Zomb-Pocalypse 4
Author: Berry, Megan
Date: 2017-02-14

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter One

I’m numb, not emotionally. Though I suppose if I let myself think about it, I’m that too... Emotions I can push down and ignore at the moment. More pressingly, I’m physically numb, and there is nothing I can do about it. The cold on this mountain is worse than anything I’ve ever felt in my entire seventeen years. It’s relentless and draining, and it’s only the tail end of November. The snow is up to my knees, and we get a fresh dump almost every night. It makes walking even short distances exhausting.

I toss a log into the back of the truck, not even caring that I didn’t make it to the very back; we’ve given up stacking the wood neatly. I’m tired and hungry and cranky, and sick to death of snow. I know I sound like a whiner, but everything is becoming too much. Megan, Abby, and I are still on wood chopping duty. We’ve filled the woodshed to the rafters and also the back entrance of the kitchen. We thought we were done—but Dad, Ryan, and Regg are building a second woodshed now—and it’s even bigger than the old one. I thought they were crazy at first, but now that the snow has started falling and the cold has settled in, I realize how much wood we’ve actually been using. I just hope we can stay ahead of it.

The only upside to any of this is that the cold isn’t just freezing us to death, it’s freezing the zombies too. We haven’t seen any on the mountain in over a week, and yesterday when Regg, Silas, and my dad went down the mountain to look for supplies, they came back and told us the craziest thing. The zombies are freezing solid. I imagine a zombie popsicle and make a face.

“Tag, you’re it!” Megan yells across to me as she slides out of the toasty warm truck. I don’t need to be told twice. I jump into the front seat, and right away I’m assaulted with a blast of heat. I gasp when it makes my skin prickle painfully as it tries to thaw my frozen flesh. I bite the end of my gloves, pull them from my frozen fingers, and fumble with the zipper on my jacket. I pull it open so the heat doesn’t have a barrier from getting to my body. I take a look at the clock and begin counting down my ten minute warm up break.

It’s never enough time. I’m tempted to fib and stay in longer, but that wouldn’t be fair to Abby, who’s been freezing her butt off for the last twenty minutes. I quickly zip my coat back up and put on my gloves before I force myself out, gasping at the first icy blast of wind that hits me. My face prickles with pain as the skin begins to absorb the chill, and the cycle starts all over again.

We fill the back of the truck with chopped wood and decide to call it a day. It’s only ten in the morning. We might go out again this afternoon if we get really bored, but for now I don’t think any of us can stand it for one minute longer than we have to.

We warm up as we drive back to the cabin, quietly enjoying the motorized heat that’s pumping through the vents. It’s really become a luxury and almost makes chopping the wood worth it.

The cab of the truck is silent; we don’t laugh and joke like we used to. We don’t giggle and blurt out hypotheticals either, like what we would do if we won the lottery, or what we would’ve taken in college, or what we would do if the zombies suddenly went away and the world returned to normal… I think we’ve all given up hope of that happening, even with the tentative good news that they’re freezing up.

We pull in beside the poor dented-up F-150 in the driveway, and we all climb out of the vehicle, hesitant to leave the heat behind. Sometimes I feel a bit like the truck Ryan and I took from that dealership the day we left Camp Freedom. It was shiny and new when the apocalypse began, and now it’s ugly and scarred. It can never go back to the way it was before. Neither can I, no matter what happens with the zombies.

“You aren’t coming in the house?” Abby asks when I turn and start walking in the other direction. I shake my head, even though it’s pretty obvious that I’m not. I’m already half frozen; a few more minutes won’t make much difference. “Do you want me to come with you?” she offers, knowing exactly where I’m headed.

I give her a small smile, grateful to have a friend who would freeze her ass off for me, even though it’s the last thing she wants to do.

“It’s okay, I’ll go by myself,” I tell her. Despite her attempt to hide it, I can tell she’s relieved. I turn and walk around the side of the cabin to the secluded area beneath a trio of evergreens. It’s quiet back here, and it smells like pine. I take a deep, calming breath as I stare at the ground beneath the protective boughs. The earth is almost completely covered over again. Only the mar upon the snow remains from when we had to dig up the dirt. The ground was too frozen to make a proper headstone. If I’m still alive in the spring, it’s the first thing I’ll do.

I look across the trees to the huge pieces of equipment parked in a neat row, and I feel thankful for them too. We wouldn’t have been able to dig the hole if it hadn’t been for the machines. They cut through the frozen ground better than a shovel ever could.

I have no flowers to lay on Sunny’s grave, and that starts the tears. I sink down to the ground and stare at the brown snow in anger. It’s muddy and ugly, just like our life here. I use my gloves to shovel some of the fresh, clean snow overtop, as a sob rips through my body. I can’t bear to look at it, but I stare at her grave as a punishment. I should have been here for her—I could have prevented the bite. Tears fall down my cheeks and freeze to my face, but I don’t care.

Silas was right. There is no place in this world for kids anymore, not for his brother, and not for Sunny. I don’t know why, but I always thought Sunny would be the exception. I thought because we loved her so much we would be able to keep the badness away. It was naïve and stupid.

A dark outline in the distance draws my attention. I quickly wipe away my tears as my hand reaches instinctively to my hip for my gun. The figure waves its arms up and down—and I relax. Whoever it is, it’s human. Zombies don’t make purposeful motions like that.

I stare at the figure intently, hoping it’s Silas coming to see me. As they draw closer, I recognize the jacket, and my heart sinks a little. Ryan.

“I miss her too,” Ryan says as he comes to a stop beside me and drops to his knees by my side. I want to answer him, but my throat closes up with emotion and I can’t speak. I nod instead, keeping my eyes on the frozen earth that now holds the body of a little girl who meant so much to all of us.

I glance over at Ryan and see him wiping a tear from his cheek. I feel so bad for him. Out of all of us, he was probably the closest to Sunny. He was so good with her, always reading her stories and putting her needs first. He was so patient and kind. Guilt swamps me; I could have been better.

“Are you ready to go back in the house?” Ryan asks, interrupting my inner blame game.

I shake my head, making him frown.

“This isn’t healthy, Jane,” he tells me gently. “She’s gone. Nothing is going to change that or bring her back. She wouldn’t want you sitting out here freezing to death,” he tells me.

Even though I can recognize the ring of truth in his words, I shrug. It’s not really my goal to freeze to death, but I guess if it happens, it happens—a small perk. I glance up sharply at Ryan when that horrible thought invades my mind, and I slowly force my body to move, struggling in the snow with all my layers of clothing. I’m ashamed of myself. There must be billions of people who have died since this thing with the zombies began. For some reason I’ve made it this far, and I still have most of my family. It would be a selfish cop out to give up now—not to mention what it would do to my mom and dad. I have to pull myself together; who cares if it’s for everyone else but me, sometimes that’s the only reason a person can find, and it has to be enough.

Ryan gets to his feet when he sees me move, a lot more nimbly than me, and gives me a hand. He doesn’t let go once I’m standing, and I’m too grateful to have someone dragging me through the snow drifts to protest. We make our way back to the cabin and kick our boots off outside, shaking them off before venturing inside. The cabin is warm-ish, but it’s not the same even heat distribution that a furnace would put out. At first it was so weird not to be able to just go to the thermostat and turn up the heat when we got cold—now I barely remember a time when life was that easy.

I tear my gloves off with shaking fingers and fumble with my coat. My bumbling fingers slide uselessly off the zipper. Ryan pushes my fingers away and unzips my coat for me. I open my mouth to protest, but he steps away right after, so it just seems childish to make a fuss. “You need to be careful in the cold, Jane,” he tells me gently, and I nod automatically as I hang my coat up and flop down on the couch beside Abby. Silas is there too, but he doesn’t look up. Abby holds up her blanket to me, and I dive underneath, curling my toes underneath her warm legs to try and warm them up faster. She jumps a little but doesn’t complain, and again I’m grateful to her.

The cabin only has the one fireplace, and it isn’t large enough to heat the entire house, so we don’t. The cabin wasn’t really designed for off the grid living. We keep the doors to the kitchen and spare bedrooms shut tightly, with towels stuffed along the bottom of the door to keep out the cold air. Out of desperation, we’ve even boarded off the top of the stairs with plywood to keep the heat contained. It took two days of constantly feeding the fire our hard-earned wood and still freezing our butts off before we came up with our makeshift solution.

It isn’t easy living in what basically amounts to a one-room shack with eight people, but we probably have it better than a lot of people do right now. You know, on account of them all being zombies.

We keep two big mattresses downstairs. My mom and dad sleep on one. Abby, Megan, and I sleep on the other. Silas sleeps on the couch, which we push to the side at night to make room for us all, and Ryan and Regg each sleep on a mattress pad that they scavenged from the RV. During the day, we move everything into the spare bedroom where my parents used to sleep and pull it out again at night. It’s repetitive, but it gives us something to do.

The room has become a little hoarder-ish since we had to move all of our canned goods into the heated room. Mom was worried it would change the taste of them if they froze, so we all agreed to give up a tiny bit of room for our stash. Canned beans are bad enough, I don’t know what I would do if they tasted even worse.

We still use the kitchen for stuff like flour, sugar, cereals, and all that stuff, but it’s basically a freezer now. So we also leave meat from the animals Silas kills just sitting on the counter, and it’s frozen solid within the hour. Sometimes I have nightmares that the fire dies in the middle of the night and I turn into a solid chunk of meat like the deer and rabbits that Silas brings home.

I glance up at Silas, but he’s still staring into the flames, so I look away in frustration. Abby knows exactly what’s going on and squeezes my knee underneath the blanket in sympathy. Regg and my dad are still out back working on the woodshed that will soon be the bane of my existence, and Ryan joins us on the couch, squeezing in beside Abby.

“Where’s Mom?” I ask, and Megan points to the kitchen door.

“In the freezer—I mean kitchen,” she says with a snicker at her own unintentional joke, and I nod. Mom has pretty much become the official cook around here. I think it’s nice for her though, she always enjoyed feeding people. Her culinary reach has become a little more stunted with the supplies we have available, but I still see a look of pride on her face when we all dig in to her meal after a hard day of fighting to stay alive. She’s kind of like Abby in that way. It’s like she doesn’t want to admit the zombies exist or have changed things.

I look over at Silas and see that his stare has moved from the fire to the couch cushion beside him, and my stomach clenches. I know exactly what he’s thinking about. I’m thinking about her too.

I fight the tears that want to fall; I’m so sick of bawling all the time, and I’m sure everyone else is sick of seeing it. Losing Sunny has been such a shock—she lasted so long after the bite. After hearing Jack’s story about surviving his own bite, we really thought she’d be fine.

I join Silas in staring at the couch cushion. Mom’s already scrubbed it and flipped it over, but in my mind, I can still see the blood.

Twelve nerve-wracking hours after Sunny was bitten, we’d stupidly begun to relax. Sunny had even settled down and was sleeping peacefully on the couch. Jack had gone back to his own cabin for the night, confident that Sunny was like him—immune. Everyone decided to sleep in the living room because none of us could stand the idea of leaving Sunny alone, and my parents didn’t want any of us sleeping in the room with Sunny until we were sure.

I’d nodded off too when a low growl woke me. I knew before I opened my eyes—

Silas was quicker than anyone else. Halfway through her second growl, before I even got my eyes completely open, he spiked her in the temple and killed her.

Chaos erupted after that. I’d gone a little crazy, and Ryan was no better. Everyone was crying and screaming, trying to wrap their minds around why she’d turned. We still don’t know why it took so long, but we’ve talked the scenarios to death. The bite went through her jacket, so maybe only a small portion of one tooth punctured her skin… Maybe the zombie had dry mouth and didn’t transfer a lot of saliva. She didn’t turn like people usually did, so did that mean she fought it for as long as she could?

I sigh and shake my head to clear my morbid thoughts. Silas doesn’t look up, and I force myself to look away from him. He did what he had to do, but I’m not sure he’s ever going to forgive himself.

I almost wish we could pull the mattresses out now and go to bed, but it’s not even noon.

Abby pulls out the beat-up Monopoly board; I don’t really want to play, but she’s looking at me with her sad puppy dog eyes. I know she’s just trying to cheer me up, so I put on a brave face. Megan, Abby, Ryan, and I start a game of Monopoly. Silas shakes his head when Abby asks him if he wants to play too, and then he gets up and leaves without a word. I watch him go with a frown on my face, and I turn back to find Abby and Ryan looking at me in concern.

“He’s being an asshole,” Ryan says baldly, and I flush. He’s right, but I’m never going to admit that to him.

“He’s having a hard time…with everything that’s happened,” I tell them, unable to use Sunny’s name yet without crying. Ryan snorts and motions to the one-room, boarded-up cabin around us.

“We all are. It isn’t an excuse, Jane. You deserve better than that guy,” Ryan fires back, and I look over at Abby. She isn’t agreeing or disagreeing. I know her well enough to realize that means she agrees with Ryan, but she doesn’t want to upset me.

I sigh and pick up the dice. “Are we going to play this game, or what?” I demand, wanting to get it over with so we can eat, go to bed, and repeat the exact same thing tomorrow. Thankfully they let me change the subject, and I pass the dice to Abby so she can go first. She’s addicted to this game.

Chapter Two

“I’m worried about you,” Mom tells me the next morning, grabbing my arm and pulling me to the side just as I’m about to tromp out the door with the other girls to go cut wood. I stop and scowl at her in confusion.

“Why?” I demand, and she gives me a stern look.

“Everything,” she says, stressing the word like it should be obvious. “Life has changed so much for you since our trip to New York. There are zombies.” She stops and looks at me. “Zombies, Jane! Of all the crazy ways the world could have ended.” She takes a steadying breath. “I just worry about you. A month and a half ago, you were a normal teenager going to high school, now we’re fighting every day for our survival, not just from the zombies—but it’s so cold—your whole world has changed in a very short time.” She looks at me like she isn’t sure she should go on, but she does. “Sunny,” she reminds me, and the name is like a knife straight through my heart.

“Mom…,” I protest, meaning to tell her that I’m fine, but the words stick in my throat. I shrug. “I don’t think any of us are fine anymore, but it’s the way it is,” I surprise myself by saying instead. I look at her uncomfortably for a minute before working up my courage. “Are you okay?” I ask, turning the tables on her. Mom pauses, and I can tell she’s trying to be brave. Then she changes her mind and shakes her head. Maybe she thinks showing me that it’s okay to ‘feel’ will help.

Mom wipes away a tear. “I’m really not, hun, but I thank God every day that we are together. Not very many people got that kind of chance,” she tells me. It makes me feel cold inside, and I haven’t even gone outside yet. I step forward and hug her tightly, breathing in the familiar smell that is my mom. It’s kind of funny. Even without all the usual soaps and perfumes, she still smells mostly the same. I take a deep breath of it before stepping back.

“They’re waiting for me,” I tell her, and she nods.

“Of course, I didn’t mean to keep you,” she tells me, patting my cheek, and I turn and walk away. The cold hits me as soon as I step through the door. The air permeates my lungs, probably freezing them, and making me cough as I walk towards the truck.

“Jane!” I turn at my name and see Dad coming around the edge of the cabin.

“What’s going on, Dad?” I ask when he falls into step beside me. Hopefully this isn’t going to be another intervention.

Dad shrugs. “Not much, just thought I’d come chop some wood with my favorite daughter today,” he tells me casually. Despite it being the oldest joke in the history of our jokes, I laugh.

“I’m your only daughter,” I remind him, just like I do every time, and he grins.

“That’s why you’re the favorite,” he replies. Our joke is dumb, but it feels comfortable to do something normal like we used to do before the outbreak. I glance at my dad out of the corner of my eye. First my mom and now him—

“Is this some kind of intervention?” I ask, obviously catching my dad unaware. He gives me a bug-eyed look for a minute, and now I’m pretty sure I’ve guessed right.

“Not quite,” Dad admits after a minute. “Your mom and I are just worried about you. It’s been a lot of change in a short amount of time, then losing Sunny…” he trails off when I let out a small whimper of pain at the use of her name.

“I’m okay, Dad,” I reassure him, and he nods like whimpering in pain at the mere mention of someone’s name is perfectly natural.

“I know you are, kiddo,” he says, and I’m surprised, but I actually think he means it.

“I was thinking though, you’re probably getting pretty tired of chopping all this wood,” he says, and I nod my head in agreement. Wood is now both the one thing keeping me alive, and the bane of my existence. “Maybe after we get a load under our belts, you could come on a run with me?” he says, looking hopeful, and my pulse sky rockets.

“You’re actually going to let me off the mountain?” I ask incredulously, and he nods.

“It was actually your mom’s idea,” he says, surprising me even more. “With the zombies freezing up, it’s a lot less dangerous, and I know you can handle yourself. We just think a change in your routine will be good for you.”

I nod my head excitedly. The idea of venturing around in a zombie-free world again is actually making me dizzy. “Thank you, Daddy,” I tell him, spinning so I can wrap my arms around his waist.

Dad hugs me back for a minute before giving me a playful push towards the truck. “Come on, kid, we have some wood to chop.”

“Gotta chop before you shop,” I mutter like a fool, and Dad and I burst out laughing. Again, it wasn’t that funny, but it’s all we’ve got.

“What’s so funny?” Abby asks as we get into the truck. She and Megan turn to look at us like we are a pair of lunatics—we probably are. Who laughs during the apocalypse?

“Dad said I can go down the mountain today,” I tell them proudly and watch Abby’s face darken with worry.

“Anyone that wants to go down today is welcome to join us,” my dad interrupts me to say. “We’re worried you kids are going a little stir crazy up here, and we can always use the help.”

Abby is already shaking her head before my dad is even finished talking, and I’m not surprised. Megan looks thoughtful for a moment and finally nods. “I’ll go,” she agrees, and I try not to look too disappointed that she’ll be joining us.

The truck winds its way through the fresh powder that’s fallen on our rutted path, and we pull up to the same clearing we were gathering wood from yesterday. I stare out at the quietness of the trees and sigh. The hours are going to drag by even more slowly than usual…

“Where’s Silas?” Dad asks, disappointment clear on his face as we throw our gear into the truck. He’s directing his question to me, and I feel a stab of irritation. I’m not the guy’s keeper.

“I think he went hunting,” Ryan says, drawing the attention off of me, and I shoot him a grateful look. He winks back, and my dad frowns.

“I wish he was around. I’d like to at least offer him a chance to come with us,” he says, and I shrug.

“That boy lives to hunt; he won’t mind missing the run,” Jack chimes in.

I climb into the back seat, squished between Megan and Ryan and all our gear. Dad and Jack are also going, Regg is staying home to work on the woodshed, and to be around in case something happens. My mom is spending the day with Jack’s sister and Abby, and Silas is missing in action.

I stare out the window as the trees pass by. We are taking it easy on the snowy roads, but the conditions aren’t terrible since they’ve been plowed—another perk to having the big machinery at our disposal. Regg makes us keep the roads clear in case we need to make a quick escape.

Dad pulls up to the first ‘check-stop’ as we’ve dubbed them. I lean forward and watch. Jack hops out of the truck and uses a pulley system to lower a drawbridge over the ten-foot gap they dug into the mountain road using the machinery. They chose this spot especially because there are two huge pieces of rocky edge on either side of the road, creating an effective bottle neck. Years ago, Abby’s dad told me this was where the men who built the road had to blast through the rock with dynamite. Dad drives over the bridge, and I lean over Megan to stare out the window at the wooden stakes that are sticking sharply out of the ground at the bottom of the eight-foot pit.

“I’d hate to be a zombie walking into that,” Ryan says with a laugh, and my dad nods like a proud papa– the stakes were his idea.

Jack jogs across the bridge. For a minute I’m scared he might trip and fall over the edge, but it’s just my crazy, overactive imagination. The bridge is as wide as the truck, and he’s crossing right in the center—pretty safe.

Jack uses the crank that Regg installed on the opposite side to lift the bridge back up to its resting place against a couple of pine trees. I can’t help but be impressed. It only took them three days to engineer and build.

I stare out into the forest and imagine Silas standing in the trees watching us drive away, and I feel a small stab of anger. It serves him right to get left behind. He didn’t even tell us where he would be hunting this morning. My stomach dips uncomfortably at the thought of Silas injured in the woods. It’s unlikely to happen, but Silas isn’t superman; he isn’t infallible. Zombies aren’t much of a threat anymore, but he could still get attacked by a wild animal, or twist his ankle… I turn my brain off. Silas will be fine, he is always fine.

“Where are we headed?” I ask as Jack gets back in the truck and shakes a little snow off his boots.

“There’s a small town we’ve been scavenging, it’s only about fifteen minutes east. I thought we’d head there,” Dad says, and my stomach clenches with a strange mixture of excitement and fear. It’s a heady rush, and I’m honestly not even sure which emotion is winning out. There is probably something wrong with me that the thought of leaving the safety of the mountain actually excites me. It must be pretty safe though, if my parents are willing to let me go. The idea of picking through a store without the fear of zombies, like we used to be able to do, almost makes me weak in the knees.

“Won’t the roads be bad?” I blurt out. “Once we get down the mountain?” I clarify. The mountain roads are a bit slippery, but at least they’ve been plowed.

“It depends on the weather, but it should be okay. The weather isn’t as treacherous down below; they haven’t gotten as much snow as we have. We will use the four wheel drive and take it easy,” Dad promises, mistaking my curiosity for fear. I don’t bother correcting him. When we finally leave the well-plowed mountain road behind and burst out onto the pavement, my dad is right. It’s very anticlimactic.

There is snow on the road, but it’s nowhere near the amount we’ve been getting up on the mountain. There are also ruts in the snow, and I lean forward to stare at our ready-made path.

“Who made all the tire tracks?” I ask, surprised to find out there are other survivors in the area.

“We did,” Jack tells me, effectively eviscerating my small bubble of hope. “We usually come down the mountain once a day to look for supplies and check on the zombie situation.”

“It’s like chopping wood,” my dad chimes in with a meaningful look in my direction; he knows how much I detest the job. “It might look like we have a lot of supplies now, but we need to constantly gather more because there will come a time, in a couple of years, that things won’t be as easy to find as they once were.”

I sit back in my seat, feeling an uncomfortable stab of terror in my belly. I had foolishly never thought about the future—not really. Sure, I’d thought about things like what I would do if the apocalypse suddenly ended. But I’d never thought about five years from now, still living with zombies, and all the supplies already picked over. There aren’t any more factories around to make more canned goods and toothpaste.

“I think you just terrified the girl,” Jack says, and every eye in the vehicle turns towards me. I shrug and force myself to sit up in my seat like it’s no big deal, but he’s right. I’m officially scared of more than just the zombies.

“So what’s this town we’re going to like?” I ask, and my dad eyes me in the rearview mirror for a second before answering. I have a feeling he can see right through my facade and into my insecurities, but at least he doesn’t say anything in front of everyone else.

“It’s a small town; only had a population of a thousand or so people before the outbreak,” Jack answers again, and I frown.

“What kind of stores does a town that small have?” I ask, and Jack holds up two fingers.

“There’s a mom and pop grocery store that we’ve been picking over a little more every time we pass by and a bait and tackle shop that we’ve already cleaned out.” My eyebrows go up in surprise. What kind of trip is this? Obviously one where my Dad wants to play it safe, but not one that is going to be productive. From a survival standpoint, it’s a huge waste. A waste of time, energy, and most importantly, fuel—I’m surprised Regg even sanctioned the trip.

“This is ridiculous,” I say, once again drawing every eye in the truck towards me.

“Care to elaborate?” Dad asks with one eyebrow quirked, a warning sign that I am about to get on his nerves and possibly get myself into trouble. I ignore it.

“Why waste time picking over a tiny, one-horse-town grocery store that you’ve already picked over?” I demand, “Why don’t we try and get a big haul and actually make this trip worthwhile?” I continue, not giving anyone time to answer my first question.

“What do you suggest?” my dad asks, his eyebrow quirked so high that it’s disappeared into his wave of brown hair. I can’t help but notice suddenly that it’s streaked with grey now, grey that hadn’t been there two months ago.

“Did you ever go back to that Walmart?” I ask, and my dad’s eyebrow crashes back down in surprise. He looks at Jack, and they both shake their heads.

“We didn’t,” Dad says, and I can tell his brain is running a mile a minute. “It was overrun—” he starts to say.

“But you said the zombies have frozen up,” I interrupt to point out, and he nods, stepping on the brake suddenly. The truck slides for a minute before coming to a complete stop in the middle of the road. Dad whips the wheel around and starts off in the other direction.

Jack looks surprised, but he’s grinning and so are Megan and Ryan. I sit back in my seat with a self-satisfied smile. If no one else has found it, that place will be a gold mine.

We reach the parking lot and can tell from the tire tracks in the fresh snow that at least a couple vehicles have come and gone recently. My heart drops, and I start to sweat underneath my winter clothes. What if all the good stuff is gone? My joy at discovering other human life is pushed down beneath a wave of fear that they’ve taken what we will soon need to survive.

Dad doesn’t bother with the front entrance like we did before; instead he drives around back where we’d been forced to escape the Walmart zombies, and he puts the truck into park. I look around. The snow is undisturbed back here, and the steel door is still securely shut. The semi is still here too, covered in snow. It kind of looks like a giant white centipede. I pull my eyes away from the truck and pull my gun from my hip.

We wait for my dad to give the all clear before getting out of the truck. The cold air nips at my face and makes my lungs shrivel, and I have to choke back the urge to cough. Ryan looks at me funny when I make a slight gurgling noise, but I just shrug and ignore him.

Jack strides up to the door and pulls it, but it won’t budge. “I don’t think we’re gonna get this door open,” he says as he runs his hand along the seams. “Not even a hinge is exposed to help us; it’s a high-grade security door.”

My dad actually laughs and, of all the crazy things, unzips his coat. We all stare at him, wondering if he’s finally cracked, but he doesn’t strip down to his underwear and run across the parking lot like I think we all secretly feared. He pulls a key from a chain around his neck and fits it into the lock.

We all gape at him. “What the hell man?” Jack asks, looking impressed.

“After we nearly lost the cabin to the zombies, I started carrying certain things around on me at all times,” Dad confesses. “This key is one of them.” Dad looks around at each of us individually, and I can’t help but wonder what else he has hidden away. “Be ready,” he warns us, and we nod.

Last time we were here, we’d barricaded shut the door that connected to the shopping part of the store, but someone could have broken it down, or maybe the zombies finally did…

We all snap on flashlights. Then, Dad throws open the door and we wait for the ravenous attack. It doesn’t come. Jack pans the flashlight back and forth, and the beam lands on the door across the room, still secured.

“Keep on your toes; we never explored the whole warehouse,” Dad warns, but despite his words, I’m feeling optimistic.

We enter the darkened room, and Dad locks the door behind us again. Which is a little creepy, but I see his point. He probably doesn’t want anyone else, human or zombie, following us in here.

Even though we aren’t outside anymore, it’s still freezing in the warehouse. My fingers ache against the metal flashlight and the handle of my gun. I want nothing more than to put on a pair of gloves, but I’m too scared of not being able to pull the trigger.

“Let’s clear the room so we can make a plan,” Jack suggests, and we all agree. We spread out a bit and begin searching every nook and cranny, staying close to each other. There are so many crates stacked everywhere, it’s a security nightmare.

I round a crate of diapers stacked higher and wider than my own body and come face to face with a zombie. Its rotting face is pulled back into a snarl. Its right cheek has been peeled away from the bone and is hanging from its chin by a thread of skin. I can’t hold back the girly shriek, even as I raise my gun. My fingers are slow and clumsy against the trigger, but I finally get my shit together. My bullet lodges into its brain, the shot echoing loudly in the metal building, even with the silencer.

The zombie doesn’t fall like I’d expected, and I raise my gun for a second shot when my dad grabs my shoulder to stop me. “It’s frozen, Jane!” he shouts at me, and for a minute my adrenaline-fueled mind can’t comprehend what he’s saying. It’s his demeanor that reaches me finally. He’s way too calm. I just encountered a zombie that appears to be un-killable, and he isn’t even freaking out. He isn’t joining me in the fight. He’s just standing behind me gently squeezing my shoulder.

I stare at the zombie, like really stare at it for the first time. I look past the fact that it’s a terrifying monster and finally notice something I probably should’ve noticed the first time. It isn’t attacking me. In fact, it hasn’t moved a muscle.

“Damn, Jane, you just iced an already frozen zombie,” Ryan says with a chuckle, and I’m stunned. It’s so weird to be this close to them and not be fighting for your life; it feels unnatural. I know everyone told us about the frozen zombies, but it’s another thing to actually see one yourself. I turn to look at Megan and see that she’s just as speechless as I am.

I turn back and look at the zombie. “Is it dead?” I ask, and Ryan actually laughs.

“Well, this one is for sure,” Dad says, apparently also finding humor in the situation. I lower my gun and stare. Megan reaches out and pushes the zombie over, and it lands against the concrete with a loud thump. I stare at her in horror; she just touched it, on purpose

“Now I’ve seen everything,” she mutters, and I can’t help but agree.

“It freaked me the hell out too, the first time I saw it,” Jack admits, and his words finally break me from my trance. I tuck my gun back in the holster at my hip. There might be zombies in here, but it doesn’t look like they’re going to be any threat to us.

Frost bite is the more real threat. I blow on my hands to try and warm them up and then slip my gloves on. My fingertips have started to turn white, and the more they warm up, the more they hurt. Regg has been drilling the dangers of frostbite into all of us, and I’m pretty sure I just came close.

The irony strikes me, and I have to smother a twisted grin so the others don’t think I’m losing it. It’s always some kind of bite you have to watch out for.

We move through the warehouse and find six more zombies. Six! I shudder thinking about the last time we were here in the dark and there were six zombies we didn’t know about just shambling around with us. They weren’t frozen back then. I can tell by the look on my dad’s face that he’s thinking the same thing. None of the others were with us that first time.

“What are we going to do with all this stuff?” Jack asks with a whistle as he pans his light around the crates of food and supplies that fill the warehouse floor.

“Maybe we should just move in here,” Megan suggests. Her idea has some merit, except that it’s so cold now we would freeze to death. We might be able to burn the pallets, but they wouldn’t last very long—we’d never be able to heat this whole warehouse.

“It isn’t practical to move off the mountain; it’s the safest place for us,” Jack tells her, and everyone else nods in agreement.

“I was thinking, we should try and get that semi outside started and filled with supplies,” Dad suggests, and everyone’s face lights up at the idea.

“Why don’t I go take a look under the hood?” Jack suggests, and it makes sense since no one else is very mechanical, my dad included.

“I need one of you come with me and watch my back,” Jack says, and Ryan steps forward instantly.

“I saw a bunch of keys hanging beside the door,” Dad tells them. Jack nods as he takes off, his footsteps practically bouncing with excitement.

“The rest of us should go through the pallets and mark what we need to take,” Dad says, turning to Megan and me. “Non-perishable food is at the top of the list, medical supplies, warm clothing, then toiletries and whatever else you think of.”

“How are we going to move all this stuff?” I ask, looking at all the plastic-wrapped pallets that are way too heavy to move by hand, even with the five of us.”

“I saw a forklift in the back,” Dad says, “I’m going to try and get it started, if I can’t—we’ll move everything by hand if we have to,” he tells us, and my back hurts just thinking about it. I really hope he gets the machine working.

“How do you want us to mark them?” Megan asks, and that gives my dad pause for a minute as he looks around the warehouse, shining his flashlight around for inspiration. He jogs over and starts ripping open a box. I hear him chuckle as he returns with the box and drops it by our feet, accidentally shining his flashlight in my face.

“Sorry, Jane,” he murmurs as he victoriously points his light down to reveal the box full of bright yellow Halloween tape. It’s that cheap plastic stuff that comes in long rolls and says words like ‘danger’ and ‘caution.’ People used to wrap them around the perimeter of their yards so it would look like some kind of crime scene. I have a hard time seeing the fun in it now, considering every day is Halloween these days—and not the fun candy kind either.

“Wrap the pallets we want to take with this,” Dad instructs as he hands us each a roll. He gives me a brief hug and tells us to be careful. Then he takes off into the dark. I watch his flashlight bob around until he turns the corner and disappears.

“All this stuff is awesome,” Megan says as she moves forward excitedly. We look around for a bit and unwrap a couple rolls of Halloween tape before we decide to work together. Wrapping the tape around the pallets is kind of a two-person job. The first pallet we come to is full of dog food—not very appetizing—so we move past it to the next one. We find a huge pallet filled with hundreds of cans of spaghetti sauce. After a brief debate, we decide to take it.

