Clodi Mark

Ascension

Mark Clodi. Ascension

The Zombie Chronicles -3

Chapter 1 — Whatever happened in Nebraska?

A wicked wind kicked up dust limiting vision to less than a mile and making the wide open prairie feel like a confining box. Despite the dust in the air the sun was still heating up the land on the warm August afternoon as the man and the dog marched along the gravel road. 'Not that the dog seems to care.' Red thought to himself. Since walking away from a fight with the powerful zombie that had killed Nita and taken Hugh, Red had done a lot of walking. Walking and thinking. 'It isn't like me to complain about how unfair everything seems to have gotten. But here I am.'

"Here, Reilly, c'mon girl. Leave that alone." Red called to the dog. His words pulled it away from the corpse at the side of the road, a human body with a sizable head wound. Someone knew how to kill zombies around here. The dog still growled in Red's direction, but she left off gnawing on the old woman where she lay. "That's a girl. Good dog." It just didn't seem right to Red to have the dog eating human flesh. 'That's reserved for me.' Not that this flesh appealed to Red; it had been dead a long while and all the swirling energy that was contained in the body had long since fled.

The day he left the fight he had taken a motorcycle and driven up Highway 80 to southeastern Wyoming. Red ran out of gas half an hour after crossing the border, Red didn't bother looking for any more, walking would suit him just as well. He did prop the bike up next to one of the many accidents along the road. It was a good machine and might come in handy for someone else if they wanted to find gas for it. Red had nowhere to go, yet he still went on. The road signs giving the distance to Cheyenne told him he was less than eight miles out. After thinking about it briefly he decided to cut across country instead of heading through another city. Cities were full of zombies or people trying to kill zombies and he didn't want the drama.

At the edge of his dust limited vision he could see a large farm house. He set off for it because having a destination, even such a short term one, seemed better than wandering around aimlessly. Red wasn't worried that he would run into any gun-toting humans in the farmhouse; the place was empty of both the living and the dead. Having an extended 'zombie vision' was convenient; it made finding human meals easier, but also allowed him to steer clear of other zombies. After the last couple of days Red was sure he was going to avoid making any friends for a while, living or dead. 'Reilly is enough. Maybe I will find some other dogs to keep her company. She needs some socializing.' Trudging into the yard of the house Red felt there was something wrong almost immediately. He stood on the packed gravel drive and tried to put his finger on what was wrong. A cow mooed softly from the shade of the barn, a dozen chickens were gathered around a water filled bowl set in the shade of the same structure. From the fence a huge pink pig snorted at him and turned back to wallowing in the mud.

'It's the animals, they should be dead by now.' Red had passed several ranches and farms and come across dead livestock of all sorts. Farm animals didn't feed themselves and tended to die after a few days without water. These animals were fine, well cared for too, by the look of it. Red turned to get a better look at the pig as the shot rang out. He was thrown to the ground in a puff of dust by the shot, which had caught him in the left shoulder. Scrambling around he tried to get to the barn as more shots rang out, followed by cursing from the direction of the house.

Frantically, Red sought out his opponent, 'Nothing. The damned guy is invisible!' Reaching the lucrative safety of the barn Red turned and peered out of the doorway towards the house. Shifting his vision back to what he thought of as 'near human' to spy out his opponent. A weight hit him in the back and knocked him forward into the side of the door, pinning him there. Three long, slender tines were poking out of his chest and embedded in the wooden frame of the doorway. Red was not a natural fighter, the last few months of unlife had seen fit to give him a rudimentary education in brawling, but that was the best he could manage. Usually his strength was enough if he got into a tussle with someone else. The problem now was getting a grip on his opponent, the man moved around quickly and it took Red valuable seconds to pull away from where he was pinned with the pitchfork and twist around. Once he accomplished this Red stopped dead in his tracks.

"Why you're…you're just a boy!" He said with surprise.

"And you're dead mister." the boy sneered as another shot rang out and hit Red from behind, this time striking him just above his right elbow.

The shot was a disappointment to the boy who screamed, "Goddamn it, Jimbo! You can't shoot worth shit!"

Red stepped sideways to move out of sight from the shooter. The boy leaped up into the hayloft, making the jump of more than twenty feet in a single bound. Dumbfounded, Red realized the boy was a zombie, he had to be, or else Red was seeing things. Quickly he switched to his zombie sight to track the boy before he disappeared, the boy hardly registered in Red's vision. His aura was so faint that Red would never have considered him a zombie. Now that he had seen the boy moving he knew what he was dealing with. Reaching out mentally he grabbed for the boy with his mind, 'Time to be unfair, but for me this time.'

Like a slippery trout the boy's mind slid through Red's grasp. The effort was not without results though, the boy slowed down and Red was able to tell that he was facing a much weaker zombie than he was. Surprisingly the boy was from the same line as Re, which meant that somewhere along the line Red had infected the zombie that had infected the boy. This meant that Red should have more control over him, not less. 'Something is going on here and I need to find out what. I could use what they are doing.'

In a flash the boy was gone, jumping through an open door in the hayloft to land in the driveway in front of the barn. Red shrugged and turned again towards the open door, bumping the long handle of the pitchfork into the wall as he turned. Frowning Red tried to reach the handle of the tool, but couldn't do it. Looking around for something to help pull it out of him he saw Reilly cowering by the side of the wall, looking at him.

"Lotta help you've been. What happened to barking? You bark at every god damned butterfly or grasshopper for two hundred miles, but when I need it you curl up and go all cowardly on me?" The dog crouched down more and whimpered, "Aw, shit. Sorry, I know this ain't been easy on you either. Just lay low. Good girl."

"You talking to the dog?" called a voice from outside.

"Well I ain't talking to you, no." Red yelled. He grasped the middle tine of the pitchfork and pushed it down even with his chest. 'Right through the solar plexus, pretty good shot.'

"What do you want?"

Red stopped to think for a moment.

"You hear me? I want to know what you want."

"Yeah, you got a right nice way of asking for it mister. You behind the barrel of a gun, ambushing me in the driveway. Then stabbing me a pitchfork."

"Times are…difficult. We didn't want any trouble and people like you cause lots of it."

"People like me?"

"Yeah, don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about. Early made zombies; the oldest ones. You're pretty old. If I had to guess, from your accent you aren't from the area, which means you were one of the first."

"Yes, that's right." Red said, growing concerned that the man could tell things about him. Red tried to read the guy, but he couldn't. Like the boy he slid away like a trout in a stream. Again Red was able to get a sense that the zombie he was talking to was much younger than he was which should have made this an uneven relationship in his favor.

"Good analogy. Fish that is. I can use that."

Surprise shook Red to the core, the man was reading him! That usually only happened when a more powerful zombie used less powerful ones as his eyes and ears. A paternal zombie could share some vision and sound with his minions, but that was always by choice.

"I don't suppose we could talk this out?" Red offered.

"That depends on what you want. You seem to be evading my only question."

Again Red stopped talking. The pitchfork fell out of him as the weight of the handle dragged the tines out of his back. Red absently kicked the tool to the side of the barn and answered, "It's not that I don't want to answer, I just don't really know."

"Well what brings you here? Why aren't you heading east like all the others?"

Red's quiet laughter greeted the man's questions, "Why would I do that? You already know I am a leader in this mess, not a follower and what is going down out east is not to my taste. I was slowing it down, trying to give the people there time to prepare their defenses against the coming wave."

"Why'd you stop? You could still be there now, doing whatever you were doing."

"I ran into a force more powerful than myself. I lost my friends. They worked with me, helping as best they could. They weren't as strong as me, but we had a plan. Another zombie showed up while I was taking care of…a friend. By the time I got back one of my companions was dead, the other was dominated, and I was outmatched."

"That so? Sorry if I don't seem so gullible, but not many of us help out the living."

"Aren't your rifling my brain right now?" Red asked. He had felt like something was going through his head, sorting out his thoughts as he stood there. Almost immediately he felt the presence withdraw.

"It's not like that."

Red nodded to his unseen companion and said, "Sure it isn't buddy."

"I can't really go through your mind, I was just trying to see if you were lying to me."

"And?"

"I don't think you were. You felt offended when I implied you were lying."

"Does that mean we can talk?"

"Yeah. Don't kill him V."

Red carefully looked around and saw a young woman in the loft, she had a shotgun pointed at him and what looked like a broken off blade from a paper cutter tucked into her belt. She was standing less than twenty feet away. Nodding to her, Red raised his hands and stepped out into the courtyard. 'I'm getting careless. I suppose the power I have has made me a little arrogant.'

"So, I can't read you, but that only means you're more powerful than we are."

"You got that bit about the fish."

The large man on the porch had a rifle, he lowered it while laughing, "You know what I got? I saw an image of a fish, swimming out of your fingers."

"Well it's good to know my secrets are safe. Or are you lying to spare my feelings?"

"I wouldn't do that to you. What's your name?"

"Red."

"Jimbo. The boy is Bobby and the woman is Veronica."

"Jimbo sounds like a name from my part of the country. Is it a nickname?"

Jimbo nodded, "Yeah, it got hung on me after I came back. I don't like it, but I keep it."

"So you won't forget where you came from?"

"Something like that. To keep me humble."

"Did Veronica hang it on you?"

"No, she, well, her and I share a 'mother'."

"Oh? Where's mom?" asked Red looking towards the house.

"That bitch is dead. I killed her myself; I take care of my own shit jobs."

"What about the boy? He yours or did he come after?"

"Mine, but he came after. I wasn't thinking too clear about things back then or I would never have done that to a kid."

Red lowered his hands and brushed off his sleeves, looking at the blood stains on his shirt, "I'm not in any place to judge you. You know that."

Jimbo looked him up and down again and said, "Well, you'd best come into the house. Then Veronica and I can hear your story out of the sun."

The heat didn't bother Red, but standing around talking in the dust swept driveway seemed uncivilized so he followed Jimbo into the house.

"So this isn't your place then?" he asked as they went inside.

"No. We came up from Denver and stopped here a couple weeks ago. The animals were about dead and we'd all seen enough of killing to last us awhile so we started taking care of them. The power went out ten days ago, but this place has an old fashioned water pump right alongside the faucet in the barnyard. Now we're farmers. I don't know what we will do when the grain runs out."

"Kill them?"

"I hope not. We found a few books on 'Country Living' the next house over, it looked like wanna-be farmers lived there. The books are a good start."

The men moved into the kitchen, which struck Red as the most natural thing to do. They sat down at the utilitarian Formica table. A moment later the young woman from the barn came in. She didn't put her gun down like Jimbo did; she kept it nestled in the crook of her arm, a threat not lost on Red.

"So, you got whipped and ran huh?"

"No, I…well, it didn't come to a fight. I could just feel him and knew he could kill me. Hell he coulda dominated me, maybe. And he had a few friends."

"That sucks. Why'd you come here?"

"I was following the highway and decided I didn't want to deal with any crap in Cheyenne, so I set out across country and ended up here."

Jimbo chuckled. "As good a reason as any. What are you going to do with yourself?"

"I don't know."

"Okay, let me rephrase that, what do you want to do?"

"I want to go back there and kill the son of a bitch who killed my friend."

Jimbo's eyebrow rose, "You haven't seen enough killing?"

"One more won't make much difference."

Both men stared at each other for a moment in silence. Red didn't feel the other man pressing against his head and he refrained from trying any form of mental push as well.

Finally, Jimbo nodded, "You know I could help you."

"Jimbo!" the woman spoke for the first time, in a sharp voice.

"Ah, Veronica, why do you think everyone who comes along is out to get us? The Nancys of the world are few and far between."

"Your mother?"

Jimbo nodded, "Yes. You're not the first super zombie we've run into after killing her. You're the first one we haven't successfully put down."

"You haven't seen enough killing?"

Jimbo laughed, "Touché. We think of it more as self-preservation. Besides you're the first one who offered to talk to us. It's the god damned wind, it threw my shot off, otherwise we'd be digging you a new spot in the garden out back."

"That's cold."

Outside they heard a boy's laughter, followed by some barking. Together they rose and peered out the window into the yard, where Bobby and Reilly were running around a tree in the long grass.

"That's the first time the boy's done anything but play his damned video games since we got here."

"I thought the power was off?"

"Shit. Veronica, he is going to get all our secrets out of us with my big mouth. The power is off, but there is a generator in the garage. We don't need the major appliances, but having the video games for the boy and lights at night is pretty nice."

From where Red was in the kitchen he could see a large tank by the side of the barn, it was positioned so it couldn't be seen easily from the road in front of the house.

"I'm glad he likes the dog; I think she misses her owners."

"Kids and dogs go together like stink and shit. And smell about like that after a hard day of playing too. But that is the natural way of things." Jimbo moved and sat down at the table again, after a moment Red joined him.

"Why'd the owners let you have their dog?" asked Jimbo.

"They didn't, the dog kinda adopted me when the owners were put on a bus heading east. The adults there didn't have room or want her I guess, if the story I heard was right. Anyway when I was heading back to my friends, the dog started following."

"So you didn't kill them?"

"No, I haven't killed one of the living on purpose in a few weeks."

"On purpose?"

"It's complicated. I hit one guy too hard, broke his neck."

"Oh."

"I just meant to knock him out. He was holding this woman hostage and we needed her."

"You and your friends?" Jimbo asked.

Red shook his head, "These were different friends. Not my zombie friends."

"You had human friends?"

"Have. I hope. I sent them into Iowa to tell the soldiers what was coming."

"Really?" Red felt Jimbo pressing him mentally.

"Really." he answered trying not to resent the other man's intrusion.

"Sorry."

"No you're not." said Veronica before Red could, she turned towards him, "It will go faster if we believe you. He can tell if you lie, which makes things easier."

The three of them sat and stood in the kitchen for a moment of awkward silence, broken only by the sound of an ancient cuckoo clock ticking from where it was hanging on the wall.

Finally, Red broke the silence, "So, about this power of yours….?"

"Yeah, it's good isn't it? Not sure how I lucked into it. I think everyone gets something, not all zombies are the same. 'V' over there is fast, she is strong and fast, Bobby can jump like a grasshopper, me, I got some fancy mind stuff. Probably from all the 'Star Wars' movies I watched as a kid."

"We all watched those movies." Veronica said. "You're going to do it, aren't you?"

"We're a team V, if you say 'no', I'll accept it. But I am leaning towards it, yeah."

"We listen to him first, then we decide, we don't need someone like Nancy with these powers running around."

"Yeah, but if we teach him, we might want to go after this guy ourselves, to help the living out. It might be the right thing to do."

Veronica snorted, "If you say so. I know you Jimbo. You've already made up your mind."

"No, I will listen to Red and see what he has to say before I make up my mind."

"Whatever. You good old boy rednecks are all the same."

"Hey now we don't know he's a redneck."

"Really…'Red'? That's his fucking name, 'Jimbo'! If that doesn't scream NASCAR and tractor pulls I don't know what does."

"Sorry to interrupt, but I didn't care much for NASCAR. I might have a southern accent and I might not be the fullest can in the six pack, but watching cars drive around in circles doesn't strike me as a good way to spend a Sunday."

Jimbo looked crestfallen at this statement, but Veronica smiled, "Well then, maybe Jimbo is right, we should teach you."

"I didn't know about his feelings on NASCAR. Now I am having second thoughts."

"Sure you are, you play a good game. You still want to show him." Veronica said.

"So you can teach others how to do it, how to prevent other zombies from messing in their heads?" Red asked, a little too eagerly.

"Yes, but I can do other things in your head too, better than anyone I've run into yet."

"Okay, so what do we do?"

"First, tell us everything…and Red, don't lie or leave anything out." Jimbo said seriously.

So Red told them.

Chapter 2 — Whatever happened in Nebraska?

The story telling lasted most of the night, it was extended after Jimbo and Veronica found out that the man named Max that Red was talking about was also the one they had ambushed in his home in Denver. After that that bit of knowledge came out both Veronica and Jimbo seemed to thaw noticeably towards Red.

"I never liked what we were doing to Max. I hated Nancy when she bit his wife. That was the very moment I decided to kill her." Jimbo said.

"I'm glad you did it, I don't think I could have and she needed to die. She killed me. She killed you." Veronica added.

"She sounds like a woman who had it coming, but couldn't you just vote to go somewhere else?" Red had heard Nancy's ideas on how the structure of her group was to work.

Jimbo shook his head, "No the others were still hers, she had some pull with them, mentally I mean. I think she was stacking the vote to do what she wanted."

"So she was betraying you even as she made it sound like a partnership. That's a bad basis for cooperation."

"So Max was okay when you last saw him?" asked Jimbo.

"Yeah, he wanted to go after his kids, but I sent him straight east with the cop."

"She didn't last long in the fight, didn't you take her out Veronica?" asked Jimbo.

Veronica nodded, "But you got the prize, Nancy."

"Easy to defeat someone when they don't know you're not on the same side. Last I saw Max he was pointing a gun at my head. For some reason he let me go." Jimbo paused for a minute and looked at the other two, "I just had a crazy thought."

"What?" asked Veronica.

"Well, remember that guy in Fort Collins, V?"

"Oh, the one with the six shooters? You'll love this, Red, he was decked out like a cowboy, had two revolvers, the boots and a hat too. Plus a western shirt with creases so straight you could cut yourself on them."

"Yeah, the man was decked out like a good movie, but one thing he wasn't faking was how fast he was. We were avoiding people by this time, so when we heard the shooting we just came up on him real slow, to see what was going on. This was before most of the zombies moved east. The guy was mowing them down, every shot was a head shot; he never missed. And we got to see what happened when he ran out of bullets."

"That's the best part! We only had a shot gun at that point." Veronica said.

"Anyway the cowboy was facing off against a mob of about thirty zombies and two times six is only twelve, which left a lot left over by the time he emptied his guns. Still the zombies were slow and he was fast. He hadn't counted on the zombies firing back though, a couple of low level supers, like us, came out into the street when 'cowboy' ran his guns out. And they didn't come out to do the classic 'showdown at noon' kind of thing either; they came out guns a blazing."

"Automatics! One of the bullets hit the wall six inches from my head, I swear to God it did!" said Veronica, laughing.

"I didn't find that so funny myself, but those guys sure weren't aiming much. Nonetheless, they tracked their guns right through cowboy. You know what happened?"

Red shook his head.

"He stayed up. Gut shot two or three times and the man, cool as a cucumber twirls one gun into the holster then reloads the other in a matter of seconds. He was alive, Red, he had the colors in him, like they all do. Then you know what he does?" Red shook his head again, Jimbo did laugh then, "He holstered his gun and reloaded his other fucking pistol, like he has all the time in the world! Now he was fast don't get me wrong, from the time he was shot until the time he had both guns reloaded was a matter of seconds. The zombies had a few problems that helped him out too; one of their guns jammed and the other just fired his dry and seemed to be having problems reloading. Both had pistols though, tucked into their belts and then Red…then the showdown at noon did happen. You ever seen a movie where one guy faces off on two others? The zombie threw their assault rifles down and reached for their pistols, and cowboy went for his. They didn't even get their guns out of their belts. One shot himself in the leg, but that was probably a convulsive reflex. Cowboy then empties the next ten shots into the slow zombies that are still coming towards him. It was pretty awesome."

"So the guy was fast, what's that got to do with what you were saying?"

"Well what if it works both ways? You know we get better, stronger and faster if we eat more people. What if people start getting something from killing us?"

Red thought about it for a minute, remembering Max and the corn field outside of North Platte, he nodded slowly. "That could be, I've seen a few things myself."

"So, how many zombies do you reckon Max killed before I ran into him? And how many more before he ran into you?"

Red shrugged, "Max could see zombies at a distance, he just knew where they were and he said his ability was getting stronger too."

"So, did you just get better at one thing?"

"No."

"Probably he is better at more things than he knows."

"Yeah, look where you going with this?"

"What if he can get what he needs? What if running into me and then you wasn't coincidence? What if he ran into us and set us on the paths we are on right now to help him out in the long run?"

"That'd be a might useful talent." Red said doubtfully, "Kinda far-fetched."

"Yeah, like seeing zombies from a distance or being able to protect yourself from other zombies messing in your head."

"Still a bit of a stretch Jimbo." said Veronica, "I mean carry that logic out far enough and you have Max getting himself arrested so Red would have to come break him out, which allowed this other zombie to kill Nita and take Hugh. Thus setting up Red to come here and meet us, to get the ability to resist the other zombie and help Max, and the other humans live safely in Iowa."

"I'm sticking with it. Until I learn different." Jimbo said stubbornly.

Veronica shook her head, but Red was more convinced by her chain of logic. 'Why am I here? Chance?' he thought, then said, "Well it'd be hard to prove. I guess we'll see if Iowa falls or not in the next few days. I think they are going to attack soon."

"I'm right, the more I think about it, the more sure I am. So you know what that means don't you?"

"You get a brownie?" Veronica chimed in.

"No, it means we have to teach Red how to resist more powerful zombies."

"What a surprise. I agree though."

"Was it the Max connection?" asked Red.

"No, it was what you said about NASCAR." All three erupted in laughter, which brought Bobby into the kitchen with his gameboy to see what was so funny.

"So what happened to cowboy?" asked Red as Veronica tussled Bobby's hair. The boy pulled away and sat on the floor, focusing his attention on the video game once more.

"Cowboy?" Jimbo asked, turning somber, "He didn't make it. He reloaded, then took about three steps and fell over while he was reloading. He wasn't dead and the rest of the mob got him. We didn't stick around to see him come back."

"Did you think about saving him?"

Veronica shook her head, "No, what could we do? I was a barista at a coffee shop and Jimbo was an auto mechanic before this happened, neither one of us know anything about putting humans back together."

"You could have changed him yourself."

"There's a thought, how would he be when he came back? Still fast or would he start all over again." the big man shook his head, "No, he was still shooting once in a while as the zombies approached, I wasn't willing to risk it. I supposed we could find him if we went back…well maybe not now with all the weaker zombies called east."

"So what can you tell me about mind reading and resisting the control of more powerful zombies?" Red asked.

"I'll show you a few things first. Bobby? Put the game down would you, so we can show him what we can do?"

The music on the video game cut off and Bobby set it on the floor and stood up. Jimbo went to the counter and took a pad of paper and a pencil from a drawer and put it on the table in front of Veronica and Red.

"I'm going to stand over here looking outside." Jimbo said as he moved to the back door and peered out of the window next to it. "Bobby why don't you write a number on the piece of paper."

Bobby took the pencil and drew a square on the paper, inside of it he wrote the number twelve.

"Twelve, inside a square. Let's stick to numbers okay, you don't want to rely on me to guess what you draw."

Red sighed, "This is no big deal Jimbo, I've seen that before, you can see through the boys eyes."

Jimbo turned and smiled, "Oh? Well let's see if I can impress you a little more." He walked over and took the pencil from Bobby. "Go over where I was."

Bobby walked across the room and Jimbo wrote the number thirty three on the pad of paper.

"What'd I write?"

"Thirty three."

"Okay so you trained him to see through your eyes too, that is…different. Still not very useful."

"Let's do it again Bobby." Jimbo wrote two hundred and ten on the paper.

The boy shrugged his shoulders and said, "I can't see nothing." Then a moment later he said, "Okay two, one and zero. Two hundred and ten."

"See? I can choose to let him in or out."

"Yeah, but how?" Red persisted.

"That is the crux of it, isn't it? Now for Veronica and Bobby here I went in and did something to their brains. We have a level of trust with each other and I didn't monkey around with anything I found there. It was like I went in and turned a switch to 'on' that was 'off' before. It's hard to explain exactly. The thing is I can't do it without you letting me."

"How do I let you?"

"This is where it gets interesting. I don't know for sure. See Bobby was mine, I made him and that relationship gave me certain control over him. And V? She was my sister, she is my older sister though, if you understand what that means."

"Sure, she was made before you. On the hierarchy that means she should be more powerful than you. But I know about siblings, I have enough zombie siblings."

"That's it exactly. In your case you can kind of keep me out, but you aren't doing it consciously, it is like your body has a defense against me, probably because I am not as strong as you. But you don't really know what you're doing so I can kind of get in, read surface thoughts and stuff. I might, just might, be able to read a number with you resisting me. I think that's where we need to start. We'll try it, then I want you to try and resist me, then I want you to try and let me through. If we can get you to the point where you have some control, then maybe we can do more."

"Okay, I am game. Let's give it a try."

Jimbo went back to stand by the door and they practiced until the sun came up, by which time Red was able to let the other man through or deny him access with a fair amount of success. From there they went on to Red thinking things and trying not to let Jimbo read his mind, then letting him. Again the lesson went fast and soon he was able to give Jimbo messages with no effort at all. After a half hour more of watching them stand with Jimbo talking out loud, but Red only sending mental communications to the other man Veronica stood up.

"Well this is mighty boring for me. I am going to go take care of the livestock. C'mon Bobby-Sue, you're coming with me."

"Veronica!" the boy complained, "Don't call me that!"

"Sure thing little man, but let's get moving, the cows aren't going to milk themselves."

After they were gone Red spent a few minutes asking why they milked the cows and took care of the animals and Jimbo explained that the cows had to be milked or it caused them distress and they took care of the animals in case they ran into humans who needed meat.

"Jimbo, I'm not doing so well am I? I mean I can't read you at all."

"You'll get it. I have to admit it is going slower than it went with them. Like I said, 'switch on', that was all it took."

Red shrugged his shoulders and both men sat listening to Reilly barking at the animals outside, while Bobby called out encouragement for the dog to bark louder.

"There is always a nuclear option." Jimbo said.

"What's that?"

"You open up as much as you can and I hit you with everything I have to try and get in. It might work. It might not."

"I guess I am still a little nervous about this. I know how it is to have someone else in my head. Doctor Sentry did it to me, it…well I can only say as an analogy I felt violated. Call it rape or what have you, but it wasn't a good experience."

"See that is a problem right there. You have negative feelings associated with it and that will make things harder. It's up to you how we proceed, what's your timeline?"

"The faster the better. I don't know when the attack is going to happen. The horde heading east was probably three or so days from making it to the border."

"Okay then, how about we try for the velvet gloves first and work our way up to the crowbar?"

Red nodded and they started in with the mind reading again. Jimbo warned Red when he was going to try and dig deeper, to allow him to open up his mind. The first attempt was not successfully.

"Closed up like a clam. Let's try again." Jimbo tried unsuccessfully for over an hour, but which time Veronica and Bobby were back in the house with eggs and fresh milk. Red watched in amusement as Veronica brought out a butter churn and poured the fresh milk into it, then had Bobby take over the up and down motion on the handle.

"Why make butter?"

"It keeps longer than milk." Veronica answered. "Plus it is good practice."

"I was expecting more milk."

"We dump most of it in the pig trough, to spread their feed out, plus Reilly got a good dose, she loved it. The rest we pour into the field, we can't keep it."

"How much butter have you made?"

"A lot, we put it in buckets and store it in the basement. The books say it should keep for a long time that way, but I am going to start rotating out after five buckets. We need to figure out how to make cheese, that keeps even longer."

All at once Red felt a stabbing pain in his head, he clutched it in both hands and put his elbows on the table in front of Jimbo, who was staring at him intently. A light sheen of sweat dampened Jimbo's face, a bloody mist that formed rivulets of red as he continued his assault on Red's mind. Finally, disgusted, he turned away.

"So much for the crowbar. We'll have to try something else."

"You coulda warned me!" Red said, lifting his face up.

"No point, when I warn you, you clam up. Your mind was distracted while talking with V, so I seized the opportunity she provided. Fuck, you'll probably be on guard from here on out. Let's take a break, go play with the dog or tour the farm while I think about this."

Red nodded, headed to the back door, then turned for a moment, "Thanks Jimbo, for trying."

Jimbo waved him off, "Go!"

Outside Jimbo found Reilly lapping up fresh milk from a large bowl that was still half full. "Dog you drink that much milk and you are going to be sick." He trudged down the stairs and picked the bowl up, looking around he found a spot on the porch railing to sit it out of the dog's reach and then said, "C'mon, show me around and walk some of that off."

The door behind him banged shut and Bobby came out, he didn't look happy.

"What?"

"I gotta show you around, Jimbo said to give you a penny tour, I don't know what that means."

"It means show me everything. But I won't tell if you skip a few things. Where's your favorite place here? Let's start there."

