The backroom was a simple rectangle of bricks filled with shelving units holding bits of what was once the supplies used to keep the little store's shelves stocked up. Now, it was just a lot of things people didn't need to survive; shoe polish, boot laces, ink pens, dish washer detergent, extension cords, and so on. But, there was a small pile of supplied, military provided, on one shelf.

The shelf held several cases of MREs, several cases of bottles water, a combat medic's bag, several blankets, and half a dozen flashlights. There was a collection of matches, candles, butane lighters, and a single kerosene lamp on another shelf. In the floor was a corpse, at least two months old and drying up, that was covered in ruined camouflage clothing but still several magazines for the UMP submachine gun it lay on top of.

Zip was quiet, too quiet, George thought. Leaving the storeroom through a doorway blocked by those hanging plastic strips that every grocery store in history seemed to be equipped with, George came out in the corner of the store behind a crowded checkout. The shelves were nearly bare, the floor was littered with decomposing bodies, and in the opposite corner of the store Zip was grappling with a large man with a knife. Another man, smaller, was pitching about at their feet clutching a bleeding wound in his stomach.

George didn't even hesitate, reaching down at his side and pulling out his extendable baton, flicking it down fast it extended to it's full length. Moving forward he brings the baton down on the back of the large man's legs, right behind the knee caps. Normally Grorge wouldn't have aimed for that spot, as it can cause permanent damage, but this wasn't normal times and he wasn't really in the mood for talking.

The man crumpled, falling to the floor as his knees gave out from the unexpected attack. Zip kneed the man in the chest thrusting him away and into the wall. The fight left the man and George realized that the man was bleeding from a deep cut at his side as well. Zip stepped away and wiped the blade of his folding knife before putting in back in his pocket.

"Thanks." Zip said. He sounded odd, remorseful. "I thought they needed real help, they suckered me. If it hadn't been for my knife. Well, thanks."

George looked at Zip. "First, are you ok?" As George didn't takes his eyes off the two stabbed men as he pointed his MPX at them, with the silencer in place he could dispatch them quietly enough. "Speak, you might just have a chance at living if your information is good enough."

Zip checked himself out and said, "All good, some bumps and bruises. It's been a while since I had to fight a person."

From the floor the men seemed cowed, beaten. The one man had stopped writhing and seemed to be in the last moments of his life. Zip's blade probably cut a bleeder. Or several. The other man was just overwhelmed and looked to be malnourished. He looked up with sullen eyes.

"We are sorry. It's just been, well, you know. We needed this stuff to live. You guys have a lot, you can find more. Don't take what we need." He said. It occurred to George and Zip that the man meant 'we' to be more than himself and his dying friend.

George looked at the man, and while a part of him wanted pity for him, another part of him didn't. "There's been too much killing. Every dead human is a new zombie, don't you get it? We are a dying race." As he looked at the dying man, he knew what he had to do, aimed and pulled the trigger, hitting him in the head, guaranteeing he wouldn't rise as a Zombie.

"Tell the others to come out, they have 20 seconds, or you're lying and you will end up dead." Looking over at Zip. "Watch him." George proceeded to wait and see what happened.

"Two streets over, about a block." The man began talking quickly despite the pain. He kept looking at his companion and grimacing. "There's a little school, a preschool. That's where they are. Sixteen, ten men, six women. A baby, six kids and teens. Two married couples. A granddad. Please, we are desperate."

Zip looked at George and raised and eyebrow.

Looking at the man, George was skeptical, to say the least. "Zip, let's load up everything into the Jeep and police cruiser. We will go see what their situation is all about. I don't trust him."" As George looks at the man. "But I can't let them die either." George grabs one of the zip cuffs and walks over to the man. "If you're lying, you won't see the morning. Now put your hands behind your back." When the man complies George uses the cuffs on him, making sure they're snug, maybe even a little tight, though not too tight as to cut off circulation.

"How many armed people do you have, and what is your all clear signal. Zip and I don't have a lot of time to waste on this." George helped the man to his feet and walked him to the cruiser, making the man sit on the street, George made sure no walkers were present and nothing was in the backseat that could be used against him or Zip. Once it was all clear he placed the man in the back seat.

"We only got two guns with ammo; a twenty-two pistol and an old bolt action rifle, one of them world war two Russian rifles." The man said. "I'm Tiago. Just walk me up to them and it'll be ok. We really don't want trouble. We only jumped your man there because he surprised us. We thought he was one of those killers from the city."

