Along The Dreary Road

Chapters

Easy Pickings (Prologue)
Dash (1)
Present (2)
Meadows (3)

Easy Pickings (Prologue)

Author's Note

One thing I want to mention quick: Since this is a humanized version, the only thing MLP-related here will, obviously, be the characters and some of the towns, such as Ponyville and Canterlot. Cities like Manehattan and Fillydelphia, however, will be changed to the real life counterparts. Equestria will instead be the United States. This prevents any bothersome difficulty trying to ponify the names of other countries.

That's all. I'll probably make a title sequence for this story. I love doing that kind of thing, you know.

Easy Pickings (Prologue)

When people think of the word 'zombie'...what exactly do they think of at that moment?

Do they think about somebody walking mindlessly along the dreary road, texting on their phone? Or do they think about the fresh or rotten cadaver that was once a living human as it now chases the living to feast on their flesh?

It was no doubt that the zombie craze was a popular topic among the entertainment industry. With every year came a new zombie game, film, or television show, or even a song or band mentioning the very word. It was thanks to the zombie that people had jobs, careers, and lives.

But it was also thanks to the zombie that those very things were stripped away in an instant.

When The Fall, as the term was coined, happened six months ago, nobody expected it or knew about it until they were dead or dying themselves. The first ever footage that kickstarted The Fall was uploaded to the internet on April 7, showing leaked footage from a helicopter. A man dug his teeth into a coroner's jugular and killed him in a matter of moments. The man just minutes before the footage started rolling robbed a convenience store and was shot dead after intimidating officers. It left many wondering why he chose to use his teeth and not his own gun.

Officers once again shot the crook, only this time he didn't go down until they shot him in the head. Soon after, the presumed-dead coroner rose from the ground and ran towards the officers, attempting to attack them in the same manner, ending with the same outcome. The span between the footage beginning and the coroner being shot dead: Just two minutes.

Immediately, people assumed this was either fake or part of a movie. But there was no notice of a film shooting in the city of Los Pegasus at the time of that incident. The same day the footage was leaked online, news reporters posted the name and the mugshot of the robber, 38 year old Lucky Gambit. He had been charged with seven accounts of assault and two accounts of attempted murder in the past decade alone; prior to the shooting, he had been on the run after raping and murdering his girlfriend. It quickly debunked all rumors that he was an actor.

As for the coroner, he was 49 year old Swift Chaser. After the shooting, his wife told reporters that he was "the kindest, gentlest man you would've ever met. He couldn't hurt a fly." And yet, everyone wondered why he tried to kill police officers. Doctors were even more perplexed as to how the man was able to get up at all after having his jugular ripped out.

The footage became popular all over mainstream media, to the point where even family-friendly talk shows were talking about it. Kids in school started spreading rumors about it and making zombie jokes. #LPZombie became the running trend online for several days as the rumors grew.

And as the rumors grew, so did the amount of similar videos across the country. The next video was from Manhattan's Central Park. A man had tackled a woman to the ground, killed her with nothing more than his bare hands and teeth, and proceeded to eat her, or so did eyewitnesses say. By the time the police arrived to the scene, with body cams to show it all, the woman tried to kill them too. Both were shot dead and they claimed drugs may have been involved.

Then there was another case in Philadelphia. Then three cases in Trottingham. Then twelve cases in Chicago.

In a matter of days, the cases grew, and soon enough, it wasn't just two, three, or four cities. It was practically every city in the entire nation of the United States. And it continued to rise.

But the public was hardly focused on it, at least not as much as the latest media gossip or the "new, strange flu" that had been going around. People joked about the end times being upon them. Some were more serious than others, and others convinced those people that everything would be fine.

Two weeks after #LPZombie, a cult of three-hundred people committed suicide in a town up in the mountains. They claimed also that the end times were upon humankind, and "death is the only way out." They died by poisoning their own drinks. With a single swig, they were gone in minutes.

That same cult rose soon after and slaughtered the town in a matter of hours. Whoever survived described it as nothing more than "hell on Earth." The entire event became the focus of social media for several days. #PrayForDodge plastered itself on every website. People were calling it "The Dodge Massacre."

People leaked photos and footage from survivors onto streaming sites. Every supposedly-dead cult member exhibited the same exact thing that the #LPZombie did, that the coroner did - that the two attackers in Manhattan did.

By the time anyone started piecing together any information, it made no difference.

Three weeks after #LPZombie, people tried to leave the United States in mass flocks. At that same time, rumors spread that the attacks and the recent flu outbreak were connected. As a result, flights leaving the country were grounded. Also around the same time, videos emerged of similar attacks supposedly occurring in Saudi Arabia, Germany, and China; the list was higher. Many countries denied any situation related to what was happening here, leading many to believe it was just the United States.

The same week, riots broke out in multiple cities. Some suspected it was police brutality or other political tensions, with Russia being the sole blame. When the riots only grew and showed no sign of dimming, people started to panic. Many tried to leave the cities, only to gridlock the highways and leave hundreds trapped on the roads or forced to walk. In a matter of hours in just a single day, a riot in a city like New York grew from a couple of city blocks to multiple blocks. In just two days, the riots in Los Pegasus covered the whole city. People still tried to figure everything out.

But by then, it was too late.

The police were deployed when the initial riots broke out, only to be knocked down and killed by proclaimed rioters. When they fell, the military was deployed across the nation, and martial law was declared by the president to ensure the situation would be controlled by week's end. It would only get worse.

ApocalypseInAmerica started to trend, more so than #Apocalypse. While more people with every passing day becoming more paranoid, and the claims that the attackers were dead only began to climb, the nation grew more divided as it was paralyzed.

On the first day of the fourth week after #LPZombie, a doctor from Detrot leaked his own recorded footage of an autopsy to the internet. He was a famous doctor, a familiar face.

And on that day, he proved they were dead.

Behind him was a body of a recently deceased patient, arms and legs bound. He grabbed a knife and cut off the patient's head. The body stopped. The head didn't. He showed it all, not at all afraid to. He apologized to his family, to mankind, and then ended the video. When the military found him, he was one of them, bitten prior to the footage.

There was mass panic on the streets, even in cities and towns not yet affected by the outbreak. Dead people coming back to life seemed crazy. And yet it was happening right in their own country.

They were right in the middle of it.

People tried to leave the nation by flying out, even though flights had been grounded for over a week. Some tried to hijack planes, only to be shot dead by the soldiers guarding them. What happened afterwards was either riots, protests, or stampedes.

It left them vulnerable to the infected, as they were simply called.

In a matter of days to hours, entire cities became warzones, with pieces of buildings scattered along the streets and fire in every direction. Everybody was either a mix of the living or the dead. The military set up quarantine zones wherever they could. Half of them fell from a stampede of decaying flesh or too many sick admissions. In the end, many of the people who went in seeking refuge had their lives ended with a bullet between the eyes by the people meant to protect them.