The boy looked even more forlorn, "My room. Upstairs, but the house is the last place we get to go."

"Oh, what about the tree house in back?"

"That? It's boring."

"Boring?"

"Yeah, c'mon, I'll show you."

Showing Red around took Bobby much longer than half an hour, the boy might say he didn't like a lot of the farm, but he certainly displayed enthusiasm for the hayloft, the pig sty, the stream a quarter mile away and the small air powered pellet gun that he snagged from the tree house.

While they were romping through the stream, which was a mix of pebbles and sandy mud, Bobby stopped and looked at Red, then said, "Get inside me."

"What?"

"You can do that to Zombies who are weaker than you. Jimbo says you can't read him because he has his own trust issues, but you're a lot stronger than me and maybe you can get into my mind."

"Oh. Right here?" they were standing in the middle of the stream, playing some sort of soldier game that seemed to involve Red falling down into the mud and water after Bobby shot him with the pellet gun.

"Sure, it won't hurt. Jimbo does it to me all the time." Bobby stared at Red, "Well, go on. Try. What am I thinking?"

Red looked at the boy and then fell over onto the bank of the stream clutching his chest, "Ya shot me, Army Ranger!"

Bobby laughed, "Exactly! What am I thinking now?"

"That I need a pellet gun too, so we can really play this."

"See? Jimbo asks if you can see him in my head too. He's there now."

Red concentrated, but shook his head, "No, not really."

"Well watch, you stay in there. He is going to leave and come back and leave and come back a few times."

Watching Red did start to notice as the other man invaded and left Bobby's mind, it was a subtle thing and he was not always able to tell when the other man was doing it, but he had a break through eventually; he was able to read the thoughts Jimbo put into the boy's head, before Bobby spoke them out loud.

"See? This is what you need to do to me." Jimbo said, "We were so keyed up on trying that it didn't occur to me you should be practicing with Bobby or Veronica instead of me."

"This is strange, I see the kid, he's standing here wearing more mud than clothing and staring at me, but I am reading your thoughts in his head."

"I can hear them too." Bobby projected to Red.

"Sorry, so now what?"

Jimbo spoke once again, a distinct, voice in the boy's head, "Well you into philosophy at all?"

"Like yoga?"

The man's laughter came through in Red's mind, "I was thinking more like meditation or Zen or bushido or something."

"No."

"But you know what a philosophy is?"

"Yeah, sure, like hippies or…or that Zen stuff you were talking about."

"You don't know what a philosophy is?"

"Maybe not. What are you getting at?" Red asked.

"Well I am talking about the bigger philosophies here, like money or optimism."

"Money is a philosophy?"

"It only has value because we give it value. How much value does a hundred dollar bill have to you now? Or a stack of hundreds? Not much anymore, because that philosophy has lost value in your head. This is important and maybe I am not saying it right, but what we are doing is giving this mind reading a name and a value. Sit up."

Red pulled his legs out of the stream and sat up on the grassy bank while Bobby stood looking at him.

"Okay, now close your eyes. Focus on my voice, think about a philosophy we've always lived with, but don't subscribe to anymore."

"Money?"

"As good as anything. Why did it lose value?"

"Because…well it just did, who cares about some paper when zombies are running around eating your family?"

"So protecting your family is more important than money?"

"It always has been."

"Did you stay home from work to protect them all day long?"

"No." Red scoffed, "That'd be stupid."

"But before this all happened you knew someone could come in and rob your family or friends, it's a dangerous world, why did you go to work?"

"A man's gotta make a living."

"And now?"

"Making a living has a different meaning."

"Sure does. So the value of more than one philosophy has changed for you. Except you're dead, Red."

"So?"

"What does 'make a living' mean to you now?"

"Well, not a lot. I'm not hungry anymore, I don't want to kill anyone else. But I'm not tired either, I haven't slept in…a couple of months at least. All this free time leaves me wondering how I am going to fill it."

"True, it's not like you are going to raise any kids or anything now, is it?"

"No." Red said.

"Nor is there a need to discover a cure for cancer or build houses or learn how to fight fires."

"True."

"What about writing a book? You got a story in you?"

"No."

"So what will you do, Red?"

"I'm not sure. I thought I would try and help the people who are still alive."

"That's something then. It makes you more useful than tits on a snake at least."

"Look, Jimbo, this is all well and good, but what are you getting at?"

"Open your eyes."

Red cracked his eyes open. He was alone at the creek, the only evidence that Bobby had been there were the muddy foot prints on the opposite bank of the creek.

"What the hell? Where's Bobby?"

"What time is it Red?"

"A couple hours after dawn, maybe seven thirty."

"Where is the sun?"

Red looked up and to his surprise the sun was high overhead. He experienced a bit of disorientation. "What is going on?"

"I'm in."

"What?"

"I am in, it turns out you are more susceptible to smooth talking than a crowbar."

"How? I don't feel any different."

"Where are we talking Red?"

"What do you mean?"

"I could read you, but you couldn't read me this morning at the table. You think Bobby is hiding behind a bush out there somewhere, ready to spring out and say, 'Surprise!'?"

Red looked around for just such a thing, then he shook his head, "He could be hiding, but I don't sense him."

"Are you sure?"

Across the stream Bobby walked out from behind the tall grasses and ran splashing into the stream. Red watched him closely, something wasn't right. He should have seen the boy in the field before he came to the stream, instead it was as if the boy just appeared in front of him.

"That's not right."

"What's wrong?"

"It doesn't look right, there is something wrong with Bobby."

"What?"

Red thought for a moment, then said, "He's clean. Too clean. He got mud all over his shorts, now there clean, did he change clothes? And his chest isn't coated with mud either, plus his hair is combed. He's not real."

Bobby slowly faded from Red's sight.

"Do you believe me now?" Jimbo asked. "I told you I could do other things."

"Make me see things that aren't there?"

"See, hear, feel. Remember."

"Don't mess with my head!" Red shouted, fear seizing him as he tried to force Jimbo out.

"Hold on partner! It's too late for that anyway, I am in and I leave when I want to. What have you got kicking around in here anyway? Deep secrets you think I shouldn't know about?"

"Get out!"

"Good! See what you're doing? You are trying to build a wall, it won't work for me, I am inside already, but it will help keep other people out. And Red, I could care less about your secrets, I am not peeking, I am only interesting in two things, first do you want to do what you told me you were going to do and second, how can I help you make that happen?"

Red relaxed a little, but in his mind he kept building a wall, trying to wall Jimbo in, instead of keeping him out.

"Now, I've got my answers to both questions and I am going to hit your switch buddy. All that talk about philosophy wasn't just bullshit. This mental crap is insidious, you think about what you want and you make it happen. You don't want to be held by something more powerful than you, well what is hard to hold?"

Light dawned on Red, "A fish!"

"Or water, or air."

"It works both ways though, my new found friend."

Red looked at the walls he had around his mental image of Jimbo in his mind, to his dismay there were windows in the walls, and he saw the man climb through one to stand on a grassy mental meadow.

"I haven't run into anyone who doesn't fight dirty, but so do I. If you can see what Bobby was doing to keep you from grabbing him when you first met him, you can build a counter against others too." said Jimbo

"Like a net?"

"That might have worked on someone else, not Bobby, do you think we sit around rocking ourselves back and forth all day long after the chores are done? We've been practicing and I can tell you his mind is nimble, as soon as you caught the fish, he'd be a cloud, or superman."

"So what does this mean? Am I ready? Can I make the zombies see things that aren't there?"

"Could I do it to you this morning? No. So you won't be able to do it to others either, you had to let me in, or be seduced into letting me in. The other guy will too, and he won't be standing around letting it happen. There are other tricks you can pull on him though. We've had time to think of a few."

"So will you help me?"

"We already are. Come back to the house. Bobby is at the neighbors, looking for another pellet gun, he seems to think you'll be staying with us."

"I gotta go take care of this little problem first, but I think I might be back, if it's okay with you."

"I think we could use another hand around the farm, if things work out."

Red nodded as he felt Jimbo leave his mind. He didn't raise any defenses to keep the man out either, he was fairly certain he wouldn't know how.

Chapter 3 — Whatever happened in Nebraska?

The rest of the day passed in training. Red wanted to head back to attack Ramey immediately and said as much to Jimbo.

"Go ahead, but what has changed? I've only taught you the basics. It usually doesn't take long to do that, but this guy is tougher than you."

"So?"

"Well you're the toughest person I've run into. You could have bent Nancy around your little finger if you wanted. But I can keep you out. You almost had Bobby in the barn, is the difference in power between you and Bobby the same as between you and this Ramey?"

"No." Red assured Jimbo, "We are pretty close to equal, he has just enough of an edge that he could win. If you show me how to keep you out, that should be enough."

"Is he alone?"

"I don't know."

"Were you?"

Red shook his head, "You know I wasn't."

"Then use your head, he won't be either. If one of his friends has the brains to shoot you in the head while you and Ramey are going at it in the mind's playground, you will be just as dead as if he rips your head off himself."

"Are you offering to come with me?"

Jimbo looked down at the table, "We talked about it. I think we have to be like Germany and stay out of it."

"Switzerland, Jimbo. Not Germany." Veronica corrected.

"Why?"

"We've fought enough. We'll be here when you get back, if you get back."

"Your confidence is underwhelming."

"I don't think you can do it now. I think you might keep him out of your head, but after that initial contact, he will pin you down and let his friends take you out."

"Do you have a better idea."

"Give me another day. Leave in the morning after I show you a few tricks and the way to keep me out of your mind."

"Other tricks?" Red asked interested.

"Oh yeah, he has 'em. Jimbo may look like six feet and two hundred and fifty pounds of redneck, but he has mad skills. The best analogy I can think of is that me and Bobby, well, we are like a high school band. And Jimbo? Jimbo is like the Philharmonic Orchestra. There is a world of difference. I can play a nice tune and entertain my friends and family, but Jimbo, he can entertain the world."

"Aw V, it's like you really care or something! I would blush if I could."

"Okay you got my attention, but can you teach me enough in a day to make a difference?"

"I think so. I think it would be the difference between winning and losing."

So Red had stayed.

The first thing he learned was that mental pictures were only so effective at accomplishing his goals. It was easy to concentrate on not being seen, but repeating 'You can't see me. You can't see me.', had no effect on Jimbo or Veronica at all. Sneaking by one zombie was easier than sneaking by two, every mind had to be masked and Red was not up to multitasking when they started. Similarly, once he had his mind locked inside his mental version of Fort Knox, he could hold Jimbo or Veronica at bay fairly well, but if the two of them concentrated they passed through his defenses like they were made of balsa wood.

After getting the basics of what he had to do down, Red and the others moved to the barn to practice what he had learned. They started with Red versus Veronica, grappling mentally at the same time that she went after him physically. It was a far more even match than Red would have thought, given their perspective abilities outside of the mental arena. Finally an hour away from sunrise, Jimbo called Bobby into the room and showed him what could be done with the minds of those that were weaker than theirs. For this exercise Red rode piggyback in Jimbo's mind as he went inside of Bobby's brain. They practiced changing Bobby's memory, the simplest thing to do was to modify the boy's brain so he thought Red's name was Rainbow.

"You can't be serious, this won't work."

"Watch and learn." Jimbo said, moving through the boys head at a speed that left Red gasping. Every meeting was touched upon, every encounter the boy had with Red had to be changed. Every thought the boy had about Red too. And Jimbo did it in seconds. They left the boy's mind and then Jimbo said, "Hey Bobby, let's take a break for a minute. Why don't you guys go out and watch the sunrise."

The boy shoved his chair away from the table and said, "Okay. C'mon Rainbow, we can sit in the swinging chair, it's the best place."

Red stopped and stared at the boy, who stammered, "What?" then looked accusingly at Jimbo, "You did something! What did you do?"

Jimbo smiled, "Nothing Bobby, don't worry about it. Re-Rainbow, maybe you don't want to take a break yet?"

"No. Jimbo I think we better continue." Red said, aghast that what he has seen worked.

"Okay Bobby sit down and we'll get through this next session then."

"I don't understand why you need me." The boy complained as he dropped back into his seat.

Once they were back in Bobby's mind Red watched as Jimbo went back and changed the boy's memories of his name again.

"We have to change everything back. I don't expect you are following all of this and I have to tell you it is dangerous too."

"What do you mean?"

"What if you miss something? You might not have the control I do, just like I am not big and tough like you are. The thing is that there is no 'restore' button here, Red. I can't go back in and flip Bobby back to how he was before. The memories I take out are gone forever, overwritten by what I put there. I can't put the old ones back, I can only replace them with new ones. If I fuck that up, then Bobby here is fucked up as well. Plus we have to edit his new memories too, the ones that were made after we changed him the first time. See they are located here…" Red followed Jimbo down into a new section of Bobby's mind.

"Wait a second Jimbo, before you do anything." Jimbo paused in his fixing. Tentatively Red examined the memories in front of him, then compared them with the ones that had already been made. "I can tell when something's been changed."

"What?"

"Yeah, look here. This part of his mind has been modified; I can clearly tell that something happened here. But this part, that you haven't touched yet, is smoother. Can you see it?"

"You know, I hadn't looked before, but I can see it now. That will help, if I have some major surgery to do on someone."

Red continued to look around the boy's mind. He spotted some other sections that were changed. "Jimbo. What did you do to him?"

Jimbo went on with the changes he was making to the boy's most recent memories. "Things were complicated at the beginning of his new life, Red."

"What things? You've changed entire parts of his mind!" Red was aghast at the sheer amount of what he was seeing.

"I know. I had to do my learning on the fly. I didn't realize what I had done until later. I tried to fix things as well as I could but the way this boy was made was one major corn-hole job. I couldn't leave that in there, it would have driven him mad."

"I can't tell what you erased, only where you changed things."

"I told ya, you can't restore memories that have been replaced, they are just gone. Look, if you can see the mess I've made, you can also see that I haven't screwed with him any time before he turned too."

Red looked around, keenly aware that Jimbo was watching him look around. Grudgingly he said, "Yeah."

"I don't have to justify myself to you, but I kind of like you and I don't want you to be pissed off at me."

"So tell me what happened? What great secret did you have to remove to keep the boy sane?"

"He killed his family, ate them and came back to what he was over their bodies." Jimbo didn't elaborate to Red, he didn't say the boy had only done so because Jimbo told him to.

"Aw, shit. Well it wouldn't be the first time though would it. Half the people running around did that."

"And most of the zombies who remember who they used to be are batshit insane now too."

"Some of them. Did you kill your family?"

"No. This bitch Nancy brought me back, I think I ate some of my friend. Then she killed him. The only food I got was spread out and just enough to keep me going so I could do the heavy lifting. Nancy found out that smaller people needed less food to function, so I got the scraps because I wasn't efficient."

"How'd you kill her?"

"I told you yesterday."

"You told me a few things, but you only said you stomped on her head. How'd you get away that first time?"

"She was pinned down in this office by the cop and Max and their friends. This is after I let Max live in the bathroom, though that pretty much took everything I had to keep Nancy out of my head then. We didn't know what we could do yet. I got lucky. When Nancy was held off I got away, then I ran into Fred, her 'father' in the parking lot and we found Bobby when I was trying to make Fred stronger to resist Nancy."

"So you only changed what you thought was best in here?" Red asked.

"I wish I could be sure. I did what I can and I don't plan on doing anything like this to other zombies."

"Why not? You could train them, show them how to defend themselves and make them fanatically loyal to you. You could be an emperor."

"I think we already have one of those, if half of what you are telling me is true. Nobody likes a dictator; especially not one this invasive. People would revolt and I would be cast down, I think I will live longer keeping a low profile."

"You might have a point there."

They both left Bobby's mind and Jimbo sent him off to watch the sunset alone. Now they spoke out loud and Veronica came in from doing the chores in the barn to make coffee. Jimbo started, "You think Red, that when you take care of this Ramey fellow that the ones who sent him will leave you alone?"

"I don't know. I might take a page out of your book and just lay low somewhere."

"You can come back here, we'll help with that."

"I am not sure how much of a risk that will be, but I will think about it."

"Okay. Well we better get you on your way."

The coffee, while easier to swallow than the first time Red had tried it, still tasted off.

Chapter 4 — Whatever happened in Nebraska?

Ramey was ahead of him. Red was back in Nebraska, he had left the farm after a surprisingly fast tutorial on how to keep Jimbo out of his mind. It turned out he had a pretty strong defense against what Jimbo called 'the push', which was any effort by other zombies to get into his mind. Even Jimbo had to cheat to break hold through Red's defense and then, infuriatingly, he didn't tell Red how he did it. Red suspected the man couldn't explain some of the philosophies he was developing and how he did what he did. As for how fast Red was able to develop his defense, well, Jimbo had an analogy for that too.

"Remember when you learned how to ride a bike?"

"It was a long time ago Jimbo."

With startling clarity Red suddenly did remember struggling to ride a bike, and how it felt immediately after he did so.

"I thought you weren't going to mess around in my head?"

"I'm not messing, just helping you remember. That's not messing and this is important. Now you recall how often your dad had you out there, how your friends were watching and cheering you on and how you fell over time after time. Except the last time. Then it was like you were flying along two feet above the ground, it was magic. One minute you weren't riding the bike, you just had the fear of falling and the stronger desire to join the big kids pedaling around. The next minute, you got it. This is like that. I showed you how to ride the bike. You'll get better at it with practice, but you can still ride it pretty well right now. You should be okay. I held off Nancy, when push came to shove. How much more powerful than you is this guy you're going up against?"

"Just slightly more powerful than me, enough to dominate me."

"You'll do fine." said Jimbo.

Now Red wasn't so sure. The man ahead of him was herding the zombies, thousands of zombies. Tens of thousands of zombies. More than he Nita and Hugh ever handled at one time.

'He has more precision than we ever had too.'

The zombies were not quite marching in an orderly fashion, but they were avoiding fences, buildings and other obstacles with an almost military precision. After arriving on the edge of the pack Red found he could pull up Ramey's surface thoughts without any effort at all. He was reluctant to press into the man's mind, it was one of the tricks Jimbo had mentioned, the first attack might succeed, or it might just be a critical distraction when the man was doing something like trying to dodge as Red shot at him. Neither he nor Jimbo thought Red had much of a chance to get into Ramey's mind, but they both thought the effort might serve as a distraction.

Red was rather proud of the fact that the other zombie didn't know he was here, before when he had approached Ramey knew he was coming, they were aware of each other. Slowly Red searched through the minds of the other zombies, looking for Hugh. He thought Ramey might keep Hugh close by him, but so far Red couldn't find his friend.

Jimbo and Veronica had filled a couple gas cans and then they drove Red to his motorcycle, where he fueled it up and turned east. He left them there waving goodbye, Bobby looked sad, the boy had found another pellet gun and had them both in the back of the pickup truck with him. 'I suppose he hoped we might get in a game along the way.' Red mused to himself. 'Kids, ever the optimists of the next generation.'

Riding across most of Nebraska to catch up with Ramey had taken Red the entire morning and he arrived close to the tail end of mob around noon. He didn't get close enough for the others to hear his motorcycle, instead he ditched it by the side of the road, pointing it west first with the optimistic hope that he would be riding it back that way. After that he proceeded on foot and it took him very little time to catch up with his foe, Ramey was walking in the middle of the highway, surrounded by other self-aware zombies. None of them were paying too much attention to their surroundings; they were, however, keeping a close watch on the sky.

Red was hidden behind one of the many wrecks littering highway eighty, when the helicopter came over the horizon. It did not attack Ramey; instead it struck at the front of the mob, raining down a stream of lead into the lead zombies. The bullets from the Gatling style cannon literally cut the slow shamblers into pieces when they hit them, throwing body parts thirty feet into the air and causing a black mist to form above the mob from the spray of blood.

Ramey and his friends took cover behind more stalled cars, but did not return fire. The helicopter hovered and fired for less than a minute, then turned and flew east, apparently out of ammunition for its gun.

Peering over the car he was on Red had the bad luck of being spotted by one of Ramey's crew as they got up and started walking again. The older woman zombie pointed back in Red's direction while saying something to Ramey out of earshot.

Ramey's head turned around and he scoured the area for Red. Of course Red had taken cover behind the wreck and concentrated on not being seen, 'I am glass. I am invisible. No one can see me.' Red chanted mentally, feeling foolish.

It did work, either that or Ramey just missed seeing him, however the zombie was more cautious as the march resumed. Red suspected he had somehow checked his subordinate's mind and verified that she had seen something. His thoughts were confirmed when two of the smarter zombies stopped in positions that a human would not have seen them in, if they were coming up on Ramey from behind.

Red liked this idea. The two zombies left in ambush were much weaker than he was, and he could tell they both resented Ramey's heavy handed approach to giving them orders, they were resentful and angry at having to march towards Iowa with the rest of the zombies. The woman on the right wanted to go home, to North Dakota, to check on her mother and father, the man wanted to go to Kansas City, he heard there were still humans to eat there, humans who were not soldiers and didn't have any guns. Breaking into their minds was simple because of their age, he didn't need permission from them or to seduce his way in. Red took them over easily, but in his haste he didn't know what to do with them. This was not something he had practiced with Jimbo. Worse still, he felt something else grabbing a hold of their minds and in an instance he knew it was Ramey, shadowing them, using their eyes to keep watch on what it was behind them. The only good news was that Red was pretty sure Ramey didn't know he had grabbed the two of them.

'Will he notice if I leave?' Red wondered, remembering the lessons Jimbo had taught him a day earlier.

Red decided not to find out, he stayed in their minds and read them in case Ramey gave them any orders, which he would then relay, hopefully the zombie wouldn't notice. With the two held in his grasp Red convinced them to both look north as he slipped closer and closer to end of the pack, in short order he was past them. He didn't release either of them, just in case Ramey would notice that, and proceeded to sneak up on his opponent.

Ramey had gone about a mile ahead of the two ambushers before he relented and called them back. Red was torn between attacking the other zombie while he had less help or waiting, but decided to wait because of the relatively clear stretch of highway ahead of him. Red didn't think he actually was invisible and doubted he could sneak up on the man given the conditions of the road right now.

'I'll wait until we get to another pile up. Let's see what I can do with Sue and Chuck there.' Sue and Chuck were the names of the two zombies Ramey had left hidden behind him. Ramey had given them orders to join back up with him, then left their minds, both were, somewhat resentfully making their way back to him. Ahead the road turned to the north and dropped into some lowlands, it looked like it was going to be crossing over the Platte River again, only this section was very wide and required two long bridges. The bridges were a mess of wreckage, smoke was still pouring from a line of vehicles at the far end of them. 'I can take them up there, after the main horde gets through and they are left alone.' Red thought.

The zombies were having a hard time pushing through the wreckage and Red crept up along one edge of the highway about a quarter mile into the heavy brush and well out of sight of Ramey and his crew. This wasn't an ordinary wreck, this was a barricade made on purpose. He saw many military vehicles and at the far end two tractor trailers were butted up against each other with sand bags on the top of them. To get around this barrier one of the trailers had been smashed inwards on the southern end of the road, it looked like Ramey had directed one of his zombies to drive another semi-tractor into that edge at high speed, which had edged the trailer over enough to make a gap that the zombies could walk through. The wreck of this vehicle was sitting on the ground below the bridge, where it had somehow been toppled over, probably with just raw zombie power. Guns and true corpses littered the ground around the barricade, though all of the cars blocking one lane of traffic had also been man handled over the edge. Ramey was funneling all of his zombies through this small opening and it was probably because of this that things had taken as long as they had.

'Why didn't he just push them through the river?' Then Red thought about it a little more, the river here was fairly slow and meandering, but it was also deep, which would sweep the mindless undead miles downstream and make it harder for their keepers to get them back together. 'I guess bridges will still have a part to play in this new world.'

He waited until the last of the zombies was on the bridge, then headed back towards the highway, confident that he would catch up to the tail end long before the last of them were through the narrow gap at the other end. The river bank on the far end was littered with the bodies of the true dead as well, for the most part they looked like head shot zombies, but there were a few incapacited zombies missing legs and arms down there as well, casualties from going up against the humans. The body count was impressive. 'How can we take this many losses and keep on going?'

Red imagined that getting rid of the slower zombies was a good thing, even if he hadn't been willing to do it himself. When Nita, Hugh and he were trying to slow the zombies down they locked them in houses or, in Nita's case, tried to fit as many into cars as they could. They rarely killed any of the zombies. What if someone found a way to reverse what had happened? Not that Red gave that serious consideration. 'We're done. There ain't no going back from this, only forward.'

By the time he reached the edge of the bridge Ramey and his crew was halfway across, following the last of the horde as it crawled along at a very slow walking pace. The cars in the one lane gave Red easy places to hide when he needed it, but Ramey and his friends were not looking back. Red was able to get within throwing distance of Ramey and was picking up snatched of his conversation as he drew closer. He went into Sue's mind and nudged her anger and resentment into rage, then watched to see what happened. She causally turned her gun on the zombie next to her and blew his head off. The other zombies reacted immediately, but Ramey held out his hand and Red felt an iron grip descend onto Sue's mind. Seeing the opportunity Red worked on Chuck, leaving Sue gasping and wondering why she just killed one of the people she was travelling with.

"What the fuck Sue?" yelled Ramey. "Don't tell me that was an accident!"

Sue's arms were slack and her rifle slipped from her fingers to clatter onto the pavement.

"Fuck you Ramey! You son of a bitch."

Better than Red had hoped for, she thought everything was her own idea, she also knew what was coming and was now choosing to go up against Ramey rather than back down meekly. Unfortunately Red knew she didn't have a chance. Chuck seemed reluctant to get involved. He was not responding well to the pushing that Red was doing. Instead of having the man shoot a random zombie Red was trying to make him go for what his old man would have called 'the money shot', in this case shooting Ramey in the head with his shotgun.

Red continued to berate Sue, escalating the tension all the zombies were feeling. Chuck finally broke, he let out a cry and Red seized control, trying to bring the gun up before Red could close down the other zombie's mind. The sob had been too much warning, Ramey was already on edge from earlier in the day and Sue had just heightened the unease that he felt. 'Fuck I played this wrong. I should have just waited and worked on Sue, she would have blasted that mother fucker if I had….wait…' Red went back into her mind. 'Son of a bitch.' Sue was a much less powerful zombie than Red was, getting inside of her head was easy, not as easy as Bobby, but close. He went through her head looking over her thoughts until he found what he knew had to be there. Orders. All of the zombies knew they could give tasks to those weaker than themselves. If the tasks were loosely worded or had a loophole a smart zombie could twist what the stronger zombie wanted, given time. Sue had orders not to harm Ramey. Plain as day. She might hate the man, just like Chuck did, but she was helpless to overcome that simple set of orders.

Now Ramey was inside Chuck's head looking him over for some sign, almost as if he knew someone else had been there before him. Red stayed on the periphery, looking for a way to break one of the others. Sue was locked down, Chuck was paralyzed by Ramey as well, both were as good as useless to Red now. Finally Red found Virginia. A portly middle aged housewife, who had watched zombies devour her husband and, worse yet, her beloved dog. The woman didn't want to be here, she wanted a new dog and though she fit what Ramey needed; a zombie strong enough to help control other zombies, she was not on his favorite zombie list. She only had a revolver to work with and she thought she was down to four bullets too. Better yet she hated the man named Keith, who she had watched kill another dog somewhere during their trip. Red stoked that anger to hate and that hate to rage, then had her pull up her gun and shoot Keith in the head. This time, instead of leaving her to Ramey's hold, Red gave her a list of targets and formed a wall to shield her mind from the more powerful zombie. This meant Ramey was rebuffed when he tried to grab the woman and stop her. Something that shocked him so much he let go of Sue. In the split second it took for Ramey to regroup and breech the walls Red had erected the woman shot three other zombies, two in the head and one in the neck.

"She is a fucking good shot with the piece, a natural." Red said to himself. He watched as Ramey crushed the walls around the woman's mind like tinfoil, but by then Red was well clear of her.

"What the fuck is going on with you fuckers?" Ramey yelled, "Have you all gone crazy? Stop shooting each other. Do not shoot each other anymore! Do not shoot me. Only shoot the people I tell you to. If you feel any desire to kill anyone first drop your gun."

