Chapter VI: Arrival (POV) - Time

AN:

Hey there, Fan-fic-folks!

Just this one updated for today. Figured it'd be better to have one update this week than delay another for two. Plus, it marks the end of Act I for Decay-dia Bay! I was half tempted to call this one 'The Perks of Agoraphobia', for reasons I'm sure you'll get by the end of it, but I decided to stick with the generic. Oh, and I apologise to any whom my terrible political jokes might've offended. It's just the typical US pseudo-conspiracy controversy over near every President you've had amuses me. Far as I can tell, you've never had a 'meh' President, just devils and demagogues.

Thanks for reading and, as always, please review.

They crossed a river, ran some farmland. It would've been idyllic, a picturesque journey through the true American countryside, if it weren't for the fires and the screaming. Not a pleasant sight, really, but at least it was far removed from their visual range. They kept on south, roaring through the open landscape. The vast fields were dotted with the occasional building. As they got further from the collision, fewer and fewer of those buildings were ablaze. It seemed that, as they had hoped, the infected hadn't reached this far yet.

Further south, they found Gales Creek. The small community had a post office, a fire station, and a few hundred souls living there. As the Price-Madsen convoy came through, a few of those souls poked their heads out to see what all the ruckus was about. One of them flagged David's muscle car down with a wave and a yell. It was an older man, with sallow, sagging skin, and what was left of his hair was grey. His threadbare denim overalls hung loosely on an age-thin body. His eyes though, Chloe found, were gun-metal grey and surprisingly piercing. "What's got you rushin' 'bout, this time of day?"

Dana's bright, desperate eyes met Chloe's and she finally gave in. They were going to try and warn someone.

Chloe pulled up alongside the man and rolled down her window. "Have you been watching the news?"

The man nodded, scoffing. "You talkin' about that virus crap they're all goin' on about?" He wafted a hand dismissively into the ether. "It's all just more crap. Probably just somethin' else concocted to piss on President Obama."

Chloe chuckled darkly, the way only someone bitter about their life truly could "Nope. It's real, dude. Go check out the road back there if you don't believe us. And when you do, get the hell out. Oregon is fucked."

Chloe rolled the window back up and drove off before the man could respond. Dana turned to her, bristling. "Why did you do that?"

"You heard him. The virus shit is just a conspiracy against the president. I told you, they're not gonna believe us telling them anything." Chloe shrugged. "But maybe they'll believe us enough to check out the pile of burning zombies and people back there and they'll realise this shit is really happening."

Dana hmmed and leaned her head on the truck window. "Do you think he'll go for it?"

Chloe shrugged again. "No idea. But it'll be his own fuckin' fault if he doesn't. Dunno about you, but I can live with that."

Dana didn't respond, instead choosing to stare out the window at the town disappearing behind them. They kept on in silence, making occasional hmms of acknowledgement as the horizon of unending farmland was intermittently broken by trees and buildings. At one point, they drove through a small tree farm, providing an interesting combination of the two that caught their attention for a few brief seconds before boredom (and fields) set in again. Who'd've thought that fleeing a zombie infested town and rushing across the state to a damsel's rescue could be so dull?

Not a thing of interest happened until they started to close on the third and final grove on their trip: Forest Grove. Unlike the last two, this one was a city and well-earned the designation. Hell, it even had a university. Being twenty-five miles from Portland, the Price-Madsen convoy expected it to be relatively clear. As the treeline running along the side of their road broke, they found that, surprisingly, it was. But the veneer of safety was broken by one small realisation on Juliet's part. "Where are all the cars?"

"Shit." The roads were completely empty. No cars, no people, no noise. Chloe stopped the car immediately. "Something's wrong."

"Duh," Juliet deadpanned. "There are no cars on the roads anywhere and zombies are a thing. Of course something's wrong."

Chloe glared at her. Juliet met Chloe's gaze with a smirk, utterly unrepentant for her sass. Dana chipped in, pointing off at one of the nearby houses, "And they've left their doors open, too. I think everyone here left in a hurry."

Chloe blinked. "Maybe they heard about the zombies and got the fuck outta dodge while they still could?" She shook her head, trying, surprisingly, to see the silver lining for once. "At least we know there's probably not gonna be a massive horde waitin' for us here." A pretty good silver lining, all said and done.

David pulled up alongside Chloe's truck and stuck his head out the window. "What's the damn hold up?"

