I showed John the office and together we grabbed all the room keys. There were twenty in total, all labelled with the room numbers. We didn't need our people spread out until we could secure the area, so people would not be getting their own rooms tonight. I handed a couple of keys to Rose and Henry for them to search, while John and I took the rest to do a quick sweep. People were starting to get to the point where they would sleep anywhere. I know I was. Hell, I could probably sleep out on the cracked parking lot right about now, even with being a light sleeper.

Other than at the gate, we couldn't see the outside of the motel courtyard. A lot of people had vacated the vehicles to stretch and were regarding the place with curiosity. A couple of people went up to the pop machine to see if they could shake a few cans loose, but the noise had John telling them to stop.

The sun was starting to come up, orange and pink light reaching over the top of the castle themed motel. Chloe and Amanda looked dead on their feet with their eyes half closed. Some people were still streaked with blood and soot from Hargrove. Our group looked like the survivors of a bomb blast.

"Clear!" Rose yelled from across the courtyard.

"She needs to be quiet," John muttered.

"I think she only has one setting," I joked, but it was lost on him.

We examined our first room. There was no one inside judging from our quick sweep-we even checked under the beds. There were two of them inside covered in coral and green comforters to match the decor of the office. I waved Chloe, Ethan, and the others over.

"You guys can take this one," I said.

Chloe and Amanda plunked down on the bed by the window, not even bothering to remove their shoes they were so exhausted.

"Where are you goin' to stay?" Ethan asked.

His head was wrapped in white gauze making his hair spike up in the middle.

"I'll let you know once we get everyone in a room," I said.

"I don't have to stay with them, do I?" Colin asked through a yawn.

"The last thing we need is for people to be spread thinly while we're still checking the place out. Suck it up for one night," I said grouchily.

Colin looked from me to the bed and the bed won the contest for his attention as he all but wandered over to it and collapsed. I gave Ethan a gruff nod and continued on with John to inspect the other rooms that we had keys for.

All rooms were clear. There wasn't a soul staying at the motel. I had a feeling this was more to do with the cheap atmosphere than the infection. Business probably wasn't good beforehand. We stuffed four people in each room with double beds to make sure we were easily accessed should something come up.

Lucas was still our prisoner at the moment to I volunteered to share a room with him. John said he would be staying with us too and then Rose added her name to the rooming list. This was going to be a fun day of trying to sleep. Leo was mad that he had ended up with Henry and two others in the room beside us. He also didn't appreciate that I made him play messenger boy by going to tell Ethan's room which one I was in.

The supplies were packed into our room so that we could monitor the usage. We fed everyone before they went to sleep and it made a noticeable dent in the food we had managed to scrounge up during the evacuation. It would maybe feed the twenty mouths for one more day in total-two if we really rationed.

I mentioned this John.

"We'll worry 'bout that once we've had some sleep," he said.

I pulled back the covers to exam the sheets.

"Seriously? That's the last of our problem," Rose said jumping into the bed, forcing the blanket out of my hand.

I scowled, but gave up on my inspection. She was right. Sleep trumped clean. We had locked the doors and Lucas was already under the blanket snoring lightly. I pulled off my shoes and laid down. My eyes closed and sleep came surprisingly easy.

I was stiff when I woke up. I was still facing the same direction I had been when I went to bed and in the same position. Everything cracked when I rolled onto my back. Rose was gone, but the other bed was still full. I heard rustling in the washroom and a flush.

"Woah, it works." I heard Rose say.

She walked back to the bed and noticed that I was awake. "If you need to use the toilet, you gotta get some water first."

I cleared my throat. "How's it still working?"

"You don't need power to run toilets that don't flush anythin' upwards. It runs on a syphonin' action, but you need to refill the back of the tank everythin' before you push the lever," she explained.

"You sure know a lot about toilets." I laughed. I don't know why that was funny. Toilet humor wasn't supposed to be funny past eight years old. I blamed it on being tired.