“We’ll have to make sure we find some pasta,” I tell Megan as we each grab an end of the yellow tape and circle the pallet, meeting in the middle and tying a neat bow around the plastic-wrapped pile of Italian goodness. She snickers but doesn’t make a snotty comment, so she must think it’s a good idea too. After all, what good is a huge pallet of sauce without spaghetti? My mouth waters at the idea of spaghetti and meatballs, though that might be a bit too optimistic.

We find tons of stuff that we can’t possibly take, but would have been awesome before the outbreak: big screen TV’s, pallets of makeup, bubble bath, DVD players, laptop computers, and tablets. It’s kind of heartbreaking to walk past it all, but it’s essentially useless junk these days.

Megan and I wrap a bunch of other pallets though. Gatorade, water, flour, sugar, oatmeal, breakfast cereal, beans, soup, canned fruits and vegetables, rice, even popcorn kernels and soda pop. We even find the spaghetti.

Some of the stuff is useful, but it would be crazy to take an entire pallet and waste room on the truck. So we use our knives to cut open the pallets and begin stacking smaller quantities of stuff into empty cardboard boxes that we find in a big bin at the back of the warehouse—things like seasoning; salt and pepper; lip balm; razors for shaving; and lotions for dry, cracked skin. It might not seem like a necessity, but my hands and face are so wind burnt from the cold weather. It’s extremely painful—which is exactly what I tell Megan when she tries to tell me that hand lotion is not necessary!

She rolls her eyes at me, and I grit my teeth and turn my back to find another pallet.

“How’s it going girls?” my dad asks as he comes back around the corner, nearly blinding us with his flashlight again.

“Pretty good, Mr. H,” Megan chimes in before I can even open my mouth, and I grit my teeth some more. I don’t know why, but I can’t help but find Megan really annoying these days—probably because she’s a bit of a know-it-all and always treats me like an idiot.

“Did you get the loader-thing running?” I ask Dad, noticing the way Megan frowns at my improper use of the word.

“No, but I did find this manual pallet jack,” my dad says. I squint over at him in the darkness and see that he’s pushing a weird thing with two forks. Dad demonstrates moving it beneath the pallet of spaghetti sauce and starts pumping the handle up and down. Slowly I see the pallet start to rise.

“This is going to take forever,” I tell him bluntly.

“It’s better than nothing,” Megan, of course, has to chime in.

“I’m going to see how the other two are making out getting that tractor trailer up and running,” my dad tells us. He starts walking away just as a loud screech of metal makes us all jump and spin towards the door.

The loud rumble of a diesel engine starts echoing through the building and a long, thin line of daylight appears and then widens as the huge door is rolled up. Daylight floods the warehouse, along with a fresh blast of icy wind. I blink against the sudden light that pierces my retinas and makes them ache.

After I blink a few times and clear my vision, I can finally see Ryan walking towards us with a huge grin on his face. “We got it going!” he tells us unnecessarily.

The truck makes a loud, piercing ‘beep, beep, beep’ sound as it backs up, making us wince, and then it stops. We all move to the doorway with a frown. I’m half-expecting to see the truck surrounded by a sea of zombies after all that noise, even though I know they are frozen.

Jack is cussing as he climbs down from the cab. I watch him walk to the back of the truck, kicking up snow as he pulls his knife from his pocket, and my brows rise up in confusion. He cuts something near the back wheels, then trudges back to the truck and gets in without so much as glancing our way.

This time when he puts the truck in reverse, it doesn’t beep. “Well that’s much better,” my dad remarks to Ryan, and we all nod. That harsh beep felt way too much like putting a target on all our backs. Jack backs into the loading dock like a pro, and we all move as he brings it to a stop right against the building.

Jack joins us with a pair of lock cutters in his hand, probably from the cab of the truck. He cuts through the lock holding the door of the trailer shut. Ryan rolls the door up, and we all jump back in horror. I fight the urge to run. We all take a couple steps away before getting ahold of ourselves, and I stare with my jaw slack.

“What the hell?” Jack says, pretty much summing up the exact way I'm feeling.

Chapter Three

“Where did they all come from?” Ryan asks, though he knows none of us have any idea. Sometimes stuff is just so messed up that you have to say it out loud so you know you’re not the only one seeing it.

“Damned if I know,” Jack says with a glare at the twenty-plus zombies that must’ve been locked in the trailer before they froze.

“Maybe just before the outbreak got bad?” Megan suggests, and we all shrug. I’m not sure about Megan’s logic. Was there a moment of time before the outbreak got bad—a crucial turning point where we could have nipped the zombies in the bud and saved humanity? To me, it seemed like I went to bed that night and woke up and the whole world had already gone to hell.

“Should we still use it?” I ask, more concerned with the food than what mysterious person decided locking a bunch of zombies in a truck was a good idea.

We all look at each other, no one wanting to be the one to decide, just in case it’s a huge mistake. “Maybe we should clean it out and see what we’re dealing with,” Jack suggests, and we all nod in unison. We need to see what we’re up against first because finding another truck isn’t going to be easy.

Ryan rolls the door down and Jack pulls the truck ahead. We don’t want to dump the bodies in the loading dock, right in our way. The rest of us trail along behind the truck until he stops. Then Ryan rolls the door back up. Jack and Ryan jump in right away and start tossing bodies out of the truck.

“We should spike them, just in case they ever thaw out and come back to life,” my dad decides, giving Megan and me the look to pull out our knives. I smother a groan. It’s a good idea, but trying to wedge my knife through the head of a frozen zomb is not my idea of a good time.

My first attempt is half-hearted at best. The knife only goes about halfway in before it gets stuck. “You can do better than that,” Dad calls over, and his mockery fuels me. I actually try this time, putting all of my weight on the knife, and it slowly slides in to the handle.

Megan and my dad are already on to their second zombie, so I increase the pace and keep it up until the truck is empty and every zombie they’ve thrown out into the snow receives their grand prize hole in the head.

“That was much harder than expected,” I pant as I stand up, and my back lets out a loud pop.

“You thought stabbing frozen zombies through the head was going to be easy?” Ryan teases me with a laugh as he hops down from the truck, and I give him a playful punch in the arm, making him hold his hands up in mock surrender.

“How’s it looking in there?” my dad calls out to Jack, who is still inside the trailer shining his flashlight around.

“It isn’t too gummed up,” Jack admits after a thorough inspection. “I think we were lucky the weather hasn’t been hot,” he says, giving me a gruesome glimpse of what my summer might be like—if I make it that long.

“The food is up off the ground, on pallets,” Ryan points out.

Jack and my dad stare at each other for a minute before they seem to come to some sort of silent agreement and nod. We can’t afford to be picky; we are going to need this food.

“We can put some cardboard and plastic down too,” Jack suggests, waving us back towards the warehouse as he heads behind the wheel. I step over a particularly gruesome-looking zombie who’s really just a torso and start jogging to try and warm myself up.

Dad sees me rubbing my fingers together and suggests we all take a quick break to warm up in the truck. It isn’t as cold down here as up on the mountain, but as the zombies have shown us, it’s still more than cold enough to freeze flesh.

Jack finishes backing the truck into place and then joins us in the Ford. We all sit impatiently, waiting to thaw out enough so we can go back to work.

Jack finally checks his watch and nods his head. “I think that’s time folks,” he jokes, and we all practically leap out of the truck, ready to get this stuff loaded up. The cold is a slap in the face with an icy hand, but I ignore it and follow the others back inside the warehouse. We have a lot of work ahead of us, and, zombies or frozen zombies, none of us really want to be off the mountain when the sun sets.

“I thought that was never going to end,” Megan complains as she staggers towards the truck, and I can’t help but silently agree. It feels like my back is broken from pushing and shoving the stubborn pallets, and I’m completely soaked through with sweat.

“Let’s get going guys,” Dad tells us, even though we are already limping towards the truck. Ryan and Jack hop into the cab of the big rig and my dad gets behind the wheel of the Ford. I pull the last little bit of strength I have and jog past Megan to claim the front seat before she can get there. She makes a face, but otherwise doesn’t say anything as she climbs into the back.

Dad starts the truck and then gives Jack the thumbs up sign. The semi pulls slowly out of the loading dock, its tires spinning for a minute in the snow before it finds enough traction to get going. Dad pulls in behind them and we slowly head out of town, convoy style.

“That was a lot of work,” I comment to no one in particular, and both Megan and my dad nod.

“We got a lot of food though,” Dad points out, and I grin.

“I guess this was a pretty good idea after all,” I tell him, and he sends me a wink.

“I’m glad you suggested it,” he admits, and I can’t help but beam. It feels good to be a contributing member of our little post-apocalypse society. I know chopping wood is important too, but it can sometimes feel like it isn’t.

“Guys—” Megan breaks in on our happy father-daughter moment. Something in her voice has me scared, like as soon as she speaks.

Dad glances in the rearview mirror. “Shit,” he says, surprising me because he doesn’t swear very often. I turn in my seat and look out the back window. An older model truck is speeding towards us, catching up fast.

The walkie on the dash crackles to life. “You guys have company back there,” Ryan’s voice comes through, and even with the static, I can tell that he’s worried too.

“Maybe it won’t be so bad,” I say, voicing the best case scenario, even though people are just as likely to murder strangers as help them these days.

The crack of gunfire has all of our hopes sinking. I see my dad’s knuckles turn white on the wheel as his grip tightens and he presses down on the accelerator. The truck is still gaining on us.

Megan’s pulling her gun from her hip. A bullet strikes the truck, making a horrible noise. All I want to do is duck down under the dash. I briefly consider it, but know I couldn’t live with myself if I acted so cowardly. Instead, I dive into the back with Megan, making my dad call out in protest, but he can’t really stop me since he’s speeding along a snow-covered road.

Megan pops the back window open and starts firing until her gun runs dry. She’s gotten in a couple lucky shots to the hood, and one to the windshield, but I don’t think she’s actually hit anyone because the truck is still coming at us.

We both duck down as a barrage of shots volley against the truck. I count eight shots and then nothing. “You okay, Dad?” I yell out, terror pumping with every beat of my heart.

“Yeah, what about you kids?” he calls back, and I allow myself to take a small breath. I look over at Megan and she’s fine.

“We’re okay too,” I call out and watch his shoulders sag in visible relief.

Megan has her gun reloaded and pops back up to the window to take a shot, she gets one off before the other truck starts firing in return.

It’s like everything happens in slow motion. I hear a horrible scream and then Megan slumps. I grab her and pull her down on the seat.

“Jane?” Dad screams from the front seat.

“I think Megan was shot,” I scream back, terror giving me the shakes and making me clumsy. I pull my hand away from her body and it’s covered in red. “Oh my God!” I yell, making my dad panic and swerve the truck.

“Is she still alive?” my dad demands from the front seat, and I force myself to look at her face. She’s looking back at me, but it isn’t her usual disdainful look; her eyes are bright and glazed over with pain.

“I’m alive,” Megan pants out when I can’t find the words to answer.

“Thank Christ,” I hear my dad murmur.

“I think it’s my arm…” Megan gasps, trying to move but only succeeding in hurting herself and causing a fresh flood of blood to stain the front of her coat. “Maybe my shoulder,” she says as she lays hunched down and panting.

The gunfire starts again, and I pull Megan down onto the floor, making her scream in pain. “I’m so sorry,” I murmur to her as I sprawl out on the seat above her, trying to stay alive. Now she’s flat on her back, and I know I have to look.

My shaking fingers fumble as they undo her coat, and she groans. I try to ignore everything else and just focus on the task at hand, but it’s tough with Megan writhing in pain at every little jostle, and the bullets. How many bullets do those guys have?

I finally get her coat opened up. My stomach rebels at the sight of her shirt completely soaked in blood. “It’s your right shoulder,” I confirm, and she nods. Her face is so pale that I’m scared she’s going to die any minute.

“Check and see if it went all the way through,” Megan murmurs, her voice no more than a whisper.

I stare at her blankly. “Check my shoulder,” she grounds out, and I feel horrible for her. She deserves someone better than me to help her with this.

“This is going to hurt,” I warn her as I’m forced to roll her over a little. She nods with a determined look in her eye, but even she can’t hold back the scream when I actually do it. The back of her shirt is clean, no blood. Just to be sure, I pull her shirt back a little and peer down; her skin looks untouched.

“It didn’t go through,” I tell her, and she moans as I try to gently lay her back down without hurting her too much.

“You need to apply pressure to the wound!” my dad yells back to me, and I nod. I’ve seen doctor shows before. Although, who knows how reliable that stuff is. I dig in my backpack, pull out a clean shirt, and press it to the wound on her shoulder. Her eyelids flicker and she passes out.

A bullet enters the cab and goes straight through, cracking the front windshield. I know I need to deal with this so I can help my dad deal with the assholes outside that are trying to kill me.

I stare at Megan’s prone body and wrack my brain. “Okay,” I murmur to myself as I try desperately to shed the shaking. Silas. What would Silas do right now? I hold my finger to her neck and feel for a pulse. She has one, thank God.

I know I need to keep something on the wound, but it’s in an awkward spot, and I’m not going to be able to sit here and hold it for her.

My eyes land on her belt and I quickly take it off. I need to hurry and do this before she wakes up. I gingerly pull her arm from the sleeve of her coat and then fold my t-shirt and pack it over the bullet hole. Then I take a deep breath and use Megan’s own belt over her shoulder and under her armpit, tightening as tight as it will go. There isn’t a hole that small, so I use my knife to poke one out through the leather. I give her a final look and crawl back up towards the window to take a peek.

The truck is a lot closer now. I hold my gun out the window and fire randomly, peeking the top of my head up to see what damage I’ve done. The truck has backed off a little; they probably thought we ran out of ammo.

“You guys still okay?” I hear Ryan’s voice crackle through the radio. Dad reaches over and throws it to me. I duck in the seat and hold the button down.

“Megan’s been shot,” I tell him. I hear Ryan suck in a worried breath on the other end.

“Jack says you need to get around us, use the trailer as protection,” Ryan’s voice crackles through.

I look to my dad and he nods.

“Okay,” I tell them as Dad presses the accelerator and swerves out into the oncoming lane. Jack slows down so we don’t have to go too crazy on the icy roads.

We are just about past when the truck behind us pulls out and starts to chase us. “They’re following us!” I scream into the walkie, not that they can’t see for themselves.

“Just hurry up! Get by us, and Jack will do the rest,” Ryan yells back.

My dad presses the accelerator even harder. The truck fishtails a little, but he gets it under control after two terrifying swerves, and the truck finally punches clear of the tractor trailer.

I look back in time to see Jack crank the wheel. The trailer starts to rock, side-swiping the truck that’s still passing. I have to swallow a strangled yell when the smaller truck starts spinning and takes a nosedive for the ditch. It crashes through a bit of fence and the front end is caved in by a tree.

Jack steadies his truck and pumps the brakes. My dad does the same, pulling the truck over so he’s protected from any shots that might still be fired from the crashed truck. He jumps out and opens the back door to take a look at Megan.

I watch as my dad’s face turns even whiter, and I’m torn between watching him check for a pulse, something I haven’t been able to do in the last ten minutes, and watching Jack and Ryan jump down from the big rig and run towards the truck with their guns up. Jack reaches the crunched cab first and doesn’t wait for Ryan as he raises his gun and fires rapidly, two times at the occupants.

My stomach dips nauseously as I watch Jack speak to Ryan quickly before turning around and jogging towards us. Ryan stays behind and pries the back door of the truck open. I squint at him, wondering what in the hell he’s up to.

“How’s our girl?” Jack yells when he gets close enough, and I can see he’s drenched in sweat. So am I. This is hands down one of the most dangerous situation I’ve ever been in, and I live in a zombie apocalypse! I honestly think I’m starting to prefer the zombies over other human beings.

“She’s lost a lot of blood,” my dad calls out, and Jack looks grim. Dad moves out of the way to let Jack have a look.

“I don’t think this can wait till we get home, Hal,” Jack tells my dad after he’s removed the belt and examined the wound. His fingers are covered in fresh blood, and now that the excitement of the car chase is over, I feel a bit like swooning.

“Smarten up, Jane,” Jack barks at me. “Take deep breaths.” His tone startles me into taking a deep breath, and I feel a little better. Zombie gore I can handle now, but seeing a living, breathing person bleeding all over the place is still not something I’ve gotten used to.

“We need to take her out of here, but we have to be careful not to jostle her too much. That bullet is still inside her and we don’t want a spinal cord injury—if it isn’t too late,” Jack says, standing up and surveying the area.

“What do we need?” Dad asks, snapping to action.

“A board of some kind, so we can move her with minimum impact on her body,” Jack says, and in that moment I can really see the military man coming out in him.

I scan the area and run over to the fence that the truck just catapulted through. I keep my eyes on the ground, scanning the salvageable wood, and purposely don’t look towards the truck where an accidental glance already exposed me to a blood-splattered windshield.

I find a chunk of fence that still has a couple five-foot long boards nailed to it. It isn’t sanitary by any means, but it’s what we have. Dad sees me struggling to pick it up and runs over and grabs an end.

“Good eye, Janey,” he tells me as we carry it through the snow, out of the ditch, and up to the truck. Jack nods his head like we did good and motions for us to hurry.

“I need you two here to hold the wood steady and I’ll go around to the other side and start to slide her on,” he says as he moves around the truck.

Ryan comes running over with an armful of weapons and booze, but he drops it all when he sees what we’re doing. He moves in to help us hold the board steady.

“Jane, you crawl over and get on the seat and help to guide her,” Jack says, changing the game plan when he sees Ryan is back. I nod and scramble up into the seat. Megan looks deathly pale now. For a minute I’m scared we are too late, but then I see the shallow breaths she’s taking as her chest rises and falls.

Jack places one hand underneath her neck to stabilize her and his other hand between her shoulder blades. I wince when I see the wound on her chest bubble fresh blood at the movement. “Grab her hips and legs and put your back into it,” Jack advises just before he starts a countdown to three.

I pull so hard I can feel my face turning red, all the while trying hard not to make too many sudden movements. And finally, after about ten torturous minutes, we get Megan on the board. Jack runs around and helps Ryan and my dad carry the load, and I spring out the other side and run to the back to drop the tailgate.

“That’s quick thinking,” Jack murmurs to me as they gently slide Megan in feet first, so her wound is close to them. Jack takes out his knife and slices the collar of Megan’s shirt, revealing an angry, puckered hole in the skin that is weeping blood. “Bring me that vodka,” Jack calls out, and all three of us dive for it, wanting to be helpful.

Ryan gets it first, and we all return to the truck to watch as Jack smashes the top off and drops his knife right into the nearly full bottle.

“Someone start a fire,” Jack growls, and I take off running for the fence to gather pieces of wood. Ryan joins me. When we drag everything back to the road, my dad pours gasoline straight from our extra tank, right on top of the wood, and then drops a match, starting it with a loud crackle.

“Who has something to boil water?” Jack asks. Thanks to Silas’s tutelage, I do. I dig in my bag, pulling things out all over the place, until I find the small enamel pot Silas found me at the camping store. I scoop fresh snow from the ground and toss it on the fire. As it melts, we add more handfuls of snow until it’s finally boiling.

I also find some hand sanitizer and pass that over to Jack.

“We need to move quickly. I’d like to get this bullet out before she wakes up. There is also a risk that this wound could become sucking and collapse one of her lungs,” Jack tells us, terrifying me even worse—which I didn’t even know was possible.

I watch, not even allowing myself to breathe as Jack fishes his knife from the alcohol and then gently begins prodding Megan’s wound with his fingertips. “I can feel something…” he confirms, his fingertips disappearing inside Megan’s chest just as her eyes flutter open and she unleashes an unholy scream.

“Jesus Christ, someone hold her down,” Jack barks out, and Ryan and my dad both move forward to pin her down.

“I really wish you would’ve stayed out for this one darlin’,” Jack says in way of apology, but I don’t think Megan can even hear him right now. Her eyes are as round as a pair of quarters, and despite how much blood she’s lost, she’s fighting them tooth and nail, which is only making her blood pump out faster.

“Ah, damn it,” Jack curses as he raises his fist and lands a punishing blow to Megan’s jaw. Her eyes roll as her head snaps back, and we all gape at him in horror

Chapter Four

“What in the hell did you do that for?” my dad screams at Jack. I can tell it’s all he can do not to reach over and knock Jack on his ass. The only thing stopping him is that Jack still has one hand on Megan.

“Hal, I know what you’re thinking, but you have to believe me. That punch is going to hurt a hell of a lot less than being awake for what I’m going to do next,” Jack explains calmly, and in a messed up way, he makes sense.

“You should’ve warned us,” Ryan hedges, and Jack lets out an annoyed huff.

“Are we going to get this done, or are we going to screw around until she wakes up again? I didn’t exactly enjoy punching a teenage girl in the face, you know!” Jack shouts in exasperation, and that decides it for me.

I reach over to where Jack tossed his knife back into the alcohol when Megan started struggling, and I hand it to him.

“Do it,” I tell him, putting my complete trust in him—it’s not like we have a lot of options.

Jack looks to Ryan and my dad to make sure they aren’t going to be any trouble. They both shake their heads and take a step back. Jack washes up again and uses the hand sanitizer. Then he begins gently prodding at Megan’s wound with his fingertips until he finally locates the bullet. “I don’t think it’s too deep…and it doesn’t feel like the bullet exploded on impact,” he tells us with a sigh of relief. “We got lucky—I don’t think it hit anything vital.” I can’t help myself, my jaw drops. Silly me, here I’d thought the worst thing about this situation was Megan getting shot. I didn’t even know bullets could explode once they hit you.

I’m doing pretty well, up until Jack starts using his knife to dig the bullet out. I’m not proud of myself, but I have to turn away. I scan the horizon instead, anxiety gnawing a hole in my stomach. I’m worried about Megan, even though she’s sometimes a know-it-all. And I’m terrified that more of the bad guys are going to show up looking for their friends, and we’ll just be standing here in the middle of the road, easy pickings.

I glance towards the wrecked truck not that far away and feel sick. Today was supposed to be fun, but I guess I was deluding myself. I don’t honestly think fun exists anymore, not since the zombies.

Jack starts stitching Megan’s wound closed after he tosses the bullet out onto the tailgate. I walk over and scoop it up out of morbid curiosity, ignoring the bug-eyed look my dad sends me. It’s mushroom shaped and mostly covered in Megan’s blood, but I can also see traces of copper and lead visible through the gore. I carefully wrap it in a piece of gauze and slip it inside my jacket pocket for safe keeping.

Megan is still unconscious and so pale that she honestly looks kind of dead. I resist the urge to check for a pulse. Jack has everything handled, I remind myself.

“That should hold until we can get back to the cabin,” he says finally, stepping back and rinsing off his bloody fingers. “We need to get her back inside the cab and warm her up. The cold probably helped slow the bleeding, but we need to get this girl warmed up now,” he says as he gently leans in and scoops Megan up in his arms. I run ahead and open the door. He lays her down across the seat, taking off his own jacket and using it as a blanket. “Will you ride back here with her and make sure she doesn’t fall off the seat?” Jack asks me, and I nod, climbing in and perching myself on the tiny bit of seat that’s left.

“Of course.”

“I’m riding with you guys,” Ryan says firmly, already climbing into the front seat even before Jack nods his permission. “If we get attacked again, you guys are going to need someone who can cover you,” he explains as Dad climbs back into the driver’s seat, and I force myself to swallow my irritation. It’s true, I’m not the best person with a gun, but I’m getting better every day, and I think I did okay in a pinch.

Jack throws the makeshift wooden stretcher off the end of the tailgate and slams it shut on his way back to the tractor trailer that’s been idling for the last hour and a half, and then we are off again. We have to keep the heat cranked up as high as it will go because of the holes in both the back window and the windshield. The cold air whistles through the cab no matter how high we have it, and I tuck the jacket more firmly underneath Megan’s chin.

Twenty minutes into the trip, the wind starts howling even harder, whipping up snow and making it almost impossible to see the road. “Could this day get any worse?” I mutter, watching my dad with his nose practically pressed to the windshield. Snow is swirling into the cab and landing all over Megan and me, and I rush to brush it off—even though it just keeps coming.

“I’d say it actually just got a lot better,” my dad says, surprising me, and I shake my head.

“How do you figure?” I demand, looking down at Megan. I know if she could talk right now, she’d be telling me the answer. I press my hand to her cheek just to be sure she’s still warm. It’s cool and damp from sweat. I brush a little snow from her cheek and pull her thick wool hat down a little lower.

“I was worried that our tracks in the snow might lead these guys back to the cabin,” Dad confesses, and I feel like I’ve been punched in the stomach. That thought didn’t even occur to me.

“Are you sure they will cover?” I ask, craning my head to look back behind us, but I can’t see much more than the dim lights of Jack’s truck through the wall of snow. Ryan points ahead of us. We can’t even see the road anymore—

“I think it’s safe to assume this snow will wipe out every trace,” he confirms, and I allow myself to breathe again.

“We’ll have to be more careful from now on though,” Dad says, and Ryan looks grim as he nods.

“There was a time I would’ve given anything to see other survivors in the area, but I don’t feel like that anymore,” Ryan confesses, and my dad nods his head again.

“Amen.”

It takes us nearly three hours to get back. The wind is kicking up snow so bad that when Dad stops the truck, Ryan and I both stare at him in confusion.

“You have to lower the bridge,” he tells Ryan, and I’m a little shocked to find out we are so close to home. This trip felt like it would never end.

“Oh— yeah…” Ryan says with a small grimace, and I don’t think he realized where we were either.

“How did you know to stop for the bridge?” I ask my dad once Ryan gets out and wrestles his door shut against the wind.

My dad points to a tree out the window. It’s kind of a weird-shaped tree, located right beside the driver’s window, growing two large trunks out of one base. The branches are practically touching the window. “I recognized that tree,” he says simply, and I swallow. If he hadn’t recognized that quirky tree, of all the crazy things, would we have driven into the pit?

I don’t ask though, because I’m not sure I really want to know how close we just came to a nosedive into a deep pit filled with wooden stakes sticking up out of the ground.

Ryan appears in front of the truck and starts waving my dad across, walking in front of the vehicle to make sure we aren’t getting too close to the edge in the white out.

“You’re all good,” Ryan says, popping his head back through the door and giving us the thumbs up. “I’m going to stay back and guide Jack across…I’ll catch a ride up with him,” he tells us, giving me a small smile before he slams the door again and takes off without waiting for us to answer.

Staring out the back window, I can just make out the outline of Ryan walking back across the bridge, illuminated in the headlights of Jack’s truck.

“We’re in the home stretch now,” Dad murmurs as he kicks the truck back into gear and we get moving again. It’s slow going still, with practically zero visibility. The truck keeps spinning in the snow, even though we’re in four wheel drive…but I finally begin to feel a small shred of hope. Only a couple more minutes now…

I stare down at Megan and see that her eyes are open, though her forehead is scrunched in pain. It startles me and I nearly squeal like a little girl, but I get myself under control just in time. “Are you okay?” I ask, instantly wanting to kick myself for asking such a dumb question.

Megan blinks up at me in confusion and opens her mouth like she’s trying to say something, but nothing comes out… or maybe her voice is just too quiet that I can’t hear her over the roar of the wind whistling through the cab. “It’s going to be okay,” I tell her, lifting the jacket up a little higher and tucking it underneath her chin. “We’re just about home.”

We don’t even get the truck into park before the backdoor is wrenched open. Catching in the wind, it slams open with a creak of springs and I wince, stifling a scream. Silas is staring at me with a dark scowl on his face that melts into one of concern when he sees Megan sprawled out on the seat.

“What the hell happened?” he demands, switching his gaze back to me.

“She’s been shot, son,” my dad answers for me as he comes around the side of the truck and claps Silas on the back. “Give me a hand getting her in the house.”

Silas doesn’t say another word as he reaches forward and gingerly picks Megan up in his arms, leaving my dad to flutter around them, pointing out her wound and begging him to be careful.

I sigh and reach down, slinging my pack onto my back before racing out ahead of them to get the door.

I should’ve known I didn’t need to bother. My mom is standing in the doorway with the door wide open. Regg, Abby, and Jack’s sister are crowded in behind her. I feel silly worrying about it in such a serious situation, but I can’t help but feel a small stab of annoyance that they are all just standing there with the door wide open letting all the heat out. The colder the room gets, the more wood it takes to get it back up to temperature, and that means more wood that I am going to have to cut… and now Megan is out of commission. I push the thought from my mind and give Mom a quick hug, even as I use the hug to start backing everyone up.

“Let’s let them in the door,” I call out, and the crowd shifts a little.

Mom lets out a small cry when she sees Megan hanging limply in Silas’s arms. “What the hell happened out there?” she demands before turning just about as pale as Megan. “She wasn’t bitten was she?” she asks, and my stomach shifts as I think about Sunny.

“No,” my dad tells her tersely, not stopping to explain as he motions for Silas to lay Megan down on the couch. I almost yell out not to use the couch, but I catch myself and bite my lip. Sunny was bitten, Megan is shot—one has nothing to do with the other—and I would sound like a fool to suggest something as crazy as the couch is cursed.

“What happened?” Mom demands again, tugging on my shoulder to get my attention.

“She was shot,” I blurt out, and she sags for a minute. I’m not sure if it’s from more fear, or less fear that it wasn’t a bite.

“Are you hurt?” she asks me, and I shake my head. She plants a small kiss on my cheek and pats me on my arm gently as she squeezes past to attend to Megan.

“Jack stitched her up as good as he could out on the road,” Dad explains as Silas carefully removes Jack’s coat and takes a quick look at the small, puckered wound on Megan’s shoulder.

“Did the bullet go all the way through?” Regg demands, moving forward to take a look as well, and there is no hint of the jovial guy he usually is. He’s all business, and his face is creased with worry.

“No, but Jack got it out,” Dad explains, and Silas and Regg shoot each other a relieved look.

“Well, it looks about as good as can be expected,” Regg decides after a moment, and I let out a small sigh of relief.

“Where is Jack?” his sister asks, her face a mask of terror as she realizes in all the excitement that her brother did not walk through the door with us.

“He should be just pulling up,” Dad reassures her, and she does a terrible job of hiding a sob of relief.

“Thank you,” she murmurs to the room at large before heading for the door. When she opens it, I can hear the rumble of the diesel engine and I breathe a little sigh of relief myself. Ryan and Jack made it.

“Do you have something to give her?” Regg asks Silas. After only a moment’s hesitation, Silas nods and pulls his pack off his back and starts rifling through his supply.

“Here’s an antibiotic, anti-inflammatory, and an oxy,” Silas lists off as he hands Regg a trio of pills.

“Thanks, man,” Regg says, moving towards Megan. Abby presses a bottle of water into his hand, and he gives her a grateful nod. Regg bends down to pop the pills in Megan’s mouth, but she stubbornly turns her head away.

“What’s the matter?” Regg asks her softly, and she has to clear her throat several times before anything becomes audible.

“No oxy,” she whispers, and Regg sends her a small smile.

“It’s okay, Meg. It will help with the pain,” he tells her, but Megan shakes her head.

“I can’t,” she insists, tears running down her cheeks from the effort to speak. “No narcotics…I’m in recovery,” she murmurs, and it finally dawns on all of us.

I stare across the room at Abby in shock, wondering if she knew that Megan used to be a drug addict, but she shakes her head. Regg clears his throat uncomfortably and hands Silas back the small, round pink pill like it suddenly contains poison.

“I’ve also got some ibuprofen,” Silas offers, probably taking the news of her drug addiction the best out of all of us. Megan nods gratefully, and Regg helps her swallow the pills, carefully holding the bottle of water to her lips until she nods her head that she’s done.

Jack walks in, his shoulders covered in snow, and Ryan is right on his heels. I watch Silas’s face darken in anger, but he doesn’t say anything. “How’s the patient?” Jack asks, coming forward, and Megan gives him a weak attempt at a smile.

“She seems like she’s doing okay,” Regg answers in Megan’s stead.

“She lost a lot of blood,” Jack tells him, and Regg nods. He was a military man, so he must be familiar with this sort of wound.

“She’ll re-coop,” he tells us all firmly, and I really hope that he’s right. “We’ll just keep an eye out for infection, lots of rest, and fluids…” Regg murmurs as he moves away. My mom steps in with a pile of clean blankets and covers Megan up.

Regg motions everyone away so she can get some rest. Then he pins my dad with a hard stare. “What the hell happened out there, Hal?” he demands.

My dad stares down at his hands for a moment before lifting his face and looking Regg right in the eye.

