Central Florida, United States
"This is the way the word ends,
Not with a bang, but with a whimper."
~ T.S. Eliot

Florida wasn't the first to get the infection. But they were in the top five states to first get overrun. At first, everyone hoped that the south would be the only ones infected. Because of this, the government put a wall up, splitting the United States, once again, into North and South. But, alas, it wasn't like that. The North got infected just as fast as the South, if not faster as the north had larger cities while the south, apart from the few more populated states as Florida and California, were mostly farm land and small, less major cities. The north got more zombies, but they were slower than the ones in the South. The ones in the south could run without falling over themselves. This made things complicated.

At first, each state had their own safe houses. These were usually the amusement parks, as they tended to already have fences around the perimeter. Florida's biggest and most populated safe houses were Disney World and Universal Studios. Of course, these safe houses didn't last long as some people who had been scratched and not checked by the walking dead had walked right in with their families. And, seemingly over night, these "safe houses" became the places as mentioned and talked about in twisted horror stories and creepypastas. They were even seemingly worst than cities, as most people in major cities went to the amusement parks not just to be safe but to make the younger children in their families oblivious to the fact that zombies were real. Though being eaten by a zombie wearing Micky Mouse ears would seem horrifically worst than being eating by a plan ol' zombie.

Because of the fall of the individual safe houses in each state, the government put in place Government Safe Houses. Those in Hawaii had their own major safe house on the largest of the Hawaiian islands. Those in the north were told to go to Alaska to the major safe house or find one of the minor safe houses set up in the less metropolis populated states of the north. And those in the souths best bet was to head to the largest, most protected safe house of the US located in Texas, where everything is bigger.

Few of the people in our group, located in Florida, heard of the safe house in Texas. However, the broadcast they heard has been repeated over and over since the day after the zombies had been reported to be in every state in the country. But what will become of our group? They surely wont all get along right away. Let us hope they at least have enough morals to help each other out.

---

---

The smell of gasoline overpowered the smell of rotten flesh and death as the girl covered the pile of dead bodies with gasoline. After the whole gallon was wasted on the pile, she grabbed another one, dragging it from the pile and surrounding the perimeter of the house she's found shelter in, leaving the opening walkway that lead up to the front door untouched. She brought it back around, ending with pouring a bit more on the pit and setting the last half of the gallon beside the few empty gallons and the few full, untouched ones. Reaching in her pocket, she pulls out a matchbox. One left, she thought glumly, knowing she's going to need to go out and search for more.

It's been approximately a week since the zombies were reported to be everywhere in the US through Canada. And the only reason Leelo knows anything about that is because the national news channel is the only channel that works anymore. Striking the match against the box, it lights. The flames reflect in her hazel eyes as she stares at it, hoping this isn't that unfortunate time that she accidentally explodes the groups base. Taking a breath, she throws the match on the ground, right on the line of gasoline that lead to the pile and lead back and around the property. She steps back just as it explodes in a rush of flames heading around the property making a seemingly fence of flames with wire metal inside of the fortified fence they made for day light.

Looking up to the sky, she notes that day is coming to an end, and the night is near. As she watches, the small sound of a pop that shakes the ground ever so slightly can be heard and felt as the pile of zombie corpses blazes in light. She did it again, put too much gasoline on the pile. Surely, the shaking at the sound of the small explosion will bring the group company. But, as they learned in the past, zombies stay away from fire. Maybe they still feel the burn of the flames, or maybe the light of the flames hurts their eyes, which could be a reason why they don't seem to come out in the day. Or maybe the heat makes they rot faster. Whatever it may be, they found that the fire perimeter keeps them somewhat free of zombies in the night, plus it makes the nights less colder.

Taking the cigar she found in an old, rich mans mansion out of her pocket, she eyes it. She wishes to save the small, insignificant object for when they make it to this alleged safe house. "Only one thing we can do for now, little buddy," She says to the object, sticking the end in her teeth and putting her hands in the pockets of her small, black leather jacket.

She watches the flames of the camp fire. Spoke and ash rise into the air, the smell of burning rotten flesh and smoking ashes is now the usual one. It's the smell of comfort now, for Leelo at least, that says they made it through another day. And she hopes the same for her brother.

Taking a breath and turning on her heels, Leelo steps trough the back door, which is full glass slide windows. The house its self seems small from the outside, but it is pretty open on the inside. Stepping through the back door it's all open through to the front living room, not counting half walls to divide the different areas. Immediately to the right is a door that leads into the garage, which is full of everything that was personal to the family of the house as to not let anyone dawn on the fact that none of the people in the group has ever lived here. Next to the door is the kitchen with a counter and bar stools surrounding almost the whole little enclosure. This is where the group keeps most of the eating supplies, not to mention the bags where they pack the food and other supplies of the sort when they travel piled up beside the fridge, that is used mostly as a cabinet now. To the left is a small area where a table and a few chairs sit. This is usually where the oldest of the group gather to discuss what their next plan of action is. Through the double doorway that is missing doors is the front living room where the group usually stays and hangs out. To the right of the open space is the front door and stairs that lead up to three two bedrooms and a bathroom. Upstairs is usually where the younger people of the group go, as one of the rooms was a children's room and still consists of toys.

