Zomb-Pocalypse 3
Author: Megan Berry
Date: 2016-08-27 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Zombies; Horror; Young Adult
Description: Book 3 Spoiler Alert: This book description contains spoilers, if you have not read Zomb-Pocalypse 1 & 2, reading this description will ruin a huge plot twist in the first two books. Jane has found the cabin, her best friend Abby, and most surprisingly, her parents–but now the hard part begins. For over a month, Jane has survived on the road amid flesh eating monsters with no one to tell her what to do, but now she has her parents hovering over her, stifling her every movement. They want to treat her like their little girl, but the Apocalypse has forced her to grow up in so many ways that she

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter One

I’m being smothered—held down beneath a pile of limbs. Their weight makes it difficult to breath and I start to hyperventilate. I flail, but it just makes them hold on tighter.

“Silas!” I scream in terror as I’m being shaken and jostled around. I bite my tongue, and the taste of blood in my mouth amps up the fear. My elbow connects with soft flesh and I hear a groan, so close I feel breath puff against my ear...

“Jane!” I hear a voice, but it sounds so far away—too far away to save me.

“Help!” I scream, still kicking and swinging, expecting to feel the bites at any moment.

“Honey, please wake up.” The voice finally registers, and it’s my mom. I blink and open my eyes, but the room is just as black as the inside of my eyelids.

“Mom?” I ask in a small voice.

“Yes, Jane. It’s me. You’re dreaming,” she assures me, and I can hear the stress in her voice. I hear rustling and then a flashlight is switched on, and I blink. Dad is sitting beside me as well, though his back is turned towards me, which is kind of odd.

“Dad?” I ask hesitantly, and he turns towards me with his hand covering his nose.

“Yeah, hon. I’m here too.” His voice sounds nasally, but he gives me a smile and I relax. My heart is still pounding, but it’s starting to slow down now that I’m awake and realize it was all just a dream. My body is drenched in sweat and I kick the covers off. My damp skin meets the nippy fall air, and I shiver, pulling the blanket back up to cover myself.

“You were having a nightmare,” my mother says, and it’s not a question. I’ve had them the last few nights, and I know she is getting concerned. I nod, not really wanting to talk about it.

“You called out for that boy,” Dad tells me, pressing a handkerchief to his nose, and I frown.

“Ryan?” I ask, though I have a sneaking suspicion that wasn’t who I cried out for to protect me.

“The other one,” Mom says, her lips pursed, “the scary one.” I laugh at that, I can’t help it.

“Silas is not scary,” I tell her, and she shrugs, holding on to her opinion.

“What happened to your nose?” I ask my dad when he pulls the handkerchief away and I see the trickle of blood.

“It’s nothing,” he assures me, but I keep staring at him until he cracks. “You elbowed me in the face when you were dreaming,” he admits, and I’m horrified.

“I’m so sorry, Dad!” I gush, leaning forward to see if he’s okay.

“I’ll be fine,” he assures me. “I just need to learn to keep my nose away from you when you’re flailing around like that,” he jokes, and I give him a small smile. The taste of copper in my mouth reminds me that my dad isn’t the only one with an injury from my nightmare, but I keep my mouth shut. I don’t need to give my parents any more cause to worry than they already have.

This might be weird for a sixteen-year-old, but I’ve been sleeping with my parents for the last three nights, ever since I found them. They refuse to let me go, and I’m really not in that much of a hurry either—space is pretty limited here at the cabin, especially with all the extra people. I’ve been sleeping in the middle like I did when I was a little girl and had nightmares about clowns chasing me. I guess it’s fitting since we are all living in a nightmare now.

“Where are you going?” Mom demands when I try to extract myself from the bed. Dad looks around the room, his hand going beneath his pillow to grip the knife that I know he keeps there. It’s so weird to see him with his black, bushy beard, toting around a knife.

“Just the bathroom,” I tell them, knowing that Mom wants nothing more than to trail me across the cabin to make sure I get there safe. “I’m fine, Mom,” I tell her, trying to calm her nerves. It’s been three days and we haven’t seen a single zombie this high up the mountain—besides, I’m just walking across a locked house.

My dad puts a calming hand on her arm, and she gives him a look that is filled with fear. “She’ll be alright,” he assures her, and my mom lets out a huge sigh. “Why don’t you take a look at my nose while she’s gone?” he suggests, and Mom nods grudgingly, already poking at his handkerchief. My dad turns to me and winks. “If you aren’t back in five minutes, I won’t be able to hold her back,” he teases, and I give him a thankful look as I leave the room. He isn’t joking.

I rush through the house, and a shiver runs through my body. It’s so cold now, especially at night. It isn’t so bad tucked into bed underneath all the blankets, but the main area of the house is freezing. I wish I’d thought to grab my coat. I consider going back for it but change my mind. I have limited time alone and I don’t want to waste it.

The bathroom is pitch black; there isn’t even a window to let in a bit of moonlight. I set my flashlight on the counter. It illuminates my face in a super creepy way as I gaze at myself in the mirror. We don’t have heat or electricity, but the cabin does have its own well, so at least we still have indoor plumbing. I stick my tongue out to examine it, but it isn’t bad enough to even see in the dim light, so I rinse my mouth and get on with my life. The toilet seat is so cold that I actually gasp when my butt hits it. Sixteen is too young for hemorrhoids—I hope.

I hear a soft knock at the door, just as I’m washing my hands, and I bite back an annoyed sigh. I love my parents, but that wasn’t even five minutes! I understand where they’re coming from; they don’t want to let me out of their sight. I’m sure that is a perfectly normal response after losing your kid in the zombie apocalypse, but they’re smothering me.

“Mom—” I sigh as I open the door and come face to face with Abby instead. “Sorry,” I tell her. “I thought you were my mo…” I trail off, not really wanting to say the “M” word to my best friend, who lost both of her parents recently. She gives me a small smile that is strained around the edges.

“Hey,” she says, pretending not to notice my slipup. I motion to the bathroom behind me, feeling awkward.

“It’s all yours,” I say unnecessarily as I step out of her way, and she goes in, quietly shutting the door behind her.

I stare at the door for a minute with my lips pursed. I am so grateful she made it. If the world had to go to hell, at least we can be together…but we aren’t all together. Abby’s parents were torn apart that first day, and having my parent’s turn up, both alive and well, has sort of driven a wedge between us. It’s nothing she’s said, but we’ve been friends since we were toddlers. I can tell she’s struggling to be happy for me. I don’t blame her though; I would feel the exact same way if our roles were reversed. I put my hand on the door between us and wish I’d hugged her or something. I promise myself I will do it tomorrow, and then I hustle off to bed.

My mother is pacing when I get back. She pounces on me and wraps me in a great big hug. “I never want to let you go baby girl,” she mutters. Despite how annoying it is, I smile and hug her back. Mom was always warm and loving before, but the zombie apocalypse has driven her to extremes.

“I know, Mom,” I tell her dryly, and Dad chuckles. I crawl into bed and both of my parents wrap their arms around me. I know the way they are acting towards me is only making things worse for Abby. My mom mothers her too, makes sure she eats, asks her how she’s doing… Heck, she even tried getting her to sleep in this room with us, but Abby politely turned her down and chose to bunk with Megan and Sunny in her old bedroom. I close my eyes and listen to my parents fidget. The weight of their arms reminds me of my nightmare…

I make it through the night without dreaming, or busting my dad’s nose again. I wake up alone in the bed and stretch. It feels nice to be alone, but I’m surprised my parents have left me. I roll over and get to my feet. I can hear the quiet hum of voices outside in the kitchen. The room is almost too bright. The adults vetoed Ryan’s garbage bag idea. Once it’s dark, we just try to leave the lights off. I quickly throw on my jeans and a long sleeve shirt, sliding my jacket on over top. My hand goes to my waist where my gun should be, but it’s not there. My parents confiscated it our first day at the cabin. I tried to argue, but my dad was adamant that he could protect me, that I am too young for a gun. I still keep my Crocodile Dundee knife stuck in my boot though. I’d be foolish to be totally unprotected.

I smooth down my jeans, throw my hair up into a messy ponytail, and head out the door. A fire is burning in the enormous stone fireplace in the living room now—we don’t keep it lit at night for fear the smoke will attract the dead. I suspect, once winter hits, we will have to change that rule though.

Everyone is gathered in the living room, spread out across the couches, to stay warm. Mom is handing out steaming bowls of hot oats that she’s mixed with honey. “Good morning, Sweetie,” she says as I take a seat on the floor beside Megan, and I give her a small smile, even though her pet names embarrass me a little. Sergeant Regg looks up with a grin on his face.

“I thought you were going to sleep all day,” he teases me, and I make a face at him.

“What time is it anyway?” I ask, and Ryan is the one that looks down at his wrist watch.

“It’s only eight,” he tells me, and I relax. For a minute Regg had me thinking I’d really slept in.

Barry Walker, an average height guy with glasses who had come all the way from New York with my parents, clears his throat and every eye turns in his direction. “We were discussing a supply run,” he reminds my dad and the Sergeant. Like little boys caught fooling around in class, they both nod in unison and straighten up in their seats.

“Where are you going?” I ask, and Dad shakes his head at me. He doesn’t want me interrupting the adults. I grind my teeth in frustration and glance at Ryan, who looks equally annoyed. Ryan has finished his oatmeal and I rush to gulp the rest of mine down, following him into the kitchen.

“This sucks,” I tell him, and he nods as he washes his bowl in the sink of hot, soapy water that my mom boiled this morning.

“Agreed,” he tells me, holding his hands out for my bowl. I feel a little guilty handing it over.

“It’s like they don’t think we can do anything,” I continue, not able to let it go. Sunny wanders into the kitchen with her own pink, plastic bowl, and Ryan takes it from her hand with a big smile on his face.

“Hey, Sunny Bunny,” he greets her, and I have to stifle a giggle at the nickname.

“What are you guys doing?” Sunny asks, and I shrug.

“Nothing,” I tell her, and I can almost see her eyes glazing over in boredom.

“Megan and Abby said they’d teach me how to play Go Fish,” she tells us as she hugs us both quickly around the waist and skips off in search of people who are more fun than us. I lean on the counter and watch as Ryan finishes washing Sunny’s bowl and sets it on a dish towel to dry.

Silas walks into the kitchen through the back door and doesn’t even glance at me. “Hey,” he greets as he walks over and pours himself a cup of coffee from the metal tin sitting on the small propane camp stove that sits on the counter—without electricity, it’s been a lifesaver.

“Hi,” I say in a pointed tone that has him glancing up at me for a second before turning away again.

“The grown-ups are planning a supply run,” Ryan tells him, using his fingers to air quote grown-ups. Silas snorts, and I grin a little. I guess I’m not the only one that’s been chafing at authority around here lately. I see it though. The three of us made it alone for weeks, crossing a country that was swarming with dead heads trying to eat us at every turn. I think we deserve a little credit.

“I’m gonna go grab a quick shower,” Ryan tells us as he walks towards the door. “We can get the details from Regg later.” I give him a small wave as he disappears out the door, heading to the camper he’s been sharing with Silas and Regg. I’m left alone with Silas. I look at him, but he’s still avoiding my eyes as he sips his coffee.

“I think I’ll go out and bring in some more wood,” he says after a minute, and I’m sure he’s just using it as an excuse to get away from me. He’s been blatantly avoiding me these last few days—ever since he kissed me when we thought we were going to die. Sometimes I almost wonder if Silas would have preferred it that way.

“I’ll come with you,” I offer, not giving him a chance to refuse as I follow him out the door. He sighs heavily like I’m annoying him, but I try not to take it personally. That is just the way Silas is, and I’m done letting him get away with ignoring me. I don’t know what that kiss meant, or what I truly feel for him, but I do know that I’ve come to care about him and despite the way he’s treating me, we are friends. Living through what we did these last couple weeks, relying on Silas and Ryan, not just for companionship during the darkest time of my life, but for my very survival, has formed a bond between the three of us that goes deeper than any other friendship in my life—even Abby.

My parents have forbidden me from going outside alone, and even though I’m not alone, I doubt they had Silas in mind as an acceptable escort when they made that rule. I don’t care though. I’ve been cooped up inside the cabin for three days. The morning is bright and I breathe the scent of pine in deeply, enjoying the sound of the birds chirping merrily in the trees and the sun on my face. It’s like a whole new world up here, so far removed from all the ripping, biting death down below.

Silas is striding off towards the wood shed and I have to jog to keep up. He’s already inside the building, which is about half full of split wood, when I get there. We’ll definitely have to stock this thing up before winter. I watch him throw pieces of wood inside an old wheel barrow that Abby’s parents always kept in the shed for convenience, and my temper snaps. Even though we are the only two people out here, he is still pretending I don’t exist.

“You’re avoiding me,” I say baldly and watch as his back stiffens. For a minute I think he’s going to ignore me again, but he turns around slowly, like it’s paining him to do it.

“What do you want from me Jane?” he asks, and it’s my turn to pause and think. I wasn’t expecting that question. I shrug.

“I definitely want us to go back to the way things were,” I tell him. “Being friends,” I clarify when he doesn’t respond.

“Okay,” he agrees quickly before turning his back on me again and going back to the wood. I watch him with confusion. He’s agreed to my demands, but I feel like nothing has really changed. I start to feel frustration bubble up inside me.

“No,” I say and watch as he turns back around to give me an annoyed look.

“No what?” he demands, and I put my hands on my hips.

“You kissed me,” I accuse, “and now you are avoiding me like some…middle schooler.” Silas actually lets out a humorless laugh at that analogy.

“Are you done?” he asks, effortlessly making me feel like the awkward middle schooler.

“No,” I tell him, refusing to let him cow-toe me into silence. “Why did you do it?” I ask. “Why did you kiss me?” I clarify.

“I knew what you meant,” Silas snaps as he shoves his hands into his pockets in agitation and kicks at a piece of wood on the ground. “Look, Blondie—I’m sorry. I thought we were going to die out there.” I nod. I had thought the same thing. “I just wanted to kiss a pretty girl before I bit the big one, you know?”

“What?” I demand incredulously. That wasn’t what I thought he was going to say at all.

“Yeah,” Silas nods. “And since there wasn’t one of those around, I had to kiss you instead.” My jaw actually goes limp and of all the crazy things, I feel hurt. Silas catches the look on my face and frowns.

“Come on, Blondie, you know I was joking,” he says, and I shrug. Do I really know that? Silas sighs in annoyance again. “You don’t need me to tell you how pretty you are,” he says gruffly, and even in the dim light I can’t help but notice that the tops of his ears have turned pink. I’m shocked, but only for a minute. Then realization dawns on me and I recognize how much I am terrorizing Silas right now with all this kissing talk. An evil idea pops into my head and I can’t ignore it.

I take several steps forward until I’m so close to Silas that I’m crowding him. “What are you doing?” he asks, staring down at me in confusion. I shrug, stand up on my tippy toes, and press my lips to his, and I can actually feel the shock run through his body. He doesn’t pull away though—he kisses me back. I almost allow myself to get caught up in it. It’s as good as I remembered…but I force myself to pull away.

Silas wraps his arms around me and tries to pull me back for another kiss, but I step back. “What are you doing?” he asks, and I shrug casually.

“I just wanted to kiss a good looking boy,” I tell him and watch as he blinks. “And since there were none of those around, I kissed you instead,” I tell him succinctly as I turn and walk towards the door. I look back at Silas and see he is still frozen, right where I left him.

“I guess I deserved that,” he admits, and I flash him a smile as I nod. Silas comes closer and my heart hammers in my chest as I watch him walk up. He puts his hands on my hips and for a brief moment I think he’s going to kiss me again, until I realize he’s feeling up the empty holster around my waist. “What happened to your gun?” he demands, and I almost burst out laughing. Here is the old Silas I have missed.

“My parents took it away,” I admit, feeling like a toddler, and he frowns.

“Are they crazy? Disarming you with all the shit that’s going on?” He looks like he’s about to blow a gasket.

“I still have my knife,” I tell him, lifting my pant leg so he can see the handle sticking out of my boot. He looks a little placated at that.

“Still…you would have a hard time getting that knife out in an emergency,” he tells me, pulling a handgun from behind his back and offering it to me. I stare at the shiny black weapon in his hand; it is identical to the gun my parents confiscated.

“I don’t know if I should,” I admit. I was never a rebellious child.

“Jane. Don’t be an idiot. You know what’s out there. Do you really want to be defenseless?” Silas demands, and I shake my head. I do know what’s out there and I do need protection. My parents mean well, but they think I’m still the peppy cheerleader I was when they left for New York—I wouldn’t have trusted that girl with a loaded gun either. But she is not me. I’ve had training from Silas, and more practice on moving zombie targets than I would like. I know how to handle it safely, and I don’t think I’m a danger to anyone who doesn’t deserve it. My fingers tremble as I reach out and take the gun from Silas’s hand. He’s right.

Silas shows me how to tuck it in the back of my holster and cover the gun with my shirt. “You made the right decision,” he assures me. I smile at him, and he actually smiles back. I wonder if he’s going to kiss me again, but I never get the chance to find out because our moment is interrupted by shrill screams of terror.

Silas whips another gun from his hip and takes off at a run, and I follow without giving it a thought. I almost reach for the gun but decide to go for the knife in my boot instead. I can grab the gun easily enough and if it turns out to be nothing, I don’t want my parents confiscating this one too because sooner or later Silas will run out of handguns to give me.

We round the corner of the cabin and I stop short when I see the zombie growling and hissing as it advances on Abby and Natalie, who must’ve just walked out the front door, neither of them has a weapon. Silas doesn’t hesitate as he raises his gun, and his bullet punches neatly through the monster’s brain. The zombie goes down like a sack of bricks, just as my parents and everyone else comes running out to see what the commotion is all about.

Hank goes running to Natalie and wraps her in a hug. “Are you okay?” he demands, and she manages to nod even though she’s shaking like a leaf. My mom runs over and hugs Abby, and my dad stares at Silas, who still has his gun out and is scanning the area for any more threats. Nothing stirs though, and he tucks his gun back into his holster.

Dad frowns when he sees me standing outside, but he ignores me for a minute and turns to Silas. “Good job, young man,” he says, and I feel a small weight come off my shoulders at my dad’s approval of Silas. Ryan bursts out of the trailer; gun in his hand, with a towel wrapped around his waist and looks around, frowning when he sees the zombie on the ground.

“Damn it. I thought we were safe up here,” he mutters, and it’s an echo of the sentiment we are all feeling.

Damn it.

Chapter Two

“Jane, what on earth are you doing outside?” Mom demands as she comes to stand on the porch beside my father. Her eye snags on the zombie and she gasps.

“I was helping Silas bring in some wood for the fire,” I tell her, and she frowns, though her eyes are glued to the zombie so she isn’t really paying attention to me anymore.

“I didn’t think they could get up here,” she moans. My dad puts his hand on her shoulder and gives her a gentle squeeze.

“We don’t know that they did,” Silas interrupts, and we all turn to stare at him. “This guy is wearing hunting camo,” he explains. “He could’ve been out in the woods hunting when he turned.” Everybody looks immediately relieved by Silas’ logic. “Or he climbed up the mountain,” Silas says, reinforcing the idea that we aren’t safe no matter how this thing got up here.

“We’ll have to beef up security, that’s for sure,” Barry says. I hadn’t even noticed him standing in the doorway behind my parents. “I’ll put it on the list, maybe we can find some building supplies,” he says as he walks away, staring at a piece of paper in his hand.

Mom wrings her hands and motions for me to come inside. I glance at Silas as he starts to drag the zombie away into the forest. “I’ll be fine,” he assures me, waving me away with a grunt, and I’m left with no choice but to follow my mother into the house. I see Ryan coming back out of the trailer fully dressed, and he rushes over to give Silas a hand.

“Are you okay?” I whisper to Abby when I enter the living room and see her sitting on the couch, staring off into space. She nods, and I continue to stare at her until she gives in and makes eye contact.

“That was really close,” she admits, and I let out a shaky breath.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” I tell her. She goes to get up and walk away, but I grab her hand, remembering my pledge to myself last night not to let another day pass before I work things out with Abby. “You know you’re my best friend right?” I ask her, not really sure of anything anymore. Abby and Megan seem to have bonded, and I’m not really sure of my place anymore.

Abby gives me a grief-stricken look. “Of course I know that, Jay.” she says, leaning into me, and tears start to fall down her cheeks. “It’s just so hard…” she trails off, obviously not wanting to say that having my parents turn up alive makes her heart ache even worse that hers will never show up and walk through that door. I nod—she doesn’t have to say it. I understand completely. I sit upright with a gasp, accidentally knocking Abby back on the couch. “What are you doing?” she asks, wiping her eyes as she stares at me. She probably thinks I’ve lost my mind.

“It’s been so crazy since we got here, but I have something for you,” I tell her, remembering the stuff we picked up from her house when we drove through. I feel kind of like a jerk for waiting this long, though I have had a lot on my mind with the zombies and discovering my parents are alive. “Come on,” I tug her to her feet and head for the front door, but she balks.

“We aren’t supposed to go outside, Jane,” she reminds me, and I can see her point. She did just run into a zombie outside these very doors.

“I just have to run out to the RV. I’ll be right back,” I assure her, and she looks indecisive.

“Okay, I’ll come with you,” she relents as she steps up to the door and looks carefully out the window before letting me open it.

The camper is parked in the driveway, and I give a cursory knock but no one answers. “They must be getting rid of the body still,” I tell Abby as I grab the door handle and pull.

“Are you sure you should go inside?” Abby asks hesitantly, and I shrug.

“I’m sure they won’t mind,” I tell her, and she grudgingly follows me inside. I scan the camper; it is a lot messier than the last time I was in here. The boys have their clothes and stuff scattered everywhere. I head to the back bed, and Abby hesitates outside the small sliding privacy door.

“Whose room is this?” she asks, and I shrug. I’m actually not sure. I haven’t been in here since the day we got to the cabin.

“It was mine before,” I tell her, like that will ease her nerves about trespassing. The bottom half of the bed flips up and there is storage underneath. I lift it up, relieved to see my stuff still packed underneath. I pull out the garbage bags filled with Abby’s stuff and pass them over to her. Then I grab my own pink rolling suitcase, and we head for the door.

“What is this?” Abby asks, poking the bags like she expects them to bite her, and I grin.

“A surprise,” I tell her, and she smiles nervously at me.

“I’m not sure about your surprises, Jane,” she tells me, and I laugh. You put a plastic snake in someone’s birthday card one time—and they never let you forget it!

“No snakes,” I promise her as I throw open the door and find Ryan with his hand on the door handle. “Just getting our stuff,” I tell them even though they can see that for themselves. They step out of our way and we make it back to the cabin without incident. I notice that both Ryan and Silas purposely hang around outside the trailer until we are safely back inside.

We drag our stuff upstairs to Abby’s room, and I’m instantly jealous of their space. I need to get away from my parents.

“We have an extra air mattress,” Abby says when she sees me looking around. Megan is sitting on her own air mattress reading a book and Sunny is sitting on a small futon playing with some dolls.

“It’s tempting,” I admit as I follow Abby over to her own bed and we sit down with the bags between us. “Open this one first,” I tell her excitedly as I hand her the bag with her grandmother’s quilt in it. She tears the bag open and goes still when she sees the first piece of material poking out.

“Jane,” she whispers as she touches the quilt gingerly with her fingers. “How did you get this?” she asks, pulling it all the way out of the bag and hugging it to her chest. Her reaction is exactly what I had hoped for, and that makes everything I went through to get it worth it.

“We drove through Pennsylvania on our way back,” I tell her. “I brought you some clothes too,” I say, tossing her the other bag, and she rips it open and dumps it on her bed.

“This is amazing. I never thought I’d see these jeans again,” she exclaims as she hugs her favorite pair of jeans.

“I tried to only grab the stuff that made sense,” I admit, in case she’s pissed I didn’t grab the dress she wore to Jr Prom, or something equally crazy.

“You’re the best,” she tells me as she leaps across the bed and hugs me, and I’m glad we are back to normal. Everything has felt off since we got to the cabin. Abby pulls away and there are tears in her eyes. I know what’s coming before she even asks. “…Did you see them?” she asks, and my heart breaks for her.

Tears well up in my own eyes as I nod, and she starts to sob. I reach into my front suitcase pocket and my fingers find the cold jewelry. I’m suddenly not sure if I should do this or if it will make things worse, but I press it into her palm anyway—I know that I would want it.

Abby wipes her eyes before she looks down. Her hands shake when she sees both of her parents’ wedding rings and the necklace her grandmother always wore before passing it down to Abby’s mother. I took them off their zombie bodies after I got Silas to kill them.

“Oh, Jane,” she whispers before breaking down.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “Maybe I shouldn’t have…”

Abby shakes her head. “No, I’m glad you did.” She takes several deep breaths before she can speak again. “Does this mean that they are...” She can’t bring herself to say it.

“They aren’t zombies anymore,” I tell her, holding her hand. “They’re at peace, and they were together…” She nods as the tears leak down her face. Megan sets her book down and comes over and hugs Abby as well.

“That was really nice, Jane,” Megan tells me, and I duck my head.

“The boys helped,” I admit, feeling uncomfortable getting all the credit.

Megan and I stare down at Abby awkwardly. “Why don’t I show you where that air mattress is?” Megan says, and I leap at the chance to give Abby some time alone.

“Sure, thanks,” I say. I will deal with my mother later. I toss my suitcase in the corner of the room and follow Megan to the hallway closet. It’s jammed full of tennis rackets, extra sheets and blankets, camping gear, board games, and a blue inflatable air mattress on the top shelf, still in the box. I reach up on my tippy toes and grab it.

“Score,” Megan says when we see that it comes with a foot pump.

Sunny looks up from her dolls when we come back in and start setting up the bed. “You’re sleeping with us?” she asks, clapping her hands in excitement and making me smile.

I nod, and Megan and I figure out the pump. We almost have the bed fully pumped up when there’s a knock on the door.

My mom pokes her head in the room with a plate of store-bought cookies on a plate. She frowns when she sees me pumping up the mattress. “I brought you girls a little snack,” she says, coming into the room and setting the cookies down.

Sunny pounces before my mom has barely gotten her hand out of the way. Mom glances over at Abby, who’s curled up with her Gran’s blanket, and looks worried. I shake my head at her, so she won’t go over and start asking her a million questions.

“Can I talk to you for a second in the hall?” Mom asks me, and I nod, grabbing a cookie from the plate as I follow her out.

“Wish me luck,” I mutter to Megan, and Sunny gives me the thumbs up.

I shut the door with a click and lean against the wall. Mom is pacing already. “What’s going on, Jane?” she asks, and I shrug.

“I want to sleep up here with the girls,” I say at last—might as well just rip the Band-Aid off and get it over with. My mom looks instantly hurt, and I feel guilty.

“I don’t know if that’s the best idea, Janey,” she tells me, and I shake my head stubbornly.

“I love you guys and I am overjoyed that we found each other. I was lost when I thought we’d never see each other again,” I tell her, and she starts to well up. “But, I need a bit of space too,” I complain, knowing I sound like a spoiled kid right now, but she’s my mom and I am a kid. “Besides, being upstairs is a lot safer than downstairs,” I point out, and I can see that she is considering my argument. “I’m not a baby,” I say, and she finally nods.

“I know you’re not,” she admits, and I smile. This was a lot easier than I thought it would be. “I will try and loosen the reigns a bit,” she promises, and I give her a big hug.

“Thank you,” I tell her sincerely, and she nods, biting her lip.

“Why don’t you go back and hang out with your friends—you’re all very lucky to have ended up together,” she tells me, and I hug her again, knowing she is thinking about her own best friend. Mom clears her throat. “Why don’t you girls come down in an hour and give me a hand with supper,” she suggests, and I promise that we will.

I go back in the room and give the girls a smile. “I can stay,” I tell them, and Megan and Sunny cheer—even Abby looks up from her bed and smiles a little. I look over the room at my hard won freedom and feel bored. What is there to do?

Megan holds out a magazine to me and I take it, lying down on the inflatable bed so I can spread out and see what the latest Hollywood trendsetters were wearing. They are probably all zombies now, and that thought takes a lot of the fun out of it.

It’s only been a few weeks since the world changed and fell apart, but already it feels wrong to just sit around doing nothing.

I sit and stare at the magazine without really seeing it. My vision blurs and my mind starts to wander…

Abby, shaking my shoulder startles me from my daze, and I look up in surprise. “You’ve been staring at that same page for an hour,” she accuses me, and I give a small shrug.

“Is it already time to go downstairs?” I ask, and she nods. Megan is helping Sunny put away her dolls, so I follow Abby downstairs. There isn’t a lot to do when you don’t have a lot of food. We have the MRE’s, but the “adults” have decided that we don’t want to use them up in case it’s a lean winter. I see their point, but my mouth still waters when I think about the hearty beef stew and chocolate brownie I could be eating.

Mom is boiling pasta on the camp stove when we walk in. I spot a couple jars of spaghetti sauce and some mixed veggies. We mix it all together in an enormous pot. Everyone grabs a plate and forms a line in the kitchen to get their share. We all eat in the living room in front of the huge stone fireplace. The adults claim the couch, and us kids sit cross-legged on the floor. It isn’t the most delicious thing I’ve ever tasted—there isn’t any meat—but it’s hot. I wolf it down so quickly that I burn my tongue, earning a reapproving look from my mom when I yelp, and a grin from Abby. I slow down a bit after that.

“Is everything ready for tomorrow?” Barry asks my dad, and my ears perk up. Dad looks around like he doesn’t want to discuss it here, but he does nod his head.

I watch my mother glance over at my dad, worry etched into every line on her face. “I wish you didn’t have to go,” she whispers, and I avert my eyes so they won’t know I’m eavesdropping.

Dad gives her a sad smile and brushes a finger over her cheek. “You will be safe here with Jane and the girls. Ryan’s offered to stay and watch over them, but I’m afraid Barry wants to take every other able body.” I glance over sharply at Ryan, but he isn’t looking at me; he’s focused on his meal.

I feel an itch that starts at the back of my neck, and I turn to find Silas watching me. My stomach drops, and I’m suddenly not hungry. Ryan will be safe tomorrow, but Silas and my dad will be going down the mountain, back into the fray. Without asking, I already know that I am banned from even thinking about going on this trip. I realize I’ve been staring at Silas, lost in contemplation, when I see him look back down at his dinner, and I quickly look away.

My heart aches. I’ve only just found my dad again, and now he’s leaving. If something happens and they don’t come back, we will never know the details. I push my plate away and stand up, offering my share to Sunny, who takes it with a wide grin on her face. She’s lost a front tooth since we got to the cabin, and it’s utterly adorable. I don’t head back to my room when I go upstairs, instead I detour to the large window at the end of the hall that leads out onto the roof. Abby and I used to sneak out here and watch the stars.

It’s nearly dark, but at least up here I have nothing to fear. The air is cold and I feel it through my jeans as I sit on the shingles and stare out over the rooftop. It used to be relaxing, but now I can’t help wondering what is lurking down in the woods. I hear a scuffling behind me and turn to find Abby climbing through the window.

“I’d almost forgotten about this,” she says as she settles beside me, and we huddle together to keep warm. “Are you okay?” she asks after a minute where neither of us say anything. I think about faking it, but this is Abby. I shake my head.

“Not really,” my voice breaks a little as my fears nearly overwhelm me. “I don’t want them to go,” I say, and Abby grabs my hand and holds it. “Not alone,” I say, “not without me.” Abby looks at me sharply.

“You can’t seriously want to go down the mountain,” she squeaks in shock, and I nod.

“I don’t think any of us want to go, but I can’t help feeling like…if I’m not there to help, something terrible might happen to them.” I take a deep, shuddering breath. “I have to go.” I can tell Abby wants to protest, probably wants to tie me up and lock me in the closet so I can’t go, but she doesn’t say any of that.

“Your dad will never let you go,” she says wisely, and I nod.

“I know.”

We sit together, leaning on one another for warmth and strength until we hear my mom calling our names. We scramble through the window, not wanting her to know about our secret spot. She would probably board the window shut.

We reach the top of the stairs just as she’s starting up the bottom step, and she startles at our sudden appearance. “What were you girls up to?” she asks, and as one Abby and I shrug.

“Just talking,” I tell her. Even though she looks at us suspiciously, she has no proof of anything so she finally nods.

“Why don’t you girls head to bed early tonight? The boys are leaving first thing in the morning and we should all be up to say goodbye.” Her lips purse and I know exactly what she isn’t saying. In case they never come back.

It’s probably only seven, but it’s practically dark now and there is nothing else to do without electricity. Sunny and Megan join us upstairs and none of us really say anything as we get ready for bed. We are all thinking about the trip tomorrow. Megan offered to go, but she was turned down—the funny thing is, with the exception of Silas and Regg, she might actually be the next best shot.

Sunny crawls into bed with me. I use the flashlight to read her a quick story, and she falls asleep with my arm tucked under her head. I don’t mind though, it’s already freezing and her extra body heat helps.

It doesn’t feel like I’ve even fallen asleep, or maybe I did doze off, when a scream echoes through the house and my eyes pop open. I sit upright in bed, accidentally shaking Sunny. “What’s going on?” she whimpers, and I shake my head before realizing that it is too dark for her to see.

“I don’t know,” I tell her as I climb out of bed and reach for the pistol that I’ve hidden on the top of the bookshelf, where Sunny won’t be able to easily find it.

Abby and Megan are awake now too, and we all shudder when we hear the screams again. They are definitely male, and whoever is screaming is in horrible pain.

“Who is that?” Megan hisses in the darkness. No matter how hard I try and listen, I can’t recognize the agonized shouts. It could be anyone I care about: my dad, Silas, Ryan, or even Sergeant Regg.

“Do you think they got into the house?” Abby asks. “The zombies,” she clarifies, though none of us need any clarification. Her question makes Sunny start to cry. Abby apologizes and gives the little girl a hug.

I pace back and forth with my gun in my shaking hands. I don’t know what is on the other side of that door, but the screams sound close—definitely upstairs with us.

“Do you still have a gun?” I ask Megan, and I hear the click of her weapon in response. “Okay.” I take a deep breath and slowly release it as I grab the flashlight off the shelf and click it on. “Stay here with Abby and Sunny and shoot anything dead that tries to come through this door,” I instruct her. In the flashlight glow, I see that her eyes are focused and sharp as she gives a curt nod.

“You can’t go out there,” Abby protests as I reach for the door knob, but Megan answers for me.

“Someone has to go see what’s happening, we can’t depend on anyone outside this room because we don’t know who is still alive…” she trails off. I swallow as I yank the door open and emerge into the freezing cold hallway.

I shine my light back and forth, praying that I haven’t just thrust myself out into the middle of a zombie horde roaming the hall. Nothing looks disturbed. I hear the scream again, though now it’s really more of a gurgling plead for mercy, and my eyes narrow in on its source. I get a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach when I recognize the room belonging to Natalie and Hank.

I take one tentative step forward, but stop when I hear pounding footsteps coming up the stairs. I whirl around as my parents and Barry reach the top step. They are all still human, so I lower the light from their eyes and my gun from their faces.

“Are you okay?” my mother shrieks. She should really be quieter, but panic has set in and I know there is no point reasoning with her.

I nod. “I am.” The hallway is silent now, and I know nobody else knows where to look. “It came from Hank and Natalie’s room.” I tell them, and all three of them wince. Pregnant Natalie—this can’t be good.

Barry is the first one to recover as he strides to the door and knocks loudly. “Everything alright in there?” he demands, and we all wait with baited breath to hear a response. The angry moan of a zombie answers us back, and then we hear the terrible sound of fingernails scratching against the wood of the door. Even Barry takes a step backwards.

“They’ve turned,” he says unnecessarily, and my mom starts to cry. Megan pokes her head out of the room and I point towards the door, the look on my face telling her everything she needs to know. Megan blinks a couple of times and then ducks back into the room, and I almost wish I had stayed there too.