“We went back to that Walmart…I still had the key and the warehouse was untouched. All the zombs were frozen, so we…I…thought it would be more productive than that little grocer we’d been planning to hit,” my dad stops talking and stares at Regg like he’s waiting for him to drop the hammer.

“Continue,” Regg surprises us all by saying calmly.

“We loaded up that tractor trailer out front and were headed back when two yahoos in a truck started taking shots at us,” Dad pauses and looks furtively over at my mom, who is still glued to Megan’s side.

“We dealt with them, and the snow should cover up our tracks… I think we got lucky,” he finishes, and Regg nods.

“Very good then… I assume there is nothing in the truck that can’t wait until tomorrow?” he asks, which is kind of funny because everything was already frozen in the warehouse when we got there. Another night isn’t going to do it any harm. We all shake our heads, and Regg nods. “Then let’s wait for some daylight to get it unloaded.”

He nods again, dismissing us, and we all sort of drift away. Jack excuses himself and heads back to his own cabin with his sister. Ryan and my dad start pulling out the mattresses while my mom starts opening cans to make us something to eat. The room is practically black, with the only light coming from the massive fire pit in the middle of the living room. It’s enough for what we need it for, and most nights we don’t waste batteries or oil brightening the place up. Tonight is no exception.

Silas walks up to me and pulls me by my elbow towards the kitchen. It’s freezing cold, and I’m not wearing my jacket anymore. So I stand there shivering in front of him in the complete dark until he snaps on a flashlight, illuminating his scowling face.

“Were you hurt?” he demands, and I’m taken aback by the caring question coming from such an angry face. I really thought I was in for a lecture…

“No,” I promise him, reaching out to touch his hand. “I’m okay.”

Far from being reassured, Silas pulls his hand out of my grip and his face goes a shade darker.

“Thank God—but do you have any idea what could’ve happened to you today?” he asks, his agitation clear with each angry tap of his foot.

His attitude pricks at my temper, more than anything he could have said, and I cross my arms in annoyance. “I’m fine, okay,” I tell him again and go to brush past him, back into the living room where it isn’t a meat locker. I’m not going to stay in here and freeze my ass off just to get a lecture. His hand reaches out and snags my elbow, pulling me to a stop.

“Look—” he says, gentling his touch when I try and yank my arm away. “I was worried about you. You left without even letting me know where you were going.”

His words are so ridiculous that I can’t help it, I let out an incredulous laugh. Silas looks at me wearily, well aware that my harsh bark of laughter was not a result of good humor. “Are you serious?” I demand, and he shrugs in confusion. “You’ve been ignoring me for days. Disappearing into the woods alone—I never know where you are or what you’re doing, and you have the nerve to lecture me?”

“Sunny…” Silas starts to say, but I hold up my hand. I already know what he’s going to say…or at least the general idea of whatever macho line he’s about to try and feed me.

“She’s dead,” I say baldly, shocking myself just as much as Silas. I stop for a minute and realize that this is the first time in a week that I’ve been able to say her name without completely breaking down. “I loved her too, we all did. You weren’t the only one that lost her.” I tear up a bit now and my voice cracks—I’d been so close.

“Jane…” Silas tries to interrupt, looking horrified at my tears.

“I needed you, and you weren’t there,” I accuse, and Silas doesn’t make excuses this time. He steps forward and pulls me into his arms. His body heat warms me up a little.

“I’m sorry,” he says after a minute of nothing. “I’m so sorry.” I feel his body shake, and I finally hug him back as fiercely as I can.

“I’m sorry too,” I tell him, surprising myself. The anger is melting away from me more and more every second Silas holds me in his arms. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not, but we are both hurting and we’ve both been through hell lately—I guess we are allowed a little craziness.

“Do you still want to be with me?” I ask, instantly regretting letting those weak words past my lips. Silas never even asked me to be his girlfriend. I wish I could take them back, but they’re out there now.

“Of course I do, Jane,” Silas doesn’t even hesitate, and I can finally release the breath I’ve been holding. “I care about you, Blondie,” he says, pulling back and touching my cheek. “I’m just terrified I’m going to lose you too,” he admits, and I’m overwhelmed with emotion.

“How are your hands so warm?” I demand, feeling way too awkward and poorly trying to change the subject. I’m also truly a little jealous at how warm his hands are. Mine are turning into blocks of ice.

Silas looks at me funny and gives me a lopsided little grin, like he knows exactly what I’m trying to do. Then he leans down and presses his lips to mine. A tingle runs through the entire length of my body, and I move closer to make up what little distance there is between us as Silas deepens the kiss...

“Knock, knock,” Mom calls out in a sing-song voice, and I hastily take a step back. Silas seems reluctant to let me go, but when the door starts to open, he finally does. By the time my mom walks in, we are both standing a respectable distance from each other, trying to look casual.

“You two make up?” my mom asks baldly, and I actually blush.

“Mom!” I groan, making both her and Silas laugh in unison.

Mom hands Silas a lump of frozen rabbit meat off the sink and asks him to take it to the pot that she has boiling over the fire. Then she gives me a hug when he leaves and hands me a small bag of flour.

“Your father will be glad to hear it,” she whispers conspiratorially. “He’s been worse than you girls with his gossiping and speculating about what’s been going on with you two,” she tells me, making me blink in surprise.

I stare down at the flour in my arms. “It’s been hard…since Sunny,” I finally admit, and Mom gives me another hug.

“I know honey. It’s been hard for everyone, but especially for you younger kids.” Mom stops to wipe at the corner of her eye, all casual like it’s nothing but a speck of dust. “Let’s just get dinner on the table,” she says, changing the subject away from Sunny. “I want to get to bed early. I’m excited to unload that trailer tomorrow and see what kind of goodies you guys brought back.”

I smile. “There’s a lot of stuff,” I promise her.

“Jane–” she calls out tentatively when I turn towards the door, stopping me in my tracks. I turn back and she has a weird look on her face.

“I just want you to be careful,” she tells me, and I nod.

“I know, Mom,” I tell her with a sigh. I always try and be careful, but it never stops her from reminding me.

“No, honey…I mean with Silas,” she says, biting her lip.

“Mom—” I start to say, but she interrupts me.

“He’s a nice boy, Jane. I like him, I really do, but… you need to be careful and make smart choices.” The enormity of what she’s saying finally sinks in and I blush.

“Mom!”

“Teenage pregnancy has never been ideal, but especially now.” My cheeks flare an even darker shade of red. Mom nods to the bag of flour in my arms. “Just promise me that anytime you might be thinking of doing something, that you’ll imagine trying to carry that bag of flour around with you. How you would keep it safe with all the zombies out there.”

I stare at her blankly and she sighs. “But it won’t be a bag of flour, Jane. I’m talking about a baby,” she says, and I turn my back on her.

“Okay. I got it,” I mumble as I toss the flour on the counter and grope blindly for the door, trying to get away from this conversation.

“Jane,” my mom’s voice forces me to turn back once again.

“Please, no more,” I beg her, and she actually laughs at me.

She points to the flour that I’ve abandoned on the countertop. “I really do need that for supper,” she tells me. I scoop it up and practically run from the room.

Silas is still in the cabin. That’s the first thing I notice when I burst out of the room, and he shoots me a smile, making me blush even deeper. I feel so conspicuous holding this damn bag of flour now, thanks to my mother.

Mom follows me out and calmly asks me to set it over there, like she wasn’t just traumatizing me in the next room. I peel my eyes off Silas, who’s actually being social, joking around with Regg and my dad. I meet Abby’s eye across the room, and she points hopefully to the Monopoly box sitting on the table. I can’t help but grin; she loves that stupid game so much. “You’re on after supper,” I tell her. “And Silas is playing too.”

Chapter Five

“Hey.” I look up from packing a load of logs into the newly built woodshed and find Silas leaning over my shoulder. He moves in and plants a kiss on my cheek. I can’t help but smile even though I’m kind of sweaty and gross. It’s not like Silas to be so affectionate, but I have to admit, I like it. “Want some help?” he asks, and my heart melts a little more.

“Always,” I tell him earnestly. It’s been four days since Megan was shot, and Abby and I have definitely missed her help with the wood chopping. Production is at an all-time low.

Silas walks back to the truck with me and grabs a huge armload of wood, at least twice the size of the ones I’ve been carrying. He carries it without even breaking a sweat, and I can’t help but feel a small nudge of jealousy. I grab my usual amount and trudge after him, ignoring Abby as she waggles her eyebrows at me on her way back to the truck for her own load of wood.

“We need a conveyer belt,” I huff as we finally reach the bottom of the pile, and Abby nods her head enthusiastically, making Silas roll his eyes at both of us.

“I wanted to talk to you,” Silas says, grabbing my hand and pulling me to the side.

“Is it about a conveyer belt?” Abby asks hopefully, and I can’t help but burst out laughing.

“Not gonna happen,” Silas tells her without an ounce of sympathy.

Not for the first time, I am so thankful for the people that made it here with me. I might be trapped in the middle of nowhere, and there might be zombies…frozen zombies for now…but at least I still have my best friends, my boyfriend, and my family.

“I’ll meet you in the house,” Abby calls back, already making her way to the front of the cabin. I shoot her a grateful smile and turn towards Silas. “What did you want to talk about?” I ask as I move forward to step into his arms. He reaches out to wrap his arms around me, but the look on his face has the smile melting off my face. I stop just out of his reach and cross my arms across my chest.

“What’s going on?” I demand, and he holds his hands up in mock surrender.

“Take it easy, Blondie. Nothing is wrong,” he tells me, but for some reason I don’t believe him.

“Tell me then. Let me decide for myself,” I persist, and he looks momentarily uncomfortable.

“Yesterday we talked about…communicating better,” Silas says, nearly choking on the word ‘communicating’—he’s such a guy.

“Yes,” I affirm, nodding my head just in case this is a question and not just a general statement.

“This isn’t a big deal at all, but I’m going up the mountain to look for bigger game, and I’ll be gone a few days. I just wanted to let you know so you wouldn’t be worried.”

I stare at him blankly for a minute, not sure if he is joking or not, but of course this is Silas, so he isn’t.

“Who are you going with?” I demand, and he shrugs like the answer should be obvious.

“Myself.”

“No.

He’s already shaking his head. “I know it isn’t ideal, but everyone else is busy. It’s my job to feed us and that’s what I’m going to do.”

“But…” I start to say, and Silas’s face darkens.

“I knew you’d act like this,” he accuses, and I shut my mouth with a snap.

What the hell did he just say?

“That’s why I didn’t want to tell you. You’re going to make a big deal about it, and I’m going to go, and I will be fine.” He sees me about to speak and beats me to it again. “I’m tired, Blondie,” he tells me before turning his back on me and taking off.

I have to resist the urge to throw a snowball at his retreating back, or more satisfyingly—a rock—preferably a large one. I watch him disappear around the front of the house and into the woods before heading for the truck. I turn the key and start it up so I can pull it back around the front of the cabin and park it in the driveway. Regg likes to keep it close in case we need it for a quick getaway.

“How was your romantic talk outside?” Abby teases me when I drag my wet, heavy boots across the threshold of the cabin. I shoot her a look and she frowns. “That bad?” she asks, and I nod my head as I peel my winter clothes off and hang them up so they’ll be dry for tomorrow.

“Silas is such a jerk!” I complain, wanting nothing more than to analyze and pick apart every aspect of our last conversation and our entire relationship as a whole.

“Who’s a jerk?” Ryan asks as he comes over and settles down at the table across from us.

“I’ll give you three guesses and the first two don’t count,” Megan calls from the couch. Now that I know she probably isn’t going to die, I feel the familiar stab of irritation when she speaks.

“What did Silas do now?” Ryan asks, making Abby and Megan laugh.

“He didn’t do anything,” I deny, and Ryan gives me a look that I know means he doesn’t believe me in the least, but at least he doesn’t press the issue. Complaining about Silas to Abby is one thing, but I’m definitely not comfortable talking to Ryan about these things after everything that’s happened between us.

It’s nearly dark before Silas comes back. I’m relieved to see him safe, but I’m also still mad because I’ve spent the last two hours worrying that he already left on his own because I made him mad. Silas is swinging a skinned rabbit in his arms and doesn’t even acknowledge me as he walks through the cabin and into the kitchen.

His attitude ignites my temper and I stand suddenly, drawing every eye in the cabin towards me. “Silas is going up the mountain hunting for a couple days, and he shouldn’t go alone.” I pause to take a breath, and then I decide to just go for it. “I’m going with him,” I blurt out, and you could probably hear a pin drop, if anyone had one.

Silas chooses that moment to walk back into the room, and he freezes when he sees that he’s now the center of attention. “Aw hell, Blondie. Why’d you have to go and open your big mouth?” he demands, making me flinch. I can see Ryan’s face darken with anger at his words, but I shake my head at him, silently begging him to leave it be.

“Because you’re an idiot and you’re going to get yourself killed,” I fire back. I can’t help but notice Ryan smirk a little at my words.

“I’ll go with him,” Ryan volunteers, probably trying to spare me, and Silas shoots him a dark look.

“I don’t think so—” Silas starts to say, and I jump in before whatever he’s about to say next turns nasty. So far they’ve been able to keep their dislike for one another thinly veiled, but I’m not sure how much strain the relationship can take before they both start to say what’s really on their minds.

“I want to go,” I say again, and I don’t miss the look my mom shoots towards my dad. I feel a stab of anger. I see where my mom is coming from, as a mother, but I’m not exactly a normal teenager anymore. I spent days alone on the road with Silas and Ryan. I don’t really need her meddling now. It’s not like I want to go for romantic reasons. Hell, Silas has been such a jackass lately, I can barely stand the sight of him. Despite that, I care about him, and I know if I’m not with him then I’ll just be worried sick that he’s hurt somewhere.

“I’ll go too,” Dad blurts out in an attempt to soothe the worry lines between my mom’s brow, and Silas shakes his head.

“Hal, you don’t need to do that. Jane isn’t going either. I’ll be fine,” he emphasizes again, clearly trying to keep his annoyance in check.

“It’s not a bad idea,” Regg chimes in, surprising us all. “No one should be out there alone anymore, no matter what their skill level.” Silas bites his lip, like he’s trying not to argue, but even he has accepted Regg as the leader of our rag-tag group, so he fights back the urge. Regg stares at Silas for a moment, obviously knowing that his command isn’t being well received. “It’s something we just have to get used to,” he reiterates. “I struggle with it too. I know that I’m capable, but when I’m about to do something stupid, I stop and think about everyone that lives here and how my death might affect their survival.” Regg looks meaningfully at Silas.

“Fine,” Silas agrees, looking like his head is about to explode. Even in the firelight I can see the vein pulsating in his temple. “But we leave at first light,” he warns. “And if you’re still sleeping, then I’m going alone.”

I nod my head to show that I understand, and Silas turns away to go sit with Megan near the couch, purposely snubbing me because he’s mad. I stare at him until Abby gives me a gentle poke in the ribs, and then I turn my back on him and Abby deals another round of cards. Ryan’s been teaching us how to play poker, much to my mom’s disapproval.

Regg’s words are playing in my head, and I can’t help but think about how my death might impact everyone here. They would be sad, but I don’t think it would have any dire effect on their survival, not like if something happened to Regg, Silas, Ryan, or even my dad. It’s a little sexist, but they have life skills that I just don’t possess. Megan has them too, but she’s out of commission with her shoulder right now. I glance over at her laughing at something Silas is saying, and I frown. With that shoulder, Megan is really more of a hindrance than anything else...

Dad and I are both up before dawn, much to Silas’s disappointment. It would’ve been a little hard to sleep in anyway since everyone in the cabin is awake to see us off. Mom insists that we all eat an enormous bowl of hot oatmeal before she’ll even let us out the door. I swear I can hear Silas’s teeth grinding with every bite.

After Dad and I both hug and kiss Mom goodbye, I step out of the cabin and find Silas scowling at me. I falter for a minute, but then I decide to ignore him. “Beautiful day,” I say instead, and I can’t help but feel a small stab of victory when his frown deepens again.

“I’ve been working on finding the best way to climb up all week,” Silas tells my dad, completely ignoring me, and I have to stamp down my irritation. “I’ve been going a little further every day.” Dad and I follow Silas single file through the tire tracks that lead to the clearing where Abby and I always cut wood. Silas usually spends an hour or so each morning helping us before he disappears into the woods nearby. I have a feeling this is where he’s taking us now.

I never expected hunting to be my new passion or anything, but I never thought it would be as terrible as it is! I grit my teeth and keep my mouth shut about it though. I can be every bit as stubborn as Silas, and I'm determined not to give him the satisfaction of letting him know how much I hate it.

We slog through snow up to our knees, all the while climbing upward. The air is still freezing, but my body is overheating, and I'm practically swimming in a sea of sweat inside my heavy winter coat. I try to breathe as quietly as I can, even as I suck in deep, gasping breaths and try to smother the noise. I usually don't feel my pack when we’re out on a run. I’ve grown accustomed to it, but today it’s loaded down with my sleeping bag, a small axe, and a few extras. It feels like it weighs five hundred pounds. I'm actually a little scared the weight is going to pull me over backwards and I'll roll down the hill in a big snowball all the way to the bottom, so I walk hunched forward a bit to compensate.

Dad doesn't look like he's fairing any better than me—he’s actually probably worse off. His face is beet red, and his breathing is just as labored as mine, but he doesn't make any effort to hide it from Silas like I do. Silas seems to be in his glory. His cheeks are tinged with a healthy pink, and he's not even breathing hard!

I watch him catch sight of something and spring off the path to examine a group of branches, and I feel like strangling that abundance of energy out of him. Dad and I stop and watch him for a minute to see if he’s going to return back to the path, which it doesn’t look like he is. Then we start following after him with far less enthusiasm.

When we catch up, he's running his fingers along a branch that's been stripped of all its bark, and I can only assume it’s from some sort of animal.

Silas doesn't give us a moment to rest as he ducks underneath the branches and takes off in the opposite direction. Dad follows next and I take up the rear, bending low to get under the branches.

My backpack snags and I'm practically yanked backwards. The branches knock my hat off and tangle in my hair, and I let out a small squeak. I can't help it. For a minute it reminds me too much of being grabbed and pulled by reaching zombie fingers.

Silas turns around and gives me an ugly look. "You probably just scared everything away for a two-mile radius," he snaps as he walks back and pulls me from the branches.

Dad takes the opportunity to sink down onto a fallen log and as much as I hate having Silas come to my rescue, I can't begrudge the poor old guy his break. After all, he only volunteered to come because of me.

I take my time crawling out from under the branches this time. Slow and steady wins the race, I remind myself with a small grimace, plus it looks like Dad is enjoying his break.

"Do you know where you're going?" I demand once I'm standing upright again, and Silas rounds on me with his hands on his hips.

"I told you, you didn't have to come," he tells me.

"That isn't what I asked," I retort, trying to think of something equally as cutting to add, but my dad stands up and steps in between us.

"Come on now kids, don't fight," he admonishes us both like we're ten years old.

I turn away and pretend to scan the forest around us, but in reality, I don't want Silas or my dad to see the hurt in my eyes. I take a deep breath to fight back the tears. Silas is already being a bit of a douche, if I actually cried on his manly hunting trip, he'd probably leave me out here for the bears and coyotes to eat.

I just don't get it. He was never sunshine and warmth, but at least I used to be able to tell that he cared about me.

"I found some fresh droppings over here," Silas says, completely unaware of my inner anguish as he enthusiastically points to a pile of dark brown pellets in the snow. "This is definitely an area frequented by big game,” he confirms, and I try to look excited.

In truth, the only exciting thing that could possibly come from finally finding something to shoot is that we’d get to go back to the cabin.

“Let’s try this way,” Silas says, heading deeper into the brush, rather than back to our original path. The landscape levels out a bit, so there’s that at least.

We walk in silence for another hour, maybe longer, before my stomach starts to growl. “Silas,” I whisper, trying to be quiet. Silas stops, turns around, and looks at me with what can only be described as utter frustration. I ignore him as my stomach growls again—

“When’s lunch?” I whisper, making him roll his eyes and put his finger to his lips. I fight the urge to scream… It would only make whatever we’re tracking run further away and then who knows how long I’d have to stay out here.

“I think we just go until we find something he wants to shoot,” Dad murmurs to me, sending me a commiserating look. He pulls a stick of gum from his pocket and hands it to me. It isn’t food, but it’s better than nothing. I send my dad a grateful smile and pop the gum in my mouth, tucking the wrapper in my pocket.

The temperature on the mountain dips by late afternoon. I accidentally swallowed my gum at least an hour ago, which really annoyed me, but at least the snow has finally decided to cut us a break. I don’t notice it at first, but eventually I realize that it isn’t such a struggle to walk. The snow is harder here, more packed down and covered with an icy crust that makes it just like walking on solid ground. It’s almost like taking a break, even though Silas doesn’t actually stop to give us one.

Walking has become a mindless act, one foot in front of the other while my mind wanders all over the place. I can’t help but think about the people I used to know and guess at who survived and who didn’t. I don’t like these thoughts, but it’s what pops into my head and stubbornly refuses to leave.

I’m thinking about Mr. Pummel, my old science teacher, when my foot sinks down, surprising me back to reality, and I get an uneasy feeling in my stomach. My arms flail as I feel the ground shifting beneath my weight, and I accidentally let out a small cry of alarm.

I sink through the ice-crusted snow and find myself hip deep in a snow drift. I wiggle my legs, trying to get free, but I’m wedged in pretty good. I take a deep breath and try to calm down. For a minute, I’d thought I was being swept away in an avalanche. Silas turns towards me and I shrug. This wasn’t my fault!

The brush rattles behind Silas, drawing all of our attention. I let out a girly scream of terror that would do any horror movie proud as something huge and brown explodes from the undergrowth. At first I’m sure it’s a bear—one of my biggest fears out here in the woods. Silas is the closest one to it, only a couple feet away, when it charges into view, but he has no time to bring his rifle up. The thing is going too fast. Silas dives to the side, throwing himself out of the way of the rampaging animal, and lands harmlessly in the snow on his side.

With Silas out of the way, I can clearly see that it isn’t a bear. It’s a moose, less terrifying than a bear, but no less dangerous, and it looks super pissed off. Its ears are back and it’s running towards me. Thankfully the same snow that sunk me up to my hips is slowing it down. My dad gives a shout of terror and starts desperately trying to pull me up by my arm. I struggle to kick free and work with him, but I know in my heart that I’m not gonna have enough time to get clear of this thing.

“Get out of the way!” I scream to my dad, but he shakes his head, not ceasing his struggle. I know without a doubt that I’m not the only one in danger here. Dad would never leave me behind. If anything, he’ll throw himself over me without hesitation if the moose reaches us. I bring my gun up from the holster at my hip and use it to motion for my dad to get out of the way. At first, he looks dumbstruck, like he thinks I’m using it to threaten him. Then understanding dawns in his eyes and he jumps to my side.

He doesn’t go farther than my right shoulder, though, and I know it’s because he isn’t sure my plan is going to work. I’m not sure of it either. “Run, Silas!” Dad shouts to warn him to get out of the way of the bullets.

I raise the handgun, aim, and start firing as rapidly as I can. The moose is so close now that only a couple bullets miss its enormously broad chest as it kicks to get clear of the snow.

The moose collapses with a huff. Flecks of blood splatter, staining the once pretty white snow. Unlike the deer I once shot, I don’t feel a moment of remorse. This thing was definitely trying to kill me. It’s entire body shudders, but it doesn’t get back up. It’s so close that I could reach out with very little effort and touch it—I don’t.

“Holy shit!” I yell, and my dad doesn’t even try to correct me. He’s staring at the cow moose with wide eyes, like he can’t believe we actually survived. Neither can I.

Silas runs up like a maniac and yanks me out of the snow with a couple hard, unforgiving tugs. I kick off out of the snow and collapse into his arms. He pulls away and stares down at me, examining me from head to toe to make sure I’m alright. “You could’ve been killed,” he tells me, but his voice sounds weird. It isn’t hard and mean like it’s been all day. His words are accusatory, but his voice is soft.

I stare up at him, not saying anything, and neither one of us move an inch. My dad finally snaps out of it. He yanks me out of Silas’s grasp and wraps me in a huge hug. I can feel him still trembling, even through both of our heavy coats, and I squeeze him back with every ounce of strength I have left.

“What do we do now?” I ask when I finally pull away from my dad, and we both turn to Silas for the answer.

Silas is staring thoughtfully at the dead moose, but he looks up at us when I speak. “We get this thing quartered and hung up in a tree for the night, then we make camp.” He reaches into his belt and holds his skinning knife out towards me. “Since you killed it, you can have the honors…”

Chapter Six

I stare at Silas for a moment, trying to gauge if he’s messing with me or not. His face isn’t giving anything away. Finally, I decide that I don’t care if he’s being serious. “Forget it,” I tell him, turning and walking away to sit down on the stump of an old, rotten tree. I’ve had about all the excitement I can take for one day.

Silas doesn’t argue. He hunkers down and starts cutting open the stomach right there in the snow. I swivel on my perch and stare off into the forest. I know it’s crazy to be averse to a little blood and guts these days, but I’ll avoid it when I can. Dad offers to help Silas, but Silas doesn’t need him yet. We’re assigned to setting up camp instead.

“Silas. Where's the tent?" I ask, wrinkling my forehead in confusion.

Silas looks up at me, his hands coated in blood up to his wrists. He nods towards the blue tarp lying on the ground, discarded in my search of a tent.

I follow his gaze and shake my head. "That's not a tent," I tell him as if he doesn't already know that.

"It's what we have," he tells me with a shrug, and my heart dips into my stomach.

"You didn't bring a tent?" I demand, my voice going shrill with panic. Both Dad and Silas wince. I try and reign it in a little, taking a deep breath instead.

"Did you want to carry the extra weight of canvas and tent poles?" Silas asks, his attention back on the moose, and I let out an annoyed huff.

"Yes!" I tell him, and he actually laughs.

"You could barely carry what you already had," he points out, and I flush. Just because he's right doesn't mean I'm going to agree with him.

"Why don't you tell me how to set it up?" my dad says, interrupting our argument and playing the peacemaker. He sounds tired and looks even worse. I feel like a jerk.

"What do you want me to do?" I ask woodenly. Silas motions towards the woods, using the bloody knife as a pointer.

"We're gonna need firewood," he tells me. "A lot of it—we don't want to be out looking for more after dark." I bite back my annoyance at never being able to shake firewood duty and instead just accept my fate. Complaining won’t do me any good, and it definitely won’t keep us warm tonight.

"Don't go too far," Dad tells me.

I nod, dropping my pack on the ground and grabbing the small axe that's hanging off the carabiner clip.

Behind me, I can hear Silas instructing my dad on how to set up the tarp. I roll my eyes. I'm not holding my breath that it's going to provide any kind of protection or safety. Thank God the zombies are frozen, or I’d be having a panic attack right now. I just hope I'm not a popsicle in the morning, or murdered by another homicidal moose.

I take Dad’s advice and don't go too far from our makeshift camp. Thinking about the moose that charged me earlier keeps me from straying—plus there's only so far I'm willing to carry an armful of wood.

It doesn't look like this place has ever been touched by humans. I don't know if that's true or not, but there is a ton of deadfall laying around that seems like it's been here a while, and I’m grateful I won’t have to look too hard.

I carry my first armload of wood back. Dad has the tarp spread out on the ground and is dragging over a large log. I drop the wood and rush to give him a hand.

He casts me a grateful look as we half-carry, half-drag the log on top of the tarp. "Thanks, Jane," Dad says, his breath puffing loudly. I nod.

"That's not enough wood, Blondie," Silas calls over, obviously enjoying his boss role a little too much. I don't bother answering him as I trudge back into the woods. I wish I had a wheel barrow, but I guess it would be too hard to push it in the snow. Inventing a wheelbarrow on skis feels like a million dollar idea, and I can't stop daydreaming about it as I gather up my next load of wood.

I make twelve more trips before I feel like we have enough wood. Every time I arrive back in camp with an armful, the tarp looks more and more like a shelter. It's a lean-to of sorts that kind of looks like a half-opened book with the bottom half of the tarp stretched out along the ground to keep us out of the snow. The big log I helped my dad carry over is the book’s spine in my imagination, and the other half of the tarp juts overhead at an angle like the open cover. Dad has tied it all together with two large branches going down to the ground for support and a third across the top that ties the whole thing together and adds stability.

Silas has the moose dissected now and is sitting in a big blood spot in the snow, but I ignore it and shoot him an impressed look. "I didn't realize it would look like this," I admit.

In true Silas fashion, he looks up briefly and grunts.

I turn back to my dad. He shows me the way Silas instructed him to create the fire in a long row across the front of the lean-to so it keeps away animals and reflects heat back towards us.

It's nearly dark, and I am grateful when the fire flares to life, illuminating the trees around us. It kind of feels like being in our own safe little bubble—though I'm not a total dumbass. I know nothing is truly safe.

Silas is ready for my dad to help him string the meat up into the tree branches. I offer to help too, but they both shoo me away. So I return to the shelter and start setting out my sleeping bag and supplies.

When I'm finished, I look over my handy work with a nod of satisfaction. It's chilly up here, so high on the mountain, but the fire helps take away the worst of the bite. I look over at Silas and my dad working hard and decide to set up their stuff as well. Silas has been bent over that moose for a couple hours now, and he must be getting stiff and sore. I know my dad is already sore from the trip up the mountain. So am I.

I unpack my dad’s bag first and shake his sleeping bag out beside mine. Then I stare at Silas's pack and bite my lip. I'm not sure if he will care if I touch it or not. I finally decide to go for it and un-strap his sleeping bag from the string holding it to his backpack.

I roll it out, and for a minute I can’t decide where to put it. I know Mom would want Dad in the middle, but then I look over at the side of this makeshift shelter. It’s wide open. There is no way I’m sleeping on the edge. I move Silas to the other side of my own sleeping bag. Besides, he’s kind of macho. I doubt he wants to wake up accidentally spooning my dad! Not that I do either… I make a mental note to try and fall asleep facing Silas, just in case.

I open Silas’s bag to see if he has anything else in there that he might need, and I pull out some wet wipes. I glance over. He’s got his sleeves rolled up and smears of blood streaking up to his elbows as they tug the meat up into the tree for safety. He’s definitely going to need these.

My finger snags on a small book, and out of curiosity I pull it out. It’s a photo album: the cheap, plastic type where each page is the size of one 4x6 photo. I glance over at Silas. I know he probably doesn’t want me to look at this, but it’s hard to resist.

I look back and flip the cover open. My jaw drops. The first picture inside it is me!

I recognize it right away. It’s the one I kept on my bedside table back in my old room in Pennsylvania. It was taken a few months before all this craziness happened. I’m wearing my cheerleader outfit, standing outside the convention center beaming like crazy and holding the first place trophy that my squad just won.

Silas must have swiped this picture when I wasn’t looking, and I can’t help but smile. I didn’t even know that Silas cared back then. It’s kind of sweet and makes me feel all warm and gooey inside. Silas has been such a pain in the ass lately. He’s hurting over Sunny, and probably the entire apocalypse, and he seems to take it out on me more often than not… He never tells me how he feels. I cradle the picture in my hands; this says more than Silas ever has about the way he feels about me.

I turn the page and see a picture of a little boy smiling up at me, and my heart drops. He looks just like a mini version of Silas. He’s even decked out in camouflage. This must be his brother that he lost. I suddenly feel too much like I’m invading Silas’s privacy. I snap the book shut and ram it back into the bottom of his bag.

Behind me, Silas and my dad are finishing up, and I can barely slow my thundering pulse. I’m so glad Silas didn’t catch me looking through his stuff. Knowing him, he probably would’ve shut me out completely—possibly forever.

“You getting hungry yet, Blondie?” Silas asks as he comes over carrying a handful of long, thin slices of dark red meat. “You know it’s usually tradition that the person who makes the kill gets to eat the heart,” he teases me, and I barely resist the urge to wrinkle my nose at the idea. Eating a heart sounds totally disgusting. Even these hacked-apart strips of meat don’t look all that appetizing, but gone are the days when I could eat meat from the grocery store and live in denial about where it came from. Silas ignores my face and strangely seems to be in a much better mood. Maybe it’s a man thing and he just needed to butcher something…

“Can you reach in my jacket pocket and grab the roll of wire that’s in there?” he asks.

I nod, stepping as close to his blood-red hands as I dare. I reach in his pocket, praying that I don’t find anything squishy in there. I pull out a small spool of snare wire. Then he instructs me on how to snip it, and I cut off a length,

I watch him impale the meat on the wire and set up a makeshift spit over the flame—I’m pretty impressed. Silas really is a natural in the bush.

