The front door of a small grocery shop opened. Richard held his knife in his hands as he turned on his flashlight, shining the light near the aisles. He slowly walked inside the store with Becky, Dana, D, Wavehead, and Lynn behind him, each person holding a weapon to defend themselves. The light moved around the store, revealing small amounts of water and food that the group were looking for. Richard looked back at the rest of the group and nodded his head. He turned his head back to the light, when suddenly, the light revealed a roamer coming close to him.

"Richard! The roamer!" shouted Becky.

He lunged towards the roamer with his knife, slashing its decayed brain. Rotten and infected blood oozed out as the knife was pulled away from the roamer's skull. The group looked around as they heard growls coming from all directions.

"What do we do?" asked Wavehead.

"We need some light! Pull the curtains up!" ordered Richard. "Then, we'll be able to see shit!"

Wavehead and D ran to the right side of the store. D smacked the roamers in the head with his Glock 17, keeping his fingers off of the trigger. Wavehead stabbed the roamers in front of them with his trench knife, allowing a safer passage for both boys. Meanwhile, Becky and Dana dashed to the left side of the store for the curtained windows. Becky and Dana mimicked the boys unintentionally, with Becky smacking the zombies with a gun of the same variant and Dana slashing the roamer's skulls with her machete.

Lynn looked around and struggled to choose who to run with. The boys weren't doing a better job than the girls, but they weren't doing a worse job either. The same could be said for the girls, and that is exactly why Lynn couldn't pick. She wondered why her indecisiveness decided to strike her at this moment.

"Lynn! Follow me!" yelled Richard. "Clear the roamers in the left aisles! I'll clear the roamers from the right!"

Lynn grabbed an arrow from her quiver and swung it upwards as she dashed towards Becky and Dana. One of the roamers was struck from the bottom of its jaw, the arrow sliding its way up to its brain and out of its head. Lynn used the same arrow to stab another roamer through its left eye, creating a sewer of roamer blood to flow out of its eye.

One of the aisles was brightened up by the sun through one of the windows. Dana and Becky pulled the strings to the curtains as fast as they could, while stabbing the roamers approaching them. One roamer walked faster than the other roamers as it was a newly decayed roamer, and the muscles from its leg has not rottened as much as the other roamers. It held its arms out and was ready to attack Dana. She extended her leg in an attempt to kick the roamer away, but the roamer already grabbed the backpack straps on her shoulders.

She fell down to a floor of empty cans and indeliberately stuck her machete through the roamer's stomach, causing its guts to slide out. Dana moved her face away from the roamer's mouth and moved the machete up his stomach to his chest, causing more of the roamer's organs to fall onto her. The roamer growled louder and strengthened its grip on the girl, while moving its mouth closer to her face. She shrieked while struggling to remove the machete from the roamer's body.

Becky smacked another roamer with her gun and attempted to help her friend out when another roamer grabbed her backpack, keeping her from going down to the floor. Becky quickly paced backwards where she shoved the roamer into a wall. The roamer was not affected. She raised her eyebrows and clenched her teeth as she bent her wrist to point her gun at the roamer behind her.

Lynn quickly moved into the scene where she tossed her arrow to the floor and dragged the roamer away from Dana. More blood poured onto her clothes as she slid the machete closer to her. Dana tightened her face and goosebumps appeared in her arms. Lynn grabbed the arrow and turned the roamer over. The roamer growled at the girl, while she stuck the arrow into its eyes, and then it growled no more.

Becky pulled the trigger, and a deafening shot caused blood to splatter on the back of her hair, to her backpack, and to the wall behind her. Everything went quiet as Richard, Wavehead, and D dashed to her aid. She fell down to the ground, along with the roamer. No sound came from the other survivors. A loud humming and then loud ringing struck Becky's ears immediately after she fell to the ground. She pressed her hands against her head and struggled to cry out, but she couldn't hear anything besides the ringing.

"Shit! What happened here?" asked Richard.

"Becky!" cried out D. "Becky! Are you okay?"

The ringing continued to bounce around Becky's brain, leaving her confused. She looked around with widening eyes, until she saw D, in which her eyes began to relax. The ringing persisted, but she was able to hear distorted voices coming from the group. She could hear D shouting something, but the ringing muffled those words into noises.

Dana helped Becky stand up as she shook her head, the ringing fading away at a slow pace, but surely fading away. Becky threw up on the floor as her nose caught the smell of Dana's shirt.

