In the sequel to the ZA: the biting cold, Ione and Kane return having barely survived the first winter of the Zombie Apocalypse. Making it to the island in time for the melting of the ice seemed like all their problems were solved...but that was just the beginning. As spring comes to the island can Ione and Kane manage to trust the others on the island and one continue to trust one another as they struggle to create a safe haven away from the walking corpses or are they just prolonging the inevitable in the encore to the Biting Cold.

Kane didn't know how much more of this he could take. the noises were relentless, and day or night one couldn't escape it. how the others could sleep through the relentless sounds, when their empty stomached growled almost as loud as the guttural sounds themselves of the walkers a  few hundred yards down hill, he didn't know nor cared to understand. Tossing and turning all night Kane rolled onto his back again, staring up through the open yet un-patched portion of the roof of the lighthouse that lay exposed to what would have been a calm evening. 'Would have' being the key element to his restless sleep.

Their hodge podge of a group had been inhabiting the island for weeks now and still they were no closer to harmony. not amongst the members of the group or with walkers that continued to plague them. The barge was full of supplies and yet no one could reach a decision about getting inside. Instead the insentient sounds of the walkers inside stayed thick in the environment like a diseases that couldn't and wouldn't be shook or a mouth sore that was a constant painful reminded.

The sounds were made worse for the fact that in thier groups rush to clear the island of walkers to make the island safe as the ice surrounding melted, no one had had the forsight to stock supplies. and now that the island was relativly clear of stray zombies, thier food was significantly dwindled. Rich and (name) had gone with little to no food in weeks in an effort to show who was more deificated to the group in giving up their portion to the rest, but it didnt much matter. there wasnt enough food to go around, and anyone was lucky if they got a full meal in a day if at all.

the group was starving. there was no way around it. they had used of nearly all the live game  on the island. rabbits, squirls, a rat or two were nearly extinct now on the island. Fish were unreliable and deemed unsafe by most of the group, waht with the surrounding water holding host to hundereds of floating bloaded zombies the odds that they were contaminated with the virus was pose to much of a threat to thier weak group as it was. thus the fear of getting sick off the lake fish was a risk they weren't yet desperate enough to try . but kane didnt think it  would be much longer before starving bellies would give in to the potential danger. as for other sources of food, they wre nearly exhausted as well. waht little canned food items they had managed to store was already gone as well as the dried goods.

it was too early in the season to plant sustainable food, and they didnt have the nessiary equiptment or seeds to start it in the first place and lastly the final kick to the stomach was that they ahd no boat off the island.

Kane was filled with so much anger he was finding it hard to manage. He layed awake night after night his stomach in such pain from hunger that it made him that much more irrtiable.

tensions were high on the island. fights broke out amongst the group like clock work. Kane was adiment about getting into the barge. but others were divided on the subject.

from closer inspection from the open port holes, rows of crates containing food and supplies was enough to give Kane the push in his mind to risk the dangers of the mass of walkers inside. they were starving on the island, and unless someone risked swimming the steady current of the lake they were all going to end up like the zombies as they slowly starved to death.

the longer they waited to go inside they weaker they were going to be against fighting the biters off. for Kane it was an easy decision and it angered him that few others seemed on bored with getting inside despite their growling bellies desire to be filled with what the barge's hull could provide.

the sounds that emanated from the open port hole was just a constant reminder that they were sitting by doing nothing when all that they needed was so close at hand. it was cruel cruel joke and Kane wasn't finding it the least bit funny. there wasnt even one small fraction of the island that could escape its awful drone. playing differently and yet the same hour after hour like a broken record.

Kane let out a ragged breath. he was shaking but it wasnt from cold. it was taking alot inside him to remain calm, to bide his time, to learn to deal with being a part of a group when he would much rather have been alone, or with a select few.

turning his head he squinted through the dark finding Ione's silhouette in the darkness a few yards from where he lay. she lay pressed into Philip's back, for warmth and it reminded him of the night after she had held him out of the frozen river, when they had spent the night together huddled in a cot and locked in a prison cell. it seemed a life time ago. but it was no more than perhaps a month.

a wedge had been driven between them every since getting to the island. She had Philip to thank for that. He was an abrasive personality in that Kane couldn't stand to be around him when his true colors shown through him like a lamp light and it wasn't a pretty color but a putrid puke green. everyone always said that love was blind but in Ione's case she must of been looking at Philip and seen an a different man entirely. he may have only known her for a short time. but he didn't think she was crazy, and she definitely wasn't stupid. the only reason kane could fathom her staying with him was perhaps her fear of loosing what little she thought she had left. everyone had lost people, and the new ones didnt make of for the past, for the people that reminded them all of normalcy. Philip was the only one here she knew prior to the ZA and if it gave her some comfort well he couldn't fault her for that.