The moose strips crackle and spit over the fire as the fat drips down into the flames, and the smell of cooking meat has my stomach rumbling despite my reservations. Silas attends to the meat like a pro, and within half an hour he’s removed the smoking meat.

I’ve barely eaten anything all day since we’ve been busy climbing, and I hardly wait for it to cool before I’m stuffing it into my mouth.

“This is so good,” I mumble around a mouthful.

Silas holds out a bottle of water, and I nod my thanks. I’m kind of starting to see what draws him to this sort of thing. The meat tastes amazing after a hard day spent earning it.

It’s not as cold as I thought it would be curled up in my sleeping bag. I’ve removed my boots but added an extra pair of thick wool socks and kept everything else on, including my winter coat, gloves, and the wool hat I took that day from the camping store. I wasn’t all that keen on removing my boots either, in case we need to make a quick get-away, but after Silas’s rousing lecture on foot fungus, I finally gave in.

We’ve been in bed for a couple hours, and even though I’m mentally and physically exhausted— sleep has been eluding me. I stare over at the back of Silas’s head and can’t tell if he’s sleeping or not. In the firelight I can just make out the gentle rise and fall of his sleeping bag moving with each breath, but he hasn’t made a peep since we all laid down. My dad is a completely different story. I can tell that he’s unconscious to the world by the huge snores issuing from the other side of my sleeping bag. This is probably the millionth time I’ve been grateful that the zombies are frozen, because otherwise I’d be terrified that his snores would bring them right to us!

As if reading my mind, my dad lets out a little snort that seems to wake him up, and I hear him rolling around in his sleeping bag. Finally, I hear him sit up and put his boots on, but I don’t turn around. I pretend to be sleeping—I don’t know why.

Dad gets up and tosses a couple more logs onto the fire and then disappears out of sight into the forest. I crane my head to see if I can spot where he went, but I can’t. When I turn back around, Silas has rolled over and is staring at me in the firelight. I almost scream but manage to suppress it—I didn’t even hear him roll over. As usual, he’s as silent as a ninja.

“Can’t sleep, Blondie?” he whispers, and I shake my head.

“How did you know?” I ask.

He shoots me a small grimace. “I’ve been listening to you fidget for the last two hours,” he tells me, and my eyes go wide. I hadn’t realized I was keeping him up.

“Sorry,” I whisper back.

Silas shakes it off and rolls a little closer, so close that our bodies are touching one another through our sleeping bags. He pulls off his glove and uses his bare hand to stroke some of the hair off of my face.

“Nothing will get you out here, Jane,” he tells me earnestly, and I can’t help but smile at his display of affection. “I wouldn’t let it,” he promises, and I can’t resist stealing a kiss. I reach up and wrap my arms around Silas’s neck and pull him down towards my lips. He smells vaguely gamey, like the moose he was butchering earlier, even though he cleaned himself off as best he could—but he also smells like Silas—underneath it all.

Our mouths meet and our kiss becomes hungry as his hands reach down to my sides and he embraces me, sleeping bag and all…

A branch cracks somewhere close by, and Silas drags his mouth away from mine and rolls away. My dad stumbles back into the lean-to a moment later, tiredly kicking off his boots and crawling back into his sleeping bag. I lay still, my heart hammering away in my chest, trying to calm it.

Ten minutes later, my dad’s snores fill the small lean-to again, and Silas rolls back towards me. He only plants a gentle kiss onto my cheek this time though, and then wraps his arms around me, giving me his warmth and reassurance. I roll off my back so I can snuggle right up against him, and I find the perfect resting place to burrow my face, just underneath his jaw. I press a kiss to his neck and then stifle a yawn. Silas holding me is one of the safest feelings in the world, and I can barely keep my eyes open.

“Go to sleep,” Silas whispers in my ear, planting a kiss to my forehead. I couldn’t do anything else, even if I tried…

A steady chopping noise slowly intrudes on my sleep, and I peel my eyes open, groaning when the dim, grey light of morning actually hurts my eyes. My vision is still a little blurry, but I can see that Silas’s sleeping bag is not only empty, it’s completely gone. It’s like he was never here, even though he spent the entire night holding me in his arms. I slept like a baby.

I roll over and see my dad just starting to wake up too. “What in the unholy hell is that noise?” he mumbles as he reaches for his boots. My entire body screams at me as I reach for my own boots, and I groan again. At almost at the exact same time, my dad’s own painful grunt hits my ears.

“Sore muscles?” I ask, and he nods, looking like the effort to even nod is hurting his entire body.

“Good morning!” Silas chooses this exact moment to call out cheerfully.

Dad and I exchange a bitter look—I’m sure we are both imagining his death in this moment.

“What’s so good about it?” I demand grumpily, making Silas chuckle from somewhere to my left. I still haven’t been able to locate him, but I’m too tired to care right this second. I get my boots on first and then stand, my entire body giving a loud, miserable pop.

My dad is also trying to stand, and I rush over to give him a hand up. His struggles strain my back even worse, but finally we are both up.

“I put a granola bar on that log over there for you,” Silas calls, and I locate the log. It feels way too early to eat, but my stomach has other ideas and growls noisily.

I go and relieve myself in the woods, cursing the woods, snow, zombies, moose, sore muscles and Silas all at once. I am not a girl that was made to pee outside, squatting down in the snow, which I know is ridiculous given our circumstances, but I can’t help but hate it. Even back at the cabin, since the plumbing froze up, we’ve still been keeping it semi-civilized. Ryan, Regg, and my dad built an outhouse using the equipment we commandeered—which is still better than this because it has four walls and a toilet seat!

I stalk back into the middle of camp, snatch my granola bar off the log, and grumpily sit down to eat it. “Somebody isn’t a morning person,” Silas teases, which he knows is ridiculous because I totally am, but these are not ideal circumstances. My entire body feels like one big sore gob of skin, and we still have to hike back down a mountain!

Silas presses a small tin cup full of hot coffee into my hand, which he’s percolated over the fire in a beat-up metal pot. I don’t usually drink coffee, but it’s hot and I’m cold so I gulp the bitter brew down. My friends and I used to go to the mall and drink fancy coffee drinks, vanilla cappuccino’s and icy drinks that were delicious and more sugar than caffeine. This is nothing like that. This coffee could probably peel paint off the side of a house and is probably doing similar things to my intestines. I drink down every drop, spitting out a few coffee grounds as I go, and then I tear into my granola bar, sitting down and looking towards what Silas is doing for the first time.

He’s made some sort of weird stick thing. “What is that?” I ask him around a mouthful of apple crumble and oats, and his chest puffs up with pride.

“It’s a travois,” he tells me, and I examine the two long, thin poles that he’s joined at a strange angle using rope.

“What does it do?” I ask, and Silas frowns when I fail to look appropriately impressed.

“It’s a sled—this is how we’re going to drag the meat home,” Silas explains.

I stare at the two thin branches and frown. I’m not really sure how he’s going to haul anything with it.

Like he can read my mind, Silas frowns. “We’re going to use the tarp. I was just waiting for you two sleepyheads to get up.” I squint at the dark gray sky, still streaked with black and just the first few shots of bright pink and orange, and I frown. The moon is still out for crying out loud. It can’t be any later than dawn.

“We’re up now,” I grumble as I get up and go back to the lean-to and start rolling up my sleeping bag. Then, because I’m feeling generous, I roll up my dad’s too and tie it back onto his pack before throwing both our packs out into the snow.

Dad is sitting stiffly on a stump, drinking his third cup of coffee, so I pitch in and help Silas take down the shelter. I feel bad for the old guy. If I feel this bad at seventeen, I can’t even imagine how he feels at forty-two.

When we’ve gotten everything packed back up, Silas folds the tarp so it creates a bottom on the travois. Then he cuts down the meat and stacks it while I throw snow on the already dwindling fire.

“Ready to go, Art?” Silas asks my dad.

For a moment, I’m worried we’re going to have to throw my dad on Silas’s travois too. But after a minute he nods and gets up stiffly.

“You’ll start to feel better once we get walking,” Silas tells us, and I have to resist the urge to stick my tongue out at him.

Of course, Silas is right. At first my muscles complain loudly, especially as I help pull the heavy travois loaded up with moose meat, but after an hour or so they seem to warm up and don’t hurt as badly.

It’s a little trickier climbing down than it was going up. The travois is heavy and bulky and takes all three of us to pull it, and there are a couple spots that are a little dicey. Silas has to stop and secure the meat with more rope so it won’t slide off on the steeper hills. Dad and I have to help push rather than pull a few times, but finally the landscape starts to level out a bit, and eventually I recognize the clearing where I always chop wood.

I blink in excitement as I recognize the woodchips littering the snow and the tire tracks. “We’re home already?” I ask, shocked at how quickly the trip went.

“It’s always faster coming down than going up,” Silas tells me, and I impulsively walk over to hug him. He drops the poles and hugs me back until my dad clears his throat.

“Your mom will be worried about us,” he reminds me, and I nod, stepping away from Silas with an extra spring in my step. We’re just about home. It’s kind of weird how quickly the cabin has become home.

Mom must’ve been watching out the window because she comes running out as soon as we’re in sight, not even wearing a coat or gloves. I expect her to run up and hug me, but she doesn’t. She stops a good fifteen feet away from us, and I frown in confusion. She doesn’t look right.

“Don’t come in the cabin,” she warns us, and the tone of her voice makes me scared.

“What’s going on, Mere?” Dad asks, his voice sharp with worry, and I watch my Mom’s shoulders sag.

“Regg, Ryan, and Abby are sick. I don’t want you guys to catch it,” she tells me, and I frown.

“What—?” I start to ask, but I’m cut off by the hoarse, hacking coughs that wrack my Mom’s body. She coughs so hard that she nearly collapses in the snow. Dad starts towards her, but she holds her hand up to ward him off.

“Don’t, Art. It’s bad,” she warns him, but he doesn’t listen. He pulls his own coat off and wraps it around my mom’s thin shoulders. “Jane…” she starts to protest, but my dad doesn’t listen. He scoops her up in his arms and then motions for us to follow him inside.

Mom starts to buck in his arms. “No!” she yells at him, struggling to get down. “Not Jane,” she mumbles. “Not our Janey…”

Dad stops and gently strokes my mom’s face. “It doesn’t work like that, baby. We’ve all been exposed.” He turns around and looks at Silas and I. “I’ve had a fever all morning,” he admits to us, and I flinch. I’d just thought it was his sore muscles.

“Most things are contagious before they even start,” Silas says, adding his own two cents. “Separating us now won’t do any good. I’d rather come in and see if I can help,” he says, and I nod as well.

“Of course I’m going to help. My family is in there,” I say. There was never a question, and Dad gives me an approving look.

“Help Silas put the meat away, around back, and I’ll get your mother tucked away into bed,” he tells us before disappearing into the house. Silas and I cast each other worried looks and then start off around the house to the backdoor that leads to the kitchen. I rush ahead to open the door for him, but all I can think about is what’s going on in the other side of the house.

Chapter Seven

The temperature inside the boarded off kitchen is just as cold as it is outside. Silas and I rush to each grab an end of the moose quarters and haul them over to the countertop. I’m not squeamish about the meat anymore; I’m barely giving it a second thought as I practically throw it so I can get back inside and check on everyone.

“It’s going to be okay, Jane,” Silas tells me, and I nod automatically. I don’t believe him though. He doesn’t know anything more than I do, but it’s nice of him to try. A faint cough has my head whipping around. You can always hear the murmur of voices through the wall, but that sounded like it was practically inside the room with us.

“Did you hear that?” I whisper to Silas, not sure why I’m whispering… It’s not like a zombie would be coughing. Silas nods, his face a mask of concern as he whips out a flashlight and steps around the counter, panning it back and forth.

“Jane!” he calls out, and something in his voice has me running. I step past Silas and let out a cry when I see Abby hunched over on the floor.

“What are you doing in here?” I demand as I rush forward and put my hand on her forehead. She’s ice cold and clammy. The light isn’t good in here with the windows boarded up, but Silas shines his light on her face. I’m shocked at how pale she is. She looks like a zombie.

I have no idea how long she’s been in here, and my mind goes blank with panic for a minute. She isn’t even wearing a coat, and her feet are bare. Silas shoves the flashlight into my hand and springs into action.

He takes off his own coat, just like my dad did, and throws it over Abby’s shivering body. “Too hot…” Abby mumbles half-coherently. Seeing her like this makes me want to start crying. Silas scoops her up into his arms and heads for the door to take her back into the living room.

“Shut the backdoor and make sure no one else is in here,” he tells me in a rush, and I nod numbly. I scan the room carefully to make sure I’m the only one in here, and am relieved that I don’t find anyone else half frozen to death and laying on the floor. The travois is in the way of shutting door and there is still one large chunk of moose meat sitting on it.

I rush forward and try to pick up the meat. It’s got to weigh close to one hundred and fifty pounds though, and I struggle. I let out a scream of frustration that ends in a cough as I give it another go, and the meat slowly begins to move, dragging along the floor. I’m so beyond caring about the meat touching the floor right now. I get it clear of the door and drop it like a lead balloon right in the middle of the floor. I push the sled out of the way and shut and lock the backdoor.

I’m nearly in agony wondering what’s happening on the other side of the cabin now. I jog to the door and step inside, hesitating as the smell of sickness permeates my nostrils. The room is dim since the windows are boarded up. The only light is from the fireplace at the far end of the room.

Silas and my dad are the only two up on their feet. Everyone else is strewn around the room on their mattresses, some flat on their backs like Abby, my mom, and Ryan, while Regg and Megan are at least propped up and look quasi alert.

Megan lets out a raspy, horrible sounding cough that seems to shake her entire body. It causes her to let out a scream of pain and clutch at the bullet wound in her shoulder.

“Holy cow,” I murmur to myself before forcing my feet to move. I join Silas and my dad near the fire. Silas is adding a couple new logs to keep the temperature up, and for a moment I’m at a loss for words.

“What do we do?” I ask quietly. Dad looks a little dazed, and when the fire starts licking the new logs Silas just added, I can see the thin trails of perspiration leaking down his face. “Dad?” I say hesitantly, and it takes a full moment before he looks towards me.

“You need to lie down,” I tell him, but he stubbornly shakes his head.

“She’s right, sir,” Silas tells him, placing a firm hand on his shoulder. Dad looks like he wants to argue, but Silas is already shaking his head.

“We made it down the mountain. We made it home, and you did your job,” Silas tells my dad in a reassuring voice. “You’ll be no help to anyone else if you get too sick,” he adds, and Dad finally nods.

“I guess a small nap might make me feel better,” he says, giving in, and I shoot Silas a grateful look. Dad strips off the rest of his outerwear and boots and crawls in beside my mom on their mattress. I follow him over and tuck him into bed like he’s the child and I’m the parent.

I place my hand on his forehead. I’m not really sure what I’m feeling for, but it’s what my Mom always does to me when I’m sick. He’s burning up. I snatch my hand away and give him a reassuring smile that I’m sure doesn’t quite reach my eyes. Illness is terrifying now, just like with Megan’s bullet wound, there aren’t any hospitals around to help if we really need it. I take a deep, steadying breath—they have to be alright.

“How are you feeling?” Silas asks me a few hours later, and I shrug.

“I think I’m okay,” I tell him, even as I realize that my throat is starting to feel a bit scratchy. I clear my throat and pray that it’s just my mind playing tricks.

Silas gives me a look like he’s trying to gauge if I’m telling the truth or not, but finally he shrugs. “It looks like influenza,” he tells me, and I nod. That makes sense, every winter everyone usually catches a bug of some sort.

“What do we do?” I ask, and Silas looks around at all the prone bodies, his expression troubled.

“We need to make sure they get plenty of fluids,” he says, but I can tell he’s just guessing. He isn’t a doctor, and I’m pretty sure his extensive knowledge of the woods and nature isn’t going to help us out here. “Let’s try some broth, and maybe heat up some hot water,” he tells me, and I nod again. It’s a good idea.

“I’m pretty sure I saw some broth cubes in the kitchen,” I tell him, and Silas gives me an approving nod.

“Go get them. I’ll go outside and—”

His words are cut short by a harsh cough, and we both look at each other with dread for a minute. If Silas gets sick, I don’t know what we will do. He’s always been the strong one and right now he and I are it… and I’m pretty sure I’m getting sick as well. “It’s going to be okay,” Silas tells me in a calm and steady voice. I know he can see the panic in my eyes and is trying to reassure me. “The most important thing right now is to keep the fire going and to make sure everyone gets fluids.” He reaches out and squeezes my hand. “You go get the broth and I’ll go outside and get some snow to melt.”

I take a deep breath that doesn’t even begin to calm the panic inside my chest and give Silas a quick hug before rushing off to the kitchen. I’m determined not to let anyone down.

Silas brings in multiple buckets of snow, and we melt and boil them in two separate pots over the fire. I throw a handful of broth cubes into the first pot. I have no idea what the proper ratio is. We keep the second pot just plain water, and Silas drags out a bunch of towels from the hall closet. He cuts them into smaller strips for rags, using his knife. We boil the water and then set it aside and let it cool down.

Abby seems to be the worst off, so I try feeding her the broth first. I carefully carry the bowl over and stack her pillows so she is sitting up a little. Silas comes with me and helps me move her before I hold the spoon up to her lips. “Come on, Abbs,” I whisper, but her dry lips remain closed. I put the spoon down and give her a little shake. “It’s time to wake up,” I tell her in a completely fake cheerful voice. “You need to eat something.” But she doesn’t seem to be aware that I’m here.

“She needs to take it,” Silas tells me, and it steels my nerve. I pick up the spoon again and this time force it past her lips, managing to dribble a little into her mouth. Most of it runs out, but some goes down her throat.

“It’s gonna be a long night,” Silas tells me, passing me one of the cloths that he cut and dipped in the warm water we boiled. I use it to wipe the soup from Abby’s chin and the sweat from her forehead.

Silas pours two more cups of broth and hands them to Megan and Regg, who are still alert enough to feed themselves.

He leaves my dad sleeping, since we at least know he’s had fluids today. He pours another cup and heads for Ryan. I watch him from the corner of my eye, not sure what to expect, but Silas is just as gentle with Ryan as he was with Abby.

He tries shaking him awake first to judge what level of awareness he has. Ryan stirs from his sleep with a horrible cough that makes me wince, and Silas puts his hand to his brow. “He has a fever, but it doesn’t feel as bad as Abby’s,” he tells me, and I nod to show him that I understand. Abby spits out a bit more soup, and it causes a coughing spasm that shakes her entire body.

“I’m so sorry,” I murmur to her as I gently dab away the streams of tears that appear in the corner of her eyes from the force of her cough. Her cough is so raw and painful that it hurts me to hear it.

She coughs again, and this time a little bit of blood lands on her lip. “Silas,” I call out, and I can barely even speak I’m so terrified by the sight of it there on her lip. Blood is never a good thing, especially not when vomiting up massive amounts of blood is a sign someone’s turning into a zombie.

Silas walks over. I point out the blood and he frowns. “I honestly don’t know, Jane,” he tells me. “I don’t even know what they all have, hopefully it’s just because her throat is raw from coughing,” he tells me, and I don’t feel reassured in the least. I don’t think Silas is even trying to be.

He heads back to Ryan and gets him alert enough to accept a few more spoonfuls of broth before Ryan collapses back down. He shakes his head when Silas offers it to him again.

I wipe Abby’s face once more and then head over to my mom with a fresh bowl of soup and a clean spoon. I’m relieved to see that she isn’t in the same shape as Abby. She’s a little better, more like Ryan, and I manage to rouse her long enough to get the entire half-cup into her.

I head back to Silas, who’s collected the empty cups and spoons and has them bathing in the hot water that’s boiling over the fire. I sit down and he hands me my own cup of broth. “You too, Blondie,” he tells me when I start to shake my head.

“I’m not really hungry,” I tell him, which is the truth. I’m so stressed out I don’t know if I’ll be able to eat until I know everyone’s going to be okay.

“Eat it anyway,” Silas advises. “This isn’t about being hungry; it’s about keeping your body fueled so you can fight off whatever this bug is.” It makes sense so I don’t argue as I tip the cup back and force myself to drain the entire thing. It isn’t terrible tasting, maybe just a little salty.

Mom starts coughing so hard that she can’t catch her breath and her face turns bright red. I rush over and try to help by rubbing her back. I don’t know what else to do. I feel so powerless. She coughs until she throws up all over the covers. I stare at the broth that I just spent the last fifteen minutes coaxing into her. I want to cry—but I don’t—mostly because there isn’t time for it right now.

I strip the puke-covered blanket off the bed while Silas goes to grab me a new one from the hall closet. I slip the shirt off over my Mom’s head and replace it with a clean one from the drawer in the other room. It feels weird to be the one taking care of my parents like this... My dad doesn’t even wake up once during the whole thing, which is just as concerning. Silas returns with another heavy blanket and helps me tuck it over both of my parents. I don’t bother changing the sheets underneath the blanket. The puke didn’t have time to soak through, and I have a feeling we’re about to go through a lot of blankets before this thing runs its course.

I never thought I’d hate being right, but I do. For the next two hours, my mom vomits every times she coughs. It happens once to Abby too, which is scary because she isn’t even conscious when she starts throwing up. Thank God for Silas, who is quick on his feet and runs over to roll her onto her side before she can choke on her own bile.

Our supply of blankets in the linen closet is dwindling, and I’m feeling close to my whit’s end. We have no electricity, and that means no washer or dryer. We have plenty of firewood, but the room still isn’t warm enough that we can get by without blankets. Silas, of course, knows exactly how to deal with this. He and I pack buckets of snow inside and boil it until we’ve half-filled the bathtub. For probably the thousandth time since I met him, I am so grateful for Silas. I wouldn’t have had a clue how to do this myself—it wouldn’t have even occurred to me.

We find some laundry soap and add it to the water. Then I roll up my sleeves and scrub the huge blankets by hand. It feels very Little House on the Prairie. Silas helps me ring them out, and when I would’ve hung them in front of the fire to dry, Silas shakes his head and instead carries them outside and throws them over the railing in the front of the cabin.

“Are you sure that’s going to work?” I ask him skeptically, and he tiredly nods his head without even giving me a smartassed comment, which has me a little worried.

“My parents used to freeze dry clothes all the time,” he tells me with a bitter smile on his face as he remembers back to a happier time. His fond memories are interrupted by another cough, and I wait, frozen in fear until the spasm ends. I have to fight off my urge to try and mother him. Silas is the type of person that won’t respond well to that kind of treatment.

“How does it work?” I ask him instead, pretending like I didn’t just witness his coughing fit. He shoots me a grateful look and takes a small sip of water before he can speak again.

“When it freezes, you go outside and shake all the ice off and then let them freeze again,” he tells me, his voice raspy. “It’s a lot faster, especially with the temperatures we have out there. It releases the moisture a lot quicker.”

I think about his idea and it makes sense. If all the water turns to ice and you can just shake off the ice crystals, then it will be faster than waiting for the air to dry it. I also realize that my mom must’ve been doing laundry like this the whole time, and I’ve never once seen her do it. She must wait until we’re all out doing stuff—for me that’s chopping wood.

I feel like I’d be helpless out here alone. I look around at all the people that have become my family over the last few months. They are all lying prone and sick in their beds, with the exception of Silas, and even he looks a little pale. I send out a fervent prayer that they will all be okay and I never have to find out what I’d do without any of them.

I wake up to Silas shaking me, and my eyes pop open slowly, one at a time. “What?” I ask, and I can’t believe how gravelly my voice sounds. My throat feels really dry and scratchy. When I try and clear it, it hurts.

“You’re burning up,” Silas tells me, pressing a cool cloth to my forehead, and I nod. My body feels like it’s on fire. “You need to get up off the floor,” he tells me, giving me a small shake again, and I look around blearily. I’m on the floor next to Abby’s bed. I must’ve nodded off and slid down onto the floor. Silas helps pick me up, and I groan as my entire body protests the action.

“No,” I try and tell him, but Silas is ruthless as he makes me walk, half-carrying, half-dragging me towards the couch. We both collapse down into the cushions, breathing heavily, and I make myself focus on his face for the first time since he woke me up. Silas looks flushed as well, and his eyes are all glassy.

I wobble back to my feet and grab a bottle of water and bring it to him. “Thanks,” Silas puffs as he takes a long drink and then offers the rest to me. I hesitate for a minute and he snorts humorlessly. “We both have the same disease,” he points out, and I know it’s true; there is nothing to be gained by trying to avoid his germs.

“Go to sleep, Blondie. I’ll take care of you,” Silas promises after I’ve had a sip, and I feel him pulling a blanket up to my chin just as I slip into unconsciousness.

The next time I’m shaken awake, it’s harder for me to fight my way to consciousness.

“Jane?”

The voice sounds panicked, and I force my eyes open using sheer willpower.

“Silas?” I ask, staring up at the blurry shape before my eyes.

“No, it’s Ryan,” the voice says, and a wave of panic slices through me. What happened to Silas?

I blink several times and force myself to sit up from where I’ve fallen asleep hunched over on the couch. Finally, Ryan’s worried face comes into sharper view.

“Is everyone okay?” I ask, and Ryan looks grim.

“Everyone is still alive,” he says, and I can’t help but notice his strange phrasing. I grope for my water bottle and find it lodged against my ribs. I take a long sip of the room temperature water.

“I need to get up,” I mumble as I struggle to move forward on the couch, and Ryan gently pushes me back.

“You should rest,” he tells me, but I stubbornly shake my head. “The fire needs more wood,” I tell him, not even sure how long I’ve been out, but I remember Silas making me promise not to let it burn out.

“I just threw a couple more logs on the fire,” Ryan tells me, and I allow my body to relax bonelessly back against the couch. I want to get up and help, but maybe another small rest might be better first…

“Good,” I mumble, glad that Ryan is at least feeling well enough to get up and take care of things.

“Do you know where Silas went?” Ryan asks, completely out of left field, and my eyes pop open again in surprise even as I struggle until I’m able to sit up.

“What are you talking about?” I demand, focusing on Ryan’s face. There isn’t even a hint of a smile around his lips. He isn’t joking, not that Ryan ever would.

“He’s gone,” Ryan tells me gently. “I’m not sure where, but he took the truck.” I grab Ryan and pull myself up, nearly pulling us both over in the process.

Ryan has to be mistaken. I move drunkenly to the front door and walk outside onto the front porch in my sock feet. Ryan isn’t lying or mistaken. The truck is gone.

Ryan comes up behind me and tries to get me to come back inside the house.

“No!” I tell him, yanking my arm out of his grasp. I need to find out what happened to Silas. He can’t be doing any better than me right now. He was getting just as sick as me when I fell asleep. He needs to be home with us.

Ryan doesn’t grab my arm again or protest, so I turn around to see what he’s doing. He’s staring down the road, squinting. “Something’s wrong,” he says, and for a minute I’m sure he’s talking about Silas.

“Do you see him?” I ask, but he shakes his head.

“There isn’t any smoke coming out of Jack’s chimney.”

Chapter Eight

“What?” I ask groggily, my mind still too worried about Silas to comprehend what Ryan is saying.

“There isn’t any smoke coming from Jack’s cabin,” Ryan says again, already heading back inside.

I hobble to keep up with him, and he beats me by a couple steps. When I finally wheeze my way into the cabin and shut the door, he’s already grabbed his coat and is trying to get it on with shaking fingers that don’t seem willing to cooperate.

“What are you doing?” I demand.

Ryan turns around and looks at me, worry evident on his face. “There is no smoke coming from Jack’s cabin,” he tells me again, like that should make total sense. “There is no smoke because his fire is out, and I can only think of one reason that his fire would be out…” he explains further and, I let out a gasp.

“They’re sick too!” I say, finally filling in the blanks, and Ryan looks grim. Holy hell! We all have this horrible illness, but at least we’ve managed to keep our fire going and work in shifts to help one another. A stab of terror hits me right in the center of my belly. I hope Jack and Naomi are okay.

“I hope they haven’t caught this, but I haven’t seen anybody since the night before you guys left,” he tells me, pulling his gloves on without missing a stride.

I reach for my own coat, and Ryan holds up his hand to stop me. “What do you think you’re doing?” he asks.

I give him a look as I step around him. “I’m coming with you,” I tell him. The total effect of my rebellion is marred by the hoarse cough that I can’t keep in. Ryan shakes his head.

“You’re too sick,” he tells me, punctuating his own lecture with a cough of his own. He looks at me sheepishly after he’s hacked up a lung, and most likely his liver too.

“We are both too sick,” I admit, “but there isn’t anyone else.” Ryan looks around at the others, sprawled out all around the room and helpless as kittens. He finally he nods.

“You’re right,” he says. “I will probably need your help.” I reach over and pass him the keys to the older truck that Megan, Abby, and I use for hauling wood. Then we each grab a flashlight from beside the door on our way out. On any normal day, we could easily walk the distance in five minutes or less, but today we are barely staying on our feet. Plus, we might need the truck to transport Jack and his sister. If they are as sick as the rest of us, they shouldn’t be alone over there.

The walk to the truck is torture, but I keep myself together so Ryan won’t change his mind and send me back to the house. From the look of him though, he has his own problems. We are both out of breath, sweaty, and shaky by the time we manage to walk to the truck, though neither of us admits it to the other.

Ryan puts the truck in drive and hunches over the wheel as he guides us around the little bend in the road that leads to the cabin where our friends have been staying.

We park out front. Ryan gets out first and starts knocking like crazy on the front door. I follow him more slowly. By the time I reach the top step, he is already looking concerned. “They should’ve answered the door,” he tells me, trying the door knob. It’s locked up tight.

“What are you going to do?” I whisper, leaning heavily against the rough wooden exterior of the cabin. Instead of answering, Ryan surprises me by turning around and using a fireman’s kick against the door. It stubbornly stays put, and he has to kick it several more times before it flies open, slamming against the wall behind it.

“Hello?” Ryan calls, but the room is completely black and still. It kind of gives me the creeps, and a shiver of foreboding races up my spine, joining the other shivers from this illness that is playing havoc with my body.

I lift my flashlight. The effort makes my arm shake and wobble with the strain, but I doggedly ignore it and shine the light all around the room. The cabin has a pretty similar layout to our own, but it is a little bit smaller. Jack and Naomi have similarly blocked off every room except the living room with the stone hearth. I miss them the first time, but on my second sweep of the room I spot two body-sized lumps laying on the floor in front of the empty fireplace.

“Ryan…” I whisper. He follows the beam of my flashlight, and his face goes another shade whiter.

“Shit,” he murmurs. I reach over and grasp his hand as he slowly starts off across the room to check out the situation. I need him for support, both emotionally and physically, just as much as he probably needs me.

‘Please be alive, please be alive, please be alive…’ I repeat to myself, over and over in my head, like my pathetic little mantra will be able to do anything.

We creep up to the two lumps buried underneath a mound of blankets, and I’m frozen with fear about what we’ll find underneath. I hear Ryan take a ragged breath. After a millisecond he shines his light down and pulls back the blankets, and I gasp.

Jack and his sister Naomi are so still they look like cadavers. Jack’s eyes are shut, but Naomi’s are wide open and staring blankly at the dark ceiling above. Ryan reaches down and feels Naomi’s neck for a pulse. I stand guard with my breath held, hoping for the best. Ryan looks up at me and shakes his head. “Fucksakes,” he says plainly to no one in particular, and my heart drops into my boots.

“What about Jack?” I ask, even though it seems unlikely that he’s alive either. Ryan moves the blankets out of the way and feels his neck; after a minute, he looks up at me in surprise.

“He’s still alive,” he tells me. My jaw drops. “We have to get him out of here,” Ryan instructs me, and I nod. This cabin is freezing, and the cold and isn’t doing any of us any good.

“What do you want me to do?” I ask, willing to do anything I can.

“Help me drag him towards the door,” Ryan instructs, reminding me a bit of Silas when he takes charge. The reminder of Silas makes my heart beat painfully in my chest, but I know I can’t dwell on his disappearance right now. Only one problem at a time…

“Grab his feet, and I’ll take his top half,” Ryan volunteers as he reaches down and gropes Jack underneath his armpits.

I reach down too, without needing to be told twice, and I grope Jack’s sock-clad feet. He’s so heavy that he nearly pulls me over right on top of him. Ryan is grunting with the strain as well, and we haven’t even managed to move him one foot.

I start a vicious coughing fit and have to drop Jack’s feet as I double over. Sinking down to my knees, I try to catch my breath. Ryan also drops Jack, grabbing onto the blanket that’s already wedged underneath his body instead.

