

Rapture: Survivor Chronicles Book 1

Mike Sutton

Published by Mike Sutton at Smashwords

Copyright 2010 Mike Sutton

ISBN 978-0-557-44731-2

In peace and prosperity states and individuals are actuated by higher principles because they do not find themselves face to face with imperious necessities. – Thucydides

Jim rolled over onto his side, pulling the covers up over his head to shield his eyes and ward off the encroaching sunlight. He groaned as he moved, knowing that he was fully awake. Even knowing that he was awake, he still wasn't willing to give up the ghost and submit to consciousness yet.

He stretched is arm out and slid his hand towards the side of his bed where his wife slept. She had been feeling ill the night before, so they had gone to bed without making love. Which was unusual for them since they had been trying for a second child. Not to mention, they still enjoyed the act, even after five years of marriage, despite what all of the comedians had always said. His hand found nothing but empty mattress.

The cold empty spot beside him caused Jim to wonder where his wife had gotten off to so early. And when she had left. Finally surrendering to the inevitable, he pried open his eyes and let the early-morning sunshine wash over him. He lay there for a moment, adjusting to the light before looking at the clock on Alex's nightstand. The red digits spelled out 8:12 AM. Not too dreadfully early as he had expected, but early enough. They had made plans the night before to sleep in that morning and then perhaps spend the day in bed.

That had been the plan, and they were going to take it as far as they could, enjoying every minute abed that they could scrape together. Until Meredith woke them up.

Meredith. Their own alarm clock. She had been crying earlier, he had thought. But then, before he was forced to get up and see what was wrong, the crying had ceased, letting him drift back into the land of dreams. That had all happened, oh, an hour, perhaps two, before. Time became meaningless when you didn't watch the clock.

Alex must have gotten up in his stead, and then decided not to come back to bed after all. A violation of their agreement. He would have to make her pay for that. A severe punishment to fit the transgression. When he found her, he was going to tickle his wife until she laughed so hard that she couldn't breathe.

Jim finally kicked the covers off him. Beige blankets, she called the color peach, they were covered in a scrolling vine pattern along the border. She had picked them out and then yelled at him when he nodded blankly when she asked what he thought. He had thought that they looked warm and comfortable. Besides that, it didn't much matter.

Free from the covers at last, Jim stretched. His joints cracked popped as he flexed his muscles and straightened his limbs. His body was beginning to sound like his father's. The thought made him laugh. Until he realized that now he was thinking fondly of next year's lawnmower models, and what kinds of features they might have. Shaking his head at the revelation, he kicked his feet out over the edge of the bed, put them on the floor and stood up.

The air was warm, so he didn't feel much need to find his robe before leaving the bedroom in search of his errant wife and daughter. Jim scratched himself luxuriantly before he opened the bedroom door. It felt good, and he would enjoy it while he could. If Alex caught him, there would be hell to pay. After all, she didn't marry a man to expect to have him act like a man. Nope, his days of coarseness were behind him. While she was watching.

He stopped in front of the mirror for a moment. Grinning at his severe case of bed hair, he poked himself in his expanding paunch with his index finger. He was getting soft, just like Alexander's old man kept saying. He did a couple of deep knee bends before saying 'too hell with it' out loud and going to find the missing girls. Ever since he had gotten his black belt in Judo, he had gotten lazy and let himself go a little. Sure, he still lifted weights, but he had given up his daily run to spend more time with his girls, and there were so many donuts to eat at work when the day got slow, which got even worse since the captain started enforcing the non-waste policy for food. His gun belt didn't fit right anymore. Tickling and food, then a shower afterwards. Despite his goofy looking hair. He was on a mission.

The wooden floor made all of the appropriate squeaks as he trod barefoot across its varnished length. He listened as he walked. The house was quiet, except for the ticking of the large grandfather clock in the front hallway. A gift from her parents. Devoid of the usual morning, rise and shine, breakfast making and television watching sounds that usually accompanied their weekends at home. Unusual and slightly jarring.

Jim wondered what the two of them were up to, if not watching television and eating breakfast. Perhaps Alex was still feeling ill, and fell asleep in Meredith's room after checking on her. She hadn't done that sort of thing since their daughter was two months old and she was still a worrying mother hen, determined to watch over her new baby night and day. Thankfully Alex had grown out of that phase.

He reached out and touched the Display as he passed. The Display carried all of the war trophies brought home by the men in his family. His father's AK-47 from Vietnam. His grandfather's samurai sword and Japanese flag that he had taken as a marine in the Pacific theatre. And the 1911 Model .45 that his great grandfather had carried in the First World War. All were fully functional weapons, and from time to time, he took them out and admired them some times he even used the fire arms.

Neither of them were anywhere downstairs, nor was there any sign of their recent passing. No dishes in the sink, or cereal boxes left out on the table. This oversight confirmed for him that his earlier suspicion was correct. He would now have to go and rescue his beautiful wife from sleeping on the hard floor, and carry her back down stairs to her warm and comfortable bed. A noble and charitable deed that would no doubt win him many nookie points with her. This spurred him on a little faster.

The banister creaked under his hand as he took hold of it and pulled himself forward onto the first step up to their second floor. The old Cape Cod house was just that, and it made a boatload of strange noises for all occasions to make sure its occupants were fully aware that it was past its prime. The house groaned like an old man with numerous war wounds that were constantly paining him.

Their first storm there had been an eye opening experience, with the two of them expecting the house to collapse around their ears at any moment as it shuddered with each oncoming gale. The in-laws, on both sides offered to buy them a new home, but they declined. The cape cod was theirs and they loved it despite its (often loud) quirks.

Jim climbed with as much silence as he could muster. The stairs existed in the same squeaky fashion as the floors, and didn't give much to the cause of stealth, especially when a full-grown man was trying to ninja his way to the top. His sockless feet stuck to the bare wood as he lifted them, making a squinching sound on each stair. Quiet meant slow, so he held in his impatience in check.

Portraits of their various family members that followed the stairs upward and down stared out at him, smiling, as he passed. A strange feeling since a number of the faces represented in those photos wouldn't be smiling if they were actually sharing the same room with him. He wasn't overly popular in Alex's family's camp, though he did get along fairly well with her folks. They let it be known, loudly at times when they had been socially lubricated, that they felt she had married far below her station. His family agreed with that notion. And to be honest, so did he. But he wasn't about to question his good luck now.

The door to little Mere's room, at the end of the hall, stood halfway open. He could see his wife's backside as she squatted down in the middle of the floor, holding her hands in front of her face. She was still wearing the panties and t-shirt that she had gone to sleep in the night before.

Squatting in the middle of the floor wasn't exactly how he had expected to find her when he had awoke that morning, and it struck him as odd that she sat there like that at 8am on her morning off, but women were strange creatures. Wonderfully exotic and alluring. But weird.

He crept along until he reached the doorway behind her. Pushing the door open a little more and admitting himself to the room, he stopped. He smelled blood. He could see blood. It had pooled all over the floor.

Jim stepped further into his daughter's room, getting closer to his wife. Alex pulled something away from her face, and made chewing movements with her jaw. The blood. Realization tried to smite him, but failed to penetrate the shield of shock that clouded his brain.

Jim reached out a hand and took his wife by the shoulder. Desperately telling himself that everything he saw was a nightmare. Just a nightmare. Maybe he had caught her fever and was still lying in bed, dreaming the entire horrifying scenario. Maybe she would pinch him and he would wake up and the loathsome images would fade away. A memory to drudge up when he saw his shrink next.

Alex turned at his touch and faced him. Her clothing was covered with blood as it ran from her lips and dripped off of her chin and down her chest. She dropped the shredded fleshy mash that she had been devouring, grabbed his hand and bit it, taking two joints from his index finger.

Jim screamed from the duality of surprise as well as pain. Cupping his injured hand and pulling it away from his wife's blood drenched lips. It wasn't a terrible fever nightmare that he was in. This wasn't even a dream.

He backed away two steps before he doubled over and threw up all over one of Meredith's stuffed animal toys. Alex was on him before he could right himself once more and stand up. He was weakened by the shock of what he had seen and what she had done to him. He tried to push her away and failed.

She bit him again on the cheek before he could force her back and flee the bedroom and run back down the stairs past those happy faces. He ran, but it was too late. He had caught her illness.

In peace and prosperity states and individuals are actuated by higher principles because they do not find themselves face to face with imperious necessities. - Thucydides

He sat with his back to the campfire, looking out into the trees that surrounded the small camp. The flicker of the fire's light sent shadows dancing on the trunks of the trees, in a nearly hypnotic pattern that he had watched for what felt like days.

Leaning back on a log with his shotgun in his lap, he mindlessly flicked on and off the safety switch repeatedly as the last few days ran through his head. At least as much as much of them that he could still recall. They all ran together into a giant blur of color and motion, including some of the parts that he would rather have forgotten. It took much concentration for him to keep everything strait. He was alive and in most cases that might be more than he could have hoped for.

The last few days had been rough to say the least, he had watched friends die terrible deaths. He had to kill more to save them a fate that was most defiantly worse than death. Three days since it all had really started and three days on the run. This had been the first peaceful night that they had had in those long days. Peaceful was relative, though the excitement had died down, the memories were still fresh. The panic and mindless terror were beginning to fade away, leaving a kind of numbness in their place.

He could still hear the moans and screams of the dying whenever the soft clicking of the safety switch died down, even over the crackling of the fire behind him. And from the sounds that his companions were making, they were in the same place that he was. He jumped up a little as one of the logs in the fire split and collapsed with a dull thud that sent sparks racing skyward. He knew nothing would ever be the same, as he wondered whether or not he would ever regain his nerves. Best not to think about it, but he had little choice. It all just kept coming back.

He got up to stretch his legs for a moment and walk around the perimeter of the camp. This was at least the twentieth time that he had done it over the course of the night, and each time with the same results, nothing was out there. Still he was left with the gut wrenching feeling that if he let his guard down for a moment something would appear and pounce on them all.

The sky began to lighten as from time to time one of his companions gave a soft murmur in their sleep, once in a while even going so far as to speak or cry out. Troubled by their dreams, or more likely their nightmares. He knew what they were going through in the depths of their subconscious. Sleep was not something that he wanted to endure at the moment, he was still haunted by the nightmares that assailed him the last time he tired. The faces of the dead wouldn't leave him alone. He could face the horrors while awake, but doing so in his sleep deeply unnerved him. To be afraid of a dream. It was pure cowardice.

Lynn stirred and finally awoke, she had actually managed to sleep through most of the night, but she was a tough woman. A damn near fearless woman. He was glad that she was in charge. She kept her head through the entire ordeal. "What time is it?" She asked sleepily.

"It's nearing morning, not quite sure, maybe five or so." He had lost the watch that he had picked up in an encounter the day before, but it didn't matter, time didn't mean very much anymore. No meetings to get to and no schedules to keep. All that was left was staying alive for as long as possible. He stopped flicking the safety switch and turned to look at her, she looked a little disheveled and bleary-eyed from a long night out in the open, but aside from that she looked as good as ever. Lynn palmed the sleep from her eyes and then shakily stood up.

"Have you been sitting up all night?"

"Yep" he grunted as he turned back to watching the woods. Watching for movement.

Lynn put her glasses on and came over and sat next to him, "mind if I sit here?"

"Mi casa es su casa." He slid over a little on his log to make some room for her.

Lynn shook her head at him, "you should have gotten one of us up to take the watch for you, so you could get some sleep!"

"I didn't feel like sleeping." He went back to flicking the safety switch on and off.

Lynn noticed his flicking of the safety grabbed his shoulder and gave him a gentle squeeze "You still need rest."

"Any good dreams?"

"You know I don't dream."

"Seems like anything is possible, I also know that the dead don't get up and walk around to feed on the living, look where that got me." He stopped flicking the safety switch once again and turned his head to look at her. Pretty as ever. Honestly though he was the only one he knew who thought that she was pretty, besides perhaps Douglas. He had thought so since they met back in junior high school. It was her smile that did it for him, her smile was like the sun. Bright and always there. But she hadn't smiled for three days now, three days was a long time to go without seeing the sun.

"Jason, please try and get some sleep."

"I'll try." For the first time in those three days she smiled and just for that he knew it was worth the nightmares that would come the moment he dropped off. Lynn took the shotgun from him and pushed him on his way to the empty sleeping bag that she had been using. Within seconds of his head hitting the pillow and the blankets accepting him within its warm embrace, he was asleep.

The four of them sat in the darkened living room with their eyes on the television that was sitting in the corner of the room. The warm glow of the television flickered and washed over them as the images on its screen changed. Their worn VHS copy of the movie Dawn of the Dead was playing for perhaps the 20th time and it was starting to show it's age. They had all seen the movie many times, some of them had done so willingly, and the rest because that is what was going on at the time and they didn't wish to rock the boat.

Billy sat alone in the easy chair in the corner opposite from the television. He sat there with a grin on his face. He always got a kick out of Hare Krishna zombie girl, nobody was quite sure why and nobody really wanted to know badly enough to bother to ask. It was just one of his many quirks, you accepted them when you accepted Billy as a friend. They made life more interesting.

Jason sat on the couch with both Lynn and her intended Douglas. Lynn was enraptured by the movie as ever, while Douglas was doing his best not to look bored, if only out of politeness for his fiancée. He was failing that struggle, but he always did. The man couldn't act his way out of a wet paper sack.

Jason personally divided his attention between the movie, and his friends. Unlike Douglas he thought that the movie was still fun, but their reaction to it was usually even better. Lynn with her usual thoughtful look and Billy with his girlish delight over the entire premise and more so over the rampant chaos. He was just waiting for either of them to ask the question. It was only a matter of time before it happened, it always came. Even more interesting would be the reaction that Douglas would have to the question being asked.

Tonight he looked tired and Jason thought that he would use that as an excuse to finally take his leave and head off to bed for the night. Some nights he just sighed and sat in the silent agony of a martyr who was being burned at the stake for his beliefs. On others he exploded and informed them about how stupid and childish they were acting.

The question finally came during the scene where the characters in the movie were cleaning up the mall after killing off all the zombie hordes. It was Billy this time who finally put the question to voice, "What would you guys do during a zombie uprising?" He did it in a lazy manner that suggested that it was only done out of proprieties and tradition.

True to form, Douglas got up and said "Good night all, I'm off to bed." That being said he headed upstairs to his and Lynn's room. The man was rather intelligent, but he had little of either imagination or patience for those who had it in excess. Billy and Jason shared a grin behind his back as he left. Douglas didn't care much for Billy, and Billy returned the disdain in spades. Likely he had spoken up just as a chance to get Douglas to leave. Another one of Billy's quirks.

As Douglas reached the top of the stairs Billy prodded on "well?" It was a silly question, not in itself for being about an absurd subject. The distant possibility of zombie uprisings were very important among the three of them, however unlikely. It was absurd more for the fact that they had discussed it as many times as they had watched the various zombie movies that had come across their hands and played in their living room. They all knew the answers that the others would give by heart and all the arguments both for and against the plans that they made. Some people discussed religion or politics, the three of them invented survival plans for the apocalypse.

First thing that they would all do, because they were in it together, was to raid the gun store out on the highway. Amend that, the first thing that Billy would do was to take off his pants, nobody ever asked, after that they'd all cut their hair short. After they cut their hair, and Billy de-panted himself, THEN they would make a run on the gun shop. Not many people there, so there weren't many corpses to have to wade through. The best part about that gun shop though was that they also carried some old fashioned swords and axes. Sort of as a novelty, but still a high quality products and very useful ones at that. You needed something to rely on when you ran out of bullets.

Once they were stocked up on a variety of boomsticks, shells and what not, then they would move on to the mega-store down the street a couple miles. That is where they would pick up everything that they felt that they might need in a zombie holocaust. Toilet paper, decks of cards, food, flashlights, more toilet paper(leaves suck, don't ask). Batteries were a big one, as was a portable radio. They would come up with lists and discard them to make more. Knives, candles, bed sheets, matches, chemistry text books and Nerf weapons (they needed something to play with when they were safely away from the undead) had all graced at least one list at one time or another. Some things were more useful than others. It all depended on their moods at the time, somber and serious or giddy and silly.

After they were stocked up they usually devised two different schemes. The first is that they would hold up in the store, Dawn of the Dead style and wait for it all to pass in relative comfort. The second, which he was personally fond of, was to escape out into the wilderness and start a new community hundreds of miles away from the crushing zombie hordes. He liked the scenario so much so that he had built a storage box into the back of his aged El Camino that held all of the camping gear that they would ever need. Aside from the distant threat of the inevitable zombie uprising, it came in handy whenever he wanted to just take off from work for the weekend and spend some time alone in the woods.

The biggest factor was who would go with them. It was always the four of them (three if Billy got his way), plus usually whichever of their friends might be over at the time. They often debated about whether or not they would help any victims that they ran across along the way. In his own words Billy often said that he would lend a hand "only if the chicks were hot!" Lynn being the compassionate idealist always said yes to trying to save as many people as she possibly could, going out of their way if they had to. While Jason himself kept mum on the subject, he felt that it was best to help who they could, as long as they weren't a burden. The safety of his friends came first. Lynn's before the rest.

Their plans relied always on several important points. They would all have to be together for one. Or close to one another anyways. They were all sure that they would be on the ball and that none of them would panic when it all went down. That was never really a worry, they all acted gung ho about fighting zombies. Billy even talked about all the zombies that he was going to kill, and he would not only list, but also describe what he would do to them when he had a chance. Neither of them were sure exactly how serious he was on the subject, but some times they wondered and hoped that he was only joking with them.

With another round of bullshitting past them, they turned back to the movie.

The small office was lined with bookshelves, many of which were full to capacity and overflowing onto the floor beneath. Books and papers lay stacked along the floorboards, devouring the floor until a narrow strip of carpet, running between the door and the beautifully carved antique desk that sat underneath the windows, was all that remained visible. The room was lit by a lone lamp sat atop the desk, bathing the walls in colored patterns formed by the stained glass shade.

There sat Father Bagrowski, reading his bible. The original Latin translation. Reading the bible, or at least trying. In practice he was just staring at what might as well have been blank pages.

The day had been a trying one. Bittersweet. The last thirteen years of his life had been happy ones. Thirteen years since he had spoken his vows before God and become one of the anointed of the Church. Five of those very blessed years he had spent in this very Parish. In all of his years of observing his flock he had noticed a definite and disturbing trait possessed by the whole of humanity. Love of country and God were often set-aside during times of happiness and prosperity, only to be sought and dusted off when the tides changed and life became more difficult. These feelings were like a suit worn to funerals, moth-eaten and tattered and always in need of a good cleaning.

And here again came those sorrowful times. In the times of the prophets of the Old Testament, God Almighty would send down conquers or plagues upon His children to punish them for turning away from Him. To subdue them when they strayed too far from His chosen path, His covenant with them. He announced His great displeasure with violence. Eventually His people would finally listen, wake up and return gladly to His warm embrace, weeping for their past mistakes. Supposedly, according to His Son Jesus, Father Bagrowski's, and all of the rest of humanity's Lord and Savior, that cycle had ended leaving only the loving forgiving God.

The radio had said that a new plague had arisen all across the state. More than the state. The national news said that this was an international crisis, inflicting all the nations of the world with death. The whole world was plagued and suffering before God's righteous wrath.

But Jesus had now revealed himself to his true followers yet. The world was very clearly ending before their eyes and the Lord was late. Rome had been quiet on the subject of God's retribution. They claimed not to wish to add to the fear and panic of the times. Despite their silence, Father Bagrowski knew what was happening. Judgment day was upon them, and they had been found wanting. His parishioners knew this too, they could see the signs as clearly as could he, even those souls who only gave lip service to their faith, coming to mass only on the most holy days of Christmas and Easter. His pews were packed with the renewed faith.

A bitter victory.

Too little too late.

The church numbers had been dwindling for years, only a small number of the devout youth carried through with their parents' expression of faith. Sure people claimed the faith, but then they only showed up to services on Easter and Christmas, taking the rest of the year to sleep in.

But once again, the church was full of singing voices and prayers for forgiveness begging for deliverance. Father Bagrowski shook his head and wondered why it must always come down to this? Why did his people never learn? The Scriptures were clear, laying out the eternal cycle of arrogance, failure and then redemption. But why couldn't they just learn finally and walk the path that they had been ordered? Only the fool said in his own heart that there was no God.

Here they were once more, dying and crying out for God's forgiveness and aid.

Father Bagrowski even wondered if their Father was even listening to his children anymore. He ran his fingers through his short, grey flecked, light brown hair. Back to the Psalms of King David. The Lord is my Shepard, I shall not want, he maketh me lie...

He stood up and paced to the door and back along his worn strip of carpet. Even the book of Psalms, the calming and ever inspiring book of wisdom and faith written by the greatest anointed warrior king of Israel, even they were unable to calm his mind.

The pacing did nothing to sooth his nerves.

He returned to his chair, turned it to face out the windows, and gazed out into his little courtyard garden. The garden had always been his sanctuary from the troubled times of the material world. The sun was setting, and a pleasant breeze was passing through. The shadows deepened as the sunlight faded away until the spotlights blinked on, casting shadows that followed the forms of the garden as it danced in the wind. Even the beauty of the evening sunlight playing on the flowers could not take his mind off his woes.

The most harrowing part of the ordeal was the test of his faith. His parishioners, his flock, had the sick and dying amongst them, driving them back into the pews where they belonged. The plague though had not been isolated and spread among only the strays, but within even the very faithful of the flock.

Mrs. Saboski, one of his most kindhearted and dedicated parishioners, a woman who attended every single mass and confessed daily (as if she had anything to confess, but she did anyhow, and to be honest, her confessions were very dull to take), a true modern saint of a woman, long-suffering and meek, the greatest of their Lord's followers. She had born the brunt of God's wrath, falling ill and sending her eldest son to take her place in the pews.

He was a boy, or now a man, who hadn't stepped through the sacred arches to attend communion for the greater part of the last decade. If rumor held true he had been working as a pimp in some back alley whorehouse for many of those years. How his mother had been struck down, only to leave him hale and whole, defied reason. Maybe it was God's way to bring him back into the fold. But why take one such as Mrs. Saboski? The woman did everything in her power to lead the boy to God. Why punish her for failing her lost cause?

But within the church, that was the worst news of it all. Three of his nuns had been afflicted. Two of the sick had taken their vows more than two decades before hand. What sort of sins had they committed, these brides of Christ?

Humanity must have greatly angered the Lord for Him to target His clergy with his wrath. It was the only logical answer for the turn of events that he had beheld. Where had they in turn failed him in their ministrations? Where had they been blind or lazy in their work in His name?

But they had worked so hard. Stretched their budget and labored long hours and into the depth of the night. The nuns most of all, they had lived for the spreading of the word in their deeds amongst the lost and orphaned, as they tried to lead those granted with free will and blinded with the sins to the flesh to His glorious word and away from their lowly beginnings. Was this how He repaid their selfless toil and sacrifice? By striking them down?

What if he had been wrong in the first place? What if there had been no God at all, and the love that he had felt was an illusion? What if the Church, and his life within, had been built on a long-lived lie? What if there was a God, but the Church wasn't the true faith as he had so long believed and preached.

The moment of temptation. Even their Lord had faced it. The devil was ever there, waiting in the shadows to whisper doubts. Waiting to spring and attack in the moments of weakness such as these. Father Bagrowski had had his faith shaken before, but never so powerfully. Never to its very foundations. Would those foundations crack and have his whole being collapse?

Nuns sick, perhaps dying. The wheat burned along with the chaff.

He stood again and walked to the door and placed his hand on the carved surface. It was made with solid oak and carved in the relief of a story taken from the book of Mathew, the Christ preaching to the masses, arms outspread and raised in blessing. He eased the heavy door open on its well oiled hinges and let himself out into the corridor beyond. His study had become too small and stuffy all of a sudden, too close. Father Bagrowski was overcome by the need to stretch his legs.

The halls were empty, save himself, the sisters had been set to ministering to the sick and the frightened as they poured into the awaiting arms of the church. As he walked, only the reverberation of his footsteps on the stone floors arose to meet his ears. Some time in the past two hours since he had retreated to his office, the massive pipe organ that had been the pride (pride, one of the sins of humanity) and joy of the community, had fallen silent.

Big Mary massaged her lower back. She was a large woman, not just fat, but all around big. Almost as tall as the majority of American men, and she out weighed most of them. Some of her bulk was even muscle, though it was like a solid core of apple wrapped in a jellowey outer shell. Thinking of Jello molds made her hungry. She was a big woman. If she had to guess, it was due to some unexpected reaction caused by the mixing of her parent's African and Samoan genes. Big, tall and strong. That was her. All wrapped up with the homely brown-ribbon bow that was her face. A face lined by long years of smiling. And even more tears.

Her uniform was stained from the night's hard use, spots of sweat had formed here and there, where the fabric rose like ocean swells on a rough sea, pressed against her ample flesh. All of the walking had made the sweat pour from her body, drenching the cloth with salty water and making her uniform resemble the ocean that much more closely. Even with the building's air-conditioning working hard to make the building's atmosphere comfortable for the people housed within.

Her feet ached, even in the supportive tennis shoes with the expensive inserts. She didn't want to think of how her feet would have pained her back in the days where formal shoes and high heels had been required as part of the uniforms for the nurses and caretakers. Eight hours on her feet in heels would probably break her as sure as a week of torture.

She stopped for a moment and checked her clipboard. She just completed her final round of the floor, having checked all of the patients under her care. She had a few other tasks to complete and then she was going to take a much needed and deserved break.

It had been a long shift, and it was only going to get worse. Three of her orderly's had called in sick so far that morning. Half of her ward had taken ill too. Some sort of flu it looked like. A nasty thing it was too, they had a fever, the chills and were feeling an overall bodily weakness. Not that most of them were very strong to begin with. It was heartbreaking to see these poor dears drained of what little strength that they did have. At least though, there was no nausea reported. Cleaning up vomit from forty different patients would have been more than she would have cared to do.

"The poor dears." She said aloud to nobody in particular. Most of her patients were in their seventies or eighties. Many of them suffered from such afflictions as senility. And quite a number of them were bedridden. Making her rounds and seeing their eternal suffering broke her heart some days. Most days. Hardly a month went past when she didn't lose a couple of them. The poor, poor dears. They were put in this place to die, and most of them knew it. Whether they were aware of anything else or not, they seemed to know that their race was nearly run.

Mary looked around to make sure that nobody was standing near by and watching, before she scratched herself in a certain private area that nobody else need know. The air conditioner was on the fritz again and the night had been full of hard labor in warm rooms that caused sweat to drip from her brow. She let out a content moan, she had been aching to find relief in that spot for what felt like hours now.

All she really wanted to do was to go home and get a good day's sleep. But that wasn't going to happen was it? No, she was going to have to pull another double shift. The pay was outstanding, but the long hours were at times quite wearisome. The job was stressful too. But she loved the people. All of them. Not counting some of the administrators, but they could hardly be considered people now could they?

The random potted plants swayed with the wind that she created with her passage through the corridor. Mary watched the reflection of the overhead florescent lights on the waxed tile floors stretch and morph as she walked. It was something that she had done as a child, watching the patterns that the light made. That she fallen once again into the childhood habit was measure of how tired she was. She forced herself to stop, and instead looked at the furniture as she walked down the corridor. Uncomfortable chairs mostly, one or two in the nook between the doorways that lead to each of the little rooms. They were meant to briefly seat the visitors of the patients as they waited their turn. At this early hour the chairs were all empty. But then, the chairs were nearly always empty.

At times like this loneliness hung over the ward like an invisible fog, it was nearly tangible against her skin. She could feel it all the way down to her bones as if a giant hand was squeezing her. It would be worse for the patients. They never got to leave the hospital. The poor dears. They were such nice, interesting and wonderful people. And now they were forgotten and abandoned. The hospital was like the Humane Society for unwanted people. This place worse even than an orphanage found in the works of Dickens. If nothing else, Dickens' children could eventually escape.

When she had first started on the job more than thirty years ago, the thought had made her weep. Every day when she had gone home, she cried herself to sleep on her pillow. With time she became more determined to show these people as much kindness as she could. Mary was a sweet, kind woman, and she had a lot of love to share. The job had been more than a job. It gave her life meaning. She never married, she never had kids of her own. And her own family was hundreds of miles away. She needed the people here as much, if not more than they needed her.

So, she was willing to work the double shifts when she had to. She accepted the discomfort and pain. Some things were just more important. And her job was one of those things.

A voice came over the intercom, echoing through the hallway ahead and behind her "Mary, please report to the front desk." Mary's heart sank as she heard the summons, it was never a good sign. Either she was in trouble, unlikely, or an even worse event had transpired, like a death, or one of her staff was fired and she was being called as a witness. Considering the facts that none of the administrators would be around at this hour, that left only one option. Mary wondered who it was.

She went to the front desk as summoned using the most direct way possible, though she walked at her normal slow waddling speed. Walking faster just made her look silly, besides, who wanted to get bad news any more quickly.

The usual clamor greeted her as she entered the lobby. There was the hum of the computers that was barely audible over the racket coming from the television. They kept it tuned into the news, CNN some days, Fox News on others. MSNBC rarely. The television was there as much for the distracting noise as it was to keep the office workers informed about the goings on of the outside world.

Having the news on had managed at times to help them keep a sense of relativity in their lives. Mrs. Smith dying all suddenly like that might be upsetting, but what was it to a car bomb killing fifteen small children in the middle east? It was morbid and somewhat demeaning, but it helped them from slumping into a depression brought on by the near constant misery of the world in which they lived. A sad fact of living on Earth, no matter how bad it was in your neck of the woods, somebody else always seemed to have it worse.

The front desk was their reception desk for the facility. Someone, one of the more intelligent administrators. Intelligent administrator. Hah. Less stupid, she'd leave it at that. One of the less stupid administrators had at one time decided to lighten the atmosphere and make it less imposing using potted plants. The remodeling had worked to an extent and the desk looked marginally more cheerful that it had.

Diane the nurse-receptionist did a lot to dispel that smidgeon of cheer. She was an angry woman. Stuck for ten years now doing the same job with just minor pay raises and a worsening economy to keep her from quitting. Small and round, most of her ample form was hidden behind the desk and computer monitor, all you could usually see on passing was the top portion of her deeply lined forehead.

Her hair was rolled up in the standard bun that the nurses in the facility favored, with the usual end of day loose strands poking out here and there. For the time being she looked more tired than angry and just a little sad. Even the hardest heart on the floor had their favorites, Diane included, Mary guessed that the news must involve one of those.

"What's the rotten news?" She asked Diane when she finally arrived, standing before the front desk. She leaned her elbows on the counter and looked down at the clerk, waiting for a response.

Diane had her head tilted in to her left in the bizarre manner that usually meant trouble. She sighed and said, "Mr. Anderson is dead."

Mr. Anderson, Rocky he liked to be called, though he was too skinny for it to have even been considered more than a joke name. He was a sweet old man who was well loved by the staff. He always told her that she was looking beautiful that day whenever she stopped in to check on him. It was a pleasant fiction for the both of them, since he was half blind from diabetes and they suspected that he was nearly senile as well. He had been one of the staff's favorites, for his funny stories and happy-go-lucky manner.

All fictions aside, she had loved to hear it from the old rascal. So he called her pretty, and she called him Rocky, and they had a swell time together. He was well on his way out when they had brought him to the hospital, and never managed to improve much despite the intense level of care that he had been given. So with his coming down sick with this new illness, it was no real surprise that he had finally checked out. Hearing of his loss was still sad news.

Diane and Mary held hands for a moment. A customary gesture to perform when a patient died. In theory they tried not to get too close to the people under their care. But then they were human beings one and all, patients and staff alike. Wonderful marvelous people.

She asked if everything had been arranged and Diane told her that Claude and Jeffery had been put in charge of the late Mr. Anderson and they had covered his thin body and taken it down to the morgue. Where he would await the autopsy as state law required. Too many scandals had erupted in recent years involving mysterious deaths in these places. The public demanded that the state keep an eye on those souls contained within these walls. Mary thought that was because they didn't want to be bothered with the duty themselves.

The front desk phone rang again. Another death, this time it was Mrs. Sales, up on the third floor.

Mary's shoulders slumped. It looked as if it was going to be a bad day as well as a long one. Two patients in the space of an hour was always a bad omen for things to come. She hadn't been close to Mrs. Sales, the woman was difficult on the best days, and impossible on the rest. Her death had been unexpected as well, the woman was as strong as an ox, and most of the staff had expected her to outlive even the youngest orderly, on sheer stubbornness alone. There had been talk among some of the staff about cutting off her food, just to see if she could do it.

Mrs. Sales had taken ill with the same symptoms as Mr. Anderson, but the flu wasn't enough to bring a woman like her down. Mary wondered briefly if someone finally lived up to their grumbled threats and smothered her in her sleep. She discounted the thought.

As sad as the loss of Mr. Anderson and even Mrs. Sales was, Mary had duties to attend to. She was responsible for making calls to the next of kin. It was the part of her job that she hated the most. Telling people that their loved ones were dead was a difficult task, and was made worse when the indifference was poorly masked, as was the case with Mr.Anderson. But then, she hadn't expected much enthusiasm in the call, as he no longer had any close living relatives.

The news about Mrs. Sales on the other hand received a burst of joy from her son, which had not been completely unexpected. Mary knew part of the story, an ugly story it was, and she wasn't sure that she would have had a different reaction had the tables been turned. Still, it was painful. To have someone pass, and have that passing celebrated.

Another page from Diane. Three more deaths. Two of the dead had been fairly strong and healthy. Something clicked. They were all people who had taken ill. They had contracted some form of deadly flu. She almost cried. She had thirty-five more potential deaths in her hands, and it had happened in a span of less than an hour for the first five. She was absolutely certain that it was just a matter of time before more were discovered.

The intercom spoke again, Dianne once more "Mary, please return to the front desk immediately!" Mary could hear the fear in her voice and that startled her. Diane was not one for letting her feelings get out of control. The bare emotion would difficult to miss, even for their half deaf residents.

She got up and actually rushed to the front desk, forgetting her rule about taking her time to hear about bad news. She suspected that 'bad news' didn't quite describe what was taking place. 'Bad news' was a major under statement for the epidemic they had on their hands.

At the front desk, Claude and Jeffery were talking to Dianne. The two orderlies were clad in their usual white work uniforms with their heavy leather utility belts wrapped around their waists with the standard rings of keys and long flashlights. Claude was hunched over his left arm, as Mary got closer she saw that it had been wrapped in a towel and blood was seeping through. "What happened here?" Her normally husky voice cracked as she spoke.

"Rocky got up and bit Claude ma'am," said Jeffery. She looked at him as if he were insane. Mary couldn't believe what she was hearing. The two of them were known for their hijinks and practical jokes.

"This is hardly the time for jokes Jeffery. Mr. Anderson is dead."

"It ain't a joke ma'am." He was nearly hysterical. Claude and Jeffery were men who had to deal with death on a regular basis. It was his job to assist the coroner when the time arose. Mary had never known Jeffery to loose his cool like this.

Claude stripped back the towel and showed her his wounded arm. It wasn't just a bite wound, they got those from time to time with the wilder patients, if they let their guard down and got too close to the teeth. What Claude had looked if a wild animal had torn a piece of his arm off. This was defiantly no joke. But a little guy like Rocky did not get up and bite a big strong man like Claude, especially after he was most decidedly deceased.

Since dead men did not get up and bite other men, there must have been another explanation. Even if the bite didn't look as if it were made by an animal. But it certainly wasn't a corpse who did this.

Mary lead Claude back to behind the front desk next to Diane and had him sit down in an uncomfortable old wooden chair that they kept for the few visitors who stopped by the front desk for more than a moment or two at a time. She sent Jeffery off after a first aid kit and examined the wound in the mean time.

Mary could clearly make out the marks made by human teeth. Mary hummed along to the song that was playing over the loud speaker as she worked, an old habit that she had picked up from one of the other nurses. She liked the song, and it helped to calm her nerves a little bit. She took the first aid kit from Jeffery and began to clean out the wound with anti-septic. Very important, the mouths of their fellow human beings were teaming with bacteria, and some of the residents didn't hold to good oral hygiene. 'What do I need teeth for?' they would say 'I don't get to eat solid foods anymore. Just this lousy mush you bring us.'

"Tell me what happened to you Claude." Mary said.

"We picked up Mr. Anderson in his room when he was reported croaked." She ignored the use of the word 'croaked'. She knew that he meant no disrespect by it. "Then we wheeled him to the elevator. The man didn't move or breathe the entire time. He had even started to go cold." He grimaced as a spasm of pain shot through his arm with the hydrogen peroxide, but otherwise kept still.

"We had him down in the morgue, on the gurney covered up under a sheet. Jeffery wanted to stay a minute and offer his last respects you know, he really liked the old guy. But I didn't know him that well and the beeper goes off again, another one bit it and needed to be taken care of. So I said to him 'first we need to get the rest of the bodies, then yous can say your words'. While we're getting Mrs. Sales, when we gets the word that another one shuffled off, ya know. I turns to him and says 'it's gonna be a busy night pal,' and he suggests that we split up and each take one of the bodies down. So we does that. We get both the new bodies wheeled down, and Jeffery takes them few moments to stand over Mr. Anderson and say his words. Jeffery said that I would have liked him. But since I didn't know him, I walks back and waits by the door and wait for Jeffery to say his goodbyes, and a prayer or something, when Jeffery yells out all of a sudden. So I come back to take a look at what's got him so riled. He's pointing at the runner with Mr. Anderson lying on it, and I says 'what's wrong with you, ya dope?' and he goes off on how the body 'neath the sheet had just moved. I said 'yeah right' cause you know how me and him like to joke each other, and I goes over to the gurney and pulls off the sheet from Mr. Anderson's face, ya know, to call Jeffery's bluff. Only his eyes are open and he's lookin at me." Jeffery was nodding furiously along with Claude as he spilled his story, crossing himself repeatedly, even though Mary was certain that he was not a religious man, and most defiantly not a Catholic. But even so, he made the gesture rather fervently

Mary started bandaging the arm. It wasn't as bad as it first looked. He was missing a piece of skin around the size of a quarter, and maybe a little muscle, but no major arteries had been severed. It was a nasty bite and he would need to go to the hospital to get it patched up better, but it wouldn't be life threatening after receiving first aid. They would defiantly need to treat it for infection, human bites were much more prone to get infected than those given by animals.

"So then, then he sits up. And turns his head and looks at me. Jeffery is telling him over and over how sorry we are, we thought he was dead, and how glad we are to have been wrong. I went to grab his hand to help him to his feet as best as I can. So he grabs my hand and pulls it in to bite me. and took a chunk out. I mean, he actually pulled me over. He was skinny as a rail and he shouldn't ta been able to do that."

"That's what happened ma'am, every last word the truth." Jeffrey said in the background.

"Then what did you two do?"

"Well, Claude hit him in the face with his fist, and then pushed him away and we both ran for the elevator. I looked back as the door was closing behind us and see him getting off the runner to follow us. The punch didn't faze him none. And I really let him have it. I've knocked out some big guys in my time too."

"Uh Ma'am, I'm not feeling all that well, do you mind if I lie down?" Mary put her hands to Claude's face, he was roasting as if he had a severe infection. She led him to one of the empty offices that they used for storage and had him lie down on a cot that the nurses used during long shifts. She didn't know how she felt about their story. The dead, outside the bible didn't get up. And those in the bible didn't bite people. If she remembered correctly from her days in Sunday school as a little girl. Mary hadn't much attended since childhood, but was still convinced that she wasn't remembering it wrong.

There was no singing either, or wailing or praying. Only the scraping sounds of his shoes meeting stone, and the echoes of his footsteps as they raced on before him along the hallway. A silence met him as he approached the basilica, an eerie silence that, in his memory, had never been part of his life in the clergy.

His feet led him down the hall, and into the ambulatory.

So quiet.

Quiet.

Father Bagrowski was at a complete loss to explain the silence in any way, even to himself to calm his growing nervousness. The silence was wrong, unnatural. Dangerous. He knew it, but wasn't sure why.

He reached out his hand and placed it onto the large wooden double door that led to the dais underneath the apse. The doors were carved with a wonderful relief of their Lord's Last Supper, a work of art that Father Bagrowski had never before failed to stop and appreciate on his way through the entryway and into the hall beyond. Today he breezed past without a second look. His mind locked on the wrongness of the whole situation.

There were other people moving. He could hear the whisper of cloth and the clatter of shoes as they reverberated across the arches and columns of the nave. They were standing in silence, but they were out there.

Perhaps Father Michaels had called for a moment of quiet contemplation and prayer. For the flock to search their souls and beg forgiveness. To plead for salvation. Their Lord had once said that it was better to ask humbly in silence than to repeat rituals and boasts. So far their rituals had failed them. Perhaps their pride and repetition had been what angered God. Father Michaels was a smart man, perhaps he had seen this too.

Father Bagrowski inched his way around the stone buttress that lent its shoulders to help support the vault above, and towards the altar. There were people standing in between the rows of the pews. He began to step forward, stopping himself with his leg half raised in the air, remaining hidden behind the buttress. Mostly.

The people were standing, some of them. But it was in a funny, awkward manner in which they were holding themselves that halted Father Bagrowski in his tracks. The large redheaded woman wearing the purple sweat suit, her neck, arms and back were stiff as she rocked back and forth like a tree swaying in the wind. Her shoulders seemed to be stuck in the midst of a shrug.

Where was father Michaels? Father Bagrowski scanned the crowd. The man should have been positioned behind the altar, leading his flock in prayer.

Then there was the fat man with the goatee. He was waddling around in a circle as if one of his legs was drastically shorter than the other.

No. Not just those two. There was something wrong with everyone present. He finally spotted Father Michaels. The man was sprawled over the front pew, with several of his parishioners gathered around him. Tugging at him. He was lying in a pool of blood.

"Sweet Holy Jesus and His Mother the Blessed Mary." Father Bagrowski breathed, the people around Father Michaels were tearing pieces of his flesh, and putting those bits into their mouths. They were eating a man of the cloth. His friend of seven years. Father Bagrowski felt himself grow ill, his stomach revolting from his supper of bread and water. Then he was sick.

He cleaned his mouth off on the sleeve of his sweater. The spectacle of the gathered crowd in the pews had demonstrated for him exactly how far they had allowed the human race to sink. No wonder God was angry with the Church, if this is what became of his children! They had become worse than the cursed inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah. Even those two obscene towns had not been so wicked.

Cannibalism! They had murdered and devoured the flesh of a priest! Madness! They would spend eternity burning in the fiery lakes of fire in the pit of Hell for such blaspheme against God and the Church!

He felt the heat of a righteous rage well up within his soul. He threw himself out from behind the stone wall where he had been lurking, hidden in the shadows. "Sinners!" He bellowed in his finest 'brimstone voice', his voice booming across the acoustically perfect chamber. He had their attention. His flock turned their gazes onto him, moving as one, their eyes drawn to him like a compass needle being compelled to point north. The ones who had been sitting, or lying down, stood to join the others.

"Your dark and sinful crimes against the Church and our Lord have called down God's righteous wrath!" His facial expressions and hand gestures were in top form as the entered the Zone. As a priest and public speaker he had to be a skilled actor, a master of inflection and feeling. His trade called on him to pluck at the basest emotions of love and fear to keep his congregation in line. He was well practiced in his trade.

The words on his tongue froze and evaporated as he looked down upon the sea of faces before him. They were blank. There was no fear, love, anger or hate, they held nothing. Where they should have been quaking at the reminder of their imminent damnation to the lake of fire for an eternity of torture at the hands of devils wielding pitchforks, there was nothing. A wall of empty masks portraying people that he had once known.

Moving masks.

As one they had surged forward with his first words. Their legs stiff under them as if they were corpses facing the onset of rigor mortis. Walking corpses. A thought tickled the back of his mind, and the scene before him smothered it before he could fully grasp what was there.

They came. Mouths hanging open. Hands reaching out before them, reaching towards Father Bagrowski as he stood behind the pulpit. There was a hundred of the walking dead, perhaps two hundred, and maybe more than that. He couldn't count, his mind wouldn't even try to hold the numbers in any linear fashion, to string them together, to make sense of the order. The chaos surrounding him was too powerful.

They all wanted him. He knew, oh Lord Jesus, he knew. He could feel their hunger as they stammered forward. Iron filings to a magnet, was the old cliché that writers so loved to use in the cheap novels that he had devoured as a student in the seminary. The cliché fit. They came straight at him, ignoring the candelabras and the railings that stood in between.

They saw nothing but him.

Father Bagrowski felt the terror that he had moments before tried to raise in his flock. He had never before experienced the emotion, and had never guessed its true weight and depth. Not even during the train accident when he was sixteen, the very trauma that stole from him forever his love of riding the rails. There had always been within him the warmth of God's love keeping all fear at bay. The still small voice that was ever calming and reassuring.

Now all he heard was the voice screaming at him to flee. It reverberated through his skull, bouncing back and forth until it shattered coherent thought. The voice was too much, he couldn't ignore it, Father Bagrowski turned and fled.

Back through the heavy doors, paying them no more mind the second time than he had the first. His feet slapped down on the stone floor as he raced down the hall like a kindergartener at the end of a school day. Sometime before he reached his office he heard a scream, only to realize that it had been his own. He burst through the door, and slammed it behind him.

Father Bagrowski slumped down, his back against the door, and his arms around his knees. Above his head, and frozen in wood, was the artist's imagined rendering of the savior. There he posed, blessing the terrified priest as he wept in despair.

The army of Satan was loose in God's very house!

He wept. As the stars began to appear in the sky, he wept.

The first thump on the door brought him around and out of his stupor. Jolting him forward onto his hands and knees. They had found him. The army of the damned had found him.

All was lost!

No!

He was not ready to surrender his soul yet to the deceiver. What did that poem say? Do not go gently into the night? Or something very similar. He tried to recall a verse of scripture that concurred, but failed as the poem galloped about his mind. It was a trumpet call to him, raising his spirits and pressing him forward.

Do not go gently into the night! Do not go gently into the night!

The weight slammed against the door for a second time. One of the damned managed to slide its hands through the crack between the door and the frame. Father Bagrowski pushed against the door, as he forced himself up off the ground and back onto his feet.

He slammed his shoulder into the door, his full strength behind the blow slicing, no, bludgeoning through the fingers. They dropped to the ground like rancid grey sausages, leaving a smear of blood on the door as they fell.

Father Bagrowski locked the deadbolt into place. It was a sad state of affairs when a church needed to install locks on its doors to ward against intruders. A church was supposed to welcome all, to be a place of respite and salvation. Locks were meant to keep those very people who most needed to be reached out to forever at arms distance. But there had been thefts and vandalism. Against a church! Fear of worse to come had led the dioceses to install locks on all of the offices, barring further wanton criminal acts.

He put his ear carefully to the door and listened. There were no sounds. No screaming or crying. He couldn't even hear breathing. Maybe those things didn't merely look like corpses, and act like them, maybe they truly were corpses. Maybe the great Worm had unleashed a plague to slay the living and raise them from the embrace of eternal peace as his host army. In his minds eye he pictured the horror as relatives of the living rose up to slay their own family at Lucifer's bequest.

For the second time in nearly as many minutes he doubted his very faith. That Satan possessed the power to slay the faithful in God's own house, under his very nose, and then turn those poor souls against their neighbors. Fear numbed his mind.

More of the damned joined the first on the far side of the door. Pounding on the wooden carvings. No rhythm, no cooperation, just a group of individuals blindly using brute force.

Father Bagrowski resumed his restless pacing once more. In the long philosophical discussions that he had enjoyed with Father Michaels over their many years of friendship, they had discussed the possibility of losing their faith. Doubt only strengthened the faith, that had been Father Michaels stance in all of those talks. Father Bagrowski had been of the opinion that doubt was a weakness to be shed. He wondered if Father Michaels had doubted, strong as his faith was, when the damned began to tear his flesh and feed on his very body.

Father Bagrowski began to doubt deeply in his loving God.

War. Murder. Terrorism. Poverty. Famine. Children dying. So called natural disasters wherever one turned. What sort of loving God inflicted these miseries upon His children?

He did not know.

He lifted up a hand and removed his collar. Maybe his doubts in God were true, and maybe they were the work of dark powers attempting to trick him away from the Lord's loving embrace. Father Bagrowski didn't know. But for now, he was no longer worthy of wearing that collar, the symbol of faith. Maybe he never would be again.

Father Bagrowski picked up his desk chair and threw it through the window. The glass exploded outwards with a shriek. He cleared the errant shards of glass and then climbed down out through the window and into his garden. The cathedral garage lay across the courtyard. He would take one of the Church's cars and leave. Fleeing into the night. Fleeing from his terror and his doubt. Fleeing before the devil himself. The fists pounding on the door followed the ex-priest as he ran.

He would find other survivors in this holy war between Heaven and Hell and he would offer them his services. He may no longer have the God-bestowed strength gifted by his faith, but he was still a man who possessed talents and skills that would be needed and could be put to use.

She left Claude alone in the dark office, with a cold towel across his face. He would be needing some rest. She shut the door behind her as she left, making sure to listen for the click as it latched into place. The door had a tendency not to close completely. Mary returned to the front desk. Diane was looking more terrified than she had when Mary and Claude left. Jeffery was leaning over the desk towards her and Mary guessed what had been going on even before she heard him speak. He had been trying to scare her. Don't that just beat all, the little rat.

Had she not treated the bite wound herself, Mary would have slapped him upside the head for the prank. She still might. But she wanted to be sure first. She kept on coming back to the bite wound. It was still a disturbing notion that Mr. Anderson had bitten Claude.

She grabbed Jeffery by the earlobe. Stopping herself before she did any real harm took almost all of her frayed and battered will power. But she managed.

"Come on you little rat," she said to Jeffery as she pulled him over towards the elevator that traveled to the basement where the morgue was located. He protested loudly, switching between yelping about the pain and that he hadn't done anything to deserve the title of rat, or the physical abuse. Mary disagreed with his vocal and whiney protestations so she twisted his ear a bit to get him moving more quickly.

There were only two ways into the basement and to the morgue. The freight elevator and a stairway right next to it. Mary chose the elevator that morning. It had been a long night and she didn't feel like walking down any more stairs than was purely necessary.

It was a doublewide freight elevator, and was the only elevator in the building that lead to the basement of the complex. The administration building had it's own elevator, though technically it didn't lead to this basement, the two just had a tunnel running between.

She closed the gate pressed the button with the capital 'B' on it and down they went.

"You sure ya wanna do this ma'am?" Jeffery asked? He was fiddling with the large tubular flashlight that all of the maintenance workers and orderlies carried around. Those flashlights had been the cause of yet another widely publicized scandal around one their sister facilities out east a couple years before. Video had been taken of one of the orderlies brutally beating one of the patients with the flashlight. A furor had arisen and the lawmakers had demanded that all the flashlights be replaced with smaller models. Idiots. Rather than fixing the real problem, the abusive scum who had committed the crime, they had instead wasted everyone's time and money with a stupid and pointless measure. The most infuriating part was that though the measure passed, they didn't supply any money to purchase new flashlights. Since the homes were run by the state rather than private institutions, the state was required to fund any demanded changes. A bunch of useless blow-hards.

"Want to do this? What sort of question is that? It's our job to take care of these people. If Mr. Anderson is down here and biting people, then he's ill and in need out our assistance. Now show me where he's at!" The lights were flickering a bit. The ones that worked at least. They usually did in the damp of the basements. It didn't help that they were neglected due to the fact that neither outsiders nor the administrators visited the any of the sub-levels in the nursing home complex. Like with the inhabitants above, the unseen parts of the building suffered a painful neglect. There was so little money in their budget, that such things were allowed to slide.

Better than half of the florescent lights were usually out at any given time. Today it was worse than usual, leaving much of the box-laden hallway concealed in shadows. She rummaged in her purse for a moment, standing in the elevator with Jeffery, until she found what she was looking for, her small flashlight. She flicked the switch and the light came on. She flashed the light up into her own face to check the power, or lack there of. The flashlight was a dimmer reflection of the corridor that it had been meant to brighten. She was dismayed, recalling that it had been a couple years or more since she had last used the light, and its demise shouldn't be much of a shock.

There was a rhythmic dripping sound, as droplets of water fell from where they had condensed on the pipes overhead and onto puddles of water on the floors below. The water made the floors a bit slippery. Which was only a major worry for anyone who was goofing around and running when they should be walking. The only other noise, aside from the whimpers the Jeffery was admitting. Was the constant low muffled rumble from the furnace. Honestly, he was a grown man, he should know when he was talking a joke a bit too far.

The basement ran nearly the full length of the building, though half of the total area was sectioned off for use as an underground garage and storage facility. The rest of the available space was divided up between the morgue and several unused offices that had been converted into more storage facilities for old documents. The furnace and air conditioning equipment took the final quarter.

The elevator opened up into the main corridor, giving Mary the choice of left or right. The morgue was on their right. She grabbed Jeffery as he was sidling off to the left and towards the stairs back up to the ground floor and led him down to the double doors that marked the morgue entrance. He turned on his own flashlight in an attempt to chase away some of the gloom.

"Well?" Mary asked, standing outside of the morgue and looking in through the small windows imbedded in the doors. She didn't see much. Only the emergency lights were on, a power saving feature installed by the administrators. One of their few good ideas Mary thought. Anything that saved money and didn't detract from the wellbeing of the residents or the staff was usually a good idea in her opinion. For the most part anyway.

The rest of the switches were on the wall on the other side of the door. The emergency lights made the interior of the morgue seem even dimmer than the hallway. Mary had Jeffery shine his light into the room. The beam illuminating a scant bit more than they could see without it.

She was just about to open the doors and step through, when Jeffery actually grabbed her shoulder, and shook his head, telling her "N-n-no, you don't want to go in there. Just wait, please just wait." He wasn't telling her. He was ordering her. She found herself confused and rather annoyed. His story was made so very convincing with the addition of the stutter. But he was trying to order her around. She knew that he had taken acting courses during his so very brief stint at college, but she hadn't known that he was such a natural. It made her wonder for the first time why he was working at a state run old folks home and not off in Hollywood somewhere making the world fall in love with the characters he portrayed.

What would she do when she found out that this was all just a hoax. First she would kill a couple of idiots with her bare hands, and then she would skin them, and then kill them all over again. Before spilling her wrath on the individuals who had helped with the hoax. Mary was just too damn worn out to waste time with all this nonsense.

There was nothing in there. No bodies, nothing. To be seen. Mary made herself unclench her fist before she decked Jeffery for his part in the joke. She turned to the man, and was momentarily taken aback by the confused expression that he was wearing just before he pushed his face to the glass. She was about to tell him that he was taking it all too far when he yelped and pointed his finger, slamming it into the glass in his excitement.

Mary peered into the gloom, tracing through the space and following the direction that he indicated with his finger. There was nothing... something was moving inside the morgue. The shape was shuffling around at the very edge of the light. Whispers of movement could be seen. A few fingers, or a flutter of sheet crossing out of the curtain of darkness and then disappearing back into the shadows. Mary gasped, there was more than one something and they seemed to be approaching the door.

"That's not possible! They were dead!" Jeffery roared as one of the shapes stepped completely into the light. He screamed a high-pitched, girlish scream and then lost his grip on the flashlight, letting it tumble from his hand as he turned from the morgue and bolted back down the hallway from where they had come.

The tube of the flashlight hit the floor with a loud clatter and went out. Mary gaped at Jeffery as he fled in what had been blind terror. She tried to call him back as he ran screaming down the hall. She followed the sound of his feet flapping through the puddles of water that covered the floor as he passed through the sickly cones of light, into the darkness and back again. Weaving almost gracefully through the box-heavy pallets that lined the walls of the hallway.

The last she saw of him was when he took a hard left into the stairwell, grunted as he slammed into the far wall and then bounded up the stairs, leaving the hallway resonating with his footfalls.

Mary picked up the flashlight and tested it. It still worked, though it seemed to have come down with a lesser case the same terrible affliction suffered by the basement lights. Mary put the light into the window. The shapes were still moving inside, and they seemed to get closer. Her breath caught as she looked. Maybe it had all just been a huge misunderstanding. Perhaps their equipment was faulty. That was far more believable than the dead rising and biting people. There was only one course of action she could take, though her feet seemed to have become cemented to the floor. Mary extended her hand to open the door, willing her feet to move. It was a full minute before they finally responded, and then only slowly with baby steps at first.

She pushed open the door, her flashlight in hand and sputtering like a giant lightning bug.

She could hear the sounds of bare feet padding and scraping along the concrete floor of the morgue, a floor that was painted smooth, but still cold and rough and hard on the flesh. The poor dears, left down in the dank chill. They would truly catch their death if she didn't do something quickly. Especially since they were still down with that nasty bout of the flu.

Mary fumbled for the light switches with her free hand, patting along the wall. She could never remember exactly where they were and had to search them out every time she came. The steps getting closer. She called out into the dark as she searched the wall for the switches, wondering why she hadn't found them yet. Jeffery and Claude's joke must have gotten to her further than she expected to rattle her so. "Mr. Anderson? Mrs. Sales? Are you two OK?"

There was no answer, beyond the sound of feet sliding across the floor, nearer this time. Three different sets of feet it sounded like. Mary began to worry. It wasn't like Mr. Anderson to remain silent for so long. Or Mrs. Sales either, defiantly not Mrs. Sales, she should be cussing a blue streak by now about being left alone in the dark in the damp and cold basement. The woman was not one to take such treatment, 'abuse' as she called it. Maybe in this one case she was right.

She realized that it wasn't like either of them to walk around in a dark basement, let alone anywhere else. Neither of them could walk around without the aid of a walker for more than a few feet at a time. They had been moving about since she had stepped through the door at the very least.

Her brain screamed down to her that the sounds must have not been coming from her patients. Jeffery and Claude had had her on. They had made up some stupid story and gotten some others along with it. Dianne too probably. She felt fury rise up in her, making her stomach and heart burn like the giant furnace in the far corner of the building. Oh she was going to club the lot of them. And then they would be looking for different jobs, assuming that they survived her righteous wrath. They had all gone too far this time, way too far. She had even notified the next of kin. Mary squeezed the flashlight, wringing it with her hand as if it were Jeffery's scrawny neck. Mary looked back out the window, expecting to see Claude and Jeffery and perhaps even Diane pointing and laughing. The hall was still dark and empty.

Her wandering hand finally found the switches and flicked them on, the overhead lamps stuttering awake after such a long sleep, throwing the room into a bright, neutral and unflattering light. Mary gasped again as her eyes finally adjusted to the newfound brightness. Mr. Anderson was standing, actually standing, ten feet out in front of her and off to her right. Mrs. Sales was a few feet behind him and on his right a bit. And Mr. Gunderson, a man who suffered a debilitating case of emphysema.

They were walking, all three of them. It was a miracle, by God, a miracle. They were looking at her. The logical half her mind called out that this was impossible, but it was shushed by the rest of her, who was happy to see these people up and on their feet, even under these conditions. They stumbled forward towards her, and Mary stepped forward to help them.

Her mind locked her feet again. Something was wrong. With how they moved. How they looked. Mary peered forward, examining her friends and patients more thoroughly. Their skin had taken a sickly pallid tone. Something else nagged at her.

They weren't breathing.

She recoiled at the unnaturalness of the entire situation. Three walking human beings, who shouldn't be walking and who should be breathing. They should be talking to her. Saying something, anything at all, that guy on TV is so nice, hi cutie, my dinner was burnt again you stupid mongrel bitch. The silence just made it that much more unnatural. They remained silent. They got closer.

Mary could see Claude's dried blood on Mr. Anderson's face, covering his lips. She could clearly see where it had run down his chin and dribbled onto his shirt.

He anger about the hoax disappeared by the sudden revelation that Jeffery and Claude had actually been telling her the truth. If he had bit Claude...

Mary held the flashlight out in front of her. Mr. Anderson was less than five feet away distant now, and reaching out for her, his mouth hanging open. If he had been alive, she would have expected him to be drooling too.

Jeffery was a big man. And if he hit Mr. Anderson with a full punch to the face, without phasing him at all, what was she going to do? She would fight these unnatural creatures. But what would that get her?

She swung the flashlight as hard as she could at one of his hands, trying to ward him off with a little pain. It connected and there was a crunching sound as some of the fragile bones in his frail body shattered under the blow. He seemed not to notice, where he should have been screaming in agony.

Maybe, she should leave, she decided. Too late. He was on her, reaching for her, trying to bite, pushing her back towards the door, trying to pin her with all the weight he could muster his feather frame. The next few seconds were all an indistinct blur. She pushed him back, keeping her hand and arm away from his mouth, swatting away his probing hands. Mary struck the dear sweet old man again. And again. This time on the head and face. Repeatedly. Finally he fell to the floor, and stopped moving.

Panting, Mary had noticed that she had lost control of her bladder as a warm spot began to spread down her pant legs. She looked down at Mr. Anderson's lifeless body and wondered what she had actually done. More movement. Mrs. Sales and Mr. Gunderson were getting closer. They didn't even glance at Mr. Anderson.

Something was really wrong.

Mary put her empty hand back towards the doorknob, found it, and gave it a turn. In one graceful movement, that would of surprised people who didn't know her, she opened the door, turned and ran out following the path that Jeffery had blazed only a few minutes before.

She had killed Mr. Anderson. Or had it been Mr. Anderson at all? Confusion, panic, and self-loathing all mixed together, crowding her mind and fogging it. Weaving through the boxes at full speed, she slipped and crashed down onto one of the pallets. The flashlight flew from her hand, bouncing off of the wall before crashing to the floor and going out for good as it rolled off into the shadows.

Mary lay there for a moment or two. Her heart was pounding, she felt as if it was almost about to give way and burst. The confusion and panic drained away leaving some of the self-loathing that was quickly replaced by fear. Anxiety. She remembered that there were a lot of people who had been struck with the same horrendous plague as the three who were now stuck in the morgue. There might be more of those things walking around her facility, attacking her poor defenseless people.

Behind her came a thumping noise, fists falling on a metal door, some times on the pane of glass. It was rhythmic almost. And puzzling. Why pound on the door? Why didn't they just open it and follow her?

Mary pushed herself up off the boxes and onto her feet. The boxes had seen better days, most of the ones that had come before her falling on them. But then, so had she. She hobbled her way back to the elevator, there was no way she was going to mount those stairs in her current condition. Before closing the elevator door behind her, she stopped for a moment to note the bit of blood on the wall where Jeffery had struck his head during his blind flight down the slippery hallway. Wherever he went, he was probably in pretty bad shape, as he must have hit hard to leave any amount of blood behind.

She closed the gate behind her again and selected the button for the main floor.

The elevator came to a stop, and she lifted the gate and opened the door. Stepping out of the elevator, she thanked God that most of the sick had been separated from the healthy early on in a seemingly futile attempt to keep the illness from spreading. If what had happened to Mr. Anderson and the other two was related.

She didn't want to think any further along those lines. What would come, if she were to assess those dark and frightening notions, was quite possibly maddening. Instead she would work, and fight that which she wasn't able to bring herself to fully understand.

Back to the front desk. The very heart and never center of their entire operation. She would need to marshal her forces. Big Mary would be damned if she was going to lose this war, whatever it was, without a fight. She was going to save as many of these wonderful, sorrowful people as she could, and maybe, God willing, a few more.

A trio of battered heavy-duty hand me down trucks blocked each side of median running through the center of northern freeway that ran through the very core of Jefferson, the state's largest city. The reserve unit had taken a position underneath one of the many overpasses that crossed the highway. The highway was just one in the vast the network of paved arteries allowed the human lifeblood of a civilization to flow through the body and keep the town alive. If that comparison was accurate, then he was currently resting on the aorta for this entire city. In light of the day's work, it was a bloody and queasy image to have in mind.

The olive drab trucks were old, at least two decades, but serviceable still, much thanks to the fine mechanics who spent hours each week keeping the damned things from breaking down and bursting into flames. The trucks had been given to his unit by the Army, after the Army had gotten newer and fancier vehicles, and grown tired of keeping around the dull green diesel monsters with their canvas tops in fair condition. The trucks were nearly antiques, or museum pieces, a stubborn part of a bygone era.

The same could be said for the machineguns in the back of each of the six trucks. M60s, hailing from the 1970s. They were good solid weapons, much like the trucks. Each of the six guns had seen action in Vietnam. There, while attached to the air cavalry, they had been blooded and transformed from complex machines into killing tools. The weapons had also developed their own personalities and quirks, which his company was still trying to figure out.

The crews manning the guns in the back of the six trucks were waiting for anyone to defy the declaration of martial law and approach the roadblocks. Their orders were to prevent the spread of this new plague by all means necessary. Ash didn't know quite what that meant, but he guessed that it involved mowing down civilians with the heavy weapons.

People were getting sick, and they were here to keep them in one place. But the army didn't give them any those paper facemasks to keep the soldiers from catching whatever was going around.

Here they sat though, blocking the road, and making sure that nobody either entered or left Jefferson. His entire reserve unit had been called up only the night before and had been deployed to help deal with a crisis that none of them entirely understood. In the few hours that they had been on duty, his unit had already encountered a few people both attempting to flee from and to gain entrance to Jefferson. The lieutenant said that they had orders to use deadly force if necessary. Thankfully those incidents had passed without bloodshed when the civilians turned around and went back to where they had come from.

They were part of a company of reserve engineers. Which was a fancy way to say ditch-digging weekend-warriors. His platoon wasn't trained for combat, even something as simple as guarding a roadblock against largely unarmed civilians. So far most of their training sessions had ended up as drag races using the bulldozers and having the lieutenant yell at them for being a bunch of fuckups.

Killing Americans was NOT what he had signed on for. Ash, like several of his friends from home, had joined up because they promised money for school. He got like $10,000 in cash to sign on with the reserves. He used some of that to go to the community college near his folks' home. That didn't last long. College was even more boring than high school had been, and he had to fucking pay for it too! Not him Jack. He took the rest of that fat stack of cash and dropped it on a wicked sound system for the GTO that he and his dad were restoring. Fucking thing sounded awesome.

Ash took what little money he had left and went to a tech school instead, and learned about automobile mechanics. He loved cars and working on them. He had done so since he was a kid in his father's garage. All he needed was certification, and he was golden. Right now, he was waiting to find a job somewhere and get out of the lousy Quicklube shop and get a real job.

Playing soldier a few weekends a year was a lot of fun, going out into the woods, dressing up in the smart fatigues and shooting off guns was a blast. It beat the hell working forty hours a week at Burger King, like he had during high school. Mostly. Shooting civilians though? He like playing soldier some times, just not that kind of soldier.

Shooting people was just not his thing. Video games and paint ball matches of capture the flag aside. But with real blood and gaping wounds? He had seen Saving Private Ryan in the theatres with his unit back when it came out. Ash had only lasted about fifteen minutes into the beach-landing scene before he had to get the hell out of the theatre or risk puking in his own lap. The movie left him feeling ill for hours afterwards. Only a couple of the guys gave him any trouble for it. Most of the rest told him that he had the right idea.

He adjusted his helmet. The damn thing was heavy. With all the cool space aged materials and shit that the Army was always boasting about, that they could come up with a helmet that didn't feel like it weighed a ton whenever he strapped it on. He so wanted to take the damned thing off, it was killing his neck, but Sarge had told them, though the Sarge was looking straight at Ash when he said it, that the helmets were mandatory and that every soldier was required to wear it while on the line. He punctuated it with a "And that goes for you too Private James, so don't even open your smart assed mouth." Ash didn't. He wasn't that stupid.

He tried to ignore the helmet taking his mind of the weight and inspecting his rifle. Another hand me down from big brother army. Could have been the very same rifle that his dad had used in Nam in the early 70s when he was stationed there in the Air-Calv, Judy he had named it. After his girlfriend back in the states. The girl dumped him half-way through his first tour. He then stayed on for a second. His dad had wild stories to tell of the time that he and Judy had taken on the V.C., often single-handed and at night. Ever the winner, always out numbered, and usually low on ammo.

As a kid, Ash had loved to listen to his father's stories, though he noted that they had grown in scope and bluster over the years. The time that he had come across the lone sniper waiting for his squad was magically transformed to company of regulars with tanks and bazookas and everything. The story got a lot cooler to hear, but man Ash wondered if his dad was just completely full of shit.

Didn't help much that the stories were usually told when his dad was drunk. Which honestly happened a lot, until he had gotten to high school and his mom had threatened to take the kids leave him. Ash didn't get to hear the stories any more, which bummed him out for a long time, but life at home had gotten a lot better when his dad had cleaned up and got a job. Odd though that he was only noticing this now. Well Sarge always said that he needed to think more, and that was what he was doin now.

Despite her age, the rifle was still a solid weapon that had been retooled a couple times to fix the all the crap that had come up with the gun as everyone realized how busted the M-16s were. Dumb ass officers and generals needed to pull their heads out of their asses some time. Still, the rifle was still buggy. Weird problems, like the thing would jam if he didn't take the first round out of the magazine, the whole damned thing would jam after like the third shot. Every time. Didn't matter what kind of magazines he used. Twenty rounds or thirty. Fucking annoying. And it was only his rifle that had that problem. Sarge got one that was brand new and out of the box. So did the lieutenant. While the grunts all had to make due with antique shit. The lieutenant almost never fired his rifle anyway, why did he need a new one?

One weekend a month and two weeks a year his left nut!

A burst from one of the M60s drew his eyes away from Judy. The rifle in his hands now might not have been the weapon that his dad had carried, but he gave it the same name anyways. It felt lucky for some reason. His dad had survived two tours in Nam carrying Judy. He hoped to be as lucky as his old man. Ash stood up, rifle in hand. Fighting the helmet as the damn thing tried to drag him backwards and to the ground again. He swore that the thing was made of lead. Sarge often said that for a big man, he sure had a weak neck.

The lieutenant's voice came over the loudspeaker. "This city has been quarantined. Turn around and go back the way you came. Ash stood up. There was a line of like twenty cars approaching their position. They weren't coming to a halt. The lieutenant yelled his same orders again over the loudspeaker, waiting like a minute for them to stop before calling on the machinegun crews to open fire.

The tree M60s hesitated for a moment and then opened up. Shattering glass and bone. The report of the bursts were echoing through the concrete canyon that the roadblock had been set up in, bouncing off the bridge overhead. Ash threw his hands over his ears to keep himself from going deaf as bullets pinged off the concrete all around the caravan. Half a minute, and it was all over. The caravan had come to a halt, with the folks in the car screaming in pain, the ones that lived. A car horn was blaring, Ash didn't know whether the horn had been hit by a bullet, or if the driver was leaning on the button, but either way, he wanted it to stop right now.

They had done it, they had actually opened fire on and killed American civilians! What the fuck? Ash found himself trembling where he stood. Feeling green again and ready to puke. He breathed deeply and looked away, remembering what Sarge had told him about nausea.

Ash stood trembling on the street, the weight of the helmet forgotten completely in the aftermath of the massacre. A strong hand enclosed on his shoulder. "What the hell is your malfunction private James?" It was the Sarge. The Sarge was a large man. He was probably about twice the size of Ash. He was also old, like in his late fifties or early sixties. He had a graying moustache, neatly cut to regulation shape and size. That was the Sarge. Regulation all the way. Even in the reserves. He was a giant pain in the ass, especially if he caught you goofing off or something and gave you a kick to the backside to set you straight.

"I dunno sir. This is the first time I've seen killing. And we killed Americans."

"I know what you mean kid. But it's our duty to protect America."

"By killing civilians sir?"

"We have to keep this thing under wraps, so that it doesn't spread any more than it already has." Sarge's statement made sense, in that painful way that you had to sometimes cut off a infected leg to save the patient.

"If the entire city of Jefferson was sick like he said, then why didn't they just bomb it?"

"You want to actually think it all over for a minute private? What if they come up with a cure? If we go and bomb one of our major cities, and then find a cure, then we're going to look pretty damn stupid won't we?"

"But how are we gonna actually keep everyone in the city? There are hundreds of roads into and out of the town. We can't watch them all!" Ash had come from one of the suburbs. His folks still lived in the house where he had grown up. His sister and her kids live just down the street. Ash knew the place like the back of his own hand. There was no way that the National Guard and Reserves were going to keep this place locked down, drained as they were, without the support of the army. And with most of the army over seas, fucking around with Congress' circle jerk. They were fucked. Fuck.

"We'll let the brass worry about that. All we need to worry about is this here road, our little piece of the game. So focus private, keep your head on."

"Will do sir." He said, adding a little dig.

"Don't sir me you little rat bastard," the Sergeant growled as he walked away. In every war movie Ash had ever seen, Sergeants seemed to always hate being called sir. It was what you called an officer, not an NCO. For the most part, in basic and elsewhere, that had always been false. Most sergeants didn't mind being called sir, as long as you listened and did what they said. Some even liked it. Their platoon sergeant was spot on for all those movie sergeants. Maybe Sarge had seen all those movies too.

Sarge was a career soldier, who retired and then joined up with the reserves because he needed something to do. Too much time at home with the missus, he would say with a nudge and a wink. Like Ash was supposed to get the joke. Ash had never been married, but he had seen his parents, who were still together, amazingly, so maybe he kind of did get the joke. He wondered if his dad had ever thought of rejoining to get away from time to time.

The lieutenant recorded his message and set it to play through the loudspeakers over and over. After a time, Ash covered his ears with his hands to try and block the noise out before it drove him crazy. The thought tugged at him. What kinda disease was so God awful that the government would want to kill its own people rather than to let it spread? And why the hell was he still here?

A single shot rang out. Not one of the M60s, but a sidearm. Ash got up off the ground, pushing himself away from the tire that he had been leaning on to see what was happening.

The lieutenant had shot a man. Grover of second squad it looked like. Grover got his name cause he was a total muppet. Not one of those cute furry puppet guys that his niece and nephew loved from Sesame Street, but a stupid human being that kinda walked and talked real unnatural like. Blank, empty eyes and everything. Grover was dumb. He even made Ash feel smart some times. The man had washed out of the real army and ended up working in a car wash and joining the reserves so he could play make believe with a gun. Except, they wouldn't usually issue the man a gun.

Now he was dead, and the lieutenant had killed him. Not only were they killing the people that they swore to protect, they were killing each other.

Maybe the fucking disease made you crazy. And you got all paranoid and shit before you started to turn on each other. Ash looked around out of the corners of his eyes, wondering if they were all asking themselves the same question. He was glad that he had brought along Judy. Some of the others left their rifles leaning against the trucks.

"What happened to that dummy?" Ash asked.

Sarge turned to him, and the whole platoon as they stood watching in silence, "The idiot went mental, and tried to run, disobeying a direct order from the lieutenant."

"What freaked him out?" It was Cervantes, the only chick in the group. Though she didn't seem to know that she was a chick. She was badder-assed than anyone but Sarge. She was a corporal in the second squad in the reserves and a bricklayer out in the real world. A real lesbo. Ash didn't mind though, they traded pictures of hot women and talked about tits.

"That doesn't matter. All that matters is that we follow our orders and keep this roadblock up and the quarantine in place until relieved."

Grover had always been dumb. Only it looked like Grover wasn't as dumb as he had seemed. He had figured out the whole situation with the plague and tried to get the fuck out well before Ash had. Made Ash feel a bit stupider after all. And more frightened. He had known that this was serious. But they were only the reserves. To have the lieutenant actually shoot someone who was trying to run away was just unbelievable. Ash couldn't make himself understand it all.

"Clean this mess up. Make sure you strip his gear. We might need it." The lieutenant ordered. Sarge had a couple of privates, Hicks and Hudson from first squad, who were standing around and gawking at the body, drag it off and toss it into the high grass off the side of the highway.

It was hot in the little house, hot like summer, though it was still only the middle of spring. Closer to June that they had been a month before, as his father had loved to say, but still only spring. Mama liked to keep it warm year round. The warmth reminded her of home she said.

Light from the setting sun filled the house, leaving an orangeish glow that burned through the smog of the city, making it feel later than it really was. The dirty air was hard to breath and made him miss the country that much more. He missed the quiet, and the stargazing and the pretty scenery. In town everything looked the same, all the houses and buildings, everything. None of it was very pretty either.

The television was out, and had been for quite some time. They had spent the entire day, and much of the previous one sitting huddled together in front of the TV watching as the entire world continued to decline. Sometime during the morning before, an emergency signal had been broadcast on all the stations. The government said that 'for their safety they should all stay home and lock their doors.'

His family was sitting and staring at the television, as if they were waiting for an all clear sign or a signal to sound. The lack of news was nearly killing them. Both his girlfriend and his sister had called their friends to see what they knew. One of them had said that there were military blockades cutting off the highway out of the city. They were shooting at people who got too close. He preferred not to hear that kind of news.

Jésus paced around his house. Front to back. The floor plan was laid out in kind of a loop. Kitchen, living room, dining room. With the stairs to the second floor in the center of it all. He would walk around to one side of the living room, then turn around again and take the loop back to the other side so that he wouldn't pass in front of the television. Finding all the squeaky spots in the floor as he went. It unconsciously became a game. Squeak, step, squeak, step. Step, step, squeak.

Midway through one of his laps, Jésus stopped to look out as the street from the front window in the dining room. Perhaps for the fifteenth time that night. This time what he was old Mr. Rodriguez, standing in the street alone. He was his mother's friend and their neighbor from across the street and a little further down the block. He was staggering around in his bathrobe, like he was drunk again, something that he had done more often after his wife died a couple years ago.

Jésus was about to go out and help him back home, when a group of perhaps ten men, most of them young and carrying what looked like televisions and stereos in their arms. Looters. Some people took any chance they could get to take what they wanted. Even though televisions had become more worthless than they had been before. As the youths approached, one of them called out to him.

"Hey Mr. Rodriguez, you drunk again friend?"