"She's not hurt," said Richard, as he walked away to the aisles.

All the roamers were lying in the ground, with pieces of their brains and skull sitting on the floor. Richard stepped on a few of these brain pieces, creating small puddles of blood.

Becky looked around. She could finally make out what the others were saying.

"Becky? Are you alright?" asked D. "I think she can't speak. She's very nauseous."

"No, I'm alright!" groaned Becky. "It's just… the ringing in my ears won't go away! I shot the gun too close to my ears!"

"Dana… you have roamer guts all over your shirt," commented Wavehead. "That's probably why Becky threw up. Those guts smell like shit."

Dana gagged as she sniffed herself.

"Oh my god! I smell so gross! Ugh! How do I remove this shit off of me? Sorry, guys! I gotta go outside!"

"Please do! It smells fucking disgusting!" shouted Becky. "Am I loud?"

"Yes," said Lynn. "Yes, you are. Try not to shoot a gun next to your ears next time."

Lynn, Becky, Wavehead, and D, walked to the center aisles while Dana rushed out of the store, covering her nose. The light from the sun stunned Dana, as she covered her eyes with her hands. She released her grip on her nose and tried to not smell the rotten organs in her clothes. A small piece of intestines fell out of her shoulder and into the pavement. The squishy noise it made as it hit the concrete floor nauseated Dana.

"I gotta change my clothing. This is too-"

A roamer groaned a yard away from Dana. She stood silently and turned her heads towards the roamer, her hands covering her eyes from the sunlight, and her arms dripping with blood. The roamer inched closer to Dana and moved its head to the left and raising it upwards. Dana slowly raised her machete, but she then noticed that the roamer inched away from her. The roamer continued to groan while walking away from her and the store. She lowered her machete and tilted her head as her jaw was left hanging open from what just occurred.

Jason had just got back with Meli still asleep in his arm.

"Hey David, I'm back and got some rabbits of dinner," said Jason.

"That's good," replied David. "Who is that girl in your arms?"

"This is Meli. I saw her in the woods being chased by the roamers."

"Alone? Were are her parents?"

"Dead. She said they ran into some bad people, they killed her dad, and her was killed by the roamers."

"Damn did she say were she meet them? We might run into them on the road."

"No. She said she meet them five days ago, are chance of running into them is not that high. The others aren't back yet?"

"Not they should be back soon."

"Okay if you need me, I'll be in the RV."

Jason walked towards the RV and opened the door. He placed Meli on the sofa wanting her rest a little more.

"Hey Jason."

"Hey Lucy."

He turned around to see Lucy entering the RV.

"I'm surprised that you didn't get scared?" said Lucy.

"I don't get scared that easily. How are you feeling?" asked Jason.

"Fine. It a little hard to do things with just one arm, but it doesn't bother me that much. I'm just glad I'm alive."

"Your siblings were very worried, they thought they were going to lose you."

"I thought I was done for too. Do you mind if we just talk for a little while, that's the mean reason I came here?"

"Sure, we can talk as long as you want."

Lori and Lincoln were walking alongside each together in the road, slowly in the dangerous heat. Both children were suffering from dehydration, but they were still able to walk further into the road with the hopes of finding a store. Lori looked at Lincoln and nudged his arm.

"What's up, Lori?" asked Lincoln.

"Who do you like? Ronnie Anne or Tabby?"

"What kinda question is that? We're trying to find some water for the group!"

"We are searching for some water for the group. But we're talking as we search for a store. Let's talk like we did back at home. We never had any time to bond ever since Detroit fell."

Lincoln looked at his older sister and realized that the last thing they were able to talk about besides survival was their visit in Albany. Her older sister waited for a response, feeling dejected after every second.

"I don't know. I don't like them like that."

Lori raised her eyes and leaned closer to Lincoln.

"It's the end of the world, and you still can't admit your feelings to either one of them?"

"I did have a fun time with Tabby in the Sadie Hawkins Dance and I did have a fun time on that date with Ronnie Anne, but they're just my friends. Besides Tabby is with Liam."

"You'll find someone. There might be a lot less fish in the sea, but you'll find someone, eventually," said Lori.

"That's not what I'm worried about. I'm more worried about us getting to Maine safely. I want the people I love to be happy," said Lincoln. "That's all that matters to me now."