The orders came down like a ton of bricks, crushing the insidious whisperings that Red had been starting in all of the zombie's minds. 'Six, I got him down to six friends. And two of them won't get in my way. I don't think I will get better odds than this.'

Red stood up and started walking towards Ramey.

Ramey didn't notice him at first, he was too busy trying to reinforce his orders in his companions minds. One of the other men did see Red and raised his arm to point him out to his master. Red yelled loudly, putting force behind his words, "Do not shoot me. Do not harm me. Do not get in my way." He wasn't certain that his words would override Ramey's, but all he needed was a moment's hesitation on their part, if they took any action against him.

Ramey pulled out of Sue and Chuck's minds, Red felt him leave, both of them were in a state of near shock. Red stalked forward, staying close to the cars, in case he needed cover. Ramey just stared at him and smiled, "Poor Red. You shouldn't have come back."

"You have one of my friends."

"Oh so if I give him to you, you will just go?"

Red paused and then shook his head, "No. I am afraid there is more to it."

Throwing his head back and laughing Ramey said, "Of course there is! What do you plan to do Red? I have you, you got too close. It's a neat trick how you got up here without me seeing you." Then Ramey grew quiet for a moment before continuing, "But you didn't did you? That was you back there that spooked me." Realization dawned on the zombie, showing as slight surprise, "And you fucked around in the heads of Sue and Chuck! How'd you manage that?"

Inside his head Ramey reached out for Aubrey, his 'parent' in Chicago, only to be rebuffed. She had a curt message for him; that she was busy. Focusing on Red again he tried to seize control of the other zombie to bring the conflict to a quick end. Red felt the attack coming and raised his shotgun, also hoping for a quick end. The shotgun blast hit the same time Red was physically thrown aside by Ramey's mental attack. Ramey had rebounded off of Red's shields then changed his attack as he saw the shotgun come up. To Red it felt like someone had driven a bus into him from the side, he flew up onto the truck of a light green sedan and then hit the rail of the bridge. Frantically he clawed at the railing with his hand, digging a furrow into the metal as he went over the side. The shotgun blast was intercepted by one of Ramey's men, who found himself involuntarily moving into its path. The pellets caught the zombie in the middle of the chest and twisted his body around in a diagonal summersault; he ended up face down on the ground unable to use his legs.

"C'mon!" Ramey yelled to his remaining followers as he rushed towards the edge of the bridge.

The shotgun was gone and Red hit the swollen North Platte river fifteen yards upstream, he was certain his right arm and leg were broken, 'Hell maybe some ribs on that side too. What the fuck was that he did to me?'

Above Ramey reached the side of the bridge just as Red was being swept underneath it. By the time Red flowed by the bridge his bones had healed and he was striking out for the eastern bank of the river. Ramey spotted him as he pulled himself up onto the bank and Red felt another mental assault, he braced himself to be hit by the invisible bus again. After not receiving another blow he looked back and saw that the group was moving along the bridge, heading towards him at a jog.

'I should have stayed with Jimbo another day and learned more about this mental crap.' Red thought, struggling through the thick mud to take cover under the bridge.

Red concentrated on keeping himself undetectable from Ramey and he was pretty sure it was working. Five zombies dropped down on the downstream side of the bridge, four of them landed in the mud and sunk up to their knees, the fifth landed softly and padded under the bridge as if walking on solid ground. 'Another useful trick.' thought Red. With no time for subtlety Red launched himself at the first zombie while the other struggled to clamber out of the mud. 'I guess my mind control didn't override Ramey's' Red told himself, launching a mental attack before he impacted the middle aged female. With one outstretched blow he tore her head, part of her shoulder and one of her arms from her body. Her head and mouth continued to move, making a muffled gurgle noise as Red bent over and picked up her body by the legs. He twirled it once and flung it at a three of the zombies who were close to each other in the mud, knocking two over. The one he missed ducked quickly and fired at Red with an assault rifle, the fourth man joined him a split second later.

Bullets pounded into Red's body, most flew through him, but he felt his shoulders and ribs cave in under the barrage and flung himself down to grab for the woman's gun, which lay at his feet. Rolling towards the water Red fired an inaccurate burst that did little to dissuade the two firing on him. He had some luck and one of the zombies weapons jammed. Red concentrated on the only zombie firing at him, his next three round burst struck the guy in the neck and face, shattering his jaw and blowing off one of his ears. The thing went down, but was still moving. The two Red had knocked over with the body were now prone and firing in Red's direction, but they could not see him very well from where he was laying close to the river. Fountains of dirt spit up near the top of the bank and after a furious minute of firing, all gunshots ceased. Red was out of ammo. He raised the barrel of the rifle up to one side of where he was, another short fusillade rang out and then stopped. Slipping and sliding Red rose in the mud and jumped sideways as the bullets stuttered to a stop. Feeling around mentally Red looked for Ramey. The zombie was on the upriver side of the bridge, as Red watched he jumped off and seemed to glide down underneath of it.

The bridges were very wide, the highway in this part of the country was six lanes wide and Ramey was at the end of a long, low corridor. Red felt he could deal with the lessor zombies before having to face Ramey again, but he kept a tab on the man so he would not be surprised. The three zombies who were still up moved towards Red with a purpose, their guns held as clubs. The arm and head of the woman he had struck initially had a bloated sack attached to it where the zombie's body was trying to re-grow, red counted her as out. Likewise the man he had shot in the face was still crawling around on his hands and knees. The three to one odds didn't bother Red in the least; these were lessor zombies, things not even of Jimbo's quality. Stepping up to the first one Red laughed as he ducked under the swung rifle, then came up fast and broke the zombies arm at the elbow. He launched a fist that struck the thing in the side of the head, crushing its skull and flinging bits of brain and both eyes to the mud when his hand passed through it.

Both of the remaining zombies looked like they wanted to run, but Red couldn't risk having them turned by Ramey and used against him. The zombies saw no mercy in him, even as their eyes pleaded that they had no choice. Both jumped him at the same time, hindering each other more than helping and Red grabbed on by a flailing arm and spun, letting go when the zombie was swinging towards the river. The zombie sailed out over the water and hit the concrete support twenty feet off shore, it dropped like a misshapen, white sack of flesh, no longer resembling a human body. The last zombie had fallen after making the poorly timed jump and swung his legs around to sweep Red's feet out from under him. Red was not quick enough to dodge and fell on his thigh in the slippery mud. Both scrabbled to their feet and stood facing each other. Ramey ran up firing his gun, at the same time he grabbed ahold of Red's mind, trying to pin his opponent in place to make a head shot possible. Red was surprised at the ferocity of the mental attack.

'I shoulda known he would be a fast learner.' Red thought to himself as Ramey slowed down his reactions. Bullets walked up Red's body, the last of which smashed through his adam's apple and blew out his spinal column, dropping him like a rock. Red fell on his back and lay there looking up as Ramey and his remaining zombie approached.

"I guess if you want something done you just gotta do it yourself." Ramey said, coming into Red's view. "Look Ed, he's a twitcher!"

Pointing at Red's body with his gun he continued, "How long until you heal that up? A minute? Less? Probably. More if I do this." Ramey pointed his gun at Red's neck and let loose with full burst, then another, he fired until his magazine was empty, then reloaded.

Red felt like his head was severed, his body was not even shaking anymore and he had no feeling anywhere.

"I could kill you now. But I am going to make you wish you were dead instead."

Red's perspective changed, he was being lifted, but both Ramey and the other zombie were standing there unmoving, 'The bastard is using his telekinesis on me. Goddamn it, what is my special power?'

"Red, did you know that your body will grow back? Look at Leslie over there, you did a number on her, but she will be okay. For her though, well she will come back a little less powerful, she loses something, but zombies at our level, we don't lose anything. If I were to walk away right now, you would be right as rain in a day or two. I've seen it. I've experimented with other stubborn assholes like you. Why, I let one guy grow out three times and he seemed pretty much the same to me even after that. I think I will keep you somewhere safe, somewhere I can continue my research. Will you be the same after a hundred times? I mean, think about it, is that even possible? Physically, it makes no sense; you don't need any sustenance, so where does this power come from?"

Red croaked a reply, but his throat was still too mangled to make a response.

"Shhh. Shhh. Don't talk." Ramey said, putting one finger on Red's lips, "I know you're grateful now that I haven't killed you-that you think you will figure out a way to overcome me and still win. And you might have, with your ability to block me out mentally. But you won't and in the end I will get inside you and figure out what you did, then I can do it too. Then Aubrey and I are going to set down and have a little chat. Oh that's right you don't know Aubrey do you? She was sent to Chicago along with James and me. Much like you and old what's his name went to Denver. Don't worry about that now, no you just rest. Bring him Ed."

Feeling was returning to Red, and that feeling was pain. He wanted to scream as his body healed itself, it felt like a million burrowing insects were making tunnels into his brain, involuntarily he grunted and his control slipped, causing Ramey to jerk his head around and stare at him again.

"I felt that. Hurts a bit doesn't it. Don't worry, it gets worse and when it does I will be here to get inside."

Red felt Ramey pounding on his mental defenses, scouring them for a weakness as the pain built up. Everything stopped for a moment, a moment that expanded into infinity as the battle of wills went on. Finally, irrevocably Red's shields broke, unleashing a torrent of pain and anguish.

Ramey screamed in triumph as he poured into the hole in Red's mind, Ed almost dropped Red's body in surprise. Ramey started ransacking through Red's very being, this was not the smooth, measured hand that Jimbo had, but a heavy, hamfisted bludgeoning that added to Red's pain.

Then abruptly, it all stopped. Red felt the hold in his defenses snap shut and he felt calm and warm, there was no pain…deep in his mind Ramey screamed.

"Let me out! Let me…out!" A massive attack hit the inside of Red's defenses, but rebounded like a bird hitting a plate glass window. Momentarily knocked senseless, Ramey fell into the abyss of Red's mind, not even struggling to find a way out. Red used this time to open his physical eyes and see what was going on. His body was falling. Ramey was laying on the ground twitching as Red fell, a furry blur leaped on the body and started savaging it. Ed was still standing, but his arms were limp at his sides as Red hit the ground. This time Red fell sideways, with his view facing parallel to the river, upstream. Three figures were slowly making their way towards him.

The pain from regenerating was suppressed, and Red knew who was helping him now. Clearing his repaired throat was a struggle, but he managed, spitting out a glob of coagulated blood, he asked, "What took you so long?"

Jimbo laughed.

Chapter 5 — Whatever happened in Nebraska?

"How is he?" Jimbo asked Red.

"Mad, angry and Insane, that kind of mad. I don't think he realizes what's happened to him yet."

There were nine zombies, sitting under the bridge. They had moved over to firm ground to get off the mud, but all of them were still a mess. Bobby was the worst, but that was just from playing in the river. Five zombies from Ramey's crew were under the bridge with them. Sue and Chuck had come down after the fight and the two Red had injured severely were also present. The woman, with a half formed body and squeaky voice, was named Nina. The man Red had throat shot was named Leonard. They had Ramey's body too, it would twitch once in a while, but aside from those unpredictable movements it could have been the corpse it looked like.

"The active calling stopped." Sue said. She was referring to the constant call for them to come east, to keep moving east at all costs. The signal had ceased after one last powerful urge for them to head that direction. Most of the less advanced zombies were still heading that direction, the nine under the bridge were able to resist the call to keep moving.

"I noticed that." Red said, concentrating on pushing what was left of Ramey down into a little hole in his mind.

"You okay?" Jimbo asked.

"I don't know. You didn't tell me this could happen."

"I didn't know."

"I still don't get it. What happened to Ramey?" asked Chuck.

"He tried to push into my mind, you know the feeling, I watched him do it to you. He pushed in and I got this idea that maybe I should let him. Only I imagined it was like he was trying to force a door open and I put a pit behind the door. A pit with a lid. Then I let him in past the door and he fell into the pit and I slammed the lid shut. That's the best analogy I can come up with."

"So he isn't dead again?" Chuck said.

Red shook his head, "I don't think so." Red pointed at Ramey's body, "I think I could let him back out and he would go back. I just don't know if I should."

"What if his body was dead? Where would he go?"

"Hell if I know. Jimbo?"

Jimbo shook his head, "You were beyond anything I've ever done when you started with the 'door' analogy."

"Well I can't keep him here. He is fighting me and he is strong. I think I got lucky because he was disoriented."

"So that brings us back to the question of what you are going to do." Jimbo said.

The group of zombies suddenly paused, as if listening to some distant, faint sound.

"Something happened." Veronica said, "I think someone important just died. I can't feel the pull anymore!"

"Max came through!" Red said, gritting his teeth as Ramey fought harder to get out.

The zombies let out a whoop of joy as the leaden chains that had been dragging them ever east dissolved and disappeared. It took Jimbo a moment, and then he raised one hand to quiet everyone.

"No. I don't think they are dead. It's weird. Maybe they are badly hurt…but I don't think they are out of the game yet."

"Jimbo….Ramey is getting persistent."

"Want to try and put him back?"

Red nodded.

"We better disable him then." Jimbo stepped over to Ramey's body and leveled his rifle towards its throat. He fired three times and smiled when Ramey's eyes opened, burning hatred at him. Turning back to Red Jimbo said, "That was just in time, wasn't it?"

Red was still straining, he shook his head, "I didn't put him back yet."

Confused Jimbo looked down at the healing body and asked, "Well then, who is this?"

Ramey's eyes roved over the band and fixated on Red. The mouth moved, working up and down like an old water wheel. Only faint sounds escaped as it tried to draw in air to speak with through the damaged throat. Keeping an eye on the thing's hands Jimbo bent over and put his ear to Ramey's lips. His eyes widened in shock and he sat up and said, "It says it's Aubrey. She says you know her Red."

Red was waging an internal war as Ramey sought to escape the prison he was held in. He nodded to Jimbo, "If it's her ask her who I was with and who she was with."

Jimbo leaned over to hear Ramey's answer, "She says, Neil and Harry."

Red nodded. "So she is in his body now?"

Jimbo listened to Aubrey answer and then shook his head, "No. Just listening in. She wanted to find out what happened to him. She came looking and he was….well she said he was empty." Jimbo leaned over and listened more, "She kept pushing and said she could take control, she wants to know how you took out Ramey."

"Like we know." muttered Red. Louder he said, "We don't really want to tell you. We like being free."

Ramey's voice cut through the humid air, "I…do too." It croaked. Jimbo sat back onto the sandy shore, no longer needing to play go between.

"You do too?"

"I want out. You know who sent us. You know most of us don't like him. If this is something you can give me, I will use it against him."

"Sentry?"

"Some people think saying his name draws his attention."

"I didn't hear that."

"It's speculation." Aubrey said.

"But why take the chance?"

Aubry nodded with Ramey's head, beside her Jimbo shifted his rifle until it was inches from the side of her head.

"Where is Ramey?"

Shrugging Red tapped the side of his head, "He stepped out for a moment. He has to go back though soon. So we better keep this short."

Ramey's body sat up and turned towards Red. Jimbo kept his rifle barrel inches away from the back of the zombies head.

"Okay. You took him down. I need to know how. I want out of this shit. I didn't do well following orders before I died, I certainly don't see a reason to do it now that I am dead."

"Where are you?"

"Chicago."

"So Max lost then."

"I wouldn't say that."

"What happened?" Red asked.

"I thought time was critical?"

"I can hold him for a little while."

"A fuckload of building dropped on me. This was after I got shot."

"By Max? No, no I bet it was that woman of his!"

Ramey's head shook, "The woman is dead, I am pretty sure Ella killed her when she smashed her skull in. No Max didn't get me either, it was some army fuck that shot me with a rifle. In the neck. From behind. There isn't any honor anymore, is there? Or course I count myself luck, Harry got it in the head."

"He's dead? He was your second, wasn't he?"

Ramey's head nodded. "And I made a few others, I didn't quite follow the doctor's orders when we arrived in Chicago."

"Ramey." Red stated.

"Him, and a few others. All the good it did me. I want out of this Red. You killed Ramey and I was pretty sure I'd made him strong enough to deal with a second, maybe even a first tier child of the doctors."

"He was strong. He wasn't a Harry though."

"I thought one Harry was enough. So can you do it?"

"Just on your word?" Red shook his head, "No, I don't think so. I better put Ramey back. It's been good talking to you Aubrey."

"No! Wait!"

Red paused, "What?"

"I can help you!"

"I know, but if I show you what I know, you can hurt me more." Red turned away to look at the river.

"Hugh."

Red stood up and turned around. "What about him?"

"I can give him to you."

Laughing Red said, "You think I don't see the bigger picture? You give me Hugh, I give you the ability to resist Sentry? Is that the deal? Well no thanks! I know how this plays out. You'll find a way to twist this power around and come after me. After Sentry swats you down, of course. Then he'll find a way to use it. Goodbye Aubrey."

Red imagined a funnel in his mind, with the wide end over the trap door of the pit and the other end pointed towards Ramey's body. He didn't just open the trap door, he made it appear weaker and let Ramey fight his way through it, a process that took seconds.

"Red. Listen to me. I just want him gone, then we can go our own way. You'll never have to…what?" Ramey let out a long, agonized scream as he poured back into his body. It looked like the man was fighting for control of it, trying to wrest it away from Aubrey. Jimbo was staring at the body intently.

"Now Jimbo." Red said, "Do it now."

Jimbo, however, was wrapped up in his own world, watching the battle in Ramey's mind.

Veronica stepped up and with one over handed swing she brought down her cruved paper cutter blade onto Ramey's head, ending the war in mid battle. Blood from the blow splatter onto Jimbo and he looked up in disgust.

"Thanks!"

"Well you weren't moving!"

"I think I could have gotten him. Captured him, I mean, and controlled him."

Chuck's hand rose, then rose above his head. His face contorted, twisting together around his mouth.

"What Chuck?" Red asked.

"She. Is in. My head."

Worriedly Jimbo, stood and looked around at the others, "Red, we don't have any way to keep her out of these guys."

"They are stronger and the power seems to weaken with distance. I bet Chuck fights her off."

The group watched as Chuck struggled for a few minutes, then shrugged and said, "I can't keep her out. You'll have to kill me if you don't want her knowing where we are going."

"We?" Veronica asked pointedly.

"What does she want?" asked Red with a sigh.

"She is sending Hugh back to you, she says it's free of charge. She wants your help, but if she can't have it, she'll still do the right thing."

"Damn it." Red said, wondering if this was some sort of mind game Aubrey was playing or if she was sincere. He didn't really know much about the woman. They had seen each other a few times in Florida before heading out, but he hadn't known her before she died.

"She says it doesn't have to be you. Someone else can tell her, if she can convince them." Chuck said and then wryly added, "She knows I don't have the ability."

Jimbo was standing near Chuck, staring intently at the man, as if seeing things going on inside his head.

"Jimbo, stop staring." Veronica said.

Turning around Jimbo asked Red, "So you don't trust her?"

"I don't know her. The only thing I know is she was drawing all these zombies to her. I don't like that." Red answered.

"She says, she had no choice, her orders were clear and there was nothing she could do about them."

Nodding Red said, "Yeah, I understand that. That is why I am reluctant to help, but not saying 'no' outright. What has changed?"

"A building fell on her. Sentry is aware she is immobile for the time being and didn't mention anything about not learning how to block him out. He left her a loop hole in her orders. He said to take care of herself, then contact him."

Red smiled. "So fucking smart and yet, such an idiot."

"No, he is just very, very busy right now. This is going on all over the world and he is coordinating it."

A chill went up Red's spine; If Sentry is coordinating this all over the world then that means….

"He can't be doing this world wide!" Veronica sputtered out. "That would…I mean his reach would be…well, unstoppable!"

"Maybe." Red admitted.

"But how?" Jimbo asked. "He can't be that powerful."

"He never stopped eating." Red said.

"Never?"

"No, Jimbo."

"So do I help her or not?"

Why is he looking at me to make this decision? Why are they all looking to me? I just want out… Instead of voicing his doubts he shrugged his shoulders and said, "I just don't know. Can you get into her head from here to see if she is lying?"

Jimbo shook his head, "I have a strange ability, but I am not at your level…or hers. I don't have the range."

"But you could teach her without being there."

"It would be more difficult." Jimbo admitted.

"I'm not going anywhere anytime soon." Aubrey said through Chuck.

"Do you want to show her?"

Jimbo nodded, "I'll show her."

"Jimbo!" Veronica said in disgust.

"Fine. Do it. She can't be worse than Sentry is." Looking back at Chuck Red asked, "So will you keep using Chuck?"

"No, I'll send someone with Hugh, someone weaker."

"Alright, we'll wait here. When you and Hugh arrive we'll find a place to hide out for a little while until you think you have what you need."

Chuck's head nodded agreement and after a moment the rigidity left his body. Sagging he said, "That sucked. I don't suppose you could tell me how to keep her out?"

Red stared at the group, "There might be a problem with that. We'll see."

This brought a sharp look from Jimbo and Veronica, but they said nothing.

Chapter 6 — Katie

"In the desert I saw a creature, naked, bestial…" ~Stephen Crane

The noise was getting worse. It couldn't be shut out anymore and it was driving her crazy. Slowly she made her way through the building. 'How did I get here?' she wondered, ahead she saw a zombie shamble into view, not a smart one, a slow moving, half demolished piece of a man that had suffered as she had when the building came down around her. 'Katie, my name is Katie.' She held onto that thought as she ducked into yet another office inside the crumpled building. The ringing in her ears had subsided to a low whine. Looking around the office she thought, 'Good, this one isn't open to the air at least.'

The last office she had taken shelter in was missing the back wall, she had been forced to stay in it for almost a day, waiting for the zombies wandering the building to go away. This particular office was very large, but still had the look of being for one person, there was another door out of it too. Katie pushed a well-designed leather chair over in front of the door she had come through and then hastily moved to the other door to leave.

'A fucking bathroom?' she stared in dismay at the shower, toilet and sink that the door revealed. The windows of the office allowed in enough light that she could see her reflection in the mirror. She approached it slowly, warily, like a wild animal approaches food held out for them in a human's hand. 'I am a mess.'

Her reflection was not kind to her; she was coated in grime and blood. The cuts on her head had bled down upon the rest of her body and then become a sticky residue to which the dust of the exploding buildings had adhered to willingly. It looked, and felt, like parts of her body were coated in a quarter inch of the bloody grime. She was naked. That disturbed her.

She didn't remember anything after being picked up by the zombie on the top of the building, just the sound of the first explosion hitting and then….nothing. Katie woke up inside an office, the door was locked and barricaded from the inside and she regained consciousness lying on the thin office building carpet under a desk. Stark naked, no water, no food, no weapons. Even her army boots were missing, whatever had blown those off of her had to have gone off quite close, yet for the most part her injuries were superficial. Something was missing though. Some sort of gap in her memory, she seemed to recall bits and pieces of it when she slept. Firing at the zombies that had come out of the Art Institute, she remembered killing them, then the bombs fell and….'What?' Just fragments, little puzzle pieces of seemingly different images all mixed up and thrown into one box.

Shaking her head Katie stepped forward and closed the valve on the sink, then turned the water on. Water drained from the pipe and pooled in the sink basin. There were actual towels here, hand towels, not paper towels and she dipped one into the water and used it to started cleaning off her face. The taste of blood in her mouth was strong and when she stuck out her tongue she saw deep gashes from where she had bitten it. 'Lucky I didn't gnaw it off in the confusion.'

The water cut off when the sink was about halfway full, but she thought that would be more than enough to get the outer layer of grime off. Katie worked for about half an hour, until the water was too much like mud to do any more cleaning, then stared in the mirror at what she saw.

'Skinny little bitch. No broken bones, no major cuts, just a few bruises and my half bitten off tongue. Pretty goddamned good for having a building drop on top of you.' Of course there was all the dust she was breathing in, that couldn't be good for her lungs. The cuts on her head appeared superficial as well, they were not bleeding anymore. The blood had coagulated enough with the dust to form a kind of cement that stopped the bleeding. Rummaging around beneath the sink she came up with an unexpected surprise, there was a man's duffel bag there, with shorts, a t-shirt and running shoes. 'It's always a dude. The corner office never belongs to a woman.'

The shorts were too loose, the shirt hung down to her knees and the shoes reminded her of the circus she and Randy had gone to on one of their unofficial dates. Randy. Katie leaned backwards, her bare ass pressing the thin material of the cotton t-shirt against the porcelain sink. 'Randy is dead.'

She couldn't cry. She had no tears left in her. It was the zombies that did this, the stupid, evil zombies that were the reason their lives had all come crashing down in only three weeks' time. 'I'll kill them all.'

It was a foolish notion, but for some reason it gave her great satisfaction thinking about it. 'Every fucking zombie that gets in my way. I need a gun.'

First things first, she set about tying the clown shoes to her feet, too big or not they would protect her from the broken glass and the sharp pieces of concrete and metal that littered the broken building.

Moving back into the main office Katie looked at her options for weapons, the desk drawers provided nothing useful at all, just pencils, computer software books and reams of drawings. This was supposed to be an Architecture firm so the drawing supplies were probably normal, even if they did most design on computers these days. She finally settled on breaking apart a small table near one of the massive windows. Broken down the table yielded four hefty clubs, which Katie harvested. She knew if she had to take on the hordes of zombies with only clubs for weapons she would not get very far, but hopefully these would allow her to escape the building and find better weapons. Moving the leather chair away from the door she opened it and was not surprise to find a slow zombie standing there stupidly gawking at her.

Poking it backwards with her club she clown-stepped out into the reception area and gave it an overhand swing to the head. The blow dropped it to its knees, but didn't finish it off. The zombie looked like he had been dressed for a night on the town, his white silk shirt was bloody, torn and almost as coated with grime as Katie had been a half hour before. His mustached mouth made an 'o' shape as Katie's club slammed into his head against his left ear. Her follow up blow on the other side finally finished him off and Katie stood there for a moment to relish her first victory over the zombies since she had regained consciousness. Running and hiding had their place and she was going to make sure to keep a low profile, but fighting felt too damned good and right now she was angry enough to defeat a zombie or two in close combat.

'I will kill them all, as many as I can. I will find them, hunt down their leaders and kill them.'

Chapter 7 — Max

"Good to see you up and about." Max said to Stewart, who glared at him from behind the iron bars of her prison cell.

Stewart didn't get further than a glare when a warning klaxon sounded from the far end of the hallway.

"What the fuck is that?" she asked, the sight of Max jumping in alarm gave her a smidgeon of pleasure.

"How would I know?"

"You gonna let me out of here?"

Max held the key to her cell up and nodded, "Sure thing."

Stewart had been in quarantine the last two days since Colonel Draper had dropped them off at the Great Lakes Naval Training station, or as the military personal called it, RTC, which stood for Recruit Training Command. Their wounded included a younger man named Chen, who had come in with a gunshot wound to the leg and Stewart, who had a fractured skull and many cuts and gashes. Both had been confined to the infirmary for possibly contaminated personal since they arrived. Preliminary testing of blood from both of them had indicated they were probably not contaminated by whatever it was that caused the zombies to be zombies. It was the 'probably' that kept both of them locked up in individual cells that the training station used for a brig. Nominally it was for everyone's safety, but Stewart felt singled out by the accommodations. Chen had been released to general quarters the night before, Stewart had not. Coming out of her cell Stewart continued to glare at Max, who was making every effort not to smile at all, when a military police officer bellowed at them from the end of the hallway.

"We're being attacked! Get to your stations!" Then she disappeared down the hallway.

"We have stations?" asked Stewart.

"Not that I know of. We better go see what is going on."

"Can you, ah, sense anything close by?"

Max looked at Stewart for a moment, then nodded and closed his eyes; a moment later he opened them wide and softly said, "Fuck. C'mon!" then he went running off down the corridor after the military police officer, hoping the woman had not locked them into brig by shutting the outer door. Fortunately, the woman had left the sliding door open and Max slithered through and ran towards the front of the building.

"Max! Slow down! Max!" Stewart called. Her words finally penetrated Max's brain and he slowed so she could catch up. "We don't have any weapons and you don't know where we need to go."

"I…we gotta get out of here! We need to find Bill."

"Okay, we can do that. Calm down. Where was Bill last at?"

"He was on watch until four, then went to the barracks…he should be there or close to it."

"You lead, I'll follow. How many zombies are we dealing with here Max?"

