Under a Very Black Sky

Potatoes
One thing I don't mind about living in the apocalypse is that if I find chocolate, I don't need to share it.

I'm sitting on the porch of what we use as a cabin, but really, its just an old convenience store with some mattresses thrown on the floor. I found a chocolate bar that looked like it was from the seventies, and had mold growing off of the end of it. I cut the mold off and ate away. You've got to take what you can get in this world, really. I lean my head back against the building and close my eyes. Sleep is another thing you need to scrounge up. If you get a chance to sleep, sleep. All there is to it. Sadly, when you live in this world, sleep is something that goes hand in hand with nightmares.

''I jump out of the back of the truck and slip up to the door of the building. Natalie is with me and we slowly push the door open. Ava, Kyra, and Michael are checking the other building. We're checking out a potato farm on Prince Edward island, world capital of potatoes. We've been on the road for a solid four weeks and this is our last stop before the return journey. I can't wait to get back to camp. Lie down on the makeshift cots, stretch out, and have a solid eight hours of sleep for once.''

''Natalie flicks on her flashlight, and I follow suit. I see more than a couple bags of potatoes on the counter and flick the flashlight on and off. Natalie looks over and sees them, nods, and we make our way to them, quietly as possible. I slip the old hockey bag off my shoulders and open it. We fit as many of the potato bags into it as humanly possible before zipping the hockey bag up and returning to the truck. The truck is something I won't miss. Try fitting a couple of thirteen year olds and three fourteen year olds into that thing for eight weeks and see what happens. Four weeks down, four to go.''

''As we're throwing the bag in, we hear a muffled scream and a couple of clangs. Any form of scream means pain. we're trained not to scream in case of surprise or fear. Pain means something is wrong. Me and Natalie tear towards the other building and race inside. We find Ava, Michael, and Kyra circling around a monster of some kind, Kyra is bleeding badly from her shoulder. The monster growls at me and Natalie and I notice Natalie scan the room. "Shelf. Keep it busy." She whispers.''

''I nod and step in to join the circling group. The monster takes notice of me, but for the most part, it stays the same. I take my sword out and hold it in a ready stance, just in case it jumps at me. For a brief moment, there's total silence, except for the sounds of breathing from us and the monster. Then, the shelf comes crashing down on top of the monster and briefly pins it to the ground. Natalie jumps into view and tries stabbing it in the exposed side, but her sword just bounces off of its fur.''

''"Nemean Lion!" Ava says, and I mentally slap myself for forgetting. Then, before we can do anything, the Nemean Lion springs up, sending both Natalie and the shelf flying through the air. It attacks us faster than a plane flies, and has swatted me and Michael through the air in seconds. I hit a window and go through it, landing out on the ground. I gasp for air, the wind knocked out of me, and haul myself up to my feet. I look up at the building and see a spray of bright red blood splat against one of the windows. "No no no no no." I say and sprint back in.''

''I see Natalie with a bleeding red stump where her arm used to be. I see the creature turn and look at Ava, and adrenaline takes over. I flip the sword around in my hand and throw it like a javelin. It makes contact with the Nemean Lion's head, but doesn't pierce skin. The sword snaps in half, and the monster just seems angrier. It goes for the first one of us it sees, which is Kyra, and pounces on her so they go to the back of the store. I didn't need the sprays of blood to know what was happening back there.''

''Before we can attack again, it charges out at me. A fraction of a second before I'm in range of its claws, Natalie's sword flashes out and stabs it in the mouth. The creature rears back and thrashes around, letting me get out of its reach. I swear when I see Natalie. She's turned as white as a sheet, except for the scarlet covering her clothes and skin. She holds up a jar I recognize to be greek fire, and gives me a weak smile. I nod, understanding, and turn to look for Ava and Michael. Ava is crouching behind a counter while Michael is nowhere to be found. "Get to the truck!" I yell to her and she nods, looking past me and seeing the jar.''

''I whirl around and run to the back, where I find Michael, who is standing over the mauled Kyra. "Michael, come on, there's nothing you can do!" I yell at him over the roars of the wounded Nemean Lion. He doesn't listen, which doesn't surprise me, so I grab him and drag him out. He offers no resistance as I take him to the front. When I arrive, Natalie is inching towards the monster, looking worse every second. I throw Michael out the door and he hits the ground with an Audible thud. Ava sprints forward, grabs him and drags him back towards the truck. I turn, take one last look at Natalie as she nears putting the jar in the creature's mouth, and slam the door shut.''

The explosion happens about two seconds after I've slammed the door, and before I know what happen my vision goes black.

A hand touches my shoulder and I shoot awake, gasping. I look up and see Ava crouched down next to me. "Hey, you were sweating like crazy and thrashing around." She whispers. The sun has set and the moon is in the hair, halfway full. "Bad...bad dream." I say, still panting. "What was it about?" She asks me. "The potatoes." I reply, and she immediately understands. "C'mon, another early day tomorrow. Let's get some sleep." She tells me.

"I just was asleep."

"Were you enjoying said sleep?"

