Roy rushed into the building like an idiot.

"Roy!" John yelled, following quickly behind him.

The glass from the broken door crunched under our feet as we ducked under the metal bar of the door. There was no one in the entrance, alive or otherwise. I heard Roy gasp and ran down the hall to the rec-room.

"Bailey, maybe you should stay there," John instructed, holding his arm out.

I pushed his arm away and turned the corner. Blood, copious amounts of it, was the first thing I saw. Blood was sprayed all over the walls like an unfinished morbid mural. The source: the fallen bodies sprawled around the room. But there were no ragged infected among the bodies.

"This was done by people," John muttered as he kneeled down to look at one of the fallen elderly ladies. "They've been either shot in the head or butchered with what looks like machetes judgin' from the wounds."

"Holy shit," was my reply.

The image of the family I found back at the hardware store when I was with Chloe came to mind. Gore and carnage not at the hands of the infected. In a roundabout way, the infected were to blame. If they hadn't taken over, this probably wouldn't have happened. But more concerning, was thinking about who was directly to blame for this. Was this the work of the mercenaries? Why would they have come back? To avenge Tim?

There was a thud from the floor above us and Roy took off up the stairs. We rushed right behind him, John yelling at Roy to slow down. The hallway on the second floor was empty except for the body lying in the doorway of one of the apartments. The thud sounded again, louder this time, from one of the rooms at the end of the hall. Before Roy could sprint away, John latched onto Roy's shoulder.

"Listen, we don't know what's in there. For all we know, whoever did this, could still be in there. Calm. Down," John demanded.

Roy shook off John's grasp, but didn't immediately take off. Carefully, we made our way to the closed door with our weapons raised.

"Roy, you open the door and get outta the way. I'll stand in front with my rifle ready to go," John instructed.

Roy nodded and put his back flush against the wall beside the door. He reached for the knob and quickly shoved the door open. John took a step towards the entrance. Nothing flew out of the room; no bullets sailed through the air. But banging started from inside the apartment.

John jerked his head, motioning for me to follow. He entered the room, checking all the corners for movement. I felt like we were a SWAT team sweeping a drug den. I could hear the noise coming from behind one of the bedroom doors.

John reached shoved open the door and backed up, only to have the door slammed shut again.

"There must be an infected in there," John said as he readied his gun to shoot.

"Wait! What if it's not an infected? Just some scared person?" I asked.

John clearly didn't think that was the case, but he listened to me anyways.

"If anyone is in there, identify yourself," John yelled.

All we got for an answer was harder rattling against the inside of the door.

"I don't think the thing in there is alive," John said. "I'm gonna open it and hold the infected between the door and the wall. You go in and shoot it."

I nodded just as he placed his hand back on the knob and burst through the door. I ran in right behind him and went a few feet into the room. The light was dull and only coming from the window, but I could see the infected squished behind the door, its grabbing hands swinging at me. Its teeth ground together as it struggled to free itself from John's trap. I raised my Beretta and shot it in the forehead.

"Come on," John said.

I rushed back out, catching a glimpse of the bloody bed sheets before John let the door slide shut from the falling dead body.

"Looks like they missed the brain with her," I said.

"Where'd Roy go?" John asked as he stepped out into the hallway.

"God dammit," I hissed. "He probably went to check the other floors."

We ran up the rest of the stairs to find Roy coming out of one of the top floor rooms.

"They're all dead," he said to no one in particular.

Neither John nor I knew what to say to that.

"Did you see Elaine or Mac?" I asked.

Roy just shook his head.

I ran back down the stairs to the apartment Mac used as his kitchen. The fridge door was wide open and all the cupboards had been cleaned out. A drawer full of cutlery was tossed all over the cheap linoleum floor, a bloody butcher knife among the mix. But Mac wasn't in here nor was there a body. I backed out and ran down to Elaine's office. John met me at the door.

"What did I say about runnin' off?" John said angrily. "Who knows who could be in there."

"You find Mac?" Roy asked.

I shook my head, "No, there's just a mess in his kitchen, but no body."

I gently pushed open the medical office and found it ransacked. All the shelves had been picked clean, even the ambulance stretcher was gone. I spotted a pair of white running shoes sticking out from behind the desk. Slowly, I approached the metal desk. Elaine was lying face down behind it, a massive bloody crater adorning the back of her head.

"Looks like a shotgun wound," John said.

I lowered my gun and took a deep breath. Seeing dead bodies was one thing, but seeing the dead body of a friend was... different somehow. It was like you realized your own mortality that much more if you knew the person. It hit closer to home.

"What should we do with all the bodies?" Roy asked, kicking at the floor.

"We don't have the time to bury 'em all," John said.

"We burn them," I said.

"I dunno 'bout that, Bailey," John said hesitantly.

"Well between the three of us we can't bury them all and we're sure as hell not just leaving them like this," I argued.

"They deserve to be put to rest," Roy added.

I wasn't sure if burning the place was putting them to rest, but it was the best solution I could think of. I wouldn't want my body left to rot.

