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“
I’ll get you out soon,” Daylon promised. He was pacing behind me as if he were the one in a cage. “Jeff’s feeling okay. We’ll give him one more day to rest and then blow this town. Things will be better when we’re back on the road.”

I felt sick at the thought. The road no longer meant freedom to me. It was a prison that rolled on and on. I wanted to stop and rest, preferably on some deserted island with my feet in the sand and waves lapping on the shore. Throw in a cabana boy to bring me margaritas and why not a lobster drenched in butter too?

I dragged myself out of my fantasy and reached between the bars to take Maureen’s hand. “You’re sure you feel all right?”

“
I feel fine. Normal. My arm aches and the bite looks horrible, all black and blue and puckered up around the edges. But the vet cleaned the wound and I’m on antibiotics. I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

I caught the undertone of panic beneath her cheerful voice. Maureen was scared. Who wouldn’t be? The few people we’d seen bitten had died and risen. Jeff was the first I’d known to recover.

“
Jeff made it through. You will too,” I assured her. Right now she didn’t need to hear any doubts, only positive thinking.

Brian came into the jail and I felt a little flutter of excitement at the sight of him. A girly crush. Just what I needed right now.

“
What did Myers want?” Daylon asked. I’d told him that Brian had been summoned by the councilwoman.

“
She wants me to see if I can come up with plans to strengthen our defenses.”

“
You? What do you know about battle plans or fortifications?” Daylon’s tone couldn’t have been more dismissive.

“
Not a lot. What I’ve learned from gaming.” Brian turned to me. “I’m going to walk the fence if you want to come with me.”

“
Sure.” I stood and the metal chair skidded out from under me across the scarred linoleum.

“
I’ll come too.” Daylon picked up his jacket. “Hang in there, Maureen. You’ll be out soon.” He strode out the door with his usual swagger and Brian and I followed. I wished Daylon would go anywhere else. I wanted to be alone with Brian so we could talk.

It was noon by the time we walked out of the dimly lit building into blindingly bright sunshine. Wind whipped my hair into my eyes, making them water, and nipped at my ears. I wished I had a hat.

“
How many patrols do you have?” Daylon quizzed Brian as we headed down the street. “What kind of weapons do your people use? Have you had any perimeter breaches?”

“
Not so far.” We reached the end of the street, or at least the spot where stockade fence blocked it. The sight of thin slats of wood standing between us and the walking dead was enough to make my skin crawl even though there was nothing on the other side at the moment.

“
So you built this fence shortly after the attacks. Have you improved it since then?”

I glared at Daylon and moved in between him and Brian, determined get Brian talking about what I wanted to know more about—him. “What happened that night? Can you tell me?”

He was quiet, staring at the fence as though seeing through it to the past. “Like I told you, several people went to the hospital in Big Creek to get the A7 treatment. My mom was one.” Brian paused for a beat before continuing. “The hospital wasn’t letting anyone stay long and she was better so my dad brought her home. In the middle of the night I heard my dad screaming. Not yelling—screaming. I ran into their bedroom and tried to pull her off him but it was too late. He was… I couldn’t help him. She turned on me and I ran. I didn’t know what else to do.”

I nodded. We’d all been forced to run sometimes when we wished we’d been braver or stronger. “Nothing more you could’ve done.”

Brian pushed hard against the fence, testing its stability. “That night it was just as bad outside. Those of us who were uninfected fought or left town. Luckily there weren’t too many yet and we were able to clear them out in a couple of days. After that we built the fence.”

“
You’ve survived since then for nearly three months. How’ve you had enough to eat?”

“
There’s only one grocery store in town but a few trucks were making their weekly deliveries when everything happened. We’ve had a lot of certain items and scavenged everything else from abandoned houses. We stockpiled everything and have been rationing them with a system of coupons.”

Daylon gave his own push against a section of stockade and it swayed. “You need to reinforce this fence. Zombies will find the weak spots. Your people are like sheep who don’t have a clue they aren’t safe from wolves just because they’re in a pen.”

“
They’re not as helpless as you think.” Brian’s tone was sharp. Apparently he’d had enough of Daylon’s superiority. “People in this town have fought and killed. Most are armed. We have drill sessions. Everyone except the feeble take their turn patrolling inside the perimeter, but only some of us go outside the wall.”

“
This place is a dead end,” Daylon said. “Maybe it’s time all of you thought about going outside. Once you get snowed in, you won’t have a choice anymore.”

As if to support his argument, a cold gust blew up the street between the buildings and cut through my jacket. Like ghostly hands it rattled the section of chain link we were walking past. On the other side of the fence was a house and a yard full of long brown grass. Deserted. Abandoned. Part of the outside.

Daylon grasped the chain link and shook it. “You think they couldn’t climb over this if they wanted to? If you’re gonna stay, you’ve got to do better than this.”

I had to agree with him on that. Although fence height was extended by several feet with wire mesh, it looked pretty insubstantial.

“
There’s barbed wire along the top,” Brian pointed out. “Which might not completely stop the zombies but should slow them down. And we’ve got surveillance cameras at intervals.” He pointed to a mini-cam that I hadn’t noticed mounted on a nearby building.

“
There’s a bank of screens in the guard station that’s monitored twenty-four seven. We have three patrols of two-men teams circling the perimeter at all times.”

Just then a man and woman appeared farther down the fence. They were strolling and talking and could’ve been on a date except for the hunting rifles strapped on their backs. Brian raised an arm and waved them over.

“
Lois, Jim, this is Ashleigh and Daylon.”