Philip was a little weasel and Kane didn't trust him as far as he could throw him. as dirty a thought as it was, Kane wanted Philip to just die. to bite the freaking bullet and become a zombie so he could have the satisfaction of crushing his skull. Kane wasn't violent enough to mess with nature, but when he couldn't sleep he fantasized about the i different way Philip would get it by walkers in the end.

Kane still couldn't get the of the woman out of his head who had been deliberately gutted for zombie bate when they the group had scattered and they were all making their way to the lighthouse. she had said "he had killed her" and while Kane had no evidence that Philip had done it, kane wouldn't put it bast the bastard to sacrifice another person to save his own skin. he had already shown that he was incompetent in his own defense, and he had abandoned Ione to fend for herself when the group had scattered.

Ben's own true colors were showing more and more as the group were forced to pick a side to be loyal to. Kane had yet to choose, but Ben made it blatantly clear his friendship with Kane was no more than that of convenience. they were cordial when it mutually pleased them both, but beyond that it was an altered relationship. Kane had made no loyalty to anyone. and while being alone didn't much bother him, the fact that he felt stuck here because of Ione angered him. feeling loyalty or tied to people he didn't much care for was an odd concept. but adapt he must. the island was a smart plan for now.

a few thin whispy clouds moved over head, as kane stared far away into the starts. jsut geting himself to breath normally when his frustrations had no outlet was a job in itself. his days may have been consumed with killing zombies, as they all cleared the island, but his nights were spend sleepless as he dreamed of a full belly and listened to the cursed sounds of the infected living inside of the barge in close proximity.

 some days he wandered back to the base of the barge countless times, every time pressing his ear to the black metal hull listening to the sounds inside. close up the muffled vocals of the walking dead were different to him. he spent hours trying to thing of words convincing enough to persuade the others they need get inside. but oddly against all he thought about Ben and Rich and their small following, none of them seemed concerned with getting inside. where their preoccupation lay Kane couldn't say, but the frustrations just continued to mount when every word he said went unheard. pushing through the hunger was perhaps the most difficult challange. they were all losing weight and strength, and without that they had no chance of fighting off the walkers let alone keeping the strength they needed to fortify the island, and put all their plans for the island into action.

kane rubbed his ribs over his empty stomach. he could feel the acidic juices moving around in his empty cavity, churning his stomach slightly. the gurgling sounds it made sounded as if his stomach was resorting to eating itself, for his lack of putting anything into it for so long and periodically he could hear similar sounds from his roommates around him as they attempted to sleep around him on the cool wood floor of the second level of the lighthouse.

it was crowded upstairs, but Rich refused to let anyone sleep below stairs for fear of a breach of the door should some missed walkers make it up the hill at night.

it was a valid concern, considering the door was held on by no more than a rusty hing,and the boarded up window had been punched in on their first arrival; more than big enough for a determined zombie to stumble head first into if if smelt the flesh of warm blood inside.

Giving up on sleep entirely, Kane shifted out on to the exposed steel beam hanging out into the open above the ground. a steady wind blew off the water and the moon reflected brightly off the choppy waves. chunks of lake ice still drifted past in a steady steam, even though spring was well on its way. it hadn't snowed since they had arrived and the weather warmed more each day. the ground however remained frozen and even had they the supplies to ready a garden for food it would be another several weeks before they would be able to dig.

Kane's eyes followed the dark shapes floating through the water. some were obviously ice, others logs, an unmanned boat or two and a regular influx of thrashing bodies. he could see them washing up against the cliffs, pushed in by the current and steady tied. Like magnets the pressure of the water pressed them hard against the cliff face below and Kane knew soon enough their thrashing would moved the walkers around to the rocky beaches on the low sides of the island. That alone was confirmation that they all were wasting their efforts in spending their days clearing the island of the dead.

he understood they needed to be safe and they could purge all they wanted, but until they figured out a way to prevent more from washing up there was no way they could ever hope to make the island safe.

it all had seemed to easy in their head. Ideas and plans were always easy. but the execution always presented more problems. he had never anticipated there being a battle for claim to the island for one. secondly in their minds eye an island has seemed like a perfect isolated haven, an environment that could solve a lot of their problems when it came to the infected. and to a degree it did. but no one had considered them floating up onto shore. it was just one of a thousand different things they hadn't considered. and they were getting no where with the group divided.

i was board with this section, so boom Kane saw movement off in the distance...

daylight had slowly started to break, but the sky had yet to transition from a heather gray to gold. the shape was clean, man made, and slow. movement that seemed odd in comparison to the other shapes moving in one direction south ward with the current.

