We’ve been in one place for a long time. Back at the beginning, things were exciting. The infection was spreading quickly, and there was need of being mobile. Now, things have settled. The infected are slow and easy to avoid. Things are easier. But from our complacency grew fear. There are places we avoid, whether we know through experience that they are full of infection, or whether we merely theorize it. Any building that is large enough and protected from the outside is probably full by now. People filled buildings like that, and they didn’t survive. Numbers are the biggest advantage of the infected, and the biggest weakness of the living. Now, I don’t know much about this first hand, but, if you open a door to a department store and see the sheer numbers of them, you’d come up with a couple theories yourself. And run. I haven’t been back.

The various shopping malls, I’m sure, are full of the persistently locomotive. Also, many super markets and large stores. The public library down town might have provided enough protection, but I doubt it. I’d like to go there, but I don’t think it’s worth the risk. And we really don’t have the fire power. The hardware store would also be helpful, but it’s another spot on the map that we avoid. We would really have to be prepared.

There are lots of places that we do go, though. The nearby supermarket is one. Without that, we’d probably be dead. Any store that only has room for maybe ten or fifteen people is usually worth the risk, provided it has something of value inside. I needed new shoes.

Other than those few places, we try to get what we need from houses. Houses typically only have a few occupants, which makes a lot of difference, and they have a lot of things that we need. The refrigerators have mostly spoiled by now, but cans are always good, and occasionally we find some weaponry to replace what we’ve used. Some houses have a lot of infected crowding around them, which is usually a sign that there are useful things inside, but there’s also a higher chance of some horrifying scene inside. We get over it.