Chapter Ten-Z-Town

Julia took Tarin Keller and limped across the living room to the stairs. As much as it pained her to do so, she held the sleeping one year old and she dragged them both painstakingly up the flight of stairs. Her ankle gave her signals that screamed to off set the pressure, but she ignored them. Adrenaline pushed her forward despite the fact that she was hurting. She carried him through the hall and she closed herself in her room, locking the door once inside. She lay the boy on the bed and prayed he wouldn't stir. She crouched and pulled the box out that had the guns inside. A hand print broke the seal and her box popped open. She knew that blood vial would cause problems. They waited till everyone was out of the house and knowing she was hurt, on a boot with a broken ankle, they seized an opportunity. She set the gun aside and she gathered the blanket on which Tarin slept and she hoisted him up and then limped her way to the closet where she laid him out on the floor and she shut the door tight, leaving him hidden inside.

She grabbed her phone, dialed the number and she set the phone on the bed. She didn't need to speak and she didn't need to explain as he would know when he picked up, if he picked up. She held the gun against her chest and she eased herself back till she felt the dresser against her butt. She steadied herself.

"Hello-Julia-" She heard his voice through the phone.

"Help me." She called calmly into the air. She heard the footsteps on the stairs. "Help me." She said a little louder, thinking of the baby on the closet floor. She heard the footsteps approaching closer and as the door kicked in to the room, she had the gun up. The wooden door frame broke and splintered and she fired. Tears streaked her face and a sharp pain hit her abdomen. She forgot all about her broken ankle that throbbed in the boot. "I hate living people." She mumbled as she limped forward to the door way. On the bed lay another clip and she dropped the empty one out of her weapon and clicked the full one into it. She heard Tarin stirring to consciousness. "It's ok, baby. It's Ok, Tarin. I'm right here, little guy." He started screaming and banging on the closet door. He had no clue where he was and he had no clue what was going on. His perspective, he had fallen asleep with Julia on the living room floor and then the next thing his one year old brain processed was complete darkness, noise and gunfire. "I need help." She cried as she saw the man down on her carpet in the hall. Tears streaked down her face and she momentarily thought about calling the police, but in her line of business and in her life circumstances, they didn't call the cops, they called their family.

Tarin screamed behind her, beating on the closet door, a man lay dead on the hall floor in front of her and she felt faint. Her abdomen was on fire. She dropped onto her knees and she stayed awake, forcing the consciousness till someone, anyone arrived. She looked down the stairs, no one. Had he come alone? Dressed in his black khakis and his black shirt, strapped up with a gun on the floor beside him and the one on the ankle. A warm and moist heat oozed onto her clothes. Blood. She held her abdomen and didn't want to look, fearing she was shot, but only impaled by a piece of wood from the door frame.

Tarin screamed in her room, having found the door knob and left himself out of the closet. She forced herself back to her feet. She turned to him, gun in hand and blood running from her abdomen down her leg. She felt dizzy, but she focused as he squealed and cried, rushing to her. She made it to him before he stepped on pieces of the shattered door frame. The door lay askew on one hinge over the bed. She held him as tight as she could, backing them back to the closet where she collapsed onto her ass and fell into clothes and junk that gathered on the closet floor. She set the gun beneath her ass and she stayed there, holding the boy so he wouldn't get away from her.

Was he still on the phone? "Help, I'm-I think I'm hit." She cried as she felt the darkness closing over her eyes. As Tarin screamed and wailed, she fought to stay conscious. "Tarin, baby, Tarin, Tarin, hey, stay with Julia." She said, feeling her grip on him weakening. "Tare, Tare." He was screaming and he wouldn't stop, but she had hidden him. She had kept the boy safe until that man was dead and she couldn't let him see. "Stay with me. Boo-boo's. Stay with me." She pled with the kid as she reached beneath her to move the gun that was digging into her tailbone.

She heard footsteps on the stairs. Someone had come in the house. She moved Tarin to the side and she raised her gun and she shielded the baby with her broken and bloodied body. She raised the gun and aimed it out the closet door at whomever would approach. They were not here for the boy, but they would not get the boy either. She had already lost one child to this madness and she was not about to lose another one, especially one she didn't create. Not her family.

"Morgan." She heard Jody's voice. "Julia, where the hell are you?" He yelled as he charged up the steps toward Tarin's screams.

"Closet." She eeked out one word and she held the gun up. "Jody." She cried, hot tears flowed over her face and hot blood flowed out of her abdomen and she was going to pass out.

Jody stepped closer, taking the gun. He reached for Julia.

"The baby." She said, moving a bit, letting Tarin out and into Jody's arms.

As Jody took Tarin from her, a soft whoosh was heard. Their bodies fell toward her as the room faded. "Tarin," She said as the baby landed on her, the fear in his voice terrified her as she felt around the floor for the gun that she had handed to Jody.

She awoke in agonizing pain. Her entire abdomen was on fire and she felt like she was being ripped apart from the inside out. Even the special place in her brain could not save her from the onslaught of pain that she felt. She laid rather still and on her back and she knew she had to get her head straight before she could bear to look around at her surroundings. She kept her eyes closed, focusing on the space in her head that kept her safe. As she lay there, flashbacks, more physical than visual ate away at her brain.

Her back hurt. A chunk of flesh that had been ripped off her went untreated, a hole in her body. A man hovered over her in a white suit and he cauterized her flesh without regard to her pain or her body as she lay nude on the table face down. The fear mixed with pain and she swore she would...die. Across her back, the searing of flesh.

"Morgan." She heard his voice not too far from her. His weak voice, she wanted to reach out to him, look to him, touch him. "Morgan, this fucking hurts." He groaned as his teeth chattered and his body ached. "I'm gonna die today, Morgan."

Jody. She forced her eyes open. Away from the heat that burned her back a long time ago and she focused on the new pain that mimicked that of childbirth. Worse than childbirth. She realized that Caroline Keller and her pain had been kind to her as she writhed and somehow tried to tolerate it. She felt the tears on her face and heard his voice calling to her. "Jo," She summoned all the energy she had within her at the moment and she funneled it to her muscles, dragging herself up. She couldn't walk, damn ankle, so she scooted across the mattress and she fell onto her butt. That foot was no better off having hauled Tarin Keller around the downstairs and up a flight of stairs. It had just started to feel good to place weight on and walk on a little. She dragged her body across the floor to where Jody's body lay on another mattress.

He moaned as his body feeling a similar pain. The fact they lacked clothing of any sort wasn't lost on her at that moment. The heat radiating off her signaled only one thing, she was fighting off the infection. She dragged herself into a sitting position next to Jody's mattress and she forced the pain down and away from her. It took everything she had. It took every single solitary fiber of her being not to succumb to it.

How on earth Julia Fry managed was a mystery, but at that moment, Julia Morgan-Keller was grateful. A flashback to a memory from a distant and different timeline made all the sense in the world. It took her to Julia Fry's nightmare and its beginning. She felt as though she would learn the meaning of the word torture if she stuck around this room too much longer. She had a feeling that was not the first flash back she'd have that belonged to Julia Fry.

"Why are you here?" She asked him, glancing over his body. It hurt to talk. It hurt to form words and it hurt even to think words. She felt like she was going to die, but she needed to focus, survive. Because that is what Julia Morgan-Keller did best. She survived whether she wanted to or deserved to or needed to, defying nature and the universe every limping step of the way. She took a look over Jody's writhing body. She touched his arm and she took his hand in hers. "Hey, Mayers, you gotta be strong." She felt those words falling on a sick man's ears didn't help much. He was as hot as she was, maybe hotter. "You have to fight it. It's what we do." His skin was slick with sweat and he drooled a bit, his mouth was dry. He was dehydrating. "Hey, stay with me." She smacked him lightly on his hand and when he pulled away, she saw a name stamped on his wrist. JKELLER. "Jesus, do they think you're Jayson?" She asked, rubbing the name on his wrist. It wasn't stamped there, it was tattooed there like the numbers were once tatted on those in a concentration camp. She briefly looked at her own wrist. JMKELLER.

They had not only invaded her house looking for her alone, they were looking for Jayson, too. They got and they infected the wrong fucking man. Had Jayson been infected he would be sitting there as if nothing had ever happened to him. Instead, Jody Mayers lay infected and fighting for his life. "Jody, speak."

"It hurts." He mumbled.

"Don't turn on me, Jo." She begged him, but it wasn't up to him. It wasn't up to her. It was up to the universe and the powers that be. One vial of blood, Jay said. One vial of Julia Fry's blood. Yes, she had been vaxxed. Yes, she had been infected, fought it and lived. But with each infection came brutal immune response. It only would, from Julia's recollection, last approximately 3-5 days. During those 3-5 days, she would live, but she was also prone to death from dehydration and since she was rooming in with Mayers, it left her wide open to be his damn last supper. She'd get all bit up and die from hemorrhage before ever getting the Z virus. "I'm right here. Not going anywhere. Either way, I am with you."

He shivered and sweat and shook and his body went through a number of fun symptoms that were just plain awful. He was for a bit in and out of consciousness. He was hot and he was thirsty, drying out before her eyes as well as she was. Naked and dying.

"You, you alwaysssss getttting ussss in tttrrrouble." He tried to laugh at her, at himself, at this fucked up situation. 

Julia could find no humor in this room. Its bare walls, two mattresses on the floor, no windows and one door. Where were they supposed to pee? Bathe? What were they supposed to drink? Eat? Were there meds available to them? Where the hell were they? Inside this room, neither could find answers. Still she dragged herself across the carpet to the door and she tried to turn the knob. It wouldn't turn let alone allow her an exit. She knocked and slapped and tried kicking with her good foot on the door and nothing happened. No indication of life or cameras or anything that anyone was aware of their circumstances or their suffering and no one available to ease a single symptom. No bed frame to dismantle. Nothing except two mattresses on a carpet floor. Drop ceiling and a single fluorescent lamp in the ceiling. They were sealed inside that room. She had used all her energy scooting around this carpet and finally gave up. She was a fan of signs from the universe and so far she had none. She was wasting her time and her energy, which she felt she needed to conserve. She knew exactly how he felt laying there on that mattress, infected, scared, in the worst pain, and no one and nothing could help. Damn it, Jayson...one vial of blood...she lay aside Mayers and she held his hand. She fell asleep or passed out looking at the name Keller on his wrist.

He heard Tarin's screaming as soon as he arrived to the house. It was quite audible from the curb and he ran for him. He had called and sent Mayers who was closer after she had called for help. He listened as the gun fired. He listened as Tarin screamed and he listened as the line went dead. He knew Jody had made it in, he'd heard him and he prayed that he'd find them both alive somehow. Whoever had been in that house left their man laying dead in the hall. He could see that plain as day as he climbed the stairs. Whoever had been in that house wasn't interested in harming the baby and had placed him in his crib in his room and shut the door, leaving him inside. He'd called Tavin and Jayson and they were on their way. He called the police once he got inside and secured the baby. He took him outside and calmed him down and he had Tarin semi cajoled when Tavin and Jayson arrived.

