Note: I do not own VALVe or any of its affiliates. Consider this a disclaimer to the characters/themes/what have you presented in this story.

May I introduce Frank, who was inspired by a character in Stephen King's The Stand, named Trashcan Man. Oddly enough, my favourite character in any of his books. Does that make me schizo, too?

Seven

"Do you understand, Frank?" James asked, watching the shrivelled man carefully.

"Frank likes the boys."

James sighed, touching the front of his mask with his gloved hand. He glanced at his colleague, who held an equally exasperated expression.

"Do you know what you have to do, Frank?" James asked once again.

"Be nice to lady. Lady be nice to him. Frank likes Lady. Frank likes fire."

"Yes," James said, nodding along. "Be nice to lady, Frank. It is very important that you do this."

The man when to picking his arm, as if he were completely unaware that the thee men in hazmat suits sat around him. "Macmillan, do we have any MAO-inhibitor in inventory?"

Macmillan flipped to a page in his notes. "We do, sir."

"Have a small dose put into Mr. Mulner's and Miss Connor's food portions. I want all conditions to be favourable. Will you and Kischner be able to do this?"

"We'll inform the staff as well," Kischner said as an affirmation.

"Be discreet about it," James said. "Do not offer any details you don't need to."

"Certainly, sir."

When she woke up, she wasn't in the same place. There was a fluorescent light flickering on the far side of the room, and daylight came in from the hallway, but otherwise it was dark. She was lying on her stomach again, but there was no inkling of pain across her back. She reached behind herself to feel the damage and found that the swelling had gone down considerably.

Good, she thought. She sighed lightly, rubbing her numbed back. She'd certainly have large, ugly scars on her back for the rest of her life, but she had come to terms with that. There were worse things .

"Huh?" someone grunted sharply. Zoey gasped in surprise and lifted her head to scan the dark room to see if she could find the source of the voice. She caught the shape of someone hunkered down in the corner of the room.

"Hello?" she said. The person scuttled a bit, as if he or she were trying to be absorbed by the wall in order to get away from Zoey. Zoey didn't move or say anything further, and after a minute of silence, the shape stood upward and slowly came forward.

When the man stepped into the light, Zoey had to suppress a hiss. He looked like he'd been thrown into a meat grinder, but Zoey finally recognized the wounds as bite marks and scrapes. There marks on his cheek and his right eye—it was swollen shut—a few on his neck, and he sported a noticeable limp. The worst of it was his right arm—it had been charred from his finger tips all the way past his scrub's sleeve; Zoey started to imagine half of his entire body as crisped, just like a flame broiled steak.

"Lady," he said, his voice gravely. Zoey only stared back, unsure of how to respond.

"Are you okay?" she finally asked, looking him over. He didn't say anything. Instead, he looked over his arm, and started picking at his burnt skin absentmindedly.

"Don't do that!" Zoey blurted forcefully. He stopped picking, flinched, and stared at her. Zoey noticed that he stood with a hunch.

"What happened to you?" she said, propping herself on her elbows and eyeing him over with concern. He shied away from her a bit, twisting his arm over and over, as if looking for a new picking spot.

"Fire," he muttered, continuing to examine his arm. "Someone threw the bottle at me."

She thought this statement over. "A Molotov?" Zoey said, astonished. "Who would throw a Molotov at you? Why?"

He turned to her, his good eye wide and feral. She recoiled a bit, wondering what she had said to insult him. He ducked his head almost as quickly, though, as if nothing happened. "Too close to the zombies."

Zoey almost laughed out loud, but was luckily able to stop herself. Now, why didn't I think of that? Never had she thought of the infected as "zombies." The idea seemed absurd enough to joke about, but she kept quiet. It was obvious something beyond this man's wounds was inflicting him.

"Frank likes fire," he muttered. A piece of his burnt skin fluttered to the floor, and he bent over to try and pick it up. It glowed like silver in the sunlight. Zoey wanted to look away, but she kept talking to him.

"Your name is Frank?"

"Yeah."

"How did you get here?"

He looked up at her and cocked his head like a bewildered dog. "Walked."

"Did you just make it here?"

He looked at the floor again, and continued to try and pick up the flake of skin. He finally had it between his fingers, and he darted it into his mouth. "Yes."

Zoey did look away this time, then gulped. "Um... did you come in with others?"

He shook his head, dusting off the ground where the flake had been, then stood up in his hunch again. "No. Nope. Not for Frank."

If Zoey had met this man at the bus depot four weeks ago, she would have slowly inched away from him, hoping he wouldn't notice, and would just continue muttering to himself, not caring that another person had left him behind. But that was four weeks ago—Zoey found that she had absolutely no anxiety or judgment towards Frank—besides the slight queasiness at watching him eat his own leftovers.