"No." I relent and say. "Come on. I was able to snatch up one of the bigger mattresses meant for two from one of the last supply runs." She says, takes my hand, and leads me back to her hut. Of course, hut really means a bunch of dirt, wood, and the occasional ree-bar piled up into a little one room building. I don't mind though. I've had better sleeps in that thing than in any cabin. Except when its winter, when its winter we just freeze to death outside, so we get forced into the cabins.

The camp itself is a chunk of a town we walled off. There's a couple of convenience stores, gas stations, a couple fast food places, as well as one actual house, but the rest of the town itself is separated by some walls that are constantly being maintained. We would happily expand the camp, but only if we had more demigods. There's maybe fifty of us total, which is nowhere near enough to maintain an entire town. So, during winter we pile into the fast food places or the convenience stores, and during summer, spring, and fall we either still sleep in there, sleep outside, or sleep in our own huts.

Camp rules says that if we can build our own sleeping quarters, we can sleep in them. So, when we learned of this rule, me and Ava started building like crazy. Doesn't need to be anything overly special, since we don't do much else but sleep in it. Since we don't have a bed, we use whatever mattress we can scrounge up, throw it on the ground and start sleeping on it.

We crawl in and lay ourselves down on the mattress. I let out a long sigh. "What's the schedule for tomorrow?" I ask her. "I'm helping to farm carrots and you are on cooking detail tomorrow." She tells me. "Sounds great. I'll sneak you something." I reply. "And that is why I love you." She says and slips up beside me, kisses me goodnight, and she rolls back and is asleep in seconds. "How do you do that?" I whisper and close my eyes, wishing I could get to sleep as fast as she could.

Back on the Job
Something you need to learn to do in this world is cook. It doesn't matter what you cook, just cook it. At the moment, I'm helping the cooking crew by skinning squirrels for dinner. Squirrels happen to be my favorite dinner, so I'm quite fine with it. Also in the kitchens with me are some kids who I think are Apollo kids and one Aphrodite boy. The Aphrodite boy isn't doing much to help, and prefers hitting on me.

"C'mon, Zoe, why stay out in the mud-hut when its so much warmer up in my cabin?"

"Your cabin is a gas station."

"Used to be, I've made some modifications."

"Honey, I'd take food over you any day, so please help out before I put you in the soup." I say to him, annoyed. He turns to leave, but I know he'll be back, so I put a squirrel skin down the back of his shirt. He jumps and falls over and starts thrashing around, not knowing what just happened to him. Everyone laughs and he rolls around, trying to get the squirrel skin out of his shirt. One of the Apollo kids makes a hand gesture for me to get going, which I take as a sign that my shift is over.

I sneak out and run down to the forge. After my sword broke back during the potatoes incident, I needed a new one, and hand forged one at the Camp's forge. I keep it there, at the armory portion, and see to it once a week, working out any kinks in it or getting rid of rust, whatever it takes to make sure it doesn't break like the last one. "Hey Zoe." Says Carl, a son of Hephaestus who's a year older than me. "What's up?" I ask him. "The usual, people need me to make stuff, I do it, they thank me, repeat." He says.

Carl is the only child of Hephaestus we have on camp, so he is normally in charge of running construction of the walls surrounding the camp and often works to repair on camp objects himself, as nobody else is really all that qualified to do so. He lets me do my own work on my sword, partly because he's always so busy and partly because I don't want him messing with my weapon. That and he knows I'll beat the crap out of him if he touches it.

I pull my sword out of the armory and take it out of its scabbard. It's meter and a half long blade is mostly flawless, but it has some rust at where the blade meets the cross guard and there are a couple of little kinks where I blocked sword strikes during training. "Can you toss me a hammer?" I ask Carl and he throws me one. I catch it deftly and find a pair of goggles, so I don't get a spark in the eye or something. That actually happened to an old camper. A spark hit him in the eye and he flailed around and impaled himself on a spear that was lying around.

I sit down on one of the work stools, pull the goggles down over my eyes and set to work. After a few minutes of sticking the sword in the fire, hammering out kinks, and repeating, it starts feeling like a volcano in the forge. People always ask him how he's always either wearing a tank-top or is topless, given the fact we're up in the bloody mountains. But believe me, five minutes in the forge I will want to jump in the snow. However, since you'll just end up with hypothermia if you do that, the most you can do is remove your outer shirts, unless you happen to be male, in which case you can take the entire top off.

Seeing as I am not make, I go with the just removing the hoodie and long-sleeved shirt, so I'm down to the tank top alone. The first few times I would do that he would always get distracted, being a single male and all, but he got used to me eventually. Sparks start flying as I hit the sword with the hammer again and again, making sure its in perfect condition. If it breaks on me again, gods know what'll happen to me and the people I'm with.

I notice Carl goes and takes his shirt off, so I sneak a couple of glances. What? just because I'm in a relationship, with a girl, at that, does not mean I can't look. After several minutes of working the sword, I have it about right, and put it down on the anvil to cool. I just hang out there for a while until the blade cools, making small talk with Carl. Midway through, a couple guys I don't recognize walk up. And if I don't recognize them, they aren't from camp.