A couple of them were carrying the clubs that they had gotten at the Salvation army for use in the game that they called Ghetto Golf, though none of them actually lived in a ghetto, they lived in a lower middle class neighborhood. Ghetto Golf involved hitting golf balls, though some times they used small rocks when they didn't have any more golf balls, over the expressway, and into the empty field beyond. It wasn't a long and difficult shot to make, and they usually made it, some times for impressively long drives. Sometimes they didn't. The occasions that the ball didn't reach the field made the game that much more interesting for everyone involved. Sometimes, when they were drunk or just angry at the people driving home in their expensive cars, they didn't even bother aiming for the other side.

Jésus hadn't played the game in a while now. He was too busy with work and school. More importantly, he didn't want any trouble with the police, who had been keeping an eye on the hill that they usually used to tee off. Arresting some of the idiots who still went to play regardless. It was funny in a way, a game like Ghetto Golf was something to do, something to keep them out of trouble, more serious trouble anyway. But the game they invented to keep out of trouble, got them into trouble.

Mr. Rodriguez turned their way, and stumbled towards them, swaying back and forth with each step. The young men watched him and laughed, "Friend, you're drunk again, give us your wallet and your keys, and we'll take you home safely." They all laughed again. Stepping closer. They were within arms reach, when Mr. Rodriguez leaned forward and took a bite out of the speakers neck.

Mr. Rodriguez bit him!

The man screamed, pushed him away and clamped his hands down on his neck to try and stop the bleeding, or perhaps to make the pain go away.

Mr. Rodriguez had stumbled and fallen with the push. He rose back to his feet slowly before stumbling back towards the screaming man and his friends. They backed away, dragging wounded buddy. Mr. Rodriguez, followed.

Finally a one of them remembered that he was carrying a golf club, he stepped forward and took a swing. Jésus winced as he could hear the bone crack from where he stood, twenty feet away and behind a glass window. Mr. Rodriguez sagged for a second from the blow, but then continued on completely ignoring the pain that could only have been excruciating. He kept stumbling forward, reaching now for the man who has just tried to strike him down. The attacker backed up, with his club raised over his head, telling Mr. Rodriguez to stay back or else. Mr. Rodriguez didn't hesitate.

Another blow landed and Mr. Rodriguez staggered again before tramping on. The clubman was praying now, loudly, as were his friends. Jésus doubted that any of them had been to church in years and was surprised that they could remember the words. Most of them. But still they prayed, like devout old women.

One more blow, it shattered Mr. Rodriguez' skull and sent him to the pavement. He didn't move again. Jésus felt like throwing up. And a couple of the looters actually did, before they all bolted, scattering in different directions, dropping what they had stolen as they went.

It was then that the television came back to life. His girlfriend called him in to watch.

Jésus stared at the TV, sweating has he watched. The sweat was as much from the heat, he tried to tell himself, not from what he was watching on the television.

The appliance in question was an old analog twenty inch Zenith that still had actual knobs that you had to turn in order to change the station and volume. None of those fancy buttons. A relic in the days of digital plasma screens. Where televisions were measured in feet rather than inches. But it was what the family had. They didn't even get cable, all they had was whatever local stations that they could pick up with the giant antenna on the top of the house. Today the picture was unusually fuzzy, still it was clear enough to make the sweat pour out of him.

He was struck speechless by the news. The dead were rising up and eating the living. Maybe his mama was right and there was the end times, like in the bible. He suddenly wished that he had gone to church with her more often, and that he hadn't gotten drunk as often as he did, or slept with his girlfriends out of wedlock. Jésus quickly tallied up a lifetime's worth of crimes before God that he had committed and decided that he was defiantly going to hell. It wasn't so much a 'if' as a 'when'. He wondered briefly if it was too late to go to confessional. Probably. The priest would just laugh at him. That was his usual luck anyway.

Visions of Mr. Rodriguez lying on the ground with blood pouring from his wounds as he watched the television. The looters' horror when he attacked. They all bunched up and clouded his mind's eye, making paying attention to the news a difficult task. Off in the distance he heard a gun shot. Followed by several more, as if a battle fired up. It sounded a lot like a fourth of July fireworks display, as the explosions quickly rolled through their home. Then as quickly as it began it ended.

Figures that the world would end now. He had an ok job at Taco Bell. Tacos, what did those assholes know about tacos? God damned, there was another one to add to the list, Americanized food! He had gotten his G.E.D. and was working on getting a better degree at nights at the local community college. His grades were pretty good there too, not straight A's but still good. Better than anyone expected, least of all him.

He had even applied to better schools to go on and get a degree in engineering. His life was turning out to be like the movie, Stand and Deliver. His girlfriend had always told him that he looked like Lou Diamond Phillips. His sister insisted that he looked more like the teacher Edward James Olmos in his youth. Until her reminded her that they were twins and his looks reflected on her, no matter that she was so much more beautiful than he was. That shut her up. Her husband said Horatio Sanz to be funny, it just sounded really stupid. But then, it was George.

His English writing teacher at the community college had had a word to describe what was happening. Besides fucked up that was. She would have called it fucked up too, she was a crazy old bitch, but in a good way, the entire class had loved her. She would tell them stories about the wild times she had had as an English major. You wouldn't expect that it make for a very exciting life, but it did. Or she was just a convincing story teller.

The woman had always been willing to help. She was just nuts. He stifled a grin at the thought of a seventy-year old woman, with crazy white hair, standing in front of the class and cursing like a sailor because she had forgotten her briefcase again.

What was the word? Oh yeah, 'Ironic.' Like in the one song, by that Canadian chick. Rain on your wedding day, and all that other stuff. He had just gotten his life together, and was about to start living the American dream, and then Satan decides that the Apocalypse is on. Just shit man, shit.

His sister and her husband and their two kids were in the living room with him, as was his mother and his girlfriend. They were watching the grainy footage of a mob of slow moving dead bodies get closer and closer to the camera when it finally struck him where he had seen this all before. It was in that movie, what was it called? Oh yeah Dawn of the Dead. It came out in the theatres a few years before. Yeah, that was the movie. A real weird one, scared the hell out of him. Though these fuckers were moving a lot slower than in the movie. Maybe they weren't the same thing, but they were still eating people and Mr. Rodriguez had died when the punk busted his skull open.

More footage, some of New York. Some of London. Everywhere was the same.

He tried to remember the rest of the movie. He was pretty drunk when he had seen it at a friend's house a few years before. The mall. The people hid at the mall. It had struck him as a dumb idea when he first watched the movie, especially since every of the dead walking dead people seemed to have the same idea. But they still had everything that they needed and they were safe. That was, until they did something stupid and left.

His mother was holding her rosary between her hands, and praying fervently, repeating Hail Mary's at what must have been a record speed, rocking back and forth, clicking the beads madly as she went.

More footage of the zombies flickered on the screen, soldiers shooting onto mobs of the walking dead and having no effect. People rioting and screaming and looting. Others carrying signs and protesting that the end of the world had finally come. Sometimes, some people, just liked to state what was blatantly obvious to even a child.

Civilization had gone mad. His mother sounded more fervent and the beads clicked at a faster pace. Jésus wondered if she was getting an answer or if she ever would.

Jason was vaguely aware of several hands grabbing him and lifting him, and Lynn's voice telling him that it was ok, that they were putting him into the truck because they were getting ready to leave. It was only vague at best. It soon passed as he slipped back into the grips of his private hell.

He sat in his chair, transfixed to the television. He almost thought it was a giant April fools joke, except that it would have been a month late and a huge expense to pull off. Not to mention the organization required and getting authorization from the government and cooperation with all the community figures. Still all of that happening seemed a hell of a lot more likely than what was in front of him at that moment. It wasn't a hoax.

The phone rang and he picked it up. It was Lynn. "Yeah, I see it, do you think they're just fucking with us?"

"I think it's real, I think its actually happening." Her voice was steady on the other end. Nothing ever shook the woman, at least that Jason could ever tell.

"Shit."

"You ready?" Lynn sounded both excited and determined. He could hear Billy in the background giggling like a demented idiot while Douglas was sternly telling him to be careful with whatever he was doing.

"What for?" His mind was still blown from what he saw on the news. It was kind of a surreal and guilty pleasure that he didn't quite know how to deal with yet. They had actually looked forward to a zombie uprising, but to have one actually happen and fulfill the fantasy was more than he could deal with for the moment. He felt like his brain was shutting down.

It struck him that he had also always wanted Jedi force powers, well if the zombies were here...he waved his hand at the television commanding it to turn off and fly across his room. To his disappointment it seemed that what-ever caused people to rise from the grave in order to eat the flesh of the living, didn't bestow upon him any level of control over the force.

"Jason? Jason? Are you still there?"

"Yeah, I was just checking something real quick."

"What?"

"Nothing too important, it didn't work." Force powers would have been a nice ace in the hole against the legions of undead zombies.

"Ok, well are you ready to go?"

"Yeah, how are we going to go about it?"

"Billy, Doug and me will meet you over at the gun shop, we're leaving now, hurry!" With that she hung up the phone.

Jason hung up the phone and snapped himself out of his daze. It had finally happened and it was time to get moving. He quickly got dressed and grabbed some things that he thought that he might need, a hammer, his car keys and some nylon rope. He was out the door, down his steps and on his front lawn in seconds. He stopped on the sidewalk in front of his car to take a quick look around before he moved on.

The street was surprisingly empty. It was eerie. Usually it was a bustling road with cars driving past at all hours. It was around nine in the morning and the cars should be driving by even now. There weren't any. None, it wasn't a slow day, even at five in the morning on a Sunday there were always at least a couple cars on the road. Jason looked around a little, there was a figure shambling around down the street a couple blocks, but that was it. His first live zombie, the first one he had actually seen. It was unimpressive. Still he felt it was best to keep it at a distance.

He had been watching the news for almost three days straight now, from when he woke up until he went to bed, his eyes glued to the television. From what they knew the entire thing had been building for over a week before, the government and the world at large ignoring it as a strange anomaly. At first it was scattered cases of people falling ill, then those people started to die, but they didn't stay dead, they got up and killed. The government had declared martial law, trying to keep people from leaving the cities and spreading the new disease, but people panicked and fled anyways.

Last he had heard, the government had set up roadblocks surrounding every large city and most medium sized ones as well. The troops were shooting on sight. Firing on anyone who approached from either direction. Very few people it seemed actually stayed in their homes as they were ordered. Clogging the freeways, filling up hospitals, fleeing to churches to beg for divine intervention. The panicked people were spreading the plague that much faster.

Really it was only a matter of time, hours perhaps, before the rest of civilization went down the hole. Last he had heard several cities were without power. The modern amenities were, like the human race, disappearing fast.

He walked around to the driver's side of his aging el Camino, Mike. He unlocked and opened the door, but before he got in he felt a sneeze coming on so he looked up into the bright blue sky to get it out. It was kind of funny, the world had changed over night, but he hadn't. It was one of those minor quirks that would be with him no matter.

A slight breeze made his hair dance as he stood looking up into the sunlit sky. After a minute of staring heavenward in a futile attempt to bring the sneeze, he decided to cut his losses and go. Mike started up as poorly as ever, coughing and sputtering at first, but then turning over and running relatively smoothly thereafter.

He and Mike pulled out onto the road and started their way across town. The town had a creepy vibe that he usually got when watching an apocalypse movie. It was devoid of life, an empty shell. It was like the animal inside the shell had died and begun to rot away. He was hunted by a feeling of nausea that was edging its way into his consciousness.

Along the way he saw small groups of people, what he thought were people shambling around. From time to time he even saw bodies lying in yards or in the middle of the roads. There was usually a lot of blood and he didn't look to closely. He just passed by, he wasn't ready to think about what had happened to them just yet. They were always too far away for him to be absolutely certain whether or not they were zombies, he knew, but he didn't want to believe. Despite his disbelief, every time he saw one of the small groups, or even a lone individual stumbling around in the street, the pit of his stomach knotted and then froze up.

They tended to turn around and walk towards him as he passed, but it was no worry since they moved so slowly and started from so far away. Jason kept moving, ignoring the street lights and stop signs. Even if there were any cops around, running a red light would be the least of his worries. The authorities had established marshal law. He wasn't sure what punishment they would dole out for his breaking curfew, but he was sure it was going to be a hell of a lot more severe than a traffic ticket. That would be light compared to what would happen if the zombies got him. He didn't want to much think about that, most especially since he lacked any sort of way to quickly end it before he returned to unlife to walk with them.

Before he could meet Lynn and Billy at the gun shop, there was something he had to do first, someone he had to find. He drove with all the speed that he could safely manage until he came to the house that he was looking for. It was Jane's house.

After Grover got ganked, Ash spent the rest of the day trying to drone out the recorded message by burying his ears in his walkman. Until Sarge would come by, pull off the earphones and bawl him out for being a lazy pussy and get back to work why don't you. He couldn't, after all hear orders with those damned things on could he? What if something happened and the platoon needed him and his rifle? Now get back to your position damn it soldier! Ash would wait until the Sarge's back was turned before putting the earphones back into his ears. Getting yelled at by Sarge was bad, but that recording was even worse.

The music helped some, though he was unable to get it loud enough to completely escape the lieutenant's constant droning voice. The volume of the music beating out of the headphones was beginning to hurt his ears and give him a headache.

Ash passed the time by playing a game that he had invented just a little while before, 'Fill the pothole with rocks and stuff that you find on the side of the road'. The rules were pretty simple, which was why he was so fond of it. He sat down with his back against the wall, picked up rocks, nails, bits of glass and other junk up off the pavement, and then threw it into the closest pothole. It was a big mother, about two feet wide and half as deep, and hard to miss (though some times he got too fancy with his throws and missed anyhow). After two hours of playing, he had only managed to make a small pile of crap on the very bottom.

He considered cheating a bit and finding bigger rocks.

Three hours into his game, near 2 o'clock, a jeep pulled to the rear of the roadblock and a captain got out and talked to the lieutenant. Ash turned off his walkman and took off his headphones. He decided that he wanted to hear what the captain had to say. He didn't get to hear the bigwigs in a discussion very often, so now was his chance.

With Judy hanging from his shoulder, he tried to sidle up where Sarge the lieutenant and captain stood huddled around a map. Having Judy along made him feel more relaxed. The captain might have the crazy sickness, and if that happened, Ash would be there to frag his ass and save the Sarge and lieutenant. They'd probably give him a metal for his bravery and quick thinking, maybe the lieutenant would even turn off the fucking recording so that he could listen to his music in peace.

"Here, here and here" the captain said, pointing to several

The lieutenant leaned closer, looking at the places where the captain had pointed. "The aid stations? They've all fallen? What happened sir?"

"Unknown. There are reports that people who die from this actually get up and start feeding on the living. Real biblicial shit. A pile of crap filled with religious nuts if you ask me. I think it's probably at most just mobs of terrified citizens. Anyhow, command wants to send a squad from your platoon to go and check it out and report back. Good luck and get to work lieutenant."

Hearing about the patrol, Ash tried to slink away and get out of sight. Maybe he would hide in one of the trucks. Cummings, the corporal of his own squad, was on one of the machinegun crews. Ash liked Cummings he always had good stories to tell of the time when he visited Mexico on spring break and fucked like four girls in a single night. Two of them at one time even. Maybe Ash could get Cummings to tell those stories again. They always made him want to go to a real college so that he could go on spring break too and fuck a lot of hotties like he saw on Mtv.

"Well Sergeant, who will you be bring with along you on the patrol?"

A voice roared out. "Private Jones!" It was the Sarge.

Ash stood at attention and saluted "Yes sir?"

Sarge grinned wickedly. "Thanks for volunteering kid, knew we could count on you." Ash stopped where he stood he had made it as far as the cab of one of the trucks. This was so damned unfair.

"Anything else to report to command lieutenant?" Captain Highway asked as he put his left foot into the jeep.

"So far, we've fired on two different groups trying to escape. Nobody has tried to get into the city though."

"That sounds about right. Nobody else has had much trouble from outside either. It's just the folks trying to escape whatever plague has spawned down there. Though I'm surprised that it had been so quiet here on the highway. Especially on the inbound lane. Oh well, remember, have your men shoot at anything that moves and ain't wearing a uniform. Word from the big brass is that you're supposed to aim for the head."

"Why the head sir?"

"I suppose that they don't want any wounded to have to clean up in all of this. Make it more humane and all. But you have your orders lieutenant, carry them out."

"Aye sir! Sergeant, get your patrol and go, daylight is wasting." The captain climbed his fat ass back into the jeep, causing the shocks to groan underneath him as he stepped up.

There were four squads of eight soldiers each in the platoon. Each squad had a corporal to lead it. The sergeant was there as a man in the trenches to give the lieutenant the benefit of his years of experience, and of course to bitch out everyone below him if they showed the signs of having any fun. The lieutenant was there to lead the whole shebang.

Sarge motioned to Ash to go and round up the other five members of his squad. Two were out sick with some sort of flu. Had it real bad, enough that the docs over in medical gave them sick leave. The corporal and private White were manning one of the machineguns in the truck and deep in a stupid conversation about the differences between American and Canadian rules football. Really, who the hell cares about Canadian rules football?

"Corporal, we're ordered to fall out in front of the sergeant and get ready to move."

The corporal leaned on the M60 and looked down out of the truck at Ash, "we got a mission?"

"Yup. We're sposed to get to it quick. Daylight is burning."

"Sounds like a quote from lieutenant Aresnau to me."

"Who the hell do you suppose it was who gave the order? Had it passed down from Captain Highway and everything."

"Well shit, looks like we're taking a walk then. The whole platoon going?"

"Nope, just our squad. Now I gotta get moving before Sarge yells at me for bein' slow."

The rest of his squad was hiding in the shadows between two of the trucks, playing poker as usual. None of the dumb bastards could play poker worth a damn, but they were three more assholes who had seen a lot of war movies, and in war movies soldiers played cards when they had some down time. Not Ash, he was always broke.

"Tex, Avery, Schmidt, The lieutenant is sendin us out on a mission to check something out, we're all reporting to the sergeant!" Tex frowned and spit. He was probably winning, which would be a first that Ash had ever seen since the dumb bastard couldn't tell a good hand from his own asshole. Tex was the only other bastard in the platoon, besides Grover, who had gotten a nickname. He wasn't from Texas, or a cowboy or anything, but they called him Tex anyhow. Avery decided that someone needed to be called Tex, and he chose Private Calhoun as the most likely recipient. The nickname didn't make a bit of sense and that pissed Tex the hell off, so much that he bitched whenever anyone used it. Soon everyone started using it cause it was funny to watch him fume and to give him more shit. Even the lieutenant started calling him Tex, though Tex kept his mouth shut when the lieutenant used the name.

They quickly put away the cards and grabbed their rifles and ammo satchels before presenting themselves as ordered.

Jésus spent the rest of the night pacing around the house and watching the street from his front window. Sometime in the small hours his girlfriend and his sister went to bed, quickly followed by his mother and his brother in law. The kids had been put down earlier. They were getting too excited. They were probably having nightmares. He would probably be having nightmares soon enough too.

Thankfully they shut the television off as they left, leaving him in the silence. The news was all that was being broadcast anymore, and it was driving him insane. More cities falling. The death toll was rising and the world was in chaos. And still, the blonde girl managed to look perky and sound cheerful, even if the entire act was strained.

Then it all stopped. They received no more reports about other countries, or even other cities. There were no more happy faces reading off disasters and human misery. Now all that remained of the outside voices was the recorded message repeating over and over. A man's deep voice read the orders. Stay inside. Lock your doors. Do not leave your house. Martial law has been declared. The army had blocked off the roads into and out of the major cities. Violators will be shot on sight. Over and over it played, the man's calm voice unchanging and demanding obedience.

The message the same on every station and Jésus kicked himself again for not having gotten the satellite television when they had offered it to him "No, I'm happy with broadcast," he had said to the telemarketer. With those six hundred other channels, maybe one of them would have something new on.

He turned the television back on for a moment to see if anything had changed in the hours of silence. Text ticked by in English and Spanish. Jésus flipped back and forth between the two, but surprisingly they both said the exact same thing. The message was meticulously written and translated. The new format change had lasted around fifteen minutes before his family turned off the television and everyone had gone to bed. They waited for the news broadcasters to return, but that never happened, so they went up stairs to go to sleep.

He could still hear his mother praying and crying as he once more shut of the television and returned to pacing.

Pacing. His father had paced during times of trouble. His uncles too. It seemed to be a genetic nervousness affliction for the men in his family. They would wear themselves out, staying up late at night and walking around.

His girlfriend and sister had joined his mother in praying for a little while and that would have to do. Jésus had given up on the church a long time ago. Religion was just never his thing. Especially not all the rituals. Besides, it was a waste of a perfectly good Sunday. It was a waste of EVERY perfectly good Sunday. Even the less than prefect ones too. Jésus found that he would rather stay home, sit on the couch in his underwear and watch football, any kind of football. American, Canadian or world (soccer in the states).

He watched someone stumble past down the sidewalk. One of the zombie creatures, to be sure. Nobody in his neighborhood walked like that. Jésus leaned closer to the window and peered out through the gap that he had made in the blinds with his fingers. It was Jose. The punk looter who had been bit earlier. He was wearing the same blood covered clothes and everything.

Jésus' heart began to race for a second time that night and he closed the blinds, stumbling over his own shoes as he leaped back away from the window. He hid behind the couch. There he waited for the dawn light to creep through the windows.

Jésus got up off the floor, patting away the dust bunnies that had latched onto his pants, and returned to the window. He rarely watched sunrises. Sunsets either. He had little time for the second and usually slept through the first. He realized that he had missed out. That dawn was one of the most beautiful events that he had ever witnessed. The pollution shrouding the sky, refracting the light, only made it more so in his eyes.

He switched the television back on. Nothing, only static. Jésus flipped through all the channels, using all the channel surfing skills that he possessed to search. He rolled through all the entire dial twice, and then twice more. They were all static. He shut the television off, listening for the telltale click, sometimes it didn't work the first time, before yawning and heading out to the kitchen.

Jésus poured himself a bowl of cereal. Not the greatest meal, but it was fast and easy and would satiate his hunger. He broke his fast alone in the morning sun. After eating his meal, he returned to the window once more and peered out. There were several of the zombies in the street now. His family, couldn't stay in their home. No matter what the government said.

They would have to flee and find somewhere safe to stay. In the movies that had been a mall, at least for a little while. They had a mall, and it was pretty close to his home. The largest mall in the entire state called the city of Jefferson home. Jésus and his family didn't shop there very often, nor did anyone they knew, the prices were too outrageous. They did however go from time to time to window shop and watch the people and hang out. Especially in the summer when the weather got hot. His mom might like hot weather, but he was raised in the north country and it made him uncomfortable. Best yet, he knew the building pretty well.

A plan began to form in his mind as images coalesced. It worked in the movie, why not now. He wasn't dumb enough to begin to believe that movies and real life were interchangeable, but he could recognize a good idea when it was right in front of his face. Now all that was left was to convince his family that it was necessary.

A solid fifteen zombies were milling around in the street when his brother in law finally descended the stairs. "Morning Jésus." He mumbled as he walked past and into the kitchen where he helped himself to some of the coffee Jésus had begun brewing a few minutes before.

The zombies were walking in circles as if they were broken. Well maybe they were broken. The worst part of the whole situation was that Jésus recognized everyone out there. Some of them had been long time friends, others bitter enemies. Whoever they had been before, they were now dead.

More of his family awoke and joined his brother in law. His mother flicked on the television and then turned it off again moments later when she finally decided that all of the channels were truly dead. His mother could be a stubborn woman at times. Indeed, she had kept the family together and going even after his father had died.

As she walked by where he stood looking out the window she reached up and took his face between her hands, pulled it down and gave him a kiss. "Good morning my son. Did you sleep well?"

"Morning mamma. I didn't sleep at all. Too worried about those things out there."

"What things."

"The zombies. They've started to collect out on the street. Reminds me a little of the riot a few years back, like when you know that something bad is going to happen, there's just that feeling in the air."

"Waiting."

"Yep."

"Don't worry my baby boy. God will provide." His mother said, patting him on the cheek and pointing at the ceiling.

Soon everyone was done eating and Jésus joined his family as they sat around the kitchen table speaking in murmurs over coffee. Normally breakfast was a boisterous affair, a family tradition. Times though were hardly normal at the moment.

He sat in silence for a long time until he finally found his voice. "We should get out of here." The idea had been stewing in his mind for hours, ever since the television went out.

"The man on TV says to stay home Jésus." His sister was the first to respond. And the man on TV did say to stay home, when he was still talking. The television was now silent. "He says that the government has declared martial law and will shoot people if they are caught outside."

"Have you seen anyone get shot yet?"

"Not yet, no, but I don't want us to be the first."

"Let's take our chances little sister, we aren't safe here. Not from those things."

"Where do you think that we should go to hide bro?" George asked. The man always asked the obvious questions. If he weren't such a nice guy and a hard worker, he would have wondered why his sister had ever bothered to marry him in the first place. But she did like them nice and dumb. He made a good father, even though he was dumb as a brick. Jésus guessed that she had already been pregnant, though he never said anything, his mother would have flipped. Bad enough that he was a gringo, and not even Catholic. But they got married, and he provided a nice home and plenty of food for his wife and children. So he had finally won her over.

"The mall man, we should go to the mall."

"Why there?"

"Because I saw it in a movie once."

"Man, not everything you see in the movies is real." His brother in law scoffed, his brother in law who believed in the Grand Pumpkin cause he saw it on Charlie Brown. Sounded like another good time to use the word irony. Twice in one day he was putting his education to good use.

"I know that man, I know that, but they'll have everything we'll need there, food and clothes and stuff, and we can lock the doors and keep out the zombies. Stay there until someone comes to rescue us. It'll be like a fortress against the undead. You'll see, we'll all be safe." Everyone agreed that it sounded like a good idea, and the air-conditioned mall was defiantly preferable to their hot living room.

"Go get the van ready man. We can get the hell out of here." His brother in law got up and did as he was told. Dumb as a brick, but willing to follow a leader if the idea sounded like a good one. The women protested, but he ignored them. He was the head of the household ever since his father had died, and it was his job to take care of his family.

"What took you slobs so long?" The sergeant growled at them as they came to attention with the rest of the squad. He handed Tex a heavy looking backpack of radio gear. "Tex, you got the phone."

"Private James! Front and center now." Ash ran forward, saluting and standing in front of the sergeant.

"Yes Sir?" He said as he lowered his right hand from his brow and put it back at his side.

"You come from around here don't you?"

"About fifteen miles to the north east sir!"

"Good, you know the area better than anyone else, you're on point." Fuck. That figured. And if there were any of those plague victims who had gone trigger-happy since they got sick, he would be the first one in their sights. He knew he should have moved faster while assembling the squad. But with his luck, and Sarge's dislike for his hairy ass, it wouldn't have helped any. "Confer with me for a moment."

Sarge pulled out a map of the area and showed it to him, leaning over it and pointing out a section. Ash looked at the map. They were going to have to hotfoot it about two clicks through the suburbs. It looked like an easy walk, they would just have to follow one main drag south, and then turn east and follow a second. They would end up avoiding all the little subdivisions along the way, so they wouldn't get lost. "Ok quickly now, what kind of neighborhoods are we going to pass through."

"It's suburb sir. Mostly middle class, some rich folks living here and there too, also a few poor folks."

"Well let's get moving then. We got a lot of ground to cover. Our destination is an aid station operated by the emergency medical corps. The hospitals have been overrun with the sick, so the army set up a number of aid stations around the city."

Corporal Cummings spoke up, "Shouldn't we take one of the trucks sir?"

"No can do corporal, the lieutenant needs them all for the roadblock. So we get to hoof it over. Weapons only, none of that extra crap. We won't need it. Oh, one other thing, if the need arises, shoot to kill. The captain says that we aim for the heads to make it definite. No goofing around now. Let's hightail it."

Ash lifted his rifle to his shoulder and took off at a jog until he was around a hundred feet past the column. The joys of being on point. Anyone starts to shooting at them, he'll be the first in their sights. Good times.

The overpass that they had parked under was luckily one of the two roads that they would need to hike along. Lucky. Maybe not. Their location was probably why the captain had come along and assigned their platoon this duty. They were closest, so they won by default.

Ash climbed up the embankment, using his empty hand to pull himself along. The rest of the squad waited until he made it to the top, had a look around, and then sent the all clear, before hiking up the slope themselves.

The four lane road was empty of any moving traffic. As well as pedestrians. There were cars in the street. But they were all abandoned. Some had been dented up as if they had been left after their owners got into an accident, or just hit after they were abandoned. Those ranging from minor rear-endings with other cars to one who had hit a telephone pole and had it land across the roof of the car, nearly splitting it in half. That was a crime. The car was a '78 Corvette, candy apple red and had been in mint condition. Ash hoped that the bastard responsible for the accident was found and shot. Pronto!

Ash unfastened his helmet, letting the straps hang and dangle where they may. They bounced off his shoulders and neck with each step he took, adding to his discomfort, if only to a minor degree. The damn thing was heavier than ever. The constant jostled as he marched was making his neck hurt more than ever. Worse yet, the sun beating down on the Kevlar was baking his brains. Only the fact that the Sergeant was marching at his back, rifle in hand, stopped him from taking the thing off and tossing it into the street. He was severely tempted to follow through, regardless of the consequences, but the image of Grover, bullet riddled and lying in his own blood, kept him in line.

A hail drifted forward from somewhere behind him, "Hey private?" The voice came from corporal Cummings.

"Yeah, whatcha want corporal?"

"See that smoke up there?" About five miles or so off to the southeast, where they were headed, only further, was a pillar of angry black smoke. He had been watching it silently as they marched.

"Yeah I see it. What about it?"

"What's it coming from?"

"A fire." That brought around a bunch of guffaws.

"No shit private. You should be hanging out with Sherlock Holmes with keen senses like those. I mean, since I gotta spell it out for you, what's on fire do you think?"

"How the hell should I know?"  
"You came from here didn't you?"

"Yeah. So?"

"What's over that way that could make a cloud of smoke like that?"

"Dugsville is up there, and it looks like the whole place has gone up. They don't have anything that would actually burn like that otherwise." That statement brought and unexpected silence, normally he would expect here to be gasps or something. But then again they were walking towards an awful big fire.

Ash looked up at the sky and fiddled with the mirrored sunglasses that he had been issued as part of his equipment. The sky was filled with big white puffy clouds that always reminded him of cotton. They seemed so soft and comfortable up there floating on the wind that they made him tired. Ash stumbled, tripping over a raised block in the sidewalk that had settled wrong and drifted upwards on one side. His helmet flew from his head as he raced forward, trying to keep his balance.

To the laughter of his squad, Ash walked over to where the helmet came to a rest. He stared at it for a moment, considering kicking the hated headgear underneath a car and forgetting about, before picking it up and continuing on. He made it perhaps fifty more steps when Sarge yelled up at him as he carried his helmet, letting it hang from his hand by the straps. "I don't care how well armored you think that orb atop your shoulders is private, you put that Kevlar back where it belongs!"

"It's baking my skull Sarge! Can't I just leave it?"

"With you nobody is going to be able to tell if the sun has fried your brains or not, they will notice however a gaping wound that wouldn't be there if you had your cover on. Now put it back on your head private." Ash enjoyed the breeze for a moment longer and then complied with a grunt. Really, what was the difference between getting his brains scrambled with a bullet and having them melt in the heat and drain from his ears?

They made their eastward turn onto a two-lane secondary road that would take them all the way to the aid station. About a block and a half further up the street, something caught his eye. Ash came to a stop.

There was an old woman leaning against the four-foot tall chain link fence. She was staring at him, only she was holding her head in a strange way. One arm was clutched across her chest as if it was injured while she was reaching out to him with the other.

Ash approached the old lady.

There was something defiantly wrong with her.

"Don't touch nothing Private! Leave that old biddy alone."  
The woman didn't even seem to notice the Sarge calling her an old biddy. Ash backed off. In this part of town, even the sweetest seeming old cooking making grandma type would pull a gun from her purse and gun down who ever made the make to say such a thing. The old lady just kept reaching for Ash, trying to snatch him with her good hand.

"What the fuck is wrong with her Sarge?" Ash tried to keep the fear from his voice, though there was a definite squeak at accompanied the word 'Sarge'.

"She's one of the plague victims according to the brass. Now stand back." Ash backed further away from the old woman. The rest of the squad stopped, standing just outside her reach and watched her. If this is what the plague did to you, it was even worse than what Ash had imagined before. As they all stood staring at the old lady, Sarge brought down his rifle, the old lady looked right at him and didn't make a sound, she just kept snatching at the air in a desperate attempt at reaching the squad. Sarge drilled a hole right between her eyes.

"Holy fuckin shit Sarge!." All the voices of the squad seemed to say at once. With personal variation. Ash was glad to find that he wasn't the only one who had managed a squeak.

Sarge bellowed over them all. "Shut up private. Now listen all of you. Don't let none of the infected mother fuckers get to close to you. Intel says that if they bite you, then you're fucked. Even a little love nip, and you end up like the old bitch there. You remember to shoot for the head. Anywhere else and these fuckers keep on coming."

"What the fuck is going on Sarge?"

"I don't know Tex, the captain says it's a biological thing, some nasty parasite, probably cooked up by them camel jockey terrorists out there in Durkastan or wherever the hell they come from. The chaplain says that it's an act of God wreaking his holy vengeance on humanity. But that nut-job says the same thing when the cook burns the toast. It don't matter where it came from. Just shoot any of them fuckers what don't talk in the head and have done with it."

Ash was greatly shaken when he resumed point. A disease that made people crazy so that they would turn on each other and fight to the death was bad enough. He didn't quite understand what was involved with this new disease, but the biting? Sarge made it sound like the sick people were actually trying to attack and maybe even eat anyone who wasn't sick. Shit. Fuck. Goddamn. Trying to kill each other, that was bad enough, but eating each other. That was just fucking insane.

Ash forgot about how uncomfortable his helmet was for a while. He even fastened the straps under his chin to keep it from falling off again. The sudden danger made him feel alert. Bringing on a kind of rush that he hadn't felt since his street racing days in high school. Ash held his rifle across his chest, with one finger on the trigger, if anything moved, he was going to kill it.

Nothing moved though. Until they finally found the medical check point

Sarge told them that the captain had said that people had flocked for the safe point set up by the medics. Ash had never quite understood what flocked meant until he saw the crowd. It looked like Christmas Eve at the Megamart. He held up his hand, palm open and facing back towards the squad. The hand sign that told them to halt, followed by the one that told them to get low.

Ash squatted behind the hood of a car, he had his army issue, hand me down binoculars out and was studying the scene. Pandemonium. He liked that word. Pandemonium. Made him feel smarter. He even knew what it meant, mostly. It was a good word to describe what was happening around the tents. People were milling around everywhere like sheep. Some of the tents had been torn, others had collapsed and were being walked all over by dozens of the diseased. Some where themselves squatting down, over corpses, ripping pieces of flesh off the bodies and eating them.

"Oh God, this really wasn't in the brochure." He said aloud as he crossed himself like he had seen people do on TV. He didn't know if God was listening, or if the gesture would help after a lifetime of skipping Sunday school to smoke cigarettes, drink beer and chase girls with his friends. His family wasn't really the church-going type in the first place. But it was better than nothing and it was the only thing he could think to do just then.

Ash tried to count them all. Giving up after fifty, barely scratching the surface. They were just moving around too much for him to keep track of as he counted. Even so, he guessed that there must be hundreds of the diseased fuckers wandering around the lot, with fifty crowding around the rear end of a deuce and a half truck that was even older than the ones given to his platoon. Only one tent, of four or five, was still left standing.

A hand closed on his shoulder, nearly making him grease his jockeys. Sarge squatted down next to him. "Doesn't look good."

"No sir. There must be hundreds of them." Sarge ignored the sir. Or maybe he didn't even notice it. He was staring hard at the crowd for a moment before he signaled the rest of the squad forward to join them.

"What's up Sarge?" Asked corporal Cummings as he settled down between Sarge and Ash, the butt of his rifle resting on his knee.

"There's a whole lot of ugly between us and the medics over there. Assuming that they're even around still, which seems unlikely as hell. Tex, get me command on that horn now."

Tex set his rifle up against the trunk of the car and pulled the radio from his back. "This is Tex, fourth squad, second platoon, Charlie company. Jake, put us through to command. Yeah I know shit's busy, but we're in a real weird situation here too. Need to get orders from the big boys. Yeah? That so? I'll hold on." Tex handed the phone to Sarge, and the squad gathered closer to try and make out the other side of the conversation.

"This is Sergeant Donaldson. We've found the fifth aid station, and it's been overrun already. Aye. Yes. I'm not sure, several hundred at least. What do you want us to do?" There was a pause and Sarge nodded, even though the voice from the other end couldn't see the gesture. "Yes sir. Repeat that." There was a long pause on Sarge's part where he quietly listened and nodded. "Ok. I got it, I just wanted to make certain. We'll do our best." Sarge returned the phone to Tex. "We've been ordered to go in. And check for survivors."

Corporal Cummings inched forward a bit, keeping low and behind the car. "Can't we just say that we didn't find any Sarge?"

"Nope. The brass wants a body count and we're going to give it to them."

"But those are unarmed civilians sir, they ain't breaking the law."

"The medical board says that they aren't even alive anymore."

"What?" The entire squad spoke at once. Aren't alive? They were walking around right that very moment. Dead people don't get up and walk around. Even Grover knew that one.

"That's what they said. The brass had a few of them rounded up and sent back to the eggheads who study this sort of buggy ass shit, they came back and said that they weren't alive any more. Zombies some smart ass named them. Like in all those cheap ass horror movies. According to the brass, the name seems to fit, fucked up as that is. You all seen those movies?"

There was a chorus of 'yeses'. Though Tex asked "How come they aren't moving fast?"

"What do you mean?"  
"In a couple of the zombie flicks, the zombies were fast fuckers. What about these guys?" There was another chorus of 'yeahs' as the squad agreed. They had all seen that movie too.

"Fucked if I know why. The egghead didn't tell anyone, just that they were stiff and slow and that to disable them for good, you got to scramble what's left of their brains. If they bite you, you're toast cause the eggheads won't be able to cure you. So if anyone gets bitten, shoot him too. It'll be a mercy since the eggheads say that death caused by this disease is slow and painful. You all got that this time?" More 'yeses'. Though they had more of a downcast tone.

"That's fucking weird man. Really weird." Ash had seen all those movies his dad before he left home after his high school graduation. But they were movies. Ash's brain started to buzz and then cloud over, leaving him feeling fuzzy and numb. A sensation that he hadn't felt since he had learned of his best friend's death in a car accident during one of their drag races. He and Big T had always thought that they would live forever and make it to the big leagues of drag racing. Then Big T died and Ash suddenly lost interest in racing, though he still loved cars.

"Alright kids. Time to make a dent. Remember, single shots, careful aim. Check your targets, who knows, there still might be civilians around here who isn't dead yet and need to be saved. Pretty girls and the like, might be happy if a big strong soldier were here to save her from death."

Avery grinned and said, "I could use a couple of those."

Cummings shot back, "A couple? Kid you wouldn't know what to do with your hand if you had a nudie magazine. You couldn't handle a couple of thankful girlies. Leave that to the professionals."

"Enough of the jawing. Get ready. On my mark soldiers." The squad spread out, finding comfortable cover to fire from. Sarge and Ash stayed behind the front tire of the car, an eighties model Oldsmobile that looked as if the owners had abandoned it to the elements. Ash leaned his rifles across the hood as he peaked over, shifting one leg under him so that he was resting on his knee. Squatting for very long really strained his thigh muscles.

Lynn set the phone back down on the cradle and returned her gaze to Douglas and Billy. Billy was a bouncing ball of energy, the excitement of the moment blazed on his face, he was near giggling with the shear delirium of ecstasy. It wasn't often that he got to live out a portion of his fantasy life and knowing just a few of his fantasies Lynn thought that was a major blessing. Billy was ready to go, he made it especially clear with how he was heaving about the tire iron that he kept for such a occasion, while obsessively peering out the window.

Douglas, after meeting Billy for the first time, had once told her that Billy reminded him of the chaos of the original Three Stooges all distilled and purified and placed into one body and then hit about the head until retarded. She was never quite sure what he meant exactly by that but she thought that she had a reasonably good idea. The only thing that Douglas was completely incorrect about was the level of Billy's intelligence, he was very smart, even if he didn't always act it. He was an expert at passing himself off as a raging idiot and making it work somehow to his advantage, sometimes. Curiously enough, he hadn't adopted that tactic until after he read the book "Scarlet Pimprenel". Billy had a lot of bizarre fantasies, and Lynn was still trying to puzzle out how the Scarlet Pimprenel fit into it all exactly.

Watching Billy in action was like watching a Three Stooges movie, it was funny in a childish sort of way and on some occasions he did surprise you by throwing out some higher-brow humor. But even so, it nearly always ended badly for Billy and anyone else he managed to tractor in. Like someone watching the Stooges, you could always see where it was going wrong and you were torn between shouting out some advice or just keeping silent to see where it all landed. If you were lucky you could observe the whole shebang from a safe distance, if you weren't, it was your home where the Stooges ended up throwing their party.

Douglas on the other hand was plainly dazed. He had taken the whole idea of a zombie uprising as a huge joke, a joke that he wouldn't even laugh at. To be honest Lynn never actually expected anything to happen either. She had felt that their constant planning over the years was all just a huge game that she and her friends played. Only Billy, with his flights of wild fancy, ever really took any of it too seriously. Only Billy dreamed and hoped that it would one day come to pass. And only Billy was nearly bursting at the seams with excitement. The rest of them, Douglas aside, just had fun making plans about what they would do and enjoying the companionship involved making empty preparations.

But here it all was. It was no longer a game, and Douglas was having a hard time getting that through his skull, he could be so difficult at times. Statistically, it was so unlikely that science fiction would over night become science fact, that even Lynn was feeling a bit dazed. Lynn heaved a sigh as she looked at the two men. She studied them for a long moment, they were so different. Billy was running his fingers through the mop of black hair and playing with the matching goatee that covered the bottom portion of his long, slender face. He stood several inches taller than Douglas, though he had a much more slender build. He was wearing his usual fare of a loose shirt that was three sizes too big for him, one that sported a local heavy metal band name, and a pair of holey jeans. Strange that he wore a shirt with a metal band on it, since he much preferred classic rock, and he despised college bands.

Douglas on the other hand had a square looking face that was covered in scars. The scars shyly implied the bad acne that he had had as a teenager. His light brown hair was cropped short, he was wearing a tight shirt that she loved on him, it showed off his wonderfully tight muscles. To bottom it off, he wore pair of unflattering, loose cargo pants.

"He'll meet us there." She finally said as she picked up her backpack and joined her friends at the door. "Let's get on our way, we don't want to be late." Douglas just nodded, she even doubted that he had heard what she had said, while Billy nodded and continued to bounce his tire iron in his hand as he gamboled through the living room doorway and into the hall beyond. Douglas followed him and Lynn brought up the rear, passing her eyes one final time over the place that had been her home for so many years. She left it behind, rejoining her two friends outdoors.

The sky was a beautiful blue. In all of her imaginings she had never expected this. Usually the sky had been dark and rainy. It was always more dramatic that way. Romantic and dangerous. Fleeing for your life on a day that would be perfect for a church picnic just didn't seem to mesh well. She never really let herself pretend that such a terrible episode in life would take place on a sunny summer's day. The dark and stormy night was cliché, but it was, emotionally, so ingrained to humanity's subconscious. Terrible things, of course, did happen on gorgeous days, but it made for less dynamic day-dreaming.

They didn't even bother with the stairs, instead stepping off the porch over next to the driveway. They would take Douglas' truck, it was the best choice for more reasons than she could name. It hands down out performed her old pacer, and Billy's mountain bike wasn't even really an option. Even with all of Billy's energy powering it. The three of them piled into the cab with Lynn at the wheel, and sitting in the bitch seat Billy between them. It was up to her to drive since Douglas wasn't yet up to speed on the reality of what was happening. He was still trying to convince himself that it was all just a huge joke engineered by Jason and Billy to mess with his head.

The engine came to life and purred as she turned the key in the ignition. Lynn threw it into gear and then slowly backed the black truck out of the driveway, making sure that she didn't hit anything. She hated driving the thing, it was like driving a tank to her. Of course it was nice to be so high above the road and all the other little cars, but then the beast didn't handle as well as one of those little cars did. On second thought, a tank would have been easier to drive than this, the truck responded something more like a bus.

They were going to meet up with Jason at the gun shop. If they were really lucky John, the gun shop owner would join them, if not, well she didn't want to really think about that if she could help it, there were too many possibilities and each was worse than the one before. Lynn put the truck into gear and the three of them started on their way to surviving.

#

The streets were almost completely empty, with only the occasional walking corpse to liven the trip. Still Lynn was exceedingly careful not to hit anyone on the way to meeting Jason at the gun shop, she still wasn't used to the idea of the walking dead. To say the least she was rather uncomfortable running over a neighbor in cold blood. Even if that neighbor was cold blooded themselves. Lynn didn't even want to picture the conniption that Douglas would have if she did plow into a zombie or three along the way. He treated the truck like a child, and would be livid at the prospect of having to clean human gore off of the grill. For now he was sitting in a catatonic state. She felt it best to leave him that way.

Billy on the other hand was bouncing up and down in the seat next to her, pointing out all the people that she could potentially run over and then voicing his disappointment that she chose to ignore him. She couldn't figure out why he was so terribly hyper. He was like sitting next to a small child, one who had gotten his hands on an entire pot of coffee. Come to think of it, that morning's coffee had disappeared at a dizzying pace. The whole situation made Lynn's hands twitch. She wanted to yell at him to calm down and shut up, like she would a rambunctious five year old. The only thing holding her in check and keeping her from losing her temper was the simple fact that she knew that it would have no effect on her friend. Nothing short of drugging him would manage to have any effect.

Miraculously enough, the three of them made it all the way across town without any real trouble. Douglas remained in his daze, though he was beginning to show signs of life as they pulled up to the gun shop, while Billy nearly burst from the cab of the truck, like a startled duck from a pond, the moment they pulled into the small parking lot.

Douglas stayed with the truck as Lynn and Billy went over to check out the store. Billy leaned against the glass window and gazed inside an attempt to try to find out whether or not anyone was home. It wouldn't be pinnacle of wisdom to break into a store where jumpy and paranoid owner was not only surrounded by firearms but also exceedingly proficient in their use. John was armed to the teeth and it was doubtful that he would be pleased with what they were planning on doing. If he was around, it was much safer just to get his permission and help. They could use him on their side.

Billy stopped staring through the window and turned to her "There's no one home."

"Are you sure?" They all knew that John lived in a small apartment in the back of his store. He rarely went anywhere, aside from purchasing groceries or other such things and he never left town. Not being home in a crisis like this would be very unlike John. He had the survivalist instinct and what better place to stay than in his own gun shop?

Billy turned away from the glass and looked at her, "Well, what do you think we should do?" It was a good question, and she was glad that he hadn't answered it his own self.

"I don't know." Was all she could reply. Their plans so far had involved getting help from John. If he was gone, then they would have to do some serious improvisation. Lynn looked back through the window, shielding her eyes from the sunlight to get a better look. Nobody was home. "We have to get in there somehow."

"Yeah, any ideas how Douglas?" He yelled back to Douglas who had finally climbed out of the cab of his truck, only to stumbled dazedly around. He wasn't going to answer. But really Billy didn't look as he had expected an answer in the first place. It was then that she noticed that Billy's face had lit up as he was looking at Douglas. She turned her head to try to figure out why he was so happy all of a sudden, but all she could see was Douglas' truck.

That was when it struck her. She knew Billy too long not to be able to figure out exactly what he was thinking when he looked at Douglas' truck like that. It was a good idea if one discounted the blatant breaking and entering element and the possibility of startling the well armed and slightly unstable veteran inside. Also there was the terrible noise, not just from the act itself, but also Billy's shouts of glee and Douglas' response to what he was planning.

Imagining Douglas' response is what decided her in Billy's favor. Crashing his truck through the window of John's gun shop would manage to both let them into the store to do their shopping and at the same time break Douglas out of the sullen funk that he had descended into. She nodded to Billy and motioned him towards the truck. He gave her a quick grin before jumping in and closing the door behind him.

With another guttural roar the diesel engine came to life. Billy was still grinning widely as he put the truck into gear and backed up out of the parking lot and across the street from where the store stood. Lynn grabbed Douglas by the hand and pulled him away from the window, she kept walking with him until she reached a distance that she thought was safe from flying glass and debris.

There was a screech of the tires as he hit the gas and charged the truck forward. And then the sound of steel bars being torn and a huge explosion of glass shattering and flying in every direction. Jason was going to be upset that he had missed something like this, he loved watching things get broken. He would have flipped out over this, especially with Douglas' truck being thrown in to sweeten the deal. She was sure that Billy would tell him, and gloat for weeks over how he had missed such an auspicious occurrence.

Billy slowly backed the truck out of the window. Some of the remaining glass fell to the ground, as the truck vacated the window, hitting the pavement below with a wonderful smashing sound that was almost an echo of the truck going through the window in the first place. The paint was scratched a little and there was some minor denting, but beside that the truck was still in good shape. Billy had backed the truck out of the storefront, leaving them enough space to get into the building, without moving it too far away in case they needed to get out in a hurry.

The crash had brought Douglas around to his senses, or at least close. He let out a long yip and stared in disbelief at his truck with all it's nice new scratches and dents. Billy jumped out of the cab and gave him a grin and he passed tossing him the keys and he walked by. Lynn could tell that he had wanted to do something like that to Douglas' truck for ages. Douglas delivered a look of pure death at Billy, he had moved strait from shock to rage, a good sign that he was well on his way back to normal.

The two of them left Douglas out in front with his truck and stepped closer to the broken window to have a better look around. Surprisingly there wasn't an alarm going off, which didn't make much sense given John's obsession with security, but Lynn wasn't about to complain when good fortune shared with them her wonderful smile. Thank goodness for small blessings. Still they moved at a leisurely pace

Billy giggled. Causing Lynn to look over at him in amusement. It was the sort of excited little giggle that you would expect from a 9 year old girl on Christmas morning as she waited in anticipation, drooling, to open her pile of gifts. Billy had that exact same gleam in his eye as he looked around the store. His fingers were wiggling as if they too itched with excitement. The way he moved his legs made Lynn wonder if he was going to pee himself from excitement before the day was through. He really wanted to get into the store and start picking out new toys. Lynn couldn't blame him either.

The two of them picked their way through the wreckage, leaving Douglas at the front of the store next to his truck, somewhere between bawling his own eyes out and gouging out Billy's. It was the first sign of life that he had really shown in the last couple of days, ever since the shock had set in of Billy having been right in the end. All in all it was probably better that he wasn't allowed into a room full of guns considering his present state of mind.

#

The crunch of glass underfoot accompanied them half way through the store, as they climbed carefully over the larger mounds of wreckage. Their forced entry had caused some damage, but not much to anything important. Mostly it was just racks and shelves of coats and other odds and ends that they weren't really interested in. For security reasons all the weapons and ammunition were kept to the back of the store.

The glass cases that held the handguns were largely intact, as were the wall mounted racks of shotguns and rifles that were lined behind the showcases that lined the store. Lynn bent over and picked up a compass that had at one time resided on one of the ruined shelves near the front window. The store had been so orderly and clean and that had ended so suddenly. If she were a poet or a philosopher Lynn might store that comparison for later. She dropped the compass again and joined Billy in picking her way to the back of the store once more.

Billy was rummaging through the wreckage, from time to time stooping to examine something that caught his interest. Billy was a strange character and Lynn never knew what might catch his fancy. He resembled a heron wading in the shallow, from time to time thrusting a out at something shiny lying on the floor below. He was probably one of, if not the most intelligent people that she had ever met, that included all of her professors in school. Billy was blazingly intelligent, smarter than herself by a long shot. The frustrating part of it all was that he didn't seem to care. He had a tendency to act like a goofy little kid, ignoring the important work ahead for a sparkly trinket that captured his imagination.

He knew he was smart, he picked up skills as natural as breathing it seemed. But he never really applied himself. He had no direction, no ambition, he was gifted and he was content wasting his gift memorizing lines from movies (not even good movies, Billy had terrible taste in films). He had often gone off on wild flights of fancy that one might expect from a small child rather than a grown man.

By the time she came back into reality from her own musings. Billy was leaning over one of the glass counters and admiring the shotguns. She noticed that it didn't take him very long to get there. Kid in a candy store was an understatement and far too innocent. Conspiracy theorist in the CIA archives much more adequately described the amount of pure glee and sheer drool that Billy was discharging at that moment.

Something towards the back of the store caught her attention. Some movement perhaps. Lynn looked up, towards the disturbance. It was John! She smiled for a moment and waved. She stepped forward with an apology on her lips for the mess before she realized that it was John. Was. The walking corpse raised its hand and shambled forward out of the doorway into the store proper before stopping and gazing around. It seemed indecisive about which direction to go first.

Lynn called out to Billy, to make sure he had seen John too, he had. Billy catapulted himself over the counter ten feet away from where John had stopped. He quickly got to his feet with his tire iron at the ready. Billy waved his hands at John to try and get it's attention. It took a moment for the thing to respond and when it did is awkwardly turned and started to shamble forward as speedily as it's dysfunctional legs would carry it. Billy sighed and shook his head, he only had one option.

"Rest in peace John," Lynn mumbled under her breath as Billy started inching closer with his tire iron, getting ready to take a swing to end their friend's mockery of existence. John raised his hand and reached Billy as he brought the tired iron down in his skull with a wet crunch. Lynn covered her eyes, trying to let the wave of nausea pass, as Billy took one more swing to try to finish the job. There was a thud of a body hitting the floor before Lynn opened her eyes again. The store blurring a little before her.

"Sit tibi terra levis," was all Billy said as he stood over the still twitching corpse. She had no idea what it meant, Billy was fond of bringing up sayings in foreign languages and Latin was his favorite. Billy and Lynn had been as close to John as he allowed anyone to get, a distant friendship at best. But it was a friendship that they both had cherished. Images flashed through her mind of happier times, when on the rare occasion John would share briefly with them one of his warm smiles, before once again hiding behind his emotionless mask. The four of the friends, Jason included, had spent hours talking about everything from religion and politics to how to best make improvised booby traps to kill or wound the enemy. The conversations were often morbid, but still rather enjoyable.

Billy threw the bloodied tire iron to the floor as if it were now tainted and burned his hand with its mere touch. Maybe it was tainted since it was covered in the blood of an old friend. Either way Lynn would be just as glad to leave the thing behind and let it rust away with the terrible loss that it represented.

None of that mattered any more, all that mattered now was that they get what they needed and move on to survive. Survival was their only goal, and to be distracted by anything else would lead to death, or worse, infection. It's really how John would have wanted it. Still she felt a pang of guilt now that he was dead and they were looting his store. Lynn turned her attention back to the racks of guns on the wall. All she knew is that she wanted to make it all worth while.

There was the occasional rifle, even some of machineguns, but none of those interested her ever. The three of them had decided that a shotgun was the way to go. It was simple and effective, or so John had always insisted. You could find more ammo for it just about anywhere in the country. And it made a huge mess out of anything that got in its way. It was pure fire power and better yet it could be put to use for other purposes such as hunting. Space was limited, so the shotgun was the way to go. The only downside to it was that it didn't have too much range, but since the zombies wouldn't be shooting back, that was far less important than it would be in a combat situation.

She liked the Remington model right in front of her. Sleek and cool with a solid wooden stock. Pump action with a seven round tubular magazine. It could deal out death at a distance, or up close.

As she was looking at all the guns available she heard Billy make a sound. It wasn't just any sound, but his excited noise which reminded her of what might happen if he giggled the word 'woah.' It was a sigh, a moan and an exclamation of joy all rolled up in one strange sputter. Whenever that noise arose, it meant that Billy had found a point of interest. It had happened before, in other stores and often times the events and actions that followed that sound were memorable and highly embarrassing. It wasn't something that she wanted to particularly hear in a shop full of potentially dangerous and deadly firearms. Of course from what she remembered of other occasions, she didn't want to hear it in a hospital, a school playground or a principal's waiting room either.

A shiver ran strait down her spine as Lynn spun around to try and see what got Billy so excited. For a moment her breath caught as she expected the worst, only to be released when she saw that he hadn't found a rocket launcher or something worse. Billy was cradling and also stroking in the crook of his left arm, a large mace. He was cooing to it like he, well maybe not him, but anyone else would to a small child.

"Where did you find that?" She asked him as he purred to his new best friend. "I've never seen it before."

"It was in the storage room, I think John just got it."

"What do you plan to do with it?" She had a feeling that she knew, but nothing with Billy was ever certain and those who thought that they knew him near always encountered an unpleasant surprise.

"I shall call him lord Bashinator, for truly one so great needs a truly great name."

"Lord Bashinator?"

"Scourge of Zombie kind! He will get medieval upon the asses of any corpses that stumble across his path." With that he took a test swing with the mace and smashed the glass on one of the cases displaying handguns. A grin spread across his face, a delirious look that screamed to Lynn that the case was just the first casualty of many if she didn't step in and put a stop to the silliness. If she were lucky it would only be more glass, if she were unlucky he might bolt out of the front in search of more lifelike targets to test out his new toy.

Billy tried to do some fancy sword moves with the mace, rolling it around in his hands only to drop the heavy mace and have to jump back so that it didn't smash his toes. A moment into watching Billy's attempts at mace ninjitsu, Lynn heard a door slam out front. It seemed that Jason had arrived at last, late as ever.

She went to meet him at the front door. Jason stepped out of his El Camino, Mike, a little car-truck hybrid that was nearing its last days of usefulness. The expression on his face was one of amusement, though it was a mask that hid a deeper pain. A pain different than the angst filled darkness that he often lived with. He was tall, the tallest of the four of them, if not by much, particularly due to his slightly hunched shoulders. He hard dark hair, and grey eyes. He was somewhere between average and cute, closer to cute, and her female friends all agreed and wondered why he was still single. He stood and admired the mess that Billy had made both of the front window and Douglas' car, and looked as if he was trying to save the image for all eternity.

Everyone else was in place and waiting for the word to go. "Ok kids. Open fire."

Ash took careful aim and squeezed the trigger just like he had been taught. The zombie dropped to the ground like a sack of cow shit. Hot damn. This was much better than the video games. Maybe he could get himself a chainsaw or something too.

The zombies took notice of the snipers, if not the corpse dropping like flies around them, and slowly moved towards where the squad's position across the street. They were slow, just like in most of the movies, and before anyone made it even midway across the street, they were neutralized with a single bullet in the brainpan. Ash slapped in a second magazine. Just like eating pancakes, as his dad always said.

A tan pickup truck, seventies model Ford with a V6 that sounded like it was in need of some work, screeched down the road, several people were standing in the bed holding onto the roof of the cab with one hand and shotguns and rifles held, pointing to the sky, in the other. The truck came to a halt about two hundred feet from Ash's squad.

"Those soldiers are shooting at those people! Stop them!" A shotgun blast came from one of the riders in the truck, followed by two more and then a fourth. Glass shattered behind Ash's head as he hid further behind the car's engine block. Bullets flew over his head and the car rocked slightly as the engine was struck and kinetic energy was spent as lead became embedded in steel.

A woman's voice screamed over the megaphone, "You people, run! We'll cover you! Run damn it! Run now!" Her words punctuated by more gunfire. "Flee to safety!"

The mob of zombies had split, with one group heading for Ash and his squad, and the other going for the people in the truck. "What are you doing?" The woman yelled again through the bullhorn "Get to safety!"

Tex was yelling into the radio. "We're under attack by armed civies! We need some sort of support now! What? Ah shit!" Tex threw down the phone and yelled "We're on our Sarge, they ain't doing nothing to help us. First platoon has already been overrun, they took heavy casualties. Everyone else is stretched thin as it is, gotten worse now. They called the lieutenant and the rest of our guys back and let the roadblock go. We gotta save what we can here, and then meet back up with them."

Ash's squad ignored the civilians and kept picking off the zombies. A gunshot could be patched up, but according to Sarge one of those bites meant ending up dead no matter how much penicillin they medics poured down your throat. Besides, the civilians didn't seem to know how to shoot worth a damn anyway.

Just was he thought it, the corporal went down, screaming and clamping his face as blood gushed through his fingers.

"What are you doing?" The woman screamed over her bullhorn, "Don't come this way! Run! We're trying to save you from the government!" The driver of the truck tried to throw it into reverse and back away, to flee the oncoming wall of flesh that was about to crash over his truck like it was a rock being covered by an ocean wave. Ash was suddenly reminded of the movie the Ten Commandments and Pharaoh's troops being swallowed by the red sea.

The zombies encompassed the cab and absorbed it into their mass. Ash watched as they reached in and grabbed the driver, pulling him through the window. His body disappeared underneath a flood of limbs. Only the sounds of his screams suggested that he was still living under the crush. The driver's friends turned their weapons onto the zombies and away from his squad.

Ash slotted another magazine, his third. He had blown through Thirty-eight rounds so far, a third of the six magazines that he had brought along with him from the roadblock. Thirty-Eight rounds and thirty-eight zombies. Not too bad if he said so himself. But then, they were only a hundred feet away, and they weren't trying to hide. A child could do that well.

The area around the tents was completely clear of the walking dead. Though some still remained clamoring at the back of the truck, most of the undead had shifted towards Ash's squad and the gun-toting hippies. Gunfire and screaming were still coming from the truck. The woman and a couple of men were sitting on top of the cab, slapping away groping hands that were seeking to rend flesh and feed.

"Fuck." Said Sarge. All of the zombies who had surged towards the squad were now lying completely dead in the road, turning the street into a river of blood. "Looks like we're going to have to save those stupid fuckers."

"They shot Cummings!"

"Yeah, I know. And the stupid fuckers will pay for it. But until then, we still gotta protect them. That's our job, shitty as it is sometimes. Besides, you were looking for some chicks to save earlier, well there's one right over there."

"Yeah, I wanted girls that would be happy to see us, not some brain baked psycho pot head." Avery said.

Tex overrode him, "She might not be happy for the help. But she also might have some weed, and I can use a good bowl of it."

"That shit's illegal private."

"Who's gonna arrest me Sarge?"

"Good point kid, save a couple tokes for me, been a long time since I got high. The missus never really liked the smell."

They closed with the truck, picking off zombies as they went, working from the front and rear ends towards the center, doing everything they could to avoid shooting the civilians crouching on top of the truck's cab. They left White behind with Cummings, to try and patch him up and get the corporal ready to move. If possible. The corporal looked pretty messed up when Ash handed White his spare bandages, and he was bleeding all over the place. Ash wasn't a medic, but it didn't look like Cummings would be up and walking any time soon.

His squad picked off the last handful the zombies surrounding the truck. Sarge himself put the last round into the skull of a man who had been torn apart, the driver of the truck probably.

The woman and her surviving friends climbed down off the cab of the jeep and onto the ground. Sarge stood facing them, feet spread apart and his fists on his hips. He reminded Ash of a pitbull getting ready to charge. Ash took a step back. No matter what went down in the next few minutes, it was going to be ugly. Sarge fired the first salvo. "Just who the hell are you people?"

"You murdered Andrew! You Fascist pig!" The woman screamed in Sarge's face. Her own face was splotchy, red and covered with tears. The woman had probably broken down when everything started going down hill and the zombies attacked the truck instead of running as expected. Ash knew that's probably when he would have done the same, if he was in her place.

The girl was in her late twenties, and looked like a modern hippie wannabe. He hair was in dreads and she was wearing what looked like a ratty mishmash of homemade clothing mixed with stuff picked up at the local thrift shop. A patchwork headband keeping her dreads out of hear eyes with a dress over her pants and one of those Che t-shirts popular with the commies that she probably picked up from a head shop somewhere.

He had known a few girls like her during high school, one and all, they needed to shower more often, and shave their legs and pits. Rich bitch wannabe suburban communist revolutionaries. Ash hadn't liked her type then, and liked them less now that her friend shot Cummings. The woman took a wild swing at Sarge. Sarge blocked her fist and pushed her down on the curb.

Her two friends were similarly dressed. It was as if they all came from the same commune. They both looked baked out of their gourds as well. Ash could even smell the pot smoke on them. Goddamn hippies. He wondered if they had any weed that they would be willing to part with. He thought about asking them, but they both looked too lost and confused to even bother. And given the woman's reaction, he doubted that their response would be in the affirmative.

"Shut the hell up you stupid hippie bitch," Sarge growled at the woman, "It's your own Goddamned fault that one of my boys and your two friends are in that mess. You're lucky I don't just shoot you right here and now and get it over with! Fucking stupid commies!" That was the first time Ash ever heard Sarge lose it. He yelled at the platoon from time to time, and called them idiots. But there never was any real anger behind his words.

Tex was on the radio again, getting new orders. Ash and Avery stole over to the deuce and a half near the tents. Watching Sarge with the hippie woman was getting boring. He was pacing as he waited for orders and tried to decide what to do next and she was crying. The zombies surrounding the back end were intent on whatever was within and took no notice of their approach, until it was too late. Ash slotted his fourth magazine as he stepped over the still twitching remains of what had been a woman.

Ash shouldered his rifle and began to load the first six rounds from the other magazines by hand into the empty clip. He had saved them in the front breast pocket of his shirt, never really expecting to need them, but letting his packrat instinct take over just in case. Six more bullets would mean six more dead zombies, maybe more if he got really lucky. High-speed projectiles like bullets did tend to pass on through bodies. Heh, something he learned in his high school remedial science class. Best class he ever had.

He looked at the bodies at his feet. Several of them had been bitten recently, more than one had since been patched up. Ash wondered if the medics had been treating the bastards who then turned around and killed them.

Avery stood tiptoe and peered into the shadows in the back of the truck "Holy shit!"

"What's up?"  
"We got survivors her Ash." Avery waved for him to come over and Ash complied, standing next to his friend and trying to penetrate the gloom. He couldn't see a damn thing and said so.

"Take off your shades you dummy!" That did the trick. There were three of them. A woman and two men. A nurse, a doctor and a soldier. They were all huddled as far back from the entrance as they could manage, their hands folded over their ears and their eyes squeezed shut. The soldier had hung open as if he had been screaming and couldn't stop, even as his voice collapsed under the stress leaving them mute.

They unhitched the door and Avery handed Ash his rifle before scuttling up into the rear end of the truck. "Hey howdy guys! You three alright? Command sent us to rescue you and now we can use your help, if you wouldn't mind, we have some seriously wounded soldiers out there." He got closer as he spoke. His hands up before him with the palms facing out. Avery sat down on one of the benches, several steps away from the trio. He turned back to Ash and said "Call the Sarge man, these folks can use some help."

"Sarge! Over here! We found survivors!" The sergeant came running, the rest of the squad, at least the ones who could still stand, following close at his heels.

"Ah hell. Ok Avery, get them down out of there, let's get them into the tent and fixed up. We're going to need them soon enough." Avery and ash picked up the soldier first and dragged him by the shoulders to the back of the truck and passed him gently down to the rest of the squad. Next came the doctor, a man in his mid fifties, followed last by the nurse who was in her early thirties. The soldier had been younger than Ash, in his late teen years.

All three of the survivors were wearing bloodstained army issued olive drab BDUs. Ash recalled hearing that there had been more than twenty soldiers and personal assigned to this particular station. He was willing the bet a month's pay that the other thirty-seven were out on the ground, each in possession of a hollow, shattered skull.

The three survivors were carried from the truck and placed on gurneys in the largest of the four medical tents that constituted the temporary compound. "James, Avery, you stay here and help me with these folks. The rest of you, bring in Cummings and then guard those hippies, make sure that they don't cause us any more trouble than they have already, but don't hurt the stupid fuckers."

Schmidt, Tex and White departed at a run, their rifles slung over their shoulder, barrels slapping on their thighs with each jarring step. Tex and White returned after a couple of minutes with Cummings between them. "No good Sarge, he's gone." Tex said as they placed Cummings on an empty gurney.

"Damn it. All right then, you two go and join Schmidt in guarding the prisoners. But don't fuck with them."

Tex and White both patted Cummings on the chest as they left. Cummings had been well liked among their squad, as well as the rest of the platoon. As much for his Spring Break stories as anything else. Even the older members, the Sarge included, enjoyed listening to his adventures down in Mexico.

Sarge had already turned back to the doctor. The man was still holding his eyes tightly shut while murmuring under his breath. When Ash listened closely, with his ear almost touching the doctor's lips, it sounded like "No, get away, don't let it bite you." Over and over."

Avery extended a finger and poked the doctor in the chest. The man neither opened his eyes or so much as slowed his muttering. Avery then gave him a slap across the face, enough to get his attention, but not enough to actually hurt the man. Again nothing. "What are we going to do Sarge?"

"We're going to get real scientific on these three. James, go out and get me a couple buckets full of water. Ice water if you can find it."

"Scientific huh?"

"Yeah, scientific, now shut your noise hole and get that damn water." Sarge returned to scratching his chin and studying the doctor as Ash left the tent.

Ash found ice water in a half full cooler in the third tent. He removed everything that would make the cooler heavier when he tried dragging it back to Sarge. Stopping for a minute to slam down the cold wet contents of a Coke can, before he lifted the cooler and stumbling under the weight as he delivered it back to the big tent.

"Here you go," he told Sarge as he set down the cooler. Ash could nearly hear his back creaking with the effort. He wanted to drop it, but figured that the sergeant would yell at him some more if he did. He stood up, put his hands on his back, stretched out and cracked it.

"Good. Now help get the doctor on the floor. No need to get the stretcher wet too." Ash whimpered. He was still sore from scavenging the cooler full of water, fifty gallons of water was heavy, but he jumped to get the job done. With Avery on one side, they lifted the catatonic man by his shoulders and knees off of the gurney and set him face down on the ground.

Sarge had found a plastic bucket that was good enough for what he had in mind, dunked it into the cooler and dumped a gallon of frigid water onto the doctor. The man leapt up off the floor and onto his hands and knees, screaming his lungs out and shivering. They left him at it for a moment. The doctor flipped over and sat up, staring around wildly and screaming for all he was worth.

Sarge squatted down besides the doctor and hauled off and slapped him hard across the face, throwing his face backwards and knocking him to the ground. The screaming stopped, replaced by ragged breathing. Sarge took a hold of the doctor's shoulder, "Are you better now soldier."

"I'm alive?"

"Seem to be, yes?"

"Betty, and private Martin? They were in the truck with me..."

"They're here. We were about to give them a dose of the same treatment we gave you." Sarge gave Avery a hand signal and Avery picked up the nurse, Betty and put her on the floor next to the doctor. "Ok folks, stand back. Sir, will you be ready to calm her after the fact?" The doctor, with the rank of short colonel, nodded and kneeled down near the nurse. Ash was slightly amused by the sight of such a high level officer taking orders from a lowly reserve sergeant. Though he didn't say anything.

Sarge scooped up another bucket full of water and then upturned it onto the unconscious nurse. She jerked awake with a single high-pitched shriek, kicking herself backwards and trying to escape. The doctor grabbed her by the shoulders "Betty, it's everything is fine, we're safe." She stopped trying to run.

"Murray? What happened?" She asked, her voice quivering. Ash couldn't tell if it was from the cold or just raw emotions. Perhaps it was some of each.

"It looks like the cavalry has arrived my dear. How many men did you bring with you Sergeant?"

"I had six, but one of them died of his wounds before we found you. What about the private over here?

"Best leave the kid alone for now. He saw his entire unit annihilated by those things before we dragged him into the rear of the truck with us. The kid tried to help, but his bullets were ineffective, they just kept on coming no matter how many times he shot them. He's going to need a lot of work before he can sort out all this mess. Come to think of it, I am too."

"We were told by command to shoot the things in the head. That seemed to work."

He stroked Betty's hair as he thought the new revelation over. She had stopped crying, and was now sniffling onto his shoulder. "Did it? A bullet to the brain stopped them? Nothing else? Interesting, like one of those horror movies about the walking dead."

#

The street was mostly clear around Jane's house. There were a few zombies scattered about, and he had their attention, but he would be in and out quick enough for it not to matter too much. Hopefully. Jane moved pretty slow most days, so she might be hard to get to the car quickly. But on the other hand he could probably just carry her down from her apartment to the car. After Lynn she was the single most important woman in his world and he would do everything in his power to keep her safe until her natural end came.

Jason passed through the front door of the house and climbed up the stairway to the landing on the second floor. He stopped at the door to her apartment and put his ear to the door listening for any sounds. After a moment he took a breath before turning the handle, pushing it open and entering in a single movement. The door was never locked, it never had been and probably never would be. Jane didn't seem to ever feel the need to lock the door. She complained regularly about the state of society, and crime, and such forces, she worried about them, but she always left her door unlocked. Old habits died hard.

He felt it immediately that there was something wrong. The kitchen was as clean as ever, but something was off. The smell. Normally the apartment smelled of cinnamon. Or of freshly baked bread. That smell was gone and replaced with the smell of rotting meat. "Jane?" he called aloud, looking in both directions. There was always hope. Maybe the Goddess Luck was still smiling on him, or at the very least, not sneering.

Jason entered slowly. Hefting his hammer. There was no sign of the frail seventy five year old woman in the kitchen that made up the entranceway to her small apartment. The place was clean, as it had always been, he took that as a good omen. Jane always made sure that her home was clean, it was a trait that she had impressed on Jason from an early age. There he stood, looking around her kitchen. She wasn't there, he knew it and he didn't expect her to suddenly burst from one of the cupboards but he hadn't yet worked up the courage to move onward. So there he stood for the moment, until his ears caught a faint sound. Something that sounded like a low muffled conversation coming from the other room. He felt his hopes rise for the first time all day.

With his hammer still in his right hand, primed and ready to swing, Jason crept towards the sounds in the other room. He was ready for anything that might be on the other side of the wall. Carefully he eased his way along to the wall toward the doorway. Jason raised his hammer, ready to strike, as he reached the doorway slowly edging his head around the corner to get a good look at the next room without being noticed if at all possible.

The sound of the conversation came from the television. It was sending a flicker across the walls of the darkened room. Two people were talking about the latest news and figures and statistics. Both of the anchors looked and sounded haggard as if they had been on the air for days straight without a break. Briefly checking the ticker across the bottom of the screen, Jason noted that the government forces had fallen back, still trying to protect what they could.

Jason scanned the rest of the room. A lone figure sat in the thirty year old floral print chair that sat directly in front of the television with its back to the kitchen door. "Jane?" he asked softly.

There was no response.

"Jane?"

He stepped out onto the compacted yellow shag carpet and edged his way carefully towards the chair. Jason kept a very close eye on the doorway in the wall on the other side of the room. Jane lived alone and had done so for years since he had moved out, but you never know what might happen. Years of watching horror movies had had their effect, he learned their hard lessons well, tutored by the woes of the characters within.

The figure still wasn't moving as he got closer. He could see that it was Jane. Hope died as he looked on her kindly old face as it was being bathed in the light from the television.

Jason shook his head sadly. This wasn't the way that he had imagined the end to the kind old woman who had taken him after his parents had died. She should have been surrounded by friends and family in the end, slipping peacefully into whatever darkness came after life. Instead she had cut her wrists while sitting alone in her dark apartment. Jason wanted to throw up. Jason wanted to cry. He leaned back against the wall and allowed himself to slide down to the floor.

Jason dried his eyes on the knees of his pants. He didn't know how long he had been crying, he had shut off the television so that he no longer had to listen to the anguish that rung out with each spoken word. He had enough despair of his own.

He rose back to his feet, picked up his hammer. It was time to leave to join his friends. Survival came first, grief came later. With his free hand touched her head and said a soft prayer that she had taught him when he was a child. There wasn't much else that he could do for her now and nothing else seemed quite fitting. With some last wishes for eternal peace he turned back and walked out. Of her apartment for the last time.

Back on the street the straggling zombies had moved closer. Most of them were still not near enough to be threatening. One was standing by the car. Jason felt rage rise up in him. The zombie turned towards the noise just as Jason sent a kick into its chest causing it to tumble onto its ass, before crushing the thing's skull with his hammer. He squatted to wipe the head of the hammer off on the thing's clothes and stood back up.

Jason walked to Mike again, back to the driver's side door and got in. Tossing the hammer into the passenger's seat. Now it was time to be on his way to join Lynn and Billy, there was work to be done.

Jésus bounded upstairs. Taking the steps two at a time. Bursting into the small bedroom that he and his girlfriend shared, much to his mother's shame. She was still very traditional in her views, but she mostly kept it to herself since they were getting married in a few months anyhow. Besides, his oldest brother had been illegitimate, though he never brought that fact up. His mother wasn't so old and stodgy that she had forgotten how much fun sex was, after all she had had five children herself. Too bad most of them had moved away.

He opened his sock drawer and sorted through it for his 9mm, and the spare magazine that he had kept just in case something bad went down. Though he always expected that it would have been one of the hooligan gang members, one of his old compadres, and not the walking dead, who would come for him in the end.

He also retrieved his golf club from the equally tiny closet. It was a solid weapon, made of titanium. He had found it mixed in with the others in a bin at the local Goodwill. The club had been his pride and joy during his reign as a Ghetto Golf champion. Lately it had sat forgotten in his girlfriend's closet. It was her closet after all, he didn't need to store any clothing in there.

Jésus also grabbed George's double barrel shotgun and the box of shells. George always said that he was going to take up deer hunting one day so he went out and bought what amounted to an antique shotgun at a flea market. The weapon still worked, George had made sure of that, but it was rarely ever used for its intended purpose. George wasn't a woodsman in the least, he didn't like getting up early and he didn't like cold weather. Hunting deer in November was usually out of the question.

He put the 9mm in his belt, the magazines in his right pocket and carried the golf club in one hand and the shotgun and box of shells in the other leaning across his chest, while taking the stairs three at a time on the way down, nearly tripping when he reached the landing.