"I'm glad we can still do this. Even in the harsh days and somber nights, we can still have these kinds of conversations."

Lincoln looked at Lori once again. She looked back and smiled.

"Do you think we're still going to have conversations like these, years from now?" asked Lincoln. "Will we even be around for that long?"

"Who knows? But I do know something. I want you to be around when we reunite with Mom and Dad. I want you to be around when I start a family with Bobby. I want to be around when one day you can start a family. To share our happiest experiences with each other, and to be there for each other when we're feeling down. One day, we'll grow old and look back at everything we did, either smiling or crying, and we'll do it together. If I die tomorrow or years from now, I want you, Leni, Luna, Luan, Lynn, Lucy, Lola, Lana, Lisa, and Lily by my side."

The two siblings arrived at a gas station. A sign appeared near the pumps, reading, 'SORRY NO GAS'. A few roamers turned their heads towards Lori and Lincoln. Both siblings raised their weapons and walked to the roamers.

"Maybe, we'll be one of the lucky ones," said Lincoln.

Lincoln grabbed a roamer's neck and thrust his knife inside it, stabbing the bottom of its brain. Lori held her hatchet tightly and moved the weapon down a roamer's skull. She removed the weapon from its skull and swung it at another roamer's face. The roamer dropped to the ground, where Lori kneeled down and ended the roamer's life with one swift chop to its head. She quickly stood up and helped Lincoln by killing a roamer that approached him from a few meters away.

Lincoln looked at Lori and gave her a thumbs up, while shoving his knife at a smaller roamer, killing it. The corpses of the roamers were on the ground, with not too much blood lying around the roamers.

Lincoln and Lori went inside the gas station, searching for any supplies they could use. Lori grabbed the batteries off of the shelf near the counter. Lincoln took out his backpack and dropped all the canned food from the shelves inside it. Lori placed a lighter and a box cutter she found in the floor in her pockets. Lincoln grabbed a gallon of water from the shelf and handed it to Lori. He then grabbed the last gallon of water himself, and walked out of the gas station. Lori took out the lighter from her pocket, and flicked it on with her left hand. The flame moved around softly and still, until Lori flicked it off and covered the light.

Richard, D, Wavehead, Becky, Dana, and Lynn walked back to the group with supplies in their backpacks. Richard took out his revolver as he heard a couple footsteps. The rest of the group stood still and heard the footsteps moving around near the trees. Richard saw two moving figures in the forest, and he aimed his gun at them. They stood still as another moving figure approached them. The figure took out a long weapon and swung it at the other figure, causing it to drop to the ground.

"Nice kill!" shouted one of the figures.

Richard popped out of the trees and held his revolver aimed at the figure, causing Luan to shriek. Benny turned around and saw Richard pointing his gun at him. The rest of the group came out of the trees with their weapons in their hands, Becky and D being the only ones with guns aimed at the two figures.

"Shit!" yelled Richard, lowering his gun. "What are you two doing out here?"

Luan placed her katana back into its scabbard, while Benny looked into Richard's eyes. Benny lowered the ninjato sword that Tad previously owned.

"We were practicing killing roamers with our swords," replied Benny.

"You mean coming here to fool around with each other?" chuckled Wavehead.

Luan groaned as Benny shook his head. Richard looked around his surroundings and noticed three dead roamers in the ground. Luan sniffed the air and faced Dana.

"Dana! You have blood all over you!" gasped Luan.

"Yeah. Roamer blood. Let's go, now!"

Dana walked ahead of the others, cutting through the branches in the forest, and making her way back to the group. The rest of the group followed Dana along with Benny and Luan.

"Woah, what's the rush? Did you guys find any supplies?" asked Benny.

"Yeah," replied Lynn. "A couple water bottles, some canned food, and some silverware. Nothing too important."

"Dana has something very important to say, but she wants to tell it to the entire group. So annoying," sighed Becky.

Vonda awoke the sounds of chattering among the group. Her hair was drenched in her sweat and she desired water above anything else. Water was being distributed among the group, most of it being poured into individual canisters.

"Can I have some water?" asked Vonda, her eyes dry and her tongue pale.

"Sure thing. Here you go," said Lynn.

"Alright, everyone!" said Dana. "Where's Lori and Lincoln?"

"Right over there," pointed out David.

Lincoln and Lori were walking right next to each other, holding a gallon of water, surprising most of the group. Lincoln smiled at the younger survivors, while Lori smirked at the older survivors.

