Ethan was carried into the house that he had called home so many times before. Micheal leaned over his unconscious body while instructing the three or so other people inside the room.

"I need him alive. He's no use to us dead." Micheal snapped at the others who were busy moving around the couch that Ethan was placed on.

"I don't think he's going to make it either way Micheal. He was bitten, and the gunshot to the gut is bound to kill him." A male replied while ripping the bloody shirt off of the paling boy's body.

Micheal glanced at the nasty scar that traced around his left side, and he looked at the L shaped scar on the kids cheek. He hadn't thought that the boy had been through to much. He assumed that they had holed up here from the beginning, and brought people in over time.

"He won't turn, not if his father had thought things through at that lab of his. He always was extremely careful, and made backup plans for everything." Micheal muttered this as he looked down to the boys chest.

"What do you mean? Are you saying that he's actually immune?" The only girl replied, looking up from her work.

"He's not immune, nobody is. He just won't turn. He'll die from the fever like everyone else." Micheal glanced back down at the gun shot wound, silently cursing whoever shot him.

"That's still something to look forwards to. Better than this nightmare!" She didn't like how he played off the important information.

"That's why we have to hurry. Markus isn't one to not have a backup plan. Ethan wouldn't have come back here willingly. Markus must have tried to bury his little secret by killing his son." Micheal directed this towards everyone in the room.

They all knew who Markus was, he had made sure they understood the real threat in the apocalypse.

The girl shot a small, but important prod at Micheal, "Then why didn't we pick them up at the bridge? We could have avoided this whole thing, and gotten it over with."

Micheal glanced back at the girl and spoke quietly into her ear, "I'm sure you wished that we would have investigated those gunshots earlier as well, Rose. How long were you trapped inside that bathroom stall pushing against that door to hold them off? How long would you have gotten if we wouldn't have had medication?"

Rose glanced up, looked back down, and then replied, "Jackson was stupid, I would have been better with those boys."

Micheal nodded slightly before resting a hand on her shoulder, "You can still save him?"

Rose nodded while slightly smiling, "The gunshot wound doesn't seem to have hit anything too important if he's just going to die afterwards."

Micheal glared at her before she spoke again, "We can probably keep him alive for two to three days before the fever takes him."

Micheal nodded, and brushed her hair back, "Two days is all I need for this all to be over."

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