"Hi." I say awkwardly. "Hello, are you Zoe Johnson?" One asks. "Yeah." I reply, increasingly awkwardly. "We need to talk to you." I get up and walk over. "What do you need?"

"We need your help. One of the few demigod minicamps in the south has gone dark. You're one of the best scavenger-scouts in the world, we need you to take whoever you need to investigate."

I almost laugh. "No. There's a reason I stopped." I tell them. "We know why. That's why we need you. Do you want someone else to feel what you felt? An entire camp is missing, we don't want our kind to go extinct."

One of the other ones speaks up. "You'll get to see Michael again." That makes me freeze. After what happened to Natalie and Kyra, Michael got picked up to do work for Olympus, which is currently above the CN tower in Toronto. I shake my head. These guys just know how to make me want to do something. "Fine." I say, annoyed.

"Excellent. Find who you want to bring and meet us at the main gate of the camp. We will take you to Olympus for the main briefing." They walk away. I give an obscene hand gesture to their backs and grab my sword, dunk it in a water barrel to cool it faster, sheath it, sling the sheath over my back and run off to find Ava. I find her outside the kitchen, meaning she's waiting for me. "Hey, there you are!" She says. "Yeah, uh...ok, I just got guilt-tripped into working for Olympus for a bit."

"When do we leave?" She asks. I sigh with relief. "Ava, I love you." I say. "I know. I'll go grab my stuff." She says and goes to find her own weapons from the armory. She returns with her knives and sword and we walk to the gate together. We find the guys, and one grabs us by the shoulders and the world vanishes in a misty black haze. When my vision returns to normal, I'm in a room inside a building, many stories up. I look over at Ava and see her looking around, equally confused.

"Hey you two."

We whirl around and see Michael. My jaw drops, as does Ava's. Michael's grown a solid foot and a half, he's like, six foot seven now. He also looks like he's gained thirty pounds of muscle, I mean, he is ripped. And he has that sort of rugged handsomeness that goes with people who spend a lot of time outside. He also needs to shave, he has some stubble going. "Damn, Michael..." I say simply. He rolls his eyes. "You haven't changed." He says simply.

"You have." Ava says, eyes as wide as mine. "Sooo...what's new?" I ask. "Helping the gods out with whatever they want. This is the first big thing that's come up." He says. "What's the problem?" I ask. "Well, one of the survivor camps down south was actually destroyed by something. Only three survivors fled to another, slightly larger and better defended, camp. We need to go down there and find them so we can figure out what happened." He says.

"How do we get down there?" I ask.

"I'm gonna take my motorcycle and a truck has been supplied for you two." He says. Its then that I see there's a distant look in his eyes. He looks sad. No, depressed is a better word for it. "We leave tomorrow, you guys have a room that they'll take you to." He says and leaves. We're led to a hotel-style room with a good view of the somewhat overgrown city. For us, its a really amazing thing.

"Why are there two beds?" Ava asks. "Uh...for the weapons?" I suggest. "Good idea." She says and we throw my sword, her sword, and her knives onto the second bed. "What's this box thing?" I ask, looking at a giant black box with a glass screen that's positioned facing the bed. Ava shrugs and picks up a piece of paper. I slip up behind her and read the note over her shoulder.

Go easy on the hot water.

We look at each other, then at the room which I think is a bathroom. "Hot water?" She says aloud. We look at each other once, and then race to see who can get through the door first.

An hour later, I'm lying on the bed while Ava is in the bathroom drying off. I look at the weird black box and wonder about what it was for. Ava comes out and slips under the covers with me. I roll so I'm lying on top of her and rest my head on her shoulder. She kisses the top of my head and I let out a contented sigh. After a moment, I say "Michael seemed depressed."

"Yeah. I think he's still torn up about Kyra." She points out. I can understand that. If Ava died I would kill myself the second I found out. "Let's not mention it to him tomorrow, ok?" I suggest, and she nods. "Ok, I'm going to sleep now, night Zoe." She says and powers off. How she does that is just beyond me. She is like a robot. Sometimes I wonder if she has a button behind her head she pushes and turns herself off. I sigh and whisper. "Goodnight, love." Before drifting off myself.

On the Road Again
The next morning, I find myself lying alone and look up to see Ava strapping her weapons on. I wolf whistle and she looks over at me. "Morning." She says. "Morning, beautiful." I say and get out of bed. I throw my belt, long sleeve shirt, hoodie, and boots on before strapping my sword across my back. It takes about an hour to actually find the armory, as the building is so damn big. When we find it, the giant that is Michael is waiting inside, cleaning some deadly looking contraption that looks like a sword and a spear had a love-child.

"Hey you two. We need to stock up on weapons, so take your pick. Ava, there's a collection of throwing knifes in that corner, I thought-" He's interrupted as Ava darts over to where he indicated. I laugh and start to look around. We spend another good hour down there, just getting weaponry. I'm done, I have my sword at my left hip, a hunting crossbow over my back, a knife in each boot, and a hatchet at my right hip.

