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Simon walked right up to the glass double doors of the station and found them locked.

But instead of taking out his lock picks, he instead pulled the wakizashi from his belt.

Then plunged it into a display of soda cases next to the doors.

Deacon was wondering why he had done such a strange thing, until the boxes flew in every direction and a man armed with a crossbow came leaping out of the display and landed face first on the parking lot.

Simon had the sword at the man's throat, and his foot on the crossbow.

"Don't do anything stupid," Simon told the man. "You won’t live to regret friend."

Just then a woman with a baseball came charging out of the station.

Simon had the AR-7 pointed right at her face, with his free hand.

"Drop the bat babe." He told her in a monotone voice. " I never killed a woman before. But I'm willing to if you don't."

There was fire in her eyes. Simon could see that the woman wanted to cave his head in, but wisely she did as she was told.

Simon had them both knell between the pump islands.

"What are you going to do with us now?" asked the man " Kill us."

"I don't kill helpless people."

"Then what are we going to do with them Simon?" said Deacon.

"Simon?" said the woman " Simon Long?"

"Maybe." Answered Simon a little surprised.

"We've been hearing about you on the short wave. Every one out there has heard about you. They said that you've been fighting your way a cross the country."

"Wow" replied Simon. He didn't have this many people talking about even after publishing a couple of books.

Zandra Chimera (real name Angela Andrews) was twenty-four year old Goth chick. Her once golden brown hair had been dyed raven black and her pretty oilskin face was covered with white make up. The only thing that had remained natural were her soulful deep brown eyes. 

Angela was now one of the undead, clad in a vinyl black mini skirt, fish net stockings and off black combat boots.

Her secret wish was that one day she would become a vampire. Angela had her desire partly fulfilled; she was one of the undead. Just not the variation she had been hoping for.

Anglia now wandered the streets of Cleveland, far from her native Missouri.

Shuffling from location to location, looking for uncorrupted flesh to feed on.

Trailing behind the late Anglia were six post mortem girl scouts. A month ago Anglia had wandered near a lumberyard were the scouts had been dwelling.

Upon first sight, the girls bonded to Angela like a cluster of ducklings, and been following her ever since.

Angela and her charges were wandering down Rockside Road, like some sad Hellion Parade. Destination unknown. Anglia kept her focused on her feet as she moved along. The scout focused on her.

Then something happened, which broke up the sad sameness of Angela’s pseudo life.

A group of black helicopters appeared over the still skies of Cleveland.

The beating of their blades drowning out the endless low moaning of it denizens.

Angela looked up and saw the ships split up. One coming in her direction.

The aircraft hovered above Angela and the girls.

She clawed at the machine as it hung in the air, as if she had the power to pull it down out of the sky.

A metallic object dropped from the helicopter’s belly, then it flew off quickly to the north.

As the object fell, Anglia watched its descent. Fifty feet above the ground it exploded, releasing a cloud of liquid fire.

Tragically Angela’s second life had been even briefer then her first.

The man the survivors had discovered at the gas station was named Jeremy Wallace; he had been working the graveyard shift at the station when everything broke down.

The Girl was named Lindsey; she had managed the strip mall.

Together they had managed to save enough supplies to hide out during the plague for the next ten years. Simon and the others made a deal with them.

They would give them all the supplies and gas they could carry and in return, they would supply the couple with the two SKS rifles, the .38 special and ammunition.

The group was in deed lucky. All four of them now had sleeping bags, backpacks, tools and enough food & water to keep them for a week at least. Along with a full tank and a five gallon gas can.

Just as the group was about to leave, Jeremy had a question for Simon "How did you know I was hiding in the display?"

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