"All the cars are gone and the doors are open like people left in a hurry, Mr Madsen." Dana said. "We were just talking about what they might mean."

David shrugged. "Means everyone got the hell out while they could. That ain't no damn surprise, though I didn't expect the virus to have made it here yet. Lets get moving already. We're wasting time sitting around chatting like a bunch of damn washerwomen."

The girls nodded and the two cars sped off again. They reached a crossroads a few minutes later, Gales Creek Road giving way to E-Street as it continued onward. They continued following it, feeling their discomfort at the silence get stronger. A town was supposed to have people and cars and life and seeing one with none of those sent wary little shivers down the spines of each and every occupant of those cars. The pleasant, tree-lined road and general homely atmosphere did little to reassure them as they blatantly ignored the 20mph school road speed limit.

They followed E-Street along to the main artery of the city: Pacific Avenue. Again, it was completely empty. A town of twenty five thousand people and there wasn't a whit of evidence of anyone. It was only when they began to skirt the lower edge of the University campus that they found where a city of people had chosen to flee to.

The buildings were surrounded by a sea of vehicles. It looked like people had started arriving normally, but the rapidly decreasing available space had lead people to park anywhere they could in easy walking distance. It was almost like the university had a moat of cars. Chloe started to point out how cool a defence that was, but stopped as she caught a glance through the windows. The inside of the building was like a charnel house. While she couldn't see any actual zombies, the blood over every surface inside was evidence enough for her. Even she couldn't make light of that, instead of her planned compliments of the defences, all that came out was a strangled "Oh fuck..." of horror that trailed off into disbelief. Twenty five people all crammed into an enclosed space with zombies... That wasn't just a slaughter, that was a nightmare.

She averted her gaze and sped up, wanting more than ever to find Rachel. She needed to see, with her own two eyes, that her friend was okay.

She spared a glance to her side and saw Juliet had wrapped her arm around Dana, who was shaking lightly and staring blankly off into the distance. Chloe caught a few of her low, disbelieving mutterings. "All those people... Those poor people..."

There wasn't much she could say to make this better, so Chloe stayed silent and kept driving. The city went back to the silent emptiness, but there was a new, sinister quality to it now they knew the reason why. It wasn't the quiet of a ghost town, it was the quiet of a mass graveyard.

They were all glad when the town was nothing but a speck in Chloe's rear view mirror. The road followed through from Forest Grove to Cornelius. Chloe made the obligatory derisive comments about shitty town names as they went through. Nothing much happened. The three towns being so close apparently meant all the populace had been able to evacuate to the university and the majority chose to take that option.

Unfortunate for them, but fortunately for the Price-Madsen convoy, it meant the roads remained clear all the way out of town. Dana was quiet the entire time. Seemed that the faint glances of a massacre she'd gotten were too much for her to wrap her head around. Not surprising, really. Dealing with that kind of blood doesn't come easy without experience.

Lucky for all of their sanities, they left the Dead grove behind them and continued onward to Hillsboro. They'd expected more of the same, but... they were pleasantly surprised.

The city wasn't as... populous as it should be, but there were people out and about. Juliet was staring at them in confusion. "Don't they know what's happening?"

Chloe shrugged. "No idea. You wanna ask?"

Dana nodded. With a mild huff, Chloe pulled over and waved a guy down. He was pretty young, clean-shaved, kinda well-dressed, and he was surprisingly attentive. "Yes? Can I help you, miss?"

"Aren't you guys, y'know, running from the zombies?" Chloe asked, almost hesitantly. Which for her meant brusque and abrupt for most people.

The man shook his head. "No miss. We're not afraid. This is the first sign of the Apocalypse, and soon our Lord will rapture up the faithful to-"

Chloe drove off. David and Rose only followed after a few more minutes. Chloe had no idea why they bothered, turning to the other occupants of her cab as the people vanished and giving an eyerolling "Yep. They're Bible bashers."

The two largest concentrations of people they saw were around a thinbrick veneer church and a community hospital. Seeing that many people still alive and relatively happy was quite the mood raiser after what they'd seen before. The songs they were singing, joyous and ecstatic, resonated through the streets around the buildings. Dana and Chloe both turned themselves to watch the Church go by, grinning at the sounds.

Suddenly, Juliet pointed with a shout. "Turn left here!"

Chloe veered to the left. The harsh turn went by for them almost in slow motion. They could practically see their startled grimaces in the window of the Wallgreens they glided by.