"He's alright." Chess said to Tavin. "I called 911."

They went inside and saw the damage. Julia unloaded her weapon on the man that kicked in that door. They came back out as the police arrived. Chess only told the police he had been called by Julia and that she asked for help. He said nothing else and he didn't plan on it. He didn't mention Jody Mayers had been there, but he did say he found Tarin in his crib unharmed. Because Julia protected him. He had heard that much on the phone.

Tavin's house quickly became a crime scene and soon everyone on the street was suddenly nosy. They'd all heard gun shots. They had all seen men, white males, dressed in black in the neighborhood. Nothing specific about the males and nothing specific about the vehicle they drove and nothing specific to help anyone learn about the perpetrators of this home invasion.

There was blood and plenty of it. Julia's own blood and the perpetrator's blood was all over the upstairs in the hall and on the walls. They were informed of Julia being there and then her sudden disappearance turned this investigation up a notch or two. Being she was 'hit' as she had said, then the authorities hoped and thought she'd need medical treatment, which made sense as she had lost what looked like a lot of blood.

Detectives were soon called in and they answered all their questions separately. Jayson's story checked out, he'd been at the gym. Tavin's story checked out as he stood in his uniform and he had been at work all morning. Chess was with Jess all morning at the lawyers. They had no idea the whereabouts of Jody, and the cops didn't necessarily know about Jody so he wasn't an issue with them. Anyone who lived there was accounted for and ruled out as a suspect. Jayson hounded the police and wanted some answers as to who the man was in the hall. He had obviously broken into the house and she had obviously shot him multiple times for doing so. Had she been to any hospital? Were they checking? 

Chess made him leave. Chess informed the detectives where they would be and provided addresses and phone numbers to match. They all went to Sandy's. Where else would they go? Once everyone settled down and settled in, he took Jay and Tavin outside where they could talk freely and he told them both the full story from the moment he got the phone call till the moment the call disconnected.

"Why'd she call you?" Jay asked.

"We'll have to ask her that Jayson. I'm not sure." He shrugged. "There were no zoms, but the guy that she shot, he is government. He's MIB."

"So if it was some random dude, she woulda called 911."

"I think so. I think she wanted me to see who he was."

"Who was he?"

"Never saw him before, but let me call a few people. I may be able to find out and then we'll go from there."

"Where's Jody?"

"With her." Chess answered. "I hope he's alive."

The brothers went back inside the house and he used the spare cell from the truck to make his calls. He got no where, which pissed him off. Someone died on their watch today and they greatly underestimated the wife in his opinion. He had a couple people who knew nothing, but he trusted without question. They said they'd look into it and call back. He then used his personal cell and he called the woman who may be able to help and he dreaded it.

"Cook, I need help." He said calmly. He briefly explained Julia's situation, which made this his situation. He wanted to know where she was, who held her and why? MIB was involved. He wanted a lead and God help the people that held her or took her. "Cook, please. I don't ask for help ever. Considering I completely dicked you over and have hurt you, it is not right to ask for a favor, but this is important."

"I don't know what you're talking about." She said to him calmly.

"What?" He asked.

"I suggest you talk to your cousin and figure this out, but I'll ask around." She hung up.

He stared at his phone and he was baffled by Cook and her strange talk. She never beat around the bush, had always been up front and at times, once she found out about Jess being pregnant, she was more than up front. Scathing angry were much better descriptions of her. He motioned to Jay and he stepped outside.

"Cookie seems to think you know more than you're saying." He asked as he pulled a cigarette from his pack. "How would you be involved in this?"

"I'm not involved in anything. I didn't have anything to do with that."

"Is she pregnant again?" Chess took a drag on his cigarette. On the off chance Julia was pregnant, then he could completely understand why they'd be interested in her body and her body parts.

"No." Jay denied this. "She had a pregnancy test at Mav General before the X-ray's. It was negative. When she broke her ankle, Chess."

"Then why is MIB on this?" He asked calmly. "Why did MIB break into your house and kidnap her?"

"I don't know. She's not involved-" He paused, running his hands through his hair. "Call her back." He pointed at the phone. "Ask her where they took her."

"Why would they take Julia anywhere? Why now?" He asked. "We're free and clear of anything that had to do with Care. We were out."

"The blood." Jay answered nervously. "Her blood." Jay started pacing. When Jay paced, usually the tears followed.

"What blood?"

"The vax is in her blood. We gave her blood to McGill."

"She agreed to that half assed idea?"

"Yes."

"You and your fucking people." Chess muttered. "In saving those motherfucking people, you could kill her, Jayson. How do they know it was her blood?"

"DNA. If they run the DNA, they'll know. Like me, if they run my blood through the machines, they'll be able to match me right on up. All of us, anyone who's been in the lab."

"And what if they take Mayers instead of you?" Chess asked. "If they have Julia because of her blood, and they took Mayers thinking he was you, what do you think is happening to Jo right now? She doesn't trust them, Jayson. For this reason. I told you to leave it alone."

Chess called Cookie back and agreed to meet her. He would take his cousin with him, because he wasn't going to Cookie alone. This wouldn't be a social call.

"No one trusts me or takes me seriously till shit like this happens." He mumbled. "Then everyone dials my phone number."

"I-we thought-"

"You didn't fucking think. Jayson, she should have had someone with her 24/7 till that break healed. What the fuck? And you left her with the baby. If anything had happened to the baby, she would never forgive herself."

"He's ok."

"She doesn't know that." He yelled. "Get in the truck, Jayson. Come meet Cook with me." He rounded the truck and opened the driver's side door.

"But I can't leave. What if they find something? What if-"

"They won't find anything. Local PD can't find their own asshole, Jayson. This is the shit no one still talks about. Believe the lie you can't talk about. Remember?"

Jayson was angry. Flustered. Confused. Betrayed. Chess was right and he called him out on it. Chess never held back and he was never nice about it. He saw things one way, his way, especially when it came to things like the family business. It was clear he was beating himself up internally as he weathered the drive through traffic into Maryland. He occasionally cried, which didn't surprise Chess. All his cousin did was cry from the time he was a kid. A sensitive motherfucker, but he could handle shit despite that sensitivity.

"Jay, she'll be ok." Chess said, sounding confident in that statement. "I mean, she's been through a lot and come up against a lot."

"She lost so much blood and she's got a broken leg, Chess. It's all my fault."

"I agree." Chess nodded. "But know what I know? She's a tough bitch, Jay. She thinks. She waits for the right time and she'll get herself out of whatever she's in. If necessary, she'll comply. When it's time, she'll kill them all. And if she got Mayers with her, Jay, they are gonna be alright. Neither one of them gives a fuck."

This whole situation was starting to feel a little too much like a Saw movie. "Let's play a little game." Julia mimicked her voice to sound like the Saw puppet. She lay on her back, staring at a drop ceiling and thinking. Someone had been by and left them food and some water just inside the door. She drank her water down, half the bottle and made Jody sit up. He was still conscious somehow. He was feeling pain and his gut was twisting and turning. At this point in the game they smelled. They were filthy thanks to the lack of facilities. Jody being sick with his stomach issues covered them in a sticky and tarry black feces that stunk to high heaven and stuck on them. When she noticed this she felt she should have stayed on her own damn mattress. But they were obviously on the team that shit together and then peed together because he did that too. His mattress smelled and they lay in the center of it.

She forced him up alongside her. If she had to get herself up and moving, then dammit, so did he. She aroused him mentally, kept him alert, forced the water down his throat. He drank like he was in the desert. Being twice her size and sicker, he needed the hydration more than she. He was also stronger and she needed Mayers up and moving. The first 48 hours were the roughest and if he intended on living, he needed water and food.

"What sick shit is this, Mayers?" She whispered to him. He had no idea what shape they were in. He would hopefully not remember a minute of this and as he became delirious, talking nonsense, she felt sure of that. He was sweet, kept calling her T and the infection brought memories out of him that she certainly should not have been listening to. She felt uncomfortable laying at his side and she tried scooting away, but that arm of his hooked her and held her tight on that mattress. Then suddenly he'd come back to reality and start talking normal again.

"I'm gonna die, Morgan." He complained.

"Not today." She said under her breath.

His infectious process mimicked that of Tom's back in the first house, so she told him all about it. They had nothing else to do to occupy their time. She lay in pain, absorbing the agony in her gut and she talked aloud to him. She told him detail by detail about their first nights and then all about their great escape from Green Street and then to the motel where their direction changed thanks to the guys. "Tom was a great guy, Jo. He was like everyone's dad, you know." She wasn't sure if he was listening or completely zoned out, but she kept talking. "And you're sickness is similar to his. He was awake and talking and naked too." She explained the complexities of the Z virus, both strains and how it acted on people. She spoke like she had researched the virus herself and in a way she had. Having lived with it and seen it and watched people suffer from it.

"How we met." He said, finally acknowledging he'd been listening to all or part of her story.

"How we met, yes. I fall into a coma and some stay alert and delirious. Depends." She speculated that he had been infected purposefully. They, believing he was JKELLER, infected him and her at the same time in the room at home.

"Shut. Up." He moaned.

"About us or about the infection or-"

"Just shut up."

She apologized. She was getting on his nerves.

She lay curled up in a fetal position, rocking with stomach pain and suddenly as fast as the pain had started, it subsided, which left her with her foot pain. Would she ever be pain free? Would she ever live life that didn't involve some suffering on any level whether mental or physical? Even while asleep, in her dreams, she was whisked to another time and place and she witnessed a multitude of sins involving Julia Fry.

She lay against Jody and she detailed Julia Fry's existence. Stalked and followed by the homeless man named Caleb Downing. The only fuzzy detail she hadn't had cleared up for her yet was how she had gotten from the alley way where Caleb Downing bit her to the lab itself. Some things would never be revealed and honestly, maybe Julia Fry didn't remember. If she had started to succumb to the infection after being bitten, then her memory would have been just as deluded.

She awoke in a lab room, on a floor and waiting to turn. She had a raised red bump on her arm and that had been the vax they'd dosed her. Julia didn't want to speculate on someone else's zombie world. Someone else's flip side that didn't belong to her. She watched and suffered along with Fry who had a vax and as her body then systemically reacted and her immune response then swept in and destroyed that zombie virus and eradicated it. Julia was fascinated. She had about two days peace between the initial Z virus infection and then the staph infection that followed. That wound of hers festered and began to swell and then drain a purulent yellow green pus. The pain from this open wound and its infection locally and then once it invaded her blood stream was intolerable. She suffered more from staph than she ever did with the z virus. Alas, there was a vax for zombie infection, but staph was an entirely different ball game. Once the docs were finally hip to the fact she was in the clear from the infection and they realized she was infected with a whole different bacteria, then they treated her. They couldn't have their first and only vax survivor die of a staph infection, so they brutally and barbarically assaulted her, cleaning out her shoulder wound and then cauterizing that wound. She was in so much pain from that she passed out, could not lay on her back or her left side and she couldn't tolerate any position if the truth be known.