Looking over his shoulder before he opened the front door Max said, "All of them!"

"Thousands?"

"Or more. I can't sense anything farther out than maybe a mile, but the whole area is covered with the dead, and Stewart too many of them are smart ones." The sound of gunfire reached a crescendo to the east of their position. "Most of the attacking zombies are hitting the east side of the facility, but there are a ton waiting to the west, not moving up yet. We gotta tell someone."

"Draper? He should still be around."

"If we can, he would believe me. I think."

"Yeah, Bill first, then Draper."

The two of them ran across the open grounds to the building Bill was supposed to be housed in. The RTC trained up to fifty thousand recruits a year, so they were used to large numbers of people, even if the barracks were sparse. There were also maps everywhere pointing the way to the common areas recruits would need to get to. Max had only been wandering around the place for two days and he still didn't know how to get everywhere, but he knew how to get back to the barracks. Running up to the building the two of them saw a couple of men coming outside hastily, a third trailed behind them. The first two were Ruben and Javier, men from Iowa who were unlucky enough to be in Bill's platoon when he volunteered to help Max and Stewart get to Chicago. The third was Bill.

"Bill!" Max yelled, bring all three of the men to a halt.

"Max. What's going on?" Bill asked, fatigue lined the three men's faces.

"Zombies are attacking from the east, thousands of them, but there are more being held back to the west, way more than are attacking us now. We gotta get out of here! Even with a thousand soldiers we won't be able to hold out."

"We'll see what the military decides Max, guys with guns can hold off a lot of zombies."

Shaking his head Max said, "Not this many."

The group of them was standing near an open field used by the recruits for physical training, as Max finished speaking an explosion threw dirt up into the air, followed by another one closer to them, then a third.

"Let's go!" yelled Bill running east as the line of explosions grew closer. They made it to the edge of the buildings when the barracks Bill had been sleeping in blew apart. "When did the zeds get mortars?"

"When the soldiers that came back from the dead showed them how to use the damned, things." said Ruben with a scowl on his face. The old man had seen action before, in Vietnam, and was well past his prime, but he had been pressed into service alongside of thirteen year olds back when the governor of Iowa issued a general call to service. He was not the fastest of Bill's soldiers, but the man knew tricks that the others had not had time to learn.

"What now?"

"We get the fuck out of here before some bright boy drops more shells on our heads." Ruben said.

"Seems smart." Turning to Max and Stewart Bill said, "You guys don't have your weapons."

"I was just going to unlock Stewart…didn't think I needed them."

"You always gotta keep a gun with you Max." Pausing he asked, "Why were you still locked up Jane?"

Stewart shrugged, "The blood tests, something was wrong and they took another sample, they said it didn't appear that I was infected, but they wanted to be sure, so I got to spend another night on the hard bed."

"Dang. Are you feeling okay?"

"I am not infected Bill!"

"Didn't say you were. I was thinking maybe…."

No one said anything for a moment and the screams of the living carried back to them from several blocks away where the fighting was going on.

"You ain't going like that one bird in the Art Center are you?" asked Ruben bluntly.

He was referring to a living woman, Stella, who had been encouraged to kill zombies, by her handlers, the woman had become an abomination, fast, strong and remorseless….and a killer of the living. Stella had eaten living flesh of the uninfected and seemed to grow stronger for doing so, she had also been stunned into inaction when Ruben shoved his cut hand into her mouth, which resulted, ultimately, in her death.

"No, nothing like that. I've killed a lot of zombies, but not that many Ruben."

Javier had been quiet so far, now he chose to speak up, his voice completely without accent he said, "What about Chen? He is in the hospital."

"As good a place as any, lead the way Javier." Bill said. They trotted along quickly towards the hospital, trying not to listen to the sounds of young men and women being overrun to the east.

The hospital was a hive of activity, with men carrying stretchers into the hospital and wounded lying on the sidewalk in front of the place. Technically it wasn't even a hospital, just an infirmary, but the Navy had changed its designation after the extent of the crisis had been realized.

To the east a roar sounded about the same time that more mortar shells dropped near the west end of the campus. One, by chance or intent, landed at the corner of the hospital, sending shards of metal fragments through the air and literally obliterating those unfortunate enough to have been on the sidewalk next to where it landed. Stewart was thrown into Max and both of them tumbled to the ground in a heap. Ruben didn't break stride, he picked up Stewart and hauled her into the building, leaving Bill to do the same with Max. In the lobby the stretcher bearers were cringing on the ground afraid to move from the lucrative cover they found in the lobby of the building.

"You men, move! Pick up the stretcher and carry him in further, get away from the glass doors!" Bill bellowed with authority. The men hastened to obey and Max's group took shelter in a hallway away from the front, where Ruben stood Stewart up and leaned her against the wall to assess her injuries.

The old man let out a low whistle as the three men looked at Stewart, she had a pistol butt sticking out of her chest over her heart. Stewart looked at the men, then glanced down and slid sideways a little, only to be propped up by Ruben on one side and Max on the other.

"That…looks bad." she said.

"It must have been blow off of one of the soldiers." said Javier.

"Yeah, unless there is a new kind of mortar shell I ain't familiar with." said Ruben with a touch of sarcasm.

Stewart reached up with her right hand and grabbed the pistol butt.

"No, leave it, a surgeon will have to take it out. Can you walk?" asked Max.

A loud crash in the entryway drew their attention as a squad of men pushed their way into the building. The sergeant yelled, "We couldn't hold! Evacuate! The officers said to head west! Move people!"

"Sergeant! There are zombies there, waiting for us!" Max shouted. Stewart grasped the butt of the pistol and pulled it out of her, with Ruben watching. Her blood didn't gush out, it seemed to solidify as it touched the air and her wound sealed.

"Perv. You just wanted to see my boob." Stewart mumbled as Ruben held her up.

"Well….yeah." he replied, the tone of his voice showed that wasn't his intent at all.

"Officers said to head west, set up a new line of defense around the barracks, to cover the rest of the men, who will be heading this way in less than three minutes. Anyone who can fire a gun needs to head out now, this building will be overrun. Let's go!" The sergeant didn't wait to see if the people in the lobby would follow he turned and ran back outside and headed towards the barracks Max had just come from.

"We, we can't go that way!" Max sputtered, closing his eyes a moment he let go of Stewart and sought out the zombies he knew were there. "They are coming!"

"From the west?" asked Bill.

Nodding Max said, "And the east. Bill I don't see many of our guys retreating, no living. I see a lot of isolated groups, surrounded by the dead."

"What do we do, Sarg?" asked Javier.

"We head south, of course." All of them knew that Chicago was lightly inhabited, but north into Wisconsin, was more of a crap shoot, there were pockets of heavy zombie populations dotted with uninhabited regions. "First we get some weapons, and food if we can find it."

"So the armory or the px?" asked Ruben, who undoubtedly knew the way to both by heart, the man was good at knowing where to find things.

"Armory. We can pick up food along the way if we have to. Stewart can you walk?"

By way of an answer Stewart let the pistol butt drop from her hand and stood up.

"They are here." Max said, pointing to the front door.

A trio of zombies rushed by the doorway, followed by some slow, shambling zeds in a motley assortment of clothing.

"Max get that rifle!" Bill said, pointing to a rifle left by one of the wounded who had fled the lobby. "Javier, Ruben, each of you give him a magazine. The armory is that way, right Ruben?" Bill had gestured out the front door, where there was a block sized chunk of lawn with a flag pole.

"Yeah, maybe we could go west a little and try to work our way around…"

"Max?"

Max shook his head, "Too many, I don't know Bill, I don't think we can make it."

Slow zombies started shuffling into the lobby.

"Goddamn it. To the stairs, get upstairs now!"

"Bill." said Max pausing, "We can't go anywhere from there, if we go up we'll die."

Hundreds of zombies flooded the lawn in front of the hospital.

"We die now or we die later, I'd rather die not at all, but I'll take later if it is an option. Go Max!"

None of them fired at the slow zombies as they hit the stairwell. Max noted it went up to the fourth floor and did not provide roof access.

They ran into three men coming down the stairs and tried to ward them off going down, but the three did not listen. A few moments later they heard the sound of gunfire from the stairwell and screams as the men were overwhelmed. On the fourth floor they closed the fire doors and Bill took out a plastic restraint, like the kind often used in lieu of handcuffs when police made mass arrests, and looped it over the double doors, effectively locking them together.

"What if a human comes up here?" asked Max.

"Us or them, brother." said Ruben, but Bill hesitated.

"He's right, we can't take the risk of locking them out." Taking his belt knife Bill cut through the plastic. Shrugging he said, "It wouldn't have held them long anyway."

People were coming out of the rooms all along the hallway, curiosity on their faces. "What's going on?" asked an older African American man, in a wheelchair with his leg in a cast from his hip to his toes. He had on a name tag on with the words, 'Amir Lincoln' printed on it in black marker.

"Zombies are coming. We have to get to the roof." answered Bill.

"What about us?" called another man further down the corridor.

"You gotta get to the roof too."

"Where do we go from there?" called another faceless voice.

"Nowhere, we hold them off."

"The stairwell at this end has roof access." said an orderly dressed in light green hospital scrubs.

"Let's go then." said Bill curtly.

Behind them they heard the people scrambling to follow the soldiers, Ruben lagged behind long enough to take out a new plastic restraint. Casting a glance over his shoulder, he strung it through the door handles alongside the one Bill had just cut off. He stepped back to look at his work with some satisfaction.

"Pretty good job." said Amir from behind him.

Surprised Ruben turned and looked down on the man. "Yeah, it will make a difference, every second helps."

"You know if someone stays here they can just hold the handles up, it wouldn't take much effort."

"Yeah, but who would do that?" asked Ruben.

The man gestured at his leg, "I ain't gonna be climbing any stairs mister. They gave me crutches I can't use," he hitched his thumb over his shoulder, "they are in my room, would you mind fetching them for me?"

"Sure thing." Ruben entered the guy's room and saw the crutches. He grabbed them and brought them out to the old guy.

Amir waved him off, "No, no. I can't even pull myself up, I was thinking they are wide enough to shove between the emergency handles, you know, to act as a kind of a bolt."

Ruben slid the crutches down between the handle and the door, sure enough they fit almost perfectly and would keep the handles on the other side of the door from being engaged, effectively locking the door.

"Great, now find another set and let's get to the other stairwell."

Ruben ducked into a few rooms until he came across another set of crutches, out in the hall he saw Amir had already wheeled down to the other stairwell. There was no one left in the hallway except for them.

"Gimme one of those straps." Amir said, holding out his hand. Ruben complied, he still had another dozen or so left, so he handed the man two. "And the crutches. Now go. They won't get in here easily, maybe not at all."

Ruben paused for a moment, holding onto the crutches, and said, "You know, I could get you up the stairs."

Amir shook his head, "I'll be safe in here, two sets of locked doors, you won't have that up top, I bet they just rush by me to get you. 'Sides there are some other guys stuck in here too."

Ruben knew it was true, several patients, unconscious, were still in their beds. "Alright. Goodbye Amir."

"Goodbye whoever you are."

"Ruben."

"Pleased to make your acquaintance Ruben. Now git."

Ruben handed over the crutches and made for the stairwell and started climbing. Behind him the door shut with a hefty 'click' sound and he heard Amir jamming the doors with the crutches. By the time Ruben made it to the roof access they were getting ready to shut the door. It was a single door, but about forty inches wide. Bill was holding it open and he asked, "Where've you been? I'd have shut the door in another minute."

"I just came up last, to make sure everyone made it up okay."

"No one left?"

Looking Bill steadily in the eyes Ruben said, "No, there is no one left down below."

"Good, but we got a shit fan of problems up here. Go take a look."

Ruben made his way to the edge of the building, looking over he saw the walkways around the hospital were crammed with undead. Moving to look at the green he saw it was crammed full of undead too, though these seemed to be second tier, the almost human kind, but not quite supers. Worse, among them they had prisoners. A shot rang out and the gawker next to Ruben screamed, then pitched over the front of the building, yelling the whole way down. Or course Ruben didn't see the man hit, by then he was on his face, backing up quickly towards the middle of the building.

"Get away from the edges you stupid fools!" he yelled as more gunfire rang out from below. Only one more person was shot, a younger man who was already in a hospital gown. He reeled away clutching his arm with cry before being tackled by an orderly to get him out of sight.

"Bill, what do we do?" yelled Max from near the edge of the building.

"Stay near the center, if you have guns watch that building, in case they try to run some zombies with guns up there." Bill pointed to the building next to theirs, separated by only a fifteen foot gap. Luckily the building was only the same height as theirs, not taller, nor were any of the others nearby.

A hand grenade went off down below, followed almost immediately by another. Stewart and Max looked at each other, then saw a small black object sail over the lip of the parapet, to land thirty feet away. It exploded a split second after landing and sprayed shrapnel into the patients and soldiers, wounding several, one severely enough to drop him into unconsciousness.

"Holy fuck, we can't stop that!" Max yelled at Stewart, then he yelled to Bill, "You got any grenades?"

"No, throw them back if they come over!"

More grenades followed, one soldier grabbed one and tossed it over the edge, where it exploded just below the edge of the building, breaking windows, but causing no casualties. Another older looking soldier shucked off his helmet and put it over the second grenade then threw his body on top of it. The man's helmet and body did help contain the blast, but he had no time to center himself properly and was catapulted over the edge of the building, his intestines weaving a bloody pattern as he flew through the air. The third grenade was the worst, another patient; this one with his leg in a cast managed to pick it up and had just raised it over his head to toss it when it went off. The man's arm disintegrated and his head was blown sideways with enough force to break his neck, even as the shrapnel killed him. His attempt at throwing resulted in the grenade being just high enough to rain shrapnel down on the people taking cover, resulting in a plethora of wounds, many of them serious. Of the fifty or so patients and soldiers on the roof top, more than thirty were wounded to one degree or another. Even Javier, who seemed to be the lucky one of Bill's squad, had a cut across one cheek that was bleeding heavily.

No more grenades followed and the group breathed a momentary sigh of relief. The moans and cries of the wounded had to alert their enemy that they were not all dead, so their respite would only be temporary.

Working their way to where Bill and Ruben were by the door Max asked, "What now?"

"Fuck if I know." said Bill.

"Awesome." Stewart said, "I think we should have run," she held up a hand to forestall Bill, who had opened his mouth to say something, "But we are here now, so let's focus on getting out of here, not 'I told you so' okay?"

"What about the building next door?" asked Max, "I think I could make the jump."

"Yeah, you me and everyone who isn't injured, what about the wounded?" asked Bill.

"We can't save everyone." Ruben said, "And I ain't in favor of dying with them either." Another grenade went off on the side of the building.

"Can you make the jump?" Bill asked Ruben.

"Watch me." with that he got up and took a running start towards the edge of the building. The four of them, including Javier, who had crawled over while they were talking looked open mouthed as the old man took a running leap and disappeared over the edge.

"Oh fuck, did the old fool make it?" said Stewart, rising to a crouching position to see.

"Well?" asked Max.

"Yeah, he did, he made it! I'm going, c'mon!" she rose and ran towards the edge as another grenade landed on the roof and blew behind her. Stewart made the jump look easy, clearing the other roof by ten or more feet. The grenade wounded more people and after seeing the jumpers the remaining able bodied rose and started to make the run too. This worked out well for some of them, but two people were a little too focused on the run and not on where they were running; they bumped together right at the roof edge, one man tripped and fell over the edge and the other barely managed to reach the other side where he clung to the parapet with one hand. Gunfire rang out and he dropped like a stone a moment later.

The grenades stopped, but people still kept trying to make the jump, now their actions were accompanied by gunfire from below and screams from some of the men as they were hit.

"We gotta go." said Max, "From there we can jump to the next building and then maybe down to that one behind it. Or we could go down and try to weave our way through the building to the south."

"Max, we can't just leave these guys."

"Bill, you have family to think of, I have family to think of. And what about Ruben and Stewart? We can't leave them to fend for themselves. Javier and you need to jump over then we don't rest, we just go for the next one immediately to take them by surprise."

"You first."

"No, 'cause you'd do something stupid. You first."

"You just want me to draw their fire."

"That too."

"Don't leave us." said a patient nearby.

"Look man….I…" started Bill, then he was pulled up by Javier and half pushed by Max in the direction of the other building.

Ruben, on the other side, had climbed on top of a heating unit on the other building and had his rifle aimed at the green. Javier and Bill leaped at the same time and bullets from both above and below rang out. Neither man was hit by the wild fire, but down below a zombie with one of the rifles had a bullet put through his skull by Ruben. Ruben immediately pulled himself away from the edge near the green, trying to hide from the zombie gunmen. It didn't seem to matter to the other zombies; they didn't notice that one of their own had been shot. For a moment everything was quiet, when Max rose up to make the jump the pleas of those around him rose in volume begging him not to go. Ignoring them Max focused on the run, picturing his children on the other side as motivation to make the leap. More gunshots rang out, but Max landed safely. The group on the other building huddled together near the door to the stairs.

Bill stood as Max came over and said, "We are going to jump for the next one. It should be easier, they can't see us from the green."

Down below they heard a scream, a high pitched wailing. Cautiously they crept to peep over the parapet to the lawn below. The zombies had their prisoners held up above the crowd body surfing them around the green, most of the men were still whole, but a couple had been attacked and were bleeding. As they watched another one of the men was grabbed in a tug of war between two groups, the man's arm was pulled out of its socket and then from his body completely as the game played out. His scream rose in pitch until any who didn't see him would have sworn that it was a small child, not a grown man. As if that were a signal the other body surfing prisoners were pulled into the mob and torn apart, with the crowd forming feeding circles around them.

"Now! We go now, while they are distracted!" Bill said. He didn't have to tell them twice. Only two other men made the jump with them, the others broke into the building and were heading down the stairs.

"We can jump down or across again." Bill said, pointing out their options, no one seemed inclined to go down yet like the others.

"I say we go across and see what is on the other side of that building." said Stewart, "Even if it isn't a good one to jump to we are a little closer to the southern edge of the campus if we have to go down inside."

"Everyone agree?" asked Bill.

Everyone did, once on the other building they found that the next one was two stories lower than than the one they were on, a distance none of them wanted to try. While they pondered their choices, a third option presented itself.

Chapter 8 — Katie

Katie went back into the corner office to pick up the gym bag, she put three of the table legs into it along with the least soiled of the hand towels. Whatever towels the man had for drying off from the shower were missing. 'Maybe it was laundry day.' she mused to herself as she stood in the doorway checking for zeds a few moments later.

Her goals were now clear, she was going to head downstairs and west, cross over to the building where she and Randy had parted ways with Heath and then go through there to the vehicle they had left on the other side. She remembered that Heath had put the keys on the seat and she hoped that the blinker he had left on hadn't run the battery down to the point where it wouldn't start the car. The car should be on a street that was clear of the devastation, once there she would decide where to head next.

After pausing for a moment to make sure the way was really clear she ran from the office doorway and sprinted towards the stairwell on the west side of the building. Katie didn't encounter any zombies, but did catch the oversized shoes on an office chair that sent her sprawling. Cursing softly she kicked off the shoes, she felt sure she could keep going if her feet were cut and no longer felt that the protection they offered was worth the risk of tripping in front of the next zombie she ran into. She did toss the shoes into her bag, in case she changed her mind later.

Cracking the door to the stairwell she listened closely. Nothing. No noise other than that coming from behind her as debris settled and wind blew through the shattered windows of the building. Easing the door shut behind her she quickly made her way down to the next landing, then paused and listened again. Katie did this at every stage of her descent, cautiously creeping along so that any zombies would not get the jump on her. With steady progress she made it to the ground floor, seeing no one living or dead in the process. Now she stood staring at the metal 'emergency only' fire door exit, another door led into the building itself, but Katie wanted to leave and thought this was the way she needed to go.

Pushing the door open she was surprised when the speaker attached to it started to chirp wildly. She pulled the door back and bashed at the metal box holding the alarm system until the noise stopped. 'The damned thing has made my ears start ringing again!' Katie counted to a thousand as slowly as she could, listening for anything coming down the stairs, then she slowly opened the door again. Nothing. No zeds at all. 'Where the fuck are they?'

Darting across the street Katie walked into the building she had passed through earlier with Health and Randy and out of the other side, where the sport utility vehicle was parked. Only it wasn't. 'Someone stole our fucking car! Damn Chicago, I always knew it was filled with the descendants of mobsters and criminals.'

The body of the other soldier, Lewis, lay on the ground where the car had been parked. His gear was missing. This changed her plans and she retreated into the foyer of the building to plan her next step. The dealership where her group had originally taken the car from was only about a mile away. As she recalled there should be a couple shotguns there as well, the smart zombies had been using weapons to keep Heath and his fellow soldier pinned down in the rental car building when she and Randy showed up.

Tentatively swinging by there had been on her short list of stops anyway. Looking up and down the street she saw no movement at all. Katie moved out the building, she chose to stay near the center of the wide sidewalk, it seemed like the best place to avoid any zombies that might be hiding in the various store fronts or among the parked cars. However it was eerie as hell.

'Someone is watching me.' Katie could not get that thought out of her head, the windows, many of them shattered by the bombardment, looked out at her like the vacant eyes of a dead man's skull. 'The perfect place for snipers or super zeds to be hanging out.'

The itch between her shoulder blades was as real as the flecks of safety glass her bare feet were careful to tread around. Resisting an urge to run, Katie held her speed down to a fast walk, turning the corner she saw the street ahead of her was clear, there was less glass to deal with and still no zombies. Giving in slightly to her urge to run full out she moved her pace up to a jog. Nothing came rushing out at her, the most exciting thing she saw was a nice looking calico cat that padded across the street in front of her without so much as a glance her way. The rental place was up ahead, and the only glass she saw on the ground was from where the zombies had blown out the window and killed Lewis as they had driven away. Ducking down Katie saw the body of the shotgun wielding zombie was still there, as was his shotgun.

Getting the body out from under the car was not as difficult as she thought it might be, the zombie had been a pretty big boy when he was killed again. Conveniently he had the strap of the shotgun around one shoulder and it came with him as she pulled. Checking the gun she saw that it looked new, she'd be surprise if the big zed hadn't been the first one to fire it and that his first time had been his last. He had on an olive drab vest with loops for the shotgun shells sewn into it. All the loops were full.

Katie familiarized herself with the shotgun and unloaded the magazine before reloading it and cocking one shell into the chamber. The magazine of the gun held five shots, giving her six before she needed to reload again. Her mind made a note of this as she eyed the vest on the zed. Sighing she rolled the corpse over onto its back and then spent a frustrating five minutes trying to get his arms through the vest. Finally she rolled him off of it and picked it up. Around the collar, especially in the front, it was coated with the dark zombie blood.

The flies in the area seemed to like zombie blood as much as they did that from the living and they were buzzing around the collar even as she looked at it. Katie almost put it on and folded it so that she could still reach the shotgun shells easily. She put it in the top of the duffel bag. Katie considered taking the man's footwear as well, but only for a moment. Cowboy boots were not her style and he had the feet of a giant. She wondered if the plumbing matched the foundation, but she was not so curious as to unzip him and see if the old wives tale was true.

Katie's next stop was the rental building, though, truth be told it was more of a shack. The windows were all shot out of it, leaving the floor inside covered with slivers. Reluctantly Katie pulled on the oversized tennis shoes and went in. Finding the car keys was very simple, they were in a box that looked like it must have been hanging somewhere at one time, but was now on the floor behind the walk up service counter. Spent NATO cartridges littered the floor behind the counter, left over from where Heath and Lewis had fired at the zombies. Katie ducked down and picked the box up, then sorted through it looking for a key to one of the four wheel drive vehicles left on the lot. She found three sets of keys, one for each and took them all. One was a key fob, a little rectangular box that was used instead of keys, and matching that one to the vehicle was no trouble at all. It was a high end SUV that Katie could not have afforded on her army salary, even at the higher rate of pay for 'combat duty'. It also showed only a quarter tank of gas when she got in and started it up. The other two were nearly identical and were filled to about the same level as well.

"Shit." Looking down the street there was a gas station in sight, probably the very one this rental place used to fill up their vehicles with a hefty surcharge when customers returned them empty. But no power. Katie hadn't seen a light on anywhere yet and no power meant no gas. She went back to the high end SUV, leaving the other sets of keys on the dash of each vehicle. Following a hunch she made a fast trip back into the building for a moment, where she spotted a two and a half gallon gas can in the back room, she took it, even though it felt mostly empty, and made her way back to her new wheels. Tossing in her bag she shut the door and started the car again. Cool air blew into her face as she pondered her next move.

"Randy? Gimme a sign here buddy, if you are up there. I could still use a little help." Katie said out loud, half as a prayer, half as a jape. "All I am asking for is a little direction…"

Her voice was drowned out as a military helicopter traveling low and fast buzzed over the dealership heading south east.

"Fuck." Katie said, "I'll remember to ask again next time I need something. How about a nice gun and a brick of ammo? Can you work that in?"

Putting the car in gear she turned onto the street and made her way south east, following the direction that the helicopter had flown.

Chapter 9 — Max

It had to be Draper of course. Max didn't like the man much; ever since the Colonel left him high and dry at the train station in Chicago he had a burning desire to kick the man's ass, or at least to wipe the smug smile off of his face. Yet here he was, in another helicopter, hovering over the building helping Max and the people with him into his already overloaded bird.

"Of course it is you." Draper yelled at Bill as he helped the man inside. "Lucky does seem to suit you as a nickname."

"It's one I can live with, Colonel." said Bill. His feelings about the man were not as antagonistic as Max.

"Still slumming with the magician, I see." Draper said referring to Max. Draper had seen Max demonstrate his abilities before they left Iowa, but had not been impressed. Whatever was happening to the humans who came into close contact with the zombies, Draper preferred to use the skill God had given him over those inherited by being in the proximity of zombies when they were killed. "At least you had the good sense to bring the cop with you."

"Yeah and I kept the old man and the kid with me too." laughed Bill referring to Ruben and Javier.

"You lost the Oriental though."

"Couldn't find him."

"I'm surprised you looked. He was a bit of a whiner. Probably he made it out with the others." said Draper in a voice that denied what he was saying.

"Others made it out?"

"A few broke out east and headed to the beach, they got picked up by boats from the ship. A bunch more headed west, we haven't heard from them."

"You won't. Max says there were zombies there, thousands of them."

"He would know." said Draper.

Bill nodded and settled onto the floor, trying to shrink into himself and not take up so much room. He didn't bother trying to communicate with Draper again, the helicopter noise made talking to each other almost impossible without headsets, which Bill didn't have. Draper, however, did and he pulled away from Bill to talk to someone else using the radio.

Max took that moment to lean over and shout in Bill's ear, "Where are we going?" Bill just shrugged and shook his head.

None of them had to wait too long, their destination was a strange looking ship a short ride into lake Michigan, there were two spots for the helicopter to land and they had to hover while they waited for another to take off and make room for them. Once they were down they were dragged below deck almost immediately and put in the galley, or the lunch room for landlubbers like Max. The group of those who had been snatched off of the top of the building was isolated pending a medical screening by the ship's physician and they waited in uneasy silence for the man to arrive. It turned out the 'man' was a woman and she cleared the cooks out of the galley so she could use it as an impromptu screening area to give her patients a small amount of privacy. Stewart was pulled in first and two nervous looking young sailors were stationed to watch over the rest of the group.

"We're not zombies, so you guys can relax." Bill said by way of opening a conversation with the sailor closest to him.

"Sorry, ah…sergeant, but until you are cleared we have to treat you as possibly contaminated."

"Oh I figured that, I've done my share of clearing people too." said Bill, thinking back to Sioux City, where his squad had screened refugees that made it across the rail road bridge they had been guarding.

"We aren't supposed to talk to you." the sailor said.

"Can I ask why?"

"We might have to shoot you."

Nodding Bill shut up and sat back down next to Max, "Makes sense, when you think about it."

"Yeah, I guess it does. I feel like I've spent half my time traveling going through checkpoints and being screened though. So I don't have to like it."

"You ladies bitching about the screening?" asked Stewart who came in buttoning up her shirt.

"Ma'am." said the doctor sharply, "That side, no mingling until I clear them."

