I popped the paracetamol out of its foil packet and swallowed it down quickly, washing it down with a few sips of water from the bathroom sink as I did. This would be the first time I'd felt the need to take a painkiller in months. Finding a hoard of painkillers definitely did have benefits and it turns out, not just for my Dad. I looked again at my watch, 5:05. The scavengers would be grouping up soon to get ready to leave for the night.

  I slowly left the bathroom, carefully heading down the stairs towards the kitchen. Each thud of my feet on the stairs sent a sliver of pain through my skull. Eventually though, I reached the bottom of the stairs and made my way to the kitchen. I opened the cupboards. There was nothing that could be made into something quick to eat. My stomach though was absolutely famished, grumbling at the sight of the fresh eggs within the cupboard.

  As my stomach grumbled, the house door opened and in walked my brother. He looked towards the kitchen briefly, waving slightly as he noticed me, "I'd wondered if I'd have to wake you up." he gnced down and began taking off shoes at the door before walking in "By the way, I spoke with Raynor as I was walking past the gate earlier. He told me to rey to you, that you're allowed to join for this scavenging run to the house you found but whether or not you'll be allowed to join will depend upon your performance."

  I nodded to him; it made sense since getting to the fields usually involved going through the gate out front since it wasn't connected directly to Lichenbury "So just about what we had expected then?"

  "They'll be grouping up in about half an hour before doing their prep and leaving for 6 like normal. You know where to go don't you?"

  I rolled my eyes slightly "Of course I do, it's number 4, right next to the warehouse."

  He sighed slightly before gazing at me seriously "You and I both know how important this is for us all. Don't mess it up."

  I watched as he moved to the side of the kitchen, jumping up onto the counter and sitting there he asked, "Mum and Dad aren't back yet, are they?" I shook my head sharply, confused at the question. We both knew very well that they wouldn't be back for another hour at least. Right after shaking my head though, I felt a burst of pain through my skull. Clutching my hand to my head I quickly said "No, they aren't here yet. I got a headache and some nausea though. Took a painkiller so I'll be fine."

  A look of concern appeared quickly on his face "You... Took a painkiller? Must be a really bad headache then." We'd all agreed to save as many painkillers as possible for Dad for obvious reasons. "You sure you’re okay?"

  I shook my head slightly as I said "Had chest pain and nausea since I got back from the house. Now I've got a pretty bad headache to add to it. Still going to show up with the scavengers though."

  His look of concern remained as he continued "That doesn't sound great, I suppose it leads into what I wanted to talk to you about though." He takes a few seconds to motion for a gss of water which I quickly give him.

  After taking a sip, he continued, "The military showed up earlier today. Drove up in a couple armoured cars like they normally do and came in to trade, talk and do all their normal stuff." I raised my eyebrows at this news. They shouldn't be coming around for another couple of weeks at least. "They actually spoke about recruitment." He chuckled slightly at that, earning a stare of confusion from me which he had noticed "Oh they went into that whole spiel about retaking the British Isles and re-establishing the regur rule of w and other such rubbish. As if anyone hasn't heard that bull before." I smiled slightly in agreement as I waited for him to finish.

  He leant over the counter he was sitting on and grabbed a cup, carefully pouring himself a cup of water. After taking a sip, he continued, "Despite that... If this whole thing with you joining the scavengers doesn't work out... I'll be signing up. I know their goals are stupid but their pay is real. I asked the recruitment officer if I'm able to spend that money on supplies to send back. They said I could so it would be a great source of meds for Dad."

  His words were met with silence, just long enough for him to fidget under the weight of our eye contact. He was clearly nervous about bringing this up. "You know Mum and Dad'll hate that." He winced slightly as I said that. Of course he knew they wouldn't like it, just as I knew that with my recent escapade. "But that's asides from the point. After all! With what I just did, it'd be like calling the kettle bck if I was to compin." We both got a little chuckle out of that.

  "What is it that we always agreed on with our parents?"

  "That we'd all stick together?" He asked as I quickly nodded in affirmation.

  "Exactly. Our family sticks together." I jumped up and joined him sitting on the kitchen counter, my hand resting reassuringly on his shoulder. "Nobody else has their entire family still alive. We are an anomaly in this world. Where everybody still left has lost their entire family. We still have everyone." My words were met with silence, both of us letting what was said sink in. "Why would you join up and break us apart like that?"

  He sighed, resting his head against his knuckle, "We need the meds and this seems like the least risky way to do it. Joining the military and fighting the zombies or whatever else they'll have me doing will be better than diving deep into town with just the two of us in the middle of the night, especially after a long day of work. I'll also get to explore and be taught to fight properly within the military rather than spending my days farming here."

