End of season 1.

Chapter 11: Marching On

I love you, Zoey.

He closed his eyes, as the muzzle flash ripped through his forehead, and dropped. All those memories, the shooting range, the movie nights, the laughter, the cries, disappeared with him.

There hasn't been much said since then. Nothing was brought up regarding it. During this time of apocalyptic disaster, few people would care too much for small talk, especially when it had to do with personal experiences, possibly even traumatic ones. People have died; families have been destroyed, but none of that mattered to anyone anymore. What did matter was that where we were, and where we would go from here. It was not in any way easy to let go of the past, however, as pulling the gun and ending a loved one's life could never be easy. She needed a scapegoat, an outlet, a replacement, whatever it was people felt like associating with at the time.

Then came that old man. That white beard bitter-filled lonely old man. She found comfort in him, and she might as well be the only family he ever had. They came through so much within those short few months. They had their trust on one another. She looked up to him, and he felt comfort in looking after her. He died a brutal death; but she had no doubt that during his last moments, that bitter old man was thinking of her. She was devastated, torn, and aimless; but she was also different.

She was starting to take it in stride.

Her father had faded from her consciousness, and soon will the old man. If her two companions were to be horribly murdered; she would be distressed beyond belief, but she would still move on. She expected it. As promising as her plan was, the amount of problems that they ran into was already far above what they could ever possibly guessed. She admitted to herself that one of these days; they would end up dead, and probably she would as well. There would be no worse way to go, she thought, and she did not know why she was even bothering to fight. Why not end it right here? No more suffering, no more nightmares, no more ties. Just one bullet was all it needed, abandoning all hope in the process. However, that was fine, she never felt like they realistically had any in the first place. Did she even have a reason to live?

Then she remembered.

Yes I do.

Her ears rung, intercepting what sounded like a giant combustion within a near vicinity. Her senses flashed back, but not before the feeling of being pulled back overwhelmed her. Her form seemed to be moving at a high velocity, but stuck on a flat surface, extraditing this strange feeling of floatation. It stopped not too long afterwards, but had the after effects of nausea. What was happening? She wondered. She did not remember much of anything up until this point, nor did she feel much either. The extremely numb sensation was deadpan across her old body, and she did not feel like she could even move at all. There was one thing she was sure of, however.

She was still alive.

Trying as hard as she could to move her face muscle, Zoey was barely able to form a few mumbles within her throat, but just that was enough. There was someone hanging on her every word, after all.

"Zoey!" Cindy was simply ecstatic to hear what she was able to breathe out. The distance between the two of them shrunk immediately, and Zoey had no problem with that. She knew her own conditions enough to figure out that if she was too numb right now to feel anything, the pain was going to surge in sooner or later, especially the ones associated with the broken bones. She could not really expect Cindy to do a good job when it came to medical practice, but this was the best she herself could have done either way. She was just glad to be back to life again. She missed that. "I was so worried. How are you feeling?"

"Not… much." The reaction could be seen right there on Cindy's face, but it was too hard for Zoey too open her eyes anyways. She knew though, what agony the witch must have felt knowing that her closest friend could have died at any second and not being able to do anything about it. Both of them have been through a lot, and Zoey would try her best to not force her friend into yet another tragedy. "I'm… ok, Cindy."

"Really?" They both knew the answer to that. It was rather obvious that Zoey was horribly injured, but the fact that she was able to regain consciousness was good enough for them. She was not going to be able to go anywhere for a while, but this was about as decent a shape as she could hope for right now. With that, she could feel the boat moving again. Guessing the floating feeling before was due to its movement as well, Zoey figured that everything up there on the deck has been cleared out enough that they were good for departure. There was little of those thoughts, however, as Cindy's arms wrapped around her, sincere and gentle, as the witch buried her face in Zoey's chest. "I… I thought you weren't going to make it."

"It's alright." The first decent and coherent sentence she could muster out so far. At least there was progress coming. Trying to move her muscle was not really helping, but at least some of her feelings were coming back. There was of course the warmth of someone else all over her chest, but nonetheless the excruciating pain shooting across her body. She did not say anything though, as she did not want to upset Cindy anymore. She just wanted to have this moment. "I'm here."

"Cindy?" What they did not expect was the knocks from atop the hull. From the voice, they could clearly tell that it was Francis. He seemed to be positively out of breath, and they were wondering about that. However, he needed to get down here first. "Excuse me but, I would like to use the bathroom a little."