The moan of a flesh eater comes again, and my dad turns towards me. “Please take your mother and get out of here,” he begs me, and I nod, surprising him. I grab Mom’s hand and pull her into my bedroom, making sure to knock and announce myself first—I don’t want Megan accidentally shooting us in the face.

I sit with my mom as she struggles to stay strong for our sakes. Megan, Abby, and I are all doing the same thing for Sunny. After a few moments, we hear the door being broken in and then two quick gun shots. There is a bunch of shouting between Barry and my dad, and then the rapid firing of a pistol until it clicks empty. It doesn’t last longer than a minute, and then there is absolute silence. I pull my hand from my mom’s and stand up. “Jane, don’t,” Mom warns me, but I ignore her.

“I’m just going to peek out and make sure they’re okay,” I tell her as I ease the door open and peer out into the hall. I see Dad and then Barry emerge from the room, and I run to my dad and embrace him. He’s pale and shaking and I squeeze him tighter, trying to give him an anchor.

“Stay away, Jane, you don’t want to see it,” Dad warns me, and I nod. I’ve already seen too much carnage, and I’m sure I will not escape this life without seeing a bunch more. There is no reason to go looking for it unnecessarily.

A pounding from downstairs makes me jump, and my dad squeezes me even closer. “I suspect that’s the boys, and they’ve heard the gun shots,” Barry says, sounding like he doesn’t have a care in the world as he takes off down the stairs to let them in.

Chapter Three

“Keep your mom in the room with you, would you?” Dad asks as he reluctantly pulls away and pushes me towards the bedroom door. I give a nod and watch as he takes off down the stairs before I leave the doorway and creep forward to crouch at the top of the stairs to eavesdrop down below. Ryan, Silas, and the Sergeant are standing in the living room with my dad and Barry.

“How did this happen?” Regg demands, running his hand through his short brush cut in agitation.

“It looks like Natalie was the first one to turn and she ate Hank alive,” my dad informs them quietly, so quietly that I have to strain my ears to hear. I bite back my frustration at the softness of his voice. This is pretty sexist, the women being confined to their rooms while the men gather below and take care of us.

“How did she turn though?” Ryan asks in confusion, and I am wondering the same thing.

“She must’ve been bitten or scratched today when they ran into that zombie outside,” Silas says, and it makes sense. I feel my heart sink. I can’t believe Natalie didn’t tell anyone, although I guess I can see where she wouldn’t want a bunch of strangers to put her down, especially with a baby to think about. Maybe she thought she would be able to fight the virus off. Now that I think about it, Natalie and Hank hadn’t come down for supper—Hank must’ve been covering for her. I shake my head. Natalie and the baby were a tragedy, but Hank didn’t have to die too.

“We should take advantage of this and make an early start,” Barry interrupts, drawing everyone’s eye to him.

I watch Sergeant Regg check the watch on his wrist. “It’ll still be dark for a good bit yet,” he protests, and Barry nods.

“It will, but dawn should be breaking by the time we reach the bottom of the mountain. We have the opportunity to bug out quicker, have more daylight to gather supplies, and get back sooner.” He pauses and looks at each man in turn. “Will any of you be able to get back to sleep tonight anyway?” he challenges them, and even I shake my head.

“What about the bodies?” Silas asks, and Barry nods towards Ryan.

“This one is staying back to guard the women. He can pick one of them to help him clear out the room.”

“What happened to the baby?” Ryan asks a few minutes after Barry turns away and begins to make plans with my dad and Silas.

Barry turns around with a sigh, like he wishes Ryan hadn’t asked that question. “Once the mother was gone, we could see it squirming around underneath her skin—it looked like her belly was possessed,” Barry says, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

“You couldn’t save it?” Ryan demands, and Barry and my dad both shake their heads.

“It was obvious the baby turned when the mother did,” my dad manages to choke out.

“How could you possibly know that?” Silas asks, and I watch my dad grow even paler.

“We could hear it growling through the womb and see it trying to claw its way out,” Barry says, his words painting an image I will never be able to forget. “I emptied my bullets into her belly, and that was the end of it,” Barry says, his voice firm and final. No one in the room asks anymore questions.

Barry turns back to Silas and my dad, and I see Ryan glance up to the top of the stairs. I have to quickly duck out of the way so he won’t see me. I decide to head back into the room and wait with everyone else. My eye catches the doorway that leads into the carnage as I walk back, and I feel my stomach churn. Maybe my parents are right—there is some stuff I just shouldn’t know.

My mom has calmed down and is sitting on the bed, talking quietly with Megan and Abby. Sunny has somehow managed to fall back asleep. “What’s going on out there?” Mom asks when I creep in. The room is dark, but they’ve left the flashlight on for a little bit of light.

“It sounds like they are going to leave pretty soon,” I confide in them, and my mom gets to her feet.

“What?” she demands. “But it’s still the middle of the night!”

“Barry says if they leave now they will reach the bottom of the mountain by sunrise and will be home sooner,” I tell her, even though technically I’m not supposed to be privy to any of this.

My mom deflates. It’s like she wants to protest but knows it’s not a bad idea. “I guess we should go say goodbye then,” she says hollowly, and I nod as I watch them all file out.

“I’ll be right there,” I tell them. Abby gives me a funny look, but I purposely ignore it. I sit on my bed and really try to think about what I’m going to do. On one hand, I should probably stay and do as my parents tell me—I know that is what both of them want—but I just don’t think I can. To them I will always be their little girl, someone they want to protect and keep safe, but it’s a new world and keeping me hidden away doesn’t guarantee my safety. Ryan will be safe enough here at the cabin, and I am so thankful for that, but what about my dad… and Silas. I will be worried sick about them the entire time they are gone, and if anything happens to them, I know I will always wonder if I could have changed the outcome.

“Damn it,” I mutter to myself as I stand up, having made my decision, and grab a pen and paper from Abby’s desk.

Mom,

I’m so sorry but I couldn’t stay. I have to make sure Dad will be alright. I love you, please don’t come looking for me. I will be back tonight with everyone else.

Jane

I stare at the paper and feel my stomach twist with anxiety. I am not sure what my parents will do to me for disobeying. Can I even be grounded in the zombie apocalypse? What would they possibly take away from me that hasn’t already been taken away by the zombies? Whatever they decide to do, I know it won’t be good. I steel my nerve and grab my backpack. It’s loaded with supplies and is ready to go in case we ever need to bug out quickly—Silas made sure I kept it packed and ready. I’m already wearing my coat. It’s so cold at night that it isn’t suspicious. I slip it off and throw an extra sweater on underneath, and then I slip out of the room. I have my gun tucked away, and my knife in my backpack.

I go straight down the hallway to the window that leads out onto the roof and creep towards the edge, dropping my backpack into a clump of bushes, and then I take off running to join the others. “There you are,” Dad says, forcing a smile when he sees me coming down the stairs. “I thought you’d fallen asleep again,” he teases, and I give him a half-assed attempt at a smile. Like anyone, except for Sunny, could sleep around here tonight.

“Nope,” I tell him as I give him a tight hug.

“Everything will be alright, sweetie,” Dad tells me, and I nod.

“I know it will,” I tell him, and I pray that will be the truth.

I look over at Ryan, who is standing towards the back with Abby and Megan, and I make my way towards him.

“I feel like crap staying behind while they are out there risking their lives,” he admits the second I get close enough to hear him. I nod. I know this has to be hard for him, but he probably volunteered to stay behind to protect me.

“You’re making the right decision,” I tell him and give him a big hug. He doesn’t know it right now, but I’m also saying goodbye to him. “Protecting our home is just as important as going out to find supplies for it,” I murmur as I move away. It’s good advice and I wish that I could take it, but Ryan doesn’t have family going out there today—I do.

I come up beside my mom and wrap her in a huge hug. “Dad will be okay,” I promise her, and she sends me a wan smile that I know she is just putting on for show.

“Of course he will,” she tells me fiercely, and I plant a kiss on her cheek.

“I love you, Mom,” I tell her, and she finally looks at me.

“I love you too, Janey,” she says as she gives my arm a final squeeze before moving forward to give my dad another hug goodbye. I look around; no one is watching me, so I take the opportunity to slip away. I stroll casually to the kitchen until I’m out of sight, and then I run as fast as I can to the back door. My hands are shaking with adrenaline and they fumble the lock my first try, but I get it with the second twist. I make sure to carefully turn the knob to lock it behind me, and then I’m running in the darkness. It’s pitch black, but I know my way like the back of my hand. I just have to hope that I don’t run into anything lurking around out here. I race around the side of the house as quietly as I can, stopping to grab my backpack from the bush.

I see the truck we drove up here in is running, warming its engine in the cold morning, as well as two other vehicles. They must each be taking a vehicle so they can bring back the most amount of stuff. There is still one more car, but it isn’t running and I know they are probably leaving it for the others, in case they need to escape quickly.

I jog over to the F-150 and try the back door. It’s unlocked and I climb in, just about having a stroke when the interior light comes on. I quickly shut the door as hard as I dare and throw myself down onto the floor, staring up at the light and cursing its existence. My heart beats erratically until the light finally starts to fade and finally goes out completely. I let out a sigh of relief and then lay back and wait, shifting uncomfortably. I should’ve taken my backpack off first, but I didn’t. Now I’m laying here like a turtle flipped over on its shell, and it is not comfortable.

I wiggle, trying to find a better spot, and almost consider getting up to remove my backpack, but I hear the crunch of shoes on gravel and that gets my heart beating like crazy again. I close my eyes and pray it’s Silas, and that he doesn’t have anything he needs to put in the backseat. I can’t have him discovering me until it’s too late to turn around. The sound of footsteps gets louder and my crazy brain suddenly thinks of something else—what if it isn’t Silas at all? What if it’s a zombie?

I shake my head in the dark; I’m being ridiculous. If it’s a zombie, I’m relatively safe inside the truck, unless it’s a horde, and so high up on the mountains that is just as unlikely. The door opens, and I have to resist the urge to let out a squeak as my adrenaline kicks into overdrive. I hold my breath and stare at the back of the seats as the light comes on, making spots of light blur my vision. I slam my eyes shut and command myself not to move. I hear rustling, like a backpack being thrown into the passenger seat, and then the door is slammed shut and the light slowly fades again.

I feel better when the cab is bathed in darkness again—but not much better. I hear Silas rolling the window down, and then the cold air is rushing in as he leans out and talks to somebody.

“I’ll just follow you then,” Silas shouts across the driveway. I hear someone, maybe Barry, reply with a grunt of agreement. The sound of engines revving and tires crunching on the rocky, uneven driveway is all I can hear. Silas rolls his window up, puts the truck in drive, and we’re off. This is it, I’ve pulled it off, and it’s too late to turn back now.

It’s slow going down the mountain in the darkness—and super bumpy. Almost immediately, my back starts to ache from the uncomfortable way I’m laying, thanks to my backpack. Every pothole we hit makes me want to groan, but I keep my mouth shut. Having Silas mistakenly shoot me because he thinks I’m a zombie moaning and groaning back here, is at the very bottom of my bucket list.

I almost give myself up to Silas about a hundred times, but I chicken out at the last minute. The terrain is so rough and bumpy, and to make it worse, the heat vent is blowing directly on me. It’s blistering hot, and soon I’m a disgusting ball of sweat beneath all my layers. At one point, Silas opens his window a bit and I get the tiniest glimpse of cool air, but he still leaves the heat cranked. It makes me want to jump up and scream at him to turn it off! God, why doesn’t he lower the heat? He has to be just as hot as I am.

I lose track of time, but it feels like a year has passed. Finally, Silas steps on the brakes far more aggressively than necessary, making me roll forward and smack against the front seat. I hold my breath, hoping he didn’t feel it. “Alright, Blondie. You can come out now.” His voice rings through the cab and I freeze, not sure if I should give up my position or not. “Oh come on, I know you’re there,” he says with a chuckle as the truck turns a corner and takes off at a much smoother gait. We must’ve reached the main road at the bottom of the mountain. I glance out the window and see that it’s still dark, but the first few streaks of light are starting to pierce the gloom. “Jane?” Silas calls again. I let out the deep breath I’ve been holding and start to sit up.

“How long have you known?” I ask as I scramble into the backseat and shuck off my backpack and coat to finally gain some sweet relief. Silas starts to laugh.

“I knew from the beginning,” he admits, casting me an evil smile in the rear-view mirror. “Why do you think I made sure to hit every pothole on the way down that godforsaken mountain?” It’s too much. I reach out and slap him on the arm, making him laugh harder.

Even though it’s better with my coat off, the heat is still blowing full blast on my leg, so I climb clumsily into the front seat, launching Silas’ backpack into the back with my own. I slap the heat off, making Silas laugh again. “You did that on purpose,” I accuse him, and he doesn’t confirm or deny it. “If you knew from the beginning, why did you make me ride all the way down here on the floor?” I ask, and he stops laughing.

“Because, Jane. We are a team, and you tried to get one over on me,” he says, and I know that he’s actually kind of pissed off.

“Why didn’t you turn me in?” I ask, not really sure what to expect from him. Silas shrugs.

“For the same reason. We are a team,” he says, and I feel my anger at him melting away. “You have just as much right to help out your family and risk your life as any one of us.” He looks over and sees me grinning at him in the gray morning light. “Don’t read too much into this, you still have some work to do before you’re Annie Oakley, but you can handle yourself as well as anyone else.”

“Thanks,” I tell him, meaning every syllable. Only Silas would be this chill about me coming along. Even Ryan would have marched me back up the mountain to the cabin if he’d been here. I think back over Silas’ explanation and realize he never did tell me how he knew I was in here. “Did you see me get in, or something?” I ask, and he shakes his head.

“No, you actually kept pretty quiet,” he says as he continues to stare at the road. It almost appears like he isn’t going to answer, but I am used to Silas by now; he just needs some more time. “I knew when you didn’t say goodbye to me,” he says, sounding awkward. I smile, glad that he knows I would’ve said goodbye to him if I’d had any intention of letting him go out on his own. “I was watching you, and you said goodbye to your dad for show,” he says with a chuckle. “But then you hugged Ryan and your mom, and that’s when I knew,” he sounds like a proud detective who just uncovered the mystery plot.

“Well look at you,” I tell him, and he chuckles.

“One thing I can’t figure out though,” he says, and I look over at him, surprised Silas is willing to admit that he doesn’t know everything. “How did you get your backpack out of the house?” He asks the question I had least been expecting.

“I dropped it off the roof into some bushes and picked it up on my way by,” I admit, and he gives me a sideways look that actually appears a little proud.

“Well look at you,” he says, mimicking my words to him from a few moments ago. “Your dad’s gonna be pissed though,” he warns me, and I nod.

“I know,” I tell him. I knew he would be, and I’m willing to take the punishment.

Silas surprises the hell out of me by reaching over and grabbing my hand off of my lap and holding it. His hand is warm and rough with calluses. I stare straight ahead, feeling a flush come over my entire body as I give in to my urges and squeeze his hand back.

“So where are we going?” I ask after a few minutes when I start to feel the silence get heavy and awkward.

“Barry is sending us to a small town about forty-five minutes from the base of the mountain.” He pulls a piece of paper out of his pocket and hands it over to me. I unfold it and find a map. The small town is called Wheeley, and I feel my stomach dip.

“I know this place and it isn’t that small,” I tell him, making Silas glance over at me sharply.

“How big do you figure?” he asks after a moment, and I shrug.

“I don’t know but they are big enough to have a Wal-Mart.” I say, making Silas curse under his breath.

“This is gonna be a shit show,” he tells me, and I can’t help but agree.

We start to see more and more signs of humanity—or what’s left of it—the closer we get. All the houses look abandoned and dark, garbage litters the streets, and abandoned cars and trucks are everywhere, left with their doors wide open, or worse, closed with zombies inside, scratching at the windows. There is even a burnt up dark thing on the horizon. “What is that?” I ask Silas, pointing it out. It’s too oddly shaped to be a building, but too large to be a truck, car, or even a bus.

Silas looks where I’m pointing and squints. “I believe that’s an airplane,” he says, and I feel sick as I take in the size of it. Now that he’s said so, I can see that he’s right.

“It looks like it was a big one,” I say quietly, and Silas nods.

“A 747, at least,” he agrees, and I can’t help thinking about all the people who must’ve died even way up in the air. If even a handful of the people on the airplane turned from having the rare blood type, it would’ve been a slaughter. Nobody would’ve known what the zombies were at first, and there probably weren’t any weapons either, since you aren’t allowed anything even remotely dangerous on a plane… Silas squeezes my fingers gently, pulling me from my dark thoughts.

I blink and look around, purposely avoiding looking back in the mirror at the plane. I don’t know why, out of everything, the plane crash is hitting me so hard—probably because I used to be terrified to fly. More and more zombies are visible now, roaming the ditches and roads in their tattered, dirty clothes, and equally tattered and dirty skin. I avert my eyes from a particularly gruesome looking lady in a pink sun dress. “Man, I forgot how terrible they were,” I admit to Silas. Being up on the mountain top, even for those few days, had really made me forget what it was like down here on the ground.

“Wishing you hadn’t come?” Silas asks, and even though I kind of am, I shake my head. I would do it all again, even though I realize nobody in their right mind would choose to come back down to all of this if they didn’t have to. I gently pull my hand from Silas’ as we pull into the Wal-Mart parking lot behind the other two vehicles, and I know my time for reckoning is coming up.

I watch as the doors of the other vehicles burst open and Barry, my dad, and the Sergeant emerge with their guns up and ready. Dad’s eyes are sharp and he does nearly a one hundred and eighty degree turn before his eyes land on me. His gun sags in his hand when he sees me. My dad is not an angry man, but the only way I can think to describe the look on his face right now is rage. He marches over and pulls my door open angrily.

“Jane, what in the hell are you doing here?”

Chapter Four

I’m not prepared when Dad grabs me around the wrist and yanks me angrily from the truck. I stumble when my feet hit the ground but manage to right myself. Silas is out of the truck in a flash and in my dad’s face. “Let her go,” he demands, halting my father’s movements as he attempts to drag me across the parking lot.

“Stay out of this son,” my dad tells him, but Silas doesn’t listen. His hands lock onto my dad’s wrist where he’s got a hold of me. I can tell he must be squeezing because my dad suddenly releases me, his face going pale.

“What were you thinking bringing her?” my dad demands, turning his anger on Silas, but I don’t give Silas time to answer.

“It wasn’t his fault.” I defend. “I hid in the back until it was too late for him to turn around.” My dad’s face turns even stormier at my words.

“Do you have any idea what your mom must be going through right now?” he asks, his question making me feel a wave of guilt crash down over top of me.

“What in the hell is going on over here?” Barry demands, storming up with a look of anger that rivals my dad’s.

“Jane snuck into the truck–” my dad starts to tell him, but Barry cuts him off.

“I don’t give a crap about that!” he whispers angrily. “You three are going to attract every zombie within a five mile radius if you don’t shut the hell up.” His words make the anger leach from my dad’s face and he looks, if anything, like a dog that’s just been kicked in the guts by someone he trusted. I feel awful for putting him through this—maybe me coming along is actually more dangerous for him after all.

“Sorry,” Dad says, making me feel even worse. “I need her out of here though. Silas, take her back,” he demands in a whisper this time, but Barry shakes his head.

“We can’t spare the man. She’s here now, she stays,” he orders in a clipped tone, and I can tell Dad wants to argue, but further discussion is cut short when we hear the moans of the dead. “Damn it,” Barry mutters as we all bring our guns up. Silas reaches into the back of the Ford and grabs both of our backpacks, handing me mine, and I shoulder it.

I dig my knife out and tuck it at my waist before pulling my gun out and double checking the clip. I catch my dad staring at the gun. It makes me want to apologize for having it despite his objections, but there isn’t time, and it would be crazy to remain unarmed. “Incoming,” Silas mutters as the crowd of zombies becomes visible. They are rounding the edge of the Wal-Mart and I feel my stomach quiver—I haven’t missed this. There are at least twelve of them, but they are still far enough away, and slow enough, that we should be able to pick them off.

We spread out a little, and Silas starts firing into the crowd. For every shot he takes, a zombie falls to the ground. Sergeant Regg joins in and his shots are just as accurate. Their muzzled pistols let out a faint pop, pop, pop, and the zombies fall to the cement with an audible thunk, but other than that it’s my own heartbeat that is roaring in my ears.

I step away from the others and raise my gun. Even though I haven’t fired it in nearly a week, it’s just as I remember. I luck out and hit the first zombie in the head, dropping it. I can feel my dad’s eyes burning into the back of my head, and it shakes my confidence a little. I miss the next zombie and hit it in the stomach instead. It doesn’t even slow down as black starts to slowly ooze from the wound to stain his already horribly stained shirt. I take a deep breath and realign my shot. My zombie is an older man, who might have been nice in life, but now he looks horrible with dried blood smearing his chin, blank eyes, and chomping, broken teeth encrusted with gore. He’s also wearing a fedora, which I find odd. How the heck did he manage to keep it on through turning into a zombie and then wandering around for who knows how long? My shot is true this time and pierces his cheek; he falls back and the jaunty fedora finally falls off his head to be crushed beneath the foot of the next zombie in line.

I feel a hand clamp on my shoulder and I jump, spinning to find my dad. He motions for me to follow him and Barry, leaving Silas and Regg to finish up the remaining zombs. I glance at Silas and he gives me the nod—he will catch up—there are only a few left anyway. I stick close to Dad’s side as I jog across the few feet of parking lot that separate us from the front doors of the Wal-Mart.

The thought of going inside is terrifying. The doors are shut firmly and, without electricity, they don’t automatically open when we walk up. “Let’s hope this place was closed when shit hit the fan,” Barry mutterers as he lifts a crowbar I hadn’t noticed him carrying, and he starts prying the doors apart. I turn away from what he’s doing to watch our backs and make sure Silas and Regg are alright. They are jogging towards us, having finished with the mini horde. Despite the imminent danger, I let out a small sigh of relief.

“This is risky,” Silas mutters as he crowds in close to me and turns to the parking lot to keep an eye on things. The parking lot is deserted, save for six vehicles, counting our own, littered across the empty lot. I stare at them and agonize over how they got there. I am reminded of the mall, where the people saved our lives and then stole our truck. I just hope that if there are occupants inside, they are of the breathing variety. We will be far less trusting this time around.

Regg nods his head in response to Silas’ statement. “Yeah, man. You made this sound like we’d be emptying out mom and pop grocery stores in some one-horse town,” he accuses, but Barry ignores him. He almost has the doors open and, with a final grunt of effort, they start to slide. We squeeze inside and Barry lets the doors shut behind us with a resounding snap. Being locked inside with who knows what isn’t exactly a pleasant thought.

“Are we sure this is a good idea?” I ask as we creep forward towards the second set of doors.

“Because you’re the one with good ideas?” Barry mocks as he uses his crowbar to pry open the second set of doors. It isn’t as difficult the second time around, or maybe it just seems that way because the walls on either side of us give the appearance of safety.

The doors slide open. This time Barry props them open with shopping carts, and we pass through useless theft detectors. “Grab as much as you can, we need to stock up for winter, think things like food and medical supplies.” Barry stops, his eyes landing on me. “Since you’re here, you can take care of the feminine hygiene products,” he assigns, and I grit my teeth in annoyance. “We need to break up into teams."

“Jane is with me,” my dad interrupts.

“I’m not leaving her either,” Silas says, eying my dad with a look of challenge.

“Well, aren’t you the popular one,” Barry sneers, and I’m starting to get the impression that this guy doesn’t like me. “Very well, I’ll take Chad.” I blink for a minute, not really sure who he is talking about. Sergeant Regg steps forward and I feel like a total dummy—of course—Regg isn’t the Sergeant’s first name.

“Move out,” Barry snaps as we all head for the cart corral and take as many as we can. Silas, Dad, and I each grab a cart that we push inside another cart, and we start off towards the left-hand side, while Barry and Regg take the right.

This reminds me a bit of the time Ryan and I broke into that pharmacy, and it makes me shiver. Even though that was the defining moment that led to me meeting Silas, I never want to repeat nearly being eaten alive, jumping through a window, and almost bleeding to death in an alley!

“Keep your eyes peeled,” Dad warns us unnecessarily, and we all nod, not saying anything as we head further into the store. It’s instant darkness as soon as we move away from the doors and around the corner, and Silas brings out his flashlight and snaps it on. It makes me want to jump out of my skin. Every time we are forced to use flashlights in the dark, I can’t help but feel like a giant zombie magnet.

“I know you hate this,” Silas murmurs so quietly that I almost don’t hear him, and he reaches out and pats me on the shoulder. “Buck up,” he tells me, and I have to smile despite the seriousness of the situation. Just because Silas let me come along on this trip and even held my hand in the truck, doesn’t mean there will be any hand holding for me now. I like him this way though; he makes me feel like I’m tough enough to do this. If someone like Silas can believe in me, then I should believe in myself.

I reach into my pocket and pull out my own flashlight, shining it down the rows of cosmetics. If Silas is going to light the place up, I might as well see what’s coming at me in the dark too. The slight squeak of the cart wheels is the only things that makes any noise—I don’t think any of us are even breathing as we strain our ears for any sign of danger.

The openness of the store has me jumpy, but we move as one in a pretty tight trio. I look right, Silas looks left, and my dad walks backwards with his back pressed against mine, watching the rear. We are all pushing shopping carts, so I hope those will act as a bit of a buffer between us and any zombies lurking around in the dark. We reach the aisle with the feminine products, and I blush as Silas looks at me expectantly. I can practically feel him mentally telling me to hurry up. I step forward and stare at the wall of boxes and freeze. It doesn’t help that Silas and my dad are watching me so closely that I can feel their eyes burning into the back of my neck as I stand there. Silas steps forward with a cart and uses his arm to sweep an entire shelf of boxes into the cart. He moves the cart forward a bit and does the same with another shelf until the cart is piled high with boxes. “There,” he says matter-of-factly as he heads down the aisle towards the end, and I’m grateful to him, and also impressed by his willingness to deal with this stuff.

We find a bit more room to squeeze in toothbrushes, toothpaste, deodorant, and as many bottles of Tylenol, shampoo, cold medicine, bandages, disinfectant, and vitamins as we can fit. Silas hands me the overflowing cart and I take over as we leave the aisle. I round the corner and slam into a solid mass, letting out a little squeak of surprise. Silas lifts his gun and his flashlight and illuminates a rotting pile of flesh.

The zombie growls and reaches across the cart, trying to swipe at me. Silas moves quickly, popping him right between the eyes. The zombie stinks, and I’m surprised we didn’t smell him well before I ran into him with the cart. I glance down at the gummy mess he’s made on the edge of the cart and wince. Silas shines his light down on the zombie. He’s wearing the iconic blue vest and happy face sticker of a Wal-Mart employee. “I guess now we know we aren’t alone,” Silas says, and it sounds super creepy the way he says it, making goose bumps pop out all over my body.

The shelf beside me is loaded with paper towels. I tear open a bag and use some to wipe the zombie goop off the cart. Silas and my Dad watch me in silence, though I can feel their judgment. “I don’t want it to leak onto our stuff,” I defend myself, and Dad nods like he agrees, but Silas just rolls his eyes at me. I toss the half-used roll into the cart and dump the garbage on the floor. There is a rotting corpse down there, a little paper towel won’t make any difference. We keep moving and, even though we were being cautious before, we are a thousand times more careful now. Across the store, we hear a clattering, like something falling off a shelf, and we all stare in that direction before Silas pushes us to keep moving.

“What if they need help?” I whisper, and Silas shakes his head.

“I’m sure they would have yelled out,” he says stubbornly, making perfect sense, and I give in and start pushing the cart forward again. “The middle is usually the food area,” Dad says as he steers us towards the middle section. I can tell he’s right by the smell of rot that permeates my nose as soon as we get close to the rows of large freezers with glass doors.

“Let’s skip this part and head to dry goods,” Silas suggests as we skirt around the rotting vegetables and meat. I can still smell it from the next aisle over, so I pull up the bandana at my neck to try and block out the stench. Silas reaches into my cart, pulls out a little jar of Vicks, and dabs it on my bandana. The smell of menthol permeates my senses, and I take a deep breath of relief. I won’t be able to smell the zombies now, but we really couldn’t before anyway, with all the other things that are rotting in this store. Silas dabs some on his own bandana and offers the tube to my dad. My dad doesn’t have a bandana, but he dabs a little under his nose with a nod of thanks, and Silas tosses the small container into the cart. I hadn’t realized this neat trick before, but I promise myself, if I survive this grocery trip from Hell, I’m going to carry some with me from now on. I reach into the cart and pull the bottle of Vicks out—why wait—there are at least seven other bottles in the cart, so I slip the container into my pocket.

I hear Silas snort in amusement at my antics, but I ignore him. We’ve reached the cereal aisle and I run forward and grab my favorite box, adding it to the cart. “That is fine, but we need stuff that is going to last longer,” Dad tells me.

“Like what?” I ask when both him and Silas pass right by the cereal.

“Like this,” Silas says, reaching down onto the bottom shelf and grabbing all the boxes of oatmeal and piling them in the cart. I make a face.

“I’m not really a fan of oatmeal,” I can’t help saying.

My dad opens his mouth to reproach me, but Silas beats him to it. “Are you a fan of starving to death?” he demands, making my dad’s mouth lift at the corners in humor for a minute before he gets control of himself. Like many times before, I ignore Silas and keep moving.

“Sugar,” Silas says, pointing to the shelf, and I stack in several bags while Silas and my dad keep an eye on either side of the aisle. “Okay, what else?” I start to ask, but end my question with a scream when a hand reaches out from the bottom shelf and grabs my ankle.

“What in the hell?” Silas says as he shines the light down at my feet. The light doesn’t help waylay my fears. It illuminates a rotting gray hand clamped firmly around my ankle. The arm is covered in bite marks in so many places that it’s almost skeletal. The zombie has his grip on my hiking boot, so I’m not super scared of getting a scratch, but I know that the longer he holds on, the more my chances increase. Dad is moving in, a horrified look on his face, but I know I’ve got this. I lift my free foot up and stomp down hard on the zombie’s arm. It takes a couple tries, but finally the bones snap and the zombie’s grip loosens. I shake him off and step back, and Silas uses the end of his flashlight to knock a couple of the boxes out of the way, revealing the sorriest looking zombie I’ve ever seen. It looks like he was chewed pretty badly, like really bad, as he’s actually just a torso with more holes in him than a block of Swiss cheese.

“Yikes,” Silas says as he uses his foot to kick the zombie off the bottom shelf. The zombie is weakly swiping at us, with no real effort, and Silas doesn’t even waste a bullet on him. He takes a page out of my book and stomps his skull. I look away when his skull finally gives and his liquefied brains spill out onto the floor.

“Jesus, you two,” Dad mutters under his breath, and I think he’s finally getting the picture that Silas and I can actually take care of ourselves. We keep moving and throw a bunch more stuff into the carts, canned goods, power bars, and most of the staples like flour, powdered milk, and sugar. Our carts are loaded and difficult to push as we start to loop around and head back towards the front door. It hasn’t felt like we’ve been here all that long, but according to Silas’ watch we are approaching the second hour. We haven’t seen any other zombies. Even though I refuse to relax my guard, I do calm down a little as we go along and nothing happens.

We wind our way back to the front and find that Barry and Regg—I still can’t think of the Sergeant as Chad—are already back. They have backed the truck up through the doors so the pickup box is hanging into the first set of doors. Silas winces when he sees the doors snapped closed against the sides of the truck, though I guess in a world filled with zombies, appearances aren’t that important anymore. Barry and Regg have the box filled three quarters full with the gear they’ve collected.

“Finally,” Barry snaps when we arrive, and I can’t help making a face. I don’t really know him, but from what I’ve seen so far, I’m definitely not a Barry fan.

”You guys got a pretty good load,” Regg says, overriding Barry’s negativity, and I shoot him a grateful smile.

We add some of the stuff from our carts to the pickup and then it’s full. Silas and my dad hold both doors open while Barry pulls the truck back out into the parking lot and Regg backs one of the cars inside, and then we carefully let the doors slide back shut against the side of the car.

There is limited elbow space, so I keep my distance while Barry, Regg, and my dad pack the car. I turn my flashlight back into the store and pan it around so I can check everything out. The clothing section is on the left, and I take a couple steps towards it. There are a lot of people back at the cabin that don’t have the proper wardrobe for the upcoming winter. “Where are you going?” Silas asks right in my ear, making me jump, and I give him a slap on the arm for sneaking up on me.

“I was thinking about grabbing some clothes,” I tell him, and he chuckles.

“You’re such a girl,” he says, and I cast him an annoyed look.

“For the others,” I clarify. “It’s almost winter, and nobody really has the right clothes,” I remind him. Silas, Ryan, and I do, but we were on the road and were able to pick through that camping store—the others weren’t nearly as lucky.

“I’ll come with you,” he says as he walks back to grab another cart. I look back at the carts that still need to be loaded and know that we need to hurry. Dad would never leave without me, but I don’t need a lecture from Barry. I see Silas talking to my dad and pointing towards the clothing section, which isn’t that far away. After a moment of indecision, my dad nods, which is huge in itself. My dad must like what he’s seen of Silas so far to trust my safety to him. Silas jogs towards me with the cart.

“We don’t have very long,” he tells me, and I nod, I’d already figured as much.

I rush into the clothing aisle, not really liking how closely packed the racks of clothes are. A zombie could be right around the corner. I glance over at Silas and see that he has his gun out and is scanning the area with his flashlight. I grab bags of socks and underwear without checking the sizes, there will be something that will fit everyone. Next we find hats and mittens and toss them in the cart too. “We should head back,” Silas says and I nod, even though I don’t have half the things I’d wanted. On our way back we take a different route and come across a display of winter coats. Silas helps me throw a huge load of them into the cart and then we rush back. They are loading the very last cart and I push mine up into line. Barry sends me a scowl, but Dad gives me a smile.

“This will be great, thanks, Jane,” he says, and I beam at him. I watch as they load the coats and things into the back of the car, and the thought occurs to me that we didn’t get anything for Sunny. I look over at Silas, who looks at me when he sees me staring.

“What?” he asks hesitantly. He already knows that it’s going to be something.

“Sunny,” I say, and a look of understanding crosses his face. He glances at the others who are almost finished.

“Stay here,” he hisses at me, but I shake my head.

“You’re not going alone,” I tell him stubbornly, and he looks like he wants to argue but knows it will do him no good and will only waste time. So he nods, and together we jog off into the darkness. I have never been in this Wal-Mart, but they are usually all set up the same, and I already know that there wasn’t a kids section on the side of the store that we already explored. We take off towards the back corner of the store where Regg and Barry explored.

Silas is running ahead of me when he suddenly trips, flails forward, and hits the ground. I stop running instantly and reach for the gun at my waist, even as I shine my flashlight down on the ground to see what he tripped over. I have to resist the urge to scream as I see a pile of spilled dog food bags with a body in the middle. It was a man, and there is something odd about him.

“He wasn’t a zombie when he died,” Silas says as he picks himself up and leans in closer to examine the corpse.

“How can you be sure?” I ask, even though I can see with my own eyes that the man doesn’t have the usual sickly skin color. He is pale and white, on account of being dead, but his skin isn’t rotting off.

“Fresh blood,” Silas mutters as he points to the still-spreading pile of red coming from a wound on his head. My skin breaks out in goose bumps, and I wonder what happened.

“This must’ve been that loud noise we heard,” I suggest, and Silas nods.

“Most likely,” he agrees as he reaches over and grabs my hand, forcing me to step around the body and keep going.

“I wonder what happened,” I say again, unable to get my mind off the corpse. Silas shrugs.

“We can ask when we get back, but we have to hurry,” he says, snapping me out of my thoughts. He’s right of course.

We take off at a jog again, this time being more careful about what’s in front of us, and I start to see the telltale sign of bright pink racks of clothing. Silas searches around until he finds a bright pink snowsuit with matching hat, mittens, and boots, while I grab her a couple packs of clean underwear and socks.

