Cars had been easy enough to come by at first, fully functional, human occupied cars. They had been fleeing and going in every direction possible, to family or fabled 'safe havens'. The prospect of getting into strangers cars would likely have most people trying to trek by foot, but as Karen saw it the living could only take away as much from her as the living dead could. She'd much rather be done in by someone who at least had some intelligence, as it seemed more honorable. Not that honor made a lick of difference when the world was sliding into the depths of Hell.<br/><br/>When the cars started to dwindle was when it really clicked for her. The human race was becoming extinct. Soon all that would remain of them would be Zacks, their sick next form of evolution. Or perhaps a regression, so that evolution could try again and take a new path. None of that mattered of course, because she would be dead long before.<br/><br/>The last car she had gotten made it a good while before it ran out of gas, with no fuel stations in sight. She had been driving that one all alone, the original driver who picked her up had been bitten sometime before, and she had to take him out. Then it became a matter of 'why waste a perfectly good vehicle?' That battered Kia had gotten her to the edge of Salem, Missouri. She didn't like what she saw, the further South she moved the more destruction she had seen. It was likely because the further South she moved, the more time passed since Zday, but she didn't all together like that idea. Her heart was feeling second guesses, and guilt for leaving New York without telling anyone. What if the girls had gone looking for her and gotten attacked in the process?<br/><br/>She knew she wouldn't make it back to New York, but she still chose to move North-East by foot. It was back tracking, but it wasn't as though she had actually chosen which direction she was driven in, it wasn't as though she actually had a destination.<br/><br/>Trees had become her new sky scrapers, she found herself walking through forests most of the way. Oddly enough, it seemed like it was safer then most of the cities she had seen the remains of. At night she climbed into trees to sleep, and her body bore the scratches to prove it. She had given up as using the tent in her bag as a tent, fearing that Zacks would get in while she slept. Instead she used the material from it to make a hammock in the trees, so she wouldn't fall out. It would really be her luck to live through the zombie outbreak only to die from falling out of a tree.<br/><br/>She didn't know how many days she had been treking by foot, but her torn knees and grass stained everything seemed to scream out at least a while. And she knew when she was hitching rides she hadn't spent more then a few days.<br/><br/>Smoke in the distance told her she was nearing a town, or a city. Sunset Hills Cemetery Rd was the first actual road she landed on, and somehow that seemed apt. It was the Sunset for humanity, the final show of light before that endless night the Zacks had caused would be all that remained. And Cemetery? That didn't need any explaining with the dead walking around. She hadn't actually seen one in a few days, so the safety of her 9mm was on, and securely in her pocket. At first the weapon had been almost literally attached to her hand.<br/><br/>Since she was entering a town, it was drawn again as she walked, moving to a brisk pace. Cities were death traps, and she always had one goal, find a safe, dry shelter for one night, then move the fuck on. When she began to walk up State Highway P she really saw the smoke. It hadn't been as far off as she had initially thought. Ignoring the roads she began to move directly towards the smoke, finding the small patch of trees comforting in an odd way. Maybe she never was made to live in the big city. It was sad that she only realized this at the end of civilization.<br/><br/>As she was in the trees, she heard a massive noise, like a... a helicopter? No way in Hell a Zack could fly a copter. But she hadn't seen living people in … she didn't know how long. Then gunshots. A good number of them. There was no way that was the work of zombies. There were people around. Honest to God, breathing, non flesh eating people. Pumping her stinging legs, she ran towards the sounds until she reached the edge of the trees. Spotting one large store between the fire and herself, she stayed close to the tree line for a few minutes and looked around.<br/><br/>If those people had killed the Zacks, they must have been right in the parking lot for the store in front of her. That or they moved damn fast. Gripping her small gun in rapidly sweating palms, she flicked off the safety and moved to the back of the building. Staying close to it, she began to make her way around the perimeter, staying a foot or two away from the wall, hoping she could use it as cover. After two corners she spotted the remains of a few Zacks, but had no way of telling how long they had been dead. That was one downside to fighting the living dead, there was no way to tell if it had been dead for a week, or undead for a week and dead dead for three minutes.<br/><br/>Her breath hitched in his chest as she drifted away from the wall finally, moving towards the fire again. Maybe whoever fired the gun went that way. Karen was well within sight of the front doors to the Home Depot behind her, but she wasn't looking in that direction. If there were zombies in the store who had turned while trying to shop, she was damn sure she would let them stay in there. It had proved better in her brief experience to try a mattress or furniture store for the night. With an apocalypse on the rise, no one seemed to flood for new upholstery, for some reason. Not to mention that the feeling of a real mattress was heaven on her aching frame.