She also liked her drugs after that. She hit the patient controlled analgesia button to the point she held it down and never took her finger off the button. No amount of pain killer desensitized her zombie bite and its subsequent staph infection. No one addressed the possibility that one may survive a vax. They applauded the first successful Z virus vax in history, but then failed miserably treating and keeping alive the patient they saved. She coded one night as narcotics overwhelmed her. The code had not been directly caused by the blood infection as the antibiotics they gave her around the clock were taking care of that; rather, someone had programmed the morphine pump incorrectly and she overdosed on narcotics. It was the first and last time she would be pain free in the lab and it was the last time she would receive pain meds for her pain. They tried out Percocet and oxy on her next and they were ineffective. They added an additional antibiotic to treat a pneumonia she developed, went into anaphylactic shock and needed a barrage of meds to treat the allergic reaction. Thus, the second time she damn near died. She suffered alone. She had lived and died nearly as much as Julia had herself.

"Shut up." Jody droned in her ear. "I know all this."

"Well I did not, Mayers." She whined. "Hey, you knew her pretty well, huh?"

"I would say so." He groaned as he sat up on the mattress. He was coming around it seemed, a week later. He was weak and he was still feeling sick, but he was alive. "We all knew her. Shoulda stuck around. She was cool."

"Did you mess with her too?" Julia asked suspiciously.

He ignored that ridiculous question as he reached for the empty bottle by the side of the bed and he pissed into it. They had long cleaned up, sacrificing a couple water bottles in their efforts. They had long switched mattresses and had long switched sides of the room. He put the lid on it and he tossed it to the corner with the rest of them. "Think about how we're getting out of here." He took a drink from the water bottle that had been left for them and he asked her, "Where does this come from? Who leaves it? How do they leave it? Let's think about an exit strategy please." He reached for a protein bar and ate it in a couple bites. "Nothing I would like more than being trapped nude in a room with you, but this is a little overboard."

"Been thinking, Jo." She pointed at the ceiling to the light. "Go to the light, baby." She smiled. "I may have a plan."

"Good. Me too." He was weak.

"Can you fight?" Julia asked him.

"No. Not yet." He shook his head. "Couldn't fend off a child yet. You're the muscle, Julia."

"My leg's broken, Jo." She reminded him, holding up her booted foot. She had taken the boot off a couple times a day. She had exercised and moved the joint despite the discomfort. She had attempted to ambulate on it with and without the boot. Her attempts had been for naught. She made out better with her boot than without. Carrying Tarin Keller around had set back her weeks of healing.

"So what's the plan, boss? You go first." He smiled, taking hold of her hand.

"Well, Mayers, take a good look around."

She knew they were being watched. She had a very strong feeling they had eyes and ears on them. So she spoke low. The fluorescent light bulb. The lights turned off same time every night. They could get up there, remove the bulb, break it and use it against whoever opened that door. Someone would need to replace it. Once the door was open, then they'd have a shot at their exit strategy.

"Oh, well, you're thinking inside the fucking box." He sounded annoyed and disappointed.

"You got a better idea?"

"Maybe, Julia." He answered. "We gotta get out right? Cause I am feeling better."

"Weakling. I am the muscle, remember?"

"Yeah, but my muscle is starting to come back to life." He nudged her with his shoulder. "I know yours is alive."

"Oh, well, um, we don't-um, I learned how she manages pain is all." She blushed as she replied. "Um, I didn't finish the story. It's all masturbation and God."

"Aware." He said.

"Did you mess with her too?"

"No. I didn't." He replied. "She didn't mess with anyone." He asked her that question and she chose not to respond. "She wasn't like that, Julia. She took her relationship with him seriously."

She unstrapped her boot and wiggled her toes. She pulled her foot from the boot and set her leg alongside it. She flexed and extended her foot at the ankle and repeated till she felt uncomfortable doing so. They had said 6-8 weeks. They had said it would heal naturally. She had a feeling they lied to her. It was swollen and it was bruised again, but the bruise was fading. The wound on her belly was healing nicely. It had been a piece of the door frame that stabbed her. Superficial wound obviously, considering she was still alive. The blood loss was a bit on the excessive side for that type of wound. Above the wound a small puncture wound that had healed. They'd darted her in that room, infected her and tranquilized her in her own home and had done the same of Jody. "If not for this foot, we would already be out of here."

"Can you call Chess?"

"And tell him what? We're in a box, Jo."

"That we are alive, Julia."

Chess...we're alive...she thought as strong as she could. "Ok, I told him."

"He respond?"

"No. I am not connected to him either."

"Who are you connected to then?"

"Nobody." She answered, leaving his hand go. She put her boot back on and she strapped up nice and firm, not too tight and not too loose.

A week inside these four walls was enough. They were starting to get on their own nerves and each other's. She had never spent this much time next to Mayers in one sitting. The better they both felt, the more monotonous their time was and he kept telling her to shut up every time she tried entertaining him with her stories. On that note the light flickered off in their well insulated room. Not one noise outside their voices could be heard. It was like they were in a vacuum. A small cage and they were being studied. They lay shoulder to shoulder on the mattress.

"Julia,"

"What?" She asked after silence that had gone on for what seemed like forever.

"How you getting up there?"

"Where, Jody?"

"The light."

"Your shoulders." She answered simple and honest. All they had to do was wait for the bulb to cool off.

He took her hand. "Woman, if you don't jump our asses outta here."

"Why are you so insistent on this?" She asked him.

"Cause I don't wanna stay here," His frustration was clear. He felt her energy tickling his hand as she held him. He wondered briefly if she was going to try. Where would she take them? Hopefully home. She invaded his nervous system, his arm suddenly feeling like it was asleep. They hadn't moved from the mattress yet, of that he was sure. He'd jumped enough with her to know the difference between human form and energy form.

"Maybe when we're asleep." She shrugged, squeezing his hand. "Cause this isn't working and I am not in the right state of mind and my foot is killing me and I am cold. Why cant I have a damn blanket? Do they not know I have a fever whether I want one or not?"

"Well, I am warm next to you."

Julia closed her eyes, laying shoulder to shoulder with Jody and hands interlocked. The silence was deafening and the inhalation-exhalation of their breathing were the only audible sounds in their vicinity.

"I love you, Morgan." Jody said.

"I love you too, Mayers." She replied.

"She called me." Chess said to Jess.

"Huh?" She looked around the room to his phone.

He got out of bed and walked across the room. He opened the door and he called Jayson. "I heard her. She said, 'Chess, we're alive' and didn't respond when I talked back."

"We, as in the two of them. Good. Thank God. So you think they're ok."

"Sounded sarcastic to me. You know. But that's it." He leaned against the dresser and looked at Jess. She was growing larger by the week. That bump of hers was enormous and he wondered if there was more than one baby in there. He closed the door again and he stayed there thinking about Julia's call. She hadn't elaborated and she sounded dull. Like she was bored. Nothing indicated fear or dread or anything of that sort. A simple 'we're alive'. Good news in his book. They could quit worrying about her and Mayers being in a shallow grave or turned or dead. She hadn't figured out how to get them out of wherever they were. Neither had he. It was the first solid lead or communication that anyone had with her.

His sources hadn't heard anything and even though he and Jayson had been working full time on following the MIB like the MIB followed everyone else, they still came up empty. The agent who died had a partner who was MIA. They'd been waiting this guy out for a solid week. They'd been hoping the partner would lead them somewhere close to her and Mayers. They had been gone for a week, had returned home for an overnight because of Jesslyn. He needed to see her even though he'd been in communication with her. She needed to see him too, so their feelings went both ways. She could tell he was not his usual happy self and happy was stretching it.

She got out of bed and went one more time to the bathroom. She spent a lot of time in there lately, saying she always had to pee. The baby was on her bladder. She felt the urge to piss constantly. "Is there anything I can do, Chess?"

"No." He answered as she came back in the room and stood with him. "I wish there was, but no." He placed a hand on her belly and rubbed her for good luck. "I missed you. I'm so sorry I been gone."

"I understand, Chess. It's important." Jess wanted them found as much as he did.

"You are important. I don't like leaving you alone here."

"I am never alone. I got Ray and Tavin stops by everyday. Kelly and Tarin stayed with me for a couple days, you know. Their house is a bloody mess."

He hadn't even thought about that. They had professional cleaners come in to scrub the hallways and clean the carpets. The blood on the floor in Jay and Julia's room alone was unreal. They still weren't home. Alex and Julia, too were in Jess's living room knocked out on the floor. Tatia was on the sofa. Tavin and Kelly and Tarin took up his room at his parent's house. Jay was down the hall in Layla-Kyra-Bella's room. They had bodies laying everywhere on their block.

There were no leads locally either. Nothing on street cams or otherwise. Their investigation had come up short and the man who had invaded the house, his body was retrieved and no one could say where he went. Like he got up and walked away. A matter of national security. Chess was pissed as was Jay. Local PD didn't even know the man's name, but Chess and Jay did. The 'local home invasion' had made the news, but once the leads dried up and the police had nothing to report, the story died down a little.

"I'm glad you're here though." She whispered, taking him in her hand. She smiled as she started to get on her knees. He stopped her though.

"No, don't." He said.

"No?" She frowned.

"I don't like you on the floor like that. No." He said, turning her and leading her to the bed.

"Since when?"

"Since you're very clearly pregnant. It's hard on your knees and it's hard to get up and, just no, Jesslyn." He laid her on her side and he took her from behind. "I wanna tear this pussy up so bad." He said in her ear.

"Well, I won't break." She replied, looking back over her shoulder at him.

"Who says? I can't take that chance, Jess. No."

"Never hurt me before."

"You know exactly what I mean. After you have this baby, whatever her name is, I will remind you of exactly what I mean. For now, let's not risk it."

He and Jay were up early. He had his day mapped out in his head. He led and Jayson followed. Jay was getting an education whether he wanted one or not. Surveillance and weapons and using the dark net as a source of information. Jay was awed. Chess was 100% sure that the partner would lead them to Julia and Mayers. Jay believed they were in a lab and Cookie denied that. There were labs across the U.S. and neither of them was placed in one. She had looked, not physically, but she had reached out and they were not patients any where in an official capacity.

"It's not our people, Morgan. I told you that." She was annoyed at this point and she had no other sources and no other recourse than to shut him down.

"Fine. Thanks for looking, Blondie. Listen, Jay was thinking. What about MIB? Anyone recently fired, disgruntled, terminated, or otherwise disgusted. Anyone on or off their payroll that's like us?"

"Let me ask around. I'll get back to you. What about his partner?"

"Can't find him, but when we do that'll give us some answers." Chess replied as he dressed, leaving Blondie on speaker phone. "Thanks, Cook. For real. I owe you."

"Yes, you do." She hung up on him and left him ready for the day.

