His forehead was beaded with sweat from the toil of the involved task of bracing the fortifications, and he stood back with a glimmer of a smirk traced across his face as he admired the barrier; Being partnered with Kristie had given him an unforeseen impetus which had been something he had unexpectedly relished.  Marcus turned to her and with a rich grin he met Kristie’s high five, as their hands connected there was a flicker of a wince that took his eyes; his palm rang with the impact and the end of his fingers tingled from the force of it.<br/><br/>The structure certainly looked sound enough to resist the dead for quite some time, and so long as they didn’t do anything senseless that would attract their attention, then they could well be able to hold out here for a while.  Marcus feigned a playful innocence at her comment about them ‘bringing the place down’.  His eyes followed Kristie as she disappeared up the stairs, a smile playing on his face and only once she had completely departed did he pull his gaze back to Jake and Dinah; He smiled softly and made some excuse about visiting the employee washroom and, scooping up his pack, he slipped into the gloom of the store.  That was merely a front though, as what he really wanted was just a little time alone with his thoughts without it falling to the gaze of his companions<br/><br/>Marcus couldn’t sleep; Every time his eyes closed he could see her; her face a mask of blood and fear as she begged him to help her; her hands outstretched as he pulled back hard against the collective.  The helicopter lifting hard into the air; but even the heavy ‘whump’ of the blades did little to drown out her screams as they fell around her …clawing …tearing …biting.  He had kept telling himself that there was nothing he could do; that’s she was already dead …but there was no escaping the pain that lingered within him that he felt from abandoning her.<br/><br/>What<em>right</em>had he to survive; why him over the countless thousands that had perished in the plague of death that swept across the land.  He slipped the flask from his back pocket and toyed with in in his hands as he looked on it with such intensity.  It would be an easy thing to flip it open and take a draft from it; god knows at any other time he would have done …but; his thoughts still echoed with the scolding comment from Kristie earlier and, although that was all forgotten with no lingering ill feelings from either of them, a part of him wouldn’t let it go; because it was<em>that</em>part of him that echoed her words and held himself under a cloud of resentment …without opening it he slipped the flask back.<br/><br/>Marcus then took his pistols from his pack, and for a moment watched them as they sat in his hands; they spoke a silent whisper of menace; that, in his hands seemed more than muted.  He was hardly the best shot; in fact he had yet to fire either of these ‘twins’ and had no idea of what to expect from them when he did.  The problem he faced was that ammunition was in such short supply that he could hardly get in a few practice shots to try and improve his aim and increase his chance of bringing down one of those dead bastards as it charged towards him; It was the reason that he had a preference for the Remington as it least it gave him a margin of error when he aimed it. Marcus was unable to dislodge the feeling that his first blood shot with the shotgun had been more out of luck than anything.  He was aware though that they served little use sat in his pack and, after he checked the clips, and slipped them through the belt at his back.<br/><br/>By the time he returned to the registers where Jake and Dinah were, the melancholy had lifted at least enough to slip in the guise of his more good-natured self as he leant against the counter.  “Couldn’t have picked a store with a bedding department could we?” he smirked; “There might be some couches in the staff room?” he ventured.