By the time our scavenging trip rolled around, I felt ready to go. Some normality was just what I needed and Ethan's date night really helped. That next morning, we were met with a set of grinning friends prying for details. Zoe still hadn't let up, swooning over Ethan's romantic set up. It kind of felt like she was jealous, since Darren would never do anything like that.

Speak of the devil. I looked out the condo window to see the truck pull up. Darren had gotten up early to pack up the massive truck for our scavenging trip before he came to get me. We would have enough weapons, food and ammo to last a couple of days in case we had to stay away for an extended time. All of our friends were crowded into the small living room for another round of farewells.

John was pacing, nervous about letting me go out. He had another group of training to do. Even though he and Grant had their little spat, they were still being adult about it and running the gun training together. Zoe was playing with the silver necklace around her neck and Ethan was practically pulling out his hair as he sat on the edge of the couch. He was lucky the old lady who had owned this condo didn't put plastic on the furniture, he would have slid straight off. Chloe had given me the matching pirate hat she made because she said we were like real pirates plundering treasure. Not that we'd be hitting up banks for gold bars, but still, it was nice of her.

Oddly enough, I was quite relaxed. I had a few days to recover from my break down, of sorts, and was looking forward to putting it behind me. However, the ever-growing concern the mercenaries posed, was in the back of my mind. I couldn't just forget about what happened, I needed to stay alert and keep an eye out for signs of them on the road.

"Well, my rides here." I opened the door and walked to the truck with my backpack over my shoulder. Everyone followed me out.

Darren had gotten out and was currently being hugged and kissed to death by Zoe. She then came over to me and wrapped me in a big hug.

She spoke quietly into my ear, "I know you've been having a rough time. When you come back we're going to have a night where it's just you, me, bad movies and tequila, okay?"

"Sounds like university all over again." I grinned.

The next bear hug came from Ethan and a kiss.

"You be safe, okay? We got date number two next."

I raised a brow at that. "Is it going to top a lovely dinner and movie night?"

"You'll see." Ethan winked, finally releasing me from our hug.

It felt like I was going away to war and everyone was giving me their last goodbye. When we had gone earlier in the week, our farewell hadn't gone like this. Maybe they were worried because of my episode.

John was the last in line, giving me a tight hug.

"When you get back I expect a long talk; you hear?"

"I promise, but it might have to wait until after girl's night."

He placed my head in his hands and kissed my forehead in a very fatherly way.

"Be safe."

I tossed my backpack into the back seat and hefted myself into the passenger's side. The truck had a lift kit on it, making the jump in take more effort than most.

"You ready?" Darren asked.

"As much as I can be."

So I left the gates of Hargrove for a second time in a week. We didn't say much as we started into the city, avoiding infected.

"How far out do you think we need to go?" I asked.

"Until we find a place that's less likely to have been raided already."

"So way further out, then?"

"You got it."

"You get that chicken feed location from Byron?"

"Got the map in my bag some of the seed and feed stores circled. I figure we'll head in that general direction and stop anywhere that looks good along the way."

We returned to silence. Since the truck was lifted, the infected hit the deer guard on the front and easily bounced underneath the truck. Having this much clearance was perfect.

We passed a McDonald's and my mouth began to water.

"I'd kill for a Big Mac," I drooled.

"Kill, eh?" Darren raised a brow.

I froze as I realized what I had said. "It's a figure of speech. I didn't mean literally."

"I know that. It's just, you've seemed a little bit different since you arrived. Like the way you reacted when Chloe brought up you having a bruised neck. I don't really buy the whole you falling down some stairs story, by the way."

I sucked in a breath. Darren sure picked up on a lot of things, especially when you didn't want him to.

I wiped at some imaginary dirt on my pants. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"You can tell me. I won't judge."

When I said nothing in response, he sighed. "Fine."

We sat in silence for an awkward pause before I turned to him.

"You remember us telling you about that guy who held us prisoner at the police station?"

"Riley?"

I nodded and the words rushed from my lips, "Well he found me at the medic center I was raiding for antibiotics. He tried to kill me, but I killed him first. That's where I got the bruises on my neck. And when we were at the apartments I stabbed one of my would-be kidnappers in the lung and he died choking on his own blood," I had to stop to take a breath, "then when I was on that return run two days ago with John and Roy, I had to shoot two more of those asshole mercenaries."

Darren let my confession hang in the air for a bit before he finally piped in.