“Let’s get the hell outta here,” Silas says, and I can’t agree more. We start racing back towards the front when Silas skids to a stop. There is something different about the dead man and the dog food up ahead. Two zombies are hunkered down over his body, ripping the meat from his bones and chewing it noisily. Silas puts his hand up and holds it in front of me like he expects me to go running up to the zombies, not fricken likely!

One of the zombies looks up and growls when it spots us. The zombie lumbers to his feet, excited by the prospect of fresh eats, and lets out a moan that is drowned out at the end by the sound of shouting and the scrape of metal on metal. The zombie pauses and looks behind him, in the direction of the others, like he isn’t sure which way he should go. “Silas,” I say, not really sure what I’m asking him. Silas raises his gun and shoots both of the zombies in the head and then he grabs my arm and pulls me along.

When we get closer to the front, I notice that the light coming in from the front doors is much dimmer than it was before. Silas pulls me to a stop before we can go running out into the scene before us. A strangled cry escapes my lips when I see my dad standing in the entrance, the sunlight practically blocked by the zombies beating against the outside of the glass doors. Dad is struggling to pull the second set of doors shut, while three zombies claw, trying to bite and scratch him.

I start running without a thought in my head, other than saving my dad. Thankfully, Silas doesn’t even try to stop me. He’s right beside me. Their moans and growls are deafening. When they see Silas and me, they only increase their efforts, pounding and trying to break the glass. I pull out my gun, but Silas quickly slaps it down. “You can’t fire towards the glass; if you miss you’ll crack the outside doors.” He warns me, passing me an extra knife from his belt. I don’t even hesitate before jumping into the fray. All I can think about is that my dad has to be okay, or I’ll be responsible for his death, and I’ve killed him over a meaningless pink snowsuit.

Chapter Five

“Get out of here, Jane!” Dad manages to shout at me, even though he’s huffing and puffing from the exertion of trying to hold back the zombies.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I fire back as I slide my knife through the eyeball of the zombie that is causing the most trouble. He stops his rabid attack on my dad and falls to the floor, jerking the knife from my hand. I’m not going to waste time reaching through a zombie-infested doorway to get it back, so I pull my own knife from my belt—the crocodile Dundee knife—but Silas pushes me out of the way and spears the next rotten face that pokes through the doors. My dad winces when he slices the zombie down an inch from where his tired arms are trying to hold the two doors together.

Unlike me, Silas doesn’t lose his knife and he’s ready for the next walking corpse. He nails the zombie through the eye, like I did, and then the threat is gone, well not really, there are at least fifty rage-filled zombies beating against the outside of the glass doors, but we have at least dispatched the three trapped in the middle.

Dad sags against the door and draws a shaky breath of relief. “You should’ve run,” he lectures me sternly, but I can tell he isn’t really angry.

“We all need to run, now,” Silas tells us as he eyes the strain the zombies are putting on the glass, and the small network of spider-web cracks that are erupting from beneath their pounding fists.

“Were you bitten or scratched?” I ask my dad, my adrenaline spiking again at the prospect. Dad shakes his head.

“I honestly don’t know,” he admits, and I feel my heart sink.

“We will have to find out later,” Silas snaps as he kicks one of the corpses out of the way and slides the second set of doors together with a snap. “That won’t hold them long,” he says, just as the glass gives way in a big sheet and falls to the floor. The zombies start forward, not caring about the glass shards that still hang from the door and tear and cut at their flesh. It’s horrifying to see. I watch a fat zombie in a housecoat walk past a piece of glass and it cuts along her cheek, releasing black ooze from her rotting, papery thin flesh. When her eye ball gets poked out by the glass, I actually shudder “Move it, Jane,” Silas barks in my ear, giving me a shove to snap me out of it.

The zombies are just reaching the second set of doors when I turn and follow Silas and my dad. “Do you have a plan, son?” my dad asks, yelling to be heard over the moans and the sound of shaking glass as a hundred fists pound against it with a hungry fury.

“We need to find another way out,” Silas says as he leads us back the way we came when we went and got the snowsuit.

“What in the hell is that?” my dad asks when he sees the dog food, corpse, and two dead zombie tableau up ahead of us.

“That is a good question for Barry,” Silas mutters as we move past them without stopping.

“I have a lot of questions for Barry if I ever see him again,” Dad mutters, and that snags my attention.

“What..?” I start to ask, but Silas and my dad both shake their heads at me.

“Time and a place, Jane,” Silas mutters as he grabs my elbow to help steer me around a bin of discounted running shoes. Behind us we hear glass breaking, and the volume of the moans increases—the dead are inside.

“It’s okay,” Dad murmurs, reaching over to pat me on the shoulder, “We have a head start.”

His words are a tiny bit reassuring, but I know if we can’t find another way out of here, all the head starts in the world won’t help us. We will be trapped in here with a plethora of flesh-eating zombies.

“We need to stick closer to the wall, so we’ll be able to find a door,” Silas whispers as he leads us deeper into the dark store. He has his flashlight on, and it’s even more terrifying than it was earlier. Now I know for certain that the light is attracting every zombie in the store, hell bent on eating us. We come around a shelf and Silas walks right into a zombie that was lurking at the end of the aisle. I clap my hand over my mouth to keep from shouting. The flashlight illuminates his sickly, rotting skin and chipped teeth, and Silas shoves the zombie back with all his strength. The zombie goes down, sliding across the floor, leaving chunks of skin and other nastiness. Silas doesn’t give him a chance to shamble to his rotting feet. He follows him down and plants his knife into the base of his skull. “Keep moving,” Silas barks, letting out a little puff of breath, and I know that he was startled by that zombie—we all were.

We follow the wall for what seems like forever. It’s agonizing jumping at every shadow, but in reality it’s probably been less than five minutes. Silas stops suddenly and I nearly bump into the back of him. I peek around his shoulder, worried he’s run into another dead head, but his flashlight is shining on a set of double doors.

We stare at the doors, not quite sure what lays beyond them. A loud clatter behind us reminds us that while we don’t know what lies ahead through these doors, we do know what’s rooting around in the dark behind us. By comparison, whatever is in this room cannot be as bad. “Come on,” I urge Silas, imagining the zombies creeping up behind us in the dark. Silas nods and pulls his gun out, and I do the same. He had been using his knife up until now, because it’s silent, but not knowing what we face…the gun is the better choice.

“Stay together,” Silas snaps as he pushes through the doors and shines his flashlight around the big warehouse filled with boxes and pallets of inventory, waiting to be stocked in the store. It will never be stocked now. The moans of the dead fill the room, echoing off all the concrete, and Silas shines his light in all directions, trying to locate the source.

“There!” Dad murmurs as a ragged zombie wearing a blue vest comes stumbling excitedly towards us. Silas tucks his gun back in his belt and pulls his knife from his hip instead, and I hold my breath in fear. Getting up close and personal with a zombie is always a risk, no matter how skillful you are. Silas hands the flashlight to my dad and strides forward confidently, planting the blade into the employee’s temple. I only let myself breath again when the zombie slumps to the ground and Silas pulls his blade from his skull.

“Behind you,” I squeak when I notice the zombie that’s just walked around a pallet full of electronics. She isn’t making a sound, not a moan or a groan, which is odd for a zombie. When Silas stabs her through the eye socket and she falls to the ground, I can see why. Her throat is completely ripped out; she probably couldn’t make a sound even if she’d wanted to. I wince and turn away. The door we came through has steel brackets, like we can use something to barricade the zombies out. I look around until I find a thick two by four piece of wood leaning to the side. I pick it up and it slides in perfectly. I’m not sure if it will keep the dead out or not, but it makes me feel better than before.

“Smart move, Blondie,” Silas says, coming over to inspect the barricade. “They probably barricaded the doors every night for added security,” he says as he runs his hand over the sturdy piece of wood. We hear the sound of shuffling feet outside the door and freeze. There are no windows, so we don’t bother turning off our flashlights. We aren’t one hundred percent sure yet that we’re alone in this warehouse, but we do stand frozen, straining our ears to hear if the zombies are going to start beating against the door.

We hear scuffling, like they are rubbing against it as they walk, but they never actually pay it much attention. After half an hour, it’s quiet outside the door, and Silas walks quietly towards me and my dad.

“We need to get out of here and figure out a plan,” he tells us, and we nod in agreement. I feel relatively safe in here, and there are a lot of supplies, but we can’t abandon everyone else at the cabin, just because I’m terrified of stepping back outside. I turn to my dad, and tears well up in my eyes, spilling over and scalding my cheeks.

“I’m so sorry, Dad. This is all my fault,” I splutter without meaning to bring it up, and he wraps me in a hug.

“It’s not your fault, Janey, how could it be?” he denies, but I know he’s just trying to make me feel better.

“If we hadn’t gone to get that snowsuit for Sunny,” I tell him. “You wouldn’t have stayed behind when the zombies came. We would all be together on our way home.”

Dad’s face darkens. “I don’t blame you for that, Jane. Sunny needs that snowsuit, and this was Barry’s doing. When the zombies came, he didn’t try to save anyone else, he just hopped in the car and drove off. He would’ve done the same thing if you guys were there or not.” My dad shakes his head. “He didn’t even call out for me to get in the car—not that I would have left you. He just jumped in and drove off.” I’m shocked by what my dad is telling me, though I never liked Barry, I can’t believe he would be so selfish. “He didn’t even know the doors would shut when he moved the car, I just lucked out and they did.”

“What about Regg?” I ask, finding it hard to believe that the Sergeant would just drive off and leave us to the zombies.

“When we finished with the truck and got the car backed in, Barry sent Regg ahead to go home with the truck. He had some plan that we should stagger our departure so we didn’t rile up the dead and risk losing supplies.” Dad shakes his head.

“I doubt Barry has the nerve to go back to the cabin after what he did, but if he does…” My dad gets a gleeful look on his face, “I’m gonna kick his ass,” he promises, and Silas grins as well, and I have no doubt that Silas will be first in line to help.

“So what’s the plan?” I ask to distract Silas and Dad from their plans to beat Barry, not that he doesn’t deserve it, but I’d like to get home in one piece, and when we do, I’ll probably take a swing at Barry myself.

“We need to get out of here,” Silas states, even though, duh, everyone already knows that. I resist rolling my eyes at him—barely.

“They didn’t take the third car,” my dad tells us, and my ears perk up. “Everything fit in the first two, so it’s still sitting outside.” We are all silent for a minute while we absorb that.

“I don’t know,” I say finally. “It could be really dangerous.”

“So is trying to get back on foot,” Silas counters, and he isn’t wrong. “I think the only thing we can do is see when we get out there.” Silas rakes his hand through his dark hair and sighs. “It’s impossible to know otherwise—we don’t even know what’s gonna be on the other side of this door when we open it.”

“It’s a bad situation all around,” my dad agrees, “But the sooner we get going, the sooner we will get home.” A part of me balks at his optimism, the sooner we get going, the sooner we might get eaten!

“There’s no helping it,” Silas agrees like he can read my mind. I glance at him sharply, but he isn’t even looking my way. He’s walked over to the regular door beside the huge roll up door and he’s examining it.

Dad looks around at all the pallets of food just sitting around. “It’s too bad we couldn’t get a tractor trailer and load all this stuff up,” he murmurs. It isn’t a terrible idea, but it’s not one we can possibly pull off right now.

I open my mouth to reply, but I am distracted by the metallic squeak of a door opening. I whirl around and see that Silas has opened the door several inches and is peeking out. I want to yell at him to shut the door—that he didn’t even give us any warning—but I don’t. If there are zombies out there, I don’t want to sound the dinner bell. I pull the gun from my hip and inch forward, being careful not to point the business end at Silas.

Silas pushes the door open a little further and then turns back to us with a nod. “It’s as good as it’s going to get,” he says, and we all nod grimly. My dad comes up behind me and sets his hand on my shoulder.

“I love you, Jane,” he tells me, and I don’t like the way it sounds—a bit like a just in case goodbye.

“I love you too, Dad,” I automatically reply, refusing to let myself give in to the urge for hysterics. Silas doesn’t give us a chance to say anything else before he pushes the door open, grabbing the set of keys from a nail pounded in beside the door, and steps out into the sunshine. I follow him out and am temporarily blinded after the darkness of the warehouse. I blink the dots from my eyes as Silas quickly locks the door and pockets the keys.

“We can come back now,” is all he says as we turn and try to get our bearings. There is a lone zombie stumbling towards us, but none of us are that worried about him, not until he gets closer.

“I think we need to go this way,” Dad says, pointing, and Silas nods, so we take off, keeping to the edge of the building. I see several dumpsters and shudder, thinking back to being trapped outside that strip mall. Silas pauses when the zombie behind us finally gets too close. He stops just long enough to stick a knife through its eyeball.

We reach the end of the building and peek around the corner at the parking lot. There isn’t a lot moving around, all of the zombies must’ve gone inside. “I think it’s worth making a run for it,” Silas says, but my dad shakes his head.

“I don’t think we all have to go. It’s safer over here than out there in the open.” Silas opens his mouth to volunteer to go get the car, but my dad shakes his head again.

“Not this time,” he tells Silas, patting him affectionately on the shoulder. “I’ll go.” He gives me a quick hug and I have to bite my lip to keep from begging him not to, and then he’s gone. I stare after him, watching as he breaks into a run, stepping through the broken glass and zombie gore as he reaches the front of the store. The car is parked in front of the cola machine, and my dad doesn’t waste time as he opens the door and hops in.

A zombie comes staggering out of the store, stepping through the glass, intent on the car, and I hold my breath. Silas and I watch as the zombie makes his way over to the driver’s side window and start to pound and claw against the glass. “Why isn’t he moving?” I burst out, unable to keep it to myself any longer. I feel Silas shrug beside me.

“I don’t know,” he admits.

“Do you think we should go over there?” I demand, and Silas shrugs again.

“Let’s give him another minute,” he tells me, and I let out an annoyed huff, even though I know he is trying to choose the best option for all of us. “Look, something’s happening,” Silas says, elbowing me, and I squint to see what he’s talking about. The passenger side door flies open and my dad scrambles out of the car just in time to meet a second zombie staggering out of the store. Dad raises his gun and shoots the zombie point blank in the face, making gore and bits of bone splatter all over the cola machine. The zombie goes down, and Dad pauses just long enough to shoot the first zombie over top the roof of the car. Then he takes off running towards us.

“Shit,” Silas curses under his breath, and my heart starts pounding even harder.

“Barry must’ve taken the keys,” my dad tells us as he bends over at the waist, panting to try and catch his breath.

“I’m definitely going to kick that guy’s ass,” Silas says, and my dad nods his head in agreement.

“What now?” I ask, feeling utterly hopeless. It was terrifying enough travelling around when we had the truck, without it…our chance of survival gets even lower.

“We’re on foot until we find another vehicle,” Dad tells us unnecessarily, and Silas starts adjusting the straps on his backpack.

“We better get going then,” Silas says. His face is calm, and I can’t help but marvel at the way he isn’t freaking out. He knows what has to be done and he’s just going to do it. I know what needs to be done too, but it’s a little harder for me to put one foot in front of the other.

“We should try and stay out of the open,” my dad suggests, and Silas nods. Without asking me if I’m ready, they probably know I never will be, they take off, and I’m forced to follow them or get left behind.

We are both lucky and unlucky that the Wal-Mart is kind of off by itself, not really around any other stores or houses. There is a construction site a block down the road, but who knows what it was going to be. Despite our vow to stay out of the open, there isn’t a lot of choice in the matter. We try to stay close to bushes and trees, but they are few and far between, so we mostly end up running in the open anyway—and we are running. The Wal-Mart is on the end of town, so we decide not to chance going back through the middle of zombie-ville, even though that’s the way home, so we head out on the main road instead. Sweat starts to roll off of me, soaking my undershirt and making me itch. I glance over at my poor dad and see that he is plastered in sweat too. If anything, he is probably in worse shape than me. The only one that seems perfectly fine to run forever is, of course, Silas.

“Silas,” I call out to him once we are out of town and have been jogging for the last fifteen or so minutes. Silas looks over at me with a resigned look on his face.

“You need a break, don’t you?” he asks, like it’s paining him. He slows down and I nod, looking towards my dad.

“And I don’t think I’m the only one,” I tell him, making my dad shake his head.

“I never said I needed a rest, Jane,” Dad tells me sternly, but I know, even though he won’t admit it, he’s happy with the change of pace.

I ignore them both, and we walk in silence down the center of the road. It’s nerve wracking being out in the open like this, but at least it offers a wide open view of the surrounding area. A few houses dot the landscape, but they are miles from the road. Even if we walk all the way out to them, there isn’t any guarantee that we’ll find a vehicle. Silas and my dad agree to wait until we come across a house that is much closer to the road—it would be pointless to waste all of our energy on nothing.

We walk for another twenty minutes and, despite the fact that it’s late autumn, the day really warms up and the sun shines down on us, making me prickle with sweat beneath all my layers. I want to stop and take my coat off, but I know I’ll just have to carry it, and it will get in the way if I have to run or fight. I decide to suck it up, complaining about it will just make me look weak in front of Silas and my dad.

“Holy shit,” I hear Silas mutter, and I look up from the road. I’d been daydreaming and staring down at my feet, more than I should. I look up and my heart leaps into my throat. Dad crowds in closer to me, and I feel myself shrink up a little in fear. I wish I could shrink up completely, until I’m invisible. An enormous horde of zombies has just crested the top of the hill ahead of us. They see us as soon as we see them, and they let out a collective moan of excitement.

“It’s time to run,” Silas says, and I’m reminded of the horde we ran from for hours before we were rescued by a Camp Freedom chopper. The chances of lucking out like that again are slim, and I know it. I start running, following Silas as we get off the road and head into the nearby field. If we keep going, we will run into the zombies; if we turn back, we will head back into town. The zombies are still far enough away, and we have a decent head start, so the bumpy terrain might actually work to our advantage.

“There’s gotta be something in those trees over there,” Silas says, pointing to a large group of trees half a mile away. I would usually question him, but from this distance I can see the driveway that separates from the road and disappears into the trees.

I’m panting by the time we get close enough to see the old iron fence that surrounds the lot. “Oh no,” I say as I stop running and stand staring uncertainly at the cemetery.

Silas ignores my outburst and keeps running towards it. My dad at least stops and looks back at me. “Come on, Jane,” he calls, staring back at the large number of zombies that have fallen behind but will still be on top of us within the next ten minutes or so.

“Silas,” I hiss as I run to catch up, and Silas actually stops and looks back at me.

“What?” he asks, sounding annoyed.

“This is a graveyard,” I point out the obvious, like that should explain why we shouldn’t go in.

“Exactly,” Silas agrees. “And you know what that means?” he asks me, and I have to shake my head.

“No,” my dad and I answer as one.

“Everyone in here is the good kind of dead,” Silas snaps as he motions for me to get moving. “Come on.” I try and leave my reservations at the gate as we walk in and are confronted with tidy rows of gravestone markers. I stare hard at them, but none of the earth looks disturbed, and I relax a little—maybe the dead rising from the grave just happens in the movies—and I’m grateful. The smell hits us then, and the overwhelming buzz of thousands of flies.

“What is that?” I yelp, forgetting about the horde behind us in the heat of the moment. I cover my nose with my sleeve to keep from gagging. Silas doesn’t answer but he creeps forward towards a large hole that’s been dug in the ground, and even he has to cover his nose.

“It’s a mass grave,” my dad says as we stare down at the bodies that fill the enormous pit. “They must’ve been dumping the infected out here to try and contain the situation.” I gag as I look out over the sea of mottled gray faces, rotting and splitting in the sun.

“Let’s get out of here,” I say, barely containing my vomit. Silas and my dad stubbornly shake their heads.

“We don’t have a lot of time, we need to find somewhere to hide,” Silas answers for them both as he turns and starts scanning the area. There is a small wooden garden shed where the groundskeeper probably kept his supplies, but Silas dismisses it. “It wouldn’t hold up against that many,” he says, and my dad nods in agreement.

“What about one of those concrete mausoleums?” my dad points out, and I follow his finger to the back of the graveyard where there are small concrete buildings in a row. They look like mini houses. Silas and my dad take off towards the closest one and begin trying to pry the door open, and I follow them.

“It won’t budge,” Silas pants as he slams his shoulder into the cement so hard I can’t help but wince.

“Isn’t there a dead body in there?” I ask, and Silas shoots me an annoyed look.

“Really, Jane?” he snaps as he tries the next building and has the same luck. “There are hundreds of dead bodies walking through that field right now and when they get here they are going to rip us apart until WE are dead bodies!” he yells at me in frustration. I see Dad frown at his outburst, but he doesn’t chastise him—he probably secretly agrees.

My dad goes pale as he looks over at the zombies that are now clearly visible, lumbering through the field in our direction. “We’re running out of time,” he tells us both, and I don’t really like the resigned tone he’s using.

“We need to run and get out of here,” I tell them, panic making my voice high and squeaky, but Silas stubbornly shakes his head.

“They’re too close and there isn’t any guarantee we’ll find somewhere before one of us twists an ankle out there, or we get too tired to run.” His words send a shiver of dread running down my spine. “And there isn’t any guarantee that the next place will be any better.”

“Well we can’t just stay here,” I tell him, beginning to shake. I’m kicking myself for ever sneaking along on this trip.

“Yeah we can,” Silas says as he strides towards the huge pit of bodies.

“What are you thinking, son?” my dad asks him, and Silas shakes his head.

“It’s crazy but…” he pauses as he shucks off his backpack and his coat and tosses them underneath a nearby tree.

“What are you doing?” I squeal when he jumps into the hole and sinks down past his knees into the rotting bodies. I turn to my dad so he can back me up, but he isn’t looking at me. He’s staring at Silas with a strange mixture of horror and understanding on his face. “What is happening?” I demand, planting my hands on my hips. The zombies are almost here and Silas is screwing around—he’s going to get us all killed!

“Shut up, Blondie, and get in the hole,” Silas tells me, and I know he’s not in the mood, but I can’t help it.

“Not until you tell me why you’re doing this!” I fire back, and Silas looks like he’s going to explode.

“Have I ever steered you wrong?” he demands, and that takes a little of the fire out of my belly. He hasn’t, in fact, he’s always saved my helpless ass. I shake my head, not wanting to voice what we both already know. “Then take off your coat and your pack and get in here before you get torn apart,” Silas hisses at me. His tone is so serious that I automatically start unzipping my jacket and unsling my backpack. I toss it under the tree where Silas left his and then I stand hesitantly at the edge of the hole. My dad starts shucking his stuff off too.

“What do I do?” I ask, not wanting to immerse myself in the rotting pile of infected meat.

“Get your ass in here before I get out and pull you in by your hair,” Silas instructs, making a visible effort to keep his voice low. My dad grips my hand, and together we climb into the pit. With my first step, the corpse underneath me shifts and I fall to my knees, my jeans instantly getting soaked with viscera. Silas shifts a couple of the bodies around. “Lay here,” he tells me, his words no longer angry but encouraging. It takes everything I have not to scream when I see the maggots writhing around where he’s pointing.

I catch sight of the first of the zombies coming through the rusty open gates and I throw myself down on my belly into the mess. The smell is overpowering. I feel chunks rise up into the back of my throat, but I swallow them down—maggots are disgusting—but I will take them over being ripped to shreds any day.

Silas silently covers me with a couple of the bodies and then burrows in himself. My dad has gotten the hint and has also blended himself in with the corpses. My eyes widen when I see the first zombie stagger near the open pit. I feel something grab my hand and nearly erupt from the pit, never mind the danger. “Shut up,” Silas mutters so quietly that I barely hear it, but I know what he’s said. The hand squeezes mine and I realize with some chagrin that it’s my dad. Silas has a large hunting knife in one hand and a gun in the other.

More and more zombies gather beside the pit until their moans are deafening, and I’m convinced we are going to die. My heart beats in my ears so loudly that I’m terrified the zombies are going to hear it. I try to breathe through my mouth, to help with the smell, but I get scared that I might accidentally get some of the goop in my mouth, or just as bad, a maggot, so I switch back to nose breathing, even though it makes it horrible.

I sit, expecting death, for what feels like an eternity before I realize that the zombies aren’t paying any attention to the pit. They are moaning and groaning and staggering around, filling the graveyard by the hundred, but they aren’t riled up anymore; it’s like we’re invisible.

I’m almost willing to give Silas some credit for his genius, though disgusting idea, when one of the zombies that is too close to the pit gets jostled by his neighbor and suddenly pitches into the pit, practically on top of us. I have to hold my breath to keep from jumping up in panic when he starts scrabbling around, grabbing at the bodies for support as he tries to get some traction.

When his hand, with its chipped, contagious fingernails, comes barreling towards me, I squeeze my eyes shut and try to mentally prepare for death. I will die, but if I don’t cause a scene, then my dad and Silas can still have a chance if they remain quiet and let the zombies pass.

Chapter Six

The scratch never comes and, after counting to ten in my head, I slowly crack my eyes open to see what happened. Silas happened, of course. I open my eyes just in time to see him gently pulling his knife from the zombie’s head. The zombie sags deeper into the pit to join the rest of its fallen comrades. I shift my eyes to the rest of the zombies up top, but none of them seem to have noticed. I’m in shock. I feel my dad squeezing my hand so tightly he’s crushing my fingers, and I know that I’m not the only one who was worried half to death. I gently wiggle my fingers, trying to get a little relief, and he instantly releases me. I can feel his guilt across the pit, and I give him a small smile to show him I’m okay.

I catch Silas giving me a dirty look and can only assume it’s because he thinks my eye movements are going to be the death of us. I close my eyes instead and focus on breathing shallowly.

I’m woken up by a not-so-gentle shake to the shoulder. I look around and start to panic when I can’t see anything, everything is dark. My mind races, frantic to figure out what happened. “Settle down,” I hear Silas’s voice and I stop moving, forcing my muscles to relax against their will.

“What’s going on?” I whisper and hear Silas snort as he shifts around in the muck.

“You fell asleep,” he tells me with an incredulous chuckle, and I’m incredulous as well. How in the heck did I manage to sleep with all the zombies and the carnage? I shudder thinking about it, and thinking about it makes me doubly aware of the gore soaking my jeans making them stick to my legs, and the dried goop making the back of my neck itch. I twitch my fingers and find they too are goopy and immersed in the composting bodies.

“Is it safe?” I ask, not seeing any more zombies in the moonlight—I also kind of assume that Silas wouldn’t be talking if it wasn’t clear.

“As safe as can be expected,” my dad chimes in, shoving a corpse off his back and standing up with a loud snap from somewhere in his body. I wince just imaging how stiff he must be. Silas pulls the corpses off my back and I stand up as well, or as much as I can in this soupy mess. It feels like slogging through quicksand as I make my way over to the edge of the pit, terrified the whole time that I’m going to sink down and drown in this mess. I pull my tired, soggy body up over the edge, and the hard ground is the best feeling in the world right now.

I look around the cemetery, but there isn’t much to see in the dark and it gives me the creeps. “I’m not sure this is safe,” I say, even though they must know wandering around in the dark is dangerous.

“We can climb back in the pit and wait until morning,” Silas offers, and at this point I’m already so covered in crud that I actually think about it. I shake my head.

“No thanks,” I tell him. Honestly, nothing short of the immediate threat of death would get me back in that pit. Silas doesn’t argue for once, so I’m pretty sure we are on the same page.

I pause to wipe my hands on the grass before grabbing my backpack and jacket, I try to keep it as far away from the rest of my body as possible so I won’t contaminate them. “Ready to go?” Silas asks, sneaking up behind me, and I jump.

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” I say, and hear my dad give a grunt of agreement. Silas doesn’t use his flashlight this time; it would be a beacon to every zombie in the countryside. We trudge back out through the gate and, instead of returning to the field, to the main road, Silas turns and we begin walking down the narrow country road where the cemetery is located. We head away from the main road with nothing but the moonlight to lead our way.

Every rustle in the grass makes me jump nervously; I’ve never felt so exposed. I was never a fan of the dark, and that was before there were flesh eating zombies to be scared of. We stay in the center of the road, the idea being that we will have more room to fight if a zombie bursts out of the ditch—thankfully no zombies do that.

“I think I see something up ahead,” Silas says, and his words send ice cold fingers of fear racing through my body.

“What is it?” I yelp, imagining the horde of zombies from earlier returning to finish us off.

“A house—I think,” he says and I allow myself to relax a little. We’ve been walking for forty-five minutes and my gore-soaked jeans have begun to dry and have hardened to my leg like a cast. Every time I take a step, I feel them rubbing uncomfortably. Twenty minutes ago, the terrifying thought that this could somehow infect me crept into my brain, and I’ve been walking gingerly ever since.

“Let’s go,” Silas says and starts off at a run.

“Wait!” I yelp, and he turns impatiently back towards me.

“Come on slow poke,” he cajoles, but I shake my head.

“I can’t,” I tell him, and I think he can tell from my voice that I’m not joking around.

“What is it?” he asks, almost sounding like he really cares, but there is no way that I can tell him I’m scared my chafing jeans are going to turn me into a zombie.

“Never mind,” I tell him, motioning for him to go on ahead. “I’ll catch up.”

“I don’t think so,” my dad interrupts. “We are all staying together,” he says firmly, and I deflate a little. We are all tired and cranky and I feel bad for slowing us down, but I will feel even worse if I become a zombie. I catch Silas staring at my legs as I walk crookedly down the road like a cowboy whose ridden too long in the saddle, and I try to walk a little straighter.

Silas doesn’t argue as we continue at a slower pace. Even though we aren’t running like he wanted, we still reach the house in pretty good time. It’s hard to see the details in the dark, but I can tell by the shape that it is a one-level, small square house. I feel some relief that the home isn’t large and won’t take us forever to clear.

We reach the front porch without incident, and my dad raises his fist and knocks. The sound echoes through the silent yard and makes me feel even more on edge. We wait for a full five minutes, but nobody comes to answer the door, so Silas tries the knob and it opens.

As soon as the door is open an inch, we hear it—the low growl of a zombie. Silas pulls the door closed, reaches for his flashlight and gun, and then pushes the door open with a bang. His light illuminates an elderly female zombie wearing a bubblegum pink tracksuit. Her hair is short and spiky, sticking up in every direction, and her spine is curved, making her appear hunched over. She stares unblinking into the glare of the flashlight, but she doesn’t attack us.

“What’s going on?” my dad whispers to Silas, and he shrugs.

“Maybe our scent is masked thanks to all this zombie crap we’re wearing, and something is telling her not to attack,” Silas guesses, as he steps forward to test his theory.

“Silas, don’t,” I say sharply, and the zombie looks around hungrily at the sound of my voice. Silas steps closer and closer. With each step I expect the zomb to turn and bite into his flesh, but she doesn’t. Silas walks right up to her, and she just stands there as docile as an old cow. “Enough,” I whisper, and Silas nods, spiking his knife through her skull.

“That’s crazy!” he crows as he wipes the blade of his knife off on her track suit. We walk through the house, clearing it, and only find one more zombie. An elderly man, most likely her husband. It is the same with him—he doesn’t attack—and Silas walks right up and puts him down. Silas and my dad each grab a zombie, take them outside, and lay them out in the yard.

“You take first turn in the bathroom,” Dad offers, and I look at Silas, unsure, but he nods.

“Do it,” he tells me, and I give them both a grateful nod as I slip into the bathroom and peel out of my clothes. They are completely ruined, so I ball them up and shove them into the garbage can. I turn to the shower, shivering in the cold, and turn on the water, waiting for the icy blast that is unavoidable. At this point in my life, I’m not sure what I hate more about coming into contact with zombie guts—the fact that it’s highly contagious and disgusting, or the cold shower that is guaranteed to follow. I turn on the showerhead and turn back towards the mirror, trying to peel a few strands of zombie-encrusted hair off my shoulder.

My lantern lets out a little bit of light and I’m grateful not to be in the dark anymore. I glance over my shoulder and freeze at the silhouette framed in the closet door.

“Holy crap balls!” I yelp as I lunge for my backpack at the same moment the zombie stumbles out of the closet and lurches towards me with an awful phlegm-filled rattle in the back of her throat. She isn’t the speediest, but she doesn’t have to be. I’m trapped in this tiny bathroom with a zombie, and worse yet, I’m completely naked. I promptly make a promise to myself that if I survive this, I’m never going to shower again—no love of personal hygiene is worth this! My backpack is sitting on the sink within easy reach. I dive for it and spill half of my junk out on the floor as I pull my gun out too quickly and fumble it. The gun slides past the zombie’s feet, and she trips on my deodorant and stumbles. I’m forced to back up next to the toilet with nowhere left to go. I throw my bag at her, but it doesn’t faze her in the least. I watch as the light of my lantern glistens off her teeth, and I’m pretty sure I’m about to die and become a naked zombie for all of eternity. Silas and my dad will probably be horrified.

My eye lands on the top of the toilet, and I duck her arms and make a grab for the heavy porcelain lid. Her one arm thumps me on the back, but I don’t feel the drag of fingernails and I don’t have time to worry about that right now anyway. The toilet tank lid is heavier than I imagined, but I swing for the fences, catching the zombie underneath the chin, and it sends her backwards on her ass. It’s harder to hit her than I imagined, like literally hard, especially since I’m swinging upwards. The vibration of the impact reverberates up my arm, and it isn’t pleasant. My arm throbs as I bring the lid down on the very top of her head, and it’s easier this time because I have momentum on my side. The zombie’s eyes roll around in her head, but she doesn’t actually die. Even worse, my makeshift weapon cracks from the impact and half of it falls to the floor with a clatter. I stare at the jagged piece of porcelain left in my hands, and my mind races a mile a minute. The zombie starts to scrabble to her feet but I kick her square in the chest, for lack of a better idea, and she falls back against the tile floor. I really wish I was wearing my boots as I rip the shower curtain off its rungs with one hard tug and toss it over the zombie’s struggling body. I need to try and reduce the risk of getting scratched, but I also need to finish this and it’s too dark to find my gun—she might even be laying on it. I jump on top of the zombie, using the shower curtain as a buffer, and stab the broken point of the lid into her face. She is still struggling underneath me, nearly bucking me off, so I lean into the porcelain and push with all my might, forcing it through her skull and into her rotten brain. She finally stills, and that’s when I become aware of the pounding at the door.

“Jane?” Dad calls sharply through the door. “What’s going on in there?” he demands.

“Are you okay?” Silas asks, sounding about ready to break the door down.

I shakily climb to my feet, my entire body vibrating from adrenaline, and wrap a towel around myself before opening the door. I see my dad’s worried face first and he gives me a once over, his eyes widening at the fresh zombie blood on my hands and collar bone before he looks past me. The horror makes his face age ten years.

“You missed one,” I say as I step out into the hallway, and Silas catches me in his arms. I collapse against him, feeling boneless, and he wraps his arms around me, supporting me and my towel.

“Why didn’t you call us?” Silas asks, and I shake my head.

“I don’t know,” I admit. “There just wasn’t time. She was in the closet and when I looked up, she was already coming at me.” My dad comes over and gently pulls me out of Silas’s arms and leads me over to a chair.

“Were you hurt?” he asks, his eyes bright with worry, and I shake my head.

“I don’t think so. Maybe my back…” I say, trailing off at the look of terror on my dad’s face.

“I’ll look,” Silas offers, but my dad slaps his hand away.

“No, I’ll do it,” he snaps, even in this moment of fear, he doesn’t want Silas touching me when I’m only wearing a towel.

I feel the gentle tickle of my dad running his hands along my back, and then he lets out an enormous sigh of relief. “All clear,” he says, his voice going high at the end as he bites back a sniffle. He hugs me again, and I almost sob in relief.

“You stay here, and we’ll clean everything up for you,” Silas says as he gets to his feet and starts off for the bathroom. He stops and looks back at me. “I’m so sorry, Jane. I should’ve looked more carefully.”