If you lived out in the countryside, you could see the billowing smoke from a city 50 miles away.

When the fourth week came to an end, the power died, many of the power plants across the country no longer functioning and abandoned by their workers. Everyone called it The Roll, essentially the rolling blackout that spread across the nation in a matter of a single day. One by one, radios stopped working, the lights flickered and went out, and the televisions no longer broadcast the same thing.

It gave the dead a higher advantage.

By the start of the fifth week, most of America was gone. America as a nation no longer existed. Of the nearly 400 million, 50 million were still alive. Two weeks prior, the United Nations was relocated to France. It was a unanimous vote to deliver aid by the air. For the first few days, crates of supplies were dropped over the major cities in hopes that people would still be alive. Nobody would be able to reach them, and those that tried were killed, and the drops were relocated to empty fields, visible to anybody.

Contact was one way. Anyone still alive in America could hear the outside world - but the outside world couldn't hear America.

When week five ended, there were reports of infection in China, and America was tuned out for good.

***

That was six months ago. Nobody knows if the world still exists anymore. The borders to Canada and Mexico still seal us off, and every person who ever went off to see never came back. But even without other countries, without aid - we still were able to get off easy.

While many shops were picked clean, others were full of food and water that could last anybody for years, and this is only the non-perishable foods. It was practically easy pickings for us. We had enough food to last us for a long time.

And then one day, our stories finally began.

Dash (1)

When the world - or rather, America - came to an end, I was in high school. I was the average kid who went to class, did his work, went home, and repeated the very next day. It was everyone's life in that general nutshell that was civilization.

Then one day, as I sat in my room and watched television, there were the big, bold words that filled the news banner, "RIOT IN CANTERLOT, THIRTEEN OTHER CITIES." When I saw that, it had already been a couple of weeks since the 'zombie' incident in Los Pegasus and the massacre in Dodge. I wasn't paranoid. I just simply believed people had been just as crazy as they always had been.

Hours later, while we were all sleeping, my parents and I were shuffled into Canterlot High School in the middle of the night by the military, and just left there with hundreds of other kids and parents. Unbeknownst to us, we were part of the citywide quarantine effort placed by the mayor to combat the illness, while dealing with the riots all at the same time, unconvinced they were connected.

That same week, the military took every adult in the school for a supposed 'health check.' I never saw my mother or father ever again, and neither did any other kid or teenager there. We all assumed they were dead.

I was eighteen at the time, and I had little knowledge of fending for myself. I could take care of myself in a normal situation, but in a situation such as this, protecting myself was something I had to learn quick.

After the adults had gone, whoever were the oldest out of all four hundred kids were chosen to be the leaders by default. That included Big Macintosh, the brother of my friend Applejack. Though he was eighteen as well, he didn't classify as an adult, and was left behind to stay with us. Whoever was a senior along with Mac also governed the group. I was asked to be one of the leaders, but I declined. I had no knowledge of running a community, let alone help it.

Once the city burned itself out and the lights died, we created our own scouting groups to look for supplies; one group looked for tools, the other for weapons, and the rest for food and water. We avoided the inner city because we knew it would be a death trap. When the first airdrop touched down in Canterlot, one group risked it. We found them chewing on the body of a deer a few days later, with their own bellies torn open and their guts following behind them.

A few days after that, a student named Orange Geyser - we always called him Guy - got bit on a scavenging run and succumbed two days later. We did all we could to treat the infection, to save him somehow, but in the end, he didn't make it. We knew by then that bites or scratches would bring anybody back. So we always saved a bullet for the occasion.

And I think that was what caused us to suffer as the time went on. We had too many people to take care of, and half of them were no younger than thirteen or fourteen years old. The youngest was a ten year old girl named Lily. We found her wandering by herself a week after the military pulled out. We took care of her for three months, but in the end, it was the wrong place at the wrong time that got her killed. We all mourned her.

Four months after the collapse, I turned nineteen. We almost didn't celebrate it - I didn't want to celebrate it because we needed the supplies - but my friend Pinkie insisted that we "lift our spirits." So with the generators humming and the music kept at a minimum, they baked me a cake with whatever they could get their hands on, and told me to make a wish.

I only wished I could wake up from the nightmare.

But if I did, I likely would never have met Dash.

I knew who Dash was. One of the more popular girls in Canterlot High, an athletic runner with potential - lots of it. She was slacking off in classes, but always pulled through in the end. It was not long after I met her for the first time at that party that I fell in love with her truly and wanted to know more about her.

She strove to become a member of the Wonderbolts, an athletic group that made trips around the world to compete and win, win, win. It had been her goal since she was a young child.

On the first day of the riots, she was in the middle of the city, initially training at a professional studio to compete with a nearby academy.

It was strange listening to how she described it. One minute she was running laps with music playing on the speakers, with people acting as they always had...

And the very next minute, she was running through the streets as buildings burned and people were being knocked to the ground and eaten alive. She mentioned how she ran for blocks before she was able to catch her breath at all, and even then, she still kept running, just slower. It took her an hour to make it back home, only to see her parents frantically packing their things before she found out what was going on. Plastered on the news: "RIOT IN CANTERLOT, THIRTEEN OTHER CITIES."

Yes, she was in the city at night. She was running in darkness for half the time. She was lucky not to encounter anybody else.

After a while, she stopped talking about the somber parts of her past and wanted to talk about more uplifting topics, and it was then that I started to truly understand who she was.

A week later, I asked her out, and she said yes. That was two months ago.

I was her first.

Two months later, everything quickly fell apart. And it started with a drop.

Present (2)

As I write this now, today more or less marks six months since the collapse. During the day, it is quiet and the streets are empty. At night, Canterlot and the nearby neighborhoods are as dark as the night itself, and the sounds of the dead can be heard clearly.

I and a few other people returned from a supply run near Twist Street. With our supplies dwindling faster than we initially believed, we had been making more runs than we anticipated. The suburbs weren't as bad as downtown. At best, we would come across no more than four or five infected, and thankfully they had died a long time ago to the point where we could outwalk them.

With the sun approaching the horizon and the sky turning orange, we hauled whatever we had and brought it back to the school. When we got there, while there were no guard posts or towers on the front, there was at least one scout watching for either us or any danger. We left with one scout at the front, and we came back greeting another. We were the last group to go out today, so the scout followed us inside, but resorting to watching from the nearby window, barricaded and blinded.

Even six months in, the lights of CHS still shone proudly, thanks to the generators. We found more fuel in a few garages and siphoned some out of several of the cars left on the streets - at least the ones that didn't burn or blow up or were left on. The kids were all walking down the halls and playing; if you had forgotten the world had ended, you'd think nothing had happened at all.

We went to the cafeteria and into the backroom. Since it was already a storage room, it was where we kept everything anyway. My friend Twilight was the one who counted all the food we had and, after calculating everything in her head, concluded how much the total would last us. While our supplies were dwindling, they would last us, at best, another six months. That is enough to, essentially, feed just one person for maybe three years. Or was it four?