Chloe shook her head and cleared the fog of distraction, then turned back to Juliet. "So, uh... why did we need to turn so fuckin' urgently?"

Juliet pointed to the map. "If we turned here, we can head north on Cornell and go past the airport, then turn onto Sunset like we planned."

Chloe was about to respond when she remembered the last time she'd seen the map. "Hey wait, didn't Mrs Amber have the map before?"

Juliet nodded. "We swapped it over when you stopped to talk to that guy back there." She pointed to another thing on it, a little further north of the last marker. "Look, we can head up through Brookwood after the airport, or we keep going and head through Tanasbourne and rejoin Sunset at the junction here."

Chloe suddenly twisted the wheel, swerving the car back onto the road from where she'd drifted off it. Not paying attention to where you were going was really a bad idea. Especially going past the police department. As previously established, Chloe was more than experienced at pissing off the cops.

Cornell was a pleasant road, lined with trees and cute little bungalows. In one of the first signs of actual distress they'd seen, someone had abandoned a bike on the sidewalk. They followed it along in near silence, until Dana broke it. "So, what do we do when we get to Portland? Do you know where Rach is?"

Chloe gestured for her to bring the map closer, then aimlessly swatted at it until she found the right spot. "There. The courthouse. That's where her dad was supposed to be taking her, anyway. She probably got outta there when the zombies started fucking shit up, but there's gotta be clues around there about where she went."

Juliet studied the area intently. "So, if we come through Sunset, we should get right up to it here!"

Chloe nodded. "Yep. Right through Goose Hollow - hella stupid name - and straight into Downtown."

"And then," Dana added enthusiastically "We can go straight south and pick up your parents in Homestead! Then, we can cross the river and head North to Seattle!"

Chloe shivered. Seattle. The place that'd taken so much from her, even though she'd never been.

"How does a place take something from someone if they've never been?" Adi pursed his lips in confusion. "Were there monsters there?"

The Stranger shook her head. "No, just a best friend who didn't do what she should've." The woman sighed, rubbed at the scar on her face. "Do you remember when I said that Chloe had lost a lot of people? And that she'd lost someone called Max?"

We all gave the obligatory 'uh-huh' sounds.

"Well, that was where Max went. She left when her parents got new jobs and then never talked to Chloe again."

My mouth dropped open. "She did? Why? How could she do that?"

The Stranger smiled sadly. "I have no idea. It just seemed like the easier thing to do at the time, I guess."

Adi crossed his arms. "Well, it's wrong. We wouldn't do that, would we Andrea?"

I beamed at him and laid a hand on his arm. "No way, Adi." Os's meaty paws thocked down onto both of our shoulders, jolting us and causing us both to laugh.

"So, did they get there and find her or something?" I asked.

The Stranger smiled, enigmatic as always, and said simply "Lets continue the story, and you can find out."

Chloe had passed off the rest of the planning to Dana and Juliet, who'd taken to pouring over the map and pointing out different routes they could take. Dana, a lifelong Girl Scout, had recommended they have a few meeting places prearranged, just in case they got separated. So, the two were currently marking various spots that were either out of the way enough or secure enough to use, all in an obnoxiously vibrant red pen they'd taken from Chloe's glovebox - much to her chagrin.

They kept on, passing the line of shops that'd replaced the cute bungalows and heading up to the aviation campus. They had a museum and an academy, in addition to the airport, hence the 'campus'. Massive sprawls of corrugated metal barns and gleaming white brick hangers sat in the fields to their left. Eyesores, every last one of 'em. They were only a short distance away from the airport now. If they didn't only have a few miles to go, they'd probably have tried to steal a plane. Until David stopped them, anyway. He was no fun.

They'd just started to pass by the academy when the sky ahead of them exploded.

Red and orange scoured the horizon behind the trees ahead like the northern lights as done by a pyromaniac. Even at a distance, they could feel the heat of it on the blast breeze that buffeted them around like kites. For them, the worst part was the sound. Namely, the sudden, deafening lack of it. The sound had shattered their hearing as effectively as the flames had scoured the countryside. They shook their heads, trying to clear the sudden fogginess that'd struck them. The fire continued to rage ahead. After a few minutes of watching the blaze in shocked silence - except for Chloe, who spent the entire time wiggling her finger in her ear and mute-yelling cursewords - their ears popped and their hearing suddenly came back in a roar.

