Kit was drawing with Madzie when the cabin door opened up and his guardians stepped inside with a strange man. Instinctively, he edged closer to his sister while watching the man carefully as he moved from the doorway to the small couch in the middle of the room.

"Oh! Hello there," the man said to the kids. "I'm Underhill. What are your names?"

Kit scowled. "More importantly, who the hell are you?"

"Kit," Alec warned. "This man here says he has important info to tell us. We're all here to listen to what he has to say. Got it?"

Again, Kit scowled. "Got it. But he stays over there away from Madzie."

Underhill raised his hands and backed away from the kids. "You're the boss, little man."

Magnus put some tea on the stove while Underhill talked about his travels across the country for the past 6 years. He told them he was originally from the west coast and since the apocalypse started, travelled all across the country and visited various tourist locations.

"I stayed for three nights and three days at the Grand Canyon," he told them excitedly. He took a sip of tea and sighed at the memory. "It was beautiful. You could see the stars for miles away. Plus there wasn't a soul around so you hear the coyotes and crickets and everything nature had to offer."

"The Grand Canyon? Wasn't it cold at night?" Magnus asked, pouring Underhill, Alec and himself a cup of tea.

"I had my tent and a little fire going so it wasn't too bad," Underhill replied. He took another quick sip of tea while looking over at the kids. "Are they yours? Adopted?"

Alec shook his head. "No. It's a long story but we're their guardians more or less. But they aren't our kids."

"Ah," Underhill nodded. "I understand. I just figured that a beautiful couple such as yourselves would have beautiful children."

Kit's voice spoke up from the back of the room. "Are you going to give us the info or not?"

Magnus was about to retort when Underhill laughed. "Geez, I almost forgot! Yes. So the info you'll most definitely need is this: there's a massive horde of Forsaken headed this way so you might want to evacuate soon."

The room suddenly went quiet. Madzie had even stopped coloring to look at everyone else, probably wondering why it had gotten quiet. So to break the silence, she began to hum a song and click her crayons together.

"When you say massive horde," Magnus whispered, "how massive are you talking?"

Underhill did a mental count on his head. "I'd say about 150 or more. Can't be certain but it's a pretty big group. The most I've ever seen anyway."

Alec picked up the empty mugs and set them on the sink. "And you said they're headed in this direction?" Underhill nodded in response. "Alright. Then we need to move now-kids. Pack up your stuff. We're leaving the cabin as as soon we're good to go."

Madzie put down her crayons to cross her arms over her chest. "I don't want to go! I want to stay here!"

Alec knelt down beside her. "I know sweetie. But it's not safe here anymore. But I can promise you we'll find an even better place to live, okay? Maybe even a castle!"

Kit shot him a look that read "don't make promises that you can't keep". "Yeah. Alec's probably right. This cabin is pretty crappy anyway. Don't you want your own room where you don't have to share a bed with me?"

Madzie thought about it for a moment. "Fine. But if we find a pretty house I want my own room to sleep and play with my toys in."

Pleased with the outcome, Alec kissed her on the cheek. "That's a good girl. Now pack up your stuff. We'll leave as soon as everyone is ready."

Because they didn't have much to pack to begin with, the cabin was soon in their proverbial rearview mirror. Underhill said a quick goodbye and wished them all the best before parting ways.

"Who knows. Maybe we'll see each other again?" He said in a cheery voice.

"Yeah. Who knows. Good luck out there. Say hi to the biggest ball of yarn for me," said Alec, jokingly. "We owe you for giving us that intel back there-"

"Don't worry about it. We humans have to watch each other's backs if we want to survive out here. Consider it a gesture of goodwill."

It had been an hour since they went their separate ways. The horde that Underhill had mentioned merely loomed in the back of the small group's mind but never actually manifested itself in front of their eyes. Whether or not the zombies were far behind them, it was unclear. They just had to keep on moving.

"Do you think Underhill was telling the truth about the horde?" Magnus whispered when the kids wandered off a few feet ahead of them.

"I don't know what to think anymore, Magnus. He might've been but then if he wasn't and we had stayed, we would've risked the lives of the kids as well as our own."

Madzie laughed a few feet ahead of them when Kit made a frog sound and tried to do it herself, but couldn't due to her laughing so much. Blue Bell barked excitedly at the sound of her laughter and even tried to jump on her at one point to try and lick Madzie's face.

"You made the right choice regardless. Besides....it's better to keep moving than staying in one place for very long anyway," Magnus took Alec's hand and held it as they walked the dirt road together.

Alec squeezed the hand that held his. "So why did we stay at the farm for as long as we did?"

Shrugging, Magnus replied in a soft tone, "We had a good thing going at the farm. We knew we were safe and we had preparations in case something were to happen. Now we don't and everything just feels chaotic again. Like it did before."