Stewart nodded and walked to the side of the room away from Max, "You gotta keep 'em separated." she said in a singsong voice. "So who's next boys?" Pointing at Max she said, "If you take him make sure to use two fingers and be extra thorough."

Max beat Bill to volunteering and a few minutes later he joined Stewart.

"Thanks for that 'two fingers' remark, I didn't know I might have a bite on my prostate. How'd you get through? I thought you had some problems back at the base?"

"She just checked for bites, scratches and other breaks in the skin. Same as for you."

"But I thought you had…"

"Had. That is the word Max. I had some injuries, my head, mostly, does it look damaged to you?" Stewart tilted her head down and Max gingerly touched it where she had been hit a couple days before. He felt a small lump, but couldn't see any damage or breaks in the skin. Moving from her head he traced his finger down to her shoulder and looked pointedly at her breast, where blood stained the front of her shirt.

"Gone. Hardly a bruise now. It's been less than an hour."

"Geez Stewart, it's like you're in overdrive now."

She nodded and said, quietly, "Let's keep that on the down low, shall we. The doc there didn't have access to the medical records for us, I didn't feel like going back into a holding cell and as remember you had some injuries that seem to be all healed up now too."

"Yeah, I kept quiet about it." said Max blushing.

"Did you blush when she made you strip in there?"

Max shook his head, "No, I am used to getting naked in front of doctors now."

"But you still blush when you are caught in bad behavior, like withholding information so you don't get put in lock down."

Max turned even redder.

"That's so cute!" Stewart said, reaching across the table to grab his hands in hers.

"Cut it out!" he said, jerking his hands away. Stewart laughed and looked up as Bill came out and sat next to them.

Looking them over he asked, "Why's he blushing?"

"He was thinking about the examination." said Stewart.

"She was, ah, 'thorough', like you told her to be Stewart." said Bill, "I think she saw parts of me that I haven't even thought about in years."

"Too much information there, Bill." Stewart said, raising her hands to her ears.

"Seriously though, where are we going to go from here?" asked Bill, looking at Max.

"Florida." Stewart answered, cutting Max off. "We've decided to go to Florida and sort this Sentry fellow out. Then we are heading back to Iowa to live with you and the missus."

Bill looked at them, letting his gaze shift from one to the other, "Like, together-together?"

"Sure, why not? We make a good team." Stewart said.

Shrugging Bill said, "First thing though, how are we going to get to Florida?"

The group was chatting about it when Ruben and Javier were finished being processed and the other two had a few ideas to chime in as well. The groups of them were still talking when Draper came in fifteen minutes later. The galley was open again and the colonel got himself a cup of coffee and came over to stand by their table.

"Yes?" asked Stewart.

"You planning on leaving?"

"What do you think about that?"

"Going after that guy in Florida?"

" We've got nothing more worthwhile to do." answered Stewart. "You want to come along for the ride? Or maybe you could drop us off, saying you were going to help, and then bug out on a mission of your own at the last minute?"

"Ouch. You make it sound like I wasn't following orders, or that what I did wasn't important."

"Was it?"

"We can fly again can't we? My boys took care of the anti-aircraft battery, captured it intact. You took care of the other thing. It seems to me that everything that needed to be accomplished was and we are all the better for it."

Stewart nodded to that, "I supposed it was, when you look at it that way."

"I do look at it that way. But to answer your question, no, I won't be going along to Florida with you."

Max sighed, he had been hoping that Draper could get them closer to where they needed to be, hopefully by flying them there. Noticing his reaction Draper raised an eyebrow, "Now why would you look disappointed, we had a bit of a falling out and I don't seem to have made it up to you, not even by saving your life…twice now, unless I am miss counting."

"Says the man with the helicopter." Stewart added.

"That's true."

"I've been meaning to ask where you came up with that helicopter a couple days ago in Chicago. The last time we saw you guys you had a couple of armored cars and motorcycles."

Draper paused for a moment, as if thinking of his response, he shrugged, "It doesn't matter now. We took out the air defenses, not too far from the RTC, but they were expecting an attack from that direction, we hit them from an angle they weren't expecting and got the base back. Losses were light for my team and heavy for the zombies. We called in for pickup to circle back and extract the rest of my team."

"Weren't they dead?"

"We didn't know that. Lucky for you though, wasn't it? Hey do you guys want coffee? You'd better get it now; I have the feeling it is going to be hard to come by in the next few years."

The group took him up on his offer and though they were expecting Draper to leave, he was still waiting for them after they had cups in their hands.

"I hope you don't mind my asking Draper, but why are you here? You don't seem like the type to make social calls, especially so far below rank." Stewart said.

"Social calls? This isn't a social call little lady. This is all business. I spoke to the doc, you know what she told me?"

"Your case of the clap is all cleared up?" guessed Stewart.

"Not just that, she said you three." Draper pointed at Max, Stewart and Ruben, "were in perfect health. No bandages, no open wounds, no bites. Just a little bruising." Draper looked pointedly at the bloodstain on Stewart's shirt, "That is why you were cleared. I didn't mention that your head was bashed in two days ago. Or that I saw an x-ray of your skull fracture then, and that I saw another one last night, which showed a past fracture that had healed up. Not to mention that blood on your shirt there. And you." Draper said, pointed at Ruben, "Lemme see your hand gramps." Draper extended his hand and tentatively Ruben held his left hand out. The black man's skin made a sharp contrast with Rubens as he turned it over in his own. "Not a fucking mark on it. Now, I may be just a Colonel, but I don't know how an old man who gets fourteen stitches in his hand less than two days ago can show me the same hand without even a scar on it now. Pretty goddamn nice trick if you ask me."

Ruben slowly took his hand back, "So what do you want us for?"

Draper's ivory teeth gleamed white as he looked at them with a huge smile on his face.

Chapter 10 — Katie

'Head south east. Yeah that was a good idea.' The problem was the map. Katie had gotten familiar with the streets of Chicago on the lake shore for her original mission as a sniper with Randy. She had only a vague notion of where the highways went outside of the city and had ended up on highway fifty seven heading almost due south out of Chicago. Now the sports utility vehicle was dead.

'Out of gas. Dead as a three day old zed.' Katie was good at many things, she could knock the eye out of a sparrow at five hundred yards, she could take most people she ran into out in close combat, she could field strip and make minor repairs on her weapons, however, she knew next to nothing about cars and less about how to get electricity to work at a gas station when the power was out. And the power was out everywhere.

The only good news was that once she made it into the outskirts of Chicago there were no zombies to be seen anywhere. Now she was in a small city named "Kankakee" and the place was a literal ghost town.

"Just add in a few tumble weeds blowing across the street and I will get really creeped out." she said to herself. Her car had died near exit three fifteen, where the services offered were 'Gas — Food — Shopping' and a large billboard listed it as the exit for the Northfield Square Mall. Other shopping included a 'Farm and Fleet', where Katie thought she might have luck with getting some supplies.

Looking at the car one last time she decided there was nothing else she could scavenge from it. Reluctantly she shut the door, remembering what Heath had done, she left the door unlocked and set the key in plain sight on the seat. 'Maybe someone can fuel it up and still use it. Maybe I will be back with some fuel myself.'

Katie made a beeline directly to the mall, the place had a cleaned out feel to it, nothing was moving and the glass doors she was heading towards were propped open or broken out all along the entrance she could see. She held her shotgun in a ready position and she was wearing the oversized shoes to protect her feet from the glass littering the ground. There was a corpse holding one door open. By the look of him, he had been a zombie, his skull was blasted open.

'What did that? Probably a shotgun.' His body was decayed, with flesh slumping off of him to sag to the ground, giving the impression that he was melting. Moving inside she darted to one edge of the door and ducked down beneath a large planter full of wilting vegetation. Giving her eyes a moment to adjust, she scanned the area inside for movement. 'Nothing.'

There was a store directory not too far from the entrance and she approached it, looking for a place to pick up better shoes, then a woman's clothing store. Katie found both just around the corner from where she was standing and didn't waste any time moving out. She paused in the four way atrium looking at the upper level and down as much of the vast mall as she could. There was movement on the upper level. And bodies, so many bodies, spread out in the south hallway.

The shambling zombies on the upper level didn't seem to spot her, they were involved in an epic battle with some of the malls indoor plant life. 'If I stay to one side they might not even hear me.' She thought, planning her route mentally after she ducked back around the corner out of sight. The zeds couldn't see her, but from her position she could see the bodies sprawled in front of the major retailer that anchored that end of the mall. 'So much for going there to get stuff as my backup plan. I'll keep heading north, I ain't wading through corpses for underwear and shoes.'

Nodding to herself she darted around the corner and did a quick jog towards the store she wanted, a familiar shoe place with a sunny, bright logo. Katie hadn't counted on the darkness inside. The store was on the lower level and the mall was of a more modern design, with plenty of ambient light, but 'ambient' only goes so far in the dark recesses of a shopping mall. The back of the store was lost in the shadows, at least the security grill was up and open, alleviating one worry that Katie had thought of when she decided to come in here.

'Wouldn't you fucking know it, my size has to be at the far end.' Katie wore eights, and following the sizes down she could estimate where they would be. 'Dash and grab?' She thought, 'Or find a light? Do I want to shine a light in here?' To give herself the option she looked around for flashlights, however, there were not any in sight, nor was there one behind the cash register. There was, however another corpse. This one too, was dead. It was the body of a young teenager, female and bloated from days of lying behind the counter. The youth's head had been smashed open, and though the decomposition and darkness made it hard to see, Katie suspected the woman had died from being eaten.

Katie crouched behind the counter to get out of sight from outside the shop and to plan her next move. There was a peg board near her back full of socks, absentmindedly Katie grabbed a bag of socks her size and kicked off the man's shoes, she would not leave here without footwear. Now how would she get the shoes she came here for?

'Patience.' That is one thing being a sniper had taught her. You could never have too much patience. She waited for three or four minutes to let her eyes adjust fully to the gloom, the light from outside, surprisingly, was enough to let her see the back of the store. It was empty. At least 'her' aisle was. Taking her bag of socks with her she crept down between the rows of shoes until she found some athletic shoes in her size. Instead of dashing back to the front of the store as she had planned, she took her shoes to rear of the store then quietly crawled the length of the place looking down the aisles, empty. It was just as she had thought when she was crouched behind the counter. There hadn't been any noise at all from inside the store, just the quiet scuffle from outside in the plants versus zombies struggle that was going on upstairs. Patience was a virtue sometimes. Now she could sit at the back of the store and anything coming in would be back lit and probably half blinded by the darkness to which her eyes were accustomed.

Pulling a stool to the middle of the aisle with the size eights, Katie tried on the shoes. She ended up going with a black pair of Nikes, the first pair she had tried on. During that time one of the zombies fell from the second level to the floor out in front of the shop, the zombie was laying there squirming on the ground, too broken to get up and walk. This one was a heavy white male, with a bald head and a sleeveless denim jacket. The guy rolled around on his bloated belly and Katie was wondering if he was fat from before he was turned or if he was bloated from decomposing. If it was decomposing then humanity might only have to wait for nature to take its course to be free from the zombies, otherwise it was going to be a long fight.

Katie grabbed a large canvas purse from an accessory rack near the front of the store and put a backup pair of the same shoes and her extra socks in it before stepping out to examine the zombie, which was still twitching on the floor in front of the store. Again she crouched down, this time just a step outside of the shoe store, and watched, slowly counting off the time in her head as she looked at the guy.

'Not decomposing.' She finally decided. Katie realized she could be wrong, the man might have been turned yesterday, which is why the eagle tattoo on his arm was still in good shape. That tattoo had decided her, this guy had just been fat; he was not bloated or swollen from decomposing. The artwork from the ink on his massive arm was not distorted or disfigured in any way, had the zed been decomposing she would have expected it to be different in some manner. Going on a couple of admittedly unsupportable assumptions, such as he had died more than two weeks ago and he had been here most of that time, she would have expected to see some decay by now. 'Damn. Nothing is ever easy.'

The zombie was not making any headway on getting to his feet. 'He is a slow one too, probably won't heal the damage from that fall anytime soon.' If healing was actually what they did. Katie still didn't know how they 'got better' or shrugged off injuries the way they did. She knew they had to eat the living to get smarter and figured they might need to do that to heal too. 'Well this one is out of luck as far as getting to me is concerned.'

The shoes felt wonderful, next stop would be clothing that actually fit and who knew where she would end up? If she were lucky there might be a shower, or at least a dip in a local pond to clean up. Mentally she added 'towel' to the list of things she wanted to acquire.

'And not one of those cheap forty-thread pieces of sandpaper, now I can get the good stuff.' In her mind she was seeing a soft, oversized towel that she could wrap up in. The picture was tarnished a little when she added herself stepping out of a lake, but clean was clean. Katie kept to the front edge of the stores as she made her way to the woman's clothing store, she didn't see any movement anywhere and the place was a lot less damaged than she would have thought, given the amount of bodies that lay behind her down the other wing. Frowning, she paused and looked at a cell phone kiosk, the glass had all been shattered in the display cases and the register was pock marked with bullet holes as well. Shaking her head she carefully trod by it to her destination.

The clothing store boasted a wide entrance, typical of most stores in a mall, but was darker than the shoe store. The front of the store fell under a large overhang that probably accommodated a wider pedestrian walkway above. Moving into the store Katie went for the underwear first. She thought that there was nothing so bad as riding two hours in a pair of dirty men's jogging shorts to make someone want to have fresh panties, especially when she had been commando at the time. Katie snatched the first pair of one hundred percent cotton underwear off the rack that she saw and slipped the men's short off over her shoes.

Softly she laughed out loud, 'Here I am standing half naked in a dark store at the mall, even in a million years I would not have guessed this would ever happen to me.' Katie pulled the underwear on and moved to grab some jogging shorts more appropriate to her gender. Continuing her shopping she made sure to grab three of everything, it all went into the canvas bag she was carrying. The store was completely empty of zombies and other than the wrappings and packaging she had left on the floor it was as clean as it would have been when if it had been open for business.

'I expected more trouble, this is too easy and easy makes me nervous.' The clothing store did have flashlights in a small travel section, they were small and inefficient looking to Katie, but she took two of them anyway. She was expecting to replace them at the Farm and Fleet, which sounded like the kind of place with good flashlights and maybe, if she were lucky, rifles.

Once her bag was loaded up she turned back for the entrance and cautiously checked the area outside the store. It was dead quiet. This was a little nerve wracking. The disabled zombie should still have been making noise, unless it had passed on. Moving along the store fronts again Katie back tracked towards the entrance. When she reached the shoe store she looked over at the zombie on the floor. It was not moving. Katie took a step towards it, and glanced upwards to see how the others were doing against the vegetation above. The fat tattooed man wasn't moving because someone had bashed its head in. Without thinking Katie jumped to her left, swinging her bag upwards as she did so.

Something metal crashed into her arm, luckily it was cushioned by her bag of clothing, but the force of the blow still knocked her sideways and dumped her sprawling on the ground. The shotgun, held in her other hand, ended up underneath her, but she didn't let go of it. Katie bunched her legs under her and rolled forward in a diagonal somersault. Her foot connected, inadvertently, as she rolled and she heard someone quietly say, 'fuck', followed by a metallic clattering sound. Pulling the shotgun up as she completed her roll Katie found herself facing a young man who looked to be in his middle to late teens. Behind him two startled looking girls were hastily trying to move around the guy to aim their guns at her.

"Hold it!" Katie yelled, not firing. The young man raised his hands to about shoulder height.

"Please." he said, "Please don't shoot me."

The girls kept moving, and stopped when they had their rifles pointed at her.

"Nobody is going to shoot anybody. Just take a breath here and talk this out."

"Put your gun down!" yelled the blond girl to the right side of the boy.

"Now, just calm down. I don't want to shoot another living person and I am sure you don't either, we all have to work together to get out of this and we have enough trouble already."

"Just put your gun down!" the blond was trembling and shaking, barely able to keep her gun pointed at Katie.

Katie looked at her and said, "Okay, I am going to lower my gun, but do not shoot me. Just relax." Slowly Katie lowered the barrel of the shotgun until it was pointing at the young man's lower leg. The blond calmed down a little, but still had the jitters.

"Put it on the ground and back up." the darker haired girl said. Her gun, Katie noted, was not shaking.

Hesitant, Katie answered, "I've been through a lot today and I am not sure if I can get another gun and I need it to protect myself from the zombies."

"I don't want to shoot you, but I will. You look like a zombie and I don't trust you. So put the gun down or I am going to put a bullet right through your head."

'I look like a zombie?' Katie thought, 'Oh shit, I'm still covered in dirt from the building. In this light I gotta look bad.' Out loud she said, "Okay, I am not a zombie. I am just dirty, I got dirty because the building I was in collapsed and I haven't had a chance to get cleaned up yet. I had to get more clothes and shoes, so I came here after my car ran out of gas. Do not shoot me. I won't be happy about it."

"I won't if you drop your gun." the dark haired girl said.

Sighing, Katie slowly bent over and put her gun on the ground, then raised her hands above her head. The man let out a muffled sob of relief and kicked Katie's gun away from her, then went and retrieved a long odd shaped piece of metal, Katie saw that it was a crowbar.

"Now what?" Katie asked. The two girls were still pointing guns at her.

"Jess?" asked the blond.

"Shoot her. Just in case."

"No!" yelled the young man, "You can't. We check her, if she is alive then she is okay."

"And how are you going to prove I am alive? You gonna listen to my heart? Cut me to see if I bleed?"

The three stepped back to confer in front of the building, leaving Katie to look longingly at her shotgun, which the man had only kicked about three feet away.

"Aw leave her!" came another voice from the upper level of the mall. "If she were a super zombie she'da ate your brains by now. A poor meal it would be too. I told you, Bobby, to hide from anyone except the slow zombies."

"Dad?"

"All clear up here, is she the only one you found down there?"

"Yeah, well and that twitchy one on the floor."

"Okay you kids sit tight, we will be down in a minute."

Katie saw two men walking towards her from the far end of the mall, picking their way through the piles of the dead as they came. A moment later the two were standing in front of her, looking her up and down.

"She looks alright, dirty, like she said, but okay other than that."

Flushing Katie didn't know how to respond, flashes of the rape scene from 'The Road Warrior' were running through her head. The man must have sensed her unease, he did the unexpected, he threw back his head and laughed.

The three teenagers and the man next to him stared at him with worried looks on their faces. Katie could have used this distraction to escape, but she too was spell bound by the man's laughter.

He stepped forward and Katie flinched backwards. "No." he said gently, with a trace of laughter still in his voice, "You don't have anything to worry about lady. My name is Robert." He held out his hand to her, turned as she shook it and pointed to the man beside him, "And this is my partner Kent." He paused and added, "My 'life partner', Kent."

Understanding dawned on Katie and she laughed too, a short, bitter laugh, but it broke the spell and finally the dark haired girl stopped pointing the rifle at her.

Chapter 11- Max

The helicopter was flying south east at top speed. Draper looked like he was sleeping as the bird came in for a landing on the acres of concrete that made up a runway. The runway looked in good condition, but it was in the middle of nowhere as far as Max could tell. They had landed to the west of the small terminal and there were a few small planes parked outside on a lot to the north. Max got the lay of the land on the way down, noticing a ribbon of a highway further east. There were also a few zombies present around the building and in the parking lot on the far side of it.

As the helicopter skids touched down, Draper sprang up and removed his harness, then directed his men to get out, while holding Max in place with one, beefy hand. Once his men had offloaded their gear and were in place he allowed Max and the others to disembark, the group quickly moved aside as the helicopter took off. Heat slammed into Max as he stood in the hot sun, the humidity made sweat pour off of him before he even had a chance to remove the jacket he had needed when the aircraft was aloft only minutes before. After watching the helicopter fly off they moved back among the boxes on the tarmac to load up their gear. In a couple of minutes they were left standing in the quiet afternoon looking at the few zombies coming towards them.

"Anything yet?" came Draper's voice over their radios.

"Affirmative, on the south side of the building, I have a Jenner." one of Draper's men responded, using the army term for a fast moving runner, "It ducked into a doorway about thirty meters from the corner. I've seen it peeking out twice now. Permission to engage?"

"Denied, let's see what comes out of the woodwork first."

Putting her hand over her microphone Stewart leaned over Draper and asked, "Where are we?"

He answered in the same manner, "Welcome to Madison Airport. It's in Kentucky, south of Richmond."

"Wow, you said something and told me nothing."

Max interrupted further conversation by saying, "There is a super in the building too, in that building on the right. In addition to the one your man spotted. I see eighteen zeds altogether."

"To the south Max." corrected Draper, absent mindedly as he told his men about the other fast zombie, "Use cardinal directions, not relative direction."

Max had been told this in their briefing, and he nodded to Draper, resolving to do better.

Bill was still in their band, and where Bill went, Ruben went. Max was not sure what their relationship was these days, but the old man had adamantly refused to return to Iowa without Bill. They had spent only one night on the crowded ship before taking off on this next mission. This time they were considered a key part of the mission and Max knew where and what everyone was going to do. 'Now if only I can be sure Draper doesn't have other orders that I don't know about.' thought Max.

Bill had volunteered when he found out Max was going on to look for Sentry and, of course Stewart vowed to be in until the end too. The surprise was that Javier had decided to come along. The young Hispanic didn't have any reason to do so, but he seemed to admire Bill. Part of it, Max thought, was that Javier didn't want to have to go home and tell his friends and family a seventy three year old man decided to go on while he came home. Machismo was still alive and well in some parts of the country.

The five of them were going to head south from here and then east to the coast, where they believed Sentry was operating. Draper's squad of men had a different plan, they were to head due east and then north, to try and find the remnants of the civilian government. Both groups were outfitted with all the weapons and ammunition they could carry. For Max that meant he was outfitted with a trusty shotgun and a large caliber pistol with dum-dum bullets, a hollow core round designed to fragment and do as much damage as possible on impact.

Like Max, Ruben had a combat shotgun, he said his eyes were bad enough to make carrying a rifle almost pointless, not that any of the others believed him. The rest of the group carried rifles. Everyone also had pistols, the same make as Max with the same ammunition to make supplying them easier. Max knew Stewart had at least one extra pistol that she hadn't let anyone know about and that Ruben had chosen a wicked looking combat knife that he wore on his belt.

Finally there was the backpack. It was a heavy pack, black and water proofed. On the back of it was a flap of material that could be flipped up to reveal a control panel. The control panel had a lever that needed to be turned after breaking off a plastic safety. After doing that a countdown timer could be set. Turn the lever, start the timer and boom, whatever you wanted blown up would be gone. It was very small nuclear device, designed in the sixties for use in the Army. Originally small nukes had been made to fire out of a 'Davy Crockett' recoilless rifle and weighed about seventy five pounds. Fortunately those rifles had never been used in warfare, they had been developed from the world war two mindset to fulfill an anti-armor and denial of territory role. The idea was to give infantry the ultimate defense against being overrun by tanks or masses of infantry. However, it would have been a bad idea, tactically, to make random areas of a battlefield radioactive and 'random' was the right word to use; the weapons were notoriously inaccurate.

Things had changed in the years since the original small nuclear weapons were created. The backpack devices now had a yield of almost half a megaton of dynamite in a package that weighed thirty two pounds. There were other drawbacks too, the first was the bombs degraded rapidly, in six months all they could be used for would be to recover a small amount of weapons grade fissionable material. Another was the fact that to keep the weight low, shielding had been minimized. How much so had not really been mentioned. The technician showing them the unassembled devices had recommended that no one carry the pack for more than six hours.

"A day?" Max had asked.

"No, total." the man had answered, looking away. He went on to state that they should travel in vehicles and keep some heavy material between them and the pack, lead if they could find it, bags of soil or concrete if no lead was available. The portable nukes had been assembled at the last possible minute, to give them the biggest payload potential. Draper had three of them. His were heavier by six pounds and included a 'fusion booster', giving them a far more powerful explosion. The bomb Max's team would carry was meant to take out one man, Draper's were for 'contingency' situations.

"Any more activity on that Jenner?" Draper's voice asked, shaking Max back to the present.

"Still prairie dogging in and out of the doorway."

"Anyone have a sighting on the one in the south building."

Another soldier said, "I got him. Let me know when we are green."

A shot rang out and a bullet ricocheted between the four black packs sitting on the runway. Everyone seemed reluctant to grab them. 'That can't be good.' thought Max, wondering what would happen if one of the backpacks were hit. He had these thoughts from where he lay on the ground next to Stewart, who gave him a quick thumbs up and a smile.

"Green, fire at will." shots rang out from the surrounding men, they fired not only on the two super zombies, but also on the oncoming shamblers.

"There dead Draper." Max said, as the two super zombies faded out of his view.

Draper nodded and said, "Main threat eliminated. Red team move forward on house cleaning duty. Blue back them up. Green grab the tick tacks and act as reserve." The man turned to Bill and said, "Get up Lieutenant and have one of your men grab the pack, follow us in, but not too close."

Bill had received a field promotion to second lieutenant and Ruben to "Warrant Officer One" whatever that meant. Ruben seemed proud, even if he wryly gave the opinion that it was a pre-posthumous promotion. Max and Stewart were left in limbo, officially being drafted by special order of the acting government, but not given any rank. Draper referred to them as specialists or advisors.

"Javier, Ruben, keep Max and Stewart out of trouble. I'll get the nuke." he reached back and took a hold of the pack by the handle on the top.

"Geez L-T, the grunts are supposed to do the grunt work." Ruben mock complained, "If you do it they will get soft and lazy."

"I think we'll all have a chance to lug this thing around, the sooner I get my six hours in, the sooner someone else can carry it."

"Ah, I see your plan. You'll carry it when you are fresh and hand it off after we've humped five hundred miles and are tired. Then point out you've already done your share."

"Something like that sergeant."

"Warrant Officer." Ruben corrected him, "It sucks that we have to go by ground from here."

"Tell me about it." They all knew why they had to walk or take ground transportation from this point on, aircraft were disappearing if they flew further east.

Where they had been dropped off was as close as the pilot could get safely. There had been reports by some scattered National Guard units of planes being shot out of the sky by missiles from the ground and a few, more chilling accounts, of actual fighter jets engaging anything the living sent eastward. 'Zombies in planes, can it get much worse than that?' thought Bill. They had already seen the tactic used near Chicago, with a smart zombies killing and bringing back troops and setting them to work with their military hardware and expertise.

There were a few zombies left in the building and Draper's men quickly and efficiently cleared it room by room, calling out information as they did so. Max couldn't help being a little smug that the special forces troops had missed one, but he tried not to show it when he directed them to a locked basement room. The door had been locked from the inside and the lone man in a mechanic's uniform looked almost unwounded before the riflemen put him down for good. As soon as the building was cleared they gathered in the foyer of the main building to discuss their next steps.

It turned out they needed the man in the basement too, the keys in his pockets matched up to a Ford F-150 series truck that was high on the list of vehicles the teams wanted to take. Draper, his second in command, Bill and Stewart were looking over the keys they gathered for the vehicles parked outside. There was not a huge selection to divide up between the two groups, but there were a few choice vehicles both sides wanted.

"Let us take the pickup, it's four wheel drive, extended cab and suits our team better because it's smaller. You can take the H-2." Stewart said.

"The H-2 is a civilian model, the F-150 is the best out there, in fact I would put the older pickup ahead of the H-2, and that older SUV, what's it? The Relay? That might be a better bet in the long run. It gets better gas mileage than the other vehicles so it has extended range."

"Oh come off it, I know you want both the H-2 and the F-150, don't try to pawn of some piece of shit Relay on us with the 'gets better mileage' card!"

Draper smiled and sighed, "Really this conversation is between the lieutenant and I."

"Don't haul me into it, I like the Ford too." Bill said.

"You mentioned 'card'?" asked Draper moving over to the small counter, there were decks of sealed cards there, along with some small flashlights and novelty magnets, all with the airports name and logo on them. "Maybe we should let chance settle this?" He unwrapped a deck and started shuffling.

Stewart looked at him, "Poker? Or do we do this like adults and just go with 'high card'?"

"We don't have time for a Texas hold 'em tournament, so high card. Max", Draper said, calling the man over, "Come shuffle this and hold while we draw."

Max came over and shuffled the cards seven times then offered the deck to Draper to cut, the man's huge hand dwarfed the cards and he went deep. Max set the deck down on the counter and stepped back.