"Did you guys have any trouble out there?" she asked, and we nodded.

"Just the usual few infected," I answered. "I think they're all migrating to the city. If that keeps up, we might not have to bring anything but our bags."

She smiled, remarking, "You should probably bring at least one...just in case."

"I know, I'm just saying," I answered back, laughing.

The other four scouts left to do their own thing, while I spent the next few minutes talking to Twilight while I helped her stock the shelves with the extra food. I asked her how she was doing.

"I'm doing okay."

"You sure? I know I don't talk to you a lot that often, but... if you're ever down, you can always talk to me."

"I know. But really, I'm okay." And then she seemed to hesitate, and for good reason. "... for the moment."

"Something wrong?"

She shook her head. "Not now, but...well...what happens when we run out of the things we need?"

"Like?"

"Well... for starters, medicine. Sure, we can grow food, that's what the garden on the roof's for. But we can't exactly grow medicine. I mean, we can, but what we need isn't in this region. And we can't risk sending kids out to other areas just for some plants. How would we communicate with them? Our walkie-talkies only go out so far, and we'd be sending them out for miles. What if something happens to them and we never hear from them again? What if-"

Twilight tended to ramble on a lot of things, no matter if it was serious or silly. When it came to serious topics like this, I had to stop her and tell her everything would be okay, and so I did just that.

"We'll figure something out," I informed her. "Maybe we'll get lucky. Maybe one day, they'll..."

"... do another drop?" She expressed concern. "There hasn't been a drop in months. We don't know if anything's out there anymore."

I held the high belief that parts of the world were still functioning, if not all the world, and America was the only one devastated. All we knew is there was at least one case in a foreign country, and then the radios went out. Twilight may have been right, or maybe she wasn't. We couldn't know for sure until we got the radio station working again, at least that was the plan.

"Hey," I talked to her gently while embracing her. "Even if another drop never comes again...it'll be okay. I'll die before I let anything happen to you or Dash or any of the others."

It was such a Hollywood thing to say, but it was the solid truth. I cared about my friends, and I cared about the girl I loved; I'd do anything to make sure they were safe and happy. And so far, I and every other scout in the school were doing a good job so far.

Plus, it wasn't too uncommon for someone my age to speak Hollywood.

Twilight sighed and nodded; she wasn't frustrated at all. I could tell that she was worried, even scared, but she took comfort in my words. I kissed her cheek and hugged her. She took it in and I could feel her smile.

When I pulled away, I asked her where Dash was.

"She was actually here right before you got here," she answered. "She just asked when you were supposed to get back and then said she was gonna lie down for a bit."

That was why I loved her. She always wanted to know where I was, what I was doing, and if I was okay. Of course, when I say it like that, it makes it sound like she's one of those obsessive SOs.

She's nothing like that. She just cares.

"Thanks," I say. "I'll see you at dinner, okay?"

Twilight smiled. "Okay. Bye."

She waved and I waved her back. Twilight always had this particular wave that she made to me. It was always adorable. I always regretted not talking to her more often, but I planned on it.

I made my way up to the room that Dash and I had "claimed." It was really a janitor's office that we converted into our own cozy little place. The desk with the computer on it we kept and made it a place for us to play video games. We brought in a television from one of the nearby houses and grabbed whatever DVDs we could find. We had enough movies we haven't watched yet to last us for a decent while. The decorations of the room were a mix of my things and her things; surprisingly, they matched kinda well.

It was always a satisfying sight when I opened up the door, because it reminded me that I was alive for one more day.

When I opened the door, just as Twilight told me, Dash was lying in her... our bed, laying on her side. She wasn't asleep, just listening to music. But as soon as she felt the cold breeze, she turned to see me standing there. Her blank face quickly became a smile.

"Hey!" she said taking off her headphones, "You're back!"

"Hey," I answered back as she came over to hug me. "I was just helping Twilight stock the shelves."

"Did you get a lot?"

"About a few weeks' worth."

"Nice." She kissed me, and initially I thought it was going to be a simple quick kiss. But she held me close just to savor the moment. She moaned and sighed, wrapping her arms around me. It was the part of Dash that she hardly showed to anybody, even in spite of everything. She never wanted to let that image go.

When she pulled away, she grabbed my hand and brought me over to the bed. Again, also taken from nearby houses or mattress stores. This one was from the nearby Quills N' Sofas store. One of the comfier ones. Everybody slept well once we brought them back.

I laid down first and she fell on top of me. I had to adjust myself just so the weight of her didn't crush me. I wasn't saying she was fat, far from that. In fact, she's pretty buff. That's why I adjusted myself.

She gave me another kiss, putting her hands between my head, resting them on the pillow beneath me, while my hands rubbed her body above her jacket. She shivered from the ticklish sensation.

"I was worried about you, you know," she told me. I smiled reassuringly.

"I know," I answered back. "It's worse when I'm actually out there."

"I mean...I'm glad you're doin' it and all, but...why'd you have to be a scout, you know? Why didn't they just make you do something less dangerous and more sane, like planting in the garden or stocking shelves with Twilight?"

She always was worried about me, and I didn't blame her. Going out every single day and looking for supplies, with the added risk of never coming back or coming back as a shambling corpse, was stressful as all hell. I never admitted it to anybody except for her.

But I laughed when she brought up "boring." She was selected to be one of the people planting and watering the roof garden. Before this, I could never see Dash consider gardening 'sane'. However, at the same time, that brings up another question: Why wasn't she chosen to be a scout? I'll have to ask Soarin later.

Or... I'd rather not. Last thing I want is to put her in danger just because I opened my trap.

"Well... as long as we don't suddenly decide to go into the city, I think I'll be fine, as long as the others have got my back."

It hardly did much to ease Dash's worries. I could see it on her face, just as I had for the past couple of weeks. It started to dawn on me that she had been thinking about this for a long time.

"Hey," I told her. "It'll be okay. As long as we stick together, nothing will happen to me or anybody else, especially me.

"But... if you want me to, I could maybe ask Soarin or Mac and have them change me to gardening-"

"But then I feel bad because you'd only be doing that because of me. I mean, that'd be great, but..."

She sighed, frustrated not with me, but with herself. She covered her face with her hands and sat there for a second. When she pulled them away to reveal her face again, she apologized, her emotions visible like she was on the verge of a tear falling and wanting to argue at herself.

"It's fine."

"I mean...would you really do that for me?"

"Of course. The last thing I want is anybody getting worried, especially you. And," I shrugged, "even if he doesn't switch me, at least he'd know why."

"Right." Her response was unenthusiastic, as opposed to how she felt not that long ago.

I brought her in for a hug and let her know it was going to be fine. I always planned it, for things to work out. Even if everybody was convinced they weren't, I was convinced they would be, no matter what it took.