He couldn't tell yet from the distance much about the vessel except that it was one. and that it was moving irregularly across the lake, slowly breaking its own path through the current. it wasn't coming directly too the island as it stayed a good distance out from the cliff, far enough where no manageable shaped could be seen, but after watching its path for some ten minuets Kane knew it was inhabited.

the boat was small, white, plain in color. there wasn't anything special about it.

the waves against the rocks below were too loud to make out any noise, but it had to have been sporting some sort of motor to be able to break through the waves, even if they were going at a snails pace.

he couldn't tell to what purpose it was out this far. land  abutted the back side of their island perhaps a three quarters to a half a mile out, but they didn't appear to be crossing and with daylight still a good hour in the distance, he hadn't taken notice if it till it was in relatively close proximity.

he wasn't extremely familiar with the landscape nearby, but from what Ben had told him when they were making plans to trek to the island, he had made it clear that the island was chosen because it was relatively secluded.

Kane did not want to be put on edge any more than he already was, but watching the calm movements of an unfamiliar ship holding court in the distance nearby the island and with no clear destination or intention, made him and his nerves anything but calm.

he watched it slowly drift father and farther across the island, he couldn't tell but it looked to be changing course as the sun started to drift higher in the sky. Kane scooted farther out along the beam, his well worn boots gripping the cold grey metal with what little traction there was left, in order to get a better look. He didn't have any binoculars to aid him in his endeavors and he wouldn't be put at ease until he knew for sure if the boat contained people.

It was strange how one got used to such a drastic change so quickly. with the exception of Ione and the members on the island, Kane had come in contact with no other living people since the virus spread and in both cases he had had little to no choice in the matter.

He didn't trust easily and rightly so it would seem. he had trusted Ben long before any of this went down. but now he had nothing to show for it. his trust had gone sour, and while he didn't distrust him it was not an easy feeling Kane had being around him. as for the others he hadn't had much time to form an opinion on their worth to him, their loyalties, there character. He knew which ones he didn't despise and which ones he did and for now that would have to be enough.

but staring at the boat, only reminded him that Kane would have to confront more strangers sooner or later. how quickly they all had changed to learn to distrust outsiders in this changed world. instead of working together, they all were working for themselves. but then kane thought the world had always been about gaining for oneself, he knew that better than anyone. Only now...now it was survival vs. death and outsiders posed the greatest danger. even more dangerous that he walking dead.

movement behind him in the loft of the lighthouse drew his attention way from the boat and the water. Drew had risen from his raggedy bed and stood on the edge of the wood foundation floor rubbing his eyes as the looked out over the lake.

In what little light Kane could still use between the setting of the moon and the sun rising in the east, he tried to gauge Drew's reaction as he stared out over the water. Drew's eyes slanted as he fixated his gaze into the distance, and Kane looked back to where he had seen the boat.

In the few moments he had turned to look at Drew, the boat had gone and there was no trace it had ever been there. like a ghost ship when it wanted to it was gone without a trace, in faster time than it had taken in crossing the waves. Kane clenched his jaw as he started at the spot, drawing his eyes along the sky line, but still finding nothing.

Turning his neck back again, Kane glanced back at Drew and noticed him looking right at him. Their eyes met, but neither man gave away what they were thinking in their expressions. both remained blank and unresponsive, cold as the air around them lingering from winter.

If Drew had seen the boat Kane had been watching, he was keeping it to himself for now. it wouldn't do to bring it up without evidence to back it up. He and Rich were not on any terms of agreement, or discussion, and if he were to bring up what he had seen it wouldn't go anywhere ...yet. this much Kane knew.

  As they eyed each other silently they both seemed to mutually agree without a word spoken between them that what they saw, was between them. Drew did not want to be the one to sprout more doubt from the seed of trouble that had already started growing amongst the group. if the time came...when the time came. even a little more information would help.