"You first." Stewart said.

"Cutter doesn't draw first." Draper said with authority.

"Fine. Bill draw one." Stewart said as Draper swore softly.

"Me? Why me?"

"I've heard you're lucky."

"Hold on there a second, you don't want to use his luck up on getting a vehicle, for all you know there could be a better car two miles down the road than anything sitting in the lot out there." Draper said.

"A good truck will get us closer to our goal faster, it's worth using his luck up for this. Go for it Bill."

Ruben chuckled from the side of the room, "Will someone just do something? I don't have many years left and I can feel them slipping away from me."

"Fine. Bill can draw, but I will take first pull."

"Fair enough."

Draper reached out and took the first card off the top of the deck looked at it then smiled and flipped it over, it was the ace of hearts.

"Goddammit." swore Stewart.

Bill pulled the next card and flipped it without looking first. The ace of spades.

Draper scowled and threw the Ford's key onto the counter while Stewart let out a whoop and started laughing.

"Don't worry Colonel, you'll probably find a better car a few miles down the road!"

"No one likes a gloater. C'mon men, let's get those vehicles ready to go."

"Did I win?" asked Bill.

"Yes Bill, you won. Let's go make sure they fill our truck up too."

Everyone filed out of the building into the parking lot where they helped siphon fuel out of the cars they were not taking and transferred it to the ones they were. The fuel was transferred and the vehicles were loaded up within half an hour, which left at least two hours of travel time. Draper and his three vehicles were heading north on highway seventy five, Max was heading south.

The choice of Madison Airport was closer to Washington than to northern Florida, but highway seventy five was the main road into Florida, all they had to do was follow the road outside the airport south and they would, hopefully, get close enough for Max to pick up the location of the man he was looking for. Draper was tight lipped about where, exactly, his crew was going. Only stating it was around 'D.C.'.

Once the vehicles were loaded the two teams stood around looking at each other, each debating how to say good bye to people they didn't really like, but would still miss. Finally Draper said, "Well, good luck." and stuck out his hand.

Bill shook it first and returned his good wishes. Stewart gave Draper a nod and a handshake as well and then the Colonel turned to Max.

"I am sorry about the first time. I hope you find what you are looking for…and kill it."

Smiling and nodding Max replied, "Good luck to you too Colonel, I hope you find what you are looking for and that it is still alive to save."

Max never saw Draper again.

Chapter 12 — Katie

They lost Samantha at the 'Farm and Fleet'. Katie was inside and the girl had gone in with her to watch the door while the rest of the group kept watch in the parking lot. Katie wanted some better equipment, and a new rifle, if they carried firearms. Samantha was hit from the side by a super zombie and screamed as it pulled her back into the feed section and tore her apart.

Katie went after the zombie, firing at it, but it was the 'Flash' of super zombies and always seemed to be a step ahead of her. She finally had it corned when it did the unexpected and tossed Sam into her as she fired on it. The girl's body slammed into her head and shoulders with her torn apart stomach drenching Katie even as she was forced to the ground. Katie thought she was dead then, but the others had rushed into the building and the super zombie fled rather than face their combined firepower.

Her four saviors had gone insane with grief when they saw what had happened. Sam was, after all, their daughter. Something seemed to snap inside Robert and he stared at the young woman and started to cry uncontrollably. It was Kent who put Sam down when she revived a minute later. Katie was drenched in blood, looking worse than she had even after coming to in the ruins of the office building in Chicago. She let the family grieve and went searching for new clothing in the store. Katie used bottled water from the small food section to get the blood off of her and stripped naked and tossed every single bit of clothing she had, it was all ruined and why do laundry when there was a world full of clothing free for the taking?

She felt dirty and sick to her stomach; mostly she wanted to get away to somewhere that zombies wouldn't get her. 'And where would that be dearie?' She asked herself, 'Heaven? North Dakota? An island in the Bahamas? There is nowhere safe anymore. So get your shit together!'

This last thought was delivered in her mind in a voice very similar to Randy's. Katie was staring at her clothing lying on the ground in the center of the aisle when she heard a throat clear behind her. She glanced back and saw Kent in the dim light. He was looking away from her nakedness towards the front door. 'Maybe he is only half gay.'

"Sorry, I didn't…I didn't expect you'd be naked. I guess it is….well I guess I would take my clothing off too, if it had happened to me. We want to get out of here."

"Sure, go ahead."

"We'll wait for you."

"No, go on. I wouldn't want to travel with the guy who let my daughter get killed."

"We'll wait for you." Kent said, turning and shuffling away.

Katie wanted to scream. She wanted to cry, to run after him and give him a hug…she wanted to feel something, anything. 'I don't even have tears anymore. Not even for this.' She pulled another gallon jug off the shelf, popped the cap up and dumped it over her head. 'I'll never be clean again.'

Fifteen minutes later she cautiously came out of the store. She hadn't seen anyone from the family inside as she gathered new clothing and a backpack to stuff supplies into. The store didn't sell firearms, but it did sell bullets, including more shells for her shotgun. She put four boxes into her pack, each weighed about two pounds, but the weight was comforting. She had also found some special packs of Winchester Military Grade #00 buckshot loads, there were only four packages of this ammunition, touted as being for 'home defense', but she was not going to pass it up. The #00 boxes only had five shells in each of them, compared to the twenty five round in each of the other four boxes.

It was known as 'Manstopper' ammunition in the military, because any man you hit with it; stopped. Katie still would have preferred a simple thirty ought six rifle to the shotgun, but being fully loaded did make her feel better. The others were waiting for her when she made it to the parking lot.

"You waited for me."

"I told you we would. Can we clear out of here now?"

"Where are you headed?" Katie asked. They all had backpacks and gear.

"We thought we either go east or south. We want to end up in Florida for the winter, without heat Illinois gets too damned cold. You?"

The simple one word question stopped Katie, 'Where do I want to go? I've got nowhere left.'

"You okay?" Robert asked.

"Just thinking. I didn't really have a plan, just to get away from the zombies. Or to kill them all." she said without smiling.

"All by yourself?" Kent asked with a touch of humor tingeing his voice, "That's a tall order."

Katie scowled, "I hate them."

"That's a sentiment I can agree with." Robert said, "But there are too many of them. Even if we each kill a hundred there will be millions left."

"I've already bagged more than that." Katie said.

"Are you joking?"

"No. Are we walking?"

"Unless you have a car?"

"I have a car, it's on the side of the road over there." she said, pointing towards the highway, "I ran out of gas."

"Shoot. Do you know how to siphon gas?"

"Never learned how."

"Us either. I think we would need a tube or something."

"It would probably be easier to find another car. Maybe in those houses?" Katie said pointed across a field to a development.

"Alright we'll try there first." Robert said. They set off across the street and then towards a housing development that looked recently built because none of the trees were fully grown yet.

"So, was the highway bad?" asked Kent, more to break the silence than anything else.

"Better than I thought it would be. There are wrecks, but you can see them a long way off. I came down here from Chicago this morning, it took about three hours."

"That is about twice as long as normal, we decided to hike out this morning, a…zombie, it tried to get in last night. One of the smart ones. Rob was a hunter as a kid and inherited his father's guns a few years ago, not to mention he had one of his own. We shot at it, but I don't think we hit it. Today we decided to bug out, before it came back with friends."

"No car?"

Robert shook his head, "We had one, but it was in the shop, we sold the Subaru last year when things got so tight and Kent got laid off."

"Bad timing."

"We headed to the shop first, it was about a mile away. I was hoping to find the minivan in the lot, all repaired and ready to go, but it was still on the lift torn apart. Even if I knew how to put it together again I couldn't have gotten it down without power. So we just kept walking."

Katie didn't say anything, for a few minutes. Kent cleared his throat and asked, "What about you? What were you doing in Chicago?"

'I knew they would ask.' Out loud she answered him, "Shooting zombies."

"Were there a lot of them up there?"

"More than I had bullets for. I got treed on top of a building then artillery shells started coming down on me."

"Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time!" Kent said.

"No."

"No?" asked Kent puzzled.

"I called the artillery strike down on the building."

"You did?"

"I was a sniper, the zombies were coming. I didn't expect to wake up again."

"But…but that means the Army is active! There are people we can go to who will help protect us! We should head north!"

Katie shook her head slowly from side to side, the group had all stopped and were looking at her. "No. No one is going to save us. They all died, the zombies won."

"Are you sure?"

Staring at the fields north of them, Katie nodded curtly, "Yes, I am sure." then she turned and headed towards the houses again.

Chapter 13 — Max

Heading down highway seventy five was a lot less hectic than Max would have imagined. There were a few wrecks but they had seen no one in the first two hours of travel, which is as long as they had planned to go that afternoon.

"About a half an hour before sunset. Let's find a place and hole up for the night." Stewart said.

"In Jellico?" asked Max.

"In the outskirts."

"How far did we get?"

"About seventy five miles."

"Not too bad for two hours."

"At this rate we'll be home for Halloween, yeah."

They drove in silence until they approached the next exit, when Max said, "Sweet a 'Days Inn', that will be perfect. Or do you want to stay at the 'Best Value'?"

"The Days Inn is closer to the highway, we'll stay there." said Steward, "Any zeds for us to worry about?"

Max concentrated, nodded, "Both hotels have some, the ones in the Days Inn look strong, but not quite at the Einstein level, what did Drapers guy call them?"

"The not quite super? A 'Jenner', I think."

"Makes sense they can move as fast as us, but aren't all freaky strong. Yeah a few Jenners in the Days Inn, I think there is an actual Super in the Best Value. So I bet we end up fighting them all before the night is out."

"How many in town?" asked Bill.

Max concentrated for another moment as Stewart pulled into the parking lot in front of the hotel. "Quite a few. Thousands, with a few Jenners and Supers scattered around."

Stewart stopped the truck and then said, "Okay, listen you guys, we need to get some stuff cleared up here, is an Einstein a Super, is a Jenner? And what about the ones that go beyond Einstein, or is Einstein the top? I am all about threat assessment here, but we need to be using the same dictionary for definitions."

"Shambler, Jenner, Einstein, Super." Bill said, "With 'Zed' as a term to describe them all, much like 'zombie'."

"It kinda puts Einstein down, with him not on top like that." said Ruben, "He was the smartest man ever, shouldn't we respect his memory a little more?"

Stewart snorted, "Smartest man ever? Have you read about his personal life? I would say he was the smartest Physicist ever, but Hawking has advanced the field too."

"I am not calling the smart ones 'Hawking'." said Max.

Turning to him Stewart said, "Oh I am not proposing that. Einstein came first he gets to be top dog, as far as I am concerned, but these…" Stewart waved her hands at the hotel, "creatures…the smartest ones, go beyond Einstein. I like Bill's order, it will help us know what you see Max and help us meet the threat better."

"I suppose. They are on the move now. If I had to guess the super in the Best Value is the controller, these Jenners are just following his lead." said Max.

"How much time do we have?" asked Bill.

The windshield cracked as a body landed on it where it met the hood of the truck. Startled, Stewart, let her foot off the gas and the truck jerked forward and stalling the engine before she could recover.

"God damn it!" swore Stewart.

"They're here." Max said belatedly.

"Shit." Javier said, "Which way do we go, Lieutenant?"

"Max?"

"Out the driver's side, there are guys in the building, about ten, uh, Jenners, with two Einsteins coming from the passenger side and they have guns."

Stewart paused, to look at Max, "Your power has gotten better if you can see what they are carrying."

"No, I…" gunfire exploded a second before the windows on the passenger side were shot in. Max tumbled out of the driver's side door, pushing Stewart with him, while the other three scrambled out the back. Composing himself, Max fired at a shambler coming out of one of the windows, then said, "I can't see the guns with my mind, I saw the zombies and they had guns."

"Gotcha." Stewart looked at the front of the truck, there was a body on the hood, it had hit the bottom of the windshield and was twitching slightly. She put a bullet through its head and then popped up to take a shot at the two zombies who were making their way through the parking lot towards them.

"One is inside moving fast down the hall. The others are coming over from the other hotel now too."

"How many?" asked Bill.

"A couple of dozen here, another dozen from the other hotel. Most are shamblers."

Their truck rocked as something hit it, a zombie with a pistol leaned over the edge of a nearby vehicle. Before he could aim and fire, he was hit by the combine fire of Stewart, Ruben and Javier. The things black haired head was thrown back riddled with holes onto the top of the vehicle.

"That is what I call ventilation!" Javier said.

Max looked at Bill and couldn't help but smile. "What?" The older man asked him, frowning.

"Nothing, I was just thinking that this isn't Chicago. These guys don't know what they are dealing with. We'll be okay." Turning Max aimed at a drape filled window and waited, a moment later he fired and the Einstein inside clawed its face and fell back into the room.

"If you say so."

"Quit your jabbering and start shooting!" yelled Stewart.

Max went prone and pointed his shotgun underneath the vehicle, aiming for the leg of one of the remaining zombies with a gun. He fired and the zombie was thrown off balance and out of cover, where he was shot by Javier, who muttered, "Ventilated." before switching to a new target.

"More coming behind us!" Max yelled.

"Fast or slow?"

"Jenners followed by shamblers, I think the super is lagging behind…moving to the back of this place."

"I'll take Javier and we'll watch your asses, if you guys can keep an eye on this?" Ruben said, shifting his shotgun to point behind them, "I don't suppose you can tell if they have guns?"

Max shook his head, "Nope. Don't go too far!"

Ruben shrugged his shoulders and pointed at Bill, "I follow his orders, but I won't get far, I'm an old man!" Ruben and Javier took off towards the west end of the building. They arrived in time for Ruben to shoot a teenage zombie girl who ran around the side of the building as quiet as the night is black. The girl tumbled head over heels and Max watched her body fade to black before she ever hit the ground.

Javier let loose with a barrage of gunfire that cut the next two runners off at the knees, they skidded to a tumbled heap a few yards in front of Ruben and he fired at one, killing it again before it could scurry behind a nearby car. Both Ruben and Javier ducked for cover when one of the zombies fired a gun back at them. Max couldn't be certain, but it sounded like the sharp retort of a pistol, dangerous but not as bad as facing a shotgun or rifle. Hopefully these zombies would be poor marksmen like the others they had encountered on their journey so far. Max was not accurate either, but he had the advantage of knowing where the enemies were.

He rolled to one side and took cover behind the rear tire of the pickup. He then aimed where he thought the zombie was on the other side of the car and fired. The shotgun didn't have the power to go through the vehicle completely but he was hoping to spook it into raising its head or running for better cover. The one behind this vehicle was too smart for either of those tactics, in fact all of the above average zombies, those that Max could sense with a 'light blue' sort of color, were holding their position. 'What are they waiting for?' thought Max, 'Ah, shamblers and their friends in the hotel.' Out loud he said, "We might have a problem."

"What?" asked Stewart who fired at a shambler coming out from the lobby door. The shambler went down and the entrance door behind it shattered into a million jagged slivers of glass.

"It's not dead."

"Thanks, what's the problem?"

"Some of the faster ones are moving up to the second story of the hotel."

"They probably have guns." Bill guessed.

"That'd be my bet. What do we do?"

So far no gunfire was being directed at them, the only activity was between Ruben and Javier and some zombie out of Max's line of sight around the corner of the hotel.

"We won't have any cover here, we need to move away from the front of the building so they can't fire directly down on top of us."

"Now?" asked Stewart.

"Before they start firing on us, yeah. Unless you wanna get pinned under the truck?"

"I'll go first. I will get to that line of cars and the ditch between here and the road. Once I get into place I will cover you if someone starts firing." said Stewart.

"Perfect. I am going to run over to Ruben then we will join you at the ditch. I sure wish we had been given a case or two of hand grenades, they might've been useful after all." The group had debated the usefulness of the small explosives versus their weight and discarded carrying even a small supply because the shrapnel generally didn't kill the zombies they hit.

"Yeah stupid us." With that Stewart rose from her crouched position and ran across the parking lot towards the ditch.

A moment later Bill ran toward Ruben and Javier, when he was within twenty feet of them he yelled, "Get to the ditch, we got Jenners with guns on the second floor of the hotel!" then he too veered to the ditch that ran between the highway and the parking lot.

Ruben stared at Bill momentarily, then at Max as he broke and ran to the ditch. Gunfire blew out a window on the second floor as a zombie there open fired. Javier took one last shot at the zombie who had been trading fire with them and announced, "Got him sarg! Let's go!"

Ruben, however, didn't move, he mouthed the words, 'What the fuck' while he stared at Max high tailing away from the truck. The truck where their gear was. The truck where the nuclear bomb was sitting, left by everyone as they fled.

Chapter 14 — Katie

'How did they fucking survive so long?' Katie asked herself. The grieving half of the duo, Robert, had wandered into a zombie almost as soon as they made it into the housing development. Kent and Katie were walking ahead of the other three, who were still crying and in shock, when the zombie lurched out of an open garage and surprised the man. When the zombie bit into Robert he decided it was time to fight. By then, however, it was too late, he was already infected. His daughter, Jess, clubbed the zombie in the head, hitting it so hard she bent the barrel of her rifle. That hadn't saved Robert though. The four of them gathered around the sobbing man as his blood spurted out onto the driveway and made a rivulet down to the gutter.

Katie backed off and watched for more activity while the others bandaged the man up and tried to get him to his feet. He ignored them and sobbed. "They took our baby Kent! Our little Sammy!"

Kent bent over and hugged Robert, "I know Rob, I know. But we have other kids to live for, other kids to help, we have to move on, get them safe, we have to. C'mon, get up. We can't stay here."

"I can't go. You know I can't go with you. Not with this!" he held up his bandaged arm, the white gauze was already drenched in bright red blood.

"You are not dead, we'll find someone to take care of you, we'll get it…" Kent's voice trailed off and he too started to sob.

The crying was painful to Katie's ears, she had compartmentalized her grief at losing Randy, put it away in a small little room buried deep within her brain. She had locked the door and turned the painful, numbing grief that threatened to destroy her into a cold anger for revenge. She would go through what Robert was suffering….but later, not now. A single tear appeared at the corner of her eye and she wiped it away angrily, turning before the group behind her could see her weakness.

"What do we do?" Kent's voice asked her, "What do we do?" he repeated when she didn't answer him. "Hey, military woman! I am talking to you! What can we do?"

Katie looked at Kent, then at the blood, which continued to drop out of Robert's arm. She then looked up and down the street, not seeing any activity she crouched down and set her gun on the ground, pointed towards the bleeding man.

"He is bleeding a lot. Maybe he bled out the infection."

"You don't sound very convincing." Kent said.

"You want convincing? What do you expect? He got bit, he is going to die. He is going to come back as one of them, same as Sam. I am not a doctor." she pointed at Robert and shrugged, "He bled a lot, maybe the infection didn't get inside him, like it did with my partner. Maybe he will recover. If he doesn't bleed to death."

"I can feel it in me." Robert said through his sob.

"That's blood loss, I doubt you feel the infection." Katie said. Her voice was doubtful though, she recalled Randy saying the same thing.

"You've seen this before." Kent accused.

Katie nodded.

"What did you try?"

"There wasn't much to try, we washed him up real good, we had antibiotics, we had bandages, and we were in the field. He died." Katie looked away 'What the fuck does he want from me?'

"Shoot me."

"Shut up, Robert, you don't know what you are saying."

"No, you shoot me, Kent. I would do it for you."

"You aren't even dead! You're being unreasonable."

"I can't do it myself. I am not that strong."

"How could you ask me to do that? I wouldn't ask you to do it! Not while there is a chance."

"You heard her!" Robert screamed, "There is no chance!"

"We don't even know who she is, she could be lying."

Katie shrugged, this little gathering reminded her of her own family all too much, the constant bickering, leading to screaming, then someone yelling at someone else to kill them. She smiled bitterly at her dark sense of humor, Randy would have got it. The two men continued to argue until Katie got tired of it, she picked up her shotgun, stood up and walked across the street.

"Where are you going?" Robert yelled when he saw her walking away.

"Over there." Katie said without looking back while as she pointed to the house in front of her. It was a home just like any other on the block, except it was all buttoned up. She hoped that meant there was a car in the garage and keys somewhere inside.

"You can't leave us!" Robert said.

Katie half turned and answered over her shoulder, "I'm not. I'm just going into the house. When you get done calling every zombie around us down on our heads, I will come back out." muttering under her breath she continued, "Or I will just drive away in a nice Suburban by myself."

The kids looked embarrassed and torn, half wanting to go with Katie, half wanting their dads to stop bickering. Family loyalty won out and they stayed in the street to watch the two men argue. Katie approached the door and banged on it, calling out, "Anybody alive in there?" She waited a full count of sixty, then banged again, "I am coming in, if you are in there and don't want your door broken down, you have about ten seconds to open up." Nothing. Katie turned sideways and slammed into the door, it only took two tries to break the frame holding it shut.

'Surprising, how easy it is to break into a house if you don't care that other people can see the damage.' Inside the shades were drawn shut, with only a little light seeping into the front room from the kitchen.

A smell of decay wafted passed her as Katie stood in the doorway. In the street the argument was reaching a new height. 'Decay means dead-dead, not living dead.' thinking this to herself she shut the door as well as she could behind her and scanned the room. There weren't any bodies lying around, or moving either. 'Upstairs, in the bedrooms. I bet you five Randy, that is where I find the family, all suicided.'

She took the stairs two at a time as fast as she could, just in case there was a smart zombie lying in wait. The stairway opened into a loft like area that overlooked the main room, there was a bathroom directly in front of her, two open doors down a short hallway to her left and a closed door that screamed 'Master Bedroom' across the loft room to her right. The door was ornate and oak. Not good, hundred year old oak, but the newer faux oak door that was lightweight, yet still cost a few hundred more than standard doors and looked nice.

"I could just leave it. I know what is in there. Dead people. I don't have to go in." Katie said out loud. She put her hand on the doorknob, or latch rather, it looked and felt like some sort of brushed nickel. 'Nice.'

It was also locked. Pressing her ear to the side of the door she listed for a moment, but only heard faint yelling from the street. With a heavy sigh she shouldered this door too, breaking a chunk out of the frame on the first hit. The stench of rotted flesh rolled over her, but the room was pitch black. Katie backpedaled and crouched down pulling her pack around to the front of her to get her flashlight.

Nothing came crawling out of the black doorway. Katie left her pack on the floor and turned on her light, the beam was almost painfully bright. From her position outside the door Katie could see a set of feet lying on the carpeting, the rest of the person was out of sight behind the bed. What she could see of the body gave her the impression it belonged to a corpse, not a zombie. The feet were gray and swollen; the flesh of the ankles was tightly bound by the cuffs of a pair of men's sleepwear pajamas.

Before she stepped in Katie moved to the far right side of the door, the angle gave her a better view of the rest of the room as she approached. She knew she had to go in, if the couple had car keys they would be in here, not someplace sensible, like the kitchen. 'That is how my luck runs. I kinda hope I am right, otherwise I am going through a whole lotta gross for nothing!'

It was a family of five, the wife and children were tucked into the king sized bed, the man lay on the floor beside them. Katie's eyes were drawn to the rifle the man had, a thirty ought six. 'Respectable, maybe he was a hunter.'

She reached down and picked up the rifle, which had fallen beside the man and was out of the bloated rot of his remains, as she was bent over she heard a faint sound, as if someone were continuously squeezing water out of a sponge. 'Maggots.'

Even as sealed up as the house was, flies had gotten in. 'I don't even see any flies around, but I can hear their babies in the bodies.' Standing with the gun, she looked around for any ammunition and spotted a case on the desk, next to a set of keys. 'Bingo!' Katie grabbed the ammo and the keys and run out of the room.

In the loft room she let out a breath she hadn't realized she had been holding and pulled the door shut behind her, it didn't stay closed, but only crept open a few inches. 'Fuck it, I am not staying here anyway.'

She turned off her light and tucked it and the rifle ammunition into her pack. The keys went into her front pocket. By the time Katie was downstairs Kent had dragged Robert up the sidewalk to the door. Jess hesitantly swung the front door open, using the barrel of her gun instead of her hand. Katie paused on the stairs to wait for them to come in.

"It's okay, there aren't any zombies in here, just dead people." she said.

"Okay. It's dark. And smells bad."

"I didn't say the house was empty. The family committed suicide, it's a mess, you'll want to stay out of the master bedroom."

Robert and Kent continued to bicker, but at least the wounded man was walking, albeit with one arm around his spouse's shoulders. The boy, Bobby, brought up the rear, pointing the gun he had taken off of his dead sister behind him as he came in.

"Did you draw their attention?"

"Yeah." Bobby said.

"That's what got those two moving huh?" asked Katie as Kent dragged Robert into the bathroom on the ground level against his wishes.

"Uh-huh." Bobby hesitated, then asked, "Is my dad really going to die."

Katie held his gaze for a moment, then Bobby flushed and she asked, "How many zombies are out there?"

"I saw eight." said Jess quietly.

"Or nine." Bobby added, "More were coming."

"Yeah, noise seems to draw them. It's not the only thing though. I had good luck sleeping below ground once, which seemed to throw them off. What is the plan?" as soon as she asked Katie silently cursed herself, the kids would not know. True to expectation they shrugged.

"Get my dad to a hospital." Bobby said.

Katie shook her head, "No. Every brother and his dad brought their relatives who got bitten to the hospital; they are probably Zed central now. Not worth the risk. Besides there aren't any doctors there now."

"We can't just let him die!"

"We aren't letting him do anything. We didn't do this. I want to have some compassion for you, but I just…can't. I just can't. I'm sorry." Katie pointed to the kitchen, "Go see if they have any food we want. You, Jess, find a bowl and try to pour water into it from the tap, but find the bowl first. If the water is off a little might drain out and I bet your dads will want it to help get cleaned up."

Their dads did want it and more water too. Katie eventually had to go upstairs and raid the toilet bowl tank for more, but not before she and Bobby moved a heavy leather couch in front of the broken front door. As the men cleaned up Robert's bitten arm Katie eyed the glass patio doors nervously. So far no zombies had appeared in the back yard and only a couple were banging on the front door, but zombies doing something interesting tended to draw more zombies, like some sort of weird zombie herd mentality.

"Kent, we need to leave or I need to do something about those zeds out front. They will draw more of a crowd."

"We aren't ready. He is still bleeding badly." Kent said, pouring a bottle of hydrogen peroxide he had found in the linen closet over Robert's still bleeding avulsion.

"I'll take care of it then." Katie looked around the kitchen; she found what she wanted in the pantry closet, a box of recyclables, which included some empty two liter bottles.

"Watch that door Jess! I'll be back in a couple of minutes. Bobby you keep an eye on the back door. If either of you sees anything, yell. I am going into the garage, but will keep the door to the house open."

Katie took her flashlight with her and after a few minutes searching she found a healthy roll of duct tape, barely used. Nothing had gone super nova in the few minutes she was gone, but both kids seemed glad to see her. 'That's me, Katie; Idol to the disgruntled youth of the mid-west.'

She set the duct tape and empty bottle on the counter then picked up her new rifle. She had already checked it over while Kent was cleaning up Robert. It was not an heirloom; the thing was new, brand new; if it had been fired more than fifty times Katie would cut off her right tit. However, there was no one she cared to make that bet with now. She placed the rifle on the island counter top and fitted the empty bottle over the barrel. Using the duct tape she bound the bottle to the rifle barrel, then taped a spiral along the sides of the bottle and over its bottom. By the time she was done the bottle was pointed as straight out from the barrel as she could make it and though it sagged slightly.

"What are you doing?" asked Jess.

'Inquisitive youth, maybe she could learn to be worth something.' Katie answered her as if she were a younger soldier asking her for information, "I am taping this bottle to the barrel of the rifle, then I am going to shoot a couple of those persistent zombies in the head. The bottle will help deaden the noise when I fire the rifle by capturing the escaping gas from the bullet. It is not perfect, it won't be totally silent, but I doubt anything will hear it from even a block away."

"Oh, so others won't hear it. That looks simple."

"It is, and effective, but not perfect. After about three shots it is even less effective, and you either need to duct tape up the holes in the bottom." Katie pointed to the bottom of the bottle where the bullets would go through it, "Or get a new bottle. If you tape over the bottom like this it should prevent the plastic from shattering, but it could tear the bottle off the gun barrel too."

"Are you really are a sniper?"