Zoey slid her legs to the side, then sat up slowly on her bed. Frank was now inspecting his blackened fingernails. Some of them looked like they'd peeled off somewhere along his hike to the stadium. Looking down at him, Zoey felt every sad notion she ever held rise to the surface. She was frowning slightly.

"Are you okay, Frank?"

He didn't look at her. "Frank likes fire," he said, turning his arm over in the light again. Zoey sighed, then looked around. White caught her eye, and she craned her neck to see an empty bed beside her own.

"Don't you want to sit in bed?" she asked. He didn't answer. He went back to picking his arm.

Zoey was beginning to miss her friends in waves now; being stuck inside a room with a man who was incommunicable left her with a helpless remorse weighing down on her heart. It wasn't within her power to see them, but she wished she could do something. She tried counting on Frank again.

"When you got here, did they bring you to this room directly, Frank?"

He looked up, but not at her. His gaze drifted off somewhere over her shoulder. "They gave Frank a bath."

"And?"

"Then Frank had breakfast with the boys," he said, scratching his other arm. Flakes of skin still fell off his charred one. "Frank likes the boys. Frank likes fire."

It seemed unlikely, but the facility was small enough, wasn't it? "Who are the boys, Frank?"

He made a grunting noise, then looked at Zoey. "The boys."

Suddenly, Frank made a wild hooting noise, and spun around to sit in the dark corner where he had come from. When he hunkered down again, Zoey could see him picking at his skin once more. His arm was going to look like it was chewed up by a dog by the end of the day.

Zoey felt another wash of sadness—for Frank and for her absent friends—before she sighed gently to herself. Her eyes fell on her feet, and she decided she would try walking; no-one in the facility had given her the opportunity to walk around since she was attacked. With a little hesitancy, she got up on her feet, and took a small, wobbly step forward. She found her back too stiff to properly move around, and she pictured herself as a shuffling old grandpa in his pyjamas. Zoey giggled to herself a bit, but Frank took no notice.

Once Zoey had taken a few steps forward, she looked to the window on the door, and decided she would try and see what she could see from there. Twisting herself around slowly, Zoey shuffle-walked to the door, wincing at the odd, unnatural twisting feelings in her back that shot up and down her spine from time to time. After a few challenging shuffles, Zoey found herself at the door.

Zoey peeked out the window. It was empty; the only thing in the hallway was daylight, coming in from a single well window high up near the ceiling. No-one was there, and no matter how far she twisted herself from side to side, she could see nothing but golden-bathed cement hallway from left to right.

Without thinking about it, Zoey's hand tried the door handle. To her surprise, it twisted under her hand, and slowly creaked open a bit. Zoey stood looking at it, and it took her a few seconds to register that the door was unlocked and she just opened it. She could go outside.

A rush flowed through her, and Zoey took a deep breath and straightened her back. Rapid thoughts shot through her mind—oddly enough, the thought escape was the most prevalent. Not just the room, but the entire stadium. Collect her friends, collect her things, and go. Get the hell out of Dodge. Go searching for greener pastures. But the moment passed, and the counter thought came to her: Escape where?

Regardless, the door was open, and Zoey wasn't going to let the opportunity go to waste. She shuffled back, then swung the door open slowly. It squeaked as it went, and she cringed, looking from left to right wildly, hoping no-one was around to hear the disturbance. When no-one came, Zoey relaxed and stepped into the doorway.

Empty for as far as she could see. The hallways curved with the stadium, plain and bare, nothing around. Down the hall to her right, however, were stairs to the actual seats. They would be there, she thought. She gnawed on her lip gently, then made her decision.

Frank grunted from behind her.

Zoey turned to look at him. He was still hunched in the corner, picking at his injured arm. Despite her desire to get out of that room and find Bill, Francis and Louis, she found that she did not want to leave Frank behind even more.

"Frank, hey," Zoey said quietly, turning towards him. He looked up at her—rather, he looked just past her shoulder—then continued to investigate his arm. Zoey took one last shuffle step towards him. "Frank."

"Lady," he mumbled.

"Frank, do you want to go for a walk?"

"Frank walked a lot already."

Zoey faltered, then said: "You like walks, don't you?"

"Frank likes lady," he replied. Zoey thought she was losing an impossible battle, but Frank suddenly got to his feet and walked out into the hallway with his hunch. Zoey, caught off guard, tried to shuffle after him. He began walking down the hallway towards the stairs, and as Zoey desperately tried to keep up pace with him, he passed them by without so much as a glance.

"Wait, Frank!" she shouted in a whisper. "Let's go up the stairs!"

But Frank, wherever he was, did not hear Zoey. He kept lurking down the hall with his odd slouch, scratching at his arm and grunting to himself. As Zoey passed the stairs, she looked up at them longingly. She could see the double doors, the ones that had been locked on her when she tried to get inside, that led to the stands. She wanted to go up there, but she felt leaving Frank behind would be the cruelest thing she could do to the poor man.