Ava has her original and a second sword crossed over her back, two little sheath collections of throwing knives on each shoulder, five knives in each pouch, five throwing knives in each boot, five at each hip, and five strapped to each thigh. "Those aren't all of them, either." She says. "Hades almighty, where else did you put them?!" I ask. "You'll see." She says with a wink. Michael comes up with his staff-like thing, two swords, three knives, and a collection of guns.

"Grab some extra rifles, we should bring them too." He says. Me and Ava each grab three rifles and carry them out. It may seem like we're taking a lot, but they have at least another seventy rifles in there. On the way out, I see a sign with ancient greek letters. It reads: In a world ruled by death, we are forced to finally start living

We find our truck and Michael's bike and load all of the extra weapons into the backseat of the truck. We put most of the rifles in the back seat, as well as one of Ava's swords and my sword. Michael sits on his bike, a sword at each hip, a shotgun around his shoulders, and a spear-sword thing strapped to the bike. I get in the shotgun seat and grab another shotgun while Ava jumps into the driver's seat. Michael rolls up next to us and says "Follow me, ok?" Ava nods and he moves in front of us, and we head out onto the open road.

One of the nice things about the apocalypse is the lack of traffic. Some of the adult demigods back at camp used to tell stories of hundreds of cars waiting to cross a fifteen meter long space. Now, you would have to be the dumbest person on the face of the earth to possibly crash a car.

Ok, I shouldn't say that. An old camper died in a car crash out on a scavenging run. It was about a week after me and Ava started dating, and he had gone out to look for gas and food. Judging by what the search party brought back, he found the gas alright. He was a pile of ash. That was the seventeenth death that the camp ever had. We've lost twenty five demigods total. I shake my head at the memories and look over at Ava, who is driving.

How she can drive for so many hours at a time is absolutely beyond me. Whenever we would go on cross country scouting and scavenging runs, she would always drive, and she could drive for thirteen hours straight without needing sleep, as long as we, we meaning me, fed her. Natalie or Michael would always offer to take over, but she would just shrug them off and go for another three hours just to prove a point. Looking back, I think that might have been the moment I started looking to her as more than just a friend.

I'm snapped from my reverie of memories when the truck starts slowing down. I look around and see that it is dark outside and Michael pulling up next to my side of the truck. He pulls a chain out and chains the motorcycle to the truck before jumping in the back. "Ok, wake me up halfway through the night for watch." He says and does an Ava. "Damn it, how do you people just shut off like that?!" I ask her. She shrugs and powers off as well. "I guess I'm on watch then." I say and look around.

Dark. I see a whole lot of dark. Sometimes a bat will fly by, or a bird will make a noise. You can hear the crickets through the walls of the car, and damn they are loud. I sit there and do nothing for a good five hours before waking Michael up for watch. It takes me a bit to doze off, so I decide to talk to him. "So, how have the last few years been?" I ask him. "Busy. I need to keep occupied, or...I get depressed." He says, and I know what he's talking about. "You two are a thing now?" He asks me and points at the passed out Ava.

"Yeah, about a year after you left for Olympus."

"I'm happy for you two. Keep each other safe. Its hell if you don't." He says to me. "I know. We have, we will, and always will. Don't worry about us." After I say that, a foggy cloud of sleepiness drifts over my head, and I lean back and fall asleep.

I'm awakened to the sound of knives being sharpened. I look over at Ava, who is sharpening a couple of her throwing knives. "Why aren't we moving?" I ask. "Morning, dear. I woke up early so I told Michael to catch up on some extra sleep." She says. I look back and see Michael asleep. "Should I wake him up?" I ask. "Sure." she says. I take my knife and grab one of hers and scrape them together. He shoots awake.

"Hint taken, hint taken." He says and rubs his eyes. He looks at Ava sharpening her knives, pokes his head in the front, looks at her visible sheaths, which all happen to be full, and asks "Ava, where do you store those knives?" He asks her. She stops. "Ok, they're sharp. Michael, I'm gonna have to ask that you get out so I can put these back." She says. I raise one eyebrow and Michael's eyes widen and he jumps out. A minute and a half later, I ask her "Doesn't that hurt?"

"Not if you do it right." Is her response and she turns the car on. Michael unchains the vehicles and in a few minutes we're following him again. We repeat this pattern for several days until we make it to what looks like the ruins of an island city. "Welcome to New York!" Michael yells at me and we drive into the city. We stop at a small building that looks like something that used to be called a hotel.

The first sign that we have reached our destination is that a gunshot sounds out and misses the car by a few feet. Ava stops and Michael waves his hands in the air, yelling something. The main door, which has been modified to fit cars, opens. Me and Ava look at each other, shrug, and drive in. There's a couple people talking to Michael, who looks a little unamused. We just wait in the car for him to wave for us to come out.

"This is Zoe and Ava. They'll need a separate room." He says. "Ok, second floor, rooms two-oh-four and two-oh-five are empty." Michael leads up some stairs and to our rooms. Before we go in, he stops us. "Meet me at the main door, they're sending someone with us."