Life at the farm seemed like eons ago when in reality it had only been a few days. Alec had done some thinking about the situation; Lorenzo was dead (but he never told the kids this and Magnus had his suspicions) so wouldn't the farm actually be safe for them again? He'd been thinking about this for days now and it seemed like their best option for the current predicament they were in. It had all the necessities; food, water, the animals (if they were still there) and a roof over their heads.

"You have that look in your eye again," said Magnus. "You know. The one you get when you're thinking really hard about something?"

Alec chuckled. "It's nothing. I was just thinking maybe we could go back to the farm. Shouldn't it be safe there now?"

Magnus looked up at him through a ray of sunshine. "I have no idea. But whatever you decide to do, I'll be right there beside you. Always."

A gag interrupted their private conversation. Kit was poking at a pile of dirt with his shoe while screwing his face in disgust. "Are you two going to kiss again? You're always kissing. It's gross."

"And you're always complaining," Magnus retorted. "It's irritating. Keep walking, sunshine. Or we might just leave you behind for the horde to munch on. They love pipsqueaks."

Kit shot him a look. "I'm not a pipsqueak!" he shouted, wincing when his voice noticeably cracked. "Ah shit. Wish my voice would decide whether or not I'm a boy or a man."

Alec smiled, draping an arm over the teen's shoulder. "Don't worry about it. Remember I said before that it'll settle soon enough? It's not forever."

Kit rolled his eyes. "I remember...."

They walked for another twenty minutes before stopping at a stream to refill their water bottles. Alec gulped down half his bottle before refilling it again. As he did so, he took the time to glance around at his surroundings to see if he could get some idea as to where they were. Trees, more trees, and a clear blue sky above them. There wasn't much to go on when everything looked the same.

"I wish we had a map or something. I hate going in misguided directions-not that you're misguiding us or anything. I just like knowing where I am," Magnus said once his water bottle was filled.

"Don't we all...." Alec muttered. "I don't remember coming this way when we left the farm."

Madzie tugged on his sleeve. "We followed the railroad tracks!"

Alec smiled. She had "wailwoad twacks" which was always cute when she mispronounced things. "We did, didn't we? Do you think you can find them again for us, little detective?"

Madzie giggled as Alec began to tickle her. "I'm not a detective! But I know we're not going the right way."

Kit poked her gently. "Spoken like a true sleuth. Even these two geniuses can see that we're lost."

"Oh?" Irritated, Magnus flicked Kit on the ear. "If you're so smart, lead the way to salvation, Great One. Clearly you know more than we do."

Kit clenched his jaw but didn't respond.

Magnus chuckled. "I didn't think so. Just have a little faith in us, kid. We won't lead you astray. Alright?"

This was enough for Kit to nod and adjust the backpack over his shoulders. He trusted Alec and Magnus; they did save him and his sister after all as well as fed them and clothed them like actual parents would do. Kit had almost forgotten what it was like to even have parents....

"Okay. We all set to go again? Madzie is your bottle filled up?" Alec knelt down and fixed her backpack. "There you go. Looks like we're good to go. We need to get a far enough distance from the horde and standing around isn't going to do us any good."

"How will you know we're far enough from the horde?" Kit asked.

Magnus took the liberty of answering this one. "When we're all still alive. That's how we'll know."

They walked some more. By this point Madzie had fallen to the ground in exhaustion so Magnus picked her up in his arms and carried her. She even fell asleep in his arms, cheek resting on his shoulder and snoring softly.

"She must be exhausted," Magnus whispered, being careful not to wake her up.

"We all are but we can't carry each other. At least not in the physical sense," Alec whispered back. "Kit here is too tall for me to carry-"

"And I'm not carrying you. So don't ask," mumbled Kit. "Can we stop and rest soon? I think I'm starting to get blisters on my feet."

"Blisters?" Alec quickly glanced down at the boy's feet. "Sit down. I'll take a look."

Kit snorted. "I'm not letting you look at my feet let alone touch them. You could be one of those foot freaks."

This made Magnus laugh out loud. "Oh yeah that's Alec all right. He loves feet. Don't even get him started on toes-"

"I don't like feet!" Alec exclaimed. "Just sit down and let me see if you have any blisters or not. I have a cream that you can put on yourself if you do."

Kit did indeed have blisters. His shoes must've been rubbing up against his skin while they were walking and caused them to form. Every time Alec would turn his foot to get a better look at them, Kit would flinch in pain.

"Yup. Those are blisters alright. Why didn't you tell me that you were hurting earlier? Also, your shoes are a size too small. You failed to mention that too."

Kit shrugged. "I didn't think it was that big of a deal."

Alec shook his head while he took out the cream from his backpack. "Yeah well....look what happened. You gave yourself sores. Put this on and put a band-aid on over it. They might pop by themselves over time. If not we'll have to pop them ourselves."

"Ew!" Madzie said once she saw the sores on her brother's feet. "That's yucky, Kit! Put your shoes back on!"

