From his position on top of the building, Eli was able to study the entire area surrounding the once popular barbershop they were about to raid. He carefully scanned the parking lot and surrounding buildings, focusing on a small section at a time to not miss anything by taking in too much information at once. His peripheral vision would alert him to any sudden movements outside the section he was focused on. The barbershop itself was part of a small strip mall which was L-shaped with a shared parking lot amongst all the shops that it held. This was Eli's third time through scanning the landscape. After seeing nothing out of the ordinary any of the three times, he was satisfied it was safe for him and his companions to move in. He began carefully crawling backwards along the roof, keeping his eyes in front of him, alert for any movement now that he himself had begun moving. As he felt one of his feet slide off the edge of the roof, he spun around and grabbed the edge, letting the rest of his body fall off the side until he was in a fully extended dead hang. He swung his body side to side, building up momentum, and flung himself to the left, landing on a ledge. He dropped down from this one as well, catching himself on the edge once more, before falling the last small drop down onto a dumpster, next to where Silas and Sebastian were waiting.

"Anything?" Silas asked.

"No. There's nothing out there, let's go before that changes." Eli responded as he began walking.

Silas followed behind Eli. Sebastian took up the rear and would turn back and scan the area behind them at random intervals per Eli's order.

"Make sure to keep the frequency you turn around random. If you always do it in the same pattern then anyone following us, human at least, can pick up on that pattern and make sure to be out of sight when you turn around. If you do it randomly they don't have that chance."

Eli was almost certain that the area was empty, so he didn't see a point of wasting extra energy by dashing from cover to cover and instead just walked a straight path.

The glass door and one of the massive wall sized windows at the front of the shop had already been shattered a long time ago, although by now most places had suffered the same fate, which made it easy for the three of them to get inside.

“This place has already been ransacked." Sebastian said.

"Ransacked in a hurry." Eli responded.

“What's that supposed to mean?" Silas asked.

"It means exactly how it sounded. Whoever ransacked this place did so in a hurry, which means that they probably missed something."

He walked over to one of the hair cutting stations and noticed something odd about the mirror. Setting his bow on the table, he reached up to the bottom left corner of the mirror and pulled.

Hinges creaking loudly, the mirror slowly opened revealing a cabinet behind it. Which just so happened to have all sorts of random things in it.

Eli picked up one of the hair pins resting on one of the shelves. "See." he said back to the others.

They followed suite and began pulling on each mirror, sure enough they opened. A wave of surprise and happiness washed over the father and son as they both let out something that was almost a sequel of excite.

Each of them was full of different items. Some had the potential to be useful, most however did not. It was a barbershop after all, which inevitably meant most things they found would be related to hair.

"Hey you think this bottle of shampoo would be any good?" Sebastian asked out to anybody listening.

"I don't see how it could be any worse than not using shampoo at all." Silas responded.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Sebastian quickly shoveled the bottle into his bag needing no further encouragement.

"Yo Eli, how'd you know to pull on the mirror?" Sebastian asked, searching the next cabinet.

"The mirrors looked like they stuck out farther than normal, and I figured it didn't hurt to try."

"I never knew barber shops had cabinets behind their mirrors."

"Most don't." Eli responded as he went over to the mirror next to Sebastian and began searching through it.

He placed something shiny down onto the table that caught Sebastian's eye. "I bet Alyssa would really like that hairpin."

"Leave it, don't take anything unnecessary." Eli responded sharply.

Silas had gone into the back room meant for employees only to check any lockers they might have for medicine his wife desperately needed while the other two kept searching the mirror cabinets. He saw a total of ten lockers all stacked in two columns in the corner of the room. Much to his dismay, they had all been broken into, nothing remaining in them.

He cursed aloud and slammed his foot into the lower lockers.

Eli and Sebastian came flying into the room at the sound of the kick, knives drawn.

Silas was sitting in a ball against a wall

"What's wrong?" Shouted Sebastian.

"All the lockers…" Silas began as he pointed to them, "they've been looted. They're completely empty.”

A look of defeat took over Sebastian's face.

"I warned you this could happen." Eli said.

Silas looked up at him. "I know."

There was a pause of silence between the three of them for a few moments, Silas and Sebastian worried for Rebecca, and Eli not feeling the need to speak.

"I'm gonna go outside and make sure we're still alone. Finish up with everything in here and we'll go to another place after." Eli said as he turned and walked out of the room.

As he was walking through the main section of the shop, something shining caught his attention.

It was the hairpin he'd taken out of the cabinet earlier.

"I bet Alyssa would really like that hairpin."

He continued walking and out through the broken window they'd entered in. Placing the hairpin in his pocket as he did.

He quickly moved back to the building he had climbed originally to use as a vantage point, noticing a ladder on this side, making it much easier to climb.

Once he was at the top, Eli once again belly crawled along the roof, propelling himself slowly forward with his knees and elbows. He had already made sure the immediate area of the parking lot was secure before making his way over to the building. He began his section surveillance.

It wasn't until his third pass over that he noticed it. Off to his right, a couple hundred yards away in the parking lot of an old grocery store he made out movement. It was sudden and short lived, followed by a pause, then there it was again. Sudden and short lived just like before.

"What's moving like that?"

He waited.

There! It happened again.

He took his focus off it for a moment to make sure what he had been focused on wasn't just a distraction for something else to move in on him.

Satisfied that it wasn't he returned his focus back to the movement. As he returned his focus to it, the culprit of the motion stepped out from behind one of the cars long abandoned in the lot.

It was a man.

He was dressed similarly to Eli, he wore a deep hood over his head that hid his face. They turned once in the direction of Eli and he was able to faintly make out what appeared to be a camouflage bandana covering the lower half of their face. They wore a long sleeve black shirt with grey pants that were tucked inside cowboy boots.

"They seem familiar"

It was impossible to tell how tall the person was from this distance.

They kneeled down next to one of the undead, examining the arrow shift that protruded from it's now broken skull. Eli had killed that undead shortly before the raid on the barbershop began.

The figure turned towards and undead coming towards them.

That's when Eli noticed it.

"Shit!"

The man picked up the recurve bow he had set down when he examined the corpse, quickly and precisely let off an arrow faster than most would be able to see, killing the undead instantly.

Eli was not most. He saw the whole thing unfold and his biggest fear was confirmed.

"Damnit" he said out loud softly.

Almost as if he heard Eli speak, the man turned his head in the direction of the building Eli was on.

Eli remained still. Any movement could give away his position, especially with who was looking at him. From this distance it would be almost impossible to determine whether Eli was a person, corpse, or part of the building. As long as he didn't move.

A few moments later the mysterious figure turned away, but Eli remained still. As quickly as he'd looked away, the man snapped his head back in the direction of Eli.

"I knew it." He thought.

There were only a handful of people that would do that trick, and even fewer of them would carry a bow, let alone shoot it as fast as they did.

"This is bad."

"We need to leave."

"Run!"

"Get as far away as possible."

The man finally turned away again, this time satisfied he had seen nothing, and went back to examining the corpse.

As quickly and quietly as he could, Eli crawled back and off the building. Nocking an arrow as he ran back to the barbershop.

It was time to go.