He stood, slowly, holding the cut in his side. It was still bleeding. It was a bad cut as killing attacks went since it really only opened up the skin. It was a good cut as wounds went since it could be closed with some sutures and kept clean easily enough. Right now, it was the worst kind of cut, however, since the smell of blood was probably a lure for the undead.

Checking outside the coast was clear for now. But, George could make out distinctly shambling shapes in the distance in their wake and in their path. There was a lot to load too. Enough to easily fill the cruiser and Jeep including the three of them.

"Just grab the guns and medicine, the rest can wait." George pulled out a lighter he kept on him. Looking at it, he then looked at Zip. "Let me see your knife."

Turning to the handcuffed man. "I can stop the bleeding, but it'll hurt like hell for a moment. If you yell out, we will have zombies on us in no time. Your call." It was readily apparent what George wanted to do, and it may save more than a few lives.

"Awe shit." The man cringed. "Just do it. Can I bite down on something?"

"Yeah, hold on." George went to his Jeep and grabbed one of the clean rags he had, and rolled it up, so it was easy to bite on. Walking back to the cruiser he handed it to the man, then proceeded to heat up the knife. Waiting for him to bite down on the rag.

"On the count of three. One, two" George didn't wait until he got to three and did it.

They had to wait a few minutes for the man to wake up and then become re-oriented to reality. At least he didn't scream and draw unwanted cannibal attention. Zip waited next to George and seemed preoccupied with watching any direction George wasn't.

George reaches over and taps Zip on his shoulder. "He's up. Let's go to the school and see what's going on. When we get there, I'll head in, you keep an overwatch and radio me if you see any trouble." George took a breath, knowing full well that his little encampment couldn't handle this many people at one time, even if they worked together, shelters would need to be made, food to be grown and gathered.

<green>"Zip, what do you think we should do? I can't let them die, but there's no way we can do much to help, at the moment."

Zip shrugged, "Give them directions to that cabin where we met you. The family that passed away was well appointed. They can go there and make a life."

He looked at George, speaking as if he was caught between caring for these people or not, and nodded when he finished as if he had made some sort of inner piece.

"Most wouldn't care after what they did. You understand it as well as I do. Tell them how to get there, let them survive on their own." Zip said. "It's all anyone can really do."

"Makes sense, and is more than most would do. We would make it back before them anyways. It all depends on how things go when we get there." George got into his Jeep. "Let's get going, lord knows what we will encounter."

Rolling up on the little pre-school was both relieving and nerve wracking.

The survivors inside opened the door as the vehicles approached, expectant in their desperation, to meet what they assumed to be their friends. But the cars drew the attention of the undead in the area for several blocks around. George could make out at least a dozen and assumed three times that many.

"Holy shit!" A tall older man called as he realized the men in the cars weren't of their group. "Who are you guys?"

"we're the guys that were jumped by your guys. One of your group didn't make it." George got out of his Jeep, grabbing his MPX as he exited the vehicle. George noted where everyone was standing, also the reaction when he mentioned they lost someone. "I have a proposal for you folks, a rather simple one. First though, I've been told you have some pond scum that is in the area, is that right? I need you to fill me in on what they've been up to, I suspect they've become petty warlords."

Their quick stop turned into an hour long layover, carrying on even as the undead drifted closer, and covered many topics of immediate interest. Zip found the wife of the man he had killed and talked with her at length. When he left her she was crying, clutching her bible to her chest, and kept repeating that the men had a plan to save them.

They discovered that a local group of survivalists had taken about a month before. The survivalists organized everyone they came across and discarded anyone that didn't have useful skills or wouldn't toe their line. According to the little group of refugees the survivalists had around forty men plus their families as well as another hundred or so people, families too, working with them. They lived in a UPS shipping hub ten miles to the west.

The group lacked a leader, but was all for working together to live in the Morgan's cabin on the mountain. Even assuring them that they could be called on in the future to help out with providing safety, gathering resources, helping other refugees. But, they were unwilling to go against the survivalist group simply because of the collateral damage they felt was unavoidable. That, and the survivalists were armed with as one man put it 'fucking machine guns, mortars, and rocket launchers'. Zip said it sounded like they had raided a National Guard armory of something similar.