When he came back downstairs his mother and sister were making sandwiches, while his brother in law and girlfriend were out strapping the kids into the van and getting ready to go. Jésus passed through the kitchen and out into the garage.

"Here, take this," he said to get George's attention as he handed him the shotgun and box of shells.

George looked at the shotgun as he hefted it. "Think we'll really need this Jésus?"

"I don't know friend, but better safe than sorry yes?"

"Yeah, better safe than sorry." George said as he loaded a couple shells into the breach before turning back to the van and putting the shotgun in between the two front seats.

The van in question was a modified cargo van that George used for his business. The rear compartment had two removable rear seats but no windows and a partition between the front and the rear spaces. It reminded Jésus of a prison van he had once rode while participating in one of those 'scare them straight' sessions that the schools had loved to put on for anyone who they thought might be a trouble maker during his sophomore year in high school.

The visit to prison had been a true eye opening experience for him, especially the part where the huge gorilla of a man told Jésus that he was a cute little boy, with a sweet little ass and he'd probably make a fine wife when he got into the system. The attention made him wet his pants for the first time since second grade and only a couple of his classmates dared to laugh. The rest had been terrified of losing control over their own bladders. One of his friends ended up breaking down and crying on the bus ride back.

At the time he had approached the visit like the idiot child that he was, pretending to be a real bad ass, boasting that prison didn't scare him. Jésus quickly straightened out his act. Still, two others in the field trip group ignored the lesson and ended up back in the same prison. One with five to ten the other with life. They had both sent Jésus post cards telling him to keep going straight because he didn't want to be another man's wife. He didn't need the cards to know that. But, as Fire Marshall Bill always said, some things you just had to learn for your self. One of those friends ended up with a shiv in his back a couple years later.

"I got shotgun." He said, tossing his golf club onto his seat and setting the pistol next to it.

"Nah man, tell you what. You drive and I'll ride in the back with mamma and the kids, and let them know that everything will be all right. Michelle can ride shotgun with you. Sides man, it's your idea to leave, you know where we're going."

"Ok friend. That works too." Jésus moved the golf club and placed it under the rear seat instead along with the shotgun and shells. George might need something a little extra if it came to that. The shotgun was one of those old double barrel models, making it slow to reload.

His mother and sister joined them out at the van, a bag full of food and drinks in each of their hands like they all were going on a picnic in the park instead of fleeing for their lives. Jésus had to hand it to them, they would all need something to eat and drink and it was unlikely that they were going to find an open restaurant to get hamburgers along the way. His mother and sister were calmer than he was, but that was usually the case. The women in his family were just as tough as they came.

His family was safe and strapped into the back, it took them several minutes to get his mother in, she had been having difficulties walking, which had only gotten worse over the past few years. George was getting ready to open the garage door. "We got everything we need?" Jésus asked. All at once, they all said 'yes'. He turned the key and started the engine, the signal for his brother to open the door.

George threw the door upwards and then danced out of the way as Jésus rolled the van out of the garage. His brother in law closed and locked the door behind him and then jumped into the van to join his family. Jésus watched him through the partition to make sure that he was safely in. He didn't want to leave anyone behind.

"Oh my God." He heard his sister breathe. Jésus looked up to see what had set the rare occurrence of blaspheme across his sister's lips.

"Oh fuck." He added.

"Jésus! Your language!" His mother and girlfriend yelled from the back seat. His language. Yeah, right. A little harsh language was the least of their worries right now.

The street in front of his home had filled with zombies. Lots of them. Jésus slammed on the gas and spun the wheel, driving through his own yard to get around the swarm of undead that had become aware of the family and approached the van at a lurching walk.

The rear tires dug deep furrows in his beautiful lawn as he pressed the gas pedal all the way down to the floor. Jésus tried to swerve around a miniscule pine tree on the corner of their lot, a tree that the entire family had planted in remembrance of his father, only to crush it under one of his wheels.

"Sorry papa!" He said quietly. He hoped fervently that his mother hadn't noticed his crime.

#

Lynn and Billy were already inside of the store when he arrived on site. The gaping hole in the front of the building illustrated very clearly how they had crashed Douglas' truck through the front window. There were probably easier, quieter, less messy ways to get into the building, but Billy didn't believe in panache, he was a blunt force type of guy. Why use a lock pick, when you could use a sledgehammer. A sledgehammer after all made a very satisfying bang when it struck.

Douglas stood at the opening, yelling into the gaping hole about what they had done to his truck. The man just didn't get it. If they didn't get into the store then they wouldn't survive and if they didn't survive, well a truck wasn't going to do him much good when the devil was roasting him in hell, as Jane had often said. Jason wasn't big on the whole eternal damnation thing, but the philosophy still held true. Sadly all Douglas seemed to be able to see at the moment were a few scratches on the paint and dents in the body.

Jason got out of his car and slammed the door to let his companions know that he had arrived. It was better than getting a face full of buckshot due to someone's itchy trigger finger. It was likely that Billy was as wired up as an elementary school child on a methamphetamine and coffee cocktail. On Christmas Eve. It was equally likely that he was already armed to the teeth and aching for a chance to use one of his new toys. Not a good situation to walk into unannounced. It'd be about as much fun as walking into a room full of ruler wielding nuns, naked and then announcing that God wasn't real. On Christmas day. With a burning bible in each hand. Either option was a good way to commit suicide without pulling the trigger yourself. The only acknowledgement that he received from anyone was a frown from Douglas before he went back to growling about the new dents in the front of his truck. Douglas threw Jason an evil look as he passed, as if it was Jason's fault that Billy had made such use of the truck.

The entire front half of the shop interior was in shambles. So was the front Douglas' truck. Jason suppressed a grin, the man loved that truck. It was probably Billy's suggestion to use it in the first place. He very likely took great joy into crashing it through the gate and window gate that protected the shop from would be robbers, at least robbers who didn't have a large truck to crash through the gate.

Aside from Douglas, Lynn was the first one to see him as she stepped out of the broken store window and into the morning sunlight. She was the first one to acknowledge his arrival as she looked at him and then waved him over. "You're late." Was all she said. She looked especially grim, which was something he had never seen of her before. It was the first time in living memory that he had known here that she hadn't smiled when she saw him. Even with the sun out blazing overhead that realization made him feel a little cold inside.

"I had to stop by Jane's place first." Remembering that room brought the bile back up in his throat. It left him wondering how he was supposed to be a bad assed zombie killing survivor when he was so shaken by just a single death. A death that he wasn't even around to witness, all he saw was the body and some dried blood.

For some reason though it left him feeling the finality of the situation. And worst of all, he was now just that much more alone in the world.

Sympathy and sadness struggled with one another on Lynn's face, she had loved Jane as much as he did. Everyone who knew her had loved the woman. She had been a true gift to the world. She was one in a billion. "Oh Jason, she wasn't..."

"No, she cut her own wrists, she was dead and gone when I got there." Jason shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know why, it was completely against who she was and what she believed in."

"Maybe she was afraid that she had been left behind when the Rapture came. She was rather devout."

"Probably." Again came the queasiness. "Let's get to work, there's a lot to be done." He picked his way towards the back of the store with Lynn. Glass crunching under his shoes following each footstep. They went scrambling over the fallen shelves and merchandise until they made it to the display cases that held the gear that they had all crossed town in order to seek out. Billy was already there, much as Jason had imagined him being, decked from head to toe in whatever caught his fancy for even a second. A kid in a candy store, just one with less sense and a good deal more demented glee.

He looked like a complete nimrod in the camouflage hunting vest and bright orange hat that kept a lid his wild black hair. Running across his chest were a pair of brown leather bandoleers loaded down with shotgun shells, each bandoleer had a leather bag at its end that contained only God knew what. The three shotguns slung across his back didn't help the image and neither did the mace that he was swinging around like a lunatic. He reminded Jason of a demented Elmer Fudd and Jason said so in a loud clear voice.

Billy went with it, "those wascowy zombies are gonna die, uh huh huh huh huh!" Leave it to Billy to lighten the mood when they most needed it. Even Douglas, much to his own chagrin, gave a good guffaw at their clown prince as he joined them in the back to help pick out and carry off the weapons that they would need to survive in the days to come.

Jason hopped over the counter and stood next to his friend. "What've ya got there Billy-boy?"

"Well a couple shotguns, a 30-06 with a high power scope, it may come in handy."

"And that?" He asked as he indicated the mace in his hand.

"This?" he brought the mace up over his head, "This is lord Bashinator, terror of all zombie-kind!"

"Lord Bashinator huh?"

Billy frowned and repeated "Terror of all zombie-kind!"

"Ok, Terror of all zombie-kind!" Jason amended, as sometimes it was just easier to play along.

"Yep, majestic isn't he?" Billy grinned and swung the mace again, nearly hitting Lynn, and barely missing Douglas. It was dangerous just standing next to him, but at least he didn't have one of the shotguns out.

"Sure." Jason said as he edged out of range of Billy's reckless attempts to 'bashinate' whatever imaginary foes lay within his limited reach. It was then that Jason noticed the body. It was the storeowner John Davidson. He was laying face down on the floor of his own store. "What happened to John? You didn't kill him did you?"

Billy shook his head, "Don't worry, he was dead when we got here, we only re-killed him." Billy looked sad at that, John had been a friend of theirs, in a distant sort of way, he never got really close to anyone. Folks around town had said that he hadn't been the same since he came back from Vietnam. After he got back he mostly kept to himself, putting up walls to keep people from getting too close. He was friendly and warm to a point, but that camaraderie was shallow and mysterious. Everything that they learned about him lead them all to believe that he must have been one hell of a man when he was younger. Jason shook his head over the loss of another valued friend before recalling that he had important things to do, and very little time in which to do them. There was nothing that he could do about John, all he could do was to move forward himself and not die.

The wall was lined with a multitude of guns which reminded him of strung tinsel at Christmas time. Bright and shiny and oh so tempting to touch. He didn't resist his temptation. Jason walked along the wall running his hands on all the different guns that John had collected over the long years that he had run the gun shop. Calvary sabers lined the wall along the ceiling, making a frame around all the firearms. It was a gun lovers paradise. It was a weapons lovers paradise. Jason stifled a giggle.

Rifles. Shotguns. A couple semi-automatic M-16s. So many choices. The first weapon he picked up was an old style double barrel shotgun. It was a classic and he was a sucker for the classics. He waved it around a couple times to get a feel for it before lifting it up over his head and turning to his friends and said "Name's Ash, house wares!"

It didn't get the response he expected. Lynn sighed and said "Jason, stop goofing around."

"What, I thought you loved that movie." She had, each of the last twenty times that they had watched it together. Women were fickle it seemed.

"I do love that movie."

"Then why the long face?"

"Because Billy has done the same impression three times already."

"And I did a better job on the voice." Chimed Billy as he raised another shotgun over his head, "This is my Boooom-Stick!" He did sound like Bruce Campbell.

"Never pays to go on last I guess." He set the shotgun aside and went walking further on down the row. It shouldn't be this hard to decide. They had come to the gun shop on many occasions to look at the guns and keep current. Much drooling was done and even more chatter. He and Lynn had even spent many more hours with John in the gun range out back learning how to shoot all the different guns that the store had to offer.

John had also taught them about cleaning and other basic general maintenance for the guns as well. Lynn took the zombie uprising thing seriously, she wanted to know all she could about guns and everything else that would help her survive. Jason had gone along simply to spend time with his friend, and to play with the guns. He already knew how to shoot and clean most of the guns here, his father had taught him much of that sort of thing before he had died.

At last he found what he was looking for. It was a pump action Ithaca shotgun with a pistol grip and a tubular magazine. Lots of fire power in a condensed package. It did all that while managing to look good at the same time. He had been drooling over the gun for years now, it had been in his hand in his minds eye during every zombie uprising that Lynn and Billy had ever dragged him into. Together they had finished off a multitude of the walking dead. It felt good to finally actually have it in his hand, the wood was smooth and cool against his skin. He knew that under the circumstances he shouldn't grin about finally having this gun, but he was anyway.

He gave the shotgun a good test pump to hear the clicking action, music to his ears, before setting it down on the counter and grabbing a couple boxes of twelve gauge shells. He took one box of each slugs and buckshot, opened them both and then alternated slugs first and buckshot second into the magazine until it had all six that it could carry. He chambered the first shell and then put the shotgun back on the counter. He looked around the store until he found a sheath for the shotgun that he liked, one with ammo loops running down the length of the strap. He sheathed the shotgun, and then proceeded to fill all of the loops with ammo, alternating as before, before slipping it over his shoulder and across his chest. Born to kill.

All he needed was a couple of side arms. Something with knockdown power. Jason stood over the handgun case for a couple minutes looking at all the choices. It was another case of a kid in a candy store. So many good choices to make. The automags, the 357s, even a .44 magnum. How cool it would be to pull a Dirty Harry? Not that any of the zombies would get the reference. But in the end the .45s called to him. He was a stickler for the classics.

He broke the glass on the case with his hammer, reached in and grabbed a couple and felt their heft. Both were heavy guns. One was black carbonized steel, while the other was a bright shiny chrome. A bona fide odd couple. They would do nicely.

He hopped the counter and grabbed a belt and a pair of holsters for his new guns. He also found some extra magazines for each. With the shotgun on his back, and a pair of 45s at his hips and enough extra ammunition for the lot to fight the zombies on his own, he was damn near ready to meet the brave new world. The last thing he grabbed was a long sword off of the wall. He took a look at the blade to make sure it was good.

He had learned long ago not to trust a sword made out of stainless steel any farther than he could throw Mike. So he took his time picking out something that was made out of hand-forged steel. A sword that would bend without breaking, a sword that was made for fighting. Something knightly and medieval feeling. With that Jason strapped the sword onto his back with the shotgun and signaled that he was ready to go.

They loaded all the guns that they thought they needed and as much ammo as they could find into their vehicles. Extra guns were taken as well. Everything from the semi-automatic rifles, to various handguns and a few more shotguns. They also brought along some kits to clean them with, and even several swords. Be prepared the Boy Scouts said, none of them had been scouts, but none of them were willing to discard sagely advice no matter where they found it.

The new shotgun and his sword went behind the drivers seat in Mike so he had easy access to it in case he needed it, as did several boxes of ammo for each of the guns, a large flashlight, and some spare toilet paper.

Billy joined him and Mike, as Lynn and Douglas hopped into the truck. Aside from the grumbling when Jason had first arrived, Douglas had been silent the entire time. Jason wasn't sure if he was in shock or just stewing over the damage that had been done to his truck. Either way the silence was welcome since he would most likely try to take over the moment he started speaking again. Phase one was complete.

There was a deep rumbling sound from outside the tent, muffled like it was still way off in the distance. "Go see what the hell is going on private," Sarge said, tapping Ash on the shoulder. He put his helmet back on, grabbed his rifle and dashed between the tent flaps. The hippy and her friends were leaning back in the shade of their truck, under guard by the rest of the squad. White and Tex were giving them the occasional kick and discussing getting themselves a little piece of revenge on Cumming's behalf. The men already had bruises forming on their faces from where they had been punched or struck by rifle butts. Schmidt looked angry.

The rumbling sound was coming from the east, down the same road that they had themselves hiked half an hour before. Schmidt was the only other member of his squad who seemed to have given it much notice, as he was staring down the road, with his hand shielding his eyes from the sun. The sound was coming from a convoy of trucks. "How many, can you see them?" Ash asked.

Schmidt shaded his eyes. "Looks like six, deuce and a half army issue. Maybe we've been reinforced."

"Reinforced for what? There's nothing here to reinforce. Unless you count guarding those stupid hippies."

"Fucked if I know. This whole deployment has been bat-shit nuts from the start. Why should that change now?" Neither let another word pass between them as the watched the convoy of trucks creep down the road towards their position, and finally stop.

Lieutenant Arseneau jumped down out of the passenger's seat of the lead truck and walked over to Ash, who was extremely curious and nervous about what the change of plans meant for them all. "Sir, what's going on?" He asked, as the lieutenant stopped in front of him, taking in the squad and their prisoners. White and Tex came to attention, saluting their superior officer.

"Command has been overrun by a horde of those things." He said, gesturing widely at the pile of bodies around the truck. "Captain Highway was bitten and infected after fist platoon was hit by a horde of the walking dead."

White looked at the bodies, "You mean the zombies sir?"

"Is that what you kids have decided to call them?"

"Yes sir."

"Alright then, zombies. Anyhow, we hooked up with what was left of first platoon. But, we're alone out here. What is the situation here?"

Ash saluted and then brought his commanding officer up to date on all the developments since the squad had been sent out on its mission. "We found a doctor, a nurse and a soldier still alive, but they're messed up something awful. Sarge is working to get them around. We lost corporal Cummings in a shootout with those fuckers sir. Sorry. I mean civilians. They attacked us as we were working to kill off the zombies. The corporal got shot and died a few minutes later."

"Cummings was a good man. Why did the civilians attack you?"

"Dunno for sure lieutenant. I think they've just went mental and freaked out. Won't be the first time today that it's happened. They yelled something about saving the zombies from the government and then they opened fire one us while telling the things to flee."

"I'm a captain now private. The chain of command is gone, we're all that's left. I decided that I always wanted to be a captain. The brass can no longer object. Things are turning my way it seems. Keep that in mind private, things are looking my way."

"Sorry. Captain."

"The sergeant will be promoted to lieutenant. You're a corporal now.

"Yes sir. Though Avery would make a better corporal than me. He's smarter than I am."

The captain frowned and looked Ash straight in the eye. There was something unsettling about his eyes that Ash couldn't pin down. They were the same color as always, they just seemed different. The streaks of dried blood on his face didn't help. Ash broke eye contact, and pretended to scan the area behind the captain for enemies, or anything else. It was safer than looking into the man's eyes. "Are you smart enough to follow orders private James?"

"Yes sir!"

"Good. You're in charge of your squad. If any of them give you any trouble, you have my orders to shoot them. Is that understood?"

Ash hesitated and nearly stuttered. That had taken him completely unawares. The rest of the squad looked as frightened and confused as he felt, Ash though he must be mirroring their own expressions. "Yes. Yes sir."

"Good. Now carry on with the briefing."

"The zombies split apart, half came at us, the other half went for the civies. The bitch kept yelling at them to run, so I guess they thought they were saving the people from us. The crazy hippy bitch hasn't said anything since we saved their dumb tree-hugging asses from the zombies."

The lieutenant, or captain Ash guessed, laughed long and hard. "Stupid people. They're like sheep. Always forming opinions about subjects which they don't fully understand. Guess we'll have to do something about them. This proves that they need to be protected from both the 'zombies' and themselves."

Ash didn't know what to say about that or what the captain was even talking about. "Corporal, where is Sergeant Frost hiding himself?"

"He's in the medical tent sir, with the survivors we rescued earlier. He and private Avery are trying to rouse them out of their stupor. The survivors seem to be kind of brain blown sir. He got the doctor and the nurse awake, but they both seem to be a little dazed and confused."

"Take me to him." The captain gave a couple of gestures and the rest of the company and they jumped out of the truck and deployed, weapons at the ready

"Aye sir, this way." Ash did as he had been ordered and led the captain to the tent where Sarge and Avery were doing their best to calm the survivors. "Right in here," Ash told the captain as he held open one of the tent flaps for the man to step through.

"Sergeant Frost."

Sarge stood at attention and saluted, "Sir!"

Sarge opened his mouth to report, when the captain stopped him short, "Corporal James here has already briefed me on the situation. How do the survivors look?"

"Not too good sir. Whatever they saw here really wounded all three of them. Messed up their heads sir. The doctor and the nurse seem to be coming around, but the soldier is still in bad shape. We were going to try and wake him, but the colonel said that we better wait for a little while so that he can rest, the man is going to need a bit of professional help."

"Well get them and your squad onto one of the trucks. We're pulling out to a new position."

"Aye lieutenant!"

"Its captain now Frost, captain Highway is dead so I've been promoted, battlefield commission. You've been given the rank of lieutenant and command of second platoon. Now what about your prisoners?"

"We should take them with us and give them to the authorities. They attacked a squad of soldiers, making one kill."

"Why not just execute them here?"

"Sir, we don't have the authority to do that. These are civilians."

"Oh but we do. So why not do it?"

"All I can think of is both our orders to keep these people safe, and their bout of temporary insanity. The whole world has gone bat shit crazy sir, these people were just dragged along."

The captain smiled, and then giggled. He actually giggled. "Yes, insanity does seem to be spreading." Ash looked at captain Asreneau a second time and recognized what was different this time. He had become unhinged. He had gone nuts, and now he was planning on dragging the company along with him. "Now everyone, mount up. Get those civilians into the truck. Don't put them next to the survivors though, we don't want them infecting those brave soldiers with their damn hippy diseases."

Everyone mounted up as ordered. Ash and Sarge were carrying the soldier from the tent over to the lead truck. "I think the captain is section eight sir."

"Stow that talk private. We have more important problems to consider."

"More important than being led by a nut job sir? Like what?"  
"Yep. Like surviving this thing. Maybe you're right and the captain has gone off his gourd. That don't mean nothing to us, cause ain't anyone here capable of leading a company. Not even me. So keep your suspicions to yourself and keep your head down, all part of being a corporal. Welcome to hell."

"Thanks Sarge." He said numbly. Ash had taken to calling the lieutenant 'Captain'. But it never occurred to him to call Sarge 'Lieutenant', or Lewy, or by a name other than Sarge. After thirty years of being a sergeant, the man was a sergeant through and through.  
"Any time kid. Now watch his head as we get him up."

When they finished getting the soldier onto the bed of the truck, they went and found the captain. He was standing on the runner of the lead vehicle and staring off down the street. "Ah hell, look at all that."

"What is it sir?" Sarge asked, craning his neck to see over the cars that lined the road. Ash climbed up into the bed of the hippy's truck to get a better command of the situation. His shoulders slumped when he located the source of the captain's distress.

"Looks like we got some more of these corpses coming along to us. A lot more." There were perhaps a thousand zombies out there, maybe more. They were all stumbling towards the emergency aid station.

"Ah hell, when do we ever get a break?" Ash whispered. Or at least thought he had whispered it.

The captain looked over at Ash. "What was that corporal?"

"I'm nearly out of ammo sir. And there is a lot of ugly coming our way." He peered along the other direction. More zombies were coming from that way too. "We're boxed in," he said pointing at the second horde.

The captain grinned. "Is that the biggest of your worries? We brought ammo along, half of the last truck is full of ammo boxes. That doesn't matter though. There is enough room for two of our trucks to pass down that street side by side. We're going to make use of that advantage and the fact that these trucks weigh more than six tons completely empty, and are full of soldiers that will make them heavier. Lieutenant: choose some men who are both calm and proficient with their rifles, the sharper the shooters the better, and put them onto the roofs of the lead trucks. Give them spare ammunition. They'll help clear the path if need be."

"You heard the man James, get some extra magazines and climb up on that roof, I'll send Avery with you, since he knows one end of his rifle from the other. I'll get someone from another squad to man the other."

"Aye sir." Ash didn't know whether to be pleased or terrified. Sarge thought that he was calm, confident and a good shot

#

The gun shop had been devoid of life, and even unlife. They expected that when they had made their plans on so many past nights. The Megamart on the other hand was crawling with the undead legions. They had expected that too. Still Jason wondered how all the zombies had gotten to the store since there were only a dozen or so cars scattered about the parking lot and the store was located in the commercial district near the edge of town, which was a long ways from most anywhere. It would have been a long walk unless the county had taken to starting a service for busing the creatures out and maybe back.

It was very strange to see the Megamart this devoid of life since it was usually a busy place. Rather, it was unusual to see the parking lot so empty of cars, when normally you had to fight for a space. Under normal circumstances it the only store in town where usually the parking lot was almost always nearly full. Jason got the feeling that the zombies had shambled up to the Megamart from their homes over the course of the past several nights. There they stood, in small knots bumping into one another. Scattered across the length and width of the parking lot. Douglas stopped at the entrance of the parking lot and Jason pulled Mike alongside.

Douglas rolled down the window and yelled out "You know the plan?"

Both Billy and Jason nodded the affirmative. They knew it, of course they knew it, they made the thing up for God's sake. Hours of working on it, spanned across many a long night at home in front of the television. Drinking beers, watching movies and sharing laughs. Douglas nodded back and rolled his window back up and started driving around towards the back of the huge store.

"Do we fucking know the plan? What an ass!" Billy didn't bother to hide his derisive scorn for Douglas, but then he never did. Jason knew that Billy was waiting for Douglas to get bitten, or eaten or something, so he could do his victory dance on the man's grave when he finally died. Jason was sure Douglas was waiting for the same thing. The two only tolerated one another for the sake of Lynn. They both cared too much about her to bring her that kind of pain. When she wasn't around on the other hand, then things got fun.

Jason put Mike back into gear and followed behind Lynn and Douglas. As they got closer to the building they started to count how many zombies there were, or at least Billy did, Jason was too busy driving around the ones that tried to reach out and grab the car them as they passed. He could have driven over or through them, but he didn't have a good post-apocalypse mechanic on call to fix his car.

Half way across the lot Billy slapped the dashboard "Ah shit!"

"What happened?" Jason asked only paying half attention to his friend's outburst.

"I lost count at somewhere near two hundred."

"Two hundred? How many do you think you had left to count?"

"Lots."

"Lots? What the hell does that mean?"

"Lots! Most of them are bunched up at the entrances, I didn't even bother counting those."

"That doesn't sound good."

"No, not at all."

"What made you lose track?"

"It's your crazy swervy driving."

"Would you rather I hit one of them? That'd be even more distracting."

"Yeah, but it wouldn't upset my stomach as much as all this jerking around." Jason couldn't believe his ears. He threw a dumbfounded look at his friend. It was one of the most callous and morbid things that Billy had ever said.

Billy pointed forward screamed "Look out, old lady!"

Jason immediately slammed on the breaks and nearly pissed himself in the process. "Did I hit her?" Killing zombies was one thing, killing old lady zombies was something completely different. Well it wasn't, but he didn't want to dent up Mike any more than he had to since getting him fixed would be near impossible in present circumstances

"Her who?"

"The old lady!" His heart was racing as he waited for an answer.

"There wasn't an old lady, I just wanted you to get your eyes back on the road."

"You mother fucker! I nearly had a heart attack!"

"Then pay attention to what you're doing, and that won't happen. Besides, goofing off is my job." Smug as always, the asshole. While they were arguing a group of zombies started to get uncomfortably close to their car. Jason hit the gas to clear the zombies and catch up with Lynn and Douglas before they got out of sight.

The two cars drove around to the back of the building to the loading docks. There were only a handful of walking corpses that had made it to the back driveway and loading dock. It was really nothing that they probably have to worry about. Cleaning the area up should be pretty simple and at least some good practice. Douglas backed his truck up to the loading dock. Jason and Billy pulled Mike up next to him and got out, Jason with his shotgun and a sword and Billy with a shotgun and the Breakinator or whatever stupid name he had given the mace. The plan now was that while Lynn worked on opening the service door, Jason and Billy would take care of the zombies that were around, all while Douglas kept Lynn safe.

Lynn took the steps two at a time and Douglas followed her. When she was at the door, she set her shotgun down and leaned it up against the wall. Freeing her hands to pull her lock picking tools out from her shirt pocket. When she had the tools that she needed, she went to work picking the lock. Jason and Billy watched her for a moment before turning to their own duties. There were a scant handful of zombies anywhere near them, but with zombies, one was too many. Billy set his shotgun down on Mike's hood while Jason drew his sword. Billy looked over and grinned, Jason could tell that his friend was going to enjoy this, probably more so than was healthy.

The door was being difficult, and Lynn vocalized it with a few choice colorful metaphors, phrases that she didn't often use except when playing video games. In the meantime Billy put his mace to work and Jason tried out his new sword. There were so few zombies near by and they figured it would be a waste of ammunition to just shoot them. It would be wiser to save the shells for when they actually might need them. Besides they still needed to practice with the old melee weapons, to get a feel for them. The experience would be good in times of greater danger. Douglas stood with Lynn, with his shotgun in hand. Now that he had finally woken up from his stupor he was making himself useful by keeping an eye out and making sure that nothing more dangerous than a chipmunk got even close to his love as she worked.

Jason actually recognized a couple of the handful of zombies that he and Billy killed. One of them was Ralph, the store manager. He had been a nice older man with a pair of twin daughters. The girls who were younger than the three friends by a couple of years, they had been smart kids, and a lot of fun to hang out with. Lynn had been fond of working with Ralph, as did Billy, and he wasn't overly affectionate towards much of humanity. The other face was the general floor manager Rachel, she was a bitch and Billy actually grinned in glee when he hit her, repeatedly. Jason got the feeling that he had just got to live out a long, dearly held fantasy.

In a few short minutes of work Lynn had the door open, and in even less time than that the loading zone was free of the walking dead. Billy whooped it up a bit as they finished before Jason shushed him. Lynn signaled them and they went to join her and Douglas at the door. Before scuttling up the stairs to join the rest, Billy grabbed his rifle and a couple boxes of ammunition from Mike's bed. Jason gave him a questioning look while wondering why Billy thought he might need a rifle indoors. Billy just gave a shrug in return. With their backdoor cleared of the undead, they left the empty parking lot and in they went.

Ash dashed to the last truck, grabbed a full can of spare magazines for his M-16 and sprinted back to the captain's truck and climbed up onto the roof. Avery was already waiting for him. By the time he was settled in, he was panting.

The six trucks roared to life as one just as Ash finished settling in on the rooftop. The second column moved into its position alongside the first. The vibrations from the six-cylinder Hercules engine reminded him of the automatic massage chair that his father had so dearly loved. The shuddering truck soon set his teeth to chattering until he clamped down on his jaw.

He cracked open the ammo can, and took half dozen magazines and started removing the first round from each, and then loading them into his spare. Before handing the ammo can to Avery so that he could do the same. Ash placed all the extra magazines into his chest pockets and made himself more comfortable by leaning back on the canvas roof. He had a good idea what the captain intended and was itching to see how well they could pull the plan off. These were heavy trucks, but there were a lot of bodies out there.

Avery was on the inside lane while Ash had the outside. Lewis and Washington from second and third squad respectively had been stationed on top of the second truck. Avery leaned over, offering Lewis a cigarette. "Don't piss yourselves ladies, this shit is gonna get ugly real quick." Ash could hear the grin in his voice as he said it, and began grinning himself. Sometimes the only way to make yourself feel better was to make someone else feel worse. Avery, the pinnacle of assholedom was a master of such tactics.

"Shit's already ugly Avery."

"Yeah. Who are you kidding?"

"You seen these thing before then?" Avery asked the two men on the other truck as they smoked their cigarettes.

Washington flicked away what was left of the butt before answering, "Yeah, when we picked up first platoon. Seen worse things there too."

"Worse? Like what?"

"Saw captain Arseneau frag captain Highway."

Of all the wild tales he had expected to hear that week during the bullshit sessions with the others, Arseneau ganking Highway was about the last. Hell, it wasn't even on the list of topics dreamed. Ash spoke up, "The captain said that Highway got bit by one of the zombies."

"He did. We were holding the line when a thousand or more of the zombies waltzed on in and started to feed. We thought that we were lucky since second platoon was there to help us. Highway was on the frontline as usual, and doing damn good for a man his age. Then, while he's reloading his rifle, one of the zombies comes within reach and bites him. The fucking thing actually bit the man. Took a big chunk out of his shoulder. The captain was bleeding all over the place. Hightower freaks out, drops his rifle and grabs his arm where he got bit, and starts screaming. Arseneau pulled out his sidearm, walked over all casual, then blew his head off his shoulders." He snapped his fingers, "just like that. Just like it was just another drill."

Lewis flicked away his own cigarette and said "We don't know why he didn't try getting Highway to the medics or something. It was only a little bite, nothing serious."

"A little bite from one of these things is serious. They bite you, you get your ass infected, then you die and become like one of them. Highway knew that, must have been why he freaked out when he got bitten instead of killing the thing and fighting on."

"Whatever it's all about. We have Arseneau in command, and that bastard has pure ice in his veins."

"What do you think corporal?" Avery had to ask a second time before Ash realized that the question was directed at him.

"I think that I'm going to follow Sarge's advice, keep my head down and my mouth shut, and maybe I'll live through this." A chorus of 'Good call/idea' followed his little speech. In truth, looking away and keeping his mouth shut was just easier than thinking about what might be happening. If he started thinking about everything, life was just going to get too terrifying too fast. Ask instead focused on what was about to happen. They were about to go and mow down some of the walking dead with their deuce and a halves. He had always wanted to see what the trucks were capable of, besides carrying five tons of supplies anywhere they might need to go.

Captain Arseneau, slapped the roof of the car with the palm of his hand "You soldiers ready for some excitement?" The man nearly giggled again. The sound of his voice made Ash's skin crawl.

Ash glanced over at his companions. Avery, Washington and Lewis all gave the thumbs up sign. They were as ready as they would ever be. "Yes sir!" He yelled down into the cab. A moment later their driver gave a long blast of the horn, which was shortly picked up by five other trucks in the convoy. The excitement was about to pick up.

Adrenaline flowed into his veins and throughout his body, he felt alive with a high that made his fingers twitch as he wrapped them around the rifle grip and barrel. His trigger finger began to itch, tugging at him to open fire on the horde before them. Instead he leaned back and grabbed one of the hand bars that had been bolted to the roof of the cab. Better to save the ammunition for when he really needed it. The leading wall of zombies was about two blocks away now and it spread from one side of the street to the other, bursting into the confines of unfenced yards.

The truck jerked forward as the driver tested the gas, gears grinding and black smoke spewing from the exhaust pipe behind Ash's head. The truck picked up speed, lurched again, throwing Ash and Avery forward as the driver switched into second gear. Faster, another jolt and then faster still. The road was bumpy. Not the road. All of the bodies lying on the road. Ash tried not to think of what they were driving over as the bones crunched underneath the tires. He crossed the fingers on his free hand and hoped that Sarge wouldn't assign him the job of washing the trucks when this was all over.

The convoy was probably traveling near its top speed as the 26,000 pounds of steel of the first two truck plowed into the wall of undead flesh, beating the front ranks to the ground and rolling over it like a monstrous juggernaut. The sounds of a massive meat grinder erupted from under the tires as the truck bounced and shook over a road paved with zombies. The press of bodies against the trucks resisted their momentum and the convoy slowed.

Ash tried to drown out the sounds. He was dying to cover his ears with the sweaty palms of his two hands, to squeeze out what he had heard before it drove him as mad as the captain. To no avail, the crunches and pops filtered in despite his best efforts. He had duties to perform. One of the zombies had managed to get a hold of the grill and was pulling itself up. Ash sighted the creature and put a round through its head. He looked over at Avery, who was busy with a zombie that had climbed up into the runner under the driver's door.

Ash put himself back to work. He began to clear out the road to the front right. Picking only the most likely targets. There was a jolt, Ash flew forward, slamming his helmet onto his knee. He nearly screamed in agony. The truck behind them had collided with their rear bumper and began to add its power to the contest.

The third truck in line did the same. The convoy staggered forward and began to accelerate once again, until they were free and clear. Ash stood up on the roof of his truck, feet spread wide to keep his balance. They had cut a fifteen-foot wide swath of destruction through the horde of zombies, leaving dozens crushed underneath their tires as they advanced.

The street had been repaved with human gore in their wake. Broken bodies and blood pooled in the gutters. A quarter their number were lying on the ground, shattered, and still the zombies pulled together and tried to reach the trucks and the people within.

Ash shuddered. This was all sorts of fucked up. He was at a loss for how they were expected to beat such an enemy, if the enemy wasn't afraid of dying, if the enemy kept coming mindlessly forward.

They only had so many bullets.

#

The moment she crossed the threshold into the store Lynn turned on the spotlight that she had brought along. The air was cool and smelled reasonably fresh and clean. The light reflected of the white painted walls and brightened the hallway enough for them to see. Billy went a little ahead while the other two walked behind her.

"Should I close the door?" Asked Jason as they took a few steps in.

"What for?" Asked Douglas. "There's no one out there."

Billy called back "Never know if someone, or something, might show up."

"Like who?" Douglas replied.

"Like a legion of the undead. That or people looking for super savings, it is Tuesday after all."

Jason asked again "Well? Should I?"

Lynn cut the whole conversation off, and solved a lot of problems by just answering "Yes Jason, that'd be a good idea."

"But we'll be locked in!" Douglas sounded a little panicked, it seems that he was uncomfortable without a bolt-hole to make for. Jason made a note, it was a good thing to know and to keep in mind for times when things might get tough. He didn't want to be caught by surprise if Douglas panicked and ran.

Lynn answered him, she answered them all "The door opens outwards, but locks from the inside, all you need to do is push it to get it open." It calmed him down quite a but, to the point that he looked embarrassed and got surly.

"Lets get this done with." He growled. Surly indeed.

They passed through the short back hallway and into the employee break lounge. They spread out when they reached the lounge and took a look around. Billy put his rifle and the ammunition down on one of the tables nearest the hallway before pulling the mace out of the loop that he had made in his belt. The high-powered scoped rifle wouldn't be much use to them inside a dark building.

So far the building was empty, but really they hadn't come that far yet. Maybe their luck would hold and maybe it wouldn't. None of them, Billy aside, felt like doing anything stupid to test that luck.

Lynn and Billy had both said on many different that there was nearly always someone in the store, even if it was only the skeleton crew people working to re-stock the shelves at night. They crossed through the remainder of the break room in a single file line with Billy on point and Jason holding the rear guard.

The doorway at the far end of the break room led into another hallway. The second hallway led past the restrooms and to the main cavernous room of the store. It was a simple layout, straightforward. Of course, nobody said that the architecture on a big box store was impressive or innovative, just big.

There were a dozen skylights in the ceiling of the cavern they were meant to let in sunshine from outside and make the store feel a little more natural. They also helped save on energy. Lynn switched her spotlight off to save battery power as they walked out of the hall into the store proper. The rest of them followed her lead.

It was unnaturally silent and still. The only sounds came from their footsteps as they scraped across the tiled floors. Usually the store was bustling, bright and noisy. There was almost always movement everywhere. The noise usually had tended to be confusing, with music and in store advertisements fighting to be heard over the clamor of the shoppers. Now to be there when it was dark and silent made the hairs on the back of Jason's neck stand on end. It would never be busy again. So surreal.

After several long moments of silence Lynn spoke up with a question. "Who brought the list?" Jason jumped at the sudden break in the silence, he noticed that he wasn't alone to be startled.

Billy pulled a sheet of paper out of his back pocket and handed it to her. She looked at the list for a moment before tearing it in two and handing one half back to Billy. "Lets get a couple of flat bed carts and then split up to get this done quicker." The carts were in the storeroom, which was the first place that they plundered. They each took a couple boxes of full of the different sizes of batteries. Batteries would be a good thing to have, a necessity that would be difficult to replace when they finally ran out, so they took all that they could carry.

Aside from the ample supply of batteries, the storeroom actually held nothing else that they really needed. They took their carts back out into the store and got ready to do their shopping. Lynn called out one last set of instructions, "If you hear shots come running. I don't want to die this early in the game because the cavalry decided that they weren't needed and didn't come to the rescue." Douglas frowned, looking like he thought he was all the protection that she needed, and irked that she didn't agree with his assessment.

They parted ways. Jason and Billy were to head towards the sporting goods side of the store, while Lynn and Douglas would start picking up some basic food supplies. Lynn waved back over her shoulder as they parted and walked away with Douglas, arguing with him in a low voice, most likely about who was going to be in charge. That was an easy one to solve, Jason and Billy simply wouldn't follow any of Douglas' commands and if necessary they would make that abundantly clear to him if he felt the need to test the water himself.

With one hand each on the cart Jason and Billy went on after their own objectives. Billy read off the list as they walked slowly past the women's clothing department, while Jason kept a constant vigil for any unwanted guests that might be in the store with them. It turned out that they needed simple things like flashlights and walkie-talkies and a portable radio. Several of each. Backups for spares so to speak. They also needed a grill and as much charcoal as they could find. Then there was the all important toilet paper and extra blankets. Necessities all.

They were at the electronics department when Billy looked up from the list and stopped. They both stared. All the electronic goodness there for the taking and nobody would ever notice. They could loot without consequence, but it would all be useless junk.

"Funny how the universe works, huh?" Billy said with a small bitter laugh.

"How do you mean?"

"Well I've wanted one of those huge flat screened televisions forever, and one of the new video game systems and all the games for it. Hell, I wanted all of the different systems. Now it is within my grasp, I can taste it, and see myself playing. But then it doesn't matter since I couldn't use it even if I grabbed it. Couldn't afford it while I worked here, and no, they aren't worth a damn."

"Ain't life a bitch like that?"

"Yep. Well we can still get a CD player or something, one that runs on batteries."

"Excellent idea, and an instant music collection."

"No country."

"Bah."

"I mean it, I'll shoot you myself if I see a single Garth Brooks disk"

"What about Johnny Cash."

"Johnny Cash is the exception. Johnny Cash is not country. Johnny Cash is a god."

"Glad you agree, I'd of had to have shot you instead for such blaspheme."

The two of them walked down the aisle flipping through the music, from time to time looking around to make sure that they were still alone. They acquired an impressive stack of music, one that spanned all the genres, including some country that Billy snuck in when Jason had his back turned.

From there they wandered around the electronics department grabbing other useful things, portable music players and handheld video games, several sets of walkie-talkies and watches. It wouldn't be difficult to fill the cart at this rate.

Billy and Jason each put on one of the watches. Jason said "Synchronize watches," he had always wanted to use that line. Mine says 11:45 right...Now.

"Mine is blinking twelve." He shook the watch and then fiddled with some of the buttons before taking it off his wrist and tossing it over his shoulder. After a minute or two of looking he grabbed another watch out of the display case and put it on.

"11:45?"

"No, but who cares, it comes with a built in compass."

"What do you need a compass for?"

"I dunno, what if some evil wizard comes and picks up and puts in a maze to fight monsters and solve puzzles in order to escape? All for his own twisted amusement."

"An evil wizard?" Jason couldn't completely hide his astonishment, not that he didn't try. He was simply dumbfounded. Billy always found a way to surprise him even now and usually not with good things like by making dinner, or cleaning their apartment. It was always something really strange and really random. Like the time with the goldfish and the water cannon... no, best not to rehash that incident.

Billy deftly ignored the look that he was being given, a trait that he had cultivated over long years of being a goof. "The zombies had to have come from some where."

"But an evil wizard?" Jason was having a hard time deciding whether his friend of so many seasons was being serious, his first reaction was to say no. But then it was Billy, a kid who believed in Santa Claus until he was twelve. As far as Jason knew, Billy still believed in the generous fat man to this very day.

"What do you believe made the zombies?" Jason admitted that he didn't have a clue, he never really thought about why they were there. They were just there and needed to be dealt with. "Space aliens? The government? Ha! My money is on an evil wizard."

"Evil wizards aside, you don't even know how to use a compass."

"I don't, but Lynn does."

"Maybe we should get maps and compasses too." That had never occurred to either of them in all of their prior jam sessions. It wasn't on the list, but it couldn't hurt to have that sort of thing. Maybe the two of them could puzzle out how to use those tools as well.

Despair began to creep in along the edges of his mind. He fought it, pushing the darkness away, as he turned around and sat back down.

"Feeling it finally buddy?" Avery asked as he offered a cigarette. He wasn't a smoker. He preferred the occasional chew, but he had neglected to bring his pouch along on the deployment. Right now, his body was calling for nicotine. Ash took one of the cigarettes and lit it, taking a deep drag and coughed until his lungs managed to expel all of the offending smoke, as well as whatever other air they held. Avery sat beside him laughing and slapping his back to help him breathe again. Lewis and Washington joined in with Avery as he laughed, echoing their own chorus of 'pansy' and 'little girl'.

"What the hell was in that thing?" Ash asked between deep wracking coughs.

"Just a normal ciggy. Thought I'd get you away from that nasty ass chew that you love so much. Seems that you don't have the bad-assed lungs of a real smoker."

"And thank god for that." Ash made to flick the cigarette down onto the road. Avery reached over and removed the cigarette from between his fingers, brought it up to his own lips and took a long drag, sighing as he exhaled a ring of smoke.

"Ah, that's good. Really calms you down after you've seen some heavy shit."

"Must be an acquired taste."

"Yeah. I started smoking when I was eight. Swiped some of my ma's ciggs from her purse. I cut down to a pack a day a couple months ago, been trying to quit. Was doing pretty well with it, and then they called us up for active duty. When I get bored, I smoke."

"You need to find a better hobby. When I get bored, I play my Gameboy."

"That shit will rot your brain!" Lewis yelled.

"I was wondering where you disappeared to. What games do you have?"

"Just a couple. One's a fishing game my dad gave me, and the other is a racing game I picked up at the Megamart right before we were called up. I figured I'd need something to do in the down time. We always seem to have a lot of down time."

"You never answered my question."

"What question?"

"I asked if you were finally feeling what we were in for."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean the crazy officer in charge and being surrounded by millions of hungry corpses. You looked as if you had a major revelation when you sat down."

"Yeah, we only got so many bullets, and a lot more of them zombies out there that need to be killed."

"Don't I know it. What do you think we'll be doing next?"

"Why the hell should I know?"

The captain made you corporal right?"

"Yeah, but only cause he thought I'd shut up and take orders."

"You going to?"

"I told you earlier, I'm gonna follow Sarge's advice to, shut up, look stupid and keep my head down."

"You got the stupid part working for you already Ash." There was only one way to reply to such a comment. Ash extended both of his middle fingers.

Lewis yelled over from the next truck, "What do you think we're going to do next?"

"Before we linked up with 3rd squad here, I heard him say something about finding a new base of operations and then setting up to save as many people out there as possible until reinforcements come." Washington answered.

Avery nodded as if he liked the idea. "Sounds good to me," he said. "I need some sack time, I've been up and operating for sixteen hours now. Aside from that, we can't just keep running around killing those things, we'll get ourselves killed."

Over the next several hours they drove around seemingly at random. Weaving in and out of streets, killing small groups of zombies and fleeing from larger ones. Ash was sure that the captain had something in mind, but neither he nor his roof top companions could tell what that plan might have been.

Time and time again they ran across small groups of civilians. Some needed to be rescued and others merely flagged the convoy down. They were all looking for protection from a world gone mad, and a company of soldiers seemed to them the best bet for safety. So far all the people they had encountered had been happy and willing to come along. Ash got the feeling that if they hadn't, the captain would have commanded that they be taken anyway.

At last, after hours of searching, the captain ordered them to stop. Ash was down by three magazines by then, having scored a nearly thirty more kills since they left the first horde of zombies in the dust and sucking their fumes. If they still able to breathe. The movies had all suggested that they didn't, but even Ash wasn't stupid enough to believe that this all just a movie. Thirty headshots from the top of a moving truck wasn't too bad.

The trucks pulled to a halt outside of a large warehouse in the southern river district. Sarge jumped out of the second truck, started walking down the line and bellowed orders as he went. "Company fall out! Company fall out now! On the bounce people."

Ash and Avery slid down to the hood and from there onto the ground. They ran to their platoons and took their places in their squad, as sorry as it was looking, there were noticeable gaps in the ranks, and stood at attention, waiting for the captain to address them and give them further orders.

The civilians had also climbed out of the trucks in which they had been traveling. The doctor and nurse that Ash's squad rescued earlier joined the civilians, looking them over and inspecting them for any wounds that they might have taken.

Ash pulled his attention from the doctor's activities when the captain finally made his appearance, strutting down the line and grinning like it was Christmas morning and he found out that had just gotten a puppy. He stopped in front of first platoon and addressed them.

"First squad first platoon, you will stay with the trucks and protect the civilians. The rest of first platoon, I want you to secure the perimeter of this building. Get on it." First platoon took off at a run, rifles in hand and helmets on their heads. Ash reached up and felt his head. His helmet was gone, and he hadn't realized it. Some time in the fog his cover had disappeared.

Avery leaned over to him and whispered. "You chucked it at a zombie, one in either the third or fourth small group that we chanced on." He sounded like he wanted to laugh, but was holding in his mirth.

Ash remembered. His rifle had jammed right when they closed with the pack. Rage exploded from within and he had stripped the helmet off and hurled at the zombie closest to the truck. Hit the thing with a glancing blow across the temple hard enough to knock it down. By the time it was back on his feet, he had cleared the blockage and was delivering hot lead to all comers.

"Second platoon, you will be securing the interior under lieutenant Frost. Ready your flashlights as well as your rifles, you'll need them both. Look sharp."

Ash switched on his light, one of the L-shaped Government Issue flashlights that the entire company had been provided with. He then clipped it onto the left breast pocket of his coat, making sure that he kept his hands clear of the light-beam. He wanted both hands free to fight, but they would need light within.

Sarge led them personally and was the first member of the platoon through the front door and into the dim interior. Ash's vision adjusted slowly as twenty different flashlights shined this way and that. The warehouse was huge. Gigantic. Ginormous. And a few other words came to mind, most of them prefixed with the slang adjective 'fucking'.

Jésus gunned it across three more lawns, leaving a pair of troughs in the grass behind him as he went. A regular drumbeat played on the front bumper as he crossed Mr. Rodriguez's lawn. He hit every damned one of the hundred or so pink flamingos and lawn gnomes that the man had collected since the death of his wife, even when he had to swerve a little to reach them. Jésus hated the tacky decorations with a passion and long held the secret desire to take this very action. He savored each 'thunk' and the crunching plastic sound of every shattering flamingo as he passed.

Jésus was barely able to suppress a broad grin as it tugged at his lips. They might die out here, but at least he took Mr. Rodriguez's lawn ornaments out with him. You always had to look on the bright side, or so his father had always said.

They crossed behind the Andrew's split rail fence, around a cluster of zombies and then onto the street. "Hell yeah!" Jésus yelled as rubber met asphalt and they left the scores of zombies in their wake.

Jésus took the back roads to the mall. They passed within sight of or even over several of the highways. The major roadways had been plugged by accidents caused by panicked drivers. The side roads were an obstacle course of zombies and cast aside cars, but even factoring in the hindrance of taking a more indirect path, they were far safer and made better time. On occasion and almost randomly, they would see other people. They even saw a small group of soldiers marching once. Jésus took a hard left, causing everyone in the back to scream from fright as they were thrown against their seatbelts by the centrifugal force.

The zombies seemed to pool in together like drops of water rolling to form a puddle after the rain ended. They seemed to collect towards popular businesses. Jésus began to feel a little uncomfortable.

The mall was in a minor valley in the southern western half of the city. Or rather it was enveloped in one of the suburbs that had in turn been devoured by Jefferson as it grew and sprawled out across the expanse of prairie turned farmland, now long buried under a bed of concrete, on which it had been founded.

His family sat chattering in the background. A mall visit was a rare happening for them, to go there to live was surreal to say the least. Like living in a dream. George was telling everyone over and over about how he was going to visit the Jerky Hut and try single one of their flavors, even if it took him days. The man loved jerky.

Jésus crested the final low rise between his home and the mall and slammed his foot onto the brake, throwing everyone forward against their seatbelts, stopping just beyond the summit. The mall parking lot was half full of peculiarly parked cars and crawling with moving figures and they weren't fast enough to be alive. Just like the movie.

"What's happening Jésus? Why have we stopped so suddenly?" His mother asked from the back seat. He had told them that they would be safe if they got to the mall, now that clearly wasn't true.

"They got here before us mama." There was a stunned silence and then the voices came all at once.

"What are we going to do now?"

"You said we'd be safe!"

"We're all going to die!" His niece and nephew started to scream, not comprehending what was wrong, only that something was amiss. Now what were they going to do?

"Quiet!" He yelled. "This place is over run, so we find someplace else away from the city. If people become zombies, then we need to get away from all the people." Simple and logical. He wondered how many other people had made the same discovery.

He made a U-Turn right there and made their way back to the north. They would find a road around the mall that lead out to the open roads beyond the city. Jésus prayed that they would be at least partially free of the confused traffic that had congested the city itself.

"Michelle, get the map out, lets find a route out of town that doesn't use the main highways." She dug around in the glove compartment until she located the sloppily folded map that George saved for the rare occasions that he was forced to venture beyond the comforting embrace of his home city. He had never been able to figure out how to get a map to return to its original shape after opening it the first time, even with several minutes of study. Michelle cursed as she tried to pry open the map as it tore along several poorly used fold lines

"Ok," She said as she straightened the map with her hands, pressing it against the dashboard. "Take a left on 117 up here to start with. Where do we want to end up?"

"I'm not sure. I think a nice little farm town tow would work for a little while. Get us back out in the country." Their family had been farmers and farm workers. The country was in their blood.

They stopped around noontime to eat lunch at a small back road gas station. They had seen scant few other drivers out on the road, most of whom were traveling in the opposite direction as if they were going to try and sneak into Jefferson. Jésus tried to mull over what might push people to try and venture into the city with the situation as it currently was and came up with only a single logical answer. Family. Nothing else, that Jésus could see, would cause a rational human to put their hands into the hangman's noose like that.

Though on the other hand, maybe these people were no longer rational. Maybe the onset of plague subsequent collapse of human civilization had driven them insane.

He looked down at his sandwich, random lunchmeat on white bread with generous helping mustard. Jésus suspected that his sister must have made this sandwich. The woman loved mustard, always had, so much so that she usually drowned her hotdogs in the spicy yellow sauce.

He walked around the small parking lot stretching his legs. Their flight from the city had taken at least two hours after they arrived at the mall. The remainder of their time had been spent on the back roads. They would drive along the arrow straight lanes for a half hour at a time, only to come to a blockage caused by a wreck. From there they would backtrack and find a way around the pile-up.

Jésus didn't have a single clue where they were going. They were simply driving. Wandering, in hopes that they would stumble upon the Promised Land. If they kept moving, then they wouldn't have to think.

He tested the gas pumps, lifting the handle and giving the lever a squeeze, only to find that they had been switched off. Gasoline wasn't a problem, yet. He and George had been siphoning gas from abandoned cars that they had come across. Food though, that would be harder to find. His mother and sister had only packed enough for lunch and a few snacks in between. The snacks were mostly for the kids. Jésus had gotten everyone so excited about the mall, and the safety that they would find when they arrived, that nobody had bothered planning further ahead than that afternoon.

Jésus tossed aside the corner crust of bread, the last remainder of his sandwich and he peered into the gas station window. He lifted his hand to shade his eyes and help them adjust to the darkness within the store. The gas station was of the Shop-and-Go variety. A small convenience store that specialized in cold beverages mostly, but had cans of soup and boxes of donuts and other snacks too. He considered breaking through the glass and helping himself, but refrained himself. He knew his mother would never forgive him for that. Ignoring the government was bad enough, but theft Jésus? What has overcome you today? The last thing he needed was one of his mother's lectures about how he was in need of God in his life.

The sun had set an hour before and twilight was in full force. Stars were just beginning to appear along the eastern horizon. The farmhouse stood alone on the hill, though some outbuildings such as a shed and a large red barn were nearby. Hill wasn't the right word, it was more of a minor mound, rising a few feet over the surrounding fields. Whatever one called it, in the vast, flat, farm country, the ridge and occupying house dominated the skyline, standing over tracts of trees that partitioned the individual fields. Jésus knew nothing of architecture prominent out in the country, even so, the house had a distinct air of age and tradition. Respect which was only slightly sullied by the strong odors arriving from the adjacent livestock farms. The building looked empty enough from the road for Jésus to venture closer.

He pulled the van halfway into the driveway, put it into park and turned off the lights and engine. Jésus breathed a sigh of relief as he unbuckled the safety belt and opened the door into the cool night air. The crickets were out in full force. There were other sounds as well, a sort of singing chirp that rose over the crickets that he didn't recognize.

They had only come across a few zombies since arriving in the country, and most of those had been few and far between. Though, truth be told, he had avoided as many of the small towns as possible. Towns had people and, well the rest was obvious.

Jésus stretched his back as he walked up the gravel driveway towards the house. There was a sudden flash from near the house and blast tore through the night, silencing, if only for a moment, the choir of chirping creatures. There was a shape on the porch, he could just make it out.

The recesses of the warehouse were dimly lit. Windows near the top of the walls seemed to be covered in newspaper, filtering the light to make a distinct white haze. There was just enough light for Ash to make out the catwalk that ran around the perimeter wall, just below the windows. An unlit office stood at the top of a set of steel stairs on their right. The stairs also lead to the catwalk. They stood still for a moment, listening. Not a sound. Not even dripping water or the wind. Ash felt like he was dreaming.

The roof was at least fifty feet high and it covered an area at least the size of a football field, it was supported columns of steel I-beams that were as big around as Ash's waist. Heavy duty shelving units, similar to the ones used in hardware stores, ran in ordered rows along the rear half of the building and reached up into the darkness to brush the roof. These were packed with pallets and boxes. The rest of the smooth concrete floor was covered more pallets, arrayed to be randomly mazelike.

Ash wasn't the only soldier with his mouth hanging open at the sight. Anything could be hidden in there.

"Alright kids," Sarge growled. "I know this isn't what you've been trained for, we're engineers, and reservists at that. But I think that as soldiers we can handle clearing some goddamned corpses out of this place. Don't get itchy. Call out and check your targets. Remember, these things can't shoot back and they're slow as molasses in January. Just don't let them get close. First squad, you're with me, we're taking the catwalk. Second squad has the right, third the middle and fourth the left hand side. Get on it. The captain and the rest of the company are waiting."

Sarge signaled his squad and led them up the stairs, leaving the rest of the platoon to carry out their orders. The sounds of boots striking concrete filled his ears, taking the place of the buzzing that the sudden silence had left.

"White," Ash said, "You take point, keep your eyes peeled for the zombies. I'm next. Then Schmidt and Tex. Avery, you bring up the rear. The rest of you keep your eyes out for our people." They all followed his orders as if he had been in charge for years rather than hours. Quietly and efficiently. They were probably too scared and tired to bother making any trouble, realizing that the sooner they finished this sweep, the sooner they could take a break.

White led them down what was roughly the centerline of the cavernous warehouse floor. He wound his way around the pallets, coming to dead ends, and forcing them all to backtrack and try a different route. The crates in places stood ten feet tall, blocking the even the meager light that the windows had allowed in. Tex tripped at virtually regular intervals as his boat sized boots caught on one of the wooden frames of any given pallet.

After the sixth such incident Schmidt turned around and nearly screamed at the man, "I swear, if you do that again you clumsy ass, I'm going to deck you."

"I can't help it, these fucking walkways are too narrow and it's too damn dark."

Ash had finally had enough. "Enough you two. Shut the hell up and focus on your jobs or I'll suggest to Sarge that you'll be the assholes in charge of cleaning off the deuces. White, find us another way through this crap." That kept them silent for a bout five minutes, until Tex tripped again. This time Schmidt merely grumbled a little and kept it to himself.

Walking single file in the dark with no room to maneuver or fight was not the ideal way to hunt zombies. Not with a clumsy bastard like Tex tripping every fifth step. The phrase 'A recipe for disaster' went through his mind repeatedly. Ash had never had the chance to use it before, and even so, he didn't feel like uttering it now. Wouldn't do wonders for morale.

They were stumbling along what looked like a clear path that was a little wider than the breadth of Avery's massive shoulders when a burst of gunfire rang out from the darkness up ahead. Ash couldn't determine how far ahead the shots had come from since the reports echoed across the walls, bouncing back and forth until it became a solid blanket of sound closing in from all directions at once. Up ahead in the dark, men were screaming incoherently, while a woman was yelling for a medic. "Shit. Let's go see what the trouble is. Schmidt, do you have your medical pack with you?"

"Yeah Ash I have it."

"Alright, let's go then."

"We'll need to find a way through this damn maze. It would be easier if we could see better, if it were one of those mazes on paper."

"On paper? That gives me an idea. Schmidt, we're gonna boost you up onto the top of this pallet, you go ahead and find us a route through. Careful that you don't trip and fall, we don't need any more casualties. When you find the people calling for the medic, climb down and give them help, we'll find the rest of the way ourselves." The screams and calls for medic hadn't lessened as they boosted White and he strode forward, pointing out clear and easy paths. Ash's squad made better time with Schmidt on point, and it got him out of Ash's ear so he didn't have to listen to the man grumble anymore. A win-win situation as far as he was concerned.

Schmidt quickly disappeared, leaving the squad on their own again with White in the lead to pick their path. The crying had died down, as had the calls for medic, leaving it obvious where Schmidt had gone. Even to Ash.

When they arrived on the scene, they found Schmidt working on a wounded man, trying to stop his leg from bleeding. Two other's lay on the ground, being attended to by other medics from the different squads on the floor. All three squads who had been ordered to scout the floor had merged once more into a mass of confusion.

Sarge's voice came in over the radio, silencing the noise around him as the soldiers stopped to listen. "What the hell is happening down there?"

Ash responded. "I just got on the scene sir. Three men shot and wounded. None of them are ours."

"How did it happen corporal? The captain said to be careful."

"I'm not sure. I'll ask around and then get back to you."

"You do that." Ash looked around to see who was in charge. Cervantes from second squad seemed to be the highest ranked and in charge of the situation.

"Ok, Cervantes, what the hell happened here with your people?"

"I'm not sure, everything just came quickly. We heard someone moving in the shadows. Eric flashed the light, we saw something move. He yelled for them to freeze, that we were soldiers, they walked towards us, and didn't say anything until they were shot then they started screaming, that's when I called for the medic since ours was sick." Eric was a tall man, probably about six foot two inches and with a pencil thin frame and toothpick arms. He was in his early thirties, the assistant manager of a Burger King in the real world. Ash got the feeling that he often treated his position in the reserves as being just a game, though since he had just hooked up with them, Ash couldn't be sure, and didn't dare voice his conclusions.

"How do they look?"

"The wounds don't look too terrible, though that leg wound might have clipped an artery, it's bleeding a lot. The medics say that they'll be down for a while, but otherwise fine."

"Any idea who they are?"

"Look like looters to me. Or gang members. They don't belong here."

"Sarge, looks like we found some survivors."

"And then they got shot. Good work corporal."

"They came out of the dark, the private that we picked up at the private Martin told them to freeze and to declare themselves, they didn't say nothing and kept on moving forward. The private opened fire to defend his-self from what he thought were zombies attacking him. We have the medics working on them now. Looks like he's a lousy shot sir, he missed their heads."

"That's probably why he ended up in the back of that truck in the first place. Will they continue to be survivors? Or are you just wasting your time?"

"The medics say that they'll be ok, though one wound might be serious. Should we get them out to the doc?"

"Good idea corporal. Get that organized. Keep me informed. Get the squads back to scouting and make sure that they get a good look at what's out there before they start shooting."

"Will do Sarge." Ash returned his radio to the pouch on his belt. "Ok everyone. I need six people to take these men back to the doctor. The medics and four others. The rest of us will divide into two squads and get back to making our sweep. Cervantes you take charge of the first squad, I'll take the second. Eric, you did the shooting, you get to help bear the load, you too White." Ash let Cervantes chose the other two bearers and then send them off towards where they had entered the warehouse in the first place.

Ash took charge of what was left of his squad and half of fourth squad, Cervantes took the other half of fourth squad and the rest of second. The entire company had been severely depleted in the last few days and manpower was at an all time low. Even in their short deployment overseas, the company had come away with fewer casualties, and they had come across some hairy firefights.

#

With everything that they needed on the cart, and even more that they merely wanted, they started back to meet up again with Lynn and Douglas. They had only run into two zombies the entire time, both had been employees, clad in their dull green vests. They had probably been working at stocking the shelves when the shit had hit the fan, figuratively speaking of course. One was a very fat man with short blond hair and acne, the other was a tiny middle aged woman with grey lined black hair. Billy didn't know either of them when they were alive and gladly killed them both now that they were dead.

The Megamart store employees were expected to treat one another like family, but Billy didn't take that too seriously and beyond Lynn and maybe a handful of others, he never bothered to really get to know many people that well. It showed with how he had handled the zombies outside, as well with the two that they found inside. Maybe he had had the right idea. It would be much worse to strike someone down who had once been a good friend. Jason was unsure if he could force himself to do that, all the bravado aside.

Billy didn't kill with any particular glee or relish that he had in the parking lot several minutes earlier. Jason thought that maybe the situation was finally beginning to sink in and the shock was beginning to wear off. Maybe Billy would act a bit more seriously from now on. Not bloody likely, but it had been a day of unexpected firsts all around, even Billy could change after all they'd seen come to pass. Or perhaps the novelty had already worn off. Who knew? Not Jason, and probably not even his friend.

They reached the entrance to the staff break room just as Lynn and Douglas were returning with a cart heaping with food. Cans mostly, with some boxes. They would need to find an airtight box to store the boxes in, neither of the vehicles were waterproof.

The lovers were arguing and looked as if they had been arguing for quite some time. "I just don't understand why we have to load the truck up with all of this if we're going to stay here." He was having his say.

"It's for an emergency, we're doing it in case we need to leave in a hurry."

"Why would we ever need to leave? This place has everything that we might ever need. I thought that we were going to stay here until it all blew over."

Lynn sighed and Billy rolled his eyes. "Nothing is certain, that is why you make backup plans."

"It just seems like a lot of useless extra work. That's all I'm saying."

"What else do we have to occupy our time with these days? This needs to be done, so we are doing it." With that they pulled their cart next to Billy and Jason's. "Got everything on the list?"

Billy was the first to respond "and how!" He started showing Lynn everything that they had picked up. Babbling about the items that he was most excited about. Sometimes Lynn reminded Jason of a worried mother who had to deal with a bunch of little children. Sometimes he even understood her attitude. Most often it was directed to either Billy or Douglas, he was spared most of her exasperated motherly sighs, most of the time. He wondered if she was aware of the whole situation and how she was responding. He wouldn't be surprised if it had become a second nature to her after all of her years dealing with Billy and Douglas and their squabbling.

Lynn turned her spotlight back on and led them through the break room and the back hall to the door. Billy put away his mace and readied his shotgun before signaling her forward. Jason followed them while Douglas stayed a respectful distance back. Jason was glad for once of Douglas' cowardice since the hall was cramped enough with just the three of them. There would be just enough room for the three of them if anything went down. Any more people though and it could get confused and dangerous.

They stood there in front of the door, getting ready for anything that they might see out there. Visions of seas of the undead, packed shoulder to shoulder and waiting flashed through their minds eye. They hesitated.

Then Douglas spoke up "Why don't we go up to the roof and take a look around first, just in case." It was Billy's turn to look flabbergasted, it was perhaps the first creative and intelligent suggestion that either of them ever heard. And it came from stiff old Douglas. Lynn on the other hand smiled at him and nodded in agreement. It was a good idea and good ideas were welcome no matter the source. Billy just shrugged his shoulders and followed Lynn and the rest.

Lynn led them back out through the hall and then to the opposite end of the employee lounge. There, hidden in the back corner, was metal door that she told them lead up to the roof. It was locked. She knelt in front of the door and patted down her pockets for her lock-picking tools for a moment before Billy leaned over and handed her something that jingled when he moved. "Where did you find these at?" He didn't answer her, he only leaned over and gave her shoulder a squeeze. "Oh." And a spreading look of sadness was her only response.

Lynn wasted no time with tears, she would cry later when there was time. She quickly found the right key, it turned out to be the one labeled 'roof' and opened the door. They went single file up the steep and narrow metal stairway. The echoes of their footsteps announcing them long before they arrived.

The roof was, for lack of any other descriptive words, huge. It had none of the aisles in the store to break it up into neat little rows and compartmentalize it, adding to the effect. With the exception of the skylights and some vents and air conditioners the surface roof went on uninterrupted all along the building's length and width. A vast plateau of tar that was covered in a layer of small stones. Douglas had said that the stones were there to help rainfall drain by adding more surface area or something or other. The explanation didn't make much sense to Jason, but neither did covering a store roof with small rocks in the first place. Billy looked like he though Douglas was completely full of it, but he still managed to hold his tongue.

Lynn led them over to the edge right above the door into the loading dock. The stones crunched underneath their feet as they walked and Jason found the sensation strangely enjoyable, like walking on a beach. There weren't any zombies crowding around the door. But several more of the undead had managed to work their way around the building and onto the street that led around the side of the store to the loading dock. Following the cars that had zipped by so few minutes before.

Lynn nodded to herself, reassured that there would be no problems, if they didn't goof around. Her mind was made obvious by how she glared at Billy. He didn't seem to notice her hints, but he was never the master of picking up on the subtle.

"They shouldn't be too difficult to take care of when we get down there."

She was already started on her way back to the stairs when Billy looked as if he had the most wonderful idea in the history of the entire world. It was such a good idea that it pushed the ability to speak in rational or even coherent sentences, all he could managed to get out was a stream of monkey-like sounds. It also caused an ever widening grin to stretch across his features.

In a move that surprised them all, Douglas was the first one to respond to Billy's unintentional ape behavior, "Does Coco want a banana?"

Now Jason had all seen everything, Douglas had a sense of humor and actually cracked a joke, it was truly the end of the world. Chalk another one up for the day of surprises. Still in his eloquent state of mind, Billy answered the barb by extending the middle finger on his right hand. Rather than trying to explain his great idea, Billy just bolted down the stairs, and then back up with his rifle in hand. There he sat down and started shooting at the zombies in the street below. Actions after all spoke louder than words, and Billy liked to speak as loudly as possible.

His first shot hit a male zombie in the stomach hard enough to knock it down. Tearing a big hole in its torso and causing blood to pool underneath it as it struggled back to its feet as if nothing at all had happened. None of them expected it to stay down after getting hit, and were unsurprised when it finally managed to get up. His next shot shattered the thing's skull, spilling gore out onto the road in a stream behind it before it crumpled to the pavement like a rag doll dropped by a small child. It didn't get up after that. There were six more zombies that they could see, and Billy took them with one shot each.

It seemed an elaborate and pointless waste of ammunition. One that might draw more attention than they wanted. It was just as easy to kill them one at a time using their swords, and Billy's mace. At least until Billy explained why he had done it.

"I just wanted to see if you actually needed to hit them in the head to kill them for good. Seems that you do I guess. It beats finding out the hard way when they're nearby." Billy ran his hand over his mace as if he was rather disappointed that he might not get another chance to use it that day. But he still looked rather pleased with himself for his forward thinking, even if it might ruin some fun later.

"Good thinking." Said Douglas with an appreciative nod. Miracle number two. When Jason's heart started beating again he raised his hand and manually closed his jaw. Billy was hiding his surprise by reloading his rifle. After a moment or two of just standing around on the roof in silence, they all walked to the door and filed down back into the store.

Loading their supplies took them about a half an hour, including the time they took to sort out their loot and divide it between each of the cars and get some plastic bins from inside to keep it all in. Jason made sure that each vehicle got a pair of walkie-talkies, a radio, extra batteries, a compass and a stack of maps. Everything that they would need if they had to escape in a hurry. They were back inside before they knew it, all without running into any of their new neighbors.

The three men that Eric had shot were the only other living souls in the warehouse aside from a few rats scurrying around in the dark and the cats that had come in to feed on them. Ash and Cervantes met up at the rear of the building. "Sarge, we've finished our sweep, the place is clean."

"Good work corporal. There isn't anything alive up here either. Though we'll need to clean up a mess before it begins to really rot. I'll report to the captain that we're all clear, you and the rest of the people make your way around to the front, double time."

"Well you heard him, get moving people." Ash slung his rifle and led the column at a jog to the front door where the captain and Sarge were waiting.

"Excellent work lieutenant." The captain said, surveying his troops. "Good work. I'm going to send first platoon into the next warehouse to the east. I want your platoon to stand guard and get some rest for when we next call on you. The plan is to clear out the district and make it our base of operations."

"Yes sir. Thank you sir."

"Did you take note of what was stored inside?"

"Some sir. Mostly dry goods, a lot of tools and other hardware. Though the front right quarter seems to be full of bags of rice."

"Rice? Good. We'll need that later. Well you're dismissed. Enjoy your down time, it won't last long. We have a lot of work ahead of us."

To Ash, the captain's words were prophetic. The company spent the rest of the day sweeping the warehouses that lined the northern riverfront. Several large groups of zombies were destroyed and left to rot in the streets, though the doctor protested this course of action since the rotting corpses would bring disease. The captain didn't seem to care and just ordered his soldiers on to the next objective.

Nobody really knew what the captain had in mind. Not even Sarge. The man kept his mouth closed and his cards close to his chest. He chose the third or the fourth warehouse that the company had secured, Ash wasn't sure about the exact progression of events that day, one warehouse was much like the next. Too much had happened, leaving him in a dizzy haze as his mind tried to either absorb the information or just dismiss it all together.

The warehouse that the captain had finally settled on was the smallest of the lot. It also happened to be comparatively empty. The captain ordered all of the crates that were housed within, most of which were full of old high school textbooks, to be moved and placed along the perimeter. When he found that there weren't enough to complete a circuit, he had more crates and pallets brought in from the building next door, until he had a full ring around the inside wall. Once again, nobody knew why he was doing this, and nobody bothered to ask. As far as Ash could tell, the captain was just making busy work for them to keep their minds off of all the shit that was coming down around their ears, he was grateful for it too.

No one in the company had any better plans. It was a sad fact. They were way out of their league. The company was made up of fewer than fifty weekend warriors, half trained and poorly equipped and watching the end of civilization as it happened before their very eyes. Ash had heard more than one soldier mention ending it all right then and there.

The captain offered his soldiers something to hang on to, something tangible, even if it didn't make any sense to his troops. If nothing else, they were doing something, they had goals, and Ash hoped, plans to carry out. Even doing the wrong thing was better than sitting on your hands. Ash kept his head down, his mouth closed and got to work doing anything the captain or Sarge ordered.

When they finally got the warehouse walls ringed with the crates and pallets, the captain finally revealed that portion of his plan. They were building a base camp and this would be their new barracks. He wanted them to shore up the walls from inside as best as they could manage with the materials that they had available. He wanted them to have a veritable fortress when shit finally hit the fan.

The captain said that the city was in shock, and when the shock wore off, the shit was really going to hit the fan. The captain seemed to like that phrase and used it every chance he got. The company had to be ready for any inevitability. Any contingency. The captain said that his goals were simple. The company would survive and then impose order back onto the chaotic citizens, helping them rebuild civilization.

In the following days, the company fortified their position further. Their morale renewed with their new sense of worth. The captain had an engineering company that had been substituted for riflemen when the situation became critical and numbers got spread too thin. They were engineers because in they as individuals had brought in training and skills from the real world when they joined up and the engineering company was where the brass had decided to stick them. Now they were doing the kind of work that they had been intended to do in the first place.

They cut gun ports and murder holes in the walls at strategic points and mounted eight of the dozen M60s that they had salvaged. The other four they left for emergency use at hot spots should they ever boil up. They welded steel plates as a poor man's armor around the gun ports to better protect the soldiers who manned the station. The walls were a bit thin and likely not to do much to hinder a bullet's velocity. The company also constructed some crude sniper's nests on the roof. The company didn't have any real snipers, but the captain said that they train some in time, or perhaps recruit one or two.

When the fortress was to his liking, the captain started organizing patrols. One platoon out each day, divided into two groups to cover more ground. They wandered the city on foot. Killing off any zombies that they encountered. The company blew through more than a thousand rounds the in the first four days and finally the captain ordered that small groups were to be taken hand to hand. Larger groups were to be avoided if at all possible.

To carry out the captain's orders for their change in the rules of engagement, the company made use of sporting equipment that they had found in one of the warehouses. The company took all of the baseball bats and golf clubs and turned them into weapons against the zombies. The captain left it the individual soldier to decide which he or she preferred. After just two weeks of fighting the undead, mostly up close and personal-like with a bludgeon in hand, morale began to rise once again after a sharp downfall when the orders came down that they would be cutting back on ammunition use. The company was once more had goals to strive for. It also had showoffs among its numbers.

Eric, the shooter, was one of them.

Ash had been given command of two prior patrols and had done reasonably well. His people had killed over three hundred zombies in melee combat, no combat wasn't the word, since the things didn't fight back. Slaughter fit more, killing the things was like killing cows, except cows knew what was happening and tried to do something about their fate. They had beaten the zombies to death instead. They were becoming exterminators rather than soldiers.

The highest point in pride for Ash was what he had done to help the people of the city with his patrols. His people had also saved more than fifty civilians and returned them back to the base. The captain was talking about promoting him to sergeant.

What his dad would have said about hearing that, Ash would have liked to hear. Probably would have slapped him on the back, and given him a beer, Miller Highlife, for some reason his dad loved the Beast, before saying 'Damn good job boy, yer mom an I are proud! More than we ever 'spected from a knucklehead like you! Drink up!' And then they would have gotten drunk together.

He was feeling good. This was his third patrol, leading two squads numbering twelve soldiers in all and armed with their rifles and a mixture of the bats and clubs. A month ago they would have looked and felt ridiculous carrying the bats on a patrol through the streets of a major city. A month ago they wouldn't even have been patrolling the streets. That would have been left to the real army, his company would have just been employed in the role of support unit. How life had changed.

Ash couldn't yet decide if the change was for the better or not. He was almost a sergeant after all, and had a certain amount of respect among his troops and the civilians. Life was a helluva lot more exciting these days. But then, Avery had mentioned the other day, 'grand as all this is, nobody will be making any more video games or movies or writing books for a long time to come.'

Books Ash could live without, he was never really fond of reading, not even the articles in Playboy. Though he did love to read automotive magazines. Video games television shows and movies though, were the lifeblood of his entertainment world.

"What the hell are you doing on my property?" A voice from the shadows of the large wrap around deck yelled. Jésus' hands went up over his head. His sister's children started crying.

"Sorry sir, we didn't know that the house was inhabited. We'll be on our way, if you don't mind."

"Hold it right there, are you from the city?"

"Yes sir, we came from there."

"What the hell is going on in there?"

"I'm not sure, but according to the news, it's happening all across the world."

"So it is, at least that's what they do say. Now, why are you here?"

"We were just looking for a place to sleep. We didn't mean any harm."