After we hugged, I decided to change the subject, already feeling down myself.

"So what'd you do today?" I asked her.

Getting up just a bit for her to speak clearly, she started. "Well...other than watering plants again, we... didn't really do all that much today. Well, I mean- okay, so do you remember that whole rumor Sour started a few weeks back?"

"Yeah," I answered, rubbing my hands up and down her body gently. I felt her shiver, but she seemed unfazed by it. She didn't mind it; casually getting into things was always our style.

"Yeah, so turns out it wasn't necessarily just a rumor. They actually kinda found out today that it was true - y'know, the whole 'rainbow cat' in the woods?"

"Like, they found an actual cat that was a rainbow color?"

"Yep," she quickly answered. "Well, it wasn't exactly a rainbow rainbow cat, but more like a cat with more than one color. So...kinda yeah, kinda no."

She started taking off her jacket and I helped her toss it to the couch. As I lifted her tank-top just to reveal her breasts, I asked her, "Who found it?"

"Brrrnng," she shivered as my somewhat cold hands touched her skin. "I think it was Ghost's group. They were supposed to be looking for an axe to cut down some of the trees around here and ended up finding this random cat in one of the garages. They even took some pictures of it. It's actually kinda cute."

"Did they share it with you?"

"Duh," she replied. "It took them a little bit longer because of the whole, y'know, cell service going down and stuff, but..." She kept her body still while she grabbed her phone and opened up her images. I teased her with a light rub of one of her nipples. She shook a bit and moaned, laughing faintly.

When she finally found the picture, she showed it to me. She didn't lie: It's an actual rainbow fucking cat. "Aww. Did they keep it?"

"No," she answered with a sad tone. "They tried to find a cage to bring it back, but it was gone by the time they did. I'm sure we'll see it again."

"Hopefully. We need a couple pets around here."

"Well, we still got Tank," she said, pointing to the tank next to the computer, containing the old tortoise sleeping snuggly in a patch of dirt.

"Yeah," I said with a bit of a smile. Not getting distracted, I twisted her nipple gently.

It got her going.

With a louder moan, she started strutting herself on my hips, removing her tank-top entirely, revealing her bare chest. She always considered her body cool, but I always thought it was cute in a sexy way.

Unbuttoning her pants a bit, I slid a hand down it and asked her what else happened today while I searched for what I was looking for.

"Mmmn," she hesitated. "Well, we watched that Zootopia film that came out last year."

"Is that the one with the bunny and the fox?"

She nodded, "Yeah. I thought it was a dumb kids' movie, but it was actually kinda fu-aahh!" she stopped as I found her entrance and slid my way in.

"You alright?"

"Y-Yeah, I'm fine, it's just your fingers are fucking cold."

"Really?" I asked. She nodded. I made a joke along the lines of, "Guess I better warm them up then."

"You're a fucking idiot," she said back to me with a cute laugh, a laugh that quickly turned into a moan once I started moving my finger.

"Anything else happen?"

"Hhnnnmmng...W-Well, the group that's been trying to-brrrhh-trying to get the radio tower working said they might...mmmight have it working by Friday."

"So we'd be able to find out if the world's actually around?"

"Yeah, pretty...hahhh..." She leaned her head back and curled her back. "-Pretty much. Fuck, can we just do it already? Sorry, just your fucking-"

I laughed again. "Alright."

It didn't take long for us to come. Once we were finished, the two of us were panting, sweaty messes laying side by side. Dash was shivering, both from the cold air in the room, and her still lingering orgasm. She gripped the sheets with a smile on her face, laughing silently with joy.

"I'm always afraid I'm never gonna feel this again," she said.

Even after just having sex, she was never too wary of somber thoughts. I brought her in for a hug. It was sweaty, but it was definitely a needed one for both of us.

"Don't worry," I told her. "I won't be going anywhere. Well, I will, but... you know."

She laughed again. "I know."

As we pulled away from the hug, I spent the next few moments right after just looking into her eyes. It was such a cheesy moment, but I always cherished it, always looking at those magenta pupils and seeing just how much she loved me back. It would never get old.

I kissed her again for a minute. I gently rubbed one of her nipples, but it was more of laughter than of moaning. She wrapped her arms around me and didn't want to let me go for a while. Eventually, we decided to get up and play some video games. Of course, when it's said like that, it's worded so poorly, but it was really all we did afterwards. That was the common thing between us: It didn't matter what we did - before the day was out, we were playing Kirby or GTA or whatever we had on us at the time. Some games were shared around the group unless there were multiple copies.

Tonight, we just chose to run down random old ladies in Vice City. It was always hilarious to hear what they had to say to us.

For two straight hours, we played Vice City, then switched it around with whatever zombie games we had. Ironic, of course - probably the most ironic thing that could happen now.

With every score made or every feat accomplished or every joke told, we were laughing and smiling, cheering and kissing. It was always nice to have her just smile and not be so sad.

I loved her for it.

Before we knew it, eight o'clock came around, and the lights were off. We set a rule a few months back with the intention to conserve fuel: At eight every night, the power would be rerouted to the kitchen and storage facilities. It wasn't necessarily that the other parts of the building were just dark, but rather most things like the TVs would stop working. If anyone wanted to watch movies on their computers or phones, they could do so - they just had to charge them beforehand.

To put this into perspective, we were using 24 gallons of fuel a day; one gallon an hour. With the rule in place, we knocked it down to 8 gallons a day. We were able to save the fuel for whatever else we needed it for, and still had enough to charge whatever we had or play whatever we wanted before the 'power curfew'.

The reason we chose eight o'clock was because that was dinnertime. Everyone in the school would head on down to the cafeteria and eat their meals, mingle a bit, then go about the rest of the evening. When it came to guards, it was either a shift change or a can of spam.

Dash and I showered quickly and then headed down to the cafeteria. Before the collapsed, the room was always packed with kids of all ages going up to grab their food and then gossiping about the newest 'whatever' that happened that day or the day before.

That was still the case, only the entire cafeteria was all that was left of the school's entire population. Anyone who wasn't rounded up by the military and brought here was either killed, turned, or went elsewhere, hearing about stories of places west that withstood everything. Hopefully, they were okay.

We went up to the stands to grab our food. It was Soup Night tonight, so we were able to spare a few cans of chicken noodle soup, enough to feed the entire group. Some went to bring bowls to the guards and lookouts, and the rest stayed in the cafeteria and talked about whatever was worth talking about.

For a couple of minutes, Dash and I sat at an empty table and enjoyed our meal, chatting about video games and soccer matches.

"Ugh, I can't wait until we can start working out back," she groaned with glee. "Imagine being able to have soccer matches again! That'll keep the younger ones entertained, at least."

I replied, "I think it'll keep everyone entertained. Sure, video games and movies help loads, but being able to go outside and have fun without the fear of getting attacked would be awesome."