Jay had already been up and awake and ready to go. He was in the kitchen with Jesslyn who'd made him breakfast and started coffee. He gave her a kiss on her cheek and a quick belly rub, hearing Layla-Kyra-Bella's tune as his hand crossed over her. "Where you guys heading today? Should I worry?"

"A funeral." Chess answered. "Maybe two, if we're lucky." He added, looking over her shoulder at Jay who sat in a black suit, white shirt and tie. He looked rather professional this early in the morning. "Maybe work, depending on how the day pans out. I still got work to do."

Without Mayers, he had double duty, because Mayers also had work to do. His unscheduled vacation had him running streets and dealing with people he usually didn't come face to face with. He debated bringing Jay in on work. It wasn't his ideal plan, but his options were limited at the moment. Since Jay went along for the ride, Jay stepped in alongside him in Jody's place. Jay was informed and narcotics made him nervous as hell, but capturing MIB and possibly torturing then killing MIB was in the cards. Strange what lines Jay felt comfortable crossing and what lines made him question right or wrong.

"Where is Ray? Has he called? Is he ready?" He had a moral dilemma there, too. He had chided Julia about bringing Ray into their private lives, but Ray volunteered to help if need be and sometimes having an identical twin worked in his favor. Drawing the line between Ray's MIB and Chess's real MIB he'd had the most difficulty with. He and Jay sat him down and explained how this would work.

"I don't know." Jay answered. 

Ray was at home, dressing himself in a similar suit and tie. Jay had visions of him trying to figure out how to get out of the house unnoticed by his delusions. He sat and waited quietly, hoping they were one step closer to finding them. He knew they were strong and he knew they could take care of themselves and each other. The what if's were annoying and terrifying. What if they were hurting her? The guilt he felt was overwhelming and he should have never donated her blood to the cause.

Chess glanced at the clock. "Where is my brother?" As he stepped away from Jess to go get him and crossed over Alex and Julia, too to the door, he saw Ray on the street with Candace at her car. Ray and Candace. What was her story? She was so quiet and he didn't trust this girl. She was a stranger to them, a complete oddity, but Ray seemed to like her. He watched them kiss under the street lamp and he pulled his cell out from his pocket and dialed Swigget's number "Hey can you run someone for me? Email me what you find. Yeah, everything you can possibly find, when you get a minute." He had looked her up on the typical social networking sites and found out that she had a similar affinity for everything alien and everything paranormal, but personal info, he was at a loss. "Yeah, Candace Polk." He spelled out her name for him.

"What for?" Jay asked. "She's as weird as he is. No offense."

"Maybe, Jay." Chess replied as he watched the couple separate. Candace seemed mad as she walked around her car and got inside. Whatever Ray was saying to her fell on deaf ears as the girl drove away. "Have you talked to her at all?"

"No, I haven't."

"You talk to everybody, Jayson."

"She's quiet. She gives me the creeps."

"Think the snatch is blue too?" He asked. He'd wondered from day one. Chess slid away from the door and back to Jess who handed him his travel mug of coffee. Ray entered the house and didn't look like he had just had a disagreement with his girlfriend.

"Geeze, stop it." Jess whispered. "Be nice, Chess."

"Ok, ok, mama." He said to make her happy, but he had his gut feeling despite the urge to be nice.

His brother cleaned up well, standing before them in his black suit and tie similar to Jayson's. The resemblance was uncanny between him and his brother. "Ray," Chess said as he approached and took coffee from Jess. "How's the alien Queen this morning?"

"Pissed I won't tell her where I am going." He replied. "So is mommy. Am I 5 years old? I can't walk out of the house in a suit without the women harassing me?"

"You told them nothing?" Jay asked.

"Yep, like y'all said. I got dressed and I left them."

"It's a funeral, Ray. Coulda said a funeral."

"Then they'd have more questions. Who died? We know the person? Mommy interrogates me like a cop and Candace thinks I'm about to cheat on her. Really. In a suit at this hour of the morning."

So Ray didn't trust her either. Or he trusted his brother more. Either way, his women were mad at him.

As they grabbed their bags, which Jess had washed and repacked neatly for them, mommy appeared at the door and demanded to know where they were going. Specifically where they were going with Ray, because Ray normally didn't leave the house. Ray normally didn't crawl out of bed till 2pm, but he was dressed and bathed and looking handsome as ever before sun up.

"Mom, we're trying to find Jules and Jo." Chess answered, giving her a hug hello. "Surveillance, we're trailing the partner. Hopefully we'll have some answers today." Chess informed his mom.

"Oh, and Ray here is like a body double for you. Ok, then. Don't get him hurt."

"He shouldn't get hurt, but it's a possibility." Chess told her. "Like me and him. You know that."

His mom knew the way Chess went about taking care of things and that didn't necessarily stay within the bounds of any law. The people that they were dealing with did not function within the bounds of any law either. Even playing field, the way Chess saw it. If your work is off the radar, then the people who come at you are as equally off the radar. The government was as shady and as corrupt and criminal as the people on the streets they tried to confine and control. 

A week ago, he had wished that Jay and Jody had been in opposite places at the time of the abduction. He'd much prefer to run with Mayers. He and Jo had spent so much time together and working together and conniving together that they could read each other's thoughts, understand the actions that they took, and agreed to kill for the same reasons. Jo needed no explanation. Jay, on the other hand, all this needed some explaining. Every step they took and every move they had made in the span of one week's time needed clarification for Jay. They had clearly taken two separate paths, in reality and on the flipside. Jay had compassion and rationality. Chess's had burned out a long time ago.

"Ray, you drive." Chess said, tossing him the truck keys. "Do we need to go over this at all again before we leave?"

"Yes," Jess said, holding onto his hand tightly.

"Not with you. You call if you need me."

"Nah, we cool." Jay said, throwing his bag over his shoulder. They had a two hour drive ahead of them as did Chess in a different vehicle.

Hundreds of people turned out for this funeral. Multiple law enforcement agencies and friends and family packed this church first thing in the morning. Jay and Ray's only job was to blend in and with the mass of people that were in the church and the streets around it, they were not having any difficulty doing so. They were spectators only. They'd made their mark and they notified Chess via text.

Chess had a feeling the agent would arrive at the funeral. No one lost a partner and didn't show up to his services. Chess had been to these funerals, knew how they worked. He'd buried his own fallen over the course of time. Not only was he present and accounted for, he was with his wife or girlfriend, which for Chess was like a jackpot. If he couldn't have the agent, then his beautiful wife would be a close second. If you have the spouse, you have the person you're looking for. Once the funeral was over and the masses of people exited the church, Jay and Ray stayed on their mark and kept a distance all the way to the wife's Chevy parked in the lot. Jay made note of the plate number, the make and model of the car and then they followed along to the burial, staying out of the way of the funeral procession.

Chess was no where near them. He wasn't at the church. He wasn't at the burial. He was in van waiting for Cook who had dropped out of her office and to the street. She opened the passenger door and she climbed into the minivan. "Getting family ready I see." She commented coldly. She handed over a piece of paper with three names and addresses. "MIB, Morgan." She said, looking at the three names. She pulled another card from her pocket, her own office business card, and handed it to him. On the back there was a phone number, no name with it. "Him, he's a friend of mine." She seemed hesitant. "He-uh-would like to remain anonymous, so when you call him, keep it short and sweet."

"I will, Cook. I know you're going out on a limb here."

"Him. He was one of us first. After all the new protocols were put into place, he was pulled off our team and placed on homeland, one of their first agents. Call and don't exchange names. Short and sweet." She reminded him.

"Yeah, definitely." He said as she put her hand on the door. "Cook, I-I'm sorry."

"Sure you are. You all are sorry when you get caught." She sighed.

"Awe, Cook, I didn't mean to mess this up. It happened."

She stepped out of the van and turned to him. "Living with her. That happened too."

"You don't understand us. This family."

"You never gave me the chance to either. It's a hard club to get into.   j  No new memberships."

"I tried. I wanted to. Jules doesn't like you."

"Don't you dare blame Julia. We have come to an understanding, me and her. We-me and you-will never be on speaking terms."

"I owe you."

"I can't believe that whoever has her still has her." She smiled, placing her hand on the door. "When I call that favor in, I will call her." She then closed the door on him.

Jo was weak. The weaker the person, the weaker the energy. Reasoning with Mayers made sense, but getting him to hear it was difficult. He didn't understand why they were still there. He wasn't the only weak person in the room. She was injured, healing, which debilitated her. The weaker they were, the more stuck the were. There's good energy and bad energy and they lay in the midst of bad energy.

"I'm no super hero, Joseph." She snapped at him. "I'm a naked girl with a busted foot and you're worse off than me, so chill the fuck out."

He sulked a little, but the anger was good. He got off his ass. He'd lost weight. He needed a shave too. His beard was growing and he was wolfing. He was trying all the things she'd already tried during their entrapment. He pushed on walls and tried the door. He reached up to the drop ceiling and he took all the panels down. That much she couldn't do. "In this room made for midgets." He commented as the light fixture came down next. He and Julia looked at the light bulbs. "Light sabers, boss?"

"Ha. The force is with us." She joked as she watched Jody crouch on the carpet. He was starting to feel caged. He felt along the carpet and he looked for grooves or patches that didn't align. He started pulling up carpet in the corner and eventually he pulled up enough carpet to reveal a trap door. He opened it and looked down to another floor of the house, a bedroom. Between the floor of their room and the ceiling to the room below, there was a couple feet difference.

"Julia," He groaned annoyed with her.

"I didn't know." She said to him. "We always tried the fucking door, Jo."

He put his hands on her and sat her on the floor by the hole. She dropped her feet through and thought about her landing. "No. It's gonna hurt."

"Head first," He ordered.

"Gonna drop me out on my head, Mayers."

"No. I want you to look. I'll hold you up here." She didn't trust his strength, but she went head first and Mayers gripped her waist. "I got ya." She did as he asked, because he sounded so confident and she looked into a bedroom. A queen sized bed, furniture and TV. A regular master bedroom. He pulled her back and he dropped through the floor into the room below, landing with a thump. He held arms outstretched to her and she slid nervously through the hole and onto him. She hit harder than she expected, but he caught her and he kept her feet from landing on the floor. On the back of the door, which was closed and locked from the inside, hung two hangers and clothes. Julia limped to the window and she looked out to the ghost town that surrounded their dwelling. No people, no cars and no signs of life at all whatsoever. She opened the window and the smell hit her in the face, the smell of rot. She noticed Jody's face and then closed the window. Julia tried the TV, the lamp. No electricity. That hum that breathed life into electronics wasn't there. The world was dead, the world around them at least. She went for the door and opened it. A lengthy hallway that led directly to a bathroom, which she could see from where she stood. The house was fairly empty.

"Jody, this is a game." She whispered, limping to the hall and looking in the room to her right. A typical bedroom and no occupant. The same with the smaller bedroom next to the bathroom. She tried the faucets, water ran. That was a good sign. They'd turned off the electricity, but they had left the water running.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm getting clean." She stated. "Water works."