"Frank!" she called again, but he did not slow or show any sign of hearing her. He was getting further and further away.

"Dammit!" she muttered. Her breathing started to pick up; she really wasn't in any shape to be hobbling around. She should have stayed in the dark room with Frank, she should've done a lot of things.

As Zoey continued her fruitless chase after Frank, she slowed by another door in the hallway and leaned against the wall. She tried to catch her breath, but she found she couldn't force herself to start walking again. After a few seconds, Frank began to disappear beyond the bend.

"Frank," she called quietly again. It was futile. Soon he went to far, and Zoey couldn't see him anymore. "That was brilliant."

Zoey looked in through the window of the door. Above it read "Employees Only" in blocky, bold, spray painted letters. The room, like all the others, was completely dark. She tried the door handle. It was locked.

Zoey felt she was ready to keep walking again, but as she shifted, she saw more of the room from a single beam of light bouncing off something shiny in the room. Zoey paused, then slowly shifted back, trying to find the angle again. The light began to shine once more, and she peered inside.

Lining the walls were gun racks. They were adorned with a wide variety of arms, big and small. On another rack next to that were small hand held weapons; Zoey could make out a few different knives, batons, bats, golf clubs, stun guns, hand axes...

An idea rushed into her mind, making her eyes go wide and her breath come out as a gasp. She scanned the gun racks again, and sure enough she found a shotgun, some pistols, an SMG, and a hunting rifle. Their weapons.

"Our weapons," she whispered, astonished. No civilians permitted with weapons on the premises. Surely, you understand.

For some reason, Zoey had the urge to break the lock and go inside to get them. In a brief and insane thought, Zoey felt she'd be returning to a state of normality if she could hold her weapons in her hands again; that cold, hard, bloodstained steel between her fingers. Normality. Wasn't this—the stadium, the researchers, the soldiers—wasn't this a return to normality? Wasn't leaving survival behind what the point was?

Zoey leaned on the door with her hands on either side of the glass, and when her breath fogged the window, she backed up. Suddenly she didn't feel anymore sane than Frank.

"Can I help you?" someone said from next to her. Zoey let out a little yelp and turned quickly towards the soldier. It was the same man who had escorted her off the helicopter. His mask was bulky, protecting himself from her. Zoey shook the thoughts away, stumbling over her words.

"Well—Frank—I mean, my roommate opened the door and left, so I came down here after him, but he got away from me too fast, and I just..." Zoey looked to the door, trying to make up an excuse. She had none. "I was a little caught off guard."

The hard, suspicious look in his eyes wore away, and he nodded. "Of course. Your roommate, where did he go?"

"Down that way," Zoey said, pointing over the soldier's shoulder. "I don't think he's all there, though. Go easy on him."

Something flashed behind the soldier's eyes, and he stared at Zoey heatedly. "Frank Mulner? Is that who he is?"

"I—wh... I think so. He said his name was Frank."

"Fuck," he grumbled, then darted away from Zoey down the hall.

Zoey watched him go, a growing concern and suspicion rising up in her. Apparently, people worried more about Frank than she would've thought, or he was far more dangerous than she could have assumed. Zoey stayed planted on the spot for a second, simply too shocked to try and make a second getaway.

When no-one else came down the hallway, and when she heard no evidence that Frank had been found, Zoey turned and headed back down the hallway. She passed the stairs, but decided against going up there. She'd been caught already, so she'd likely get into more trouble if she were caught "chasing after her roommate" somewhere else.

But just as she was about to leave the stairs behind, the doors above opened, and she twisted on her heel, expecting to see another soldier there eyeing her down and yelling angrily for her to get back to her room. What she saw instead was Louis's face staring down at her, slack jawed.

"Zoey?"

A broad smile brightened her face. Bill and Francis filed in behind him, looking down at her with similar faces. "Guys!" she cried.

The four of them quickly found a family washroom; the only private place with a lockable door where they could talk without being caught or interrupted. Luckily, the lights worked.

When Francis locked the door behind them, Zoey had the overpowering urge to hug one of them, all of them, at once, but she held herself back. She shuffled her feet awkwardly, fighting a physical urge to pounce them, and simply smiled at them with a face of desperation and thankfulness.

Louis gave her that brotherly look that he shared with her from time to time, then patted her on the back. "Am I glad to see you."

Zoey nodded. "Me too." She looked at the three of them, then realized what she'd noticed when they first stepped in from outside. "When did you get your clothes back?"

"Last night sometime," Francis said. "'Bout fuckin' time, too. Those scrubs were itchy as hell."

"Got a debriefing, too," Bill said. "Told us our rights, gave us a summary of the tests, tried to pull their heads from their asses, la di da."