"Yes of course." Cindy spoke out, with clear joy in her voice. The biker did not really know what to expect, as he simply proceed to get the hull hatch out of the way. The two females saw him in his entirety, wet as ever and a part of his beard burnt up. He was positively hilarious looking, but that was not the topic going on in his head right now.

"ZOEY!" Without any attention to etiquette as usual, the biker was overfilled with joy. He did not expect to be met with such a positive reception at all when he wanted to get down here at first, but this was simply the best news he could have gotten at that moment. As soon as he convinced himself that his eyes were not lying to him; it simply became a better reason for him to shout. "HEY LOUIS!"

"What is it?" Being the one driving the boat, Louis really did not feel like he had time for anymore of the biker's crazy antics, especially considering what just happened. There were much more important things to keep in mind.

"JUST GET OFF YOUR ASS AND COME DOWN HERE!" Then there was that.

Truth be told, his leg is now in decent shape. Louis did not really feel like driving anymore anyway. It had been quite a day, and perhaps it was time to go to rest. Give Francis enough attention and hopefully we would not be a bother for the rest of the day. What Louis did not get was what business the biker did being down the hull and screaming like that in the first place. He was only supposed to be down there to clean up and get back on the deck to give some space to the other two. Whatever; he thought, just wanted to get this over with, and turning off the engine. It was still a decent while before he could run and walk normally again, but this was good enough for the time being. His leg simply was not feeling like breaking down every time he moved anymore, and that was good enough.

"Alright, alright, what is-". This was the part where the surprise hit him. Natural, it was not entirely impossible that the teenage girl would not have woken up by now. He simply had no time to think about any of this, with what happened to Francis and all. Of course, now that it happened, he could certainly make time. "Zoey!"

"I see your legs are ok." Over the course of last few minutes, the girl has managed to gather enough energy to at least open her eyes and see around the room, with the help of Cindy of course. It was good to see everyone again, as she had no idea how long she was out for. Louis, slowly, made his way towards the bunk bed where she laid, sighing non-stop in the process. When she was first pulled up the boat from that condition, it was certainly a significant jump scare. It was much more reassuring that at least she still lived. "Can't say the same for myself though."

"Don't worry, it'll let up."

Francis closed the hatch behind him, as the three sat around where Zoey was. They never did have much of a chance to talk in a while, so might as well do this now. Besides, Zoey needed to be filled in on a lot of what has happened over the last day.

"So, what happened?"

"I saved the day, as usual." Said the biker, in the most nonchalant fashion possible, or at least the best way he could have faked it. Either way, its delivery was apparently brilliant as a joke, as everyone felt inclined to laugh. None did, however, but it was enough to stop him from making any more remark. Looking to Louis, the sign of surrender was well received.

"Well firstly, you basically got smashed by a tank." Knowing there really was not any point in sugarcoating the truth, Louis was ready to bring the heavy news. That was almost a day ago already, and none of them were well verse enough in this field to really determine whether Zoey's recovery was expected or not. None of them really cared though. "That has got to have messed up your bone structure pretty bad."

"Well I would answer you, if I could feel any." Only she could really make a light deal of such a thing at this moment, but it was not really well received. While she had woken up, that still did not speak for the rest of her recovery. There was no one even close to being a medical professional within the group, and basic first aid just was not going to cut it if the appearance of the wounds was of any decadence. "Yeah… go on."

"Cindy brought you down here to try and fix you up, while Francis went to move the giant cruise boat blocking the way before." That was an unmentioned elephant in the room so far. Francis, wet from head to toe, was starting drip onto the floor. It was annoying more than it was dangerous, but it could had always gone both ways when it comes to the biker. "Come to think of it, would you just go and dry up your clothes already?"

"Fine." Grouching was what Francis did best, aside from drinking and shooting of course. Making quite a scene as he got himself into the bathroom, none of it needed to be reassured. "I'll be right back, don't leave!"

"As I was saying, he successfully 'moved' it just now."

"He… blew the whole thing up didn't he?"

"Yes he did."

It was a comical smile that filled everyone's face. They took everything as good news at this point. No significant harm was done due to the explosion and by all means of the word, the cruise ship was definitely out of the way. It might not have been the cleanest of jobs, but they were not in a position where they could really be asking for more.

"Hey, no one ever taught me how to operate a ship before." It did not take long for Francis to get his way back into the conversation. His definition of "dry up" was wipe what he could off the infamous jacket and get right back into the center of attention. They were fine with it, of course, although a few moments of silent never hurt anyone before. "Besides, I got zombies crawling up my ass. What else was I supposed to do?"