“You okay?” he asks, panting as he begins to tug the blanket by himself. I nod, sucking air down my dry throat until I finally feel like I can talk again without spluttering.

“Yeah,” I tell him, reaching down and grasping the corner of the blanket that Ryan is now using as a sled. The moose on Silas’s travois flicks through my head and I pull with all the might that’s left in my body. Thankfully, the army issue wool blanket starts to slide against the hard wood of the floor, but it also has a lot more resistance than it should.

“Jane,” Ryan says awkwardly amid a grunt of exertion. “We need to roll Naomi off the blanket. Her weight is making it harder than this has to be.” I look down at the corpse of Jack’s sister and tears prick my eyes. A ragged sob escapes through my cracked lips as I bend down and push Naomi off to the side. I push too hard and fall forward on top of her cold, stiff body, and I jump back in horror.

She looks terrible sprawled out on the floor like that, so I grit my teeth and make myself lay her arms back by her sides. I lift up another blanket and cover her from head to toe with it, like you see on movies. Then I scoop up the rest of the blankets lying in the pile and tuck them underneath my arm. We are going to need all of them.

I rush back to Ryan and help him drag Jack across the floor. Under normal circumstances, it wouldn’t be so hard. The problem is our energy—it’s flagging. It takes us five minutes to reach the door, where we realize we have another problem. Neither of us has the physical strength to lift him into the back of the truck, even without this illness plaguing our bodies. Jack is a big guy. We both sag against the door frame, exhausted and nearly out of willpower. It makes me wish that Silas was here…

Thinking about Silas makes me think about his travois again. “Silas made a sled!” I blurt out, and Ryan turns to look at me.

“Where?” he asks, not even questioning me. He gives me his blind trust and is already walking back towards the truck.

“The backdoor,” I yell after him, and he turns around long enough to shoot me a grateful look. I watch him struggle through the snow towards the truck and realize with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that he’s leaving me. I want to run after him and scream for him to take me with him, but I know I can’t. I don’t have the energy, and even if I did… Jack needs me here with him.

I hover awkwardly in the middle of the doorway. I don’t want to look back into the room because Jack’s sister is in there and it’s incredibly sad, but I don’t want to look out into the darkness either. I know the zombies are frozen, but it seems like a bunch of crazy shit has happened to us lately. It isn’t beyond the realm of possibilities that they could all just randomly decide to unthaw.

My hand strays down to my hip because touching my gun has become a sort of security blanket. My fingers close around thin air though, and I realize with a wave of nausea that I’ve broken the most cardinal rule of survival. I went outside without a weapon. I don’t even have a knife.

The discovery makes my pulse hammer even harder. All I want is to sink down and let the blissful comfort of unconsciousness carry me away, but I force myself to fight off the creeping darkness that wants to engulf me. I’m not sure how much longer I can last though.

Across the road, I see the lights of the truck backing out of our driveway and heading towards me. I finally allow myself to sink down beside Jack, but I don’t pass out. I tuck the blankets up around his chin a little higher and wait while the cold seeps into my bones in a way it never has before.

“You okay, Jane?” Ryan asks as he steps onto the porch, dragging the travois behind him. I manage to rally enough to nod and struggle to my feet. Ryan is no better off than me. It wouldn’t be fair to make him deal with all this stuff alone.

“Let’s just use the blanket to drag him on top,” Ryan says, and I nod my agreement even as I grab the blanket and start tugging. Jack feels way too heavy—this can’t be right…

“Almost there,” Ryan tells me encouragingly, straining to lift Jack as well. I glance up at him through blurry eyes, and he’s looking back at me with concern written all over his face.

Jack lands on the travois with a dull thud that has me wincing on his behalf, and together Ryan and I pull him across the porch. The sound of the branches scraping against the dry deck boards has me cringing, but I do my best to ignore it. I’ve always been squeamish about certain sounds, things like nails on a chalkboard or forks scraping a plate. Wood dragging on wood ranks right up there in my opinion.

“Are we dragging this thing all the way home?” I ask, and Ryan shakes his head, thank God. He reaches into the back of the truck and pulls out a coil of rope that he’s thrown there. I watch him loop one end around the travois and the other end around the truck’s rear differential. Usually this is where I would protest that this isn’t a good idea, but Ryan and I are both ready to collapse and Jack could very well have hypothermia already, or worse… we have to risk it.

“I’ll ride back here with Jack,” I volunteer, my words slurring a little with the effort it takes to speak. Ryan looks at me for a moment and shakes his head.

“You need to be inside where it’s warm,” he argues. “I’ll ride back here to make sure Jack doesn’t fall off or slide underneath the truck, and you drive us across the road.” I barely hesitate before agreeing. I’m so cold and tired now that all I can think about is collapsing inside the warm cabin and passing out.

“Okay,” I agree, and Ryan nods his approval. He probably expected me to argue.

“Just make sure you take it easy,” he tells me. “No stopping too fast or giving it too much gas.”

I nod to show that I heard him and trudge towards the truck, nearly tripping on thin air. In the side mirror, I see Ryan hop on the travois with Jack and give me the thumbs up to get going.

I’m halfway there when I start to feel worse, which I didn’t even know was possible. I have to fight off the urge to vomit; I gag back the bile that wants to come up, even as black spots dance in front of my eyes. I blink rapidly to clear them, but they just keep getting bigger until I can barely see the road in front of my face, and panic sets in.

The realization that I’m about to pass out, and there is nothing I can do about it, hits me much too late. I open my mouth, meaning to call out to warn Ryan, but all that comes out is an avalanche of stomach bile and beef broth. I gag on my own throw up, even as the last of my vision clouds to black…

I come to slowly. I am aware of certain things around me: the familiar hum of voices, the smell of something cooking, the crackle and pop of the fire, and someone’s hand in my own.

“I think she’s finally waking up,” I hear someone say, but the details are too much for me to piece together right away.

“That’s it, sweetheart, try and open your eyes,” I hear another voice say. It’s male, and his voice cracks at the end.

I finally manage to fight myself awake to full consciousness, and the room around me comes into sharp focus. I am now aware of two things. I have a splitting headache, and my dad is the one holding my hand. I can tell he’s been crying, even though he quickly wipes his eyes when he sees me watching him.

I try and speak, but I can’t. Someone presses a bottle of water to my lips. It’s painful to swallow, but I finally get some down. I splutter a little and the bottle is removed.

I look around the room and see everyone staring back at me. Silas is back and he’s on my other side. I see Ryan, Abby, Megan, even Regg…only one person is missing.

My voice cracks so many times that I’m not sure anyone can hear me as I whisper my burning question. “Where’s Mom?”

I know she would never leave me when I’m sick. I crane my neck and wonder if maybe she’s somewhere else in the room.

My dad can’t hold it back this time. He starts openly sobbing at my bedside, and I get a horrible feeling of premonition. I look around at everyone else, and they all have the same expression on their faces—pity.

“Mom?” I try and yell, but my voice is still barely a whisper.

“Jane,” Dad starts to say, but I shake my head, causing a streak of pain to pierce through my skull.

“Don’t say it,” I beg him, but my dad can only shrug helplessly. He doesn’t want to say it any more than I want to hear it.

“Your mom is dead.”

Chapter Nine

My entire world shifts on its axis. I want to scream at everyone, that they're lying, but they aren't. I know it. I can't explain how, but I can feel it in some fundamental way. My mom is really gone.

Tears leak down my face and the salt of my tears stings my lips. I lift my hand in confusion to prod at the source of the pain. Silas gently reaches out and grabs my hand, keeping me from touching it.

"Tell me?" I whisper, my voice getting stronger with every word.

"You crashed the truck," Silas tells me in his perfect no nonsense way. "You hit a tree and the airbags deployed." I listen to him with zero expression on my face. I'm a little curious about what happened, but I'm here so obviously I survived. The rest doesn't really matter, but Silas keeps talking. "The force of the airbag put your teeth through your bottom lip. I had to sew you up when I got back."

It comes back to me in little pieces. The last thing I remember is being in Jack’s cabin with Ryan—no, that isn't right. We got Jack out and I was driving the truck...

I turn stiffly to search out Ryan in the crowd. He doesn't look hurt. "Is Jack okay?" I ask, and Ryan nods, a guilty expression crossing his face.

"I'm so sorry, Jane. I never should’ve asked you to drive!" he blurts out, looking sick over the whole ordeal. He glances at my dad, still sobbing uncontrollably beside me, and swallows visibly. "I'm sorry for everything."

I nod, still trying to process everything. “It wasn’t your fault,” I tell him honestly. “I shouldn’t have gotten behind the wheel.” Ryan’s face crumples at my apology, but he doesn’t argue.

Everyone is staring at me expectantly, like they want me to break down and cry like my dad. I know I should, but for some reason I can’t. I’m too numb. I glance down at my arm to avoid their gaze. I squint at the tube that’s taped to the top of my hand. I reach over and pluck at it, and Silas grabs my hand again.

“Don’t pull on that,” he tells me. “It’s your IV drip.”

I look around again. I’m still in the cabin and this IV thing is still in my arm. “Why?”

“Silas left that night and cleaned out some supplies from the local hospital,” Ryan surprises me by answering. “I think the saline drip is the only reason Abby made it,” he tells me honestly, and I know I’m not mistaken when I see a look of grudging respect cross his face.

“I wish I could’ve been back sooner,” Silas tells me, and I reach over and take his hand and give it a small squeeze.

“Thank you,” I tell him, wanting him to understand that I don’t blame him for not being able to save my mom. I want to say more, but my eyes start to feel heavy and I let my head sink back down onto the pillow. Silas’s face blurs in front of my eyes so I close them. Mom’s face pops into my head, and I feel a horrible sense of loss.

Something cool and wet touches my forehead and pulls me awake. I glance up and am surprised to see Megan washing my forehead with a face cloth. She shouldn’t be taking care of me, not with her injury, but I seem to be having trouble stringing words together. I settle for grunting at her, and she actually smiles at me.

“You’re awake!” she says, and even though it’s pretty obvious, I still nod my head. “Your dad will be happy,” she says before reaching across me.

I follow her arm with my eyes and see my dad slumped over on the edge of the bed. Megan shakes him awake, and he jumps up like he’s been electrocuted.

“Is she okay?” he blurts out before his eyes have even had a chance to focus. He stares at me, and his eyes fill with tears. “Thank God,” he exclaims as he crushes me in a big hug. His weight forces the air from my lungs, and I let out a weak cough.

“I think you’re squishing her,” Megan reminds him gently, and Dad steps back hastily and gives me a sheepish look.

“I’m so sorry,” he apologizes, and I shake my head at him. It’s okay.

“Her color looks much better today,” Megan says as she presses a bottle of water to my lips. I take several small sips. The water makes me feel strangely full. I finally shake my head and she takes it away. I try to glance around Megan, to see where everybody else is, but the cabin seems kind of empty. Jack is asleep on the couch, and Abby looks like she’s in the bed next to me with an IV drip hanging beside her, but other than that, Megan, my dad, and I are the only ones in the cabin.

“Where..?” I start to ask, my voice only a whisper that ends in a bad crack. Megan stares down at me for a second, like she’s trying to guess what I’m saying. “Where?” I repeat again, and understanding finally dawns on her face.

“Ryan, Silas, and Regg went out to get some more wood,” she tells me. “Our supplies are low after the week we’ve had.” I stare at her in confusion. A week?

“You were out for a long time, sweetheart,” Dad tells me.

“You were just as sick as Abby and…” Megan pauses and flushes beet red. “As Abby,” she continues.

As blurry as everything is, I can still remember about my mom. I know that is what she almost said. I look at Dad, and he practically looks like a zombie. It looks like he’s aged ten years in the last week. His pallor is gray and there are dark, nearly black circles underneath his eyes. But despite everything, he’s smiling at me right now, and I can see the relief on his face.

I feel horrible: horrible that my mom is dead, and horrible that my dad has been put through even more hell, on top of everything else, with me getting sick. My eyes prick with hot tears, and then a horrible keening wail erupts from between my lips, and I can’t control the flood. Dad wraps me in his arms, his own eyes dry this time, and Megan slips away to give us privacy.

I have no idea how long I cry, but when I’m done I’m exhausted. My eyes feel swollen and sore, and I’m breathing hard, out of breath from exertion.

“You should try and get some rest,” Dad whispers to me as he sits up, and I notice that the front of his shirt is soaked all the way through from my tears. I stubbornly shake my head. I’ve already been lying in this bed too long, letting life pass by without me. I struggle until I’m sitting up, and after all of the crying and screaming, my voice feels less foreign.

“I want to get out of bed,” I tell my dad, making him frown a little.

“Jane,” he starts to argue, but I shake my head.

“Please, Dad,” I beg, and his face softens.

“Why don’t you try and walk around a bit, give your muscles a stretch,” Megan suggests, coming over. For once I’m grateful to her. My dad doesn’t look convinced, but he helps to pull me out of the bed. My legs tremble as I accept the weight of my body, and slowly he lets go.

My knees buckle and I start to go down, but he catches me. I want to scream at how weak my body is. Dad gently sets me back into bed, and Megan tosses the covers over top of me. “You knew that was going to happen,” I accuse her, and she gives me a small smirk.

“Of course I did, but you didn’t, and you are the type of person that wouldn’t listen until she sees it for herself,” Megan says, surprising me with the accuracy of her claim. I give her a small sheepish look and sit back against my pillow without complaint.

I spend another two days in bed before I’m able to get up and walk around. I get tired more easily, but every day is a little easier. My stomach has shrunk so much from not eating that I’m even skinnier than I was before.

The first day that I’m able to stand, Dad insists that we bury our dead. I stand at the window with my dad and Jack as Regg digs two more holes underneath the trees where Sunny and Barry are buried. Though Dad makes me turn away when they carry the bodies. I don’t argue with him about it. I’ve seen more bodies than I can ever hope to forget, but the one thing I don’t want to see is my mom wrapped up in a sheet and being put into a hole in the ground. Tears leak down my cheeks, and both Ryan and Silas come forward and take turns hugging me. Abby hobbles over from the couch; she has tears in her eyes as well. She holds my hand, and it’s a comfort. If anyone knows what I’m feeling right now, it’s her.

When it’s done and they are buried, we all go outside despite my dad’s protest that Abby and I shouldn’t be out in the cold air. We stand beside the fresh mound of dirt. I don’t know what to say, and I don’t think my dad does either. He’s barely able to keep it together. I suspect that if I wasn’t here, he would go completely off the rails.

We stand in the bitter wind, saying nothing, until Abby suddenly opens her mouth and sings the most haunting rendition of “Amazing Grace” I have ever heard. Her words are sad and make me cry again, and the wind freezes the tears to my cheeks. I don’t bother wiping them off because they are being replaced too quickly. I always loved Abby’s voice, and I know my mom did too, so it’s kind of fitting.

When Abby’s done, she’s practically panting for air. I know she’s still recovering, but selfishly, I am so glad she did it. Dad reaches down and picks up a handful of loose dirt and tosses it onto the pile. He gives me a small squeeze and then he turns and walks away without a word. He doesn’t head back into the house, but instead starts walking towards the trees.

I turn and give Silas a worried look, but he shakes his head. “He will be okay,” he promises, and his words actually do make me feel better. I reach down and mimic my dad, taking a handful of dirt and sprinkling it over my mother’s grave, then I walk forward and do the same for Jack’s sisters. Jack shoots me a grateful look through his own tears, and then I turn and head back into the house.

Everyone does the same after me, and we all head into the house. Silas sees me struggling and swoops down to pick me up and carry me. “What about Abby?” I protest, certain that if anyone needs to be carried, it is probably her. Silas turns so I can see around his broad shoulders. I see that Regg is also carrying Abby, while Ryan is letting Jack lean heavily on his shoulder as they walk back.

We get inside and Megan starts boiling some snow so she can make us hot chocolate to warm up. I watch her smooth mechanical movements as she hangs the pot over the fire. It’s such a contrast to the way my mom used to hum and skip around while she was working. Tears threaten to prick my eyes again, and as though he has a sixth sense about this stuff, Silas reaches into his pocket and hands me a tissue. We’ve all lost people we’ve loved. I’m not special in my grief. In fact, I was so lucky for so long that it’s almost like Karma is finally catching up with me, laughing at me for thinking I’d really escaped the apocalypse unscathed by loss.

“I’d just met Naomi a few days before this shit storm began,” Jack says suddenly, and I glance up sharply, torn from my own horrible thoughts as I stare at him. He isn’t talking to anyone in particular; he’s just staring at the floor, fiddling with the necklace that Naomi used to wear around her neck all the time. None of us dare say anything to interrupt him, and when no one speaks, Jack does. “My dad left my mom and me when I was ten,” he explains, his deep baritone filling the cabin, and I’m fascinated, unable to look away. “He remarried so many times, I finally stopped bothering to learn the names of his new wives.” He lets out a humorless chuckle at this. “He never had any more kids that I knew about, and when that bastard died, it was one of the happiest days of my life.”

I swallow. I can’t even imagine feeling that way about my dad, though I’m not a complete baby, I know that lots of people don’t have parents like mine…like I did.

“A couple weeks before the zombies showed up, I received a letter in the mail from Naomi. I didn’t believe her at first, and the picture she sent looked nothing like me.” Jack cracks a small smile. “All the women he married, her mom wasn’t even one of them. We did a DNA test to make sure it was true…” Jack shakes his head. “I wasted precious time with that damn test. I could’ve been spending it with her.”

“Don’t think like that,” Regg says, finally speaking up. “No one could’ve predicted what was going to happen.”

Jack nods, but I know that look very well, and he’s still blaming himself.

“She was staying at a hotel when I first heard about the outbreak, and even though I’d just met her, she was all I could think about. I just wanted to protect her.”

“You did,” Silas says, and I turn around to look at him, surprised that he would be the one to say something right now.

Jack lets out a hoarse laugh that has no humor to it. “That hole out back begs to differ,” he fires back, and I wince at the reference to the grave.

The door opens suddenly and my dad creeps in, his cheeks flushed red from the cold and his eyelashes frozen thick from his tears. Silas turns so he is included in what he has to say next.

“You protected her from every threat you could,” Silas argues back fiercely. “You protected her from the most horrible death imaginable—the zombies. You gave her the safest place left on this earth that you could find, and you provided for her.” Silas’s voice cracks, and my pulse skyrockets in alarm. Dad is also staring at Silas, his face slack as he listens to every word.

“The flu used to kill thirty thousand American’s each year,” Regg offers up a piece of worthless trivia.

“Yes,” Silas nods towards Regg. “Thirty thousand American’s, and that was back when we had access to hospitals and state-of-the-art medical equipment and supplies.” Silas slaps his hand against the table for emphasis, making me jump. “This was a horrible act of nature, but it is not on you. It’s not on any of you,” he says, looking right at me. “You did your jobs, you protected them, and they both went peacefully in their sleep. That’s all we can hope for these days.” Silas glances over at the flames dancing around in the fireplace, and I know that he’s thinking about his family. The picture of his brother that I accidentally saw in the album dances around in front of my eyes, and I put my hand on his arm. He doesn’t shake it off, so I know he’s really hurting.

“What happened to your family wasn’t your fault either,” I tell him, and he stares blankly at me for a minute before giving me a nod and turning away, and I let out a sigh. I don’t know if Silas will ever forgive himself, or Jack, or even my dad. I know there was nothing I could’ve done for my mom and even I’m struggling with guilt. It’s the curse of being human; we always want to change things and have trouble accepting it when we can’t.

“Maybe we should all try and get some rest, none of us are back at one hundred percent yet,” Megan suggests after handing out the hot chocolate. I know it’s good—the perfect ratio of chocolate and water— and it’s a rare treat that we don’t get all the time anymore, but it might as well be a cup of cardboard to me right now. I don’t even argue as I drag myself to my bed. Abby and I are back to sharing now that the flu has passed. Megan would normally be sleeping with us, but she’s taken the couch from Silas since sleeping next to other people jostles her shoulder too much.

I lay in bed and stare up at the ceiling. I can’t stop thinking about what Silas said tonight. It was the flu. It was no one’s luck, just a bad run of luck. I roll over on my side and my eyes land on Jack. He isn’t sleeping, but he has his back to everyone and is facing the wall.

Jack sleeps with his shirt off. I can just make out the crisscross of scars that line his back from the zombie bites. I stare at them until they blur before my eyes, letting my mind wander. An idea strikes me suddenly, and I sit up in bed so quickly that Abby gives a startled shout, drawing every eye in the cabin. We no longer live in a time when a yell can be dismissed as nothing.

I don’t know if I should share my idea until I’ve had a chance to think about it more, but at this point I don’t think I’ll be able to keep it to myself.

I search out Silas in the dark and just as I knew he would be, he’s staring back at me. “You said we couldn’t do anything,” I tell him, and slowly he nods.

“Yeah.”

“What if we could though?” I demand, my heart hammering in my chest so loudly that I’m surprised no one else can hear it.

“You’re not making any sense,” Dad tells me from the bed that he and my mom used to share. Jumbled half-thoughts are cascading through my brain so fast I can barely seize on to just one.

“Jack is immune,” I point out, and everybody shrugs like I’m just throwing out random knowledge. “He’s immune!” I say again. “We’ve never seen anybody else like that. What if he’s the only one?” I’m still receiving blank stares, so I know I have to spell it out for them. “What if there is someone left who could make a…” I struggle to think of the right word.

“Vaccine?” Megan chimes in, her voice shrill with excitement at the possibility.

“Yes!” I shriek, nearly jumping up and down in excitement. “If we’re immune then we can start to fight back. Maybe one day we could get our old lives back—the kind that had medicine and electricity and grocery stores!”

Everybody is sitting up now, and I can tell by their faces that they are all thinking about it. I look over at Jack to see what he thinks about this idea and he slowly starts to nod.

“If I can help save anyone, of course I’ll do it,” he answers my unasked question, and my heart nearly explodes from joy.

“It’s too dangerous,” Dad interrupts, raining his parental right all over my enthusiasm.

“Dad!” I protest, but he’s already shaking his head.

“It’s the middle of winter. We don’t even know if there are any places like that that still exist.”

“The zombies are frozen,” I counter back. “There is no better time.

“Maybe the zombies are all dead,” Abby suggests. “Maybe they won’t thaw out again in the spring and life will go back to the way it was.”

I frown at her. While she has a valid point, it doesn’t exactly help my cause.

“There is only one way to find out,” I say, making everyone in the cabin frown.

“Don’t even think about it,” Megan says, but Silas is nodding and so are a couple other people.

“I’ve been wondering about this myself,” Silas admits. “It would be good to know one way or the other.”

I clap my hands in excitement. “It’s decided then,” I say with authority, even though I know that in reality I have very little authority over anything. “Tomorrow let’s go get a zombie and thaw it out in front of the fire. We need to know what happens.”

I stare at Regg, holding my breath, not sure what he’s going to say to this whole crazy idea. I mean the idea is to avoid the zombies, not kidnap a frozen one and try to thaw it out in your living room.

“I think the idea has merit,” Regg says after a moment of careful consideration. “We will have to be careful, and take precautions, but I would also like to know what’s going to happen.” He looks to me and gives me a nod of approval. “Good thinking kid—if the zombie stays dead, it’s a moot point—but if it comes back, then we will talk about your idea.”

Chapter Ten

I can honestly say that I have never been so happy to see a zombie in my entire life as I am to see the frozen monstrosity Silas and Ryan pull from the box of the pickup truck.

“You couldn’t have picked something a little prettier?” Abby complains as she eyes the one-legged zombie with a frown of disgust.

I have personally never used the word ‘pretty’ to describe a zombie, but I do see her point. His leg isn’t the only thing missing. His skull looks like someone tried, unsuccessfully, to kick it in for him. As a result, his head is all misshapen skin and he’s missing not one, but two eyeballs. I have to fight back the urge to gag as I look at the stringy cords hanging out of his empty sockets.

“This isn’t a beauty contest,” Silas snaps. “We grabbed the first one we saw.” He lets out a little huff of effort as Ryan trips in the snow and they both nearly drop the zombie in their effort to regain their balance.

“His missing leg and eyeballs will slow him down if he does come back,” Ryan points out defensively.

“Yes, and he might even trip on that piece of intestine wrapped around his ankle,” Abby points out.

Regg steps out of the house and makes a face at the zombie. “Jesus Christ, that’s the one you two picked?” he demands, making Abby and me grin from ear to ear.

Ryan opens his mouth to relay his message about how this is a safer zombie than any of its two-legged counterparts, but Regg cuts him off. “I don’t want to hear its life story, just make sure you lay it down on a tarp first,” he says as he skirts around the zombie and heads towards the neighboring cabin to grab a couple things for Jack. I stare after Regg and wonder if he’s grabbing the stuff because Jack is recovering more slowly than the rest of us, or if Jack just doesn’t want to go back inside the cabin.

Abby holds the door open for Ryan and Silas while I run to get a tarp. I spread it out on the floor in front of the fire, as close as I dare, and then they deposit the zombie in the center. We move the couch back to a somewhat safe distance and then we all sit down to keep vigil.

An hour in, I start to notice the smell of decay. “It must be working,” Abby says, wrinkling her nose, and I have to wonder if we are making a big mistake doing this inside the cabin.

“Should we really be doing this inside?” I ask, unable to resist voicing my thoughts, and the boys both nod in unison.

“It would take a lot more wood to build a big enough fire outside, and we already need to warm the cabin anyway,” Silas says without taking his eyes off the zombie.

Another hour slowly ticks by, and I’m starting to feel hopeful that this winter weather was the end of the zombies. There will still be lots of zombies in the warmer climates, but maybe we could build a wall in the north and keep them all out. Having a safe space will be helpful while we figure out a way to eliminate the rest…

“Did that thing just twitch?” Ryan asks, jumping up from the couch, and I’m abruptly pulled from my utopian thoughts. I don't want to admit that I was daydreaming on zombie watch, so I keep quiet as I struggle to keep my nerves in check.

I hear a shuffling behind me. Even though I know the zombie is in front of me, I spin around. This zombie has me freaked out. Jack, Megan, and my dad are all leaning in to take a closer look.

Silas stands suddenly, and my heart sinks. "I can't be sure," he admits with a frown, and Ryan nods.

“Maybe it was just a trick of the light,” Ryan says hopefully.

A low growl echoes through the room and Abby and I both jump. Abby runs behind the couch to join Megan, but I take a couple steps closer.

“Jane!” Abby hisses at me from behind the couch, but I ignore her. Ryan and Silas haven't made a move yet, so I'm relatively sure it's still safe.

The zombie moans again, and my heart sinks as my dream of a safe place crumbles and turns to dust. I peek around Silas and wince. The zombie is having a fit; its body hasn't completely thawed out enough to move, but the disgusting creature is definitely trying. Its fingertips scratch at the plastic of the tarp, and a faint quiver ripples across its one remaining leg. I swear I even see the muscles twitching as the zombie tries to look around with its empty sockets.

“How’s it going in here?” Regg asks, poking his head inside and wincing at the smell. The boom of his voice makes all of us jump—except Silas.

“The damn thing came back,” Silas calls over to him, and Regg curses vehemently.

“Get rid of that thing and air this room out,” he instructs before poking his head back outside to ‘chop wood.’ I have to seriously wonder if Regg is just smarter than the rest of us, sitting in a stinking cabin with an animated corpse.

Silas reaches out and plants his knife through the zombie’s empty eyehole before it gets too much of a chance to thaw out. “Maybe if we get another one…” I start to suggest, but Silas is already shaking his head.

“They’re still alive, Blondie,” Silas tells me. “This one wasn’t special, the cold just isn’t destroying their brains.” I let out a disappointed sigh as Ryan and Silas each gather up an end of the tarp and start dragging the zombie outside.

“I’ll get the bleach,” Abby mutters. Even though it’s the last thing I want to do, I go with her. Together we scrub every inch of the floor that the tarp touched, including its path to and from the front door. When we’re finished, the cabin smells like bleach, which reminds me of the good old days, swimming at the pool all summer long. The memory is directly tied to my mother, and for a minute I have to struggle to control myself. Now the bleach feels like it’s choking me. I quickly throw on my boots and coat and practically run outside. Ryan and Silas are dragging the zombie into the woods. I don’t really feel like talking to them, so I turn the other way.

I head towards our makeshift graveyard and am surprised to see that a crude bench has been constructed out of some scrap lumber and the natural layout of the trees. “I know how much you sat here when Sunny passed,” Dad says from behind, scaring me half to death. I let out a little squeak, and he grimaces.

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” I reassure him, even though my heart is still racing. I turn back and look at the bench again, and tears prick my eyes.

“I thought you might like to sit out here sometimes,” Dad continues. “I will sometimes as well.”

His words make me start to cry, imagining him out here as the seasons pass, talking to Mom’s grave.

“I knew you weren’t as okay as you seemed,” he tells me, moving up closer and putting his arm around me. I sniffle and turn to him in confusion.

“What do you mean?” I ask, and he shrugs.

“You just seemed so…numb,” he admits, and I’m startled to learn that he felt that way. “It’s okay to feel any way you feel though,” he hastily reassures me, and I nod, my mind churning a mile a minute.

“I am sad,” I admit, wanting him to understand where I’m coming from. I don’t want him to think I’m a monster. “I didn’t want her to die—” my voice cracks.

“I know, baby,” Dad says, getting misty eyed.

“But at least she doesn’t have to live in fear anymore,” I say, and I think it surprises him that I have this view. “At least she was never bitten. She never turned into one of those things. She wasn’t a monster, she was still Mom.”

Dad squeezes my shoulder. “She was so proud of you,” he tells me, and I can’t hold back the tears when he says that. “You were so brave, she always wished she could be more like you when it came to surviving.”

My mouth drops open. “Really?” I ask, and my dad nods.

“She was never cut out for this life,” he admits, and even though it hurts, I know he’s right.

I have to clear my throat before I can speak. “I like to imagine her up in heaven looking down on us,” I tell him, and my dad actually manages a smile.

“You should,” he tells me. “Because that’s exactly what she’s doing.”

We sit together on the bench until Silas comes up quietly behind us. “Regg wants to have a meeting,” he tells us quietly, and Dad and I stand up numbly.

Silas reaches out and takes my hand on the way back to the cabin, and I’m glad for the support.

Regg has everyone else gathered and waiting for us. I perch on the edge of the couch next to Abby, while Dad grabs a chair from the kitchen table and drags it over. “We need to talk about what happened today and how that affects our decision,” Regg says once he has our undivided attention.

My ears perk up when I find out that Regg is really going to consider my idea. “Now the sole decision does lay with Jack,” Regg continues.

“I’ve already said that I want to help if I can,” he reiterates, looking determined, and Regg shoots him an approving look.

“I don’t know if this is a good idea,” my dad surprises me by saying.

“Dad–” I start to argue, but Regg holds up his hand.

“It’s his right to say his opinion,” he tells me, and I bite my lip.

“There is no guarantee there will be anything for us except death if we go off looking for these scientists,” Dad says, holding his ground despite the look I shoot him. “The world is never going to be the way it was. We should focus on making a life for ourselves here.”

Regg nods. “Thanks for speaking up, Hal,” he tells my dad before he turns to Silas. “What do you think?” he asks.

Silas shrugs, making my heart fall. “I don’t have any family left, just the people in this room,” Silas surprises me by replying. “Part of me wants to stay here, but another part of me thinks we should try and do something if we can. I’ve seen a lot of men and women bitten and Jack is the only one I’ve never seen turn. He is special, and if they could make a vaccine out of that…it might be a game changer.”

“I think we all know Jane’s opinion,” Regg jokes, and the room awkwardly chuckles a little, except for my dad.

“It’s true,” I tell them. “I want to go. I think of how many times something could have happened to Jack, and I’m not even talking zombies,” I add. Despite his obvious immunity to zombies, he isn’t immune to being ripped to shreds. “I’m talking about the men that shot at us, starvation, the weather, the flu…” I feel bad when Jack winces at the mention of the flu that killed his sister, but I press on. I have a point to make. “We are all fragile and any moment could be our last, especially these days. I think we need to at least try. There has to still be people and this could change their lives.” I don’t voice that we need to take action before something happens to Jack, but I’m pretty sure they know what I mean.

“I agree with Jane,” Ryan says without hesitation.

Then it’s Abby’s turn. She shoots me a look of apology and then shakes her head in disagreement. “I’m sorry…I just don’t think it’s safe.”

I fight the urge to growl at her as I turn toward Regg. “I’m sorry, Jane, but I don’t think it’s a good idea either,” he tells me, and I’m honestly shocked by his answer.

“How can you not? You were a soldier!” I demand, and he shrugs.