Walking into the living room, Leelo casually stretches across the couch, staring off at the TV, which finally went out after the power went out. Now, in front of it sits a small radio thats run by batteries. Her eyes focusing on the radio, nothing coming from it's speakers as one of the group probably decided to shut it off to reserve its power. She lets out a sigh before speaking, to no one in particular as they all should know but offhandedly notifying Louis and Alex. "We got, like, only three more gallons and a half gallon left of gas and we're outta' matches," She states simply before twisting around to find Louis or Alex, either one she looks at first. "We need to start moving tomorrow morning."

Joshua watched as the circle of fire engulfed the house, which would protect it for a few hours he guessed. Joshua looked around though his scope, looking for any sign of zombies. It was the same kind of rifle his father had taught him to use, being a military man he though Joshua should know how to hold a gun properly, much to his mother's protest. Guess he knew which one was right now.

Joshua didn't see any sign of them, sitting in his perch in a tree house inside the Ring of fire. He himself had placed two rings of stone around the tree, so that it did not catch on fire so easily. He had a bucket of water on standby.

Joshua's eyes looked older then he did, probably because of his experience. While one of the younger members, his father had been in the military, and taught Joshua how to shoot, stab, hold a knife, hold a pistol, hold a rifle, and various survival skills. This meant that he was one of the more qualified people here, and often joined in with the older kids in planning what to do next. Joshua himself slept in the treehouse. It had the advantage of elevation, and was not too visible in the thick leaves, yet he could see out of it perfectly. It only had a rope ladder to get up with, and zombies were notoriously shitty with rope ladders, especially when he could pull it up so no one could get up. To get down, there was the rope ladder he could deploy, and a zip line to the porch of the house.

He did put down the rope ladder though, because he figured they had some things to go over, and he suspected that they were leaving soon. It didn't take him long to find Leelo, and hear what she had to say. "You think the place we are going to will have working plumbing too? Ever since the power went out, everything has been getting worse and worse. Between my scouting run yesterday and today, I noticed what seemed like an increase in zombies. Oh, if we are moving, we shouldn't take Maple Street by the way. It looks relatively clear, but the zombies are in the houses behind closed doors. Wooden closed doors. So yeah, we would probably deal with surprise attacks and risk getting surrounded".

Joshua looked around the room. He knew what he was looking for, and it was stupid of him to do so. He just, he kept expecting that at least one of his siblings would show up out of nowhere, make the world seem a little bit better. It was futile to expect they would show up here, he knew that, but continued to hope.

"What route are we going to take then? I don't trust the highways, although, to be honest, I don't quite trust this "Promised Land" either. People don't typically name things Ground Zero except for the start of something, like a virus. But still, if we are really going there, we need a route that wont be so populated, with a good promise of shelter and supplies. Most of the stores still have food, thankfully".

One stereotype disproven about apocalyses was that stores ran out of supplies near instantly. In fact, with the mass amount of people dying, the food stores seemed to stay well stocked, and people were smart enough to take the perishables first since they wouldnt be able to come back for them later.

It was a week after the zombies had came; a sad week. Kate Lee Miller had already found a group of people. She was looking out the up stairs window at Leelo, who was putting gasoline on a pile of dead zombies and surrounded the property to keep the zombies from getting too close to the group. She watched Leelo light up the gasoline and made fire then come inside.

Kate walked out of the room to see what was going on down stairs. she started to walk down the stair when she hard Leelo say "We got, like, only three more gallons and a half gallon left of gas and we're outta' matches,We need to start moving tomorrow morning," Halfway down the stairs, she turned around and headed back up, going back into the room, not wanting to deal with the discussion that's sure to happen down stairs.

Going back in the room, she saw a small notepad on the table beside the bed. Walking over to it, she picked it up and saw it only had a few pages left inside of the thing. Putting the notepad back down, she looked around the room. There wasn't much. Like most, when she walked back to the window she was expecting to see her brother. But, of course, she didn't. She just looked out the window for a moment before picking the notepad back up. She placed it in her back pocket just as she walked out of the room and headed back down the stairs, coming off the last step just as Joshua began speaking. Not wanting to interrupt, she takes her place leaning against the stairs

Louis was not paying much attention at the time, as he was too focused on his own thoughts to be paying much attention, which could be dangerous in this world nowadays. He was thinking about family, mainly his sister. The apocalypse took a lot out of his old self, but he kept confident and strong for the group he is now in charge of. He rubbed his eyes before Joshua's voice brought him back to the horrible world.

They were running short on supplies, and they weren't getting any closer to ground zero staying here. With all the zeds migrating towards here, it would be best to leave before they get here. Even though they all seem to have matured over the time, he still worried well for the younger members in their rag tagged group. Being the oldest there was strange to him. He was a legal adult, but he still felt like a kid, and sometimes even he wished there was an adult to take control. He always worried what would happen if someone would die on his hands. He shook away the horrible thought and put his hand to his face, giving off a small sigh.