  We sat there for a little while as I thought up what to say in response. He was right that the Military would be a great source of meds long term, he just seemed to be ignoring the risks. Someone joined the military from Lichenbury a few months ago and after sending regur messages back to us for a couple of months, he suddenly went dark. None of us knew if he was dead or alive.

  A sigh could be heard leaking from my lips as I spoke words that I'd never thought I would. "If things don't work out with the scavengers and you end up signing up, I'll join you there. I'm pretty sure if we sign up together they'll let us stay with each other. I'd rather we both join up than just the one of us."

  Never before had I seen his head flick around quicker than it did just then as he quickly turned to stare at me with surprise clear to see on his face. "Really?"

  My face curled into a mischievous smirk "Really. Besides, Mum and Dad will compin less if we go together than by yourself."

  A chuckle could be heard coming from him before he shook his head in disbelief, "I appreciate it Jade, truly."

  I hopped off the counter, my feet nding with a thud on the floor before I turned around, walking backwards towards the door whilst talking to him "Yeah well, here's to hoping we don't need to do this and it instead works out with Sal and the scavengers. Speaking of which, I need to head to them now. Do you have anything I can eat on the way over?"

  --------------------------------------------

  I walked up the driveway towards the house, swallowing the st bit of the grano bar my brother had passed me. Looking at the house number on the door I knew I was at the right pce, house number 4.

  My hand rapped along the gss of the door, a brief pain going through my head from the sharp sound reverberating through the door. Luckily it faded quickly and was fully gone by the time someone could be heard moving towards the door.

  Soon enough, someone could be seen through the fogged gss and the door was soon after opened. I recognised the woman on the other side of the door, brown hair, lithe and about the same height as myself. Sal greeted me quickly as she invited me in, "Ah! Just the person we've been waiting for. Come on in, we got started making pns about another loot run whilst waiting for you."

  Gncing briefly at my watch, I saw that it was 5:28. "I’m not te am I? I'd thought I needed to be here by 5:30."

  She smiled slightly as she reassured me "No you're perfectly on time. We just got here early and began pnning things out."

  I swiftly nodded, moving through the door as we both quickly moved into what was formerly a living room, now converted into a war-room of sorts. This wasn't my first time in this room but the changes it had underwent since I was st here were astounding. It looked more like a war bunker anything like a living room now.

  There was a rge map on the wall with various markings over it, a list of various streets and whether they'd been looted or not, horde locations marked as well as where the current zombie traps were; there was multiple shelves with various binders and books.

  In the centre of the room though was a rge table with chairs all around it as everyone was sitting and inspecting another map of the town, this one with various figures on it. I recognised some of them as being figures from various board games, some little soldiers from Risk, houses and hotels from Monopoly and who knew what else dotted around it.

  Two people I recognised the faces of but not the names of were standing up, pcing some different looking figures on the map as they discussed amongst each other. Meanwhile another couple of people were just sitting down watching them at work.

  The person on my left was leading the conversation. He was a fairly strong man, slightly taller than me with short bck hair. He seemed completely focused on the map and hadn't noticed us entering the room. To be fair to him though, neither had anyone else.

  "We should hit the supermarket here next, the recent bait we've pced around here-" he pointed at an area around the red Monopoly hotel, this area was marked with little wooden counters. "-should have cleared out the undead from the alley here, we can make our way through and up to the supermarket and loot it's storage room."

  The woman on the right then shook her head, "Those traps were pced there to get us access to the pharmacy here. The supermarket hasn't been scouted for zed density or loot yet, nor has the sying team been sent there to-" She was interrupted by Sal as she coughed slightly to get everyone's attention.

  "Mel, Martin. This is Jade." She pointed to me before then pointing to each of them. "Jade, this is Mel-" she pointed to the woman on my right, who quickly nodded. "-and this is Martin." She then pointed to the one on the left. "They are both responsible for pnning out the scavenging alongside myself. Martin is my second in command and Mel here is our main liaison with the sying teams."

  Martin walked up towards me; hand outstretched. I took it with my own as he gave me a firm handshake. "Good to meet you Jade. We've heard great things about this hoard you've found. Here's to hoping it's as advertised." I merely nodded as he then pointed to the other two who hadn't yet been introduced. Both of whom were looking our way.