“I was a soldier. There is nothing left to protect. All I have now is you guys, and if I’m thinking about your safety—it’s safer to stay here and try to survive.

I feel some of the fight leave me. There are too many people against us. Ryan and Silas are the only ones on my team, and they are probably only agreeing because they care for me.

“I didn’t get a vote yet,” Megan pipes up from the corner, and I scowl at her.

“You’re shot in the arm anyway,” I grumble, and she frowns at me.

“I still get a vote. If Abby gets a vote, then so do I,” she argues, and she has a point. I love Abby, but even with a bullet wound, Megan can still outmaneuver Abby in anything.

“Fine. Go ahead,” I tell her, completely expecting this to be the final nail in my coffin.

“I vote we go,” Megan says, making me glance up sharply. She flashes me a smile, and I could almost hug her. Megan flashes Regg a flirtatious grin. “It’s tied now,” she tells him, like he can’t count the votes on his own.

Regg grimaces but motions towards Jack. “Then I say we leave the final decision up to Jack, and whatever he picks,” he looks directly at me, “we accept.”

I nod to show that I understand his command, though I know it will be hard to keep my mouth shut if this thing doesn’t go my way.

Jack looks around, flushing red underneath everyone’s scrutiny. “I want to go,” he says after a minute, and I actually jump up and cheer. Dad and Regg look resigned, and Abby looks terrified.

“Thank you so much,” I tell Jack, and he nods.

“It’s what Naomi would’ve wanted too,” he tells me, and I squeeze his hand in sympathy. I know good and well that this is not what my mom would’ve wanted me to do. It hurts me a little to go against her and my dad’s wishes, but I truly believe it’s the right thing to do.

Talking breaks out all at once; everyone seems to have something to say. Regg lets it continue for a bit, but after five minutes, he puts his fingers to his lips and lets loose an ear-piercing whistle that stuns everyone into silence. “This cannot be some crazy mission,” Regg tells us, his voice booming. “Lives are at stake, and this needs to be properly researched.”

“The CDC is located in Atlanta,” Silas chimes in, and I have to wonder how he knows so much random stuff.

“If I can’t change your mind, then I’m going too,” Dad says, coming to stand beside me, and I feel a twinge of remorse at his words. I never meant to force my dad to come along on this crazy trip. Though, I’m also a realist, and I know there is no way in hell he would ever let me go off by myself.

“I’m not going,” Abby says baldly, and the smile melts off my face.

“Abby,” I try and cajole her. “You can’t just stay here by yourself,” I tell her, but she stubbornly shakes her head.

“That is entirely true,” Regg says, interrupting our conversation. “You can’t stay here on your own, but I will be staying as well.”

“What?” my dad and I say at the exact same time, and Regg shrugs.

“Someone needs to stay behind; I’m assuming you’ll want to return at the end of this journey. If we leave this place abandoned, our supplies would be cleaned out by the time we got back and everything we worked so hard for would be lost.”

Dad is eying Regg with a hard look. “I don’t think it’s appropriate for you two to stay here by yourselves,” he tells them, and Abby blushes at the implication.

“I can assure you that I have no ulterior motives here,” Regg promises, drawing himself up so he looks every inch the soldier that I know him to be. My dad stares at Regg suspiciously until I nudge him. I believe Regg, and Abby will be a lot safer here than she would be on the road with us.

Abby looks relived that she won’t be forced to leave the safety of the cabin. “Maybe you could try and teach her some basic knife and firearms skills while we’re gone,” I say, which causes Abby to shoot me an indignant look.

“Megan is staying behind as well,” Jack says, speaking up for the first time since he agreed to our crazy trip. Megan shoots him a dagger stare.

“I don’t think so,” she tells him with her typical ‘Megan’ attitude, but Jack just laughs at her efforts to intimidate him.

“Trust me, as the guy that had to sew you up on the side of the road, you’re not ready to be back out there.”

Megan starts shaking her head.

Jack surprises us all by moving more quickly than a man his size should be able to move; he tosses the watch off his wrist towards Megan. “Catch!” he calls.

Megan completely misses the watch and grimaces in pain for her efforts. “I wasn’t ready,” she complains, but Jack isn’t letting her get away with that.

“If you weren’t ready and that was a zombie…you’d be dead by now,” he schools her, and Megan doesn’t argue this time, but she does cross her arms and glower at him as he comes forward and collects his watch off the floor.

“Does anyone else want to stay home?” Regg asks, and Silas and my dad both shake their heads in unison. I look over at Ryan and see that he’s staring at me with a determined expression on his face.

“I will go as well,” he chimes in, and my frown deepens.

“Are you sure you want to go?” I ask him, and now it’s his turn to frown.

“Jane, no matter what, we are still friends, and I want to come along to help protect you,” Ryan explains, making Silas roll his eyes.

I hesitate. “Don’t come because of me,” I plead with him. “Come if you believe what we’re doing is right.”

Ryan is already nodding his head. “I’m coming for both reasons,” he tells me truthfully, and I feel a little better. It’s bad enough my dad is coming because of me.

“I can help you plan your route and supplies,” Regg volunteers, and we all nod gratefully. His military knowledge will probably come in handy, and we’ll have Jack with us as well. Regg stops and glances towards me. “You’re going to need another vehicle,” he tells us, and I wince at the reminder that I crashed the truck, nearly killing us all.

“It will use more gas, but I actually think we should bring two trucks,” Jack interrupts. “In case there is engine trouble with one.” We all agree that this is a good idea. Silas pulls out a map of the United States from his backpack, and together we all lean in and examine it. Regg uses a pen to draw out several alternate routes.

“When do we leave?” Dad asks finally. It’s the question I’ve been dying to ask.

“We don’t want to wait too long. The zombies are frozen now,” I point out, just in case someone was going to try and postpone the trip.

Silas gives me a sideways look. “The zombies will be frozen here,” he says when I give him a questioning stare. “The daily average in Atlanta for this time of year usually hovers around the mid-fifties; the zombies won’t be frozen.”

His words send terror skittering through my belly. It honestly hadn’t occurred to me.

“Are you changing your vote?” Dad asks hopefully, but I shake my head. It’s still the right thing to do.

Chapter Eleven

We leave at dawn, taking our faithful Ford down the mountain. Regg accompanies us as far as the first car dealership we come. There we select new pickup trucks. The batteries need to be boosted and the tanks filled, but we still have the alternate fuel tank in the back of the F-150.

I run around the inside of the building, spiking any zombie I find in the head with my big hunting knife. I don’t want these bastards coming back when it warms up. I also like to imagine that every zombie I take out is a potential life saved.

Our new ride is a half-ton Silverado, and I can’t help but notice that it’s more luxurious. I cringe wondering what shape the pretty little truck will be in the next time we pass through this way—or what shape we will be in for that matter! I finally give up trying to imagine anything because nothing is ever predictable.

Ryan hops into the F-150 with Jack, we need it for the extra fuel it can haul, while Silas, Dad, and I take the new truck.

Silas drives and my dad sits in the passenger seat with the map spread across his lap. I sit in the backseat, staring at the DVD players in the headrests and wishing I had a DVD.

“How far is it to Atlanta?” I ask, leaning forward so I can poke my head into the front between Silas and my dad.

“Ten hours,” Dad answers automatically, just like he used to do when I was a kid and we’d go on road trips; I would hound him unmercifully about the time.

“We won’t be getting there today though,” Silas interrupts. “We don’t want to find ourselves in the middle of Atlanta with the sun going down. I’m not saying this to scare you, but that place is going to be crawling with the dead.”

He might not be trying to scare me, but he succeeds anyway. I swallow hard, trying to block out the image of what a city with a population of half-a-million people would look like post-apocalypse. “Hopefully they didn’t bomb it like New York,” I say, and Silas nods his head.

“There is no way to know until we get there…but it doesn’t seem as likely. New York and Atlanta are not even in the same category population-wise,” Silas reassures me. I pray he’s right, or else I’ve just dragged everyone away from the safety of the cabin for nothing.

We try to stay on the main roads as much as possible. Sometimes, due to deep snow or vehicle pile-ups tangled on the road, we have to backtrack and find an alternate route. After a few hours, the snow disappears and the temperature gauge starts to climb. It’s amazing to see grass after the weather we’ve had up on the mountain, but the lack of snow and cold also means zombies.

We slowly start to see more and more of them, but they aren’t moving very fast. “They must not be cold enough to freeze, but it’s still cold enough to limit their mobility,” Silas says, leaning forward with interest as we pass a slow-moving herd along the side of the Interstate. The zombies stop and gawk at us and then very slowly start to raise their arms in our direction, but their feet don’t quite follow. It would almost be comical if they weren’t still zombies!

I have no idea how I manage to fall asleep, but I’m woken with a start when the truck slams on its brakes. “What was that?” I yell louder than I intended as I bolt awake and look wildly around, expecting a hoard to be pounding on the windows. I take a deep breath and turn to find Silas and my dad staring at me with big eyes.

“The bridge is out,” Silas explains slowly, like he thinks I’m slow after my performance.

I stare past his head and see the crumbled remains of a bridge. “What happened to that thing?” I ask in surprise. The bridge isn’t just broken. It’s totally annihilated.

“It looks like someone blew it up,” Silas answers as he becomes more alert and starts scanning the landscape for anything that could pose a danger.

“I don’t know what anyone’s reason for that would be, but I don’t like it,” Dad mumbles, and Silas nods.

“It could be a trap, create a bottle neck,” he agrees, making my pulse spike.

Silas reaches over and picks the walkie off the dash. “Bridge is out, let’s get out of here,” he explains.

After a moment of strained silence, Ryan replies from the other truck. “Ten- four.”

My dad pulls the map out of the glovebox and spreads it out. “There are a few more bridges if we go east,” he tells Silas.

Silas grunts in acknowledgement as he cranks the wheel. I look behind us and see the Ford following doggedly on our tail.

“Where are we?” I ask, not quite sure how far we got while I was napping.

“Kentucky,” Silas and my dad say at the exact same time.

“Not too far from Louisville,” Silas adds, “But I think it’s probably best to avoid the bigger cities.” I’ve never been to Kentucky before, and the irony that I’ve been seeing more of the United States since the zombies came than I ever did before isn’t lost on me.

“Hopefully the rest of the bridges will be intact and we won’t have to,” Dad mutters.

“What’s that up ahead?” I ask, leaning forward to identify the dark blob in the ditch up ahead.

Silas rips open his backpack and pulls out a pair of binoculars. “It’s a car in the ditch,” he calls out, grabbing the walkie talkie again. “There’s a car in the ditch with a couple dead-heads scratching at the door,” Silas says, relaying the message back to Ryan and Jack as he slows the truck.

“What should we do?” my dad asks, and I know he’s thinking about our last run in with humanity. I am too, and I definitely want to avoid getting shot.

Silas shrugs as he stares at the non-descript four-door sedan parked up ahead. “It definitely looks like someone is inside, or they wouldn’t be that interested,” he says, thinking out loud, and I have to bite down on my first instinct to suggest that we go help them. I’ve learned the hard way that not everyone deserves our help. The preacher that we picked up on the side of the road flashes through my mind, and I grip the butt of my gun.

"What if it's a kid?" Ryan asks through the walkie talkie, and we all glance at one another uncomfortably. My mind is instantly pulled to Sunny.

"Maybe we should take a careful look?" I relent, and Silas looks like he wants to refuse. I turn and shoot my dad the sad eyeballs until he looks like he's starting to waver.

Dad finally nods his head to Silas, and Silas let's out a curse that even I would hesitate to use in front of my dad, but he cranks the wheel and hits the gas pedal.

I wince when we get closer—expecting to feel the pierce of a bullet at any minute—but it doesn't come.

When we pull abreast the car, the zombies turn their attention to us. Through the gore-caked window, I can definitely see movement inside. Silas goes agonizingly slow while he baits the zombies along beside us. Finally, when we are clear of the other car, he pulls over, hops out, and puts a neat bullet between the eyes of all four zombies.

“Stay in the car, Jane,” Dad instructs, but I pretend I don’t hear him as I jump out. There is no way I’m hiding in the car while Silas is out there risking his life.

Silas is stepping up to the door with his gun out, kind of policeman style, and I watch with my breath held while he throws the door open and steps back, raising his gun.

A woman’s scream pierces the otherwise quiet. “Please don’t hurt me,” she begs, and the fear in her voice sounds real. I push past my dad, who’s followed me outside, and head towards the car. I peek inside. An older woman, maybe in her mid-fifties, is cowering inside.

“Ma’am?” I call out and watch her head swivel at the sound of a female voice. She’s shaking as her eyes land on me, and she looks momentarily relieved before her eyes flick back to Silas. “I think that’s good, Silas,” I tell him, and he slowly lowers his gun, but he doesn’t put it away. He clearly remembers our run-in with the preacher as well.

“Thank you,” the woman tells me, tentatively moving to get out of the car. Silas watches her every move like a hawk, and I know he’s making her nervous, but I can’t really blame him.

“Sorry,” I tell her, nodding towards Silas. “We’ve just had a few bad experiences.” The woman nods like that makes total sense.

“Of course,” she says, her voice growing steadier by the moment when no one attacks her. She gets out and steps into the sunshine and stretches, her back giving a loud pop. “I was trapped in there all night,” she tells us, and I frown.

“Are you having car troubles?” Dad asks, finally joining the conversation, and the woman nods.

“Something went in the old girl last night,” she says with a laugh. “I’m not very far from Louisville, so I thought I’d just wait it out—I’m too damn old to walk—and I knew someone would be along eventually.” She frowns up at the sky. “I thought my useless son would come looking before now though,” she shakes her head.

“Louisville?” Silas asks, and the woman points in the direction we were heading.

“It’s a settlement about ten miles that way,” she tells him, and I frown at her unfamiliar use of the word ‘settlement.’

“You live there?” Silas asks, and she nods. “Not before the break-out, but now?” he clarifies, obviously fascinated at the idea.

The woman nods again like she doesn’t have a care in the world. “I lived there before too,” she tells him. “A bunch of us do. It’s a designated safe zone.”

Silas, my dad, and I all stare at one another in surprise.

“I’m Daphne, by the way.”

Ryan and Jack walk up beside us, and Silas fills them in while Dad, Daphne, and I move her stuff into our truck. “What were you doing out here by yourself?” I ask once we are in the truck. Dad’s driving now and Silas is in the back with me. I reach out and grab his hand, and he squeezes back.

“I go out a couple times a week to check on my friend, Mary. She lives on a farm nearby, but even with the zombies, she refuses to move to town,” Daphne chuckles. “She’s a firecracker all right,” she tells us. “Last year her nephew tried committing her to one of those nursing homes so he could sell the farm out from underneath her—she met him on the porch with a twelve gage—changed his mind pretty quick.”

I can’t help but chuckle, Daphne just has such a flair for life. Her good mood is contagious. I have no idea how she managed to keep her spirit throughout the zombies.

We aren’t driving for very long when we pass a sign for the city of Louisville. “Where do we go?” my dad asks, and I feel Silas’s hand clench in my own.

“The second exit,” Daphne tells him, pointing it out. The exit merges onto an overpass that has been completely blocked off with chain link. I hold my breath as a man and a woman each step up to one of the windows. They are armed, but they don’t raise their weapons. When my dad rolls down the window, the woman stares across the seat at our newest addition.

“Daphne, where have you been?” she exclaims in a thick accent, and Daphne gives her a big smile.

“Brenda, dear, how are you?” she asks, but she doesn’t leave the woman enough time to answer before she’s talking again, a mile a minute. “I had car trouble. I was trapped on the side of the road with the biters swarming my car when these fine folks came along and saved me.” Daphne beams at us all, but Brenda doesn’t look quite so happy to see us.

“What is your business in the area?” the man standing beside Brenda asks, and my dad frowns at his invasive questions.

“We were just on our way through, but the bridge was blown out,” my dad says, answering the man evenly. The man glances in the back at me and Silas, then behind us where Jack and Ryan are sitting in the Ford.

“Who is that behind you?” the man asks again, and my dad shrugs.

“Friends of ours that are travelling with us,” Dad answers, and the man looks skeptical.

“Why are you travelling in two vehicles?” the man practically barks, and I can see my dad’s shoulders starting to grow stiff with tension.

“It’s always good to have a backup,” Dad replies, “In case we have car trouble.” Daphne barks with laughter at that.

“That is too true,” she tells the guards, who humor her with a small smile.

“Why are ya’ll trying to cross the Ohio River?” Brenda asks, seeming every bit like a police officer interrogating someone caught speeding.

“We’re trying to get to Atlanta,” Dad answers honestly, and Brenda’s face goes slack with surprise.

“Don’t you know that place belongs to the dead?” she asks. “It’s completely overrun.”

“What about the CDC?” I blurt out, making her eye me suspiciously. “We wanted to see if they had maybe developed a cure?” I cover, but Brenda shakes her head.

“There ain’t no cure for this sickness,” she tells us. “We have a few people that fled from that direction, even a couple scientists. Believe me, we would know if there was a cure.”

Silas and I exchange twin looks of excitement. What are the chances?

“What happened to the bridges?” Dad asks, probably to change the subject as much as from actual curiosity.

“We blew them up,” the guy answers. “The South has too many zombies; they were using the bridges to cross. The damn things won’t go near the water though, it helps protect the city.”

“I think we’re gonna get going now, if you two don’t mind,” Daphne interrupts suddenly, and I’m surprised when neither of the guards argue with her. “I’m going to take these fine folks into my home and feed them a decent dinner,” she says, waving goodbye as she motions for my dad to drive forward.

Dad looks unsure, but Daphne reaches over and gives him a friendly poke. When the guards still do nothing, he puts the truck in drive and follows Daphne’s directions to an enormous plantation-style house in what is clearly a fancy part of town.

“This is where you live?” I blurt out, unable to help myself.

Daphne nods with pride. “Fourth generation to do so.”

We drive up to a large wrought iron gate, and a man jumps forward to swing the gate open for us. Daphne waves and the man nods his head in respect before swinging the gate shut behind our two vehicles.

“Are you the mayor or something?” I ask, barely resisting the urge to substitute the word mayor with queen. Daphne looks back and smiles at me.

“That is very close. My late husband was the mayor, and my son has taken over his duties since he…fell ill.”

I nod, not able to miss the fact that ‘fall ill’ probably means turned into a zombie—I guess Daphne isn’t as untouched by the apocalypse as I’d assumed.

The house is enormous and sprawling and each room has its own marble fireplace, some are lit and some are not. It is clear this house has been around awhile and possesses a rich history, probably dating back to the days before electricity and indoor heat, which explains why there are so many fireplaces.

Daphne leads us to an enormous sitting room with a cheerful fire glowing in the hearth, and she offers us each a drink. Silas, Daphne, and my dad each take a whiskey in a fine crystal glass. Dad frowns at me when I nod my head as Daphne’s pouring, so I hastily switch my order to water. Daphne actually takes the time to pour it out of the plastic bottle and into a crystal glass of my own. It is so surreal, almost like the zombies never even happened as we all sit around this fancy room with its expensive art and oriental carpets, sipping out of real crystal stemware. I glance over at Silas and he looks uncomfortable—which makes me smile into my glass a little.

“Now,” Daphne says with a matronly grin. “Why don’t we all cut the bullshit and you tell me why you really wanted to get to the CDC?” Her words shock me, and the smile never once waives from her face.

Finally, we all look sideways at Jack, leaving the decision up to him whether he wants to share his story with the mayor of Louisville’s mother.

“Ma’am,” Jack says, standing up from his chair and turning around to peel his shirt off. I watch Daphne’s eyes grow wide as she stares at the bite marks that decorate his back.

“You’re immune,” she breathes in excitement, and Jack nods.

“I don’t know why,” he answers as he starts to pull his shirt back on. Daphne springs out of her chair and halts him with a gentle touch to his elbow.

“Do you mind?” she asks, even though she’s already leaning in and tracing the raised scar tissue with her fingertips.

“Have you ever seen anyone else that was bitten and didn’t turn?” I ask when she seems to get lost in the motion. Daphne pulls her hand away and shakes her head.

“Never,” she admits, “You were wise not to bring this up earlier in front of just anyone,” she tells us seriously. She reaches toward the side table and picks up a bell, pausing her hand just before she rings it. “Do you mind if I call the doctor to examine you?” she asks, and Jack hesitates.

“I suppose not…” he says, though it’s obvious he has some reservations.

“Dr. Ruppert is very good,” Daphne promises. “She was one of the doctors that joined us from the CDC.”

My ears perk up at this news, and finally Jack nods. Daphne smiles happily and rings the bell. A moment later, a tired looking woman pops her head inside the room and curtsies.

“You rang, Ma’am?” she asks, and Daphne nods like having your own personal servant during the apocalypse isn’t super weird!

“Yes, please go find Dr. Ruppert and bring her to me. Tell her it’s important.”

The woman nods and takes off without having to be told twice. We all sit awkwardly around the room, waiting. Finally, the door opens and a man steps inside the room.

“Brenda told me you were entertaining,” the man says in way of greeting as he walks into the room and pours himself a large portion of whiskey in one of the crystal glasses. He’s wearing an impeccable three-piece suit and his hair is pulled back with gel. Not one hair is out of place. I stare at the man in wonder, people like this were an anomaly, even before the world ended.

“Dr. Ruppert?” Jack asks, stepping forward with his hand out. The man takes a long swallow of whiskey before ignoring Jack’s hand and shaking his head.

Daphne slaps the man on the arm and lets out a tut. “Please forgive his rudeness. You’d swear he was raised in a barn,” she says with a small trill of laughter. “Please meet my son. Raddison, the mayor of Louisville.

Chapter Twelve

Raddison stares down his nose at us like bugs under a microscope. He doesn’t even stop sipping his whiskey until the cup is empty.

Daphne reaches up and slaps her wayward son in the back of his head, making him cringe and reach for his hair to make sure it is still perfectly gelled. I instantly dislike him. He is rude and unwelcoming, and he reminds me of a spoiled man-child. Daphne doesn’t seem too thrilled with him either.

“Were you aware that I didn’t come home last night?” she asks her son, and he shrugs.

“I could’ve sworn that I saw you at dinner,” he tells her succinctly. I watch as Daphne’s face turns about six shades of red before she manages to get a grip on her temper. She turns towards us with the practiced smile of a perfect hostess.

A knock on the door interrupts what is heating up to be the apocalyptic version of Jerry Springer. A small woman with shiny dark brown hair pulled back into a ponytail pokes her head in the door. “You asked to see me?” she asks.

Daphne manages to pull her eyes away from her son and paste a big smile on her face. It looks a little strained, but it’s more than I can manage right now as I watch Raddison refill his drink.

“Dr. Ruppert,” Daphne exclaims, and my attention snaps back to the young woman. She looks far too young and pretty to be a doctor. Though now that I’m paying more attention, she is wearing one of those white doctor coats.

“Hello, please call me Helena,” the doctor says timidly, and Daphne waives her suggestion away with the sweep of her hand.

“Dr. Ruppert, I have the most interesting case for you to examine,” she tells the young woman, barely able to suppress her delight. “This young man here—” she points to Jack, which I find funny because in my books Jack is not a young man, and he certainly isn’t young compared to Dr. Ruppert either, “claims to have immunity.”

Raddison lets out a choking noise and turns beet red as he accidentally sucks whiskey up his nose. Daphne ignores him.

“He has shown me the scars, and they are quite real looking,” Daphne continues, and I watch Dr. Ruppert’s face turn sharp with intrigue.

“Do you mind if I take a look?” she asks quietly as she approaches Jack. Jack shrugs and takes his shirt off again. Dr. Ruppert almost completely mimics Daphne’s motions from earlier, running her hand over the rough pieces of jagged scar tissue. “This is incredible,” she murmurs to herself as she places her two fingertips on Jack’s neck in an obvious effort to check his pulse.

“Your hands are cold,” Jack complains good naturedly, but Dr. Ruppert doesn’t break her concentration. There is something disturbingly clinical about her while she works.

“Would you mind coming to the lab with me?” Helena asks as she takes her hands off his neck.

Jack nods, “I don’t mind.”

“That is great. I’d really like to get started with a blood test and perhaps even a tissue biopsy,” Dr. Ruppert says excitedly, not noticing when everyone in the room, including Jack, winces at her blunt description of the process.

I watch Jack swallow visibly and then nod gamely. “Sure doc, sounds good,” he agrees, giving us all a small wave as he heads out the door with the petite doctor fluttering around him excitedly.

Daphne turns and smiles at the rest of us. “You have brought us all such a wonderful gift,” she tells us. “Why don’t I set you up with somewhere to stay?” she offers, and we all nod our thanks. Daphne picks up the bell again and rings it. This time another person pops their head into the room

“Would you please find these fine folks somewhere to stay?” she asks, and the man nods his head.

“Sure thing, come with me,” he tells us, and we silently follow him out. I’m not sure what I was expecting, maybe a room in the house, but the guy keeps walking right out the front door and climbs into a golf cart. He motions to our trucks parked in the driveway. “If you want you can ride with me, or bring your own vehicles.”

“We’ll take ours,” Silas says right away, and I see his point. We are in the middle of a strange place. The last thing we want is for our trucks to be locked in behind a gated yard.

The guy nods and doesn’t seem like he cares one way or the other. We get in the truck and follow him down city streets that are actually bustling with people. “This is really weird,” I say, finally voicing what we are all thinking.” Silas grunts his agreement, and my dad stays silent.

After five minutes, the guy pulls up in front of a house and we all get out. “This house is for you,” he says, and we all just stare at him.

“You’re giving us a house?” I ask in confusion, and he nods.

“It’s abandoned, but it’s been cleaned and left fully stocked,” he shrugs. “Not everyone decided to stay. They’re probably dead now,” he says without even a hint of emotion. I look at Ryan out of the corner of my eye and see that he’s frowning.

“The doors aren’t locked,” the guys says before he gets back into his golf cart and drives away.

“What the hell,” Ryan says.

Silas ignores him and starts walking towards the house.

“What are you doing?” I ask, and Silas shrugs.

“Checking out the house,” he tells me like it should be obvious, which it kind of is. I’m just not sure what we’re doing here.

When Dad starts following Silas, I do too, and finally Ryan moves as well.

The house is pretty nice and seems to be untouched by the zombies, just like everything else in Louisville. Silas goes room to room, making sure it’s safe, and then we finally sit down at the massive oak dining room table that’s just off the kitchen.

“So what happens now?” I ask, even though I’m pretty sure no one else really knows anything more than I do at this point.

Dad pulls a Silas and shrugs. “It’s hard to say, we can’t just leave Jack, so I guess we have to stay until they’re done with him.” He makes sense, but this is the part of the story that I never got to when I was imagining what would happen when we showed up at the CDC with Jack, ready to save the world.

I guess I thought they would take some blood samples and we would be on our way. “Maybe it won’t take very long,” I say hopefully. It’s kind of nice being away from the cabin, but I’m not happy about leaving Abby for too long, especially because they have no way of knowing where we are, or if we are okay. She’s probably a nervous wreck.

A knock on the front door has us all standing up. Silas automatically reaches for his gun but stops himself before he pulls it all the way out. As one we all head to the door, and Silas pulls it open.

A slim woman with red hair is smiling up at us. She’s holding a gift basket in her hands. “Welcome! Daphne sent me to show you guys the ropes,” she says, handing me the basket. It looks like it contains mostly food and toiletries; there are even a couple cans of pop. I turn and set it on the washing machine that is located right inside the door, and the woman motions for us to step outside with her. “Do you mind going for a little walk?” she asks, and we all nod automatically—it looks like some of our questions are about to be answered.

“I’m Selena,” she tells us, and we awkwardly introduce ourselves. It’s strange, it’s only been a few months since the collapse of society, but it already feels weird to go back to the niceties of the past.

Selena laughs at our discomfort. “It’s always tough for the people that join us after they’ve been living on their own in isolation,” she confides, and it’s kind of creepy how she just pretty much read my mind.

“We aren’t staying,” Silas tells her bluntly, and she looks kind of taken aback.

“I haven’t been out of the city since the zombies, but I hear it’s bad out there.” I stare at her in surprise. She’s never left Louisville?

“Never?” I can’t help but ask in surprise, and she shakes her head.

She must see the look on my face because she rambles on as we walk leisurely down the sidewalk. “We’ve had our share of problems in Louisville, but most of the population managed to avoid infection. I’ve seen the zombies, of course, for a while before they blew the bridge, a couple of them got in…” She trails off, probably remembering a fallen friend or loved one—I know that look.

“I’m sorry,” I tell her, and she gives me a small smile.

“Thanks.” She stops and takes a deep breath. “Anyways, we are pretty lucky here. Everybody has a job and rations are awarded based on your skill level and production. Everybody gets the basics, but those that take the more dangerous jobs, or who have a certain skill level, get the best.” Her words remind me of Daphne and her son, and I frown. Being the mayor is all well and good, but I wonder if it pays better than the scientist who is working to find the cure to zombies?” Raddison didn’t seem very useful at all.

“What’s that?” Ryan asks, pointing out the community center where a line of people are pouring inside.

“I’m glad you asked,” she says, motioning for us to follow her across the street towards the building. “The community center serves two meal a day, breakfast and supper. It’s pretty basic stuff, but if you have nowhere else to go, it’s a perk of being a part of the community,” she explains as she leads us through the doors.

I feel conspicuous, like everyone is staring at us, but in reality it can’t be more than a couple people that glance up in curiosity. This place is so populated that it’s probably difficult to know everyone, which is also why it’s so dangerous.

The crowd makes me break out in an instant sweat. I was never claustrophobic before, but lately the only time I’ve seen this many people gathered together, they’ve all been flesh-eating monsters. It also reminds me of Camp Freedom, and that didn’t end well either. I suck in a deep breath to steady my nerves and stop the shake that’s rocking through my body.

“You okay?” Ryan leans in and asks me, and I nod my head even though I’m not.

“Yeah,” I manage to say, trying to shrug him off, but he’s like a dog with a bone.

“You’re really pale,” he tells me, raising his hand to try and check my forehead, but I pull away. I know I’ll be all clammy, and I have no explanation that won’t have him thinking I’m weak.

“It’s just hot in here,” I fib, which isn’t a bald-faced lie. There has to be at least two hundred people in this building. The crowd and the smell of their unwashed bodies, plus the odor of whatever they’re serving for supper, combines and mixes with the heat. It’s a bit much.

Ryan looks like he wants to grill me until I admit the truth, but he takes a step back instead, obviously remembering that we are just friends. I’m grateful for the change of heart.

I glance over at Silas and see that he’s scanning the room with a critical eye. Thankfully, he has no time to worry about the fact that I might be on the verge of a panic attack.

“We line up here and it’s served cafeteria style,” Selena tells us, and we join the line. I haven’t eaten very much today, but the last thing I want right now is food. I stay in line though because I don’t want to be rude.

The line moves quickly and a plastic tray is shoved into my hand, along with a plastic plate. I get a mound of mashed potatoes, gravy, and a scoop of canned vegetables. Further down the line, I’m given a slice of chocolate cake. My eyes go wide, and I glance over at my dad to see that he’s grinning from ear to ear. He loves chocolate cake. Mom used to make it for him all the time. I watch as he remembers that too, and his face falls. I balance my tray in one arm and reach out and squeeze his elbow, and he pastes a smile on his face for my sake.

We find a place at a row of tables. There are a bunch of other people sitting there already, but they don’t even glance up at us as we sit across from them. I don’t feel hungry, but my brain has other ideas. I wolf the food down so quickly that I’m the first one done and then I have to sit around and wait for everyone else.

I use the time to scan the room and all the people. “Do you guys think Jack’s in here?” I ask, and everyone glances up to scan the room too.

“He’s probably still busy,” Dad says at last, and I let it go.

After supper, Selena introduces us to a woman with a perma-frown on her face. “This is Winnie,” she tells us.

Winnie grunts in acknowledgement, which kind of reminds me of Silas and makes me crack a small grin.

“I understand you folks need jobs,” Winnie says, eyeballing the clipboard in her hand. Silas steps forward and shakes his hands.

“No offense intended, ma’am, but we aren’t staying,” he tells the woman, and she glances up at him sharply.

“Are you leaving tonight?” she asks, and we all look at each other. The truth is, we have no idea how long Jack is going to be.

“We don’t know. Our friend is helping Dr. Ruppert, we are just waiting for him,” my dad answers, and Winnie nods.