"A markswoman, I have the same training, use the same equipment and test against the same targets as snipers."

"Why aren't you called a sniper?"

"Sexism. It's better than it was, but the army still tends to regulate women to support roles. You can get around anything if you try hard enough. Or have the skills."

"When did you go to the army?"

"Jess, now isn't the time. You and Bobby, get your guns, set them on the couch, then move the couch back about six inches, that should be enough for me to get this through the crack and cap a few of them. As soon as you put the couch down pick up your guns, but do not fire unless I tell you to or things really get out of hand."

"Out of hand?" asked Bobby, "What does that mean?"

"You'll know it when you see it."

Chapter 15 — Max

"Where the fuck is the old man going?" yelled Stewart as she took cover in the ditch.

"Huh?" grunted Max, landing beside her.

"Ruben, he's running for the truck! Oh gawd damn it, he's going for the nuke!" Stewart raised her voice and yelled out at Ruben, who was taking fire from an upper story of the hotel, "Leave it old man! We'll get it after we clean up this mess!" She started to rise out of the ditch, but several tuffs of grass flew up in front of her. Max realized it was from bullets striking the turf around them.

"Fire! Get some bullets back at them! Max locate that shooter!" yelled Bill as his friend sunk lower in the ditch. Even Stewart, no coward had fallen back from the barrage.

Max raised his shotgun and fired blindly, hitting nothing but air. He fired again without raising his body above the level of the ditch. Stewart looked at him, and shook her head, "What is that? Blind firing? You think you will hit anything with that?"

Max shrugged as more bullets threw up debris in the parking lot. Bill cautiously rose up and let off a three bullet burst with his rifle, "Max! I need you! Javier, c'mon and get up guys, if we don't we are gonna get mobbed!"

"This was a bad idea. We should have moved on to the next exit." Max muttered, rising above the edge of the ditch.

"Too late now, we gonna save Ruben's wrinkly old ass or not?" Stewart asked.

Max nodded, reloaded his shotgun and rose when Stewart did above the lip of the ditch. Unlike Stewart, he had a good idea where the zombies were, though he didn't know which of them had guns. Max fired at the closest zombie and hit it just above the knee. He watched as the creature rolled into a somersault along the parking lot before coming to a rest up against the back of a dust covered Ford Escape. The 'jenner' quickly scurried around the car and Max had to switch targets as more zombies appeared. Stewart fired and brought down a zombie shooting at them through a hotel window on the second floor.

Ruben was in the back of the truck and lifted the back pack up out of the bed, however he was surrounded by shamblers. Dropping the pack at his feet he brought his shotgun up and gut shot two of the zeds as others grabbed him from behind.

"Ruben!" screamed Javier, who was up on one knee firing as close to the other man as he dared. The old man paused for a second, looking back at them, for a brief, calm moment the world stopped. Then the dead engulfed him in a wave and pulled him through the shattered doors of the hotel.

"Damn it! After him!" Bill yelled climbing out of the ditch. Bill made it up to the top when he jerked backwards, like a dog running full tilt that comes to the end of his leash. He fell onto his back on the grass and slid down to the bottom of the ditch, with his head coming to rest in the murky, standing water left over from the last rainfall.

"Bill!" Max yelled stepping behind Stewart to go to his friend. More bullets splattered the pavement around Stewart and Javier, who were forced to duck behind the few cars in the hotel parking lot. Max could hear them returning fire and yelling his name as he skidded down the grassy bank to Bill's side.

His friend was dead. Max saw a lifetime of events leading up to this moment; the trouble they had gotten into as teenagers, but somehow survived. Images flashed through Max's head in seconds: Bill at Max's wedding; Max at Bill's. Playing football with the kids on the lawn in their tuxedos. Playing 'hot lava' in the park as boys themselves, making their way from one side of the playground to the other while avoiding touching the ground. Teaching the same game to their own children when they were parents. It was all coming to an end, here in some shitty little zombie infested town because Max had let it happen. Tears sprang to his eyes as he reached for his friend.

Meanwhile Stewart looked over at Javier who was pinned behind a red convertible a couple of parking spaces over. She grinned and asked, "You okay?"

The young man nodded and said, "They took Ruben, he was still alive. We gotta go get 'em"

"Max! Goddamnit Max!" Stewart pivoted back to Javier, "I don't know if we can do this alone."

The gunfire stopped abruptly. Stewart and Javier looked at each other, both had enough experience with the zombies to know what such a coordinated action meant; there was a super zombie close by sending his troops orders.

"Max!" hissed Stewart, "We need you!"

In the ditch Max grabbed Bill by the shoulders and pulled his body around until his head was higher up on the slope and out of the water. His friend's face was pale and he didn't appear to be breathing. Max concentrated and shifted his vision to see if Bill were still alive. Relief flooded through him as he saw the colorful pattern he associated with living humans settle over Bill's frame.

"Bill! Talk to me buddy!" Max said, looking him over. There was a huge divot out of Bill's army helmet a few inches above the man's left eye. The furrow torn into the kelvar went deep into the helmet and Max released the straps under Bill's chin to check and see if the bullet had penetrated. Bill's skin was already turning a faint bluish color where he was bruised. The helmet had done its job and the bullet had not passed through it.

Bill's eyes fluttered and he looked up at Max, "What happened?"

"You got shot buddy."

"How bad? Don't lie to me Max."

"You got lucky. It hit the top of your helmet at an angle and didn't go through."

"Then why are you crying?"

"Tears of joy my friend, tears of joy." Max leaned over and hugged the man awkwardly on the ground where he lay. The gunfire suddenly stopped and both men became aware of the silence as Max pulled himself up. They heard Stewart's sharp hiss as she called Max's name and he responded to her, "I'm here, what?"

"Get your ass up here, we need to know where the super is, all the zeds stopped firing at once!"

"You okay?" Max asked Bill.

"Go on, let me clear my head a bit."

"I'm coming Stewart." said Max crawling up the hill on his hands and knees. No one fired at him as he crested the hill and he saw that Stewart and Javier were taking cover, while they peeped out trying to keep an eye on the receding mass of zombies.

"I thought you said there were only a few?" Stewart asked accusingly.

"I told you there were this many. They were just scattered about, I didn't spot the super…"

"Where is he?"

Max looked for the leader, it only took him a moment to find the almost human signature in the 'Best Value Inn', "He's over there." Max pointed. "I think he is on the second floor, near this end, probably looking out at us right now."

Stewart raised her middle finger above the level of the car's hood and waved it back and forth. A single gunshot broke the silence, striking the back door of the sedan she was hiding behind. Stewart quickly pulled her arm down.

"Yep, he's watching." said Max taking cover further down the ditch.

"Is it a 'he'?" she asked.

Max shrugged, "I don't really know, does it matter? Ruben is in the Day's Inn. I think I got a bead on the one that shot at you. He is over on the Best Value roof."

"You sure?"

"Pretty sure."

"You can see guns now?"

"No, but I saw a flash from that direction when it fired at you and I know there are zombies on the roof there."

"What about our hotel, is Ruben….alive?" asked Javier.

Max frowned, "Yeah, he is. I don't know if he is infected, but he is alive, they have him up on the second story there too, only at the east end of the hotel. There are a couple, uh, well if not supers, maybe 'Einsteins'? So those two are holding him and there are a few shambling types in the corridor outside the room they have him in. Plus, most of the shamblers are on the ground floor of the hotel now."

"Why aren't they mobbing us?" Stewart asked.

"How the hell would I know? I think they could have gotten us with that last rush."

"Pessimist, we could have held them off."

"Maybe…" Max said doubtfully.

"We could have." Stewart insisted.

Bill had climbed up from the ditch to lie beside Max, he had his helmet back on and was looking better, "What's the story?"

"They got Ruben inside on the second floor with a couple of Einsteins, there is a sniper on the roof of the Best Value and a super over there that we think is directing everyone. We don't know why they stopped rushing us. There are maybe fifteen shamblers and half a dozen Jenners inside the Day's Inn." Max said.

"Okay, we go after him, Javier, get back into the ditch, work your way back towards the highway until you are out of sight of the Best Value. Stewart you follow him after a count of ten. Once you two are in place wait for us to catch up. Go!" Bill's voice didn't leave much room for arguing, regardless Javier took off instantly, leaving Stewart the options of following or leaving him to fend for himself on the far end of the hotel. She counted to ten and followed.

"You ready Max?"

Max nodded, then Bill said, "I'll follow in a ten count. Go!"

Max skidded down into the bottom of the ditch and ran along it until he caught up to Javier, who was sitting near a culvert, where the hotel drive went over the ditch. Stewart had run up out of the ditch and was taking cover behind an old Subaru that screamed 'Hotel Employee', not 'Hotel Guest'. Bill caught up with them a moment later and looked the area over.

"Okay, the hotel has an entrance on the end of the wing. That is what we will go for. Max, what are the zombies doing?"

"The ones with Ruben haven't moved, the shambers are starting to head towards this side, but are staying inside. The super…I.." Max looked perplexed, "I've lost him. How did I lose him?"

"We gotta move now. Max you got point, get to the hotel door and break through it. There is bound to be a stairway at the end, shut any of the doors leading to the hallway on the first floor, if they are not already. I should be there by then. Javier, you follow me on ten. Stewart you bring up the rear. Got it? Go!"

Max scrambled up the ditch and ran towards the glass door on the side of the hotel building. When he was fifteen feet away he fired one shot into the door, it shattered, but did not fall out of the frame. Using the barrel of the shotgun he pushed through the safety glass, then used his hand to pull the door open from the inside. There was a fire door that blocked off the stairway from the first floor of the hotel, however it was open. Max saw a mob of slow shamblers coming towards him from the hallway, instead of firing he tried to pull the door shut, but it was caught on something and wouldn't budge.

Bill joined him a moment later and pulled the door shut effortlessly, ripping the latch out of the drywall as he slammed it shut. There was nothing to hold the door shut with, so Bill pushed himself up against it while waiting for Javier and Stewart.

When the other two arrived Bill said, "Okay, we can either leave the door and have zeds shambling up our asses or one of us can stay here and hold the fort. "

"You're giving us a choice?" asked Stewart.

"No, I am asking for input."

"We all go." Stewart said, "These are shamblers and there is no guarantee we will be coming back this way."

Bill nodded, "Okay. Max, sorry to put you on point twice in a row, but you know where they have Ruben upstairs and you'll know if there are any zeds waiting in the rooms to spring out at us. So I want you and Stewart to head upstairs. If you come to a room were anything but a shambler is hiding you stop and wait for us. If they start to move Ruben, you and Stewart go balls to the wall until you catch them. Understand?" Max nodded. "Javier and I will follow in ten."

Max set off up the stairs, with Stewart close on his heels.

They reached the second floor and Max had time to reflect how very long ten seconds could be in the middle of an adrenaline rush. Max knew the hallway was clear before he burst into it, about halfway down there was a super zombie off to one side. The zombie was hiding at the elevators, which bisected the hotel floor. It looked like a Jenner.

"Jenner ahead, by the elevator." The zombie was back-lit by the light from the window at the other end of the hall.

A gunshot rang out and the wallpaper six feet in front of Max spontaneously developed a long tear.

"Armed Jenner!" Max corrected, blasting the corridor with his shotgun.

"Armed Jenner? You can do better than that!" said Stewart, running by Max as the zombie ducked back into the elevator alcove to avoid the shotgun blast.

Stewart fired her rifle as the zed tried to come back in for another shot. "How about Gunslinging Jenner?"

"Too long, how about Jengun? Or Jenga? For short?"

"Lame, no score for you. He ain't too good either, untrained, more like an amateur. Billy the Kid Jenner?" Stewart said.

"Still too long." said Max firing again as he moved ahead of Stewart to the next set of doors. "Watch the hallway down there, it looks like Ruben is moving."

"Okay, I'll watch for them, you got the Billy up there?"

"No. Not 'Billy', Billy the kid was good, this guy sucks."

"You know I can hear you!" called the zombie from the elevator.

"Good!" shouted Stewart, "You can't hit the broad side of a barn!" She fired a shot at the zed as it, predictably, tried to come around the corner and prove her wrong. She winged it in the shoulder and sent its gun flying down the hallway to land on the carpet. "Sucker! Oldest trick in the book! Go Max!"

Max took off for the elevator, calling back, "He still ain't a 'Billy'! Watch the hallway!" Max ran along the right side of the hall, giving Stewart a clear shot down the left side. A zombie head poked out of the doorway three quarters of the way to the far end. Stewart let loose with a three shot burst that caused the zed to pull back into the room. As he rounded the corner, shotgun at shoulder height, he was surprised to see the zombie cowering in the corner, hands raised in front of his face. Max's finger tightened on the trigger, then relaxed, he couldn't bear the idea of shooting a man who was defenseless in front of him.

"Fuck!" he yelled trying to force himself to pull the trigger again.

"Please don't! Just don't. I didn't, I didn't want to, I was. I was trying to miss. He made me, I would have just stayed at home, you know, not hurt any…"

"Shut up!" Max yelled. He was fully inside the elevator alcove now and Stewart fired another burst behind him to keep the zombies holding Ruben pinned. In the dim light he could barely make out the zombie's features, he was an African American man, not too much older than Max.

Stewart rushed by Max, heading down the hall, calling out, "Max! C'mon, shoot the Billy and let's go!" as she went by.

Max said, "Sorry." and pulled the trigger, drowning out the man's plea for mercy. The shot severed one of the zed's hands at the wrist and took off the top left side of his head. As Max turned to go he saw that it wasn't dead, it was twitching. "Goddamned pain in the ass! He stepped forward and finished the zombie off with another shot, then reloaded his gun as Bill and Javier caught up to him.

"Max?" Bill said, squinting in the poor light. "You okay?"

"Yeah, peachy."

"Guys! C'mon! I got them pinned!" yelled Stewart.

The three caught up with Stewart, and Bill said, "Javier, you watch our backs, when those shamblers come up here you let us know, but don't shoot unless you have to."

Stewart was outside of the hotel room, she had her rifle pointed inside and Max quickly peeked in from the other side of the doorway. In the main room there were two zombies and Ruben. Ruben was closest to the doorway and the two zombies were behind him, one had a knife at his throat, the other was standing there nervously, sucking its lips into his mouth, then pushing them out. As Max watched, it bit down and cut its lower lip free and sucked it into its mouth. Even as it chewed Max could see the outer lip stop bleeding. Faster than he would have thought possible, the lip that had been chewed off regrew.

"That is fucking-a disgusting." Stewart said softly.

"Yeah, Lips is an acquired taste." said the zombie holding the knife, "Even on a good day I can hardly stand to be around him." He shrugged his shoulders and continued, "And today is not a good day."

Stewart turned her eyes towards the zombie with the knife, "I don't think he'd be that much better on a good day. So, you gonna drop that knife?"

The zombie shook his head slightly, "No. You gonna drop that gun?"

Stewart fired, the bullet caught the zombie low in its forehead, almost dead center between the eyes. It clenched once, but the knife dropped effortlessly from its hand as it toppled over. When it fell backward, Lips was exposed and Max took a shot at him, aiming high. Max's shot missed and the zombie threw itself backwards into the curtains and window, leaving Ruben behind. The window didn't break and the zombie flailed around, wound up in the curtains while Max and Stewart fired into it. Their shots blew out the window and after bumping into the sill, Lips fell out of sight, pulling the curtain rod with him.

"Ruben! Are you okay?" Max said, going down to one knee and putting his hand out to steady him.

"I'm fine, they didn't even scratch me. Did you get the bomb?"

"We left it for now."

Stewart went to the window and looked down at their truck. "It's still there. Hey, Javier? Those zeds coming at us yet?"

From down the hall Javier called back, "No. How's Ruben?"

"He says he's fine! We're getting him up and out of here now."

Reuben stood up and ran a hand across his neck, then looked at it. "That could have been bad. If he had jerked back or something."

"No, they don't. Haven't you noticed, a head shot drops them, it's like they don't have that last convulsive reaction like the living do. You weren't in any danger." said Stewart.

"I hadn't noticed…"

"Well don't worry about it gramps, you can't pick up everything. Besides…" a gunshot interrupted her as Javier fired. "Besides we didn't have all day to negotiate, we got zeds incoming."

"Why the hell didn't they eat you Ruben?" asked Max, reloading his gun as he spoke.

"I heard 'em talking, they said…"

"Later, let's get out of her first. Max where are they?" interrupted Stewart.

"Shamblers coming up the hallway, Lips is gone, he is running back to the other hotel, the others seem to be clearing out too."

"Should we be worried about that?"

Max nodded, "I am."

"Fuck."

"You all ready to go?" Bill called from the hall.

"Yeah, we can go down the stairway at the other end of the hall, it's empty, then cut through the building back to the lobby to get to the truck." Max said.

"Okay, let's do it. Javier, you grab Ruben, Max and Stewart follow us, but stay closer than before." Bill led the way down with Javier sticking close to Ruben.

"How come you paused with Billy back there?"

"I don't know, he wasn't armed, he was just sitting there, cowering, begging me not to shoot him."

"No mercy Max. No mercy. You forget why we are here?"

"I know why I am here Stewart."

"Good, I think your kids would appreciate that. Did you forget what the zombies have done to you? What they have taken from you? From everyone?"

"No, I haven't forgotten."

"Next time you better remember faster, if it helps you, think of your wife."

"Stewart! That is…"

"Don't 'Stewart' me! The few seconds you spent dicking around could have gotten Ruben killed. Next time it could be me or Bill or any of us. Get your head on straight! They are not human, we can't just get along with them. We can't make peace! They eat us for fuck's sake!"

"Alright. I got it. Lay off."

"I'm not mad, so don't you be. I just want to help you out. Peace?"

"Yeah, okay, peace. I still say he shouldn't be a 'Billy'."

"Because he couldn't shoot for shit?" asked Stewart.

"Yeah, the name doesn't do the original justice."

"You know the names of any bad shots?"

"No."

"That's 'cause they were bad shots, they never got into the press, they got dead. Hm, what about 'Nancy'?"

Max thought back to the super zombie who had pursued him so long ago back to his home in Denver, the zombie who had infected his wife, he shook his head, "I wouldn't want to honor her like that."

They went down the stairs, still bantering quietly.

"She was a bitch. I don't suppose 'bitch' would work?"

"No, I've already got a patent on that one. You'll have to try harder. At least we have a name for zombies who are good with guns." said Max.

"Yeah, 'Billy', though I hope we never have to use it. If we do it means someone has been shot."

The group moved into the lobby of the hotel and looked out at their bullet ridden truck. Bill took the keys out of his pocket, "Think it will run?"

Ruben shrugged, "Only one way to find out. At least the tires aren't blown out."

"No windows though." said Max.

"The weather is good, we'll be okay. Javier, why don't you drop and see if anything is leaking out of it?" asked Bill.

Javier went to his hands and knees by the front door of the hotel and looked under the truck. He shook his head from there and said, "It looks okay Bill, I don't see anything dripping. The bomb is still there too, on the ground."

"Our lucky day." muttered Ruben.

"Yeah, next time old man, just leave it and fall back. We are the only ones with the codes to set it off, if we lose it we'd just have to figure something else out." Bill finished and they were started by a loud 'beep', coming from the backpack.

They looked at each other and back at the pack, staying quiet. They heard a muffled sound, like someone speaking, after a few moments they heard another beep.

"What the fuck is that?" asked Stewart.

No one answered, because no one knew what to say.

Chapter 16 — Katie

The family was gone. All dead. The plan to clear the zombies at the front of the house had worked, with her almost silent gun Katie was able to cap a few of them from the front door. After the initial attack she taped a new bottle on the rifle, then sneaked around the house and shot the zombies from behind. They were easy marks, slow and pathetic, nothing like those she had dealt with in Chicago. The family had decided to stay the night in the house, Kent put Robert in a basement bedroom and the kids opted to sleep on the old couch down there as well. Katie had decided to sleep in the minivan in the garage. It went against her 'sleep below the level of the ground' instinct, but they hadn't seen any zombies after shooting those outside of the house.

Sometime during the night Robert must have died, then came back and killed Kent. At least that was Katie's theory. Kent was supposed to be on watch and didn't wake anyone when Robert attacked him. Katie, in a sealed car in the garage hadn't heard anything, she woke up when the sun was just peeking above the horizon and knew something was wrong, she should have been woken earlier to take a turn on watch. Upon opening the door between the garage and the kitchen Katie heard a slow, shuffling sound. Flicking on her flashlight she saw that the kitchen floor was stained with blood and gore, someone had died there and they weren't clean about it.

Jess came at Katie first, the girl was in rough shape, it looked like maybe she had been fed on by two zombies, she was missing a large part of her stomach, her bottom rib was bare and showed teeth marks from some viscous biting. The girl was slow too, to get a clean shot Katie had to step towards her and fire. The noise of the rifle thundered through the house and brought the other three out of the basement in short order. Katie shot Bobby before he reached the top of the stairs, then shot Kent as he came into the kitchen.

Robert was faster and warier than the others, but then he had died first and probably had the most food of all of them. More food meant he was a smarter, faster zombie. He stood on the steps just out of sight and called up to Katie, "I don't want you. I hate you for what you did, but I won't bother you."

Katie didn't say anything, the idea of talking to him was repugnant to her, he had just eaten the ones he loved and was mad that she had killed them. 'What a douche bag.'

"I get it now. I understand what happened." Robert said.

Silently moving to the top of the stairs Katie aimed at the man's head, he didn't shy away from her.

"I don't think you understand, do you?"

Katie pulled the trigger and blew out Robert's left eye, he fell backward down the stairs and lay silently. 'Huh, I was aiming for the bridge of the nose. I better sight in this gun in today.' She added it to her list of things to do, turned and packed the things she wanted to take with her. Her shotgun was already in the van, in fact most of her stuff was in the van. Katie looked around the kitchen and debated going into the basement to look over the group's other equipment. 'Two guns are enough. Fuck it, I'm outta here.' Katie entered the garage and pulled the emergency release for the garage door, then hefted it up so she could pull the van out.

'I don't even know where I am going. South, but where and why?' Her mom had moved to Florida, but Katie hadn't seen the woman in two years and had never visited her there. Getting behind the wheel of the car she pulled out carefully and nodded in satisfaction at the almost full tank of gas she had to travel on. She didn't have any trouble getting back to the highway and after debating one last time she headed south, 'Where the hell else do I have to go? Mom will sure be surprised. If she's alive.'

The day went by quickly, she made excellent time and left Illinois by the time the sun was setting that evening. She had been forced to detour around several of the larger wrecks and there were only a few sections of highway she could drive over forty five miles an hour, but in general she was surprised at how well things went. She didn't see many zombies at all, not even in the larger towns and cities she passed through. 'It's like they all left. Maybe they headed for greener pastures?'

She had stayed on highway fifty seven until she was almost out of Illinois, then turned off on highway twenty four, which she thought should take her almost the rest of the way to the coast. She had stopped twice for fuel, the first time she had been lucky, the power was still on and she was able to figure out how to get the gas pumps switched on to fuel up. She had also found an empty gas can behind the counter of the convenience store and filled that up as well. The second refueling had been on the highway, next to two sedans that were pulled just off the road. One of them had a tube with a manual pump stuck into its gas tank, there was another two and a half gallon can there too, filled up, but just sitting there. Katie didn't see anyone close by and stood there for a minute, looking into the heavy brush by the side of the road, wondering if it was some sort of ambush.

Cautiously she had gotten out of the van and examined the pump and can. It looked simple enough and Katie dumped the fuel from both cans into the van's gas tank, then pumped the rest of the fuel out of the red sedan to fill the cans again. She repeated this a few times until the van was full again and both the gas cans were filled as well. Then she threaded the hose out of the sedan and stowed it in her van.

As night fell she left Kentucky and passed into Tennessee, she wasn't feeling drowsy, but didn't want to travel at night either. The thought of finding a house or hotel to spend the night in didn't appeal to her, so she decided to pull over into a rest stop instead. The rest stop was completely empty, not a single car in the lot.

'And fuck if mine will be the only one either!' Kate thought, driving the van up onto the sidewalk. There was a central building that advertised vending machines and bathrooms, and behind that there were a series of sidewalks and picnic tables, as well as several play areas for kids. Katie pulled the van around to the back of the building and parked it with the passenger's side inches away from the stone wall. Satisfied that she was as hidden as she could be she pulled out her flashlight and shotgun and went in to use the bathroom.

The building was not locked and appeared to be empty. The lobby was simple and open, with an information desk and a huge map of the state hanging on the wall, which included a 'you are here' pin along the highway to indicate where the rest stop was. The vending machines were across from the lobby desk and doors to either side of the desk led to the bathrooms. Katie entered the women's room and shined her light around looking for threats. 'It's cleaner than the one in Chicago, but doesn't have a shower.' It was also empty. Katie was surprised to find that the water was still on too. Before heading back to the van she used half the paper towels to clean herself up, and then looked herself over in the mirror.

"I look like shit."

"You sure do." said Randy from behind her.

"You've been better too."

"Won't get any worse now." he agreed.

"So what is it like, being dead?"

"I could tell you, but I'd have to kill you afterward."

"That might not be too high a price to pay. It's not like I have anything left for me here now."

"Poor little Katie, all alone in the world!"

"No shit."

"You never sighted in your new gun."

"I didn't really have time. I sure as shit ain't going to do it here and now. Maybe in the morning before I leave." Katie said to his mirrored reflection. She didn't dare look back, for fear that he would disappear.

"You shouldn't forget, you'll need that gun before this is over."

"Before what is over?"

Randy waved his hands, gesturing around himself, "This. All of this."

"There isn't any 'this' anymore. It's already over."

"Not quite yet." Randy came up behind her and put his arms around her waist, then rested his head on her shoulder. Slowly he kissed the side of her neck, then nibbled on her ear.

Katie closed her eyes and enjoyed the embrace for a moment before shaking him loose, "You're not real."

"What do you want me to say?"

"How can this be real? I saw you jump. I heard you hit. You didn't even scream."

"I couldn't give away your position and I knew you wouldn't shoot me if I turned."

"I would've." she said flatly.

"There's the Katie I know and love. But you see? I do love you and I thought I should spare you that. It was the very least I could really."

"You could have taken me with you."

He shrugged and stepped back from her. "We walked different paths."

"Such bullshit. You'd think, because you are in my mind, I would do this to myself. I should make you answer me straight."

"I don't think you are ready for straight answers."

"And you're the decider?"

"No, I'm the spotter, I pick the targets, you shoot them. I call down the artillery, you cover my back."

"Pulling rank again?"

He stepped back further into the darkness, "You outranked me."

"But I wasn't the forward observer, in the field you had command."

Randy was barely visible now, he lingered for a moment and said, "It was never about control."

Katie's eyes flickered to her own for a moment, leaving his reflection, when she looked back he was gone and not there to hear her whisper, "It was always about control."

Chapter 17 — Max

Max stared at the small video screen on the backpack. When they had been shown how to operate the bomb they were impressed with the interface, which they could unlock using the codes provided by the military. The controlling computer allowed them to actually scale up or down the bomb and set a time delay and was incredibly easy to use. The screen they were looking at now didn't show any of the same options. It showed Draper, his large grin with white teeth gleaming in contrast against his black skin. The group had bundled back into the truck and driven to the interstate before stopping and investigating the beeping noise coming from the pack. The video had paused about halfway and Bill had restarted it from the beginning using the interface on the touch screen.

It showed Draper sitting in one of the rooms on the ship, his back to a gray colored wall.

"Sorry to do this to you." Draper did look slightly guilty, averting his eyes for a moment from the camera that was recording his words, "First things first, if you are seeing this message it means you opened up the pack to take a look at why it is beeping. I set an alarm to get your attention, I hope now is not a bad time. This device is still a bomb, it is still very dangerous. No offense to any of you, but it is naïve to think the military would put a nuclear bomb in the hands of people who are essentially civilians. No disrespect is meant to Sergeant Ostling and his fine record of service. Before you get riled up let me tell you what you do have. For the record we have one too, so you are not the only Guinea pigs on this run."