"You did what you had to. Don't you dare be ashamed of that. All those people had it coming. it's not like you went after them; they came after you."

After all this time struggling with the fact that I had killed actual human beings, it was a huge relief to hear someone say that. I turned to look out my window and tried to inconspicuously wipe away the tear that had managed to slip down my cheek. I had held onto that burden for so long, it was eating away at me like a parasite and for some reason I found it easier to tell Darren all this. I had ample time to tell my friends, but for some reason I just couldn't get the words out. I could just see John frowning because I opened up to Darren instead of him, even after sharing his war story.

Darren turned the truck abruptly, ruining my moment of tranquility. I had to brace myself on the center console to stop my ribs from becoming better acquainted with the hard unit.

"What the hell, Darren?" I demanded.

"We're taking a little detour," was all he said.

I looked around the area, spotting the road sign claiming that the college campus was five miles down the road.

"To the college?" I asked. "No way, I've done my time."

He shot me a grin, "We can hit up the dorms. Most stores in the city have already been picked clean, so we need to find places that people wouldn't have thought of at first."

"All we'd find, if we found anything at all, would be Cheetos and ramen noodles," I pointed out.

"Better than no food. If broke college students can live off of it, then so can we."

I had no response to that.

The campus was rather big and the college itself was a dated set of dark brown buildings.

"Which of these buildings are the dorms?" I asked. All the structures looked the same to me.

"Don't know. Once we get close enough, we can look in the doors."

Darren drove up over the curb, the suspension groaning with the effort and pulled up to the first set of doors. The lifted truck was also good for running over curbs. There was a group of infected hanging off to one side like a clique of smokers at a high school. We got out of the truck as they started towards us. I lifted my loaded Beretta and took out the five of them, with precise and silent shots.

"I have to say, I did not expect you to turn out to be a good shot."

I glared at him. "Rude."

He just grinned as he hefted his backpack on. I made sure to grab my own, the extra bullets jingling at the bottom. All we needed now was a handful of two hundred dollar textbooks that we wouldn't crack open until midterms, to complete the college freshman look.

Darren approached the double doors and looked in.

"I think this is the classrooms. Let's try the next one."

We jogged over to the next building, dispatching the other infected roused by our presence. Darren looked in the grimy new set of doors, and then pulled it open.

"I take it this is the dorms?"

"I can't know for sure, but it looks like it."

We rushed into the lobby area with our guns at the ready only to be met with another set of doors that wouldn't open.

"You brought an axe right?" Darren turned to me.

"Yeah."

So we went back outside to grab the axe, presumably to break the glass interior doors. More infected had gathered on the grounds like we had announced there would be free beer. Darren unlocked the truck and yanked out my trusty axe. I had to take out an infected that had snuck around the truck, lunging at us from the grill. It fell face first onto the ground by Darren's feet.

"We're gonna be surrounded soon," I said nervously as I looked around at all the infected closing in on us.

The city population of infected was far more than out at the cabin or even the small towns we had been to. Kind of seemed like a bad place to be at the moment, like getting caught in dark alley at night.

"Come on," Darren spurred me on and together we ran back to the doors.

He swung with brute force at an infected that now stood in front of the doors. Decayed skin was splayed all over the door and the pinging sound of teeth hitting the glass rang out. Darren had hit the thing so hard that half of its face was now decorating the glass; but it still stirred from its new spot on the ground.

Darren loomed over it and used the blunt end of the axe to crush in the infected's skull. It cracked like clay pot and stopped moving. He shoved the body out of the way and we re-entered the building just as a bunch more infected made it to the sidewalk a few meters away. I didn't want to use any bullets unless I absolutely had to.

"How do we keep these doors shut?" I asked.

Through the thin rectangular window in one of the doors, I could see the infected closing in.

"Hold this." Darren passed me the axe and ripped into his backpack.

He produced some black zip-ties, using them to bind together the two doors handles.

"You're really prepared," I said, slightly impressed.

Darren just nodded at my compliment and took the axe back. The infected had now reached the double doors and started to scrape along the giant wooden doors. I was having a flashback to the time we were in Walmart.

"We need to get out of their sightline so they calm down." Darren grabbed my shoulder to get me moving.

"You think they're attracted to movement?"

"Movement and sound, I think. Not like I really want to test that theory, though."

We passed the cubby-holes filled with undelivered mail and I guessed we had chosen the right building after all. Darren pointed to the sign on the ceiling.