"Who?" Ava asks. "Some really good scavenger named Cayla. We'll meet her in the morning." We nod and head into our room. We drop our tools off on the other bed, (I still don't know why they bother putting in two) and Ava starts to poke at another of the weird black boxes while I go into the bathroom. I push a weird silver knob on a big bowl of water and it makes a loud noise before sucking the water down a hole and refilling. "That's a toilet, don't drink out of it." Ava calls. "Ok!" I say, still not sure what its meant for.

I recognize what the shower and bath does, and decide to go by what I'm used to, which is cold baths. Where we live, up in the mountains, the only hot water is stuff you put over a fire. Make no mistake, the hot water from the last place we stayed was awesome, but sometimes you gotta go with what you're familiar with. What I'm familiar with is cold water that you sit in for an hour and get out so the guys can bathe. And I mean a lake in the mountains, not tubs like this, so the cold water is luke-warm for me.

I sink into the tub and let out a long sigh. I hear Ava taking the knives off in the main room. "Are you ok?" I call to her. "Yeah." comes the response, and a shrug and keep listening. She grunts and I hear her mutter. "Ow." I decide not to ask. I don't want to know where she keeps the rest of her knives, after that one witnessing I did. When I'm done I dry off and throw a bathrobe on and head into the room, trying to get water out of my ear.

"Have I ever mentioned water looks great on you?" Ava says as I enter. "Many a time, love. Never get tired of hearing it, though." I say and smile at her. She's laid out all of her knives on the other bed next to my tools, and I shake my head and crawl into the bed we actually use. Ava crawls in next to me and rests her head against my shoulder. "So, new girl." She says. "Yep. Wonder what she's like." I say. I hadn't given the fact we were getting a companion much thought until then.

"Just don't give me a reason to kill her, ok?" Ava says. "You know I won't." I say, kiss her goodnight and roll over to sleep. Ava has a weird talent for making me sleep more easily. Being with her just relaxes you so that you feel so safe and secure, despite the fact you could die the next day. She demonstrates this ability when she wraps her arm around my stomach and snuggles closer to me. "Goodnight love." She says and kisses the back of my neck just as I drift away.

The next day, we get all of our gear on, Ava making me wait in the hall for an hour so she can put all her knives on, and we head down to the entrance where we entered. We find Michael standing and talking with a pretty, brown haired girl with piercing blue eyes. She sees us and they stop their conversation. "Hey. I'm Cayla. Cayla Grimes." She says and holds her hand out. We both shake it and I say "I'm Zoe."

"Ava." Ava says. "Why're you coming with us?"

"I know where the three people you're looking for are, and I can take you to them." I nod and Michael jumps on his motorcycle. "I'll follow you guys, Cayla will sit in the truck with you and tell you where to go." We get in, Cayla getting in the back, and we drive off into the wilderness, looking for more people.

I had a feeling the truck was going to get very crowded.

One Cramped Truck
Let me tell you, few things are more awkward than when two people who are dating, and normally have the truck to themselves, get thrown in with a stranger. The first hour or so was spent just sitting there in a rather awkward silence. Then, I finally decide to break it, because I can't take it anymore. "So...Cayla. What's life been for you?" I ask her. She shrugs. "Raised an orphan on that site, worked security and scavenging the whole time. Had a boyfriend, he died, all my friends went their separate ways, here I am now." She says simply. "What about you two?" She asks.

"Raised at the new Camp Half-Blood, worked as scavengers, members of our team died, he moved to Olympus-" I point at Michael. "We started dating, worked on camp for two years, here we are." I say. "So you two are a thing?" Cayla says and points to me and then to Michael. "No, me and her." I say and point at Ava. "Oh. That must make things easier." She says. "Why?" I ask, confused. "Don't have to worry about anyone getting pregnant. We had a couple of pregnancies last year, and the mothers and infants died within a month of the birth."

"How depressing." Ava says. "Yep." Cayla replies and it becomes another few minutes of silence. "So, should I tell you who we're going to find?" She suggests. "Sure." I say and she drops a folder on my lap. I open it and see three pictures of people. "Ok, so, who's the hot one?" I ask. Cayla pokes her head forward and looks at the picture. "Which one? There's three." She points out. "That's a good point." I say and Ava looks over at them. "Yeah, I don't think we can go by "Hot one, other hot one, and the hot guy." Ava says and me and Cayla both nod.

"Ok, uh, blonde chick is named Stella Lohse. Used to lead a scavenging and hunting crew for one of the camps to the south. Daughter of Zeus, one of the last." Cayla explains. "The guy is Matt Parker, Son of Hades. He's with Stella." Cayla adds at the end. "Well that is just depressing." I say, getting a laugh out of them both. "And the dark haired girl-" Cayla starts, but is interrupted by a heavy sigh from Ava. "What?" Cayla asks.

"Zoe here has a thing for dark hair. I may have to kill this one." She says. I smile and Cayla shakes her head. "Anyway, named Rachel Hughes, daughter of Apollo, is our main goal. She's the only eyewitness for what exactly destroyed their camp."

"So I can't kill her?" Ava asks and Cayla shakes her head. "Shoot." We all laugh. "Anyway, the group they used to work with was destroyed in a Nemean Lion attack three years ago." Me and Ava look at each other. "Just like us..." I mutter. "Well, hopefully we run into the thing." Ava says. "That way we can kill it." She finishes and continues driving. From that point on, we make small talk with Cayla more openly, as the awkward cloud hovering over us is gone.

