It took less than a week.

The market had been completely cleared, all the stock having been moved inside the warehouses. There was no point in having display stands when the Herd was camping outside the settlement, scaring away potential customers. In the empty space as a large bonfire, where the militiamen clad in surgical gowns, gloves and masks were dumping bodies into the inferno. A line of people chained to each other snakes through the settlement, slavering angrily at the militia who pull them along towards the bonfire, like livestock being led to the slaughterhouse. Marco stands at the head of the queue, a pistol in his hand. As each Infected is brought before him, the militiamen force the Infected to its knees and Marco ends its suffering with a single bullet to the head. The corpse is then unceremoniously tossed into the fire, making space for the next unfortunate in line.

The clinking of chains and shuffle of feet is the only noise heard in the settlement, broken only by the periodic gunshots from Marco's pistol. And presiding over it all is the coofing drifting over from the distance. Archie takes in the whole scene in somber silence, reflecting how things could have gone wrong so quickly. No one else knew it of course, but Archie could track the virus's progress as it coursed through the veins of the earth. Purging the Infected in the settlement was only buying time. As long as the Herd was hanging outside and shedding more of the virus, the settlement would fall sooner or later. Marco had commandeered Archie's prized stock of PPE and was using it up at a ferocious rate to keep himself and his militia safe, leaving the rest of the settlement to get by with whatever they could scrounge up.

And without a means of resupplying that dwindling stockpile of precious medical supplies, the entire settlement was well and truly screwed once they run dry. Already members of the community were making do with bootleg equipment of dubious quality that they had put together themselves.

Case in point being the woman wearing a sad tattered set of panties over a face like a mask, standing in front of Archie and glaring angrily at him.

"Look at you standing there," she sneers, "being so smug."

"Pardon me?" Archie frowns at this unexpected verbal attack.

"Not wearing a mask, standing out in the open like that without a care in the world." the woman snaps, "You're an Immunity Nazi aren't you?"

"I am immune, yes." Archie shoots back, "What does that have to do with anything?"

"You're laughing at us aren't you?" the woman demands as she jabs her finger at Archie, sarcastically mimicking his voice, "Oh, look at me, I don't need to worry about falling sick. I'm going to go through everyone's belongings after they drop dead and sell the lot."

Archie cautiously backs away from the increasingly frenzied broad, signalling from behind his back for the muscle brought from New York. A throaty chuckle reverberates deep within Archie's blood the tingling sensation driving the sallow man up the world. Frank had woken up again, and the fat man took no greater enjoyment than witnessing his former friend's plight.

"ADMIT IT!" the woman shrieks as she pushes Archie hard, "YOU'RE NOTHING BUT A VULTURE! LIKE THE OTHER IMMUNITY NAZIS!"

A widening abyss of weakness yawns open deep within Archie, as Frank begins feasting on what's left of his host's vitality. Archie's voice goes as limp as a lump of tofu and the woman's shove sends him straight to the ground, landing on his butt. The scraggly bitch towers over the man, her breath coming out in snorts behind the set of soiled panties plastered over her face.

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"The Herd was right!" the woman blares, "Everyone should be immune! Or no one at all!"

Archie's muscle scramble towards the pair and quickly grab the woman roughly, throwing her face first into the dirt. The woman is quickly subdued in a painful armlock, with a knee planted securely on the side of her face. Blinking owlishly, Archie slowly climbs back up to his feet with deliberate slowness, dusting himself off and sneering at the woman who attacked him unprovoked.

"Infected's everywhere these days, right guys?" Archie asks no one in particular. His muscle responds with vague grunts to the affirmative, surrounding the woman menacingly.

"Take this infected to the bonfire." Archie orders, "Beat her senseless first so she doesn't make a scene and cause trouble for anyone else." The muscle begins dragging away the woman, kicking up small clods of dust as they head towards one of the warehouses where the muscle can do their work in peace.

But the woman remains defiant, screeching like a broken car alarm.

"THE HERD WON'T SPARE IMMUNITY NAZIS!" she shouts at the top of her voice, "YOU'RE GOING TO DIE VULTURE! JUST LIKE THE REST OF US!"

And one of the muscle belts the woman viciously across the face, mercifully shutting her up.

"Peace at last." Archie sighs in relief, shaking his head ruefully. But a crazy loon is the least of his problems now.

The lunatic was right about one thing, the settlement is finished, no matter what happens after this. All that Infected congregating here would turn the place into a contagious red zone within a few more days. And Archie would be finished alongside everyone else here if he did not find a way to escape before then. Archie's first instinct was to gather all his men and punch through the besieging Herd during the night. But he did not have the numbers to accomplish that. Even with the help of the Invisible Hand, Archie and his muscle would be quickly overwhelmed by the limitless bodies the Herd would swarm them with. Going about this by himself was no different from suicide.

If Marco's militia were fighting alongside him, the equation would be different. But Archie needed a way to persuade Marco and Edward to commit all their forces in battle, without letting slip that he intended to make a run for it. Not that fleeing by himself was difficult. If all Archie wanted to accomplish was escape, he could do it easily enough. But Archie needed to carry off all his spoils and merchandise with him as well. And packing everything up and loading them on to the trucks would tip everyone off in the settlement to his loss of nerve. Edward would probably ordered him hanged, maybe even drawn and quartered given the man's fondness for medieval reenactment.

What a headache it all was. Still, Archie concluded that it wouldn't do any harm to instruct his muscle to begin discreetly packing the more portable items in his inventory so that a quick getaway can be made with more than the clothes on their back. If the situation grows even more dire, maybe Archie could even persuade Marco to see things his way. Once the militia is down with the program, it wouldn't matter what Edward said.

With his mind made up, Archie makes his way back to his office to issue the needed orders to his faithful muscle. And the moment he opens the door, sees the last person he expects.

"Claire." Archie breathes, taking in the sight of the bedraggled woman taking up one of the seats in his office, flanked by the majorette who stands looking nervously about.

"Hello Archie." the deposed Queen greets, "We need to talk."