They showered and helped themselves to the house, considering no one was there. Whoever had fed them hadn't stuck around. Whoever was running this show didn't stick around. There was no communication and there was no working landline. They ate food left in the kitchen and Julia found a couple ace wraps in a first aid kit on the shelf in the pantry. She took off her boot, wrapped her ankle tight and then applied some pressure to the foot. She limped on it and it still hurt.

"Where we going, boss?"

"The fuck outta here." She answered honestly as she pulled shoes on over her feet. "This is a fuckin' set up, Jo. What is all this?" She hopped to her feet, putting more pressure on her right than her left. He followed her out the front door and the smell was overwhelming. As if the smell they had just left was any better. The odor that came off the human, alive or dead, was offensive. They passed a week in their own waste and they had acclimated to that. Once out in the daylight, the warmth of September on their skin, they soaked up rays they hadn't seen in days.

"How's the foot, boss?"

"Bout as good as yours." She answered from the yard. "Where the hell are we?"

"Jersey in the fall, Julia."

"F that. This ain't Jersey." Julia muttered. "Least I don't think so anyway."

"Where we going?"

"Oh, my friend, we're going to see an old fuckin friend. Name's Ann. I ever tell you about Ann?"

He grinned as he put his hand in hers. "I have heard about her."

Chess made two phone calls, dialing the number on Cook's business card first. He didn't get a chance to speak. He had no idea to whom he spoke, only received GPS coordinates repeated times three and he was disconnected. He had them in his head. He recalled coordinates like he recalled the day of the week. He jotted them down and when he tried to call back, there was a busy signal. He obviously wasn't the only person who had an alternate cell. Chess wanted the partner, having Jay and Ray on the partner, following him from the funeral to the burial and then afterward to the luncheon held by the deceased agent's family. Ray and Jay currently waited outside the venue. Their entire day was a bore. They ate take out in the truck and they watched their target. Eventually they'd follow their target to the next location and preferably one a little more private and less crowded.

Chess dialed the next number and spoke with the MIB, a rather chatty and disgruntled one who agreed to meet him in a park near his current home. Out on leave, he hadn't been terminated and he hadn't quit his job. He was on the fence, struggling with a conscience. It had been so damn long since he had one, Chess couldn't recall what a conscience was.

He met MIB agent Chuck Hill at a local park not too far from his home. Skinny and pale wearing jeans and a red tee. Brown spiky hair and carrying a gun on his hip beneath the tee. His brown beady eyes darted around the park. Chuck, a former operator with the second Z team to graduate Parris Island, was completely mind fucked. Anxious, jittery, medicated or under medicated, Chess was unsure. He could sense the guy's animosity and he could also sense the guy's loyalty. He struggled to maintain loyalty and he had a healthy respect for the job and its goal, keep the American eastern seaboard from getting swallowed up in a zombie horde. The way they went about it, the secrecy and the lack of mental health follow up to deal with what men like he and Chess had faced, angered him. It was all a conspiracy. Men had been scarred psychically like those who had gone to war, but couldn't talk about it. Men who came back from overseas could come back and discuss their war stories, the horrors, but those who fought this next generation civil war between the living and the dead maintained an air of denial and secrecy.

"I get it, dude. I left it. I couldn't take it and I know what you're talking about." Chess went the understanding and reassuring route.

"I thought it would be easier getting out of it, away from it. It was worse. Before, we warred with the dead, it made perfect sense. Once they formed the homeland security division, it was worse. We were tracking innocent people, victims, pregnant women, mentally deranged men and women who were not crazy. Anyone who was on the top secret watch list, we followed. Living civilians, man."

"Big brother."

"Exactly. We monitor all social media, incoming and outgoing phone calls. When necessary, we detain and we confine them. Gitmo, man, they released 99% of the terrorists down there. It's our civilians inside that compound."

"That much I knew, but I didn't know to what extent."

"Ever been?"

"No." Chess replied. "So what's the deal? I got friends that were taken by MIB. Any idea where they'd be taken if not a lab or Gitmo?" He sensed the GPS coordinates would come into play here.

Just when Chess thought this guy couldn't get any more nervous, Chuck took it to a whole new level. Paranoid, looking all around him. He truly believed the shoe was on the other foot and there were people watching him like he'd been charged to watch others. "Believe the lie you can't talk about, Chuck." Chess said calmly, lacking the anxiety that Chuck displayed. This...Chess thought to himself...is why I drink. Lest he turn into Chuck the mind fucked agent on leave. If he hadn't ditched the conscience, the morality, the sanity, he would be Chuck. He went insane to be sane. He was cold and disconnected from people on purpose. He sacrificed every ounce of humanity and love for fellow man to the dead and came out the other side alive.

Chess opened up the GPS coordinates on his phone and he showed Chuck the small town that was not too far from the Pennsylvania-Maryland border. It was a distance from where they sat, but not out of driving distance. Oakland, Maryland.

"It's Z town." He said, looking 50 shades of paranoid as his breathing kicked up. "It's where we train, man. It's like Parris Island, but for us. It's fairly new and anyone who is anyone in our work has to spend time there."

"Huh?" Chess laughed. He had never heard of this place. "Did you just say Z town?"

"It was overrun months ago. The townsfolk were evac'd out and the government claimed the town, put a perimeter around it, and that is the new and improved training facility. Once you leave Parris Island, if you join us, you go there. How did you get those coordinates?"

"A friend of a friend of a friend."

"Z town, you get locked in there. A random place and you gotta figure out your way out of the place you get stashed. That's like level one. Then after that, you have to maneuver out with all the skills you learned. There's nothing there but dead. It's all online, too. You are observed from the comfort of an office on any base, DC, the white house, the pentagon."

Chess processed this information in his mind. A town full of dead, cordoned off from all living people. "Training facility." He stated.

"Yep. Every aspect of their lives from the time they drop in to the time they leave the perimeter is watched. They're examined, studied, critiqued. If your friends are there, they best be trained or have some knowledge."

"They do. Man, they are not newbs. They're vets."

"Then why are you so worried about them?"

"Cause I didn't know where they were. That's why. Now, I do."

He debated packing it in and going home, because if anyone could make it through Oakland, Maryland, or Z-town, then it would be Jo and Julia. They could call when they got out for a ride home for all he cared, but there was the small issue of the agent who invaded Julia's home while Tarin was in her care. They destroyed the upper level of the house, scared wifey to death and then took the both of them. That, to Chess, didn't set well. They were civilians. Vets, yes, but they were not vets on this soil or this reality. Julia's videos had made the rounds. Why they chose her at this particular time and then further took Jo with her was yet a mystery. A mystery that Chuck shed some light upon.

"They do that from time to time. These people who get involved in our business, the ones who are celebrated as urban legends or tough ass civilians thinking their shit don't stink. They take them and teach them a lesson or they use them to train the ones coming up. See them in real life and in action."

"They chose the wrong bitch." Chess said under his breath.

"A girl, female? That's rare they throw a woman in."

"She's not just a woman, Chuck. She's the urban legend. And, furthermore, she doesn't only think her shit don't stink, man, cause it doesn't. She's no joke. No average fuckin operator. Julia doesn't play. She loves this shit." So did Mayers for that matter. Both of them warred side by side in some shit place in Jersey. Both of them carried scars and both of them were well equipped to handle whatever game was being played.

"What took them so long to get out, then? You said they been in a week."

"Not sure, Chuck. She got a broken ankle. Him, though. He shoulda been able to carry her weight and his." Chess looked at the time on his watch, thinking he had to gather up his teammates and head out to Oakland, Md before night fall. "They got nests or no?"

"Not usually, maybe one or two and they're small. Remember, they're supposed to be newbs running the course."

"Chuck, thanks for meeting me and giving me your knowledge. You've been most helpful." Chess gave him a firm handshake.

Chess hot footed it away from Chuck who would have sat and talked to him all fucking day. Chuck needed to let it go and move on and find some meaning in life. It was clear to Chess that he was not going back to work for the agency, but Chuck may be a damn fine operator one day in his very own business of the dead. With the proper medication and self exploration, he would get his shit together.

"Damn he was jumpy." Chess mumbled, climbing in the van. He started up the engine and drove away, meeting Jayson and Ray around the corner from the house that the target shared with the woman. The car they'd ID'd was parked in the drive and at this point, Chess was unsure what course of action to take. They transferred their bags and belongings from the truck to the van and Chess sent his twin brother, back in the truck to wait.

"Now what, boss?" Jay asked.

"Now, Jayson, we cause trouble."

"What kind of trouble?"

"The kind that kicks in doors and gets people fucking shot. That kinda trouble."

Chess quieted his cousin's nerves and explained exactly how this would go down. It could go one of two ways and Chess didn't give a fuck or two fucks which way it went, it was going to happen. He reminded Jayson that this was the man that kidnapped his girl. He and his partner had invaded his home with guns drawn, had charged up the steps and scared the lovely wife half to death and then further terrorized a one year old child, their nephew. She had been wounded and taken and then the person that went in there to help her was subdued somehow, as yet to be determined by them, and they both were taken from the premises against their will and they chose to thankfully leave the one year old unharmed and in his crib. He played on Jay's fragile emotional state and by the time he was finished recounting the tale of events as he knew them, Jay was an emotional wreck.

"Jay, it was supposed to make you angry." Chess said, patting him on his shoulder.

"Oh, I am angry."

"Must you leak at every turn we make, Jay? This is really annoying."

"You're so cold though."

Oh, my God..."Can you go up there and do as I asked or you want me to do it on my own?"

"No, no. I'll go."

And off they went.

They had weaponed up as best they could from their immediate environment. No guns, no knives and Julia lamented she missed her 'fucking' knife and she swore the whole time that someone would pay for this game they were playing. The whole nudity thing was the worst. The whole trapped in a room and trying not to die while naked with Jo and no facilities was dehumanizing and the worst of the worst. Fortunately she and Jo were comfortable with each other's bodies, but the excrement alone made them angry. They chose early on in their walk not to mention it, rather they would share it as a memory they would never speak of. She had seen some lows with her guys, but the lows she endured with Mayers surpassed that of her past.

The library. Finally. It had taken some time to locate and then they happened on it by accident. 2nd Street...they made it there through a couple small swarms of zoms.

"We're not gonna see Ann, we're gonna see Ruth." Jody pointed at the white and blue sign. Blood splattered, yes, from the town's previous inhabitants. "The Ruth Enlow Library of Garrett County."

"Where the fuck is Garrett County, Jo?"

"Well, let's ask Ruth." He suggested as they forged ahead to the entrance.

Jody had his arm under her arms and supported the left side of her as they moved ahead. Locked. Jody broke out a window as opposed to the door and he hoisted her small body up and in, over glass shards and onto a counter top. She shimmied off the counter onto her good foot and fell over after losing her balance and landing unsteadily. Having put so much weight and work onto her good foot, it was becoming unsteady too. Jody was already weak to begin with and he was feeling drawn and tired. She pushed them forward though, dragging her body upright as Jody pulled himself up and inside the building, scooting over the broken glass and he landed directly on top of her.

