Jace's legs hurt from the walking, but he would still rather be on the road than feeling stupid in front of the others. When the apocalypse started, he had embraced it wholly, he had hidden inside this new circumstance, fully letting it shape a new better self. It allowed him to shed the person he had been, that lonely, sad, damaged person, and become someone else, someone better. But it was all a veneer, underneath was the same person he had always been and now he carried baggage. Locked inside him was this fear, a terror he couldn't escape and no matter how much he pretended, he still dreaded rejection, nothing had changed.

He should have known that being bitten was not going to turn him and in hindsight he kicked himself. He had been so busy playing zombie hunter that he had let himself be taken in by myths. It had been a psychological shock to his system and he had never felt such despair as in those moments after. If it hadn't been for Carl's calm, firm reassurances, he probably would have lost it completely. Jace had known, even before Carl had shown him the crescent scars that covered his arms, he just hadn't believed. He hadn't wanted to believe they were all infected and that his miraculous survival was just random chance. That his immune system had beaten the odds and somehow triumphed. Jace wanted so desperately to believe he was special, that his survival had been because of his own actions and not something out of his hands, that he was willing to look past the obvious, to keep fooling himself.

The whole world had turned so fast and so completely that it left survivors with a gap in their knowledge. Jace was half way to convincing himself that it wasn't his fault that he had been taken in, when a church came into view. It was a way off, but still recognizable from the cross standing tall above the surrounding trees. If he kept traveling the road was set to lead him straight past it and he welcomed the change in scenery. His hand ached and he was far enough away from the hotel to start dispatching some dead. With any luck, he could draw some of the masses away from their base. The zombie horde that had gathered there was becoming an issue and he hated the fact he had to run, just to leave for supplies. Saying nothing of the problems he was facing in getting back inside.

The church was close now and Jace chastised himself for letting his mind wander. Still on approaching the church, he hadn't seen hide nor hair of anything dead, it seemed somehow serene, like nothing had happened and this could be any other warm summer day. People had flocked to religious buildings in the early days seeking refuge, but those days were long gone, and most the churches had long since been abandoned as beacons of hope. The closed doors were an ominous sign, and for a long moment Jace stood on the steps debating whether to go in at all. In the end curiosity got the better of him and he forced the side door splintering the frame with brute force.

The inside was surprisingly homely, stripped of pews and altars, the church had been gutted to make way for modern living. The project however was in permanent hiatus, the architects of such grand plans in all likelihood dead of some description. The empty space was crisp, as unfinished as the plasterboard and stud walls were, it gave Jace a sense of hope. Climbing the bell tower cautiously, he reached the top and could see across the land easily. In the distance stood a farmhouse, from here he could just make out the outbuildings. It looked rundown, possibly more so than it should have, making Jace wonder what he would find there. Still, he needed the supplies, the pang he felt at the thought of having to face the others without something to show, out weighed his ominous feelings and seeing as there were no other houses nearby, he resigned himself. At least he had a destination, even if it wasn't the most promising thing he had ever seen.

The farmhouse was less spooky up close, the sun basked dandelions, growing unabated took the edge off any misgiving Jace had felt. The house still looked abandoned and nature crept its way back, slowly springing up through gaps in the porch. Jace avoided the house in favor of exploring the yard, wanting to be sure of his surroundings before leaving the safety that open space provided. Behind the house was a graveyard for inanimate objects and old farm equipment, slowly rusting away and returning to the earth. It had been a long time since anyone had used anything here, maybe even years.

The garage seemed a likely place to start searching and he set himself upon the wooden access door, kicking it in easily. Knowing better than to rush in, he retreated with his dropper and sat waiting to see what the noise would draw, either from inside the shed or nearby. After what seemed like forever, but his watch told him was really only a few minutes, Jace approached cautiously. The zombies were not known for being smart, more for just being mindless eating machines and any nearby would have made a B line had they thought food was about. It didn't make the garage any less claustrophobic though, as he peered into the inky blackness, trying to make out the inside.