John sighed, "Alright, but we gotta give the place one last sweep to make sure there's no one alive in here before we set fire to the buildin'."

None of us wanted to tour the horrific sights again, but we couldn't just assume everyone was dead. For all we knew, someone was hiding out in a closet or something.

"Any way to tell when this happened?" I asked.

We had only been gone less than five days.

"The smell ain't that bad, and the bodies aren't that decayed. I'd say it happened somewhere between twelve and five hours ago," John said.

"If we had stayed, maybe we could have done something," Roy muttered.

"Or you'd be lyin' right alongside the rest of 'em," John said bluntly.

Roy's face scrunched up and I punched John in the arm. It was rough on me to see everyone massacred, but Roy had been with them for a long time before they voted him off the island. This had to be ten times harder on him.

We hurried through the apartment building one last time. Our search was fruitless, not one person was left alive. Some people had even been shot in their beds, while others were crouched in closets shot while trying to hide. Whoever did this swept the entire building, purposely looking to kill. This wasn't a raid for supplies, it was a massacre. The sight of one of the elderly ladies wrapped around one of the young kids huddled in the bathtub, both shot dead, was something that wouldn't be leaving me any time soon.

Back down stairs we re-grouped, all with the same morose expression.

"Alright, let's get one of the gas canisters," John said.

"Will one be enough?" I asked as we exited back through the busted door.

I wasn't surprised to see the arsenal that was normally locked up by the entrance, empty. With a lighter and gas can in hand, John went back inside leaving us with the instruction to stay by the car.

Roy and I stood in silence, absorbing all the things we had seen, until he finally spoke up.

"So you never spotted Mac?"

"No."

"Maybe he got away."

"I hope so."

"You think the mercenaries did this?"

"I have no idea. But if it was, why would they have come back?"

Roy shrugged, "Maybe they were here for me."

I turned to look at him, "Why would you say that?"

"I killed Tim."

"They wouldn't know that unless there was another mole to tell them," I pointed out.

"Well, why else would someone do this?" Roy asked, his voice pained.

It was human nature to rationalize actions. That was the basis of Psychology; why people did the things they do. But sometimes there wasn't an answer and my guess is that we would never get one.

John came running out, flames already starting behind him.

"We just need to make sure it catches and then we need to take off," he huffed out of breath.

"You want to fire up that trucker's radio while we wait?" I asked Roy. "Tim was able to reach them from here."

Roy shoved himself from the side of the car and dug into the open trunk. He placed the black box on the rooftop and flicked it on. It was already on the channel it needed to be.

Roy pressed the button, "Hello."

We waited for an answer.

"Hello, can anyone read me?" Roy asked again.

The radio crackled before a voice came through.

"Who's this?"

All of turned to look at the radio.

"Who's this?" Roy countered.

"I don't have time for this shit. You lookin' for Shawn?" the radio asked.

"I'm looking for my wife you asshole, I know your group took her," Roy spat into the talk piece.

"Way to go, Liam Neeson," I glared. "You could have started with something less antagonizing."

There was no immediate reply and I motioned to the box as if saying, "See."

Harsh laughter echoed from the radio. "You don't know shit, pal. What don't you tell me where you're at and we can talk this through?"

John grabbed Roy's arm, "Don't you dare tell 'em where we are."

"I'm not stupid." Slowly, Roy brought the talking-piece back to his mouth. "Why don't you tell me where you are, so we can come to you? We got your ID digits working so you must be nearby."

We waited for a reply. There was no way we would just march into their lair. I did that once before at the police station and won't be doing it ever again. John gave me a pointed look. He must have been thinking the same thing.

The eerie laughter returned. "Come and find me if you can." Then nothing.

"Hello?" Roy tried again and again, but the guy had tuned out.

"Fuck!" Roy slammed down the radio talk piece and stepped away from the car.

"You sure these are the guys who took your wife?" John asked calmly.

"Wyatt's scribbler had the same eye and hand symbol by the RFID tag as the ones who attacked the apartment," I answered for Roy who was fuming not-so-quietly.

John sighed, "I admit that's pretty damn suspicious, be we can't just go stormin' their gate by ourselves."

"Wyatt's got to be in cahoots with them, so we won't be getting any help from Hargrove," I said.

"I'll go myself then," Roy said through a stiff jaw.

I walked right up to him, "Who will take care of Amanda when you die, and you will die. I'm sure as hell done with my babysitting days."

It was harsh and made me sound like an insensitive asshole, but Roy needed to hear it.

"What would you do if it was Ethan?" Roy countered.

"Well, we don't have the history that you and your wife do, but I'd want him back. I would just be smart about it," I said, although I couldn't be sure how I would react.

Spewing advice was easy, taking your own advice was hard.

"How about we do some more recon? I happen to have some experience in that," John offered.

Roy crossed and uncrossed his arms, "You'd help me?"

"Of course," John nodded, the brim of his cowboy hat briefly covering his eyes. "Family is all we got. Blood or not."

John wrapped his arms around my shoulders. I had to blink away the tears that his statement brought to my eyes. We were family now; always will be.