"We? Ah, yes. How many you got in there with you? Sounds like a couple kids. Well, better come on in, we'll get you something to eat." George and Michelle were each holding one of the children. Jésus waved them to stay where they were, shrugged his shoulders and followed the shotgun wielding man through the door.

The man led him to the living room, it was well lit with gas burning lamps. The curtains were all drawn tightly so that not so much as a glimmer of light would be perceived from the outside. The man turned around to face Jésus. He was clad in farmer's overalls, though they appeared to brand new, as if he just liked the style. The man looked like he was in his mid thirties, light skin, dark hair and light eyes. Jésus would have hazard a guess that he was of German heritage, which was merely a safe guess considering that the German immigrants had most heavily settled the region in the previous centuries.

"Where is the rest of your family?" The man asked, a glint of amusement in his eyes.

"Well..."

"You left them outside so that you could scout us out and make sure that we weren't going to kill you and eat you like in Texas Chainsaw Massacre or something."

"Not in so many words, no."

"You really are city folk." Jésus looked at his feet, ashamed of himself for insulting his host. "That's ok, I lived in the city most of my life too, a real culture shock coming out here to the sticks, but we liked it so much that we dropped everything and left. Confused the hell out of the kids, let me tell you. To go from our high-tech modern lifestyle, to wannabe farmers. Just like that stupid show on the TV." He yelled over his shoulder "Gretchen, we have company."

A slightly heavyset woman in jeans and a flannel shirt bustled down the stairs stopping as she reached the last step. "Jacob, that isn't Henry, who is he?" She looked to be around ten years older than the man, though the familiar way that he wrapped his arm around her shoulder and rested his hand on her hip implied that they had been together for numerous years.

"Well?"

"Oh, I'm sorry. I'm Jésus, and my family..."

"Ah yes, your family, call them in, lets get them something to eat and some rest. I'll bet you had one long day."

Jésus smiled at Jacob. A weary thanks. And turned to the door. His family was still standing around the van where he left them. He stepped out onto the porch and waved to them to come over. George stood on the sidewalk, slowly as if he were carefully considering what to do next. But only for a moment until their mother passed him by. Jésus took her by the hand and led her back inside, the others at his heels.

Jacob and Gretchen were talking heatedly when he entered the room with his mother. Jésus stood in the doorway to the living room for a moment, waiting to be acknowledged and then cleared his throat. "This is my mother Selma, my sister and brother in law Michelle and George, their kids Christiana and George Jr. and my girlfriend Emily." He pointed each family member in turn, receiving a glare from Emily. He would be hearing about her being introduced last the next time they were alone together. Likely everyone in a mile radius would be hearing about it too. Jésus sighed and tried to put his little faux pas out of his mind. He would deal with it when he had to and not before. She wasn't family yet, and until she was, she wouldn't be among the first introduced.

Jacob smiled at them all, "Come, have a seat, all of you, you look exhausted." He waved around to the couch and chairs.

"Thank you sir,"

"Call me Jacob my friend."

"Thank you Jacob, but we've been sitting in the car all day..." His mother tugged on his sleeve. "Yes, I know mama! Where is your bathroom please?"

"Ah yes, of course. We don't have a bathroom at the moment, but the outhouse is out back." Emily gasped, she was a city girl through and through, and Jésus doubted that she had ever expected to visit a home without working plumbing. How rustic. Jacob picked up one of the lanterns that was sitting on the end table and led them through the dining room and out the back door.

"We were in the middle of remodeling the house, and well, we haven't gotten the bathroom back together yet. Getting up in the middle of the night to take a walk out to the outhouse makes you appreciate all the wonders of modern civilization let me tell you. Anyway, here it is. We'll be back inside when you're done. There's a bottle of sanitizer on the...well you'll find it." With that Jacob turned around and walked back to his house.

Jésus studied the outhouse as he waited his turn. For all of him, the tiny structure looked as if it had been built before the civil war. He was amazed that it was still standing. The outhouse made of wood, weathered grey boards and looked not much different than the artists interpretations in the funny-pages in the newspaper. After his turn came and went, Jésus had one clear assumption about the family inside the farmhouse, they really loved living in the country. Because you would have to really and truly love a place to be willing to deal with an outhouse on a day-to-day basis. The smell. The splinters. The bugs. He must have been bitten, in rather sensitive areas, by twenty different kids of bugs. Some he couldn't even name. The fact that they had to go outside. He didn't want to imagine what winter would be like out here, in the middle of the night in winter, in a blizzard.

But then, George came out and said that it was really cool. Michelle started at the man as if she had never seen him before and his mother asked God to protect her from crazy people.

Jésus left his family behind and returned to the house. Jacob was standing over a kettle full of stew as it was heating on the stove and Gretchen was slicing bread. An actual solid loaf of bread that hadn't been pre-sliced. Even his mother, as much as she often tried to cling to some of the old traditions, had always bought Wonderbread from the supermarket. He watched her as she worked, fascinated.

"We've been waiting for our son and his family to come out from the city." Gretchen said as she worked. "Jacob thought that you were them when you pulled up. When you turned out to be strangers, well, we've seen some unpleasant things on the news lately."

"The city was pretty messed up for us. A lot of zombies all over the place. We had to backtrack several times, and we avoided the highways in and out of Jefferson. The government had soldiers blockading all the major highways. But it was easy to get out using the minor roads."

"Where were you all headed in the first place? The government declared martial law."

"Well we stayed home until the television stations stopped broadcasting. By then, the street in front of our house was beginning to overflow with the zombies, so I suggested that we head to the mall."

"Like in that movie. Good idea."

"Thanks sir, that's what I thought."

Gretchen piled the bread onto a platter and asked "What movie?"

"Something of the dead, it's about a group of people who hide in a mall when the apocalypse comes and the dead start rising and eating people. Rather like the other day actually. Well what happened at the mall?"

"The creatures got there first. There were hundreds, maybe even thousands of them. We decided to go somewhere else."

"That must have been disappointing."

"I'll say, George spent the last three hours complaining that he never got to visit the Jerky Hut." That brought a laugh from both Gretchen and Jacob.

"A fan of jerky is he? A man after my own heart. I have some he can try."

"You do that, and you might never get rid of him." The statement brought an expression that was both sad and guarded. Jésus suspected that there was going to be some bad news in the future. That'd be a switch, he thought darkly.

The rest of his family joined them, standing in the door, waiting to be invited back in. Gretchen waved them in and over to the table. It was a solid piece of furniture meant to seat at least ten. Jésus admired the wonderfully carved feet as his family chattered, asking and answering questions of their hosts.

During the meal, George offered to help them install their bathroom fixtures, when he found out that everything was ready and waiting for the plumber to arrive. He said it was the least he could do. Jésus, knowing next to nothing about plumbing in general found himself dragged into assisting. George tended to ignore the fact that Jésus was near useless around tools, his brother in law just liked to pull him into similar projects whenever he had the chance. A chance to bond, he said.

Dinner came and went. The bread and stew were delicious, his mother asked for the recipes for each, both of which were freely given. They sat in silence for a while as Michelle and Selma put the kids to sleep.

Gretchen broke the silence, "This meal was meant for our son, his wife and our grandchildren. They called and said that they would be here tonight. We had hoped that they would be here sooner. We've been worried about them." Jacob leaned over and took his wife's hand and gave it a squeeze. A simple gesture that seemed to convey fear, and hope within the same breath. Jésus himself felt worried for this kind couple's son, daughter and grandchildren.

"Don't worry, they'll make it. The roads were a little difficult, but not that bad. They probably just had to find a way through."

Jacob made a sad half smile. "If, no, when they do arrive. Uh, well." It was the first time all evening that Jésus had seen their host struggle for words.

"When they get here, your home will be to crowded and it'll be about time for us to move on." Jacob and Gretchen sent him thankful looks. These were hard times, and it would be difficult enough to take care of their own. They wouldn't be able to manage with all the extra mouths. Even so, Jésus was thankful for what they had given him and his family. An island of respite in turbulent seas. "Until then, do you mind if we cool our heels? We need to get our heads straight and figure out where to go next. We'll be glad to help out with the chores."

"That, I think is very fair. Besides, we can use some company way out here anyhow."

They spent the rest of the night talking. Movies, television shows and books. His mother sat quietly knitting as the conversation flowed around her until they broached the topic of religion. She was eternally trying to convert people to what she saw as the only true religion, Roman Catholicism. She was fervent, though no blind zealot, in her attempts to bring people around to sharing her beliefs. In Jésus' mind, with her kindness, patience and generosity, she better represented his namesake than all the priests in the church. Though she lacked the experience or education, she was a fine missionary, at least to those who hadn't made up their mind. She was passionate about this one aspect of life, and that had been embarrassing when he was growing up.

Gretchen was an ex-Lutheran according to Jacob. She hit him when he named her so and he said "What was that for? You haven't been to church since before we got married!" Still, she held herself as a Lutheran and was fairly certain in her faith. She and Selma got into a long and pleasant discussion about their views of Christianity, one that they would rehash in the days to come.

Jacob on the other hand proclaimed himself a Pagan, who was fond of smoking marijuana and dancing nude around the bible fire until Gretchen hit him on the shoulder a second time and told him to behave as Selma gasped and crossed herself before saying a quick prayer. The two women returned to their animated discussion.

He really was a Pagan, that was no joke, but he enjoyed making the non-Pagans uncomfortable in their ignorance whenever possible. Jésus found the sentiment amusing. The humor passed well over his brother in law's head and George then asked, "Do you ever sacrifice goats?"

Jacob smiled, "Yes, but only when we can't get a hold of children." Gretchen hit him again, though it seemed to be more of a reflex since she and Selma had by that time moved onto the relevance of a priesthood in worship and communion with God. Jacob laughed. "Mostly we, or rather I, pay homage to nature. There isn't really a single set of beliefs for all Pagans. The group just got lumped together by the outside world. You just make it fit how you like and take the meaning you can from life. I honestly doubt I'm even really a Pagan, I just like to call myself one because it sounds cool, and it pissed my folks off. In the end, all religion happens to be is a set of beliefs to make life easier to deal with. Some order and structure in the universe, a way to explain why things are as they are."

"What were your parents?"

"They were strict fundamentalist Evangelicals. Frighteningly so. I rebelled from that in college. I haven't spoken to them since they found out that my kids and grandkids read the Harry Potter books. Things got even worse between us when they found out that I owned a copy of the series myself. 'Harry Potter lures kids away from Jesus' they said. So I said 'Mom, Dad, I'm a Pagan remember."

Jacob laughed and shook his head, a wry grin spread across his lips as he recalled the conversation. "Well, they just didn't get it. I didn't even receive the brunt of their anger, that was Gretchen, after all Gretch is still a good Christian girl in their eyes, even if she wasn't an Evangelical. She failed them big time as far as they're concerned."

Jésus had to admit, the whole Christian far right both fascinated and confused him. "I've never met any Evangelicals. A few Pagans were on campus, so I got to see them. But none of the Christian far right. Everyone back in my neighborhood was Catholic, if in name only."

Jacob shook his head again and grinned. Amusement was glittering in his eyes. "Saw some Pagans, you make us sound like a circus side show."

"For me, they were. Not nearly as cool as the first time I saw a couple honest to God lesbians when I was fifteen. That was a major highlight of my teen years." Jacob laughed while Emily rolled her eyes. She had become used to his lesbian story, as lame as it was.

Jacob chuckled again. "Lesbians," he said again with a smile and a sigh. The conversation lulled for a few moments, leaving Jésus to think about his first lesbian encounter, and all the late nights it led to, before Jacob returned with a request. "I do have one question for you about your trip," he said, "if you wouldn't mind answering me."

"Ok, ask and I'll do my best."

"Did you see any empty piles of clothes in the streets?"

Jésus was confused by the question, but he conferred with Emily and George and they all agreed that they hadn't seen any such sight between here and their home. They said so. "Ah then, must not be the rapture. My folks, if they are still alive, will be disappointed to see that. They were certain that the rapture would be coming soon. Guess they got it all wrong this time. Even so, I bet that they won't ever admit some sort of error on their part and still blindly condemn evolution and Harry Potter. It's just the kind of people they are. Never willing to surrender, or even adapt, straight forward even if it means driving into a brick wall. I always figured that they would die out eventually. I just believed that the world would be going along afterwards."

The conversation eventually tapered off as everyone, grew weary of talk. Jacob showed everyone where they could sleep. Gretchen and Selma stayed on long after, talking and quoting the bible. The next morning Jésus wondered if they ever bothered going to bed, since when he woke up, they were in the same seats as they had been the night before. Likely his mother had slept in one of the reclining chairs in the living room, if at all. In her mind, the less walking the better.

Coffee cups in hand and heads bent together in conversation. He never knew that his mother was so fascinated with religion. Devout, yes, but not so obsessively so. Still, it was good that she found a friend who shared her interest. Jésus just hoped that they didn't decide to start a doomsday cult, as now would be the ideal time to do so.

Jésus chuckled at the thought of his mother leading a doomsday cult.

Breakfast was simple but filling, scrambled eggs and toast. A couple different varieties of cold cereal for anyone who wanted it, which meant his niece and nephew. They carried a passion for eating cold cereal every morning that only possible with young kids.

After breakfast, George led the men up to the bathroom to take a close look at the mess that awaited them. The bathroom was pure chaos as near as Jésus could discern. The floor had been finished for some time, but all the fixtures, from the bathtub to the sink, were still in their boxes. George grinned, he was in his element. It was now Jésus' turn to be the big dumb one for a change.

They unwrapped the fixtures and sweated their way through the morning until it was lunchtime when they treated themselves to a refreshment break of sandwiches and iced tea. Very satisfying after a morning of labor. The afternoon saw the tub installed. Jésus would have expected that the toilet would have been the first priority, but George explained that the bathtub would need to be in first so it could be fit into place with no real trouble. The toilet would be in the way if they installed it first. Jacob fully backed George's suggested order of installation. Neither he nor Gretchen had had a nice hot bath at home for over a month now.

#

It was early afternoon. Lynn and Douglas were off alone enjoying some couple time after they finished their wonderful meal of canned soup and peanut butter sandwiches. It was their first meal in their new home. The food was going to get boring very quickly, but it would still beat slowly starving to death. Jason and Billy were walking in circles around the store, looking for something to do to fend off the boredom that would soon begin to creep up on them. Jason was counting off his strides against the tiles on the floor, he was doing about two and a half tiles per step, just a little longer than Billy.

It took three circuits before they finally tired of walking around in circles and not finding anything new in the store that they hadn't seen before, no secret doors or passages, no new zombies. They lingered for a few minutes at the front entrance. The hordes were pressing in, packing one another in tightly. Jason shivered as he imagined what would happen if that glass ever broke and the safety gates ever came down.

Jason shook his head in awe "how many do you think are out there?"

"I dunno, more than the two hundred that I actually counted earlier."

"We need to actually count them or something."

"Maybe tonight, if I can't get to sleep."

"I still want a better estimate, if not exact numbers."

"What for?"

"I want to know what we're up against here man."

"Good idea, lets go take a look at them from the roof."

Billy grabbed his rifle from the employee break room as they passed the table that he had left it on earlier, and then left it leaning against the wall at the top of the stairs just inside the doorway. It was a short walk across the roof of the building, from the stairs to the front door. They made much longer than necessary though, by the detours for them to look into the building the skylights out of curiosity over what the store looked like from above. There were a sea of colors that probably would have been far more interesting had the lights been on inside.

The two of them stood over the main entrance silently for several long minutes looking down on the sizable crowd of zombies that were milling around outside their front door. Their numbers had grown significantly since the group of survivors had arrived at the store just a few short hours prior. Most of the zombies were at the door, but more were crossing the parking lot as they watched, and even more of the creatures stumbled down the road towards the Megamart.

"Maybe we should bring in the welcome mat." Billy quipped as he counted the zombies. "Ya know, before more decide to stop by."

Chuckling over the idiocy of the statement Jason couldn't help himself from tossing out a rejoinder. "I think it's too late for that. Do you think that they'd go away if we pretended that we weren't home?"

"It never worked for my family, and they're all about as smart as those bastards down there, I don't think it would work now. Stupid zombies."

"Yep, that they are."

It was eerie how accurate the movies had been about the nature of zombies. First, the whole 'destroying their brain' thing was important, as Billy had found out earlier when he tested his rifle. Second they did seem to want to congregate at places that they had known in life. Since it wasn't likely that they were too interested in the insane low prices that the Megamart had claimed to offer. Thirdly there was the whole eating of the flesh of the living thing. They ignored one another but experience told him that the undead were more interested in the living than was healthy for anyone who could still draw a breath and remember their name.

Billy picked up one of the rocks that was sitting on the rooftop and then heaved it as far as he could. It was difficult to be sure what he was aiming at, but unless it was the ground, he missed by a long way. Even Lynn had loved to tease him that he wouldn't be able to hit the ground if it weren't for gravity. Two more stones followed, clattering on the pavement, before he finally managed to hit the windshield on one of the cars.

"Nice throw," well he had managed to hit something anyways. Though the look on his face suggested that the car wasn't his intended target.

"I was aiming for the fat lady in the flower dress."

"How do you miss a target that big? By that much?" The fat woman was at least twenty feet over to the left of the car.

"Think you can do better?"

"Couldn't do much worse."

Billy just grabbed more stones and kept on throwing. He was erratic at best, some stones would come within perhaps ten feet of the fat woman, while others wouldn't be anywhere near her. Really. He would have been further ahead to walk over to the back of the building and drop one of the stones straight down. It was sad.

Jason joined in. He scored his first hit on the fat woman after five tries, it bounced off of her shoulder and made her stumble a bit. It was a good throw, one which only made Billy throw harder and miss wider. Twenty more throws and Jason connected with her head, which was good because by then his arm was beginning to ache. The fat woman went down like a sack of bricks.

Billy looked a bit peeved as Jason grinned at him. Then he just shrugged and sat down with his legs draping over the edge. They watched the zombies for several more minutes in silence once again, just enjoying the warm afternoon in the late part of the spring. Finally Billy spoke up.

"Hey Jason, you've seen Braveheart right?"

"Yeah, we watched it together like a few months ago." For probably the twentieth time. But it was how Billy started conversations that involved new and potentially dangerous ideas.

"You remember the castle siege scene?"

"Yeah." Billy just grinned, it was obvious that he wanted Jason to guess what was on his mind. "I give up man, what did you think of this time?"

"Well it just occurred to me that we have a lot of heavy objects that we'll never need. Have you ever wondered what it would be like to drop a five thousand dollar television onto someone from a rooftop?" Now it was Jason's turn to grin. If Lynn were completely deaf but standing on the roof with them, she would have known instantly that something stupid was about to happen just by the way that they were grinning at one another. Jason was convinced that even though she wasn't there, she was still getting an itch between the shoulder blades to warn her. Women's intuition she had called it. Douglas had called it the stupidity detector.

Both were probably dead on descriptions.

"I can't say that that has ever crossed my imagination, but you have my curiosity peaked."

"In the name of science then?"

"You going to take notes on it?"

"Hell no!"

"Maybe not in the name of science then, if it were for science we'd have to do it right and document it somehow."

"Well how about using some camcorders?"

"Do we have any?" Science after all needed to know such things as the effect an expensive television had when falling off of a store roof on top of a walking corpse. Science needed to know everything.

"Brother, we have everything."

They did have everything. Jason and Billy spent an hour in the electronics department, they ended up with five video cameras, batteries and casettes for each camera and three tripods. They also grabbed some lumber and rope so that they could lower one of the cameras down over the edge and get a zombie eye view of the carnage. They loaded all the cameras with batteries and film and then tested each one to make sure it worked and to make doubly sure that they knew how to use them. The exercise wouldn't be entirely wasted if the cameras didn't work out, but they wouldn't have a kick ass souvenir and that would dim the experience a little.

#

It took them about ten minutes to get all of the cameras set up how they wanted them. They had two cameras on the roof, mounted on tripods and pointed down at the crowd below. They had a third camera on a tripod, ready to be lowered to the ground before they started their experiment. The last two cameras they were going to hold in their hands. Everything up there was ready. It was back into the store to find things that would be fun to drop.

The very first place they stopped at was the storeroom for one of the giant projection televisions. They had finally wrestled the thing out of the protective cardboard wrapping and onto the cart that they had dragged with them before something finally occurred to Jason "Wait a minute, how are we going to get this thing up to the roof?" There was no way that the two of them were going to carry it up that narrow stairway.

"We'll take the service elevator in the back of this store room."

"There's an elevator?"

"Yep."

"To the roof?"

"Yep."

"What for?"

"I asked that once, they use it when they need to do repairs on the roof."

"I guess that makes sense."

"I even have the key for the elevator."

"Then what are we waiting for? Wait a minute. How will the thing work without power?"

"It's on a backup generator."

"By itself?"

"Pretty much, there are generators for the rest of the building, but it looks like they're offline."

"How do we know if the backup generator is running?"

"We push the button, if the elevator goes up, the generator is working."

"Should I be worried here?"

"Only if you're claustrophobic."

"And if the generator is off?"

"Then we have a choice to make."

"And that being?"

"How much do we want to drop a television off the roof. Those things are heavy and the stairs are not the best for moving heavy furniture."

"That's an easy one. I don't want to see it happen that badly."

"Lazy bastard."

"And how."

"Come on, let's go."

They pulled the cart to the back of the storage area, and true enough there was an elevator and even more surprisingly Billy had the key for it. They strapped the television onto the cart to get it ready for the rough ride it was about to take over the stone covered roof and then took it up. Jason had thought that getting the television onto the cart in the first place was difficult, getting it to roll over the stones was ten times worse. After a lot of sweat and more cursing, they made it to the spot that stood over the main entrance to the store below. Finally they got the television off the cart and onto the edge of the roof and in position to be pushed.

"Before we go farther, how do we want to do this?" Jason mopped the sweat off his forehead. He hadn't noticed before how warm the weather was that day, but he was noticing it now.

"Well, we turn the cameras on and then we push it, I thought that was pretty simple."

"I mean how do we want it to land?"

"How do you mean?"

"Well we want to see what happens to people who have a big TV dropped on them, but do we want it to land face down on them or on it's side?"

"I hadn't thought of that. Good question. We could try both."

Jason exhaled suddenly "forget I asked."

"Come on, where's your sense of curiosity?"

"It was leeched out of me by that death march we just made across the roof."

Getting the second television across the roof was even more draining than the first. Though they knew what they were up against the second time around, and had worked out a system to make it easier on themselves, they were still tired from dragging the first one. When they finally got it into position next to its brother they both flopped down into the shade and heaved a sign of relief. It was at least half an hour before they were ready to move again in the slightest.

"Well what else do you think we should get to throw before we get started?" Asked Billy in a slow sleepy voice.

"I don't know, I guess we should look around the store again, maybe things like bowling balls and whatever."

"Wait a minute."

"What?"

"I just had a kick ass idea!"

"You don't want to throw Douglas do you?"

"Even better but no. But very close. Remember how Lynn suggested we get rid to the zombies we killed inside?"

"Oh damn. You're not suggesting..."

"Yes I am."

"God is going to kill us for sure."

"Why would he do that?"

"I don't know, but the idea seems so wrong."

"That is why we need to do it."

"All right. But when we get to hell, I don't know you" They lazily got up to their feet and walked slowly back to the elevator, dragging the cart with them.

They ended up bringing back four bodies, several bowling balls and a couple of smaller televisions (when Billy realized that the big televisions didn't have glass and wouldn't explode when they hit the ground). The strangest thing that they brought back up was a dancing Santa Claus display that Billy insisted upon throwing off the roof, it seemed that the thing had annoyed him to no end and now he was going to make it pay for being so irritating. It went first, in the hope that it would help to break the television's fall. If only in a minor and symbolic way.

They turned on all the cameras and got into their positions. Billy was grinning ear to ear by the time they stood behind the first television set and got ready to push. "On three" said Jason as they got ready, he counted down from three and they gave a heave on the TV. It sailed off the roof. It was one of those special slow motion moments, the magical kind that normal folks might experience when they're in the arms of their true love. Floating through the air for what seemed like minutes before it finally and very suddenly hit. Crossing between the roof and the zombies below so quickly that it was as if it had folded the space between.

It had flipped end over end and landed screen side down. The crash and sickening crunching sound that followed when it hit was astounding. It had crushed at least a dozen or so zombies under its weight.

Billy was giggling like a lunatic, which wasn't a surprise, breaking things was fun, Jason himself had a good chuckle at the sight below. He was disappointed to see that some of the zombies under the television were still squirming under the weight of the television that sat on top of them. Jason had hoped that they had killed all of the creatures. Everyone that might be crushed was one less that they might have to hack to pieces later. The zombies around the television were completely oblivious to it's being there, with some of them climbing onto it in an attempt to get closer to the door.

"Ready for the second one?"

"Hell yeah."

They got behind the second TV and got ready to push. This one should do some more damaged to the ones it managed to fall on, as well as break apart better since it was going to land on it's side. It had been situated several feet further down the roof from the first. They wanted a fresh batch of the corpses for the second experiment. They eased the set slowly over the edge, tipping it and watching it slide the rest of the way on it's own.

It hit, and made and even more spectacular crash than the first. It also turned the three or four zombies that were unfortunate enough to be under it into some greasy stains on the concrete. The entire front side of the television had come out, leaving the shell of the set empty. It was as thoroughly broken as the bodies underneath it.

"I think there's a medical term for what happened to them."

"Oh? What is it?"

"Aunt-Jemimahed."

"Medical did you say?"

"Yep."

"Ok doc, whatever you say. Looks like we got our answer though."

"What was that?"

"Well the TV breaks, and so does what-ever happens to be standing underneath playing outfielder at the time."

"Gravity is a terrible mistress." Said Billy with the grin still in place.

"Only when you're standing under a falling television."

"Too bad we don't have any dishwashers, or better yet, a piano."

"A piano, no, the televisions were hard enough to drag across the roof. A piano would be nearly impossible." Just thinking about it made Jason tired.

"But think of the damage it would do and the sound it would make as all the wires broke. It would be like watching a cartoon."

"If you could get some cartoon characters to haul the thing I'd be all for it. Else you're on your own bud."

"Just what the hell are you two doing?" The both jumped strait up in the air and spun around in time to see Lynn storm across the rooftop with Douglas a little ways behind her. She didn't look too pleased. Retrospectively, Jason had been amazed that she hadn't come when the crash of the first television rang through the store. But she was here now. "Well?" Nope, she was not happy at all. Best to let Billy answer.

He prodded Billy in the ribs with his elbow, silently willing his friend to talk. "We're running experiments involving gravity and heavy objects."

"You could have fooled me, here I thought you were just dropping things off the roof."

"That involves gravity."

"And the objects were heavy." Chimed in Jason.

"What did you drop?"

"You know those big projection televisions that we thought we'd never unload?"

"Oh no."

"We finally unloaded them."

Lynn walked the rest of the way over to them and looked over the edge at the remains of the two giant televisions and the zombies that broke their fall. She shook her head in disbelief. Douglas joined her and Jason was amazed when he stifled a laugh himself. "Billy, what possessed you to do this?"

"The violence on television warped my innocent mind and made me do it." Lynn just stared at him, she didn't bother responding after a moment of her intense scrutiny he cracked. "What else were we going to do with the televisions? We had them, it was something to do and we killed some zombies at the same time. What's the big deal?"

Lynn turned to Jason "Why didn't you put a stop to it? I thought you had sense."

"He brainwashed me and programmed me for evil, I couldn't stop myself. Thank God you're here to stop his evil plans."

There were many long, convoluted and interesting conversations that followed through the next few days in their life on the farm. Jacob had been a scholar of some sorts before. Jésus could never quite pin him down as to where his specialty was or even what fields he studied. The man seemed to be a Jack-of-all-trades and was more than willing to read about, or more likely to discuss just about any topic imaginable. Though he did have some strange ideas. The moon was made of cheese! And how do you know it wasn't? Have you ever been there? Ah, so you can't say for sure that the moon isn't made of cheese.

He was filled to the figurative brim with predictions about which direction follow human civilization would take next, most of them dark and unpleasant. Tiny city states would spring up where survivors could band together and then go to war with their neighbors over food or women or whatever.

He went on with great elaborate detail until Gretchen leaned in and said "You know where he got all that?" With an answering headshake from Jésus and George she added, "from the Mad Max movies. He watched them every time they came the television, didn't matter which channel, or even if they were already half over when he found them. Don't take his dire predictions too seriously boys, they're culled from movies."

Midway through their third day staying on the farm with Jacob and Gretchen, their son Henry and his family made their appearance. George was just applying the final bead of caulk to the last little gap between the toilet and the floor tiles when a battered SUV pulled up into the driveway behind their van and stopped. Gretchen yelled up the stairs "Jacob! They're here!" Letting the bang from the screen door as she ran out of the house punctuate the statement.

Jacob was on his feet and down the stairs before George could set aside the caulk gun and rise to his feet. Sounds of relief and joy met them as they followed Jacob down the stairs. Gretchen was crying and laughing at the same time.

Jésus watched the spectacle from the safety of the front porch. After three days with Jacob and his stories about his family, Jésus felt as if he knew Henry already, sight unseen. But he knew his familiarity was an illusion at best and a conceit at worst. No matter, the reunion was a time for family and there was no need for his intrusion.

He hated to admit it, but he had been hoping that Henry and his family wouldn't be showing up, while reassuring Jacob that they would arrive at any minute. Their appearance meant that his family had now been displaced from a happy and safe home. His entire family, himself included, was about to be disappointed and cut loose once again.

Jacob had been right. The house wouldn't fit any more people. Michelle and George were sharing a bedroom with their children. While he and Emily had the other. His mother stayed and slept on the couch down stairs. Any more people would be forced out into the yard.

Jésus leaned against the outer wall, his hands crossed behind his back, and waited. With a few more minutes of hugging and crying, Jacob led his family towards the house.

"Henry," He said as he mounted the steps "I would like you to meet our friend Jésus. He and his family accidentally found us a few nights ago and have been staying here since." Jésus offered his hand to Henry, and had it nearly crushed as the man took it and gave it a shake.

A sneer flickered across his face and was gone in an instant. "Pleased to meet you Jésus," Henry said as he passed into the house. "So dad, you got some illegals to help you and mom out with the house did you?"

Jésus jaw dropped in surprise. After living with Jacob and Gretchen and hearing the stories about their son, he had heightened expectations. The handshake and the ghost of the sneer he could pass off as part of his own active imagination, but his comment, that was just too blatant to ignore.

Jacob looked furious as his bored into the retreating back of his son. "He's gotten worse."

"Worse?"

"He spent far too much time with his step-father as a boy. That's where he learned that crap from. I tried to tone it down as much as I could, but as you can see, the damage has been done. That was just the most minor tip of the ice burg. He gets far more unpleasant when he's been drinking. Rachel, his wife, said that he's been drinking a lot the last few days, which is why they were so late, they waited each morning until he was sober enough to drive and then when they were done driving at night, he would get drunk again." Jésus could only shake his head again.

"After spending this time in the pleasant company of you and Gretchen, and hearing the stories, I must say that I'm shocked."

"We probably should have mentioned his little foibles." Jacob grimaced as his mouth formed the word 'foibles'. "No," he said. "The boy is defected. But he's mine. And his wife and children are still wonderful people. We're not sure how that happened. I guess you can plainly see why we're so very reluctant to have company while he's here. Even some so pleasant as your own. Gretchen has really taken to Selma."

"As my dad used to say, some times the apple falls far from the tree."

"That it does. A wise man, your dad. A wise man. Well hell, lets go get some dinner, have one last good meal together."

"We're thankful for everything you've done for us." Jacob surprised Jésus by giving him a rib creaking hug and patting him on the back before following Henry indoors. Jésus was so startled by the sudden display of warmth, that he went rigid and was immediately worried that his friend would take it as a sign of non-existent anger.

Dinner was fantastic. The women had worked to out do themselves. Normally at home, Selma took the roll of master chef, while she enlisted everyone else to work under her expert direction. They had adopted a similar tradition here, though it was devoid of men. Nobody really took charge either, they just seemed to form some strange committee on which they all sat. Even the newcomer, Rachel, Henry's wife, had full membership to their club. Girls time, they called it and they sent the men back up to upstairs to put the finishing touches on the bathroom. When Jésus, Jacob and George were once again summoned (Henry had opted to stay in the living room), they arrived to a true feast.

Aside from a few snide remarks about Mexicans by Henry, all of which either Rachel or Jacob immediately stepped upon, the conversation was lively and fun. The kids were all about the same age and had a ball running around outside and screaming like maniacs. Jacob grinned, he liked having little kids around he said. "At least the neighbors can't call and complain about the noise."

#

Lynn just gave up. You can't fight city hall, or a hurricane or a runaway freight train. Billy was all three at once, minus the city hall. It was best to just get out of the way and hope for the best. "Ok, ok. Just don't make too much noise, you'll attract attention." Realizing how stupid that request was, Lynn turned around to walk back into the store. Before she followed Douglas down the stairs she stopped and turned to face them again, "I almost forgot why we came up here in the first place, aside from the huge crashing sounds, take these." She handed them each a walkie-talkie and then turned around and walked back into the building again with Douglas at her heels. "Channel four," she called out as she disappeared through the doorway.

"Brainwashed eh? If that's the case, want to go get me a beer?"

"Not really, I was saved from that fate by our beloved Lynn, oh savior mine." They both giggled like twelve-year-old girls sharing a secret at a slumber party.

"Well what do you want to throw off next?"

"I would like to hear why you hate that Santa Claus so much." Jason leaned over the cart looked down at the Santa Claus below. It was about two feet tall and made of plastic, with some felt cloth as clothing. The only feature that set it apart really from any other Santa decoration was the black sunglasses that covered its eyes. "I don't see why it's so annoying."

Billy leaned over the edge and clapped his hands twice. The Santa came to life. Billy set looked down at the thing and glared. The Santa stood there for a moment before fully coming to life, when it started to sing and dance. It's hips swayed to the tune of a bastardized Elvis song and then when Jason thought it couldn't get any worse the thing started singing. He stared for a full minute in horror as the beast went through and finished its routine and then started back up again. Both televisions had missed it, and the damned thing had survived the twenty-foot drop. There it was, grinding its gears and wiggling its hips in defiance. As if to say "You mere mortals shall never slay Santa Elvis, now I dance!"

Billy merely pointed at the Santa and said "Think about working next to that for two full months."

"Ok throw the TV. Do you want to shoot it on the way down too? You can use my shotgun." It was all Jason could say. The thing was a terrible symbol of commercialism and more than that it was a terrible entertainer. The dancing mechanism was choppy as best and the recording was of poor quality. It was the perfect symbol for the Megamart as a whole. Billy had bitched about the Santa for months during the Christmas season. Jason now wanted to hit the thing with a hammer after spending a mere two minutes in it's presence.

Billy picked up the nearest television set, a small thirteen inch model, lifted it over his head and threw it as hard as he could at the zombie masses below. "See you in hell you obnoxious little fucker." Venom dripped from his voice as he uttered the farewell to the little decoration, Jason finally understood the venom. The television landed the head of one of the zombies below, sending it to the ground in a crumpled heap, before coming to rest on the shoulders of several of the packed in bodies. Billy looked as if justice had been done at last and he was going to drink in every second of it. He had missed the dancing Santa this time, but it wouldn't be long before he had his revenge in full.

Jason let him enjoy it in silence for a couple of minutes before he asked, "do you think we could kill a zombie with a zombie?"

"I don't know, but it's worth a shot." They walked back to the cart and grabbed the corpse of the fat blonde kid and dragged it over to the edge and rolled it off. The fat kid bowled several of the zombies it landed on over without doing them really too much damage. They grabbed the second body, it was a good deal lighter, so rather than just rolling it off the edge they held it upside down by the ankles before dropping it head first. It struck with a huge crack, knocking down the zombie it hit and at the same time oozing a good deal of blood and gore. It was rather unpleasant to watch, even after all they had seen.

"That was nasty." Jason's face crinkled with disgust over the broken body that they had just dropped.

"Yeah it was." Even Billy looked a little grossed out by the smattering of goo below. "Ready to throw the next?"

"Sure, I guess." The last two bodies went over, all but repeating the results of the second. Seeing it was still a rather unpleasant sight to behold, but not quite as shocking as the first time. "The bowling balls then?"

"They're all we have left." Billy walked back to the cart and started unwrapping the first ball.

"Why does this store sell bowling balls?" Their town didn't even have a bowling ally. There wasn't a bowling ally for well over 50 miles in any direction. It was much akin to trying to sell sunbathing accessories to people who lived in the Arctic and did not actually enjoy going to the beach.

"For about the same reason that they carried those rear projection televisions, except with more success." Billy finished getting the ball out of the packaging, putting all the plastic that it came wrapped in back into the box. It was a strange thing about him, he didn't litter when he could help it. Sure, he'd drop a pair of giant, expensive television sets off of the roof and onto the pavement just to watch the crash, but he wouldn't toss out a paper cup or a plastic bottle if he could help it. "People around here can't afford to buy a TV like that, but they can afford bowling balls, even if they don't get to play very often. They still seem to like to bowl. So we give them what they want."

Jason shook his head in disbelief at the silliness of the people who had lived around him for so long. And then shrugged his shoulders when he realized that it really didn't matter anymore. He got his own bowling ball out of the packaging and then joined Billy at the edge of the roof. First thing they did was to check the cameras to see if they were still recording, they were. Everything was still in place. They took up their positions.

"On the count of three." Billy took his turn to count down. On three they both threw their bowling balls as hard as they could. A pair of zombies collapsed and were swallowed by the masses below. The number of the creatures had nearly doubled since they had started their experiment and more were on their way. Jason felt a glimmer of despair clutch his chest and twist his stomach. Somehow when they had discussed the zombie apocalypse in the safety of their homes it had never dawned on him what it would truly be like to be a survivor.

He went back to get a second ball and then a third. He threw both of them as hard as he could, striking down a zombie each time. And so it was with each ball that he got until they ran out. In his mind it stopped being a game, now it was about their survival. He would fight for their survival.

#

The sun was drifting down towards its resting place in the distant unseen west, ending a long day. Jason and Billy had run out of things to throw long before, leaving perhaps a couple dozen or more dead, or rather completely dead, zombies on the pavement below. The two of them were sitting down again, enjoying some patio furniture that they had brought up after they exhausted the last of their missiles. Missiles, which included the cart that they had used to haul everything up from the store. The cart had done a good bit of damage itself, which was a pleasant surprise. A surprise that would probably almost outweigh the tongue lashing that they would get from Lynn when she found out what they did.

The rooftop was quiet, except for the occasional squeak of the furniture as one of them reached for a drink or adjusted themselves on the chairs. The only other sounds were the occasional rush of wind, or a bird calling. Of course there was the ever present scraping of shoes on the pavement of the parking lot below. They tried to block that out though.

Jason scratched himself and leaned back. He and Billy were enjoying the first sunset in their new home. The weather was particularly fine, and under the circumstances they were enjoying themselves.

They were drinking cheap warm beer. Not usually a good combination, but then they couldn't get their hands on cold beer. They could switch to, if they had so wanted, to good beer but after years of living the lives of poor students the two of them had acquired a taste for cheap beer. It all brought a sense of normality. The sun was still warm, worse now that the pavilion that they had scrounged wasn't providing shade. There was a warm breeze blowing across the roof and out over the parking lot, thankfully blowing the stench of the corpses away from them for the time being.

Jason grabbed another can of beer, tossing his empty into the recycle bin that Billy had insisted on bringing with them. Who was going to recycle, Jason had no clue, but that sort of detail didn't matter a jot to Billy. Warm beer. At least it was wet. He got up and walked to the edge of the roof and looked over.

"Still there?" Billy grabbed himself another beer and took a drink, leaning back in his comfortable chair.

"Yep."

"Don't they see the ''Sorry, we're closed' sign?"

"I don't think they do. But maybe they're just ignoring it." Jason leaned over the edge and yelled down at the zombies "Go home! We're closed for business." He looked back at Billy "No such luck."

Billy shrugged back "What'd you expect?"

"Not too much really, but I can hope anyways."

"Maybe we should offer them some more super values on low priced goods."

"All they would have to do is catch them. But what else could we throw?"

"Bowling balls?"

"Threw them all."

"We already threw all of the meat in the store at them."

"Yep, at least it wont start rotting inside. That would be an unpleasant stink."

"We've thrown enough televisions already."

"More than enough." Jason rubbed his back, it was getting sore from all the carrying that they had done earlier. "Something kind of light I think."

"I've got an idea." He paused for dramatic effect, waiting for Jason to ask.

"Well, out with it."

"We can get a big bin and fill it with rocks and then dump the rocks all at once on our friends down there."

Jason looked up at the sky, it was getting dark. "Maybe tomorrow, we have a lot of both time and zombies to kill. We can spread out our wacky shenanigans."

"Yeah, those we do." Billy finished the last of his beer in a final swig. "Well, shall we join the others?"

"Sure."

"What time is it?"

"Dunno, let me check." Jason looked at the watch he had found earlier. "It's 11:45."

"It doesn't look dark enough to be that late." Billy sounded confused. Jason felt that way too. He held the watch up to his ear and noticed that it wasn't ticking.

"It seems that I grabbed a dead watch."

"Why didn't you notice that earlier?"

"I didn't want to look too closely, I thought the watch looked good on me. That and at the time it was around 11:45."

"Does this store ever carry any working watches?"

"You tell me, you work here not me."

"To hell with it, lets just go."

Jason finished his beer as well and then nodded his assent. Billy heaved himself out of his chair, stood up and stretched for a moment before picking up his gun belts off the table and strapping them back on. Jason put his guns back on too and they both headed back to the stairs down to the interior of the store. They grabbed their flashlights and walked down the stairs into the lounge.

"You know, with all the zombie uprising chats we've had over the years, why didn't one of us think to learn how to use the generator?"

"I don't know, good question, but a bit late."

"I guess we always figured that the generators would be up and running."

"Honestly, I never really even gave it much thought."

"That doesn't surprise me, you were always thinking of new ways to kill zombies."

"Somebody had to. I wonder why Lynn didn't think of it, she thought of just about everything else."

"True that."

Speaking of the devil, Lynn and Douglas were sitting at one of the tables, themselves enjoying a beer. Or at least drinking beer, it was hard to enjoy drinking the stuff while it was warm. They joined their friends at the table and started discussing their dinner plans. They spent most of the day to themselves, Lynn and Douglas off reading somewhere or doing something else that they didn't seem to want to mention, Billy destroying things, and Jason floating between. They had decided that they would spend meal times together.

Canned soup and sandwiches it would probably be once again. They had a long time to look forward to canned soup. Sandwiches on the other hand would only be in their diet for a week or perhaps two before the bread started to mold over. They would also enjoy the fresh fruit while they could. It was a treat to have it and they all knew it.

"We should set up a stove on the roof tomorrow." Jason knew he wouldn't be able to stand eating cold canned soup for very long before he cracked. They all agreed that a stove was a good idea, then they could start eating other things besides the cold soup. Maybe actually do some cooking. They had a world of supplies to choose from and it would be best to use the vegetables before they went south with the fruit.

The four of them went grocery shopping together.

#

Dinner was as bland as he had expected, but he enjoyed the company of his friends. Even Douglas. Douglas had changed enormously since just that morning. It was rather darkly humorous that it took the holocaust to make the man lighten up. They were sitting in the lounge, it had become their living room after they moved some of the tables and chairs out of the way and replaced them with something more comfortable. Billy was rolling back and forth on his computer chair, while Lynn was rocking away.

They had brought out a deck of cards and were playing a game of euchre, or at least some of them were playing it. Jason still couldn't figure out the muddled rules of the game, which annoyed Billy to no end since they were teamed together. Jason sat there looking at his cards and trying to figure which one he should play. It felt like he had a better chance at drawing a royal flush than he did at putting the right card down during the right hand.

"Why can't we just play poker? That game at least makes sense."

Lynn sighed with exasperation, it was the fifteenth time that night that he had made the same statement and she was probably beginning to think that he was a bit slow in the head. "The game isn't that difficult Jason, just give it a chance."

"I've given it a chance, and I'm still as confused as I was forty five minutes ago when explained the rules of this train wreck of a game." It was frustrating as hell, it seemed like some cards changed value depending on the position of the stars in the sky, he put down a black ten, without bothering to see whether it was spades or clubs.

Billy exploded, it had been building since the game began and he realized that Jason was a dullard at card games. "Damn it Jason!" He threw his hand down on the table and cradled his head in his hands.

"I told you, I have no idea what I'm doing." He turned his hand face down and threw it into the middle of the table with the rest of the cards.

"Should we just play Go Fish? Something at your level maybe, like fifty two pickup?"

Jason merely responded by extending the middle finger of his right hand in an upward direction and showing it to his friend. Lynn sighed while Douglas hid a huge grin behind his cards, it was amazing that the man was able to hold in his mirth that successfully. They sat in silence for several minutes letting it all go. Lynn grabbed the cards and straitened them up before putting them back into the box as she sat and waited.

Douglas ended the silence with a simple question "So, what do you think caused the whole zombie thing to happen?" They sat in silence some more thinking about the question. There were tons of potential causes that fans of zombie movies the world over had proposed to answer the same question that haunted the survivors of their favorite films. Maybe it was a comet, or perhaps it was a global plague, or aliens did it, or it was the alignment of the stars. Nobody could ever agree on one explanation. The phenomena was relived on a smaller scale right there in that room that night.

Lynn was fond of the global plague explanation, some sort of particularly nasty virus. But she could never explain why the four of them alone had survived while everyone around them had perished. Jason kept silent, why it had happened didn't ever matter to him. The simple fact was that he wasn't a scientist and he would never understand why what was going on was happening. It could be a plague, or for all he knew aliens could have done it, it didn't matter. What he did understand was that it had happened and that was all-important. The apocalypse had come and he was going to do his best to make sure that they all survived it.

"It's all the act of an evil wizard. He's targeting me personally."

It was the first time that Lynn had encountered the evil wizard theory and needless to say she was amused. "Really? Does this wizard have a name?"

Billy nodded solemnly "Merlin, his name is Merlin."

"King Arthur's Merlin?" She couldn't keep her disbelief entirely out of her voice, but it didn't matter since Billy either didn't notice it or just ignored it completely.

"The very same."

"Why would Merlin cross both time and space to wipe out humanity to get back at you?"

"I made fun of his beard."

"That's all? He killed off humanity to turn them into an army of zombies to punish you for making fun of his beard?"

"Yep."

"Kind of over the top isn't it? The whole zombie thing just for a beard joke?"

"He's an evil wizard, what do you expect?" Douglas and Jason looked at each other. Neither was sure whether the other two were actually taking the conversation seriously, but they both knew that they didn't want to get into the middle of it. The best thing to do when Lynn and Billy got that way was to sit back and ride it out.

The storm ended quickly when Lynn just wisely gave up and acceded the field. The evil wizard conspiracy was just as plausible to Jason as the rest, not very likely, but just as possible as far as he was concerned.

Lynn turned to her fiancé "You asked the question in the first place what do you think?"

"I think God is pissed off at us for some reason or another."

"I thought you didn't believe in God, that you were an atheist."

"I was."

"What happened?"

"I didn't believe in zombies either, if I can be wrong for one thing, why not the other."

It was a good point and as valid as the other two arguments. It also brought back to mind another thought, the other change in Douglas that Jason had noticed. "Hey Douglas, what happened?" God had appointed an evil wizard to create a virus because of stupid jokes about beards.

"What do you mean? When?"

"To you? You seem to have lightened up a hell of a lot since this whole thing started."

"Ah yeah. That."

"Well?"

"I realized that my career in accounting was over before it began and that I wasted my college career."

"I don't understand."

"I hate accounting. I hate number crunching and busy work."

"Then why were you getting a degree in accounting?"

"It pays well, my father is an accountant and I'm good at it. A lot of stupid reasons that don't mean anything any more, I'm free now." Lynn reached out and took his hand in hers. He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed it lightly and smiled at her the man actually looked at ease and happy. If Jane were still around she would say something about making silver lining when life gave you lemons. The woman wasn't ever any good with keeping old cliché sayings straight. The thought brought back a stab of pain and despair.

#

The rest of the night was uneventful. They talked some more and played board games before finally deciding it was time for them to get to sleep. Jason and Billy grabbed some of Jason's camping gear from Mike and set it up in the lounge. Lynn and Douglas on the other hand found a futon to use out on the store floor. It was near black outside and a sliver of the moon was up in full, peeking at them through one of the skylights. Jason and Billy were back up on the roof for one last breath of fresh air and one last cigarette before they turned in for the night.

Billy lit up and took a drag, offering Jason one, Jason refused. "Not tonight man." Jason only smoked on occasion, he had had a couple earlier to calm down and he felt that that was enough for the day. Usually he just smoked when they were drinking, it only really felt good with a little alcohol in his system.

They stood by the door, enjoying the cool night breeze and looking up at the sky. There were so many stars, Jason could even see the Milky Way, that broad band of light that looked a lot like a glowing cloud. It ran through the middle of the sky and Billy told him was the core of their galaxy, a place that held billions of stars packed closely together. It was the first time that he had ever actually seen it before.

It was the first time that he had actually seen a lot of the stars before. A few of the brighter ones even made shapes that were probably constellations, the only constellations he ever knew were the big dipper and the little dipper and truth be told he couldn't even find the little dipper and the North star. The only way the sky could have gotten any more magnificent was if the northern lights made an appearance. He had seen them once when he was out camping with Billy's family. He sat for hours watching the show, hypnotized. That had been over ten years ago and he still remembered it vividly. The fluid dance of bands of red and green lights across the sky, blotting out all but the brightest of stars in the sky.

"Do you know any of the constellations Billy?" He turned to his friend who was looking up and enjoying the show as well.

"You mean besides the big dipper?"

"Yeah. I know that one."

"Well that one that looks like a funky 'W' is the queen Cassiopeia on her throne. The vain Greek queen who almost got her daughter killed. That square shaped thing by the W is Pegasus."

"I recall the story from the movie Clash of the Titians." His command of mythology was limited to say the least to the point that he thought that Hercules was a nice guy after watching all the movies. Until he heard some actual tales about him, Hollywood sure did take some liberties.

"You see those three stars that make up that line? That's the belt of Orion the hunter, he also has a sword sticking down from the belt, and that red star up there, called Betelgeuse is his shoulder." Billy put out his first cigarette in a coffee can that they had brought up for butts and then lit up another.

They stood for a while, enjoying the silence and the stars. Billy finished his second cigarette and tossed it into the can with the first. "Beautiful night." He said as he turned to head inside.

"Yeah. Why have I never noticed it before?" Jason felt as if this were the first time that the sky had looked like this, so many stars, all hidden for so long.

"They've been drowned out by the light of the city. Light pollution. The one thing I envy people who live in the country for is the darkness they are blessed with at night. The clear skies that they enjoy." Billy turned his flashlight on and went inside. Jason stood still for a moment after his friend left, enjoying the night, before taking one final deep breath and following him inside.

When he got down to the lounge, Billy was already in bed and on his way to sleep. Jason himself didn't feel really tired so he decided to make one last round of the store. He walked quietly with his flashlight on low so he didn't disturb his friends with his wandering. He didn't quite feel like going to sleep yet and was unsure how successful he would be if he tried. Not to mention whether or not he wanted to actually succeed. He was prone to nightmares and had been so since his parents had died. Sleeping tonight was probably going to be unpleasant if he was lucky and terrifying if he wasn't.

The store was dark with only a sliver of a moon and some stars to light it. The aisles were wide and clear so he didn't bother to turn on his light right away. In part it was so he didn't disturb Lynn and Douglas with his wandering and also so he didn't alert them to his presence. If Lynn caught him wandering around she would worry about him try to mother him. He didn't want to add to her list of troubles and worries. He also wasn't in any mood to be mothered, so he moved quietly.

He was about fifty feet from Lynn and Douglas when he heard a quiet sobbing and some low talking. Lynn was finally showing her grief and Douglas was doing his best to comfort her. He had never liked Douglas before that evening. After getting to know him better he was beginning to dislike the man less. He knew part of his dislike stemmed from jealousy, something that didn't make him proud, but he accepted it. The sole reason he tolerated the man for so long was that Douglas made Lynn happy. He was good to her. He turned away from the lovers and continued walking into the night.

He made his way to the front of the store to make sure that the doors were locked. It was perhaps the tenth time that day that he had done so, but it made him feel better to see that the gates were down and that the doors were intact. Jason walked slowly, once again measuring his steps as he went, enjoying the peace of the night and the solitude.

There were two front entrances to the store, two entrances in the back and a fire exit on either side of the building. The fire exits and the loading dock were all solid steel doors and they didn't cause any worry. It was the two front doors that made him itch. They were made of glass.

Lynn said that to break the glass you'd need something more than your bare fist, or even say a crowbar or tire iron. The glass was bullet proof. Still they agitated Jason. He had watched too many movies and in those movies glass was never a good barrier against the living dead. It left him feeling like a little kid again, afraid of the monster in his closet all while knowing that the monster wasn't actually there but not being able to let go of that fear. This time, the monster was real and he could see it, he was just powerless to do anything about it.

The doors were holding. It was kind of strange to look at the main entrance from ground level after watching it for almost the entire day from the above on the roof. The zombies were hard packed into the entryway, pushing against one another and against the door in a vain attempt to get inside the store. They were all a mass of dark moving shadows squirming around just beyond the edge of his light. He suppressed a shudder and moved on to the next door.

There seemed to be fewer zombies at the second entrance than at the first, it was hard to tell without proper light, but he still got that feeling. There might have been fewer of the creatures at the second door but they were no less driven to get inside. Jason approached the door and flashed his light through the glass. Half of the light reflected back at him, glaring in his eyes. The faces on the other side of the glass were human, if a bit pale, but still human. The faces were human, but the eyes weren't. They still had the color and shape, just none of the humanity or intelligence. Glazed over and dull they stare back at him. Reacting to the light, reacting to his movements.

Jason lowered his light, turned around and headed back to try and get a good night's sleep. While he was still alive, hope was never dead, and hope might one day be all he had.

#

Billy and Lynn were talking about something, it was a bit hard to follow this early in the morning. But it sounded like they were making plans to invade Russia, that or Billy just didn't want to eat cold soup again for breakfast. The four of them were sitting out at a table in the main part of the store under one of the skylights, waiting for the coffee to get done. There were a lot of things they could live without, but coffee wasn't one of them. Jason wondered what they would do if the coffee supply ever ran dry. Suicide was the most likely answer.

He scratched his cheek and wondered if he should shave or just grow a beard. They both had their strengths and drawbacks, but he would probably keep on shaving out of habit. Besides, beards were always hot and itchy when summer came around. And summer would soon be there. Winter was another matter, assuming that they survived that long.

The coffee was finally ready. Douglas handed them each a mug in turn, naturally starting with Lynn. Jason held his close and inhaled deeply. For him this was the last vestige of humanity. If they lost coffee, they were no better off than dogs. He savored the bitter taste of his first sip. Jason took his coffee completely black without any cream or sugar to taint it. He was a purist. A thing ought to be enjoyed for what it was, not for what one could make it be. If he wanted cream he would drink milk. For something sweet he could drink cola. He wanted coffee.

He felt the fog enveloping his mind clear as the first drop touched his tongue chasing the sleep away. With his clear new mind he was finally able to figure out what the discussion was about. It seemed that Russia was safe for now and so was the canned soup for that matter. They were going to be eating something else for breakfast. It sounded like biscuits and jam, along with fresh fruit would all be on the menu. They would make up some powdered milk. They would eat whatever else seemed appetizing at the moment.

They were all cleaning up after breakfast when Lynn told them that she expected that they wouldn't be adding to the mess that they made yesterday. Translation: no more throwing things off the roof, onto the zombies or otherwise. Looks like they wouldn't be dumping a bucket full of stones on the heads of their guests after all. Billy looked disappointed and he kicked Jason for making him miss his chance at visiting the horde with even more chaos.

They would need to find something else to do, so it seemed.

Breakfast was over and so they split up again. Lynn and Douglas wandered off to be by themselves, while Billy and Jason decided to wander the store and see what they could find. First they checked the front doors again, on Jason's insistence, before moving on. They passed by the woman's clothing department, were Billy detoured to hit on a couple of the more attractive mannequins. That brought them to the health and beauty department.

"I have a kick ass idea." Said Billy with a grin.

"What's that?"

"Two words 'Make Over'." He sounded serious, but with Billy it was always difficult to tell. "Well, what do you think?"

"Three words: No, no, no."

"Why not, I could make you gorgeous."

"Why in the name of God would I want you to do that?"

"Higher sense of self?"

"I feel fine as is."

"Suit yourself, but one day you will feel down and on that day I'm going to make you a raging beauty, one that will make all the guys drool."

"Why do I get the feeling that those mannequins turned you down?" Not bloody likely. Jason didn't even bother saying it, he just moved on. The toy section was next. Oh the glorious toy section. Jason grabbed the first doll that he could find and tossed over to his friend. "Here you go, practice making her beautiful."

"A master such as myself needs a real human to work with, a real challenge."

"A real challenge?"

"Making you beautiful would take all of my worldly skills." The next doll he threw caught Billy between the eyes. His friend went down laughing and he joined him. It was funny. The moved on through the toy section, oohing and ahhing whenever they came across something particularly cool. Like the giant robot that transformed into a fighter jet. They would stop and talk about the toys that they had as kids, remember and envy. They picked up several board games, scrabble for Lynn and Douglas, chess for Billy and Yatzee for Jason, plus a few others they all might enjoy including Risk.

They didn't bother taking the games with them, there was always time later. On they went. Household supplies was next. Billy picked up a bottle of bleach off the end cap of the aisle. "You know we could probably make some ass kicking explosives out of all this stuff."

"We who?"

"Me and you."

"Where did you learn how to make bombs out of chemicals?"

"McGyver."

"I didn't know he worked with explosives."

"Yep. I once saw him make a nuclear bomb out of a bucket, some paper clips and a couple different chemicals."

"Wouldn't that be a bit overkill for us?"

"Depends, there are a lot of zombies out there."

"Yeah there are. Do you remember what chemicals he used?"

"That I don't. They kind of blacked that part out."

Jason shook his head and moved on. It was a game to Billy, to lead him on with some silly idea and then just drop it. The only not to lose was not to play, Billy wouldn't let anyone off that easily if he could help it. "Lynn is in school to be a chemist though, I bet she could pull a McGyver with some of this stuff." That was indeed true, she was a chemistry major, maybe the school taught her to make a bomb out of Bisquick.

"Not likely Billy boy, but since when did likely ever matter to you?"

"Check and mate. We'll ask her anyways." He wasn't going to let it go. This would not end well.

"Alright, we'll ask. But I don't think she'll be willing."

It was in the sporting good department that they found the answer to their single most pressing question. Jason was wandering the aisles while Billy was still dreaming about mixing chemicals and destroying zombie-kind in one fell swoop. Jason grabbed one of the old fashioned bows from the shelf and tested the string.

"Hey Billy." He called back over his shoulder.

"Hey what?" His friend called back.

"You ever used one of these before?"

"One of what?"

"Come here." It only took him a moment to come around from the other side of the shelves, but when he did Jason could almost hear the drool hitting the floor.

"No, I've never used one. But since when has that stopped me from trying?"

"When? Never. But there were a few times that it should have."

"The police never caught me that time."

"But you destroyed a church."

"That bulldozer was screaming out to be played with. They even left the keys in it."

"But a church."

"That just proves that there is no God." Billy walked the last few steps and grabbed a bow of his own and tested the string, pulling it back and letting it go in order to hear the pleasant twanging sound that it made. His eyes lit up. "You know what the best part is don't you?"

"It's quiet.''

"Yep and this way we wont be throwing or dropping anything, we'll be shooting stuff instead."

"Loopholes are good that way."

"Until she finds out and gets mad at us."

"We'll have bows to protect ourselves with though."

"Good point! Well what are we waiting for, we have rules to bend."

They grabbed a cardboard box that was jammed with aluminum arrows and made a beeline for the roof. While they weren't overly stealthy, they did keep a close eye out for Lynn. Most likely she wouldn't see their plans in the same light that they did. There would be yelling, lots of yelling. The worst part was that they probably wouldn't get to shoot any zombies. Billy went on ahead and then would stop and signal Jason to hurry and catch up.

They made it all the way to the roof without running into Lynn or Douglas. Jason dragged the box of arrows with him over near the edge where he set them down and took a fresh look at the zombie hordes below. There were even more of them today. A lot more. It was almost as if the store was drawing them like iron filings to a magnet. Their hours of work the day before hadn't even made a dent in the numbers.

Billy looked down and shook his head. "We're going to need more arrows I think."

"There any more in the storage room?"

"I think so."

"Good, because we used all the televisions yesterday."

"All the big ones anyways, plenty of small ones still lying around."

"No good, too much noise and Lynn will kill us, bows or no."

"You ever shot one of these before?"

"Nope."

"Think we should learn how?"

"How hard could it be?" Famous last words. It turned out to be more difficult than Rambo made it look, plus they didn't have the benefit of exploding arrows. With their first ten shots, neither of them hit what they had been aiming at, oh they killed maybe twelve or thirteen zombies, but not any of the ones that they had been aiming for. To make things worse, they had picked out zombies with fat heads to shoot at.

"I didn't expect it to be that hard." Said Billy as he set his bow down on the table and lit his first cigarette of the day. "Maybe we should practice on bigger targets first."

"Like what?"

"Well, we could bring up some stuff from down below to shoot at, like mannequins and what-not. Course we'd have to build a back drop to stop the arrows first. That might take some time and sweat."

"Well what are we waiting for?" Billy took one final long drag, then put out his cigarette before following Jason over to the stairs and back down into the store. They headed back to the home repair section and grabbed some hammers and nails to do the building, as well as some rope, because who knows when you might need rope. The Megamart didn't carry any wood as such, but it did carry a large assortment of do it yourself shelving sets that were mostly made of wood, or at least what had at on time been wood.

With a little creative carpentry, which mostly involved a lot of hammering and even more cursing, they got a target made for their home grown do-it-yourself archery course. They leaned their new backdrop up against the cinderblock wall that protected the stairway and then went back inside to find something that would be fun to shoot at.

Within minutes they were back on the roof, sporting everything from mannequin heads to posters to candles that they could light so that they could do trick shots. They set up their new targets in a row in front of the backdrop. Billy lit up a cigarette and took a drag off of it as Jason took a bite out of one of the Granny Smith apples that they had brought back with them. The two of them admired their handy work for a while longer and then decided to start learning archery.

Well on the upside they managed to hit the backboard most of the time. There were a couple arrows that were fired a little high and lost to the parking lot below. On the downside they were aiming for the stuff in front of the board, not the board itself. Archery was difficult to master in the space of a morning it seemed, but they still kept plugging on.

They celebrated the first grazing hit with a beer. Still warm. Still low quality. But beer none the less. The two of them sat in their chairs in the shade of their canopy enjoying their beer and what looked like it was going to be another beautiful day. It was the kind of day that most right-minded people would skip work to go out and enjoy the beach or the park with their friends. Clear blue skies, a slight breeze, big fluffy clouds and the sun shining brightly warming everything up. Good beach weather. A spring day that gaily alluded to the summer to come.

Jason finished his beer, got up and was about to toss the bottle down at their friends when Billy spoke up. "Ah, remember, no throwing things off the roof." Jason cursed under his breath and then again rather loudly when he realized that there was no reason what so ever to curse under his breath. He walked back over to his chair and set the bottle back on the table, picked up his bow and started shooting again.

#

It was probably about noon when Lynn and Douglas emerged from the store to join them with a picnic lunch. By that time Jason and Billy had actually managed to hit several of the things that they were aiming at. They had also consumed several more celebratory beers apiece.

Lynn was surprised to see their handy work. But surprised in a good way. At least they weren't throwing objects of the roof. Billy and Jason waited for several endless seconds for her to explode and tell them what idiots that they were. It was a wasted worry because instead they watched her disappear back into the store only to reappear five minutes later with a bow of her own and another for Douglas. They rattled off several brief but thankful prayers to the various Gods who they thought might be listening at the time and heaved a sigh of relief.

Lynn acted as she intended to show them a thing or two about shooting a bow. And it turned out that she did show them a thing or two about shooting the bow. Jason often wondered if there was anything that she couldn't do. Even after all the years that they had known one another she was still a mystery at times, still surprising him. By the look on Billy's face he was rather surprised and impressed as well.

Billy finally recovered from his shock and awe enough to ask, "Where did you learn to do that?"

"Douglas taught me a couple years ago when we first started dating." Billy and Jason were even more amazed and they looked at Douglas askance. They had always thought of him as a bore, but it turns out that he was more like an onion with all its layers. Sure the topmost layers were boring and annoying, but they were beginning to be peeled away finally. Good riddance. Also like an onion he made them want to cry.

Douglas smiled at them and took the bow. He had always said that actions speak louder than words and in his defense he had tried to live up to that saying. He had lit one of the candles before walking about twice as far back as Lynn had been when she was shooting. He drew one of the arrows, held it for a heartbeat and then loosed it. The bastard was good. The arrow sliced through the burning wick of the candle before embedding itself in the backboard with an audible thunk.

After so many surprises in such a short period of time, surprises cease to be as fun as they at one time were. As usual Billy recovered his wits first, perhaps because he had fewer to collect. "Where the hell did you learn to do that? Is archery required for accounting majors these days?"

"I've always been interested in medieval weaponry and combat." Douglas set the bow back down on the table and went to fetch the two arrows. "That's actually how Lynn and I met, I was in the lounge reading a book about swordplay in England during the Dark Ages and she came up and introduced herself."

"We talked for a long time that day."

"Then I asked her out, started dating and what-not." Lynn looked up at him and stood up on her tiptoes to give him a kiss. They hugged and did other cutesy couple things while Billy and Jason tried to assimilate what was actually happening.

In the years that they had known Douglas, they had never expected him to be interested in swords. Or in using those swords. They had assumed that he was in to dull things like preparing taxes and organizing his sock drawer. Billy had often wondered aloud and at detailed length how big his stamp collection was. When your reality comes crashing down, it really comes crashing down. First the dead came back to life to attack the living and then Douglas turns out not to actually be a stereotypical account at heart. It was too much. Jason and Billy each took another beer.

The beer was still warm, and the couple was still kissing. Jason and Billy looked at one another. They had two real choices with their archery, admit that they sucked and just give up. That or keep on practicing and maybe improve. Practicing won out. Especially when they realized that if they gave up on it, they would have to find something else to do. But they would have lunch first.

The four of them sat around the small table in the shade and enjoyed their lunch. The bows and arrows were put aside as they ate, but talk of archery wasn't. It wasn't conversation so much as Douglas giving them pointers on how best to shoot. Jason and Billy resisted his help at first, until they realized that there was no stopping him, that and he knew a lot about bows and arrows and archery in general.

In all the years that they had known Douglas he had hardly spoken to them. Jason guessed that he had sensed their dislike for him from the beginning and felt it wasn't worth bothering to speak. It was like a dam had burst. Douglas was passionate about weapons, it was obvious by the gleam in his eyes and the pitch of his voice as he lectured them excitedly about how to shoot better. He even got up several times to demonstrate techniques and stances to better punctuate his words.

Lynn, Jason and Billy had long finished their lunch by the time Douglas took his final bite. Up to that final bite he lectured between mouthfuls. Jason's head felt like it was packed with more information than he would ever need. He now knew the difference between an English longbow and a Mongolian compound bow. They had been inundated with a flood of statistics and facts and observations on the part of Douglas. He talked as they cleaned up. He talked up until Lynn dragged him through the door and back downstairs.

"Wow, I didn't know the man knew that many words."

"Why not?"

"He never talked to us."

"You always hated him and let him know it quite plainly."

"Yeah I guess. I wish we had some of those longbows he was talking about."

"What for?"

"Because they shoot like 300 yards."

"You don't need to be able to shoot 300 yards with a bow."

"Why not?"

"Because you have a rifle that will shoot further than that and you know how to use it. Besides, the zombies are right down there, you could drop the arrows off the roof and still hit them." Billy just shrugged and lit a cigarette.

#

Practicing archery kept them occupied until night began to approach in earnest. They had improved markedly since the morning and had actually moved further back from their targets for more challenge. Neither of them were nearly as proficient as Douglas or even Lynn, but they were still able to hit what they intended to most of the time, if not always exactly.

They had gone inside and taken a break for dinner. Jason had never realized how unappealing spam was before then, but it was still a fine reprieve from the peanut butter they had been feasting on at lunch. Aside from dinner they stopped shooting for a while to start setting up a gas grill for future use. Setting up the grill went well, then they realized that all the tanks of propane were out front with their zombie guests. They opted for a old fashioned charcoal grill instead.

All told it was a quiet afternoon. Jason rubbed his finger tips as he put his bow down for the last time that night. They were worn and sore from pulling the string all afternoon. He was probably going to get blisters from shooting all day but it was worth it. Between the two of them they had managed to break around fifty or so of the arrows that they had brought with them that morning. In the end they had even moved away from shooting targets on the roof, to shooting at zombies on the ground below.

For the most part they had shot at the zombies with arrows that were near their breaking point. Neither of them felt much like wasting arrows that they could still use, just to thin out the horde slightly. It made more sense than just shattering the things on the roof. And if it killed off more zombies all while allowing Billy and Jason more practice, practice on real targets, then all the better. It was still similar to shooting fish in a barrel, but now finally they were hitting the fish that they had actually aimed at.

As the night approached a storm began to roll in. Jason sat in his chair and watched the long line of dark clouds coming from the west. It looked to be a powerful storm. "Did you check a weather forecast before the television went down?"

"About three or four days ago. Why?"

"Did they say anything about a thunderstorm happening today?"

"Said there was a possibility. Ohh, we should get inside."

The two of them spent twenty minutes hauling their table and chairs into the safety of the elevator compartment. The elevator was pretty much full by the time that they were done, and the door was closed. The storm in the meantime had edged much closer. They could see the bright forked tongues of lightning reach out and briefly connect the clouds with the earth. They could even hear the occasional faint peel of thunder rolling over the land. The storm was maybe thirty miles out.

"We should bring up some barrels." Jason said as they walked back down the stairs and into the lounge.

"What for?"

"To collect water."

"We have water."

"I want to bathe."

"Good idea, you are getting a bit ripe."

Jason clicked on his two way radio and called Lynn. "Hey Lynn, there's a storm coming, want to grab Douglas and help us get some barrels up onto the roof to catch water?"

The radio crackled a little bit and then Lynn's voice came over with a little static "Sure thing Jason, we'll be ready." They all met at the home and garden department near the back of the store, each grabbing a stack of thirty-five gallon barrels and loading them onto the remaining cart. Jason made sure to grab a number of cinder blocks as well, much to the confusion of his friends. By the time they got back to the roof the storm was a lot closer, perhaps half as far as it was before. It was moving fast.

They lined the barrels up in two rows in the middle of the roof about fifty feet away from the door, between the two outcrops that protected the stairs and the elevator. Jason put a cinder block in as many of the barrels as he could and said "We don't want them all to get blown away in the storm." Billy nodded and grinned. He knew that he was going to hear something about his having two good ideas in a row, something sarcastic, the only unknown would be the exact phrasing. They tied off the rest of the barrels, running a length of rope between the handles.

The wind was beginning to pick up and the lightning becoming more frequent. They were halfway back to the stairs when the sky opened up and soaked them with a sheet of rain. It was an instant shower. An unwanted shower. When the rain came it initiated a race back to the door, Lynn won, but she played dirty. In they went and quickly. Closing the door behind them to keep out the rain they filed down the stairs and into the lounge.

The four of them were soaked and dripping at the bottom of the stairs, they could hear the clatter of the rain on the tin roof above punctuated by the occasional peel of thunder. Lynn lit several candles and then they all stripped down out of their wet clothes. None of them had brought along any spare clothing but that didn't matter too much. They went shopping again.

Billy immediately went to the women's clothing section. Jason followed, quite curious to see what his friend would do. It wouldn't be out of character for him to put on a dress for shock value, or just because he wanted to wear a dress. Lynn had always told them that skirts were quite comfortable and breezy. Jason almost expected that Billy wanted to find out for himself once and for all. He didn't and they just passed through the women's section with Billy making just a few bizarre comments about how he would like to try on some bras.

Jason and Billy didn't need that long to find some acceptable clothing and get dressed. In the mean time they decided, rather Jason decided, that they would check the doors once again. The doors were closed and safely sealed shut. He watched the zombies pressing together outside in the rain, mindlessly going on as they had been since they arrived. The flashes of lightning making them seem much more spooky. Ignoring everything in their vain attempt to get inside. Not knowing why they needed to get inside, but striving to do so regardless. He bet the weather didn't faze them at all.

The thought suddenly occurred, what would happen if you froze a zombie? Could they be struck by lightning and die that way, some how getting their brains fried? Or did you have to physically damage their heads or necks? The movies never really explored such ideas. All he had to go on was what the movies had given him, before this week it had all been a fantasy in the minds of uprising fans. Some fantasies were best left alone.

Billy tapped him on the shoulder, bringing him back into the present. Billy was carrying several of the board games under his arm. Yahtzee. It was going to be a slow night. Maybe he should take up reading.

After they had taken care of more important things, like eating and drying and cleaning their guns, they played games together for several hours. Nobody really felt like playing anything too complicated or involved, so all that left was games of chance. Cards and dice and so forth. They played a few hands of poker and a couple of Euchre before switching to dice. Billy was spitting blood at Jason's ineptitude at euchre, so Lynn thought it was best to change before events got too ugly.

Jason had tired of dicing, he hated games of luck. Cards were an exception, there was some skill involved there, but dice was too random. The constant clatter of the dice as they rolled onto the table was giving him a headache, so he got up and took his leave. He made his usual rounds, checking and double-checking the doors, grabbing a banana to eat as he walked by the fruit display, before moving on. For a while he sat out in the store, away from his friends, and listened to the rain falling on the skylights. Enjoying for the first time of his life the the sound of the thunder as the lightning flashed across the sky making fascinating shadows play and dance across the floor. Thunder had always scared him before, but now, the bone-rattling rumble was a relaxing reminder of the past.

He wandered the aisles, looking at the goods and wondering why in the world anyone would ever have paid money for any of that crap. There was a mind numbing variety of useless junk all around him and nothing useful to do with it, if one didn't count throwing it off the roof at the zombies. Bright colored and made of molded plastic. Honestly, who would ever buy a giant plastic hamburger? Jason grabbed one of the hamburgers from the shelf and punted it towards the children's clothing section. It landed somewhere in the middle beyond his site. Good riddance.

Maybe he and Billy could talk Lynn into letting them do a free super savings promotion event for the horde outside. On the other hand, word might spread about the promotion and they might bring their friends. The place was crowded enough as it was.

He browsed the aisles for what seemed like an hour. He had seen it all before, in past visits of the store, but he had never really paid any attention to the variety, just passing it by as something that he didn't need. After a while he ended up reading some stupid spy novel that he grabbed off one of the shelves. It had a catchy name and a woman graced the cover with a beautiful pair of legs clad in some red leather high heels. He went over to one of the couch displays and read, resting his flashlight above his head on an end table to shine over his shoulder and onto the pages. It was a stupid spy novel, but he couldn't put down until he could barely keep his eyes open. Sleep came to him as he read.

There was a shapely, long legged girl in red shoes, lots of zombies, and he was a international playboy spy. There was a lot of running around foiling the evil worldwide terrorist band R.A.G.E.. Somewhere in there he got the girl, only to have Billy show up and feed her to the zombie hordes. Jason woke up to the faint echo screams of his beautiful lover and the maniacal laughter of a monocle clad Billy. That was probably going to be the last time that he read a pulp spy novel before he went to sleep at night. The dream left him wanting to strangle his friend. Leave it to Billy to find a way, even in his dreams, to ruin Jason's chances with the ladies.

Jason turned on the small camping lamp that he kept by his bed and checked the time. It was 7:36 and he was wide-awake. Grey light was just beginning to filter in through the skylights. He assumed in the morning since Billy was still asleep, and he doubted that he had slept through an entire night and then the next day. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and crawled out of his sleeping bag. He stood up and put on a pair of pants, turned on a flashlight and off the lamp before heading out into the store to greet the day.

The day wasn't too much worth greeting. The storm had died down before the arrival of the dawn, but it was still dreary, grey and drizzling. First things first, the doors. Jason walked to the front, wondering if he was growing obsessive. Probably so, but there were worse targets of obsession that he could think of.

Booth sets of doors were still locked and barred. The glass was still intact and the chain gates were still in place. Nothing or nobody had gotten inside during the seven or eight hours that he had slept. Zombies were still packed up against the windows, worse than sardines, more like people in a Japanese subway during rush hour. The miserable weather didn't seem to phase them a single bit. He grabbed an apple on his way back to the lounge, breakfast would wait until his friends were ready, but there was no reason not to have a snack. He took a box of granola bars too. Who knew how long that they would make him wait.

The next item on his agenda was to check the water barrels on the roof. Jason picked up a long raincoat from the men's clothing department. He made his way out back and up the stairs without managing to wake Billy up in the process. Even though he was sorely tempted to leave the apple core balanced on his friend's forehead as he slept.

The weather was exactly as he expected, only worse. The sky was a dark iron grey, dreary and rainy to be sure. But the air was also cold, with a chill that resembled the very edge of winter, rather than the late spring that it really was supposed to be. Jason hitched up the hood on his coat, trying to banish the rain from his skin, and got to work. The wind had died down, just leaving a fine mist in place of the driving rain from the night before. The mist was still enough to be able to soak him through and leave him freezing and shivering in a few short minutes. Jason hated the cold and almost envied the dead and their indifference. Almost.

Happily all of the barrels were still standing. Unfortunately none of them were even remotely close to being full. He estimated that if he combined all of them together he might get a barrel and a half. Might. That was a liberal estimate.