“We both should’ve,” my dad says, and I give them both a shaky smile that I don’t really feel.

“It’s not your fault. We all checked that bathroom. I guess we’ll just have to be more careful about checking closets from now on,” I say, and both Silas and my dad nod.

“It probably didn’t come out because we were disguised under all the zombie mess,” Dad says thoughtfully as he and Silas go into the bathroom and wrap the zombie up in the shower curtain before hauling her outside with the old couple. Silas and my dad turn the water off and even insist on washing the bathroom floor before they’ll let me back in there. They both go over every inch with a flashlight to be sure there are no more surprises. Silas even removes a large black spider that he finds in the corner, and relocates him to the kitchen.

“I’ll be fine,” I reassure them as I close the bathroom door in their faces, and then I’m alone again in the bathroom that nearly killed me the last time. It smells really strongly of bleach now, and there is absolutely no sign of the zombie—except the missing shower curtain. Silas has thought of everything, and he’s even hung a large bed sheet up in its place. I start the water again and turn to the mirror. It reminds me too much of earlier when I look back and see the empty closet door, so I turn away and start to mentally prepare myself for my icy shower.

Something is weird though, steam is rising out of the shower. I blink in surprise as I dip my hand underneath the spray and have to yank it back when it burns me. My first real smile today splits my face, and I chuck my towel and climb underneath the spray. It’s heaven, well worth nearly getting eaten by a zombie. I close my eyes and rinse all the dried gore from my hair and skin, washing and rinsing my hair three times before I’m satisfied. It’s been so long since I had a hot shower, not since Camp Freedom. At the cabin we heat water over the fire and use that to wash up, but it’s a huge production to fill the tub, so we usually don’t. Or, if we do, there is a line up and all of us girls end up using the same water.

I stand there until the water starts to get cold, and then I feel guilty that I’m hogging it from Dad and Silas. I turn off the tap, and I’m instantly chilled by the cool night air. It was almost easy to forget for a moment and pretend that I’d step out of this shower into a heated room and a world that hasn’t completely fallen apart.

I quickly wrap myself in a towel and dig out a warm change of clothes from my bag, getting into my clothes before hypothermia sets in.

I open the bathroom door to find Silas and my dad looking at me anxiously. “You’re never going to believe it,” I tell them, and they both look confused.

“What?” Silas asks, and I grin at them.

“There’s actual hot water,” I confide and watch them go slack-jawed in surprise. Whatever they thought I was going to say, they hadn’t expected that. Silas takes one step towards the bathroom and I frown. “You’ll probably want to wait until it heats up again,” I say with an apologetic look. Silas nods like it’s no big deal, and he and my dad follow me into the kitchen instead.

“How are you feeling?” my dad asks when I sit down with my pack and pull out a can of peaches and some dry noodles.

“Great after that shower,” I tell them with a smile, even though I know he’s really asking about the zombie in the bathroom. I ignore them both as I add the chicken soup seasoning to the noodles and shake it around. They are hard and crunchy, but weirdly filling—I guess because the noodles soften and expand in my stomach.

I sit and eat while they stare at me; it’s a little awkward. Finally, when I can’t stand it anymore, I turn to Silas. “I think that water should be warmed up by now,” I tell him, and he nods as he gets up from the chair. It’s almost like they don’t believe I’m actually okay, that I’m going to turn into a zombie if they take their eyes off me for a minute.

When Silas is gone, my dad gives me a tired smile. “So how are you fee–?” he starts to ask, but I shake my head.

“Don’t ask me that again, please,” I beg, and Dad lets out a sigh.

“I just worry about you—I can’t help it,” he says, and I nod.

“I know, but I can take care of myself…at least a little bit,” I tell him, and Dad lets out a small chuckle.

“I know that,” he surprises me by saying, and I look over at him to see if he’s serious. He nods his head. “I’m sorry for treating you like a baby these last few days. I know now that you are capable and strong. It’s just going to be hard for your mother and me to loosen up with all the…” he pauses, searching for the proper word.

“Zombies?” I suggest, and he cringes.

“I hate that word,” he confides, and I nod.

“Me too. It feels so fake,” I say as I toss my empty peach can in the sink.

I stare at Dad for a few minutes and then nod towards the bedroom. “I think I’m going to hit the hay,” I tell him, and he stands up and almost gives me a hug before he remembers that he’s still covered in zombie guts.

“It is late,” he agrees, blowing me a kiss instead.

I head toward the first bedroom I come to and push the door open to find that it’s kind of girly. It must’ve belonged to the zombie from the bathroom. I creep around using my lantern to check the closet before I head over to the bookshelf and pick through the titles. I see a romance that catches my eye and lay down with it, but I don’t make it past the third page before I give up and tuck the book underneath the pillow. The lantern is a nice companion in this strange room that used to belong to a dead girl, but the batteries aren’t a luxury I can afford. So after giving myself a stern talking to, I reach over and switch it off.

The entire room is bathed in darkness, and it’s a little creepy. So I do the only thing I can think of. I whisper my prayers, “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep.” Better than a zombie taking it. My dark thoughts intrude, but I push them aside. “But if I die before I wake…” My prayers starts to creep me out, and I can’t exactly remember the second verse anyway, so I give up and close my eyes.

Chapter Seven

“Rise and shine kiddo,” I hear my dad’s voice, and I open my eyes only to slam them shut again when I realize his flashlight is pointed right at my face.

“Dad,” I yelp as I cover my eyes, and he reaches over and turns on my lantern.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, and then he’s gone, leaving me to get up. The room is still dark, but with the bags over the window that isn’t a surprise. It definitely messes with your inner clock though. I pull myself out of the bed with a groan; I’m stiff from yesterday.

There isn’t a lot to do since I’m already dressed. I haven’t worn pajamas since the morning Abby phoned to tell me about the end of the world. I quickly run a comb through my hair and braid it into a long, tight braid at the back of my head so it’ll be out of the way. I tuck the book I started reading into my bag and meet Silas and my dad in the kitchen.

“Morning, sunshine,” Dad says, whistling a happy tune as he plants a huge bowl of hot oatmeal in front of my face and passes me a bag of brown sugar.

“Morning,” I mumble as I add an obscene amount of sugar to my breakfast, making Silas wince. “Why are you so chipper this morning?” I can’t help asking my dad when he hands me a cup full of hot chocolate. It’s an awesome treat.

“Why wouldn’t I be in a good mood?” he asks, answering my question with a question of his own. “We’re alive. The sun is shining. This kitchen is well stocked, so we’re having a good breakfast…” My dad pauses like he’s thinking. “Oh yeah,” he says when Silas’s face breaks out into a huge grin. I frown at them both. “Silas found a car this morning, and it runs.” I feel my pulse start beating double time when he says that.

“Really?” I shout as I explode out of my chair and hug them both, nearly knocking my oatmeal onto the floor. My dad catches the bowl at the same time he catches me in a hug and he squeezes me back.

“There’s even enough fuel to make it back home,” Silas tells me, and I smile. Home. The cabin really is home now, everyone I love is there. I frown thinking about my mom.

“The sooner, the better,” I tell Dad. “Mom is probably worried sick.” My dad winces as he nods in agreement.

“Eat your breakfast and we’ll go,” he tells me, and I have to sit down and force myself to eat even though I’m almost too excited. Yesterday, laying in that pit amid the rotting body parts, the thought of making it home was such a distant hope, but this morning it is actually within our reach. I feel something I haven’t felt very much in the last couple of months—joy!

I eat so quickly I barely taste anything…except sugar. I almost give in to the urge to have another hot shower before we go, but I know it’s a foolish want, not a need. I’m not dirty, and everyone is probably worried sick about us.

After breakfast, Silas leads us outside to the late model station wagon he’s found. It looks like it’s seen better days, but it has four wheels and an engine, so I’m tempted to kiss its wood-paneled exterior.

I climb in the back with my bag. Silas finishes loading in the few boxes of stuff he’s pillaged from the house and then climbs into the passenger seat.

“I can’t believe you found this car,” I tell him while we wait for my dad to come out.

Silas turns to me with a grin. “I know. Luck was on our side today,” he says and I laugh, I can’t help it. The whole day just feels so…great.

My dad slides in behind the wheel and hands Silas and I each a large bag of chips. “I found these in the room I slept in last night,” he tells us, and even though I just ate breakfast, I open my bag of dill pickle chips and dig in.

Our plan is to retrace our steps from yesterday and take the same route home. I’m surprised to find that we reach Wal-Mart only ten minutes after leaving the farmhouse.

“It seems like it should be so much farther away,” I say when we pass the superstore and head back through town.

“That’s because walking sucks,” Silas chimes from the front seat, and I can’t agree more.

Thinking back over the harrowing run for our lives, I think about Barry and feel my face flush in anger. This whole thing was his fault.

“What are you going to do about Barry?” I ask, and both Silas and my dad are quiet in the front seat for a bit.

“I guess I’ll wait and hear his side of the story first,” my dad says, making me groan.

“Come on, Dad. He left us!” I exclaim.

“For dead,” Silas adds, apparently he isn’t willing to forgive and forget either.

“Thankfully none of us died—so I’m feeling lenient,” Dad says, making both Silas and I huff in annoyance.

We drive in silence through the remains of town. There are zombies everywhere I look, but in the car they are much less terrifying.

I’m staring at an elderly woman wearing a babushka, surprisingly she looks much more spry as a zombie than she probably was in life—when my Dad suddenly slams on the brakes. “Ouch,” I say as I face plant the seat in front of me.

My dad looks back at me in the rear-view mirror and frowns. “You’re not wearing your seatbelt?” he demands, and I shake my head.

“What, is a zombie cop going to give me a ticket?” is my smartass reply, which only makes the frown lines in my dad’s forehead become more pronounced.

“No smart mouth, but a seatbelt will still stop you from going through the window, so law or no law, I want you wearing it.”

“Fine,” I huff, crossing my arms in front of my chest. “Why did we stop?” Silas points out the window, and for the first time I notice the truck parked crookedly on the side of the road.

“Is that our truck?” I ask, even though I know it is. There are a lot of black pickup trucks that look the same, but not very many with the red fuel tank in the back, or the piles of supplies that we took from Wal-Mart. “But why would it be here?” I burst out before I realize that obviously Silas and my dad know nothing more about it than I do.

“I’m gonna go check it out,” Silas says as he slips from the station wagon and pulls his gun from his hip. My stress level goes up several notches now that Silas is out of the car. I scan the area to make sure there are no zombies in the immediate vicinity…there are a few lifeless ones around the truck—I count ten.

“What do you think happened?” I ask Dad, but he just shrugs without answering me. He’s too busy watching for trouble. Silas approaches the truck and looks through the window, and then I see him hop in. The taillights light up as he starts the engine, and my Dad pulls up alongside him.

“What do you think happened?” my dad repeats my own question to Silas once he’s leaned over and rolled down the passenger side window—no automatic windows in this beauty.

Silas shrugs. “I can’t be sure, but it looks like Regg ran into some trouble when he left us. Maybe he ran into a group that was too big?” Silas shrugs again. “It’s impossible to know,” he says helplessly. I feel my heart dip in fear for Regg. He was a nice guy. I really don’t like the idea that something might’ve happened to him.

“Do you think he’s still out here somewhere?” I ask, climbing over into the front seat. Silas and my dad both scan the area.

“We can’t know for sure,” my dad says, and even Silas shakes his head.

“I think if Barry didn’t pick him up, then he isn’t out here. Not anymore,” Silas says as he gets out of the truck and points to all the zombie gore on the outside of the truck. “See these dents all along the side and the hood?” he points, and my dad and I both nod, our hearts sinking. “It must’ve been a lot of zombies, and you can tell someone was in the truck or they wouldn’t have bothered with it,” Silas says, sounding like a professor of zombie studies.

“Let’s get ready to go,” Dad says, motioning for Silas to get back in the truck. “The zombies must’ve moved on,” he says to me.

I watch Silas stand outside the truck and scan the area again with his binoculars. “CHAD!” he shouts, making me jump.

“What is he doing?” I hiss at my Dad, but he doesn’t seem all that concerned. He’s looking around for any sign of Regg.

We strain our ears and listen, but the only reply is the far off moan of hungry zombs.

“Damn it!” Silas curses as he gets back in the truck with a resigned look. “I was really hoping we’d find him.

“I’m sure he’s back at camp,” I tell Silas, but he doesn’t look convinced.

“We’ll follow you,” my dad yells across the car to Silas, and Silas nods as he puts the truck in gear and pulls away. I wait for Dad to follow him, but his hand doesn’t even twitch towards the gear shift. I turn to look at him, and he’s looking pointedly at my seatbelt.

“Okay, okay,” I mutter as I buckle myself in. It’s probably a good idea; I doubt this car has airbags.

It’s a relief to pull into the driveway at the cabin, and a smile lights my face as I get out and stretch before jogging over to Silas, who’s just backed the truck in for easier access to unload. We both spot the car Barry used as his getaway vehicle parked around the side of the cabin and frown.

I open my mouth to say something to Silas about it when the door of the cabin bursts open and Barry stands on the porch with a shotgun in his hand. “What in the actual fuck,” Silas mutters under his breath as he grabs me and pulls me in behind the truck for protection.

“Barry,” I hear my dad holler. He’s also dove behind the station wagon. It might seem like a bit of an overreaction, but not really after what we know about this guy. He’s super shady and had no problem leaving us all to die.

I peek around the truck and see Regg come out behind Barry. Regg claps a hand on his shoulder and easily disarms him with some military tactic when Barry doesn’t automatically lower his gun.

“Relax man, it’s them,” I hear Regg say, and then my mother is bursting out the door sobbing. She stops when she sees my dad.

“Where is she?” she demands, looking terrified and hopeful all at once. My dad points to Silas and I, who are still hunkered behind the Ford. Mom runs up and grabs me in a half-hug, half-chokehold, and Silas steps back quickly, not wanting to be involved in something so emotional. “I thought I’d lost you,” my mom sobs, laughing hysterically at the same time. I’m not really sure how to react, so I just pat her awkwardly on the back, half-wishing I could run off like Silas. My mom pulls back and looks at me as her eyes narrow, and I know I’m in trouble. She’s glad I’m alive, but now she also wants to kill me.

“Mom…” I start to say, but she doesn’t give me the chance to finish.

“Jane Elizabeth May Hanson,” she says, raising her voice with each name she adds, and I wince. I hate it when she uses my whole name, and I hate people hearing it and knowing my whole name.

“I’m sorry, Mom. I just couldn’t let them go off alone. I was worried something was going to happen to them,” I say in a rush, and my mom stops and takes a deep breath like she’s trying to calm down. My dad comes over, puts both his hands on her shoulders, and gives her a squeeze.

“I think we should talk,” he tells her, and I send him a grateful look.

“Oh, don’t think you aren’t going to be punished,” he tells me. “You disobeyed us and you caused your mother a lot of stress,” he continues, and my heart sinks. “But…” he adds, and I look up at him in surprise. “You also proved your metal and your mom and I are going to talk about letting you have a few more responsibilities…maybe even allow you out of the house,” he jokes, and I attack hug him.

“Jane!” I turn from my dad’s hug and see Ryan striding towards me. He looks angry, and I guess he has the right. I would be pissed if he snuck off. “Don’t you ever do that again,” he tells me as he wraps his arms around me. Despite the fact that I’m torn between him and Silas, I squeeze him back because no matter who I pick, they are both still my best friends and I love them.

“I’m sorry,” I tell him, and I really do mean it. Abby comes over and hugs me, and so does Sunny and Megan and even Regg…Chad.

“What happened to you guys?” Regg asks when we’ve all hugged each other. “Barry said you were surrounded and ripped apart right in front of him, back at the store.” My mouth opens in shock to hear the fairytale Barry fabricated to explain our absence. I hear Silas swear as we all turn to look at Barry. He’s sweating and pale. I’m so surprised, you could probably knock me over with a feather, when my dad lets go of my mom and strides forward and punches Barry right in the nose. Barry goes down like a sack of potatoes, and I’m just a little bit impressed with my dad, even though I’m definitely going to make fun of him later…after all, he was the one that said we should all forgive Barry.

“I can’t believe you left us for dead and then just came back here like nothing happened,” my dad spits as Barry climbs to his feet.

“I’m sorry,” Barry says, surprisingly not making any excuses. “I shouldn’t have done it.”

“You’re damn right about that,” my dad snaps. “I might be able to get over you doing that to me, but you left my kid. You left her and you left Silas to get eaten alive by zombies, all to save your own skin. You could’ve drawn them away and came back for us, but you left us for dead, and I will never forgive you for as long as I live.” My dad is panting by the time he’s done delivering his speech, and I half expect him to punch Barry again, but he somehow manages to restrain himself.

I peel my eyes away from Barry and look around at the crowd. Everyone is staring at Barry in shock and disgust, and I can’t help thinking, oh snap, Barry is in so much trouble.

“Is this true?” my mom demands, even though she’s really never had any cause to doubt anything my dad says.

“It’s true,” Dad answers for Barry, and Silas and I both nod as well.

“Banishment,” Regg says instantly, and we all turn to look at the Sergeant.

“Please don’t,” Barry begs, turning to Regg, and even my Dad looks taken aback.

“That might be a little harsh…” My dad starts to say, and Barry turns a thankful look towards him.

“It is... it really is.” Barry agrees, making me want to punch the guy myself.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to have someone in this camp that we can’t trust. Someone who would purposely do something that directly endangers someone else,” Regg says, and the playful Sergeant I’ve come to know is no longer anywhere in sight. He is one hundred percent military from the look on his face to the stiff posture of his spine.

“But I saved you,” Barry splutters as he turns to Regg, but Regg shakes his head, denying it.

“You really didn’t have much choice when I jumped from the roof of the truck to the roof of your car when you were speeding by,” he points out succulently, and I’m shocked to realize that Barry would’ve left Regg too if he’d had the chance. “I was willing to ignore that,” Regg tells him, “There were a lot of zombies and I understand that you were scared…but you’ve done this more than once now. You’re a repeat offender.”

Every eye is on Barry and Regg, and no one else says anything. I think, like me, they are too surprised by the fact that Regg has a tough side.

“We can’t banish him,” Silas says eventually, breaking the silence.

“Why the hell not?” Regg demands, looking surprised that Silas of all people would object.

“He knows where we live. He knows where the cabin is and all the supplies we have. If we let him go, he could meet up with people that might want what we have,” Silas says, and he has a point. Zombies are an everyday fear, but so are bad people who want to take what little we’ve found for ourselves.

Regg frowns. “You’re right,” he says as he stares at Barry. I half expect him to whip out his pistol and shoot him in the head, but he doesn’t—thank goodness. I’ve seen enough graphic images for one day.

“But we can’t just let him get away with what he did,” Silas says, and we all murmur our agreement.

Somehow, Regg has become our leader in this, and we all turn to him…even Silas.

“Okay,” Regg says. “Flogging.”

Barry turns white and tries to run into the woods, but Silas and Regg grab him and wrestle him down to the ground.

“That seems a little harsh,” Mom interrupts, surprising everyone—even me—who doesn’t even know exactly what a flogging is.

“Meredith,” my dad bursts out. “This guy was nearly responsible for Jane’s death,” he tells her bluntly, and my mom goes pale.

“I know, Arthur, and believe me, he deserves to be punished, but if we introduce corporal punishment, where does it end?” she challenges. “Will you be happy when Jane is whipped for some reason, perhaps sneaking off on a supply run when she’s been told to stay home?”

“That is a bit farfetched,” Regg interjects. “Of course I wouldn’t go around whipping wayward teenagers, but traitors are another story. People who threaten our very lives—think about it”

My dad looks deep in thought, but finally he nods his head. “I’m sorry Mere, but I agree with Chad.”

Chad turns to the rest of us gathered around. “Two strikes for every person he left behind,” he suggests, giving us a minute to think about it before asking, “All in favor?”

I watch as my dad raises his hand, and Silas does the same. Chad puts his own hand up, and my mom’s remains firmly down. I start to raise my own hand, but my dad shakes his head at me. “Sorry kiddo, you can’t vote on this.”

“Why not?” I demand, after all, it happened to me.

“You aren’t old enough to vote,” Chad says firmly, and that shuts me up.

Ryan looks at me intently for a moment, and then raises his own hand.

“All opposed,” Regg asks, and my mom and Barry are the only ones that raise their hand.

“You don’t get a vote either,” Regg tells Barry, who miserably lowers his hand.

“The motion is carried,” Regg says as he goes over to the truck and pulls out a length of rope. “There is no point waiting. Let’s just get this over with and carry on with our lives.” He turns to Barry and holds out the rope. “Take your punishment and you will be given a fresh start. You don’t have to leave, but you had better change your behavior. We are not all out for ourselves here,” he says sternly, and Barry surprises the hell out of me by stepping forward to accept his punishment.

Regg points to a tree a couple feet away and Barry peels off his shirt and goes over and hugs the tree while Regg binds his hands to the opposite side. When Regg steps away, Barry is firmly tied to the tree with his back exposed.

“I will carry out the punishment,” Regg says as he walks over to a tree and cuts off a large birch rod.

“You girls need to go inside the house,” my dad tells us, and we don’t need to be told twice. It was one thing to want Barry punished, but it’s kind of a totally other thing to actually witness it.

“I’ll come with you,” Mom says as she casts my dad a disappointed look and follows us in.

We all go sit in the living room and wait for it to be over. Sunny is playing with her dolls in front of the fire, and she jumps up happily and hugs me when I walk in. “Why don’t you go play in your room, sweetie?” my mom suggests, and Sunny nods happily before running off up the stairs.

We all know when he receives the first crack of the whip. We can hear his screams even inside. “Do you really think he deserves this?” Mom asks me after Barry has shouted himself hoarse for each of his six lashes. I think about it seriously, about walking for miles, being in the dark out in the open and exposed. I think about running for my life, and spending hours in the wet pool of human remains, never knowing if I was ever going to see my mom again.

“Yes,” I answer at last, and the silence after my answer is deafening. It is obvious my mom expected me to change my mind after hearing Barry scream in pain.

“That’s a little harsh,” Abby says.

I open my mouth to reply, but Megan beats me to it. “It’s a harsh new world.”

Chapter Eight

It's hard not to stare when Barry comes running through the living room and heads straight for the stairs. He doesn't say a word to us, and even I wince when I see his back, red and bloody and raw from the whipping. I remind myself that he was nearly responsible for four deaths—one of them mine—and I harden my heart.

"Yikes," Abby says, but I ignore her. I know she wants me to change my mind and be the soft-hearted person she’s always known, but I can’t anymore. The door opens and Ryan pops his head in. He looks a bit pale, and I hope he isn't regretting voting for the punishment. I get the feeling he only did it because I wasn't allowed to vote my opinion.

"We could use some help getting the truck unloaded," he says before popping out again. My mind switches from Barry, who really is still alive and is just pouting upstairs, to all the awesome stuff we loaded into the back of the truck. I jump to my feet, pulling Abby and Megan along with me.

“Let’s form a line, so no one has to walk back and forth a thousand times,” Regg suggests. In lieu of Barry, Regg has become our interim leader, I guess because he was willing to do what had to be done. I don't know about everyone else, but I kind of like the idea of Regg being in charge. He’s a good guy, and he helped me out so much back when Ryan and I were leaving Camp Freedom. I really think he will do the right thing even when he really doesn’t have to, like helping us out when none of the other soldiers wanted to give us food or supplies for our trip to New York to find my parents.

We form an assembly line of sorts, moving the supplies into the middle of the living room where we can sort everything out afterwards. Regg doesn't want anyone outside after dark, so we need to work quickly. Our assembly line is so productive that I barely get a break between passing one thing and having to grab another. We finish the truck pretty quickly. Then Silas drives it around the corner and brings the car back. Apparently they hadn’t had a chance to unload it yesterday with all the excitement of thinking Dad, Silas, and I were dead. Either that or Barry was hoping to keep the supplies handy if he needed to make a quick getaway—I keep my thoughts on Barry to myself though.

I’m starting to feel a bit of an ache in my shoulders by the time we’ve passed the last thing—a twenty-five kilogram bag of flour. Still, walking into the living room and seeing the mountain of supplies is like Christmas. I never thought I would feel this kind of excitement again.

Silas and I hand out the coats, and Sunny squeals when Silas presents her with the pink snowsuit and matching boots. "I didn't know you still had that," I say in surprise, and Silas nods.

"I rammed it in my backpack while we were running from that crowd at the door." I smile at the fact that, even in the heat of the moment, Silas was still thinking about Sunny. I think if our situations had been reversed, I probably would’ve dropped the snowsuit and ran for my life.

"That was really great of you," I tell him, hoping he will believe it. I always get the impression from Silas that he thinks he's not a good guy, when the complete opposite is true.

"Yeah, well if we hadn't gotten it, then she would still need one and we'd just have to get it another day," he says logically, but I know it isn't all about convenience. He cares about Sunny.

"Listen up," Regg calls as he stands wearing his new winter coat and a pair of leather work gloves. "I don't want to just take over or anything, this should be a democracy, but the fact is we need to get organized and start actively surviving." His words make a lot of sense, and as I look around I see that everyone else in the room is nodding their agreement, even my mom, who didn't agree with his punishment plans.

"I have no problem with you stepping up, son," my dad tells him, and Ryan nods in agreement. "Hell, your military experience probably makes you the most qualified of us all," Dad adds, and he's probably right. Abby, Megan, and I would never even be considered—we wouldn’t want to anyway. Ryan and Silas are too young. Even though Silas is a great survivalist, he doesn’t have the social skills to lead. My mom was a housewife, who is afraid of her own shadow, and my dad, though he’s adapted well, he was a stockbroker. We never even went camping on the weekends back before everything blew apart.

"Thank you, sir," Regg says seriously. "I appreciate your vote of confidence."

"Do you have a plan?" my mom interrupts to ask, even though I personally think it’s too early to be expecting some sort of five-year plan in his acceptance speech—but Regg nods his head.

"I do, but it’s going to take all of us," he stares meaningfully at my mom. "That includes the girls, obviously Sunny will be exempt, but Megan, Abby, and Jane have to pull their own weight." I watch as my mom's face melts into a frown. It’s obvious this wasn't what she was expecting to hear.

"Listen, they're just kids," she argues, and I watch Regg let out a deep sigh. I nearly open my mouth to protest, but my dad beats me to it.

"Mere, I think we need to talk privately,” he says, but my mom crosses her arms stubbornly and refuses to leave, so my dad is forced to say whatever it is with an audience. “Okay then, you weren't out there with us. Jane has grown up a lot, you would be surprised. I know I was." I beam at my dad. I can't believe he's defending me to Mom like this.

Mom obviously can't believe it either. "Are you serious?" she scoffs, and my dad swallows visibly.

"I'm deadly serious," he says, standing his ground. "She's a better shot than I am, and I've seen her not hesitate to stomp a zombie." He actually looks proud of me, and I can't help but feel a little swell of pride.

"She's just a kid," Mom stubbornly protests again, and Dad shakes his head.

"Sunny is a kid. Abby, Jane, and Megan are young adults—things have changed—they had to. I would love to put her in a bubble and protect her forever, all three of them, but it isn't realistic. Keeping her away from the danger is actually hurting her ability to protect herself."

"Fine," my mother snaps, and I feel bad for my dad. I know that tone.

"Obviously they won't be given any high-risk jobs," Regg interrupts, and my mom turns her sour gaze on him.

"Don’t kid yourself Sergeant—just walking out the front door is a high-risk job these days,” she says, spinning on her heels and storming off to the kitchen. I wince when she slams the door, hoping that her rude behavior isn’t going to get her whipped.

"It's not ideal that winter is fast approaching. If it was spring, we could've grown crops to last us through the cold season. We do have a decent amount of food, but it won't be enough. When the cold weather kicks in, we will need to eat more because our bodies will burn more calories just keeping warm."

Regg paints a pretty bleak picture, and I begin to feel my spirits sinking.

"It sounds awful," Abby whispers to me, and I can only nod my head.

"It will be," Regg says, hearing Abby. "But there are things we can do to minimize the risk of starvation and hypothermia." I lean forward, curious about what he's going to suggest. “We will need to send teams out to scavenge for supplies, and food.” Regg stops and points to himself, my dad, and Ryan. I feel my heart sink into my toes. “While you three…” He points to Abby, Megan, and me. “…will stay on this mountain and begin to gather enough wood to last us through the winter.” He stops and takes a close look at our slender frames and skinny arms and frowns. “You will definitely need some training first.”

“What about me?” Silas interrupts, since he wasn’t named to do anything, which I find really odd. He’s like the most useful of us all. “Am I coming on the supply runs?”

Regg shakes his head, and Silas’s expression begins to turn stormy.

“You might have to go on the occasional run, if someone else gets sick or something,” Regg says, not elaborating on what the “or something” part might include—like getting eaten alive. “But, unless I’m mistaken, your real talents lie in hunting.”

Silas gives a clipped nod of his head. “I can hunt,” he acknowledges.

“That is just as important,” Regg continues. “Fresh meat will do wonders to stave off starvation, and it will save some of our stockpile for times when we really need it.” Silas nods grudgingly.

“That’s a good idea,” he admits, and I’m surprised.

“Part of your duties will also include protecting the cabin while the others are away, and keeping a loose ear on these three.” He stops and points to us. “Maybe surveying the area before they begin work, make sure there are no Z’s trapped in the deadfall.” Silas nods.

“What about Barry and my mom?” I blurt out, and Regg has to think about it for a minute.

“Your mom has an important job too, she needs to take care of Sunny. She has also been preparing all of our meals. I think that is enough for her for now,” he says, and I smile, I’m glad my mom won’t be put into any serious danger.

“And Barry?” Silas prompts.

“He’ll come with us on our supply runs until he proves he can be trusted. He won’t be given keys to any vehicles, or anything else he can use to betray us; he will have limited access.” Everyone nods at the Sergeant’s words.

“Sounds good,” Ryan says as he bends down and scoops a large bag of flour off the floor and begins to carry it into the kitchen. Outside the window it’s getting dark, so our new jobs will have to wait until morning. My stomach growls loudly, making me realize that I’ve missed lunch, so I scoop up a bag of sugar and cart it into the kitchen to see if my mom is still mad, or if she’s making us some supper.

The rich smell of bean and molasses hits me as soon as I walk through the door, and my stomach growls even louder. Mom looks over at me and gives me a small smile. “Are you starving?” she asks, and I nod. She tosses me a granola bar to hold me over. I haven’t eaten since that bag of chips in the car this morning.

“I’m sorry,” Mom says, surprising me.

“What?” I ask, looking up with a mouthful of bar.

“I know I was overreacting, and I’m embarrassed,” she admits. “It’s just the thought of losing you is terrifying. It’s going to take some time…a lot of time–maybe never—before I will feel comfortable with you going out.” She smiles at me, and I walk over and hug her tightly.

“Everything is going to be okay,” I tell her, even as my heart starts to thump loudly in my chest. I really hope it’s a promise I can keep.

Chapter Nine

I’m up early, too excited to sleep the day away. This is the first day I’ve parentally been allowed out of the house. I check the clock on the wall and decide that 7:00 AM isn’t too early to wake up the other girls. I shake Megan and Abby awake, but whisper so we won’t wake up Sunny. She doesn’t have a chore list a mile long to complete, and I know she will be upset that we are leaving—it’s better if she’s asleep when we head out.

We all get ready quickly and quietly, moving through the bedroom and throwing on multiple layers of clothing like wraiths. I stop just long enough to pull the blanket up higher to cover Sunny, and then the three of us are pounding down the stairs.

"Morning girls." Abby, Megan, and I stop in our tracks, seeing everyone but Sunny and Barry already gathered in the living room. I feel a little deflated. I'd felt special, like a real grown up getting up early for work all on my own.

"Morning," Megan replies for us when Abby and I remain silent and gape. Obviously, Abby feels the same way I do. Everyone is gathered around the table with coffee and breakfast. I eyeball the table, a long scarred up piece with antique chairs that used to be in the dining room.

"Nice table," I say as I step forward and grab myself a cup of coffee. I'm not really a coffee drinker, but it's hot and I'm cold, and I could use the boost of energy.

"It was Chad's idea," Mom beams. "We eat every meal in here because it's warmer by the fire—it just makes sense." She grins like it’s the best invention since sliced bread.

"I was just tired of sitting on the floor," Regg says, brushing off the compliment, and I smile. I can already see he's going to be the perfect leader. We've been eating in the living room for a week now—Abby, Megan, and my parents for even longer than that– but no one ever saw it as permanent, so no one ever took steps to make it easier before now. Regg is thinking long term.

I sit down at the table, glad I'm no longer designated to the floor, and grab a huge stack of pancakes. We picked up a whole bunch of pre-made mix and syrup the other day, and it's amazing to eat something so normal and delicious. My breakfast is usually something out of a can, or cereal without milk—it's just like before the zombies came and messed everything up.

"Are you ready for your first day of work?" my dad asks us, and all three of us girls nod eagerly. We are a little bit nervous to be going out there, but we haven't seen much zombie activity up here on the mountain. So as far as job descriptions go, lumber jack is one of the safest. We're also eager to finally get out of the cabin. My mom has kept a pretty tight leash on all of us, and we've developed a pretty severe case of cabin fever, especially Abby and Megan, who've been here a lot longer than I have.

"You guys will be great," Regg says as he finishes his pancakes and pushes his plate away. "Today you'll just be taking it easy and learning how to use the equipment." My face falls a bit at his words. I don't want to take it easy, I want to get out there and work—do something useful for a change. "We don't have a supply run scheduled until we can make a better plan, so your dad will be out there with you today." Regg turns to everyone else. "Silas, if you could try and find some fresh game. Ryan and I are going down the mountain to that little store at the bottom of the hill. I want to find a map and whatever supplies we can, but I'm guessing it will be pretty picked over with the other families living up here as well."

"Do you think we should meet them?" Megan asks, "The people in the other cabins." Regg and my dad look at each other with clear worry etched into their faces.

"We will eventually. They are probably doing the same thing as us right now, trying to stockpile to survive the winter," Regg pauses. "The problem is, if we get too friendly we might end up feeling responsible for them, and if they don't have proper provisions for winter..." Regg pauses, trying to think of a diplomatic way to say what he needs to say.

"It will strain our resources," Silas finishes for him, and Regg nods.

“Exactly.”

"So what?" Abby says surprising everyone. "Maybe some of them are women and children that don't have a skilled hunter or an army guy." A tear leaks down her cheek. "Maybe we should just help them because it's the right thing to do." My mom reaches over and pats Abby on the arm, and I feel a surge of guilt. Abby has still managed to hold onto her humanity and I'm not sure how she did it.

I want to feel for the others, but they are strangers and I'm kind of with Regg and Silas. We need to make sure our own are taken care of first, and if I’ve learned anything about strangers lately, it’s that most of them can’t be trusted. The one’s you can trust—you just shouldn’t get attached to because most people don’t last long anymore. I bite my lip and push away my plate. I used to be such a humanitarian, collecting donations for earthquake victims in Haiti, the residents of New Orleans after Katrina, heck, I’d even go spend time with the animals down at the shelter once or twice a week. This is the first time I've really thought about how I've changed, and I'm a little disturbed by the adjustments in my basic human instincts

"Today we need to be doing this," Regg continues, oblivious to my realizations about the state of my soul. "You need the training, and to be taught what to look for. We aren't always going to be here to help you—most days we will be on supply runs, probably right up until the road gets impassable when it snows. One of these days we will meet the neighbors, but today, we do this. Just remember that our preparation now could help them this winter if we really need to." His voice is kind but firm, and Abby doesn't argue further. I stare at her suspiciously because I know her pretty well, and she is usually thinking of some scheme when she gets uber quiet.

My dad might know this too because he pushes his chair back and stands up. "Ready to get to work girls?" he asks, and we all nod, eager to get out of here. My mom hugs each of us and hands us a large grocery bag filled with water and granola bars.