In the next few icy moments, it was broken in a snap of the fingers. slowly others started to wake and Drew moved away from the edge. Kane lingered a few more movement before getting back onto the wood deck.

and then the day began again. weapons were collected, the "Fit" collected on the main floor and out they went like factory workers to a time clock, to clear the island of more dead.

Ione was deemed one of the unfit, ever since her outburst near the barge. Philip was deemed competent to go along and Kane could see it in his face that the chance to kill biters was a thrill to him. and no doubt the added bonus of getting away form his fiance who was no what she once was, out in the open where he didn't have to hide his lack of affection, where he didn't have to pretend to her was a wanted reprieve.

Ione stayed behind in the lighthouse with the few children, Harriet and a few more of the ones left for whom Kane could not be bothered yet to learn their names.

 kane watched as ione scribbled something on a piece of paper and handed it to Philip, which he shoved in his jean pocket without bothering to read.
 kane watched her brown furrow and he wished she would realize sooner or later the baggage she was carrying around with that idiot.
resting his crowbar agaisnt his shoulder he amde it out onto the lawn with the rest of the group, before they tregedged once more down into the mainland of island.

"Enough about the damn barge! we have bigger problems to worry about first! Than wasting the man power and bullets it would take getting not the damn thing!" Ione could hear the yelling before she even saw the group make their way back for the day. Rich and Drew were at it again and when they reached the bridge of the hill they kicked their way through the irregular line of zombies that lay scattered around the palate of the lighthouse. Ione and Wyatt had taken down a number of strays that had been drawn by the noise the children made as they attempted to play and collect sticks for fire stock.

The large smoke stack in the sky on the opposite side of the island was a steady flow from the stock pile bon fire of zombie corpses. A small rocky beach clear on the opposite side of the island had been rightly named “the furnace.” While half the group cleared the island the rest dragged the thawing corpses of the taken out to the fire to burn. Done for the day it would burn well past dark depending on how much “fuel” they had added to it, but by morning it would be out. the ones they had taken out here would be left until tomorrow as no one trekked back into the woods at night if they didn’t have to.

“Yeah we have bigger problems like the fact that were starving. You may be happy to work all day on an empty stomach but you can’t go at it forever. We are running on limited fuel! The damn barge is the answer.” The bickering grew louder.

Harriet watched from the open doorway as both men’s weapons swung in their opposing hands.

“When will you give the darn thing a rest! Were not going into the ship, end of story!” Rich bellowed.  

“You aren’t the leader here, or do you keep forgetting?”  Drew countered.

“I’ve been more a leader than you. I have claim here. If you think you have any sway you have another thing coming buster.” Rich rolled his hatchet in his hands. It was actually turning rusty from the contact wet contact it had with blood.

“Lets solve this here and now. Let us have a vote  of who the leader is here. We can’t go on like this. I can’t stand you, but I refuse to give up what I have a rightful claim to get myself out of your sight. And I won’t share command with you. I’ll follow whatever outcome the vote has but until then that’s about all your fucking going to get from me.” Drew rocked on his thick legs as he stared Rich in the eye.Rich just smiled. “Fine. If that’s how you want to solve this, just be prepared for the outcome.”

The results of the vote swayed in his favor. Hands raised around the group mostly out of fear, unfortunately to Drew’s disfavor more than half the group chose not to vote.

But Rich was still the clear winner.

Drew was a big guy, a hefty man made up of natural muscle and brawn, but Rich was big in his own right. a big personality a lot of people here were afraid of, and Ione knew he liked it that way. She knew he saw her presence as a nuisance.  A mute did him little good, because in his eyes it meant she was incompetent and weak in every other way possible. Rich was a man who valued physicality. And if even one part of you lacked in that department, well you were scratched off his list almost instantly. She knew this likely had a lot to do with the result of the vote. Too many people were afraid of what he might do should they vote against him.

Rich smiled so wide at the result, even more so when Drew stood seething.

“seems the group as spoken. I am leader here and I don’t want to hear another word about that damn barge. In fact everyone is to stay away from it. If I catch anyone there, well lets just say we will reconsider your spot on his island.” Rich stepped away from the group toward the lighthouse, shoving past Drew as his followers.

“Your are making a huge mistake,” Drew growled after him. “Deep down you know that the barge is our answer to us all starving. I’ll go along with the vote for now, but eventually you will see it is the only way. If for the very least it is getting a boat to get us across to the mainland.”

Rich had the audacity to laugh right in his face. He had a Cheshire grin on his face. His oddly thin teeth showing in all their yellow glory as he walked past drew into the lighthouse, now king of the castle.