Jason busied himself with taking all of the blocks out of the bottoms of the barrels and then pouring the water into a single barrel. One barrel and it came well under the rim. They might need to make a tarp or something to catch the rain next time and direct it into one direction. It was a good thing that they had enough bottled water to drink for at least two years to come.

He walked across the roof to the front of the building to check on the horde out front. They were just as packed as they had been before, though amazingly enough there didn't seem to be any more than there were the night before, signaling that the flood of undead may have finally stopped.

The rain had done a lot to wash away the gory results from their experiments from two days ago. It also made a lot of wet zombies. The drenched horde made him wonder if they were going to have to live with that 'wet zombie smell' until the sun came out and baked them dry. Zombies smelled bad enough completely dry, wet zombie must reek to high heaven.

Before heading back inside Jason quickly replaced the cinder blocks to make sure that the barrels didn't blow away in a sudden squall. He sat at the top of the stairs, his back to a wall just inside the door. There he passed the time watching the sky while he ate his granola bar for his pre-breakfast snack.

He still had a few hours before his friends woke up. They didn't really possess any driving reason to be awake early these days. Waking up early was just an old habit of his, one that he enjoyed, watching the sun rise in silence, well before the idiots of the world had a chance to get up and ruin it.

He found that the rain fit his mood well. He wasn't feeling depressed, but he was feeling rather dark and pessimistic. The weather fit the state of the world, cold, dark and dangerous. If he wasn't careful he would catch himself writing some overly emotional poem about his deepest darkest thoughts, just what the world needed, more bad poetry. And poetry that angst ridden needed to be written in the blood of the poet.

Jason found his mind drifting back to the time that Jane had taken him to the beach for a week, just a few months after his parents had died. The weather had been a lot like this for most of it, with just a couple days of sunshine in between. Mostly they stayed inside and watched television and played board games. One of the sources of his dislike for board games he thought.

Jane had done her best to cheer him up at the time and had managed to succeed some, if not as much as she had hoped to. Still the eternal truth remains, time heals all wounds. Those that didn't kill you at least. If you were smart, you learned from the experience. Then you wrote a book, sold it to clueless people and became a millionaire by exploiting your pain, and their gullibility. With the gigantic bucket of cash you bought an island and surrounded yourself with beautiful, scantily clad women. That was the way to do it.

Jason wondered if zombies could read.

#

Between the time that he got up and the time that he had breakfast with his friends two and a half hours had passed. Billy managed to drag himself out of bed at around nine thirty and the first thing that he did was to have a cigarette. He stood on the roof alone in the rain, scratching himself as he woke up completely with the first smoke of the day. Jason sat in the doorway and waited, wondering at his friend's morning routine.

They broke their fast with some cereal and condensed milk, reasonably fresh fruit and spam fried up on a little propane burning camp stove. They also made coffee. Coffee was a wonderful thing. Though Jason found that he could live without it, life wasn't quite the same when he didn't start his day with a hot mug of the bitter, black liquid in the morning. And that was how he liked it. Pure and straight, no cream or sugar. The only other necessity of true civilization that they were living without was the hot showers. For Jason the true symbol of civilization was the ability to get a good hot bath regularly. Civilization was dead, for now.

He broke the news about the poor results for the water collection. Lynn and Douglas were as disappointed as he was, Billy never really liked taking baths anyways. They decided to make a pair of frames with tarps to help catch the rain and direct it to the barrels. It might not help this time, but it would give them a jumpstart on the next storm. After they had finished eating they cleaned up and got on with the rest of their day.

The biggest problem that the four friends faced these days, zombie horde at the doors aside, was what they were going to do with all of their time. They had a lot of time and no real duties to attend to. Jason had a feeling that that was the way life would be for a long time to come, years perhaps. Aside from the zombies that filled the lot in front of the building their only real enemy was boredom itself. The zombies were at least tangible and could be eliminated. Wiping the zombies out would be a messy endeavor, but it would offer them tangible results in time. The zombies were a hell of a lot easier to deal with than boredom.

After breakfast Lynn and Douglas took a trip up to the roof to stretch their legs and get a breath of fresh air. Billy and Jason went to check the front doors at Jason's insistence. They were solid. As usual. So much time to kill. They continued their walk around the store. Sadly this time Billy made true on his promise to try on the woman's bra's. They didn't do much to give him more cleavage or even the illusion of cleavage. Nature just didn't see it fit to give Billy large breasts. Even the package of sock stuffed down his shirt didn't help much. Jason ignored the fact that Billy didn't take them out of the wrapping.

They were wandering through the toy department when Jason first got his idea. The shelves were lined with Nerf dart guns. They had seen them earlier when they had walked through upon their first inspection, but they managed to resist the urge to unpack the entire inventory of guns and storm off to invade the next county over. The harsh realities of having a wall of undead between them and their destination wasn't completely ignored either.

But the Nerf guns. There were so many possibilities. Many of which would probably get them in trouble with Lynn, true enough, but so many possibilities regardless. There was one thing for sure, they wouldn't be playing Yahtzee until much, much later. If any of them had enough energy to get a game going.

Three words were burned into his mind. Capture the flag. Two teams of two, with the entire length of the store to play in, it was a dream that he had had since he was a small child. A dream that he cherished and held dear. One that was soon to become reality. The joys of surviving the end of the world were few in many ways, but there were simple pleasures. One of those was the freedom to do things that had gotten them thrown out of the store during more civilized times. Billy had already taken advantage of that when he had run completely naked through the store for several long minutes as the others hid themselves back in the lounge. Now it was Jason's turn to cut loose. And he was taking his friends with him.

It turned out that Lynn was all for a game of capture the flag, Douglas as well. They split into two teams, or rather resumed the two teams that they had been all along. Lynn and Douglas took their flag and headed off to the grocery department while Jason and Billy set up their flag in the toy section. Billy was still wearing the bra that he had tried on earlier, Jason wasn't sure if he had forgotten it, or if he had just really liked wearing the thing. Lynn and Douglas had stared when they saw him wearing it, but wisely had said nothing on the subject. Either way Jason made his friend take it off so that they could set it up and use it as their all-important flag.

"We need a team name." Billy said as he attached the bra to a broomstick and stood the stick upright using one of the wet floor cones.

"What for?" Jason was getting his gun ready, they had decided that he would take the first turn to go out and try to capture the other flag.

"Because all good teams have a name."

"Like who?"

"The A-team, Team epsilon and the Jordan era Chicago Bulls to name a few."

"You have anything in mind?"

"Yes, actually."

"What were you thinking?"

"Well since we're using the bra as a flag, I had a German..."

"The next words out of your mouth better not be 'keepum from flappin'!"

"How did you know?"

"You bring that stupid joke up damn near every time you encounter a bra."

They settled on the name 'Happy Sunshine Gang'. It wasn't really very intimidating, actually it was rather stupid, but it was the only thing that Billy would agree to that didn't some how or another involve breasts and fake German. Billy was rather fond of breasts and to be honest Jason was too, just not enough to wear a bra himself.

Jason hefted his Nerf gun and left Billy to defending their flag. He grinned over his gun, it was a multi-barreled-dealy made of red and black plastic. It launched a multitude of small yellow foam balls and was named the Maelstrom by the people who marketed these things to kids. And adults who never completely left their childhood behind, or wanted to recapture it in a frenzy of launching foam balls. Nerf, in his opinion, was one of the single greatest inventions in the long history of toys. Even better than video games, unless there was nobody around to play with. The Maelstrom went a long way to make up for their lack of hot showers.

With a distant lone peal of thunder echoing off in the distance he set off towards enemy territory.

#

Jason knew that there were three possible scenarios for their game. The first was that he would get to the flag with no trouble to find it being guarded by both Lynn and Douglas. He thought that was the least likely case of the three, Lynn was fairly aggressive when they played together, though he had never had opportunity to test Douglas' mettle. Lynn would want to be on the attack right away, which excluded the double base defense.

The second and option involved one of them remaining behind to guard the flag while the other went out on the offensive. Splitting their forces was another big no-no for Lynn. Most likely she and Douglas would leave the base undefended and just charge. The scheme had worked for her in the past. Nobody ever really expected such a bold straightforward tactic from her, which always worked to her disadvantage.

The Megamart was a big store, even as the big boxes were judged. Cavernous was how it had been described by the media as it was being built. So much room to move around, and better yet so many places in which to hide along the way.

The store was dark and shadowy with very little of the grey light making it to the floor through the skylights. Jason was going for stealth rather than speed. He took the long way around, hoping that Lynn would just go for the straightest route. Chances were that he wouldn't see anyone until he made it all the way to Lynn and Douglas' base. That was a good thing since it would increase the chances that either Lynn or Douglas or both would make it all the way through. Some excitement made it less likely that Billy would get bored and wander off leaving the flag unprotected. A turn of events that had occurred in the past.

If Jason knew Billy, and he did, he was probably back at their base naming his Nerf gun. Billy liked naming things nearly as much as he liked boobies. He was easily entertained, but he was also possessed with a short attention span. That short attention span had cost Billy many losses over the years.

In a matter of minutes Jason found himself crouched behind a freezer in the frozen foods section of the grocery department. He was peering down the aisle at the Lynn and Douglas' base and wondering where the guard was hiding. Nothing moved, making him suspect that he had been right about Lynn's choice of action. Crossing the store had been uneventful as he had hoped. He had weaved his way between the clothes racks and shelves that lined the aisles of the store. For a moment he had gone back to when he was a little kid and pretended that he was a hunter stalking his prey in the woods, closing in on it and getting ready for the kill.

Jason crept quietly towards the flag. Slowly. He kept low to the ground, inching his way across the floor, keeping an eye out for whoever was defending the base. He had the flag in his hand before he realized that he was alone. Lynn and Douglas went with the most aggressive plan of attack, they both charged over instead of bothering to leave someone behind to defend. Billy was most likely going to be out flanked and overwhelmed. Jason might be lucky and Billy could have gunned one of the two down in their assault, evening the playing field for a one on one death match. Jason didn't expect that. Billy probably just tripped and fell and somehow managed to shoot himself in the face in the process, taking out his eye, with a Nerf dart. In the end, leaving the base completely undefended.

Such a turn of events would make the game more interesting. To win, a team member needed to bring the enemy flag back to their own base. Not only that but they needed to be in possession of their own flag at the time in order to score any points. Once Lynn and Douglas took care of Billy, all they had to do was find Jason and baring an unforeseen miracle they would shoot him, get their flag back and win. Not a pleasant turn of events. But as Clint Eastwood said, adapt and overcome.

He grabbed the flag and ran. Changing the game from simple adventure in capture the flag to downright hide and seek. If he really wanted to be a pain in their collective asses, he could find a comfortable place to hide, and then fall asleep, only to emerge hours later. That would drive Lynn nuts. The notion brought a slow smile to his heart.

Jason found himself hiding in the middle of a circular clothing rack in the woman's clothing department. Being surrounded by long dresses felt a mite peculiar, and took him back to his childhood when gone shopping with his mother. He within the clothes rack the perfect hunting blind and it would take his friends forever to find him. Nearly perfect anyhow, since he was as unable to see them as they were him. All that was left was to wait until they split up and then attempt to pick them off one at a time. Minutes passed slowly. Sitting in a clothing rack was boring. Very boring. He was in the middle of a long argument with himself on whether or not to emerge from his hiding place and go to hunt his friends when he heard the slight scrape of soft footsteps on the carpet nearby. His first victim approached unawares.

The sound of the footsteps grew and then began to recede. Jason slowly, carefully pushed aside the curtain of skirts that had so well obscured his presence. Time to meet his fate. He went into his low crouching walk that Billy and Lynn had always jokingly called 'Ninja mode'. A habit that he had developed through long years of playing hide and seek and capture the flag out in the woods. He liked to think that it had saved him from getting shot in the ass during paintball matches on occasions too numerous to name. He was probably wrong.

Jason rounded a corner into one of the aisles, only to see Douglas' back. He had no real second thoughts or guilt when it came to shooting someone in the back. Living by a bulky code of honor was a nice thing for a samurai or a medieval knight or some stupid character a movie, but survival was far better. Honor would only serve to get him killed. All was fair in love and war. Besides, shooting Douglas in the ass would be a lot of fun and was not an opportunity to be missed.

He had his gun mostly raised when his foot scraped the floor, alerting Douglas to a presence behind him. He spun about to face the his hunter, raising his own weapon as he did. Jason fired as fast as he could, spraying Douglas with a hail of foam balls. The showdown was all over before it had really begun, as a foam ball bounced off of Douglas' forehead.

"Cheap Jason, real cheap." Growled Douglas in a low voice. He knew the rules for the game, he was dead. Dead folks were allowed to talk, but only with each other and the people who killed them. If happen to pass along any information to their living teammates then they would automatically forfeit the game.

"No worse than doubling up on our base," said Jason in the same low voice. He grinned at Douglas. He missed shooting him in the ass, but he still got away with a good surprise attack and that still meant something.

"That was Lynn's idea, and a valid move."

"Doesn't surprise me, she is a crafty one."

"That she is." Douglas sat down in the space where he was shot and began his wait. There he would stay until the game was over. Moving around and breaking the rules would just never occur to Douglas, he was just too much of a straight arrow. On the same note, Jason would be astounded if Billy managed to keep still and remain where he had been this entire time. Billy was not known for his patience. A strange turn of events, Douglas ending up playing with them so often, the three friends were competitive in their games and cut close to the bone as they strove to win.

He left Douglas behind. All he needed to do was to find Lynn, shoot her and get their flag back in order to win the match. And not be shot himself in the process. He figured that if he kept his wits about him and didn't let his mind wander, he stood a decent chance. After all he knew that they were the only two left in the game, that sort of intel had to count for something. Jason went back into his stealth mode, he looked like an idiot he knew, but nobody was around to see. Or maybe there was and they just didn't notice.

He kept close to the edge of the aisle as he crept along. He kept his ears open, stopping from time to time to see if he could catch the sound of approaching footsteps floating in the air around him. The store was quiet, it was hard to get used to. All those years that they had spent coming when the thing was almost always packed, the music playing over the intercom system and people going about their business talking and moving around looking at all the goods. He almost expected his ears to start ringing from the sound of the silence.

A sudden noise, coming from up ahead brought him back to the game from his musings. He hoped that it was Lynn because if it wasn't, either a zombie had gotten in or there was a rat problem in the store. To Jason one was as bad as another, a plague of zombies was bad enough by itself but giant rats would make a bad situation worse. Maybe the giant rats would eat the zombies or something, or perhaps the zombies would learn to somehow ride the rats, that would be a sight. Hell, what if the giant rats were zombies themselves and they ate the brains of the other giant mutant rats. Leaving him and his friends to form an alliance with the living rats to survive the avalanche of the dead just outside their door. Wouldn't Billy be pleased?

Giant rats, zombies! Back to the game damn it. Back to what was right in front of him, back to what was real. Nerf capture the flag might not be universally relevant to the fate of humanity, but he could do something about it. And there he was criticizing Billy for his lack of attention span. Jason started slowly tiptoeing towards the origin of the sound. Probably wouldn't be giant mutant zombie rats anyhow. Jason was ten paces from the end of the aisle when Lynn stepped out from between two clothing racks. They both froze in their tracks.

Jason and Lynn looked at one another with disbelief. Each held the other's flag in one hand and a Nerf gun in the other. Neither had expected to run into the other. The surprise only lasted for a minute. They both dropped their flags and raised their guns and fired as the flags hit the carpeted floor with a clatter.

"Well that was rather anti-climatic." Said Lynn after Jason's ball bounced off her left shoulder.

"Yeah, I know." Said Jason as he pulled the suction dart off of his forehead. "How did you get that thing to stick? They never stick." They both lost, but that was better than either one of them winning, it saved face and kept their pride from becoming too wounded. Playing games with this particular group of people was dangerous at times, especially when they got really competitive. Some times a tie was a good thing that kept their friendship healthy.

"Skills, I have skills with Nerf guns."

"Too bad Zombies are immune to Nerf, you'd be a powerful foe to the dark forces of the undead legions."

"Yeah, but maybe I can use those skills with a shotgun too." Lynn lowered her weapon and walked the ten or so feet to stand next to her friend. "It was a fun game anyways. Let's go find the others."

"To hell with finding them." Jason said. He cupped his hand over his mouth and yelled. "Douglas! Billy! Over here." He smiled at Lynn. "Less walking this way." She shook her head and leaned over to pick up her flag. They didn't have to wait long for the others to join them. Douglas came at a run, while Billy ambled in at his own pokey pace, he was balancing the barrel of his gun on his nose and pretending to walk a tightrope as he walked.

"Who won?" Billy asked when he came upon the rest of the group. Dropping the gun from his nose into his awaiting hand.

"It was a tie." Said Lynn. She swung her flag around, making it flutter a little, before tossing it to Douglas. "Shall we try again?"

Jason shook his head, "Nah, four people just isn't enough for a good game of capture the flag."

"What would you like to do instead?" Asked Douglas as he examined their flag. He had set his gun on the floor and leaned it against his leg as he fiddled with their flag. Silly thing to do, very silly.

"How about this?" Jason asked as he fired several balls at his friends, before turning and running as fast as he could before they could do anything more than flinch. With startled yells and declarations of vengeance, the hunt was on!

#

The four friends sat on the floor exhausted. The game of capture the flag had turned into a Nerf free for all brawl that extended the entire length of store. Nobody was safe. A giant battle that left Nerf darts and balls littered everywhere they turned. It was like a war zone, in the same inexact and highly exaggerated way that a child's messy room might be said to have been struck by a tornado by a weary mother. Chaotic and confusing to be sure, but not really similar to a true war zone in any way that mattered.

Lunch of canned soup had been about all that they could throw together after their game was over. They barely managed that. Peanut butter sandwiches rounded out whatever vague nutritional requirements were left unanswered by the soup. The upside, Jason realized, was that they wouldn't have to suffer peanut butter sandwiches for much longer, but that was only because all the bread would soon be inedible due to a bumper crop of mold that was due to start growing. A crop that was hinted at on his tongue as he ate his sandwich.

They cleaned up their mess as quickly as they could so as not to waste any time that they could be spending lounging around and recuperating from the good times that they had enjoyed earlier. Afternoon had arrived and the sky was beginning to lighten a little. Still grey and dreary, just a little less so than it had been before. Jason made his normal rounds of the front doors, this time Douglas went with him.

The two of them walked in near silence, a little small talk, but neither of them said anything of real importance. Old habits died hard. Jason was relieved to find that the doors still held, if unsurprised. He couldn't quite understand, let alone explain, his obsession with the two front doors. They were simply a terrible itch that refused to go away, the image of the horde breaking through the front doors and invading their fortress played over and over in his mind. They were safe and comfortable inside the store, he was afraid to lose that. Lynn believed that the Megamart was a bastion of safety, and to have that taken away suddenly would really be a devastating blow to his friend.

Jason and Douglas actually approached the glass to get a closer look at their neighbors. As individuals they seemed to be entirely oblivious to the creatures that they were shoulder to shoulder with, their entire attention was focused on Jason and Douglas. Their only urge was getting inside to feast. "You think they smell us or do they see us?" Douglas asked as he wrapped on the glass door with his knuckles. Leaning closer to get a better look at one of the zombies that had pressed it's face up to the glass in a vain attempt to get to the meat on the other side.

The zombies looked rather grey. Years of watching zombie movies, and playing zombie video games gave him a distinct idea of what zombies should look like. Dead rotting creatures with vacant stares and green pus filled flesh. The vacant stare part was right, but so far as he could tell they weren't rotting yet. They were just pasty from a lack of blood flow to their faces. They looked more like his fellow nerds than the undead. "Dunno for sure. Good question though. I would have to guess that they see us moving in here."

"Think they could smell us?"

"Possible I guess, I'm getting a little rank, especially after all that running we did today."

"I mean in general though."

"I doubt it, unless dying makes their senses sharper, human beings have a poor sense of smell when their brains are fully functional. I bet these creatures work mostly on sight and hearing."

"You've thought about this way too much."

"A week ago I might have agreed with you."

"A week ago, so would I."

"Tell you what, stand completely still and see if they lose sight of you."

"Ok." Douglas did as he was told. The zombies went on doing as they had before, pushing at the glass, trying to get through. Jason decided to take it a step further and danced around like a court jester who had gotten into his lord's wine. The undead creatures in front of him redoubled their efforts to get in.

"It would appear that they hunt by sight, or at least they do when there's two inches of glass between them and their potential prey."

"It would appear so. Nice dance by the way, where did you learn it."

"That was my recreation of Billy's rendition of 'Oh Sweet Mother of Crap, Jesus has Returned: The Interpretive Dance'."

"I've never seen him do that."

"It only happens when he's drunk."

"I've seen Billy drunk."

"When he's really drunk, like last fourth of July."

"I've heard some stories about that party, but after a while Lynn just breaks up laughing."

"From what I remember, she's lucky she can tell any parts of that story at all without her sides splitting, that was a wild weekend. At least the stories any of us can actually remember."

"Lots of drinking it sounds like."

"That's what I'm told."

"I thought that you were there."

"That's what I'm told."

"Were you that drunk?"

"Well all I recall seeing from the entire weekend is Billy's dance. The rest of it I've heard about from other people. For me it's all a grey blob that ended with me throwing up in Lynn's parent's neighbor's swimming pool and I'm not quite sure how I got there since we started a hundred or more miles away."

"Wild weekend indeed."

"Yeah, the videos of it were pretty awesome."

Douglas shook his head and they started walking again. The second entrance was just like the first, solid and safe and crammed with the undead. The two of them made their way back to Billy and Lynn, once again in silence. Jason found himself disliking Douglas less intensely than he did, but that was about all. Old hatreds were hard to let go, they were like beliefs and addictions. A crutch to hold on to, an excuse for avoiding change and evolving into something better. He didn't want to let go of his dislike for Douglas and he doubted that he ever would, even if it wasn't as sharp as it had once had been.

Lynn and Billy were sitting pretty much where they had left them. Lynn was leaning back slightly, resting on her hands, while Billy was sprawled out along the floor like a puppy. Jason half expected to see his friend kick his legs out as if he were dreaming about chasing a cat or something, it would have completed the image rather nicely.

There was only one thing on the agenda for the day, one thing that needed to be done. They had to devise a way to catch more rain. There were several suggestions, ranging from simply placing more barrels, to building a large tank, with pipes and stuff (Billy was grandiose with his promises but rather non-specific. He merely told them in a dozen different ways that it would be really damn cool) to collect water. Eventually they just decided that they would build a system of frames that would hold tarps and direct water into the barrels.

The rest of the day they spent together lounging. They passed the time playing games that required little or no movement. Reading was another popular option and from time to time just sitting in silence. There wasn't too much talk. Politics had become a moot point, none of them were religious, the weather was rainy, and their favorite topic of old, the zombie apocalypse had come to pass. There would be no more books that were to be written, no movies to get excited over, no new music. There wasn't a lot to talk about in their favorite old topics.

Passive entertainment was a thing of the past. Now they would now have to invent their own entertainment. They just wouldn't be starting with the lost art of conversation.

#

The sky had broken at last and the sun was out and shining once again. That was somewhat of a fallacy, the sun was always out and shining brightly. Wow it was just wasn't obscured by clouds, and the people standing on the roof of the Megamart could enjoy its warming rays.

Jason enjoyed the feeling of warmth on his skin. He took off his shirt and tossed it aside. The sun and wind on his back and chest made a wonderful respite from the grey weather. The last few days reminded him of when he was a kid, when the rain forced him to stay inside and play. He hated being confined indoors, even as a child and no matter if he had his friends present. His growing into something like adulthood hadn't changed a thing. He liked feeling the weather from time to time, being indoors grew stale quickly. The four friends crossed the roof to take a look and see what they could see.

The passing days seemed to have finally quenched the flood of incoming zombies. The numbers of the horde had grown little since the last time they viewed it. The teaming masses of bodies stretched across the front of the building from one entrance to the other, about fifteen zombies deep at the thinnest and two to three times that in the knots in front of the doors. They went so far as to begin to spill into the lots at the sides of the building, getting dangerously close to the loading zone in the back. Almost meaningless in the face of the wall of meat below, there were perhaps another one hundred or so of the zombies scattered across the parking lot, like lost shoppers searching for their cars.

Jason and Billy offloaded their furniture from the elevator where they had stored it before the storm had descended upon them. Meanwhile Lynn and Douglas checked the water barrels in hopes that they had collected more water while the storm finished blowing itself out. From the looks of it, they were rather disappointed.

Jason stood at the edge of the roof and looked down at the horde. Depressingly counting heads until he became lost in the numbers was developing into a disturbing habit for him. Much like checking the front doors. The problem being that he didn't have much experience estimating bodies gathered in crowds. All he could guess was that there were several hundred zombies pushing at the gates below in an attempt to get in. And thousands more crushing the zombies at the door. He picked up a rock and threw it down into the throng beneath, there were just so many. So many.

The store was like an island sanctuary. An island of life in a sea of death, a sea that was trying it's best to flood the island and all of its inhabitants, to scour them away as if they never had been in the first place. He had a friend who was a native of Hawaii while he had still in school. He never understood what had possessed her to leave a tropical paradise for such a cold backwater in the middle of the plains that was their town.

She had told him that from time to time the natives were infected by something that they called island fever, which she explained was the deep need to get the hell off of the island. The island was like a prison to them after spending so many years confined by its blue walls. Jason couldn't imagine a place like Hawaii being a prison, or at least he couldn't then. Things had changed and he was dropped into his own prison.

He had never before experienced an attack of wanderlust so desperately as he had in the last couple of days of being cooped up indoors. Days spent thinking about being stuck in the store for an unforeseeable amount of time for the future. He hated it when old adages could be applied to his life, but the one about not knowing what you had until you lost it rung true. Freedom was a wonderful gift.

While Jason brooded about being imprisoned in the store Billy was working hard to find a signal on the small portable radio. Days had passed since they had heard anything of the outside world and they had all decided to check again in hopes that perhaps help was on the way.

Billy was huddled over the radio when Jason returned from the edge. Lynn and Douglas were with him, sitting in the lawn chairs and silently watching as he grumbled to himself and fumbled with the knobs on the side of the radio. He had headphones on and the antenna extended. Slowly, he twitched his hand, checking each frequency and waiting.

"Wait, I think I got something. This is an emergency broadcast, blah blah blah blah, Please stay in your homes until the proper authorities sound the all clear...Damn it, it's the same message that was playing, and we then so blatantly ignored, when we left home in the first place."

Douglas shook his head, "Hope they don't find us here."

"Why not?" Asked Jason.

"Breaking martial law is a serious offense, lots of jail time I would think."

"Not to mention the trespassing and theft. But I don't think they would be too upset if they found us alive. More survivors to help fight the undead hordes and repopulate the world."

"Don't be so sure..."

Lynn cut them off with an irritated look that could have frozen water before they could continue any further in their debate. "Billy, is there anything else?" She grabbed his shoulder to make sure she had his attention.

"I dunno, nothing that I've found yet, I'm still checking." They all held their breath until Billy finally spoke up again. "Nah, that government message is all there is. They keep telling people to stay in their homes and that help will arrive when possible. I suppose that I can try hooking up some sort of larger antenna, but from what we've seen so far, I doubt it would help any."

"That doesn't sound too promising." Jason sighed and ambled back over to the edge and looked down again. Trapped, with no rescue in sight for the foreseeable future. He was glad that he was outside during all of this, if he had been inside he was sure that he would have had an attack of claustrophobia and freaked out. As it was he was feeling a touch of both panic and depression.

Anger replaced the panic and depression as he looked at the creatures that were holding them all prisoner. His anger was irrational and childish, he knew that even as it welled from within, but the knowledge didn't seem to change his feelings. Jason leaned over the edge a little and shouted down at the hordes "Hey assholes, did you hear that? The man on the radio says that martial law has been declared and that you all need to go home."

"They leaving?" Jason was startled by Lynn's voice coming from a couple of feet behind where he stood.

He shook his head, "no, they're still out there, damn civil disobedience for you. Some times it works for you, some times against. Too bad we don't have some national guardsmen or angry redneck cops with clubs to sort them all out." Jason left the edge again, this time to flop down in his chair and stew with his own thoughts. There was no escape unless they cut a way out through the horde themselves, but if they did that, then what? Escape to where. Trapped was trapped. They would need somewhere to go. Maybe Billy would have some answers.

"Dude, I dunno." Billy shook his head as they looked down at Mike.

Jason was standing next to his friend, enjoying the view and wondering what Billy was on about. "Dunno what? He's still in pretty good shape. Considering his old age." It was another grey day, though not yet stormy, and the overcast sky didn't shed the best possible light on the car. If one wanted to be honest, the best possible way to view Mike was around twilight, while squinting. But who ever wanted to be honest when thinking about an old friend?

"In car terms, Mike is ancient my friend. Hell, he's older than everyone here except Douglas. Better let him go."

"What do you mean let him go?"

"I mean let him go, to rust in piece. He's earned an extended vacation."

"And then what? We can't all fit into Douglas' truck."

"That we can't." Billy said with a grin. He was leading up to something, and in his normal drama queen fashion was taking his sweet time getting there. Jason on the other hand was about ready to toss his friend off the roof in an attempt to see if the laws of gravity still held sway over the space between the top of the Megamart and the pavement below.

"Then what are you suggesting."

Billy grinned. "Look over there my friend, what do you see?"

There was a line of trees and Jason said so. Hoping that his friend would get to the point before they both found out whether or not Billy could fly.

"Do you happen to remember what is situated beyond those trees?" Jason must have had a blank expression on his face, because Billy said "Oh hell I give up. There's a car dealership over there."

"Why couldn't you have just come out and said that in the first place?"

"Where's the fun in that? Anyway, there's a lot full of brand new cars and trucks just waiting to be claimed."

"Might work."

"The best part is, we won't have to deal with the idiot salesmen." He switched into his oily salesmen voice, "I'll have to talk it over with my supervisor."

Jason shrugged his shoulders. "Alright, let's give it a shot." He thought for a moment, "figured out how talk Lynn into letting us go?"

"Are you really that afraid of Lynn?"

Jason asked again, "have figured out how talk Lynn into letting us go?"

"I figured that we would just sneak right by her."

"We're doomed."

"Shut up! It'll work! We'll take some wire cutters for the fence, our weapons and something to eat and drink. The dealership is less than a half a mile away, we can go, find a new truck, and drive it back. Besides, Lynn knows how bad of shape Mike is in too, she was there that day when he started belching black smoke, she'll agree that he needs to be replaced for all of our safety. If that doesn't work we can point and say 'what the hell is that' and when she turns around and looks where we've pointed, we yell 'yoink!' and then run! It'll be foolproof."

"Lynn isn't a fool. What about the zombies?"

In his dreadful 'English accent' Billy responded, "we shall have Lord Bashinator with us, old chap! We need not fear the undead scourge."

Jason shook his head again, it was getting to be quite the habit, one that he was in whenever Billy spoke. He decided to throw in the towel, and followed his friend back down the stairs, Jason knew when he wasn't going to win and when a fight wasn't worth the cost. Lynn and Douglas were sitting in the employee's lounge playing a game of chess. Once again going for the grandmaster title of the known world. Considering that the known world was the four friends, and neither Billy nor Jason had much of an interest in playing the game, the title was rather meaningless. On top of that, it changed hands on a daily basis since the two were so evenly matched.

At least this time they weren't playing strip chess. Jason had gotten more than enough of an eyeful of Douglas' furry torso during the first and subsequently last (so he hoped) time he had walked on them while playing that variation. Sadly Lynn had had her back to him, so he didn't get to enjoy the wondrous vision of female cleavage (she had been winning at the time and was largely clothed).

"Keep your pants on this time," he said to Douglas as he and Billy passed them by. Douglas blushed and grinned while Lynn giggled.

Billy lead Jason around the Megamart gathering tools that they would likely need. Bolt cutters, wire cutters, a pair of walkie-talkies, a hammer, a crowbar, a couple heavy-duty flashlights, and rope. Billy handed his friend the rope, watching him for a moment and waiting, the corners of his mouth twitching with anticipation, but Jason decided not to rise to the bait and let Billy go off on another one of his awful impersonations. Billy frowned and sighed his shoulders slumped in disappointment, next time perhaps. Despite the respite, Jason could still hear Billy's voice in a bad Irish accent rattling off the lines that he had held so dear. He groaned anyway.

They put most of their new gear into backpacks, with the radios on their belts. "Channel seven," Billy said as he adjusted his headset. With that, they made their way to the back door. Jason wondering every step what sort of outburst that he could expect from Lynn. On one hand they were doing something dangerous, on the other, Billy was right and it was something that desperately needed to be done. Besides, raiding the lot of a car dealer was something to do. Being inside or on the roof of the Megamart day in and day out was beginning to make his feet itch.

"We'll be back later, when we find the right truck." Billy said as they walked by the employee lounge to the back door.

Lynn waved as they passed, "ok, which channel are you using?"

Billy waved back, "Uh, seven. We should be back in an hour or so. Keep an ear out and mind the door."

Lynn called back, "be safe and good luck."

The lack of general outburst on the part of Lynn left Jason's ears ringing. It was like being in a loud environment for a long time, and then stepping into a silent room. "What the hell was that all about?"

"Oh, we already talked it over, we all agreed that Mike needed to be retired. It was my job to make you see it too." Jason was near fuming at the trick his friend had played on him. He wished that they were back on the roof for that gravity test. So much for missed opportunities!

"You bastard," he finally managed to say with a slap upside the back of Billy's head as stepped out the door and back into the grayish light of the overcast sky. Billy grinned again, shrugged and joined his friend. He had expected to get slapped. Billy had probably even drawn out the matter on purpose just to piss Jason off that much more.

Billy lit up a cigarette and took a drag, offering the pack to Jason "Ya want one?"

"Nah, I decided to quit."

Billy's eyebrows leaped straight up his forehead and into his scalp, landing somewhere near the scruff of his neck. "Really? Why?"

"Well, I figure one day I might have to run, and I don't think that smoking will do much to help me. That whole coughing and hacking up a lung thing."

"Good point." Billy dropped the cigarette he had just lit, grinding it under the sole of his boot. The rest of the pack soon followed. Jason heaved a sigh of relief, quitting smoking had just gotten a lot easier since his friend would no longer be offering him ciggs. "Well let's go," Billy said, taking out the wire cutters and walking over to the fence.

They decided that they would cut a straight line down the chain link fence, from top to bottom and then roll a ten or twelve foot section off to the side so that they could get the new vehicle through, afterwards doing their best to mend the fence to keep any stray zombies out.

The cutting took several minutes, Jason started at the top and Billy with the bottom, they would meet in the middle. Billy managed one cut for Jason's two, using both of his hands to squeeze the wire cutters, cursing in fake Klingon as he went. With the fence cut, they rolled it out of the way, removing the guide wires along the top rail as then went, before tying it off at the end with a section of Billy's vaunted rope.

The lot behind the Megamart was empty of all but waist tall grass beyond the first row or two of trees. Even those were spaced widely enough to get a car through, meant only to block the unseemly view of the store from the delicate haughty eyes of the upper class commercial district beyond.

There was little movement for as far as they could see in any direction. The street beyond was as empty as the field in which they currently stood. Jason let himself relax a little. Not all the way, but enough so that the muscles in his back had a chance to stop clenching and aching. As they stood in the field, they eyed their destination. A parking lot full of rows upon rows of what had until recently been bright and shiny new cars. They had become dusty and dingy from neglect in the weeks past, but they were all in excellent shape. At least hopefully. Jason wracked his mind, trying to remember if there had been any major recalls in the last couple of years.

Jason had his sword in hand as they snuck across the grassy field. Billy had his mace out too, Jason refused to refer to it mentally by the stupid name that it had been bestowed. Silence was good, it was what they needed at the time, and gunshots would draw unwelcome attention to their presence.

At the far edge of the field they stopped again, taking a closer look at the car dealership lot as well as some of the surrounding buildings. Jason saw a flicker of movement and dropped into a crouch.

There were several zombies walking around mindlessly inside the building. Jason pointed them out to Billy, who nodded and motioned Jason to follow once more. They darted across the street and in between a couple of parked SUVs, fleeing from the restless eyes of the dead.

Billy looked around for a moment, peaking from behind the SUV that was concealing them from the zombies in the building. "Well, whatcha want?" He said.

"Something with a lot of storage." There were a ton of different models to choose from and it might take a while to find the best fit.

"Leather seats? What color?"

"Nah, those are unpleasant when it gets either hot or cold, I think cloth would suit my needs better."

"CD player?"

"Damn strait, a CB radio would be a good thing to have too."

"I hadn't thought about that, though I doubt that we can find one already installed. They don't get much use anymore. We'll probably have to pick it up elsewhere and install it ourselves."

"They might have them inside as accessories, we could take it into the garage here and install it before we head back." Jason picked up his radio, hit the call button and whispered "Lynn, we're at the lot, we're going to take a look around, do some shopping."

"Rodger," came Lynn's voice softly over the radio.

Jason clipped the handset back onto his belt.

"What do you think?" He said in an undertone to Billy, "do we clear off the lot first or the building?"

"I think the building, that way we have a safe place to retreat if we run into trouble."

They looked in every direction, several times. Billy stood on the hood of the SUV to get a better view of the lot before making a break for the door of the dealership showroom. The zombies inside had seen them through the large windows that stretched from floor to ceiling all across the front half of the building. Panes of glass that were four feet wide and were only broken by the few inches of steel that they were framed by.

By the time the two friends made it to the door, at least four zombies were already pressing themselves against the glass, trying to get out to feed on the tantalizingly flesh that was so near, but so far away.

Billy tried the door, it was unlocked and swung open outward. Jason followed his friend indoors, drawing his sword. The small group of undead were standing to their left, a mere eight feet away and trying desperately to get closer. They were dressed like salesmen, wearing long sleeved dress shirts and expensive slacks. One, the furthest away, had several bites taken out of his leg and his costly pants.

"You take the one on the front right," Billy said as he charged the one on the left. Bringing a free meal to the zombie and in the process making some of its fondest desires come true.

Billy was already swinging his mace down onto the head of the first zombie, crushing its skull, by the time that Jason had neared enough his own to attack. For a second or so he considered doing something tricky like piercing its eye, or grandiose like decapitating the creature with a single swing of his sword. But that would have been more of Billy's style. Douglas had told him that his blade had been designed mostly for thrusting, though it did passably well with chopping too. So instead he just stabbed it through the neck, severing the spine, causing it to drop to the ground, and finally accept that it was truly dead.

Jason looked over to see that Billy was cheerfully clubbing his second zombie into the afterlife, and that there was only one more to go, about five feet away from where the other three had stood. Jason looked at his sword and gave it a quick wave, before deciding _to hell with it_.

He took two quick steps forward, and raised his blade flat end across and over his left shoulder like a baseball bat. With all his strength and momentum he swung the sword at the zombie's neck, severing the head from the shoulders and sending it flying several feet where it hit a shiny black sports car and bounced off, leaving one hell of a stain on the finish. Jason admired at the sword with a new level of appreciation for the craftsmanship, if it was designed for thrusting, but could still cut, it was good work.

"Yick, zombie gunk," Billy said, giving his mace a shake, sending droplets blood onto the polished floor tiles.

"Don't try too hard to clean that thing, we'll probably have to kill more."

Billy brightened a little, "yeah you're right."

"What have you got against these guys?"

"I just always wanted to hit a snooty car dealer prick."

"What the hell for?"

"They wouldn't sell me a car." He said grumpily, giving one of the corpses a kick in the ribs.

"You couldn't afford one from this place."

"That's what they said, the assholes."

"You don't even have a drivers license."

"They didn't know that, at least not at first."

"What did they do when they found out?"

"They threw me out, literally. And told me never to let them see my face back here again. But here I am!" With that, Billy started into his victory dance.

Though he had always wanted to sit back and watch the whole thing, Jason stopped him short. He was rather pissed. "You mean that you dragged me over here just so you could get revenge on what's left of a couple of yuppies?"

"Yes. Well, no not really. Sorta. But no."

"What do you mean sort of?"

"Mike does need to be replaced. You admitted that yourself. He's going to die one of these days and leave us in the middle of a world of shit. This place was close, and their product is the best that German engineering has to offer. We got to kill two birds with one stone. Anyway, who doesn't wish harm on a car salesman?"

Jason had to admit, Billy did have a good point. "You sound like a television commercial."

"I can't help it, I love that new car smell. It does something to my brain."

"Bud, you're not smelling cars, you're smelling blood and rotting zombie corpses. Anyway, lets check the rest of the building, and catch them before they find us." Jason quickly cleaned his sword off on the ragged pant leg of one of the corpses before making for the back of the building.

Most of the offices were empty, they found a couple more of the dead walking around in a conference room on the second floor. Stale donuts and cold coffee left forgotten on the table. Those were quickly dealt with. In the manager's office they found the lockbox that held all of the keys for every car, truck, SUV, and moped on the lot. Billy's fingers twitched with greed as he ran them over the keys, causing them to sway on their little hooks like grass in the wind.

A handful more zombies, most of them back in the automotive garage, and the building was theirs.

"Well, what do you want to look at first?" Billy asked. "I'm pretty sure we could get you into a subcompact fairly inexpensively."

"What we'll need is something with four wheel drive, decent clearance, a bit of storage space."

"Hmmm, truck or SUV?"

"I think a truck would be better, though something with an extended cab and a cap over the bed."

"How about colors? I'm just going to say darling, that you would look scrumptious in hot pink."

"You through? We have work to do."

"For now." Billy said "for now."

They found the stairway to the roof and climbed up to get a better look at the lot. Crouching low to attract as little attention as they possibly could while they surveyed the vehicles below. "Looks like only three of those trucks have caps. Lets take a closer look shall we?"

They went quickly to the manager's office to see if they could find the keys that went to their prospective target. The keys were organized using a system that even a half blind monkey could understand, which was fortunate for Jason and Billy since they lacked much in the way of patience for figuring such things out. They took several keys for likely candidates, and then went outside again to sort everything out.

They hadn't seen any movement around the lot while they were on the roof, but they remained vigilant as they snuck forward to the trucks section of the lot.

"Oh damn," breathed Billy getting a look at the prices listed on the stickers. "Good thing we brought a coupon!" He grinned again and patted his mace for a moment.

They wove their way through thirty different trucks, from time to time Billy would point out some of the nicer features that one or another boasted, from the red one that had eight cup holders (though it could only hold two people), to the dark purple one that was dark purple with red flames, no special features, Billy just thought it was too damn cool to leave. True to form, he was gladly willing to share his thoughts with the world. The world, as usual, being Jason.

In the end they settled on an SUV. Not one of the frilly little status symbol designed for soccer moms to shuttle their brood back and forth between school and home while never once leaving a paved road. An actual four wheel drive SUV that was meant to explore the wilderness with its owner. Like in the commercials where they tore up and down through remotest mountain ranges while classic rock played in the background.

Jason wasn't a car man by any stretch of the imagination, but he did drool a little when he opened the door and climbed in. It was a worthy successor to Mike.

Finding and then installing the CB radio took them near an hour. In that time they also filled several emergency gas cans and found a couple of extra spare tires. They radioed home and let their friends know that they were about to return home. Christening the SUV Kime, after his old car, he poured a half empty bottle of water over the hood before jumping in.

Jason turned the key to start the engine, and it came to life with a soft purr. Billy was in the passenger's seat playing with the CB radio, the am/fm radio, the power windows and locks and everything else within arm length that had a knob to fiddle with. Jason threw it into reverse, hit the gas and was amazed by the lack of smoke and other groaning noises that Mike had normally given off.

The drive home short and quick, less than two minutes, even including the time it took for them to navigate through the line of trees. Lynn and Douglas met them at the back door and helped them unload everything from Mike and put all the supplies into the SUV, before moving Mike out of the way on the across the hole on the other side of the fence and then patching up the hole, using yet more of Billy's beloved rope to tie it all off. The hole in the fence might come in handy one day.

Jason tossed Douglas the extra handheld CB that they had gotten from the dealership, and they all went back inside for lunch.

#

Later that week they learned one new fact first hand. Stones were heavy and difficult to move with a snow shovel. Who knew? Obviously not Billy, since he was the one to suggest that they shift the stones lining the roof top with shovels in the first place. 'It'll be a lot easier and faster, we'll get the job done in no time', he had said as he handed Jason a shovel.

Still the work went faster than if they had done it without the shovel, transferring all the rock with just their bare hands. Jason and Billy cleared an area about ten feet long and four feet wide, revealing the tar slathered roof, they then covered the blank spot with the rug that they had found in the furnishings department downstairs. Lynn asked what they were working so diligently on, Billy told her that since they were now officially retired, they were taking up golf.

Jason and Billy took a few more minutes to set up after they finished installing the platform. They had brought couple of complete sets of clubs with them mostly for some strange fancy of Billy's. Jason didn't want to think of what use Billy might have for a putter in driving balls off the roof, but Billy was strange like that, so Jason just rolled along with his friend's eccentricity (Douglas called it insanity, and Jason didn't argue the point).

They cracked open the first of what would be many cases of golf balls that they had secured from the back storage room. Many cases. It wasn't like they would be getting the balls back any time soon. Jason thought that it was lucky that the store had stocked up for the golf season, and a better thing that golf wasn't overly popular in these parts. They would have something to keep them occupied for a long time.

At least three days, or so Billy had calculated. He didn't show his work.

Billy drove his first ball, sending it out beyond the edge of the parking lot into the middle of the water filled ditch that acted as a barrier to separate the parking lot from the highway. Jason was sick of being amazed by little surprises. Billy knew how to play golf, or at least swing a golf club.

"Where did you learn how to do that?"

"I used to play with my dad from time to time when I was in Jr. High and High School."

"I'm glad that I didn't take you up on that bet." Billy had tried to interest him in a contest to see who could hit a golf ball furthest. The winner gets to make dinner for a month, and would have to wear a dress, nothing too skanky, in Billy's words.

"That was just a practice shot."

Jason took his first shot, and was happy to see the thing fly off the roof. He had envisioned himself breaking club after club in a cartoonish fit, slicing and swearing and of course missing. All in all he was doing ok. They fell into a rhythm, swing, replace the ball and then swing again. They were halfway through the balls that they had brought with them before they stopped to take a breather and enjoy some refreshments. Cigarettes and warm beer.

"You want to try hitting something?"

"I thought I was doing pretty well. I've hit the ball with every swing." He corrected himself, "Most every swing."

"What?"

"I thought I was doing fairly well at golf for my first time."

"No, no, no, I mean aim at something with the golf balls."

"You mean like the highway?"

"I was thinking something smaller."

"One of the cars?"

"Or one of the zombies."

"I'd be lucky to hit the highway, much less one of the cars."

"You're getting better."

"Maybe, but if I hit a zombie, it'd be pure luck. Like if one of them accidentally walked into the golf ball."

"Never know until you try."

"No, I know that I'm not too good at golf. Trying to hit a small moving target is a lost cause for me."

"Alright, how about that white caddy out there about three quarters of the way to the edge of the lot? Think you can hit that?"

"Maybe. I'm pretty sure I can get the ball out that far."

They went to work. It turned out that Jason hit a lot of zombies, for a while more of his balls hit the zombies than they hit the car. It was a saving grace that some of them never got back up after he beaned them. His incompetence was less embarrassing that way. It was a shame that he wasn't aiming at any of them. Ah well, at least it wasn't a total loss.

After a couple of hours the car was full of dents, all the windows were either cracked or shattered. Billy turned to him and said "Are you ready to try for new targets now?"

"I guess. I don't feel that much better though."

"You've gotten a lot better, besides, I'm getting bored with hitting that damn car."

"Alright, pick your target."

"Ok, that big guy in the cowboy get up."

"I see him."

"Good luck."

"Doesn't it feel weird at times to you?"

"Doesn't what feel weird?" Billy placed another ball and lined up his swing.

"Treating these people as if they aren't people. Pelting balls at them and dropping shit on their heads feels kind of wrong."

"They aren't people."

"Yeah they are, look at them."

"They're walking corpses."

"They were people."

"Yeah, they were, but not any more. Now they're just empty shells, shadows of their former selves."

"I wonder if they still have souls."

"If they did before they died, I doubt that they still do. I'm telling you, they're hollow."

"Still feels strange to kill them. Some times I even enjoy it, that scares me."

"Killing them is ok, as long as you don't kill people that aren't zombies yet."

"I'll keep that in mind."

Billy swung his club, driving the ball out into the lot. He came within mere inches of the skinny guy that they had been aiming for. He cursed and put down another ball. Jason watched him take another swing, again missing by inches. "Jason?" He had stopped playing and put his club down before turning to look at Jason.

"Yeah?"

"I don't want to be one of them."

"What do you mean?" Jason wasn't sure what his friend was getting at. Who wanted to be a zombie in the first place? He usually had a hard time following where Billy was going when he changed gears suddenly.

"I don't want to be a zombie."

"Ok."

"If it ever I ever get infected by one of them and die and come back, make sure that I don't stay that way. Please."

Jason shrugged. "I'll kill you myself if I have to."

"Thanks man." Billy looked relieved in a strange sort of way. He picked up his club again, readied another ball and took a swing. This time he hit. He hit the man dead on in the middle of the forehead. Jason could hear the skull cracking all the way across the parking lot as the zombie crumpled to the ground below. One less shell walking around, one less creature to worry about. So many more to take its place. Jason placed another ball of his own and was joined promptly by Billy.

"You won that round."

"Was there any doubt?"

"Not really, no. Who shall we go for next?"

"How about the fat man in shorts out by the red Buick? He might be a large enough target for you to hit."

"Go to hell."

"Maybe I will, but not just yet. Ready?" Without waiting for an answer Billy drove his first ball and scored a hit on the fat man's ample stomach. The creature didn't seem to even notice that it had just been hit by a hard ball traveling near a hundred miles an hour. It truly was just a shell of a human being. Jason took his turn, missing as usual.

#

There was a squealing of tires on the pavement as a compact car came racing up the road towards the Megamart parking lot. Jason hit Billy's shoulder and pointed, mostly out of surprise for seeing another living breathing human being, rather than just to point out the new development to his friend. Though Jason was a master at stating the obvious, and from time to time he enjoyed putting his skills to work.

The car was swerving wildly around the walking dead as the driver raced into the parking lot from off the street. The driver made it halfway across the lot before completely losing control of the car after hitting a curb. They bounced off the curb and the driver tried to regain control only to have the car flip over onto its roof while going full speed. The compact slid fifteen feet further before slamming into the car that Billy had hit with stones a few days earlier.

Jason lifted his binoculars to his eyes to try to get a better look at what was going on. Most of the compact was obscured by the vehicle that it had just smashed into. He could see the driver's side door, it looked like the driver was struggling to get out and not having very much luck. What he could see clearly was that the accident had gotten the attention of a parking lot full of zombies and the walking dead were beginning to slowly close in.

"Get out, get out!" Jason screamed at the top of his lungs, urging the driver and what-ever passengers he had with him, onwards. Billy ran to get his rifle from where he had left it leaning next to the door to the stairs. Jason grabbed his bow and drew an arrow. He released his first arrow and watched it hit the chest of the zombie nearest the car. Shit, that wouldn't even slow the thing down. He fired another arrow into the same zombie as Billy returned to the edge of the roof with the rifle and a spare box of ammunition.

Billy raised the rifle to his shoulder, took aim and finished off the zombie that Jason had shot with his bow. There was movement at the car. Jason looked through his binoculars again, the passenger had finally freed herself from the car and was beginning to walk towards the building. More zombies were closing in on the small car as she got moving.

Jason screamed again and waved his arms at her "Go around the back! Run damn it!" The woman started moving as fast as she could towards the back of the store, unfortunately the best she could do was a shaky trot.

"Oh shit man!"

"What?" Billy shot a zombie that was getting close to the woman, clearing a path for her to go through.

"I can't help her, and the people in the car all at the same time. Who do I focus on?"

"Help the woman, we know she's alive."

"Alright, will do."

Jason grabbed his walkie-talkie off of his belt "Lynn, Douglas, get to the back door, we have company coming real quick." Billy shot another zombie as the woman made painfully slow progress. Jason kept on watching the car, hoping that the driver might make it out. The zombies were closing in on the driver. Several were already within arm's length. His attention drifted back to the woman, she was about halfway to the end corner of the building when a scream came from the car. Jason fired another arrow at one of the zombies near the car, hitting it in the neck. A lucky shot that severed the spine and dropped the creature to pavement for good.

She turned around and started walking back towards the car. Jason screamed at her again "No, you can't do anything to help, just keep running." The woman looked up at the roof in a dazed sort of way, but followed his orders. Jason fired another arrow, missing the zombie that he had been aiming for and instead bursting the rear driver's side tire.

The man in the car kept on screaming, making Jason wince each time a cry burst out in either terror or agony. "Billy, can you hit the gas tank and make that car explode or something?"

"I don't know if it'll work that way, but I can give it a shot." He ignored the woman's plight for a moment and aimed his rifle back at the car. The man inside the compact had stopped screaming and his silence tore at Jason's insides as much as the screaming had. Billy took his shot, it looked like he hit the car, but nothing happened.

"It didn't work, go back to helping her." Billy took a moment to reload and then turned his attention back to killing zombies and making a path for the woman to tread. Jason pulled out the flare gun that he had been saving for a special occasion. This wasn't what he was hoping to use the flare for, but that really didn't matter. He aimed the flare gun at the car and pulled the trigger, lobbing the flare towards the car. It flew in a lazy arch over the heads of the seething mass below before bouncing off the bottom of the vehicle and bursting into flames, landing on the blacktop next to the car. Billy must have hit the tank, or else the tank must have leaked because in a matter of seconds the entire thing exploded into flames, sending a plume of black smoke skywards.

Jason nodded to himself, the man in the car was dead, but at the least he wasn't going to have to walk the world as a shambling creature living an un-life. He checked back on the passenger, she was at the corner and heading around the side of the store. Both Billy and Jason followed her around to the side of the building. There were fewer of the creatures, but still enough to potentially cause her problems if she faltered.

The woman kept stumbling forward at a steadily trot as Billy cleared the rest of the creatures from her path. Jason kept on calling down to her urging her on, she was almost safe.

She rounded the last corner. They had kept this area completely clear of zombies so there was little they could do except watch and wait and keep urging her on.

A call came over the walkie-talkie, it was Lynn "What's going on out there? Jason?"

"There was a car, it crashed, but a woman got out, she's coming to the back door now."

"Is she hurt? Has she been bitten?"

"I don't think so, it doesn't look like she has. Get ready she's almost at the door."

The door opened a scant few seconds before the woman finally arrived. Douglas leaned out, grabbed her hand and pulled her in, she had barely disappeared through the doorway before the door slammed shut and was locked against intruders once more.

Jason put his binoculars away, he hadn't realized that he had been squeezing them as he watched the woman's progress. "I'm going to go and see what's going on down there."

"I'll be down in a few, I want to pick off the stragglers before they decide to see if there's anything back here worth checking out." Billy re-loaded his rifle and then got to doing what he had to do. Jason took one last look at the cloud of smoke billowing from the burning car in the parking lot before stepping through the doorway and inside.

#

Jason stood in the doorway for a moment, letting his eyes adjust to the dimness inside before tackling the stairs. There were a further three thunderous reports from Billy's rifle, before he felt ready to go in. He flipped on the flashlight that he had left at the top of the stairs when he and Billy had come up earlier and then proceeded to head down into the store, feeling nearly blind after spending so much time in the bright sunlight.

He took the steps two at a time, fairly fast, but still safe. He kept one hand on the rail until he reached the bottom just in case he did something retarded and tripped over his own two feet. It had happened to him before. They were all sitting at a table near the entrance on the other side of the lounge. The woman was on the bench next to Lynn who had her wrapped up in a blanket. Lynn was speaking softly into her ear trying to calm her down.

After what she had been through Jason thought she might need a couple of stiff drinks to do the job. He crossed the room to their makeshift bar and poured out a glass of brandy for her and then one for himself for good measure, his hands were still shaking a little after what he had just witnessed happening to the woman and the faceless man. Jason gave one of the glasses to the woman and kept the other for himself. He drank half of his brandy in one gulp while she just sat next to Lynn holding her glass. He walked over to the bar and topped off his drink before taking another sip.

Douglas sidled up to him at the bar and whispered, "Was there any one else?"

"She was in the car with someone, a man I think, but he didn't make it out."

"Oh God."

"Yeah. They got him. I ended up torching the car with one of the flares after he stopped screaming."

"Couldn't you have done anything sooner?"

"Billy couldn't get a clean shot."

"What a way to go."

"Hopefully it's over for him now."

"Did you happen to get her name?"

"No, she only just stopped sobbing a few seconds ago. Where's Billy?"

"He's up on the roof making sure she wasn't followed. And if she was, to put an end to the chase."

"He's a smart man when he isn't playing the fool."

"He's smart then too, it's just that he does dumb things."

The woman was sobbing again. She still hadn't touched her brandy and Lynn was still talking to her softly and hugging her shoulders. Jason wasn't sure who would be happier for the new woman's presence, Billy with his need for female companionship, or Lynn with her need for someone who wasn't a man. For a living human that she didn't feel the need to have to mother full time.

It was a couple minutes before Jason had realized that he no longer heard gunshots coming from the roof. He turned to look at the doorway just as Billy stepped through with his rifle slung over his shoulder. He crossed the floor, passed Jason and Douglas and took a seat next to Lynn and the stranger. He reached out and took her hand and held it in his own.

"Amy, are you alright?"

She moved. She lifted her head and looked at Billy. It was the first sign of life that Jason had seen in her since he had arrived just a few minutes before. "Billy?"

"Yeah, it's me. What are you doing here? If you don't mind my asking."

"My neighbor Crayson and I. Crayson! Where is he?"

"He didn't make it."

"Oh God, he's one of them. He got stuck in the car and he told me to run and I panicked and took off, but then he started screaming." She broke into sobs before she could finish. But they all already knew what happened. Crayson, a name to go with the screams as they echoed in Jason's head, bouncing off the walls of his skull and growing with each pass. Jason covered his ears, trying to will away the sound of the screams. He could smell the smoke. Crayson, he was Crayson. Crayson is dead.

"No, we made sure that he wouldn't become one of the zombies. I'm sorry, but that was all we could do for him." Amy started crying again. The rest of them waited in silence, Lynn was stroking her hair and Billy was squeezing her hand. Jason took another drink and Douglas just watched them. Hours seemed to pass before she had finally cried herself out. In all that time, nobody moved from where they stood.

When Amy had calmed down to where she could once again speak without bursting into tears, she continued with her story.

The man leaned back against the park bench. Legs splayed out before him, a half empty bottle of Five O'clock in one hand and a blood drenched tire iron lying across the lap of his dirty blue jeans. He was beginning to feel numb, a good sign as far as he was concerned, so he took another swig to ease his mind onto the path of painless oblivion. Even the vodka didn't burn his throat on the way down, as it had earlier. Another good omen.

The man smiled a little, and scratched the three-day-old stubble on his cheek with the lip of the bottle. A shave, he could use a good shave. Then a shower, and a decent meal. He would have liked to change out of his stained Jeans and tank top, as he had been wearing the clothes on his back for two or three days or even longer. The last week had been blurry, even before the vodka.

A nice thick steak, slightly charred on the grill and still pink on the inside so that blood would run with each cut of the knife. With a baked potato and sour cream on top. A salad off to the side. He never cared much for lettuce, but he did like the taste of Blue Cheese salad dressing, and the rabbit food gave him an excuse to have it. Anything would be better than the two cans of Dinty Moore beef stew that he had choked down that morning.

Instead of getting up, cleaning himself off and helping himself to more food, he just sat and watched the empty playground, from time to time taking a swig from his bottle and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. The sun was sinking in the east. No west, the sun sank in the west, not east. The vodka was working its magic and making him forget. The playground began casting shadows that grew long enough to reach out across the sand and sidewalk to where he sat on his bench. This would be the first sunset that he had watched in the months, ever since he had been working the midnight shift. Usually he had bee asleep at this hour.

Stare, swig, wipe.

The pattern repeated itself until he had finally drained the bottle completely. By then the sun had completely set. A fifth of vodka, on a largely empty stomach, was enough to make him forget taking the shower and getting himself some food. He had even managed to forget his name. Finally.

He threw the empty bottle at the empty swing set, missing by about ten feet and cursing his own drunken ineptness until he forgot why. The man uttered a lengthy string of what he had meant to be four letter words, harsh ones that would make the human garbage who appeared on Jerry Springer stand up and take notice. At least he intended to do so. His slurring was so terrible that had anyone actually been listening, he would have sounded more like Yosemite Sam than anything else.

The vodka was gone. His mind was buzzing. The sky was dark.

He fell asleep. His head on his shoulder. Sometime during the night, during the dreamless emptiness, the tire iron fell from his lap. The resulting bell-like clang of the metal bar striking the concrete did nothing to stir him from his alcohol fueled blackout and sweet oblivion. Passers by could have picked the man up and dropped him without them noticing.

Nobody else took notice either, simply because there had been nobody left in town. Living or dead. The man had had a busy three days.

The morning sun woke him. The bright light stabbing at his brain through his eyes as he started awake. The world was bright and blurry. The man threw up an arm to block the painful light as he rubbed his eyes with his free hand to try and clear them up of the crusted gunk that his mother had always called 'sleep'.

The clock in the tower on the far side of the park said that it was 10:27. On what day, the man was not sure, the pounding headache from his hangover and the kink in his neck were much too distracting to allow him to recall such useless facts like 'what day is it?' and 'who am I?' No, some notions were no longer important.

All that mattered anymore was his hangover, and finding a way to cure it. The best way to do so, in his experience, was to drink more liquor. The man set off down the sidewalk towards the convenience store that he had looted the day before. Iron in one hand, the other was busy trying to massage his neck to get the kink out. He thought that he might as well be more comfortable, if only a little bit.

There had been a lot of vodka there. Bob's place, the town's only gas station. Enough to make sure that he never remembered anything ever again, perhaps enough so that he would one day wouldn't wake up. The man smiled at the notion of embracing the eternal blackness. That would be nice.

The man vaguely recalled breaking the window the night before with his tire iron. There was still a scraping of dried blood on the glass that remained in the frame and even more in on some of the shards that littered the floor within. He had ransacked the shelves nearest the door in his mad quest for mind-numbing booze.

For a moment he took a side trip to the corner of the gas station. Relieving himself on the brick wall that ran from the corner of the building to the end of the property. He supposed that he could have whipped it out and taken a piss inside the building, that there was no reason to walk to the corner and shield his manhood from the world. But there were still proprieties to live by. He wasn't and animal. Not yet anyhow.

He opened up a can of the beef stew that he found sitting on its side on the floor. His instincts told him that he needed to eat, even as his stomach protested, gurgling loudly. It both wanted the contents of the can, and at the same time feared them. Feared the chemical laden mush inside.

Death would have been a nice release, but he was too much of a coward to take the quick and easy way out. He was too much of a coward to simply act and take what he really wanted in life. He always had been. A failing that had come back to haunt him time and time again throughout his life. He always remained passive, never aggressive. And now as too late to change all that. So he ate some of the nasty beef stew, much to the displeasure of his stomach. The whiney traitor. Loudly demanding food, then threatening to expel the food it was given.

But vodka didn't mix well with anything else.

The man slapped his stomach and groaned. He set down the tire iron on the top shelf and patted his stomach again, attempting to placate it. By all appearances, he wouldn't getting drunk again until everything settled down again. Or at least until he stopped caring.

He lay his head down over his crossed arms on the metal shelf that held the SPAM and canned meat products that were less savory. The man was looking for some sort of relief from the nausea, short of vomiting up everything that he had worked so hard to choke down. His stomach nearly revolted completely when his mouth was placed so near to the vile canned meat. He didn't care. The metal that made up the cans was pleasantly cool against his forehead.

There was a clatter of cans and glass behind him, his hand darted out towards the tire iron on its own accord. He turned, weapon in hand and faced the invader, expecting to see another one of those mindless creatures. His instincts took over, even though his mind vaguely repeated that they were all dead already, he had killed them all.

Staggering a little as a wave of nausea accompanied by its eternal comrade in arms, dizziness, swept across him. He broke out in a cold sweat.

There was a man there, wearing a leather jacket with the word, name, Dirk emblazed on the chest. Brightly colored patches ran up the sleeve of the jacket. The newcomer was in his late twenties and leering back. He spoke, taking the man aback. "Hey sweetie, you ready to dance with me?" He said as he pulled a knife from his under his coat and held it up. A real living man and one who didn't mean well.

The knife wielder, Dirk, took a careful step forward through the empty doorframe and onto the glass strewn floor inside. His eyes locked with the nameless man's own, his shoulders and the knife waving back and forth in a swaying dance with each step. He looked as if he was getting ready to have himself a party. The man wasn't interested in parties, he just wanted this Dirk to go away. Moving with a speed that belied his massive bulk, the man swung his tire iron and backhanded Dirk across the temple.

Surprise widened his eyes even as the tire iron crushed his skull, and ruined his face, sending his lifeless corpse to the floor. If you crush the skull, or destroy the brain, they don't get up again. That much the nameless man still remembered.

He stooped over to check the body. Dirk was dead.

He saw a pair of laced boots stop before him as he squatted over the lifeless corpse of Dirk, and watched dully as one of those boots rose up and smashed him in the face, sending him flying backwards and onto his ass. The boots belonged to a woman with grey streaked brown hair. A woman, who according to the lines on her face, that life had used hard. She was athletic and well muscled and dressed much like the belated Dirk. The woman strode over to the nameless man, kneeled down on his chest and held a knife to his throat. He remained very still. He wanted to die, here was his chance, and he couldn't force himself to take it.

"Check him!" She turned her head and looked over her shoulder. She pointed at the body. "Check him out," she commanded one of the shapes that were standing in the doorframe behind her. The shape moved to Dirk, reached out a hand and felt for a pulse.

"Who are you buddy boy?" She asked the nameless man. She had ice blue eyes that reminded him of a glacier he had once seen on a vacation to Alaska as a kid. Eyes that were not only the color of the ice, but also as cold. She was a killer, a long time hard rover and murderess. He said nothing, not so much out of resistance, as he plainly couldn't remember anymore. Who was he? What did that matter? He had spent two days pickling his brain in alcohol and forcing himself to forget all the annoying little tidbits that still caused him pain.

His name had been one of those details.

"Not much of a gabby man are you?" The strange woman asked, running the blade of her knife along his throat.

One of the men, the one who was checking Dirk for a pulse, turned around and called out, "Chief, he mother-fucking killed Dirk! Dirk is totally going cold! His head is all busted open and his brains are leaking out. Yuck."

"Is he now? With one blow? The idiot must have finally gone over the deep end with all that crap about being able to hypnotize his prey with that stupid dancing walk of his." She pulled back the knife blade and ran her fingers across his stubbly cheek. "You're a strong man," she whispered into his ear. "We can use a guy like you. We can always use strong men in our little organization. What's your name big guy?"

He didn't say anything, even when she lowered the knife to his crotch and made the gesture that she was going to relieve him of his manhood. He just passively watched her. She smiled at him and touched his lips with one of her fingers. "Not much of a talker? Well then we'll call you Dirk." She put the knife away. "One of you give him Dirk's jacket and bandana, he can be our new muscle." He stood up and put the coat and bandanna on, grabbing a couple bottles of rotgut and putting them in his new pockets. On the way out the door, he stip some blood, a couple of teeth and rubbed his battered mouth, looking forward to his next chance to get drunk and drown this new pain that he had acquired.

She never told him her name. Everyone just referred to her as Boss or Chief. Perhaps even they didn't know for sure. She led him by the hand to a motorcycle, a Harley Davidson and handed him the keys. "I hope you can ride big guy, cause if you can't you're no use to us." He could ride, even half drunk. He still remembered how to do that, even with his pickled brains.

The Chief bedded him that night when they stopped and made camp. His legs, hands and back were sore from a long day of riding the bike. His stomach still churned from the vodka and beef stew bender he so recently had been on. Dirk was just beginning to relax in front of the campfire, stretching his sore arms and legs, when she summoned him to join her out in the shadows beyond the ring of the firelight. At first he ignored her command.

She came to him, grabbed his by the hair, with her knife to his throat and whispered into his ear, "Just remember who's in charge here stud, one more wrong move and I'll bleed you here and now. We make a sport of that sort of thing. Maybe I'll give you to the boys first and then gut you myself. They enjoy a little bit of play with whatever they can get." With that she grabbed him by the arm and dragged him off into the night away from the campfire, he tried to protest, she ignored him. In the end he just followed and did as she commanded. Life was easier that way. The humiliation would end sooner.

There was nothing romantic about the act, she used his body for her own pleasure, grinding her hips into him and making animalistic grunts, running her hands over his muscles and placing his hands on her breasts. Had he been anything other than apathetic to the world around him, he might have considered what the Chief was doing to him as rape.

Oh, she was kind enough to get him off in return for services rendered. Or maybe she was still just enjoying his body when he finally managed to climax. He hadn't thought that he could function on that level just yet, and was astonished to be wrong. She lay on his chest, with her hands braced on his shoulders, for a moment or two, breathing heavily from her exertion, before climbing off and dressing herself.

"Where are we going?" He asked as she got pulled on her t-shirt, speaking for the first time in days.

She hiked up her pants over her hips. "So you can speak, you're not just a retarded mute."

"Where are we going?" He asked a second time.

"Back to the campfire."

"I mean in general."

"Stud. We're going crazy. And you're coming along for the ride." The Chief turned away from him and went back to the fire. "He wasn't too bad, though he was a lazy lay, and he wasn't nearly as big as the old Dirk. Still, he was a good ride. Kept it up all the way to the end. A lot better than you ever could Ritchie." She yelled in a loud boisterous voice, announcing her return. "Just remember children, he's mine. He owes me for what he did to our first Dirk."

Dirk followed the Boss back to the campfire where he was greeted with the smell of cooking and congratulatory whoops from the rest of the gang. He sat down, leaning against a large rock and stared into the flames as if he trying to see into the future like an ancient seer.

Dinner that night consisted of more canned stew, opened up and heated next to the fire until whoever lay claim to the can grew tired of waiting for their meal and devoured what was available. When it was his turn, Dirk ate slowly and mechanically, unable to taste the stew as he spooned it into his mouth and chewed it.

The rest of gang treated the stew as if it were Ambrosia. Perhaps it was. Their Ambrosia gave strength to the body. And they had survived the cataclysm that had devoured humanity, so maybe they were Gods. Gods only ate Ambrosia, or so the stories said. Dirk began to laugh. At first a quit rumble deep in his chest. At last he finally broke into stomach clenching guffaws. The rest of the gang stupidly followed suit. The pot that they had been passing back and forth and the bottles of liquor dulling their minds so that they didn't question why they were laughing, they just rolled with it and enjoyed the feeling. Only the Chief was sober enough to be confused by their collective fit.

Dirk's laughter slowly faded, only long after the rest sunk into a stupor smoke. Oh they might be Gods indeed, but they were a sad group of Gods as had ever walked the face of the Earth in the collective imaginations of humanity before them.

Someone handed him a bottle. Dirk didn't even bother to read the label, he merely lifted it to his lips and poured a stomach full of forgetfulness into his head.

His third patrol started like the first two. Though the weather was damp and dreary as the skies shook off the final remnants of the previous day's storm. All outings had been canceled the day before. The captain said that traveling the streets carrying rifles and golf clubs during a thunderstorm would be too dangerous, and the rain would make it difficult to spot their prey, so the platoon had stayed in. Not that anyone complained, they didn't much mind staying dry, even if it was boring.

The pavement had dried, by the time Ash took his first step from the barracks ahead of his two squads. Cervantes would be headed east, while Ash was ordered to go west. After spending the day indoors, with nothing to occupy their time, the platoon was itching for some action. Some of them were even boasting about how many zombies that they would kill that day. As if killing zombies was that hard, the things moved slow and they didn't run or try and protect themselves. They just tried to grab you and take a bite.

The rumor had gone around the company for a while that the things wanted to eat brains. Ash had cursed when he had heard that. He had lost his helmet the week before, leaving him unprotected. A lot of soldiers laughed at him when the subject came up. Cervantes told him not to worry, the zombies wouldn't come after something so puny as his brain.

The doc finally cleared the mess up. He had seen what the zombies do. They just bite people and try to eat their flesh. They ignore the brains, or at least don't go after them specifically. There's a lot of bone in the skull, which makes getting to the brains difficult. The doctor didn't make any jokes about Ash being stupid, and Ash got the feeling that he wasn't even thinking them quietly while they were talking. The doctor was cool like that. He was a nice guy. A retired military surgeon who, like Sarge, was in the reserves to relive old memories and try to capture some of his youth while helping his country out as best he could.

His patrol was seven blocks west and two south when they stumbled onto their first zombies of the day. The captain had given all the officers, including noncoms, standing orders not to enter any buildings, and to only engage small groups of zombies on the street. Small being no larger than twice the number of the patrol. Any less could be handled safely. Any more could get messy. Ash was more than happy to follow those orders, though they usually got around the letter of the law with certain strategies that the company had worked out in the weeks prior.

Though there wasn't much to actually fighting the zombies, they did employ certain tactics to make the job of extermination as safe and easy as possible. First, they let the zombies come to them. When they saw a group that was a bit too large, they stood their ground and made a lot of noise, attracting the creatures' attention. Since the walking corpses didn't all move at the same speed, the pack usually thinned out enough to handle in a safe and orderly manner.

For large groups, narrow alleys and spaces between buildings were preferred territory for the kill, since a small group of soldiers could safely hold off so many more times their numbers if need be. The patrol would lead the mob to the alley, kill them until there was a pile of bodies and then withdrawal further into the alley. They would leave just enough room between the soldiers to allow them to swing their clubs, with everyone else waiting behind the line to take their own turns. Zombies were uncoordinated and often struggled over the piles of bodies. Fallen zombies were easy prey.

This was a dangerous tactic if used carelessly. On one occasion, first platoon had gotten themselves bottled in when they engaged zombies from one street in the mouth of a side road, without first checking what the road opened up to. A even bigger horde of the undead heard the sounds of battle and were drawn closer like sharks to blood. Thankfully the corporal in charge had enough sense to post guards at his back just in case such an emergency occurred and they managed to fight their way free without any losses. Though they became pinched, nearly fighting back to back at the end. The captain had still been pissed and beaten the corporal senseless for being an idiot and endangering his troops that way. Only Sarge's stepping in had managed to save the corporal's life, though he had since been busted back to private and forced to wear a dunce hat wherever he went.

As they patrolled to the east they came to an old manufacturing district that had been partially rebuilt by some useless urban renewal program. The streets were lined with buildings that were only around three or four stories and probably had stood there for a hundred years or so. Most had been made of brick while others had been constructed out of concrete. There didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to how they had been placed, with newer and brick buildings standing next to one another at random.

The buildings, though low in profile, each took up half a city block, or more, and butted up to one another as if they were conjoined. The patrol would have no bolt-holes or alleyways to duck into should things get hairy out here. The city had transformed the buildings into lofts for yuppies and art galleries and over priced coffee shops where you could buy a triple shot of double mocha cappuccino for ten bucks, but if you ordered a simple plain black coffee they would look at you as if you were nuts and then call the cops to come take you away. A modern and stylish new place to live in the middle of what amounted to be a ghetto. People had flocked there.

The first pack of zombies for the day was small, numbering little over thirty. Nearly three times the size of his patrol, to be sure, but after fleeing hordes numbering in the hundreds and even thousands, this group was manageable. Eric was on point, ranging half a block ahead. The man made a good scout, and reported back what he had found. The first group of zombies were milling around a small park that housed a fountain and some meaningless modern sculpture that looked like a giant ball of tangled string.

At the very edge of the little park Ash arrayed his people in a wide and shallow 'V' formation, with the point facing away from the group of zombies and himself positioned at the very tip of that point. There was enough space between each soldier for a broad man to step comfortably through without rubbing shoulders with the soldier on either side. Ash chose his spot because he preferred to watch the action rather than be a part of it. Sarge said it was his job to direct combat rather than fight and as he had so often, he was there to keep his eyes open and watch the area surrounding in case any unwelcome guests showed up.

Ash had taken Sarge's words to heart. So far the man had not given him bad advice. They started making noise, pounding their bats and clubs on the ground and yelling. The uproar resonated through the buildings

The zombies turned to find the source of the commotion, and came. "Alright, ready up folks. We're going to bag us some zombies today. Stay in line. Any of you apes gets out of control and I'll club you myself and leave you for any of the zombies what come along. Keep it orderly and keep it tight."

Ash didn't expect to have to actually need to use violence against his people. So far they had all acted with decent discipline, considering that they were weekend warriors. Still, some times they got out of control, and that could lead to some bad shit.

Apes was one of the terms that Sarge was so fond of using when he addressed his troops. Ash decided that he should ask where Sarge had found the phrase. He had a few other strange ones as well and Ash thought it might be an interesting fact.

Eric made the first kill, and the second. By the time half of the zombies were dead and lying on the ground, Private Martin, Eric, was hooting and hollering for more. Eric was the solider that his squad had rescued from the back of the truck with the doctor and the nurse. He had come out of his shock looking for blood, like he had something to prove to the world. Ash spent time with the man on patrols and found his guesses about his personality to be pretty accurate. He was wild and reckless and Ash didn't like taking him on patrol. Still, Ash had a hole in his ranks after Cummings died, so he took what he could get.

Ash hadn't even taken a single swing between when the first kill and the time when the final corpse hit the pavement. "Fine work people." He said as he walked along the bodies, prodding each body to make sure that it wasn't about to get back on its feet and keep advancing. None of his troops had taken a wound, leaving him to call the encounter a success. "Alright folks, lets go find some more."

