Love is Dead

Chapter Eleven: The Safe Zone

Margot wiped the dust off of the window of an old store, checking if there was anything useful inside, or any zombies to watch for. The store was empty, every shelf left barren. This was no use. With an extra mouth to feed, they had been running low on food quicker than they thought. Even though the cities were almost taken over by nature, most animals didn't wander too far into them, so hunting wasn't really an option, nor was foraging. They had been able to find bits of food here and there, but most of it had gone bad, and the city was already heavily looted.

"How's this one?" Fallon asked, nodding towards the store Margot was looking into.

Fallon didn't have to worry much about the food situation, considering she didn't actually eat food. But the only ones who knew that were her, Margot, Elliot, and Jeremy. She still had to pretend for Jackie and Ayumi. Maybe it would be easier to just tell them that Fallon was a vampire, but Margot knew that Ayumi would definitely react badly. She wasn't quite sure how Jackie would react, though.

Honestly, Fallon didn't even mind that Margot told Elliot. He already guessed it, so there wasn't any point in trying to hide it further. She was just glad that Margot told her about Elliot knowing, instead of hiding the fact that she told him, considering it would be a bit hypocritical to do so with Fallon trying to be more honest with her and all.

"It looks empty." Margot replied. "But it still might be worth checking?"

Fallon reached back and grabbed the hilt of her machete in case she had to pull it out to defend herself and opened the door to the stop, the bell above the door ringing. Margot followed her inside, and they both began searching at opposite ends of the store. Margot walked around, hoping to find something she had missed before, but had no luck. She turned back to Fallon, who was searching behind the counter.

"Did you manage to find anything?" She asked.

"Well..." she pauses as she rises from behind the counter, holding a chocolate bar in her hand. "I actually managed to find this earlier today, but I wanted to wait until we were away from the others to give it to you. You know, in case they'd want you to share."

"No way," Margot spoke as she crossed the room towards Fallon. "You're really going to let me have it?"

Fallon nodded. "Yeah, I mean, it's not like I can eat it."

She handed the chocolate bar to Margot, who sat up on the counter and unwrapped the chocolate bar, inspecting it. "Is it safe to eat?"

"Yeah, chocolate can last quite a long time if you store it correctly."

Reluctantly, Margot took a bite of the chocolate bar. It had lost some of its flavour over time, but it was still good. It was nice of Fallon to give this to her, instead of just throwing it in with the rest of the rations. This wasn't something that Fallon would do when they first met. Throughout the past few weeks, she was really trying her hardest to be kinder than she was before, and Margot felt that she could finally call Fallon her friend.

Margot finished the chocolate bar, then held her wrist out to Fallon. "Are you hungry?"

"No," Fallon shook her head. "I'll be good for a while, don't worry."

"Alright then, let's go meet the others." Margot said, crumpling up the chocolate wrapper and throwing it behind the counter.

The two of them left the store and walked down to the other end of the street where the group planned to meet, passing many cleared out, empty stores along the way. Jackie and Elliot were there already, with Jackie sitting inside of an old car while Elliot counted out their rations on the hood of the car.

"Did you find anything?" Elliot asked in his usual monotone voice.

"No, everything had been raided already." Fallon replied, leaning against the trunk of the car.