 Ione wasn't all that happy about the decision that had been reached. 

She knew the barge was full of supplies, survival essentials they currently had no other access to. Her belly ached with pain even thinking about the food that seemed so close at hand. Part of her agreed with Drew, that the barge was the option. The food, the supplies, the weapons, and even shelter the barge could provide for them all. But she could also see the caution. How much risk it posed to them all.

They all already put so much energy into keeping the island clear of the zombies that washed up and that continued to manifest from the frozen landscape, if they opened the barge they would be letting dozens if not hundreds of more out onto the island and she didn’t know if they could handle it all. someone would pay the price for the benefit.

“perfect, now that that is settled we can finally start doing things my way.” Rich’s voice echoed from inside the lighthouse.

The sun was setting quickly on the day. The group huddled around a small far in  the main floor of the lighthouse. The mood in the room however was anything far from comfortable. The tension was so dense it could have been sliced and when what little food was eaten, Drew left the lighthouse and refused to come back inside.

Rich made an example of him muttering that he was a poor loser and not a team player, and Kane just scoffed under his breath.

Over the next few days Drew didn’t return to the lighthouse. He showed up for the work shifts during the day but he trekked on his own back to the construction trailers at night. He refused to share habitation with Rich as leader.  Rich didn’t show an ounce of care or concern when Drew separated himself off. But as the days passed more and more of the group started to join him. people were finally making clear where their loyalites lied, choosing to part ways at the break of the evening and sleep  separately. Ione considered joining Drew, but for now she stayed with Philip and close to Kane.

She felt broken from Kane every since getting to the island but she didn’t like being far from him having learned to trust him in the few weeks they had survived alone together.

It was surreal having Philip by her side again. But he seemed distant since their reunion and both men didn’t get on. If Philip was around, Kane pretended she didn’t exist. He couldn’t stand being long in the same room, but he seemed alone in himself and his loyalty.

He had spoke often of Ben and their plans for the island when she had traveled with him. but   she had observed that since meeting up again the friendship was far from what she had made it to be in her mind. She didn’t know if this was how it had always been between them, or because of the other members, or Rich’s strong presence and control over his brother, but it didn’t seem natural in Ione’s eyes.

Ione’s silence enabled her a lot of time to observe others. She was learning more about those who inhabited along side her. But Kane still consumed most of her vision.

It put her on edge how solemn he looked and she wondered every day if that would be the day he would break off from them and return to the east beach finally making his decision to break off from the group. things were dividing and she didnt like it. she already felt so closed off from the world, everything was so changed it seemed odd even thinking of life going back to the way it was before.

what did they do when they weren't fighting day to day to live. when they had time to think or worry about anything else but where there next meal was coming from or who to trust. she supposed it was like like it always has been, with the same sort of worries. except now it was heightened and drastic.

Kane never seemed to mesh with any of them. it had taken him a while to even learn to mesh with her in their survival together and now.

She could see he was thinking things through in his head. he couldn’t hide it when he thought about things. She could see the wheels turning. Sometimes slow, sometimes fast. And she wondered when the quick decision would come.

Ione went to sleep that night close beside Philip. he was the type that fell asleep easily without a care in the world. even if something was bothering him he was always able to sleep.

Ione however lay on her side for a long time, facing the large opening in the wall of the second story of the lighthouse. everyone had made their bed...and were literally and metaphorically lying in it. they had to choose eventually what they were going to do for themselves and who they were going to trust and where and how they were going to survive. Ione watched Kane sleeping near the opening and felt Philip shift in his sleep behind her. Almost everyone had decided what they were going to do... but Ione was stuck between a rock and hard place.

It was becoming more and more clear that Drew wasn’t going to follow Rich’s lead or control over what he did. That was apparent the movement he went off on his own. He didn’t speak to rich of anyone who chose to live with him and his right hands. And yet the zombies still posed the most threat.

            Eventually he stopped showing up to clear the island at all. When Rich confronted him rather violently about it, Drew sated that it was a “waste of time” as he held past to his loaded gun.

            Ione wandered closer and closer to his camp the more isolated she felt with Philip and Kane. Rich wanted to force her to stay at the lighthouse when they went out but she felt less and less safe there, as walkers floated ashore daily. She had felt safer out in the open off the island than she did here where they are trapped now. And she started to wander out her own a way from the group that stayed behind in the lighthouse, since her presence there or gone was rarely noticed.