"Ya know, this is bullshit." She complained as she pulled up onto her feet.

"Hurts doesn't it? Julia, wanna quit for today and-"

"I ain't a quitter." She snapped at him. "And, yeah, it kills me running around on this foot. Sit down. I'll find what I'm looking for on my own." She pointed out the chairs and moved on, weapon in hand and she eye balled the library, making sure they were alone and safe. She knew exactly what she wanted and most libraries stored them all in the same place. "We are in Maryland." She said, coming back to the tables with her books. She dropped them on the table in front of her and noticed he'd put his head down. "Ok, we'll quit for today." She was resolved to push forward, but Jody didn't seem up to the challenge.

"I just need a minute, Morgan."

"Take all the minutes you need." She said quietly as she skimmed through the books till she found the page she wanted. She then grabbed a red pen off the desk across from them and determined where they were and which way was the most direct route out of this small and lovely town to civilization. "I know how you feel, Jo. I swear I do. I couldn't do what you're doing a week after waking up. It takes weeks to recover." She reached across the table and she touched his hand. "I will take care of you and-"

"I'm fine." He raised his voice as his head rested on his arms.

"I will carry you." She finished her statement despite his mood. She remembered having moods as well. The infection wrought havoc in the body, on the brain, and exhausted a person so easily. "Let me do it." She said sternly as she traced Oakland, Maryland with her red pen. She calculated mileage and distance from where they sat to the next populated area and she thought it best if they moved forward, securing a place before night fall and then reminding him they may want to find a place that would be barricade from a possible nest. She further speculated that since this town was a dead zone, that it would be fenced off or walled off from the real world, which meant that they would need some rope or something to aid them with a climb since she was no climber.

"Gotcha, boss."

"A pharmacy, too. We can patch us right on up with some decent drugs and where's the police station? There may be guns there or at least we can lock into the cells overnight. We'll need some supplies for overnight and a blanket cause I get cold." Julia created a list and then the best places along their route out in which to find these supplies. "Lastly, transportation. A bike or something. I can't walk all that way, but..." She paused opening up her map. "The police station is a block over. Know how far we are from home? Like 3 1/2 hours, Jo, in a car. So..." She paused, folding up her map and tucking it in her pocket. "We'll make it to the next town and then we will call someone to come get us."

"Sounds like a basic plan, Jules."

"Want a hug?" She asked him. He raised his head and stared at her a little confused by the statement and the sentiment. She was joking, right? If one particular facial expression could speak, it would have told her to fuck off. "Anywho, there's a Walgreen's down the block, a small market. We need sustenance and meds, and we should find a secure location to shack up. We were spoiled in the attic."

"Spoiled?"

"Safe. Down here, ground level, we're gonna have issues."

"Issues." He repeated.

His lack of oomph had her questioning his will to push on and continue. "Let's find a place and I'll do a supply run."

"No." He said, sounding quite dismal. "We go together or not at all." He pulled himself upright and he was drawn and pale.

"Hospital, ER or ambulance for IV fluids." She suggested, mentally adding those items to a growing list. "Morphine sounds lovely. Ambulance or ER, Sir?"

"Ambulance. Maybe it'll start."

"Oh, know what I like about the end of the world, Jo?" She asked sounding rather excited.

"What's that, Jules?"

"We get to break shit. Like vending machines and doors and go places and steal shit we normally cannot in real life."

"Sorry if I am not as excited as you are about all this, Julia."

"Jody, up, please. Let's go get some stuff."

Ambulance. The fire department was situated adjacent to the police station. Through the window of the garage there sat one ambulance. Jo jimmied the door to the fire department open and they went inside. The vehicle wouldn't start to drive it off premises, but there was stuff in the rear of the rig that would suit them just fine for a bit. On their walk from the library, there was the abandoned Sheetz market. They helped themselves to supplies and wondered why there were supplies. The dead wandered the streets freely, half or more they both put down with crow bars they'd taken from vehicles that were left in the road. Jody secured the door to the fire house and they managed their way into the rig where she placed him on the stretcher and she started the IV and got fluids running on him. He perked right on up as the fluids ran, and she bolused him a bag of saline then slow dripped the next one.

"Jules, take the stretcher." He said as he looked down at her on the floor of the ambulance.

"I'm good." She said, laying on her achy back with her foot propped on the seat next to Jo. She held the bottle of liquid narcotic in her hand and she showed it to him.

"Gonna self medicate in the middle of the apocalypse?"

"No. I can't." She answered, tossing the bottle onto the stretcher with him. "Gotta stay alert." She replied, opting for a cocktail of Tylenol and Motrin, which she drank down with water from their trip to the convenience store. "We're here for the duration, Mayers. Relax." She stared at the ceiling and waited on Mayers' response, but all she heard was snoring above her. That morphine was calling her name, but she couldn't. If anything happened to him while she was high, she would never be able to forgive herself. She sat up and looked at her patient. Sound asleep and covered in human decay, brain and blood. She doubted she ever felt sorrier for someone in her life other than that moment. She remembered back to when she was in the lab and Chess shot the turned lab tech and the zom just outside her door. She had felt so helpless and so weak at that moment. She would never have been able to summon the strength to act even if she chose to. She recalled further back to the first house where she had roused and woken from a coma like state with Tav at her side. They had rallied and taken care of her. They had made things work while she was out and even afterward they managed to hold things down despite her weaknesses. She could not have been able to help anyone after she was released from the confines of that room. She barely had enough energy to do dishes let alone slay the dead and walk around a neighborhood. The physical exhaustion and the loss of strength and muscle tone was debilitating.

She ran a hand over Jody's face, feeling the rough stubble that had grown in and the warmth that he had from his low grade fever. He wasn't out of the woods yet and he was out of the house, walking blocks, killing zombies and keeping her alive. She was doing the same for him on a bad leg and a limp with pain that numbered a 15 on the scale of 1-10.

"I'm sorry, Jo." She whispered as she touched him.

"Hmm, what?" He asked, rousing from the slumber he'd just fallen into. He put his hand over hers on his face and he opened his eyes a moment. "My loyalty is lower." He smiled, pushing her hand away.

When special agent's wife answered the door she came face to face with a glock. Two of them, in fact, and two men who wore masks. He had initially doubted Jay would be able to aim a weapon at a woman who had done nothing wrong but love her boyfriend-husband, but he did. Chess took the lead and held the gun to her head as they walked quietly and calmly into the residence. Jay kicked the door shut behind him.

"Shh, honey, we're not here for you. Stay calm. You will live." Chess said as he walked with her through the entryway and into the open living room. Agent sat on the sofa and reached for a gun, but then restrained himself as his woman's life was in danger. Jay removed the weapon and tucked it away on him and then he went about tying up the woman, apologizing all the way as she cried and whimpered, thinking the worst and not believing a word that Chess or Jay spoke.

"Name." Chess said, aiming at the agent.

"Ford." He replied, looking at his companion while Jay bound her.

"You are a very difficult man to track down, Ford. Almost gave up." Chess said. He pulled a picture of Julia and Jody from his pocket and held it up for him. "Ring a bell, Ford?" The look on his face was all the confirmation he needed before he bonked the agent on his head and knocked him out. He tied up Agent Ford and then looked to his lovely companion. "Wife or girlfriend?" Chess asked, tucking his weapon in his holster. Jay stood off to the side and stayed mute.

"Girlfriend." She cried.

"I am not in the business of hurting women unlike your boyfriend over there." He told her as he took a seat in front of her. "Name?"

"Hope."

"Well, Hope, are you comfortable? Not tied to tight, are you?"

"I'm oh-ok."

"Calm down, we will not hurt you." Chess said. "The zip ties are merely a formality."

He looked to Jay. "Bring the van up, please." Jay walked away quietly and he went to fetch the van.

"Where are you taking him?"

Chess chose to ignore that question. It was only natural to ask as she would worry. Chess's cheery voice tried to sound reassuring for her. He was sure she would manage eventually to be freed, but in her state of distress, he didn't want her to have to fuss. "While you're here alone, after we all leave, I suggest you take a moment to reflect on the events of this evening. There are more of us where we come from. Remember that."

He walked away from Hope and to Jay who had returned from the van. He and Jay hauled Agent Ford to the rear and tucked him in the back. Chess logged in the GPS coordinates for Oakland, Maryland into the navi on the dashboard and Jay drove them toward the small town of 2000 individuals, or what was left of them.

"She's going to be alright." Chess reminded him as he drove.

"We don't hurt our women."

"She wasn't ours. But I understand what you mean." He agreed, looking at the Navi on the dashboard.

Julia couldn't rest, knowing there was a police station next door. The possibility that there may be weapons or communications systems available to her was tempting. The sun hadn't completely set yet and Jody was still knocked out, tucked in the rear of the ambulance. Her patient was stable and asleep. She looked through the glass on the tall garage doors of the fire house and directly across the street to the hardware store. To her left, across a small parking lot was the police department. Small town U.S.A, these places were in close proximity to each other. They were also the size of a postage stamp, because small town, U.S.A was virtually safe from the crime and the issues that rest inside urban city centers. She felt the itch to move, explore. Her nervous energy spoke for her and she moved on fairly steady feet to the rear of the ambulance. "I'm going next door." She said to a sleeping Jody. "Jo," She called, her voice insistent.

"Wha-" He moaned, opening his eyes.

"I'm going next door. The police station is across this parking lot." Why they hadn't stopped there first irked her. He could have made it into the police station, but the firehouse and its ambulance looked too good to be true. Jody's condition took precedence at the time. She held up an axe at him, gripping it tight in her hand. She'd rummaged thoroughly. "I'm closing you in." She whispered.

"No." He stated. He was too weak to get up, so protecting a girl that didn't need protection was not in the cards.

"Across the parking lot." She whined, brandishing that heavy axe in her hands, pointy end out, getting used to the weight of her weapon in her hands. She swung it a couple times like a baseball player readying for his turn at bat. He drifted back into his sleep state. She closed the doors to the ambulance and she took a step closer to the door they'd come through in the rear of the fire house. She wanted guns and there was a good possibility there were guns at the ready. The places they'd seen in the four or five block radius were intact for some reason. Julia had laid in that ambulance and speculated as to the reasons. Quarantine? Martial law? The incident that took place had the townsfolk in their homes and secured till they turned or were moved out. She had yet to discover why they hadn't moved back in to this quiet town. It looked like a place anyone would like to live. There was the picturesque aspect of small town life, but on this main road, Garrett Highway aka route 219, there was some modernization. Convenience stores, restaurants, pharmacies. It was all cramped along this particular stretch of the road.

