Since Jack and I were 19 and didn't have licenses, we had to be split up. Don't judge us. We just never saw a reason for it. Jack went with Bach since they have a bit of history together. I ended up in a group of three with Matt and Curtis. Since we all agreed it was a bad idea to go alone. This however limited the places we could go. Potentially reducing time we need to get out of the city. First stop the Camping equipment store. We need to get some basic survival equipment.

We chose to take the Toyota. Jack and Bach choose to take a Jeep Wrangler. I laughed a little as I sat on the floor of the Toyota, as the guys started the car up. Matt looks at me through the mirror. "What's so funny, Adeline?" Matt asks me. Without missing a beat, I look up and say, "I thought we were going 'camo'. Like don't draw too much attention to us?" Matt turn in his chair to face me. "Of course we are, what's that suppose to mean?" Matt asks me. Light shining through the window and into the car, it reflected off Matt's face. Showing off a shine of some strange emotion.

"It means a almost brand new Toyota and Jeep are going to draw attention to us straight way. It's huge and it's so clean we can use it as a mirror. We need to dirty the car up a little or something. Even a freshly cleaned car isn't this clean." I state. Matt looks over at Curtis.

Curtis holding the same harden face. the car come to a stop at the gate we jumped to get in. Curtis turns off the car. "Adeline, get out. I'm going to need some help." He says to me as he opens the door of the car. I open the door of the car. A wave of confusion rushes over me. He walks over to the trees near by and picks up a hand full of dirt.

"Come on now. We need to dirty the outside of the car a little" Curtis says as he chucks the hand full of dirt at me. I quickly moving out of the way. Barely dodging the dust of dirt. Matt laughs at our childish behaviour of chucking dirt at each other. Bach parks the car near by nd opens the window up.

"Hey, what are you guys doing?" Bach says to us. Matt carefully avoids the two child-like adults and walks up to the jeep leaning up on it watching us. Inaudibly from the two dirt covered adults and conversation is shared. As if on cue Jack and Bach begin to throw small handfulls of dirt at their car. Matt stops Curtis' and Adeline's little dirt fight, somehow. "Alright you two. We didn't need that much dirt." Matt says as he gets into the driver's seat. "Let's go everyone.Curtis pass me the keys. I'll drive." Matt continues. Holding his hands out waiting for the keys.

Curtis drops the keys into Matt's hands and wipes off the invisible dirt from his clothes. I open the back door and resume my position of sitting on the floor. Wiping bits of dust off, dirtying the inside of the car a little. Matt starts the car and opens the window. He proceeds to stick his head out and yell out to Bach and Jack, "Hey, you guys I thinks that's enough let's go!" Matt drives slowly towards the gates. Curtis standing by the already open gates, waiting to be picked up.

What the hell? Why did we jump the gate if the doors were open?

Even if it wasn't open, Bach could've opened it.

I didn't need to jump and get this scratch on my face! Thank god, it stop bleeding already.

The two cars travel a couple of kilometres down the road from the factory. They proceed to enter the camping store. Empty, almost. A couple of people here and there, rushing to get away. The five of them enter the store and split up throughout the store. Me and Jack on communication duty. Bach and Curtis on weapons duty. Matt on food duty. The sounds of mayhem slowly increases with every minute they are there. "Sounds like people are setting their priorities like us." Adeline whispers to Jack. The pair crouched in the aisle trying to avoid any trouble. Jack picks up a rogue basket and hands it to Adeline to place the three set of walkie-talkies into it.

Jack shuffles closer to Adeline and whispers, "Let's grab some backpacks while we are here. Then we bolt to the front of the store. Then hopefully to the car with the others." Adeline nods her head and crawls towards the end of the aisle towards the backpacks. A body flies across their view. Common sense returns once again to Adeline. She stands up and runs towards the body. Only to be stopped by Jack. "Stop you pleb, that's a gang member couldn't you see the colour of their clothes and the tattoo?" Jack whispers into her ear, pulling her back into the aisle. "Adeline, stay here. I'll be less than meter away grabbing some packs okay?" Jack says staring her in the face. He let's her go and carefully walks over to the packs.

The sounds of arrows being shot fills the air. Scream of pain follow not longer after. Adeline opens her previously closed eye to check on Jack. He's fine luckily, running towards her five backpacks on his back, arms open. Ready to scoop her and the basket up. He lift her with ease and continues to run towards the entrance. Everyone is there holding the door open for everyone, especially Jack and Adeline.

Bach and Curtis holding bows and arrows. Matt holding a couple of fishing rods and bait. All of them holding the doors with one hand and their equipment in the other. "Let's go you two! We can't hold these and stop the arrows." Curtis yells. Jack sprints a little fast towards the door. Being careful to avoid arrows. The moment they pass through the doors, the group lets go of the doors and run towards the car.

At the end of the parking lot, they see everyone leaving getting ready to leave the city. They near the cars more and more. All the cars near by are gone and left with and without their owners. A small group of people are surrounding the Toyota and the Jeep. Not much equipment on them same as us just with a smaller amount. Adeline and her group slow to a stop trying to avoid being spotted. Jack places her down. They split the equipment up preparing to ambush their attempted thieves. Adeline steps away from their hiding spot first.

Bow at the ready she yells out, "BACK AWAY FROM THE CAR!" Fear overwhelming the attempted thieves they immediately kneel to the ground and whimper in fear. Matt and Bach open the boots of the car. Jack jumps in the Toyota and sits on the floor equipment in hand. Matt starts the Toyota up. Bach starting the Jeep, Curtis in the passenger seat. Adeline grabs the hand of one of the near by thieves. "Hurry up and get in we don't have all day, half of you need to get into the jeep." Adeline says as she practically throws the person into the boot of the Toyota with Jack.

