TO DIE FOR

It took a whole week and a half for the preparation of their departure to the state of Colorado to be completed. They had to make sure that their sick and wounded has already been treated, it is also the day when Zachary turns 18. Zachary tend to lie about his age due to caution or he does not remember it. All he knows is the date of his birth, which has become useless as the celebration that they will have is the fact that they are not food. Zachary waits on the open court where Orlando and Nevada are playing with the other kids. He looks over to the truck with the insignia, he went through his pocket to get the cloth that Craig carried with him on the way to Mackinaw. Hoping if he were to encounter some of these people he could tell them about Canada.

A day after their arrival in the new community Zachary joined a scavenging operation on the town of Tacna. He sees the disgusting that killed one of the men with its entrails spread around the area. The one that he encountered was smaller than this one. As he was about to touch its still moving head Rodrick stops him.

"Careful.. might kill you"

"Sorry"

"Don't mind, all right everyone see if you can find anything"

Men in hazmat suits grabbed the head that he was about to examine, they put it in a heavy duty briefcase. He looked up to see half of the pseudo-town hall burnt down. He got in eat to see people dead trying to run hide or died fighting. As he explored the building even more, he starts to feel nauseous because of the burnt smelled has a charcoal like smell and a sulfuric odor with the smell of rustiness in the air. He sees the room where Kane was and he approached, his bag was surprisingly in tact and undamaged. As he grabbed the bag a biter jumped on him but it was stopped because it is stuck on the chair. It was Kane, he is tied in the chair and half of his body has burnt and his eyes does not have the same roundness anymore.

His pathetic corpse sits there biting away in the air. Zachary cocked his pistol and killed the turned Kane. He grabbed his bag and left outside.

"What you got there?"

"My bag, I was here before"

"Glad to know you did not become food"

"Food?"

"See that down there in the basement... they used powerful sun lamps apparently to create a true monster... the big guy would have sever 2nd degree burns and when shot the body will burst or something"

"Oh god, so they feed people there?"

"Yep, they venerated it like a fucking god, they even eat others thinking it would be something"

Zachary looked over to the basement and the smell was unbearable, Zach starts to vomit.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, fuck.... shit!"

"For a 15 year old you sure do cuss"

"I'm 18"

Zach starts to feel bad, it made him remember Denton. Thinking he has got pass that trauma seemed like a lie to him. He starts to remember everything and everyone. He fell onto Rodrick and told him slowly, 'I knew your sister and In-laws'. Zachary then starts to explain everything that he remembers from Denton up to Mackinaw. He left the safety of Canada because he wants to fix his trauma one way or another. He was not able to sleep properly for over 6 years. The dead only grew even more and also evolved along with them, the living. He was looking for a way to kill himself without hurting the people that he cared about.

He created a lie in his own head that Tobias is out there alive, maybe he can still tell him his thanks even when he is really a corpse. He often hears Craig and Natalia talking about the possibility of her immunity. When they did not see Tobias' body in the town of Washington he became hopeful.

"I'm so sorry"

"I have no idea if you kept up with my story"

"So you think he is alive?"

"No, I just... fabricated it from what I'm hearing, but if he is... then.. damn.. I.. I have no idea what to say"

Rodrick looked at the cloth with the insignia of SPECTRE.

"Then I think we should look for these people"

"SPECTRE?"

"yeah.. I have a question.. if your community up North were so strict.. how did you get out?"

"Mackinaw came by some extremely bad men.. fucking monsters.. like this one.. a fucking cult"

A bigger and much more dangerous group of people appeared in the state of Alaska. Like the people in Tacna they venerated the dead as if it is a 'cleansing'. They treated them as if they are one of their own, even experimenting on animals to create more dangerous creatures. The new creatures would sustain much longer and the only thing that can save them is the fabled 'cure'. Something that would save people who are being infected and kill the infected.

What was a battle for survival turned into a biological war. A factor in why Zachary wanted to kill himself even more is that he wants to leave to Greenland. Ensuring their safety, but a man from no where pointed at him as a traitor for conspiring with the enemy. A big skirmish happened in Norfolk which resulted in the whole town being abandoned. Zachary was banished and everyone that once trusted him were outweighed by those who did not. He decided to leave the community instead of fighting their council. Samantha did not even get to see her brother away.

He waved goodbye to Elizabeth and the others, and for the next 3 years he continued to roam the west coast of America. He encountered different people and new kinds of biters, seeing it as an opportunity to kill himself but he did not take it. He cannot bring himself to kill by his own hands and wants the circumstances to kill him instead.