She glowered at me. "You kids these days don't know how anythin' works." She crawled in bed, her back away from me muttering about ignorant kids.

I bit my lip to refrain from laughing more. Now, how would we get that much water? I gave up on my wonderings as I fell back sleep.

John woke me up a few hours later. "Bailey, you gotta get up."

My eyes flew open, then I groaned, "I feel like a bus hit me."

"We all feel like that," Rose said from her perch on one of the chairs in the corner. Lucas was looking bored in the other chair across from her. She was leaning over the round table looking at some papers.

I ignored her and asked John, "What time is it?"

"Somewhere 'round three in the afternoon."

I grumbled and pulled myself out of bed. John handed me a granola bar and an opened water bottle.

"I'm not hungry right now," I said, pushing the offerings away.

I was still feeling sleepy and a bit disoriented from the night before. Zoe's missing. My brain wasn't going to let me forget, not that I wanted to. I just didn't want to think of all the horrible things that could be happening to her right now. My stomach was starting to go from indifferent to upset as I thought about my best friend. If only I had done something different in the clubhouse. If I had just been able to get off a shot before I had been smacked in the head, maybe I could have saved her from being taken.

"You okay?" John asked, dropping to a knee in front of me. He placed a hand on my forehead. "Do you feel nauseous? You were whacked in the head pretty good yesterday."

"Don't throw up in the bed," Rose added, not even looking up from the table.

I clenched my hands in my lap. "I'm fine," I said curtly.

John frowned and shoved the water bottle at me again. "Just take a sip at least."

Grudgingly, I took the bottle from him and had a small drink. I picked up the granola bar John had set on the bed and tried nibbling it.

"You need to get that down, we got some big plans today," Rose said, finally looking up from her papers.

"You don't even know if it'll work. I ain't doin' shit until you prove it to me," Lucas said.

Rose glowered at him. "As long as you don't go stompin' 'round, it'll work."

"What are you talking about?" I asked. I looked to John for an answer.

"For the record, I don't like Rose's plan, but if it works, we could have a ton of food by the end of the night," John said, avoiding my eyes, "And Bailey's only goin' if you can prove it works like Lucas said." John pointed at Rose for the last part.

"You are a bunch of wussies," Rose muttered. "Fine. Let's gear up and head out and I'll show you."

"Okay, I'm even more confused," I said.

"Rose here thinks immune people can move among the infected without bein' bothered by 'em," John said completely unconvinced.

"It's true," Rose said with conviction. "I'll show you all."

She got up, grabbing one of the papers on the table with her. It was a map. Rose stormed out of the room leaving us to squint into the midday light after she left the door open.

"You think it'll work?" I asked.

If she was right, I could move among the infected. All the times the infected passed me over for someone else sprang to mind. When I was trapped in the basement where Riley had found me. The infected chained to the wall stopped coming after me once I had stopped moving around. Then went for Riley's partner the minute they were in range. All the times the infected had come for me and then went instead for the person beside me. It was starting to add weight to Rose's claim. But then again, there were infinitely more times where I was running for my life while infected chased me. I wasn't convinced. John was right, she would have to demonstrate first.

I went to use the bathroom, then stopped. "Did you guys find any water for the tanks?"

"Yeah, the ice machine had lots of water. There's a bucket of water in the bathroom for you to fill the tank," Johns said.

Thankful that they had found water, I used the bathroom then met the others back outside. Most people were out in the courtyard talking. Some were still in their rooms with the doors wide open so we could see them. Rose was jamming some rounds into her rifle. Henry was shooting her weird looks, but let her continue. The guns and ammo bags were open in the middle of the group. As I approached, John handed me a box of 9mm.

"Load up your Beretta." I took the box from him. It was pretty light.

I filled up my magazine and pocketed another fifteen rounds. I could really use a spare magazine like John had for his automatic rifle.

"I ain't goin' out there without a weapon." Lucas crossed his arms.

John reached down into the pile and handed Lucas a crowbar. "Here."