As she opened the door to the outside world, never one for sitting and hiding, she held that axe like it was an extension of her arm and she started the trek across the pavement to the police station. No patrol cars were visible. No people and only a few zoms that walked past in the street. They were a distance from her and they were unaware of her. Nonetheless she moved forward, crossing to the back of the municipal building and found an unlocked rear door. She held a flashlight on her person, another item she'd found rummaging through the fire house gear and she pulled it, flicked it on and entered the building.

Most of this place was office space and computers, technology that was inoperable. She wound further through the tiny precinct and found absolutely nothing. Her flashlight guiding her way, she came across a small area that contained two cells. She saw a booking area and an interview area. No weaponry at all, which was a disappointment. She found a radio and played with it, trying to work the thing, she flipped the switch and turned it on. All she heard was static.

Julia set it down and took her axe in hand and on her way back to the rear exit, she came across another room. She creaked the door open a bit and the person inside lunged at the door, snarling and spewing a rotten spittle. The door slammed shut and she was pushed back and onto her ass. The axe skittered across the floor as she had left it go to brace herself for the fall. She couldn't walk or run real well, but she could crawl quick, so she moved for her axe as the hungry turned man in the station's locker room flung himself against the door. The door separated her from the weapon on him. A gun belt. A baton, pepper spray, a taser. She scooted back to the door and steadied herself on her feet. She pushed the door open as far as possible and in the last of the light that shined in through the station windows, she tossed her lighted flashlight into the room with officer Z. The light show successfully distracted him and he shuffled toward the light. Julia entered behind him and showed the police officer some mercy with the axe. How he'd managed to get caught up in there and die, she didn't know or care, but she could finally hold smaller and more fitting weapons in her hands. She took his belt and with flashlight in hand, she roamed the locker room. That's where she hit pay dirt and found the cache of guns and ammo. "Cha-ching." She said to herself excited as she rummaged through the weapons and stashed them in a gear bag. She had a particular taste and so did Jo, so she gathered her arsenal and she head back to the fire department with a clean and heavy 9mm in hand. She traversed successfully across a parking lot with a limp, a bag, an axe and her glock. She was splattered with fresh zombie innards and felt sticky, but lucky at the same time. As darkness fell over the firehouse, she climbed back in the rig and woke Jody. His color was a bit better, his attitude was dismal.

"Told you no." He said, setting himself upright and reaching for the water bottle she held out to him.

"I don't listen." She shrugged, setting the bag between them on the floor. "This is too easy, Jody. You know that right."

He nodded his agreement as he picked up the bag of weapons and started choosing the ones he'd carry. He was ill, but he felt their night was long from over. "Plan, Morgan."

"Been through a hell of a lot worse with less, Jo. Don't you agree?"

He screwed up his face at her. "Not exactly Jersey, boss." He held up his arm toward her. "Throw another bag or two in our bag and maybe another kit." He suggested as he ripped the short IV catheter from his arm. She applied a quick bandage and tucked a couple liters of saline in the bag. She picked it up and slung it over her shoulder.

"So what's the plan?"

"Let's start some shit." She replied, taking his pillow case from the small pillow on the stretcher. She sliced it up with bandage scissors from the rig.

"Like?"

"I say we blow this town up, or parts of it." She pulled her map out and she laid it on the stretcher beside him. She pointed, "Here and here and here." She smiled. "We head north, not south."

"That'll bring everything out in the open."

"Into one consolidated area. Yes, Jody. Draw them all in. How many could there be? We make this work in our favor." She folded up the map and they head outside. She fussed with him over the bag and he took it and carried it. They crossed the street to the hardware store and they managed their way inside the store. She found the first flammable liquid she could put her hands on and they left to the parking lot. They walked in darkness and they needed light.

"And let there be light, Jo." She whispered as she saturated the cloth she carried in her flammable liquid. Jody jogged on his newfound energy to the cars he saw that were left behind. The silence and darkness was not pleasant. No vision and no specific plan, he thought she was out of her mind, but he stuffed the wet cloth in the gas tank of the car and he lit it up. Being that he had two fully functional lower extremities, it was his job to light and run, light and run, then light and run, then get the hell out of the way and back to Julia in the lot on the opposite side of the street. His heart pounded, he was not used to causing explosions and setting the night on fire, but she had a look on her face that said otherwise. She had crouched behind a vehicle as he got back to her and they stayed there till each vehicle exploded into the night air. "Yes!" She squealed happily as she was thrown off her feet and onto her ass. She scurried back to his side and watched over the trunk as the next car caught and then went boom. A consecutive, ground shaking, loud signal to any neighboring small town U.S.A.. The fact that the world had not ended outside the small town of Oakland would and should work in their favor. It would bring the dead in on their location from all their hiding spots and she didn't seem bothered by this in the slightest. She delighted with the light show before their eyes. It would burn for a bit and as she predicted they all converged. Some in clusters and some in a solitary march toward the light. She would take Mayers on a march in the opposite direction, back the way they had come and north on Garrett Highway-route 219-3rd Street toward the great state of Pennsylvania. She had no intention of ever making it to Pa and she had no intention of getting far on foot. They would head northward, shooting their guns if over run and then the first break in the crowd of dead they encountered, they would spend the night. This wasn't their first rodeo and it wouldn't be their last. She was determined not to let their wounds or illnesses restrict their journey. They'd push northward till they tired and then resume their action when they were rested.

Julia started telling him stories, but he told her flat out to shut up, pay attention, keep quiet. He felt like shit and he didn't need a pep talk or company or any sort of encouragement. "I've done this before, Morgan. Quit it."

Her entire body was fused with excitement. Her ankle throbbed and she forced that pain down and away from her. Jody, despite his infectious process, moved one foot in front of the other. Rather than listen to her drone on and on with her stories, he decided to amuse her with a tale of his own. For him, all roads led to Jersey and Julia was quite sick of hearing about New Jersey 'in thankfully what was a mild winter'. He stressed that mild winter for some undetermined reason. As if he preferred his physical comfort over that of frozen dead in frigid temps. "Not the first time I have been ill." He informed her.

After they had their unsuccessful peace talks and all hell broke loose inside the city walls of the Camden stronghold, his team all came down with the infection. His crew rolled out, returning the dead to Philadelphia and since they appeared to be ill and infected, they were left behind in a city where the walls had been brought down. They would return with reinforcements and if anyone was alive and not infected, they would regroup and go from there.

"They took us as far out of the dead zone as they could and left about 15 of us on the side of the road with our weapons and our fevers feeling as shitty as possible."

"What? Excuse me, what did you say?" She stopped in her tracks and grabbed his arm. "We don't leave our men behind."

"That day you did. And you didn't seem to mind. None of you did."

"What did you do?"

"I did the only thing I could do, Julia." He replied angrily. "You, the girl right here, doesn't turn on us. That psychotic woman from the future, she's not so nice." He explained.

Jody and the group of stranded, infected 14 stood there along a New Jersey roadside out of the dead zone, fearing they would create one of their own with their troop. Most of them were newbies and most of them didn't know which way was up. Between the illness and their fear, they argued until Mayers took the lead and rallied a little bit of a fight in them. "Close to death and the dead were in a battle that afternoon and we won somehow. We set up on the second floor of an abandoned building, piled our supplies in the center of us and we passed out."

"All of you lived?"

"No." Jody replied stoically. "We watched out for each other. We had firearms, so the first to turn was shot and put down and not by me cause I don't remember any of it."

Those who were conscious cared for and hydrated the ones who were semiconscious. They slept in shifts. They huddled together to keep warm. They stayed in place and weathered the internal storm as the external one swarmed around them on the outside. "I watched friends die violently, but to watch them die because of an infection is another thing. We didn't know what to do, how to take care of our symptoms and we were never trained for it. Basic first aid, yes, but the one thing that could take you out, we were never educated on keeping someone hydrated or ways to treat a fever without a pill. We were not medics, we were infantry." He explained as if it were yesterday. "We were also children." Fresh in his mind, he cntinued. "Just when you think it can't get any worse, it did. The dead, day walkers thank God, they found us, swarmed around us and those of us who were anywhere near able to move or crawl for that matter, got the hell up. We were about to die anyway, so we figured, what the hell. We positioned ourselves and we opened fire."

"Took em out?"

"Nah, not even close. We were done for. What happens, Morgan, when you run outta bullets?"

"Knives come out."

"But we were weak. Weaker than I am right now." He walked ahead of her as she limped on a trek northward away from the explosions. Jody let her walk ahead as he found himself another vehicle and then a few in a cluster. They were running out of light and needed that element of fire desperately. She found herself on someone's front porch as he lit car after car and then trotted away before the fireworks lit up the darkness. They stood a distance away and watched with the same awe as the first car explosions blocks behind them. The ground shook and debris flew and he caught her as she unsteadily started falling again. They stood with their backs against the wall of the house and waited and watched as the dead maneuvered through yards and the street toward the noise and the resulting light. As they converged on it and looking for the source of the noise that rattled the small neighborhood, Julia and Jody slipped off the porch and walked along the road, taking up quiet arms against their aggressors in decay. By the time their walk in the shadows would end, they would be covered in a sticky dead residue. Bits and pieces of body and bone and what was left of human flesh. They stunk something awful and the rot on them functioned for a short time as a disguise to a handful of dead who passed them by as if they were not even there. Still, they didn't let their guard down.

"Masters." Jody said suddenly. She had almost forgot he was telling a tale of New Jersey infection. "We were shooting and ran out of bullets. We raised weapons with the strength of a five year old and felt strongly we were about to meet our maker, when out of no where, Masters appears and starts emptying his AR-Z-25 into them." Masters had a conscience and leaving the equivalent of high school seniors behind to fend off the dead and disease at the same time was insanity. He defied orders, commandeered the vehicle and he drove back to the original drop off point. The kids had been smart enough to figure out they'd surely die faster outside in the elements than inside a shelter. What he didn't expect to find was the lot of them positioned around this shelter, shielding those inside and in the fight for their lives. Divine intervention, the universe, coincidence, Jody couldn't be sure, but Masters saved their asses and they lived to tell the tale. Jody lived to stand and fight the dead another day. "But I didn't want to. I was sure that as soon as my body and strength came back to me, I would walk away and never look back. I didn't care if I was a deserter or not. I was dead set on going home and taking the Princess with me when I got there. She could manage to pull rank or throw her name around and I was fine with that idea at that point. Like Allen said, I would make a fine Keller one day." He held his arm out and he showed her the stamp on his forearm. "See, some wishes do come true, Morgan." He laughed like a little kid.

"Not all it's cracked up to be, Jo." She said as she read the name on his arm. JKELLER, plain as day. 

"Regretting that decision, Morgan?"

"Nah, not really. I'm cool with it. I am either one no matter which way you look at it. Morgan or Keller. I'm still the same chick. It doesn't matter what my name is."

"Elena Gilbert." 

They came across a truck askew in the road and Julia motioned toward it. "No." Jody shook his head. "Come on, no." He groaned. "That's a fucking oil truck, Julia." He groaned, feeling the excitement coming off her, through her hand into his. The tingling in his palm. No one was obviously paying any mind to their small explosions, their vehicles along the way, so Julia opted for bigger. Short of dynamite or something fancy, that oil truck would do. First the truck, then the tank. It would be seen and heard for miles around. It would level the houses around it and leave a crater in the road for sure.