  "That's Keith." He pointed to the middle-aged man on the left who gave me a short smile before then pointing to the other man on the right. "That's Connor." Connor looked disinterested at me for a short second. He scoffed as he resumed spinning his knife around his palm as he spoke up. "So, Jade... Where's this hoard of yours?"

  I frowned slightly at his btant rudeness. Martin quickly spoke up on my behalf, putting his hand in front of me in a protective gesture as he did. "Connor! She's just got here, let her get settled and introduced to everyone first." Connor just scoffed in response, causing Martin to breathe in deeply about to respond before I grabbed his arm and pushed it down gently.

  "No, he's right. We are burning time, after all. We can do introductions ter." I walked towards the rge map on the table. My arm lifting and drifting along the map as I recalled the directions towards the house. Starting at the south east side of Ranton, right where Lichenbury was, my arm drifted up, along the alleys I'd taken. I noticed everyone watching my hand as I followed the path I'd taken. I drifted my hand north and west along the map, eventually stopping right at an area that was marked as having a horde on it about a mile walk away from Lichenbury. That was the location of the House.

  I frowned slightly as I knew that there was no horde there. After all, I'd have seen or heard it if there was. Regardless, I pointed out the location. "Right here."

  The silence was deafening as nobody said or did anything. A few seconds passed, then a few more before finally Sal spoke up. "Are you sure? That's... Going to be hard to reach since there's a horde there. We'd be walking into at least a hundred zed."

  My head soon shook in contradiction, "There was no horde on the street. I saw a handful of zombies along the street and snuck by them easily on the way in. Nearly got spotted on the way out but luckily a dog distracted them and I got away. Either way, no horde."

  Mel scoffed and then walked off towards a shelf on the wall, her hand drifting along it as she grabbed out one of the binders and pced it on the table with a thud. She opened it and began turning the page until she pointed out the exact street Jade had pointed out. "Here we go, Oxford Street. Was st checked for horde density..." She moved her finger over the paper, murmuring softly the different parts before finding what she was looking for "Aha! A week ago. There's been a horde there for about two months now and density has been... Slowly decreasing over time. The horde was reported at about 150 st month with it having decreased to 130 at the st check-up a week ago. Either way, a stationary horde like that doesn't just disappear."

  I nodded "I know it doesn't. But regardless, that doesn't change the facts. There is no horde there."

  Hordes were a retively new phenomenon. Initially, the zombies would just roam aimlessly, but about 3-4 months ago the zombies were noticed to begin grouping up into initially small groups, before eventually hordes. Sometimes these hordes roam, sometimes they stay retively stationary around a specific area. Regardless, Mel was right. Hordes don't disappear into thin air.

  Mel's face scrunched up slightly before she leant towards me "Listen here. We have multiple reports of a horde in that location from different scouts. There is a horde in that location. Now you want us to go move straight into a horde because you say it's just up and vanished?" She scoffed, gncing at Sal as she waved her hand dismissively towards me. "You cannot seriously think that she's telling us the truth here. Maybe she just got lucky and entered in when they had moved away for a little bit. Either way, following this lead is a death-trap."

  Sal stared at me before gazing back at Mel and saying "We've worked together for quite a while now Mel. We both know that what Jade is describing is... Improbable to say the least but at the same time. I don't think she's lying either, she has no reason to, especially since she requested to come with us."

  Mel seemed slightly surprised at that "She wants to come with us. What, does she want to join our scavenging runs or something?"

  "Yes, I do." I said, speaking up for myself. Both my hands resting on the table as I leant over it, my head looking to the side towards Mel. "I am not lying to you because if I lied about this, then I'd blow any chances I had at joining you all. My father needs meds; this is the best way I have to acquire them. As such, I have no reason to lie to you about this. So I will say this again: There is no horde there." I stared her in the eyes with every word. Gncing briefly towards Connor, Keith and the others as I did.

  Keith was leaning back, arms folded but clearly paying close attention. Connor had stopped pying with his knife, holding it in his hand pointing towards me as he gred at me with suspicion. Nonetheless, nobody spoke up as there was once again silence as the words sunk in.

  Eventually, Sal interrupted the silence. "Anyway... As Jade said, there isn't a good reason for her to lie here. Whether it was luck or not, I say we go scavenge the house tonight. If the horde did disappear, it could come back any time so there is possibly only a limited window to loot up."

  The others seemed hesitant, staring towards Sal then me, then finally Mel. Martin was the one who broke the ice though as he spoke up, "You're the boss Sal. If you think we should go then we go."

  With that settled, Sal moved towards the table, her hands firmly pressing against it as the table creaked slightly as she put all of her weight on it. "Alright, lets get to work then."