"-ucking piece of shi-" Chloe suddenly went quiet and flushed red, then glared at Dana and Juliet, daring them to laugh.

They didn't.

"What. The. Hell. Was. That?!" David's voice was almost as loud as the explosions. Chloe could've chuckled, if her good mood hadn't been obliterated by the sight ahead and the still lingering dizziness. Were those trees wobbling? She pushed down on the accelerator and lurched the truck forward, pulling over to the side of David's muscle car at the very last moment. Not deliberately, she was just having trouble... concentrating. The screech was very annoying.

"I think it was an explosion." She said, dryly.

David barely turned his head, but she could see the muscles clenched in his jaw and knew he was holding back a furious tirade at her cheek. "I know it was an explosion, damnit, but what the hell caused it?!"

Chloe shrugged. "Probably zombies?"

"Probably..." He bit back another retort and turned fully to face her. "That kind of explosion was big and shaped. That means bombs. That means someone needed to place and set-off those bombs. Understand now?"

Chloe gulped. "Do you think it's the army? Dealin' with the bombs somehow?"

"If those shapes in the distance were planes, it's probably the air force, but yes, I do." Chloe blinked. She hadn't seen any shapes. It was slightly embarrassing, being blinder than an old guy.

Still. There were more important things to consider. Mainly: "What the hell do we do now?"

Juliet snorted. "Good question."

All of them turned to David. He was the military man, after all. He was supposed to be trained to know what to do when the sky exploded and nobody was chicken little. His only response was to look dramatically off into the distance and gruffly say "We keep to the plan. If the road is still functional, we'll take it, if not, we'll go around."

The rest of them nodded. Seemed good. It wasn't like they could've gone back to the Bay.

So, forward they went, passing through a small industrial park and a smaller residential area until they reached what remained of the road. The sight drew them out of their cars and forward to the edge of the desolation. The sheer destructive power in front of them was astonishing. What flat surface there used to be was gone. Scorched, pock-marked ground stretched out along the road as far as they could see in each direction, like the Baltic States after the ISS fell. "Why would they..." Dana breathed out. The question was left unfinished, but everyone echoed the sentiment.

David simply pointed.

Ahead, in one of the deepest craters, was a mass of flesh and viscera and teeth. So, so many teeth. Whatever it had been was clearly monstrous, and the gargantuan splatter of its insides-turned-outside spoke of a large being. At that point, all of them were thinking the same thing. "Thank God that thing's dead."

Chloe's mind added a couple of fucks to it, but the sentiment remained.

After a few long, uncomfortable moments of contemplation, they all quietly returned to their cars and turned the hell around. Maybe there was a field they could cut through?

There wasn't.

They found themselves south-west of Portland with no options. "Shit." David slammed a fist down onto the roof of his car. "Damn, damn, damn, damn!"

From her perch in the bed of her truck, Chloe sighed. "We're gonna have to walk, aren't we?"

David responded with only a frustrated growl. It was answer enough. With a begrudging grumble, Chloe turned and began rooting through the boxes in the back of the truck for anything vital or useful and carryable. After a moment, she threw a couple of bags to Dana, Juliet, and Mrs A with a jovial "Grab your crap, ladies. We're taking the rest of this journey like they did when David was a kid - on foot."

There was a pause as they stared at her in confusion. Chloe rolled her eyes. "'cause they hadn't invented the car yet."

They continued to stare. "I'm saying he's hella old, okay? Fuck, just get on with it."

Some food, some meds, a bizarre crowbar-hammer blend that David had bought from the shopping channel on a drunken whim, a tiny and well-hidden baggie, and of course, duct tape. Duct tape was God, even back then.

She hopped off the truck, bag slung over her shoulder, and walked up to her still bitching step-douche. "Uh... David?"

"Yes, Chloe?" He ground out. He was doing a surprisingly good job of hiding his frustration. Chloe and he had that in common. They felt so much, but hid even more. Truth be told, the man was gnashing his teeth so strongly he'd probably be eating his next few meals with a powdered enamel glaze.

"We're, uh, getting ready to head out. You, uh, you gonna grab your crap?"

It was strangely awkward, trying to talk to him in his heightened state. The silence made it even worse. She was quite worried that, if she tried her usual confrontational gambit, he'd punch her in the face out of some instinctual self-preservation instinct. That happened in the movies, soldiers getting all paranoid and breaking people's noses when they got startled, right? Chloe was a lot of things, but she knew she wasn't stupid.