            Watching from a distance in the woods behind some trees, Ione could see Drew, Wyatt, and Renee leveling trees. The shoreline was riddled with pines, but they were also tight lined. The trio avoided the natural barrier and was using a number axes and saws to chop down trees from the further inland, then dragging them to the trees lining the shoreline and stacking them horizontally in a crude pile.

            Unlike Rich who was focused on clearing the island, Drew was focused on putting steps into place that would make the island safe over a longer period of time. From what she could tell they were trying to fortify the island, and they were using Rich, whether he knew it or not, to help them; as he cleared the island of walkers they could be left to their own devices, and though their man power was less than Rich’s clan, they had more supplies left to their disposal.

The construction camp that had been set up on their beach for the maintenance of the new lighthouse prior to the outbreak of the virus had adequate supplies for building, despite lacking the food they all desperately needed. Drew wasted no time in utilizing it.

 Although they had decided to take up camp on the more dangerous part of the island, directly off a beach where walkers floated up routinely they were able to manage their work and keep an eye on impending danger at the same time.

Ione watched for a few hours, moving silently when they got closer. She didn’t know how she would be received if she decided to enter the camp. Lines had been clearly drawn, even if they were unspoken. An invisible line had been drawn down the island. Rich taking claim of the northwest, while Drew claimed the southeast.

There was very little room for a gray area, expect for when it came to the barge. Everyone was avoiding it for now. And it lurched on one side of the rocky beach like a ghost ship amongst the rocks on the west bank of the island. The moans of its deadly rotten occupants playing a twenty four hour soundtrack to the island.

Ione watched Drew and his fellow members over the next few days. They had assembled a barricade of trees along the shoreline quickly. From the trees they had felled, they nailed them horizontally to the trees along their side of the beach. The crude fence posts were irregular and slanted, and could be easily seen through, but it would block off stray zombies from getting inland should they wash up on to shore. It wasn’t fool proof but it was preventative. As long as the fences were walked a few times a day and the eager infected put down, it might prove to be an effective defense for the time being, until they could devise something better.

“Thinking of jumping ship?” Ione jumped at the voice behind her. It had gotten dark quickly and she hadn’t realized how fast in her observation. Turning she locked eyes with Kane.

Ione shrugged a frown on her face.

“Not that I blame you, I would want to take any chance I got to get away from Philip too.”  Kane managed to smile, but it was more of a smirk. His teeth looked very white in the fading light and his beard had grown more to covered more of his neck.

Ione shoved past him, rolling her knife in her still healing hands. The cuts she has sustained in pulling herself and Kane out of the plane had scarred her hands blandly, and they were still discolored with scabs, but they had healed as much as they were going to with her need to still use them.

Kane followed close behind chuckling at her anger at him. Why she was angry in defending that prink she didn’t know. Whipping off his crowbar as he stared at Ione’s short matted hair bounce as she walked in front of him. He still had her braid in his coat pocket but he didn’t tell her, he kept it as a souvenir of the last month and a half, that hadn’t sucked as much as things did now.

He didn’t look back on any moment of the time since the outbreak fondly, but when it was just him and her things had sucked less than it did being on the island. It pissed him off that he had put so much into wanting to get here, that he has put hopes into the idea of this place. And now it was a damned joke. Things weren’t better here, they were worse. He was starving here, they were all starving here. They were fighting and arguing, and far from united. And they weren’t any safe. They wouldn’t be anywhere he was learning, and he was wanting every day to be back by himself.

Why he stayed he didn’t know. He knew from a practical standpoint people in numbers were safer. More hands to do dirty jobs and tasks. But at what cost was it to him to living and survive with people he couldn’t stand.

As he followed in behind Ione, he didn’t honestly blame her for checking in with the other group. He had thought about switching teams himself.

“Not speaking to me then?”

Ione stopped fast in her tracks. Kane nearly ran into her the motion was so quick.

Her forehead when she turned was still locked in what was becoming a permanent furrow, and she just stared at him like he was the scum of the earth.

I am not your dead weight anymore. I thought that is what you wanted. Ione held up the chalk board a moment in front of her, attitude in her face and in her body language before turning on her heel again and trekking faster up the hill her legs pushing in long strides.

He wasn’t used to seeing her this strong. She was thin granted like the rest of them, looing weight fast as their hungry bodies ate up their fat stores, but almost every moment he had seen her up till now she had been sick or ailed with something.

“Even jerks can use an ally,” he said changing the crowbar in his hands.

