Unfurled upon the large oak table, in the kitchen, was a roughly drawn map made from a strip of lining paper that never made its way upon the wall it was intended for. The map's schematics consisted of what could loosely be considered a line drawing of an aerial view of housing. It could not be considered to scale, but it did offer a 'guide' to the outlay of the village. Dexter was hovering over it, pen in hand, trying to figure out if he had missed anything.

Winston glanced over it. "What about that shell of a new build?" He asked pointing to the area where the house had been in the middle of construction. It had walls and a roof, but no internal electrics nor plumbing had been begun. Glass windows had been found in a garage next door, likely meant to be installed next, but it had not happened before doomsday.

"I was thinking of tearing it down and using the concrete blocks and bricks for something else," Dexter admitted.

"Like?" Winston asked

"A wall."

As they had emptied the last of the smaller properties of anything that could be deemed useful, they had come across a worrying sight in the distance. The herd of zombie cows had been battling hounds that were also undead. The herd were larger in both numbers and physical size, so although the pack of canines had the advantage of teeth and claws and agility, they were no longer the only predators in the fields. The surviving dogs had fled, those that were trampled beneath the hooves of the bovine zombies became a rotten feast for the victors. Patrick had fled into the nearest house to vomit into the toilet. Dexter couldn't say he felt much better himself.

And warring zombie animals was not the only thing they had to worry about.

The last property to be raided was home to a large family of zombies, six in total, from a short, stout zombie with white strands of remnant hair to a feisty knee biter. Ren Zexian had quickly dealt with the first two, who were swifter than the others, their knees less worn and gait less stiff. His sword had cleanly removed their heads from their bodies. The third had appeared from a different door. Dexter's lightning had stunned the creature before Harry bludgeoned its skull, until it's brains oozed out of its ear. The fourth had been found alone in a locked toilet and flung itself towards them as they smashed open the door.

But as difficult to deal with as they were, a tall Male zombie had stood waiting for them inside the living room. Pieces of metal had been floating midair about it as if hindered by no laws of nature. Without warning, the knives and fire-place tools had sliced through the air towards them. Harry would later admit to almost pissing his pants as the poker that flew his way tried to stab him over and over again.

One by one, the knives had embedded themselves into the wall behind them, Ren Zexian had then melted them into slag. "Fuck, how are we supposed to deal with this?" Harry had yelled out, while a blasts of electricity shot past him from Dexter's hand, only to be thwarted by a tin bucket holding pieces of wood inside it.

"Ah!" Patrick had had a flash of enlightenment and had concentrated hard, imagining that the area's gravity around the metal poker and bucket increased. The two metal objects had fallen a few inches, enough to distract the zombie which was fighting to keep them aloft. Both Ren Zexian and Dexter had then sent bolts of air and electricity through the zombie's brain, finally defeating it.

"Fucking hell!" Dexter had exclaimed, but he relaxed his guard too soon. Ren Zexian had felt the pull inside his stomach just a half-breath before a screeching mess of skin and clumps of fur leapt towards them, claws extended. Paul had shot the feline with one of their precious bullets. It had not survive the impact.

Considering these sorts of things, who knew how long the devil vines and monster Ivy's could keep the wandering undead at bay. They needed something extra and even then, there was no guarantees. And what about the monsters who were not zombies and he wasn't just thinking of mutant beasts.

"It's gonna take all hands on deck for us to build a wall," Winston rubbed his chin, scratching at the developing black beard upon it. Things like razors were precious, would only last so long and he didn't trust his blade skills to remove the stubble from his flesh, so he figured, why bother to keep a clean shaven look. Beside a three year old, there were no females for him to impress either.

"That's why I'm trying to figure out where best to put it," Dexter admitted. "And how big to make it."

"Well, it needs to at least go around this property," Winston said in response. "We can always expand it later, if we need to."

"I'm thinking that we should look at surrounding this place together with these two properties first," Dexter told him, circling the two large mansion properties adjacent to theirs. "Parts of this place in particular already have a viable wall in place, we'd just have to extend it. Of course, that house won't be enough material, so I was thinking of using a few garages as well."

Winston whistled. Considering the rough acreage of the two properties, it was still quite the project they would have ahead of them. "You're considering long term then?"

Dexter sat back in the chair beneath him. "I reckon we have too," the man replied. "We lost our first base, but we can't say that everyone there was lost. We likely weren't the only squad scouring the town for food."

"Don't you think that they would have moved on to the army base, though?" He asked.

"Maybe," Dexter replied, "but who knows. Some of those guys are as stubborn and as hot-headed as we are. Likely, they'd chose to hole up elsewhere and think on it for a while."

"It's been a few weeks though," Winston mentioned. Over a thousand people had been a part of their original base and Dexter was right that there were more squads than just their six membered one. However, they couldn't say that they were on friendly terms with others, or even knew names for faces. But thinking that they'd all been lost to the internal outbreak and they'd never mix with them again, would definitely be too depressing.

"That saying, even if we were to find survivors," Dexter said, as if reading Winston's thoughts, "doesn't mean we'll get along with them. If we connected the three large properties, we could not only segregate into viable groups, but if another outbreak occurred, then we could shut off which ever place was infected so that the two others survived. Also, with the land on each of these, shelters, greenhouses, farms and the like can be developed. Our squad could rely on the kid's garden, but that doesn't mean that there will be enough food for everyone else."

"A greenhouse?" At that moment, Nathan happened to enter the kitchen with a basket of fresh vegetables and berries that he wished to gift in thanks to the stewed meat he had received the night before. Following him were the little girl, Lucy and her mutant dog, Aslan. The child was wearing a baggy t-shirt that had stains of mud upon the hem, having 'helped' Nathan in the garden again. "Have you found a greenhouse? If I had one, I could grow vegetables in the winter or more fruits that require warmer temperatures to grow well."

"Good plan, kid," Dexter grinned, approvingly. "We'll see what we can do."

"I'm not a 'kid,'" Nathan mentioned. "I celebrated my twentieth birthday exactly three months, one week and five days ago." Both men were slightly taken aback by his words, but soon recovered. Winston covered his mouth discreetly, trying not to chuckle.

"Oh, well, happy birthday to you then," Dexter replied.

"Thank you."