As we spoke, Applejack, Twilight, and Fluttershy came over and sat down with us. I knew Applejack before the outbreak, but I met Twilight and Fluttershy after, having only seen them around a few times beforehand. We all hugged like we hadn't seen each other in a while.

"So, partner," Applejack began towards me, "how was it out there today?"

"Pretty decent," I explained. "We came across a few infected, but they were no problem, just walkers. I think the rest are migrating to the city. That should leave the suburbs safe for a little while."

"That's one thing I was actually meaning to talk to you and the other grown-ups about... When we run out of stuff in the neighborhoods... where will we get them after?"

I eyed Rainbow and the others nervously.

"Worst case scenario... the city."

Fluttershy's head reared up, looking at me with fear. "No...! But... those things...!"

"I know, Fluttershy, I know," I answered, my mouth scrunched and my head nodding. "The last time any of us went in there, they all... But at least we know they're drawn by sound. I've been thinking about possibly creating some sound machines loud enough to draw the infected out of the city for a while... days even."

"Why days?" Dash asked.

"We might not be able to bring everything back in a single day. You've got supermarkets, mini-marts, plus the supply drops that we tried to reach before. If we're lucky, everything's still there, just waiting for us to take it."

"Or just a bunch of bloodthirsty corpses," Dash added, rubbing her shoulder with nervousness.

I shrugged, agreeing with her, but I added, "Well... on the bright side, most of the infected in the city have to be walkers by now. We won't have to worry about being chased by runners, unless someone was recently turned."

Grabbing my bowl, I started slurping down the contents, enjoying every drop with a content grin on my face before putting it down and noticing the four of them staring at me... well, three.

"We'll think of something. There's still plenty of houses we haven't hit yet. It's gonna be a while before it has to come to that."

"Hopefully." Dash held my hand under the table and started eating her soup.

"Fluttershy?" Twilight asked, turning to Fluttershy, whom she noticed had been staring at the empty space beside her. "... Fluttershy?"

"Rarity... Pinkie... Sunset... They..."

The pinkette started to cry softly, while her friend held her close to her.

"Shh, shh... We don't know that. They're okay. I know they are."

The three girls were friends of theirs, going back a couple of years before I met them. I never met them before the outbreak, but I had seen them around, never speaking to them. They were some of the first to leave the group during the first couple of weeks, afraid it would all go wrong.

But six months later, we all thought they would have returned. Dash and Applejack assumed the worst, beating themselves up for thinking that way, but still forcing themselves to consider the possibility.

Fluttershy and Twilight, however, were still holding on, hoping that their friends were okay somewhere, in another city, or with another community that is riding the apocalypse out like us.

Hopefully.

Dinner was over in an hour, and everyone went back to whatever they had been doing before. Some of the older kids had another movie night in the auditorium, watching some of the more mature films that were available. The younger kids were getting ready for bed. But the rest of us were a mixed bag.

Dash and I went back to our rooms and laid down on the bed again, the sheets smelling of sex and lust. It made the girl bite her lip, as if anticipating another go.

With just a single wink and a few minutes later, the two of us were on the bed, me on top of her as I pounded away against her beneath the blankets. We were still clothed, and to be honest, that was something that seemed just hotter than being naked.

I groped her breasts as she gripped the sheets. Even with how fast we were going, the bed didn't make as much noise as we thought it would; it was the best thing about times like this.

"Fuck, I'm..." she moaned, unable to finish her words.

"Shh... Let it out. Be a good girl."

Dash playfully punched me. "Fuck yo-aah...!"

In a sudden burst of ecstasy, Rainbow's orgasm hit, and she was left mumbling incoherence and unconsciously moving about to the feeling; her grip on the bed sheets was gone.

She looked me in the eyes as I came soon after, pulling out to be safe. My essence dripped along her pelvis, and it was enough to make her giggle from the ticklish but warm sensation. I reached down and gently scooped up the liquid, letting it fall into her mouth, to which she gladly swallowed without hesitation. It was easier to clean that way. Her own words at one point.

With a sigh, I fell beside her and we slipped our pants back up, and our shirts back down. In the darkness of the room, with nothing but the lights between the cracks of the door illuminating the place faintly, we looked at each other, barely able to see. I turned on the nearby lamp on its lowest setting.

Dash was looking into my eyes again, a brief yawn escaping her lips.

"Would you ever wanna have a baby?"

It was a surprising and sudden question that I didn't expect, and she could tell.

"I mean, like... after we're settled down and after we know that we'll be safe. However long that'll take. Would you want to then?"

At first, I was hesitant to answer. Dash didn't really give an opinion on having children, especially since the two of us have only been together for two months. But Dash was an optimist, always looking to the future even when she seemed to be the opposite. It seemed that most of the kids here were optimists at this point.

But I think I was afraid to answer because of how she would react. If she wanted children and I said no, would she leave me?

"Hey," she spoke, noticing my hesitation, and rested a hand on my cheek. "I won't be mad at you."

With a sigh, I answered her. "No. The thing is... I don't know how to take care of kids. I mean, babies. I... I feel like I'd be a horrible parent. And even if we knew we were safe, I feel like I would be careless enough to let something hap... happen."

The thought of a child of mine being trapped in the grips of an Infected...

Rainbow saw my expression change subtly, and it was enough to make her hold me close.

"I'm sorry I asked," she sighed. "I... I didn't mean to—"

"It's okay," I told her. "I mean... Maybe. Maybe I would be up for it when I was sure we would never have to deal with this kind of thing again. No more Infected, no more scavenging and scouting, no more problems. If we could get back to something like we used to have... then... maybe."

She smiled against my shoulder and nodded, changing the subject to something else—something that still managed to excite her.

"You know... tomorrow's my birthday~"

"Oh, really? I didn't know that," I joked.

Sticking a tongue out at me, she added, "In case you're feeling a little adventurous... I circled some places nearby you could take a look at if you wanted to... get something for me...?"

Her voice, that sing-song tone she would sometimes do, was always one of the cute things about her.

Dash leaned over me to grab a map of the city and showed it to me. It was clearer in print where the school was, and where the stores were. One of the stores was a guitar shop just a couple of blocks from here, and the other was a music shop that contained all the newest CDs that had been available at the time.

"Listening to the same thing gets a bit boring," she spoke up. "So I figured... maybe you could find some new CDs? I mean, I don't listen to CDs that much either, but..."

I smiled. "You're lucky. I think we're supposed to be heading out in that direction." Lifting my hand, I booped her on the nose. "If it's safe enough tomorrow, I'll give them a look. Sound good?"

"Mm-hmm," she hummed. "But you know, you don't have to do it. The last thing I need is any of the leaders chewing you out over something I... wanted."

She said that in a way like she was embarrassed to say it, almost as if she feared being seen as a spoiled child for it. It wasn't the case at all. And in this day and age, was it really being spoiled if everything was handed to you much easier?

"If it comes to that, I'll take care of it," I comforted her, giving her neck a gentle kiss. She smiled at me with blissful peace.