When we stop driving, we're at an RV in the middle of the road. On top of it I can see someone lying there holding a hunting rifle. "Stop here." Cayla says. Ava stops and we jump out. "Oi! Rach! It's me! Cayla!" Cayla yells and a dark haired head pops up. "We can change 'hot one' to 'hottest one'." I say to Ava, and she rolls her eyes but nods. "Hey Cayla. Who is the pretty one?"

"I'm Zoe." I say while Ava says "I'm Ava." at the exact same time. "Hi, I'm Rachel. Not saying you aren't, but I'm talking about the guy on the bike." Michael rolls up, shaking his head. "He's Michael." I say to her. "Why are you on top of the RV?" Cayla calls up.

"Stella and Matt didn't want me in there with them." She replies and bangs on the ceiling a few times. "Guys, we have company." She says. We can hear a fair bit of scrambling around inside the RV, and after a few minutes, Stella and Matt come out. "Hey Cayla. Who're the attractive people?" Matt says. "That's Michael." Me and Ava say in unison. He just hangs his head and sighs. He and Cayla go forward and they go inside with Stella and Matt.

And then its me, Ava, and Rachel out here. "So...what's up?" I ask. "Nothing much." She replies. "Must get lonely up on the RV roof." I say. "It has a few advantages."

"Such as?" I ask her. "Maybe you'll find out one day." She says with a joking wink. "Just so long as I can bring her." I say and drape an arm around Ava's shoulder. "Well, the more the merrier." She jokes again. Ava sighs "Ok, we can keep her." She says in a motherly sort of voice. At that point, the others came out of the RV and say "Get in the truck, we need to get going."

"Doesn't the RV run?" I ask. Rachel shakes her head. "Nope, tires are blown out and engine was ripped out." Stella says. About a minute later, Ava's driving again, Cayla jumped into shotgun seat, and I wind up sandwiched between Stella and Rachel in the back while Matt is bouncing around in the back. "So, where are we headed?" Ava asks. "One of the nearby mini-camps. Its about a three day drive there." Stella says.

That proved to really be awful once night fell. Since it isn't exactly safe to sleep outside when traveling, Matt and Michael have to jump in the truck with us five girls. It was about the most cramped sleep I have ever experienced. I got to sleep alright, but it made for some awkward moments when I woke up. For starters, my head was sitting on Rachel's lap, and Stella had sat in where your feet go and her head was tilted so that it was resting on my thighs. Michael was squished into a small ball where someone rests their feet, and Matt's lap was the resting place of my feet.

I awaken to the sound of laughter and see Cayla and Ava talking to each other and laughing like crazy. When they see that I'm awake, Ava rests her head on the steering wheel and Cayla just keels over laughing. Rachel wakes up and looks down. "Uh. Morning." She says and I sit up. This causes Stella to wake up, see where her head is, and jumps up into the front seat, landing right in Ava's lap. Cayla laughs even harder and wakes up Michael, who just shakes his head and goes to get on the bike. He slaps Matt on the head and Matt jumps in the back. This time, Stella joins him.

This gives me and Rachel some room in the back seat. Midway through the ride, Rachel decided she needed to have a nap, and started awkwardly trying to lie down without touching me. "You can if you want, I really don't mind." I say to her. She nods thankfully and rests her head on my lap. This is the first time I've ever really had time to examine her. I mean that in the least creepy way possible. She has that classically beautiful look, but has her hair hiding something on her face. I decide she wouldn't want me looking, so I don't. Everything from the neck down is pretty much exactly like me or Ava, so I like. She is a bit shorter than either of us, as well.

I wonder what it'd be like dating a shorter girl. I imagine hugging would be kinda awkward for the taller one, but pretty awesome for the short one. Same could go for most any relationship, I guess. It would kind of be like hugging a giant blanket, where you could get wrapped up in warmth at night, or day, depending on the situation. Me and Ava are only two inches apart, so there isn't much difference with us. Sometimes I wish I could grow a couple of inches so I could be like a blanket to her.

The next night is a lot like the last, cramped and painful, but when its ok, me and Rachel swap positions, because Cayla just refuses to give up shotgun. Rachel has a bit of a hard lap, but that just means that her legs and fit enough to survive, so I'm fine with it. In fact, its actually rather comfy. So comfy, in fact, that I fell asleep right there. When I awoke, I could hear Cayla and Rachel talking. "When we get there, we're going to need you to try and remember what you saw." Cayla says. "I know...I know...I don't think it will be easy." She said. "Me either." Cayla replies, bids her goodnight, and dozes off.

Rachel lets out a long sigh, and from what I guess is happening, she's the only one awake. She absently starts stroking my hair and is staring out the window. I look with my eyes and see Stella, Matt, and Michael jammed into the other seat while Cayla and Ava are sleeping just fine in the front. I blow a soft gust of air at her face and looks down. "Hey." I whisper. "Oh, uh, hi." She says, looking a little embarrassed. I sit up so we're sitting next to each other.