Kane knew she had heard him, as her pace slowed, but she didn’t turn to face him.

“If you jump ship, make sure you choose which group has more people you can trust,” Kane said after the silence continued on for some time. His voice becoming more bitter at being ignored. “Because once your burn bridged with those you have built even a fragile link to, you cant ever cross the wreckage again…Some bridges you cant rebuild, no matter how strong it was before.” The last words he harshly whispered at her as he passed. His face close to hers a he exchanged more than a pointed look at her as he hurried head.

The foundation of the lighthouse could be seen another few yards ahead, and a fire already burning there for the evening.

Kane disappeared into the lighthouse and didn’t bother to eat with them. Not that there was much to eat. Someone had managed to catch a rabbit and a few birds, but after they were cooked they were lucky if there was enough for everyone to get more than a bite or two.

            Ione stared back through the trees, towards the east beach, thinking about what Drew’s group was doing for food that night. She wondered if they had had anything at all, what they were eating to keep their stomachs full. But the trees were too dense to see anything.

            Hillary, and Ben had the fire stamped out on the main floor of the lighthouse before the sun even reached its full set, and everyone was ushered upstairs into Rich’s “safe haven.” They appeared happy and satisfied when they walked up the stairs along with Rich, unlike the rest of the group who seemed liked weak bystanders.

             Ione kept thinking of the fence Drew was building. She wondered who would win out. Rich couldn’t keep them alive on a few measly unflavored bites of meat for much longer. She knew he had plans. She heard him talking long into the night with his brother, Hilary his wife, and sometimes her Philip. But damned if he let his subordinates such as herself included in the information. Philip didn’t tell her anything when she asked him about what they talked about, saying it was just logistics for the next day on where to look for more zombies, but she knew when he was lying to her. And when he refused to meet her eyes in his responses time after time she knew things were off.

            She heard her name and a few others stand out amongst the conversation, uttered in muffled whispers, but she never caught more than that.

Kane watched the boat move across the horizon and out of veiw again. He was starting to see the mall white speed boat more and more frequently. When he was at the beach he saw it, sometimes even multiple times in one day. He hadn't mentioned it yet to anyone else. And since Drew was running his own group across the island he didn't know if he had noticed the more frequent appearance of the white boat.

Each one Kane saw it he knoticed more details. The boat was a small speedboat which explained why it had disappeared so quicky that first sighting. It also explained how it could come and go as it pleased without anyone so much as noticing. But the more often Kane saw it the closer it seem to become.

There was something written in the side if the craft of which it was still to far away to read with the naked eyes , but what a set of binoculars would have honed in on in an instant. And although the figures themselves in the boats we were just small lines with round beads at the top Kane could pinpoint three distinct individual silhouettes in the boat. They a were definitely watching the island ...but yet didn't know why.

Kane knew it was a matter of time before the strangers on the boat decide to get onto the island. He didn’t know anything about them and Rich refused to listen to anything that wasn’t his own direction or take anything but the zombies on the island as cause for concern. When Kane tried to mention the boat once to Ben, and Rich just happened to be listening in, Rich barged in on the conversation saying boats were not anything to worry about. They were empty vessels they had seem a hundred times before floating past that had gotten loose from any number of abandoned ports and other than having the potential of drifting onto shore they were not worth their attention.

Ben followed his brother’s command like a puppy and Kane wondered how it ever was that he had stood on his own two feet. When he and Ben had been surviving on their own, without any other companions, Ben had been his own leader standing on his own two feet and thinking for himself. He had been more damned likable too. Now he was in complete agreement with everything his brother said and damned the consequences of whether it was smart or not.

He managed to get Ione alone however after he has seen the boat three more times since bringing it up to Ben. She said she had seen it once herself and although she hadn’t said it outright, when Kane had mentioned that they had to get into the barge now more than ever, she didn’t try to dissuade him. He took that as a sign that she was sick of Rich and his poor leadership and that when the time came he could convince her to help them. 

He didn’t trust anyone else anymore on this island but her, but he knew if he wanted any sort of chance at success in getting into the barge to the food and supplies that awaited them there, he would have to at the very least pretend he trusted the others on the island.

The one thing Rich still had going for him was numbers. He had a large following on the island despite his poor leadership. Those who had children chose to stay with him purely out of fear. He had don’t one thing he had promised and that was clearing the island of most of the zombies and keeping it clean, but sooner or later when everyone was too weak from lack of food to fight off the biters, things would change and the island would become overrun again by the vermin that washed up.

