I turned off the engine and told the kids that this was the only other way into the city and we were going to have to get past the wall, somehow. Michael told me to do whatever I had to do to get to Richard and the others. I considered my options and finally told the kids to hang on and cover their heads--we were going straight through the damn thing! I started the engine and punched the gas and with a squeal of tires, we headed for the wall. With a crash that knocked my teeth together, we punched through the rotted barricade and bouncing over shattered wood, we continued on to Airepseh, unharmed.

Some time later, we crested a final hill and could see Airepseh spread out below us. Looking at it from this vantage point, it looked the same as it did when I had originally moved here, twenty odd years ago. A few more miles brought us into the city proper and from this level, the once bustling metropolis resembled nothing more than a decaying and devastated badlands.

As we slowly cruised down one of the main roads, dodging rusting hulks of long abandoned cars and trucks, Michael suddenly shouted that he had seen what he thought were four Unluckys chasing a woman into an abandoned store in the middle of a large shopping center. At this point, I didn't want to get detoured from our mission, especially by venturing into a situation that might put all of us in jeopardy. I stopped in the middle of the road and looked to where Michael was pointing. I didn't see anything, but he insisted that he had seen a healthy woman being chased by obviously diseased creatures and they had entered an old grocery store, located at the rear of the big shopping center.

I still hesitated to get involved, my concern more for our family than for a stranger, but the pleading expression on Michael's face changed my mind. I drove into the parking lot and pulled up behind a broken down RV, which would hopefully hide the SUV from any other 'people' that might be around. I handed Michael the revolver I kept under the front seat and I also gave him the spare keys to the SUV; just in case something happened to me, at least they could try and reach Richard. I had the kids get down on the floor, then covered them with a blanket, warning them not to move and under no circumstances open the door, for anything! At the rear of the SUV, I opened the back end and pulled out my sawed-off shotgun, then noticed the hilt of one of my medieval swords under a tarp. Figuring a little more protection wouldn't hurt, I took that weapon, as well.