The group of four split up two in each car. Five are now in the Toyota. Four in the Jeep. Between our original group the walkie-talkies are split before heading to the next destination, the 'Market'. After talking for a short while the two that were in the Toyota explains that hey were just a group of friends whole thought they were unstoppable and tried to immediately take down the oncoming gangs.

With the situation they are in now they clearly failed. Apparently they were a group of five like us. But one of them was killed a couple of hours ago. One of the gangs had found them and lead them to that camping store, keeping them captive.

They escaped, not without a bit of a massacre though. The psychos claimed the camping store as theirs. So they stole some of the bow and arrows and shot a couple before running out towards our cars. "Okay neat story and all but you still haven't told us your names." Matt says from the driver's seat. "Oh yeah, I'm Michael and that's Zelda. The other two were Kat and Peter." Michael says.

"That's nice and all but I need to ask you guys to pull your weight." Adeline says. "No offence or anything. Just with the fact you guys immediately dropped to the ground without even looking at me when I called out.." Adeline immediately says, slowly drifting off. "Oh no it's okay, I guess we do kinda deserve the title of cowards." Zelda says in a saddened tone. The pair hold their breath, embarrassment washing over them. "You're not cowards. You're reasonable. Fighting back would have caused death. Especially if it wasn't us." Jack says to Michael and Zelda.

The car stops at the far end of the car park once again. People rushing at from the large building labeled Costco. Bach and Curtis agree to stay with Peter and Kat to avoid any more thieves. The rest of us prepare for the battle ahead. We hold our bows, arrow in and ready.

We rushing towards the entrance and push in a cart. "Jack and Michael, grab as much water as possible. The rest of us will head towards the long lasting foods." Jack and Michael nod and push their trolley toward the liquids. Adeline kneels in the seat of the trolley bow ready to shoot anyone that came too close. Matt pushing and Zelda sitting in the front pushing everything into the trolley. We swing by the first aid area and grab a couple of kits and alcohol.

Silence enters our ears. The place has finally cleared out. Night time was nearly upon us. The last of the people are peaceful and and just attempting to get what's left. We nod our head as a sign of peace between us and others. Bodies lay on the floor. Gun shots, knives and arrows wounds in their body. We spent hours in here, the others must be bored.

The sound of a car engine enters our ears. It is a weak sound, as if it is purposely riding slowly. The hood of a familiar Toyota enters or view at the end of the isle . Slowly followed by the Jeep. We rush towards it. Jack and Michael passing through the clothes aisle, towards the cars, just like us. I turn to face Matt shooting at the people rushing us. What happen to the peace there was a second ago?

I don't want to hurt any of you I'm sorry.

Why am I continuing?

I should be looking out for my family and friends.

I know so little about everyone.

The boot of the Toyota opens revealing Kat. I make a risky move of standing on the top of the Toyota and shooting at people practically piling to reach us. Curtis on the Jeep doing the same and shooting at people.

Voices echo through our walkie-talkies, which we had clipped to our shirts/pants loop, "Everything is pack, you guys think you can hang tight and protect the stuff till we exit the building?" Curtis and I look at each other and nod, kneeling down, still shooting. "Yeah we're good, let's go!" I say in the walkie, banging on the top of the Toyota.

The engines rev and we fly towards the exit. I shoot at people running at us. Some of them hit but most are just close. The top of the door won't accommodate me kneeling on top of this, I need to lay on my stomach. I take my last shot, the. At the very last second I lay down. Curtis following my lead.

We travel out of the city and towards the suburbs. It's a pure night. Not a cloud in the sky and not a single light on in the street. The devastation hasn't spread very fast. It will soon. More gangs will form. I look down at the Jeep behind me. Kat driving the Jeep. Bach probably driving the Toyota. I stare at the stressed looking Kat. Her group has one dead. The were quiet meek, so it's not impossible for them to be kidnaped... Something just doesn't add up. I look at my watch. 9:30pm. Ha, my childhood nap time..."Hey guys, you guys wanna stop by my house? It's not much but it'll be safe, it's pretty far out. It's near the edge of the area." I say into the Walkie. "I'm down with that plan, just guide us from the top." Bach says through the walkie.

After a couple of minutes we reach my house. A small double story house. Faded bricks, slightly overgrown bushes at the front. The front of the house facing the never ending plain of houses. Like I said before, it's not much. nothing too special about it. I ask the guys to just wait in the car while I double check the place. Walking up to the front door something seems wrong. The cars are here, but you can't seem to hear the TV. I guess that's kind of normal though. With all the gangs all around.

I reach my hand up to the door and knock. Something seems off and opening the door right away, doesn't seem right. Again though I guess that's normal. I place a arrow into the bow. Aimed downwards but in a position to shoot quickly.

A stranger opens the door. Eating a bag of chips. The moment they see me, their eyes open and the slam the door on me. I signal to the guys to stay where they are. I can hear they doors of the cars slam miles away. I shout out, trying not to put too much attention on myself, "STOP! WATCH THE CAR! I'M DEALING WITH THIS ALONE!" 

Why on Earth would you say you will handle this alone? 

Someone has to protect the weapons and the cars.

Emphasis on ONE, ask half the group to come.

How about no, let's not risk more lives, you've killed and injured enough today.

Let's take care of the strangers in the house.

Thank you crappy door installers for the shitty doorframe because I can now do this.

I kick at the hinges of the door. Busting it wide open and knocking over the stranger that opened the door. I pause at the door way for a second. If there's one person there's probably more. A knife flies past me. A gasp follows not long after.