying it in her knees, arms wrapped around her legs. When they finished, they stretched Jacob out in the back of the jeep, where they'd put the back seat down and left an aisle of space open for him. Maya and Marcus got in the front seats while the others piled into the truck, some of them sitting in the back of it with the stuff they'd packed up.

They pulled out of the Tartan Mart and hit the road, making one stop along the way at Alice Miller's farmhouse.

Marcus saw her come out onto her front porch as he stepped out. She was holding her shotgun, but when she saw him she lowered it. "What's going on?" she asked. "We heard an explosion and thought we saw a huge fire coming from Spencer's Mill."

Marcus hesitated. While he didn't regret taking out the Wilkersons, he wasn't entirely sure he wanted everyone to know that. They'd worked hard on their reputation and it might not be prudent to let it be known that you were bloodthirsty if one of your neighbors was the fucking US Army. "We had a fire," he said. "A bad one. Everything's gone. We lost three of our people. I don't know what the explosion was...maybe the Army finally got sick of the Wilkersons."

"Hmph, wouldn't that be something? They deserve it...I'm so sorry to hear that, Marcus. What will you do now?" she asked.

"We teamed up with the people from the Tartan Mart and we're making for Marshall. Far as we can tell, there's nothing left in Spencer's Mill. And I honestly don't know how much is left in the farmlands, either," Marcus replied. "Will you join us? We could sure use the help and a pooling of manpower and resources would be a benefit for both of us."

Alice slowly shook her head. "I'm sorry, Marcus. We're staying here. The Army's been sniffing around lately too and I told them the same thing...though in a much less polite way. We're...doing well for ourselves here. But...I like you and your friends. Why don't you come inside? I can give you some supplies, for your new home."

"I'd really appreciate that," Marcus replied.

He told the others what was happening and followed Alice into her home. The place was very nice inside. He saw three other people in the living room, who looked like they'd been waiting. He recognized Sam Haney, the man he'd rescued from the Wilkersons way back when. The other two looked like a couple. He wasn't sure how he could tell that, just that the idea struck him. Sam introduced them both. The tall, well-built, athletic man with short dark hair and a beard was Ryan. The stunningly beautiful, petite Hispanic woman who seemed to have anxiety problems was named Izabella.

Marcus nodded to them both and they nodded back. A moment later, Alice returned with a rucksack. She passed it to Marcus. "Some food and bullets," she said. "A bit of medical supplies, too, whatever we could spare. I'm so sorry about what happened."

"Thank you, very much. We all really appreciate it. If you ever want to trade for anything or if you decide to come join us, the radio's always on...or, it will be, once we get it set up again."

"We'll be in touch," Alice replied.

Marcus went back outside, got into the jeep and started driving again.

Several worries had cropped up in Marcus' harrowed, haunted, exhausted mind on the road to Marshall, so he was immensely relieved to discover that the truck stop was just as they left it. Empty. There were a few zombies milling around, but the place looked otherwise abandoned and intact. They parked the vehicles out front.

"Someone should stay with Jacob and Karen," Marcus said.

"I'll do it," Lily said. "I'm good enough at shooting to defend, but I probably won't be much help in there."

"Okay. Everyone else, make sure your guns are loaded and you're focused. We'll move in, clear out any zombies, then bring the stuff inside and hole up for the night."

Everyone responded positively. Marcus led Maya, Ed, Logan and Daisy in through the front gates of the huge, barbwire-topped chainlink fence that surrounded the truck stop. They quickly took out the handful of zombies lingering in the broad blacktop of open space between the building itself and the fence. Then they took out the zombies that emerged from the darkened structure. Once silence fell again, they entered through one of the two immense garage-style doors that were both open to the world, admitting access.

Marcus mentally mapped out the area while they searched it.

Most of the initial first room was taken up by a huge, open area that was largely comprised of two big bays meant to hold full rigs. One of the bays was taken up by a rig missing several of its tires. They'd probably have to work on getting it out since it was just dead weight and taking up precious space. Along the back wall were two rooms, though one of those rooms had walls of chainlink. It was packed with tons of shelves and tables, all of them filled with tools and spare parts meant for making repairs to vehicles.

The next room was more of an open-faced office scattered with furniture and papers. One door led into the rest of the complex. The door led to a large, upside-down and flipped over L-shaped room that had three more doors in it. The one to the left led to a bedroom, the one dead ahead led back outside and the one to the right led to another bedroom that had a large bathroom attached to it that came complete with three toilets and two large shower stalls. Once they were sure the area was clear, Marcus led the others back outside.

They hauled everything in to the first bedroom, made sure to lock all the exterior doors and then divided among the two bedrooms, which had just enough beds for everyone...given that some of them were bunking up together.

Nobody spoke about setting a guard. They were too tired.

Marcus was out as soon as his head hit the pillow and he laid an arm over Maya.