Glass cracked and protested under the tires as the truck rolled off the access road and into the parking lot of the outlet stores.

Heat from the sun made the pavement look wet as Zubair pulled into a random parking space and then put the truck in park. A flock of plastic bags rose and fell in the thermals like lazy birds that had given up on being anything but bags.

The sound of them getting caught in the wind was too loud in the quiet around them.

He too a minute to look around, and while the mall appeared to be empty...

They weren’t alone.

A handful of stupid zombies clustered near a sun-bleached ice cream truck, their heads down like the sun was too hot to bear. They let out a collective soft moan as they swayed back and forth, thier limbs hanging at their sides like they were too heavy to lift.

They seemed to be in a state of suspended animation, but Zubair didn’t trust them to stay that way.

It was a good thing that they were so easy to kill.

One of the stupid zombies jerked upright, its nostrils flaring as Elias opened the door of the truck, its neck working with a little grind.

It sniffed once in their direction, its spine shivering like a dog that just discovered its owner had brought him a treat. It took one step forward and then stopped again when Sera stepped out of the truck behind Lachlan and Luci.

The moment the wind shifted just slightly, the stupid zombie pivoted in a quick, crabbed skitter and scurried as fast as it could for a service corridor. The rest followed, almost like it was a single thought traveling through a herd. There was no hesitation, no checking back. One moment they were there, the next...gone.

"Zombies are so nice and friendly," Lachlan sighed as he wrapped an arm around Sera’s shoulder.

Zubair came out last after making sure that the truck was parked perfectly. It didn’t matter where he left it. It was going in Sera’s space before they went much further. She refused to let anyone have something of hers.

Apparently, both her and her creature agreed that there was no benefit in sharing anything outside of the horde.

"Don’t you think so?" continued Lachlan, talking to Zubair as Sera flicked her wrist and the truck disappeared. "I mean, they take one look at us and run in the other direction. That’s so much easier to deal with than a giant tsunami, an ice age, and giant prehistoric creatures that try to eat your face off. I give this apocalypse a 9/10. Must try."

Alexei grunted as he pulled Sera away from Lachlan and smirked at the other man over his shoulder. "Da, but I miss the fighting. Fighting is good to keep you in shape. Right?" he purred, pulling up his black t-shirt to show off his eight-pack abs. "We don’t want to lose these, right? The General’s Mall would be a good place for fitness training."

The creature inside of Sera purred at the offering in front of her, and for a moment, Sera didn’t know if it was her or her creature that was stretching out her fingers for a touch.

"Put those away," said Zubair, his face devoid of emotion. "We all have them. There is no point in showing them off. If she wants to look and touch... then she has her choice."

Sera’s eyes drew away from Alexei only to look over at Zubair. Catching just the ghost of a smile on his lips, she couldn’t help but to respond in kind. "I will hold you to that," she replied after a moment.

With a huff, Alexei put his shirt back down, but he refused to let go of Sera. "How are we doing this, bossman?" he grunted, his eyes narrowing on Zubair as if the other man owed him something.

"We stick together," came the instant reply. Normally, they would split up in teams of two, but he had already spotted some movement... just a flash behind a darkened storefront.

It wasn’t there the next moment, it was gone so fast that most people would have thought that they had just imagined it.

But Zubair wasn’t most people, and he wasn’t willing to take the chance when it came to Sera’s safety. "There is strength in numbers."

Elias silently nodded his head. "Technically, we don’t need anything. Our food consumption has gone down significantly, so has our water. I say that we go in, get whatever clothes and boots that we need and then head out. There are too many people here for us to linger."

Sera stiffened under Alexei’s arm as she listened to Elias. "Just because we don’t need it, doesn’t mean that we can’t grab it," she pointed out. "Like chocolate. Chocolate is a fundament necessity to the safety and health of all of you. Besides, to the victor goes the spoils. We take everything that we can. Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it."

"I agree with peach," nodded Lachlan sagely as he stepped forward toward the closest store. "There is no point in giving an outsider an advantage over us. Just because we don’t need it now, doesn’t mean that we don’t need it later."

Elias looked at Zubair for the final say and the other man simply shrugged his shoulder. "Today was for Sera anyway. We go where she wants, and we’ll leave when she wants."

The creature inside of Sera purred in happiness at his words. He is a good Alpha, said the creature with a nod of her head. He knows what is important.

Suddenly, from behind the glass of a shoe outlet just to the right of them, a shape peeled out of shadow.

A man in a stitched leather outfit walked forward, his shoulders squared, and one hand open to show he meant no harm while the other hovered near a pipe wrapped in tape.

Five more men spilled out of the store after him with graduated confidence. One big, two narrow, one with a limp and a grin that seemed to beg for Lachlan to put his fist through it, and the last with a baseball bat that already had blood drying on it.

Finally, two women came out last when the men didn’t say anything.

One hung near the back. She was quiet, her eyes moving, and wearing jeans and a cardigan that had been sewn back together too many times.

The other took the lead like the light liked her. Her ponytail was glossy and full of volume, her blouse and jeans too clean for a person this far into the apocalypse, and she had a smile on her face that was so sweet Zubair automatically went tense.

"This must be the welcome committee," Lachlan murmured, sliding in front of Sera. "They need a bit of work."

"They watched us first," Alexei noted, his eyes half-lidded and cataloguing the eight people in front. Subconsciously, he pulled Sera closer to him so that she was tucked under his arm and flush to his body. "Good. It means they aren’t idiots."

The men fanned out in that loose crescent that packs made when they were getting ready to circle a prey that looked easy to take down.

The glossy woman hit Alexei with a smile that got wider the closer she came. She didn’t look at any of the rest of them. The way she was studying him was like she had found a pillow when she was tired.

Then her eyes dropped to where Sera was pressed against him, and her smile lost a bit of the cheerfulness that it had before.

"Oh, my," she purred, her voice a velvet edge. "I hope that you aren’t looking to take anything from the mall. I haven’t seen you here before, so maybe you don’t know, but this is the General’s Mall, and it isn’t for outsiders to covet."

Alexei didn’t answer, but Sera couldn’t help but give the other woman her full attention. But it was curiosity that lived on her face, not concern.

The wind caught the long tail of her skirt; it moved like deliberate weather.

The woman blinked once, but she was almost exceptional at keeping her emotions in check.

Too bad for her, Sera’s creature was already sitting up and taking notice.

The glossy woman pivoted a little toward Zubair, then back, as her eyes seemed to take in and then finally discard the men and woman in front of her.

Sera could practically read it on her face that the woman didn’t register them as a threat.

"We’ve held this place a week," she trilled, bright and reasonable. "The General gave it to us himself. We keep all the supplies safe. It doesn’t matter if it is from the night or from other people. The General trusts us, and we can’t bare to disappoint. You know how it is."