None of it made any sense to her. None of it. She tried to comprehend what was going on but her brain was still buzzing. Amy hadn't moved in what felt like days, she sat glued to the television, flicking between the five or so channels that were still on and transmitting the news full time. There wasn't much new on. The dead were rising and eating the living. Like some bad Hollywood fantasy come to life. The ticker along to bottom kept on repeating that the government had declared martial law and that all citizens were to stay in their homes.

She had stayed in her home, a small one bedroom apartment on the sixth and top floor of her building. In the beginning the news anchors had offered lists of tips on how to make life more comfortable for the long haul. Of course it was all expected to blow over in matter of days, that the government would take care of everything and life would quickly return to normal. But better safe than sorry they said and repeated often. There was something wrong they said, over and over, but stay calm and it would be ok in the end. At first they smiled reassuringly as they delivered their lines, eventually, they stopped wearing their makeup and began to look hunted and frightened. Eventually they all lost focus, succumbed to the despair that they so heartily had been admonishing the public against. They ended up being swallowed by something that they did not understand. Survival tips from vapid fools. She didn't know what bothered her more, that they were giving out advice, or that she had followed it to the letter in her panic. She had never before so completely realized how tiny and confining her little apartment was.

Some of the advice was actually pretty good, though it frightened her to think about how long the precautions were meant to last, they reached further into the future than the officials had said was necessary. She had filled her bathtub, not to mention every container that she could find with water. She had gathered food from the homes of her neighbors. She had assembled a survival kit with batteries, and a radio and a dozen other things. She had barricaded the door and found something that she could use as a weapon. Mostly she had stayed put, watched television and cried in frustration and confusion.

After the second or third day of the Living Dead Crisis, as the media dubbed it, there had been precious little new information. They had lost contact with much of the country. All she knew is that people had gotten sick and started dying. After they died they didn't stay dead and had risen up to kill and eat the living. It was going on all over the world. It was like one of those movies one of her friends loved to watch. That was the unbelievable part, that a movie could come to life like this, that real life could so closely imitate art. Her head spun with the thought. More than once she wondered if she was simply living a bad dream from which she could not awake.

The government had declared martial law and set up roadblocks on all the roads both in and out of all the major cities. The news had shown footage of the roadblocks and of panicked crowds of people trying to escape, only to be gunned down by their own soldiers. Looters they said would be shot on sight. They said that they did this to keep people in place. They declared that anyone caught trying to escape would be killed on sight to keep the plague from further spreading. Nobody was allowed to leave. So there she stayed, it beat dying out on the road, at least that's what she had told herself. But she still risked dying in her own home.

The only living breathing human being who she had seen over the course of the past two days, had been her neighbor Crayson. Crayson was a man who was about ten years older than her. They had lived next door to one another since she had moved in to the building five years before, but had never really spoken to one another, with the exception of awkward greetings, well her 'hellos' were always awkward anyway, he was always friendly and flirty with her. At best, she considered him to be a vague acquaintance. It was saying something about today's society that it took the onset of the end of the world for someone to bother and get to know their neighbors.

Crayson had saved her just the day before from being killed and eaten by their neighbor Mrs. Francisco, a doting old woman who loved cats and children but who had none of her own. Mrs. Francisco was one of the few people in the apartment building that Amy had felt even a little close to. She was a woman who had a sweet voice and a ready smile. There was always a word of kindness whenever they passed in the hall, sometimes they even stopped to chat for a little while. She had succumbed to the plague and was a woman who was bludgeoned further into death by her neighbors as they were looting her home for supplies. They couldn't bury the woman, or cremate her, so they took their only alternative available to them, they threw her body out of the window so that it wouldn't further rot, stinking up the entire floor. Life was not fair. Amy shivered while thinking about it

She had seen Crayson on and off since then. Mostly he had kept to his own apartment, the more things change, the more things stayed the same. He seemed to be like that, he was a good neighbor, quiet and helpful with small things like carrying grocery bags and fixing small problems with the apartment if the landlord was dragging his feet. She knew him better than she had known anyone else in the building, except Mrs. Francisco.

Amy opened a can of beans and took some hotdogs out of her refrigerator. The news people kept on saying that they should stockpile any canned goods that they could and eat all the perishable goods, they kept saying that there was no way that the government could keep the power going for very much longer, and that in some places the electricity had already gone off. Nobody knew when it would come back on, so they should use it while they could and be prepared. She was going to take their advice and enjoy every warm meal while she still could.

She placed her food onto a TV tray and flopped down on her couch in front of the television. The talking heads were still going at it. From time to time there was a guest speaker, from the government or some hospital or another speculating on the cause of the outbreak under the guise of actually being helpful. She flipped through the remaining five channels while she ate. Four of them were just repeating the same lack of news over and over again along with the warning to stay at home for the sake of safety. Same material, different faces.

The fifth channel was the public access channel. It was different, though the man who was speaking was informing his viewers what was going wrong out there. He wasn't offering any scientific answers, or even ones that sounded scientific. He made no excuses. He simply blamed the viewers for their sinful lives and those of their neighbors. He hadn't stopped talking since the whole thing started and it was beginning to show. There were bags under his deep-set eyes and he was slouching, bracing himself on his desk. The man looked tired to the point of exhaustion. But his baritone voice was still filled with the passion of his message.

The gates of hell have been opened, and the damned have returned to walk the Earth. Repent ye sinners and return to the hand of God, for repentance is your only path to salvation. Do not be cursed to forever walk among the damned! Join the crusade against their very being. Our government has failed us and needs to be wiped away.

Amy let the preacher's words wash over her. She had been raised in a fire and brimstone religion and she was used to the dark and pessimistic outlook on life, still the words chilled her. The dead were walking.

Your only way to salvation is to accept Jesus into your heart. Else you will burn in hell fire for all eternity, cursed to walk forever, dead among the living! You will be delivered unto the hands of Satan for eternal torment for your wicked ways. _  
_This was all old news too. Older even than what the other stations were running and with less science to back it up than the crazy hippy lady who was claiming that Mother Nature had created the plague to punish humanity with their darkest fears for they way it had abused her for so many long centuries. She said that Earth had found a way to cleanse itself of the cursed disease of humanity. Amy wondered if the Hippy and the Preacher had gotten together to compare their notes as she shut the television off.

Amy woke up with a line of cold drool running down her chin and into a puddle on her shoulder. The room was almost completely dark. Even the ever present street lights were off.

Amy felt panic surge through her.

She was dead. She was in her coffin. They buried her. Oh God she was buried alive! She was on her feet before she realized that she was still in her living room in her apartment. Safe and alone in the dark. Alone as usual. But safe. She crossed the room to the window, on the way kicking the leg of her chair and hurting her small toe. Yelping in pain, she hobbled the rest of the way. The only light in the room was coming from the full moon. It cast a weak silvery light that did little to illuminate her surroundings. Amy welcomed the moonlight, as soft as it was. The light felt magical to her, and calmed her nerves.

The street below her window was empty for as far as she could see in either direction, though much of her view was blocked by some decrepit looking hedges on the neighboring property. Aside from one bad experience with her former neighbor, she hadn't seen a single sign of any of the walking dead, zombies, or whatever they were. It all made her wonder if it was another case of the media blowing a problem way out of proportion, like the year two thousand computer glitch. A bunch of fools talking about events that they really didn't understand, but they sounded scary, so they talked on anyways. Trying to grab as much airtime as possible and sell advertising space.

The moon was beautiful as it reflected off her window, lighting her living room as it's beams passed by the budding leaves on the trees outside. Amy watched the moon for several minutes, noticing slowly all the stars that were beginning to emerge in the night sky around it. It had been a long time since she had seen many stars, a long time since she had even bothered looking for them. Sky gazing was usually rather pointless for city dwellers, it was like reading the Cliff's notes of a Shakespeare play, you got the idea but most of the beauty of the experience was missing. The night sky was forever bathed in reflected light cast off into darkness of the universe by humanity, washing out millions of points of light. Drowning, for humanity, a beautiful show that their ancestors had experienced for centuries long past.

The moon had moved around a thumb-span of the way across the blackness of the night sky before she stopped watching the stars. She had most enjoyed the unending dance of the Aurora Borealis. Amy stifled a yawn. Now it was time to get some sleep, her nap earlier had helped a bit, but she was still exhausted. She wasn't sure what time it was, all of her clocks had died with the failing power, time became meaningless in the darkness of night. All that she knew was that she was being over come by the power of her yawning and the leadenness of her eyelids. She made it as far as the couch, where she lay down and slept through what little remained of the night.

The loud knocking at the door is what finally woke Amy up. It took her a moment to collect her thoughts, coming out of the daze of sleep and figure out what was happening. The sound just seemed to come out of nowhere, dragging her screaming from the safety of her dreams and into the waking world. She dreamt about a canoe trip she had taken with her father when she was a teenager, before his heart attack took him from her. It was a happy dream and she longed to return to it, but the knocking persisted and grew more desperate. The alien sound invading the dream itself.

Amy pushed herself up and out of the couch and made her way towards the door, stopping just short. She fumbled around on her table before picking up one of her heavy brass candle sticks before stepping even closer to the door and cursing the fact that she didn't have a peephole installed. The knocking continued.

"Whose there?"

"Amy, it's me." It was her neighbor Crayson. Crayson was the man's last name, she didn't know his first, he had never told her and she didn't think that it would be polite of her to ask. He always had gone by his surname, strange as it was. Amy opened the door and looked at him.

"What's the matter?"

"I just wanted to make sure you were ok."

"I'm fine, I was just asleep."

"I mean, with everything going on, especially with the loss of the power last night. I got worried when you didn't answer at first." He actually looked a little embarrassed at admitting it, with his kind of boyish way of looking at the floor instead of at her. If only he wasn't so heavily muscled, and he shaved off that goofy mohawk of his. He also had too many piercings. He was cute, but in a face full of metal kind of way, like he had been making out with a sewing machine or something.

"No, I'm fine, I was just asleep. I haven't gotten that kind of sleep for years now."

He looked down at her and smiled, flirting with her a little. It was the end of civilization and the man was flirting with her. She found the whole thing funny, but did her best to suppress the laugh, as much as she needed it. He might have taken her laughter from her to mean a million different things, and none of them would be good.

She realized that she was keeping him standing on her front doorstep. Inviting him in might give him unwanted ideas, but sending him away was out of the question. He might be her only companionship for a long time to come. Her grandmother had always told her to cherish her friends as much as she did life itself. So she invited Crayson in.

He smiled at her again as he crossed the threshold and walked cautiously into her living room, taking extra care not to trip over anything as he went. She offered him a glass of wine, it was all she had, which he accepted. Better yet, it was one of the cheap box wines that her mother and aunts had favored. She joined him in the living room with the wine. They looked at one another for a moment before sitting down and savoring their wine, both waiting for the other to speak. The silence stretched.

Finally Crayson cleared his throat and spoke. "I think we should leave."

"What do you mean?" What a strange man, the first time they really sat down to talk and the first thing he asks her to do was go away with her. It was almost romantic.

Crayson had wanted her to leave with him. To go out into the world find somewhere safe, or at least safer than their building. To break martial law and ignore the curfew. He said that they would simply run out of food and water soon, water first. Food would no longer be a problem when they ran out of fresh water to drink. Water was going to become scarce quite quickly, even with all of their preparations.

He told her that he had been into all the other apartments in the building, most of them were abandoned, at least by the living, the rest had been occupied by poor creatures like Mrs. Francisco. They had been the only two survivors in the entire building to stay as they had been ordered to do. Everyone else it had seemed had picked up and run right when things seemed to have gotten to be their worst, leaving most everything behind. Oh yes, they had food in abundance.

They both knew that marshal law had been declared early on when the government had realized that things just weren't going to get better. Though, by then it was difficult to tell just how long the plague had been spreading. Crayson said that there had been cases reported in the news papers for months before hand, that they were largely ignored as a hoax. They had announced that they would strictly enforce the declaration with lethal force if necessary. There had been rumors that the government troops had shot anyone who had approached their road blocks. Then there were the creatures. Footage was shown of soldiers fighting waves of walking corpses. Shooting hundreds of bullets at the things without even slowing them down.

The news never really said what was going on out there, but Amy had friends who had loved watching those stupid zombie movies, some times she even watched a little with them. Well they seemed less stupid now. She didn't want to get eaten alive by one of them. Or even worse, to be bitten and to become a zombie herself.

It was funny to think that the people that she had laughed at for liking those stupid movies were in the end right. It was another case of Irony coming back to slap her. She wondered about them, one in particular. He was probably having the time of his life. He had often stated that he was looking forward to a zombie uprising or some such thing just to see if he could survive it. If he wasn't dead already from the sickness that was going around, it looked as if he would have his chance.

She wasn't sure what the world out there was like now, all she was certain of was that she wasn't desperate enough to want to leave the safety and familiarity of her home. For now she was comfortable and alove. She had enough food for at least a few days, and enough water for at least that long. She felt safe here, surrounded by all of her things, her memories.

Crayson eventually just sighed, shrugged his shoulders and gave in, opting instead to stay with her and probably in his mind keep her safe. All that was really left was to pass the time and wait for rescue. Wait they did. They got rather good at waiting.

***********

Amy wasn't entirely sure how long it had been since the power had gone out for good. It felt like weeks, but it was probably only a mere handful of days. Since then she had been living in a strange almost old fashioned manner, being awake from dawn to a little past dusk, like the farmers of old. The only thing she was sure of in recent days was that frontier living did not mesh well with a modern apartment in a modern city. This and that darkness was frightening when monsters were walking around outside your home.

Life had fallen into a pattern once again. Eat, sleep, play games and talk. They spent countless hours playing board and card games. When it was light enough outside they even read some of the books that they had scavenged from one of the apartments on the second floor. All in all it wasn't too unpleasant, at least when she kept her mind off of the outside world. Crayson was turning out to be both interesting and funny, he did wonders for her spirits, telling stories and jokes. He kept her from sinking into a deep depression from which she never might be able to escape. She was glad to have him around, sitting alone in the dark would have been maddening.

To speak of the devil, Crayson had fallen asleep on her couch, again. They both had succumbed to weariness early as they tried to pass the night, waiting and playing board games. Monopoly was really dull after all the property was acquired and only two people were playing. Even when you did it in a lighthearted manner, though she had yet to accept playing a game of strip Monopoly, there were still only so many times you could laugh at the same jokes before the laughter started to sound hollow.

The first rays of rosy fingered dawn were just beginning to filter through her kitchen window, casting shadows and lighting up her stained glass ornaments, as she sat and thought. It was strange, in the past she was never really a morning person, but here she stood for the last several days enjoying the watching the sunrise. She had found that the she had intensely missed that simple pleasure on the grey dreary morning after that big storm rolled through.

She held a pretend cup of coffee in her hand. It was just a mug of water really, since both gas for cooking and the coffee itself were becoming so scarce. Even water was beginning to become a problem. Still she held her imaginary coffee as she watched the rising sun. She loved sunrises and sunsets. Even before the world had changed she had loved them, but she cherished them now. It was comforting to know that some things never changed, no matter how bad life seemed to get. If there was proof that God did exist it could be easily found in the beauty of sunsets, those and the wondrous nature of beer.

It numbed her mind when she thought about how much life had changed in the last couple of weeks, unfortunately she could often make herself think of little else, so she spent a good deal of time in a daze. What she could think about scared her. They were running short on fuel and water was getting low. She and Crayson had searched the entire building several times, hoping to find more water. Food was fairly easy to come by for the time, everyone had at least some canned good stocked in their kitchens, very few people in their building had any bottled water. Amy heaved a sigh and went back to watching the sunrise. It would be harder to enjoy in the days to come with the specter of venturing out into the world floating so near.

It was well after sunrise when Crayson finally rejoined the world of consciousness. Amy was sitting in her chair and gazing out the window as he began to stir from the safety of his dreams. Or maybe it was the prison of his dreams. She could hear him shift around as he began to return, he had spent the last couple of hours tossing in his sleep and mumbling, if the nightmare was as bad as it sounded, maybe his dreams were no safer than the waking world.

After a few moments of shifting about, Crayson finally roused himself. Rubbing his eyes as he sat up in the couch. He ran through his morning routine checklist of places than needed to be scratched before he could safely get up and face the world. It was a strange thing about the man, he seemed to scratch the same places, in order, every morning. Or at least he had as long as they had been living together. It had been years since she had had a roommate, and many months since she had had a boyfriend, it left her used to living alone, but longing for companionship. She didn't realize any of this until Crayson had de facto moved in.

She wasn't sure how it happened, but from the first day he just never left. She smiled to herself as she thought about him. She liked him well enough, but she still didn't feel that he would make anything more than a good friend. She might one day come to love him, but she doubted if she would ever fall in love with him, he just didn't have that quality about him that drove her mad with desire. Very few men had ever done so. Still she was overjoyed to have him around. The man had a cheerful disposition, he was nearly always smiling. His constantly positive outlook made her feel as it everything might just turn out ok in the end, even if life sucked in the meantime.

Several hours of the morning had passed before Crayson finally awoke. Amy was in her chair working on a crossword puzzle from a book that they had found in one of their neighbors apartments. Looking around groggily, he smiled when he saw her. He pushed himself up into a sitting position and proceeded to scratch himself until he was content and itch free. Crayson got up and dressed himself before stumbling out into the kitchen for some food on which to break his fast.

"How much water we got left?"

She tried to remember. Supplies were getting lower by the day. They had been far too lavish in their spending of the meager amount of water that they had gathered before the pipes all finally went dry. They had both been surprised how fast the water had disappeared. "Not much, only a couple of gallons I think."

"We won't be able to survive much longer on that." Amy shook her head. They would need to get a new supply of water long before they needed to scavenge more food. The problem was that they had been all through the building and they were unable to find any. Crayson had suggested that they use the water in the toilets, but she told him that she would sooner leave than resort to that. Just the thought made her feel a little nauseous again.

"Ok, lets go then." She said barely above a whisper. "But where?"

Crayson leaned against the doorframe, scratching his cheek and staring at the floor as he thought. It seemed that he had spent so much energy trying to figure out how to get her to go somewhere else, that he hadn't yet thought through where they would go if they did leave. Finally he looked back up at her and said "The Megamart is the safest place I can think of right now."

"The Megamart? A store? Why would that be safe?"

"Well, it's pretty easy to lock up to keep those things out, plus it has food and water as well as all sorts of other things we might need. Guns, ammunition, clothing, lawn furniture."

"Lawn furniture?"

"Aye, who knows when we might need to sit out and sun our pale flesh. Especially you, you look like a ghost." He smiled at her annoyed expression, and went on "but that doesn't matter, all that really counts right now is surviving, and I believe that the Megamart is the place to go."

"Ok, I guess that makes sense." Amy looked around her apartment, at a lifetime's worth of collected treasures. "What should we take with us?"

The expression on Crayson's face told her that he thought through what they should bring along with them, and the list was brief. "Some food, water, that shotgun we found up in 4b..."

They had found an ancient looking gun that Crayson had told her was a old double barreled ten gauge shotgun. It didn't really matter much to her since they couldn't find any bullets for it anywhere else in the apartment, she had forgotten about the stupid thing until he mentioned it again. "But we don't have any bullets for the gun!"

"Not yet, but they do have them at the Megamart. We also will need a couple of blunt objects that are easy to swing until we can get our hands on some ammo for the shotgun." Amy nodded again before getting to her feet and heading for the kitchen.

"I'll get the food and water together, you take care of the rest."

"Um, one more thing." Crayson hadn't moved, he was still leaning against the wall and looking at her.

"What else?"

"I don't have a car. We'll need one to get to the Megamart."

"Mrs. Francisco has...had a little car. We can get the keys from her apartment."

"Sounds like a plan. I'll go find them."

It took less than twenty minutes to get everything together and load it into Mrs. Francisco's little car. They ran into a couple of the corpse creatures, but the golf clubs that they had brought along made quick, if messy, work of them.

The streets were largely empty. The saw a few of the dead wandering here and there, but apart from that it was like a ghost town. She groaned at her own poor choice of phrases. A ghost town populated by the walking dead.

Cars had been abandoned everywhere, all over town. Their occupants nowhere to be seen. The extra obstacles made the going quite slow and difficult even in Mrs. Francisco's tiny car. The two of them had to turn around, or back up and retrace their path a number of times throughout the day. What should have been a fifteen minute drive across town, even in the worst traffic, turned out to be a lot longer than either of them would have ever dreamed.

Crayson was obsessed with getting to the local Megamart. He figured that they would have all the supplies that anyone would need to survive the end of the world, and even live out their lives in some amount of comfort. The high walls would make the place like a fortress, they would have room to move. When he talked about the place he made it sound like a garden of Eden, and maybe that was how he thought about it too. The trick would be to get there, and if the building was locked, to get inside.

They, several times, came across pockets of the strange walking dead, the zombies. But they were always too distant and too slow moving to be threatening. By the time the zombies were able to react to their presence, they were already on the move once again. It was a strange thing, the town was almost empty of people, they hadn't seen a single sign of another living person, but Crayson still insisted on obeying most of the traffic laws. Like anyone would notice. Actually, they were noticed by the very things from which they were fleeing. But still he stopped at each stop sign, and he obeyed the speed limit wherever he could. He actually swerved to miss any of the monsters that had ventured out into the street. This the same man who had bludgeoned the walking corpse of his neighbor to death just a few days before was now being a frighteningly safe driver on the terrifyingly empty streets.

"What are you doing?"

"What do you mean?"

"Why are we going so slow? Step on it Crayson."

"We're going slow because if anything happens to this car, we're screwed." He was right. Neither of them were qualified mechanics. Even if they were able to fix the car, in the time that would take, an army of zombies would have surrounded them. Still, Amy was almost ready to reach over and punch him in the head for his overly cautious driving. She breathed a sigh of relief when they finally pulled into the Megamart driveway. Crayson groaned and Amy let out a small scream. There were zombies. Hundreds of them. It was like the entire town had wandered into the parking lot of the Megamart. Most of them were milling around out side the front doors, though a few wandered scattered all across the parking lot.

"Who are they?" Asked Crayson as he pointed to a pair of silhouettes outlined against the sky, atop the Megamart roof. Amy squinted, but they were too far away to make out and she just shook her head and shrugged.

"Looks like I wasn't the first person to see the Megamart as a safe port in this storm. Think they'll help us? Or try to chase us off?"

"What do you mean chase us off? They wouldn't turn us away would they?"

"I don't know." Crayson revved the engine a couple times and exhaled. "Only one way to find out though isn't there?" He stepped on the gas and the small car lunged forward. They swerved in and out through the other cars in the parking lot, dodging the zombies and speeding towards the ally that lead to the back of the building.

Then they hit something, the curb she guess and bounced off of it. Amy screamed as the little car flipped onto its roof and slid, screaming like a banshee as the metal was scoured away from the roof of the car. It felt like they slid forever before finally grinding to a halt with a resounding crash that threw them both forward against their harnesses. Amy hung upside down in her seat, shaking and crying and thanking God over and over. She was still alive, at least for another few minutes.

Crayson groaned, and she reached over and touched him to see if he was alright. "I'm fine." He said as she lay her hand on his shoulder. "We need to get out of here. Unbuckle your belt and see if you can get your door open. If you can, get out and start running, keep running until you get to the back door of the Megamart."

Amy started fighting with her belt, pulling and flailing at it, but it didn't want to give in and let her free. "What about you?"

"I'll follow. Just take a breath, calm down and don't panic."

She did as he said, squashed the panic and took several deep breaths to calm herself and release some tension. Then she went back to work on her safety belt, finally getting it to open up and let her out.

"Alright, you're almost there, now grab the tire iron there, open the door, get out and start running." The tire iron was on the ceiling in between them. She picked it up with her left hand and grabbed the door handle with her right. The thunderous report of a rifle peeled through the air around her, startling her a little bit. Pushing the door with both feet, she got it to open up. Amy squirmed her way out of the car and stood, using the door itself as a handhold, as she got out. The first thing she saw was a zombie with a ruined head and something sticking out of its chest, lying on it's side less than five feet from the car. One of the figures on the rooftop yelled down at her to run, so she did.

Amy tottered as fast as her legs would carry her towards the side street and the safety that it promised. The sound another rifle shot filled the air, and another zombie fell down. On she went, dodging through the parking lot, when there came a scream from behind her. "Crayson" She cried and stumbled a bit and turned around in time to see that the car was surrounded by zombies, she took a step back towards the car when the figure on the roof yelled again "No, you can't help, keep running," and so she did.

Another shot rang out, but none of the zombies fell that she could see, still she kept moving, making her way around the horde and weaving past lone individuals. She quickly rounded the corner of the building. The numbers had thinned greatly, but there were still several of the creatures between her and her safe haven. She heard the rifle and another body fell. Every shot made her path that much safer, until it was completely clear of the walking dead. On she ran. The door was in sight and there was a man standing in it waving her on. With a final burst of speed she flew up the steps and into his hands where he pulled her inside to safety of the darkness. The door closed and locked behind her.

Eric hooted some more as they set off in a northerly direction. The streets within around a six-block radius of the compound had been largely swept clear of zombies in the last few weeks, discounting the occasional stragglers that crossed into their perimeter. The thinning of potential prey required patrols to venture out further and further each day. The patrol returned to the double column side by side formation that they came to prefer when marching with Ash at the head of the left column.

Eric was back on point, keeping about a block or a block and a half between himself and Ash's own position at the front of the troops. He preferred to run at a trot on the left side of the street, creeping along up the sidewalk with his shoulder nearly rubbing against the face of building as he passed. Since much of the area to his east was cleared of the undead, Ash felt that hugging the west wall would hide his people better.

Twice he slowed to a stop at a corner, signaling the rest of the patrol to halt behind him. Both times the block ahead was crawling with hundreds of the undead, forcing the patrol to backtrack and take an alternate route. Both times Martin tried to convince Ash that they could assault the zombies and kick some major ass. Ash told him to shut up because he was sounding like an idiot. Two or three hundred against twelve was not good odds.

They were traveling back east, about six blocks north and eight blocks to the west of their base, when they came across the miniature horde. The path had taken them away from yuppiville and into the standard urban sprawl, suburban setup at the very edge of the down town region. Instead of large buildings, they were now in neighborhoods full of decaying houses and gas stations.

There were probably around a hundred zombies even and most of them were spread out across the intersection when Eric stopped them. He was hiding behind what had once been a white picket fence, and was now a grey and rotting shadow of itself. Ash left the rest of the patrol behind, motioning for them to drop into a squat and keep under cover.

Private Martin was looking over the fence hungrily, his skinny frame bent double as he wrung the handle of his club with sweaty hands. "Come on corporal, we can take these guys." He whined. "They're all spread out and moving slowly. Think of how bad assed that will be when we get back to camp and tell them that we took a hundred zombies at one time, no problem."

"No, we follow procedure. That way nobody gets hurt and the captain doesn't come down on us, mostly me."

"We can take them. I know we can. We're damn good and they're just zombies."

"Private. I said no. We move on and find better hunting."

"Fuck that Ash, they're right here, I'm sick of looking." Martin sprung up, lifted his club over his head and yelled, "come on! Let's go get the sorry bastards!" Before yelling what he must have thought had been a war cry and charging the throng. Ash stood up, and reached his hand after Eric, trying to grab a hold of his arm, or his shoulder or his clothing. Anything to keep the man from getting himself killed. His hand closed on empty air.

Before he could speak to order Eric to return, five of his soldiers raised a war cry of their own and joined private Martin, sprinting at the zombies with their weapons raised. "Halt!" He yelled at their backs, watching helplessly as they surged forward. Martin was already among the zombies, swinging his club like a mad man. Yells of 'Take that bitch!" floated back as he worked. He didn't seem to notice that he was now the center of attention for the undead. They began moving closer even as he immersed himself in their embrace.

God damn them. They're acting like children. Ash turned to the rest of the patrol, Avery, Schmidt and a few others who weren't a part of his original squad Davidson, Galahad, Jordan and Erickson. Tex and White had both joined private Martin's charge.

"What do you want us to do corporal?" Avery asked, as he stood up and watched the idiots play their violent game. Avery wasn't one to risk his life recklessly, but he also had a sense of honor that would force him to help his fellow soldiers.

"I guess we're going to have to pull their dumb asses..." A man's scream cut off his words. The kind of scream that only a wounded man would ever let past his lips. "Fuck me with a flag pole. Come on, let's go!"

His people followed him as he sprinted. Martin's people had mindlessly raced to the heart of the horde and quickly found themselves encircled and fighting for their lives. "Cut a hole through the zombies and then pull those fucking idiots out! On the bounce folks. We don't have much time." Ash brought his bat down onto the head of the first zombie that he could reach, shattering it's skull, and killing it instantly. His troops were on his flanks as he drove into the horde to rescue the rest of his squad. Each swing brought a kill, opening space for another step. Another scream came from the heart of the multitude. That made two down.

In the space of a dozen heartbeats they had opened a gap big enough to reach their beleaguered comrades and free them from the noose in which they had stuck their heads. "Martin, White, Tex. Retreat and fall back," he bellowed and he shoved away zombie that had reached out for his arms.

Tex and White were the first to respond, dragging the other four along with them as they ran. A third scream came from his rear on the right. This was not going well. "Everyone else, disengage and do it now! Fall back a block and then take a left!" Ash followed his own orders, taking up the rear guard as his troops broke and ran from the battlefield like spooked rabbits.

"Schmidt's been bitten!" Avery yelled to Ash as they came to a stop. Ash was breathing harder than he had since trying out for track in high school and finding out that it wasn't his thing. Avery was on the street next to their comrade and friend. Schmidt was crying, probably in both terror and agony. A mouthful of flesh had been torn from his forearm leaving blood to ooze from an ugly wound. Schmidt cradled his wounded arm like a child, murmuring over and over 'please God no!' through his tears as he rocked back and forth on the cold pavement. Schmidt knew what had to happen next.

"Ash, do we have to?" Avery was looking at his friend as he patted Schmidt on the chest, trying to comfort and calm the doomed man.

"You know as well as me what will happen if we don't. Hell, you talk to the doc, and understand most of what he says, you should know better than me." Ash drew his side arm, an old 9mm that had been replaced by the .50 caliber Desert Eagles in the real army, and so, passed onto the reserves. Another hand-me-down tool to add to the long list. The 9mm pistol was an old weapon, not as old as his rifle, but still older than Ash. Old as it may have been, the handgun was still sufficient for the job.

"No, please, no." Schmidt whimpered, changing his mantra, as Ash stood over him with the barrel of gun pointing at the middle of his forehead.

Ash chanted back "Sorry buddy. I'm sorry. I gotta do this." The gun hung a little loose in Ash's hand as it rebelled against what it needed to do. Better to get it over with quickly. He wanted to cry too. Cry for himself and his friend. That weakness made him angry. He tightened his grip once more and squeezed the trigger. With an explosion of sound, the gun kicked slightly in his hand and Schmidt fell silent, his lifeless eyes staring up at Ash, the last of his tears seeping away as his body began to grow cold.

"Tex, White. Strip all the gear that we'll need to save. Divide it between the two of you. We're going to go directly back to base double-time, no more stops." In less than five minutes Ash got his battered patrol in line and on the move. Three of their number were left on the street with bullets through the heads. Bullets that had been put there by a friend. Eric at the back of the line, sobbing like a child and his head held low, his chin on his chest as they ran.

The little office had been placed in the northwest corner of the warehouse near the roof so that the building's manager could keep track of the floor below. The captain had made the office his own quarters, placing a sagging cot next to the flimsy metal desk for a place to sleep when he was too tired to work. A pair of chairs sat before the desk for the NCOs when they came to meet with the captain. Both the captain and Sarge were standing in the room waiting for him. The captain was in the middle of the floor, facing the door, while Sarge was staring out the window, through the blinds, down at the floor below.

Ash hadn't even made it as far as the chairs. As soon as the door was closed behind him, the captain was on top of him. The captain stood less than an inch away, nearly nose to nose with Ash. He tried to back away and make some room, taking only a half step before getting jabbed in the back with the doorknob and forcing the captain to pursue. The retreat only seemed to piss the captain off further. The captain's face was already red, boiling with his unchecked rage. Ash had a feeling that it would be turning purple before the end of their meeting.

"What the fuck is wrong with you corporal? You almost got your entire patrol killed. Why the hell did you attack a group that was so much larger than your own directly? Why did you ignore my standing orders? Three dead! Three dead, is the company's worst loss so far, not counting that first miserable day!" His hot, breath stank as if he had been eating ass. His voice was quiet and the fury it held was near able to singe Ash's eyebrows. The captain's eyes shown. Ash expected that at any second light would burst from them and melt his face from his skull. Ash kept his eyes locked forward, focusing on the captain's chin. He couldn't bring himself to make eye contact with the man again.

"Sir we encountered a group of a hundred or more zombies. Private Martin, our scout, got a little club happy and decided that we could take them on our own. We had already shown up two groups that were larger than our own with no trouble, so the soldiers were feeling a little over confident."

"You lost control of your troops then." The captain's voice changed from a hot rage to a cold one. Ash shivered. Avery was right. The captain was insane. He would make certain to tell Avery to shut the fuck up when the man got to talking about the captain in the future, if he had a future. Avery was going to get himself killed.

"The patrol hesitated for only a second, and before I could say anything, and half their number followed private Martin. I led the rest in myself to retrieve those who charged in before they were overwhelmed. By the time we disengaged, three had been bitten, two of those had followed Martin in."

"You ineffectual toad!" The captain pulled his sidearm and waved it under Ash's nose. "I should kill you right here! To think, I was planning on promoting you to full sergeant. Are you trying to make me look stupid?" Spittle flecked on the captains lips as he spoke. At another time Ash would have found it hilarious, and a month ago he would have pulled out the old standard of 'say it don't spray it'. The line didn't seem too funny anymore, much less so using it on the captain in the mood he was in.

Sarge spoke up, his voice quiet and calm. "Sir. James here did a good job despite some bad circumstances. Some times in the heat of the moment soldiers get out of control and do stupid things. James handled himself and the situation well and managed to save the majority of his patrol." The captain turned his gaze to face Sarge and Ash stole a glance of his own. Sarge's face and voice were calm, but his eyes were worried and frightened.

"Is that your expert opinion Lieutenant Frost?"

"Yes sir, it's what my experience suggests."

"How do you think I should proceed then Lieutenant?"

"Punish the offender. James has so far had an extemporary record, and without his leadership today, more than three soldiers would have gotten themselves killed."

"So you think I should promote corporal James here then?"

"I think that he should be given more time to see what he is capable of."

"This sounds like good advice Lieutenant. Corporal, you are dismissed, send in this Martin. I wish to talk to him myself." The man's voice bounced about, almost as if he had already forgiven Ash, and then decided to take new offense.

"Aye sir." Ash saluted, turned and walked away. He was barely able to keep his legs from buckling underneath him as he strode the floor between the captain's desk and the door.

"You join him Lieutenant Frost. I want to speak to this Martin alone."

"Aye sir." Ash heard Sarge's footsteps on the steel walkway behind him as he leaned on the railing with his knuckles turning white as he gripped it with all of his strength, waiting for the weakness to go away. Ash realized that he just come within a hairsbreadth of dying.

"Well corporal, shall we go find this Martin?"

"The captain is going to shoot him isn't he?"

"It looks that way, yes."

"Should we warn him? Maybe tell him to get the hell out while he still can?"

"Do you remember my first bit of advice to you?"

"Keep your head down and your mouth shut."

"That's it. Good. I say that we do as we're told."

"But then won't that make us killers too?"

"It might indeed. But we'll still be alive."

"What about Martin?"

"He disobeyed orders and got three of his fellow soldiers killed, he's dangerous and deserves whatever punishment he gets. Perhaps the lesson will strike home and the rest of the company."

"I don't like it."

"You don't have to like it corporal, but you're a soldier, so it's your job to follow orders and try to stay alive and keep your friends alive. At the same time you need to remember to retain your humanity while those above and around you slip into insanity themselves. Your fight is to keep yourself alive and afloat in this sea of chaos."

"Still, shouldn't we at least give him a chance to run? Sending him away has got to be better than killing him."

"No. It's not better. That would only lead to more desertions, and we need all the soldiers that we have if we're going to make it through this. And even if he does get out, who the hell do you think the captain will blame for his escape and punish in Martin's stead?"

Sarge was right. Ash hated to admit it, but Sarge was right. He felt cowardly and ashamed that he was about to sell a comrade up the creek.

As they wandered the floor looking for private Martin, they passed the hippy chick who had lead the attack on their squad on that first day. She was bruised and even dirtier than before. Her face sad and her eyes permanently down cast. She seemed to flinch every time a man yelled or laughed or spoke loudly near by.

Both Ash and Sarge had tried to protect her from the retribution that White and Tex had been planning on dishing out for her part in Cumming's death. Then the captain found out what had happened, and he ordered them to step aside and let White and Tex carry out their justice. Revenge really. Even Ash could see that this wasn't justice. Sadly, the rest of the company seemed to agree with the captain's orders and turned a blind eye. Or at least they didn't speak out against the crimes. Some even joined in on helping to 'punish' the woman. The whole situation left Ash feeling powerless. And sick. Very sick.

The hippy chick had thought that she was helping people. Sometimes the government did committed crimes and then worried about protecting itself first and the population second, or even last. Obviously, the hippy chick and her friends had thought that this was the case. That the soldiers were sent to kill people who were sick instead of trying to heal them. So they had acted in what they felt was in the best interest in their citizens. In a way, they were heroes, though she was the only one who was still alive.

Sarge called them all tragic heroes. That was another one that Ash didn't quite understand until Sarge explained that they were heroes who made a mistake and then got royally fucked, Ash's own phrasing. They had come for heroic purposes, under-armed and spitting venom, but were the cause of their own downfall. Another bit of irony Sarge said, since the hippy and her friends attacked for what turned out to be the wrong reasons.

Sarge said that irony was sometime funny as hell. Ash couldn't see how. It sounded more sad than anything.

He had moved away from camp that night and closed his ears to her screams and their shouts. Ash hadn't cried once since he was eleven years old, he hadn't even felt like crying since then. He came so very close to breaking down that night that the shame still hung with him. 'Men don't cry you pussy,' his father had told him when he found Ash on that day when he was eleven. His father had slapped him upside the head and told him to stop his whining, he sounded like a little sissy girl.

Still, he wanted to cry now on some nights. Especially after every time he encountered Delaura, the hippy chick. She had actually been given to Tex and White, not just to be punished, but as their property. Like a car or some other object that could actually be owned. Actual fucking slavery after a hundred and fifty years. Tex and White loved the captain for that, and became angry with Avery whenever he badmouthed the captain.

Sarge said that was ironic, and Ash had heard the word, but he hadn't been sure what it meant until Sarge explained it to him. But Tex and White getting angry at Avery because of what he said about the captain was ironic because it was the captain's giving the hippy girl to Tex and White that so pissed Avery off in the first place. After Sarge had explained the situation, Ash had to agree that it did sound ironic. Tex and White though had gotten pretty close to the captain, so close that he had made them his bodyguards.

Avery was going to need to watch his mouth, since there was no telling what the captain would do if he heard what Avery was saying behind his back. The captain didn't take well to dissension. Avery was a smart guy and what happened to Grover should have taught him to keep his mouth shut and his head down. Ash even repeated the phrase whenever he spoke with Avery. Avery just grimaced and spat as if the mention of the words put a bad taste in his mouth.

They found private Martin sitting by himself in his bunk and holding his knees under his chin. The company was avoiding him. After what he had done, they were all pissed off at him. He knew it, and stayed out of the way.

Sarge took a position in front of Eric's bed, his feet shoulder length apart and his hands clasped behind his back. His face was as cold as he captain's had been. He knew that he was sending a man to die and was steeling himself against the pain. Ash could almost hear Sarge's thoughts running over and over with 'he's guilty' to make the betrayal hurt less. "The captain wants to speak to you private." Sarge said, gruffly.

Eric looked up and nodded, as if he had been expecting this summons and had himself been working up to it. He got unsteadily to his feet, his eyes full of unshed tears. He knew what was coming. He had heard the stories about Grover. "I'm sorry corporal." Eric said, as if that could make up for the loss of the three company members who had been bitten.

"A little late for 'sorrys' now private." Ash had to make his voice hard so that he didn't stammer the words. His voice didn't sound like him.

"I know. Please don't remember me too poorly. I was just trying to help."

Sarge patted him on the back. "We won't. But now, you have your duty to do, for the company and the rest of the survivors." Eric left them, and began walking towards the captain's office. Slowly at first, and then he picked up speed. Sarge shook his head and parted ways with Ash.

"I'll be in my bunk reading if you need me corporal."

Ash sat down to watch a few members of his platoon play a game of poker. Card games were a popular way to fill the dreary hours between sleep and work. The captain had outlawed gambling, as well as drinking and other drugs. Cigarettes were frowned upon, but allowed, if only by not having been specifically forbidden. After all nicotine addicts were still fairly reliable, if easily winded. Tex had a cigar lit and was taking slow puffs as he waited his turn to raise.

Tex, Avery, Cervantes and White were all playing what looked like a variant of seven-card stud. While gambling was officially illegal, the players still used chips to make wagers. Not real wagers, since they had no real money. Which was ok, they didn't have real chips either. Instead they used jewelry that was looted from a shop on one of Cervantes' patrols and then returned to the barracks for poker games. Handfuls of gaudy trinkets that would have been priced at hundreds, or even thousands of dollars each crossed the table with each hand, only to return to the bowl where they were kept in between games. Though some of the more interesting pieces did tend to disappear into private collections. Cervantes herself had taken to wearing a large gold and diamond broach on one of her lapels when she wasn't on duty.

White dealt out another hand, laying two cards face up in the middle of the table. Those would be the common cards that all of the players would use to form their hand. The ace of diamonds and the three of clubs. Ash studied the soldiers as they studied their cards and wondered how long they could keep playing the game before it became boring. Poker was a fun game, but only when there was money on the table. Without that flare of excitement and loss to sharpen the senses and work against, the game was just a pointless fight against the odds with nothing ventured and nothing gained.

A single gunshot rang out. Instantly halting the ever-present buzz of background chatter that had become part of daily life in the barracks as people held conversations or listened to music. Cervantes had stopped, mid-way through laying down her hand, the look of triumph fading from her face as their entire table turned and looked up towards the office from where the report had come from.

The captain stepped through the doorway and out onto the catwalk. He looked out onto the floor below, taking in all the faces that were turned his way and then hollered. "Callahan, White, get up here on the double. I need you to clean up a mess." White and Tex looked at one another over their cards, shrugged and put down their hands before excusing themselves and answering the captain's summons.

"Was that..." Cervantes began.

"Yeah. The captain just shot private Martin."

"What for?" Avery asked.

"For breaking ranks today and getting three of our people killed in the process."

Avery seemed astonished. "Aren't you at the least upset about that? You sound like you're discussing the weather."

"The captain was going to shoot me." It was a simple statement, simply delivered. Matter of fact and straight forward. Cervantes gasped and Avery's jaw dropped.

"Why was he going to shoot you?"

"Because I lost control of my patrol."

"Some idiots get themselves killed by doing something stupid, and you almost got blamed for it?" Cervantes asked as if he were telling her the truth that she didn't want to believe was the truth.

"Yep."  
"Tex and White broke ranks too. Do you think he'll shoot them as well?" Avery sounded hopeful. His dislike for Tex and White had been growing since the first day of their deployment. He lovingly stoked his hatred of White and Tex, reciting a list of their crimes, both real and imagined, on a daily basis. He had turned their actions earlier that day, which got Schmidt killed, followed by their nonchalant card game afterwards seemed to ignite his passions against the captain's two lackeys into a fury.

Cervantes shook her head. "Doubt it. They're his men after all. His two most loyal grunts. Especially after he gave them that hippy girl as a plaything. Even after what she did, she didn't deserve that fate. No, they'll probably just get growled at and told to clean up the mess left behind by Eric's body."

"Avery, I got one word for you before you go on. Shut up. You keep talking, especially around Tex and White, and you're going to get yourself in trouble with the captain. Deep trouble. That kind of trouble only leads to one thing too, same place where Eric just went."

"What am I supposed to do then?"

"Same thing that Sarge always says to do. Keep your head down and your mouth shut. We'll wait for reinforcements to arrive and a higher officer to take over the operation."

Avery snorted. "What if there aren't any reinforcements? It's been weeks since we deserted our posts."

"Then we're pretty well fucked. We can't hold this city with just a company. We're stretched thin with especially with the refugees we've taken in so far. Sarge thinks that we'll probably have to start recruiting from them to fill our ranks. Anyway, I wanted to ask Sarge a question since earlier today. You remember what I said. We don't need to lose any more good soldiers from our platoon."

Sarge had quartered himself with his platoon, about fifty feet from the common area in a little cubicle made of plywood to allow a little privacy in the wide-open warehouse. Ash found him lying on his bed and reading a book, as he said he would be. He had his head propped up on a pillow and his feet crossed as he the book rested on his chest. A reliable man, always as good as his word. "What's the matter corporal?" He asked without bothering to look up from the page he was working on.

"Worried about Avery Sarge. He's fixing to cross the captain, and that isn't a good idea."

"No it isn't. Have you passed on my advice?"

"Yes sir. It hasn't seemed to have taken root yet. I even passed on my last meeting with the captain. Now with what just happened to private Martin, he seems to be angrier and angrier."

"I don't know if you can do anything to help then corporal. You should probably just stop talking to him about the captain. That will only hurt matters and make them worse."

"Maybe not sir. But we've lost so many from my squad already, I don't want to lose any more. Schmidt and Cummings were my friends. Avery is too. If he gets it, all I have left are Tex and White, and they're not as cool as they used to be."

"You always got me to look out for you corporal. And Cervantes is fond of you too. She seems to see you as being a little brother."  
"That's a relief." Obviously he wasn't able to hide either the sarcasm or the bitterness as well as he had thought, because Sarge lay his book down on his chest and actually looked his way.

"My same advice still goes. Keep your head down..."

Ash nodded along. "And shut up." Sarge frowned, and went back to his book. He didn't like being interrupted. But the fact was that Ash knew Sarge's advice better than he had known any prayers that he had learned in church as a kid. Sometimes he even repeated 'Keep your head down and shut up' as if it were a prayer that would one day save his very soul. Ash sat down on the chair in the corner of Sarge's quarters.

"Sarge, where do you get them sayings from?"

"What sayings are those? I haven't said anything lately."

"Like 'On the bounce' and 'you apes.' You use them when ordering the squads around."

"Ah yes. Heinlein."

"What?" Sarge pulled out the trunk from where he had it stashed underneath his bed and then rooted around it for a moment before tossing something to Ash. Ash caught it. It was a book.

Ash had to stop himself from dropping it and wiping his hands off on his shirt. "No thanks sir. I'm not too fond of reading."

"Read it anyway. That's an order corporal." Ash looked at the book. Starship Troopers.

"Oh this. I know this one."

"You've read it before?"

"Hell no, but I have seen the movie." Sarge frowned as if he were going to bore a hole through Ash's chest with his eyes. "The movie was pretty close right?" Some how the glower became even more intense and angry. "Sarge?" Ash felt himself begin to shrink a little. Sarge only glared like that when a soldier really screwed up, like the time when Grover had dropped the practice grenade during a training session.

"Read the book corporal. Don't bring up that movie ever again. There was nothing worth while in it, it was a joke and an insult."

"I thought the shower scene was pretty good."

Sarge thought a moment. "Ok. The shower scene was decent, but it did not compensate for the rest of the debacle. Now get out of my sight and start reading. I want a report in one week."

"One week?"

"Now corporal."

"Ok, no need to yell." Ash took the book back to his own bunk. One week to read the entire thing and then report to Sarge about it. The book had to be two hundred pages long, at least. Ash had a list of flaws as long as his arm, but procrastination wasn't one of them. Aside from a few more minutes of skulking in self-pity he threw himself onto his own bed, opened the book and began to read.

Jason sat quietly, staring out over the parking lot from his perch on the edge of the roof. He sat with his hand under his chin and his elbow resting on his knee with his shotgun lying in his lap. The thinker pose wasn't just a clever ruse to cast off any unlikely passers by, he was actually deep in thought.

There was a pleasant breeze, coming from over the rooftop behind that ruffled his hair, tickling his skin as he sat. Bringing the smell of hot tar. He stared blankly at the writhing masses below, unable to pay them any heed, his mind on other deeper subjects, ones that bothered him long before his current troubles arose. He was in the middle of a relapse of emotional turmoil. His feelings for Lynn were beginning to resurface once again, after years of bubbling below the surface. Years of ruthless suppression to keep them at bay. He thought he had stomped them down for good once and for all. That should teach him to think.

It was times like this when he regretted giving up smoking. Smoking had always managed to calm him down, or at least give him something to do with his hands. But no, like an idiot he wanted to be healthier, to be able to run more than a step or two without gasping for breath and falling over. He kicked himself for tossing his smokes over the edge of the roof and to the zombies below. 'Let them have em, they're already dead' he had quipped as the cigarettes tumbled down into the mindless crowd below, bursting from the package and scattering as they turned over in mid air. Dumb ass.

His mind swirled about, leaving him in a haze. Normally his emotions were rock steady, with occasional outbursts of joy and sorrow. He loved Lynn and before everything else he wanted to see her happy. But he also wanted to be the one who made her happy. Both were important. Only one was within his grasp and it hurt him to hold on to it. His need for Lynn battled his love for her and left him in agony.

He was, in spite of his own efforts to the contrary, beginning to like Douglas. Jason was at war within himself, he wanted to like Douglas for Lynn's sake. But then he hated Douglas for what he had. A man so emotionally divided was an amusing sight to see, but it was hell being that man. The hand of jealousy crawled into and gripped his insides, making them burn and freeze all at once. At the same time he seethed with guilt and ached with want. His head pounded with the echo of his heart. He was almost considering, in desperation, drilling a hole in his head to release some of the tension. Metaphorically speaking of course. He wasn't so desperate yet to be literal.

Suicide was the cowards way out. He enjoyed life far too much to take that route. Old Scratch would have to drag him away from this mortal coil kicking and screaming. That was unless of course he was bitten, then he would go with Billy's idea and shoot himself. To get bitten now would offer a solution, solve a lot of problems, and damn him to an eternity in hell. He never believed in hell per say, but if there was one, it was full of cowards who killed themselves. Deal with it, take it like a man, the words rung loudly in his ears.

Long years had passed since his last descent into the spiral of hope and despair. To feel happy at one moment and depressed the next. He had done his best to stomp down all the feelings, to move on and find someone or something else. Living with the happy couple, day in and day out is what had finally broken his resolve again. Dragging him back to his private hell for another extended visit with misery. His only hope before had been the possibility of finding a woman to fill the place of Lynn, hope was so easy to lose.

Jason knew that he needed to let all of his feelings out, just to tell someone, some understanding soul of mercy. It was times like this that he cursed his agnostic outlook on life, since talking to even a benevolent, if distant, God might offer some respite. Here and now, there was no release, nobody he could discuss it over, especially now.

He had in a moment of despair considered unburdening himself on Billy. He knew how far despair and pain could drive a man towards insanity, but he retained enough of his wits in check to realize that that was a bad idea. Billy and Jason had often laughed together at people who got their hearts torn out and stomped upon, for Billy it was funny, for Jason it was sharing a bitter self-pity.

Billy was a rock, an island. He hid behind his fools mask and never let a soul get close. Over time you might be able to sneak in little by little. Catch a glimpse of what lay beneath that colorful mask. But even then the man was an onion, and one made of solid steel layers. He made sport of all those weaker than he and that was most. Not sparing his barbs out of friendship, though he never went so far as to be cruel. Jason often wondered if he had ever been in love himself, or if he had been wise enough not to fall into such a trap.

The voices of popular music sang over and over again that only a idiot opened themselves up to fall in love, it was better to hide behind the cold castle walls. Jason agreed with their assessment, but how hard it was to rebuild those walls after you tore them down and invited someone in.

His father had told him once that it was a fool who wanted what he couldn't have. To realize that you couldn't have it was a path to wisdom, to realize and still want, was the mark of an even greater fool. That was his dad, always spouting philosophical proverbs and the like, sometimes they even made sense and had something to do with what was going on around him at the time. Usually they just sounded good but were devoid of depth. All in all it left Jason knowing where he stood, he was a great ass of a fool.

Jason laughed again. The same deep, though bitter laugh that had escaped him so often in the past. To his own ears, his constant whining was beginning to sound like a songwriter for a Pop band. He didn't much care for it when other people where whiney and it was worse in himself. His father had always told him to deal with the pain, because nothing lasts forever, even when it feels like it will. Now was the time for him to deal. He picked a round stone off the roof and threw it into crowd below. It was time to lose himself in something exhausting.

Jason picked up his shotgun off his lap and stood up. He turned around and walked towards the door, all the while flicking the safety switch on and off with his thumb, wishing that he could fire off a couple of slugs into the masses below. But Lynn wouldn't be too happy if he did and it would end up causing more trouble than it was worth. Still the urge to do it anyways made his hands itch. The big problem was shooting zombies was that even after all of the thinning that he and Billy had done, there were thousands of the creatures and at best he only had a couple hundred shells. Ammunition was scarce, or at least it would be if he decided to start using it on a whim.

Jason succumbed to his weakness and lit a cigarette and sat down in his chair to think. Life wouldn't be so bad if he wasn't stuck in a prison that he couldn't escape. His friends thought of the store as a giant medieval fortress or castle, but Jason knew better, it was a prison. The zombies might make a moat for some, but there was no drawbridge to use to cross the moat with. So it held them in as effectively as the tallest stonewall or razor wire fence.

Old sayings ran through his head, a golden cage was still a cage and so forth. He wanted out of the cage. He wished more with each passing day that they had followed his plan of heading out into the wilderness, away from all of the remnants of human civilization and just wandered the land freely. Life would be more difficult in some ways, but maybe he wouldn't feel like he was chained to a sinking ship like he did with this store.

It was a good long while before he noticed that Billy was standing behind him, a lit cigarette between his thumb and forefinger, he took a drag. "What do you want to do today?" Billy asked as he exhaled the smoke from his lungs.

"I dunno." It wasn't enlightening and it didn't offer any ideas, but it was succinct and honest. Jason had no clue what he wanted to do. He felt rather empty and trapped. That was wrong. He wanted to escape and be free of everything, all his worries and fears and foolish emotions. To be at peace again with the universe. He knew this, but he also knew that it wasn't what Billy meant.

"Well how about we start a new religion?"

"A what?"

"A religion, we make up a god, some rituals, some titles, and then wage war on all the non-believers around while sending out missionaries."

"What kind of rituals?"

"I was thinking chants and sacrifices?"

"Sacrifices? What kind of sacrifices?"

"Well like killing things in the name of our god."

"Like zombies?"

"Well maybe. But I was thinking more of SPAM. I hate that stuff. And if we sacrifice it all to our god, then Douglas can't make any more SPAMwiches"

"SPAM? How do you know the god would accept that as a sacrifice?"

"Beggars can't be choosers, besides, what else does he think he's going to get? A virgin? Not around here he isn't."

"Good point." Billy came up with some of the best ideas. And some of the worst. Jason rubbed his arm as he remembered the time that Billy had decided to invent his own martial art. In the end it had meant a visit to the emergency room for the both of them, and six weeks in plaster casts. It had been fun until Billy had gotten a little overzealous and started swinging the broomstick while telling Jason to defend himself. He flicked the cigarette off the roof, half smoked. Jason had wanted something to do, and here was Billy.

Jason laughed to himself at the thought of burning SPAM in honor of a god that they had just invented. It's the kind of thing that would drive Lynn nuts, which made it all that much more fun for Billy. And that much more fun for Jason to watch.

Ash was a slow reader. Reading was difficult and not an especially enjoyable activity for him. Always had been so for as long as he could remember. He had friends who had enjoyed reading in Jr. high. They had said that when they read, they would get a picture of all that was happening formed inside their heads, like a movie, only better. Bookworms he had called them, they had drifted apart as they found new loves, Ash with working on cars and video games and those friends with reading and computers. That was life though.

Reading had always been a chore. There never was a picture as he struggled with all of the words. He had improved over the years of course, studying the automobile magazines and manuals became his life for a while when he was in training, that had required him to get better at reading. Still he didn't pick up reading as a hobby, nor did he read for fun, the automotive magazines aside, though they were part business.

For him, Starship Troopers was different. The book took him two days to struggle through the first time, short as it was, and then he read again on the third day. Sage let him keep that copy of the book, he said that he had others, on the fifth day when he gave his report.

"Thanks Sarge." He said as he looked at the cover. "Do you think it would work?"

"Do I think what would work?"

"A government like in the book. Where only soldiers can vote."

"Why would you ask that? Do you want to set up a government or something?"

"Well, we need one don't we?"

"Right now, we're a short company with a couple hundred civilians in tow, we don't need a government."

"What about later? When we get everything cleaned up again?"

"That's awful ambitious of you. I don't think that we'll get everything cleaned up, as you put it. We might be able to kill a few thousand of these zombies, but if the rest of the world is like Jefferson, then there must be hundreds of millions of them, or even billions walking the planet. Anyone who thinks that they can clean that mess is as mad as a hatter. In the mean time. I think that the captain plans on installing a military dictatorship with himself at the head. He was thinking of making you an officer, until the little debacle the other day."

"An officer? Me?"

"Well an NCO, you would still need to work for a living, but you could still push the privates around."

Ash returned to his own bunk and read through Starship Troopers one more time. Reading the book and talking was becoming an obsession with him, one that was pissing off everyone around him. They would roll their eyes and walk away whenever he started in on how it changed his life. He wasn't a complete idiot, he got that he was being annoying, so he toned down his behavior a bit. Though he was nearly bursting with enthusiasm.

Finally Sarge got tired of talking about Robert Heinlein and gave Ash a second book to work on. "Here, read this one next, you might like it too. It's about a war, swords and spears and heroes and the like." He said as he threw the second volume into Ash's eagerly awaiting hands.

The new novel was a bit thicker than Starship Troopers, with smaller text. As flipped through the pages studying the text, which looked like a long poem. 'The Iliad' it was called. A strange name for a book.

He read The Iliad too. Slowly. The progress was much slower and more difficult than Starship Troopers, even during his first time reading it through. The writing was much more challenging, poetry mostly which slowed him down even more as he tried to figure out what the Homer dude was saying. Still he enjoyed it, though he didn't quite understand why anyone put up with Achilles' constant whining, aside from the fact that they couldn't kill him. He came to like Hector the most, a warrior who was fighting for the survival of his people.

As he read, he went on with his normal duties. Patrols and guard duty. Most mundane chores such as cooking and cleaning were given to the civilians that they had taken in under their wing. Most of them seemed happy to do the work in exchange for being protected from the hell that was going on in the outside world.

With each patrol came a virtual flood of the civilian population. Frightened people looking for shelter in a storm. They found a group of soldiers and followed them home like puppies. The captain gave that to them. He said that it was their duty to protect the civilians. They were still American soldiers after all.

The captain was still treating Ash rather coolly and he hadn't been allowed to lead any more patrols, which was fine with him, he hadn't been meant for command, even of a platoon. Instead, he went out under the leadership of Cervantes. They whittled away at the hordes of zombies that still infested the streets. Pushing back their borders with agonizing caution.

They started marking down the locations of the packs that were so large that a the two squad patrols wouldn't be able to engage it and even have a hope of making a dent in the numbers, let alone surviving the confrontation. So they chipped and scratched, luring away parts of the big hordes, killing a few dozen at a time before running. An exercise in guerilla warfare at its least glamorous.

They brought in hundreds of civilians of all colors and backgrounds. The captain put most of them on big projects. The first major problem was finding a way to filter the river so that it wasn't toxic. A thousand people needed hundreds of gallons of water each day. Also, they would all need a place to sleep, so barracks were being built. While those problems were being handled, the individuals who were unsuited for either design or heavy labor were armed with either a baseball bat or a golf club and then drafted into the extermination crew.

Now, instead of a dozen or so soldiers under her, Cervantes had a mob of a hundred idiots to wrangle every other day. Most of the old company was instantly promoted and placed in charge of a squad of the newcomers. Even as was put in charge of twenty of the conscripts.

The first location that Cervantes led them to with their new numbers was where Schmidt fell. She figured that they had a reckoning to deal out and ghosts to silence.

The zombies that had taken the life of his friend and cost him the fickle good will of the captain. Ash was savage when dealing with them, charging in with his bat in his hands and swinging away to release several long weeks' worth of pent up fury and frustration. The street was a mess. One man, an idiot from the start, managed to get himself bitten and so had to be put down.

Put down. That's what veterinarians did with sick animals who were just too far gone to have any chances of recovery. The man they shot truly was an idiot. He was another real muppet who made Grover look intelligent. Ash and a few others had taken to calling him Grover II. He must have been borderline mentally retarded, and should have never been conscripted in the first place. But there he was, among Ash's own squad. It was enough to make him wonder if the captain was punishing him.

On one hand, he probably should have felt some sort of guilt, or sadness perhaps, that the man had been bitten. After all, he was human still and alive, and it was Ash's duty as the officer in charge to keep him safe from harm as much as possible. But on the other hand, the man was a complete and total fuckup and a danger to everyone around him. Only a fear of someone finding out kept them from just killing him themselves without the excuse of his being newly infected.

Neither Ash nor Cervantes was sad to see him go.

#

Weeks had passed slowly since Amy had come. Jason was feeling less lonesome, but only a little. They had all gotten closer in the past weeks, working on projects together. But still he felt like the odd man out. Maybe it was because he truly was the odd man out. The fifth wheel tagging along with a couple of couples. The surreality of the experience at times shook him. That Billy of all people would find love, with the next to the last woman on the planet, almost blew his mind. That they had actually known each other before the zombie uprising.

Keeping busy helped Jason retain his sanity. After Amy came they had all decided to improve their water collection system as best as they could manage. Really all they had managed to do was put dozens plastic kiddie pools along the roof, and weight them down with buckets full of concrete. This simple act increased the area that they had covered when the rain came, and they collected what they could into the water barrels. It was crude and lacked the awe inspiring finesse that a genius like McGyver or the Professor from Gilligan's Island would whip up. Maybe using some coconuts and paper clips. But, it worked, and that was all that mattered. Though Billy kept saying that he could improve it, if only he had those coconuts.

Water. Wonderful clean water. Jason had been surprised him how much he had missed the simple pleasure of bathing regularly. Clothing wasn't much of a concern. In the store they were surrounded by it, and they all got into the habit of simply changing into something new whenever their old clothes grew too rank. The problem came up of what to do with the old clothes, to which Billy came up with a plan, and was subsequently forbidden to carry it out, though Jason would have loved to have had seen what a giant ball of burning clothing did when it landed on the zombies below.

All that was left to maintain was their vegetable garden. They had built it on the roof, in between kiddie pools, using landscaping timbers and potting soil. The garden was their major reason for needing to collect more water. But it had been worth the effort, or it would be in a few more weeks when the vegetables, peas, green beans, carrots, a few watermelon, and tomatoes, started to ripen. After weeks of nothing but canned food, his mouth watered whenever he even looked at the growing plants.

Jason had been alone on the roof for several hours before he saw anyone in the realm of the living. It was of course Billy, Amy refused to come up to the roof because of the zombie hordes below. Lynn and Douglas on the other hand were busy with other endeavors, mostly reading whatever they could get their hands on and discussing the future. Or fucking, they did a lot of that, wandering off together to a hidden corner of the store.

Life had gotten fairly lonely since Amy had arrived. One wouldn't expect that adding another person to a small group like theirs would have that affect, but it did. She monopolized much of Billy's time, at least most of it. Lynn and Douglas usually only had eyes for one another. Though there were occasions were Lynn and Amy got together and sent the other two up onto the roof to get them out of their hair. Jason felt like he was left out in the cold.

When Douglas and Billy were around they actually had a lot of fun. Douglas had been teaching them how to use their old melee weapons, as well as how to fight with their hands and feet. They would also spend hours working out various backup plans that they had gotten out of the Survival Guide. Douglas had long since come around, and actually enjoyed reading the guide. Though he seemed to take perverse pleasure in pointing out things that the author had gotten wrong.

Jason watched his friend as he wandered around, his mind somewhere else entirely. Likely on Amy. Somehow or another, the woman had broken his friend, but in a strangely good way. It was like Billy had finally decided to grow up. He and Billy had known another for a long time, and until a few days ago, Jason had assumed that his friend would never reach a level of maturity beyond that of a twelve-year-old boy. He had mentioned it to Lynn the day before and she had whole-heartedly agreed. Billy was a changed man. And strangely enough, it seemed like he was changed for the better for once.

As much as another half an hour or perhaps more passed before Billy ceased his pacing and walked over to the edge of the roof to join Jason. He set the mace down on the roof under the umbrella before joining his friend in sitting and staring at the parking lot. From time to time enjoying the colors of the sky with the setting of the sun.

They sat in silence together for quite some time, each waiting for the other to speak. Both of them enjoying the show, the reds and oranges that were painted so expertly across the sky ever morning and evening. Forcing himself to break the comfortable silence was difficult, but Jason finally did. "So, what's up?" Billy shook his head. He looked as if something serious was gnawing at him, which happened to be a strange turn of events indeed. His face held an expression that was completely out of place on this bastard child of Pan and Loki.

"Amy has been having nightmares." Big surprise there, after all, who wasn't having nightmares?

"Yeah, I know."

"What do you mean?"

"I've heard her wake up crying at night."

"Oh. Yeah." The expression of confused worry returned to his face once more, replacing his happy go lucky mask. Jason was beginning to worry, that was a look that he had never before seen on Billy. It seemed combine the expressions worry, fear and that one that he seemed to get whenever he was thinking about doing something really stupid. Really stupid, like feeling up the town Sheriff's wife and then giving her a sloppy kiss right in front of the man himself.

"So, what's on your mind?" Billy picked up his shotgun and began to fiddle with the harness strap. He was slow in answering, like he was trying to choose his words as carefully as possible, but he was still coming up short.

"Amy thinks that her friend Crayson might have survived the fire."

"I hope not. To be burnt to death would be bad enough, but then to come back as a zombie..."

"I know, but she thinks that he might have become a zombie."

"And she's having nightmares of him coming to get her?"

"Sort of, she wants to go back out and put him to rest."

That was pure insanity. "She wouldn't survive, she barely made it to the store in one piece." Amy was a nice woman, but she seemed to be rather weak in spirit to Jason.

"I was thinking..."

"You have to be kidding me!"

"No, I'm not kidding. I stand a better chance than she does. And doing it would help her out." Well, at least the look on his face finally made some sense. It seems that Billy would be the first one to be free of the confines of the store since they had gotten Kime. That thought made Jason burn with jealousy and a desire to help. No, not to help, just to be away. If helping Billy check a corpse out in a zombie infested parking lot for his girlfriend would get Jason out of the building for even a few minutes, he'd do it.

"I'll go with you."

"What?"

"I'll go with you, to help."

"No."

"Yes."

"It's way too dangerous for you to come along."

"I know, that's why I'm going to go along."

"Because it's dangerous? That doesn't make any sense."

"You'll need somebody to watch your back."

"So, you can stay up here and use the rifle."

"You know I can't shoot that damn thing."

"What about all that time you spent with John on his shooting range?"

"We learned how to shoot the shotguns and handguns. There was no where near enough room to fire the rifles. As much as I wanted to try"

"Well, but..."

"Look, I'm coming with. Remember the first rule of survival, nobody goes anywhere alone."

"Alright, alright, you can come along."

"When do we go?"

"I dunno, first we have to break it to Lynn."

"Well damn. She isn't going to like it."

"Maybe not, but she's going to agree, she likes Amy too much to want to see her in that much pain."

"Well, we might as well do it now as ever." With that they got up and headed downstairs to find Lynn. Even though Jason burned with the need to get out of the Megamart, he still felt that the sooner that they got this little mission done with, the better. Wading into a ocean of the walking dead wasn't exactly what he had had in mind.

Jésus was had another sleepless night to look forward to. He knew it from the beginning that he wasn't going to ever be embraced by blessed unconsciousness, even before his head brushed the pillow, so he gave up trying early on. Since rest wasn't going to come to him that night, he got dressed and went down to sit on the front the porch. He sat down on one of the chairs, elbow on the armrest and chin on the elbow and he stared out into the night as his eyes finally adjusted to the faint light of the moon.

The air was cold, but not bitterly so. Just a reminder that summer had not yet arrived, despite the warmth of the past week. The pleasant bite of the night air kept him alert. Though he may not be able to sleep, without the cool air caressing his face, he might not be able to reflect on his thoughts and construct plans for their future. Time was running too short to be wasted on sleep.

Jacob's movie inspired proclamations about the new world order held some truth for Jésus. Human beings were social animals. He learned that in his introductory psychology and sociology classes. Hell. He had known that for as long as he lived. Humans were a lot like wolves, they joined packs and hunted the weak, feeding of the flesh of their prey.

Sure, civilization had masked the wolfishness of humanity, redirecting it and exploiting the drive. The packs grew with time and formed churches, states and corporations. In time the violence grew subtler as the pack matured, but it was ever there, lurking in the shadows. Hidden away and forgotten, left at the very corners of civilization in far off countries peopled by primitive cultures. Derided by modern minds as a failure of an unenlightened humanity. Eternally ready to spring back to full view. Waiting to be cut free from the baggage of civilization.

Now it had its chance.

Jacob believed that many small enclaves of humanity would cling to their safety blanket of civilization. They would strive to retain what had once been normalcy and stave off the ocean of insanity in which the entire world had been plunged. While others would give into their darker urges, taking the collapse as clearance to follow their base desires.

The screen door closed and Jésus looked up and over his shoulder. Jacob was standing in his robe and staring sadly at Jésus. "Mind if I sit down?" He asked, his voice quiet as the night breeze.

Jésus nodded and patted the chair next to him. He leaned back, kicked out his feet and crossed his hands over his stomach, putting himself in a better position for a conversation as Jacob sat down beside him.

"Have you figured on which route you're going to take yet?"

"West, I think. We'll look for one of those small enclaves you mentioned. We'll try and help rebuild society. I thought about just finding a farm house around here, but I don't think that Emily or Michelle would much enjoy living so primitive. After all, the generator won't run forever."

"A good plan. Honorable."

"Any other ideas?"

"Sure. Some."

Jésus waited a moment for Jacob to elaborate before asking. "Care to share them?"

"Oh? Ah yeah. Where is my mind tonight?" He slapped himself lightly on the cheek as if to try and wake up his dormant brain, before continuing, "stay away from large towns. Look mostly at the small villages. There won't be as many survivors probably, but there will be fewer of the zombies to have to confront."

What he said made perfect sense and Jésus kicked himself for not thinking of it himself. He was planning to explore the smaller cities along the way. But Jacob was correct, though there might be more survivors, they probably wouldn't last very long against the horde of the zombies.

"Stay away from anyone you see out on the roads. They'll probably be looking for easy meat. Folks in town too. You really can't trust anyone anymore."

"What about you and Gretchen?"

"Well, you obviously can't trust us either, after all, look what we've done. Expelling a nice family just because they aren't our blood."

"Blood carries a long way, you have to look to it first."

"Would you?"

"My oldest brother is a no good drunk who has spent near half of his life in jail or prison. He beat his wife until she left him and took the kids. One of the few times my mother supported divorce. She sees him as her biggest failure in life. If he's still alive, and asks for help, then I'll help him because he's family. Family is important."  
"If he isn't?"

"Then I hope I come across him and get a chance to shoot the bastard myself. For what he did to his own family and what he did to mama. It's the least I can do."

"It's going to be dangerous out there."

"I figured as much."

"Gretchen and Rachel would like it if your mother stayed here with us until you found a place."

"I think that she would like that too. I've never seen her take to a person like she has with Gretchen. She seems fond of Rachel too. What will Henry say?"

"Henry will learn to keep his damn mouth shut, which is a lesson long overdue." The conversation drifted away on the breeze and they sat in silence, enjoying one another's company in the timeless manner of men. Nothing needed to be said, all was understood. Jésus would like to remain with these kind people. Jacob and Gretchen would like to have them stay. But other responsibilities came first.

Jésus awoke to something bright and warm seeping through his eyelids and the rattling grind of a wood chipper trying to devour rocks. The sun, it turned out, accounted for the feeling of warmth, while the other was obviously Jacob's snoring.

He tried to clear a dreadful taste from his mouth that reminded him of sweat socks, leaving him to wonder if he had swallowed a bug or two in the night. Jésus climbed out of the chair, working the kinks out as he watched some birds playing in a birdbath. He hadn't meant to fall asleep, but when was the last time something he meant to do hadn't failed miserably before his very eyes. At least he had received a good nights sleep out of the deal, which was a fair sight better than what normally greeted him when his plans fell apart.

His talk with Jacob had inspired him and allowed him to lay firmer plans. They would head west, following a string of small towns marked on George's map, until they found a place to stay permanently. Preferably somewhere with people who knew how to farm. For all of his interests, Jacob was woefully unprepared for living in a primitive world. He looked down on his sleeping friend, his bitterness receding, Jacob was a hard man to remain angry with.

Jésus let himself back into the house, walked into the kitchen, and started feeding the stove. This morning would call for coffee, strong coffee. Jésus would feed his one true addiction that he had carefully cultivated over the years of late night television watching or study sessions. Caffeine ran through his veins like blood.

The first pot was on the boil when Jacob joined him. His eyes red and puffy and his head held at a strange angle as he stumbled into the kitchen, groaning with each step and looking more dead than alive. He would remain that way, and had in fact done so each morning to date, until he had his first cup or two of coffee. "Stiff neck?" Jésus asked.

Jacob groaned the affirmative, a sound which Jésus had learned meant 'yes' in early morning Jacob speak, as he poured himself a cup, straight black, no cream or sugar, the true man's way to drink it. Or so Jacob claimed. Jésus preferred a couple spoonfuls of sugar to neutralize the bitterness. Being a man was one thing, drinking black coffee on the other hand was just crazy.

The conversation was limited to slurping their java and blowing on the liquid to cool it down after it burned their tongues. Talking to Jacob during the early hours of "O'Dark'Hundred" was about as interesting as a conversation with Frankenstein's monster, so Jésus let the opportunity pass him by and the two friends again sat in silence.

With fifteen minutes, and a second cup of joe, Jacob was finally able to articulate his first thoughts for the day, and deep ones they were "Those chairs weren't meant to be slept on!" He griped as he rubbed his neck. "Did you hear some strange rasping noise a little while ago? You must have it was loud enough to wake me up."  
Jésus shook his head 'no' and suppressed a smile. Jacob had awakened himself with his own snoring. He wondered briefly how Gretchen could stand it and suspected that maybe she couldn't and had kicked Jacob out of bed the night before.

In ones and twos, the rest of the household awoke and in the words of Jacob, quoting Johnny Cash, stumbled down the stairs to meet the day.

Breakfast was hearty, though largely cheerless. Jésus told his mother that she would be staying with Jacob and his family until they found a home. Gretchen and Rachel surprised him by offering to take care of George Junior and Christina as well. Michelle tearfully accepted. The kids cried too. She didn't wish to be separated from her babies for such a long time, but here they were safe and would be well fed and keep their grandmother company. They would also have other children to play with. Besides, they would be back soon.

"When you find a place to live, come back and get us." Jacob said, shaking Jésus' hand. "I don't know how well we'll be able to manage on our own. Besides, we'll get to missing the company of civilized people soon enough." The last was said with a glare over his shoulder at Henry, who had made several more abrasive comments

"Will do. Thank you for everything."

Jacob grinned. "Thank you for getting our bathroom back in order. You be safe now, and get back to us soon. We'll be watching."

Before ten o'clock that morning, the family was reduced to vagrancy once again.

They skipped by the closest town, Devil's Square, even without Selma's warnings. Starting their search in a town so named didn't strike them as a good portent for the search ahead. They passed their decision off as being logical, the town was too small after all, just about two score people, they most likely wouldn't find what they were looking for in it's streets. All the while, laughing at what Selma would say if she had heard the town's name.

Fenton, the next town along, was about fifty people, or had been, and was their first stop for the day. They stopped long enough for Jésus to back the van up and drive back the way they had come. Fenton was swarming with the walking dead. Passing through Fenton lead them to a long straight road. Another long straight road. Everything in the country seemed to be laid out on a grid of elongated rectangles.

Jésus was the first to see the motorcycles approaching from their rear. He caught a glint of light reflecting off the chrome in his rearview and swore. He slowed the van down and took a left down the first road that he found. A dirt road. They kicked up a cloud of dust twice as tall as the van and three times as long as they raced down the lane, making turning from the road in secret and hiding impossible.

Jésus kept one eye on the road ahead and one on his rearview. The bikers had slowed, making the turn themselves and following the van. They were gaining too. His foot grew heavier, weighing further down on the gas pedal, pushing the van faster along an unsafe road.

"Watch it Jésus!" His sister yelled!" as they came around a bend, going nearly fifty miles an hour. Her finger pressed against the windshield pointing out at the road, over the hood. There were cows in the road.

Jésus slammed on the breaks. The van skidded, slid and came to a halt five feet from the nearest cow. The stupid animal didn't even flinch.

He could hear the approaching motorcycles as they grew nearer to the van, cloaked as they were in the lingering cloud of dust. Jésus searched for the 9mm that he had stored in the cab for such an emergency. "Get out and run!" He heard the doors open in the back and footsteps on the hard packed. Emily and George were on their way. Finding the pistol, he looked up, Michelle was still in the cab with him, the golf club in her hand.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm going to help!"

"No, you're going to run and find George and Emily. Don't argue, just listen for once."

Jésus opened the door and jumped out of the cab with the gun in hand. Michelle ran around the front of the van to stand behind the door, tightly clutching the golf club to her chest with both hands as if she was on stage singing somewhere and it were a microphone. He turned to tell her to run again when something smashed into his jaw. His sister screamed. The gun seemed to go off on it's own, and then a second time. Jésus fell backwards against the open door and was engulfed by blackness.

