This is a bad idea, the warning voice in my head informed me. I took a more solid grip on my gun. Before the world got so messed up, my father might have taught me to drive on the freeway and change a tyre. Instead, he had taught me self-defense and how to shoot four different types of guns. Now on the range I was a better shot than he was.

Shut up. I'm doing this for Perry.

Doesn't make it a good idea.

Nothing that happens behind these walls is a good idea.

I stopped arguing with myself, a totally annoying habit I've never been able to stop myself doing. I knew it was a juvenile thing to do, like talking to your conscience, but I was just glad that I'd found a coping mechanism that worked for me, that left me - well, relatively at least - normal.

I fell in between Nora and Perry. The former looked eager, the latter grim and drawn. For the thousandth time I wished that Perry hadn't shut me out after his father was killed. He'd become an entirely different person than the one who'd lain idly in a clearing and watched clouds with me. He was edgier, more suspicious, and he didn't laugh anymore.

I missed him. He was standing right beside me, and I missed him.

'Hello, and thank you for your service today. As sons and daughters..." I tuned out the voice of my father from the overhead widescreen. I'd had a lot of practice doing that.

"You think we're getting this stuff for the cure?" I leaned towards Perry to ask. I had my doubts. Dad kept the city going by telling them his team were salvaging, researching and working towards a cure for the plague that had turned the majority of our world into aggressive, animated Corpses - if not worse. Without hope for the people, he couldn't have kept order. But I hadn't seen a lot of evidence of a cure so far. Plenty of guns, and lots of teams strengthening the Wall, lots of destruction.

"Nobody believes in a cure anymore, Jules." Perry's voice was quiet, but harsh. On my other side I felt Nora flinch against my elbow. Perry was wrong - he was just projecting his own grim outlook onto the rest of the city's residents.

"First, a word of caution. Corpses look human, they are not. They do not think, they do not bleed. Weather they were your mother or your best friend, they are beyond your help. They are uncaring, unfeeling, incapable of remorse."

He'd recorded that message almost a decade ago. Newly turned Corpses were still frequently running into people who used to know them back then. We'd suffered no end of losses through those who tried to approach their former loved ones. Corpses couldn't recognize anyone from their human life anymore - believe me. I knew.

"Sound like anyone we know, Dad?" I asked the monitor sarcastically. Nora cracked a smile.

"...therefor you have an obligation to return to us safely."

Way to motivate the team, Dad. I reached out to Perry, trying to take his hand, but he shot me a look and pointed at the screen. My heart fell.

"Good luck, Godspeed, and God Bless America." The recorded message finished. Nora bounced in place. "U-S-A, U-S-A." She chanted, and I cracked a smile. At least I still had one ally left. Nora had only volunteered for this salvage mission because I'd asked her, concerned when Perry told me he would be leading it. She was a good friend. She could see the change in Perry, too, and was worried. Worried enough to risk her life like I was, just to watch Perry's back. Neither of us had discussed just how different he was these days, but the unspoken thought was that he might not fight back if he found himself in a life-or-death struggle.

In a loose formation, we all kept our guns up and ready as the gate drew back to let our small, armed group outside. It was a long time since any Dead had been sighed this close to the Wall, having since learned there was no way through. But you could never be too careful. The day you let your guard down might be the day that a pack of Corpses was lying in wait beyond the first rusted-out car.

After several beats of silence we lowered out weapons and stepped beyond the Wall. "Sweet." Murmured Nora. My eye was drawn by a block-lettered message imposed over a graffiti-covered wall.

WELCOME TO THE DEAD ZONE

LOOK ALIVE OUT THERE!

I adjusted the strap of my gun over my shoulder, finding a more comfortable spot, and we left our home behind.

Perry took the lead and brought us to a small private hospital. Pharmaceuticals were the aim of the game today. The streets had been quiet, no sightings of Corpses, and the hospital building itself was imposing if untouched.