"Sorry, uh..." She starts, but I cut her off. "Don't be, I'm ok with it." I say. "What was that about?" I ask, gesturing at Cayla. "I was the one who saw what destroyed our old camp, but I got a hit to the head and lost my memory of what it was." She says. "The fact that I don't remember got them has Matt and Stella really frustrated with me lately...they've been...distant from me." She says.

"What do you mean?"

"They've been doing everything on their own, not needing me for anything. I've started to wonder if I should find another group." Rachel says sadly. "Well, you can come join our group up north, we need people for a lot of different jobs." I say. She gives me a soft smile. "Thanks, Zoe. I...really appreciate it." She says. "No problem." I say. "C'mon, you should sleep." I add. She nods and rests her head on the back of the chair, and gives me a go ahead gesture to lay my head on her lap again.

Shades of Black
When we arrive at the camp at sunset of the next day, we're given two tents, a small lot, and told to set up. I don't think I ever actually saw who gave us them, but I could hear their voice for sure. It was male, and kind of old. I shrugged it off and we set up our tent. Next to our lot is a sign saying "Males and Females cannot share tents" I figured it was about to get very interesting.

We set the tents set up, sit around and chat for a few hours, and then the guys go into their tent. Before they actually enter, I see them look at us, then the tent, and snicker before zipping the tent up. We all look at our tent and each of us sighs. "Not to sound like an awful person, but who do we think is the heaviest two?" Cayla says. We all shrug, not really sure. "Ok, I guess we go by height." Cayla says with a sigh, points at me, and heads into the tent. I sigh, realizing what is about to happen, and follow her in.

Let me explain the dimensions of this tent. It is about two meters long, not long enough for us to lie down a long way, and one meter wide. When me and Cayla lie down in the tent, our shoulders are touching. Its that bloody cramped. "Ok, next." Cayla says. Ava comes in alone and lies down on top of me. "Well, at least I'm used to this." I say, getting a laugh from Ava. Stella and Rachel appear to play Rock paper scissors, and Rachel goes, looks at Cayla, gives her a warning look, and lies down on top of her, looking thoroughly displeased. Then Stella goes and makes us all want to kill her by jumping on top of Ava and Rachel, squishing poor me and Cayla.

The next day, we walk to where the destroyed camp had been set up. It was set at a motel, which is charred and ripped apart. We divide into groups of two and one of three. Me and Stella are one group, Cayla, Ava, and Matt are one, and Michael goes with Rachel. Me and Stella are looking through the bottom level's rooms while the group of three goes around the back. Rachel and Michael take the top floor.

Me and Stella go through a bunch of rooms before we find anything. A body. A big one that is also rather grey. We flip it over and see that it is a human alright, but its got very sullen, jet black eyes, and grey skin, with teeth like fangs. We also see a needle mark in his jugular. Stella goes to the window. "Hey, Rach, Michael! Can you guys go and grab the tents, preferably more than one?" She yells. I look out the window and see Rachel and Michael absently chatting as they climb down to get into the truck.

We look at the body for a while, trying to figure just what the hell it is. We give up when they return with the tents, this time enough to sleep comfortably. Cayla grabs one and sleeps in it alone. Stella and Matt jump in one and me and Ava take another while Michael takes another and Rachel stays out alone. Me and Ava whisper conversations to each other, and then I hear a zipper of a tent moving, so I poke my head out to look. I see Rachel slip inside Michael's tent.

A smile crosses my face and I turn to Ava. "Michael's got company." She smiles and gestures for me to come closer. I do, and she grabs my face and starts kissing me fiercely. This is the first time we've been alone together, so I naturally respond in kind. She pulls out after a moment, gives me a sly grin, and kisses me again, this time lightly. These light kisses start moving down my neck, and when she hits my collarbone, I sigh "Ava..." contentedly.

The next morning, we wake up and find Cayla sitting in the middle of all the tents, looking largely unamused. "What?" I ask. "I. Was. Awake. All. Freaking. Night." She says. "Ehehe...sorry..." I say. "It was them too." She says and points at the other two tents. Eventually, everyone wakes up and we continue looking around the motel. Nothing happens until midafternoon, when a van rolls up.

There are varying degrees of evil. People like the ones that just rolled up fall into the midway point category. Their leader yells "Let the women live, and remember, I like them pretty!" That resulted in violence. About ten bandits attacked us. Mostly with guns. We took cover in various rooms, and I found myself stuck in one on the bottom floor alone. I peek out the window and see a pair of them coming for my room. I get my knife ready, as the sword is too cumbersome for the tight quarters.

One opens the door and I spring at him. I knock the gun to the side and stab forward. He ducks, but the blade pierces the eye of his partner. Before I can wrench the blade out in time, the surviving one punches me in the face and throws me onto one of the beds. He pulls out what looks like handcuffs and advances toward me. As he reaches me, I jump up, wrap my thighs around his head and twist backwards, breaking his neck as I fall onto the floor. I look outside and receive a rifle butt to the face.