"Please be careful," she begs us, and we all echo the same agreement. Dad hands us each a pair of leather work gloves and a warm winter hat. Ryan comes over and says goodbye, but Silas just sits at the table talking with Regg, though I catch him staring at me.

“I wish I could come with you,” Ryan says, and I give him a smile as I extract myself from his hug.

“We will be fine, I promise,” I tell him as I head out the door with a wave to my mom.

Our breath puffs white in front of our faces, and the cold air stings the exposed skin. "It's chilly this morning," my dad says cheerfully as he leads us over to the pick-up, and we all climb in. I shiver as we wait for the truck to heat up and start blasting some hot air. If this is fall on the mountain, winter is really going to suck!

"So what's the plan?" Megan asks, and I lean forward expectantly, eager to hear the details.

"You'll need to find spots well away from the other cabins. We don't want our neighbors to think we're poaching their resources," my dad cautions. "Silas scoped out a few areas and said there was a lot of deadfall if we follow this road around the other side of the lake." My dad holds up a hand drawn map on a piece of paper and I stare at it; it looks like chicken scratch, though I assume the big glob in the middle is the lake.

We bump over the dirt trail, and the cabins start to thin and disappear as the trees get thicker. I count the signs of life at all the places we pass, but only about a third of the places we see are occupied. Away from the cabins, the last reminder of civilization falls away and the forest looks a little creepy and dark—if I’m honest. I look over at Abby and can tell she's thinking the same thing. Megan doesn’t seem too perturbed by anything and is staring out the window intently.

Finally, my dad stops and takes the truck out of gear and we all pile out. He leads us to the side of the road, more like a goat trail really, and points to a big pile of brush that is a mixture of large and smaller branches and even a few trees that have rotted and fallen over. It looks like it's been sitting there a long time. "This is ideal," my dad says as he bends down and starts picking through the pile to show us. "This is called deadfall because it's already on the ground, so it's easy access and it's had a chance to dry out and will be great to burn."

Megan frowns. "I thought we'd be chopping down trees," she complains, and I grin at her. I'd thought the same thing.

My dad chuckles at us. "You will be eventually, but we'll have a lot of time to get to that. Right now we will focus on the easy stuff. Live trees won’t burn as well and will have to be dried out. Believe, me you'll thank me later."

We walk back to the truck and he lowers the tailgate, showing off four brand-new chainsaws sitting in the back of the truck next to a jug of gas. "Where did those come from?" I ask, and dad smiles.

"Barry picked them up the other day in Wal-Mart—one good thing he actually did," he jokes. There are axes too, in all different sizes, ranging from small hatchets to serious lumberjack looking weapons with a spike on the end. I can't help thinking how good a couple of these would be against the dead—then I can’t help wondering if something is wrong with me that I automatically think about this stuff? “It's important to understand that these tools are not toys," my dad cautions like we’re a bunch of little kids on our first day of pre-school. "If you cut yourself, there aren’t hospitals anymore, we don’t have a doctor either.”

“Another reason to meet the neighbors,” Abby can’t resist pointing out. “Maybe one of them is a doctor.”

My dad smiles patiently at her, but doesn’t acknowledge her idea either. It’s a moot point right now in the middle of the forest. “So take your time and do it right," my dad continues, picking up one of the chainsaws. He points out all the important parts before demonstrating how to fire it up. All three of us cover our ears when it roars to life, and my dad turns it off with a sigh.

He makes us each try it until he’s confident we know what we’re doing. The roar of the saw is a little bit terrifying, but also empowering. Dad makes the hand across the neck sign for me to kill the engine, and I carefully turn it off.

“Perfect,” he says, beaming at all three of us. “Now it’s time for a different kind of safety lesson,” he says, making us all stare at him in curiosity. “We are pretty high up the mountain, but as we found out the other day, the dead might still be around.” His words make my stomach flutter in fear. “You will need to work in a rotation at all times. Two girls will be chopping and stacking wood while the third is on watch for the dead.” We all look at each other. “You can take turns and pick how long you want each shift to last, that way you will all get a bit of a rest from cutting and stacking.” My dad pauses and looks at us each in turn. “Got it?” he asks, and we all nod.

“Got it,” Megan says, and I mumble the same.

“When you’ve cut the wood, it will need to be stacked in the back of the truck for transport to the woodshed.” My dad looks at the back of the truck and frowns. There isn’t that much space to stack wood with the large fuel tank taking up half of the box. “I will talk to Chad about getting you guys a truck just for hauling wood.”

We all grin at the idea of getting our own truck, even if it is a work truck and we all have to share it.

“Awesome,” I say, and the other two girls agree.

“I knew you would like that,” my dad says with a grin as he hands us each a chainsaw. “I’ll be helping out with the wood cutting, but I want to see you girls working your rotation like you would if I wasn’t here,” he says, and we do rock paper scissors to see who takes the first shift zombie watching. Abby is chosen, and she doesn’t seem all that upset that she will miss out on the opportunity to be a lumberjack right away. We decide to switch watch every half an hour, that way we will all get a bit of a break.

Soon, Abby is walking the perimeter of our worksite, and Megan and I are firing up our chainsaws. Dad hands us each a pair of sunglasses to protect our eyes from flying wood, and then he wanders away and cuts wood off by himself to give us some space to get comfortable with our routine.

We quickly learn that this isn't the glamorous work we'd thought. It's hot, despite the freezing temperatures, and its backbreaking work. I'm sweating like a pig. At the same time, my nose is so numb from the cold that it won't stop running. The leather gloves help to keep my hands warm, but they are bulky and I'm not used to them, so it makes everything harder. More than once I look up and catch my dad watching us with a worried look on his face—it makes me more determined to do this. I could cry from relief when it's my turn to take Z watch. I’d lost the second rock, paper, scissors, and Megan had taken the second watch. I circle around the small perimeter of our work area like the other two girls did, but after each circle, I make the perimeter a little bit bigger.

It's cold so I don't want to stop moving, but I also don't want to walk in the same tiny circle five hundred times.

I look out into the dense trees and catch movement out of the corner of my eye. My heart starts thundering in my chest. I really hope it isn't a zombie. Everyone has adopted an uneasy acceptance about letting us loose in the woods, but if I have to shoot a zombie on our very first day out—they will probably reconsider and we'll be back in the house before we can even say the word zombie!

I hold as still as I can as I slip my gloves off, letting them fall soundlessly to the forest floor as I reach for the gun at my hip. There is definitely something behind that tree. I raise my gun and aim, but I keep my finger off the trigger. It’s probably a zombie, but there are other live people around here and I don't want to accidentally kill one of them—that would not be the way to start neighbor relations.

My arms are beginning to shake from adrenaline and strain by the time I finally get a glimpse of the creature behind the tree. I see long, skinny legs first, then a fair-sized rack of antlers, and a beautiful brown body. It's a deer. I start to lower my gun. The deer is no threat to us, but I pause. I've never been hunting before, but a deer would mean fresh meat. It would also mean that Silas might be a little impressed with me, especially if his own hunting trip turns up empty.

I grin a little as I line up the shot and pull the trigger without giving it much thought. My gun lets out a faint pop. The deer jerks and goes down as my shot connects. I start forward, but my steps falter. It isn't dead, and the poor thing is thrashing around wildly in the dirt and dead leaves. Suddenly, I'm horrified about what I've done. I've never felt a moment’s regret for shooting the dead, but this deer was alive.

Tears trickle down my cheeks as I approach its struggling body, and I’m swamped by guilt. There's so much blood and it isn't black and sick, it's red and pumping out everywhere. I feel the urge to vomit, but I have to do something much more important first, so I swallow it down.

My hands shake as I raise my gun again and aim pointblank at its head. Its eyes are wide and bulging in pain and fear, and pink foam is sticking to its mouth. "I'm so sorry," I manage to choke out as I squeeze the trigger. It's pointblank and messy, but the poor thing is out of its misery. I collapse to my knees in front of it and start to bawl.

"Jane?" I hear my dad’s voice and duck my head so he can't see my face. I feel the weight of his hand on my shoulder.

"I never feel bad when I shoot zombies," I choke out as I motion to the body in front of me. "But I just feel so bad about this!" I sob, and my dad pulls me to my feet and hugs me tightly.

I feel the pat of hands on my back and wince that Abby and Megan are seeing me like this.

"It’s okay, Jane,” Abby says as she rubs my back.

“We really did need this to survive,” Megan says, taking the more practical approach.

“I know,” I tell them. “I know I’m being ridiculous. I just thought it would be the same as shooting a zombie, but it made me feel so…guilty.”

I pull away from Dad and stare down at its prone body. “I don’t know if I can eat it now,” I admit, but my dad shakes his head.

“You’re eating it,” he tells me sternly, and I stare up at him in surprise. “If you kill an animal, the best way to honor it is to make sure it didn’t die just to rot into the ground. Always eat what you kill, or don’t kill it,” he tells all three of us.

“Just never zombies,” Megan adds, and my dad looks a little grossed out at the idea of eating a zombie.

“Yes, of course. Never eat a zombie,” he agrees, making us all chuckle a little. “Now let’s take this deer back to camp and see if Silas will dress it for you,” he says, and we all grab a leg and start lugging the deer back to the truck. It’s surprisingly heavy and it takes all four of us to wrestle it into the back of the truck. We’ve only filled the truck half full of wood, but the other half is full of meat, so I think that’s a pretty good compromise, and I actually have a small smile on my face as we head back to camp. I still feel guilty, but I know that we needed this meat, and it will be put to good use.

Silas is sitting on the front step skinning a rabbit when we pull up, and I don’t miss the fleeting look of relief when he sees us returning safe and sound. “Done chopping wood already?” he asks in surprise as we slide out of the truck.

“Not exactly,” I say slyly as I motion him over and point to the enormous deer carcass in the back of the pickup. I enjoy the way his jaw goes slack in surprise.

“Your dad got a deer?” he asks excitedly, and I shake my head.

“I did,” I say proudly, and Silas looks skeptical.

“Really?” he demands, and I nod.

“I wasn’t sure if that little rabbit there would be enough for supper…” I tease, and he grins.

“Well damn, I’m proud of you, Blondie,” he says, and I can’t help but beam. Later I’ll share my guilt ridden experience with Silas, but right now, I just want to bask in his praise for a little while longer.

Chapter Ten

The morning is drizzly and wet as the girls and I throw on our gear. “Today is going to suck,” Megan complains, and I nod in full agreement. It’s totally going to suck. It has been raining for the last couple of days and, with the low temperatures, it’s only a matter of time before it turns to snow. I wish we didn’t have to go out today. But since we’ve had such a late start getting ready for winter, taking a personal day is not really an option. The past week has gone by quickly, despite the weather, and the girls and I have fallen into our own little routine. There’s been a lot of changes, but some of them haven’t been all bad—I was always an athletic person, but I’ve really seen a lot of changes in my body over the last week. Long hours spent chopping, hauling, and stacking wood has toned and muscled my arms and upper body.

The girls and I always joke that if the world didn’t end, we could’ve made a fortune selling logging-workouts as part of a full weight loss and toning program. It’s fun to have something to do while we complete our mindless work, and listing all the stuff we would buy with our profit is a favorite for us all—it’s not like we have TV anymore.

My mom is already in the kitchen, and she hands us a thermos of hot chocolate, three go-cups, and a hot egg sandwich for each of us. Ryan, Dad, Barry, and Regg have made several supply runs into the small communities and surrounding rural farms in the area, and it’s like Christmas every time they return. I bite into my egg sandwich and close my eyes for a minute to savor it. After their third trip into town last week, they returned with the backseat of the truck stuffed with live chickens. Half of us thought they were crazy, but the chickens have really added to the quality of life we are building for ourselves up here.

Silas and Ryan set them up in the closest neighboring cabin. It was empty and if the owners haven’t shown up yet, chances are they probably won’t. It isn’t a permanent solution, but with winter coming, it’s the best option besides letting them live in the house with us! The only drawback is soon we will need to keep the fire going in the cabin with the chickens as well, and that will mean even more wood that needs to be chopped. I almost voted to keep the damn birds in our cabin when I heard that.

Mom has always reveled in the housewife duties, so she’s adapted to life at the cabin better than anyone. She stays in the house, playing with Sunny all day, baking bread, and making all the meals. I can’t complain, though, because I would never be able to make bread and having even the most basic comfort back again has really made this whole situation seem not so terrible. Of course, the fact that we are on top of a zombie-free mountain has a lot to do with that too.

“You girls be careful out there today,” my mom says, planting a kiss on each of our cheeks, and we all promise her that we will. Silas joins us in the kitchen, and my mom hands him his own egg sandwich and a cup of coffee.

“Take care of my girls,” Mom says, like she does every day, and Silas nods as we make our way outside. The icy blast of wind and water makes me want to run right back inside the door, but I settle for running to the truck instead.

Megan climbs behind the wheel of the older model pickup that my dad brought back for us after their first supply run, and we all sit with our teeth chattering until the engine warms up and the heat kicks in. “I think we should start the truck before we all come out here in the morning,” Abby complains, “We can take turns.” I agree wholeheartedly.

“Dad should’ve brought us back a truck with command start,” I grouse, and the girls laugh. It might sound ungrateful. Really, we are very thankful to have our own truck, especially since we couldn’t fit a lot of wood in the old truck—but since everything is essentially free these days, a few extra options would’ve been nice.

Just like she does every morning, Abby flips on the radio. Together we all sit and listen to static as she flips slowly through every channel to see if there is anything new.

“What would you do if you actually heard something?” I ask—we do a lot of hypotheticals these days.

“Freak out,” Abby and Megan both say in unison, and we laugh. Silas climbs into the back of the truck beside me, and I give him a smile, which he makes half an effort to return. I glance up and see Megan watching us in the mirror with a smirk on her lips, and I shake my head at her.

Silas comes with us every morning; apparently the promise of freedom was just an illusion. He comes with us under the guise of hunting, but I know that Regg and my parents have asked him to keep an eye on us while we are out gathering wood. Some days he helps us, but most of the time he slips off into the forest and doesn’t return empty-handed. It’s usually small game he brings back, rabbits and birds, but I did overhear him planning a trip to go higher up the mountain for bigger stuff like elk or moose.

“When are you going on that hunting trip?” I ask, since I’m thinking about it now and I’m curious. Silas looks surprised that I even know about it.

“Eavesdropping again?” he asks, and I grin. He knows me too well. The top of the stairs is a great place to stay in the loop. My parents and Regg think Abby, Megan, and I are too young to be involved with the day-to-day decisions, but I think we are too changed by this outbreak to go back to just being teenagers. So we are stuck in a kind of limbo until we turn eighteen. It makes no sense to me, eighteen is just a number; we have proven ourselves, but they still insist on treating us like babies.

“Come on,” I wheedle, “Just tell me. You know I’ll find out anyway.”

Silas snorts, which I take to mean he knows I’m right. “Fine. I’m planning a trip higher up the mountain to hunt some bigger game. We need something we can butcher and store for the winter.” When he finishes, I stare at him until he gives me an annoyed look. “What?” he demands.

“I already knew that part,” I tell him, hoping for a few of the more juicy details.

“Then you already know as much as I do,” he tells me. “It’s not a solid plan yet, we are still working on it.”

“When do you think you’ll go?” I ask, and Silas sighs.

“I’m not sure, but sometime after the first snow. There aren’t any roads that go higher up the mountain, so I’ll have to hike in and out.” I crinkle my nose at that.

“Wont the snow make it harder?” I ask, not sure why I’m the only one seeing this problem.

“A little harder, but the meat is heavy and I’ll have to drag it. Dragging it on a sled will be easier than any other method.” Silas surprises me by resting his hand on mine for a minute. “Don’t worry, Blondie, I got this. When I know more, I’ll tell you,” he promises. Even though he isn’t handing me candy and roses, I know that this is romantic, for Silas.

My conversation with Silas is cut short when Megan pulls into the same area we were working yesterday and puts the truck in park. We all sit in the truck and stare out the window at the pounding rain, without an ounce of ambition.

“Come on lazy bones,” Silas says at last as he pulls up his hood and jumps out of the truck. He is way too energetic.

“I wish I had half his ambition,” Megan complains, and I laugh.

“I’d settle for a quarter,” I say, and the three of us giggle, making Silas stare through the window and shake his head. We all pile out and grab our equipment. Silas watches while we do our ritualistic rock- paper-scissors. He shakes his head when I do a happy dance because I’m the first one on Z-duty today.

I start my lap around the clearing, and Silas falls into step beside me. “Be safe today,” he tells me, “Keep your guard up, and be thorough. Just because we haven’t seen anything lately, doesn’t mean it’s one hundred percent safe.” I nod.

“I know,” I snap, looking up to find that he’s staring down at me. My heart starts pounding in my chest and, despite the water trying to drown me, my mouth goes dry. Silas pulls me around the side of a large tree and presses his lips to mine. I kiss him back like it’s the last time I’ll ever get to kiss him because… you never know. He pulls back suddenly and gives me a lopsided grin.

“Take care, Blondie,” he tells me again before he takes off into the trees. I stand for a minute, watching him walk away, and then I force myself to snap out of it and get back to my patrolling. A zombie waits for no kiss.

I’m soaked to the skin and half-hypothermic before I even get my turn with the saw. At least when I’m working hard I don’t feel as cold. We are in a rush to get the truck filled up. We have a deal with Regg where we promised to fill at least one truckload of wood a day. Most days we can do a lot more, but on days like this that are rainy, and cold, and miserable, it’s nice to be able to cry mercy and meet our quota early.

Wood shavings fly everywhere as I section off a particularly large chunk of deadfall. One lands on my tongue and I spit it out, glancing over at the nearly filled truck, anxious to get out of here. Even if we finish before Silas gets back, waiting for him in the truck with the heat on is a nice alternative to hanging out in the rain. The chainsaw roars in my ear, and the power of it makes my hand vibrate and itch. I take my finger off the throttle for a minute to help ease the tingle before it turns into a full-scale case of the numb hand, and I just let it idle as I try and catch my breath. My ears are still ringing from the noise, but over that, I hear something else. Abby calls me again, and I turn with a smile to see what she wants; we usually don’t bother each other when we are cutting wood. It’s just easier not to interrupt the flow once we get to work, but I guess since I just stopped for a minute, she thought it was fine.

The smile melts off my face, and I let out a girly scream when I come face-to-face with a zombie. If I hadn’t turned, he would’ve been taking a bite out of my back in another minute. His face is way too close to my own, and it’s not pretty. I barely have enough time to bring the chainsaw up to act as a buffer. I jab him in the chest, and it keeps him at bay. It’s terrifying to see him out in the woods, more because I’d been lulled into a false sense of security, than my actual fear of him. My heart sinks as I call over to Abby. “I thought you were watching!”

Abby looks crushed, and I use some of my newfound muscle to push the deadhead further back so I can have a little more breathing room. He’s a full grown male though, and heavy. I know this won’t work for much longer because the zombie doesn’t care that I have a chainsaw pointed at his chest. His only thought is to rip and tear and eat me. His arms come up and take a swipe at me, and I know I don’t have enough time to put the chainsaw down and grab the gun from my holster. My only weapon IS the chainsaw.

I make a face. This is going to be disgusting. I don’t let myself think about it too much before I squeeze the trigger to get the blade going. The chainsaw is still pressed against the zombie’s shirt and it immediately bites into his flesh. The zombie is forced back a little by the press of the blade, and I pull the chainsaw free from his chest with a bit of effort. It was a rookie mistake; I know it’s got to be the brain.

The next time he comes at me, I brace myself and stab him in the face with the spinning blade. It’s worse than I imagined. I’m instantly sprayed with a viscous mix of blood, snot, and zombie brains, and it doesn’t stop as the blade works its way through his skull.

I feel my face become coated with slime, and I’m glad I am still wearing the sunglasses at least. I can’t even see out of them at this point. I purse my lips together to keep from getting any of the infectious goop in my mouth. It’s taking all of my strength. I count to three before I release the saw and jump back, pulling the useless glasses from my face.

The roar of the chainsaw goes instantly quiet, and the zombie’s knees buckle as he falls backwards like a tree. The chainsaw is sticking through his face and in my adrenaline-fueled state of hysteria, I nearly yell out TIMBER! I barely manage to suppress it as I look down at the zombie and realize what I just did.

I take a step back and stare down at the rotting carcass as Abby and Megan run up to me and stand there gaping. “I am so sorry, Jane!” Abby cries. “You were really close to the tree line and I was across the clearing and he just stumbled out of the trees right at you. You couldn’t hear me over the saw and Megan couldn’t line up a shot.” I hold my hand up to silence her as I hear movement in the underbrush and this time grab the gun at my hip.

When Silas comes bursting out of the woods and stops to stare at me, his mouth actually drops and I quickly lower my gun.

“Holy shit, Blondie, I leave you alone for an hour and you go all Texas Chainsaw Massacre on some zombie?”

I raise my gore-stained fingers and point at him. “Be careful, Silas, or you’ll be next,” I caution him, and he laughs.

“Didn’t I tell you to behave yourself?” he asks, and from the corner of my eye I see Megan and Abby gaping at him like he’s completely lost his mind. The exact opposite is actually true though. Silas’s calm is having a similar effect on me. I think if he’d run over here and started freaking out, I would be in as many pieces as that zombie right now.

“You two are so messed up,” Abby says, and Silas shoots her a crazy grin that will no doubt cement her opinion, and that is exactly why he did it.

“I think you’ve had enough for one day,” Silas suggests, and I shrug.

“Whatever you think,” is my flippant reply, even though inside I feel like my very guts are shaking. Silas lines the backseat with garbage bags that he finds underneath the front seat, and we drive back to the cabin with all the windows down. I know the smell is making Megan and Abby turn green, but they feel so guilty, they don’t mention it.

I’m going to need about ten showers to wash all this stuff off. Worse than the zombie guts, they will all be ice cold showers since the cabin doesn’t have heat.

When we get home, I catch a flutter of movement at the window, but it’s gone before I can look twice. It’s probably someone that looked out here and saw me and then ran for the hills!

Silas helps me out of the truck so I won’t touch too much of the upholstery, and then we walk towards the house as a group. Silas would usually head straight to the RV, but I guess he feels like he’s going to owe someone an explanation. I don’t even care right now; I just need a shower so I can wipe some of this toxic zombie crap off of me.

Abby pushes the door open and I follow closely, nearly running into her back when she stops abruptly. “Happy Birthday, Jane!” I hear my Mom and Sunny shout in mismatched harmony. There are even a few balloons hung up.

“What the hell?” I hear Silas mutter just before my mom catches a glimpse of me zombie a la mode and starts screaming her head off. Ryan, Regg, my dad, and even Barry are there too, and they all start talking at once, but I don’t know what they’re saying. I can’t hear anything over my mom’s screaming.

“I’m going to take a shower!” I shout to be heard above the commotion, and then I slip away, or as much as someone who is the entire focus of attention can slip away. I stare at myself in the mirror for a moment, and it isn’t pretty. I’m covered head to toe in black zombie blood, except for the perfect outline around my eyes where I was wearing the glasses. It’s like the world’s most horrible tan!

Up until a minute ago, I hadn’t even realized it was my birthday, but I still feel confident saying—this has been the worst birthday ever.

Chapter Eleven

“It’s your birthday?” Silas asks when I get out of the shower and return to the living room.

“I guess so,” I say with a shrug. I’ve actually lost track of what day it is, but if it’s my birthday, then it’s November 25th—exactly one more month until Christmas. My heart sinks at the thought of a zomb-pocalypse Christmas. I will definitely not be getting a new IPad this year.

“I heard what happened kiddo,” Dad says, coming over to give me a hug now that I’m not covered in infectious material. “Are you okay?”

“Happy Birthday, Jane,” Regg says, coming over and giving me a smile. Him interrupting my dad, who’s about to ask me every little detail and make me relive it, is the best present he could have given me. I took down a zombie with a chainsaw; now I just want to forget about it.

“Thanks, Regg,” I say. I’m still having a hard time adjusting to calling him Chad, but he doesn’t seem to mind. Being an army man, he’s probably used to hearing his surname more than his first name anyway.

Mom walks out of the kitchen with a birthday cake lit with seventeen candles, and my mouth drops open. Everyone bursts into a gusty rendition of Happy Birthday, and I’m actually grinning ear to ear by the time it’s over. “Make a wish,” Mom says as she sets the cake on the table in front of me, and I close my eyes and blow out the candles. I wish for the zombies to die off and for life to return back to normal. Everyone cheers when the candles go out, and I realize that this is a novelty for everyone, not just me. It’s the first truly normal thing to happen since the zombies.

“How did you get chocolate cake, and candles?” I ask my mom with a smile, and she grins mischievously back.

“I had your dad pick up a few extras on his supply run,” she confides as she starts dishing out enormous pieces of cake. I let Sunny have the first piece, and the look on her face is better than the first piece of cake could ever make me feel.

Mom has supper ready after the cake. I can’t believe she let us have our dessert first. The girls and I set the table, and then Mom brings out an enormous goose that Silas shot yesterday. She was roasting it over the fire all day, and she serves it with rice and canned vegetables that she stuffed inside the goose and cooked with all its juices to add flavor. I eat until I’m stuffed and then push my chair back to give myself some more breathing room. This day has been surreal.

“How about a game of cards?” Regg suggests, and we all jump at the idea, not wanting the night to end so soon. Regg teaches us girls how to play poker, Silas and Ryan claim that they already know how, and we play for pennies. Abby’s parents kept an enormous jar of pennies at the cabin, for some reason. My Mom plays with Sunny, bouncing a balloon back and forth around the living room, and Barry and my dad sit on the couch and talk. Barry has actually been pretty decent lately. I think the whipping did him a lot of good and caused a complete three-sixty to his personality. He’s really been trying to make up for what he did, and we have all been slowly forgiving him.

When ten-thirty rolls around, my parents disperse our game and tell us to go to bed. My mom already tucked Sunny in over an hour and a half ago. They say goodnight and head to bed themselves. Regg has wiped the floor with all of us, including Ryan and Silas, so our game was pretty much over anyway. I only have three pennies left to my name.

“You can give us a chance to win back our money tomorrow,” Megan tells Regg flirtatiously, and we all laugh. I had a lot of fun tonight, and in a world void of TV or internet, gambling might just be the next big thing.

Ryan walks over and gives me a hug. “Happy birthday, Jane,” he tells me, planting a kiss on my lips before I realize what he’s going to do, and I pull away quickly. I glance over at Silas and see that he’s watching us with a scrutinizing look, and I blush.

I stare at Ryan and feel some of my happiness from earlier melt away as guilt takes its place. “Ryan, we need to talk,” I say, and he gives me a small smile.

“It’s okay,” he says, and I stare at him in confusion.

“What’s okay?”

“I know what you’re going to say,” he tells me. “I’m not blind, I know you’ve been pulling away from me lately.” He shrugs like it’s not a big deal, but I can see the hurt in his eyes. “We didn’t make any promises to each other. We clung to each other because we were on the road, but now we’re as safe as we can be and we’re building a life here and I know that you don’t feel the same way you used to.” Tears prick my eyes at his understanding words. Why does he have to be so amazing? It’s not even that my feelings for him have changed; it’s just that my feelings for Silas have grown so much stronger—and I feel like a terrible person because of it.

“I am so sorry,” I gush. “You know that I love you, and I never would’ve survived if it hadn’t been for you,” I tell him honestly. “You came with me to try and find my parents and you didn’t have to. You risked your life for me, and now I feel awful that this is happening.” Ryan wraps me back in a hug, but this time he doesn’t try to kiss me, and I don’t pull away.

“Jane, just because we aren’t going to be boyfriend and girlfriend doesn’t change the way I feel about you. We will always be friends, and I will always protect you and want to see that you are happy.” His words make me feel like the worst.

“I will always protect you too,” I promise, and I mean it. I wouldn’t hesitate to give my life protecting anyone in this cabin—well, I’m actually on the fence about Barry—but everyone else—I wouldn’t even have to think... “You’re one of my best friends,” I tell him, and Ryan smiles.

“You too,” he says as he lets me go and steps back. “I’ll see you in the morning, okay?” he says, and I nod.

“Good night.” Ryan turns away from me to face the rest of the group. Megan and Abby are talking to Regg. Silas is standing with them, but he isn’t paying attention to what they’re saying. He’s watching me. I wipe my tears away and turn my back on the others so they won’t see as Ryan says goodnight. Regg joins him and the two walk out to the camper parked in the driveway.

Megan and Abby look at Silas, who’s still hanging around, and they quickly excuse themselves, heading up to bed so we can have a little privacy. Silas approaches and stares down at me for so long that I start to get uncomfortable. “I told Ryan that we couldn’t be anything more than friends,” I say to break the silence, and Silas looks at me critically.

“Is that what you really want?” he asks, and I nod.

“It is.”

“Then why are you crying?” he asks softly as he steps closer and uses the pad of his thumb to wipe the tears from my cheeks. It’s a strangely nice gesture, coming from Silas, and I smile even though my face is wet from tears.

“I feel bad,” I admit. “Ryan did so much for me, he came with me to find my parents and he’s saved my life so many times.” I shrug. “I guess I just feel like I’m a terrible person for abandoning him now that we’re safe. I do care about him still, just not like that.” My voice is nearly a whisper when I finish, and Silas nods like he actually understands.

“We are never safe, Blondie, not anymore. If that is why you feel guilty, then you shouldn’t.” His words don’t have the reassuring quality that he probably intended. I frown and he leans in and kisses me softly before pulling away. “I’m glad you did it,” he admits, and I look up at him in surprise. Silas has kissed me a few times, but I really wasn’t sure if he would care that I broke up with Ryan, not that we were ever technically dating... Silas is so hard to read, with the exception of confessing he liked me when he thought we were going to die, he’s never acted like my relationship with Ryan bothered him. This is my first peek into his mind, and I’m intrigued.

Of course, he clams up immediately afterwards. “Happy Birthday,” he tells me as he pulls away and heads for the door. I stare after him, my mouth agape a little. He stops and looks back at me, and my heart leaps. “Don’t forget to lock this door,” he cautions me, and I frown at him—that wasn’t exactly what I thought he was going to say.

“I will,” I snap, and he grins at me like he knows he’s messing with my head, and he grabs the door handle like he’s going to leave. Typical Silas. I cross my arms over my chest, waiting for him to leave so I can lock the door and head up to bed to dissect every little piece of this conversation and try to figure out what in the heck is going on inside Silas’s head.

Silas doesn’t leave though; he just stands at the door for a minute with his hand on the handle. “What are you doing?” I ask, and he spins around at my question, striding towards me. He kisses me so hard my head spins and my knees go weak. I wrap my arms around his neck and hold on to keep from collapsing. After a minute, he pulls back and rests his forehead against mine. “I like you, Blondie,” he says, and then he really does turn around and walk out the door. I grip the couch and stare at the door for a minute with a big grin on my face.

“Are you going to lock the door?” Mom asks, making me jump. I turn around and face her, a blush on my cheeks, though hopefully she won’t be able to see it in the dim firelight.

“Did you see that?” I ask, and she nods.

“The end of it,” she admits.

“Do you still not like him?” I ask her, wanting her approval.

Mom thinks about it for a minute. “I like him just fine. Your dad told me about how protective he was of you when you were out on that Wal-Mart run. Your dad really likes him, and I think it’s nice.” She pauses and walks across the room to lock the door herself. I watch her click the lock into place, and she comes over and gives me a hug. “I just want you to be careful,” she cautions, and I brace myself for her speech. “Having a boyfriend now is a little different than before.”

“How so?” I can’t help asking. I mean, sure we can’t go out to the movies or anything, but I’m not really sure what other differences she’s talking about. Did the rules of dating change when the zombies arrived?

Mom hesitates. “Well, for starters, you can’t really go out on dates, and you are practically living together.”

“He lives out in the camper,” I object, but my Mom rolls her eyes at me.

“The driveway is really not a separate residence,” she counters. “Besides, I’m sure those boys will have to move inside this winter when it gets too cold out—it’s probably too cold out there now.”

“They still have some propane left for heat,” I tell her, since I’d just heard Regg mention it the day before.

“Alright. I just worry about you. Teenage pregnancy is not something I want for you,” she says, making me flush red with indignation. “It wouldn’t have been ideal before, but a baby right now, with the zombies.” Mom shudders, and I’m pretty sure we are both thinking about Natalie.

“Mom!” I splutter. “I’m not going to be doing...that!” I tell her. “Geez!”

Mom stares at me for a minute before she nods. “Okay, I just want you to really think about the consequences of things.” She stops and sighs, “I guess this is a conversation I should be having with all three of you girls, not just you.”

I jump at my chance of escape. “Yeah, okay, that sounds good. Save it for another day,” I agree as I start edging towards the stairs.

“Jane,” Mom calls me back, and I stop and turn around to face her.

“What?”

“Happy Birthday.”

“I wonder what we would’ve been doing today if the zombies hadn’t come?” I ask before I can stop myself.

“You would’ve been bowling and getting an IPad,” Mom answers without even having to think about it.

“What?” I splutter. “How do you know?”

“Because I reserved the bowling alley for you and your friends ages ago, and I bought you an IPad,” she tells me in a matter-of-fact way.

“Today was still great,” I tell her, and she beams.

“Sweet dreams,” she calls after me as I start up the stairs, and I tell her that I love her.

Abby and Megan are waiting for me when I get upstairs. “What happened?” they whisper, not wanting to wake up Sunny.

I grin and jump next to them on the bed. “Silas kissed me,” I confess, and they squeal with excitement. “And then my mom saw us,” I say with a groan, and they laugh.

“Only you could find love during the zombie apocalypse,” Abby teases, and I blush.

“I’m not sure it’s love,” I say, with a huge yawn emphasizing my words, “But he does give me butterflies.” Megan and Abby grin at that.

I check the light-up watch on Megan’s wrist and see that it’s nearly midnight, which isn’t too bad for a normal teenager, but we have to be up early tomorrow, chopping wood, and we were up early today and I’m exhausted. We each crawl into our own beds, and I don’t even get that chance to think about Silas; I’m too tired.

Sunny’s shriek startles all three of us awake. I leap out of bed, half-asleep, and make my way over to her bed. Megan is already there, and Abby stumbles over a minute later.

“Are you okay?” I ask, but Sunny shakes her head.

“I heard them,” she says, shaking and crying, and her words make goose pimples break out on my arm.

“It was just a dream,” Megan soothes as she rubs Sunny’s back, but the little girl stubbornly shakes her head.

“It wasn’t a dream. I heard them.” She insists.

“Okay. I’ll go and look out the window, how about that?” Megan asks, and Sunny looks terrified, but finally she nods.

Abby stays with Sunny on the bed, and Megan and I walk over to the window to look out. It’s darker than the inside of a cow, and we can’t really see anything. “See, there’s nothing—” Megan starts to say when the loud echo of a gunshot interrupts her. We see the flair of the muzzle flash and pin-point that it’s coming from a couple cabins over. “What in the hell are they doing?” Megan demands as she leans forward, pressing her nose against the glass as she tries to see what’s going on.

“We should probably get away from the windows,” I suggest, not wanting to get hit by a stray bullet.

“But why are they firing?” Megan demands as she continues to search the blackness of the night. Several more gunshots erupt, and again we can see the flashes like tiny fireworks in the dark. Megan looks back at Sunny to see how she’s taking it. Sunny has her face pressed against Abby’s shoulder and she’s shaking like a leaf. “Do you think there are zombies out there?” she leans in and asks me in a whisper, and I shrug helplessly.

“Hopefully they are just drunk or something,” I say, but Megan doesn’t look convinced and I’m honestly not either. We haven’t had the time to meet our neighbors yet, but they don’t seem like the type to do something so reckless for no reason. No one that has survived this long would do something as reckless as fire an un-muzzled gun at night, not unless they had no other choice.

“We need to help them.” Megan says, but I know there is no way in hell my parents are going to let us go out there in the dark. I’m not even sure if Regg would want to risk it.