"Well captain, have you tried asking your passengers to get back to their seat before blowing them up?" Zoey obviously was not there to see the pillar of flames emitted from the explosion, or how the biker had to position the gas tanks and missing about three consecutive grenades trying to ignite it, but the joke was funny nonetheless. Francis wanted to protest, but at the end of the day it did not really matter. He got back just in time, and it certainly gave Louis a fright.

"You should have seen this guy." A friendly nudge at the arm never hurt anyone. "He was jumping off deck towards the water. I didn't even know what happened at first, but he grabbed the boat and screamed for me to get out of there."

"Yeah, I heard that as I woke up." It was rather clear to her now what had happened then. Just Francis being Francis, crazy fun is his fun. Nothing was much of a mystery anymore, or at least that was what was inferred. She really did not know for how long she was out, however. "Was that really all that has happened?"

"Well, yes, that was basically it." As much as Francis wanted everyone to bask in his achievement, it was too much to ask at the moment. The day had been fairly unentertaining, with him and Louis was basically sitting around for most of it before they decided to carry out the ship mission. Much of it had already been said, as the biker knew he was not the greatest story teller around. They would probably find a way to make fun of him. "For up there anyways. We were there for half a day, I had no idea of what was going on down here while that was happening though."

"Oh?" This was news to the teenager at least. Now that she had thought of it, her injuries were rather well fixed up and contained. While she did not doubt that the two men could have done a decent job when it came to first aid, none of them could have produced anything this eccentric and full of attention to details. This was obviously Cindy's work, and her apparent amnesia did not seem to affect her motor skills much at all. "Thank you Cindy. I'm sure you were very worried."

"I was." The witch at least seemed to have gained confidence that Zoey was going to be alright, for the moment being. She was back to her usual active but socially awkward self. She had been spending all this time not saying a single word, simply stayed at the back corner close to the girl and observed everything. None of them could deduce whether this was how she was when she was still human, or it simply came with the nature of being a witch. Either way, she was rather self-restrained. "It took me a long time to… wrap the bandages around the wounds."

Zoey really did not understand why Cindy seemed flustered at first, but noticing the way those white tapes were applied, she gradually caught on. Directly onto the skin would require her to be undressed first. Unconsciously, her cheeks grew redder as well, but few took notice to it. The spiraling silence was refreshing, as they knew they were safer here and now than any other point in time since the infection broke out.

"So what do we do now?" Asked Francis, as he was the one who simply could not stand the lack of noise no longer. It was bad enough he had to sleep at night. He wanted something to happen while he was awake at least. "We're going to get out to open water soon right?"

"We should indeed." Confirmed Louis, as all the naval readings so far had taught him. They were not far away from where they started, but the speed should pick up on here, provided they did not run into anymore obstacles. While suffering Francis' bored rants for days on in might be a terrible proposition, he would take that over having to battle the infected any day. "We're currently on course to Florida Keys as before. It would not take longer than a week or so under decent conditions for us to reach it."

"Provided we do not reach any choke point of course." Francis chimed in. While the last one he had to go through was certainly fun, it was also a bit too dangerous, even for him. With Zoey not likely to fully recover to fighting condition any time soon and Cindy always sticking by her side, a force of only him and Louis would be largely inappropriate to go for another mission like that. "We barely got out of the last one after all."

"Well there's no reason for us to go off course." Zoey was rather relieved to find out that there was no wrench being thrown into their path this time around. While the road there would undoubtedly be unreasonably difficult, it would not be anything they had not dealt with before, and this might as well be the first time they felt like they had their escape plan figured out. They knew what they wanted to do, and they had the means to do those things on their own. "I would like to give Bill a burial at sea soon."

"Alright." Bill's body is still sitting up on the deck, strapped down. It would not start to rot for a few days, and at the very least, as they probably would not be able to find a place for a proper burial, a burial at sea would be quite fine. He lived his life a veteran, and he went out fighting. This would be the most fitting and respectful thing they could do for him right now. "Anything else?"

"Well, let's hope we do not meet anyone else on the way." Zoey sighed. While being terribly injured, thus making her priority to find a proper medical practitioner of some kind, their current situation would not help with any kind of human encounters. Her eyes diverted towards Cindy, and she would rather have that. "We could not count on them being as understanding as you two would when it comes to Cindy, and I can assure you I have no intentions of leaving her behind."

"Yeah, we got it." Louis nodded. They had no plans regarding the witch anyways. She had not seem to express any kind of dangerous or even provocative behavior so far, and she had been extremely helpful with the ways things were going. They could use her help a lot more than she could use theirs, after all. "What about your injuries though?"

"They'll heal, eventually."

Like everything else.