Fifteen -Day 39*

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My mouth hung open as I stared at Shawn.

"Actually, yeah. We could always use the help," Brad told him. "Can you be ready to go in a half an hour? We won't stay out after dark, but it's always a good idea to be prepared. You can find just about anything you'd need in the store room."

"Ok, I'll be ready."

"Ok. Meet us at the front doors then. It'll be Marcus and us." Brad started to turn away.

"I'm coming too," I found my voice. My tone left no room for argument.

"Alright," the tall man nodded to me and walked away through the grass.

"Thank you, both of you, but you don't have to go out there. Leaving the safety of the fences is the most dangerous job we have here," Ned said somberly.

"It's the right thing to do," Shawn answered him, but was looking at me. "If there's any chance that those people are still out there, we need to help."

I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from telling him that these people could go screw themselves if it meant him putting himself in danger.

Ned nodded again, respectfully, and then went back to the garden. I was silently fuming as I stomped my way back through the grass toward the building. These people seemed nice and all, but I had zero interest in one of my own people being hurt, or worse, looking for some of them. Let's be honest, their missing members were more than likely already dead. We knew all too well just how dangerous the world had become.

It seemed like a foolish errand to me, to keep risking lives for dead people. It made me wonder just how long they had been shut behind these fences. Did they really know what it was like out there?

I ruthlessly stamped down the whisper from my own mind that said I wouldn't give up either, if one of my people was out there. I didn't want to sympathize with their predicament at the moment.

Luna was still playing near the building. Rex was laying nearby, panting lightly in the sun. His big ears perked up when he saw me and he jumped up to jog to my side. I debated with myself as I kept up my march into the building, but decided that he might be helpful outside the fences. The dog had already proven capable of keeping zombies off of a person long enough to keep them alive, and he had learned a lot more self control lately. He no longer barked and ran off at the first sense of danger. I certainly trusted the dog much more than I trusted the two strangers that we were going out with.

Shawn gave me space as I shoved items into my backpack. He was good like that, knowing when I needed some time to decompress before speaking.

In a very short half an hour, I found myself sitting in the back seat of the beat up car, studying the tear in the strap of my backpack that a zombie's teeth had put there.

"We're going out in the direction that we met you all," Brad's eyes met mine in the rear view mirror. "That's the only road near here that we haven't really searched yet."

"There's not much out that way for miles," Shawn spoke up from beside me.

"Yeah, I know. Probably nothing will come of it, but we need to check for any clues anyhow. Unfortunately, no one knows which direction they were planning to go in the last time they went out."

The road was familiar as the trees flashed by. There were no intersections or turn offs, just a long stretch of narrow pavement that went on for miles. The small community had been left behind us quickly at the speed Brad was driving. He had already explained that they'd already searched all of the nearby buildings. They intended to start today's search further away.

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