"I guess your right, we can't stay here for much longer...We should probably begin packing up and leave when the fire clears...I don't know about the route although...any ideas?" he had asked no one in particular. It's only been about a week, but stress was starting to show on the poor guy: lack of sleep, general nervousness and sometimes he would snap out at people at random.

He'd been sitting with Josh in silence just mulling over the main problems of their situation when Josh and Leelo came in with their reports on the situation. Mulling over what Josh had said Alex pulled out their map of the city. Well I guess we can cross off Maple street then. Honestly you guys all know the city better than I do, I wouldn't have the first idea of which way to go. but it seems to me we need to stay well away from populated high density areas. What about taking the back streets? It'll take a lot longer if we can't get out on the highway. It's high risk but it's also our quickest shot out of this mess."

He leaned back a little as he considered the problem. It was the younger members of the group he was worried about. Getting out with them would be a bit of a hassle, capable as they all were they were still largely children. He almost chuckled at that, here he was only 4 years older in some cases trying to be an adult. Still, it was a new world and you grew up fast or not at all.

He leaned back in his chair and laced his hands behind his head. " Each one of the Old Ones should pair up with a Nugget. That'll help us keep tabs on everyone. If we all had walkie-talkies that would be ideal, but nothing about this situation is. Maybe we need t raid another store? Either way if we're going to move we should distribute the supplies so that losing someone won't cripple our chances."

He knew it sounded callous but that was the harsh new reality they faced out here. Louis and he had been trying to lead this group through this hell safely. No one could have imagined this would ever happen and being thrust into such a situation was beginning to wear each of them thin, but so far they'd manage to cover for each other and keep moving. Thankfully when they were really having a hard time they had Leelo there to fall back on too. But this might yet take the cake. It was time to make that last desperate push out of the city and both he and Louis were starting to hit the wall.

Listening to the guys go back and fort, trying to make a decision on which way to take, it was clear to Leelo she had to step up her A Game to get these guys into shape. Sure, they shouldn't go trotting right through the city, nor should they take the places where the zombies were hiding out behind doors in anticipation that they will jump out and take offensive. But they also can't take their time taking the back roads. Don't get her wrong, the back roads are a good idea, since it's away from where most of the zombies hide out, but they have a limited supplies despite how much food is left in the stores.

"If you ask me," Leelo started, leaning back on the couch and staring halfmindedly at the ceiling. "We should take the main roads," She pauses, glancing at Louis and Alexander. "Sure, we may need to deal with some walking corpses and we may need to push some cars out of the way and stuff, but we'll get out of the city faster," She sits up and heads for the kitchen. "Plus, I rather not be chased by fuckin' druggie-zeds in the back streets!" She adds, wrinkling her nose slightly.

Leelo didn't care how comical it may have sounded, but she knew that the back ways were where most of the druggies hanged out, since they were rarely taken and could get away with quite a lot. Plus she's sure that if they run down the back ways they'll run into more than a few people she knew, both people she's hate and people she was truly friends with.

"You mean the main roads filled with zombies, more zombies, what seems like every car in the state, and who knows what else? And lets not forget, what if we come across some people on the main roads who like to rob, hurt, and possibly kill other survivors?" Joshua mentioned. There was another reason he didn't want to take the sideroads. Something his father told him, and his siblings.

"If there ever, and I hope this never happens, but if there is ever a national emergency and the whole country goes to shit, do not take the main roads. They will be filled with people just waiting to strike the people who do. It is safer to take the side roads". This meant, he had a better chance of finding his siblings on the side road then a main one. Everyone had always listened to his father, he just seemed to naturally command that respect.

"Also, if we need supplies, isnt the main roads the last place we should check? Granted, there are certainly still supplies there seeing as how most of the population is undead now, but if everyone goes to the main roads for supplies, the side roads should have abundant supplies".

JOshua doubted she was going to change her mind, but it still frusterated him. He looked over to the others and mumbled silently to himself "This is a really bad idea".

(Soooooo.....where is everyone else?)

Again, he went into deep thought as to what to do. Alexander couldn't of much help this time as he doesn't live here, so it was mainly up to him to figure it out. The main road was obviously a bad idea, it usually is in any national crisis. The roads will be filled with either undead or abandoned cars. If we were talking about stereotypes, the looters and other bad people usually like to stick around there.

"We are not taking the main road, its most likely a death trap there, I am not risking all of our lives for some extra scavenging spots and getting there faster; slow and steady wins the race, right?" He said skeptically. He then though of the back roads, and their dangers. They were the road less traveled, which could mean less zombies and looters, but it would take longer to get to their destination and it didn't have as many buildings and the such. There was also a lot more junkies and drug addicts out there. If they are zombies, who knows what the drugs could do to the corpses bodies, and if they're alive...then lets hope he and the group don't come into contact with them.

He thought for a while about the route, and even though it had it's own dangers, he found it to more safer than travelling the main roads where most of the zeds are probably located.

"I think we should take the back roads, they sound a lot better than trying to get through all those cars and other debris, not to mention all the zombies that will most likely be there, does that sound like a plan? He had asked the group.