So, she kept her distance and tried to be nice. Or at least polite.

"David?" She tried again.

"I built this my first year with your mother. She helped out with the interior." He took a deep breath. His voice had that curt shortness that everyone trying to conceal extreme emotion had. "Doesn't mean anything now, I suppose."

"I..." Chloe really had no idea what to say. Before she could start ranting about how she'd lost Joyce too, and probably something about how Joyce had meant far more to Chloe than David, the man straightened.

"We'd best get one with it." He stalked away and opened the boot, rooting through it for his stuff. Chloe got the hell out of the way.

Walking through a nightmare was even less fun than driving. Plus, Chloe couldn't get the tune to 'walking on sunshine' out of her head after thinking up that little understatement.

We're walking through a nightmare - wooah oh - and don't it feel good!

Surprisingly, they made it almost to the city limits without seeing anything overtly traumatic. Chloe had even begun to walk with her shoulders firm and head high, so clear did the way ahead seem.

She was, despite herself, slightly concerned about David. The man had been quiet since ditching the cars, and he'd taken the few testing pokes of his patience Chloe had sent his way with aplomb. He might've been an asshole, but Chloe was well aware he was the only one of them with any military training.

The problem was, she had no idea what to do about it. So, she did nothing.

The sun shone down on them with all the strength of wet tissue paper, hidden behind darkening clouds. The road ahead stretched out almost infinitely, leading Chloe to smirk as an old quote popped into her head. Kerouac, of all people: Quote Here.

It was one of Rachel's favourites... Is. Is one of her favourites. Chloe knew she was still alive. Surely a city full of zombies wouldn't be enough take someone like Rachel down.

Speaking of the city...

"Oh thank God..." Dana moaned as the first buildings that weren't the usual one-floor suburban boxes came into view. Her slumped shoulders hung over dead, dragging feet, every inch of her aching with exhaustion. Chloe and Rose felt about the same. Juliet, annoyingly to all of them, seemed unbothered.

David was still striding ahead. He ignored all of them.

As they closed on the city proper, Dana and Juliet and their map started to confer with Chloe again. "We should be coming in over here." Dana gestured to one of the outer suburban areas - Beaverton. "Where should we start looking for Rachel?"

Chloe frowned. In all the stress and hurrying, she'd actually forgotten to ask. "Hey, Mrs A?"

"Yes, Chloe?" Rose asked.

"D'ya know where Rach might be? Like, specifically? We don't need to take the roads anymore... obviously, so we're trying to work out where we're gonna go after we get into the city."

"The courthouse. If James was at work, I mean. If not, they'd probably be somewhere near the hotel. It's quite close to the courthouse, luckily." Rose gave a small, happy smile. "It's such a nice place. We always stay there when we go into the city."

"Probably not all that nice anymore, Mrs A, but awesomesauce. We'll get us there." Chloe paused. "Or, well, they will." She thumbed back at Dana and Juliet, who were now arguing loudly over the map.

Mrs A looked small, and quite helpless, at the thought, though this was nothing new as she'd looked small and helpless the entire time. Chloe didn't think she was handling this apocalypse very well. She couldn't point to anything specific, maybe the screaming...

Screaming?

Chloe looked up to see a small crowd of ragtag-looking people charge towards them, shooting at several zombies in frantic and screeching pursuit.

David swore and gestured them to get back, holding up his gun as they dashed out of the way. The crowd - who were armed with nothing heavier than a light handgun - weren't doing much damage to the zombies, even with headshots. One of them seemed very, very upset by this.

"Oh god, oh god, we're all gonna die! They won't stop!"

Chloe liked to think she'd been a little more positive about this experience than that guy. So, she strode forward, picking up a loose bit of... something - she was going more on instinct than anything else at that point - and hurled it at the legs of the lead zombies.

As the monsters fell all over the wooden pallet - and how the hell did she lift that without noticing? - she turned and yelled at the gun-wielding people in the vicinity "Shoot them in the head while they're down! Don't let them get back up!"

Surprisingly to her, they listened, and a few moments later their pursuers were dead and the two groups were left staring in gratified suspicion at one another.

Chloe went first. "Hi. I'm Chloe."

One of them nodded. "Gareth. I, uh, I don't really know any of these other people."

A chorus of names followed, from people with a variety of blood-stained and highly fashionable clothing and hairstyles. "Monty. Billie. Dashiell. Cleo. Mishka. Teigen. Hugo."

