Chapter 9 - Marcus

Mavis, Penelope, Marcus, and 24 volunteers are in a semi and a truck driving to North Mankato to try and find more survivors. Penelope, Spike, Mavis, and Marcus are in the truck leading the semi that's driven by Kane that was taught by James.

"I grew up in these apartments and knew just about every other kid who grew up here too. A lot of these kids were smart, so I'm willing to bet that some of these kids have made it this far." Said Marcus

"I hope you're right, we could definitely use a bump in our numbers. We have too many little kids that can't do things we need like being in the guard towers. We also need more fighters, but I think we'll always need more of those." Said Penelope.

"I'm sure we'll find at least a person or two here that got to a safe place in time. Food definitely wouldn't be too scarce by now yet either. We'll have to scavenge a little bit here before we leave." Said Spike.

"After what happened yesterday, I hope out luck is turned around today." Said Mavis.

The large group finally arrives at the apartments after a long drive from the malls shipping area. The leaders round up everyone outside of the vehicles about a hundred yards in front of the apartments.

"Alright everyone listen up. There's 28 buildings with 3 apartments in each building. We have 28 people so were going to split into teams of four. We have enough fighter to put at least 2 in each group. If theirs is any trouble at all, you run to another group and face it together. Please for the love of god stay safe out here. All right, get into some teams." Explained James.

The group splits off into 7 teams of 4 and spreads out to search the apartments. The first group walk into the first building and instantly have 7 weapons pointed at them.

"Hey Penelope, I think we found a couple!" Yelled Spike.

Penelope runs over from the building next to it. The small group lowers its weapon after seeing that they're not being attacked right now.

"Hello, I'm Penelope. We're from a much larger group, and we're out here looking for survivors to join us." Explained Penelope.

"Why should we trust you guys?" Asked the tall guy in front.

"There's no real reason to trust us, but we've come here with 28 people to try and find others to bring to the mall. We have a safe setup with water, power, and a safe place to sleep. I promise you'll enjoy it there more than you do here." Explained Penelope.

After a while of talking and a lot of consideration, the small group of 7 is added to the ranks of the mall group. After they successfully recruited the seven, they go ahead and sweep the entire area of supplies. The group manages to find plenty of supplies in various forms of boxes and cans to bring back to the mall. By the end of the day, the bed of the truck is filled to the brim with supplies.

Upon arriving at the mall, Sarah, James, and Sierra are in the shipping area to greet them.

"Hey welcome back guys, I see fresh faces and no wounded people. I take it that today was successful? Asked James.

"Today was very successful thanks to Penelope, she convinced them to join us pretty easily. She's a natural at this." Said Mavis.

"Oh please I didn't do anything special, I just explained what we have here. Compared to what they had there it was probably an easy choice. Plus we also had some younger kids with us, so we probably seemed pretty trustworthy." Explained Penelope.

"She was also the only one who even had to talk. You don't need to be that humble. You did really well today." Said Marcus.

"Alright Alright, I guess I did do okay today. I'm just glad today went so smoothly. We've got such a nice surplus of supplies, and we got 7 new people. I mean what more could happen to make this day better?" Asked Penelope.

          "Well I feel like ending this day as a good one, so I'm going to end this one as a good one. I'll see you guys tomorrow." Said Marcus as he walked off.

          "Count me in on that, today was tiring. I'm ready to turn in." Agreed Spike as he also walked off.

          "You lazy assholes, there's stuff to unload." Mavis yelled after them.

          "Whelp, I suppose we should get this unloaded. We still have 2 expeditions to make. I didn't think it would be so much work to do this. Going out in small teams and just relaying where we were was definitely a lot less work." Explained James.

(UNFINISHED)