"Thank you."

I smiled back. "You're welcome."

A moment later, we heard the familiar sound of the already dim hallway lights shutting off until morning. That was our cue to nod off to sleep.

I laid behind Dash, my arms holding her close to me. I could smell the faint scent of perfume on her hair. She told me she hated it before the collapse, but she wanted to feel like things were normal still.

"I love you."

"I love you too."

I always feared saying those words as much as I loved it.

Meadows (3)

Author's Note

My Internet has been shut off for the past two weeks this Monday, so I have not been active here very much, and won't be until we get the Internet back on.

Hopefully, you can enjoy this. However, I'm extremely compelled to cancel this story and turn it into a story off-site with different named characters and settings, but the concept being the same.

Or, maybe I'll continue it and adapt it simultaneously. It all depends on if people give a damn about this story anymore already.

Meadows (3)

The next morning, my group and I started for the cars parked at the front of the school. While on most days, we would typically walk to make less noise, the neighborhood we were hitting was on the other side of the city.

The place was Sunny Meadows, one of the few gated communities around Canterlot. Rumor had it that these communities survived because of just that. A couple of them had been overrun in recent months, and there were plenty of supplies to keep us going for a while. While we hoped somebody would be there, we were expecting the place to be deserted.

Soarin was leading our group today. I had gotten along well with Soarin over the past two months, more so than the other leaders. While I didn't consider him my friend yet, we had each other's back.

Soarin got in the driver seat, while I put my things in the passenger seat. The other five got in the back of the pickup truck, and the rest of our group took another car.

As I was getting ready, Dash came outside and over to me, looking in the direction of the Meadows, barely visible from here.

"Do you think anyone's there?" she asked me.

I shook my head. "If the other two were a warning, I don't think we should be expecting another group... at least, not for a while."

She gave a subtle hum of indifference. Her smile then appeared and she looked at me.

"Are you forgetting anything?"

I looked around the truck, through my backpack, and everywhere else I could. After, I shook my head.

"I don't think so."

At first, the girl frowned at me slightly, but she quickly caught on.

"You're an ass," she said, giggling. I grabbed her and pulled her close, letting out a laugh of my own.

"Happy birthday, Dashie." I then pulled her closer and whispered, "I'll give those stores a look and see what I can find, okay?"

"Okay," she whispered back, letting out another giggle.

I pulled away from her and got into the passenger seat. Soarin turned the key and the car sprung to life, a full tank of gas. We had to use it carefully.

Dash walked up to the open window and gave me a kiss.

"I love you."

"I love you too."

The moment before I went out for runs was worse to say that. But I smiled and gave her a wave goodbye as the car drove away. She didn't need to know that.

On the drive to the Meadows, Soarin spoke to me.

"You're really lucky, you know that?"

I nodded. "Yeah."

We didn't talk so much. I spent a few minutes twiddling with the knob for the radio, but all that came out was static.

"You won't get anything, you know."

"Yeah, I... I know." I pressed the button, and the radio shut off. "I used to play the radio every day on the way to school. I guess a part of me's still hoping for that. That, or something else."

"Like?"

"Well... people. Good people. Someone out there who's trying to get by. Maybe another group."

"If there was one around here, we would've noticed by now."

"Yeah... maybe further out? The hills, probably?"

"Maybe. We haven't exactly left the city to find that out."

"... Do you think there are other groups near us?"

"A little. But it's like we're the only ones around here that didn't get eaten, y'know?"

I didn't want to tell him that he didn't know that, but over the months, that thought started to feel more like fact than opinion. How many people really were left? In the city, in the state, the country? The world? Was there that one chance that we were the last of...

No. Not so soon.

Between the debris and the occasional infected, we reached Sunny Meadows in ten minutes. When we pulled up to the front gate, the only entrance to the neighborhood, we noticed that it was chained up with a padlock.

We all eyed each other, expecting the worst. When I gave the metal gate a decent sounded knock, that's when they came out from their homes.

All walkers. No runners. This place fell months ago.

The infected shambled their way over to the gate and planted their bodies against it, holding out their arms in an attempt to grab us, and making hisses and snarls at us with rotting vocal cords.

"Guughhh..."

"Grraahh!"

"Ready?" Soarin asked, holding out a long hunting knife.

We all nodded and held out our own individual weapons. With a stance, we got to work clearing the dead while watching our own surroundings.

A few minutes later, the dead were truly dead this time. We gave a few more knocks on the gate to be safe, but no more Infected came out. We didn't think we were fully in the clear, and Soarin told us to keep an eye out as we broke the padlock and opened the gates.

We took our first steps into the community, only a couple of us having actually been here before. The neighborhood consisted of fourteen houses, many of them with their doors still closed and windows intact.

Many of the dead were likely still inside most of them.

"Okay, here's what we're gonna do," Soarin began, pointing to me. "You four will take this house here. You four will take that house, you four there, and you three come with me. If any of you get into trouble, yell or come find me. Let's meet back here at the entrance in twenty minutes. Sound good?"

Everyone nodded almost in unison. With that, we split off into our respective groups and started for the houses.

I hardly knew two of the kids in my group, but the third one I knew. Rumble, Thunderlane's younger brother, was the only member of his known family that survived up to now. Thunder... He didn't die in the most heroic circumstance, but we refused to tell that to Rumble.

We walked up to the front door and peered through the windows to see what we could. As we did, Rumble grabbed for the knob.

"No, wait," I said, stopping him. "Knock."

He shook his head and apologized before knocking on the door for a moment. We waited for a minute and talked to pass the time.

"How much stuff do you think is here?" Rumble asked.

I answered, "Not sure. But with that gate having been locked up this whole time, there'll be something, at least."

"I bet there's a lot of stuff here," one of the others mentioned, a girl named Honey Crisp. She was sixteen and was always so eager to go out and explore, and today, she saw the chance.

"I guess it all depends on how long it took for everyone here to turn," I told her. "If they all turned early on and didn't have any time to scarf anything down, we could find enough to keep us going for another year, at best."

"Wow, really?"

"Maybe. Hopefully. But I also guess it depends on if they stockpiled beforehand."

"Rugggh...!"

Sierra—the other kid, a seventeen year old—recoiled away from the front door she leaned against, as the sound of an Infected behind it was muffled, but clear. The corpse weakly bashed its hands against the glass as an attempt to get to us, but was far too rotten to do so.

"Okay," I began, "when I say 'now,' you open the door, and I'll take care of it. Ready?"

Rumble and Honey nodded their heads; Rumble had his hand firmly on the doorknob, while both of them had their own weapons out in case. I brandished my own hunting knife, holding it tightly in my hand, and let out a deep breath.

"Now."

The door was opened—a part of me thought it would've been locked. A few seconds passed before the walker shuffled his way over to the doorway, moaning and growling as he caught me in his sights.