Gareth, seeming to have the most confidence, stepped out of the crowd to talk properly. "Are you.. are you heading into the city?"

His voice was stuttery, and he shook like a leaf the entire time. Most confidence did not necessarily mean a lot.

Rose, surprisingly, took point from then on, explaining their destination and the threat of the bombs. One of the crowd, a young woman that couldn't have been older than fifteen, began to cry. Another, an older woman with a shock of electric grey hair, began shaking her head very pointedly. "They... they wouldn't do that. Not while there are still people alive in here. We're citizens, damnit."

Rose blinked desperately, turning and staring at the others with an entreating look. Dana took over. "She's not lying, ma'am. It's part of the FEMA protocols for a massive outbreak like this. The internet always joked about those stupid zombie protocols, none of us ever thought they'd be really used, huh?"

The woman shook her head again, and her jaw tightened. "No, we're going to stay. We can find somewhere safe, out in the countryside. That's what all those films said to do. We should go away from the cities."

Dana, her empathetic sensibilities apparently brought up by this group's plight, smiled amiably at the group. "That's a good idea. Just try not to go for the Oregon countryside, okay? Please?"

The woman ignored her, focusing on persuading the rest of her group. To their misfortune, they seemed to be listening. Dana's impassioned interjections slid off them like water. "My cousin, Randy, he has a cabin out in the forest. We can go there! There's food, and the zombies won't be able to find it!"

As they came to some bedraggled consensus, Dana's shoulders dropped. She'd tried. She looked to David to try something, anything else, but he just kept staring off into the distance, finger wobbling gently toward and away from the trigger of his gun.

The group hurried on, and the Arcadia Bay-ers turned in resignation to continue. A voice called out "Hey!" They turned back to see Gareth had hung a little behind the others, and he gave a sad little smile. "We're fucked, aren't we?"

It, uh... wasn't a question that needed an answer.

"Okay, so, uh... if you're going through the city, avoid Cedar Mills and Beaverton. We just came from there and... it's bad." His eyes were haunted. "Real bad. Go south past Raleigh, or north through Bonny Slope. Just... avoid Beaverton. You'll thank me."

Rose smiled, offered thanks for their group, and Gareth headed off with the others to die.

"So, uh..." Chloe muttered. "Do we go for Cedar Mills or not?"

Dana and Juliet checked the map. "If we want to go round, then it'll add an extra... two hours to our trip."

Chloe groaned. "Ugh. We shoulda just gone offroad and took our fucking chances. Walking sucks. And besides, that dude coulda been wrong. Or they all coulda gone by now - there was a fuckload of them on the road the army bombed the shit out of, right?"

David stayed quiet.

"Great. Well, how bad can it fucking be?"

"This is fine! I don't know what that dude was on, but either he's high as balls or the zombies move hella quickly."

Chloe had practical strode along through the entire neighbourhood, arms swinging sarcastically like a stereotypical British Bobby. The girl was definitely playing it up for her audience, and from Dana and Juliet's titters they appreciated it greatly. That's the real human spirit - even in a nightmare, we can still find stupid shit to laugh at.

She turned back to glare at David. "It's fine, David! Come on, look at this place! If there were any zombies here - which I fuckin' doubt, by the way - they're hella gone now."

Denial really is sad. Especially how two people can feel the same way about the same idea in two very different instances. As Chloe stood in the middle of a crossroads, yelling over to her apparently depressed stepfather, she noticed something suddenly pierce her vision, like a needle in her eye.

She groaned, and the others immediately went on alert. "What, Chloe? What is it?"

She lifted a shaky hand and pointed, and they all turned to see a seething, furious mass of the infected churning in the street.

And every last one of them was looking at her.

"Run."

"What?"

"Run!"

Her last yell seemed a catalyst for the horde. The closest bunch began to stumble in their direction, arms outstretched. Rose gave off little squeaks of terror as she ran, sticking close to David. Chloe felt oddly offended for a moment, before realising that he was the heavily armed one, so it really did make sense.

It was unfortunate, really, American road's being so wide meant there was nowhere to hide. No cover to take. Every last thing in that horde could see them. "Look!" She pointed. "The overpass!"

More of the infected had crawled out of the windows of the various stores along the road. They, however, stayed crawling. Apparently whatever virus that turned them definitely didn't make them smart. As her dad always told her though, dumb things were still dangerous.