“I don’t think we should go outside. We could get shot, or worse,” I say, my voice shaking a little. Megan turns to me like she’s going to argue, but the moon suddenly slips out from behind a cloud and illuminates the ground below, and all argument about going outside or not, becomes moot.

There are zombies everywhere.

I feel a scream bubble up in my throat, so I slap my hand over my mouth just in case I can’t control the urge. There has to be at least a couple hundred zombies milling around down there. “Where did they all come from?” Megan asks, but I don’t have the answer.

My mind races back to that zombie in the woods today and I can’t help but wonder if that was a precursor to all of this. I feel like breaking down and crying like a little girl, I’m so worried and disappointed. We had all just started to feel safe here, I should’ve known it was too good to last.

My next thought is even more terrifying. What about Silas, Ryan, and Regg? They are trapped outside in what basically amounts to a tin can. Fear races through my body and makes my stomach clench, and I turn and start tearing the room apart, looking for extra ammo rounds.

“This is going to be bad,” Megan whispers, and I don’t know what to say, so I say nothing. She isn’t wrong.

Chapter Twelve

“I have to go find my parents,” I tell the girls as I grab my pistol and double check that it’s loaded.

“Jane, I don’t think you should go,” Abby mumbles, and I shake my head.

“Who else is going to do it?” I ask, but she doesn’t have a more viable candidate. She just stands there looking at me helplessly. I know she’s terrified right now; we all are. My mind keeps asking myself how this could happen.

I know how though, we got too complacent, in just a week and a half. We thought we were untouchable up here on this mountain. Now I just hope we don’t die for our idiocy. My weapons belt settles around my hip like an old friend, and I hope it still has a little bit of luck left in it. I add a few extra magazines before I stop and listen at the door. I doubt the zombies are inside the cabin. They aren’t exactly skilled at sneaking around, but it pays to be cautious. I don’t hear anything thumping or bumping, so I ease the door open and slip out into the pitch black hallway without another word to the others.

I can’t use my flashlight because none of the windows are covered and if we draw attention to ourselves right now, we’ll be dead. I don’t need light though; I know my path by heart. I pause at the top of the stairs to listen again. I can hear the moans of the dead, but they aren’t inside the house—the sound is too faint.

I reach my parent’s bedroom without encountering any problems and I stand in their doorway, marveling that they are still asleep with all the gun shots sounding off. They are on the other side of the cabin though, so maybe that makes a difference. I step into the room and the floorboard creaks.

“Who’s there?” Dad demands, sounding instantly alert. I hear him rustling around and know he’s going for the light. He probably has a knife in his hand too. If he touches the light, we will all be toast.

“Don’t turn on the light,” I tell them, barely suppressing the urge to yell it. “It’s me, Jane.”

“Jane?” Mom asks, sounding sleepy.

“Why can’t we turn on the light?” Dad asks suspiciously, and I take a deep breath. I’m going to have to shatter their illusion of safety.

“Zombies,” I say and hear Mom gasp. I instantly regret being so dramatic. “They’re outside and there are a lot of them.” I frown, that wasn’t really any better. “You guys should come upstairs; you can see more from up there.”

I lead the way, and my parents follow me back upstairs without argument. I tap gently on the door before I open it. I don’t want Megan blowing my brains out.

The room is dark, but the moonlight coming in through the large window illuminates the room enough to see that everyone is exactly where I left them, and they all look terrified.

My parents stare out the window, and I watch their shoulders sag when they see exactly what we’re dealing with. “How did this happen?” Mom asks, but none of us answer. I don’t know the exact logistics of how the zombies made it up the mountain, no doubt they probably stumbled along and followed the road, but it doesn’t even matter now. We need to think about what to do now that they’re here, and our best chances at survival are sleeping twenty feet away in a trailer that is now doubling as their prison cell.

“We need to get the guys,” I say, since no one else is suggesting anything.

“I’m sorry, Jane, but it’s just too dangerous,” Dad tells me gently, and I know it isn’t easy for him to say no. He cares about those three, but there is no way he is going to sanction a suicide mission either.

I walk out of the room, and Dad follows me. “You’re not going out there,” he tells me, grabbing at my arm until I stop and face him.

“Do you think I’m crazy?” I snap. “We need to figure out what’s going on out there and we can’t see the driveway from here.” I point down the hall to the room that used to belong to Natalie and Hank. I haven’t been in there since before Natalie turned and attacked Hank, but I’m determined to do what I have to.

“Okay, but I’m coming with you,” Dad says, and I shake my head.

“You should really go wake Barry up. If he wakes up on his own and turns on a light, he’s going to attract every zombie at the lake.”

“Shit, you’re right,” Dad says as he hurries off into Barry’s room. My dad never curses, so that alone is really telling about the level of stress he’s feeling with this zombie invasion. I stand at the threshold of the third bedroom for a moment to collect my nerve before I force myself to walk in. The room looks the same as it always did, except that the carpet has been ripped out and thrown away. I don’t look anywhere but the window as I walk through. I peek out the window and see that there are zombies in the driveway too, but not as many as I saw from my bedroom window. They are wandering around mindlessly, stumbling in the ruts. I can’t help but notice that every time the gunfire comes from the other cabin, it draws more and more of them off.

I stand there watching for several minutes while a plan starts to form in my head. It’s crazy and if I do survive, I’ll be punished severely. If I fail—I don’t even want to think about it. If I fail and attract the zombies’ attention, then I won’t be able to return to the cabin, or I could risk bringing this horde down on everyone that I love.

I stare down at the trailer, indecision gnawing at my guts. I did just promise that I’d do anything to protect Ryan, and not just him. I would risk my life to protect every single person in that trailer right now. I can’t turn my back on any of them, especially not right after making that kind of proclamation.

I’d said I’d give my life for them, and it seems like fate has decided to test me. I bite my lip as I stare at the trailer, looking for any sign that the guys are awake and aware of the situation. I don’t see any sign of movement, but that doesn’t mean they’re asleep. I can’t really imagine Silas sleeping through all this gunfire. I take a deep breath and head for the stairs, slipping out past the other bedrooms and down the stairs before anyone has a chance to see me.

Bringing the boys back is the right thing to do. It’s even the right thing to do for my family since our best chance at survival is with those three. As far as I know, zombies can’t open doors, but we might need an alternate escape route, so I go into the kitchen and unlock the backdoor as quietly as I can. Then I head to the front. It feels like the long walk to the executioner. I can’t be sure what’s on the other side, but from what I saw upstairs, the zombies are heading towards the gunshots.

Guilt swamps me that I’m actually benefitting from our neighbors’ misfortune, but it’s an opportunity that I’d be foolish to pass up. I press my face to the window and stare out, but it’s impossible to see anything from this angle, so I go to the door instead and do the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life. I purposely walk out into the zombies.

I ease the front door open, looking left and right, certain that at any moment a zombie is going to lunge at me from the porch and sink his teeth in, but nothing happens. I slip out quietly and shut the door, and that’s when I hear the hungry moan. I look to my left and see an eager zombie coming at me. That sight alone nearly has me jumping back into the house, but he’s seen me and now I have to deal with it. I raise my gun and fire, and I am surprised by the muzzle flash. Damn, I hadn’t taken that into consideration. The flashes will attract zombies; I just have to hope that they are still more interested in the noise. It’s dark and hard to see, so it takes me a couple extra shots to put him down. I don’t even get time to draw a breath and there’s another one behind him, eager to take his place. I don’t fire right away this time. I want to let him get a little closer first. It’s hard to stand and let a zombie run up on you, but the closer he gets, the easier the shot will be. It will cut down on the muzzle flashes and save a little ammunition, win—win, as long as I don’t miss. I don’t miss and he goes down, but it’s so dark that I can’t be sure if there are any more coming my way. I try to reassure myself that if I can’t see the zombies, then they probably can’t see me—or so I hope. Thinking about zombies with night vision just about makes me pee my pants.

I step off the porch with shaking legs and force myself to keep walking. I hear another zombie well before I can see him. I freeze, straining my ears, not really sure where to look. Finally, I hear some brush rattling to my right and I spin and squeeze the trigger. I actually make the shot on my first try, and the adrenaline spike makes me decide to throw caution to the wind and just run. Otherwise, I’ll probably be standing in the yard all night playing the zombie version of whack-a-mole.

I run as fast as I can towards the trailer, colliding with a body in the dark. “Silas?” I whisper, but my only answer is a low growl. I aim at the dark head bobbing around in front of my face and hit him point blank. The flash illuminates his gruesome face and the spray of gore from his temple as he falls to the ground. I leap over the corpse, rather than waste the time going all the way around. Finally, I reach the trailer. I try the door, but it’s locked—I should’ve thought about this possibility. Of course they would lock their door. Knocking will be noisy and might bring the dead, but I don’t have a lot of choices. I make the snap decision to knock anyway. I came this far and I can’t stand out here all night. I hear dragging footsteps and spin, planting a bullet in the head of a zombie that hadn’t even seen me yet. It was just wandering by, too close for comfort.

The door opens a crack, and I see Silas staring out at me in shock. He’s fully dressed and loaded down with enough weapons to go to war; behind him I see Ryan and Chad are outfitted the same. This is my first bit of luck tonight. They are awake, they are ready, and they know what’s happening.

“Let’s go,” I growl under my breath, and they don’t stop to question me. I guess the fact that I made it is enough for them. Silas jumps out of the trailer with his gun up and the others do the same. I feel Silas grab me and pull me to his side, not letting go as we fan out and make our way back to the house without too much incident. We take down four zombies and then another two once we reach the house. We want to be sure we kill any zombie that might’ve seen us. When we get closer to the front door, it’s thrown open by my dad.

He doesn’t say anything, but I can feel the anger radiating off him as we dive into the house and he locks the door behind us. “Dad,” I say tentatively. In the dim light of the moon, I see him glance at me sharply. “I left the back door unlocked too,” I tell him, and he shakes his head.

“I’ve already locked it,” he snaps. None of us say anything else as we move through the house, back upstairs. We will probably be screwed if the zombies bust in here, but right or wrong, upstairs feels like the safest place to be right now. I squeeze Silas’ hand, and I’m shocked to my very core to feel that his hand is shaking slightly. His fear terrifies me. If Silas is scared, then I should probably be scared times about a million.

When we get upstairs, my dad grabs me by the arm and jerks me off to the side. I see Silas stop with a frown on his face, but I wave him away. After a moment of hesitation, he goes into the room with the others.

“I swear to God,” Dad hisses, getting right in my face. “If you EVER pull a stunt like that again and it doesn’t get you killed, I will put you over my knee and spank you like you have never been spanked before!” My dad has never been very strict with me, but the anger I hear in his voice right now is enough to convince me that I don’t want to experience it again.

“I’m sorry, Dad,” I start to tell him, but he shakes his head, refusing to accept my apology.

“No,” he tells me. “Show me you’re sorry by never doing something so stupid again, you’re words are meaningless to me right now.” I watch him storm away and feel hurt, even though I know I deserve his anger. I probably took ten years off his life tonight—I probably took ten years off my own life! I feel bad for scaring him, but I can’t regret it because Silas, Ryan, and the Sarge are out of that tin can in the yard and at least have as much of a chance as any of us now.

“What a shit show,” Silas is saying as I slink into the room. My mom is sitting beside Sunny and she doesn’t rush over and hug me. Either Dad didn’t tell her about my little walk through the yard or she’s super pissed at me too.

Silas turns towards me and wraps me in his arms. “That was the stupidest, bravest thing you’ve ever done,” he murmurs in my ear, and I sag against him. I’d been worried he would be mad at me too. “You shouldn’t have risked your life for us,” he continues, and I shake my head against his shoulder.

“That’s bull,” I tell him. “If it had been me out there, I know I could count on all three of you to come and get me.”

Silas doesn’t seem to know what to say. ”That’s different,” he finally argues, and I manage a small laugh—earning me a glare from my dad.

“No, it’s not. We’ve never left each other for any reason and I’m not going to start now.”

Silas squeezes me extra tight. “You’re right,” he says, and I nearly fall over in surprise. “Thank you.”

Ryan catches the tail end of Silas’ thanks as he’s walking up and he claps me on the back. “Yes, thank you, Jane. I’m glad you thought I was still worth saving.” I reach out and take his hand in my own.

“Of course, I did promise to always protect you,” I remind him, and Ryan grins.

“I know you did. I just can’t believe you had the chance to prove it before I did,” he jokes, and I shake my head at him as he walks away.

Regg looks over at me and gives me a nod of thanks as well, but he is too busy talking with my dad to come over. “We need in on that conversation,” I tell Silas, and he hesitates.

“Your dad is pretty pissed at you,” he cautions, and I shake my head.

“So what?” I challenge. “I’m sick of never being included in any of the decisions around here. This is my life on the line too, and if I’d sat back and left all the decisions up to them, you’d still be out sitting in the driveway.” Silas takes in the stubborn look on my face and gives in.

Dad shoots me a glare when we walk up, but thankfully doesn’t tell me to get lost.

“It’s too late to board up the windows,” Regg is saying. “The noise would bring them down on top of us.” He looks mad at himself. “I should’ve thought of it,” he says with a self-depreciating frown.

“It’s on all of us,” Dad reminds him. “We just didn’t think something like this could happen up here.”

“You might not be able to board up the windows now, but we can still black them out and cover them with garbage bags,” Ryan says, suggesting the tactic we used when we were on the road.

“It won’t keep them out, but it might keep them from getting interested in what’s inside,” Regg agrees.

“The garbage bags are in the pantry,” my mom pipes up from the bed with Sunny. Ryan, Silas, and I all dig in our bags and pull out our rolls of duct tape—Silas insisted we all keep some in our bag for emergencies.

“The sooner it gets done, the better,” Regg says, nodding that Silas, Ryan and I can all go. My dad frowns. ”Jane...” he starts to say, but I cut him off.

“I’m not a little girl anymore, Dad,” I snap, making my dad frown. “If we don’t do something, we are all going to die anyway.” Sunny whimpers from the bed and I instantly regret my word choice, even though it’s true. “You need to stop treating me like a baby and let me do what I need to do. I’m not special and you’re crazy if you think I’m just going to sit up here and wait for everyone else to save us!” My dad stares at me for so long that I begin to get nervous.

“Fine,” he says with a sigh. “Go.”

“Arthur!” Mom snaps, but I don’t wait around to hear the argument. I take off out the door, forcing Silas and Ryan to follow me, or fall behind. I stop at the top of the stairs and listen, but again, everything seems normal, or as normal as it can be.

Thankfully we have to be quiet down here, and I’m not forced to talk about anything that I don’t want to get into right now. We move through the kitchen, only bumping into one chair in the process. We feel around like a trio of blind mice until we locate the large boxes of garbage bags. We each take a box and fan out. Silas goes to the living room, Ryan stays in the kitchen, and I make my way into my parent’s bedroom.

I skip over the creaky floor board this time and step into the room, coming to a stand-still when I see the outline of the zombie standing just outside my parent’s bedroom. He isn’t scratching at the window or anything, but I don’t want him to start either. I creep forward, my heart beat reverberating through my chest like a drum. Maybe I should turn around and go tell Ryan and Silas that I can’t do this, but then my window will be the weak point.

It’s pitch black in the room, so there is no way the zombie can see me, at least not as long as I stay back in the shadows. I quickly tear off several pieces of tape and hang them off my bottom lip for easy access and then I spread out a garbage bag and hold it in front of my body as I slowly shuffle closer, unable to see around the bag. I gently bump into the wall and raise the garbage bag higher so that it will cover the whole window. Then, I quickly tape it in place.

When I’m finished, I freeze, waiting to hear if I’ve made a deadly mistake. No crazed scratching or moaning happens, so I sag against the wall and let myself take a couple deep breaths to calm down before I go back to the living room and help Silas finish taping all the windows in there. We head back upstairs when we’re done and find everyone sitting around in silence.

“It’s done,” Ryan tells them, and Regg nods.

“What’s the plan?” Silas asks after we’ve sat down for a while, and no one else says a word. The only thing that interrupts the absolute silence is the gun shots from down the road—that and the angry moans of the dead. I’m glad that whoever’s shooting is still holding his ground. I really hope we all make it out of this, but realistically I know that’s probably just a pipe dream.

“We’re waiting for dawn,” Barry answers when everyone else doesn’t rush to supply the information.

“We can’t make a plan until we see what we’re dealing with,” Regg adds.

“We have a lot of ammo,” Silas says thoughtfully, and my heart leaps at his optimism.

“It will be okay,” I tell him. We’ve made it out of sticky situations before...maybe not quite this sticky, but I need to have hope to get myself through the rest of tonight.

“What time is it?” Sunny asks, and I’m wondering the same thing.

Megan and Ryan both automatically check their watches, and I promise myself that if I survive this, I’m going to get myself a watch too. “Ten after three,” Megan says, beating Ryan to the punch.

“We have a few hours yet,” my dad says, finally speaking, and I’m relieved he doesn’t sound as angry as he did before. “You should all try and get some sleep. We’ll set up a watch, but it’s going to be a long day tomorrow no matter what happens. I settle in beside Silas with my mom on my other side, but no matter how good my Dad’s advice is, there is no way I’m going to be able to get a wink of sleep.

Chapter Thirteen

I’m woken by a rough shake to the shoulder, and I blink and look blearily around. “You should’ve let her sleep,” I hear my mom chastise someone, and then I hear Silas’ signature grunt.

“She’d want to be awake for this,” he says, and even though I’m half asleep, I grin. It’s so nice to have someone who doesn’t treat me like an invalid.

“He’s right, Mom,” I say as I stretch. I’m a little stiff. “What do I want to be awake for?” I ask, realizing I have no idea what they’re even talking about.

“The sun is coming up,” Silas tells me, and I perk up. He’s right, of course I want to be awake when we can finally see what we’re facing. I can’t believe I fell asleep, but I guess my body probably crashed from the adrenaline rush of playing zombie tag in the front yard.

The blast of a gun firing draws my attention to the window. “That guy is still alive?” I ask in surprise, and my dad nods.

“He’s been firing all night long, I’m surprised you slept through it,” Dad says, and I walk over and give him a hug. I’m thankful when he hugs me back after only a small moment of hesitation.

“Did you get any sleep?” I ask, and my dad shakes his head.

“What about you?” I ask Silas and get another shake—apparently I am the minority here. I look around and see Abby and Sunny curled up on the bed together asleep. Barry is sitting on one of the air mattresses, but he isn’t sleeping. He’s staring off into space.

“It’s almost time,” Ryan says from the window, and we all gather around and watch as the dark sky begins to fade to a light gray. The bright orange and pink sunrise is beautiful, but the scene that it illuminates below isn’t.

Zombies are everywhere, mostly gathered around a cabin a few houses down, and I’m surprised that the press of bodies hasn’t collapsed the wood yet. There are several figures on the roof, and as the sun comes up and they can finally see what they’re doing, their shooting starts in earnest. We all stand and watch as zombies start to fall left, right, and center.

They are making a dent, but it’s a small one. There has to be at least four hundred zombies out there. “That is a huge hoard,” Silas mutters, and I have to agree with him.

“Do we have enough bullets?” I ask, and Silas looks thoughtful.

“We should,” he says.

“The problem here will be getting them before they get us,” Regg says, breaking in on the conversation. “That many zombies can cause a lot of damage. They can break in here by sheer force, and then we would be screwed. We need to make sure we have a solid plan before we make a move.”

I watch the figures on the roof blasting away in desperation and shiver. “I don’t think we should wait too long,” I warn them, and the grim look on everyone’s face tells me that we are all aware of the time crunch.

Having all this time to think is so much worse than the usual, see a zombie and fight for your life, situation. Usually the adrenaline has kicked in and you don’t know how stupid what you are about to do is, but sitting here waiting to fight four hundred zombies feels like we’ve been handed down a death sentence.

“Almost all of the zombies have migrated over to the other cabins,” Regg hesitates. “We could have time to get into the vehicles and leave,” he says, and I frown.

We all think about that for a moment. I personally don’t want to leave the cabin. It’s no longer safe, but it’s our home. Besides, I doubt we will find a place that is any safer. Nothing is safe anymore, and what would it say about our humanity if we just abandoned our neighbors to die. We never met them, but they are human beings.

“We can’t just leave those people over there,” Abby burst out, and I hadn’t realized she was even awake.

“I agree,” I say, hoping I’m voting for the right choice. Abby looks surprised that I would side with her, and I’m a little bit offended.

“Hey, I don’t agree with running either,” Regg confesses. “But I needed to let you all know that there are options here, other than taking a stand.”

“Where would we even go?” Barry asks, and I momentarily think about that Wal-Mart warehouse—Silas still has the keys.

“There is nowhere else to go,” Silas says, breaking the silence. “We’ve seen that even military strongholds can be overrun. I say we stay and fight. We already have a lot of supplies for winter. There is no way we’d be able to take it all with us, and it’s getting late in the season to start over somewhere else.”

“I vote we fight,” Ryan adds, and we all turn and look at my mom and dad.

“Stay,” my dad says after a moment of looking over at my mom. ”But we have to be smart about it.” He motions to Regg. “You didn’t have a bad idea about the vehicles. I think if we can get to the trucks, it would pay off to have some mobility.”

Regg grins. “That’s a great idea,” he agrees as he pulls a piece of paper and a pen out of his pocket and begins jotting down plans. “We’d need one driver, and one shooter in each vehicle,” he mumbles as he scribbles notes. “Some of you could stay here and shoot from the roof, like those people are doing.” Regg turns towards us and takes a deep breath. “I need some volunteers to ride in the trucks,” he asks. Ryan, Silas, and I automatically put up our hands. I want to help.

“No way,” my dad says, and I frown at him.

“It’s just as dangerous to be here as in a vehicle,” I point out, but he isn’t going to hear it.

“I’ll go,” Barry volunteers, surprising us all.

“You aren’t going to drive away are you?” Regg asks bluntly, and Barry flushes with anger.

“I won’t. I have nowhere else to go either. I need to fight, same as ya’ll,” Barry defends, and Regg nods.

“Okay then. We will need our best shooters out there. Barry, you can drive the first truck, and I’ll shoot,” Regg says, and he isn’t bragging. The Sergeant is military and has the training to prove it, he’s even a little bit better shot than Silas.

“Thanks man. I won’t let you down,” Barry promises, and Regg gives him the nod.

“Silas,” Regg says, and my breath stills in my chest. “You’re our next best shooter. Are you willing to go out there?”

Silas doesn’t even hesitate before nodding.

“I can go too,” Ryan volunteers, but Regg shakes his head.

“You’re too good. Your talents would be wasted driving. We are still going to need good people here too.” Regg turns and looks at my Dad. “I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but you kind of suck at shooting. Would you be willing to drive Silas?” I hear my mom take a shaky breath, but my dad doesn’t hesitate before agreeing.

“I will,” he promises, and Regg dips his head in thanks.

“That leaves Ryan, Jane, and Megan here to shoot from the roof.” He looks over at Abby and my mom. “Unless you two can shoot?” Abby and my mom shake their heads.

“That needs to change,” Regg snaps at them both, and I feel a little swell of pride at being acknowledged as useful. “For now, they can show you how to reload,” Regg says, looking uber stressed out.

“I think we need to barricade the stairs before we leave,” Silas suggests, and Regg nods.

“That’s good thinking. I’m not sure if those fuckers can climb the stairs or not, but if they do get inside we don’t want them getting upstairs,” Regg’s words bring a vivid image to mind of zombies streaming through the cabin.

“Let’s divide up the ammo and get moving,” Silas says, and I rush into his arms and hug him so tightly his back pops a little. I hadn’t realized we would be separated. Silas hugs me briefly, probably feeling awkward with the PDA, but he does plant a quick kiss on my lips. “It’ll be okay, Blondie, you’ll see,” he reassures me as he shoulders his beloved AR-15.

I look up and see Ryan watching us with a miserable look on his face, though he smiles when he sees me looking and turns away quickly. I feel a little stab of guilt, but I ruthlessly suppress it. This could be the last time I ever get to see Silas. I can’t send him out there without knowing that I care about him.

We all stand at the top of the stairs and watch Silas, Barry, Regg, and my dad stack a ton of stuff in front of the stairs. They slide the couch across the bottom of the stairs and then launch the love seat over the top so it creates a wall. The zombies will have difficulty climbing over. Next they decide to use the table too, and they slide it over top, almost like a lid of sorts, and it hangs over the railings covering the first six feet of the stairs, creating a smooth surface that won’t grant the clumsy zombies any traction, if they do manage to get over the couches.

“That should be good,” my dad says, scratching his head as he stares at their handy work, and I know he is second guessing if he’s doing enough to protect us. “You guys need to push stuff across the top of the stairs too—that couch from Barry’s room is a good one,” he reminds us, and I nod, tears welling up in my eyes. We already said our goodbyes before they barricaded us up here, but now that the time has actually come, I’m finding it really hard to let go.

“I’ll lock the door behind us, don’t worry about that,” Silas says, looking up at me, and I can’t believe those are the last words he wants to leave me with—typical Silas. I watch them all move as one towards the door. Regg peeks out the window, and Silas turns around and surprises the hell out of me by blowing me a kiss. I’m stunned, but I still manage to pretend to catch it and blow one back at him. It’s such a small gesture, but its huge coming from Silas. My knees go weak, and my heart gets heavy as I watch them all slip out the door, and then we’re all just standing around staring at an empty doorway.

I run into the third bedroom and press my nose to the glass, watching with my breath held while the four of them move out into the open, drawing the attention of several zombies. They take them down quickly, and while everyone else runs for the trucks, Silas goes the opposite direction. “What is he doing?” I cry out as I see him heading for the trailer with three zombies on his tail.

“He’s going for the extra ammo we keep under the bed,” Ryan says softly, and I hadn’t realized he was beside me. Silas reaches the trailer and jumps in, slamming the door shut behind him, and the three howling zombies at the door are soon joined by a fourth.

“For Christ sake,” I mutter as I almost rip the window off its hinges getting it open. I aim my gun out the window, but the angle is awkward.

“Let me do it,” Megan snaps, slapping my hand away like a naughty child. I withdraw without complaint since Megan is the better shot, and I would probably throw myself out this window headfirst if I accidentally shot Silas.

Megan takes them out with four neat shots to the head, and only after the last one falls does Silas emerge, lugging a heavy, black canvas bag. I watch him jump safely into the truck with my dad, and I sag against the window in relief. Being in the truck doesn’t mean he will be completely safe, but as long as they don’t get trapped in the middle of the horde, they are probably safer than any of us.

I turn around and run down the hall, back to the bedroom I share with the other girls. “They made it,” I tell my mom breathlessly, and she takes a big, deep breath. We all turn to watch out the window as the trucks come into view, accelerating towards the cabin with the neighbors stranded on the roof. The horns start honking like crazy to get the attention of the zombies, and I nearly scream when the crowd turns towards the vehicles with a hungry moan.

“The loud pop of the AR-15 cuts through the other noise. Silas has obviously taken the silencer off to catch the attention of the zombies. I really hope they have earplugs because the noise must be deafening in the truck. Zombies begin to fall like Moses parting the Sea. I’m sure they can’t all be head shots, but the body count is already building. Regg joins in, and the men on the roof take a moment to cheer, jumping up and down and waving their hands before they get back to shooting. I’m not sure how much ammo they have left after last night though.

“We can’t just stand here and do nothing,” I bellow at the others, and Abby and I surge to our feet and lead everyone to our secret window that leads out onto the roof. My mom stays inside with Sunny, but Abby comes out with us, and I’m proud of her. I show her how to reload clips, and she gets the hang of it much more quickly than I did at first.

I pull my gun from my hip and check the magazine, and then I do one of the top five craziest things I’ve ever done. I open my mouth and start screaming. Hundreds of heads snap around, searching for the source of the noise. Some head towards our cabin, some stay with the neighbors, and the rest head in the direction of the trucks. Even split into thirds, it’s a terrifying number of zombies that start marching towards us.

When the zombies lumber closer, bringing with them the horrible smell of putrid, rotting flesh, I pull my bandana up over my nose and aim carefully at the closest one. Before I can squeeze the trigger, its head explodes and I look over at Megan.

“I was going to take that one,” I yell to be heard over the dead, and she shrugs.

“Maybe we should each take a section,” she suggests, and I nod.

“That’s a good idea. I’ll take the right, you take the left, and Ryan can take the middle,” I shout, and the other two nod to show they understand—the closer the dead get, the louder the noise.

I aim for another zombie, making sure I take a deep breath to help calm myself before I squeeze the trigger, and I actually make the shot! I’m getting a lot better at shooting under pressure.

I’m thrilled with my kill shot, but I don’t let myself celebrate for too long. The best way to kill more zombies is to think less and shoot more. I’m far from a great shot, but maybe with all the walking targets, my skill level will improve, so I might as well take the opportunity to brush up now. Later, I can pray that I never get this kind of chance at target practice again!

“Nice shot,” Megan calls out when I hit my forth zombie in a row and they fall to the ground to be trampled underneath the feet of all the others. When the zombies get close, it’s like a shockwave hitting the house. I actually feel it shudder underneath the force of their weight, and I get a sick feeling in my tummy, imagining myself pitching forward off this roof into the crowd below.

“Not today,” I mutter as I creep closer to the end of the roof and start adding to my body count. Zombie kids are usually the worst to kill, but today I don’t hesitate or notice things like skin color, gender, or the age of those I take down. We are fighting for our lives and our land, and we can’t stop until every last one of them is dead.

I’m not sure how many times I reload my clip, I’ve lost count, but the next time I go to slap a new magazine in, I burn myself on the barrel. I let out a yelp of pain, causing Ryan and Megan to glance at me sharply.

“I’m okay,” I tell them. “I just burnt myself. I need to switch out my gun.” Ryan gives me a sympathetic look, but Megan frowns.

“You should’ve done that before now,” she corrects me, and I give her a curt nod, obviously. This life has a harsh learning curve, and I have the burnt hand to prove it. Megan hands me a bottle of water. I dump a little out over my singed fingers and take a long drink from the rest. It doesn’t do anything to stop the pain, but I don’t have time to worry about that right now. Abby hands me a fresh Glock, and I snap the clip in and try to ignore the sting of the burn. The coolness of the gun actually gives me a little temporary relief, but the gun soon warms under my body heat and I’m back to square one.

I aim at an enormous zombie who is has to be at least six foot five. It takes two bullets to put him down, and I swallow visibly. It boggles my mind that a guy like that turned into a zombie, while a runty cheerleader like me is still surviving—or trying to.

My eye is drawn to the second pickup. I’m not sure why at first, but I soon realize I’m staring at it because it’s stopped and it hasn’t moved in a while.

I put my gun down and squint to try and see what’s going on. “Do you think they’re okay?” I ask, pointing to the older blue pickup parked near the lake. There is an enormous group of zombies approaching, and Silas is rapidly firing out the window. He no longer has his AR, though; he’s probably much smarter than me and is letting the barrel cool down.

Megan and Ryan stop shooting and stare out as well, shading their eyes against the sun. We can’t hear much over the moans of the dead, but something doesn’t seem right. I gasp when I see both truck doors get thrown open, and Silas and my dad get out of the truck.

“What in the hell are they doing?” Megan bursts out, but I have no idea either.

I watch them shoot the closest zombies and take them down, and then they each pick up a handle of the black bag and start running for their lives. They are leaving the truck! “The truck must have broken down and stalled,” Ryan says, and we all look sick at the thought. Why in the hell did my dad have to pick that old beater when there are lots of shiny new vehicles, free of problems? I can’t help thinking, and then instantly feel guilty—it’s too much like victim shaming.

Human beings have no problem outrunning the dead, at least for a little while, but there are so many zombies out there right now. I feel my muscles tighten, like I need to spring into action and do something to help. I can’t just be a spectator to their deaths. I turn towards the window, not sure exactly what I’m going to do, but it most likely involves getting into the remaining car and finding some way through that crowd to rescue them.

Ryan all but tackles me from behind. “Let go of me,” I scream at him, trying to twist out of his grip, but he refuses to let go.

“Don’t be stupid, Jane,” he bellows in my ear. “You can’t go out there now; this entire house is surrounded by the dead. You wouldn’t make it two steps off the porch.” I stop fighting him and sink down to my knees as a feeling of utter uselessness pushes down on me. It seems impossible that there is nothing I can do to help. I turn back to watch the horrific scene unfold in front of me—I know Ryan wants to tell me not to look, but he knows me better than that.

I look over at the truck with Regg and Barry in it, but they are separated by a sea of death. I doubt either of them even knows what’s happening. I can’t help but wish bitterly that there was some way to get a hold of them and tell them—I haven’t missed my cell phone this much since the beginning when everything first started happening.

Silas and my dad stop running for a minute, dropping the bag so they can take a rest and shoot some of the closer zombies. I’m not sure how much my dad is contributing to this, but Silas has his AR-15 slung off his back and is using it to punch a considerable hole in the closer zombies.

They fire until their clips run dry and then they start running again, reloading as they go. “This is crazy,” I shriek as I watch them running through the knee high grass. I doubt they will be able to keep it up for very long.

Some of the zombies at the cabin have started to notice the easier prey farther afield and are separating from our group. I raise my arms in the air and start screaming until my voice is hoarse and aching. I scream as I start blasting off rounds, and Ryan and Megan do the same, even Abby joins in the screaming. We can’t let this group separate; it will cause too many zombie fronts to attack Silas and my dad.

We aim at the zombies with their backs to us, leaving, but some of them manage to slip away and get out of range before we can take them down. There are just too many zombies here. I can’t believe we thought we could fight all of them and survive. We were idiots.

I don’t hear my mom yelling at me over the screams, gunshots, and zombies until she actually climbs out the window and taps me on the shoulder. I jump about a foot in the air and spin with my gun up. She screams and jumps back, and I quickly drop it when I see who it is.

“Don’t sneak up on me like that...” I start to lecture her, but then I pause. Her face is pale and full of tears, and she hasn’t even looked past my shoulder yet and seen what’s going on with Silas and my dad. I get the sinking feeling that something else is going on, and I know I’m not going to like it.

“What’s wrong?” I ask her as she squeezes my hand between her own wildly shaking fingers. It’s my burnt hand, but I don’t complain.

“Zombies,” she moans in terror. “They got inside.” My heart drops so low, I doubt it’s even in my feet anymore. It’s probably fallen off this roof and into the crowd below.

“What?” I ask dumbly, not wanting to accept what she’s saying.

“They smashed down the front door,” Mom reiterates. “They got inside the cabin.”

Chapter Fourteen

My mouth goes dry, my knees start to shake, and I feel the most overwhelming urge to break down and throw a temper tantrum. This isn’t fair, and it hasn’t been fair in a really, really long time. We are only human after all, how can we be expected to fight back against flesh eating monsters that don’t even feel pain? I’m not sure if I believe in God or not, but right now I am royally pissed off at Him.

“Jane?” my mom asks with a look of concern on her face, and I realize that I’m supposed to be the strong one here. She is relying on me not to fall apart, because she can’t help it herself. I try and rally my strength back around me, and I give her a feeble smile. I’m not sure it’s enough, but it’s all I have.

I look back over my shoulder and see that Silas and my dad are still running for their lives. The zombies are closing in, and I feel a stab to my heart so sharp that it takes my breath away. There is nothing I can do to help them and it’s tearing me apart. I push past my mom and squeeze back through the window. If I can’t help them, maybe I can still help us.

I can tell right away that she isn’t exaggerating, by the echo of moans coming from down the hallway. I creep forward with my gun up, ready to blast anything that tries to eat me. I pass my bedroom and pause when I see Sunny sitting all alone on her bed, clutching a Barbie doll, and I feel a wave of anger towards my mother. She shouldn’t have left her here all by herself.

Sunny looks up and sees me. I hold my finger to my lips and motion for her to come towards me quietly. “Hi, Jane,” Sunny whispers as she presses fearfully against my side.