Naturally, I hit the floor, seeing stars and birds. I look up, and he's about to bring it down on my face again, but then a knife pierces his eye, and then another his throat. He falls and I see Ava run into the room. She helps me up and takes me outside. I see the others have dealt with the rest of the bandits, and Michael and Rachel appear to be having an emotional moment, as it looks like she took a hit, and there's blood dripping down her arm. Then, he throws her to the side and an arrow pierces his chest. Stella is the first to react, and his put a bullet in the head of the attacker, who is a bandit that only had a flesh wound.

Michael falls on his knees and Rachel goes and takes the arrow out. "We need some kind of alcohol to clean it, does anyone have anything?!" She yells. We look at each other, all of us having nothing. Then, someone yells at us. "Hey, people!"

We look and see two men, hands raised and concerned looks on their faces. "We have some medical supplies at our farm, our momma's a doctor, we can help!" They yell. We look at each other, and we all know that we have no choice. "Alright, lead the way!" Matt says as he puts Michael's arm around his shoulder and we run to catch up with the men, who take us into the forest.

The Farm
We follow the two men to their farm, and we find a slightly elderly woman sitting on the front steps. "Oh ma lord! C'mon, honey, Maggie's got you." She says and takes Michael inside. The two men stop us from going in. "We're Johnny and Frank Jordison. That's our momma. And this is our farm." One of them says. "C'mon in, we'll see to it that you guys have some food in you." the other says.

They take us inside and offer sandwiches. I turn one down, as does Stella, but everyone else has one. "Feel free to take a look around, but could you avoid looking in the back of the barn?" We all nod, and set out to look around. I look around the house while everybody else looks elsewhere. I head upstairs and hear Michael talking to Maggie, so I figure he's ok. I open a closet and find a lot of morphine and other medications. "Well, she is a doctor, I guess." I say and close it.

I head downstairs and find one of the brothers in there. "Hey, are you Johnny or Frank?"

"I'm Frank." He says. "Zoe. Thanks for bringing us here." I say. "No problem. We need to make sure that some level of humanity survives this event."

"Can I do anything to help out?" I ask. It would be a good idea to maybe get on these peoples' good sides. "If you can help with those dishes, that'd be great." He says. So I start putting dishes away, and ask him about the farm.

"Ran in the family, everything just kinda passed over us. We made it through just fine, and still have." As I put another plate in the cupboards, he says "Mama will cook up a good meal for ya'll. You look like you could use a good four course meal." I nod my thanks, put the last plate in the cupboard, and head outside. I see Rachel sitting on a swing under a tree, and head over to her. "You ok?" I ask. "I think Aphrodite hates me." She says. "Why?"

"My last boyfriend died, and...I don't know. If Michael wanted to be known as my boyfriend...he's almost dying too..."

"Hey, I heard Maggie cleaning him up and dressing the wound, don't worry. He'll be ok. Just don't break his heart, I'll have to kill you." I tell her. She smiles and shakes her head. "How was last night for you?" She asks. "Oh, it was phenomenal. How about you?" I ask. She looks confused. "Don't play dumb with me, I saw you." I say. "Oh..." She blushes and smiles. "You go, girl. He'll be ok, don't worry about it." I tell her, ruffle up her hair a little bit and head off to talk to someone else.

I find Stella and Matt sitting together on a hay bale. "Hey guys, what do you think of this?" I ask. "Seems almost too good to be true...but...I heard they're offering food, so I don't want to say anything that might get us kicked out..." Matt says, and Stella nods. "Do me a favor and let me know if something suspicious comes up, ok?" I tell them, and they nod. Then I head into the barn, where I find Cayla and Ava. They're talking to Johnny, and I nod at them and head straight for the back of the barn.

I see a lock on the door. "You found it too, eh?" Ava whispers, sneaking up behind me. "Before he locked it up I saw something back there, it was dark, I dunno what. We need to know what it is." Ava says, and I nod. "I'll find a way to get Johnny out of here and I can get the lock off." I say. She nods and goes back to them. I head outside and look around. I see, and hear, a generator, so I head over to it. I open it, turn it off, rip out something that looks important, and sneak off.

Johnny exits the barn and goes over to look. He swears angrily and says something along the lines of "Now I need to fix it..." So I head into the barn. I walk over to the lock and start picking it with my knife. Just as I do this, I hear the dinner bell ring. "I'll make up a story, get that door open." Ava says and I continue. In a few minutes, I have it off, and I throw the door open.

Inside there are bloody blades and blood covering the floor. There are shelves of jars in the back, but I can't see what's in them. "Hey." Johnny's voice says, and I turn around. "Look, this is where we do the skinning of the animals we hunt. Mama hates the blood, so doesn't like it when the door is open." He says, almost a little too smoothly. "C'mon, dinner's ready." He says and I have no choice but to follow him up into the house. Everyone is sitting around while the food is being served.

"Where's Michael?" I ask. "He's resting in the bedroom upstairs, I brought some food up for him already." Maggie says. "Mind if I wash up first?" I ask. They shake their heads, and the first thing I do is creep upstairs to check on Michael. My heart starts pounding when he isn't in the bedroom.