Her breath killed the frost-angels that were accumulating on the windowpane. It wasn't for sport or out of boredom, she needed to see out of it if there was anything worth killing heading her way. Working downward from Washington  was hard now. But if She wanted food, it was the only way to get anything that wasn't from a vending machine or the nonperishables section of a grocery store. Once the pane was clear she began reloading her rifle.<span style="font-style: italic">Someone's</span>rifle. She was sure Acton had dropped it, but didn't remember picking it up. Shock would do that to you.<br/><br/>Her gloves had been hacked off at the base of her fingers. It made it easier to slid the shells into the -<span style="font-style: italic">fuck</span>- the place. Whatever they called those dark holes that you filled over and over. Peony had never been a real gun-hugger. After all, both her parents had been.. well. Wussies. Her mother was a preschool teacher, her father was a college professor. They weren't the gun type. Which meant when the disease hit, they were also the dead type. Luckily for her, she'd been bunking with a card-carrying member of NRA. He was dead now, or worse.<br/><br/>It was hard to beleive there were worse things then death now. But you had to accept the fate you were handed.<br/><br/>There was a slam behind her, and she fired as she turned, clipping the edge of a jukebox. Both her and the surprislingly alive person who'd been about to pump her full of shot leapt for the powerchord of the useless thing before they were converged on. There were quite a few things that clued these smart, deadly zombies in. Anything human, for one. Music, lights flickering where there should be no light.. she'd seen one feel a outside wall, feel the heater on inside, and slam itself repeatedly into the side of the building, smarter then it's brothers and sisters but unaided in it's quest to devour the family who had been trapped inside.<br/><br/>Peony hoped they had starved to death. It was the only hope she could afford to believe for them. Her hands closed on the chord and yanked it from the wall, leaving her at the mercy of whoever or whatever she'd met in the near-dark of this abandoned house she was hiding out in.