"I haven't gotten much," she said, reaching for her back. "I don't know. These people... I've got nothing to be afraid of—they're helping me, as far as I can tell—but I can't shake the feeling... I don't know. I don't like them."

"Great minds think alike," Francis said, crossing his arms over his chest. "I think these guys work for the mafia, if you ask me."

"They didn't—hurt you or anything, did they?" Louis asked carefully.

Zoey turned around and lifted her tunic up enough to show her back. The three of them hissed.

"They've been trying to fix me up—this is a lot better than it used to be. But I..." Zoey paused, thinking on the conversation between James and Lyson. She dropped her top and turned to them again. "I think they're trying to experiment on us."

"What makes you think that?" Bill asked suspiciously.

"I heard them talking... our safety isn't their top priority. I think they want to use us to fuel their experiment, to understand the virus a little more."

"They fucking around with you, kid?" Francis asked, his voice rimmed with anger.

"I honestly can't tell," Zoey said. "Sometimes they seem to be, other times they don't. But when I try to tell myself that I'm just paranoid, I keep second guessing myself."

"You know what the worst part about this is?" Louis said. "I can't call my lawyer."

"Zoey," Bill said, his face even more stern than it seemed possible, "Do you have ways of getting out of your room at night?"

Zoey paused. "They've been leaving the door unlocked, but I think with my new roommate, they'll be locking it from now on."

"New roommate?"

"His name is Frank. Do you know him?"

"No," Bill shook his head. "Why?"

"He said he had breakfast with 'the boys'. I thought he might be talking about you three."

They shook their heads. "So why are they locking the door?"

"He's..." Zoey stumbled. She settled with furrowing her brow with a concerned expression; a you-don't-want-to-know look.

"Damn," Bill mumbled. Then, "Where are you?"

"They just moved me to a room down the same hallway as the stairs," Zoey said, pointing to the door to guide them. "Just a little further down from there."

"They've been keeping us in little communities the last few days, but now we're free to roam around again," Bill informed her. "We'll find a way to get down to your door at night."

"No," Zoey said, "don't do that."

The three of them looked taken aback. "What?"

"You'll just get into more trouble. Besides, what would you do when you got there?"

Bill looked at her hard for a second. "We'd get out of here."

So, I'm not the only one who thought of it, she thought. Her eyes lit up, and she scanned each of their faces. "You mean it?"

He nodded firmly.

Zoey licked her lips, then dropped her voice out of instinct; it was usual to whisper when one spoke about something he or she felt was detrimental. "Listen, I found where they're keeping our weapons."

"Where?" they asked almost simultaneously.

"The door labelled for employees, same hallway," she said, pointing at the door again. "The room's full of them."

Francis's smile was ever so slight, but his entire face lit up like he'd just heard the concept of Christmas for the first time.

"Right," Bill said, looking between them. "We're gonna have to plan this like real men—and women," he added quickly, looking at Zoey, "if we're gonna do this. Zoey, you're sure the weapons are down the hall from your room?"

"Absolutely," she said seriously, her eyes boring into his.

"Okay," he said, then hunched over like a coach would before a game. The other three huddled with him. "Let's put our noggins to work, then..."

Francis opened the washroom door, then paused. The others tried to follow him out, but he didn't budge.

"What's the hold up?" Bill growled impatiently, then looked over Francis's shoulder. "Oh, shit."

Zoey stood on her tiptoes to see over the others' heads, and she felt her knees go weak. She felt her heart palpitate, and she dropped back onto her feet again. Soldiers were waiting outside their door.

"Having a conference?" one of them asked. The others snickered only slightly. "Is Zoey Connor with you?"

The three of them stood there, and Zoey got the sense of a bunch of tough brutes protecting what was theirs. Zoey shuffled forward and touched their backs gently, encouraging them to move away. When they finally did, Zoey stepped forward a little. She held her head high, a look of anger on her face. "Yes?"

"Come with me," the soldier said impatiently, motioning her down the hall with his M16. Zoey watched it glint maliciously, then walked forward as asked. She wanted desperately to look over her shoulder to the three of them, but she couldn't. Part of her was afraid to see them being subjugated by the soldiers.

The man escorting her brought her back to her room and stood in the doorway briefly. Zoey shuffled around to look at him. "Please don't leave your room again," the soldier said firmly. "It's important that you stay in this room unless someone shows you out."

Zoey glared at him. "What's so damn important about me?" she asked angrily.

The soldier looked at her plainly, his expression hidden by his mask, keeping Zoey from reading his thoughts. Then he turned from her and closed the door. She heard a chink as he locked it behind him.

Once again, Zoey was caught in the dark, and now she was locked in there.

"Lady," Frank said from behind her in his corner. "Frank likes lady. Frank likes fire."

Zoey shuffled up to the door, leaned against the wall for support, then kicked it with all her strength, screaming furiously.