We shook hands with the couple and exchanged stories. We offered a thumbnail sketch of our time on the road and they told us about their daily patrol.

“
I haven’t seen this many undead in weeks,” Lois said. “We shot two over by Brewster Street and a couple of hours later found one halfway over the fence. Jim took it out.”

“
How’s your ammunition?” Daylon asked.

“
We don’t waste any shots. Let’s put it that way,” Jim answered.

“
If the numbers start increasing, we’ll run out of shotgun shells, and nothing less will take off their heads. I don’t see myself going hand to hand with a blade,” Lois added.

I feel ya, sister.
I remembered the feeling of sawing through gristle and bone yesterday. I’d been disgusted yet filled with a horrifying, savage glee. It wasn’t a feeling I wanted to repeat ever if I could help it.

“
I’d like to take a look at the munitions stockpile and see exactly where we’re at,” Brian said.

Jim looked at him curiously, as if wondering why Brian was suddenly acting as if he were in charge. “Everything’s documented in the logbook. The kills and number of shells used is tracked. We’re being efficient, but we’ll need to resupply soon if they keep coming. There’s one now.”

He pointed outside the fence and we all turned to see a man walking toward us. He was about sixty yards away and lurching with the stiff-legged gait of an animated corpse. He spotted us and trotted faster as he approached the fence.

Jim lifted his rifle. I looked away. I really wasn’t into watching a head explode in a shower of blood. I’d seen enough carnage yesterday to last me a while. I touched Brian’s arm. “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll walk back to your house. It’s not far from here, is it? I could use some down time. Maybe I’ll play video games with Jeff.”

“
Sure.” He gave me directions. Not too easy to get lost in this cordoned off section of an already small town. “Take it easy today.” He looked at me with those chocolate-drop eyes and I melted. He was sweet and gawky yet sexy too. I could easily fall for this guy.

“
I will,” I promised and said goodbye to everyone before leaving. I only jerked a little when a shot rang out behind me.

Walking through the quiet, well-ordered town was soothing to my soul. I’d love to stay here, squirrel myself away in this little nook and pretend everything was back to normal. Let others fight the big fight out there where wild beasts roamed.

When I spotted the sign for Brian’s street—Sycamore Lane, yeah, it was that quaint, I felt like I’d nearly reached home. I shuffled through dead leaves on the sidewalk and wondered idly if the trees were sycamores. I knew a pine from an oak tree and that was about it. I walked up the path to Brian’s front door, sheltered by a portico. When I opened the front door, a few crunchy leaves blew inside with me. It was a pleasure to shut out the wind and breathe in the scent of chicken noodle soup drifting from the kitchen. Lainie must be making lunch.

The dramatic music of a sword and sorcerer type game came from the living room. I followed it but Jeff wasn’t lying on the couch. The game controller sat on the coffee table and I figured he must be on a bathroom break. On the TV screen a busty woman was paused, waiting to kick the ass of some reptilian monster. She had a sword in each hand. A warrior guy was in the background chained to a post waiting for his lady to set him free.

A thumping sound came from the kitchen. I followed the noise down the hallway, thinking that Lainie was trying to open a stuck drawer or maybe chopping on a cutting board. But before I reached the open door I smelled a strong odor competing with the wholesome fragrance of soup. The tang of blood mingled with a fecal stench that set every nerve in my body jangling. I recognized the reek of death when I smelled it.

I drew my knife from its sheath, the leather-wrapped handle slick in my sweaty grip. My heart beat so fast I could hardly breathe. I glanced over my shoulder. Whatever was in the kitchen wasn’t my only fear. I was damned if I’d let something sneak up from behind me. But the hallway was empty. Ahead of me, the kitchen doorway loomed large as if distorted by carnival mirrors. I stopped in the entrance and looked into the room.

A wide smear of blood marked the kitchen floor and red fingerprints decorated the edge of the counter as if someone had tried to pull themselves up. I took another step and peered around the door frame. Puddles of blood and small bits of flesh surrounded the center island. The thumping noise was coming from the far side.

I swallowed the bile rising in my throat and stepped carefully over the minefield of gore. Moving around the corner of the island, I saw what was on the other side.

At first I wasn’t sure who the dismembered body belonged to. There was so little of it left that it was hard to tell if it had been male or female. Then I saw a strand of long hair and knew it was Lainie—kind, motherly, nurturing Lainie reduced to a mound of flesh flopping on the floor. I couldn’t even try to suppress my retching as I started to back from the room. I couldn’t face this. Not this Lainie-thing struggling to get up without any arms or legs or even much of a torso. I would run next door and get one of the others, one of the men to finish her off. I withdrew around the edge of the island so I couldn’t see her anymore then glanced back into the hallway to make sure nothing was creeping up on me.

“
Fuck! Goddamn, fuck!” I whispered. I couldn’t resort to making someone else do the dirty work. I’d nailed that zombie yesterday. I could do it again. I
would
do it. I didn’t give myself time to get any more squeamish than I already was.

I gripped my knife harder, marched around the center island, leaned down and grabbed a handful of Lainie’s hair to hold her head steady and cut through her neck at the base of her skull. I dropped her lifeless head and it hit the floor with a
thunk
. I focused on other details besides that sound or the way her matted hair had felt in my hand or the way my shoes made little sticky sounds when I walked through the blood. Instead I noticed the pretty flowers on Mrs. Pasman’s white dishtowel as I wiped my blade clean. I tried to picture the woman who had used this kitchen in the world before. I turned off the burner under the pan of soup that had boiled nearly dry. After that, I walked out of the kitchen, closing the door behind me.