Kane took out his frustrations on the infected skulls of biters all afternoon about the situation with Rich and Ben and the divide in the island and whether he would last much longer here. The north bank beach, made of up jagged rocks between the two inclines of rocks was where Kane spent his afternoons. Most of the walkers washed up here, since this side of the island was the point through which the current of the large great lake flowed. The island cut the water into two directions, but the constant steady waves delivered more than twenty walkers onto the beach within an hour. The jagged rocks stood as a slight barrier against their immediate entrance into the inland, as their uncoordinated limbs got repeatedly caught in the uneven terrain, but when the beach was unmanned the fresh determined ones were draw inland by the noises of living.

Kane always came here to clear. If he could block off the biters before they even reached the inland he felt like his time was more better spent. He could climb over the rocks more numbly that the infected, and could catch a quick escape if there became to many. The water started to flow a dark black maroon from the clotted blood of the zombies he took down, and more than once he had crushed the skulls of zombies he had already taken down , because there were to many corpses building up to determined which were still moving and which were not. The waves were deceiving in this regard; their force moved the limps of expelled walkers even after he had sufficiently damaged the brain tissue.  

It felt good crushing skulls and he pictured Rich’s face on every zombie he took down. But eventually even the physical exertion Kane put forth wasn’t easing the tension in him.

Kane waded back through the knee keep water onto the muddy bank of the island. His pants and shirt were soaked through with sweat and water and a number of other rotten unmentionables but he had stopped caring about what state he looked like even before the apocalypse had broken out.

No his mind was focused elsewhere. Instead of making his way back of the slanting incline to the lighthouse, he picked up his pace across the uneven earth to the east bank, where he hand been back since he caught Ione spying on them in silence.

He hadn’t interacted with Renee or Drew or any of the others who had left since they had gone off on their own, and he had minded his own fucking business till now. But as he strode through the thicket of trees he was deliberately going there with a determined goal of taking to Drew and convincing him to open the barge with him. He was taking a hard stand. He had decided on that beach that he had had enough. He wasn’t going to sit by and let Rich run them all the ground working for him. Kane wanted inside that barge and he was going to get inside if it killed him, literally.

If he could have done it on his own he would, but some jobs were just too big to do alone.

"we need to talk about the barge. I know you saw the boat that first night the same time I did, and I know you've also seen it since. I may not agree with you on everything but I know enough that if we don't take advantage of securing that barge for ourselves someone else will. I've seen them getting closer and closer to that side if the island. you don't get over there often with the divide the way it is, but I expect any day now for them to come on land. Rich wont listen to a damned thing about it. but I wont wait any longer. I am getting into that damned barge one way or another. I am going die on this island either starving and doing damned nothing while Rich runs us into the ground, or I am going to die trying to get off this bloody island without a boat. either way we all aren't living as we sit, so what is one more risk of dying by the zombies inside the ship." Kane spoke his peace in one draw out sentence and Drew and Renee just stood silently opposite him as a pregnant silence followed.

Ione was still with Philip and Rich, but he knew she would be one more hand in this willing do risk her neck to try to make this place work. Ione is in   with us  too though she is biding her time. if your worried about not having enough hands I think I can convince a few more, but we can work with what we have. she is more competent than she looks or is given credit for over there."

Drew's clan remained silent as they exchanged looks. "you know what he says is right. I have seen that speed boat more and more, and I don't think they are put off at all by the prospect that we are here in habiting the island. If they take it we have to find something else, and although we have to put up with Rich so far we have had little trouble from him; we don't know what we will be up against with the outsiders." Kane knew if he had Renee on his side it would not take long to convince Drew and the others. she was a stubborn  bitch that didn't like to agree with anyone, but she was underestimated as well like many of the females on the island and she was smart.

"We will talk about it," Drew started, his words coming out slowly and methodically. " I have been on board with going into the barge from the start, but that was also when we were one group. Now that things are divided I have to take that into consideration as much as I don't want to. Our success rate is higher if we had more people. but your right, the strangers in the boat will not wait much longer before trying to come ashore. If Rich is pretending to be a blind fool then my choice might already be made for us." he paused for another moment.

"we will talk it over and I will have our answer by the end of the day tomorrow. If you say Ione is in good, but we need others. if you have to create a mutiny amongst Rich's clan do it... we will need on the hands we can get."

Kane nodded his agreement then left them for the night. the island woods were dense but otherwise quiet as he made his way abck to the lighthouse.