"Hey Berg, you gonna help us out or what?" Perry growled down at Berg, who had found some batteries for his portable game and was sitting with his back to a bench, intent on the screen. "No dice, almost at level five."

I was reaching for cabinet I'd pried open when I heard a faint clang from downstairs and I saw Nora stiffen, standing up straight and staring warily at the door. The pharmacy only had once entrance - I wished Perry had agreed to leave somebody on guard outside.

"Did you hear that?"

"I did." I agreed readily, bringing the muzzle of the gun up. I glanced at Perry. "We should bail." I didn't like this hemmed-in room, the faint but still cloying smell of the hospital lingering in the air, and least of all the unexplained noise from downstairs.

"Whoa hey, we can't just bail, we have orders." I should have known better than to push a point with robot-Perry. "Do you have any idea how much medicine the city goes through a month? We need pharma-salvage to survive, we can't just abandon our-"

"God, you sound just like my Dad." I complained, stalking by Perry and dropping my still-empty bag on the benchtop, still tense.

"Thank you." Perry was actually serious. Nobody in their right mind ought to have taken that as a compliment and I pointed out as much. "Yeah, waaaaasn't a compliment."

"Oh hey guys, take some Prozac. Maybe that'll cheer you up." Nora, trying to diffuse the situation with her offbeat sense of humour. I caught the box she tossed over and stashed it in my bag.

Then came the unmistakable sound of breaking glass from further down the stairwell. Nora tensed up. "I told you I heard something!"

Even Berg was up now, gun lifted, all of us at the ready. The tension in the room had risen. I pumped my shotgun and trained it, unwavering, on the door. "Per, let's bail!"

He wouldn't let it go. "We have orders." He protested, casting a look at the door, then walking towards it to prove to the rest of us it was safe. "Besides, it was nothing anyway. You're being paranoid, okay?"

At the second he turned to direct the last words at us, a figure loomed on other side of the door's glass panel.

"PERRY!" I screamed at the same time as a Corpse slammed through the door and lunged at him. I saw a flash of red - clothing, something the Corpse was wearing, thankfully, not blood. Too close to line up a shot, Perry thrust his gun at his attacker's chin, sending him crashing to the ground. Zombies filled the room, and snarls filled the air. I dropped to one knee, clinging to my calm, knowing that there were more of them than us, that every shot would count. I had to make them count. I unloaded my shotgun.

Perry sprang onto the closest bench. "Aim for the head!" He screamed, and everybody opened fire as hell unleashed itself inside the room.

Corpses leaped over benches, dragged members of our party to the ground, swung and kicked and kept moving even after being shot. They only reacted like this when they smelled food - frighteningly different to their typical slow-moving pace.

I took cover behind a bench, readied the gun, centered my balance, then scooted back into the open to fire. There was a Corpse crouched over Berg the next row up from me, and I fired and hit her cleanly in the head. As I pumped the next bullet into the chamber I saw the one who'd led them in, the one in red. He was still down after Perry's hit, propped up on one arm - and staring straight at me.

It was chilling. I'd never been so close to a Corpse before. For a moment our gazes held. I took in a dozen details, as if he were nothing more than a new human whom I'd never met. He was lanky in a way that made him far less threatening to look at than the rest - a stupid thought if ever there was one. Faint scars were the only thing to disrupt the pale of his skin, paler again than the norm under a mop of shaggy black hair going in all directions. And his eyes...

For a fanciful moment I almost thought I saw recognizable emotion in them. Wide, expressive eyes, grey to be sure, all the Dead had that same strange colour. But the way he was looking at me...

You're going to get yourself killed! Get back behind cover!

I obeyed the warning in my head, breaking eye contact as I swept back behind my bench. That had been stupid, leaving myself open like that. I must have been affected by being near to the Dead for the first time. But the way the Corpse had stared...

It was nothing. Maybe you look like somebody he used to know.

No, that isn't right. If that were true, it would mean he had memories of being alive. Corpses don't remember their life.