"Where'd you guys find that?" asked Sam.

"In a gas station ahead in the road," answered Lori. "We found some food and batteries as well."

"Interesting. We should split up more often," suggested David. "It would help us cover more ground."

Jason walked over with a half awake Meli in his arms.

"Were a big group what do you expect," said Jason, putting Meli. "Anyway what do you want to say Dana?"

Meli looked at the group and spotted someone familiar.

"Lola?" said Meli.

Lola looked over at Meli's direction and believe her eyes.

"Meli? Is that you?" asked Lola.

"Y-Yeah. Is me Lola."

Lola ran over and hugged her friend.

"I can't believe it. What are you doing here?"

"I don't feel comfortable talking about it right now."

"You both can talk about it when you alone," said Jason.

"Alright, listen up!" shouted Dana. "Earlier, I had a machete stuck in a roamer's body as I struggled to fight it off. Thankfully, Lynn here saved me, but the roamer's organs poured onto my clothes. Blood everywhere. And, like, I'm talking about a LOT of blood."

"Yeah, we can see that," said Lana. "Sorry, continue."

"Anyways, I went outside and I was trying to remove the organs struck to my clothes when I noticed there was a roamer very close to me. Like, very close. But guess what? It approached me and then it left!"

"It just… left?" asked Lisa.

"Yeah. It seemed like it was sniffing the air around me and it must have been confused by the rotten air that I gave off! You know what that means!"

"My god…" whispered David.

"Yup. They get fooled by roamer blood. By smearing roamer blood and their organs onto ourselves, we can BECOME one of them. Goodbye, infection of the dead!"

"That's a crucial discovery that you made!" commented Lisa. "But, as valuable as that information holds, it seems too risky to test this discovery among the rest of the group."

"Too risky? I'm fine right now, though!" said Dana.

"We'll see. And even if nothing occurs in the following days and/or weeks, it doesn't mean that it is completely foolproof. For one, I can already hypothesize that this method introduces a huge buildup of concentrated necrosis influenza gas that could creep its way up the nasal passages. But what do I know? I didn't create the disease."

Lori joined in.

"Still! We might have to try that out sometime in the future!" said Lori.

Lisa nodded her head. Dana smiled and took off her shirt, showing the dress that she was wearing inside.

"Sergei, Chunk, Lisa, Lana, did you guys siphon the gas already?" asked David.

"Yup, it's in these things," replied Sergei, holding up his jerry cans.

"Let's walk back to the vehicles," said David. "We're almost there! We just gotta get outta Massachusetts and go through New Hampshire, and then, just like that, we're in Maine."

The group began walking back to the vehicles. Richard couldn't help but correct what David said.

"It's been a month since we've been in the Adarandacks-" yelled Richard.

"Adirondacks," corrected Lisa.

"Whatever! It's been a month and we're still not in Boston. Is it going to take us another month just to touch Maine? And then another month to get to Houlton? It's not going to be over soon, David!"

"Well, we could try Lisa's strategy of taking gasoline from the bottom of the gas stations. That way, we can get to Houlton faster. But every gas station we stopped by has been empty and there weren't a lot of gas stations available in the road."

"Are you going to keep on depending on other people's words?" asked Richard. "Well, we could try it his way or her way, but what about your way, David? What would you do if it was just you and me? Don't tell me you wouldn't know what to do!"

"Richard… it seems like you're questioning my leadership."

"It's not that! It's just… it was better when it was just you… and my wife… and I. There's too many damn ideas being thrown by too many damn people that we don't even know! And with more people, more supplies get put to waste faster! You see what I'm saying, David?"

"What do you want me to do? Just leave all of these people behind? No! That's not what we do! We gotta get these people back with their family because that's what we do! I know that you're feeling down because of your wife-"

"Don't mention her. Don't bring her into this. It's not about her."

"I know it isn't. What's wrong, Richard? Something's happening to you."

Richard covered his eyes with his hands and groaned. He removed his hands and blinked quickly.

"I'm sorry. It's the heat. The scarcity of our supplies. It feels like I'm slowly dying every second I'm not with her."

"I understand. I worry every second I'm not with my wife and son."

Richard nodded and continued to walk in the road back to their vehicles. A couple clouds began to cover the sun as it climbed down to its bed in the horizon. The vehicles were sitting next to a small home. The entire house was scavenged except the mattresses and blankets.