As Zip spoke he began knocking down undead with his suppressed MP5. The members of the little group of refugees promptly decided on the spot to take the offer of the cabin. Organizing quickly they decided on how best to get there. A mile a away was a middle school that had been turned into a refugee point, they knew it well, until had been overrun by undead and then attacked by helicopter gunships using a multitudinous amount of machine gun fire. But, there was an old Bluebird school bus there in good shape and with fuel.

It just needed to be stoled from under the nose of the undead, the survivalists, and anybody else targeting the school for anything of value left there.

The last hour hadn't exactly been easy for George, he and Zip had other things to attend to and they needed to get onto the primary mission. "Hey Zip, looks like we get to scout out the middle school, then get these folks on their way." Even if they had a plan, and everything worked out, the odds weren't exactly in the favor of the small group. "The survivalists could present a major problem, though I suspect they are more disorganized than we suspect. Cut off their head and they'll scatter like rats. What do you think?"

"No offense, pal, but you have spent a lot of time on your mountain." Zip said quickly. "Some of these guys, well, they're easily as good as we are. Some are even better in a fight, former operators and real life commando types even. The world is down to those us left who will do what it takes or learn to. This could be a real threat if we mess with those guys. I say we give them some guns and send them after the bus. Time to sink or swim.

George knew Zip was right, even if he didn't like it. Sighing "I didn't really bring anything extra. The Police M4 would benefit them, but do we really want to get rid of it? It isn't like I have a bunch of selective fire guns. I have one, hell I didn't even bring it with me, as I prefer semi-auto, way more accurate."

George was at a loss for things at the moment, he wanted to do right by these people, but what was right now a days? "What's stopping these survivalists coming to my mountain and fucking things up for us?"
This message was lightly edited by the player at 14:24, Thu 31 Dec 2020.

"They don't now to." A woman said. "I was with them for a month. They came from over near the Alabama line moving eastward. It was easier pickings as the panic set in. They have cars, guns, radios, and all that but they don't really know this area. They settled down where they are because of the all the workers. That's what they call us."

Zip looked at George as if to imply 'what the fuck!'. A tall, skinny teen-aged girl stepped forward next to the woman. In the days before the dead rose to life she would have been all the rage in her high school; tall, beautiful, extremely busty, very fit, and red headed. Now, she was a target for anyone who could drag her down and have their way with her or just another meal in Reebok's for the undead.

"I was hiding out with my folks in a church. We were waiting for the State Police to come and excort us to FEMA camp. That was week two." She said, tears began rolling down her cheeks. "When these guys showed up they had the State cops' cars and a couple of the State cops. Their leader came in and talked to us. My dad joined them. My mom said no."

She stopped talking, every eyes locked onto her, and took a deep breath.

"He told us we had to decide for ourselves, that life was different now." She continued on. "Daddy was a Marine for ten years. He some kind of sharpshooter in Afghanistan in that war. I said no, thinking I could. We all did. Turns out my only useful skill was what they called Morale Improvement. I guess you understand what that means."

There was a collective gasp. A couple of curses about her father. A young man in back asked, "What happened to the rest?"

"Those with skills became so called workers, five of us girls were assigned to Morale Improvement, the rest, including my Mom and little brother were robbed, stripped, raped, and turned out into the streets with those things bearing down on us. To buy the rest time to get away."

People were crying. Some of the older men looked mad enough to chew lead and spit bullet. It was an epiphany for them.

Zip stepped forward and nodded to the girl and said, "Troopers. State Troopers is what there called. How tough are they?"

"I have seen them ambush soldiers, cops, armed bands of people fighting those dead people. They take in people like them, keep the workers foraging things they need, and they are communicating with other groups like them too. We need to stay away from them."

The woman who spoke up first took the girl's hand and led her to a small table ans sat down with her.

George wanted to do something, he really did, but 2 people against a large group was suicide. "Hey Zip, let's get these people on their way, then do what we need to do. Once we're done, we can get with the Padre and come up with an idea what to do about the scumbags."

"Agreed." Zip turned to the nearest man of the group and handed him the keys to the police cruiser. "Time to figure it out, we have something that simply has to be done. I'm sorry. Follow George's directions, keep your heads down, and don't pick any fights."

Zip turned to George and then suddenly spun around and said, "Remember that where you are going is still plagued by the dead, but is home to the living still. Don't go into a home that isn't yours. Thieves are treated like the dead these days."

Turning back to George, Zip said, "Let's roll pal, before I decide to do something monumentally stupid."