Most of my ammunition was in my backpack, but I had tucked six shells into my jacket pocket for emergencies. Frantic, I reached for them and withdrew a handful. It was too many, and careless in my haste I dropped two, swearing when they bounced away. I let them go and reloaded with another pair, cursing my own slowness. Bullets fired around me, each shot deafening me for a second. A cart was overturned, bottles clattering over the floor. The Corpses were all snarling, and then I heard Perry's scream.

One of them had him. It was impossible in the melee of sound to pick which direction it had come from and so I frantically moved towards the last bench I'd seen him standing on. I had to fire my way through, then stop and reload again - Berg had fallen and was being fed upon by a trio of Corpses.

I think I knew even as I shot the last of Berg's killers that Perry was already gone - I couldn't hear him anymore. If he was still fighting, he would be yelling.

"Perry?" The aisle was empty.

He wouldn't just give up!

Wouldn't he? Isn't that what you were worried about? Isn't it why you came?

No! No!

"Perry!" It burst out of me at a scream, as I pleaded with myself that it couldn't be true. "Answer me!"

He didn't.

Nora, two rows away, was ambushed by a massive Corpse, who overpowered her, her gun bouncing twice as she lost her grip on it. She was lifted, shaken, and I couldn't let my best friend be killed, even if I hadn't been the one to bring her out here into this danger in the first place.

I leaped sideways, lined up through a shelf that perfectly framed the head of my target, and fired my last shot. I blew out the back of the zombie's skull and he fell limp, dragging Nora to the ground with him.

I had no time to find Perry. Another Corpse was coming for me, but his growl alerted me as he charged. I ran the two steps to meet him, clocking him with my shotgun and spinning him head over heels. There was no time to reach the shells I'd dropped earlier and the shotgun was useless to me now, at least in terms of actual firepower. I grabbed it and swung it as hard as I could into the head of the fallen Corpse at my feet, who groaned shortly - he probably wasn't dead, but I cared only that he didn't try to get back up.

A figure caught my eye - shit! The Corpse with the red jacket was advancing on me, I hadn't even seen where he'd come from. He took three slow, careful steps towards me. I bent down, whipping the knife from my boot and hurling it. It hit him right in the center of his chest - I'd aimed as if he were human! He stared, puzzled, down at the handle sticking out of his flesh, then pulled it free and let it drop. It had to be the stress of the moment, but he actually looked hurt.

It struck me then, seeing him preform such a superhuman feat. I had no weapon left. I couldn't beat him. The fear set in, unwanted, but unstoppable. He was closing in, only an arm's length or so from me with me backed up against a benchtop.

"J-Juuu-lie." He stuttered.

I imagined that. He did not talk to me. He did not just say my name.

Up close he was intimidating. He was tall, a fountain of red around his mouth... he'd clearly killed and eaten someone.

Who?

I sank back against the cabinet. He followed me down, his face hovering right in front of mine. Was he toying with me? His big grey eyes, despite my terror at having him so close, didn't look threatening. He didn't look angry at all. He looked...

Scared?

"Juuuu-lie." He tried again, balancing himself by bracing one hand on the counter, right by my head. I couldn't miss it that time. He'd spoken.

He glanced back over his shoulder. There were still bodies littering the floor, from both sides. But one imposingly large Corpse stepped into view, hungrily sniffing the air. A second looked up from a body. The fear kicked back in - strangely, directed more at the hunting, wandering Dead, not the one two inches from my face.

He looked back at me, eyes darting nervously, then he lifted a hand as bloody as his face. I only realized his intention at the last second. My eyes closed as he touched me, my body paralyzed with fear.

His hand was freezing.

I felt a tear escape as I opened my eyes again. He was still right there - leaning even closer, in fact, inhaling my scent. I felt the blood sticking to my face.

"Safe." He murmured, and I could do nothing but huddle in the same spot, staring at him in shock.