"Get walking then. Go on. Far away. I'll catch up." Jody watched the view as she limped away, then had a thought. "Can't we just shoot it like in the movies?"

"Would a bullet penetrate it? Never did that before."

He let her walk and walk and limp and walk till he thought she was far enough away that she'd avoid a blast. He lit up the last of their cloth and then hauled ass away from the oil truck as fast as his feet could carry him. He was at her spot in no time and he snatched her up and kept running. From his standpoint, she hadn't gotten far enough away. When the first explosion ripped through the truck it shook the earth and everything around them. He jumped off the side of the road into a ditch and instead of watching this truck demolish all that was around it, he covered her and held her down while covering his head. The second blast superseded that of the first and had to be heard for miles around. It definitely lit up the night and mushroomed up into the black sky above Oakland, Maryland. There would be no mistaking this as a firework or a car backfiring in any neighboring small town. There was a difference between a car backfiring and an explosion.

"You ok?" He asked her. He hadn't moved, stayed down and on her, only having lifted his head to talk to her.

"Yep. Ok, Jo."

Special Agent Ford had long been awake and going back and forth with them. Just as Chess had suspected, there was no begging or pleading or explaining or threatening. "Hope is fine." Chess told him, because that was his only concern at that moment in time. Had they hurt Hope?

They were a half hour away from Oakland and they couldn't mistake that noise at all. Even though they were a distance, the roads were black as night around them, that noise they heard over the radio and their talking. The fireball and the glow from it lit up the sky above Oakland, Maryland.

"I think we found our girl." Jay commented dryly, speeding up the MPH on the van. "I think our girl is just fine." Only they found comfort in the explosion. Relief had flooded through them. Julia was smart and so was Jody. There was no mistaking that explosion was in fact an explosion. Only question they had was what exactly did she blow up?

"Jesus," Agent Ford said in awe, leaning forward to see the light in the night sky.

"Just remember who you are dealing with, Ford." Chess said to him calmly.

"You two?" He asked with a laugh.

"Nah, man, worse." Jay laughed right on back at him. "You have any idea who you took out of that house? Do you?"

"No, it was a job. We had orders to go in, extract the male and the female and deposit them in Z-town."

"The male and the female?" Chess asked, looking over the back seat.

"Jayson and Julia Keller."

"Oh, well didn't you see a picture of who you were taking out before you did the job?" Jay asked.

"General description. Julia Keller, long red hair and he would be with her."

Jay couldn't believe it. He was supposed to be the mark as much as her.

Ford wasn't one for communication. He wasn't one for discussing the details of his job or his partner's job. He had taken an oath to remain silent. "You people don't know where you're heading. Do you have any idea what you're driving us into?"

"Yes." Chess replied, looking straight ahead through the windshield.

As they approached the small town of Oakland, Maryland, it became quite clear that they were not allowed to enter. Proceed at your own risk...Chess thought and as the van slowed at the gate that separated Z town from the normal world, Chess threw a stick at it. The fence was live. Adjacent to it was a box. A metal one that held a key pad. He went to Agent Ford. "You deposited them here." He stated.

"Yes."

"Code to get inside." He demanded coolly. He had figured there would be an issue getting into actual Zombie town U.S.A. and he had taken into account that there may be an obstacle or two. So, he dialed Ray's number. "Yeah, it's an issue, so put her on the phone." Jayson glared at him and he knew that something was up, and knowing Chess, it was no good. He put the phone on speaker.

"Speak." Chess said.

"Paul-" Hope's voice sprung through the phone and then her voice muffled.

"Hope!" He yelled.

"Ah, the power of pussy, Ford. So, that code." Ford remained quiet. "You there." Chess said through the speaker phone.

"Yeah," His own voice reflected back to him. Ray was not supposed to hurt, injure or maim the woman, merely baby sit till he got a phone call.

"Ok, then put the gun to her head."

He glanced at Jay and gave him a look and even though Jay wanted to say something, he didn't. He simmered in the driver's seat and thought about Julia, what Chess had said earlier-'she's not ours', referring to the fact she was a woman, but not their family. Hope recoiled and squealed and whimpered as Ray held a gun to her head.

"Your choice, Ford." He told him casually and he waited, then the countdown. If he got through the countdown, Ray was going to fire at an inanimate object and then end the call. He figured Hope had enough of masked intruders for one night. He wasn't going to kill the woman. At the number five, Ford muttered a 4 digit pass code and Chess backed off the killing. Ray lowered the weapon. He punched in the code and then the gates magically opened. "We're in. Stay there till we call back."

The gates hung wide open for them and they drove through. Behind them the gates closed and they drove onward with caution. A new set of obstacles stood in their way and they all walked in the direction of an explosion.

The more congested the road got, Chess exited the vehicle and started shooting, if only to clear a path for the van. Jay had his weapon out and being left handed, he opened the window on this fairly cool early September night and shot the ones approaching Chess. Ford sat in the rear seat and watched all this occur without any assist from any squad, team, crew, or agency.

"Not bad for civilians." He commented. "I could help, take these cuffs off and-"

"Shut up. We got this."

He was multitasking for sure, driving-shooting-talking and avoiding running over his cousin who liked to zigzag from one side of the street to the opposite side randomly. It was more video game than reality. Some fake first night. He had the urge to move ahead of Chess, but he needed the light to kill and see what he was killing. Chess couldn't do it in the dark, Jay speculated, or maybe he could.

Chess hopped back in the passenger seat and put the window up. He urged Jay to do the same.

"There's a fucking nest here." Chess said uncomfortably. He could hear them, but couldn't ascertain where they were. It started as a low hum and then would pick up to screeching and birdlike cawing or shrill. He didn't like that one bit. The hum was unsettling.

"The nest is the last test." Ford announced from the back seat. "If they had chosen south-"

Chess glared at him over the seat. "If you had left them at home, then none of this would be happening." He informed him. Chess looked to Jay. "Can she see at all?"

"I don't know. She hasn't necessarily been looking."

"She doesn't need it, I suppose. Some night vision would be nice. Another explosion would be nice. Need the light to see what's coming and they're coming."

"We don't hunt at night." Jay said to him.

"They do. Now, we do. It's not fun." Chess muttered, reaching through his legs to his gear bag. He extracted more clips and then divided them up between him and Jay. As they drove, Chess lowered the window a bit and listened. "Be careful. Follow me." He strapped up like he was going to war and then he said, "Pull over. Stop the van, just stop and turn off the engine. Here." Chess flung the door open and slammed it shut. Jay followed, leaving the headlights on, which Chess liked. He had some ideas and he had done this before.

"Yo, what about Ford?" He asked.

"What about him? He's bait." Chess answered. There were no buildings, no second floors, no specific dwellings that he spied for shelter. As the hums grew into more audible groaning in a strange and hungry unison, he pointed at the nearest tree and motioned up. He climbed into his own and the sat obscured in the dark surrounded by branches. "Don't gotta go to the top, Jay." Chess commented as he saw his cousin climbing like a damn cat. He only needed to get out of arms reach. Nests don't climb, they pile, but Jay knew that. "Pick them off as they descend on that van. Take your time, stay calm."

Chess despised the sounds they made, their throats rattling a weird tone through deadened vocal cords. It was an internal call, signaling the nest that there was prey. They cared not for noise or light or explosions or the motion of animals. As the first of this nest arrived to the van, attracted by one audible heart beat thumping away its fear from the rear seat. Cuffed and detained as he had Jody and Julia a little more than a week ago, Ford was in a state of shock and he was defenseless. They thumped and thrashed against the body of the van. Each one arriving faster than the last and threw itself against the van with an eerie thud. Jay fired first, Chess followed suit and dropped them one by one and hoped they wouldn't hit the actual van. A bullet or two wouldn't matter, but Chess didn't want their ride out of commision.

"Not the van, Jayson."

"Well don't hit the van, cause I am not." He replied, reloading the gun and letting the clip fall to the ground.

"Yeah, ya are, Jayson."

Jay resumed firing as Chess stopped to reload, taking better aim and more time between shots. Once he realized they were not protecting the bait, but taking out the nest, he relaxed. Once the nest thinned out to an amount that they could handle, Chess dropped from the protection of the branches and got closer. Jay followed suit and watched their backs. Not only had their gunfire eliminated the majority of the nest, it had attracted those that walked the fields and trees off the road. He took out the walkers around them, back to back with Chess who finished off the nest. One lonely hive master hid in the shadows. They obviously hadn't dropped him or the rest would have fallen and crouched. Ford managed to survive this battle unscathed and cuffed in the van. Chess and Jay continued their assault till every last zom was laying in the road around the van, scattered like fallen leaves off the trees.

"Y'all been here before?" Ford asked curiously. "Where'd you learn how-"

"Man, if you don't shut up." Jay muttered, pointing the gun over the back seat at him. "I oughta shoot you too."

"You don't learn that watching movies."

Neither Chess nor Jay said a word and Chess nearly gave the kill order, but he didn't need or want Ford dead. That would not be his call or Jay's. "Good job. Excellent. You learned that on TV?" Chess joked.

"Nah, man, Black Ops." He laughed. "Nuketown." He added as he drove around the bodies on the road.

Jody lifted and allowed her to move beneath him. She got to her knees and then she surveilled the damage. "Yes!" She squealed happily. "Jo, look at what we did."

"We?" He asked, moving to his own two knees. He took a couple deep breaths and he reached inside the bag beside them for a water bottle. He took a long drink, wetting his mouth and filling his stomach with liquid.

"That was awesome." She clasped her hands together and she used his shoulder as a support to stand. Truck parts and house parts and pavement scattered along the road and lawns. Flames, warmth and heat could be felt from their distance. Jo finished off the water bottle and tucked it back in the bag. He took her arm and assisted her out of their ditch and into the road. They stepped around and over debris and walked quietly onward. He didn't leave her go once in the road, putting an arm over her shoulders and walking with her.

"Well, have we run the streets enough for one night or are we gonna keep going?"

"Keep going." She answered. "Can you go longer or-depends on how you feel."

"I can go, Morgan." He answered, raising the weapon and putting a bullet in the zom that lurched for her. "You see that?" He pointed the weapon down the road. A couple miles distance at least, there were headlights.

"Yep." She nodded, putting her own gun up. "That's our ride. That's our way out." She nudged him over, from the shoulder to the street and they stood directly in front of the oncoming minivan. They weren't moving and they were determined that van was stopping one way or another. He set the bag down and then they both stood sure and confident with their guns pointed at that van. As it approached it was clear to her and Jody, that it slowed and then within 25 feet of them it stopped altogether and the engine cut off.

"Hands up. Get out." Julia yelled. The two doors on the minivan opened and the driver and the passenger both stepped out with their hands raised.

"Need a ride?"