We saw the lights in the distance, two beacons set against the night. Off to the east, the first fingers of morning were reaching across the sky. The light bounced and moved with the waves against the shore that was just close enough for us to hear. I tapped the top of the truck’s roof and Edgar brought the truck to a halt.

Evan leaned over the side, “Do you see that up there?” he asked.

“I noticed it right after you hit the roof. What do you think that it is ?”

“I don’t know but when was the last time you saw lights?” Evan said while he slipped his jacket over his shoulders, and I could see he was already reaching for his bow.

“It’s been months. Do you want me to drive up there and see what it’s all about?”

“No,” Evan said, “I want you to wait here. Me and Tim will go and see what’s up there.” Lauren shifted in her sleep. It was one of the first times I had seen her fall into a truly deep sleep.

“Gear up,” Evan whispered.

I grabbed my stuff and pulled the machete from the sheath I had been keeping on my back.

Evan stopped by the driver side door, “We’ll go up there. If anything happens here. You honk that horn and try to get up there as fast as possible. Give us 30 minutes if you don’t hear from us take off. There’s a national guard base not far from here.”

“Ok,” Edgar said. By this time, Martha woke up. “What’s going on Ed?”

“It’s ok, sweetheart, Evan and Tim are going to have a look at something.”

“Will you keep an eye on Lauren?” I asked.

“I’ll try but it’ll most likely be the other way around,” he said.

I walked around to the bed of the pick-up truck and woke Lauren up. She rose with a start, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I said, “Evan and I have to go look at something.”

“I’m coming,” she said.

“No, we need you to keep watch here,” I said.

“Tim,”

“Lauren, we’ll be back before you know it.”

Evan and I walked away from the truck. I looked back over my shoulder and saw Lauren standing in the truck bed with one foot up on the roof. She had a pair of binoculars in her hands that she found at the Wrights’ house. Her hair was blowing in the wind.

“What’s the game plan,” I asked. The lights were a little ways off but we could see them through the trees. Whatever was back there was set back in the woods.

“At first, I thought we could sneak through the trees and see what’s up there. Whoever it is, they seem to be watching the road. But, I don’t want to spook them. We only get one chance at this, and their biggest fear is the zombies,” Evan said.

“So what do you want to do?”

“Honestly,” he said, “I kind of want to walk right up and knock on the front door.”

His idea seemed a little strange to me, but Evan had been right so far, and so far the only decision I had made to this point nearly ended with Lauren and I being eaten in an alley behind a grocery store.

“Sounds good to me,” I said.

We walked in the semi-darkness for almost a quarter-mile. The shore for most of the walk came nearly to the road, and right before the clearing with the light, the beach started to widen. Evan paid careful attention to the woods, because if there was human activity there was good chance zombies were roaming the woods. Evan kept an arrow nocked and for the most part he stared into the dark tangle of woods waiting for something to appear. I kept the machete out and I had the rifle slung on my back.

Evan stared for an inordinate amount of time and he looked back to see me staring at him, “You nervous?”

“No,” I said, “I mean I should be, but how can what’s up there possibly be any worse than what we seen the last few months. We’re literally walking through a horror movie. If it wasn’t for you, Lauren and I would be permanent residents in the bowels of some infected body.”

“Yeah,” he said, “I guess you’re right.” We walked the rest of the way in silence. The sun continued to rise washing away the night. I could see further into the forest on our left. As we approached the clearing, I could see that there were too rather large spotlights on some kind of structure.

“Do you see that?” I said when it became apparent what the structure was.

“It’s a golf course,” he said.

And that’s when we heard the voice.

“Do not move,” a voice from the darkness said. It sounded amplified and slightly metallic, as though someone was speaking through a loudspeaker.

Evan tried to take another step, and it was met with the unmistakable sound of racking shotguns.

“Do not move,” the voice said once more, “remove all of your weapons.”

I looked at Evan, “Just do what he says,” he said.

He dropped his bow and unslung his quiver, and he dropped the pistol he always carried. I followed and dropped the machete and the remaining weapons.

“Come closer,” the voice said.

We approached what looked like the main gate; it was too hard to tell with the lights in my eyes. I could vaguely make the silhouette of a man standing among the gates’ bars. We continued to walk forward using our hands to shield our eyes. Once we got within thirty feet of the gate, the voice announced, “Take off your clothes.”

“What?” I asked.

“They want to make sure we haven’t been bit,” Evan said. I remembered the day I met Evan, in the alley, and the frantic look on his face when asked if Lauren had been bitten. At this point I had never seen anyone turn, and at this point I was sure that I never wanted to.

We disrobed, and stood before the gate and, once he was satisfied, we were allowed to put our clothes back on.

“Are there anymore of you out there?” the voice asked.

“We have a small group, an old man and women, and a girl. We are no threat,” Evan said.

“If we let you in, you must submit to a quarantine,” the voice said.

“We submit,” Evan said.

“You may go and get your people,” the voice said.

‘Thanks,” Evan started to answer.

“But,” the voice said, “One of you must stay here.”

I volunteered, but the voice denied my claim, “the other one,” he said, “and do not try anything we have a few guns pointed at your friend. You may leave, but do not pick up your weapons, and once you return, provided your friends pass inspection, you may enter.”

I turned and started running back to the truck. I didn’t know if entering this settlement was the right thing to do, but we were running out of food, and the possibility of staying something even remotely safe was too powerful of a feeling to overcome.

I was running to the truck and, when Edgar saw me, he started the truck. I could see Lauren facing opposite me and she had Edgar’s hunting rifle. I quickened my pace, much easier with out the weapons, and made it huffing and puffing to the truck.

“What’s the deal?” Edgar asked.

“It looks like some kind of settlement. They said we could join them.”

“That’s good,” Lauren said, “it looks like trouble,” pointing south in the direction from which we came. I hopped into the bed of the truck and looked through the scope. There was a small horde shuffling their way down the road.

“Crap,” I said. While the horde worried me, there were too other thoughts clouding my mind. First, Evan was standing outside the gates of an unknown establishment, with guns pointed at him, and there was a good chance there were more zombies prowling the woods. The second thought revolved around meeting another monster that attacked Evan some weeks ago. We had never seen one since, but the possibility of another threat, on top of the remnants of humanity actively consuming us, filled me with dread.

“Let’s get the heck out of here,” I said and we pulled out in a hurry. We were nearing the gates when I heard two shots. I froze with the knowledge of who might have been the recipient of those shots, but I was sprung from my trance when I noticed Lauren calmly checking her gun.

“That better not be what I think it was,” she said.

I let out the breath that I did not know I was holding, when we entered the clearing and saw Evan still standing, but next to him were two slumped, and presumably infected, bodies. Evan gathered the equipment, and got into the back of the truck.

“There’s a horde coming,” Lauren said.

“Good,” he said.

“What do you mean good?” she said.

He didn’t answer and we pulled through the gates.