There were other groups of survivors in the city. Many of them joined Cervantes and Ash in sweeping their streets clean of the zombies, only to disappear afterwards. After the weeks of having people gladly follow them home for the safety that trained and armed soldiers could provide, Ash had become used to civilians joining up on patrols and then staying. The new turn of events he found confusing, and he discussed it with Sarge as they watched the construction of their wall. The Captain had ordered a wall to be built around their fortress. He didn't explain why, and the company guessed that he just wanted to keep the zombies out.

The wall was being made of a car sandwiched in between two double thick layers of cinder blocks and then filled with sand. The end product was about five feet tall and then topped with barbed wire with glass embedded in the ridge. The wall would be solid and damn near impossible to penetrate with anything less than bombs made to bust reinforced bunkers. The construction didn't make much sense to him, a zombie couldn't climb, so anything over four feet should be able to hold them off and at the same time allow whoever was defending easier access. Sure, they would need something sturdy, and the wall looked that, but it seemed overkill to him. He had asked Sarge about it, and a few of the other NCOs, Sarge grunted, and nobody else knew any more than he did. They all thought it strange as well.

"Maybe they're shy corporal," Sarge said as they watched a work crew tip an old sedan onto its side.

"That could be Sarge, but they don't seem to be so shy that they can't help. They do that just fine. Though they look at us a little funny before taking off again."

"Have you been marking their locations like the captain ordered?" A funny question. Sarge knew that he did, he had even seen the maps, and Ash said so. "Well then maybe you should be a bit less careful. Maybe a little more picky about the information you pass on."

"You mean lie sir?"

"No corporal, do not lie. Just let certain facts slip your mind. Like where these people live and how many there are."

"Why for sir?"

"The captain doesn't need all that information, too much and his brain might start to overflow. You would be doing him a favor." Now that answer made sense to Ash. He had felt that way himself. The captain was a smart man, a lot smarter than Ash, but even he must be overwhelmed from time to time. "How is your read of the Iliad treating you?"

"I like it sir. It's not as good as Starship Troopers, and it's a helluva lot harder to read, but the Iliad is good too. Did that really happen? Avery was saying that the book was about a historical battle between the Greeks and Trojans. I don't know if I would like someone like Achilles to have actually lived though. Odysseus kind of reminds me of you though."

"Right. Just remember, don't over burden the captain with a lot of extra information that he doesn't need. I've talked to the most of the other squad leaders about this, and they all agree." If everyone else agreed, who was he to argue?

Patrols stretched further and further as the summer progressed and approached the onset of fall. Soon the captain ordered the troops to take the trucks since the distances involved would make hiking out, fighting and then returning before nightfall, more and more difficult. Diesel fuel was short and difficult to find. More problematically, they used it in the generators as well as the trucks. Despite this, they managed to clear most of the business district of the city of zombies before midsummer. Some of the suburbs too.

Then there were the buildings. Hundreds, even thousands of structures all across the city were infested with zombies. A smart assed comment was not required, though Avery still made one when Ash pointed it out. The company, at the captain's orders, left them alone. They cleaned out a few, supermarkets, their warehouses, and stores and shopping malls that they would want to take supplies from. They took weapons, clothing and other necessities form wherever they could find them. Food too, though they had enough still stored in the warehouses that they cleared during late spring. But by in large, they ignored the zombies in the buildings. Going in after them was just too dangerous. "After all," Sarge had said, "they'll rot eventually. This way, we're safe and they can die in their own time. Everyone wins." Ash was inclined to agree, as he usually did, with Sarge's outlook.

Life was hard for everybody, especially for anyone who hadn't been a member of the company since the beginning. The captain treated his soldiers better than the conscripts and the conscripts better than the civilians. The way he saw it, the original company, or what was left of it as it had been badly mauled in the past months, leaving openings to be filled by people of the captain's choosing. Most of those, Ash noticed, were fanatically loyal to the captain. He was bigger than Jesus, Elvis and the President combined.

The original company was by in large held back at base, with a handful of NCOs going out at the head of conscript companies on their search and destroy missions. The conscripts were cannon fodder in the eyes of the captain, and he was more than willing to throw away their lives for unimportant missions. He even let them venture into the buildings if they wanted to. And many did, all in hopes that he would recognize their bravery and promote them to being full soldiers. A rare thing.

#

The following day brought all five of the survivors to the roof together. There they stood, overlooking the zombie infested parking lot below. Jason, Lynn and Douglas were standing at the front edge of the roof over the entrance surveying the horde. There was probably around two hundred or so feet of pavement between the building and the compact car that Crayson was entombed in. Half of that space what packed with zombies who still seemed intent on getting inside the store below.

Amy was begging Billy not to go, holding him tightly, pleading to let her go instead since she was the one who needed to know. Billy was stroking her hair and holding her closely to his chest. Saying nothing. No amount of worry on her part, no matter how much she begged, nothing was going to keep him from such an adventure. Billy wanted the adventure, maybe he even needed it. Jason had never seen him sit still for such a long time without doing something silly or stupid.

Jason tried to calculate a rough estimate of number of zombies between the building and the car. The best he could manage was 'thousands', only because 'a lot' sounded too vague and rather lame even in his own head. "What do you think?" He asked Lynn, "Two, maybe three thousand?"

"I'd say five thousand at least. Maybe more." Five thousand, that was a lot of hungry mouths and must be at least a quarter of the population of the city proper, full time residents only. Students and summer people would add at least another ten thousand. His mind was wandering and he brought it back to what was ahead, and below. Five thousand zombies, maybe more.

Most of the undead were congregating near the doors on either end of the building. Pushing against one another in a vain attempt to get to the doors and inside the store. If they had still been alive when they had come, the ones nearest the building would have been crushed to death long since. Looking down from his vantage point, the undead seemed like a the cross section of two of piles of sand placed on top of a box, reaching out to one another to blend together in the center, while at the same time spilling over the edge and down the side.

Jason and Billy had decided that it would be best to lower themselves down at the rear of the building on the side furthest away from the loading docks. There was a fence in the rear of the building, dividing the property in half and segregating the loading docks from the rest of the property. Their needs were two fold, they needed a safe location from which to start and return, but they also didn't wish to draw any undue attention to the back door at the loading dock and their vehicles. Doing so would only serve to block them in, and drive Jason further insane.

They took one last look over the edge to make sure that their path was clear all the way to the front of the building before Billy and Jason slid down the ropes that they had lowered to the ground a few minutes before. There they waited for a moment. There was no need to rush, and plenty of reasons not to. Both Jason and Billy used the pause to take a deep breath of freedom, enjoying it while they could.

Lynn watched her two best friends move over the edge of the roof and down the ropes down to the pavement below. Her stomach twisted in a knot as their feet touched the ground. The horror had only just begun. With Jason and Billy on the ground safely, weapons in hand and ready to get to their work, Lynn led Douglas and Amy over to the front edge of the building to take their positions.

Lynn unshouldered Billy's rifle, swinging it around into her hands using a fancy move she had seen so many times in the movies. She eased the bolt back, for perhaps the thirtieth time in the last fifteen minutes, to make sure that there was a round in the chamber and the rifle was ready to go. The safety went off with a flick of her finger. The rifle went from being safe to being deadly, with just a twitch of such a minor muscle.

Billy hefted his mace "Lord Bashinator," as he still insisted on calling the thing, and stepped out from around the back corner of the building, with Jason in his shadow, sword in hand, walking at a crouch towards the front, and the horde. Jason ran his hand along the masonry as they walked just to touch something real, safe and cool.

Billy started whistling a tune, one of his favorites, something about a train chase, before Jason smacked him upside the head to shut him up again. The more things changed, the more some things just stayed the same. Meanwhile, their friends back on the roof moved around to the front, making noise and garnering the attention of the horde below. Lynn had the rifle in hand, in case they were unable to pull off the stunt as smoothly as planned.

Her two friends exited the shadow of the Megamart and entered her line of sight, leaving a trail of corpses as they progressed along their chosen path. They met with light resistance, only a handful of rogues that had drifted away from the collective, drops of spray rising from the wave of what had once been humanity. So far so good. She just hoped that her friends remembered to hurry. Droplets were easy to wipe clean, the whole ocean would drown them.

Lynn scanned the open lot between them and Crayson's car. Aside from some more rogue zombies and a handful of cars, their route was clear. Jason reached down, flipped on his radio, and gave them the thumbs up signal before patting Billy on the shoulder and taking the first steps forward towards Crayson.

Lynn brought the butt of the rifle against her shoulder. If anything was going to happen, it would happen soon. The duo moved forward in a crouch, using the few cars that speckled the blacktop as cover to protect them from the thousands of sets of searching eyes. The attempt at stealth was an empty gesture, since the zombies seemed to know exactly where they were hiding each time they moved, and they began to close in like sharks scenting blood.

Jason and Billy continued to move carefully and slowly. Not a smart thing to do.

A double handful zombies had edged around the side of the building and away from the front doors where so many of their number had congregated. Jason marveled at this course of action, wondering if perhaps the rogues had departed in search of easier prey.

Most of them however were part of the large ocean of flesh, barring the few outlying stragglers. The two companions gave the horde a large berth, or at least as much as they could, as they jogged along the chain link fence that marked the border of the property. From time to time they slowed to dispath one of the unfortunate stragglers as it reached out to try and grasp them as they passed.

Jason had seen video footage of schools of ocean fish in nature documentaries. The footage always showed the fish acting and reacting almost as a single living organism whenever danger was near. The horde reminded him of those fish, responding as one to a given stimulus. Today the stimulus was the arrival of Jason and Billy.

A wave of faces turned towards himself and Billy as they passed. Jason changed his mental image, now it reminded him more of the creature from the movie the Blob. A horror movie that he was currently right in the middle. Then again, zombie movies were generally considered horror, and he had been living one of those for weeks. Jason slapped Billy on the back, urging him to hurry up, before sticking a foot of steel through the eye of another straggler.

The group had talked their plan over several times, discussing it almost as if they were a committee. The duo, which Billy had demanded to name team Rowsdower, would sneak out with as much as they could muster and find the car that had carried Amy and Crayson. Once they found the car, Jason and Billy, or team Rowsdower, would do whatever needed to be done to whatever was left of Amy's friend. After that, they would lure the horde out away from the back corner of the building before bolting to safety. Mulling over the running he was about to embark upon, Jason was thankful that he had the foresight to have given up smoking. And even more so that he started working out. Even so, he hoped that he had enough energy when the race was run to climb back up the ropes to the safety of their rooftop fortress.

The zombies were slow, stumbling along in their wake as the duo passed. The undead movements jerky and delayed, giving them the advantage of speed. Jason found himself thanking God that they were slow zombies rather than the other kind, before he realized that thanking God for zombies was like thanking a thief for stealing the contents of his pockets and leaving the empty wallet. It was an empty gesture. The thought nearly lead Jason to wonder if he and his friends were in hell and what they had done to get there.

They had all done their own special crimes. Billy said over and over that it was because they had spent so much time watching scrambled Cinemax as teenagers. Lynn had of course disagreed, blaming it on the time where they ordered a hundred boxes of Girl Scout cookies under a false name and address. Douglas had just stated that the line of conversation was stupid, that they were here, it had happened, deal with it. Billy wondered aloud if Douglas had been a serial puppy kicker or something behind all of their backs. Amy clung to the hope that it was all a dream. Jason just thought it was a gigantic cosmic joke on their part, the universe's way of saying 'be careful of what you wish for because you just might get it.' Jason hated irony.

# Jason and Billy were halfway out, along the outer edge of the parking lot when they turned and made a beeline for the center. The adventurers had marked out where the car rested, which was rather unnecessary since the lot was largely empty in the first place. They could see the top, or rather the bottom, of the small compact from where they stood at the edge of the lot.

"Let's get this done" Jason looked back towards their crowd of admirers, both the living and the dead, "we've already draw too much attention as is." He turned on his radio and gave a big thumbs up back to his friends on the roof before patting Billy on the shoulder and moving again towards the center of the lot.

It seemed that Amy was reading Lynn's mind. She broke in, yelling over the radio, "What are you two doing? Move faster, they know where you are." Jason and Billy weren't idiots, at least some of the time, and they followed Amy's suggestion, picking up and sprinting the final stretch, slamming into the car to halt their momentum. Billy dropped into a crouch wrestling with the door to get it open. The zombies were stumbling closer, slowly, maybe fifty yards or so now to the nearest. Billy got the door to the car open and looked inside.

Billy had squatted down next to the car, it had been scorched badly in the fire. Paint had melted and then burned away, leaving large patches empty carbon scorched metal in several places. Billy busted the window with his mace and pulling the door open a crack to get a better look inside, before hauling the door open all the way. "Take a look at this," He said, waving Jason over.

Jason squatted down next to him. Crayson, it must have been him, was still active. The charred zombie was still twitching about. It had sensed their presence and tried turning it's head towards them to, see or hear or smell, they weren't quite sure which it could still do. All that was certain was that Crayson hadn't been resting peacefully for weeks like they had hoped. Blackened flesh flaked off as Crayson struggled against the belt that was still holding him in.

"Aw shit, just shit." Jason said. He took the radio off his belt and said "Hey Amy, no problems, he seems to be quite dead and peaceful." Jason turned his back to the rooftop, blocking the view on the onlookers and made a pistol gesture with his hand to Billy, who nodded and took out one of his handguns and put a single bullet through Crayson's brain and out the opposite window, splattering the passenger's seat with gore from the inside of the man's skull.

Amy's voice came over the radio "What was that?" She sounded nearly panicked, "Is everything alright?"

Billy grabbed the radio, answering his lover "we were just making one hundred percent sure. I don't think anyone wants to make this trip again any time soon." Billy gave Jason the radio and stood up. In his best cowboy voice (which was still terrible) he said, "Well, looks like we got this one pretty well wrapped up, wouldn't you say pardner?"

"Come on, let's get out of here."

"There's one more thing I gotta do." Billy turned to a small group of perhaps fifteen zombies that were a little quicker and had broken away from the rest of the horde.

"Damnit Billy, this isn't the time!"

Winking broadly at Jason, Billy sauntered over to the zombies and began his victory dance, taunts included, all while standing just out of arms reach of the encroaching undead. "Hey there ya big pile of ugly, do ya always smell like that?" It seemed to be lost on him that the zombies were immune to taunts, either that or it was an important part of his ritual of humiliation. Nobody was ever quite sure entirely who suffered the humiliation, the losers, Billy, anyone in the room with him when he did his dance.

Jason wished that one day he could sit back and watch the dance that the friends had dubbed 'The Billy'. Douglas had once likened Billy as having looked like a drunken moose when he danced, no matter which dance he did. The Robot, The Funky Chicken, a waltz intended to grace a fancy ballroom, he always ended up looking like a clumsy backup dancer for some third rate pop star running the county fair circuit. The spectacle was awful, the very spirit of Drunken-Moosedness, as Lynn had later dubbed it. Billy had no rhythm and to be honest, he seemed to only half know what the dances that he was attempting actually looked like.

The final effect was like a train wreck, nobody wanted to see it, but they would be damned if they were going to look away, or even blink. The down side was that Billy always decided to do it at the worst of all possible times. Case in point, he was now doing it in front of a horde of ravenous zombies intent on devouring his flesh.

"What the hell is that idiot doing?" Douglas blared over the radio. Someone was crying in the background, it sounded like Amy.

"I think it's supposed to be the Running Man." Jason mumbled as stood transfixed, hypnotized, the train wreck analogy held.

The dance had gotten more elaborate since the last time he had seen it begun. Evolving beyond the cartwheels and shouts of "WoooHoooo!" that it had begun as. Billy was in the middle of backpedaling while making pelvic thrusts at the zombies when his heel hit the curb sending backwards ass over head. He hit the ground hard, his mace flying from his hand towards Crayson's car.

Then the zombies were right on top of him.

The scream came from two directions at once in a disturbing form of stereo. It echoed across the pavement, being torn from Billy's lungs, and at the same time was blasted through the radio speaker in Amy's hand. Amy threw down the radio and screamed, trying desperately to form something resembling a coherent sentence and failing. Lynn brought the scope to her eye, trying to get a better grasp on what was happening below, but there was a wall of flesh between her and Billy. She panned over to Jason, an expression of horror had spread halfway across his face before freezing. Lynn felt sick.

Billy screamed again. A bloodcurdling sound that burned Jason's ears to hear it. The zombies were getting closer to him and he was screaming louder as they did. This wasn't supposed to be part of the game, or part of their plan. Something grabbed Jason's left arm and pulled. He spun around and found himself face to face with one of the zombies. He clubbed the thing across the temple with the pommel of his long sword. There was a cracking sound and the thing went down. More were to follow.

There were more zombies coming from back towards the Megamart, but they were still far away and moving slowly. Jason turned to face the zombies that surrounded his friend. He sheathed his sword, there were too many to stab or hack at, and instead went to the shotgun.

The first one he shot was a tall skinny man in a ragged brown suit and then a woman in pants and a tank top. Three more and he was out of ammunition with his shotgun with no time to reload. He dropped the shotgun, hearing it clatter on the ground as he nudged it aside with his right foot. His 45s were in his hands almost before he realized that he had reached for them.

Billy had stopped screaming but Jason refused to give up hope. If he got there fast enough... He started shooting, one at a time, carefully, trying to kill each of the hell spawn with one shot before moving on to the next. Zombie after zombie fell, oozing blood and brain matter onto the blacktop. Finally he emptied the magazines of his 45s and switched over to his sword once more, there were just a bare handful left, but they were gathered around where he had seen Billy fall. Jason knocked the creatures aside, stabbing and swinging, rushing to get to his friend. If he got there fast enough... If he got there fast enough... If he got there fast enough.

Billy was dead. The zombies had ripped out his innards and his throat and eaten what they could while he was still alive. He had been screaming for help while being eaten alive. And no help had come. Jason had not gotten there fast enough. Jason threw up.

Wiping his mouth on his shirtsleeve he walked back to retrieve his shotgun from where he had kicked it. He cleaned his long sword off on one of the corpses before sheathing it on his back. He picked it up and started loading shells into the tube magazine under the barrel and then shouldered the shotgun so he could reload his 45s.

He looked up at the roof of the store. Lynn, Douglas and Amy were watching him, waiting for news. He simply shook his head. Amy fell to her knees and Lynn buried her face in Douglas' chest. He knew she was crying, he could almost hear her sobs. There was a scrape on the pavement behind him. Jason looked back over his shoulder. Billy was standing up.

What was at one time Billy was standing up. Blood was running out from his wounds and his eyes were glazed over. He was no longer Billy, but he was still Billy. The creature reached out at Jason and took a step forward. His words came flooding back into Jason's head, he didn't want to be like that. Jason walked over to the where Billy's mace had landed and picked it up.

He had known Billy for as long as he could remember. They were as close as could be. They had done everything together for years. Billy was dead. It was a surreal notion, one that didn't want to sink in. The thought rang in his head like a bell, shaking him to his core. Billy was dead. Jason looked at the creature that had so recently been his best friend. Billy, the zombie, reached out its left hand towards him and gnashed its teeth. The last of its blood draining out of the wounds that covered its body.

Not so soon God, not so soon. Billy was supposed to be there for them until the end. This was not a part of the plans. Oh shit.

Billy moaned again as it stumbled blindly over the remains of the other zombies, the ones that had eaten him alive, as he, it worked desperately to reach Jason and feast himself. The zombie's mouth hung open as it walked, it's head lolling back and forth loosely. Jason heaved a sigh and laughed bitterly. It was a sad turn of events that Douglas was still alive while Billy was dead. Billy had been hoping and dreaming about the zombie apocalypse coming for years beyond memory, while Douglas merely laughed at the possibility as a children's game that they were still playing.

He raised the mace and pointed it at the head of the walking corpse that had so recently been his best friend. With a sharp intake of his breath Jason closed his eyes lifted the weapon into the air over his head and stepped forward. His eyes opened as he brought the mace down on top of his friend's head. Billy's skull collapsed under the blow the bone shattering in a thunderous crunch, leaving the rest of his empty shell of a body to drop to the ground. To lie with the rest of the zombies that Jason had killed while trying to rescue his friend.

"Vaya con dios comrade," he whispered under his breath as he tossed the mace aside, turned his back and walked away to try and find a way through the sea of the walking dead. Back into his fortress prison and sanctuary.

There was a screeching sound of breaks as Jason sat bolt upright. The screams from his nightmare still ringing in his ears. The day looked to be well into the mid-afternoon and he was lying on the bed in the back of the truck. The conversation that he had only barely been aware of as he slept had stopped, along with the entire van itself. He stretched and sat up, turning his neck to see what was going on.

Lynn was in the front arguing over the walkie-talkie. She and Douglas were yelling about what they were going to do next. Kime, the SUV was about fifty feet ahead of the truck and Douglas was driving it. Amy was nowhere in immediate site, meaning that she was probably in the SUV next to Douglas.

Listening to the conversation, Jason learned that the small town in which they had been aiming for, had been overrun with zombies. Tourists up from the south had packed the little burg to the gills most weeks of the summer. At the best of times those people acted like zombies, that they were actually zombies didn't improve matters much.

Now of course they could kill them without getting frowned at by members of the merchant's guild. Come to think of it they would probably have to kill off the merchants guild as well. He grinned at the thought until he realized how bloody he was becoming. It was still bizarre and frightening to think of the zombies as being less than human beings. As being less than living beings.

"How long have I been out?"

Wake, eat, ride, stop, fuck, eat, get drunk and fall asleep.

That was the pattern that his days followed. Dirk wasn't really sure how many days passed. The booze gifted him with that little blessing. Little happened to break the monotony, so all the days seemed to roll together. Sometimes they ran into the walking corpses. The fucking things seemed to be everywhere these days. They would stir some memories up, and Dirk would then repress them by getting drunk.

Fuck. He never swore like that before. Even on his worst day, he kept his mouth clean. It was how he had been raised. Then again, he had never killed anyone either. A lot had changed in the last weeks.

Sometime in there, Chuckles, their idiot comic relief got bitten by one of the walking corpses. He was dancing with one of the females, grinding on her really, when she took a chunk out of his cheek. They had to put him down for good when he got sick, died and became a walking corpse himself before attacking the Chief. That was the only time Chuckles had managed to make Dirk laugh.

After Chuckles died. Or maybe before. Who kept track? The gang ran into a helpless family of Mexicans driving along a lone highway in a van. The gang surrounded the van, demanding that they pull over and pay a 'tax'. A couple of them came out shooting and swinging. There was a lot of screaming. Some of the gang members got hurt. They took it out in blood, killing two of the adults and keeping the rest for later.

Dirk knew what was going to happen from the get go and decided that he would rather not actually see it. He started getting drunk, trying to blind himself to what was happening before his eyes, he tried to stop the screams from echoing in his ears. Worse, the barbaric grunts and laughter of his godly companions.

So, life went on like that. Every time the Mexicans were used, it hurt Dirk. Nearly driving him mad with the pain. He began to hate them for being so damn weak and for hurting him like they did. He wanted to kill them, but they were kept locked away and out of his reach. Maybe if he tried, he could end both of their pain. Instead, opened a new bottled of scotch.

That winter they stayed in a little town that they cleared out of the walking dead. It would be their new home the Boss said, a fortress that they could return to when times got rough out on the open road. They even found another survivor or two to add to their little menagerie. The newcomers fared as well as the Mexicans, and went to join the two who were left in the back of the van.

While in town, the gang split up, each member or couple staking out their own digs. The boss claimed her own, and dragged along the Mexican man. Dirk never learned the man's name, though he heard that everyone called him Jesus. Probably some sick joke thought up by one of his fellow Gods. Gods it turned out were jealous of other deities.

Dirk spent most of the winter drinking. He would have forgotten to eat or bathe if the Chief hadn't sent someone over to take care of him. Usually it was the poor Mexican girl. She was broken by then and the boss trusted her not to flee when given a chance. She was gentle and kind as she bathed and fed him. She treated him with something like love and compassion, like he was her child. Covering him with blankets as he slept. Working hard to keep him alive through the winter. The bitch. He hated her for that.

No, it wasn't her fault. The boss had commanded that he was to be kept alive. He was still big and strong and an asset to the gang. And if the poor little Mexican girl didn't see to it that Dirk survived the winter, well then her brother wouldn't either and her own end would be even worse. The boss would see to that, and so far she had always kept her promises.

One of the gang's toys, toys bieng what they called the human beings that they had kidnapped. Calling another person toy made them seem less human, made the abuses that the gang stacked on much more enjoyable. Well one of the four toys, a man, died that winter. He cut the throat of one of the gang members who wanted to have a little bit of fun at the toy's expense. Oh how the rest of the gang had beaten him. There was little left that could have been recognized as being human.

Gods still? Maybe. But not the human kind. They were little better than animals.

Dirk stayed in his house and drank and wished that he was dead. The rest of the gang too. The sooner the better. Oh how he had hated them and wished that he was strong enough to make that hatred into something useful. But no, all he could do was go on hating.

Then came the spring, when they set out again. The snows were gone, roads clean and the weather warmed. They piled the three surviving toys into the back of the van with a filthy mattress and left their winter stronghold. Dirk rubbed his eyes as he stepped out of his house for the first time in months. The sun glared powerfully, burning his eyes for the first time in weeks. He quickly blinked away his tears and put on a pair of shades, hand-me-downs from the previous Dirk to go along with his blood-crusted bandana. There was a great wide world out there and crimes to commit. The Boss didn't want to waste any time.

# The journey out of town and into the hills was still rather blurry and confused. The parts he could recall butted up on one another, becoming locked together until one passed to the next as if they were the same. Jason remembered freaking out once he returned to the roof and demanding that they get the hell out of the Megamart. Amy meanwhile just screamed, Lynn and Douglas had to wrestle the gun away from her before she could hurt herself. She was still on suicide watch.

# The line of events that occurred immediately afterwards was blank in his mind, aside from the seemingly endless driving punctuated by stops to eat, sleep or pee. He went to sleep in that car and woke up here in the hills. He had functioned along the way, as a sort of automaton, sleeping while he was awake. Lynn told him later that he just seemed to shut down. He had scared her deeply.

Somehow or another, they had ended up in the hills, with two new people that Jason barely remembered picking up. After several days in the highlands Jason's mind finally began to clear once more as the sharp edge of his grief and despair began to dull somewhat. He began to awake once more. The pain was still there, as were the guilt and grief, but they were no longer a sea in which he was floundering.

# So much time had passed since they had seen another human being, living or dead, that they had at last relaxed the rules somewhat. Weapons of course were taken everywhere any of the companions went, whether it was to dinner, or a later latrine visit, or a midnight romp in the woods with a lover, their guns were ever present. Their weapons were what had kept them alive during their exodus.

Even though they were armed twenty-four hours a day, they did relax a little. After just a few weeks in the quiet bliss of the hilly wilderness, they had slowly let go of the second most important rule:

Nobody goes anywhere alone.

# Jason, more than the rest, took the greatest advantage of the newfound freedom to roam the wilds. After months locked in the Megamart, and bleary days trapped in one of the cars, either as a driver or a passenger, he was sure that he had been both during their travels, he had ceased the freedom to wander safely through the forest. The newly rediscovered freedom was neither complete nor carefree, but in days such as these, he took what he could get.

Even in his wanderings around the hillsides, he had a leash or two attached to his collar, keeping him in check. First, he was compelled by the love he had for his friends to call in over his walkie-talkie and check in with them from time to time, to let them know that he was safe. That limited his wanderings to about an eight-mile radius of the base camp. That left a lot of distance to cover by foot and land to explore, but still it chaffed him some to be so reined in.

More importantly, there was the ever-present threat of zombies. It was true that they hadn't seen anything since they had arrived and set up their camp, but chances were that some of the cold bastards would eventually mindlessly wander away from their homes, leading them into the wilderness in search of food to try and satiate their eternal hunger. Just the merest chance of ending up like Billy kept Jason's head up and his eyes and ears open. This held true even when he was in camp and encircled within the embrace of his friends.

The more he wandered, the more he thought. The physical exercise did wonders for the philosophical side of his personality. A side that he had never known existed prior to his becoming a rover. The more he thought, the less he wanted to fall prey to Billy's fate. An obvious conclusion maybe, but one that was repeatedly underlined with each hike concluded.

Jason had taken to leaving his sword and one of his .45s in camp whenever he ventured out for a hike. All the extra gear just got in the way, and it was generally unnecessary. He still took extra shells for his shotgun, a couple spare magazines for his remaining .45 and a heavy bladed knife that could handle anything from chopping wood to splitting skulls. He was armed to the proverbial teeth.

Aside from that he carried some extra camping gear that would ease his survival in case circumstances got hairy. A canteen, fifty or so feet of rope, some fishing tackle, a tarp, and an emergency fire kit rounded out the most important of his possessions. Just incase the Almighty caught him doing something extremely stupid and decided to teach him an abject lesson.

Jason hoisted his bag onto his shoulders. The bag was still heavy, and his equipment weighed him down, building the muscles in his legs and back and expanding his lungs. With all the gear, he tended to clink as he walked, sending the wild life scurrying away as he approached, preventing him from seeing much in the way of wildlife. But it also kept him from sneaking up on and startling any of the large carnivores that still roamed the area. A startled animal didn't always flee as might be expected.

The weather promised to be pleasant that day, and he had a good deal of land to the north that still needed to be explored. There was supposed to be an old stone quarry that had half filled with water that he wanted to locate and explore further. He had heard descriptions of it from friends who had traveled the hills, wannabe hippies who loved the outdoors mostly, and they had come back with stories of their 'adventures'. He knew it was nearby, so he thought he would take a look.

The hills, as the locals called them, were actually ancient mountains. Worn away with the passage of so many millions of years that Jason's mind boggled trying to comprehend the scope of those long eons. The once jagged peaks had been ground down through wind and rain transforming them into speed-bumps when compared to the Rockies. Still heavily forested, with some areas still being virgin timber, it had been set aside a century ago as a state park. A fortunate move that had left vast tracks of land lush, and largely empty of human life, or these days, unlife.

Jason was enjoying the first sunny day to cross the hills what felt like weeks. He had been confined to the little camp for the last couple of days, imprisoned by the steady sheets of a drenching downpour that quenched his wanderlust. Huddling around the picnic table that they had found readily installed in their campground, they played Scrabble and Monopoly. How he hated those two games. But he had played, and done so until his feet felt like they were going to burst into flames because he was unable to scratch the itch that was his wanderlust.

Finally the sun had returned, and the sky was nearly empty of the hated clouds. Jason was once more free to roam the countryside. Birds twittered and the trees whispered to one another as a pleasant mid summer's breeze ran its fingers through their boughs, rattling leaves as it passed. The kind of day dreamed up by sappy amateur poets and then compared their love to and lamented over. It was a good day to be alive.

Jason took the north trail out of their campsite, a winding path that was regularly bisected by the roots of the ginormous pine trees that it wound its way through. A trail gouged into the side of the hill by a strange force often unemployed by Mother Nature, generations of hikers. Trees so large that even with their hands linked, he and Douglas wouldn't be able to wrap their arms around the trunk. They had tried. Getting the sap out of his hair had taken Lynn a week.

The trail went up. Further into the mountains.

Quitting smoking had paid off for him. Though he was winded by the time that he had reached the summit of the hill, he didn't feel as if he was about to cough up a lung. Which was good since he was more than passingly fond of keeping his lungs in his chest. Where they belonged. The heavy breathing was good though, he felt more alive, stronger with each passing day. It was his new addiction, and he no longer wondered why those hippies he had known around school were so fond of the whole 'getting sweaty and breathing hard while outside under the bright fire orb' thing as he and Billy had then called it as they sat on the couch playing video games and avoiding natural light and unprocessed foods.

Billy. Jason was stung by a pang of grief and anger as the name crossed through his mind like a heard of elephants. He had lost his best friend because his best friend for lack of better words had been a giant silly idiot. Not just once. But through his entire life. It was just the last time that had gotten him into trouble. Well more trouble than usual. He played the part of the sacrificial clown, and then Jason shot him in the face.

Now Jason felt the need to go out and walk around the hills until he was too tired to think straight. Exhaustion helped quell the dreams.

The air smelled fresh and piney. Piney? Was that a word? If not, it was now. How Douglas, the rule lawyer, had hated playing Scrabble with him. The mrqitz. 'Ha', he had roared as he set down his last letter tile! Triple word score. Though he didn't get the fifty-point bonus for using all his letters, it did send Douglas sputtering. Define it? Sure, mrqitz: an expression of unexpected triumph during a game of Scrabble.

Lynn nearly wet her pants with laughter.

The air smelled fresh and piney and Jason took up a song, one of Billy's favorites, therefore it made little or no sense to anyone else, an inside joke known only to Billy himself. "This is the song, written for the train chase, this is the chase Rocky and Ken! He tried to kill me with a...Ah sonuva bitch!" He yelled as he tripped over a root, stumbled several steps and nearly fell face first onto the path, interrupting the song with some cunningly improvised new lyrics.

He had been so busy singing, while keeping his head up and watching out for zombies, that he nearly killed himself by tripping over a tree root. There had to be a valuable life lesson in there somewhere. That, or some higher power was just trying to tell him not to sing. Especially not songs from that stupid show with the guy and his two puppets who watched bad movies and made sarcastic comments as they went.

Maybe Lynn was right about his voice and he didn't sound as good as he had liked to pretend. It could be that there was a deity out there trying to silence his voice for the good of the universe. He vowed to keep his mouth shut and instead watch where he put his feet from that day forward. At least until he was standing in a nice safe flat clearing. Then he would both honor and curse his late friend by singing some of his favorite, stupid, songs. No dry and boring funeral rites would do, something fun and inane.

That, after all, is what Billy would have wanted.

Jason leaned out and looked over into the edge of the pit. The mine was even more impressive than he had expected it to be. Really it was just a giant hole in the earth, almost like a crater, one with steep sides. The pit was half full of green water. Jason couldn't see the bottom, so maybe it was more than half full. The cool green water looked inviting for a mid afternoon swim, deep and cool and ever so calm down in the pit away from the blowing wind. The surface was like glass, so far protected from the summer breeze. It was reflecting the scattered clouds as they drifted overhead between the walls of the mine. Jason tossed in a stone, listening to the plunking sound of the splash as it rung off the walls and watching the rings form.

It had been a long time since he had enjoyed a pleasant dip in the cool water. He so loved to swim, causing him to envy the stone he had just thrown. A pity that the mine was probably still poisoned from all the chemicals that the mining company had dumped before the mine had been abandoned. The water did indeed call up to him to experience its cool embrace, as he stood sweating under the hot summer sun. A pity indeed.

He had just sat down to watch the reflected clouds, leaning his head back on his backpack, and catch his breath from the hike when a noise caught his ear. It was far too faint to be sure what it was. He scanned the rim of the crater. The edge of the mine was barren of all plant life for fifty feet, making it easy to quickly look over. There was no movement, and nothing but bare rock all the way around, except for the small shack a couple hundred meters further to the north of where he stood.

He waited for a moment, ears perked and listening to the wind, when he caught the sound again, floating in from the direction of the small shack.

Jason un-shouldered his shotgun and started walking at a quick pace towards the shack, and whatever was making the noise, leaving his camping gear where he had dropped it. He made slow progress over the rough ground, opting for safety over speed. He trudged along, stepping carefully over the small boulders that lined the cliff until he finally got close enough to make out what the sound actually was.

It was a woman screaming.

He immediately picked up his pace. It had been weeks since they had run into any other survivors aside from their small group, and that experience, had left them all with hope of finding other people to join up with. As he got closer, he could make out more details about the small shack. It was old and rather dilapidated. The wooden walls were a weathered grey that spoke volumes about the long years that it had stood alone and forgotten on the edge of the mine, doomed to stare into the green waters below.

He crept up to the edge of the building, the screams were coming from inside, and now he could hear a scratching and pounding on the wall on the far side of the shack. He moved as stealthily as he could, footstep at a time, making no noise until he reached the far corner. Jason slung his shotgun back on his shoulder and pulled out his knife. He stuck the blade around the corner of the shack and used it as a mirror to see what he was up against. One zombie. One lousy zombie. The lone creature was making one hell of a racket, beating against the door to get at whoever was inside. Now was a good time to take care of it, a single zombie should be easy enough to take care of, but then overconfidence could just as easily kill him.

Jason whispered a prayer to whatever deity might still be watching over him, though he had never before really found much use for religion. If he had any luck, the fervent prayer would make up for the earlier singing, neutralizing that deity's annoyance with him. The idea that an all powerful being cared about the littlest details of his life had always struck him as absurd, and as soon as he had moved out of his parents home he had given up going to church all together. But then he was still alive, while it seemed that most of the rest of the world had perished. Worsed that perished, they had not only died, they had been damned to an eternity of walking the earth starving but never dying completely.

If the occasional thank you to a God he had never before seen was required that he wouldn't share their fate, then Jason was more than willing to say thanks, he might even pick up a nice card while he was at it.

The prayer seemed to work, the zombie hadn't noticed his approach. The creature's full attention was on the door to the shack, its full will bent on trying to get through the flimsy plywood door.

Jason could still hear the woman inside crying and moaning for help, her voice turned dry and raspy. That was a good sign, or at least better than the alternatives. Quietly, he altered his grip on the survival knife, making sure that it was both firm and loose before he tiptoed forward. The walls of the shack were too thin to trust a shotgun shell, or even a round from his 45. A bullet might go clear through and strike the woman inside. He didn't have a good log or other bludgeon handy, which he would have preferred, better to keep the thing at further than arm's length. The knife was all he had, so the knife it was. Besides, it was one zombie he was talking about, to shoot it would be a waste of a bullet.

He had always wanted to try something like this, sort of. It had kind of burned in the back of his mind, probably from watching years and years of war movies, combined with the zombie flicks that he had gorged himself on. Sneaking up on his prey with a knife in hand and doing it in, commando style. Except, he wouldn't be going for the throat. Or covering the mouth with his hand to make sure it didn't scream.

Jason lunged forward and grabbed the zombie by the skull, slamming the creature face first into the wooden wall of the shack. Let it eat splinters. Quickly he pinned its body to the door with his shoulder, before ramming the blade into the back of the creature's neck, and sawing until he completely severed the spinal cord until the thing went completely limp against the door. Blood oozed out of the wound, down the thing's neck and onto handle of his knife.

He pushed himself away from the wall and the corpse, pulling his knife out of its neck as he retreated. The zombie slid down the door and made a soft thud as it hit the ground. Jason squatted down over it and cleaned off his knife in the tattered and filthy clothing before re-sheathing it. There was a surprising amount of blood that had flowed for something that no longer had a pulse. Gravity had drained the skull of what remained after death.

Jason examined the body. It had been a man, early thirties perhaps, skinny build, fairly tall. He wore what had been nice clothes at one time, and an expensive gold watch. The wallet said Allen Sutter of Seattle Washington. Allen had a bite taken out of his left arm.

The man was a long way from home. But weren't they all.

He moved quickly. Pulling the Allen's corpse out of the way, he tested the door himself to see how difficult that it would be to get it open. The door was locked, but opened inward. He could still hear the weeping from inside. He knocked on the door and yelled "Are you ok in there? The creature is dead, you're safe now." But go no response. Jason took a step back from the door and then with all of his weight behind him he kicked it as hard as he could, rattling the door in its frame, but no more.

The woman inside started crying harder, and he tried to calm her down once more by telling her that she was safe. With his fourth kick, the door shattered off its hinges and fell down. Jason stepped onto the door and peered inside.

The little shack was lit by a couple of heavily screened windows on either end. The first thing that he noticed has he stepped into the shade was that the stone floor was littered with old broken bits of discarded tools. The second detail to grab his eye was the rafters, they were full of cobwebs. The shack had been long abandoned.

A bright flash of white drew his attention to the corner. There the screaming woman was sitting, huddled with her chin on her knees and tears flowing down her cheeks. She as rocking back and forth on her heels and cradling what looked like the limp form of a small child protectively in her arms.

Jason stepped closer, slowly, like he might have done while trying to approach a skittish wounded animal. Holding up his hands and whispering to her in what he hoped was a comforting voice that she was safe. He was here to protect her and her child, he said as he closed with her step by careful step.

No matter what he said or how close he got, she never stopped rocking or crying. The woman didn't even seem to be aware that he was in the shack with her. She was about the same age as the man, wearing similar upper class clothing. Her hair was a mess and her face red from her time spent weeping. Standing next to her shoulder, he stooped down and reached out a hand and lightly touched her arm. The light pat made the woman jump as if she had been struck She looked up at him for the first time since he had entered the shack.

The woman shrieked and took a swing at him, trying to scratch out his eyes with her chipped fingernails. She screamed, "Stay away from us you monster!". Jason blocked a second punch with his other hand and backed away a full meter and a half. He kept up soothing speech, continuing to try and calm the poor creature down. He also tried to get a better look at the child, it was breathing slowly and shallowly and looked as if it was asleep in her arms. Jason would have bet his shotgun and all of the shells that he had for it that the poor kid had been bitten too and was dying in its mother's arms. The mother didn't look like she was capable of dealing with the death of her child.

"Are you alright ma'am?" He asked in a voice so low that it was nearly a whisper. "I took care of the zombie that was chasing you and was outside of the shack, it won't bother you or your child again."

She looked up at him with pure venom burning in her tear-reddened eyes. The woman scrambled to her feet, pushing Jason backwards against the wall so that he lost his balance. With a swift movement she picked up her child and fled through the doorway and into the sunlight, pushing Jason aside with superhuman strength as she passed him by. Jason stumbled back against the wall of the shack. There was another anguished scream followed by "Murderer! You won't get us too beast!"

Jason stumbled through the front door of the shack, giving chase to the demented lady, just in time to see the woman and the child disappear over the edge of the cliff. Falling into the pit below. He didn't bother looking over the edge, there would be nothing to see, or so he told himself. He just turned around and began to make his way back to the camp and the others. He had had enough of being alone in the wilderness for the day, what he needed now was a stiff drink and conversation with friends to drown out the madwoman's screams as they rattled through his skull.

It was the very tail end of the afternoon when Jason stomped back into camp. His feet were hurting from the long day of tromping across the hillsides, and singing, like some sort of clumsy Julie Andrews. With the lovely singing voice of a wounded moose, he had marked Billy's passing and tried to forget the horror he had witnessed at the mine pit. He had forgotten his earlier vow to watch where he was going, and tempted the repeated wrath same vengeful god as before by singing more of Billy's favorites as he returned home. The god seemed to be willing to let him be, as if he had already suffered enough for the day.

Jason passed easily between the bumpers of the two cars that they had line together to form a windbreak. Summer storms tended to be breezy, especially on the mountainside. The five people, his three friends and the two newcomers, were there, sitting around the picnic table and chatting and playing euchre. Euchre was an insane card game played with only a partial deck of cards.. Jason could never make heads or tales of the rules, something Billy was merciless about bringing up every time they went out camping together. Euchre after all was the game that everyone at camp was required to know how to play. It could be said that euchre players weren't playing with a full deck, but that joke got old pretty damn fast.

Lynn was sitting next to Amy and holding her close. A few short weeks had passed since Billy had gotten himself killed while doing her a favor. And a dark favor it was. Amy blamed herself for his death, both deaths in fact. Crayson had died too, in an overturned car, and from a bullet to the brain. Billy had done the honors for the poor bastard. First he had burned, then he had arisen, only to have Billy shoot him in the head as he hung upside down in the car. Jason never told her. She was till acting catatonic.

Then there were the newcomers. The friends had rescued them from a miniature horde of zombies at some little Podunk named Barlsville that they had passed through on their way north. The two had barricaded themselves inside a Stop and Shop gas station and were overjoyed to see living breathing human beings once more.

They were, it turned out, on their honeymoon. Newlyweds. The Guinness Book of World Records, had there still been one, would have no doubt listed this as the worst honeymoon of all time. To be trapped far away from their homes in a gas station surrounded by the living dead.

Ralph and Maggie were sitting on the bench across from Lynn, Amy and Douglas. They were foreigners, it was obvious from their speech. Their use of the English language. It wasn't an interesting accent, or a penchant for inserting words from their first language when they were struggling for the correct phrase that gave them away. They spoke perfect English. Textbook English. With full sentences and no slang. They stood out like Ronald McDonald on a farm full of Amish people.

Ralph was a large man with brown hair and blue eyes and a strange obsession with wearing loud and tacky Hawaiian shirts. He had a happy face. Maggie was a small slim-hipped Korean woman with black hair and eyes, she favored tight blue jeans and loose fitting white t-shirts, reminiscent of the 1950s, to go along with a cheerful face of her own. Two happy faced people living at opposite ends of the world, met, fell in love and then married. A miracle in modern times brought about by modern technology. Destined to make happy faced babies, and live out a long and happy life together. And then only to be spat on by the universe when the world went to hell in a handbag. The thought often made Jason laugh silently, long and hard. Bitterly. Ralph and Maggie on the other hand still looked happy.

The two of them were both hard working and intelligent, he was a trained engineer and she was working on her MFA in painting. She didn't know what she was going to do with the degree either, Jason had asked. But it was her love. Besides, Ralph would have made more than enough for them to survive off of.

Despite the hardship, they were bright and optimistic people. After all the hell they had gone through, they still had one another. That made them priceless.

They were accepted as friends immediately.

Jason dropped his backpack to the ground next to the bench, and sat down heavily next to Maggie and across from Douglas.

"You're back early." Lynn said questioningly. She knew how much the wanderlust pulled at him and how little he had liked staying around camp on days like today. "Something wrong?"

He slapped a mosquito that landed on his hand and prepared to help itself to his precious bodily fluids. The breeze had died down, and there was little of anything left to drive the greedy little bastards away. "I ran across a couple of partial survivors."

"Partial survivors?"

With a quick glance to Amy and back he said, "Their bodies made it, the minds didn't."

Douglas was puzzled and asked, "You mean zombies?" Jason just shook his head and then told them about his adventure up at the quarry. Leaving out some of the choicer bits about the singing and tripping, and then the repeating of the singing and the tripping.

Maggie gave him a firm hug, and Ralph patted his back, while Lynn and Douglas each squeezed one of his hands. Even Amy reached out and touched him, tears in her eyes as she did it.

Douglas broke the silence with a deep sigh, and then "No time is better than the present then. We need to get back to what we were discussing before. What do we do now?" He wasn't referring the short term, whether or not they would have yet another bloody round of Risk, or perhaps do some fishing. He was referring to their long-term plans. What do they do now that they had left the safety of their Megamart home and fortress? Now that they were away from their rocky and barren little island in the stormy sea of the walking dead.

Jason for one wasn't sure, except about one thing, he didn't want to find another Megamart, or the local equivalent.

Winter was on its way and they were living in tents on the ground in the hills. They had food enough for an entire year, even with a dozen more people to feed. They had made sure of that before they had left the tatters of civilization behind. They had guns and ammunition enough to both hunt and protect themselves should the need arise. They had clothing to keep warm and some basic shelter. But they were living in tents. Tents wouldn't keep the cold out, or more importantly, the zombies.

Jason was the first to speak, "I say we stay up here."

"We live in tents Jason, it isn't safe." Douglas shook his head.

Lynn voiced the most viable alternative "Well then let's build a damn cabin."

"Build a cabin?"

"Or more. We're intelligent, college educated people. We have an engineer and well a painter with us. We can build a cabin. The ignorant backwoods yokels of days gone by were able to manage that much."

"They had training."

"We'll get books, we'll get tools, and then we'll do it. In the end, we'll know how too." Everyone was nodding, what he was saying made sense, in a romantic sort of way. Harkening back to their roots and all that. "We have something that they didn't, power tools." Douglas' eyes gleamed. He wasn't a handyman, but he did love tools. He, Jason and Billy had shared that, bonding over it in the house wares section of the Megamart. Grunting like a Tim Allen character. Lamenting, 'Oh if we only had power think of all the things we could build with this.' Leaving Lynn to shake her head and thanking whichever higher power still watched over the foolish remains of humanity that there was no electricity. The age-old anti-bb-gun adage, 'you'll shoot your eye out kid' would have been altered to read, 'you'll chop your fingers off idiot.'

"In the spring, we can plant crops, and raise animals. All we need to do is find a place with enough water that we can defend easily from all comers."

"All comers?" Maggie asked.

"The living and the dead." Jason was a cynic, and held no faith in humanity. He had seen enough movies, but more importantly he had dealt with enough real life assholes, and he was aware what his people were capable of. It was all in the history, with nobody to watch over the weak, the strong would take what they wanted. He and his friends, his family, were too few to be anything but weak

They spent the rest of the night talking, discussing, debating and planning. They had all agreed early on that they would follow along with Lynn's plan. Living in the wilderness struck some deep chord in the friends. Robinson Crusoe came up frequently. It fit quite well too. Even Amy, for so long silent, spoke up and offered a few single word suggestions. Earning smiles all around and a fierce hug from Lynn.

First, they decided, they would have to find a place that would work. Jason had an idea of where to start looking. He had found a nice valley, a few miles to the west, with a small stream running through. Enough water to supply their needs, not too much for them to really need to worry about it flooding them out in spring or after every big storm rolls through. It was lightly wooded on one slope, so they would have enough wood to build with, but the land would be fairly easy to clear, and the other was grassy.

"Look," Douglas said, with a gleam in his eyes, "We can head back to that little Podunk and get at least some of the stuff that we'll need. They had a small hardware store, hammers, nails and perhaps a couple of chain saws. But for anything more complex, we're going to need to do a major raid, and soon. July is nearly over, winter will be coming sooner than we would like to think."

"First things first Duggy (he hated being called 'Duggy'), we need to find our new homestead. Everything else is moot if we don't have a good safe place."

"Any ideas Captain Cook?"

"Aye, I found a valley, about two miles over that way," he pointed vaguely westward, "a couple hills over." And then he told them about the valley. Smiles slowly spread from one to the next, life a fire jumping from one tree to another in a bone-dry forest. They agreed that it sounded nice and wanted to see it. "We'll have to wait till morning, The hike took me at least an hour and a half to complete on my own. It'll take much longer with all of us going."

They had dinner that night, canned soup, roast rabbit and potatoes baked in the camp fire, while talking over their plans for the next day. Really there wasn't much to plan yet, but the prospect of actually doing something, of having a real and substantial goal, made the entire group bubble over with enthusiasm.

The talk died off eventually and was replaced by yet another board game and the noises that usually accompanied it. Friendly taunts, the clatter of the dice as they rolled across the surface of the table and the curses over a bit of bad luck. Lynn had even gotten Amy to play, another first for the day. They were playing Monopoly again, a game that Jasone had no real taste for and a tendency to quit soon after the last of the properties was purchased, whether he was doing well or not.

Jason listened to his friends play from the comfort of his favorite folding camp chair with a bottle of water at his side. He sat with his back to the table, and the lamps that it held. He took a swig of water, his beverage of choice these days since he still hadn't managed to acquire a taste for warm beer, and what they had left anyhow had finally started to go a bit flat and skunky. The thought of it almost made him spit involuntarily. There he sat, near, but apart, seeing to his gear. He cleaned and oiled his shotgun before putting it in his tent next to his sleeping bag.

Next came his knife, he cleaned it once more, and then again, to make sure that it was spotless. It was a tool that he used for every day purposes, he had it out and often, and wanted to be as assured as he possibly could that if he accidentally cut himself, he wouldn't be infected. That would be a step or two beyond simply being cringe-worthy faux pas. It would nearly step into the realm of defining irony. World's greatest swordsman, accidentally chops his own leg off. That sort of thing.

The best part of being out in the wilderness was the stars. He and Billy and the rest had really enjoyed gazing at the stars after the world had finally gone dark. Here though, it just seemed more natural, they didn't have the final haze of civilization clinging like a bubble overhead. They had a wall of trees and a roof of stars. Oh, they couldn't see as much of the sky as they could while sitting on the flat roof of their old fortress, but it still felt better out here regardless.

Jason leaned back, his face skyward. The stars were appearing one at a time, blinking into existence and taking their place in the deepening sky. He inhaled deeply, taking in the smells of the campfire, their dinner, and the trees around them. And there he sat, absorbed in the rotation of the heavens above as the constellations passed by his small window in the skies.

It was a while, he wasn't sure quite how long, before he noticed that Amy had left the table and joined him in watching the stars. At a loss for words he quietly asked, "feeling any better?"

She looked over at him and nodded. Sighing and looking at the stars again she remained silent.

It was Amy who finally broke her own silence. "Why did he do it Jason?"

"Get himself killed?" He asked. She nodded. "Because Billy was an idiot." Surprise widened her eyes. Not the answer she had expected. "Honestly, I'm astonished that he didn't get himself killed before. Did he ever tell you about the time that he spit in a football player's hamburger while the player was standing right in front of him, watching?"

She nodded again. Smiling. It was a funny story, especially when Billy told it. Though, true to form, it had a tendency to grow with each telling. The last time Jason had heard it told, not only was the entire football team in line, but the manager and the owner of the McDonalds were standing right behind him. "It was one of my favorites of his."

"Mine too. But it just illustrates, Billy was an idiot."

"The story wasn't real was it? I mean Billy wouldn't have done..."

"It was mostly real. I was there when it happened. And it was a good thing that he had those long legs and was a fast runner. Even as a smoker, he could still be pretty quick when he needed to." Astonishment again, and the disbelieving head shaking that followed the expression. Surely no living human being could be that much of a glutton for punishment. "That was just one of his stories. He had a couple times when he actually got caught. Both of them, ironically enough, while he was doing his victory dance."

"If he was an idiot, then why did you hang out with him?" Anger now. At Jason perhaps, but most of it at Billy for getting himself zombified.

"Why did you?"

"Because he was funny, and nice and so very alive." The choice of words didn't sound right, especially after what happened, but he understood what she had meant. Billy was an idiot, but he was a lovable idiot.

"Yep." Another pause. "Billy got to see one of his fondest dreams come true. Sick as that may sound."

"Who would be fond of dreaming about the end of the world?"

"You mean besides a half a billion Christians?" It got a laugh.

"I never thought about Christians being eager for the end of the world."

"They were, for some of the same reasons as Billy, myself and Lynn."

"What reasons do you think those are?"

"A test, one of who you are and your worth. It is often said that disaster brings out the best in some and the worst in others. What disaster can beat the end of the world as a test?"

"Do you think he passed or failed?"

"Neither, both. He survived for weeks, which is better than most people did. And then he went and pulled a Billy." Jason felt his anger at his friend's death beginning to slip away.

"So he did well for the remedial class?"

"That's our Billy." Another laugh. It was good to hear her talk. Better yet to hear her laugh. They didn't need to lose another friend.

Jason scratched himself as he opened the door flap to his tent and crawled out to meet the day. The morning was bright. A heavy dew coated every available surface. Jason figured that it was only a couple hours past dawn, since the dew was still intact. He stomped his feet into his hiking boots and set about getting some breakfast.

Jerky, bread, some dried fruit and water to wash it all down with. It wasn't the most creative or delicious meal that he had ever eaten, but it was quick, easy, stopped his stomach from growling and would keep him on his feet all day long.

The others were slowly stirring, coming out of their own tents to meet the day and shaking off what was left of their night's sleep. Jason stretched his muscles and walked around the camp as he waited for his friends to eat. They all chattered happily, talking about the adventure ahead. The ones who were remaining behind to mind the camp saying how envious they would be of those lucky enough to go and see their new home.

It had been decided that Lynn and Ralph would be joining Jason. Lynn was their leader, something even Douglas had finally accepted, and Ralph, Ralph was supposed to have been trained how to design and build things. 'Things' being rather non-specific, Jason hoped that it applied to simple structures. Whatever they didn't know, they could learn from books. If they could lay their hands on the right books.

The small party said its goodbyes as it set off hiking, following Jason's lead. They kept in contact as long as they possibly could before the hills blocked the radio waves from their walkie-talkies. From then on, they were alone. The thought seemed to make both Ralph and Lynn very uncomfortable, which was understandable, it had bothered Jason a little in the beginning as well.

It took them about two hours before they topped the final crest that stood between them and Jason's valley (it had grown to almost mythical proportions in the minds of his friends since he mentioned it the night before).

His friends looked quite pleased with what stood spread out before them.

The valley lay between two long ridges. They stood atop the hillside that was covered in grass, and over across the way there was the forest that he had vividly recalled. The valley was blocked off by hills on three sides, but open to the world on the fourth, where there was an old, nearly forgotten dirt road that ran along the creek about halfway along the valley's length before it faded away. The creek itself was probably about ten paces wide, clear and shallow and leading up further into the hills beyond. At the back end, there was a little canyon, from which the creek came, they might be able to use it as a bolt hole should events take an unpleasant turn.

"Where does that road lead to?" Lynn asked, while pointing at it. The road was largely obscured by the forest, that had grown thicker at the far end of the valley.

"I'm not sure, I didn't ever follow it. I would guess that it comes out at a paved county road."

"We should take a look," she said. "That way we can find this place from outside, we can drive in."

"Aye," chimed Ralph. "I am not in bad shape, but I would not look forward to carrying everything we need from the camp to here."

"Well, lets go then, light is a wasting, and we still have a hours of walking to do." With that he took something that was half a step half a jump. Or would have been had he been gifted with even a bit of grace. Instead it was more of a yell "oop!" while tumbling down a hillside head over heals.

"Jason!" Lynn screamed, jumping down after him. Watching him tumble and trying her best to keep up without adding her own acrobatics to the show.

He ended up on his back, about fifty feet away from the crest. He articulated his feelings with, "Sonnuva bitch." He could hear Ralph, as he slowly picked his way down the hill after Jason and Lynn.

Lynn was standing over him, "are you all right?" She asked, her voice matching the worried expression she was wearing.

"Yeah. Good thing it's not a uprising of fast zombies, I would be quite screwed."

Ralph laughed. "At least we are not doing this in the alps, you would have called an avalanche down on us." He offered his hand, which Jason accepted, getting pulled once more to his feet.

Jason dusted himself off, mostly to try and remove the evidence of the non-existence of any cat like reflexes. "At least we wouldn't need to worry about being eaten alive." Despite the spill and a couple of bruises, and his mortally wounded pride, Jason was perfectly fine. He took the lead again, though he got the feeling it was mostly because that his two companions just didn't want to be between him and the valley floor where he would likely come to a complete rest.

With their final step off the hillside, the valley took an easy slope downwards. Jason looked backwards and stifled a groan. It was going to be a long and sweaty walk back up to the top, even worse if they added the valley. He had already walked the hill before, and knew it was a long, seemingly endless endeavor. And then there was the hike back to camp. Just thinking about it was making his legs feel sore.

They set a comfortable, not too quick, nor too slow. Angling their way to the creek and towards the road that stood on the far bank. Despite the growing patchwork of clouds that sporadically blocked the sun and cast drifting blocks of shade across the valley floor, it was a pleasantly warm day.

The three friends made it to the creek. It was a swiftly flowing over a bed of rounded stones, with the occasional bolder sticking out. Jason looked around, and could see the occasional shadow of a fish as it was fighting the current. Jason was about to set his pack down on the bank, keeping only his shotgun and what he carried on his belt. All in hopes that they would be back quickly, when Lynn stopped him. "We might not have time to come back for that," she said. Reluctantly he agreed, thanking his foresight that he had not over packed. Also praying that they wouldn't return after all so that they wouldn't have to climb back up that damned hill.

They took off their shoes and socks and waded across the creek. The water moved quickly around their shins, pushing them gently but firmly, trying to carry them downstream with it. It was pleasantly cool and refreshing after spending a morning with his feet roasting in his hiking boots. The sun had come out again, warming his face even as the water cooled his legs. Jason stood for a moment, his eyes closed, taking delight in such a simple pleasure.

Lynn called him and told him to hurry up and join her and Ralph, they were already on the bank and walking along the road, letting their feet dry before they put their socks and shoes back on. Jason looked down at the creek one more time before hoisting himself out of the water and joining them. They would have to come back this way later, and he could enjoy getting his feet wet for a little while longer when they returned again.

The road had been disused for a long time. Years, or even decades, perhaps. Only the tire ruts, packed down to be nearly as hard as stone, were free of the tall grasses and weeds that thrived so broadly across the valley floor. It was too late in the season to need to worry about ticks, but the other flies were about and making their presence known and bringing annoyed slaps every couple moments.

The three of them followed the road downwards, there was a slight incline in the valley floor that led to the canyon in the back. They were walking in the ruts, to avoid the scratching weeds.

Jason caught himself foolishly pretending to be a tightrope walker for a moment. An old game he had played during his childhood. He smiled sheepishly at his own silliness and was grateful that he was bringing up the rear.

Lynn and Jason took the left rut while Ralph was on the right. It was an arrangement that Jason enjoyed, since he had a chance to watch Lynn's butt. Theoretically anyhow, since she was wearing loose fitting dungarees. Pants which seemed to work hard to reveal little about what lay beneath. Still she had a nice sway to her hips as she walked. Jason enjoyed that too.

He was surprised and relieved to realize that his love sickness had finally died down. It left a minor twinge in his stomach as it departed. The minor twinge was a regret over the loss of what could have been. But that was nothing compared to the burning ache that he had nearly been consumed by back at the Megamart. He was free of his own stupid Emo tendencies, for the time being, and it felt good. So did watching Lynn's ass.

After about a mile or so of walking, the road entered a heavily wooded patch that covered the valley's mouth. The trees ran up the hills on both sides of the valley, and Jason guessed that they probably extended beyond even further, that they were on the edge of a sizable forest.

Within the trees it was a little gloomy, which made the small patches of sunlight that filtered through the leaves that much more dazzling. The sound of birds and squirrels filled the air, interrupted only by the occasional gust of wind as it flowed through the trees disturbing the leaves and making them dance. The animals would fall silent as the companions approached and then take up their chatter again as they were safely passed by. It all made for a wonderful summer day stroll in the woods. Jason breathed deeply and enjoyed it. They all slapped away clouds of mosquitoes.

The road ran for at least two miles after they entered the tree line. Twisting and turning a bit, so that they would have easily lost their sense of direction had they not been watching Lynn's compass. They stepped over the downed trees, counting them as they went, a little under a dozen between the edge of the valley and the road beyond. None of the trees were huge, but most of them would be far too large to drive over without damaging their vehicles, they would need to get a chainsaw quickly and remove the trees before their true work could begin.

At last, they came to the far edge of their small forest. The trees ran almost all the way up to the brink of the county road that bisected it like a river of stone. The road was losing its battle as the trees began immediately on the far side.

The county road was a decrepit thing, numerous potholes, the pavement at the edges were crumbling away, losing the battle against nature. It looked as if it had been long ignored by a county road commission long strapped for cash. A forgotten road would be perfect for their needs. As soon as they could figure out where they were, they would be on their way back to the camp to sing the glories to the remaining friends. They crossed over the bridge that spanned their stream and walked along the road, their road, back towards their base camp, looking for signs.

The closest mile marker said twenty-seven, They passed more signs, dip, bump, lane ending: merge left. They had walked another couple of miles along the side of their road before they finally came upon what they were looking for, county road 551. It was lying forgotten face down in the grass, were someone had obviously crashed into it years before. Nobody had even noticed that the sign was missing. Their hopes rose that they found a safe and deserted home.

It appeared that Lynn had decided that instead of backtracking, that they would just make one giant circle. A lot of leg work, but it beat retracing six miles worth of steps, even if Jason wouldn't get to take off his hot boots and comfort his roasting feet in that wonderful stream. Jason and Ralph followed silently.

Their long hike was beginning to wear on all three of the companions when Lynn called for a break for lunch. Their first since they began. Jason felt as if he had run a marathon as he plopped down in front of a tree and leaned back. Lynn and Ralph followed his lead, with contented grunts.

Jason took off his boots, and then his socks and wiggled his toes. Letting them taste the pleasant breeze. They ate their meal together, chattering away about their plans for their new home, enjoying the sun and the wind. It was the first really happy moment that Jason had had since Billy had died. He had his friends, his future was ahead of him, and he had goals to accomplish. There was little worse than drifting through life without any form of challenge or meaning.

Jason had just finished putting his boots back on, and getting his pack onto his back when the roar of engines flared up off in the distance. Lots of engines. Ralph looked hopeful, standing up and looking in the direction in which the sounds were emanating. Jason and Lynn felt differently, they each grabbed their friend by an elbow and pulled him back into the woods, and pushed him to the ground behind some bushes.

"Why are we hiding?" Ralph asked.

"We don't know whether or not their friends."

"What better way to find out, than to step out of the woods greet them?"

"Any way that doesn't get us robbed, raped and murdered. Or worse."

The caravan drew near, passing before them. Traveling from the direction that they themselves were headed in. There were several motorcycles out front, followed by a mixture of other vehicles ranging across the spectrum from sports cars to the Winnebago that brought up the rear. They all looked rather new, and Jason suspected that they had been acquired in the same manner as Kime, his SUV.

Lynn in the meantime was busy flicking through the channels on her walkie-talkie to see if she could by chance pick up any conversations that they might be having. Jason and Ralph recognizing a good idea when they saw one, did the same. Ralph was the first one to get a hit. Channel 15. "...y boss, where too next?"

"Sized town up the road a ways, they should have some good pillage, unless someone else hit them first."

"Well iffin someone steals our stuff before we get there, we'll just go out and take it back." A chorus of laugher erupted from the handsets, fading out as the caravan put more distance between itself and the friends. Ralph looked ashen. "I guess that settles whether or not they were friendly." Jason mumbled.

The caravan roared past at sixty or seventy miles an hour. The posted speed limit was fifty-five, though that had no meaning anymore, and Jason suspected the only reason the people weren't traveling faster was for safety reasons. They had places to go, but were in no real hurry to reach them. Any faster, and they might miss an opportunity for an easy score. Or on this road, lose control and crash.

It was, fifteen minutes, a half hour, an hour? Jason wasn't quite sure how long, before they dared to get up, dust themselves off, and then step cautiously back out towards the road. Lynn and Ralph stood for several minutes, staring in the direction that the marauders had gone, before they managed to make themselves move any further.

They had suspected that groups of raiders and marauders would rise up with the undead. The concept had been long romanticized in cinema within the apocalyptic horror genre, the various zombie films had roving bandits, as did Mad Max. Jason and Lynn realized how stupid it was to base their life expectations off of what they saw in the movies, but then there was a certain amount of truth even in the most far-fetched fantasy.

Historically, on the tattered edges of civilization, pirates and bandits were a plague to be lived with or fought off. An unpleasant fact of life that they now stood on that very tattered edge, fully aware that they were sharing it with the pirates. In the zombie movies that they had so loved in the past, life always got harder and more dangerous after the bandits revealed themselves to the heroes of the story. As if life wasn't difficult enough before.

Sure, there was enough food out there that would be ripe for the taking. There was no reason for one group of survivors to cross another, and try to pillage, for a long time to come. At least there was no physical reason. Humans, it seemed enjoyed the strain caused by personal disputes.

Zombies, they were a mindless force of nature, like a storm or the ocean, something to respect and if at all possible avoid. They had no guile or cunning. There was no spite or hatred. They existed only to feed themselves, to 'live' by their remaining instinct which was to eat, no matter that food did not effect them. They were frightening, but not really mind-numbingly so. As long as they were handled with respect for what they were capable of. Something that Billy had failed to do.

Living breathing warm-blooded humans on the other hand, they were nasty pieces of work. Especially when there was nobody around to watch over their shoulders and make sure they behaved themselves in a civilized manner. Another sad fact of history. People often developed an us against the world mindset which allowed them to do terrible things to other human beings.

Worse of all, the marauders had come from the direction of the home camp. What if they had seen the smoke from the cooking fire? The same thought had occurred to Lynn. Even Ralph's usually optimistic expression was strained with worry.

The three companions regained their composure and took to the road once more. Though it would appear that it was no longer 'their road.' Lynn pushed as quickly as their strained feet could manage, cringing with each step.

Looking over their shoulders, straining their ears for the sound of an engine off in the distance. A half hour passed as they trudged along the roadside, and nothing came. They began to relax a bit. Or as far as they could with the worry eating at their stomachs. They made a left turn at county road 400, headed north. As they walked, their route remained as near to the edge of the forest as they could keep it. Just in case.

The sun seemed less full of warmth as they walked along the last bit of blacktop to the final dirt road that led to up into the hills to their campsite. Jason unshouldered his shotgun when they approached their final turn off into the hills. One of the few landmarks that he recognized from the blur that filled the first days of their flight from the Megamart. They were probably a mile and a half away from camp at the very most.

Lynn fumbled her handset back to the channel that they had agreed upon before they left the camp that morning. "Hello, is anyone there?" Silence. The moments stretched out. "Douglas? Amy? Hello?" Lynn looked about ready to cry, when Amy's voice came over the airwaves, she sounded cheerful "Hey Lynn, where have you been? You guys are late. Where are ya all at?"

"We're about a mile away, on the road into the camp."

"What're ya doing there?"

"We decided to take the scenic route. Have Douglas get something cooking for dinner, it's been a long day."

"Rodger Wilco! See you guys in about half an hour!"

"Oh yeah, would one of you guys scan the CB radio while you're waiting?"

"Can do. Is there anything I should be looking for specifically?"

"Just folks talking."

"Will do!"

"Bye dear." With that the radio fell silent. They, all three of them, breathed a sigh of relief. Ralph hugged Lynn across the shoulder as a smile spread back across his face. The camp was safe. Their friends and loved ones were safe.

"We'll have to design some sort of defenses against that." Jason said, stating the obvious. But it felt better to get it out in the open. Lynn and Ralph nodded their agreement, both of them were stuck in their own little dark fantasies, trapped by what might have happened.

Douglas had prepared a nice hearty rabbit stew for their return. The vegetables were all canned, but the meat and potatoes were fresh. Jason inhaled deeply, enjoying the aroma as they finally returned to the base camp. This would be so much better than the cold biscuits and jerky that he had taken for lunch.

"So, how did it look?" Douglas asked as they dropped their bags. Amy, Maggie and Douglas all wore looks of excitement and sweet anticipation painted on their faces. Lynn ran to him and squeezed him almost hard enough to break him in half. Jason didn't want to ruin that just yet. So they told them about the valley, everything. Ralph had already come up with some rough plans and he filled them all in. They would need to cut down a lot of the timber, to use it for a large rough log house. They would also need to build a garage to protect the vehicles. Later in the spring they could build a barn before they went off to find animals to house in it. Crops could easily be grown on one side, probably corn and potatoes, they could put in a vegetable garden as well. Hard work, but it would be a good life.

The excitement remained. And then Jason filled them in on the rest. The motorcade of marauders looking for whatever they could get. Lynn hugged Amy and then went back to holding Douglas as Maggie sat down in Ralph's lap and squeezed him tightly. There was ten minutes of silence and contemplation, or perhaps just an appreciation of being held. Jason, standing alone, left them to it. Some things were just more important than talk, and that closeness was important.

They talked a while about the new development, the marauders, before they decided that they would put off their move for a couple of days. They loaded up the truck and the SUV anyhow, with everything that they wouldn't immediately need. There was also another change, everyone started carrying their weapons and keeping them close at hand. The past few weeks they had gotten soft and stopped going armed when they were around the camp. There had been none of the walking dead right outside their doors to remind them what the world was like. Now even Amy had a gun at her hip, one of Jason's .45s, and she looked ready to use it.

They enjoyed Douglas' cooking. He was actually quite good with cooking over a campfire, something he had put down to his interest in all things medieval during college. And then passed the night with their ritual of board games and conversation. Jason broke his habit and actually joined them when they started setting up the Risk board. He played recklessly and did well, in his estimation. He didn't last long, but he made sure that Douglas and Maggie didn't long survive him. Attrition Risk. Better than the real thing, and a lot faster.

The sky was completely dark, there were too many clouds for him to watch the stars so Jason stayed under the tarp with his friends, reading by lantern light until his eyelids began to feel as if they were lined with lead. He set down his book and made his way to his sleeping bag, waving good night to the few who were still awake.

That night his sleep was troubled by dreams of bandits and zombies and sometimes zombie bandits. He fired his shotgun hundreds of times as he struggled and used his sword dozens more before the light of the morning interrupted the bloodshed, leaving him almost as exhausted as when his head had hit the pillow the night before.

Jason was the last one out of bed that morning. Unusual these days, but not unheard of. He normally liked to get an early start, there were places to go. The start of a partly cloudy and a slightly breezy day. Breakfast was cold stew which was still good the second day running and Jason ate heartily, especially after his night's adventures. All the preparations for their move were made, at least what they were capable of managing at the time. Ralph was drawing up plans for their new home. Nothing detailed, he was just sketching up ideas and making lists of necessary supplies and materials with Lynn and Douglas. Until they were ready to leave there was little else to do aside from sit around and wait.

He was dressed and fully ready for another day. It looked as if wandering was in the cards, mostly cause Jason had stacked the deck in his favor and then made up the rules of the game. He had his pack on his back and was about to take the first step on his daytime adventure when Lynn called out to him to stop. She and Douglas stood up from the table and joined him at the edge of camp.

"We'd like to ask a favor of you." Lynn said.

It was a strange way to make a request, and Jason was suddenly on guard in case they asked him to start dating Amy or something. She was nice, but she wasn't his type. Though considering the fact that she wasn't a zombie, and she was single, maybe she was his type after all. Human females were in high demand these days, even weepy emotionally fragile ones who had been a little too close to his late best friend.

Yep. And he had thought his love life was bad before. "Whatcha need?"

"We'd like you to marry us."

"Well I'm honored but you two aren't my type."

"Jason!"

"Sorry, I was channeling Billy there for a moment. But I'm still confused. What is it that you want?"

"We'd like you to officiate at the ceremony."

"Ceremony? I figured that you two were already married. You've been joined at the hip, as it were, for a couple years now. What else do you need?"

"We've never said any vows or anything." Douglas said, clearing his throat. "We would like this to be more official."

"Official? What for?"

Lynn punched his shoulder. "Tradition you asshole, it's romantic."

"Ah, ok."

"Will you do it?"

"Sure, but only if I get to invent the ceremony. Nothing tasteless, but I'm not doing anything dry and religious either. Do you want to give rings or other tokens?"

"No, we don't need any." They said as one, smiling one of those sickeningly cute couple in love smiles.

"When do you want to do this?"

"Tonight, after you get back." They both looked happy with his acceptance, Douglas squeezed his shoulder and Lynn nearly broke his ribs with a bear hug. Douglas was going to give him a hug, but Jason stopped him mid-step.

He was officiator. Great. Now all he had to do was figure out what this was all going to be about. Jason started to sweat a little. Starting a new tradition was a big risk, if you did something really stupid and it caught on, countless generations could end up looking stupid for centuries to follow. Which was, come to think of it, pretty damn funny. Billy would have loved this.

Jason hiked into the hills until he found a nice little stream to sit down by. He loved the sound of running water. He found it soothing. There, he took off his boots and leaned back against a tree, watching the stream, the trail and keeping an ear out for any approaching steps. He thought about the three weddings that he had attended over the course of his twenty or so years. One was for an aunt, one for a cousin, and the third for a friend. Two of them ended in divorce, one of those didn't even last the summer. Jason didn't expect Douglas and Lynn to end in divorce. They were meant for one another as much as anyone was had ever been. That was a sappy thought. Very sappy. But in all likelihood true.

Was marriage even relevant anymore? Lynn and Douglas were both Agnostics, so they weren't too worried about pissing off an invisible god with their sinful behavior. Looking around at the state of the world, Jason doubted that a god could be any angrier with humanity than it already was.

They wouldn't need to marry to assure the safety of their children. The friends lived in a community now, a large extended family, and were all dedicated to raising any kids that came their collective way. They were forming a small, close knit village. The idea actually excited Jason. He loved little kids as much as he disliked the adults that they eventually became. They were cute, and interesting, and funny, and smart, and always willing to learn. Any kids who were born to either couple would have at least six parents to watch over them. Poor rugrats.

They didn't have any worries about the scorn that society put on unmarried folks. The six of them were society. Amy, Maggie and Ralph didn't care that they were unmarried. And as far as Jason was concerned, they were already married. Ceremony and pretty words or no.

There was only one real reason to go through the ceremony. To hold on to the past. To what humanity was and to the tail end of their culture. It was an attempt to keep the past alive. This marriage was no symbol of their love, the two of them didn't need another intangible symbol, they had that every time they held hands (to say the least, Jason didn't want to let his mind wander onto any further physical expression of affection that they might enjoy, and rather did enjoy. Tent walls were rather thin after all.). To keep going with one of the oldest, and some would argue, most important value. They were trying to grasp a degree of normalcy. And they came to him for it. Damn. If Billy were around he would have killed himself with laughter by now.

Now was the time to build new traditions. Jason gave the concept several hours thought, sprinkled with a liberal measure of zoning out and watching his wiggling toes as his feet were tickled by the long grass. The ceremony would have to represent himself as well as Lynn and Douglas. With some Billy thrown in as well for a memorial to their lost friend. He watched for a while as a rabbit crawled through the grass on the other side of the creek, fleeing as he spooked it. Finally an idea hit him what the ceremony would be.

Jason put his boots back on, heaved himself up off the ground and proceeded to hike back home to the camp. There was a hitching to be done. He always thought better when he was exercising, and indulged regularly in his old habit. His mind crunching over the details as he hopped from stone to stone back down the side of the mountain. He kept an eye out as he walked and thought, it was automatic now days for him, like breathing. And tripping over roots. Damn it. Stupid arrogance.

Jason timed his arrival to be just before sun down. He wanted everything to be right for that evening. For their communal trip into the realm of the spiritual. As he got closer and closer to the camp, Jason could smell the wondrous meal that his friends had been working all morning and afternoon for. More rabbit stew, roasted fish, baked potatoes. It would a feast to remember.

"Shall we begin?" He asked as he set down his backpack. Sitting down to take his shoes and socks back off, not for any spiritual or religious significance, but just because it felt right to air his hot and sweaty feet. This was to be an evening about doing what felt right.

