They're discussing whether to meet with these newfolk or not, while I am thinking of McCarthy's Road. Maybe it's paranoid delusion, maybe it's…

Oh. Hot half orc chick will not stop stabbing her most recent kill. Again, and again, and yet again. She brings a jagged witch doctor dagger down into the zombie's chest, it's clavicle, it's throat twice, it's eye socket which she pulls the bulb from and flicks aside, it's stomach four times—and I thought I had problems with rage.

Half-orc chick isn't the only party member getting super stabby now.

"Hey guys," I say. "Look outside."

My party members all look through the window.

Craig seems sick. "I could have gone my entire life without witnessing that and been better off. Thanks, cunt."

"Some people just can't hold their apocalypse," Jake says.

"This reminds me of a book I read on human psychology. Apparently Hobbes wasn't entirely wrong; we are all inherently evil."

She must be referring to Thomas Hobbes. I think I read his Leviathan theory once, but that's it, so I can't tell if she's right about his philosophy or not. I hope her and Hobbes are wrong, but watching humans butchering undead livestock also reminds me of O'Brien's The Things They Carried, and I can't help but doubt humanity.

I start to wonder whether the apocalypse robbed the neighborhood watch committee of their humanity, or if it just gave them all an excuse to own their truth, as primal pieces of shit.

"I still think we should meet them," Jake says.

Craig raises an eyebrow, which in turn elevates his right horn. "If by meet them you mean assassinate them to save other parties down the road, then I am game."

"Honey, that would make us worse than them."

"Or would it make us heroes?" Craig defends, poorly.

Tabi groans. "I forbid us from making any contact with the monsters." She looks at me. "We already have one crazy to beast-sit."

"Hey…" I scowl, but she's not wrong, and I don't really feel like dealing with the several potentially terrible outcomes of interacting with these types of crazy folk. I doubt our crazy would get along nicely.

Plus, if they don't try to kill us for loot or XP — I wonder if there's XP gain from PvP; do I really want to know? no — then aren't we still stuck with stab-happy slaughterhouse addicts?

Does Tabi really think I am the same as them? Or does she truly believe all humans are that inherently evil? If we are all so kill-friendly at our core then would we actually be better off joining forces and starting a mercenary group or army consisting of fellow assholes to extinguish zombies and invade other equally crazy groups' territories? How much social interaction would be needed upfront to stave off any of the Watch's initial suspicions? What about the potential-likely rises in conflict when one of us accidentally protects ourselves from a zombie and thereby inadvertently vultures half-orc girl's kill? She is hot though…

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Tabi's hands appear in front of my face. There's a clap from them.

"Logan" Jake says.

I was doing it again, getting lost in my head. "What?"

Jake sighs. "I just got done explaining my plan, damnit."

"You should take adderall or something."

"I do."

"It's not helping."

I hold up my index. Toggle into my Inventory, find my Adderall, and select 'Use'; my 30mg prescription loads in my palm; I don't need this much; I crack it in half and offer the other to whoever takes it; Craig does; then I take my half and say, "What'd I miss?"

Right now it's two to one," Craig says. "Jake and I vote the rest of us go make acquaintances while he's ready on the rooftop in case they try anything. Tabi votes—"

"Not that," she says.

I wipe some fog from the window. Something occurs to me. "They're heading west."

"So?"

"Which direction is the Moon Quest?"

The something that occurred to me occurs to everyone else. I look around.

"Did none of us check our maps," I ask, turning my gaze judgmentally to Tabi. "Even you?"

"Fuck," is all she says.

"Let's all just agree that we were busy surviving?" Jake says.

"Yeah, a zombie fucking apocalypse!" Craig adds.

"Too busy surviving to find direction…" I chuckle. "Sounds like my entire life."

"Dark, dude."

I didn't mean to say that out loud. "Haha?"

"Found it!" Tabi was already searching the map I guess. "I mostly hate to admit this, but Logan wasn't wrong."

"I wasn't?"

"The Moon Quest is east. If that party is going west, doesn't make much sense going and talking to them, right?"

There is a moment of silence. It keeps going.

You should check your map too, dipshit. Don't you need to plan a route?

That wasn't nice, but it was also right. I open to my map and…

the moment of silence is gone, but I'm currently focusing.

…viewing my map: it's like almost any RPG map I've ever seen. Aside from the fact that this is of course my real life mind's eye conjuring a map from inside my brain, there's nothing remarkable about it. It's just a map of Cottonwood Heights, centered around my location.

There's an indicator that the radius shown is a five mile radius.

Currently on my screen I can see two of those safe havens Ralph mentioned.

I see nothing denoting the moon quest though. I zoom out. Then again. Then eventually find an icon that says Moon Quest. When I hover over it, I receive further information. It's the exact same before. Some esoteric bullshit about how the way to unlocking my inner magic is by unlocking my moon sign. It almost sounds Jungian, like shadow work or something, but I'm not thinking about that, and I don't read anymore of the text. I just find the bottom part of the panel; here there's an option to Set as Destination. I do so.

Now something is remarkable about this map. It actually gives me directions. I have entire route before me. Not that it's difficult to get to Big Cottonwood Canyon from my place. Just up another half-mile, left on 2300 east, straight a couple miles, right at the…pharmacy. I think we should make a stop on the way. I don't wanna run out of Adderall. Then…I should be saying this stuff to the party, what if they don't know yet?!

"We're going east up fort untion and that'll take us up to the Moon Quest. Oh and we need to stop at this pharmacy. It's on the way."

Moment of silence again. Everyone's looking at me.

"I missed something, huh?"

"You just established what we already established, like, five minutes ago."