Was he trying to... protect me? Behind him, the horde of Dead stopped sniffing the air, looking around for a meal.

"C... co-ome." He plucked at my jacket sleeve. "What..." I whispered, horrified. Come with him? Where?!

He got up, one hand clinging to my sleeve, the other wrapped around my shoulder, pulling me with him.

He plucked up an errant snow-globe that was sitting on the bench and put it in his pocket as he led me towards the others. I passed Nora huddled under a desk and felt a stab of relief somewhere underneath my fear. She was alive, splattered with dark zombie blood, but alive. She stared at me in horror as I was led forward.

Drawn out into the corridor, my mind began to shut down. Trapped in the middle of the group, with the dark-haired Corpse staying at my side, unobtrusively coming in between me and any of the others who meandered too close, I was overcome. I didn't know where I was being taken, or why, and I couldn't begin to understand. The sky overhead darkened, and I barely knew in which direction we were going. We passed broken-down cars, dozens of slow-moving Dead, and I eventually slowed down as I stared at a bunch of them through a window/ They looked like they... lived here? The one in red reached out for my arm. I flinched away, and he cast a nervous glance at the group who had moved a few slow steps ahead of us, before reaching a second time. He pulled me forward, away from the Corpses on the other side of the glass. We had finally approached a building as twilight fell. It was when I was walked through a tall rectangle and a Corpse in a splattered uniform waved a metal-detecting wand at me that I realized - we were in an airport. One populated by Corpses.

He stayed just behind me, occasionally nudging me towards a door or down a corridor until we were back outside. The temperature had dropped dramatically, the cold wind blowing my hair across my face. Fallen planes littered the tarmac, but I was guided towards one still standing, with a set of steps leading to the door. Exhausted and stumbling, I was shown up the stairs. I couldn't fight, my body dulled and unresponsive, the events of the day draining out my rationality.

My captor opened the door and waited for me expectantly. It was clear what he wanted. I stepped into the dark interior of the plane warily, almost tripping on my own feet in my exhaustion. My eyes adjusted to the light - the plane was cluttered, but with things, not Corpses. The door clanged closed behind us. There didn't appear to be anyone else here.

Here... a prison. I was being held here. The horror seized me even stronger than before. What did he want with me?!

I was crying softly now, unable to help myself. Looming behind me, the Corpse touched my shoulder clumsily. I flinched back from him and he hastily dropped his hand.

"Home." He explained in a raspy voice. I didn't even comprehend the meaning behind the word. He gestured to the seats beside us. Desperate to get some distance from him, I sank down onto the seats, scrambling to the far side, drew up my knees, and huddled against the window.

He moved away a few paces, and I heard a clunk, then he returned and sat down opposite me. I couldn't drag my eyes away from him, waiting for him to lunge, break the cycle of this dream.

Instead, he combed his hair back with his fingers, looking almost self-conscious. He leaned towards the aisle. "N... not - eat."

When I didn't respond - I couldn't - he pointed in my direction, then at his bared teeth, which he clicked together, shaking his head. I looked away from the bloody mess.

"Keep you s-afe." I looked over at him at this. He wanted to..? He got up to approach me and I heard a whimper escape me as I cringed back.

That hurt expression had returned when he stopped, looking down at me as if he were dissapointed. I sobbed softly, and finally he turned away, walked back to the front of the cabin and opened the door.

I cautiously unfolded myself and leaped at the window. My captor - rescuer? - whatever - walked away from the plane, glancing back over his shoulder once. There were others outside, wandering, aimless.

Succumbing to my helplessness, I fell back into the seat.

I was alone.

A/N - Okay, here we go with Julie's version of events during the movie. For those new readers of my fics, this is the companion piece to 'Learn to Love Again'. After spending so many weeks inside R's head writing his half of the story, I'd be really keen to hear how people think I've done with Julie. Every review, no matter how short or long, is fuel for me to write more, and is deeply appreciated :)