"Gnnaagh—"

With a firm swing, the knife was lodged deep inside the skull of the Infected, killing it almost instantly. The body went limp and fell to the ground beside me. After a firm pull, the knife came out. It took me a long time to be able to do it so quickly, as did everybody else.

"Okay, wait another moment," I said to them, anticipating more Infected to come out and surprise us, but after several moments passed, no dead came walking out. "Alright, it's clear. Stick together, and don't split off. Got it?"

Everyone nodded together. It was the best thing about being the more known member of the community; people trusted me and were more enticed to listen—that last part was absolutely necessary these days.

The four of us went inside the dark home which, despite the circumstances, looked rather quaint, like the apocalypse never seemed to reach it. However, the smell made all the difference. We closed the door behind us and began to look around.

"Oh, god," Sierra moaned, "I'm never gonna get used to the stench."

I laughed. "It shows you haven't been out here too long."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"How many runs have you done outside the school?"

"This is my third time," she answered.

"This is my hundredth," I said back. "I think. It could be more. The point is, I've smelled more than enough rotting flesh to get used to it for the rest of my life... I never thought I'd be saying that. Never crossed my mind back then.

"Anyway... you'll get used to it in time—even if you don't want to."

Sierra's expression changed with my words, but she ultimately nodded in understanding. After a minute of exploring the house, we came across the kitchen and decided on positions.

"Okay: Sierra, you take point in the doorway; if anything comes near you, let us know. The rest of us will search the cabinets."

Sierra walked over to the doorway, knife in hand, while the rest of us walked around, looking through each individual cabinet for whatever we could find. To say that we found food was more than an understatement.

"Holy shit, you were right," I said to Honey. "There's all kinds of food here. There has to be weeks' worth in here!"

"You too. They probably got so much and... well, you know, soon after."

Sierra turned and looked to the stockpile that we found, listening in. "If the kitchen here's any indication, the others must be just as lucky."

"If that's the case, then we could last another year with these houses alone," I replied.

We spent a few minutes grabbing all of the cans and bags that were there until all of the cabinets were picked clean. Several cans of green beans, corn, beef, even peas—I doubted most of the kids back at the school would be eating any of the peas.

As we were putting the food in our bags, Rumble grabbed some of the cans and put them in an extra bag that he had been carrying... It belonged to...

"Rumble?" I spoke up. "What're you doing there, bud?"

"Getting something for Thunder. He likes the Spam."

Honey opened her mouth to say something, but I whispered at her to let him go. Rumble zipped up his bags and walked out into the living room, where Sierra had gone to keep watch.

"Does he... Does he know at all?" Honey asked. "... I mean... about what really happened to—"

"No... he doesn't," I told her. "Let's keep it that way, okay?"

She was up-to-date on everything that happened between the community and Thunder. What he did. She gave a firm nod and the two of us left it at that, and we went back into the living room with the others.

"Okay," I said as I brought the three of them close, "we've got at least ten minutes left. We'll do a quick sweep of the upstairs and downstairs. Try to find the bathrooms. If they had a lot of food, then chances are they have a lot of medicine. Rumble and Honey, you two take the downstairs. Stick together and be careful. Sierra and I will take the upstairs. If you get into trouble, holler and we'll be there as quick as we can. Sound good?"

"Yeah," Honey said with a hopeful grin. Sierra and Rumble nodded.

With our group split up, we separated into the parts of the house we assigned. As we went up the stairs and knocked on each individual hallway door, the two of us talked to pass the time.

"So how are you and that Dash girl getting along?"

"I mean, we're dating, so I'd say it's pretty good."

She laughed, a blush on her face. "Sorry, bad start."

"It's fine. I've done that a couple times before with other people," I laughed.

We reached the end of the hallway, and heard nothing but silence, so we proceeded to open each door to find the bathroom until we picked the right door. When we found the bathroom, we started to look in the cabinets. While there wasn't a massive stockpile like the food, there was still plenty of it to treat the people back home for months—and we already had a year plus' worth of medicine. But the more the merrier.

As we started to load our bags with the medical supplies, Sierra started a new conversation.

"Do you still think the world's intact out there? I mean, I hear you talk about it all the time, and you're always hoping with that radio station being fixed up..."

"... Not always," I answered. "I mean, I definitely want to believe it—that the attacks in those other countries were false and it was just America that fell apart. Maybe that's why all those people who took off for the ocean never came back, you know?"

"And yet it's been five months since anything came up from the rest of the world."

"I know. That's why I don't want to believe it as often anymore. But it keeps me going in a sense, you know? Whether I'm right or I'm wrong, I've got a reason to fight."

Sierra gave off a radiant smile, both from my explanation and her finding a small set of antibiotics. Those were practically gold nowadays. However, the school needed it more than any money-hungry beggar out there.

After a moment of silence, my watch began to beep. "We've got five minutes. Better wrap things up and get the others."

"Alright."

As soon as she said that, we were done with our scavenge, and proceeded downstairs to the first floor. We entered the hallway that Honey and Rumble walked down into. They had taken the same precautions as we had, with the doors all opened. Halfway down was where the doors stopped opening, and we heard the familiar noise of scrounging objects into bags.

It didn't take us long to find the first floor bathroom, to find Honey and Rumble putting medicine into their bags. Smiles were on their faces, and laughter emitted from them too.

It was the first time I saw Rumble laugh in a while.

I gave the doorway a couple of gentle knocks. They were startled, but otherwise kept their cheerful mood.

"Everything okay down here?" I asked.

"Yup!" Honey exclaimed. "Rumble found the bathroom no problem."

"Any trouble?" asked Sierra.

"Just a few of them," Rumble answered, pointing to the tub containing two corpses. "I took care of them, though."

Sierra and I looked on in surprise.

"... On your own?"

He nodded, and I gave him a smile.

"Good work."

Rumble smiled back as he put the last of the supplies in his backpack and equipped it on his back.

We walked over to the door and took a peak out the window. Sure enough, the other groups were getting together outside. I opened the door and the four of us started for the others.

Soarin quickly saw us and asked what our haul was. When we showed him, he was a mix of surprised and not surprised.

"Same here," one kid said.

"Here too," another called out.

"It's starting to look like this trip was worth it," Soarin stated with a smile. "We've still got a while. We can check out the rest of the houses at this rate."

"What about our bags?" Sierra asked. "We won't be able to fit anything else like this."

"I borrowed bags from the other groups. They're letting us use them today. That being said, if you find a backpack or a dufflebag in any of these houses, bring it with you. The more, the better."

Everyone put their full bags into the beds of the vehicles and grabbed a new set. We then split off into the same groups and started for the other houses.

To our surprise and fortune, our house was entirely devoid of bodies, living or dead. It was in a somewhat worse condition than the other, with a few tables or shelves toppled or smashed. Otherwise, there was no danger.