They kept running for the overpass, dodging the abandoned cars littering the entry and exit to the highway. Apparently people had ditched their cars and tried to run. She spared a glance backward. They were probably still running now.

They hit the embankment together, scarpering up the slight incline to the main road. The infected were still closing. "What now?"

David pointed. "Go North!" He loosed off a round at one of the closer zombies, knocking it backward into a few of its drooling comrades.

Chloe had no better ideas. "Right. Come on!"

They passed a few bigger stores, and for a moment Chloe thought of stopping there. To hide, not to shop. But there were still infected in view, and there was no way a glass-fronted box was anything more than a display for zombie dinners.

Luckily, the horde had needed to slow to climb onto the overpass and many had fallen over the barrier. There were far fewer chasing them than before.

A sign on the bridge ahead, she noted morbidly, read 'walker road, exit one'. She tried not to think of it as a sign of fate, just of geography.

They kept on. A mile later, just as the portents of landmarks indicated, Walker Road ran over their path. Chloe waved over to the abundant treeline, yelling back (without waiting for the others to pay attention) "Over there! We can try lose them in the trees!"

They dashed in. Initially, the foliage was more of a hindrance than a help.

"Fucking! Piece! Of! Shit! Logs! Take that, twig!"

Chloe's irritable yelling was also more hindrance, and likely called every zombie in a mile radius to them before Juliet planted a hand over the other girl's mouth and hissed "Shut up! Do you want to bring more of them down on us?"

Chloe bristled and immaturely licked the girl's hand. Juliet immediately whipped it away, glaring disgustedly at her. "What-"

Chloe interrupted her with an eyeroll. "Fine. You're right. Wipe that shit off and lets go already."

Juliet gave Chloe an affronted look before exaggeratedly wiping her hand off on Chloe's shirt. Chloe just shrugged, winked at Juliet and started running again.

They burst out of the trees into - unknown to them at the time - the small surburban community of West Slope. The place was quite nice, Chloe noted while absently dodging around a hedge. It was a shame that a whole fuckload of infected were probably wandering around it now.

The next few roads were... well, picturesque. Quaint, small little houses with large gardens and plenty of plant life. Rose smiled at it all. Chloe was not so impressed. "It looks like a fuckin' retirement community."

The others didn't comment, preferring to ignore the bitching girl and keep moving. And so they did, making it quite far before they found another problem. Or another problem found them, anyway.

It found them on another wide road; four lanes, filled with abandoned cars. It headed northward onto route 26, the highway they needed to take to get into the heart of Portland. For the first leg of the journey, it seemed clear. They did their best to sneak from tree to tree, from porch to porch, darting in and out of whatever cover they could find, and for awhile it worked.

Until they got to the motorway. Chloe almost gasped as, out the corner of her eye, David was about to step in reach of a near-crushed zombie grasping out from under the bonnet of a ruined car. Instead, she made a cardinal error. She yelled out desperately "David!"

The emotion surprised her, and the volume surprised David, as he whirled and let off a panic-fueled shot at the zombie. He took it out, but he also happened to hit one of the more delicate components of the vehicle. No, not the fuel tank. The alarm. (AN1)

The car began to wail like a banshee chasing a bat out of hell.

Chloe swore. Loudly. It didn't help.

"We have got to go. Now!"

It was too late. The sound of smashing windows and thudding of fist on wood meant everything was already alerted. Chloe just swore again as infected started appearing around them.

They just started running once again, heading north as best they could. On the final stretch of road, one lined with apartments, more loud smashes could be heard. David and Rose had somehow fallen further behind than she'd thought - she knew the dead swarming from the apartments would close on them before they'd catch up.

David, apparently, knew this too. "Go! We'll meet you at the courthouse."

Chloe pulled the handgun from where she'd kept it hidden in her jacket, rolling her eyes at David's apparently-instinctive disappointed glare. Honestly, she was surprised she'd managed this long. She was sure he'd've seen it during one of the panic-fests she'd whipped it out for. Before he could yell, she waved her hand to tell him to get the fuck out of there, before turning and running with Dana and Juliet towards the highway.

She didn't see them leave, just the crush of infected pressing together around where she last saw them.

[End of Act I]

AN1 - Sorry. The exploding fuel tank thing is a movie/video game myth. Doesn't happen. All that happens when you shoot a fuel tank is, believe it or not, that fuel leaks out.