His eyes adjusted quickly as shapes formed in the dark, the first of which was a car. Work benches lined the back end and Jace could make out tools in the light from the door. Quickly his hand found a hammer and he tested the weight with a couple of mock swings. Still nothing moved and he could see enough to walk about the car and lift the roller door, letting more light in and giving himself another way out if shit went bad. A layer of dust covered everything but it still seemed that the car might have been used more recently. It was hard to tell with so many cobwebs filling the wheel arches and trapping leaves under the chassis. If it had been used, it wasn't as recent as the outbreak and Jace turned his attention to the house, thinking of the keys.

The sun was still high when he finished selecting the right tools for the job. A jimmy bar, the hammer and a garden spade, each useful in its own way, the first being the jimmy bar which he used to quietly force the back door. The smell assaulted his nose and put him on instant alert. As if to remind him of the danger, his finger throbbed harder as his heart rate went up and the pain shot down his arm to the elbow. For a long moment Jace stood in the laundry, feeling afraid as his mind raced over the many possibilities, none more terrifying than the dark skinned, human beast, that had set upon them in the dark of night. It took everything he had, to raise his spade and move forward, the smell a constant reminder that something was in inside, benign or not he would have to see.

At first the figure didn't move, it simply stood as if there was something important on the wall before it. Jace froze in return and for the longest seconds the pair were like two statues propped in a room both facing an invisible audience. It wasn't the nakedness that had thrown Jace, her lingerie crooked and ill fitting as it was, she wasn't the first naked dead person he had seen. The woman's body was thin, almost wiry, like so many of them were, but something was off with it. Her skin hung loose over her frame, like a rubber sheeting that had been poured over a person and allowed to pool in a great many spots. Her arse seemed flat and the skin hung down in droopy half rounds, her sides taking on the profile of roofing shingles.

The creature turned its head pathetically to face Jace, its bright blue eyes piercing his own and slowly the body followed, rocking from foot to foot. The woman was old, but the age was masked by the gauntness of her face, caused by hanging joules pulling tight across her bone structure. Slowly it began to gain life as it recognized food and began its desperate attempt to close the gap, its starving flesh weak with atrophy. A morbid curiosity kept Jace from ending it quickly, instead he held her at bay with the spade, pushing gently on the zombie's chest. It dawned in him slowly that the thing before him had once been a large lady, filling out the sack like skin with copious amounts of fat. Looking about the room, he could see the days of pacing, searching for a way out, he could see the hunger that all living things felt, eating away at this woman until her lingerie had slipped and finally there was no more fat to use up.

Obscenely she gnashed teeth at him, still trying feebly to push past the spade, which cut into her loose skin and Jace felt a sudden burst of anger. His fingers hurt, his legs ached and worst of all Beth had been right. They were alive. No longer human, but alive, none the less and in a split second it all boiled over. With a vicious stab, Jace forced the woman back, feeling a sick satisfaction as she staggered and came at him again. Getting a wind up, he thrust the spade forward again, catching the woman in the chest and splitting her sternum. The blow knocked her from her feet and sent her down on her arse. Jace followed it up by chopping at her ankles while she scrabbled trying to turn over. All he succeeded in doing was cutting at her flesh, releasing the dark, stagnate blood. Standing on her ankle he chopped at her knee instead, finding the back of it a better target and slowly he managed to break through, dismembering the shin. The more he chopped, the more his fingers hurt and the angrier he got. How dare something that should have been dead attack him, like it had the right to live over his own. Using the back of the spade he swung at the back of her head, relishing the way it jarred her head forward, but the woman's persisted as she again tried to rise, frustrating him further. Discarding the spade, he kicked her flat arse, sending her face first into the dirty carpet and quickly knelt on her back. Pulling the claw hammer from his belt, he caved her skull with continuous blows, exposing the dark, corrupted brain matter and in the process, adding to the dry blood that already spattered his shirt.