Lucas yanked it from John's grasp with a glare. He knew we weren't going to give him a gun, but a melee weapon was better than no weapon. Leo had joined us with his shotgun already swung over his shoulder.

"You're coming too?" I asked.

"It's only the immune going, right?" Leo around looked confused.

"Yes, ignore her. She doesn't know what's goin' on," Rose said.

"Because no one will fully explain anything," I growled.

"Immune people can walk among the infected as long as they quiet and slow and not in groups," Rose said slowly.

"So you keep sayin'," Lucas said.

"It's true," Leo said and we all looked at him. He squirmed under the attention. "I've seen it."

"At the hospital they sure didn't seem to leave us alone," Lucas said.

"That's 'cause you didn't listen, shithead," Rose said with a sharp tone. She started to tap her foot on the ground, the rubber sole of her shoe slapping against the asphalt. "If you had just held still while those infected were in the room with you, they would have left you alone!"

Rose's ominous words from my first morning at the hospital came back to me. "Don't move, don't breathe, and the dead won't bother you."

Was she really right?

"Then how'd you get so injured?" Lucas said, motioning to her ribcage.

Rose's foot stopped tapping and she looked him dead in the eyes. "These weren't from the infected."

I swallowed. Lucas had the good sense to not press her anymore. It was clear what she was saying. They had used her for a live game of operation instead of throwing her to the infected. John looked at me, a question in his eyes. I shook my head. They hadn't done that to me. I hadn't been there long enough to endure that kind of torture. A sliver of pity ran through me for Rose. She may have been bad tempered and all around a pain to be near, but now I couldn't hold it against her. She'd been through some truly terrible things.

I stuffed my Beretta into the back of my pants. "All right then, show us."

Rose didn't say anything as she stormed over to the gate expecting us to follow, and we did. Two infected had squished themselves up against the gate, their grabbing hands reaching inside. Their rasping noises and motions got more intense as the whole group approached them. John unsheathed his large hunting knife and stabbed them one at a time through the eye sockets. There was a wet suctioning sound as John removed the blade from each skull.

We opened the gate and moved the bodies to the ditch by the road. They would have to be dealt with later as the smell of rot would soon start. John wiped off the knife on the shirt of one of the infected and then handed it to me with the sheath.

"In case you can't afford to shoot off a gun."

I took the knife and looped the sheath on my belt. "Thank you."

"If this works, you'll be able to get into one of these warehouses and scrounge up some food," John said, "but I don't like the idea of you bein' out there with just them."

"I'll be fine," I said, but I wasn't so sure. It wasn't like we had time to do test runs based on Rose's theory.

John ran his fingers along the rim of his hat before taking it off. He ran his hands through his hair and placed the cowboy hat back on his head. "Maybe I should go with you guys."

"You're not immune," I said.

"I might be, not like I've ever been bit before," John said.

I frowned. "Well, I don't want you to have to find out the hard way. Plus, you need to stay here and hold down the castle while we're gone. I can dub you Sir John before I go if you'd like."

John gave me a tight, brief smile. He wasn't beyond humoring me at the moment. He was worried about letting me go without him.

"Let's just see how this goes with Rose first."

We closed the gate as close to the wall as we could without locking it in case we needed to make a quick entrance while Rose gave us her demonstration. We followed her across the street to one of the warehouse yards. There was a few infected moseying about, but nothing that we couldn't handle.

Rose motioned for us to stay where we were as she silently crept up to them. They started toward her once they saw her movement. Immune or not, they still picked up on movement. Two infected got within a very uncomfortable distance to her. She stopped moving and held very still, barely breathing. I found I was holding in my own breath as I watched the scene before me.

They slowed down as they approached Rose. One immediately turned and went in another the direction, while the other saddled up beside her. The infected did some kind of sniffing movement, it's arm close enough to Rose that it rubbed up against her. I don't know how she managed to hold so still. My first instinct was to run every time I got near an infected.