Lynn smiled when she saw him and waved for everyone to follow her over. She had woven a plait of flowers, daisies mostly, there wasn't much else to be found on the mountain side, and placed the ring atop her own head in place of a wedding dress and veil. Jason walked to the western end of the camp and onto an outcrop overlooking a steep cliff into the valley below. There he stood, with his back facing the sun, before motioning everyone to their places. Douglas and Lynn stood before him, facing one another with their hands intertwined. Amy, Ralph and Maggie stood next to one another facing Jason.

"My friends. My family," Jason began. "Here we are, looking on human civilization and possibly the human race, as the sun sets on it for the last time. A short run in the grand scheme of things, only eight thousand years or so, a fair bit longer for the race, but once again, a drop in the bucket compared to the age of the universe. And a wild ride it was. With wonderful highs and terrifying lows. Perhaps we will rise again from the ashes like the phoenix of legend. Or this might just be our final death rattle. We have before us two good people who are willing to fight. They have been together, through thick and thin, mostly thin." He paused for the laugh before going on, "They have asked me to make it official, so here it goes, please look into one another's eyes. Douglas repeat after me, 'Lynn, is you is or is you ain't my baby?'"

Douglas repeated his words "Lynn, feel free to answer when you're ready." Jason said as soon as Douglas' mouth closed.

Lynn replied with a resounding, "I is your baby."

"Now Lynn, please repeat after me 'Douglas, is you is or is you ain't my baby?'" She did so. "Douglas, you know the routine." Douglas smiled, never moving his gaze away from hers, and said "Lynn, I is your baby. Completely, heart and soul."

"You two were already joined. It was your own decision long ago. This was a mere reaffirmation of your choice. Not even a formality. Because we no longer have need for such things. I have no holy or temporal authority other than what you two have given me. But with that authority I will command you this: Protect one another. Nurture one another. Raise smart and happy children. But try to keep it down a bit when you make those children, because your neighbors need to sleep. May you live happily ever after. May we all live happily ever after."

The bride and groom embraced and kissed, an old tradition mixed in with the new. "Hey, I didn't say that you could kiss yet." Lynn and Douglas split apart, looking abashed and waiting for the rest of the ceremony. "Ok, now you may kiss."

Amy was crying tears of joy, for a pleasant change. Ralph and Maggie were holding hands and smiling, at Jason, at the newlyweds and at each other.

Douglas cocked an eyebrow, "Is you is or is you ain't my baby?"

"Buggs Bunny has never steered me wrong. Though I do not plan on trying to plug someone's rifle barrel by jamming my fingers into it."

"Thank you Jason, it was beautiful." Lynn too was crying tears of joy.

The festivities lasted long into the night. It wasn't every day that they had a wedding in their little group. There was singing and dancing (Amy even managed to pull Jason in once, but only once, he had two left feet and preferred to watch). Maggie played a bit on her guitar, though she was in sore need of practice, she pulled of a passable rendition of 'Ba Ba Black Sheep' which by then Douglas was drunk enough to sing along to. And add some crazy steps of his own. Or maybe he just tripped. Billy would have said that it was a song at his level of intellectual development, then Billy probably would have joined in as well. He was never one to miss out on a chance to make an ass of himself.

They finished out the night's festivities with a round of the board game Life. Jason wanted to slap himself for agreeing to play along, and he made the best of it by playing the lesbian couple and their four daughters. Drunken board games. Bored games? Whatever.

Life, in his humble opinion, which nobody else seemed to share, was a stupid game. Despite the imagined glories that the lesbian couple brought to his mind. It was a game that exemplified the worst aspect of the American dreams. The whole concept was based in getting to the end of life and accumulating the most shit possible. The best house, the highest paying job. He who has the most stuff when they die wins. The entire game was tallied in terms of dollars earned. Everything had a dollar value.

Happiness? Contentment? Education? They meant nothing. All that mattered was getting more money and a better house than the other players. The whole experience was twelve different kinds of fucked up. But at least he had the lesbian car. They kept him company, and made his dreams happy ones that night. Six lesbians. Jason himself. One car.

The group had a slow start the next day. Moving day. Everyone was a little sluggish to get moving, cursing their hangovers, quietly, and promising that they would never drink again, also quietly. The sun was well up making it late morning by the time they eaten breakfast and had the camp packed. Getting all three cars, Ralph and Maggie had brought along an aging station wagon, turned around and back down the trail was a bit tricky, but they managed it and before noon they were back at the little Podunk where they had met and picked up Maggie and Ralph. A half hour drive away from their campsite.

The village was just as they had left it. The bodies were still in two rough stacks on either side of the doors to the little IGA grocery store. No scavengers had bothered corpses in the intervening weeks and they had begun to rot, further. The smell did much to keep the small party away from the IGA until the end of their chores.

The village, wasn't even a village. It was a nameless crossroads that housed a gas station/grocery store, a pottery studio, a small hardware store, and a sporting goods shop and a little over a dozen houses. The crossroads was there merely as a stop over for the vacationing tourists and sportsmen on their way to their summer cottages in the hills.

The hardware store made their first stop. They were planning to build a house, or from what Jason recalled from Ralph's sketches, a fortress. To do so, they would need to pick up enough tools to keep six people busy. They loaded shovels, hammers, nails and anything else they could lay their hands on and thought would come in handy.

The two most important implements that they found were the pair of gas-powered chainsaws and the electric generator. Electricity. They had been without it for so long. The generator opened up the door to a whole selection of power tools that made Jason drool. He couldn't help himself. It just happened.

Jason had never been handy with tools, or overly interested in shop class. But he had begun to twitch with anticipation as they loaded everything into the cars. It must have something to do with his Y chromosome. By the time they finished picking the bones of the hardware store Douglas' truck and Jason's SUV were packed to the gills. Maggie and Ralph were over half full. Sure, there were a few items that they didn't necessarily need. But Lynn had put her foot down when she found Douglas and Ralph petting the table saw, keeping the extravagance to a minimum. Or so she thought. Ralph and Douglas vowed to come back for the saw one day, even if it took them weeks or years.

The companions then turned to the sporting goods shop to fill the rest of the empty space. They had a number of firearms already. More than they would ever need. The store though had different odds and ends that would come in handy. Ammunition and camping supplies. Lynn and Douglas had mentioned something about taking up fishing in their little stream.

Jason took a couple of nice compound bows, and as many arrows as he could cram into the remaining crannies Kime's stuffed interior. They also scored a pair of snowshoes for the each member of the party. You never know when you might need to go out in the winter months. Finally there was the cold weather clothing and blankets and other necessities that they hadn't thought of looting from the Megamart.

When they finally left the Podunk behind, the interior of the station wagon was packed, with new acquisitions piled onto the luggage rack on the roof and held in place with a tarp. Unloading all three cars would take an hour in and of itself, at least, but they wouldn't need to worry about finding more supplies for a while. Until it came to actually building their homestead. They had found tools and equipment, they were just short on actual lumber and materials. A log cabin might sound quaint, but Ralph said he preferred to work with modern compounds to keep things safe and simple. There was another trip in their future.

The three cars turned off the highway and onto their little dirt road which was easy enough to find, even though they had failed to leave a marker for themselves. The first fallen tree was about a hundred feet into the trees and around a bend in the road, which gave them enough room to hide all three cars from the road in case any unpleasant guests should happen to pass by.

Looking at the overcrowded truck bed, Jason was thankful that Lynn had had the foresight to pack the chainsaws and the spare gasoline in the rear, next to the door. The thickest tree across the road was about as big across as Jason's waist, the smallest was about the size of one of his legs. With Douglas and Ralph cutting, and Jason and the Lynn were set to rolling or draggin away the sections, while Amy and Maggie stood guard at their rear. Clearing all of the trees took them better than two hours. There they stopped for a break to eat lunch and rest.

There was a small clearing in the woods that Ralph had found while they were eating lunch. The clearing started about a hundred and fifty feet beyond where the road finally disappeared into the earth, in the wooded half of the valley. It was about two hundred feet wide and fifty feet deep, making it the perfect place for them to build their compound. Jason did a small celebratory dance. They wouldn't need to clear any more trees for the time being. He had had enough of that for the day.

With a couple tarps, the corners tied to nearby trees, the companions set up a simple shelter to keep the rain off of themselves and their supplies. Unloading the vehicles took longer than expected, every square inch was packed and getting everything out was like playing a game of Jenga.

By the time they were finished with unpacking, the sun had nearly set and they were all exhausted from a day of hard labor. So they enjoyed the night, and wished that they had brought along the picnic table from their old campsite. On the upside, there were no board games. So they instead filled the night with talk about their plans for the place. Some pipe dreams, others they could make a reality. Jason thought that a catapult would be a great idea. Too bad Billy wasn't around, he would have loudly agreed.

Ralph went into an extensive list of what they would need to get before they really started construction on their home. Lumber, roofing shingles, concrete, windows, furniture and storage shelves. Not only what they needed to put together the outside, but also fill in the interior and make it comfortable. He also put together his dream list of materials that he could only wish for. Jason was glad that they had Ralph along. He would never been able to think of half of the details even given a month to plan.

Ralph outlined his building plan for the group. One main living area and kitchen that took up most of the ground floor. Most of the space would be wide open, with a high ceiling. Ralph also pointed out the pump with a line leading to the creek directly in the kitchen so that they wouldn't need to fetch water by hand. They would have to burry the line so that it didn't freeze with the coming of the winter. And even then, maybe it still would. If they could manage, Ralph had big plans for drilling a well. The water would be safer, cleaner and less likely to freeze in the winter. All he said that they needed was a special machine to do the work for them. Good luck with that Ralphy boy.

His plans called for putting a couple of bedrooms at the rear of the living area, and a loft above for extra sleeping space (where Amy and Jason would be). It would suit their needs well for the short term, but come the spring they would want to build outbuildings for the couples to live in, and just use the main building as a communal area.

They would need a wood stove and chimney. Insulation for the walls. Ralph wanted to dig a hole in the ground and put in a concrete floor. Concrete mixed and poured by hand in buckets. The description of all the labor made Jason's back hurt just hearing Ralph talk about it. There were only the six of them, and they had no power equipment, bulldozers and the like. They would be doing most of the work the old fashioned way. The task was beginning to seem insurmountable. He didn't say anything though, as he sunk into a minor depression. After all, it was his idea to begin with and everyone else seemed so excited by the prospect.

Jason cut him off from his list, "this is a hefty list of materials that you're giving us."

"We want it done right don't we?"

"Yes, yes we do. The problem is, where do we get it all?"

Lynn cut him off. "How about we wait a few days, and then follow that marauder band? They were headed towards a bigger town they said. The only city out this way is Eagle Rapids, which will probably have one of those big box hardware stores, if not more than one. We can loot till our hearts content there." As usual she had a smashing idea. The group voted and decided that they would give the bandits a couple days head start and take off themselves, which was the only thing that stopped them from piling into Kime and going.

They spent those two days making more plans, and finally getting to work. Ralph had them dig out a large rectangular hole near the edge of the clearing. He wanted room to expand in the future before they had to start cutting down trees. The hole would soon make up the foundation and first floor of their new house.

All of their digging gave them a hole that was three feet deep towards the bottom of the slope nearest the creek and seven at the top. Nearer the deeper end, they found solid bedrock. Ralph was happy about this. The rock would make a sold foundation, even more so than a foot of concrete. He who builds his house on rock and all that jive.

The second floor would look as if it were rising out of the hill, while the first would be largely hidden under ground. Surrounding the first floor with earth would help regulate the heat and the cold as the seasons changed, it would insulate the house a little better, making life more comfortable. Ralph Also planned on

There was sod to bust, roots to hack out, soil to move away. It took all six of them the better part of that first day to get it done, and the rest of the day to collect rocks from the creek to use as a foundation of sorts.

Digging a hole, especially a giant hole large enough for a house, was a Herculean task and Jason wondered aloud, and often, why they were digging a hole in the ground in the first place, why not just flatten it out and build atop that? Ralph finally told them all why "You've seen the cowboy movies right? With Clint Eastwood?"

"I've seen a few."

"Well the bandits always get around to attacking the house right?"

"Yeah, They did that in the Outlaw Josey Whales."

"Well, if the bandits ever come here, we'll have a whole lot of earth between us and them when we go to shooting back at them." Jason thought it over, shut up, and redoubled his efforts.

Summer passed and fall came. Thousands of civilians had been taken in, though the company and the captain had no real use for any of the people. They were just penned into the civilian barracks, the largest of the warehouses in the district.

"The captain wishes to speak to you corporal." White said, standing in the doorway to his bunk. Trying to loom and failing as usual. He looked more like a monkey pretending to be a gorilla. Ash put down the Odyssey. Another loan from Sarge. He wanted to take back his comment about Sarge being like Odysseus, smart as the man might have been, he was also dumb as dirt. Sometimes he made Ash look like a mental giant. Really, to go out of your way to piss off the gods, that was just dumb.

But then, that was what Avery had done. And so he had paid the price. What a terrible price it had been.

"Alright. Lead the way sergeant." Sergeant White. All of captain Arseneau's favorites had been promoted to sergeant and taken off of any duty that didn't involve looking out for the captain's best interests. Or their own.

Tex and White no longer shared the hippy chick. She had been too used up and abused. Finally one day she had snapped and attacked, giving Tex one helluva scar under his eye, a pity she had missed it and his heart. They beat her to death. And then found other girls to take her place. The other girls fared about as well.

Keep your head down, and your mouth shut. It got harder all the time.

White walked through the doorway and sat down at one of the chairs near the desk. Ash came to a stop just outside, waiting for permission to enter.

"Come in corporal." Sarge said as Ash stood at the door waiting to be admitted. It wasn't so much a thought for privacy or general courteousness that stayed his feet, but more a growing dislike for being in the captain's presence. You never knew when that was going to get you shot, or worse yet, lowered into the pit like Avery. The pit. That made his hair stand up on end. He'd much rather be beaten to death than to suffer that. The pit was a public execution where they cheered your death on.

"Corporal James reporting as ordered sir!" Ash stood in front of the desk and saluted captain Arseneau.

"I see that, corporal." The captain replied with a sneer. White smirked and leaned in his chair, lifting the front two legs off the floor and resting the back against the wall. "Come, have a seat next to sergeant White." He made the rank clear. The captain was still angry with him over the mess with private Martin. With the captain being crazy, there wasn't much chance that he would ever forgive Ash for that.

At least the captain hadn't shot him yet.

Thank God for small mercies.

Ash sat at attention waiting for the captain to speak. If it took an hour of him sitting with his back straight in the uncomfortable wooden chair before the captain told him why he had been ordered to the office, then he would sit for an hour in the uncomfortable chair.

"Sergeant, how is the roundup going?" The captain, according to rumor, had ordered thousands of zombies to be rounded up and then packed into the ground floor of every building in the immediate area that he wasn't planning to put to use to house the growing population of their community. The brunt of the work was performed by civilian laborers, using their bare hands. If one happened to get bitten, then there was just one less zombie to find and one less mouth to feed.

After the ground floor of a building was packed as tight as was dared, then the doors were chained shut and they were left to their own devices. A hundred different rumors and theories drifted through the camp as soldiers and conscripts alike tried to figure out why the captain would order such a thing. Ash just figured it was because he was crazy, but he didn't say anything, he didn't wish to end up like Avery.

"I think the work going fairly well captain. We've finished the first floor of every building within a two-block radius of our location in every direction with exception of across the river."

The captain sorted some more papers, putting them in neat and orderly stacks. Who knew that there could be so much paperwork with all the world shot to hell? Ash didn't. But finding out didn't surprise him much either. Army types loved having lists and reports to read and file and forget before ordering a new one to be written.

"Good." The captain turned back to Ash. "Corporal," the captain began as he set down a stack of papers on the desk. "We need you for an escort mission that will culminate in an attack on..." Culminate, what the hell does culminate mean. He looked at Sarge who mouthed 'End with'. Ah. Ok, an escort mission then they were going to attack and take over an unfriendly village.

The captain would call it an enemy village, since anyone who wasn't under his direct command seemed to be the enemy these days. His command seemed to be getting more and more brutal, especially to anyone who wasn't either part of his original company or conscripted afterwards. Even then, you weren't guaranteed safety. Competition to join the ranks had become fierce, even to the point of murder. That was until the captain sentenced murderers to go to the pit. Rapists too. And thieves. Most especially traitors. Traitors got savaged before their final sentence was carried out.

To the soldiers, he lavished wealth and privileges. If they saw something they wanted, they were free to take it, as long as the object of their desire didn't belong to a fellow soldier. Even if who they wanted didn't wish to be taken. The free hand with his troops was how he bought their loyalty. Only murder or treason brought around any real punishment, and a light one compared to what the civilians received. They were shot in the head. One bullet and it was all over. Rather than days of a slow painful death. Rank had its privileges, Sarge had often said. Though some how Ash didn't think that this was what he was talking about. Except for treason. That was the same all around. As Avery discovered.

Maybe the soldiers of his company wouldn't have even dreamed of taking such bribes in normal times, but these weren't normal times. Even Sarge had been shaken to hell by the collapse, and Sarge was the strongest and bravest man that Ash had ever met. The feeling that had taken over the company was that of 'the world is ending, so I'll try to get my kicks before the whole shithouse goes up in flames.' Tex and White exemplified the company's new company. Ash hated it.

Ash just did like he always did and followed Sarge's lead. That way he didn't really have to think. And he managed to stay alive in the process.

"You will be expected to suppress any enemy activity within the compound, and help install Stanley as the new leader. If anyone gives you any trouble, then shoot them. Is that understood corporal?"

"Understood sir."

"Any questions corporal?"

"How many soldiers will be under my command captain?"

"None corporal. You'll be the only soldier. The rest will be conscripts under Stanley's control. About fifteen in all, including Stanley."

"Will I be under Stanley's command then sir?"

"No, you will be separate. An observer there to add your firepower and training to the mix should something come up. Your duty is to see Stanley to his objective and then return here with your report."

"Will they be armed?"

"They will have some of our older rifles with a couple of cans of extra ammunition. Those who don't have M-16s will be carrying whatever they can scrounge."

"Where will we be going sir?"

"Stanley will tell you that when you rendezvous with him."

"One more question captain."

"Ask it private. Sorry, slip of the tongue. What is your last question corporal James?" Slip of the tongue. Yeah, right. Ash wasn't certain why the captain hadn't demoted him, or shot him, or even tossed him into the pit. He wasn't going to second guess. The captain got crazier with each passing week, as if his brain was devouring itself. He was also going to need to keep an eye over his shoulder when he was with Stanley. He didn't trust that man. Even Tex and White didn't seem to like him.

"Sir, what is my purpose on this mission? If I'm not going to be in command, and without any backup to escort a mission of conscripts?"

"Your mission is to get them there and report back to me the status of the mission and Stanley's command. Does that make sense corporal? No, it probably doesn't. But I'm feeling magnanimous so I'll let you in on a piece of my plan so that you don't feel so left out." The captain sounded if he were talking to a whiney child. Ash kept his face straight and his mouth shut. "I'm going to use Stanley and his men like sheep dogs, and have them herd any civilians they find back towards us. Those who don't comply immediately will be bitten to speed them on their way. And like a sheep dog, Stanley will be out there protecting the herd from wolves. Is that clear?"

"Yes sir. Perfect sense. When do I leave?"

"In about two hours time. Get your gear ready. And report back here before you go."

"Yes sir." Ash stood up and saluted before returning to his quarters.

He grabbed a meal first thing. All of his necessary gear had been stowed in battle ready condition for weeks just in case orders came on the fly like now. Really, he didn't have much to take along anyway. He didn't know when he might next get the chance to eat any more than he knew where he was going.

In two hours, he was back in the captain's office, gear on his back and rifle in hand. "Reporting as ordered captain." He said, saluting from the doorway.

"Prompt as usual. Very well corporal. Stanley and his men are gathering out in front, go meet them and tell them that I have high expectations that they will perform their duties as ordered."

"Yes sir!" Ash saluted and did an about face, before trotting down to find Stanley.

The next day, they all took a much needed rest. Jason resumed his wandering. This time leaving the shotgun, and taking the bow instead. He had seen an abundance of game wandering the hills during his travels. Deer mostly, and though he wasn't big on venison, he was beginning to tire of eating rabbit or canned beef every day. He wouldn't touch the canned poultry with a ten-foot pole. That stuff was just an outrage against the majestic deliciousness that was the noble chicken.

His legs, back and arms and, well to put it shortly his entire body, were all still tired and sore from the digging the hole and hauling rocks the day before. But he felt good, good enough to go out hunting anyhow. Even considering that success would require dragging a deer carcass through the woods.

Jason packed light. Making sure to add a folding saw to his normal gear. The saw would make his life easier to get rid of as much weight as he could for the return trip. He had enough foresight, guided by an innate sense of laziness, to know that much.

Finding a balance, while walking through the forest, was difficult for Jason. The balance being - how to watch where you put your feet, all while trying to keep an eye out on the territory that you're passing through. It was easy enough to find actually if you were smart. All that was required of a hiker was simply to slow the pace. Jason figured all this out as he began his hunt and he walked the trails that the deer and other animals had etched into the hillsides. Here roots and exposed rocks caught his toes, causing him to stumble and let out a stream of profanity.

Four or five such embarrassing occurrences were required before he changed his pace. He had spooked yet another small herd of deer, when finally figured out exactly what he was doing wrong. His mistake was so blatantly obvious that he slapped his forehead in a cartoonish gesture of disgrace. Jason walked along slowly along the trail from that point on. He was still too clumsy of a woodsman to be said to have stalked as he threaded his way through the trees, with an arrow knocked in his bow and ready to draw. He had already lost two arrows, firing them at spooked game, he wasn't in the mood to loose a third until he was certain he could score a hit.

He had made his way to the far side of the hill from their new camp, when Jason came upon a large grass filled clearing where a herd of deer consisting of a large buck and his harem of does, were grazing on small leafy plants. He stepped on a twig, snapping it with a loud crunch. The deer looked up staring at him, searching for the source of the alien sound. Their ears pricked, they scanned the trees. Jason stood stark still, sweating and staring back. Willing the dumb animals to go back to eating. All while thanking whichever gods were fond of killing defenseless woodland animals that he was downwind from them. If they caught his scent, it would be all for naught. That much he had learned from his years of watching television.

Minutes passed before the herd decided that there was no threat and returned to the important business of grazing. Jason crept closer, slowly, watching carefully where he placed his feet with each step. He picked out a doe one the edge of the herd closest to him. She was a little smaller than the rest and perfect for his needs. He raised his bow, drawing back the arrow as it came higher, bringing it to bear on her chest.

He loosed the arrow.

He felt a rush of exhilaration as the doe fell to her knees, trying to fight the inevitable. Her herd bounded away and vanished into the woods, leaving her to her fate, as it had always been with grazing animals. Jason stood up, slung the bow over his shoulder, drew his knife and walked over to the doe. She was still thrashing about, still not willing to surrender to her fate.

Jason cut her throat. Ending her pain quickly as the life-blood drained from her still thrashing body. It was all he could do for her. Sadness replaced the exhilaration. He had grown used to killing zombies, creatures that had one time been his fellow living humans. But this was the first time that he had killed an animal that had still been full of life. In the weeks in the mountains Douglas and Lynn gathered the rabbits that they ate.

He stood quietly for a moment, thanking the animal for the meat, the short prayer of thanks seemed like proper thing to do, before setting to work once again. This was another first for him, Jason had never before cleaned and prepared an animal after it was dead. His mouth began to go dry as he delved his hands into the bloody work. Jason suppressed a feeling of nausea as he removed the internal organs, leaving them in the field for the carrion birds and insects. He had always been told not to waste food. But he couldn't carry the entire carcass back to camp by himself. He cleaned off his knife and the arrow, putting them back into his belt.

Jason hoisted the carcass onto his shoulders and began the trek back. He was near the crest of the hill so this time he went straight over rather than around. There was no need to be quiet or slow, so he stomped through the woods, smashing through brush and leaving a trail with his passage.

The top of the hill offered a beautiful view of the surrounding countryside, though it hid the valley below. He was breathing hard by that time, uphill with a hundred pounds of deer on his back, the ordeal made him glad that he had given up smoking. He stopped and enjoyed it for a moment, he was in the middle of nature and free, before pressing onwards, hoping to get home soon and unload his burden.

His friends waved at him as he entered the clearing and walked around the giant pit that they had made for their home. Lynn was trying to pull fish out of the stream her new fishing pole. Amy and Maggie were sitting on the bank chattering away as they wached. They were talking and giggling loudly enough for Jason to hear their voices, if not what they were discussing. Douglas and Ralph were sitting in the shade, going over lists once again. Exactly as he had left them. Those were too men who dearly loved lists.

Jason walked the last few feet and dropped the deer in front of them. He then set down the bow before leaning against a tree and sliding down to the ground. They looked up from their work and saw the deer. "Alright, venison! Where did you get her?" Douglas said.

"On the other side of the hill, a nice clearing. There was a herd of them. You guys wanna finish preparing the meat? I need a nap?"

"Sure, I got it. This is going to be great!"

He looked on as Douglas took care of the rest of the deer, skinning in and then butchering the corpse and dividing the meat. Jason wondered if he could ever kill a human being in cold blood like that. The deer had been tough, especially after he shot it. He pushed the notion from his mind. Best just to do what needed to be done, and not ponder too much on it ahead of time and then just do what needed to be done.

"I'm going to need to turn most of this in to jerky, and quickly. Else it will spoil and be a waste."

"Ok, you do that. Do you need help?"

"Not really." Good. Jason leaned back further and let his eyes close. The hike out had been pleasant, but the one back had been murder. Sleep took him quickly.

He was shaken awake by Maggie, her smiling pretty face hovering over his own. It was suppertime, and they were having a venison roast, with more potatoes. Home fries this time. He sat up and helped himself. The meat was far better than he remembered. The first time he had eaten venison, had been an unpleasant experience. Maybe you just needed to kill the animal in order to enjoy it completely. His friends cheered his success on the hunt and complimented Douglas on his cooking. Lynn calling him a regular Betty Crocker. If all their plans fell into place, life in the valley looked to be a good one.

Jason took another helping of the roast and thanked the deer once more. He didn't think much of religion, but a little spirituality didn't hurt.

Only a few days passed before they were willing to poke their heads out of their valley and continue with their plans. Jason hoped that with the passing of those days that they had gained a buffer between themselves and the gang that they had briefly encountered earlier in the week. The six of them piled into Kime, armed to the teeth, with Jason driving, and headed towards the city.

Eagle Rapids was a good-sized city. A population of over a hundred thousand souls had made it their home. That much they knew, though nobody had visited it yet in all the years that they had collectively lived in the state. The city was largely a summer playground for the upper middle class and the wealthy, and there hadn't been too much draw for anyone else. It wasn't a huge metropolis of teaming millions, but it was bigger than the town that they had lived in for so much of their previous lives. Eagle Rapids it was named, though there weren't any eagles within a hundred miles or so, and the rapids, well there was a river, but it more resembled a long snake like lake.

The town was situated on a plain beyond the northern edge of the hill lands where they had taken up residence. It had grown by leaps and bounds over the years and had sprawled out to cover the face of the closest hills all while straddling the Eagle River which lent the city it's name. Surrounded by wilderness, at least wilderness to the standards of the folks who lived in the civilized southlands, Eagle Rapids' main industry was recreation. Making sure that the wealthy folks who came to visit for a few weeks every summer were able to live out their wilderness survival fantasies. In a safe environment.

The sheer size of the city gave them hope that it would have at least one of the huge chain hardware stores. Or maybe even two. A giant hollow box filled to the ceiling with everything that they could ever possibly need to build their new homestead. Just the thought of all that hardware made Jason start to drool a little, as it tickled his Y chromosome kicked it into high gear.

The city was closer than they thought. A mere sixty-seven miles. Jason watched the distance tick away, marking each mile as they drove. At least as the crow flew. Dodging around cars, and avoiding the small towns along the way as best they could, it took them more than two hours. Jason didn't mind, it gave him plenty of opportunities to test Kime's four-wheel drive capabilities. And to stick a arm out the window, wave a fist and yell 'wooooh!' as he did. The fist waving 'wooooh!' yelling, just seemed like the right course of action at the time, though it annoyed all of his passengers to some degree.

The family would need far more room than any of their vehicles could offer individually or collectively. So the first and most important task ahead of them upon finally making it to the city, was to find one of those do it yourself moving truck rental businesses. With a big truck like that, they would only need to make one or two trips, though they might consider more just for fun.

They expected to see more living zombies moving around when they entered the city. They were rather pleasantly surprised to find the streets relatively empty of active zombies. Seeing the occasional solitary zombie here and there. Jason wondered aloud where all the zombies had gone off to, at least until Ralph pointed out the increasing number of dead ones lining the roadsides. On closer inspection they found that none of the corpses had just lain down and died under their own violation, they were all sporting rather nasty head wounds.

The marauders had apparently cut a path through the jungle of human flesh. If they followed the trail for too long, they would likely find something even worse than the undead. The living sometimes had more repugnant inclinations that mere cannibalism.

Jason was all for driving around the city, until they found a truck to liberate. Lynn slapped him on the head lightly and told him to pull into the first private driveway that they came to. She and Douglas got out, and a few minutes later came back, cleaning gore off their weapons, and with a phone book in hand. Sure, take the easy way out Jason thought. But daylight was a burning and it would save them time, and hopefully help to keep them from accidentally finding the seedier parts of town.

"Ok, there's one on Euclid Avenue, off to the east. We'll need to turn left on Cheshire right up here, then drive about five blocks." Douglas said after he finished flipping through the pages to find the map in the front.

So they went. They rolled down the windows, and those who could reach, stuck out their melee weapons, braining the walking dead as they passed. A simple precaution that they decided to take to keep their back trail clear. Staying alive meant being cautious and thinking ahead. But it was all a gamble. A line of fresh corpses would be an easy trail to follow should the bandits still be in town. It made Jason's guts rumble with worry.

The YouMove store was easy enough to find, even in the forest of signs. A forest with several different levels of canopies. So many signs, and all of them fighting one another for what they seemed to feel was their rightful share of attention. Garish things made out of brightly colored plastic. The signs were the same from one town to the next, only the smallest burgs escaped the clutter, and even then it wasn't a complete escape. Still, no traffic to worry about, they had time to look, and six sets of eyes with which to find.

With a left on Euclid and three more blocks they pulled into the YouMove. There was a line of bright orange trucks, each seemingly bigger than the last, just waiting to be taken. They settled on a twenty-four footer and sent Douglas and Ralph in to find the keys. Haley stayed back and looked through the phone book for a hardware store. There were two of them in town, Big Box Company and Mega-Tools. Haley chose to visit Big Box first, it was closer, and it was on the way to Mega-Tools.

The moving truck led the way with Kime following as close behind as it could. Lynn called out instructions over the radio, though those were few since the store was straight ahead further on down Euclid. The Bog Box was perhaps two miles away. Two miles of road cluttered with cars and still moving zombies. Jason could feel the anxiety building. The truck blocked his view of what lay a head, and the road behind them was slowly filling the zombies.

The anxiety stayed with them until they pulled into the parking lot of the Big Box. Jason found himself startled at the number of zombies inhabiting the parking lot. The Megamart across the highway being crowded he could understand, the Megamart was always busy. But where there really this many people intent on finishing their home remodeling when the apocalypse struck? Most of them seemed to be pressing at the door, unable to get in, while a few wearing brightly colored vests seemed to be wandering the parking lot at random as if they had gotten lost while collecting carts.

Amy prayed aloud with "please let this be all of them," as she hoped that the inside of the building would be empty of the walking dead. Lynn joined her in the prayer, and Jason silently added his own.

Douglas lead them to the left side of the Big Box, to the gate leading to the fenced off area that held the lumber inventory. The gate was locked and chained, which was easily overcome with a pair of strategically used bolt cutters. The trucks quickly passed through the opening and the companions closed the gate behind them and got to work.

The Big Box was largely empty of the walking dead. The few there were easily dispatched and pushed aside.

Ralph had painstakingly calculated out how much lumber they would need. So they busied themselves getting that all onto the truck, plus a bit more, in case there were mistakes made. Other things followed, aluminum siding, roofing tiles, more nails, pipes for plumbing. They found a couple of gas powered generators and took those, which opened up a field day on power tools. Ralph, Jason and Douglas almost drove themselves mad with the choices.

Then there was the concrete. Damn concrete was heavy. That was stating the obvious, true enough, but still. It was even heavier than the books. They had taken all of the how too books on each subject that the Big Box carried. Not just one of each, but all of them. An instant library. Even the ones that they would never really need, like 'Planting a Wildflower Garden'.

They grabbed more than a single copy of each just in case more than one of the friends wanted to read any given title simultaneously, and they also had some visitors who also wanted to dust up on the fine art of installing electrical wiring, or whatever. It was a bit favoring the side of overkill, but they did it anyways. This kind of knowledge would be priceless.

The back of the truck was nearly full with miscellaneous odds and ends when they separated to fill out the rest. Jason was looking at the lawn Gnomes when from across the floor came a loud and excited "Ach der Liebe!" The shout was clearly in Ralph's voice, but Jason had never heard the man speak a single word of German. He dropped the lawn Gnome that he had been examining and sprinted towards source of the exclamation.

By the time Jason arrived, Ralph was dancing in circles and had an audience gathered around him. Ralph was located in the lighting and electrical section of the store, dancing from foot to foot and speaking in what sounded like a very rapid German. It was the first time that Jason had ever heard the man use any other language than his crisp and clear English. Maggie was trying to calm him down, speaking in a slower German herself.

Getting him back under control took Maggie a couple of minutes. When he was finally standing still and speaking English, it turned out that he had discovered the Big Box's entire stock of solar panels. Eight in all. Enough to power a refrigerator and a few lights, and maybe a few hours of television a day. It turned out that Ralph was fascinated by solar energy. Renewable energy was his area of concentration in school. Maggie expressed a personal shock that he didn't lose control of his bladder when he saw them.

The solar panels were loaded in the back of Kime, along with several dozen car batteries. Seats were lowered, room was made and Maggie joined Douglas and Ralph in the truck. They were nearly packed to the gills as it was, but they still stopped at the Mega-Tools, upon Ralphs insistence. He was interested in getting his hands on more of the solar panels. He had no luck, but that only managed to dim his exuberance a bare fraction.

Jason had thought that the bags of dry concrete were a pain to move, but working with the wet stuff was even worse. It was even heavier, and it had the pouring consistency of thick oatmeal. He was glad that Ralph had installed the water pump first, since bringing buckets of water by hand from the creek would have only made the ordeal unbarable. There was a lot of sweating, and even more swearing as they mixed the concrete and poured it onto the ground to build their floor by hand one section at a time. It took four of them a week to finish. Amy and Lynn during the meantime worked on the wooden framing for the rest of the house, under Ralph's supervision.

The man was everywhere. It was almost as if he had learned how to teleport. One minute he would be chiding Amy for her unsafe use of a power saw and the next he was standing next to Jason and telling him to add a cup or two more water to the mixture. The supervision chafed, but it was better than having to do it all over again.

Raising up the wall of stone to create the foundation went a lot faster. By the time they had the foundations in place, Amy and Lynn had nearly finished cutting and assembling all of the framing. Raising the walls in place was fast and easy, after they got past a couple of miscommunications that resulted in an entire wall falling outwards. Jason still thought that Douglas should have spoken more clearly that just yelling 'Blert!' and pointing.

They risked another visit back to the city, this time they hit up the Mega-Tools, leaving only with rafters, another giant pile of car batteries for the solar panels and some pre-built windows. The last of the material that they would need to get the house up.

They finished building by early October. Down to the last touches on the paint inside. The house had brown siding with green ceramic roofing tiles. Atop the tiles and on either side of the peek and above the two skylights, were the eight solar panels that Ralph spent so many hours drooling over. The latrine went downstream and their water pump went up, Ralph had been very livid about that point after catching Douglas and Jason digging in the wrong place. They had built sealable rifle ports into the walls, for use should they ever have any unwelcome visitors. The walls around loft under the windows were lined with steel plates. It was half house, half fortress. Much better than the Megamart.

All that was left was the furnishings and other odds and ends. To make the house a home, so to speak. In one trip they had three couches, a couple of comfortable easy chairs, a new dining room set (Lynn insisted, she wanted at least one formal meal a week), several beds and a forty inch flat plasma TV (Douglas insisted). Dishes, pots and pans, silverware. Jason even managed to snag himself a decent off road motorcycle, though he wouldn't get much of a chance to use it before spring came again.

Like Robinson Crusoe they were, except that they had it made. They had all the necessities out of the way, including some livestock and feed that they rescued from an abandoned farm to the south of Eagle Rapids.

They were making a list for their last town visit. They had their necessities, to live, and comfortably. What they still needed was entertainment for the long dark winter months coming up, especially after Jason swore that he would go insane and kill them all if he had to spend four months cooped up indoors playing Scrabble. They had already liberated all of the movies that they were interested in seeing and then watching over again over during the dark nights of winter. Television shows too. They were prepared to worship at the altar of mindlessly passive entertainment for hours straight. That wasn't quite enough.

The one exception to their exuberant movie collection was zombie movies. Douglas had grabbed a couple, he had finally gotten into the spirit of things, but Lynn made him put the disks back where he had found them. They were just too close to the real horrors to want to relive it in movie format. He tried to argue that mayhaps they would work as a survival guide, and let them come up with new ideas. She told him that she had already seen all of the movies, and that they would just bring on depression. The prognosis wasn't ever good for the survivors in zombie horror. She did let him bring a copy of Night of the Living Dead, the origional, but that was all. It would have to be enough.

They had also gotten a lifetime's supply of video games. Every console, and every game that they could possibly lay their hands on, they picked up and put into their cart. Including the ones that might not be exactly a first choice in days gone by. Honestly, Barbie Dream Adventures. Douglas couldn't quite tell them why they needed to add that to the cart. But there it was. Who knew, after slaying the dragon and rescuing the princess umpteen million times, perhaps leading Barbie through the shopping mall for the perfect pair of shoes would seem like an entertaining diversion. Right. And maybe Jason would end up rescuing and marrying a lingerie model.

Books too. They had books. Lots of them. A second instant library to go along with all of their building references. Fantasy, science fiction, actual science, romance, mysteries. You name it, they got it. The library was a potential source of both entertainment and pain in their future. How many of the series' were unfinished when the cataclysm came? Just a cliffhanger ending that would never be revisited and wrapped up. The characters out there floating for all eternity, never to see an end of their ordeal. Jason thought that he would let Lynn read the series first, and stick with single volume novels in the mean time. It was safer that way.

It was Lynn who found one last store that she needed to visit, though she refused to tell Jason what it was or where. Only that he, she and Amy were going to hit it up and acquire more material to keep them entertained for the future. Douglas had disinclined the invitation as had Maggie and Ralph. They had work to do around the house. That should read 'Douglas and Ralph were still competing for the grand champion spot in Barbie Dream Adventures'.

Jason tried to get her to tell him what the secret store was, but she wouldn't. Nor would anyone else. He had a feeling that he was being set up for a visit to the yarn store. Lynn and Amy had been talking about taking up knitting as a hobby now that they had the time and nothing else to distract them. So he got into the SUV and sulked.

So far all of their trips into town had been uneventful. They had come across zombies, by the hundreds at times, and avoided them when they could, killed them or ran away when that was the only sane option available. They hadn't seen a single living human being yet. Neither bandits, nor survivors either had graced them with their presence. Jason couldn't quite fathom their luck, either good or bad. It would be nice to have some more people to help seed their tiny community. But on the other hand, who knew how those people might react to having strangers in their midst.

Their last trip came about mid morning one dreary day in late September. The three of them began their final visit to the city for the season. With this last trip, Lynn said that they would have everything they would probably need or want for the upcoming winter months. It wasn't raining, yet, but the sky was promising. A miserable day to be out and about.

They piled into the SUV, as well as three people could pile. Sat down and buckled in. The usual survival gear stowed under the seats and weapons within easy reach. More weapons than they would probably need, but it was better to be prepared for any advent. It felt like being part of a military expedition. Jason checked the knife on his belt, feeling a little like a Stallone or Schwarzenegger character. Sans the huge muscles and squad of bad-assed hombres at his back. He looked at Lynn and Amy. Lynn was stowing her shotgun and Amy was inspecting and cleaning the .45 that Jason had given her. Any character in an action movie would be happy to have either of them along.

Jason had grown comfortable driving the back roads by the time they made that trip. The roads were free and clear of all cars until they were about five miles out of town, where they became more heavily congested with abandoned vehicles. But with all of their prior experience with visits into town, they knew where all the worst areas were, and how to best avoid them.

The shop that they were looking for was somewhere in the old down town shopping district. None of them had been there before. But it was easy enough to find, after a fashion. They were forced to find a parking lot that was largely empty, but relatively near to the store that Lynn was so intent on visiting. So instead, they walked the two blocks along cobblestone-paved road. The old downtown of Eagle Rapids was of those real old fashioned looking set-ups that the tourists flocked from all over to see. Quaint they called it. Jason liked the buildings as they were, old fashioned and made of brick and mortar. They didn't have the cookie cutter feeling that was so pervasive in modern cities. It was historic district in a time where historic seemed to be torn down and then half forgotten and buried under a pile of modern ugliness. It just felt so cheap, tacky and shallow.

Now the cities all across the country, large and small alike, covered countless square miles, spreading out like some giant amoeba and absorbing everything round about. They all looked the same, that was what annoyed him the most. No matter where you went, every town or city looked exactly alike the last. Oh sure, there might be some minor differences between the two. Perhaps in one town the Megamart and the Big Box would be sitting right next to one another, and in the next they would be across the street. And there might not be a second Beefy Burger just up the road. But that was about all. The buildings were the same from one location to the next. Carbon copies. Boring, boring, boring. After all, why go visit one city when you could pretty much take in the sites while standing still?

There were twenty or so zombies on the street that they could see. In either direction. The three of them moved together, towards Lynn's shop, killing anything that moved between Kime and their final super-secret destination. The rest of the zombies on the street were closing in on them, slowly and it was obvious that they would have to slay some more when they came back from the shop, but that could be put off until later. No point going and looking for trouble. It was always possible that if they went out in search of those few other zombies that they might run across an entire horde of hundreds. Or something even worse.

There it was. Jason nearly glee-ed in his own pants when he saw the sign. The Geek Palace! Comics, Cards and Games! Oh my! He hugged and kissed Lynn and then Amy, with them giggling as he did. Jason gibbered in excitement for a full minute before finally coming enough to his senses to pick the lock and let them all in to behold the geekly heaven that awaited them on the other side of the glass.

"Happy birthday Jason." Lynn was squeezing him on the shoulder. She always knew what to get him, which sadly didn't ever seem to work in reverse. He hoped that she still liked socks.

"A whole gaming store. You shouldn't of."

"It's ok, you're worth it." They were grinning at one another. Amy joined in, though it was clear by her body language and facial expression that she had no clue what was going on and that she saw them as acting like couple of loons. It was ok. He had his own gaming store now. Soon the world would come to know the most preeminent GM in existence, ever. And if he was unable to live up to that grandiose title, he would just have to settle for the being the best equipped.

Through the door he went. And there he stopped. The sight was beautiful. Games and comics and toys. Oh my! Lynn pushed him forward and made a smart assed comment about stepping over the puddle of drool that had developed in front of where he had his feet. If she was so worried about it, she could always wipe it up.

Jason nearly blew his mind trying to decide what to take first. Which books? Or perhaps the comics? Maybe even the card games. Decisions, decisions! He stuffed eight or nine sets of dice in his pockets, all different colors before moving on and looking at the miniatures.

"You know, it's going to take a long time to get all of this over to Kime."

"We have time. They're not expecting us back until this evening at the very earliest." Jason nearly skipped when he heard that. Lynn and Amy in the meantime were over standing next to the boxes full of comics. Hundreds or even thousands of issues packed into boxes from scores of different titles. Jason wished that they had brought the big moving truck rather than his puny SUV. If they had, then he wouldn't need to make so many difficult choices.

Amy had a copy of what looked like an issue of one of Frank Miller's graphic novels open in her hand. Lynn was looking at one instance of the multitude of X-men titles. Jason decided to walk the store before he sorted through what they would take and leave. They had books from every game system that he could think of, and a few that he had never seen before.

He ranged along the exterior wall of the store, avoiding the bookshelves that took up much of the interior floor space. His walk around the perimeter eventually led him to the office that was tucked away behind the checkout counter. Jackpot. The store had a large selection of games out on the shelves, likely the ones that they thought would best sell. Largely core rulebooks only since space was so limited. In the back room on the other hand, they stored all of the other books. Expansions galore. Jason felt himself begin to salivate all over again and forced himself to move so that the drool wouldn't accumulate at his feet.

Jason began his selection. There were so many books and worlds to choose from. So many interesting places to explore and venture through. Adventures and tales to weave for his friends. Battles for them to fight and kingdoms to save. It beat the hell out of playing scrabble, no matter what Douglas might think. Paper and pencil Role playing games were even better than any video game ever made as far as he was concerned. Sure, there were no cool, ultra-realistic graphics to appreciate. Everything was locked up in your mind. A game was like taking part in a story or a movie, one where the players decided how the next twist would flop.

He started the collection. Two of each core rule book in the store. He had found in the past that having more than one book sped things up in the beginning processes of opening a new game. Rolling new characters and all that jive. After that, he took all the supplements that caught his eye. There were a lot of those. Lynn stared the growing pile, elbowing Amy to get her attention and pointing out Jason's gaming avarice. They both smiled, wearing looks of grand amusement, until they realized that they would be helping him get it all back to Kime. Then their expressions changed to what that can only be dubbed as: "Ahhhhh Craaaaaap!"

The pair of women were industrious, and while Jason was in the back room, skull-locked by a host of choices that would need to be made soon, they took a armful each of what he had picked out to the truck. Before killing a couple zombies that had stumbled in to closely, on their way back to the shop for the next load.

The SUV was getting full. Jason had found everything that he would ever 'need' leaving Amy and Lynn to haul it to the car as he puttered around the storage area. They had even managed to secure a couple of boxes of comic books that had caught their attention.

The two of them joined Jason in the storage area at the back of the shop. He was staring intently at a large safe that had been buried in the back corner. Not just staring, he was fiddling with the dial, with his ear pressed to the door as if he were some sort of expert safecracker from a spy film. Really, he had no idea what he was doing and it was fairly obvious to even the most casual observer when Lynn asked, "What the hell are you planning to do with that?"

"Open it." It was really lame response. Really lame. But she had startled him with the blunt question. The safe was a closed door in an open world. Curiosity killed the cat and all that jive, but here was a door that was calling to be opened.

"Really? How were you planning to manage that?" Really obvious.

"Do you think you can..."

"No, I don't know how."

He opened his mouth, when a disturbing sound came from the shop.

"Why the hell would the two of them come into here?" A strange and gravely voice asked from the front entrance. It was a man's voice. Jason switched off the lamp that he had been using for light in the back storeroom. Now the only light came streaming in from the windows in the front of the building. Just enough to see Lynn and Amy's features. Amy was frightened, and Lynn was angry.

"I don't know. But we saw them come in. So here they are." A second, deeper voice answered.

"Yeah, so did Carter, bet he'll be back with the others as soon as you can spit."

"Who the fuck cares? By the time they get here, we'll'uv had our fun already. They can have the sloppy seconds right?"

A loud braying laugh, and "Yeah right. Lets go introduce ourselves!"

The deep voice called into the shop. "Oh girlies, we know you're here, saw ya come in, saw your light switch off. Why don't you just make it easier on yourselves? If you do, we'll be gentle. Promise." The two voices guffawed. A miserable sound that made Jason's hair stand up on end. What he hated most was that he expected this to eventually happen. In all of their trips into Eagle Rapids, he had expected to meet these people. The sad remnants of humanity turning savage when civilization collapsed around them. Now here those remnants were, A couple of would be rapists blocking off their only escape route.

"What do we do?" Amy asked in a whisper. She had her fear under a tight control, but only just. Jason stood up, and pulled his knife from the sheath.

"Go stand at the doorway and look out, make sure you're seen and then scream and run to the back. Lynn, you hide in the darkness waiting for her."

"How about you?" Lynn asked, pulling a knife of her own.

"I'll stand next to the door, and stick the second fucker as he comes through the door." Lynn nodded grimly. Amy looked frightened still, but resigned. Or he hoped she was resigned. It was difficult to read her expression in the gloom.

Lynn took her position, behind a shelf at the back of the storage room, her knife in hand. Jason followed Amy to the front of the storage room. He hid behind a cardboard cutout of the extremely curvy Jerri Ryan from one of the numerous Star Trek shows, Voyager he thought it had been. The shop had obviously been owned and run by men.

Amy played her part perfectly. The men saw her and hooted and gave chase. Jason let the first pass. The second received a breath-stealing kick to the stomach for his tardiness, dropping him to the floor, as he clutched his gut. Jason was on the man as he tried pushing himself up off the floor. The knife gleamed dully in the dim sunlight as Jason thrust it for the man's neck. The gang member deflected his attack with ease, taking only a slice across his forearm. The man was huge and muscular and much more powerful than Jason.

Jason hit the ground with a roll that ended in a crouch.

The man was on his feet, his own wicked looking knife in his hand. Murder burning in his eyes and his face full of rage. He was furious that Jason had tried to spoil his fun. Jason stood to near his full height with his shoulders hunched a litt, holding the blade out before him. The man charged.

Jason dropped down under a heavy swing that probably would have made his head quit his body. There was a clatter over his head as the man connected with the doorframe. He slashed out with his own knife, severing tendons in his opponent's knee, sending blood gushing out and soaking the pant leg and the floor beneath. The man howled and brought one huge fist down on Jason's shoulder before collapsing in agony.

Jason saw stars, but forced himself up to his feet again. The gang member was struggling to rise, but his wound wouldn't allow him up further than his knees. Jason moved around to his wounded side stabbed again, this time sinking his blade into the man's unprotected throat. The man gurgled a bit, and then fell backwards. Jason watched the shadow draped body thrash about for a moment and then finally still. He stood there in a dazed manner, waiting for something else to happen. A distressing thought worked hard to bubble to the surface of his consciousness.

A moment later Lynn and Amy were leading him by the hand. Lynn had cleaned his knife and sheathed it once again. The thought that had been struggling so hard finally popped, echoing through his skull. I've killed a man. A real live living man. And not like that crazy chick who cursed me at the reservoir before killing herself. I actually stuck sharpened steel into his flesh and ended his miserable existence. Jason was now an honest to God murderer, and that fact didn't agree with him. Zombies were zombies. This was a human.

Lynn slapped him hard across the face. Waking him up completely from his shocked fancies. They were standing in the sunlight just outside the store. "We have to get moving! Now!"

The others. One of them had said that there were others. And that they would be coming soon. Jason unslung his shotgun. He looked sadly around the shop one more time as his mind slipped into gear and engaged once more. So much that they were leaving behind. He tore his gaze away from the small stack of left over books that they would be abandoning and took up his position as the rear guard.

Jason followed Amy and Lynn out into the street, discarding his silly angst about losing what he never really had in the first place. Books and games. That was all. Stupid books and games. No reason to be greedy, there were more important concerns right in front of his eyes. Such as getting himself and his two friends out of town and away from the feral dogs who had come hunting them.

They sprinted across the street and ducked into the entryway of the store that stood there. Jason pumping his arms as best he could with the shotgun in both hands. He did his best to breathe around the final Dungeons and Dragons game manual that he had put in his mouth as they left the store. Jason peaked his head out. The street was empty. Both ways. Not even a single zombie was in sight. He motioned Amy and Lynn to follow him as he jogged back towards where they had left Kime.

Amy was sporting a long, shallow slash across her forehead. Jason had presumed that she received in her fight with the piece of human garbage that was currently littering the floor of the storeroom. Lynn looked as well as ever, though she was cradling her left arm a little as if it pained her. Jason's own head began to ache with each jarring step.

They could hear the distant thundering of engines rolling over the empty streets, reverberating within the buildings. The sound was chasing them as they ran and getting louder with each step. There was more than one engine out there, a whole pack of them perhaps. Hunting wolves.

That much he knew, and little else. They all seemed to harmonize together and form into a single roar, like ocean waves pounding a beach during a storm and echoing through a canyon. It made picking out individuals impossible, and worked to spur them on, faster, faster before those goons' friends arrived and found out what happened to their compadres. Jason sprinted the last half block, with Amy and Lynn on his heels.

Jason slammed Kime's rear door closed as he bound past. Amy and Lynn opened their doors and launched themselves into their seats. Jason ignited the engine, threw the gear into reverse and hit the gas, driving straight through a patchy civic lawn and down the sidewalk. Before turning around and launching themselves forward, fleeing their pursuers and hammering down the rising panic as he worked. In the store, they had been humans setting a trap for a couple of errant wolves, now they were rabbits fleeing from the pack.

Lynn worked the pump, chambering a round into her shotgun. She rolled down the window. Jason and Amy followed her lead. Jason traded his shotgun for Amy's .45, flipping the safety switch off and placing the gun in his lap before putting his hand back on the wheel. It would be for emergencies only, right now he had to concentrate on making good their escape. They were about to embark upon a journey into unknown territories of the urban jungle. Urban jungle. Jason laughed at that. Maybe suburban, - savannah? - best evoked the spirit of the town Eagle Rapids. But not jungle.

The racket caused by the engines of their hunters was dampened by the sound of their own engine. But Amy kept swearing that she was certain that they were getting closer. Jason didn't doubt her. They sounded like they were using motorcycles, and those bikes would be able to navigate the traffic jams in was unpassable by Kime. They all bounced up and down in their seats as Jason ran up on a curb to avoid some more blockage. The .45 flew off of his lap and landed on the floor between himself and Lynn who was sitting strapped into the passenger's seat. She picked the gun back up and placed it in his lap.

Two miles from the edge of town, Amy screamed, "there they are!" Just as two bikes, and a pair of four-wheelers entered his rearview. The riders pointed their way and accelerated, giving chase. They started howling at the top of their lungs with a savage fury. Waving guns, heavy pistols, in the air as they came.

Amy unbuckled herself and turned around in her seat. Jason heard her ready her shotgun. Lynn turned around and said, "Wait until they attack first. That way we don't get ourselves further into trouble. Maybe they're friendly." And maybe she was the President of Madagascar.

Jason pulled out the cup holder from the dash, put his second .45 through the ring for easier access if things got hairy. The hunters were less than two hundred feet behind them and closing. Jason kept flipping his eyes back and forth between the mirror and the road ahead.

The crack of a gunshot rolled over them, followed closely by the screeching sound of the bullet punching through metal. There was no misunderstanding of intent. Nor more hope for a peaceful resolution. The bikers got their answer. Jason stepped on the gas as both Lynn and Amy responded by letting their shotguns speak for them. Amy managed to knock one of the four-wheelers off his ride, for good. The man fell to the pavement and didn't move again as his vehicle jumped the curb and flipped over onto its side.

Jason swerved in and out through the labyrinth of forgotten automobiles. Finally they came to a straightaway. They had nearly made it to the edge of Eagle Rapids and onto the safety of the open highway.

The rattle of gunfire originating from their rear increased dramatically after the first hunter hit the ground dead. The bikers began to panic saw that their prey was no longer trapped and hindered in the maze. One of the bikers tried to sidle up on the driver's side to get off a shot and stop the car. Kill the driver the car would stop. He was a bearded man with a narrow face. His long hair was held back by a grease stained bandanna and in his hand was a sawed off double barrel shotgun. Jason pulled the .45 from his lap and emptied it out the window, aiming with the side view. He missed the biker, but not the bike. The wounded motorcycle began to bellow and belch, tipping over and spilling its rider onto the blacktop. Stupid bastard was wearing kahkis and not leather. Jason didn't envy the skin that the man lost, but he didn't pity him either.

Jason dropped the gun on the floor and stole a glance at his companions. Amy was just finishing reloading her shotgun when the back window exploded inward. She dropped the shotgun to her seat, screamed and clutched her hand. Lynn was leaning out the window a little bit and taking aim. She fired. Sending the second biker to the ground, skidding along the blacktop, chased by his motorcycle.

The last of their pursuers stopped and turned around, leaving the chase to go help his surviving friends. Jason gunned it, all the way up to seventy all the way home. Lynn unbuckled herself and climbed into the back to help Amy.

"How is she?" He called back.

"A bullet took two of her fingers and there is a shard of glass lodged in her hand." Lynn set to removing the shard of glass, carefully as she could. Amy whimpered as she worked, but bore the pain and fear stoically. In a few minutes she was bandaged up to stop the bleeding. When they got home, they would have to stitch her up as best as they could manage, and pump her full of antibiotics and painkillers. But for now she would just have to sit and wait.

"All of that just to play a little D&D." Jason shook his head.

Lynn responded, "We're lucky it wasn't worse. With all those bullets flying our way, we could all be wounded dead right now. That was all luck."

"Luck, or two feet of paper, and a couple millimeters of steel between them and us."

A look of horror struck her face and she moaned, "Oh the books. Do you think they'll be damaged?"

"Some of them. But better them than us."

"I know, just all that hard work and then getting attacked and shot at. Amy's hand. I would hate for it to all have been for nothing because we returned with a carload of ruined books."

"It won't have been for nothing. Now we at least know that Eagle Rapids isn't a safe harbor that we had hoped for." They all fell silent and Jason thought over the words and actions of the would be rapists and their friends. Relief and terror washed over him in turns. They had escaped, but how many times had they stuck their heads in the bear cave? How many times could they have been attacked? They had made at least seven or eight trips into town, most of them with that monster moving truck. What if they had been seen before? Could they have been followed home without realizing it?

No, they would have noticed. They had been watching their tracks closely in all the other trips. It was the last one where they had been a little careless. That was how it always worked. Ignore the rules one time, and bam, disaster struck. What about the people of Eagle Rapids? Had the survivors befallen the same sort of unpleasant fate? Raped and murdered by bandits in their own homes?

They would have to be vigilant, even more so when they got home again. They had killed at least two of those fucking marauders, maybe three or four, and it was pretty damn expectable that their friends would want blood in exchange for the blood already spilled. Once again life had just gotten a bit more interesting, and a lot more frightening.

He didn't slow down until they were a mile away from home. Lynn and Amy kept watching the road behind them at his request, telling him that there was nothing there to calm his nerves. He had stopped several times, pulling into side roads and waiting, for ten minutes at a time for any sign of pursuit. There had been none. They finally pulled into the long dirt driveway that lead up to their home. Jason relaxed a little.

He parked Kime about ten feet from the front porch, and the three of them jumped out. Lynn led Amy into the house, calling for help as she went. None of them were doctors, none of them had any real medical experience, none of them were trained beyond basic first aid. But they had books, and some of them were pretty smart, so they would have to manage. Amy would need stitches in her hand and maybe some in her forehead and she would come away with a couple of wicked looking scars. But for now there was nothing life threatening.

Jason stayed out next to the SUV and let them work. He would only get in the way should he go inside. He walked around Kime's exterior, running his fingers along the paneling as he went. It was when he rounded the rear of the car when he found out how right he had been, and how lucky they all were. The back of the SUV had been riddled with perhaps fifteen or twenty bullet holes. Seventeen exactly, he counted. From the bumper, just above the driver's rear tire, to the shattered plate glass rear window.

Everything came back all at once. From the man who had almost killed him and then died at Jason's hands, to the rolling gun fight through the streets of Eagle Rapids. Jason felt the need to throw up. He stumbled over to the nearest tree and did.

They took what they could from the back of Kime. A lot of the comics were nearly ruined and little better than kindling anymore. But that was ok, they served a greater purpose. Amy was kind of upset that she wouldn't be able to get the full X-men experience, and would have to settle for the movies and cartoon DVDs that they had liberated in previous trips. Most of the game books however came out in pristine shape, much to Douglas' dismay.

Amy's hand healed before too long. Though it was rather stiff for a month or two after the bandages came off, and she often complained about an ache in her missing fingers. Jason didn't understand the physiology of phantom limb syndrome, even after both Douglas and Lynn tried to explain it to him and he just chalked it off to the female brain being wired in a bizarre manner.

Fall settled in, the first snow coming just after the six of them celebrated Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving was a new holiday for Maggie and Ralph. They had heard of it, and had their own versions in their homelands but had never experienced it in the traditional American fashion. They came into the holiday with a nearly clean slate. Without the years of social baggage tied to the meaning. It was Ralph and Maggie who managed to get the most joy and reward out of the festivities.

Thanksgiving wasn't just turkey day for the family anymore. Though Jason had found and shot a wild turkey for dinner. He was getting pretty good at hunting. No, they were able to enjoy the full meaning of the words thanks giving. Though that holiday everyone was thankful.

None of the Americans had ever really thought about, or understood the meaning of the holiday before. Turkey, potatoes, and time with family while the television flickered with images of boring parades and football games. Then there had been the fights. Jason recalled one time where one of his cousins came out to the entire family over dinner on Thanksgiving. About a decade before. There was a sudden air of 'what the fuck?' and then everyone went back to eating. Though his two brothers, Ed and Joe, had edged their chairs a little away from their outted sibling, eyeing him doubtfully for a while. Being the joker he was, he went and flirted with them until the entire family started laughing at the absurdity of the whole situation. By the time that the pies were laid down on the table, life was back to normal.

His cousin had been killed a few years later during St. Patrick's day in New Orleans. He had been beaten to death by a couple of frat boys after a party because they "hated faggoty Yankee Nancy-boys coming into their town and acting like they owned the place." The frat boys spent a year in jail and then were released for good behavior. The prosecuting attorney never bothered to invoke any of the hate crimes laws. Ed and Joe went out and found and kicked the shit out of the two afterwards for what the frat boys had done to their brother. They had gone to jail themselves and served the same amount of time. In the words of Vonnegut, "So it goes."

Their first bout of good news came in by the end of October. Maggie was pregnant. Followed soon after by Lynn. They were both a couple months along by then, though not yet beginning to show. It seems that they had taken to heart Jason's words at the close of the wedding ceremony. They had been making babies. They were both due sometime in May or June.

All three women went literally bonkers. From then on out, it was baby-mania. They spent hours talking about giving birth and looking over the health books that they had brought home, reading up and studying for when the 'magic time' came. Jason was a man who had finally come to terms with the blood that he had shed. Both human an animal. Killing and preparing a deer no longer really affected him. The dreams about the man he had murdered had faded. The near constant talk about birthing fluids and female periods on the other hand made him a mite queasy and looking for a place to flee to.

Ralph and Douglas in the meantime made a couple of cribs out of spare lumber left over after they finished building the house and storage garage. Jason wasn't sure if they were building it because it was a good idea to be prepared, or that they just wanted to escape the crazy hormonal women inside the house. A little from column A and a little from column B.

From time to time when they were sure that none of the woman were in hearing distance, they would slap one another on the shoulder and boast about what they had made. Congratulating one another on a job well done.

He didn't know about those two, but he himself opted for the escape option. When he wasn't talking to them over the hum of power tools and the smell of sawdust, he was out wandering the hills looking for game to kill. Six people ate a lot of food. And they all felt that it was better to get fresh food when they could, saving the canned goods for emergencies. No matter, game or not it was good to be out in the cool air and away from the pregnancy talk.

Amy was studying to be the midwife. Of the three woman, she had become the most gung ho about, well everything related to birth and babies. It was soon apparent that she wanted one of her own. Jason would never have noticed, except that she had cornered him and informed him that she wanted one of her own, and that since he was single and she was single, maybe he could go about helping her. The desperation and slightly feverous light in her eyes made it quite clear that turning down the offer would mean a bit of unpleasantness over the coming months.

Jason wasn't the brightest member of the group. He knew that. Douglas, Lynn and Ralph were defiantly smarter than himself. Billy had outstripped him by a long shot. But he was smart enough to take Amy up on her demands. Though they weren't really compatible, there wasn't too much selection, and beggars couldn't be choosers.

Amy was a cute girl, with a nice athletic body and full of energy. The sex was fun. A lot of fun. For a while. Tiring was a better word for it. She cornered him wherever she got a chance and milked him dry. He had to hand it to her, when she knew what she wanted, she went out and chased it down, beat it with a stick until it stopped moving and tried to seize it with all her might.

Sadly, he was unable to get her preggers, though not for a lack of trying. They were just incompatible. Or perhaps one of both of them were infertile. They tried until well into March before it all suddenly stopped. Amy was a woman inclined to have rapid mood swings and that was one of them. He was of course, in her eyes, entirely at fault for her inability to catch, and she voiced her opinion quite loudly while crying.

Jason breathed a sigh of relief. Finally some rest. He considered taking a vow of celibacy for there on out, but that resolution only lasted a week. He was after all only a man.

Winter in the hills was a lot harsher than the ones they experienced before. The snow was a lot heavier than anything they had ever encountered at home. Blizzards came and went, and they spent days cooped up indoors, with one another, trying to kill the time. They got together and roleplayed a couple nights a week at least. Characters lived and characters died. Dragons were slain and wars fought. Heroes were made and destroyed. Even Douglas, with his distaste for gaming began to look forward to their adventures. Everyone even got the chance to run the game. They had infinite worlds to explore, and almost as much time to do it. It was one of the few activities that distracted them, if only for a few hours at a time, to how much the world had changed over the past few months. They never once fought a zombie in game.

Television and movies were watched in great abundance. Video games were broken out and mastered. Tournaments were run. Jason even learned how to play chess, though much to Douglas' annoyance, he didn't take it very seriously and was liable to make rash moves. It was all good since Ralph was Douglas' equal at the game and was more than willing to take up the cause of providing Douglas with a true challenge.

He even learned a few words while playing scrabble. They even modified their rules to allow slang, which was good for him. Jason knew a lot of slang.

They were happy months. For all of them. They sort of became a commune of hippies, except without the overt hippiness.

There were many a deep and spirited conversation about who would win in a battle royale, with random and comparable names thrown out, and both sides argued. The cast of Cheers vs. the kids from Harry Potter. Who would win? Jason was in favor of Godzilla taking them all down. They were geeks, it's what they were meant to do.

They also discussed over and over what had happened to the world and why. Ralph showed a previously unseen deep religious streak and claimed it was all punishment by an angry God. Nearly the rest of the house disagreed. Jason voiced Billy's favored theory that it was an evil wizard bent on controlling the world. Someone needed to speak for the dead. The theory brought smiles and they talked about their fallen friend for the first time since he had died.

Douglas and Ralph often got into long, pointless, boring, drawn out conversations about the evils of society. They would go for hours, bordering on arguing. Until Lynn, or Jason or one of the others pointed out that it was pointless to continue ranting about the wrongs of a dead culture. That would shut the two of them up, for a time.

Life was good again.

Then April came, and the babies became due. Lynn and her new daughter came out happy and well, Maggie didn't, but she left behind a son. They mourned deeply for the happy woman, and buried her among the birch tress when the ground thawed. Her now less happy husband, they took care of, and helped through their time of woe. His new son did more than anything. Franz after his grandfather. A man who the child would come to know only through stories never in person. From what Jason heard of the man, that was a shame.

When the cataclysm finally came, the good was washed away along with the bad. Quoth Vonnegut again: So it goes.

Amy filled in the void that Maggie left. Or did her best to. For Ralph and the rest of the group. She cheered up immensely with the births, the death being a minor sadness for her in comparison. The babies helped ground her back in reality, helped her work through her own guilt and sorrow.

So they found themselves with spring a-springing. The sun came closer, the days got longer and the weather got warmer melting the snow and revealing the long forgotten grass. As had happened for countless billion years, the world just kept on turning. The snow melted, and their little creek flooded a little. The ground got soft with mud and green began to return to the grass and trees.

The long winter indoors, both the happy times and the more recent sad, left Jason with the powerful need to stretch his legs.

Sure, he had taken snowshoes out over the winter to go and try to kill a deer for fresh meat. But that wasn't quite enough. He wanted to range over days, travel tens or hundreds of miles. His feet itched and the only way to scratch them was to get out his motorcycle and get it running.

Conscripts were, in the eyes of the captain, less valuable than his regular company. Which made sense to Ash and at the same time made him laugh his ass off, since the regular company was made up of reservists who weren't even trained line soldiers, just jumped up civilians with guns. Still, the company had received some training, and in the beginning had they been more disciplined that the ordinary civilians who crossed their paths. So the captain had a certain point. Maybe they were more trust worthy. Then again, they were also becoming armed thugs.

"Stanley." Ash nodded. Stanley wasn't his commander, or even a soldier, so he didn't need to be saluted or addressed by rank. Stanley was a little larger than Ash, who was himself a fairly big man, not huge, but taller and heavier than average, Stanley was even more so. The man had greasy brown hair and brown eyes and a moustache that was in sore need of some maintenance. Their clothes were, like everyone else's, stained and dirty. Unlike most of the conscripts though, they seemed to have created their own uniforms. Blue jeans and leather jackets, like those outlaw rebels from a fifties movie about angry teenagers.

Stanley, and his conscripts, were heart and soul owned by the captain. He had elevated them from mere civilians to something near soldiers. The soldiers had guns and power. They got women when they wanted them and better food. The conscripts only received scraps from the table and were allowed to entertain their dreams of one day being elevated to full soldiers. Plus, they didn't have to work as hard as the civilians and conscripts were never forced into any of the captain's special projects, like the roundup. Life was still hard, but a lot safer and more comfortable when you weren't on the bottom.

In return, they were expected to give absolute loyalty to the captain. Their duties tended to be to act as sheep dogs as the captain called them. They were around to keep the civilians well behaved and in line. They had become like prisoner guards and were more brutal and heartless than the ordinary soldiers could ever be. Even those like Tex and White had their limits. Anything less than total loyalty to the captain, thought, was punished by a week or so of careful torture (so that the offender didn't die too soon), followed by a lifetime in the pit. Even a hint, or a whisper of treachery could gain an unlucky conscript the same horrible fate as open revolt. Even the captain merely disliking a brief facial expression

To rise so high in the ranks so quickly, Stanley must have been brutal and cunning in his dealings with his fellow citizens. He wasn't a man to ignore or cast aside.

They marched in silence, walking along streets that were littered with rotting corpses and little else. Ash tried to count them, but gave up after getting to two hundred and tripping for the third time in ten minutes, while leaving the majority of what he stepped over excluded from his tally. Half the city must be lying in the streets by now. Without the facemask he had been issued, the stench would have been overwhelming, it was still powerful enough to make him feel like gagging.

"Stanley, if you don't mind my asking. Where have we been ordered?"

"We've been ordered that way," Stanley replied, pointing in the direction that they had been walking." A few of his men guffawed roughly.

"That I see. But what is our final destination? A specific building?"

"You'll find out when we get there corporal. The captain sent us out to take a community over. He needs more people he says. And outposts that don't seem to be connected to him. The captain can always find use for more warm bodies. He has lots of plans." Stanley laughed. His people laughed along with him, though some looked as if they didn't really think that Stanley's jest was very funny. Ash wasn't even sure if it was a joke. There was no punch line. It was just a callous and cruel thing to say. Ash felt the need to shoot Stanley, but kept his head down and his lips tightly locked in place.

And they walked. Ash tried to ignore the stupid jokes and comments made by Stanley's people. Some of those guys were even dumber than himself. But they all seemed as if they wanted to take a crack at him and make a joke at his expense. Beginning with Stanley himself. They made him miss the good old days with Grover. Grover had at least been a nice enough guy, if you could get past the drooling and vacant stares.

As they marched, rather, as Ash marched and the others just ambled along in a shapeless group, there was little to break up the monotony, so Ash spent time thinking about Avery and what he had been saying over the last weeks. Summed up and without the pretty and passionate words the message was simple: the captain is nuts, we need to get rid of him and find a replacement. All of it was true. Thankfully he had the sense not to suggest a replacement. That would have gotten Sarge into hot water too.

The problem was that the captain had managed to draw in hundreds of loyal conscripts, and armed them. They hadn't liked what Avery had been saying, so they beat his ass unconscious and hauled him before the captain for treason. And then it was 'to the pit with the ungrateful scum!' A classic movie villain line if there ever was one. The conscripts had repeated it over and over during the actual execution of the sentence

There was only one break from the monotony of his thoughts and the rhythm of his feet. Zombies. Two of them. They had cleaned most of the streets. But the city was so huge that it was impossible to get them all.

Ash was dragged away from the slow process of mulling over the captain and how far they had fallen from being civilized Americans, he figured that they had fallen far, by the sound of rifle shots. He had been so deep in thought that he hadn't noticed the yelling until the first shots rang out, causing him to jump and nearly drop his own rifle. Ash had forgotten about keeping a watch on Stanley, and his first thought was that they were shooting at him.

Stanley had his people, those who had rifles, in a line, and they were firing at a pair of zombies who were standing a full block and a half away. Not a difficult shot to make, if a soldier was trained, and too his time. The head was still a small target, and the creatures were moving, if slowly. His people were missing. And wasting ammunition on two miserable zombies.

Ash wondered about what the captain would say if he heard about this. He might blow his lid, he hated people wasting ammunition, they didn't have an infinite supply. But then, Stanley was one of his favorites, and his men obviously needed the practice with their weapons. Ash decided to shut the hell up and let them have their fun.

They slowly chewed the zombies apart, one bullet wound at a time. The creatures could ignore major bodily wounds and keep going even if you made Swiss cheese out of their carcasses, but with luck, you might be able to shatter the bones in their legs, making walking impossible, or blow off an arm so that they couldn't grab you. It would have to be luck too, since anyone who knew what they were doing would just immediately go for the head and put it down for good.

Eventually that happened here. One shot through the eye, and another through the neck. If you severed the spine, it was almost as good as a headshot. The zombie could no longer move its body, though it could still bite, if you were dumb and got close enough. He had seen it happen before when one conscript was teasing an incapacitated zombie. One of his friends pushed him. The same friend clubbed the man to death as he was screaming obscenities.

With the little bit of fun over, they went back to marching. The two idiots who finally made the kills got point, and acted smug about it. Ash went back to his thinking.

Sometime in the evening Stanley stopped them and said, "Here we are." He pointed towards a darkened alley that smelled like piss. "Now all we have to do is wait for dark, then we can get to work."

Ash adjusted his mask and then sat huddled in the alley until night fell, ignoring the stench and the idiots around him. The stench was harder than the idiots. Ignoring a strong odor was almost impossible, especially while sitting surrounded by it.

At twilight Stanley roused them again, giving kicks and orders to get their asses in gear, tonight was the big night and they would make the captain proud. Or he would suggest to the captain that they were all plotting together and get them sent to the pit. If nothing else got them going, threatening punishment in the pit did. Ash was just glad to get out of the alley. He thought that was probably going to smell like piss for the rest of his life.

He fell in at the rear of the group.

He was supposed to make sure that Stanley arrived ok, and Ash figured that he could do it best by taking a rear guard and making sure that nobody snuck up on them. Besides, Stanley was hiding in the middle of his people, using them as a walking shield of meat. It was good for Ash because this way could keep an eye on the man without getting shot in the back. Either from outright betrayal, or just poor marksmanship.

Stanley's people were stealthy, disciplined and quiet. During the night. Taking Ash aback as he stalked along behind them. Surely these couldn't be the useless bastards that he had marched with the entire afternoon.

"There it is Ash. Our final objective." Stanley pointed out a squat looking building, that looked like several stories of stacked concrete slabs. Light was flickering here and there in the windows. The building was inhabited by survivors. He said so and Stanley looked at him as if he were pointing out that nighttime was when the sky was dark. "Of course there are survivors. The captain wants us to take over this community. Sort of a test run for later on." Stanley grinned again. "Alright you maggots, time to get to work. Remember, the sooner we finish our work, the sooner we get to play."

Stanley divided the group up into two sections. One for the front door and the other for the back. He was planning to take the front door himself and Ash would be there with him. They gave the second half of their force a five minute head start and then crept up and let themselves in. The community hadn't posted guards on the front entrance, nor even locked the doors to keep strangers out.

"You would think that they would lock the doors at night."

"They did. But we have a turncoat planted in their midst. He's been here for weeks now. Makes things easier in the long run to plan ahead."

They mounted the stairs and padded along the hallways. Stanley knew exactly where he was going as if he had a map of the building in his head and he were homing in on a beacon. Maybe he was.

There was gunfire on the floor below. M-16s. Maybe a couple of shotguns and rifles were answering.

Stanley stopped and they gathered around a closed door. "Open it up." Stanley commanded. Two of his stronger lackeys stepped forward and began hammering on the door with their shoulders. In less a minute they had managed to bust the door off of its hinges and fall in after it. A couple conscripts snickered until they were frozen by a glare from Stanley.

Stanley stepped over the two idiots on the ground and walked unarmed to the center of the room. His soldiers followed at his heels, weapons clutched in their sweaty hands, held out before them. That left Ash once again bringing up the rear.

A shirtless man in stained grey sweatpants stood in the middle of the room. He had a big revolver in his hand, a .357 or maybe a .44 magnum. A pretty mature woman in a long nightshirt at his shoulder, clutching his free hand. Ash could see children's faces peeking out from one of the back rooms.

"Hello. My name is Stanley. And I'm the new leader of this little village."

The man didn't say a word, he just raised his gun, pushing the woman away. Stanley's people opened fire. There were few misses, at that range, and the man screamed as his body was ruined by a score of bullets as they tore through him, one of the idiots was on full auto, spattering blood on the wall behind as they passed through his flesh.

He got off one shot as he fell, shattering the leg of one of the bruisers who tackled the door. The conscript went down, clutching his mauled leg as his life drained away in spurts that covered his comrades in red. "Ok boys, have your fun. Take the bitch. Leave the children." Stanley said, as he walked over to the apartment's former owner and picked up the gun. The conscripts hooted and the woman screamed as they dragged her back to the room. "We have to maintain some civilization." Stanley said as he leveled the massive pistol on his wounded soldier and fired one round point blank into his eye, disintegrating the his head in a cloud of vaporous gore. He did the same for the dead owner, before the man could arise again.

Ash left the room, trying to close out the woman's screams. Civilization. Where?