The first obvious room we went for was the kitchen. Just like the other house, there was a plentiful cache of canned goods. Everyone was in a much better mood now that we knew what to expect. To keep the atmosphere that way, we had conversations about anything that was on our minds. Our favorite sports, television show, comics, whatever. If it had value, it was talked about.

"I used to be a big fan of this one zombie show," Sierra mentioned, but sighed. "Kind of ironic, in its own way."

"How so?" Honey asked, seemingly unaware of what the word meant.

"Before this all started, we used to watch zombies on TV, talk about how unrealistic it'd be. Then suddenly... they're right in our backyards. I remember some friends of mine talking about how well they'd survive something like this, how prepared they'd be. And yet, when they realized they had to kill corpses of their mother or father or girlfriends... boyfriends... and they couldn't... well, you know."

"It's easier to say things about fictional shit than it is to act on real shit," I told her.

"Yeah... I guess. But you'd think with how dedicated they were to the whole thing, you'd think they would've sharpened up before then."

"Nobody knew this was coming. Nobody ever thought corpses would start getting up and eating people for real one day."

"Yeah... you have a point there... still."

The feeling in the air was cool, and I thought of something that could potentially lift the mood.

"Here's a little prompt for you guys: If the apocalypse never happened, where do you think you would be right now?"

"Seeing as how it's August... probably enjoying the rest of summer vacation," Sierra answered.

"I miss watching cartoons every week," Honey added.

Rumble took a moment before he answered the question.

"I miss Thunder... so I guess hanging out with him."

I gave him a smile. As much as we knew he would say that, it was something we wished we could do with a lot of people. Parents, siblings, spouses... in the past few months, especially spouses.

As we wandered from room to room finding supplies, Honey went back to talking about cartoons.

"I used to watch this one cartoon about a robot going to summer camp. It was... silly... but I liked it. They announced the third season back in January, and I got so excited. And then a month later... Is it... bad that even after everything, I'm still totally upset that there'll never be a third season?"

"You're talking about Camp Robo, right?" Sierra turned, genuinely curious.

"Yeah!"

"Damn, I loved that show. Don't we have the first two seasons back at the school?"

"Yeah, I brought them with me. I thought I was gonna go to my Aunt Crystal's... but then the army took us to the school."

"And then abandoned us," Rumble mumbled, though I was the only one to hear it. I turned to the girls.

"Isn't that show Japanese?" They both nodded. "You know, last I heard, Japan never confirmed any cases in their country. Who knows... maybe they continued the third season and it's available there."

The idea made Honey feel like a kid on Christmas. "I hope!"

I looked at Sierra to see her smiling at me. I shot her a hopeful shrug. Even when she doubted the world was alive, she knew that the hope kept me going, and maybe it'd do the same for others. Honey couldn't stop thinking about what the third season would be like, but she knew that she shouldn't entirely get her hopes up. She's a smart girl.

After a slightly longer time than usual, we cleared out the house and returned to the group.

"Okay, we've got a few more houses to clear, and then we'll hit the nearby areas. Sound good?" Everyone nodded. "Good."

A moment later, Soarin urged me and a few other legal teens over to him.

"There's something you guys need to see."

The three of us followed Soarin to wherever he had been leading us. At first, we weren't sure if it was an overexaggeration. But when we actually got there...

"Holy shit," one of the guys, Cloud, said in amazement. "Is that..."

"Yeah!" Soarin exclaimed. "It's a goddamn military outpost! And look what I found."

Soarin walked over to a nearby container and pulled out a suppressed AR-15.

"There's more where this came from."

He walked over to the nearby tent and flicked a flashlight into it. There were bodies scattered all over the inside, but there was no dead danger.

The tent was full of containers similar to the one beside us. As we opened them up, we saw enough weapons to support this entire neighborhood and then some.

"Jesus H," said Cloud. "There has to be enough here for everyone at the school. I mean, not that we're gonna give this to the kids, but..."

"The younger kids, no," I replied to him, "but the teens...?"

"No," Soarin almost instinctively said. "I'm not saying I don't trust them, but the leaders of the group are better off handling them."

"Obviously... for now. But when we can, we should train them."

The other leader, Flow, spoke up. "We can talk about this once we can get these back. Well, whatever we can get."

"We've still got some houses left, and we've still got hours of daylight. We can definitely get all this back home. The others are gonna flip."

"I think Twilight's gonna need an extra pair of hands for all the food," I joked.

"I'll help," Cloud added. "I never help her enough. Not sure what she'll be more: pissed or thrilled for all the food."

"Both."

He laughed. I didn't know Cloud most, be he definitely had a bright personality, that much I knew.

We spent the next several minutes collecting all the guns, having to go back a few times because there were so many to carry in both hands.

As we walked back on the first run, we informed the rest of the group of the rest of the stockpile and had them go back. In a few minutes, the tent was cleared of all guns, grenades, batons, and whatever we could.

In the right hands, we'd be safe. In the wrong hands, who knows?

Soon after, we did one more sweep to make sure we cleared out the entire neighborhood. Once that was out of the way, we got into our vehicles and drove off, leaving the Meadows behind in the dust.

But it brought up an idea in me.

"We should send people out here," I said to Soarin, who asked what I meant by that. "The neighborhood. Large, metal fence, one way in, a couple dozen houses... Infected won't be getting in there."

"We didn't close the gate, did we?"

"Oh... no." I shook it away. "It'll be fine. If they get in, it won't be much. They're all in the city at this point."

"Yeah... but for how long?"

The question brought up a point. There was no way there were any survivors left in downtown at this point. Sooner or later, they'd migrate outward. If they found the school as it is right now, before we can even get a wall up...

"We can use the neighborhood as a fall back point. If the school gets overrun, we can just head there."

"But will the houses be able to fit us all?"

"We can check later, if that's alright," I suggested, to which he nodded. "More safe places we have, the better, especially if things go south one place."

Soarin nodded again in agreement, never taking his eyes off the road. Occasionally, he would turn the car left and right, dodging wrecked or burnt-out vehicles from during the outbreak. As he drove on, I pulled out the piece of paper that Dash had given me yesterday, showing the places she wanted me to look in for a gift.

Soarin noticed pretty quick, however.

"We're pretty close to those places," he stated. "If you want, we can head there first before we get back."

I looked at him and gave him a smile. I was worried he would oppose it, but he knew Dash, at least enough to care about—

*HONK*

I looked in the side mirror, and saw the driver and passenger of the other car motioning for us to stop and look up.

"What, what do they want?" Soarin asked as I looked up in the sky. My face went shock blank.

"Stop the car."

Noticing my immediate change in tone, Soarin braked the truck, prompting the car behind us to stop too. Once the vehicles were completely still, me, Soarin, and everybody else looked up into the sky.

It didn't take long for the sound to echo in our ears—but the sight alone was enough to make Soarin question.

"Is... is that..."

We watched as the parachute opened beneath the plane, and a crate started its way to Earth.

"Yeah. It's a fucking airdrop."