“Then you will need jobs. Nothing in Louisville is free, children ages ten and up have jobs and help pay for their livelihood,” she explains, and I wince. I’m all for kids doing chores, but her words make me wonder what exactly the kids are doing. “I will issue you temporary duties that must be performed up until you leave us,” she says, scanning her clipboard again. She looks up and stares at us all one by one.

“What was your job before the outbreak?” she asks my dad.

“I was an investment banker,” he tells her, and I watch her lip curl up. I have to resist the urge to say something nasty about her attitude. I see her point, there probably isn’t a lot of use for a skilled investor these days, but that isn’t my dad’s fault.

She points to Silas and Ryan. “You two can join scavenging team F,” she tells them, and we all just stare at her blankly. “We have teams that go out every day and look for supplies. They meet at the gate at 6:00 a.m. sharp, don’t be late,” she tells them.

Then she turns her beady eyes on me. “Kitchen,” she decides and scribbles it down in her clipboard. “Report back here tomorrow morning at 5:00 a.m. for the first shift,” she says, and my dad steps forward.

“Wait one minute,” he tells her, “my daughter isn’t going anywhere alone.” Winnie stares at my dad blankly for a minute, and then a small grin twists her lips.

“That’s fine, Poppa Bear,” she tells him, scribbling furiously on her clipboard again. “You can be on kitchen duty too—5:00 a.m.,” she punctuates her words with a stab of her pencil and then turns and walks away.

“Winnie can seem a little abrasive,” Selena apologizes, and I just stare at her with my mouth open. A little?

“You think?” Silas scoffs, having no problem voicing his dislike, and Selena blushes.

“I can take you folks back to your house now, if you’d like?” she offers, but again Silas steps up and shakes his head.

“That’s alright,” he tells her. “We can find our own way back.” Selena blushes again at his obvious attitude, and I actually feel a little bad for her. I was once on the receiving end of Silas’s scorn, and it wasn’t fun.

“Alright,” she agrees “And just so you know, no lights on after dark.” We all stare at her blankly. “So the zombies won’t be attracted to them,” she explains, and Silas frowns at her.

“Thank you for everything,” I tell her, drawing her attention away from Silas, and the woman gives me a small smile.

Silas takes off across the crowded room, and we all have to hurry to keep up with him. Once we get outside, I jog beside him and pull his arm.

“Can we slow down a little?” I ask, and thankfully he does slow his long-legged stride a little. “What’s wrong?” I ask, and Silas shrugs.

“Just don’t like crowds, is all,” he answers evasively.

I know I’m not going to get anything else out of Silas while he’s in such a dark mood, so I just fall in step beside him. It’s getting dark outside, but the street lights are on, of all the crazy things. They’re probably something solar powered, I decide. Though as it gets darker, they flick off. Everything looks the same to me, unfamiliar and new, so I really hope Silas wasn’t just blowing smoke when he told Selena he could find his own way back.

Of course, I should never have doubted him. Ten minutes later, we are walking up the pathway to the house we were assigned. When we get inside, Silas once again goes room to room and clears it. Then he locks all the doors.

“What about Jack?” I ask, stifling a yawn, and Silas shrugs.

“Jack can knock.”

There are only two bedrooms in the bungalow, but each bedroom has two sets of homemade bunk beds built in them—so they sleep four per room—probably something they did after the zombies. “You’ll finally get your own room,” Dad tells me with a smile as he moves his gear into the room across the hall where he’ll be sharing with Ryan and Silas. I nod, thinking about finally being able to stretch out on a mattress without Abby and Megan pressing in on me.

We turn in early, even though it’s only eight o’clock. We all apparently have to be up early in the morning, and it’s so dark we can’t do much anyway without using up all of our batteries, which we don’t want to waste.

I walk into the room, and it’s pitch dark. My hand automatically finds the light switch and I flip it on—a force of habit. The room lights up like a Christmas tree and I give a shout of surprise.

Silas, Ryan, and my dad come running across the hall and stop in wonder outside my door, staring at the light. “They have electricity!” I yell, making them all wince at the pitch of my voice. Something Selena said to me suddenly makes sense. No lights after dark. I lunge forward and slap it off.

“Selena said no lights after dark,” I tell them, and we all freeze. I have to resist the urge to go to the window and peek out.

A knock sounds on the door and we all jump. “Jack?” I ask the room, and none of us know. We all make our way to the door. Silas has his gun out when he opens the door, but he keeps it out of sight. I’m a bundle of nerves, which I know is crazy because a zombie wouldn’t knock.

It isn’t Jack. Two men are standing on the step wearing security guard outfits. “We just saw a light on in this residence,” the first one says with a deep frown, and my dad steps forward.

“Yes, we are really sorry about that. We’re new and we didn’t realize you had electricity here. It was an accident, and it won’t happen again,” he tells them, and they look at each other.

“Which one of you turned on the light?” the second man asks, and Silas steps forward.

“I did,” he admits, even as I start to step forward. My way is blocked by Dad and Ryan, who both reach out and grab me by my arm, warning me to keep my mouth shut. I do, but it’s killing me. If something happens to Silas because of me, I will never forgive myself.

The guards look Silas up and down and then nod their heads. “You need to be more careful, this is your last warning,” they tell him and then turn to go. I nearly collapse in relief.

Silas shuts the door and I jump into his arms. “You big idiot, why did you take the fall for me? You didn’t even know what was going to happen!” I lecture him, but I’m not really mad, just relieved.

Silas squeezes me back and then sets me away and flashes a rare smile. “I’d never sell you out to the five-o, Blondie,” he tells me with a wink that makes my heart flutter. “Now let’s go to bed and keep the lights off this time,” he says mock sternly as he plants a brief kiss on my lips and then walks away. Dad motions for me to precede him, obviously no longer trusting me to my own devices around a light switch, and I head back to my bedroom.

I thought it would be so nice to stretch out and sleep alone—but I was wrong. I toss and turn and can’t seem to find a comfortable position. I close my eyes and really try, but it’s impossible. As much as I always say that I hate being squished in between Megan and Abby, now I miss it.

Finally, after a couple of hours, I give up. I tiptoe out of my bed and sneak across the hall. The curtain is open and moonlight spills into the room so I’m able to see. Ryan and Silas are on one bunk bed. Ryan is on the bottom and Silas is on the top. My dad has laid claim to the remaining bottom bunk. I try not to make a sound as I creep forward and climb the ladder leading to the empty top bed above my dad. It creaks and I grimace, but I keep going because I’m already in too deep now to turn back. I settle on the mattress with a small sigh and then turn and find Silas staring over at me. I give him a small wave and he flashes me a smile and my world shifts into its proper place and I can barely keep my eyes open. I have no idea what time it is now, but I know 5:00 a.m. probably isn’t that far off and I’m going to pay for my restless night tomorrow.

Chapter Thirteen

By 8:00 a.m. I’ve vowed to never complain about chopping wood ever again. I pull my hands out of the burning hot dish water and adjust my horrible hairnet for the hundredth time. For the zombie apocalypse, these people sure have a lot of rules about sanitation in their kitchen. Although, I guess that could also be because of the zombie apocalypse.

I didn’t mind the prep work that started at 5:00 a.m., even though I probably only managed three hours of sleep. Dad and I arrived on time after I hugged both Silas and Ryan goodbye and told them to be careful outside the city’s fortified walls looking for supplies. I hate the idea of us getting split up, but I guess it’s the price we have to pay if we want to try to find a vaccine. We can’t exactly leave without Jack, and these people aren’t letting us catch a break.

We’ve been kept busy washing eggs, boiling oats, and I was even put in charge of flipping the pancakes. Which, as it turns out, wasn’t that big of an honor. It was pretty easy work. People started trickling in around seven, and Dad and I were put to work in the serving line, handing out our pancakes with a limit of two per customer.

Next came the not-so-fun part: the cleanup. Everything has to be hand washed, and that isn’t easy when you’ve just served over two hundred and fifty people. “We need to have everything gleaming for the next shift,” a deceptively matronly looking woman, who’s been bossing me around all morning, shouts out to all of us workers. I haven’t seen her actually lift a finger all day though, and it causes my annoyance level to increase ten-fold.

“Just keep your head down,” Dad murmurs in my ear. I glance up in surprise, and he smiles at me. “You think I don’t know you?” he demands, and despite my annoyance I have to smile back.

“Less talking, more working!” the boss lady shouts in our direction, and Dad and I wipe the smiles off of our faces and get back to work. My mind wanders as I finish up the dishes, and I can’t help but wonder what Silas and Ryan are doing right now. Unless it’s being chased by a hoard of zombies, it’s got to be better than this! I should’ve put up a fuss when we all got assigned to different jobs. If nothing else, we should stay together. I stare around the kitchen. With the exception of my dad, everyone in here is female. It’s totally sexist, I fume to myself, wondering if the zombie virus somehow transported us all back to the early nineteen hundreds.

Since the kitchen doesn’t serve lunch, we are released at 1:00 p.m. when the next shift arrives to start preparing for supper. I step out in the chilly air and suck in a deep breath. My hands are all pruned up from the dishwater, so I shove them into the pockets of my coat as we walk.

We are walking down the middle of what most people have been calling Main Street when I see Dr. Ruppert up ahead in the crowd. I elbow my dad and point her out before I take off jogging to catch up with her.

“Dr. Ruppert,” I call, and she turns around in confusion. “Hi,” I say when she stares at me blankly, not saying a word. “I was wondering about my friend Jack?” I ask her, and recognition finally flickers in her eyes.

“I met you yesterday,” she tells me, and I nod.

“How’s Jack doing?” I ask again. “He didn’t come back to us last night,” I press.

Dr. Ruppert’s expression becomes shuttered. “He decided to stay in one of the dorm rooms near the lab. It’s much more convenient for when we need to draw blood and tissue samples,” she says with a sweet smile, but something about it makes me suspicious.

“Can we see him?” I ask, and she nods.

“Of course, very soon,” she promises.

“How about right now?” I ask, pushing her, and Dr. Ruppert frowns at me.

“I’m afraid that now is actually not a good time.” she tells me. “He is recovering from general anesthetic and he’s still a bit groggy—why don’t you ask me in a little bit?” I open my mouth to demand why she was giving him surgery, but the doctor turns and walks away without another word.

I turn and look at my dad and frown. “Did that seem suspicious to you?” I ask, and my dad shrugs.

“I’m not sure. Some people just don’t have very good social skills,” he tells me in an obvious attempt to distract me.

“I don’t trust her,” I tell him, and my dad frowns.

“It’s good not to be too trusting these days, Jane, but you also don’t want to cause problems for yourself where none exist.” He looks at the stubborn expression on my face and sighs. “Why don’t we head back to the house and catch a nap?” he suggests, and I’m torn between wanting to play Nancy Drew and the sleep deprivation I’ve been feeling all day.

“I guess we could, but just until the boys get home,” I tell him, and he smiles at me approvingly.

We get halfway home when a shrill alarm starts to sound, just about giving me a heart attack. “What is that?” I yell to be heard over the noise, but Dad shakes his head. All around us the once calm street erupts into chaos.

People are running in terror. Even though I have no idea why, I know that it isn’t good. The alarm cuts out and is replaced by a voice over a loud speaker. “This is not a drill. Seek emergency shelter now, there has been a breach. Shoot to kill.”

Dad grabs my arm and starts tugging me in the direction of the house. But we are still a couple blocks away, and I don’t want to go into blind panic mode like the rest of the crowd. That kind of shit will get you killed! I jerk my arm away and pull out my gun instead. I keep it in my hand, pointed down at the ground as we move through the terrified crowd. It’s what I imagine being in a school of panicked fish must feel like. I see a lot of panicked adults scooping up their kids and running for their lives, and it makes me feel sick with worry for them. I’m sure that is exactly what my dad would like to do to me right now if I wasn’t so big.

A scream up ahead has the entire crowd yelling and turning to run in the opposite direction. I resist the flow and am bumped and battered as people push me out of the way to get to safety. Dad’s grip on me is broken and I find myself alone in the middle of the crowd.

Finally, the crowd is gone and I’m left standing in the middle of the street. Without the wall of bodies, I can see the grisly scene ahead of me. There appears to be only two zombies. They have a woman down on the ground and are chewing open her stomach cavity. I quickly look to the left and right to make sure there aren’t any more biters in the area, and then I lift my gun and walk right towards them.

The first zombie spots me and looks up from its prey with a rope of intestines hanging from his lips. The zombie hisses at me and tries to stagger to its feet. My hands are shaking. This is such a Silas move to walk right towards the danger, but there doesn’t seem to be anyone else around to deal with it. I fire and put a bullet right in the center of his forehead as he’s getting up. He crumples at the knees and falls face down onto his victim.

The second zombie turns at the noise and I step a little closer, only five feet or so away now. It would be almost impossible to miss, and I hit him in the temple. He slumps down dead as well.

“Jane!” I hear Dad yell out, and I spin to see him running towards me. “What are you doing?” He demands as he gets closer. I turn my back on my dad and examine the woman. She looks dead. You’d pretty much have to be with your stomach ripped open, but I know how the zombie virus works. She’ll be up soon if I don’t take care of it. I move closer and fire a round into her forehead.

Men in riot gear are suddenly running up and surrounding me. “Leave her alone!” my dad shouts as I’m jostled. They strip me of my gun and zip tie my hands behind my back.

“What are you doing?” I scream at them, feeling dizzy at the flurry of sudden activity. My dad is yelling at them to let me go.

“Calm down,” a man instructs me, and I snap my mouth shut, not because I’m calm but because I realize nothing will be accomplished by freaking out. The men part a little and I see that they also have my dad’s hands cuffed behind his back.

“Were you in contact with the zombies?” the man asks, and I nod at first but then shake my head.

“I didn’t touch them. I shot them!” I tell them, and the guy asking the questions looks skeptical.

“You took out those two zombies all by yourself?” he asks with a snicker, and I glare at him. “A little girl like you?” I resist the urge to spit in the idiot’s face. I am handcuffed after all, and Silas isn’t here to save my ass.

“Yes,” I tell him through gritted teeth. “I’m not completely useless. I haven’t lived in a fortified city since this whole thing started,” I say, making the guy frown.

“Walk me through it anyway,” he tells me with a dark look on his face.

“Do I really need to tell you how a gun works?” I demand. “I saw a zombie, I had a gun. I pointed and pulled the trigger and bye, bye zombie,” I practically yell in frustration.

“Jane,” Dad cautions me to cool down, and I take a deep breath to try to do as he asks.

“Lyle, quit messing with that kid,” another guy says, coming up and grabbing my arm to pull me away from Lyle. I have to resist the urge to stick my tongue out at him. “Were you bitten or scratched?” the man asks, and I shake my head.

“No.”

“You will still need to be cleared by the doctor,” the man tells me as he starts leading me toward a dark-colored SUV parked nearby. He tosses me in and my dad joins me, and then two men sit on either side of us, squishing us into the middle so we can’t escape.

The zip ties cut into my hand, and I squirm against the seat, trying to alleviate some of the pain. “I’m sorry, Dad,” I tell him, truly meaning it, but Dad shakes his head.

“You did the right thing,” he tells me. “There could have been other casualties if you hadn’t stepped in. I only wish I hadn’t gotten pushed back with the crowd so I could’ve helped you.” My dad turns and glowers at the men beside us. “And if these people think it’s wrong, then they deserve to have zombies roaming their streets.” The men in the SUV don’t say anything back to him.

“Where are you taking us?” I demand, and the guy that rescued me from Lyle frowns.

“I already told you—the doctor,” he says before turning away and ignoring me. I bite my lip to keep from screaming, or crying. I’m not really sure which emotion might come out right now.

We drive for another five minutes and then the SUV turns into a huge parking lot. I crane my neck and see a huge red brick building with a circular green dome on the roof and six gleaming white pillars standing at attention in the entrance. The enormous sign reads University of Louisville, and it looks like there used to be a fountain, but it’s bone dry now.

I’m marched through the front door and up a flight of steps, down a long hallway, and finally Dad and I are separated and placed in rooms across the hall from each other. The room was obviously once a classroom, though all the desks have been cleared out and a medical examination table has been placed in the very center of the room. Everything is still hanging on the walls though, and I wander around and stare at the maps and timelines as I pace with my hands still tied behind my back.

The clock on the wall ticks away for half an hour before the door finally opens and Dr. Ruppert comes in. “You?” I say, unable to stop myself, and Dr. Ruppert nods.

“Were you expecting someone else?” she asks, and I shrug.

“I don’t know.”

“There are other doctors in the city, but I am the only one with an extensive background with the CDC—the rest are all private practice, ER doctors, and surgeons.” She scoffs a little, like only being a surgeon is beneath her. “So I get all the possible exposure cases,” she finishes as she pulls out a scalpel and cuts away the arm of my jacket and shirt. The blade strikes my skin and I wince in pain, making her smile a little. She uses a long piece of elastic to tie off the top of my arm just above the cut. For a minute I think she’s trying to stop the bleeding, but it’s just a superficial cut. It doesn’t make any sense. She pulls it so tightly that my arm aches and all the veins pop up on my arm. I realize then that she’s going to take blood.

“I wasn’t exposed,” I tell her, but it doesn’t stop her from pulling out the needle.

“I guess we will see about that,” she tells me matter-of-factly as she stabs me in the arm without making an attempt to be gentle. She doesn’t remove my restraints, and when I don’t react she presses it in deeper, making me wince again. I refuse to give her the satisfaction of hearing me whimper, so I bite my lip and stubbornly watch as she takes three vials from my arm.

“What are you going to do with that?” I ask suspiciously, and she shrugs.

“You wouldn’t understand the process,” she tells me, popping off the last vial and turning to go, leaving the needle still hanging out of my arm.

My eyes bulge as she actually leaves the room without another word. I stare down at the needle still hanging out of my flesh, and I want to scream. I shake my arm a little and the needle wobbles. What in the hell is wrong with this woman? I feel tears prick my eyes as I stare at the needle, and suddenly I NEED it out of my body. I stand up and jump up and down until it un-sticks from my flesh and falls to the ground. I kick it away and crane my neck so I can see the puncture wound; it’s bleeding. She didn’t even remove the elastic from around my arm and it squeezes painfully. I think the elastic is why my arm is still bleeding, and I start to panic that I shouldn’t have taken out the needle.

She leaves me sitting like this for a full hour. My arm quits bleeding after ten minutes, thank God. Finally, one of the men that brought us here comes in. He pulls a large knife from his pocket as he’s walking towards me, and my eyes bulge in fear. “Relax. I’m just cutting your ties,” he tells me, and my racing heart slows slightly. The way I’ve been treated today, I wouldn’t be surprised if he just walked up and stabbed me for no reason. He doesn’t though. He keeps his word and cuts the ties and then motions to the door. “You’re free to go, we’ll give you a ride back home,” he tells me, and I resist the urge to snap at him. This place isn’t my home!

The first thing I do is reach up and pull the rubber band off my aching arm. Then I rudely drop it right on the ground as I head for the door. Dad is waiting in the hallway and gives me a big hug as soon as he sees me. “Are you okay?” he demands, and I nod, resisting the urge to sob in his arms.

“Are you?” I ask, worried something happened to him because of me, but he shakes his head.

“I’m fine,” he promises, and I stare up at him, worried that he’s hiding the truth.

We’re given a ride back to the house in silence. As soon as the SUV pulls up, Silas and Ryan burst from the house and run towards us. They don’t say anything in front of the men, but I can practically feel Silas’s body shaking with anger as he stands so close behind me that our bodies are touching.

“You still have my gun,” I tell Lyle flatly.

He shoots me a sour look like he’s going to ignore me and keep it. But then his gaze flicks to Silas and he changes his mind and pulls it out of his bag and hands it over. I slam the door as hard as I can, without another word to the men, and turn into Silas’s hug as the SUV speeds away.

“What in the hell happened?” Silas demands as he rubs at my exposed arm with the missing sleeve. The elastic has left a bruise in a complete circle above my upper arm, and the needle hole is still caked in dried blood and has a bruise as well. I feel like I’m going to freak out so I take a deep breath and breathe in Silas’s scent. It helps to calm me.

“I think we should talk in the house,” Dad suggests, and Silas keeps his arm around me, practically pulling me along with him as we go, but I don’t complain. I was so strong during this whole ordeal, but now that I’m back and Silas is here, it’s all I can do not to give in to my weaker impulses.

Dad and I finish telling Ryan and Silas what happened and they both look pissed. Dad doesn’t look happy either when I tell him about the way Dr. Ruppert treated me when we were alone in the room.

“I don’t trust her,” I tell them, and no one seems to think I’m overreacting this time.

“Did you notice anything weird about those zombies?” Dad asks, and I stop and think. Nothing is standing out to me though, so I shake my head.

“They were both really fresh and didn’t really have any wounds.” His words bring the details to my mind.

“They were wearing nice clothes too,” I tell them, and my dad nods. “Except for the fresh blood from that poor woman, their clothes were just as good as any of ours.”

Ryan furrows his brow as he tries to wrap his head around what we’re saying. “This doesn’t make any sense,” he mutters.

“It also doesn’t make sense that they would show up in the middle of town,” Silas points out. “If they came in at one of the fences around the city, they never would’ve gotten that far.” His words make my entire body go cold when I realize he’s right and what the implication of that is.

“They were turned inside the city,” Dad says, and we all nod. It seems to be the only reasonable explanation, but it also opens up a whole can of worms about how exactly they were turned, and why. Either there are more zombies running around the city undiscovered, which doesn’t seem likely, and the whole place will soon turn, or there has to be another explanation.

“I think the doctor had something to do with it,” I say, and everyone stares at me.

“I know you hate her, Jane, but come on…” Ryan starts to say, but I shake my head.

“It’s more than that. You should have seen her. She has no respect for human life,” I say dramatically, but in my defense, I truly believe it. “If she treated me that badly just taking a blood sample, what do you think she’s doing to Jack?” We all fall silent as we worry about Jack.

“I think we need to go find Jack,” Silas agrees, and I give him a nod of thanks for supporting me.

“I really hope I’m wrong,” I tell them, but I have a bad feeling that I’m not.

Chapter Fourteen

“Maybe we should go to Daphne about this first?” I suggest later that night as we all gather by the back door, preparing to sneak out into the darkness, but Silas veto’s my idea right out of the gate.

“We can’t be sure who knows what around here. For all we know, Daphne could be working with Dr. Ruppert, or even telling her to behave this way,” he tells me.

My initial reaction is to protest that Daphne is really nice, but I shut my mouth because people really do suck these days. I don’t want to be responsible for risking Jack’s life on a hunch that doesn’t pan out.

“Okay,” I agree so he knows he doesn’t have to worry about me. I support him one hundred percent.

“We find Jack and if everything is a-ok, we come back like nothing happened,” Silas says, going over the plan one more time.

“If it isn’t, we bust him out and make a run for it,” Ryan finishes for him, and we all nod. I almost suggest that we put our arms into the middle and yell break, like we used to do in cheerleading, but I know Silas will never go for it.

“Do you have everything?” Silas asks, and I do a mental check of my supplies. I have everything I came here with strapped onto my back. We all nod, and then Silas is opening the backdoor and peeking outside. “All clear,” he whispers, and we silently move as one out to the back deck and down onto the grass.

It feels so weird to be out after dark, but zombies aren’t really our concern right this second. It’s people, specifically the patrols that seem to wander around at random. Silas spent the afternoon watching out the window, trying to learn their schedule, but there simply wasn’t enough time to establish a pattern.

We cut across the lawn. Even though there isn’t any snow here, it’s chilly. Silas gave me one of his large hoodies to wear over my wrecked coat, and it’s better than nothing, but it definitely isn’t as good as a coat with both of its arms would have been! Thinking about what Dr. Ruppert did makes me grit my teeth in anger. She didn’t have to wreck my coat, she could have uncuffed me, or even just rolled up the sleeve.

We cross the crunchy frozen grass of the back lawn and make it to the gate in the back fence that Silas scouted out earlier. Silas opens it. Thanks to the WD-40 that he sprayed on the hinges, it doesn’t squeak.

We are out in a back alley now, and it’s pitch black. There is a little bit of moonlight, but it’s a cloudy night. It helps with the purpose of our mission but also makes it nearly impossible to see. I stumble over something in the dark, and Ryan reaches out and grabs my hand to steady me. I give him a squeeze of appreciation and then gently pull my hand away when he doesn’t make any move to do it. Being in this alley in the dark reminds me of that first night when I took the shortcut back to my house after cheer practice. I shiver at the memory and pray that I don’t bump into any more bodies in the dark. That’s a memory I don’t think I’ll ever forget as long as I live. It was my very last moment of normalcy before I knew what the world was becoming.

We walk towards the university, only crossing roadways when we must, but otherwise sticking to the back alleys and trying to avoid being seen. “Shh,” Silas hisses more than once when he thinks he sees something up ahead. Even though none of us are talking, we all freeze so the crunch of our feet on the gravel won’t give us away.

One of the yards has a dog, and it sounds like a big one as it barks and growls and throws itself up against the fence separating us. “Run,” Silas tells us, and we take off as fast as we can to put some distance between us and the disturbance. I glance back over my shoulder and see a flashlight bobbing around in the yard—the owner must be investigating.

I trip because I’m an idiot and not paying attention while looking behind me, and I land in the gravel with a loud woof as the breath is pushed out of my body. Everybody else stops running and turns back to me, and I feel several pairs of hands grab me and pull me to my feet. “Are you okay, Jane?” Dad whispers, clearly worried, and I nod my head, but then remember that it’s probably too dark for him to see me.

“Yeah,” I say, barely managing to get the words out around the stinging on my knees and hands.

“You okay, Blondie?” Silas asks, and I manage to answer again.

“Mmhm,” I tell him, and that’s good enough for Silas.

“We have to keep moving,” he whispers. “Try to be careful,” he tells me, patting me somewhat gently on the shoulder. For Silas, that’s caring. Dad stays glued to my side this time, and I feel bad that he has to worry extra about me now because I’m a klutz.

We leave the residential area behind. It’s a bittersweet victory. We are closer to our goal and there are less people to see us, but there isn’t as much cover. Headlights shine up ahead. Silas forgets the need for stealth and yells for us to get down.

I drop down in the ditch that slopes on either side of the road and try to press myself into the soggy grass as closely as I can. My backpack, hoodie, and hat are all black, so I pray this works. The vehicle doesn’t even slow down as it passes by us, and I lay there for a couple minutes afterwards, trying to calm my thundering heart.

“That was close,” I finally manage, and we slowly get to our feet. I cringe as I stare ahead at the stretch of road that leads to the University. There isn’t much to offer cover.

“We need to hurry before someone else comes along,” Silas says as he springs into a jog that I have to work twice as hard to keep up with.

My lungs are burning by the time we make it to the campus parking lot. “This is going to be the tricky part,” my dad murmurs, and we all agree.

Silas has never been here, but we still let him take the lead. He decides that marching up to the front door is a terrible idea, so we keep to the shadows and slowly work our way around to the back. There is a door, but we aren’t sure if we should use it. So we creep along and peer into dark windows until Silas finds one that he likes.

He pulls a screwdriver out of his bag and quietly jimmies the window lock. I glance over and see my dad staring at him with a slightly suspicious look, and I can’t resist. “He can also hotwire a car,” I whisper to my dad, making him frown even deeper.

“I’m a jack of all trades,” Silas mutters as he carefully slides the window up and then pauses to listen inside. It sounds empty. “I’ll go first,” he says, swinging himself up and into the window. He has his gun drawn before he even lands on the floor. He disappears for a moment and then pokes his head out the window again. “All clear,” he tells us, and I let out a breath I hadn’t even realized I was holding.

Silas reaches out through the window towards me. My dad gives me a boost and Silas pretty much pulls me through the window. Ryan is next and then my dad. We find ourselves standing inside a dark classroom. It reminds me of what happened upstairs with Dr. Ruppert, and I shiver despite myself. That woman is a stone cold bitch.

Silas creeps over to the door, which is partially ajar, and we all follow him, keeping a tight formation. Silas peeks out the door and gives a grunt of frustration.

“I can’t see anything,” he tells us as he whips the door open and ducks out to do a once over of the hallway before he quickly ducks back in. My heart thunders when he does this because I don’t feel ready for a firefight. Thankfully, it seems that I don’t have to be.

“The hall is clear,” he tells us, breathing heavily, and I have to resist the urge to slap him.

“You didn’t even tell us to get ready!” I lecture him, and he frowns.

“This is it, Jane. You need to be ready from here on out,” he tells me, and I grit my teeth at the condescension in his voice.

“You really should’ve warned us,” Ryan rushes to my defense, making Silas give us both a nasty look.

“Okay,” he says, taking a deep breath like he’s suffering idiots. “From here on out, be on your toes, okay?”

I frown at him, nervous about what we are about to do, and upset that Silas is being mean. “Okay,” I mutter. Ryan doesn’t even acknowledge Silas’s word.

“Let’s move out then,” Silas says, taking up the lead again. I pull my gun from my hip and keep it at the ready just in case. I definitely don’t want to have to shoot any living, breathing people though.

We move down the hallway without any help from the overhead lights. It’s completely dark except for the emergency lights that pop up every couple of feet, and they don’t provide as much light as you’d think. I can still barely see my own hand when I hold it up in front of my face. I can just make out the outlines of Silas and Ryan as they move ahead of me, and only because their tall figures create a shadow against the dim glow of the lights up ahead.

We reach the end of the corridor and Silas chooses a new direction at random, based on the general directions Dad and I were able to relay to him from our visit this afternoon. I still haven’t slept more than three hours, but I’m running on pure adrenaline now.

The hallway ends abruptly and up ahead we can see that we’ve finally reached the large common area located right inside the front door. I know Silas had hoped to avoid this open space, but it doesn’t look like we were able to locate an alternate staircase. We all freeze and stare out, trying to penetrate the darkness with our eyes. It’s kind of impossible.

“I don’t hear anything,” Silas says finally, releasing a deep breath. He turns to me and presses a quick kiss to my lips, startling me. “You guys stay here,” he tells us, not giving us a chance to react before he slips away from the group and steps out into the open.

I barely resist the urge to call out to him. Ryan and my dad try to hold me back, but I break away from them and jog towards Silas, being careful to stay down. This wasn’t part of the plan. We are supposed to stay together.

Ryan and Dad follow on my heels, and Silas doesn’t even acknowledge our presence. He’s too busy climbing the stairs and trying to keep the target off our backs. I know there’s going to be hell to pay if we survive this, but really, does he not know me by now?

We reach the top of the stairs without incident, but that is where our luck runs out. Two guards are walking down the corridor towards us, but there isn’t any urgency in their steps. They haven’t spotted us yet. Silas doesn’t wait for them to find us first. He takes off charging towards them with his gun up.

Despite my best efforts, I let a small squeak escape my lips. The men glance up at the sound and nearly jump out of their skin when they see a madman barreling towards them with a gun.

They go for their own guns, but Silas halts them in their tracks. “You touch those guns and I’ll shoot,” he warns them, coming to a stop a couple feet in front of them. The two men, obviously not real guards of any kind, look at one another and then slowly raise their hands in surrender.

“Please don’t kill us,” the first guy begs, “I’ve got kids!”

Silas ignores him, keeping the gun trained on the two men as he strides forward and opens a doorway marked as the janitor’s closet.

“Here’s the deal,” Silas says conversationally as he pats them down with his free hand. He motions for the rest of us to join him, and I jog over to take the weapons he removes from the guards. I pass them out to Ryan and my dad. Silas pulls a handful of zip ties out of their pockets, and I grimace as he hands them to me. My wrists are still raw from my own encounter with these things earlier. “I’m not going to kill you,” Silas says, and I watch relief wash over both of their faces, “—unless you give me a reason,” Silas finishes, making the two look less reassured.

“We won’t, man!” the talker promises, and Silas nods his approval.

“I’m going to tie you up and leave you in this closet,” Silas tells them, motioning to the cramped room filled with cleaners. “I’m also going to post a guard outside this door with instructions to shoot you if you call out for help before an hour is up,” he says, and we all blink in surprise, including the two hostages.

“We won’t make a peep!” the talker promises. Silas nods again as he grabs a few of the zip ties and secures the first guy’s wrists. Then he does the same to the second guy. He finally joins them together back to back, and I wince at how that must feel.

“Do you know where we can find the doctor?” Silas asks, and the two men look at each other. “Don’t be a hero,” Silas warns them, bringing his gun up to their faces and waving it in front of them.

“She’s just down the hall in room 20E,” the guy that hasn’t said a word pipes up.

The talker glares at his buddy. “Bryce!” But Bryce doesn’t pay any attention to him.

“Whatever they’re gonna do to her, she deserves it,” he defends, and his words make my blood run cold. What has this woman been up to?”