The infected opened its mouth and I pulled out my Beretta. Leo put his hand on my gun, slowly pushing down on it while putting a finger in front of his closed lips. He had more faith in this idea than I did. The clack of teeth reached us as the infected closed its mouth and pushed past Rose, ignoring her completely. He wandered on to the other side of the warehouse lawn.

John and I shared a look. This was promising, but not conclusive. Rose started to move very slowly back to us. The infected were facing away from her, so they didn't come back after her.

"See?" Rose said, looking very much full of herself.

"I told you it would work," Leo said with a smile of his own. It wasn't as big as the one on Rose's face though.

"The dead thing still went after her," Lucas pointed out.

"Can't help that. They're attracted to movement and noise. As long as you stay still when they get near and don't make any loud noises to get them riled up, you'll be fine," Rose said.

"So you're sayin' we have to move as slow as you did and still stop?" Lucas scoffed. "It'll take us a day and a half just to get inside a damn buildin'."

"You got any other bright ideas?" Rose said with her hand on her hip.

"What about a distraction?" I suggested.

"Like what?" John asked.

"I don't know. Something that moves or makes noise-but not too much noise. Just enough to get the attention of the nearest infected," I said.

Too bad we didn't have one of those wacky tube men they used at car dealerships. That would get all the infected's attention.

"We found a little mower in the storage room like an hour ago," Leo said. "Looked pretty old though."

"Show us," I said.

We walked back into the castle motel and they closed up the gate behind us. Chloe met up with us, Amanda close on her heels.

"Is it true you can walk among the infected?" she asked.

"Uh, yes and no," I answered cautiously. One demonstration hardly proved anything. For all I knew, Rose stunk so bad up close that the infected were scared off.

"What's that mean?"

"It means that they still come after you if you're moving, but it looks like they have no interest in us once we stand still," I said.

"That's good, right?"

"I guess."

Leo led us to the maintenance storage room, judging from the worn sign on the front. The door hadn't even been locked. It was a skinny, but long room. At the back there was a red mower that had seen better days. Leo snaked in and around the other equipment and brought the mower out.

"At least it runs on gas; that's somethin'," Rose said.

"We willing to waste that much gas?" I asked.

"It shouldn't take very much. We only need it to last long enough for us to get into a warehouse," Rose said.

"At that snail pace you were goin', a tank won't get us far," Lucas said.

"It doesn't need to keep going, it just needs to get their attention and get them moving toward it," I said.

I don't know if I was trying to convince the others, or myself, of this crazy plan. I still wasn't sure that I could handle being groped by an infected without screaming and running away.

"How are you goin' to bring back food?" Chloe asked.

Leave it to the kid to point out the flaw in our plan. If we were going on foot to avoid the infected chasing after a nosy vehicle, then we had to bring back the food on foot.

"Round up as many bags as you can find," I instructed.

Within ten minutes, four backpacks and duffle bags had been emptied-one for each of us. The little tank for the mower had also been filled with gas. In one of the courtyard corners away from the front gate, John and Lucas worked on getting the lawn-mower working. They had to tinker with it for a bit, but in the end they got the engine to come to life. They quickly shut it down afterwards.

I grabbed one of the empty backpacks and stuffed the flashlight I had found in the motel office inside, then tossed the pack on. Between the four of us-Rose, Leo, Lucas, and I-we could bring back a decent amount of food but not near enough to feed twenty people for any length of time. While the point of our run was food, it was also a trial run. If this went bad, then we would have to come up with something else. I just wanted to avoid attracting the attention of the infected. This motel was not fortified like Hargrove had been and it wouldn't stand a chance against a barrage of infected. So we needed our runs to attract as little attention as possible.

If need be, we planned to scout out whatever warehouse we ended up at for a cube van or truck to bring back a larger scale of supplies. It would risk getting attention from the infected though, so it was a 'Plan-B' of sorts. I just prayed that Rose's idea worked and that I didn't get any more digits bit off in the process.