Moe crossed his legs. "Noah was a good man, and so are Dan and Faizel. They meant you no harm."

"Good is an objective word. You have to know the qualities of something to judge it as good - and I didn't know shit about them."

Perched on the end of the dresser, I saw Justin's head snap in my direction. I realised I was raising my voice and my tone was getting mean. This always happened whenever I spent too much time around people.

Moe stood up. He was an old man, and on equal terms I could kick his ass. But now, with me in my weakened state and him towering over me, the odds were even. "I've spoken to Faizel. He says they saw where you decided to settle for the night, some grubby little hole in a tree. Probably you were sharing it with a squirrel or something, I don't know. At any rate, they kept an eye on you. They saw a stalker coming toward you looking for a taste, and they rushed in and saved your life. What do you have to say about that?"

I clenched my left hand and felt it burn. "It was the smell of your man's piss that brought the stalker. There were three of them partying in that shack, and three's a crowd. You know what crowds of people tend to attract? Stalkers, and infected. If you’re going to blame anyone, then blame your guys for being too scared to travel alone."

"A man can't live alone," said Moe.

"I do pretty well."

He looked at me and grinned, as though he had made his point. "Yeah, you sure are living the good life."

I looked at my bandaged hand and my dirty jeans. I felt fatigued beyond belief, and my head was clamped in a vice. I'd been travelling for weeks and I was still four hundred miles away from where I needed to be, and I only had provisions to last me a day. The only things I had were my dead wife’s bracelet - useless unless I came across an infected with a taste for fancy gold -, a revolver with no bullets, some soggy fireworks and a GPRS that was my only link to my salvation. Maybe Moe had a point. I wasn't living, I was getting by. At least in town they had supplies, walls and something of a life going for them.

But then again, they also had to live with each other, and that wasn’t a good thing. Every day you spent in the company of another person was a day you trusted your life to them, trusted them not to make some stupid decision that would get you killed.

It was time for me to go. I sat up and tried to spin my legs round to the side of the bed. It took all the effort I had and the strain made me sweat. Justin stood away from the dresser and moved to help me, but I gave him a glare that stopped him cold. I finally got my feet on the ground, though I didn't want to risk standing up yet.

"Where's my things?"

Moe nodded to Justin. The kid walked to the other side of the room and bent down to the side of a book case. He picked up my bag and put it on the edge of the bed.

"Not sticking around?" said Moe.

"Got somewhere I need to be."

"Where?" asked Justin, his eyes alive with curiosity. Any mention of anything outside town seemed to excite him.

"Unless you think you got a reason to know, I’m not saying."

Moe stood up and reached into his pocket. As well as a stray piece of fluff, he pulled out my GPRS. I got to my feet. What was he doing with it? I felt my blood rush to my head and I saw spots, but I fought through the feeling and stayed upright. The sight of him holding my GPRS, my only link to the farm, made me want to knock him out cold.

That wouldn't be the right thing to do. I couldn't show him what it meant to me, because that would make it all the more valuable in his eyes. I had to play this smart.

"You went through my stuff?" I said.

He nodded. "Think healthcare is free? This ain't the NHS."

"No. They had a better bedside manner."

Moe smirked. "I was an old and set in my ways long before things turned to shit, so I'm not going to pretend to know what this is." He tossed the GPRS on the bed. I cradled it in my hand and inspected it, but thankfully there didn't seem to be any damage. I let out a long breath. I placed the GPRS carefully in my bag on the end of the bed.

"You can take your gizmo, your game or whatever it is. But I need paying."

I didn't have time for this. I had to leave right away. Outside the window the sky was white and the sun was shining. It was actually a beautiful day. It was the kind where, long before the fall, Clara and I would load up the car with sandwiches and go for a picnic. Looking at it, you could almost imagine there was nothing wrong with the world. It wasn't true, obviously. The infected didn't care whether the sun was shining or it was pissing with rain. They'd tear your flesh apart whatever the weather.

I looked back at Moe. I wanted done with this. "Fine," I sighed, "what do you want?"

He nodded down at my bag. "That's a nice revolver."

I shook my head. "No chance."

"It's not much good to you without bullets, unless you think waving it at one of the monsters will stop it."

"I'll take my chances on finding more bullets. I’d rather have the gun and need the bullets, than find the bullets and need the gun. "

He walked to my bag and stuck his hand in it. I felt a knot tighten in my stomach. It felt like he was invading my space. That pack had been my only means of living for months now, and I had carried food, ammo, clothes, and everything else I needed to stay alive in it. Seeing someone else going through it made me clench my fists.

"You want to take your fucking hand out of there?" I said. Something was bubbling up inside me, and this time it wasn't dry heaves. I filled my lungs and tried to bury the feeling, knowing that if things kicked off here I would likely have a whole town to contend with.

"I'd much rather take this," said Moe, and he pulled his hand out of the bag. In his curled fist he held Clara's gold bracelet.

I took a step toward him. My tiredness was gone, replaced for the moment by the energy only fury can give you. Moe took a step back, but I noticed his right fist tightening into a ball at his side. Near the dresser, Justin twitched. He looked from me to Moe, as if weighing up what action to take.

The old man I might have been able to deal with, but Justin was different. Sure, he was dripping wet behind the ears and had probably never stepped foot outside town in his life, but he hadn’t spent the previous night fighting a stalker. I had survival instincts and experience, but right now he had the physical edge. I didn't take another step forward.

"You're not having that."

"What good is it to you?" he said, letting the gold slink through his cigarette-stained fingers.

"It's personal."

Moe looked to the bracelet, and then to me. A wide grin spread on his face, and his grey whiskered cheeks tightened. "I didn't have you pegged as the sentimental sort. Mr Lone Wolf."

In another second I was going to punch that smile off his face, no matter what the consequences. This was why I stayed away from people; you couldn’t trust their intentions, and I couldn’t trust myself not to beat the hell out of them.

"I suggest you take your fucking fingers off that bracelet."

He threw it on the bed. "Sure. But it's either the bracelet or the gun. I'm a generous man - I'll let you pick."

I glanced sideways at Justin. The kid looked jumpy.

"Suppose I just beat the crap out of both of you." I said.

Moe laughed. "Even if a fine physical specimen as yourself were able to do that in your current state, do you suppose you'd get a foot out of Vasey without getting a bullet in your back?"