“Hey, Sunny Bunny,” I whisper back, crouching down so that we are eye to eye. “I need you to be very quiet, and brave, okay?” I ask, and slowly she nods her head. I point to the window at the end of the hall. “You need to go out that window and be with everyone else,” I say, even though I’m not sure if it’s the best option, not that staying in a house full of zombies is a good idea either.

Sunny shakes her head, her eyes luminous with tears. “I’m scared,” she admits, and I give her a fierce hug.

“I am too, but we both have to be brave and get through this.” I pause and take a deep breath. “It’s scary outside on the roof,” I tell her, and she whimpers a little. “But it’s the safest place for you.”

“Okay,” she says, and I can’t help but marvel, not for the first time, about how resilient Sunny is.

“When you get outside, sit back against the wall and close your eyes,” I tell her.

“I promise,” Sunny says. I give her one more hug and then watch as she runs down the hall towards the window. Ryan sees her and reaches in to grab her, and I turn my back—she will be safe with Ryan.

The moans get louder as I creep forward, and every step is a battle of my own personal willpower. I honestly don’t want to know if the zombies are breaching the stairs—there won’t be anything we can do about it anyway. Once I reach the end of the hall, I get down on my hands and knees and crawl up to the couch from Barry’s room that we moved across the top of the stairs like my dad suggested.

I take a deep breath and force myself to peek over the edge. The living room is filled with zombies, and more are streaming in through the door. They moan and jostle each other, but so far they aren’t paying much attention to the stairs, or even looking upstairs at all. I decide not to give them a reason to change their minds, and I slowly back up and crawl back on my hands and knees until I’m halfway down the hall and well out of their line of sight.

I crawl back through the window and see Sunny pressed up against the exterior of the house like I’d told her. I give her a small smile as I quietly pull the window down and shut it.

“What are you doing?” my mom asks from beside Sunny.

“They aren’t paying any attention to the stairs or us, and I want to try and keep it that way,” I say without turning around. Right now, talking is useless and it won’t help anything.

I was gone for less than five minutes, but a lot can happen in five minutes when there are zombies involved. I scan the long grass area by the lake—the last place I saw Silas and my dad—but I don’t see any sign of them now. All I see is a huge group of zombies shuffling around and stomping the long grass to a pulp.

The choking sound from my throat makes Ryan spin towards me with a look of concern on his face.

“My dad...” I start to say, and a look of understanding crosses his face.

“Shit, I’m so sorry, Jane. I should’ve told you as soon as you came back. They made it!” he tells me with a triumphant grin, and I’m both overjoyed and skeptical all at the same time.

“But...how?” I ask, not wanting to get my hopes up too high in case Ryan is just trying to keep me focused until the threat has been eliminated.

“It was close,” Ryan admits, the strain on his face showing me the truth of his words. “They’d just about bit the big one when Regg and Barry finally noticed them out of the truck. I’m surprised they didn’t wreck another truck the way they drove through the zombies, smashing them out of the way with the Ford.” Ryan shakes his head like he thinks they‘re nuts.

“So they made it?” I ask breathlessly, and Ryan nods, handing me a pair of binoculars that are sitting at his feet.

“Just in the nick of time,” he says, and I raise the binoculars up. I can see that Silas is in the box of the truck firing off rounds of the AR-15, and my dad is sitting in the backseat looking extremely pale.

“I could use a little help over here,” Megan shouts bitchily from near the edge of the roof. Knowing Dad and Silas are safe gives me a renewed feeling of hope. Maybe we can win this after all.

I join Megan near the edge, and Ryan does the same, and we go back to the never-ending job of inoculating each zombie with a shot of lead. It soon becomes mindless work, much like washing the dishes or vacuuming the floor back in the old days. I find my mind wandering from the task at hand. I still methodically aim and pull the trigger, but my mind is no longer focused. I try and think about how we can possibly rebuild any of this, and make it so another attack like this never happens again.

The gore starts to build up beneath the house, and the remaining zombies slip and shuffle through the entrails of their fallen brethren. I watch a zombie plant his foot on a fallen zombie’s face, and the force of his weigh causes the skull to cave in. I stop shooting; it’s time to switch out my gun anyway.

“They’re rotting,” I say, and Megan and Ryan glance over at me.

“What?” Ryan asks finally, stopping to switch out his own pistol.

“Come on guys, their almost all down,” Megan says with annoyance, but I ignore her.

“The zombies are rotting,” I say again, and both Ryan and Megan look at me like I’m crazy.

“Of course they’re rotting, they’re dead,” Megan snaps, and I begin to get annoyed with her.

“I’m not an idiot,” I tell her, turning my back on her and walking away to the far edge of the roof. I hear Megan snort and go back to shooting, and my annoyance level is piqued even more.

I raise my gun and plant a lead bullet right through the nose of a particularly ugly zombie. I feel a shadow fall across my back and see that Ryan has followed me over here. “What did you mean?” he asks patiently, and I’m reminded of all the reasons that I liked him in the first place. He doesn’t act like I’m just a stupid cheerleader, and he’s nice.

“Never mind,” I mutter, still irritated, and I know I’m not being fair. I’m mad at Megan, not Ryan.

“Come on, just tell me. I walked all the way over here,” Ryan cajoles, and I feel my stomach growl sharply. I haven’t had breakfast yet.

“Okay. I just noticed when one zombie stepped on another, it practically disintegrated—maybe these things will eventually just decompose completely and rot into the ground,” I tell him in a rush.

“God, that would be nice, wouldn’t it?” Ryan says with a smile, and I nod.

“What time is it?” I ask suddenly when my stomach growls for the second time, and once again, I can’t help but wish that I had a watch of my own. Ryan checks his wrist, his eyebrows rising in surprise.

“It’s already after one,” he tells me, and I’m surprised as well. We’ve been up here a solid six hours shooting, and I’m exhausted and hungry.

“I’m taking a lunch break,” I say, not caring what Megan thinks about that. I walk over, grab my bag, and walk back towards Ryan and sit down. The shingles are cool, but I’m so hungry I don’t care about anything else right now. I try not to think about what kind of person it makes me that I am able to eat in the middle of a zombie slaughter. I pull out a couple granola bars and toss one to Sunny and my mom and then hand one to Ryan, who takes it after a moment of hesitation.

Megan glances over at me and I hold one up to her, but she stubbornly shakes her head, or maybe she really isn’t hungry. The smell of the dead, and the recently re-dead, is pretty ripe. I shrug and open the granola bar for myself, barely tasting anything as I hoover it.

I chug some water and offer the remaining water in the bottle to Ryan. He looks at it like he’s worried I’ll give him some kind of disease. “We used to kiss, I don’t have cooties.” I snap, and Ryan gives me a shrug.

“That was before Silas,” he mutters so quietly that I almost don’t hear him over the howl of the dead, but I do. I knew he couldn’t be as cool about our non-relationship break-up as he was pretending.

“You’ve shared stuff with Silas before,” I say before I realize how that sounded, and I blush. “You know what I mean,” I tell him, referring to a bottle of water they once shared back on the road.

“I knew what you meant,” Ryan says, letting me off the hook as he takes the bottle and chugs the rest. He tosses it over the edge and it whacks a zombie in the head on its way down.

“We’re going to have to pick that up,” I remind him, and Ryan gives a small, humorless chuckle.

“I think we’ll have a lot of other things to pick up when this is over—a bottle of water is the least of my worries,” Ryan retorts, and I nod. He’s right. If we survive this, we will be saturated in zombie guts.

“I think we should get back to work,” I tell him when I catch Megan giving me the eyeballs again, and Ryan and I both get to our feet. I personally know that I’m dragging my feet a little as I take my place.

We shoot for another hour, and it gets harder and harder to ignore the fact that my body is in full blown agony. My legs are stiff from standing and balancing on the awkwardly sloped roof for seven hours. My arms and shoulders are throbbing from the long hours spent with my arms outstretched, and the slight kickback of the pistol, which usually isn’t bad, is brutal after the millionth time firing it. My one hand is asleep too, though thankfully it’s not my trigger hand. Every time I move it feels like little needles stabbing through my digits—it’s a lot like what I imagine acupuncture to feel like. I stop and aim at an old lady zombie wearing a bloody shawl, and she goes down. I try shaking my hand out and then aim my gun again, looking left and right before I realize that there are only two zombies left.

Ryan and Megan each take one out, and then we all stand around looking at each other in awe. I search the field for the pickup and see that they are still dealing with a herd, but it is a much smaller herd than this morning—probably fifty or so.

“I’m actually starting to see a light at the end of this tunnel,” I say in surprise.

“Don’t forget the ones in the living room,” Mom reminds me, putting a slight damper on my mood, but still. I didn’t stop to count them, but there can’t be more than twenty down there. I grin to myself. When the heck did I reach the point that I don’t think twenty zombies are a big deal? I don’t know for sure, but I’m pretty sure it happened sometime between last night and now.

Our neighbors, who spent the night shooting, have obviously run dry on ammo. They are sitting quietly on their roof, and have been for the last hour. They have a couple zombies stubbornly hanging around, but since they stopped popping off loud shotgun blasts and screaming, the majority of them have wandered over to the truck, attracted by the noise and movement.

“How’s our ammo supply doing?” Megan asks, and Abby, who was unofficially in charge of our rounds, shrugs.

“There is definitely a lot less than when you started,” she warns us. “I would say only one third.” My heart sinks to hear we’ve used so much. I guess I was expecting it, but having that ammunition stockpile was really a load off all our minds. We’ll have to do another run to get some more, but I’m not sure how many gun stores haven’t been completely cleaned out by survivors.

“We can’t worry about that right now,” I say, even though that is exactly what I’m doing. “We need to go kill the zombies in the living room.”

Megan wrinkles her nose. “It’s going to be a huge, disgusting mess. I wish there was another way,” she says, and Ryan and I go quiet as we try and think our way through it.

There is only one way to get downstairs, but if we can find another way to get down and draw the zombies outside, we could shoot them out on the grass and save ourselves a huge headache later. We want to be able to stay in the cabin, so we should definitely try and eradicate the zombies with the least amount of damage. True, zombie guts don’t exactly mean you have to refinish the floors, but stray bullet holes might, and who really wants to be up to their elbows scrubbing black zombie jelly out of the rug?

“We need to find a way to get down there,” Ryan says, pointing to the mass of destroyed bodies below, and Megan peeks over the edge.

“You could probably jump; it would be a soft landing,” she says, and I’m not one hundred percent certain she isn’t joking.

It’s obvious we’ve all reached the same conclusion, but none of us have thought of a way to get down from this second story rooftop.

“Only one of us needs to get down,” Ryan says, thinking out loud. We all turn to him in surprise.

“What?” Megan asks, not following, and neither am I.

“Only one person needs to get downstairs to be the decoy. They’ll have to draw the zombies out and lead them far enough away from the house so that we can shoot them. It’s going to be a super dangerous job, but whoever stays behind can shoot them from the upstairs spare-bedroom window overlooking the driveway.” The spare-bedroom he’s talking about is Hank and Natalie’s old room, no one mentions their names, but I still think about them all the same, and my skin erupts in goose bumps. Now is not the time to think about the people we know who didn’t make it.

“How will the decoy get down there?” Megan asks, and I think about it for a minute before running over to my backpack. I start pulling everything out until I find exactly what I’m looking for—a long chunk of rope. It was one of the many weird things Silas insisted I carry, though it doesn’t seem very weird now, more like a last minute Hail Mary pass.

“I have rope,” I crow, even though they already know because they’ve been watching me tear my pack apart for the last five minutes.

“Holy shit, you just saved us,” Megan says, giving me an honest to goodness smile.

“I’ll go down the rope,” Ryan volunteers instantly, but Megan shakes her head.

“I think it should be Jane,” she says, making my heart stutter in my chest. It wasn’t that I wasn’t going to volunteer, Ryan just beat me to it, but it feels a lot different to have someone volunteer you for a life or death job.

“Megan...” Ryan starts to say, with a frown on his face. “I think you need to put your personal feelings aside,” he tells her, and my ears perk up. Does she really hate me that much that she wants to dangle me from a string and sacrifice me to the zombie Gods?

Megan flushes in anger. “Don’t be an idiot,” she snaps at Ryan. “I’m not suggesting Jane to be a bitch. She is the best choice. We need to send our weakest link.” She glances across at me and shrugs. “No offense,” she offers, but I don’t accept her apology, I just cross my arms across my chest. “You’ve gotten good at shooting, but you aren’t as skilled as Ryan or I,” Megan points out.

“Still...” Ryan starts to say, but Megan cuts him off again.

“This is going to take precise shooting, or the person down on the ground could easily be shot by a stray bullet.” Megan levels a no-nonsense stare at me. “Can you guarantee that none of your shots will go wide and accidentally hit the wrong target?” she asks, and I really want to say yes, just to spite her, but she’s right. I’m still just a novice, no matter how much practice I’ve had today.

“I’ll go then,” my mom offers, and my heart drops. There is no way I can let her go rappelling into danger like that.

“No,” Megan tells my mom, and I think both my mom and I are a little taken aback by her tone.

“The person on the ground still needs to know how to shoot and protect themselves.”

“I’ll do it,” I say before my mom can argue further and ends up getting herself eaten by a zombie. Megan nods approvingly, and I get the impression that she’s proud of me, rather than gleeful I’m going to be the zombie bait.

Ryan looks like he still wants to argue, but since we aren’t really in our non-relationship, relationship anymore; he doesn’t have a leg to stand on. “Silas wouldn’t like it,” he tells me, and I shake my head.

“That is where you’re wrong,” I tell him, knowing in my heart that I’m right. “He wouldn’t like it, but if I was the best option... He would let me do it. He’s always had faith in me that I was capable, that I could fight just as well as anyone else.” I walk over and fill my holster with spare rounds and an extra gun, trying not to notice that Ryan looks like a little boy that’s just received a scolding.

I didn’t mean to lay into him, but he shouldn’t have tried to use Silas against me like that either.

“Let’s tie the rope to the chimney,” Megan suggests, and they make sure it’s solidly knotted before tying it around my chest and underneath my arms. I give Sunny and my mom each a hug, and then I do something completely terrifying. I sit on the edge of the roof and allow myself to jump into nothingness.

I feel myself free falling for a moment, and then Mom, Ryan, and Megan get control of the rope and they jerk me to a stop, grunting at my weight as they slowly let a little bit of rope down at a time. My heart is racing a mile a minute, and its pounding fills my ears, so I have no idea how I still manage to hear Sunny call out a warning to me.

“Zombie!” she shrieks, pointing down, and I follow her line of sight to a lone zombie that has stumbled up unobserved and is waiting underneath the rope with his arms outreached hopefully. I grab my gun from my holster, praying I don’t do something idiotic like drop it by accident, and then I aim carefully, not wanting to shoot myself in the foot, and pull the trigger. My bullet punches through the very top of the zombie’s head and he instantly crumples to the ground. I scan the area, not daring to put my gun away again—but thankfully I don’t see any more flesh eaters.

When I hit the ground, landing in a disgusting pile of reanimated human remains, I grimace as my boots sink in past my ankles. I try to figure out the knot in the rope, but my weight has caused it to become inhumanly tight, so I reach into my belt, pull my knife out, and saw it apart instead. I don’t have time to sit around and mess with an overly complicated series of knots.

I look up at the group on the roof staring down at me, and Ryan gives me the thumbs up. “Be careful,” my mom whispers, but I don’t reply. I don’t want to attract a bunch of zombies until I get to the zombies I’m supposed to be attracting. I tuck my knife back at my hip and clench my gun in my hand so hard it actually hurts—I think I’ve actually developed blisters from shooting so much today.

I push my curiosity about the blisters out of my head, for now, and focus on the task at hand as I creep towards the corner of the cabin. I don’t encounter any zombies, though I do have to step over quite a few corpses until, finally, I’m only a couple feet from the front door. I can hear the zombies milling around and moaning inside, and the occasional tinkle of breaking glass.

My intestines quiver in fear, but I try to ignore the feeling as I force myself to walk up to the open cabin door. I keep expecting a zombie to stumble out any moment and try to take a bite out of me, but it doesn’t happen.

I stand in the doorway and stare in at the gong show that was once our living room. There are zombies milling around everywhere, and it is utter chaos.

Despite the fact that I’m a fully fleshed, live human being, none of the zombies seem to notice me right away. That will never do.

I reach out my arm before I lose my nerve, and I pound my fist against the heavy wooden door, drawing the attention of every zombie in the room.

“Knock, knock mother fuckers,” I yell, unintentionally using a cool line that sounds like it's something off of the movie Die Hard. The zombies turn as one with an awful snap of their jaws, and I spin and jump off the porch, stumbling a little on a rock, but I manage to right myself, and then I’m running for my life.

Chapter Fifteen

I glance over my shoulder and see that the zombies have taken the bait. They are filtering out of the house like a slow ooze. I quickly turn back around and concentrate on my steps. I don’t want to risk tripping and falling down. It would be too easy to twist my ankle out here, and that would be it. I feel hyper aware of everything. Unlike earlier today, when I was in danger but I was still separated from the zombies by the walls of the house, this is one hundred percent a life or death situation. If I screw up, I will die.

I’m getting too far ahead of the zombies, and it takes all I have to actually stop running and turn back around. I stop just outside the driveway and wave my arms at them. “Come and get me!” I yell to keep their attention focused on the task at hand.

The zombies growl with renewed vigor, and I start to see a few of the front zombies fall and not get back up. I glance up at the second floor window and see Ryan and Megan leaning out with their guns jumping as they fire round after round into the crowd below. Over the moans of the dead, I can’t hear the pop of their muzzled pistols, but I can sure see the results—the zombies are dropping like flies. I see Megan and Ryan start motioning towards me, waving their arms with a fury, and the hair stands up on the back of my neck. I spin on my heels and am confronted by a huge zombie that’s just lumbered out of somewhere.

“Aarghhh!” I yell as I raise my gun and fire pointblank into his big open maw. The force of the blast sends him stumbling backwards to the ground, but I didn’t take him out. He’s still twitching, and I realize my shot has ripped off his tongue and harmlessly gone out the back of his mouth. I curl my lip up in disgust at the image before me. Most of his teeth are blown out and some have imbedded on the inside of his cheek. You might think that is the worst part, but the worst is the way his little stump of a tongue is wagging back and forth leaking black goo. I aim my gun a little higher this time and plant the bullet neatly through his forehead while he twitches on the ground.

I do a three hundred and sixty degree spin to make sure I’m not in any immediate danger. Ryan and Megan have done a pretty good job of keeping the zombies from getting to me, but a few have escaped their firing line. I know they won’t fire on them now for fear of shooting me. I’ll have to take care of them myself.

My heart pounds like crazy as I line up my shot and miss—damn shaking hands! I try again, and this time I hit the ragged-looking zombie on the left. All I can hear is my pulse hammering in my ears like a freight train rushing by, and I worry for a minute that one of these days my poor heart is going to explode from all the stress.

I take a deep breath, trying to steady my erratic pulse, and take down the second zombie. They are still streaming out of the door, and I hope that zombies instinctively have a herd mentality and will keep following the leader because I can’t stay here much longer. A few of the zombies from the neighbor’s cabin have caught sight of me and have separated in hopes of an easier meal. It’s too dangerous to let myself get boxed in on two sides—if any more zombies join the party, I will be totally screwed.

I act on instinct, raise my gun, and shoot a third zombie that’s creeping too close. Then I turn tail and run. I head away from the cover of the trees; it provides too many places for the dead to come lurching out of. So I run towards the lake instead, where it’s wide open. The field is littered with corpses, and I skirt around them, worried some of them might not be completely dead. It’s like a minefield, so I change course again. I don’t want to survive this long just to get bitten by a zombie that’s already been taken out of commission.

Once I’ve distanced myself enough to get a little bit of a breather, I turn to check out my situation. My first instinct is to run from the six zombies limping towards me across the field from the neighbors’ cabin, and I actually take several steps in the opposite direction before I force myself to stop. It’s everyone’s job to take out the threats, and if I leave them for someone else to deal with, then I’m not doing my job. I grip my pistol so hard I’m surprised it doesn’t turn to dust in my hand, and then I force myself to walk towards them.

My legs shake with fear, but I have a brief window to accomplish this before the zombies behind me catch up. My steps turn into longer strides, and then I’m jogging. The zombies probably think they’ve won the lottery as I run towards them like a crazy person.

When I get close enough to see the gory details, I stop and raise my pistol, firing rapidly until it clicks empty. In my fear, I’ve missed two and wasted a lot of bullets, but at this point I don’t care. I just want this to be over. I quickly reload and take down the remaining two. I feel a hand on my shoulder and let loose a girly scream as I spin and come face to face with Silas.

He pushes my gun down and wraps me in a hug, and my dad is right behind him. “Get in the truck!” Barry yells from the driver’s seat. I look back and see a small group of zombies trailing after the truck. Dad jumps in the backseat and moves over so I can follow him, but I slam the door shut and hop in the very back with Silas. I know Dad won’t be happy about it, but I can’t just sit and be a passenger while Silas does all the work.

I see my dad frowning at me through the back window, but he doesn’t stop the truck and demand I get inside the cab where it’s safe. “What in the hell are you doing out here?” Silas asks as soon as the truck picks up some speed.

“They got into the cabin,” I tell him and watch his face take on a look of trepidation. He wants to ask if everyone is okay, but at the same time he dreads the answer. “Everyone is fine, or they were when I left,” I reassure him.

“So why did you leave?” Silas asks, not connecting the dots at all. I can’t really blame him, I haven’t been making a lot of sense.

“We were going to shoot them over the railing, but then we didn’t want to clean up the mess afterwards. So we made a plan and they lowered me down the side of the house with a rope and I was the bait to draw the zombies out of the house so Megan and Ryan could shoot them,” I say in a rush. Silas’s face gets angrier the more I talk, so I just stop.

“Did you seriously risk your life just so you wouldn’t have to clean too much?” he demands, and I frown. When he says it like that, it really does sound stupid. I shrug helplessly. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. We had even been trying to save Silas some work, but he would never consider that a good enough reason.

“Let’s just finish this up,” I suggest as I raise my gun and take aim at the nearest zombie. I actually make the shot, and I hope seeing how much my skill has improved will make Silas less mad that I did something crazy.

Silas doesn’t answer me, but he raises his gun, and the loud retort of his pistol makes me want to cringe and cover my ears. I don’t, though, because he would probably just mock me.

It takes another hour of shooting before we eradicate all the zombies left out in the field. We pull up in front of the cabin, or as close as we can get because we can’t park in the driveway anymore—too many bodies all over the ground. Silas and I jump down from the back of the truck at the same time Regg, Barry, and my dad pile out of the cab.

“Let’s keep our eyes open,” Regg warns unnecessarily. We already have our guns up and our eyes peeled. I try to step around the bodies, but it isn’t easy. I think my count of twenty was way off; there has to be at least forty bodies out here.

“I can’t believe how many of them there are,” I whisper to Silas, and he gives me a sharp nod. He agrees, but he wants me to zip it, at least until we can assess the situation.

My eye is drawn to the slight play of shadows just inside the door, and I quickly point it out to the rest of the group. “Don’t shoot, it’s just me,” Ryan calls out, and I sag in relief. The house must be clear if they’re wandering around downstairs.

I follow the others inside, eyeballing the damage. The door jamb is completely wrecked, with splintered wood sticking up everywhere. I don’t mind the splinters so much, except everything is covered in zombie gore. They must’ve poked themselves while they were smashing the door down. I shudder and stay far away from the dangerous pieces of wrecked wood and nails—everything is highly infectious.

“Is everyone okay?” Silas asks, and Ryan nods as he cranes his neck to check me for damage.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

I nod, and he sags in relief. The blockade is still in place over the stairs, so Ryan must’ve climbed over. I see Megan, Abby, and my mom poke their heads up, and they beam when they see we are all still in one piece. My mom starts pushing the couch out of the way, and Abby and Megan join her. Silas and Regg get to work clearing the bottom of the stairs, and then my mom is downstairs squeezing me half to death. She only releases her python-like grip on me to do the same thing to my dad.

“I was so worried,” she tells us. I look up and see Sunny creeping down the stairs. I open my arms wide and she comes running, nearly knocking the breath out of me when she hits my ribs hard.

“I can’t believe we all made it through,” Barry says, and for once Barry and I are on the same page.

We look around at the destroyed door frame and the disaster that the zombies left behind in the cabin. Everything is knocked off of everywhere and most everything else is covered in a thin layer of goo. “Where in the hell do we even start?” Ryan asks, and we all shake our heads.

I reach over and check the watch on Megan’s wrist. It’s almost four in the afternoon—we don’t have a lot of daylight left to do anything at all.

“Howdy neighbors,” I hear a deep voice call out. We all spin to see a gigantic man standing in the doorway, his ham-sized fist raised to knock against our completely destroyed door.

I see Regg’s hand creep towards the handle of his pistol as he strides over and offers the big man his hand. “I’m Chad Regg, previous Sergeant in the United States Army,” Regg says as the two shake hands.

“Jack Gunner. Private First Class,” the big man says, snapping to attention to salute Regg.

“At ease, soldier,” Regg says with a slight smile on his face. It’s obvious that he is delighted to come across a fellow Army man. “We aren’t in uniform here,” he says, and the other man’s face falls a little at the reminder of everything they’ve lost.

“That was some mighty fine shooting,” the guy says, turning to study us all—his face registers shock, probably to see that our numbers mostly consist of teenagers. He catches Sunny’s eye and gives her a sad smile before turning away. “You guys really saved our bacon,” he tells us, and I suddenly recognize his profile. He was one of the neighbors on the roof.

“Well your shooting last night saved ours,” my dad says, coming forward to shake the guy’s hand. “We hadn’t even realized what was happening until the kids heard you shooting. Jack gives my dad a jovial smile.

“I just wanted to come over here and thank ya’ll.” He pauses for a minute like he wants to say something but needs to steel his nerve. “Ya’ll didn’t seem like you were the friendly sort. You never came over and introduced yourselves, so we just gave you some space...but in light of what happened today...”

“I think we all need to start working together if we’re going to survive,” Regg says, interrupting him, and Jack nods.

“That is exactly what I was trying to say. Thanks, Sarge.”

“I agree with that,” Regg says, nodding his head and looking thoughtful.

“We didn’t mean to come across as unfriendly; we just had so much prep to do...” my dad tries to explain, and Jack nods.

“I know what you mean. It’s gonna be tight with that first snowfall breathing down our necks,” he stops and motions around the cabin. “And now this.”

“Did you...lose anybody?” Regg asks, and Jack shakes his head.

“Not today,” he says mysteriously, but I don’t think any of us want to pry. “We just got up on that roof and didn’t budge—would’ve been a different story without you guys though.

“We didn’t lose anyone today either,” Regg tells him, and Jack looks relieved.

“I’m mighty glad. Some of the others weren’t as lucky,” he tells us, and my heart sinks.

“Others?” Barry asks in confusion, and Jack nods.

“The people in the other cabins. I saw the guy right next door to us open up his door to look out, and they were overrun before I could even shout out a warning.” Jack stops to cross himself. “The other cabin further down had their door knocked in around dawn, and they didn’t make it either—they were all nice folks,” he says, making me feel super guilty for never taking the time to get to know them, or see if they needed any help.

We all stand awkwardly, none of us saying anything as we each think our own personal, heavy thoughts. “I’m going out,” Silas says suddenly, probably feeling uncomfortable in the emotionally charged room

“What?” I say, surprised by his abrupt announcement. “Where are you going?”

“Just to take a look around,” Silas says mysteriously, and he holds his hand out to Barry. Barry hands him the keys.

We all watch him leave, and it breaks the silent spell. “Well, I should be letting you folks have some time,” Jack says, backing away from the door. “You should definitely repair this door tonight,” he mentions as he taps the door one more time.

“Thanks, buddy,” my dad says, seemingly infatuated with our new arrival.

“I’ll stop by in the morning when I see you up and about,” Jack promises as he leaves, shaking my dad’s hand and saluting Regg.

“He seems nice,” my mom says when Jack leaves, and I have to agree. Plus, it can only help our chances to have another army guy around.

I peer out the front door, wondering where Silas took off to, but my attention doesn’t get a chance to wander for long.

“We have a lot of stuff to do and a small amount of time to do it in,” Regg says, clapping his hands to get all of our attention. “I don’t want to seem sexist, but I need you girls on cleanup. This living room needs to be scrubbed with bleach and I want you wearing protective gloves,” he commands, and his tone leaves no room for argument.

I bite back the immediate whine that wants to come from my lips at being assigned the girl stuff. I glance over at Megan and see that her face is thunderous as well, and it brightens my mood a little—after all, she was the one that volunteered me as the zombie bait.

“Ryan, and Art,” Regg calls out, and they look at him expectantly. “Take a nap,” he says, surprising us all, and I’m more than a little bit jealous. “You two are on first watch tonight,” Regg snaps, and my jealousy evaporates.

“Thanks,” Ryan says as he starts heading for the front door, but Regg shakes his head.

“That damn trailer almost became our final resting place today,” Regg says, “We are all in the house now until further notice.” Ryan doesn’t argue, he just changes his path and heads for the stairs instead. My mom purses her lips at the idea that there will be boys bunking upstairs now, but she isn’t going to complain about it—at least not right now.

“Barry and I will reinforce the door. We’ll probably need to pick up a new one on our next supply run, but we still need it to shut and lock for tonight.” Regg’s words send dread coursing through my body at the idea that we could wake up in the middle of the night and have to do this all over again—with the depleted ammo supply; I doubt we would be so lucky twice.

“Come on, girls,” my mom says, taking charge of the cleanup crew, and I drag my feet as I follow her into the kitchen. We didn’t shoot any of the zombies inside, THANK GOD, or this would have been so much worse, but the zombies that got in still managed to leave their mark. We mop and wash goo off of every surface for two hours straight, while Regg and Barry find spare wood and replace the door frame. The lock is completely busted, so they settle for an old-fashioned barricade for now, rather than a deadbolt.

I keep glancing out the window as the sky gets darker and darker, worry gnawing my gut about Silas. I’m just about ready to say something to Regg, maybe get a team together to go out and look for him, when there is a heavy knock at the front door. We all freeze and stare at it.

“Who is it?” Barry calls through the door, and I nearly jump for joy when I hear Silas answer back.

“Where have you been?” Barry snaps, looking annoyed, and I must admit I’m struggling with the emotion myself.

“I second that!” I chime in, earning myself a scowl from Silas. I scowl right back at him though. He needs to learn he can’t just disappear and leave us to worry sick about him.

“I followed the tracks, and it wasn’t that easy, at first,” Silas says, coming in and sitting down on the couch, and we all crowd around him like he’s the six o’clock news.

“Did you find out where they came from?” Regg asks, and we all lean forward, eager to hear.

Silas nods. “Yeah. They came from down below. They just followed the road up the mountain.” We blink. For me personally, this news is very anticlimactic. It actually makes a lot of sense that the zombies came from down below where there are millions of them.

“Shit,” Regg cusses. “We were so stupid to leave that road accessible.” He stands up and begins to pace as he runs his hands across his smooth, shaved head.

“At least no one was hurt,” Silas says, and we all stare at him. He’s forgotten about the neighbors.

“Shit,” Silas mutters, obviously remembering what Jack said earlier. “We should’ve been more careful.”

Regg puts his hand on Silas’s shoulder. “We will next time,” he promises him, and it makes me feel a little bit better, though I wish we had found a way to prevent this from happening.

Silas looks grim, so I move in beside him on the couch and hold his hand. He gives my hand a brief squeeze before he lets go and stands up abruptly.

“You boys are bunking upstairs now,” my mom tells him, and Silas murmurs his thanks as he starts to head for the stairs.

“Anything else to report?” Regg asks, making Silas pause.

“Yeah, actually...there was a chewed apart deer carcass halfway up the road. I think they were probably chasing the poor thing and it tried to run away up our mountain road,” Silas lets out a big sigh. “It was a fluke that they found us, or bad karma, whatever you want to call it. I call it pure shitty luck,” he tells us, and then he continues upstairs without another word.

I watch him go and can’t help but feel a tug of disappointment at the way Silas is acting towards me. I know he’s tired, and upset...we all are, but I had kind of hoped we could lean on each other. I take a deep breath and shove my feelings down deep inside, dwelling on them won’t do me any good. If I had wanted someone who would hold my hand and reassure me that everything is going to be okay—that was Ryan. I chose Silas.

“Why don’t we all go to bed?” my mom suggests when we all just sit around like boneless skeletons melting into the couch. I’m not sure I even have enough energy to make it upstairs, but Abby comes along and offers me her hand up. After a second of considering sleeping on the couch down here with the patched together door, I grab her hand and we lean on each other as we make our way upstairs to bed.

Chapter Sixteen

I don’t want to get up the next morning. Since no horde came in the night to attack us, I know what my day is going to consist of—and it’s going to be gross, backbreaking work.

“Ugh,” Megan moans from her bed, echoing my own sentiment. I know we are all awake because we’ve gotten used to rising with the sun, but today nobody wants to jump out of bed looking forward to a full day’s work.

The door opens after a sharp knock, and Regg pokes his head in, surprised that we’re all still in bed. “Rise and shine,” he barks, looking way too eager to start with his day, and then he’s gone, slamming the door shut behind him.

The door closes, wafting in the smell of pancakes. It’s what finally motivates me to roll out of bed. Once I’m up, it’s like I give the other girls some ambition, and they follow me up. Sunny’s bed is empty, and I feel a slight wave of panic wash over me before I realize that I’m probably being a dummy. She’s most likely downstairs with my mom. Just to be on the safe side, though, I quickly throw on some clothes, run a brush through my hair, and head downstairs to check on her.

I find her safe and sound, sitting with Ryan at the table as she shovels pancakes into her mouth. Mom looks up with a smile when I enter, and I give her a half-hearted attempt at one back.

I just sit down next to my dad and get some pancakes on my plate when a loud knock at the door makes me pause mid-pour of my syrup. Regg throws the door open to find Jack standing on the front step, and I can’t help squinting at him. It is way too early to be as motivated as all these guys seem to be.

“Come in,” Regg invites, motioning for Jack to join us, and my mom pours him a coffee without even asking if he wants it first.

“Thank you, ma’am,” Jack says with a nod, and my mom actually blushes.

“Help yourself to some pancakes,” my dad motions, handing Jack a plate, and Jack gives us all a lop-sided grin.

“If you folks have enough to go around, then I don’t mind if I do,” he says as he fills his plate. I watch Jack eat like he hasn’t seen a pancake in months—and maybe he hasn’t. Finally, he sits back and wipes his sleeve across his blonde moustache to get rid of any trace of syrup. “I have an idea,” he announces, and we all lean forward in interest.

“What did you come up with?” Regg asks, and I’m wondering the same.

“I can’t stand the idea of just surviving day to day, anymore,” Jack says, starting what sounds an awful lot like the beginning of a sermon. “We need to do more than just scratch out a meager existence up here, and the biggest key to doing that is not being afraid. I’m so tired of knowing that any minute could be my last—or that we might have to bug out and leave everything behind.” He stops and looks at each one of us in turn. What he’s saying sounds nice, but he hasn’t exactly explained how he’s going to accomplish it.

“Any thoughts on how we could actually get ourselves to that point?” Regg asks, echoing my exact thoughts.

“Heavy machinery,” Jack says with a grin, like it’s the greatest idea since sliced bread. I swallow down my pancake and stare at him in confusion. Jack takes a look around at our blank faces and his bravado fades a little. “We need it to reinforce our camp,” Jack elaborates. He reaches in his pocket and pulls out a rough sketch of the area and a bunch of weird squiggly lines.

“You’re talking booby traps?” Silas asks, brightening as he leans forward to examine the paper, and Jack nods enthusiastically.

“We would need an excavator, which might be a real pain in the neck, but just think of all the uses we would have for it,” Jack says. He points one enormous finger to the largest squiggle, which I now realize is the main road up the mountain. “We could dig up the road and install a pit with a drawbridge so we can still get back and forth, but the zomb’s wouldn’t be able to cross. They’re stupid. They would just fall in the hole.

