I didn't like this.

I didn't like this one bit.

Walking through a maze of abandoned cars was beyond dangerous, especially this close to dusk. The sky was already changing colours; the orange and pink I used to love seeing in the sky was now a sign of danger. I had never looked at the sky with such hatred before. We had found out a week ago that the infected like to be outside in the dark, which makes it easier for them to catch their prey. We can't see them, but they can hear us.

It's not the smartest thing to be walking to wherever we were going at this time, especially around these cars. It would have been better to just camp in our vehicles tonight. Blake walked by my side as I looked through each car window as we passed, searching for anything of interest.

In one car, there were a couple of blankets on the backseat, but there was nothing important so I went over to the next one.

This one had a family who seemed to have passed the gun around and shot themselves, and it looked like they had all given up on hope. I didn't even want to try to go into that car, knowing the smell would make me sick.

The next car though, when I looked inside, had something that sparked my interest.

A duffel bag.

It could literally have anything we may possibly need in there, and it was worth breaking into the car for. Now if the doors weren't locked, it would help a lot. If they were, it wasn't worth the effort and I did not need to set off an alarm. I looked inside to make sure nothing was going to jump out at me, so I tried the door. Thankfully, it opened and I grabbed the duffel bag.

"Whatcha got there, girly?" Jack asked in his western tone. For some reason, he never calls us by name unless he needs to get our attention.

"I'm looking to see if there's anything useful in this bag," I said, heaving it onto the hood of the car. The zipper on the bag was broken, so I took out my knife from my boot and cut along the top of the bag next to the zipper.

"We could have probably used that bag hun," Jack said, and I shook my head. I pulled the fabric aside, looked inside and smiled.

"Zipper was broken and what's inside is a better deal than this bag," I said, cutting the bag open the rest of the way. What I pulled out made Jack grin.

"Now that's a mighty fine crossbow." He said smiling. It had been a long time since I had seen the old man smile.

"May I?" He questioned and I handed it to him. I pulled a sheath of arrows out of the bag and counted them. Twelve. He looked down the sights and looked off into the distance in the opposite direction from where I stood. He took an arrow from me and put the crossbow between his feet on the ground. He put the arrow in his mouth and used both hands to pull on the string until it clicked. He loaded the crossbow with some effort and brought it up to his shoulder, looking down the sights. He let off a shot and watched it fly off into the distance.

"A little wobbly on the sights, but with some practice, I could use this thing very well. May I have it?" He asked and I shrugged, looking back into the duffle bag.

"Yeah, you can have it, because there's more in the bag," I said when Bev walked up to me from behind and tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around and she pointed into the distance. The sun was starting to set, the bottom of it just reaching the horizon.

"Yeah, we should probably get going, I'm going to throw the rest of this in my bag and then we'll all go through it when we're somewhere safe," I said and pulled my backpack off. With some effort, I stuffed the ripped bag into my own and zipped it up. Everyone else continued towards the next bits of vehicles as I slung my bag back on and jogged to catch up.

We continued to look into each vehicle but a little more hurried than earlier, looking for anything else that could be useful to us. It looked like some of the vehicles had already been searched because some of the windows were smashed and the doors left wide open. I mean, it makes sense to leave the doors open, because closing them makes a lot of noise, and if you're not cautious, it could draw everything in the vicinity to you.

The open doors could also be a sign of a quick get-away in the early days of the outbreak.

I walked up to another vehicle, cupping my hands by my head as I leaned forward to look into the car through the tinted window. I noticed an infected trapped by its own seatbelt, reaching back as it noticed me and struggling against the belt. The seatbelt wasn't done up, meaning it could potentially be a threat if one were to open the door. Although, it wasn't the infected that had my attention. The sole thing that sparked my interest was the box on the floor behind the passenger seat.

"Guys..." I called out, flagging them over to the car. After a few moments, everyone gathered around the car. Blake stood near the trunk of the car, on the lookout for any possible infected in the area.

"Look," I whispered and pointed to the back seat. Inside the box were a few bags, but the tin cans were the most noticeable as they glinted in the dark.

"Is it really worth the risk?" Bev questioned and I nodded. I knew it would be a risk, but we were almost desperate at this point.

"It's a lot safer than going into a grocery crawling with them. We could let it out and kill it, or we could get one of us to distract it, and another grab the bag and box out of the car." I said, and they nodded.

"We're going to have to kill it anyways. Because slamming that door could attract others." Jack said and I tightly pressed my lips together, nodding. Cindy was tapping on the glass on another vehicle when a bark erupted. She stumbled backwards and in an attempt to steady herself, she reached forwards for the door handle. Thankfully, it was locked

I went over to the car and saw a German Shepherd locked inside. Bev came up beside me and I already knew what she was going to ask.

"Awe! It's a dog! Can we keep it?" Bev questioned and as much as I wanted to even consider it as an option, I shook my head.

"It's another mouth to feed, and a loud one at that. Every bark will attract them and put us all in danger. We can't risk it. Sorry." I said, then walked back to the other car where the infected banged against the window, trying to get out to get to us.

"Who wants to grab the food?" I said, and nobody answered.

"I will," Blake said and walked over to the back door on the opposite side from me. The infected looked in his direction and I started tapping on the window near the infected.

"Hey, yeah that's right. I'm right here. And you can't have me. Haha yeah. That's right, keep looking here." I said, and as I said it, Blake carefully opened the back door, grabbed the bag of food and the box next to it. He carefully placed it on the ground and shut the door carefully, making as little noise as possible. The infected man didn't even notice Blake because his attention was solely focused on me as I stood directly in his sight.

We walked for about half an hour, not even bothering to open the box because it was already dark out. I had the bag slung over my shoulder and Blake carried the cardboard box. We moved along quickly and quietly, manoeuvring our way around the cars. We finally made it to Jack and Maggy's acreage on the outskirts of a small town.

The house was completely surrounded by a spiked metal fence. We got through the gate and made our way to the front door of the house and walked inside the house. Once inside, we all fell to the ground of exhaustion. We were all so tired that most of us just sat there for a while and stared at each other.

"Okay everyone, you guys can go sleep in whatever room you want. Maggy and I are going to go sleep in our own bed for the night. Goodnight everyone." Jack said, then he and Maggy went upstairs and disappeared for the night. I looked out the window and spotted a few shadows quickly pass in front of the gate. For a split second, I could have sworn they were human. I blinked a few times and the shadows were gone. It must have been the fatigue and my over-active imagination.