Adjusting her on his shoulder, Magnus smirked. "Look who's awake! Did your brother's smelly feet wake you up?"

She giggled and hugged his neck. "No. But I do smell something bad. Did someone break open an egg?"

The group sniffed the air. A smell that was even worse than rotten eggs wafted through the air around them. It was like something died and was rotting right in front of them but there wasn't anything near them. No animal corpse. Nothing. Just the smell of something absolutely acrid.

"Fuck. What is that?" Magnus said through a gag.

"I swear to god it's not me," Kit covered his nose with his shirt. "My eyes are literally burning out of my head right now. Is something dead around us?"

There was only one thing that could've made this powerful stench and Alec knew just what it was. "Forsaken. We're close to the horde."

"How is that possible? We had plenty of headway." Magnus glanced frantically around them, instinctively clutching Madzie closer to him. "Unless they were riding bicycles there's no way they could've caught up to us."

Kit turned to look at Alec. "What about the smart ones? I heard you mention them to Magnus before. Is it possible that these are the ones you came across a while ago?"

Before Alec could answer, a low but all too familiar growl reached them from within the forest. It grew louder with each second. Alec knew they had to run but his body and mind were too in shock to even move.

"Alexander. We need to move. Now." Alec wouldn't move, so Magnus had to shake him to his senses again. "Alec! Come on. We have to get out of here."

Alec snapped back to attention. "Right. Sorry. We got to move. Come on, kids. Time to move fast." He looked down at Kit. "Can you run if we have to?"

Kit quickly slipped his shoes back on as if to prove his point. "Do I have any other choice?"

He didn't, and they were soon racing through the woods with the wind at their backs. Growls broke out from somewhere behind them but the group didn't dare look over their shoulders to see; though Alec had a sneaking suspicion that these Forsaken weren't the normal slow ones that everyone seemed to have gotten used to over the years. These were faster, stronger and knew what they were doing.

"Keep running! And don't look back!" Magnus called out from the front of the group. Madzie bounced in his arms as he ran and Alec was close enough to see the tears streaming down her little cheeks in fright.

The trees eventually dispersed to reveal a raging river. The roar of it alone was loud enough to drown out the sound of the undead behind them but it wasn't enough to keep them from coming closer.

"How the fuck are we supposed to get across?!" Kit yelled over the roar of the water below.

Alec tried to focus on everything around him but it was hard to even hear his own thoughts from the crashing of the river, Kit cursing and Madzie's heavy sobs-but then he saw it. "There! We'll use that log as a bridge!"

As convenient as it was, a large fallen over tree stretched across from one side of the river to the other, creating a makeshift bridge. It wasn't exactly safe but it was their only way of getting to the other side.

Magnus crossed first. He was careful where he walked because there were odd branches sticking out here and there. Once across, he yelled, "It's stable! Just be careful of the branches!"

Alec turned to look at Kit. "You go. I'll stay here and cover you until you're across."

"What?! No! You'll get yourself killed!" Very unlike himself, Kit gripped Alec's arm and tugged on it. "Cross with me. The log should be strong enough-"

"You're wasting time! Just go!" Alec yelled.

Tears that Alec had never seen before ran down Kit's face. He stepped up on he log and he was just beginning to cross when a dozen or so Forsaken made themselves visible from the tree line.

The bow Alec had been gripping so tightly in his hands raised with an arrow notched back in it. It released and an arrow whizzed out, getting a zombie right between the eyes. It collapsed immediately to the ground.

He was about to shoot another arrow when a cry grabbed his attention. He turned just in time to see Kit stumble halfway across the log and fall into the rushing waters beneath him. His head was just barely visible above the water as Alec watched in utter horror when he was swept away down the river.

"KIT!" Alec yelled. His body reacted out of pure instinct; he dove into the icy cold water after the boy, who was much too far ahead to be reached but that didn't stop him from jumping in anyway. He heard Magnus scream in protest but anything after that fell on deaf ears as the only sound he heard was the angry roar of the river.

Kit was just barely visible ten feet ahead of him. Try as he may, Alec pumped his arms and tried to swim to him. Exhaustion was quick to take over so he just allowed himself to go with the flow-

"Ungh!" He grunted just as something sharp and jagged hit him on the forehead. His vision was quickly fading, slowly sinking under the dark depths of the water. He pictured Magnus with a terrified look on his face and wanted to apologize so badly....

And that was the last thing he remembered.

A/N: I think if the first seven chapters were an episode of The Walking Dead, this is where I would want the episode to end. It's a fantastic cliffhanger and it definitely leaves people with wanting more. So I'm pleased with how the first seven turned out.

So the next bit of storyline is going to be a little different. I can't say too much about it because I want it to be a surprise. It's not a big difference (I think) but it's going to be a promising change from how the story was written before.

Hope you're enjoying it so far!