A drawbridge—the whole thing sounds ludicrous to me—but when I look at Regg, I realize that he is seriously considering the idea. “What would you need from us?” Regg asks, and my mouth nearly falls open.

“Man power,” Jack replies right away. “It’s just my sister, wife, and me over at our cabin. The only other men we had didn’t make it through last night’s siege.” He stops and stares at his paper for a minute. “We would need to do a supply run, find the equipment, and get it back up this mountain.”

“It would also require a lot of extra fuel,” Ryan points out.

“We do have the external fuel tank,” I chime in, glad I can actually add something to this crazy conversation. I hate just sitting here eavesdropping like a little kid.

“I think we should do it,” Silas says, voting before a vote has even been called. Regg shoots him an exasperated look.

“This needs more planning, but I think you have a good idea,” he turns around and looks at all of us. “All in favor?” he asks, and as one we all raise our hands, even Sunny, who has no idea what they’re talking about, she just wants to be included.

“When do we leave?” Silas asks, and Jack shoots him a conspiratorial grin.

“As soon as you’re done with your breakfast,” he announces like we’re all on a game show and just won a prize. I can’t help but gnaw my lip in worry.

“The bucket will be great for a quicker cleanup of the bodies,” Regg muses. “We can dig a hole, push them inside, and burn them.” My ears perk up at the idea that I might not have to spend the next week hauling decomposing bodies around a mountain top.

“I’m in!” I say, and everyone at the table chuckles.

“Jane,” Mom says, making the grin fall off my face. “You aren’t really in. You’ll be staying here, where it’s safe.”

I look at Silas, who I know will for sure be going, and shake my head. “No offense, Mom, but nothing is safe anymore, not even this cabin. I’m going where I can be most useful,” I tell her, and I can tell my mom wants to argue, but my dad puts his hand on her arm to restrain her.

“I’ll go too,” Dad volunteers as he turns towards my mom. “And don’t worry, I’ll watch over her,” he promises, though it doesn’t exactly make the worry lines ease from her forehead.

I gobble down my breakfast in nervous excitement and listen to Jack and Regg make even crazier plans for once they get this piece of machinery they need.

We are packed and standing around outside the trucks within the hour. Silas, Barry, Dad, Jack, and Megan have all volunteered to come. Even though I’m not the biggest Megan fan right now, I know we need all the people we can get. I thought we would all be taking separate vehicles, like we did on the first supply run, but since the plan is to drive the equipment home, we all crowd into the pickup instead. It’s a tight squeeze, and I end up in the back sitting in Silas’ lap, much to my delight and the disapproval of my dad. I don’t care though—it’s super cramped and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let Megan sit in his lap instead.

The ride down the mountain is quiet and bumpy, but Silas wraps his arms around my waist and keeps me from bumping around too much. “So what’s the plan?” I ask when we reach the pavement at the bottom and no one has said a word. I shrug helplessly. “What are we looking for?”

“We’ll know it when we see it,” Regg says mysteriously, and all the men nod in annoying agreement as he accelerates the truck down the deserted road. I can’t help looking around, and the desolation makes my heart ache. I know it’s been a couple of months now, but I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the emptiness of a world without people.

We’ve been driving for over an hour. Each time we pass a small hick town, the guys perk up and stare intently out the window. It’s like a secret club and only they know what in the hell is going on. I see a bunch of large machinery up ahead and point. “What about that?” I ask excitedly, but everyone shakes their head right away.

“That’s a tractor dealership,” Megan tells me snidely, and I want to slap her—like do I look like a farmer or something? I don’t know about this stuff.

“We will find something soon,” Dad reassures me, and I give him a strained smile. The waiting is always the worst part.

“I’ll be damned,” Jack exclaims from the front seat, and I twist around, trying to see if he’s found this mysterious place we’ve been looking for. I’m curious, but I don’t open my mouth again to ask. I don’t want to get mocked.

“What is it?” Megan asks instead, surprising me that she doesn’t just automatically know everything.

“Snow,” Jack says, pointing out the windshield. I have to squint, but after a minute I can see the tiny flakes that are starting to swirl around in a fury. It doesn’t take long until they increase in size and start hitting the window, leaving wet splotches everywhere.

Regg turns on the windshield wipers and curses under his breath. “This is just what we didn’t need today,” he says to the rest of us, and I’m kind of hypnotized by the beauty of the snow. The rest of the landscape is battered, brown, and covered with the dead that still walk the earth—maybe the snow will help cover all that up, and hide some of the ugliness.

“It’s really coming down,” Jack agrees with Regg’s assessment that this is not the opportune time for a snowstorm.

“Yeah, we’d better get this stuff and get back as fast as possible before the roads ice up,” my dad warns, and we all sit and think about that in silence for a while. I, personally, am trying to imagine running away from zombies, but with ice skates. It would be hard for them to walk, but it would also be hard for me considering I don’t know how to skate...

“Bingo!” Jack shouts, nearly deafening everyone in the cab, and I glance up from my self-reflection to see that he’s pointing at a large yard surrounded by a tall chain link fence. The huge sign outside the gate reads PJ’s Construction, heavy duty, landscaping, pools & more.

Regg pulls up to the gate, and Silas gently slides me off his lap as he opens the door, letting an icy blast of snowflakes inside the cab. He grabs a pair of bolt cutters off the floor and heads for the gate. I wait for a moment to see if anyone else is going to get out and watch his back. No one moves, so I shove the door open and follow him out without asking permission.

The wind is biting and the snowflakes sting my eyes as it drives relentlessly down. “I’m behind you,” I yell to be heard over the wind. I see Silas stiffen, but he doesn’t turn around or acknowledge he heard me. I turn my back to him and pull my gun from my hip as I scan the surrounding area. We lucked out a bit; this construction yard isn’t in the middle of town, more like a sparsely populated industrial area just outside the town limits. There are a few large buildings on either side of us, but I don’t see any movement.

“Get ready, Blondie.” Silas’ shout pulls my attention back to the task at hand just as I hear the snap of the chain breaking underneath the pressure of the cutters. The chain link rattles and hisses, but it’s not the only thing. I look over his shoulder and see a zombie on the other side of the chain link. He is dressed like a security guard and is stalking Silas’s every movement. When Silas starts to slide the gate open, the zombie’s bloated black tongue snakes out of his mouth, and he actually licks at the fence.

I almost burst out laughing when I see his tongue stick to the metal—frozen. The zombie doesn’t feel pain, of course, and tugs his tongue loose, leaving behind a good layer of rotten black skin, and I wince, no longer seeing as much humor in the situation.

“Shoot him,” I urge Silas as he continues to slide the gate open, but he shakes his head. Then the gate is open and nothing stands between Silas and the zombie. Silas surprises me by raising the heavy bolt cutters and violently cracking the zombie across the top of the skull.

I wince and step back when Silas hits him again and again until his knees buckle and the zombie falls lifeless to the ground. “What in the hell was that?” I ask, looking down at the zombie in disgust.

“Do you have any idea how many bullets we used the other day?” Silas challenges. “We need to be more resourceful.”

Silas steps aside, pulling me with him as he motions for the truck to pass through. Everyone in the cab stares at Silas as they drive through the gate. Silas quickly rolls the gate back together and wraps the busted chain around the post a couple times. Then he grabs my hand and pulls me back inside the truck. We squish back in with Megan and my dad, and the blast of heat feels good.

“It’s freezing out there!” I complain, rubbing my numb fingers together, trying to circulate the blood, and my dad reaches out and holds my hands between his warm ones.

“You need to make sure you’re wearing your gloves,” he chides, but I shake my head.

“I can’t shoot with the gloves on,” I complain.

“So what’s the plan?” Silas asks Regg, completely ignoring my conversation with my dad.

“We need to get in and out quickly and carefully. Hopefully that fence kept all the zombs out, and this will be easy.” Regg laughs when he realizes that he just jinxed us, and we all watch as he reaches out and knocks against the dash, pretending the plastic wood grain is real wood.

“Pull in here,” Jack instructs, pointing to a rectangular modular that is just ahead. “It has to be the office; hopefully we can find some keys.”

Regg steers the truck into the marked parking spot reserved for PJ himself and slams it into park as Jack, Dad, and Silas all jump out of the truck. I follow them, much to my dad’s disappointment, though thankfully he doesn’t waste time arguing anymore.

We try the door, and I’m surprised when it actually opens. Jack throws it wide and stands with his legs apart and his gun up, ready to blast anything that moves. The interior of the building is dim even though there are a few windows, and our breath puffs like big, fluffy clouds in front of our faces as we study the layout of the room.

It looks like we’ve walked into the receptionist’s area with the large wood grain desk sitting front and center and mismatched chairs lined up against the wall for a waiting room. Silas points to some pegboard on the wall behind the desk that is filled with keys, and we all gather around it. “Which ones do you think we’ll need?” I ask. Silas pulls the ball cap off his head, holds it upside down like a bowl, and tosses in every single set of keys.

“All of them,” he tells me once he’s plucked the very last key from its hook.

“Hot dang!” Jack exclaims as he slides open one of the desk drawers and starts pulling out quality walkie talkies. “These are exactly what we need,” he exclaims, taking them all out of the drawer and shoving the extras into his bag after he hands us each our own.

“These things have a range of like sixteen miles,” Silas tells us. Once again, I have to marvel at all the random bits of information that he has stored in his head.

“Let’s all turn them to channel two, so we’re on the same page,” Jack suggests, and I fiddle with my dial until the eight in the LCD screen changes to a two.

A scraping sound draws my attention down the hallway to my right, and I grip Silas’s arm and point. Silas makes a cutting motion to everybody else and we all freeze, straining our ears, trying to discern if something is going to come after us from down the hall.

An all-too-familiar, phlegm-filled rattle sound gives us a brief warning before a construction-zombie comes staggering down the hall towards us. The zombie is wearing blue jeans, a flannel work shirt, and bright orange suspenders. He looks like one of the guys from the YMCA song—all that’s missing is the bright yellow hard hat. Silas steps forward, gripping the bolt cutters, but Jack beats him to it, raising his gun, he pops him right between the eyes.

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Jack suggests as he turns and pushes through the door. The snow is still coming down like crazy outside, but I’m mentally prepared for it this time, so it’s less of a shock when it attacks my eyeballs.

Regg gets out of the truck when he sees us and walks over, digging through the hat full of keys and plucking a few out. He hands one to Barry, Jack, and my dad. “I need you guys to find a truck that runs, hook up a trailer, and get some equipment loaded,” he tells them before motioning to the rest of us. “Silas, Megan, and Jane, you guys are on guard duty. Watch our backs while we work,” he tells us and then walks off.

I stare at Megan and Silas briefly and then I take off at a jog, following my dad. If I’m going to watch anyone’s back, it’s definitely going to be his.

An hour later, I am completely numb from my fingers to my toes. Even my nose and cheeks have stopped hurting and are just frozen. The yard is a hub of activity with the rumble of diesel engines and various pieces of equipment being loaded onto the trailers for transport, and I’m pretty much a nervous wreck.

All this movement isn’t exactly quiet, and we’ve managed to attract at least fifty zombies to the outside perimeter of the fence. They follow us around and moan, clutching at the chain link with rotten fingers. The sight of them makes me even colder.

“That’s it,” Regg says as he parks the last tractor trailer behind the other two already lined up at the gate. We all stop and stare at our adoring fan club and grimace.

“I have an idea,” Silas says with a slight grin on his face. “We can’t risk damaging the trucks by plowing into a group that big, but I could definitely clear them out with that—” He points to a huge yellow machine with an enormous flat blade mounted on the front.

“Do you even know how to run that thing?” Regg asks, and Silas shrugs.

“I spent a summer driving a tractor around a corn field— I’ll figure it out,” Silas retorts, and it’s Regg’s turn to shrug.

“I guess if you think you can do it,” he tells Silas as he hands over the remaining hat full of keys. “Just don’t make me regret this!” Silas takes the keys like a kid on Christmas morning and presses a quick kiss to my lips as he jogs over and climbs up into the massive mountain of metal. We all watch him trying the various keys until one works. The engine roars to life and smoke billows out of the stack.

We all jump back when the dozer bounces a little and start’s forward with a lurch. The metal tracks make a distinct clicking sound as it rolls. After a few minutes of complete experimentation, Silas seems to gain control over the machine and gives us the thumbs up.

My dad sprints over and gives me a big hug. “Be careful kiddo,” he warns me and I nod, hugging him back tightly. I’m so grateful that he’s starting to trust me out here.

“We’d better get going,” Regg tells us softly, not wanting to intrude, but also wanting us to get the hell out of here. Dad releases me and runs back to his truck, and I watch Barry climb into the passenger seat of the same truck my dad is driving.

“I guess you girls are on your own for now. Who’s driving?” Regg asks, holding up the keys to the Ford.

“You do it,” I say to Megan right away. I’m not exactly comfortable driving on a good day and snow and zombies don’t help.

Megan snatches up the keys. I climb in the F-150 with her and watch everyone else get into their big rigs—I didn’t even know my dad could drive a big truck! Once we are all inside, Silas gets the dozer rolling forward until it gains momentum, and he smashes through the front gate with absolutely no effort. “Holy shit,” Megan mutters under her breath, and I kinda have to agree with her. I hadn’t been expecting Silas to just smash it like that, but I guess it would be dangerous to get out and open it.

Silas raises his blade a couple feet just before he crashes into the crowd of zombies. Even though I hate them and I want every single zombie on this planet to die, I can’t help wincing. The zombies are like bowling pins getting knocked over and pushed out of the way, with those that fall getting rolled underneath the blade. “Oh gross, look at that one!” I yelp, pointing to an unfortunate zombie that’s gotten himself stuck between the dozer’s tracks. He’s flopping around like a rag doll as the tracks continue to spin, and I’m transfixed. I can’t look away. Thankfully, he falls off on the next resolution and gets ground to bits.

Megan and I both clap our hands over our mouths. “I think that is one of the worst zombie kills I’ve ever seen,” Megan admits, and I can only nod. If I thought killing a zombie with a chainsaw was badass, Silas definitely has me beat with this.

The zombies don’t know that they don’t stand a chance against the machine, so they just keep heading for the big blade and it makes quick work of them. Silas does one more pass and then there are none, and nothing left of them except crushed up corpses, bone chips, and goo. The lead truck idles up and starts rolling, driving right through the gore until it gets a good half a mile down the road. Then Regg stops, and the rest of the convoy follows.

Megan stops the truck near the dozer to see if Silas is going to jump in with us, but he waves her away. I look at Megan in confusion as we leave Silas behind and she shrugs. “I’m sure he has some plan up his sleeve,” she tells me, and she’s probably right.

We wait with the rest of the trucks for another ten minutes while Silas slowly creeps up on us in the slow-ass dozer. When he parks the machine and gets out, Regg frowns at him. “What are you doing?”

“We have to take this thing with us!” Silas says, and it’s as close to begging as I’ve ever seen Silas get. Regg turns to stare at the already loaded trucks.

“Oh come on,” Silas cajoles, pointing to the truck that Jack was driving in the middle. “You only have two skid steers on that trailer. It has to be a fifty foot trailer—at least—there’s plenty of room.”

“Fine,” Regg snaps with a frown on his face, but I’m pretty sure it’s all for show because he really wants the dozer too.

We sit for another half an hour while they screw around and reposition the small skid steers and then roll the giant D6 dozer up the beavertail ramp and chain it down.

“I doubt she’s legal, but it’s highly unlikely that there’s anyone left employed by the Department of Transportation to stop us,” Jack says with a booming laugh as he finishes tightening the chain with the chain binder and tosses it into the tool box.

“Good. Let’s get the hell out of here,” Regg yells to be heard above the rumble of engines.

“Take it easy with that thing, she’s my girl,” Silas shouts to Jack, pointing to the dozer, and I feel the craziest stab of jealousy.

Jack laughs. “Don’t worry about it man. I’m gonna drive this D6, like a G6—see you back on the mountain.” Silas waves as Jack jumps back into his truck and takes off.

Megan hands over the keys and gets into the backseat as Silas gets in the Ford and pushes the driver’s seat way back. I watch him with narrowed eyes as he puts the truck in gear and eases off down the road. The truck fishtails and I grip the handle above the door, causing Silas to glance over and look at me. “It’s getting slippery out there,” he says unnecessarily, and I can’t help it.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather ride with Jack and ‘your girl’?” I ask, air quoting. I instantly regret my outburst when Silas’s face cracks into a grin, and Megan laughs from the back seat.

“Aww, honey, are you jealous of my dozer?” he asks, and it’s so ridiculous that even I have to grin. Inside, though, I’m melting because Silas just called me honey.

Chapter Seventeen

We drive for half an hour before Silas looks sharply to his left and slams on the brakes, causing the truck to skid sideways and me to let loose a girly scream. “What in the hell are you doing?” I demand as I watch the brake lights on the trucks up ahead light up.

“What in the hell are you doing?” Regg’s voice crackles into the cab through the walkie talkie that I’d almost forgotten I’d shoved in my pocket.

Silas grabs the walkie from my hand and holds the talk button down. “Did you notice that fuel station back there had a couple tanker trucks?” he asks, and there is silence on the other end—apparently Regg had not.

“Why don’t you go take a quick look? I don’t really want to find a place to turn all these trucks around, unless there’s a good reason,” Regg says after a full minute of silence where we all just stare at the radio in Silas’s hand.

“Be careful!” my dad cuts in across the two-way radio, cutting Regg off.

“She’s staying in the truck,” Silas responds firmly, giving me a meaningful look as he sets the walkie talkie down on the center console and does a U-turn with the Ford right in the middle of the road.

We pull into the parking lot, and Silas squints out into the swirling snow, trying to gauge the danger level. “I can’t see a damn thing,” he admits finally, pulling his gun from his belt and climbing out of the truck. He stops and looks back over his shoulder at me. “Stay in the truck.”

My stomach sinks as he walks away, and every instinct in my body screams at me to follow him, but I also don’t want him pissed off. He promised my dad, and I know his word is important to him, so I sit and scan the parking lot instead. If he needs help, though, there is no way in hell I’m sitting in the cab letting him handle it alone, but I guess, until I actually see any sign of danger, I can at least pretend to follow his rules.

I watch Silas check all around the first tanker truck for danger before he focuses on the side of the tank where there is a series of valves and places for the hose to attach. I watch him study it for a minute before he grabs a valve and gives it an experimental tug, which opens it up and liquid starts to gush out. He lets it spill on the ground for a minute before he struggles to shut the valve off, and the flow slows and finally disappears.

Silas bends down, dips his fingers in the puddle, and sniffs them for a split second before he shakes his head in annoyance. He digs in his pocket and pulls out his own walkie talkie and switches it on. “This one is gasoline,” he tells us before turning his attention to the second tanker. It’s parked in a different area, so I really hope that will mean something good for us.

“Gasoline is still good,” I mutter, and Megan nods.

“We can use it, for sure, but it’s not what runs the machinery,” she quips like a know-it-all, so I stay silent and ignore her.

Silas repeats the process, and this time his face lights up with a grin. “Diesel,” he informs us through the two-way. He goes up to the cab of the second truck and peers in the window before throwing the door open and stepping back. A zombie falls face-first from the cab, and Silas uses his knife to stab him in the temple before he has a chance to struggle to his feet.

“Why didn’t he just use his gun?” I ask, and Megan rolls her eyes at me.

“This is just a guess, but he probably didn’t want to cause a spark and blow us all up,” she says, and I feel my cheeks get hot with embarrassment—sometimes I just don’t think before I open my mouth.

Silas climbs up in the big truck, but after a couple turns of the key he gets out and motions for us to bring the Ford over while he pops the hood of the semi and rummages in the back for some jumper cables. Megan gets into the driver’s seat and has to move the seat forward again before she can reach the pedals. She drives it nose to nose with the tanker and pulls a lever underneath the dash. A loud pop echoes through the cab as the hood latch releases.

Silas nods his thanks through the window and quickly clips on to our battery. Time feels like it crawls by as I watch Megan’s watch tick by fifteen minutes. I see movement out of the corner of my eye and try to shake off my watch envy and focus—it’s just Silas going back into the cab, and this time the truck roars to life when he turns the key.

He jumps out, unclipping the booster cables, and tosses them into the back of our truck. “It looks like you girls are on your own now,” he says, his voice coming in over the walkie talkie. “Because we got the tanker truck started!” he crows, letting the others know what’s happening.

“Take it easy on these roads,” Dad lectures through the walkie, his panic clear, and both Megan and I assure him that we will. We wait for Silas to get out on the road, and then we pull in behind him.

I can tell Megan isn’t completely comfortable on the icy roads, and I’m definitely not when she taps the brakes and the truck just keeps sliding. I watch her reach over and pop the truck into 4x4, and I’m not sure if it really helps, but it makes me feel better at least.

It feels like the drive takes forever as we crawl along. The road is completely white and iced up, and it’s even drifted over in certain spots, though at least the big trucks go through first and break a trail. The driving snow blurs and looks like stars when the spaceships go into hyper drive, so at least that’s kind of cool. “Holy, it’s hard to see,” Megan complains, rubbing her hand across her face. Her eyes are getting bloodshot from the strain of staring at the road.

“Look at that zombie,” I point out the window, trying to lighten the mood. The zombie is standing on the side of the road, barely moving, and he’s covered in a thin layer of snow, making him look a bit like a snowman. “All he’s missing is a corn cob pipe and a button nose,” I joke, but Megan doesn’t even snicker.

“Hopefully this weather will slow them down, or freeze them to death or something,” Megan says, and I nod. That would be awesome.

We reach the bottom of the mountain, finally. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to see it in my life, and that includes all our summer vacations back when things were good. My whole body feels shaky and strained from worrying about the road conditions, and expecting to die at any minute. I just want to get home and crawl into my bed—a hot bath would be nice—but bed is much more attainable.

“You girls should go on up the mountain first. It’s going to take us a while to get the trucks up—it’s pretty steep,” Regg’s voice comes over the two-way, and I let out a sigh of relief. I definitely do not want to follow the trucks while they crawl up the mountain at snail speed.

Megan steers around the trucks and trailers. “Just a minute!” My dad’s voice crackles over the radio. “Barry wants to come with you guys.” I look over at Megan and we both make a face, but we still hit the unlock button when Barry comes running over with his head ducked down against the pounding snow. He jumps in the backseat and we take off, winding past the big trucks—I wave to my dad and Silas as we pass by.

“It’s really coming down out there,” Barry says, leaning forward on the console to stare out the front window.

Megan gives a grunt of agreement that reminds me of Silas and makes me smile.

“Yeah,” I add, just because it seems rude not to reply.

“It’s only going to be worse the higher up we get,” Barry promises, and he isn’t wrong. It’s practically a white out by the time we pull up outside the cabin. I get out of the truck and shiver as the icy wind somehow manages to find its way up inside my jacket. Megan jumps out of the truck and heads for the house, and I follow closely behind her, hoping to somehow use her as a wind block. When we reach the front steps, a figure standing on the porch starts towards us and I dumbly turn with a smile, thinking it’s Ryan.

Megan raises her gun and fires two rounds into his forehead, and my jaw drops. “What are you doing?” I squeal as I run forward to get a better look at who she just shot. It’s a zombie—holy shit.

I raise my fist to knock on the cabin door, but it falls open underneath the gentle press of my hand, and the small hairs on my arm start to rise. We haven’t had a chance to fix the door yet, so there is no way it wouldn’t be locked from the inside if everything was okay. I stare inside at the lack of flames in the fireplace and fear runs down my spine, settling in my belly.

“Mom?” I shout into the cold, empty cabin, but she doesn’t answer back. A low growl next to my ear has me spinning with my gun up, but Megan beats me to it and shoots the zombie who’s coming at me from the kitchen.

“What in the hell is going on?” Megan demands, but of course, I have no idea either.

I panic and throw caution to the wind, breaking into a jog as I head for the stairs, checking each bedroom, but they are all empty. I even check the roof, but there isn’t anyone out there either. I run back downstairs, out of breath and panicked. “They aren’t here,” I tell Megan, which she obviously already knows.

I brush past her to go back outside. If they aren’t in here, then they must be outside somewhere, hopefully safe. Barry is standing next to the truck looking nervous. “What’s going on?” he asks, motioning to the zombie lying dead on the porch.

“The house is empty and there are zombies,” Megan says, filling Barry in with the least amount of words possible.

“What are you doing?” I ask, noticing the way he’s almost cowering against the door of the truck.

“I accidentally left my gun back in the truck with your dad,” Barry admits, and my jaw drops. What kind of an idiot is this guy?

“I remembered halfway up the mountain, but I thought it would be okay...” Barry trails off and looks sick.

“Silas keeps extra guns and ammo underneath the backseat,” I tell Barry, taking pity on him.

“Oh my God, thank you,” Barry mumbles as he throws the back door open and starts scattering everything all over the place in his hurry. He grabs a double-barrel twelve gauge and a handful of loose shells, though there aren’t very many lying around loose, so he opens up a new box and adds the contents to his pockets too. “What’s the plan?” he asks once he’s armed again and obviously feeling more confident, and I motion to the surrounding mountainside.

“We have to find them. My mom, Sunny, Abby, and Ryan are out there somewhere,” I say, sucking in air to try and stave off the full-blown panic attack that’s lurking just below the surface.

The wind is howling so loudly that it’s impossible to call out for them, and I still have no idea how long Silas, Regg, Jack, and my dad are going to be. Thinking about Jack gives me an idea.

“What about Jack’s house?” I suggest, and Megan looks hopeful.

“They might’ve gone over there—doesn’t Jack have a wife and a sister?” Barry adds, and we all take off in that direction at a run. We get halfway to the cabin when we all stop dead and stare at the odd tableau in front of us. There are at least ten zombies standing around the base of a scraggly old tree. Ryan, my mom, Sunny, and Abby are all up in the branches, clinging on for dear life.

“Now I’ve seen everything,” Barry mutters as he drops a couple cartridges into his gun.

Barry is beside me and the blast from his shotgun is deafening, so I take several steps sideways away from him before he robs me of my youthful hearing. He takes out a zombie with his first shot, but the second shot clicks when he pulls the trigger, and nothing happens. The zombies turn towards us with hungry moans, and I stop watching Barry fumble to reload and focus on thinning down this group. Megan and I fire off several shots in the time it takes Barry to reload.

The boom of the rifle fires again, taking down another zombie. I can’t help but notice how huge the kickback is on the gun, and I feel bad for Barry—I’ll take my handgun any day of the week. Barry’s next shot is more like an explosion, and I scream and fling my hand over my face as pain slices through my cheek.

“What the fuck?” I yell, turning to see what in the hell Barry is doing. My anger drains from my body when I see that Barry’s down on the ground, the barrel of his rifle peeled back like a banana and his face—my stomach rebels against me. A cry issues from my throat, and Megan glances over briefly before turning her back on us once more to deal with the zombies. I glance over at the zombies and see that there are only four left, and Ryan is climbing down from the tree, so I turn my back on the firefight and force myself to go to Barry’s aid.

I fall to my knees beside him in snow that is now flecked with red spray, and I just don’t know what to do for him. His face looks like a crater of raw hamburger. His chest is rising and falling rapidly, and I grab his flailing hand and hold it tightly in my own. I never really liked Barry, but no one deserves to have their face blown off... I don’t even understand how something like this could even happen.

Ryan runs over and lands on the other side of Barry, and I watch him press two fingers to check the pulse in his neck. I’m pretty sure it’s an empty gesture though. There isn’t anything we can do for him; his wounds are too bad. Back when it was as easy as calling 911, maybe he would’ve had a chance, but not now.

“What do we do?” I screech at Ryan when Barry started bubbling and choking in his own blood, and Ryan shakes his head helplessly—he has tears in his eyes.

“He’s suffering...” Ryan chokes as he pulls his gun from his belt and presses it to Barry’s temple. His hands are shaking so badly that I’m scared he’s going to miss. Ryan sits there, looking down at Barry, frozen. I know in my heart that I can’t let him go through with this. I gently push his hand away; Ryan is too good to have something like this on his conscience.

I tug the gun from Ryan’s hand and gently press it to Barry’s forehead. “I’m so sorry Barry,” I choke out as I sob even harder—I force myself to pull the trigger and the bubbling gasps stop right away.

“Jane!” I look up through my tears and see everyone running towards us. They must’ve arrived during the firefight; I didn’t notice with everything that was going on with Barry. Silas reaches me first and pulls me to my feet, away from the body, and wraps his arms around me, holding me tight. My dad comes next and pushes Silas out of the way and gathers me up in his arms.

Silas tosses off his jacket, rips a strip off his shirt, and presses it to my cheek, and I realize in a kind of detached way that blood is gushing down my cheek.

“Baby, why did you do that?” Dad sobs into my hair, and for a minute I’m convinced that he hates me for murdering Barry.

“We couldn’t help him, Dad. He was hurting so much,” I sob, and my Dad holds me even tighter.

“I know, you did the right thing, but you didn’t have to do it. I’m so sorry that I failed you. I wish I could’ve been here on time so I could’ve done it in your place,” Dad sobs even harder, and I go boneless with relief. He doesn’t hate me or think I’m a monster. He is feeling guilty that he wasn’t here to help me.

“It’s okay, Dad,” I murmur in his ear, my throat raw and sore from crying. “I’ve had to do it before,” I confess, and I feel him stiffen in surprise. “That’s why I didn’t want Ryan to have to do it,” I manage to get out as everything becomes too much effort and my world fades to black.

I wake up wearing a halo of pain that seems to engulf my entire body at first, but after several deep breaths I realize that it’s mostly centered in my head. I raise my fingers and gingerly poke at my face. I feel a rough patch across my cheek that feels tight and itchy. Someone grabs me and gently pulls my hand away, and I realize that it’s Silas. I’m lying on the couch back at the cabin and everyone is gathered around, staring down at me with varying degrees of worry on their faces.

“What happened?” I ask, and it feels like trying to talk around a mouthful of cotton.

“You fainted,” Mom says, coming over to sit on the edge of the couch, and she strokes my hair back away from my face. “Silas gave you some stitches on your cheek...” She stops and has to hold back a sob. I look over at Silas and grimace.

“Again?” I ask, referring to the first time I met Silas, which was also the first time he had to stitch me up.

“I’m afraid so,” he says, giving me a half-attempt at a smile. “Lucky for you, I’m awesome at stitching, so you’ll be good as new in no time,” he jokes, and I’m not sure if I should believe him or not. Silas isn’t usually the type to try and soften the blow, so maybe it’s much worse than I think.

“What happened to Barry?” I ask, and everyone freezes like they think I forgot that I shot him and now they’ll have to break the news to me again. I shake my head and it hurts. “Not that part,” I say. “How did it even happen?”

Silas’s face registers understanding. “The barrel of the gun exploded. He put a twenty gauge shell in a twelve gauge rifle. The shell slipped down and became lodged in the muzzle.” Silas shakes his head. “It happens more than you’d think—when he reloaded and the proper shell struck the obstruction, the pressure blew up the chamber—I checked his pockets, he had two different cartridges mixed up in there.”

“Such a waste of life,” Regg mutters, looking visibly upset, and I’m sure they are both thinking of ways to blame themselves.

Our conversation is interrupted by sobbing and I struggle to sit up on the couch. Ryan and Silas both help me up, and I turn to see Sunny coming down the stairs with Abby.

“I’m sorry,” Abby apologizes. “She is just so upset, I can’t get her to stop crying. I thought maybe letting her see that Jane is okay would make her feel better...” Abby shrugs helplessly.

I open my arms up to her and Sunny runs and jumps, bumping my cheek with her head and making me see stars for a minute, but I don’t mention it. “It’s going to be okay,” I murmur into the little girl’s hair, but Sunny shakes her head.

“No. It hurts,” she says, still sobbing, and I look down at her in confusion.

“Did you get hurt?” my mom asks, moving in closer to rub Sunny’s back, and she nods.

“Did you get bitten?” I ask, barely managing to contain my budding hysteria.

Sunny shakes her head. “I don’t know,” she admits.

I try and paste a smile on my face so I don’t freak her out, but it’s taking ALL of my self-control. “Show us where it hurts,” I ask, and Sunny snuffles as she gingerly rolls up her sleeve and shows us the perfect imprint of a bite on her forearm. Blood is weeping from the wound, so it definitely broke the skin. I quickly wrap her in a hug so she won’t be able to see my face crumple.

I look around at the rest of our group and there isn’t one person in the room that isn’t affected. Even Regg is letting the tears run down his face, not bothering to wipe them away. Silas looks like he’s seeing a ghost, and I know he’s thinking about his little brother right now.

“This can’t be happening,” Abby sobs, but it is.

“You’ll be okay,” I lie through my teeth, and Sunny pulls out of my hug to stare up at me solemnly.

“Do you promise?” she asks, and it breaks my heart.

“Sunny?” Regg says to distract her, and thankfully it works and she turns towards him. “When did you get hurt?” he asks, and she looks thoughtful.

“When they chased us into the tree—I didn’t run fast enough,” she says, her lower lip trembling.

Ryan blinks in surprise. “But that was hours ago,” he protests, and we all look at Sunny in surprise.

“How long does it take?” I ask, hating to even ask, but I haven’t really seen anyone turn yet, with the exception of Kyle back at the farmhouse, but he turned from a scratch.

“Anyone I’ve ever seen get bit, always turns within the hour,” Silas mutters.

“We were in that tree at least four hours,” Ryan protests again, surprising the hell out of me, and we all stare at Sunny in wonder. Even though I haven’t known her for very long, I’ve come to love this little girl; when she turns, it’s going to shatter my soul.

Silas walks over and examines her arm, staring at it intently. “It’s definitely a bite,” he confirms before walking over to pace in front of the fire that someone must’ve lit while I was unconscious.

A heavy knock interrupts our strained silence, and I know before Regg even opens it that it’s Jack. Jack takes one look at everyone and a look of alarm passes over his face.

“What happened since the last time I saw you?” he asks, and Regg has to clear his throat a few times before he can explain.

“Sunny was bitten,” he chokes out, and Jack’s face falls and he claps his hand on Regg’s shoulder.

Jack walks over and stares down at Sunny, examining her. Even though I really like Jack, I just want him to go away. “You know, she could be immune,” he says, and we all stare at him in shock.

“What in the hell are you talking about?” I demand stubbornly, refusing to let myself have hope.

“There ain’t nobody immune to this shit,” Silas agrees, and Jack looks at us all in surprise for a moment before he starts pulling his shirt off.

“What in the hell are you doing?” Regg asks when Jack tosses his shirt onto the couch and turns around for us all to see his back.

“Left shoulder,” Jack instructs, and my eye is drawn there against my will. I blink in surprise, not one hundred percent sure what it is I’m looking at.

“I was bit the first day of the infection,” Jack confesses, and we all lean in closer to stare at the obvious bite mark on his shoulder. It’s a raised bump and the imprint where the teeth connected is completely black. It almost looks like a tattoo.

Regg leans forward, runs his hand over the mark, and shakes his head in wonder. “I can feel the impression of the teeth,” he says, and Jack nods.

“You should’ve felt the damn impression the day that fucker bit me,” he counters.

“How did it happen?” Ryan demands. “She doesn’t even look sick. Did you ever get sick?” he asks, and Jack shakes his head.

“The damn virus never touched me, just gave me some messed up dreams and after a week or so, the scar just turned black and stayed that way.” Jack reaches for his shirt and shrugs back into it.

I stare at Sunny and feel the first ray of true hope that I’ve felt in a long time. I don’t want to freak out and drop my guard, but Sunny doesn’t seem to be falling ill. She isn’t fevered, or chilled, and she definitely isn’t vomiting blood.

I grip Silas’s hand so hard that I hear his fingers crack. “She has to be okay,” I whisper to him so Sunny won’t hear, and Silas nods, letting out a shaky breath.

“Only time will tell...”

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Coming October 2016

Zomb-Pocalypse 4 coming January 2017