"Cafeteria first."

After following the arrows and signs, we arrived at the cafeteria entrance. The metal doors were wide open and the inside resembled a food court with fast-food booths lining the walls and tables bolted to the floor.

"Man, this place puts my school to shame," I muttered.

"Maybe we'll find something still good inside these places. I'll take the right side, you take the left."

I nodded and pointed to the still full vending machines near us. "And we can grab all that on our way out too." Not that chocolate bars and chips were a great choice, but it beat nothing.

We broke apart and started our search and seize mission. There was an infected in a school hoodie sitting in one of the plastic chairs and as I passed by it stirred, reaching towards me. Out of instinct, I slapped the boney hand away from me. I looked down in horror at my hand and quickly wiped my palm on my pants.

"Ew, ew, ew. So much ew."

The infected decided to get up instead. The hoodie it was wearing hung on its emaciated form like a really ugly dress that was three sizes too big. I took a few steps back and shot it in the head, seeing as Darren still had my axe. It was jolted backwards, landing back in the chair limp and relaxed.

There were a few other infected stationed all over the cafeteria, but not so many as to be an issue. I would deal with them when I had to. There was no sense in possibly wasting ammo trying to aim from here.

I leaned over a counter of the Subway booth, making sure nothing was hiding on the other side. Looping a leg over, I jumped to the other side. There was a display of chips and a cooler full of bottled pop and water. I looked around hoping to find bags to load up, but all I found were the extremely unhandy sub bags.

After taking off my backpack, I opened it to fish out the empty plastic grocery bags we had been sent with. They were light, took up very little room and would work well. I got to work filling what I thought we could use. Two full grocery bags later, I placed them on the counter.

All the bread and meats had gone really bad. The trays of condiments were covered in a greenish film of fuzz. There was a door leading to a small backroom, but the smell alone made me stay away. I figured maybe the taco stand would have tortilla chips that we could still use, so I hopped back over to check out the other booth.

It turns out the taco stand had a bunch of supersized bags of corn chips under the counter that were still sealed. A pretty good find, I'd say. The bags rattled as I piled them on the counter drawing in the infected. Sound did seem to spur them on as Darren has said. I hadn't heard anything from him in the past ten minutes, so I tried to spot him on the other side of the room.

There were tacky, fake palm trees in the middle of the cafeteria obscuring my view of the other half of the room. Why did food courts always think a splash of plastic green would liven up the place? All they did was provide a place to dump your tray when you were too lazy to find a garbage bin.

My ears picked up the sound of scraping along the floor behind me. An infected wearing the taco stand uniform emerged from the backroom, a low growl rumbling in its chest. I drew my gun and put two bullets in it, blowing off the dorky pin-striped hat in the process; just for kicks.

I jumped back over the counter, now intent on finding Darren. Splitting up always made for trouble; we should have stuck together even if it meant this process took longer. I shot at the nearest infected stumbling through the sea of tables and chairs as I zig-zagged through. Pushing aside some of the fake tree branches, I finally could see the other side. I walked through only to be met with a group of infected to my left lying in wait.

In a panic, I lit up the group, repeatedly pulling the trigger. My arm was shaking from the surprise and my aim suffered for it; I had only killed one before the Beretta clicked empty and the slide of gun popped back just to rub it in. Time for plan B.

Run.

I turned on my heels and ran away from the approaching group. Where the hell was Darren?  I tried to maneuver my backpack off to reach for the spare magazine, but managed to slip on something wet, crashing down to the hard linoleum.

The gun slid from my grasp and skittered underneath a nearby table. I struggled to untangle myself from my backpack and get to my gun, but kept slipping on whatever had caused me to fall. I looked down at the red staining my hands and clothes; I had fallen in blood. I was surrounded by a pool of thick, congealed blood.

My gag reflex kicked in as I continued to slip around in the sticky substance like I was wading through an oil spill on top of a lake. Please don't be Darren's blood. I gave up trying to get free of my backpack as the infected drew closer and tried to crawl away, my feet not able to gain any purchase. My hands went out from under me as I scrambled to catch myself, my chin smashing into the floor.

Even though I was now seeing stars, I could hear the infected right behind me. Still on my hands and knees, I scuttled towards the booth where my Beretta had landed, ignoring the pain shooting through my head. I dove under the table, now facing a wall with the tattered booth surrounding me on both sides. I had just effectively trapped myself.