“Do their feet,” Silas says, obviously having heard enough, as he nods to Ryan and me. My mouth opens in surprise. “Now!” Silas barks to hurry me along, and I drop to my knees and begin securing the first zip tie while Ryan does the same to the other guy. I’m not one hundred percent sure what to do next, so I peek over at Ryan and see that he’s secured one zip tie to each ankle and then used a third tie to hold the other two together. I quickly do the same, only dropping the zip tie twice because my hands are shaking so badly.

I finally get to my feet, and Silas shoves the two men into the closet and holds his hands up to his lips. “Remember. Don’t make any noise for at least an hour,” he instructs them, and they both nod.

“You can trust us,” the talker promises, and Silas frowns.

“The problem is, I don’t trust anyone,” he tells them before bringing the butt of his gun down on the top of each of their heads with a sickening crunch.

“Why did you do that?” I demand, and Silas shrugs.

“You can’t trust the enemy, Jane,” he tells me as he shuts the door, leaving the two unconscious men alone in the dark.

“They were cooperating,” I point out, and Silas shrugs again.

“Until they weren’t,” he says vaguely and then gives a look that’s intended to shush me. “We need to get going and find Jack. That isn’t going to hold them forever,” he points out, and I grimly shut my mouth. What’s done is done; there isn’t any point rehashing it now.

“Room 20E, right?” Dad says, speaking for the first time in a while, and we all nod as we move carefully down the hallway. I see the room I was taken to earlier and the one across the hall where Dad was kept. I have to resist the urge to turn around and run as far away from this place as I can.

The next door over is 20E, beside the door where I was detained. I stare at it with wide eyes frozen until Silas brushes past me, pushes the door open, and barges in.

“What the hell!” I hear him exclaim. Even though I don’t want to know what’s on the other side, curiosity gets the better of me, and my worry for Jack, and I follow the guys inside.

The air rushes out of my lungs as I try to take in the Frankenstein lab. The familiar hiss of the zombies has me spinning, my eyes focusing in on a steel cage set up in the corner. It’s really only big enough for one person, but there are at least three of them crammed inside. My eyes dip lower and my stomach clenches—make that four zombies.

The child zombie seems more aggressive than its adult counterparts and smashes its head against the bars, growling and spitting in an effort to get to us. The larger zombies seem more content just to moan in our direction. It makes me sad and gives me the creeps all at the same time. The poor kid doesn’t look any older than six or seven. It’s a little boy, but it reminds me of Sunny all the same, and I have to turn away.

I catch Silas staring at the little boy with a punch-gut expression, and I reach out and touch his arm. He jerks it away, and I would be offended if I hadn’t seen the little bit of moisture in the corner of his eye. I decide to leave him alone and let him deal with his stuff in his own way.

We span out to examine the lab and try to find some trace of Jack. I sidestep a steel gurney in the center of the room and wince at the metal chains that have obviously been added for some horrible purpose.

“This is not good,” I can’t help but say, which is pointless because I’m stating the obvious and everyone else can see how horrible this looks for themselves. I can’t help it—sometimes I need to vocalize stuff.

“What in the hell are you doing in here?” a female voice demands shrilly, and we all spin to find Dr. Ruppert standing in the doorway. When she sees the expression on our faces, her eyes drop down to the guns in our hands and fear flickers across her face.

“Hold on...” Silas starts to say, but she doesn’t give him a chance to finish as she turns on her heels and starts running out of the room.

“HELP!” her screams are loud and echo down the empty corridor, making us all wince, and her shouts have us all springing into action.

If we can’t catch her and shut her up, we have no hope of finding Jack, and we will probably be arrested, or whatever horrible thing they do to people they don’t like around here.

Chapter Fifteen

She doesn’t get far. Silas catches her in a few short strides. The first thing he manages to snag is the flying end of her ponytail, and he gives it a jerk to stop her in her tracks, making her scream even louder. Silas slaps his hand over her mouth and then lets out a shout of his own when she clamps her teeth down on the soft part of his palm.

He pulls his hand away instinctively, and I’m impressed that he resists slapping her. Dr. Ruppert resumes her screaming, but Silas isn’t allowing it for long. He pulls his handkerchief out of his jacket pocket and jams it into her wide open mouth, making her choke and gag. He then slaps his hand over her mouth again, now that her teeth are harmlessly buried in the cotton.

I don’t want to admire this horrible woman for anything, but it is kind of impressive how hard she fights. It’s all Silas can do to hold her. I run forward with a couple zip ties from my pocket and we secure her with a bit of difficulty. I may or may not take a bit of pleasure in tightening her ties a little tighter than is strictly necessary…

Silas marches her back into the lab and we all follow. “Where is our friend?” I demand once we have her inside and shut the door. Dr. Ruppert narrows her eyes at me in anger and shakes her head. “You know who I’m talking about!” I tell her, but she just shrugs.

“I think you need some help refreshing your memory,” Silas tells her mercilessly as he starts to drag her towards the cage containing the zombies. The little one goes absolutely crazy gnashing and clawing at the bars, and even the larger ones start to get excited.

I watch Dr. Ruppert’s eyes go wide in terror as Silas brings her face just out of reach of their fingers. Silas yanks her back and pulls the gag out of her mouth. “Are you crazy?” she yells, and Silas frowns at her.

“Lower your voice,” he tells her, and Dr. Ruppert glowers at him but does as he says. “Now tell us where Jack is,” he demands, and the doctor takes a deep breath.

“He’s dead,” she tells us, and I feel like someone just punched me in the stomach. Tears prick my eyes, and even Ryan and my dad look sick about it. Silas doesn’t though. He narrows his eyes at the doctor and frowns.

“I was really hoping you weren’t going to make me do this,” he tells her as he starts dragging her back towards the zombies. Dr. Ruppert fights, but Silas is a lot bigger and stronger than she is. “Don’t lie to me,” Silas tells her as he brings her face so close to the zombies that I nearly speak out in protest. If she hadn’t just told us that Jack was dead, I might have actually told Silas he was going too far.

Dr. Ruppert screams as a chipped fingernail barely misses her nose. “Are you crazy?” she screams again, and Silas brings her a little closer. The zombies are wild now, and it makes me feel sick to watch.

“This can end as soon as you tell me the truth,” Silas tells her in a no-nonsense voice, and I’m confused.

“Okay!” Dr. Ruppert screams, and Silas yanks her away from the cage. “I’ll tell you,” she says, her shoulders sagging in defeat. She reaches for her pocket, and Silas has his gun up and in her face in an instant. “I’m just reaching for my keycard,” she tells him, slowing down her actions so that he can see what she’s doing.

She dangles the white laminated card out to him, and Silas snatches it up and looks at it suspiciously. “What is this for?” he presses.

Dr. Ruppert raises a shaking hand and points to a door off the lab. We all stare at it suspiciously. It is a steel-enforced door with a keycard reader. There is a small, skinny rectangular window with a glass insert, but it isn’t big enough for more than an arm to fit through. It’s also pitch black inside. My skin crawls with unease.

“This had better not be a trap,” Silas tells her, and she shakes her head.

“If something bad is in there, you’ll be the first one to get thrown in its path,” I warn her as I move forward and peer in the window. I can’t actually see anything, but there is a disturbing blood smear on the glass.

“It’s red like a human,” Ryan points out, and my heart hammers even louder in my chest. I hold my hand out for the keycard, but Silas shakes his head.

“You’re not going to be the first one through that door, Blondie,” he tells me as he motions me over. “You hold the doc—keep your gun trained on her—and shoot her if she tries to run,” Silas tells me, and I’m honestly not even sure if he’s joking or not.

I move to his side and take up guarding the doctor. I keep my gun held firmly in my left hand and my right hand on the zip ties that hold her immobile.

“Be ready for anything,” Silas warns us, and we all nod, even as we brace ourselves for whatever might come running out of the room.

Silas steps forward, armed with his gun and his flashlight, and swipes the keycard in the reader. I watch as the light turns from red to green and the lock clicks open. Silas doesn’t even hesitate as he swings the door inward and scans his flashlight back and forth.

“Holy shit!” I hear him mutter, and I try to edge closer so I can see, but it’s not good. Ryan and my dad rush forward to get a better look, but I’m stuck back here with Dr. Jerkface.

“What is it?” I call and feel the doctor stiffen beside me.

“It’s Jack,” Silas calls back, and I feel hope swell in my chest.

“Is he okay?” I ask, and Silas pauses a lot longer than it should take to answer the question.

“…He’s in rough shape,” he says at last, and I feel a hot burn of anger race through my body. I use her bound arms to push our captive into the room so I can get a look as well. The doctor resists at first, but once I press the business end of my pistol into her spine, she changes her tune.

I walk into the room. At first the doctor is blocking me, but she soon moves out of the way and I actually gasp. Jack is illuminated in the light of Silas’s flashlight, but it doesn’t really look like Jack. If it wasn’t for the hair, I wouldn’t be able to recognize him. He’s naked except for a pair of thin pajama-like pants, and he’s covered in so much blood that it’s hard to see where it’s coming from.

He’s huddled in the corner with a pool of blood underneath him. “Are you sure he’s alive?” I demand shrilly, and Silas nods.

“I checked his pulse myself,” he tells me, and I turn and look at Dr. Ruppert in anger. She narrows her own eyes and then does something I’m not at all expecting. She uses her body as a battering ram and pushes into me, nearly knocking me over.

She makes a break for the door, but she’s clumsy since her hands are tied behind her back. I manage to get in front of her and raise my gun in her face to make her stop. “You don’t have the balls,” she taunts me, and I frown at her.

“Lady, I’m holding a gun on you,” I remind her, but she just snickers.

“I’m the only hope you have for a vaccine,” she tells me smugly. She’s so sure that her life is guaranteed, even after all the horrible things she’s obviously done to Jack. I let anger get the better of me when she tries to rush me again to get out the door.

“Don’t do it, Jane,” Ryan warns me as my finger twitches towards the trigger.

Instead, I raise my pistol in anger and strike her dead center in the forehead as she’s running up on me. It’s total Silas move, and it is extremely liberating. Her knees crumple underneath her and she collapses on the ground with a loud thunk.

I’m a little stunned at what I just did, and I look up quickly at everyone else that’s staring at me. Ryan and my dad are wearing twin expressions of shock, but not Silas. Silas is grinning from ear to ear. “Blondie, that was badass!” Silas approves as he switches his attention back to Jack, and I rush over to assist him. We all help half-carry, half-drag him, despite his groans of protest, out of the small, dark room so we can get a better look.

I have to resist the urge to vomit when we emerge into the artificial lights of the lab. Jack is worse than we thought. He’s covered in dozens of fresh bites. I can only assume they are zombie… The scar tissue on his back is red and inflamed from various pieces that have been dissected from the old bites, and his arms look like a junkie’s. He has so many needle marks.

“Oh my God,” I whisper in horror as I gently stroke Jack’s thick blonde hair. I’m too scared to touch him anywhere else. “I’m so sorry I asked you to come here,” I tell him and nearly jump out of my skin when he actually replies. I didn’t even know he was conscious.

“Not your fault,” he rasps in a voice that is hoarse from screaming, and my heart breaks. No matter what he says, I know this is on me.

“We have to get him out of here,” I beg the others, and they all nod in agreement.

“Can you stand, buddy?” my dad asks.

Jack slowly nods as he struggles to his feet with the help of Silas and my dad.

“He needs clothes,” I blurt out and then blush when everyone looks at me. “Well he does,” I shrug. “It’s cold outside.”

I look around and spot his coat hanging on the back of the door to the lab. I rush over to grab it for him. There is also a pair of worn work boots that I’ve seen several times before, and I grab them as well and bring them over. Ryan and Silas help get him dressed.

“You can’t do this!” a voice demands from behind us, and I spin around to see Dr. Ruppert standing shakily in the doorway with a scalpel gleaming dangerously in her hand. She starts screaming and rushes towards me like a crazy person, and I dive out of the way.

It’s like it happens in slow motion as she trips and falls forward, pitching towards the zombies in the cage. She must still be disorientated because she doesn’t even put her arms out to catch herself, and her face lands right up against the bars. The small zombie bites viciously into the flesh of her cheek. She screams in agony as the flesh rips and she tries to backpedal away from the bars.

I wince, but none of us make any move to rush forward. She’s been bitten; it’s too late. The little zombie manages to get in one more bite before she scrambles away crying and screaming. The tip of her nose is missing as well as a ragged hole in her cheek and blood runs down her face, soaking her once pristine lab coat.

Jack stares at her for a long minute before reaching out and taking my gun from my hand. It’s like he finds otherworldly strength as he staggers to his feet and stands over her. “It’s called karma, bitch,” he tells her in his raspy voice as he pulls the trigger, and I have to look away.

She deserved what she got, but I didn’t necessarily want to witness it. Jack sinks down to his knees beside her body, and we all rush forward to help pick him up again. I gently take my gun back from where it’s laying on the floor next to Dr. Ruppert’s messy brain matter.

“We really have to get out of here,” I tell them, and none of us are arguing the fact. We all know that we’ve stayed way too long. Ryan and my dad grab onto either side of Jack’s arms and help to keep him upright while Silas leads the way towards the door, leaving me to take up the rear.

I stop for a minute and stare at the small hissing zombie. I’d rather just leave them all, but that wouldn’t be the right thing to do. I pull out my knife and head towards the cage. Dr. Ruppert was a horrible, evil woman, but if these things get loose, they could turn the entire city, or kill one of the kids I saw today. I now suspect that this lab is where the two from today came from as well.

The boy zombie hisses at me and practically jitters in excitement as I come closer. I carefully avoid his waving arms and plant my knife through his eye socket. He slumps down, still at last, but my proximity starts to drive the larger zombies crazy. I take them out one by one, avoiding arms and teeth as my knife finds the sweet spot three more times.

I’m a little out of breath by the time I finish, and I stand huffing and puffing as I examine my gory work.

“Come on, Jane!” Dad calls over to me impatiently, and I quickly wipe the blade of my knife off on the closest zombie before thrusting it back into the waistband of my belt. I put it away in favor of my gun and jog to catch up with the others as they disappear out the door and into the hallway.

We don’t encounter anyone else as we run, half-dragging Jack down the hallway and the stairs. “We shouldn’t just go out the front door,” Silas says as we stand in front of it, contemplating doing just that. A shadow of someone walking nearby cements his theory, and we turn and backtrack.

We spy an emergency exit up ahead and go for it. Jack is way too big to shove out the window we came in…maybe under his own steam—but not now—he’s half unconscious!

We burst out the backdoor as quietly as we can and run right into two guards examining the window we broke earlier.

Silas is quicker on the draw and has his gun up before they do. “I don’t want to kill you,” Silas tells them as he keeps his voice calm and his gun pointed steadily at the two men.

“Merle!” the first man starts to shout, and Silas jumps, pistol whipping him in the head and dropping him. It really seems to be the move of the night, but it works when you don’t want to use deadly force. These men never really did anything to us, and as long as they continue to do nothing to us, we don’t want anyone to die.

“Keith?” a third voice calls out from the darkness, and Silas raps his gun across the temple of the second guy.

“We have to get the hell out of here!” Silas whispers, even as Jack’s legs give out beneath him.

“Jack?” I hear my dad whispering as he gently slaps the large army man in the face to try and wake him. It doesn’t work, and I have to swallow the panic that’s bubbling up in my throat as I hear footsteps pounding towards us in the dark.

“Jane, grab his leg,” Silas instructs me as he moves forward to take his own advice, grabbing Jack’s other leg. We carry him, the four of us each carrying a limb as we scurry off into the darkness.

The night is dark and the ground is uneven. We are barely synchronized enough to carry Jack like this—between how much he weighs and how uneven all our heights are—it’s pretty lopsided, but adrenaline fuels us and we somehow make it work.

A flashlight beam catches us and it feels like my heart is going to explode. “Stop right there!” a man’s deep voice yells, and Silas raises his gun and fires at random into the darkness. We hear the man let out a yelp of pain and I think we all wince. This is the part we tried so hard to avoid.

Silas bought us a little time, and we redouble our efforts as we go crashing through the underbrush, dragging poor Jack along with us. In the background we can hear dogs barking and men shouting as they try and organize themselves to perform a manhunt.

My heart feels like it’s going to burst inside my chest, but I keep running on autopilot, expecting at any minute to feel the sharp bite of a bullet piercing my body.

The sounds of the shouting behind us grow louder, but so does another noise that I can’t quite put my finger on right away. It’s a sort of loud rushing sound, and when we pop out on a rocky beach I realize that it’s the river.

We’re trapped. We can’t go back the way we came and we can’t go ahead because the river cuts off our escape to the south. The only thing we can maybe do is run along the edge of the river, but we will be caught doing that in no time. Our energy is flagging and there is nowhere to go.

“We have to jump!” Silas yells, and for a minute I’m confused. Jump where?

My eyes land on the frothy, dark water of the Ohio River, and I shake my head. “Are you crazy?” I demand, even though there really isn’t time to debate. “We’ll freeze to death.”

Silas lets out an annoyed snort. “It’s forty seven degrees, haven’t you ever heard of a polar bear swim?”

“Jane, honey,” Dad interrupts. “I really think it’s come down to swim or die,” he tells me, and I can tell by the panic in his voice that he isn’t messing around.

The sound of dogs’ and excited voices grows louder behind us, and I know the decision was never mine to make. I try not to think about how cold it’s going to be or the zombies that could be lurking beneath the surface. Just because they avoid the water doesn’t mean some of them didn’t fall in and sink to the bottom.

I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and jump.

Chapter Sixteen

It’s more horrible than I’d imagined. The water is so cold that it forces all the air from my lungs upon impact. I panic and accidentally swallow a mouthful of disgusting water as I kick my legs in sheer terror and try to fight my way up to the surface. It feels like millions of tiny pins are being drilled into my body. My legs and arms feel heavy with the cold. Even though I only just jumped in, I’m struggling. Screw the polar bear swim—and screw Silas—the jerk. Everybody look at Jane, surviving the zombies just to be taken out by plain old, everyday water. I can’t dial back the monologue in my head, and I’m angry that my last thoughts are going to be so bitter.

I feel a hand latch onto my arm and I panic as I struggle and kick, trying to fight it off. I’m convinced it’s a zombie reaching up from its watery grave to drag me down. The more I struggle, the more the arm tightens its grip. Finally, I’m pulled above the surface of the water where I see it’s actually Silas that has a death grip on me.

He doesn’t speak to me, probably because he can’t while we’re being swept along in the rushing river current. All his focus is being used up on survival. I can’t get over how fast the river is moving. It’s one of those things you never really realize looking down from the bridge, but it’s kind of like a rollercoaster in the worst possible sense of the word.

Water splashes me in the face and I swallow more of it as I’m struck by a body that’s floating along beside me. I let out a scream, but it’s absorbed by the water and comes out as more of a gurgle. It’s so dark that I can’t see a thing, and I’m torn between hoping for a quick, painless death and trying to find the willpower to keep trying to survive.

I have no idea how much time passes, but after a while we can’t see the outline of Louisville in the moonlight anymore. That’s when Silas stops letting the current carry us wherever it wants and starts to kick his legs and swim towards the bank.

I try and kick my legs to help, but of all the crazy things, I’m exhausted. My eyes are practically begging me to close them, just for a minute. Then Silas pulls me into the shallow.

“God damn it, Jane!” he snaps, shaking me roughly. “Don’t do this to me. You have to fight, okay, baby?” he says, and something in his voice pokes at my tired brain and draws my attention. It’s terror. He is terrified right now, and I’m confused. I glance blurrily around for zombies as he grabs both my arms and unceremoniously drags me further out of the water and up onto the bank. I don’t see any, and I hope they aren’t here because I don’t have the strength to fight them right now.

Silas slips and falls in the soft sandy ground and sits for a minute with me in his lap before doggedly getting to his feet. “Stay awake, Jane! You can’t die on me. I won’t allow it,” he tells me, and through the fog in my head I realize with a start that he’s scared because of me.

My eyes start to shut again, but Silas brings me back with a rough shake that makes my jaw crack together and I bite my tongue, tasting blood. It hurts and I want to yell at him, but I just don’t have the energy.

I try to focus on Silas, but he isn’t looking at me. His attention is somewhere else. I crane my head to try and see, but everything is so dark. My eyes beg me to close them, but I try and resist since it seems to be upsetting Silas. “I think I know how to help us,” Silas tells me, brushing some sand away from my cheek. “I just need you to hold on for a little bit longer,” he begs me, and now I’m scared. Silas doesn’t beg.

He pulls my backpack off and tosses it to the ground, reminding me of the first time I ever met him. I give him a silly little grin, but I’m not sure if my lips actually move or not. They might be frozen in place. Silas scoops me up next, grunting with the effort of carrying my weight. I’m a little offended—I don’t weigh that much anymore. I rest my cheek against his shoulder. Even though it’s cold and wet, I don’t mind.

“Almost there,” Silas tells me as he wobbles up the river bank, nearly dropping me a couple times before we finally crest the hill.

I close my eyes and don’t stir again until Silas drops me unceremoniously onto some hard surface. I force my eyes open and moan at the bruise he’s probably just put on my rear end. I try to curl up in a ball as I lean my back against the side of a house, and for a minute I think we’re back at the cabin.

Silas pulls his knife from his pocket and bangs on the door. I want to stay awake and see what happens next, but it’s beyond my control.

I hear a scrape and a grunt as Silas drags two heavy bodies past me. I don’t need to open my eyes to know from the smell that they are zombies. He doesn’t try and pick me up again as he grabs my arms and drags me, just like the zombies, into the house.

I let out a weak sound of protest, but I honestly don’t even care at this point. I hear Silas rattling around and he comes back with a metal garbage can. I stare at him blankly as he starts ripping the trim off the windows and the baseboards from around the room. In the blackness I can just make out the fact that we are in someone’s living room.

Silas lights a match. I wonder where he found a dry match as whatever he’s thrown into his makeshift fire pit flares to life. He stands staring down at the flames before shaking his head and taking off again, this time dragging the flaming trash can with him. I lay my head against the cold laminate floor and shut my eyes.

“Not so fast, Blondie,” Silas says, giving me another rough shake as he starts dragging me again. The laminate turns to linoleum as he drags me into the kitchen and then into a walk-in pantry where he’s got his trash can set up. “We need a smaller space to keep warm,” he explains, even though I didn’t ask. He stops just short of a mound of blankets that he’s piled on the floor and starts pulling his waterlogged hoodie up over my head.

I want to help him, but I just don’t have the strength, so I just lay there helpless and shaking on the floor while Silas manipulates my arms like I’m a corpse—and not the reanimated kind either. Silas grunts as the hoodie finally clears my head and then he’s working on my boots, pulling them off my feet and then my socks. My feet smack back down on the floor and he peels off my coat with the cut off arm and then the sweater that I’m wearing underneath.

He starts to work on my jeans and has one hell of a time peeling them off. Finally, as I lay shaking on the floor in only my t-shirt and underwear, Silas reaches over and pulls my shirt over my head. I feebly shake my head, but it’s barely even a protest. All I can honestly do is shake so hard I feel like I’m having some sort of seizure. Silas drags me onto the blankets and buries me underneath at least ten quilts, but it does nothing to stop my shaking.

“Ssss…” I try and say, but my speech is so slurred it’s not even worth the effort.

I watch him from the corner of my eye as he hangs a blanket over the doorway, leaving the top uncovered a couple feet so the smoke can vent, and then he disappears, coming back wearing nothing but a pair of dry boxer shorts that he must have found somewhere in the house. He crawls underneath the blanket with me and kisses me gently on the forehead.

“Stay with me, Jane,” he whispers as he forces a too-large t-shirt over my head, pushing my arms through. Then he reaches under the shirt and takes off my wet bra and underwear. I make a small hiss of protest, but she shushes me, shooting me a no-nonsense look.

“This is serious, Jane,” he tells me as he draws me into his arms and covers us more securely with blankets. “You have hypothermia, you’re going into shock,” he tells me, and in my mind I know that’s something bad, but I don’t actually care one way or the other.

The fire crackles loudly in the bin, and I finally allow myself to shut my eyes. That’s when I notice that I’m not the only one shaking. Silas is shaking so hard his teeth are chattering noisily in my ear. I try to give him an extra squeeze, even though I honestly feel like Silas is just as cold as I am. I’m not sure who is supposed to be warming who here, but my arms refuse to do what my brain is telling them so I just give up.

I wake up cold, and I have a pounding headache that’s making my head feel all fuzzy. I feel around the makeshift bed searching for Silas, for some warmth. My eyes pop open and in the fire glow I can see that Silas isn’t here; I’m all alone. My pulse skyrockets as I wonder where he could have gone, or if my blurry memory of him was even real.

I want to call out, but I’m scared I might attract unwanted attention. I peek under the blanket and I’m only wearing a navy t-shirt that falls down to my thighs. I don’t even know where my weapons went. I struggle to sit up and am relieved when my body actually obeys my command.

I slowly pull myself to my feet, using the shelves that line the walls to support most of my weight. I can’t see anything but darkness beyond the blanket hanging in the doorway and I hesitate, not sure that I want to see what's on the other side.

I finally gather my courage—worrying that Silas might have collapsed out there is the only thing that gets me moving. I grip a soup can from the shelf for protection as I pull back the blanket and let out a blood-curdling scream.

Silas gives a shout of surprise and nearly drops the armload of broken up chair legs he’s carrying.

"You scared me," he accuses as he drops the whole armload into the trash can, and I watch him with my hand over my own thundering heart. Silas stops and blinks at me like he just realized that I'm actually out of bed. "You need to get back in bed," he tells me predictably, and I frown at him.

"I'm okay," I tell him. After all, he was in the river for just as long as I was, but that doesn't stop him from wandering around.

My eyes flick down to his bare chest and body that's only clad in a pair of boxer shorts and I blush, realizing that I'm only wearing a t-shirt myself.

"The time for embarrassment is over, Blondie. We did what we had to do to survive. It's basic survival 101. You were hypothermic, any longer in those wet clothes and you could’ve stopped breathing and never woke up."

It’s a shock to realize how serious the situation really was. I remember feeling numb and Silas pleading with me to stay awake, but now I feel silly for worrying that my dad might be upset that Silas and I slept together half-naked. Silas has saved my life—I don’t even know what the running tally is anymore. Dad would want me to live no matter what… I stop and stare at Silas in horror as more and more of the night comes back to me. I’m such a selfish idiot for not realizing it sooner.

"What happened to my dad?" I ask, panic nearly swelling my throat shut.

I watch a look of unease flicker across Silas's face and I want to scream.

"No," I whimper, nearly falling over when my legs try to buckle, and Silas steps towards me, pulling me into his arms. Taking advantage of the fact that I can barely breathe right now, never mind tell him to stop, he pushes me back underneath the blankets to stay warm.

“They’re going to be okay, Jane,” Silas tells me, and I look up at him with tears in my eyes.

“How do you know?” I ask, and he doesn’t even hesitate.

“Because I trust that they know what they’re doing,” he tells me as he gently strokes the hair from my cheek. “If we made it—then so did they. We just have to have faith and wait for the sun to come up so we can start looking for them.”

“I hate the waiting,” I tell Silas, and he nods.

“Me too, Blondie, but in the meantime your body is still weak and killing yourself to try and find your dad isn’t what he would want.” He gives me a mock stern look. “Let’s get some sleep, warm up a bit, and I’ll wake you up at sunrise and we can get going,” he tells me. Even though I’m worried, my eyes are already feeling heavy because my traitorous body has other ideas.

“Do you promise?” I ask, and Silas nods, pressing a tired kiss to my lips.

“Of course, now go to sleep.”

The second time I wake up my headache isn’t as bad, and I actually feel warm. Silas’s body pressed against mine is like a furnace, and I have to fight the urge to snuggle deeper into him. We have to find my dad, Jack, and Ryan.

Silas shakes me gently one more time, and my eyes pop open as I struggle to sit up. “It should be close to dawn,” Silas tells me, checking his watch even as he climbs out from beneath the blankets. I watch little goose bumps pop up on his exposed skin and shiver on his behalf. He reaches behind my head and pulls several hangers down from the top of the pantry shelf.

“I dried our clothes,” he tells me, and my jaw drops a little.

“When did you have time to do that?” I ask, and Silas snorts.

“The five hours you were practically unconscious,” he retorts, and that sobers me up. I don’t even bother shedding my t-shirt; I just start piling layers on overtop. Everything feels a little stiff from air drying, but I ignore it.

The guns are another thing I didn’t notice last night, but Silas has them all pulled apart and sitting on a shelf to dry. He catches me looking at them and nods. “I didn’t want to risk having them rust out,” he tells me, and I nod tiredly as I finish getting dressed and pop my gun back together. Silas nods his approval, but I don’t even crack a smile. We need to get going and find the others.

Thankfully, Silas is not Abby and we are heading out of the house within minutes. My backpack is the only thing that didn’t completely dry out, but I’m grateful Silas had the forethought to go back to the beach and grab it, even though I don’t like the fact that he left me unconscious in the house and went outside in the dark alone.

I’m leading the way with Silas a few steps behind me, and I throw open the front door without thinking and step out. I know I’ve messed up right away as the smell of death assaults my nostrils. The zombie on the porch turns at the squeak of the door and lunges for me. Silas throws me out of the way and meets the rotting bastard halfway, burying his knife all the way to the hilt in its eye socket.

The zombie goes completely still on contact and crumples to the ground, pulling itself off of Silas’s knife with a wet slurp. I stare down at the rotting corpse and swallow—I’d completely forgotten they weren’t frozen here. I got too used to the cabin, and now I feel like such a stupid idiot. Silas turns around and glares at me as I’m picking myself up off the ground.

“How could you be so careless?” he demands just as I was about to open my mouth and apologize. I snap my mouth shut and shake my head. “Screw your head on right, Jane,” Silas tells me before turning away and taking the lead this time.

My pulse is still thundering away inside my body as I step off the porch, making sure I look a full three hundred and sixty degrees around me. Silas leads us back to the river, following the trail we took the night before. I barely remember it, but the tracks are still fresh in the soft sand.

We scan the shoreline carefully on either side, but we don’t see any sign of anyone else so we start walking. “Why are we going this way?” I ask after several minutes without either of us saying a word.

Silas shrugs. “I didn’t see them after we all jumped, I was too busy trying to save you, but I can’t see them getting out of the water any earlier than we did, and it’s more dangerous to head back towards Louisville so…” he motions to the river running parallel to us and shrugs, “we go this way for now.”

I can’t find fault with his logic, so I continue to follow him. We stay right beside the water, scanning both sides and the trees that line the bank. I pay special attention to the sand since it’s so wet we’re leaving all kinds of footprints; they must’ve too.

We round the bend and Silas holds his hand up, and my feet come to a grinding halt. Someone is up ahead, kneeling on the bank and looking out across the river. “Ryan?” I call out, and slowly the zombie staggers to its feet and heads towards us with a growl. I let out a sob as my heart breaks, even as Silas lifts his gun and plants a bullet right between the zombie’s eyes.

“Stay here, Jane,” Silas pleads with me as he pats me gently on the back and heads towards the body. Tears blur my eyes so much I can barely see, but I refuse to be left on the sidelines. I need to know what happened, why Ryan turned.

He’s face down and Silas gently rolls him over and lets out a sound of surprise. “It’s not him,” he tells me, a grin splitting his face, and I blink in confusion.

“Are you sure?” I ask, wanting so badly to believe him, but I’m terrified it’s just a cruel mistake. I rush forward to see for myself, rubbing the tears out of my eyes with my sleeve so I can actually see. It looks an awful lot like Ryan, the build and hair color, even the jeans…but the face is completely different. “Oh my God,” I can’t help saying as I sink to my knees and bawl some more.

Silas frowns at me in confusion, but I can’t explain the immense relief rushing through me right now.

Silas looks further up the bank at something laying on the ground and frowns as he slips away to go examine it. “Who is that?” I ask sharply, my relief evaporating at the sight of a second body.

Silas bends down and stares at the mess of blood and gore in the sand. “It’s not them,” he calls out, and I feel slightly guilty being glad it’s someone else, but I am. Silas pulls out his gun and shoots the poor soul in the head when they start to wiggle, and I have to look away. I tell myself it was moving because it was a zombie, but I’m not convinced that’s what just happened.

Silas comes back towards me and offers me his hand. I allow him to pull me to my feet and into a hug. “We’ll find them, Jane,” he promises, and I nod. I believe him. I know that Silas won’t stop until we do. I just pray that when we do, they’ll still be my dad, Jack, and Ryan.

The End… for now.

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