Draper paused and swallowed, the wiped his hand across his brow before continuing, he looked tired, "What you have is known as a positronic bomb. It has been in development by the Air Force for over fifty years and cost us….well, money doesn't have the same meaning now, does it? Suffice it to say a large portion of the research and development money has gone into making a non-nuclear alternative explosive device. You ever wonder why we agreed so readily to the bomb cuts in late eighties and nineties? Or why nearly every president can cut our stock pile of nukes even further for political gain? Well wonder no more, these weapons are a state secret, I don't even know how many exist or in what forms."

"So what does it do? I can reassure you that it is just as devastating as a nuclear device. The effects will be almost identical with one small difference, there will be no fallout. The one you are carrying is equivalent to ten kilotons of TNT. For a frame of reference the bomb we dropped on Hiroshima to end world war two was approximately fifteen kilotons. So why the bait and switch to give you a more powerful bomb? The funny thing about Military regulations is that this bomb is classified as experimental equipment, which you are authorized to test. The other quirky thing is that you are not, as drafted and retired soldiers, authorized to use nuclear weapons, not without years of training. So there you go. We could have broken the rules, but in a civilized society rules and regulations are what set us apart from the animals."

"The bomb can still be used as you were instructed with two exceptions, first you cannot change the yield, it only has one setting; 'Big Boom'. Second, you will want to get much farther away from the device before you set it off. A mile would be good. At that distance you will need to be under cover from debris, but, as I said, there won't be any radiation to worry about. Don't worry about the technology; we tested one of these babies in Denver three weeks ago; it worked just fine and took out the main aggressor there, I believe Max and Stewart can vouch for that."

"Good luck soldiers, fulfill your mission."

The screen faded to black for a moment then automatically reset back to the first frame.

"Who is Sergeant Ostling?" Stewart asked.

"Me." Ruben said

"Really?"

"All my life."

"Is no one upset about this?" asked Max.

The five of them stared at one another, then Bill shook his head, "Not really, we have a more powerful bomb, we have to get far away to use it if we want to live. It's experimental. Big surprise coming from Draper. I am more surprised they sent us five yahoos out to get this job done alone."

"With all due respect Lieutenant, I think a small team like ours stands a better chance than a combat brigade. Plus they need all the men they have to help in the fighting out in Iowa." Ruben said.

Bill shrugged his shoulders, looking unconvinced, "I know we have Max, but would it have killed them to send a few Special Forces guys with us too?"

"We are 'special forces', untrained, unconventional. Special." Stewart said.

"I am not sure I like what that implies." Bill said, "Ruben you said something about knowing why they didn't infect you back there, what do you know?"

The old man nodded his head, "Yeah, the one guy with the messed up mouth, he wanted to start in on me right away. The other warned him not to."

Stewart rolled her eyes, "Sure, I had to kill the rational one, instead of the freak."

Ignoring her comment Bill asked, "So what did you hear?"

"Apparently this part of the country has some sort of law again, and it involves not eating anyone still alive."

"What do they do with us?" asked Max.

"There is a camp in town here. I guess, from what I heard, there are camps all over the place."

"That's…disturbing." Stewart said.

"We gotta go get them." Ruben rubbed his eyes, "You can imagine what it would be like, people crowded together, every once in a while someone disappears. It could be your wife, your neighbor." Ruben looked at Bill, "Your kid."

Shaking her head, Stewart said, "No. No way. I am all for saving people, but we have to keep the larger mission in mind." She pointed to the bomb. "If we take out the big guy, the rest will fall like dominos."

"That's what I am afraid of. Without the big guy keeping them in line, who's to say what will happen to the people in the camps?" Ruben asked.

"It's my call." Bill said, "I can pull rank if I have to. But…as we are 'special' forces I want your opinions too."

"We should find them." Ruben said firmly.

"Kill Sentry, come back here and help them." Stewart said.

Max looked like he was thinking things over, he knew what he would do if they were his kids. "Where are they? Did they say Ruben?"

Ruben shook his head.

"We can't be running all over trying to find them and who knows how many zombies there are? I think we have to go on."

"Javier? You have an opinion?"

The young man, nodded, "Yeah. I keep thinking, what if it were my family? My little brothers or mom and dad? I think we have to try and help if we can. Like Max said though, we don't know anything. We can't fight an army."

"We barely managed to fight out of this mess." Stewart said, waving her hand around the front of the hotel.

"Okay, let's get back in the truck. I didn't want to travel at night, but we are heading further down the road." Bill said, when everyone stared at him he added, "That's an order people. Let's move."

Ruben stood still, as if contemplating saying something. Javier stood behind the old man, then brushed his shoulder with one hand and turned away. Shrugging Ruben gave Bill a sloppy salute and turned to get into the truck.

"It's gonna be a sucky ride with no windows. Do you want to try and get a different vehicle first?" asked Max.

"No, we need to get moving before the zombies over there get organized and come after us. Can you see them Max?"

Max looked towards the other hotel, "They are there. More are coming from the west. Fast. Maybe in cars."

"Then I'll risk driving this. How many Max?"

"Fifteen. Twenty. Enough. If this is what they are sending our way, imagine how many they have in town. No way we could rescue those people Bill."

"That is about what I figured. Still, it hurts. We gotta keep our eye on the prize."

Chapter 18 — Katie

"I had to drive through the night." Katie berated herself.

Katie had been careful to avoid the many wrecks along the highway, however, the deer that jumped out in front of her was a surprise. She swerved to avoid it and ended up smashing into the guardrail and wrecking the van. The front of the vehicle was smashed in and the driver's side front wheel had been broken off and pushed up into the wheel well. The door on her side was crumpled so badly from the impact that Katie had to get out of the van on the passenger side.

She looked at it and shook her head in disgust. "Why am I even out here? What am I doing and where am I going?"

"Now you are asking the right questions." came Randy's voice from the side of the road. He was dressed casually, in his old leather jacket that was a size too big for him. He was smoking a cigarette and looked like he was enjoying the night air.

"When did you take up smoking?"

Shaking his head, Randy answered, "Don't get distracted, that's what they want. I haven't smoked since high school." He took a final drag off the butt of his cigarette and flicked it over the guardrail into the median between the twin ribbons of concrete highway.

"You'll start a fire doing that."

"Pretty doubtful, don't you think?"

She smiled at that, then hefted her bag from the van and started walking down the road. "I suppose so. For someone who is dead you are looking pretty good."

"Thanks. You too."

"Ouch. I cleaned up at the rest area, you saw me."

"Here we go with the not thinking again. I liked your first question the most."

Thinking about it, Katie's brow furrowed and she repeated, "Why am I even out here?"

"It bears thinking on."

Katie trudged down the road in silence for a few minutes. Finally she asked, "What else am I supposed to be doing? Crying? Hiding in a house somewhere? Heading back to die in Iowa with the rest of humanity?"

"I don't know that answer. But you still haven't answered your own question. Try not to get sidetracked."

"Okay. I feel a need. Yeah, a need to go this way."

"Is that so? Hm. I wonder why Katie. Don't you wonder why?"

She waved her hand in the air and answered, "Why? I don't think it is too important. I am following my instincts. I will survive."

"If you say so." Randy walked towards the shoulder of the road, away from Katie at an angle.

"You don't have to get pissy about it."

"You're wrong about that." He called back, trudging down the grassy embankment by the side of the road and out of sight.

"Fine. Be that way. You're just my imagination anyway."

"If you say so." called his voice as he disappeared from sight.

"I could make you come back if I really wanted to."

However, as hard as she tried, Katie couldn't make him come back.

She walked for over an hour before she finally came upon a vehicle she could use. The clear night showed the outlines of the wreck perfectly. Before she approached she pulled out her rifle. Seeing no one she crept forward a few yards, then stopped. She continued to make use of this stop and watch tactic all the way to the wreckage.

The vehicles had been towed to one side of the road and left. Once she assured herself no one was around she poked into each until she found a vehicle in drivable shape, a black sports utility vehicle. Lucky for her no one had taken the keys out of the ignition. She tossed her bag into the back seat, hopped in and tried to start the vehicle, but it wouldn't turn over. When she got out and looked the car over she noted that the dome light didn't come on. After some experimentation she found the lights were not working either.

"Battery needs a jump." Randy said, startling her.

"I hate it when you do that."

"I hate it when you are ignorant."

Shrugging Katie smiled and replied, "Lotta hate in this neck of the woods then."

Katie sighed and pulled her bag out of the back of the car.

"You gonna walk?"

"Car won't start. I'm not a mechanic. If it were a rifle I could strip it and have it working in a few seconds, a minute at most. But a car? Nope."

"The battery is dead, all you have to do is jump it."

"With what, Einstein? If there were another working car around here I wouldn't need to jump this one."

"Jeez Katie, no, there aren't any other working cars, but I bet the batteries in those wrecks work just fine. Find a screw driver and a set of jumper cables. Then we'll get the car started."

"Yeah. Right. My dead partner will help me get a dead car working." Katie paused, "Sure. Why not? A screw driver you say?"

"Or a wrench. Look around a little."

Katie saw that the back end of the sports utility vehicle was full of camping gear, heaped in untidy mounds. The automatic release button under the dash didn't open the rear door and earned her a look of disgust from Randy.

"Hey, you never know!" she protested.

"No power. No power doors. It's not even as complicated as field stripping a rifle."

Katie took the keys out of the ignition and used them to manually open the rear hatch, which swung up slowly with no power. Under the camping gear she found a roadside emergency kit, which contained not only screwdrivers, but also jumper cables. She found a good battery in the station wagon that was on its side a few car-lengths into the wreck and with a few quick turns of her borrowed screwdriver she pulled it out. With Randy directing her she sat the battery down by the side of the car, ran the jumper cables to its battery and gave the ignition a turn. It started up on the second try.

"Nice. I owe you one." Katie said.

"Take off the black cable on this car first and then the other black cable…"

Katie grabbed the center of the cables and pulled, jerking the clamps off of all of the battery terminals at once.

"Or that works. Not the recommended method though."

Katie lowered the hood on her car, tossed the jumper cables into rear seat and got in behind the wheel. The vehicle couldn't have been more than a year or two old, everything looked new, even if it had lost the 'new car' smell.

They drove in silence for a while, Randy looking out the side window, while Katie scanned the road ahead for wrecks and deer.

"What's it like, being dead?" Katie eventually asked.

"I can't complain. You?"

She shook her head, "I still don't get you sometimes."

"Where are we headed?"

"Some place warm. I am thinking Florida. I can get down in the Keys, find me an island, pure white sand, blue ocean and palm trees. I could go for that."

"A hammock?"

"You know it. Just me and you buddy. Drinking a few beers, maybe fishing a little and heading to the mainland every once in a while to stock up on food."

"What brought this plan on?"

"You made me think about it a little. I know it's summer now, but the weather isn't going to last. Soon it will be cold and snowy. How would I heat anyplace up here? If I go where all I need is a sweater I should be fine."

"What about hurricanes?"

"Don't be a dream squasher."

Randy shook his head. "Okay. So…Florida, island, hammock. Any other plans?"

"The world has ended. Do I need more than that?"

"What about the zombies?"

"I am going to kill every one of them I see. Every fucking one."

"That's…interesting."

"Hey can you check and see if this tub has a map in it?"

"Sorry, being dead has its limitations. There probably is one in the glove box. If not just pull up to any gas station you see, they're bound to have one."

"Good point. I'll just stay on this road. I have to go south as it is, then pick up a map when I stop for fuel." Katie said.

"I wonder where the guy who owned this car is? I mean, it wasn't wrecked. It was just sitting by the side of the road."

"Probably got dragged off and eaten. You know how it is."

"Well, not really, I didn't turn."

"That's right, you jumped first, fucker."

"Either that or stay and eat you."

"It wouldn't have been the first time." Katie said.

"It would have been the last though. I don't think you'd have capped me. What happened after I jumped."

"Why'd you care?"

"Just curious. Don't you remember?" asked Randy.

"I shot the target. Service before self."

"Then what?" pressed Randy.

"I called down the artillery."

"And then?"

"Jeezus Randy, why the third degree? I got out, went down into the building and almost got blown up, my clothes were gone, I woke up in an office somewhere…" Katie was having a hard time remembering what took place on the top of the building, concentrating she closed her eyes and tried to bring back the memories of what had happened.

"Katie!" Randy yelled.

She opened her eyes to see three deer on the highway in front of her. She hit the brakes and skidded to a stop within touching distance of the lead animal.

"For fucks sake!" the deer didn't move. Katie honked the horn and the three animals bounded off into the woods. "Jeezus, good thing you were keeping an eye out, I'd have slammed into them." When Katie looked beside her the seat was empty again.

Chapter 19 — Max

"Driving without a windshield; that was brilliant." said Stewart shivering.

"I can't believe how cold it is!" Max answered, nodding his head. Bill was driving and Max and Stewart were on the front bench seat beside him.

Bill had made them press on, instead of finding a place to hold up for the night. After three hours, when they were nearing the outskirts of Knoxville, he finally pulled off of the main highway onto a side road that he said would allow them to skirt the main city and reconnect with 75 further south west.

"I don't like it either." Bill said, "But the road is clear and we might as well put as much distance between them and us as we can. I'm just happy the truck lasted this long."

The truck hadn't given them any problems at all. Aside from the shot out windows it was still working fine.

"Besides, who is tired? It's only about eleven now. We've made good time."

"Okay, I will give you that, but I think we need to find another vehicle. Or two. Traveling like this sucks." Stewart grumbled.

"Where are we?" asked Max.

"Sign at the exit said 'Heiskell'." Bill answered.

"RV park up on the left!" Stewart said.

"I see it, do we stop there or go on further? I think the town is still ahead of us."

"Stop here! We might be able to get a truck and crash in a camper trailer."

"Stewart, why on earth would you prefer a camper over a house?" asked Max.

"Well, we could pull it with us."

"No!" both men answered at once. They spoke loud enough to wake Javier and Ruben in the back seat.

"What?" grumbled Ruben, whose gun had thrust out the window as he shook off sleep.

"We are stopping." Answered Bill.

Ruben glanced at the sign as they pulled into the park, "At an RV park?"

No one said anything, they all just watched as the headlights of the truck illuminated the park as they drove in.

"Kinda sparse." Max said.

"No shit. It's summer, why isn't the place full?" asked Stewart, "Pull up to that building there."

"The shitter?" asked Bill.

"Yeah, there is a fifth wheel and camper there and we can use the facilities. My bladder is about to burst."

"Fine. Max? Any zombies around?"

Max took a moment and said, "No. It looks empty. That is weird. I thought the place would be crawling…."

Bill pulled into the empty slot beside the bathrooms and the light from the truck showed them that the door to the camper was open. A long dark streak of brown stained the side of the trailer, starting at the door and ending near the front, where the large pickup was parked.

"They've been here at least. Everyone keep your eyes peeled, just in case." Bill said.

Max shook his head, but didn't say anything, knowing the place was empty of both humans and zombies.

They piled out of the truck and checked the bathroom. There was a light switch by the door and Max tried it, nothing happened. He hadn't expected there to be power, none of the lights were on in this part of the country now.

Everyone had flashlights ready, both to mount on their guns and portable lights as well. All of them had opted to turn their gun lights on and searched by waving the barrels around.

"Whoever came up with gun lights was a genius." Max said as he verified that the men's room was empty.

"Yeah, yeah, but I think night vision equipment would be better. It wouldn't be as noticeable from a distance. So try not to keep waving your gun around." Ruben said pushing past Max to get into a stall. "And find me some paper for the shitter, this stall is empty."

"Yes sir!" Max said.

"Don't call me 'sir' idjit!" the old man said with some warmth.

"Yeah, I know, you work for a living."

"The oldest clichés are the best. Anyway, I'm retired."

Max broke into a locked storage closet that was situated between the ladies and men's restrooms. Inside he found several cases of toilet paper.

"Who needs toilet paper?" he called out as he went inside the bathroom again.

Stewart had opted to use the men's room and came out of her stall and looked towards the showers. "I don't feel dirty enough yet to need a shower. Definitely not dirty enough for a cold shower in the dark."

"Suit yourself." Max said, washing his face with the cold water from the sink.

"Let's go check the camper, see if we can use it." Bill said to them after everyone had finished. "Javier, you and Max each take an end of the trailer. Ruben I want you to keep an eye on our truck and watch our backs. Stewart you get the job of going inside and seeing how bad it is. I will check the truck in front and see if I can find keys."

Everyone split up and headed to their positions, with Stewart pausing by the open door of the camper.

"Empty, right Max?"

"Empty." He confirmed.

Easing inside the open doorway, Stewart turned on her flashlight and shielded the lens partly with one hand to keep the light dim. The kitchen was in disarray, there were bowls and open boxes of food strewn on every part of the floor. The bloody streak from outside began at the doorway and did not lead inside. There were only two ways to proceed, toward the main bedroom or down the galley where there was a door set between a table and a built in bench seat. Stewart opted for the bedroom frist.

The queen sized bed filled the room almost to capacity and the small shower and toilet area attached to it was empty and looked untouched. The covers and sheets on the bed were ruffled, as if someone had been sleeping there only moments before. Cautiously Stewart put her hand down on the bed, it was cold. Feeling along it further she could not detect any warmth. Breathing a quick sigh of relief she gave the room a cursory glance and spotted a key ring hanging from a coat rack, along with a heavy black leather belt.

Stewart grabbed the keys and turned to check the back end of the camper. It ended in a doorway, just beyond the kitchen table. The floor creaked as she moved along it and just as she was about to twist open the door handle, she heard Bill whisper to her form the doorway.

"Stewart? Anything?"

Straightening, Stewart said, "Clear so far, I'm going to check the back, it looks like there is another room here." She turned the knob and pulled the door open. The room beyond was filled with boxes and equipment. Almost buried under the detritus was a motorcycle with knobby tires. Stewart poked around among the boxes, to make sure nothing was hiding behind them, and didn't find any zombies.

"All clear here Bill. The only blood is at the entrance there." She walked towards him and held out her hand, "And I found the keys, I bet they go to the truck out front."

Bill took the keys, "A good bet. Whoever owned this rig had a key saver under the bumper too." Bill held up a small rectangular box with one hand, he slid it open to reveal a key, which he matched up to one on the key ring.

"So do we hide out here until the morning?"

Bill nodded, "Yeah, I'll go get the others and then we'll set a watch. I want two people up at all times."

"We need two of Max." Stewart muttered.

"That would be nice, yeah. So…I spoke to Trish before we left." Bill said, mentioning his wife.

"Yeah?"

"She said, well, she said you and Max were involved."

"It's complicated."

"He's like a brother to me. I don't want him to get hurt." Bill said.

"Are you shitting me? Is now the best time for this?"

"It's the first time I've been able to bring it up. I'll leave your personal stuff to you and him. I just want to know if you're fine for this…." Bill waved his hand around.

"This? You mean this mission?" Stewart started laughing.

"Well, yeah."

Still laughing, she said, "A little goddamn late now, isn't it? I mean, unless you are planning to leave me here or something?"

Bill turned his head sideways and looked at her in the dark for a moment, then let out a soft laugh of his own, "I hadn't thought of it that way."

"I mean what would you have done if I had said, 'no'?"

"I didn't think you would."

"Then why ask?"

Frustration crept into Bill's voice, "I don't know. I just feel responsible somehow…"

"How is that possible?"

"No, I mean as your officer and all."

"Oh. Now I get it. No fraternization among squad mates."

"No, not that." Bill said, voice rising, "That's not what I meant…"

"Geez, Bill, you're easier to get all flustered than Max. We are fine, me and Max. Me and you. You and Max though, that could use some work."

"What do you mean?"

"You. You're all coming down giving us orders like we aren't friends. In our case it is true. And I am used to having a commanding officer. So is Ruben. Maybe even Javier. But Max? He thinks you're still his buddy. I don't think he gets the whole 'tell me what to do' stuff."

"Have I been that bad? I mean I am just trying to keep everyone alive. If I don't bring Max home I would never forgive myself. And if I don't come home, well Trisha will kill anyone who does."

"So we all stick together, one way or the other."

"Yes." Bill replied.

"Fair enough. But you might want to explain that to Max, when you have a moment alone with him. If you can get one."

"I think I can arrange that."

"Good. Let's call the others together, clean this place up and get a little sleep."

Bill and Stewart stepped outside and called the others over.

"Okay we'll try and get a few hours' sleep here. I want guards in shifts. Max, you and I will go first, we'll wake Stewart up in a couple hours to stand with us. Then we'll wake the others a couple hours after that and Max and I will go to bed. Finally Stewart will get to turn in and grab a couple more hours at the end of the shift. This way everyone gets four hours sleep in the next eight hours and we have three people up for most of the time. We'll aim to leave by eight."

Everyone nodded. Javier and Ruben entered the camper and called out dibs on the large bed at the same time.

"Both of you head up there. Stewart you get the crappy couch across from the table, that way we won't wake them up when we get you. Max and I will stay outside and pound on the camper wall if anything shows up." Bill said.

In a short time everyone was bedded down and Max and Bill were left walking around outside the trailer. After doing a complete circuit they paused under the window into the camper's dining area.

"I don't really like where we are too much." Max said after looking the area over. "We can't see everything without moving around between the building and the camper."

Bill shrugged in the dim light, "Well, I don't think they would appreciate it if we hooked up the trailer and moved them."

"Probably not."

"Am I being too heavy handed Max?" Bill asked.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, ordering you around, like an officer?"

"Not really." Max answered, "Well, okay, I guess I'm just not used to it. You'll never be my superior officer. I'll never be a good soldier."

"Someone has to be in charge."

"Why?"

"So we can get things done."

"Would you follow Draper's orders?"

Grimacing, Bill said, "I have."

Max laughed, "Okay, so, don't give me things to do that you know I won't do."

"Like what?"

"Ordering me to leave someone behind. Even if they are bitten, I don't think I could."

"Trish told me about you and Stewart."

Max was silent for a moment. "Yeah, I'm not proud of that."

Bill glanced at the screened window above and behind his friend. "What do you mean?"

"What do you mean? I mean my wife dies and less than a week later I am hooking up with another woman. How does that look?"

"Not so good, normally. But this isn't exactly a normal situation."

"I suppose things are different, but I could have been…I don't know, better?"

"You're alright. You ain't going to do anything crazy about Stewart are you?"

"Me? No, I pretty much passed the crazy part of my life a long time ago. I like her. I love parts of her, she is not Sarah." Max said, referring to his dead wife.

"No, she isn't."

"And that's good. Stewart's tough, she can do what needs to be done. Can you, even for a minute, imagine Sarah going up against that chick in Chicago?"

"Stewart got her ass kicked on that one." Bill said. "But I get your point. Sarah wouldn't have fought at all."

"When you think about it, Bill, Stewart gets the shit kicked out of her a lot. At my house, in Chicago. But she keeps going back in. I'm not saying Sarah wouldn't have fought, but she might not have been on board for Chicago after Denver."

"Hmm."

"What now?" asked Max.

"You think what Draper said was true? That it wasn't a nuke in Denver?"

Shrugging Max answered, "Nice way to change the topic. I don't have any idea. Let's do another walk around."

"You see anything?"

"It's pretty clear."

"Pretty clear?" Bill asked, his voice rising slightly.

"I think I am getting some stuff around the edges."

"Which edges?"

"West and South. Doesn't seem to be coming this way, but still, I'd rather use my human eyes to check it out."

The two walked off quietly and patrolled the perimeter again. Max didn't see anything heading their way and the rest of their shift was quiet, even after Stewart joined them halfway through it. By four in the morning both men were barely awake and gladly took Javier and Ruben's place in the bed, falling asleep almost instantly.

It was light out when Max woke up and eerily silent.

"Bill." Hissed Max. "Wake up!"

"Hm? No, Trisha, I am going to call in sick today." Bill mumbled, half asleep.

"Bill!" Max said louder, scrambling out of bed and crouching by the window.

"What? Max?" still fuzzy from sleep, Bill shook himself awake, "What is it?"

"They're all around us Bill!"

Chapter 20 — Katie

It had been a long two days for Katie. She had mostly traveled alone, with only a few visits from Randy. By now she had figured out he was trying to tell her something, but she had not gotten it out of him. The last time she had told him to stop fucking around and just come out and tell her what was so goddamned important. She hadn't seen him since.

The country was deserted. No zombies, no humans, not even any deer. The highways she was traveling seemed to be clear, with most of the wrecks pulled off to the side of the road. There was even one memorable stretch of highway where vehicles had been lined up bumper to bumper for almost forty miles. But someone had taken the time to clear one lane for the entire stretch of road.

"And that had to have been a lot of work." Katie said to herself as she drove along the coast heading south. "Where are the fucking people?"

Not that she had gone looking for them. The only time she stopped in the towns along the way was to get gas, and twice she had just refilled the car using a plastic hose and the power of siphoning that Randy taught her.

"There are no people." Randy said.

"Oh, you again. About fucking time." Katie said irritably.

"You miss me? I know you did."

Katie shook her head and smiled, "Yeah, no fooling you. Where has everyone gone?"

"I don't know that one sugar. You have to realize by now I am pretty limited. I can't really tell you anything you don't already know."

"So I am batshit crazy then?"

Randy nodded, "Certifiable."

"Shit. What do I do?"

He shrugged, "Keep on going I guess, until you work it out."

"So you can't help me?"

"I can, I am. I'm doing the best I can here."

"Why can't you just tell me?"

Randy thought for a moment and then said, "Because you don't know. You only know that something isn't right. What isn't right?"

It was Katie's turn to think. She took in the highway and the seemingly abandoned country side, "No fucking people."

"I bet that's part of it."

"I figure, when I was inland, that the people were hiding. I thought once I got to the coast I would see someone. I mean, it's the coast and fifty million people live between here and Florida. But…nothing. No one. Not even zombies? What does that mean? Where are they?"

"I don't know."

"Lotta help you are."

"I'm on your side."

"Thank God my own imaginary friend is on my side."

"Harsh."

"Now, see, that isn't consistent. Randy would never have answered that way."

Randy smiled, "It just proves my point. I'm really just you, in a shell you can relate to."

"Great. So, 'Shell', any more vague clues I can ponder in your next absence?"

"Something isn't right with you."

"You think?" Katie laughed and gestured out the window at the landscape around her, "Something is funny in dodge! That's a good one." She turned to look back at Randy, but he was gone. "Fucking jack-in-the-box, popping in and out like that." She punched the side of her head angrily, "Bring him back!" When she turned her gaze back on the road she was amazed to see two people tied up laying on the pavement in front of her.

"Fuck!" Katie yelled, slamming on the brakes. The car slewed sideways and smoke started pouring out from the front tires as the car slowed down. At the last instance Katie let off the brakes and was able to veer the car around the two bodies by drifting onto the shoulder. She brought it to a more controlled stop several yards beyond where they lay.

Panting, she glanced in the rear view mirror, then out her side window, to make sure she missed the bodies.

"Probably dead anyway." She said watching them. It looked like a pair, one man, one woman, both on the young side, perhaps in their mid-twenties. The man started moving, struggling to get his hands untied.

"Shit."

Katie scanned the trees for zombies or other humans. She didn't see anyone in any of the places she would have taken up a position.

'They might be alone. But how in the fuck did they get here?' The obvious thing to do was to hop out and untie them. Katie put the car in reverse, when her front door was beside their feet she opened it and leaned out behind her car door. She kept the car idling, with one foot on the brake and the other on the gas pedal. Leaning out she held onto the steering wheel with one hand while she cut the plastic ties holding their feet together the other.

"If you want to live, get on your feet and crawl into the back door of the car."

The woman lay on the ground, not moving, the man rolled to his belly and used his head to get himself into a sitting position, with his back towards Katie. His mouth was muffled, but he wiggled his hands at her frantically.

Katie cut the cord with a swift motion of her knife. His hands free, the man didn't waste time removing his gag, he grabbed the woman and opened the rear door of the car. Tossing her on the seat, he threw himself on top of her. Katie floored the gas pedal as a shot rang out from the woods. A bullet hit the car somewhere on the body as she accelerated, but did nothing to slow her down. Another shot rang out, then a third, before Katie had driven over a small hill and out of sight.

The man had pulled his gag free and sat up in the back of the car. The rear door couldn't shut because the woman's feet were in the way, so he pushed her to an upright position and pulled the door closed.

"Shit!" the man exclaimed, "Shit! Shit! Shit!"

"I know." Katie answered.

"Do you have a gun?"

Katie snorted derisively, "I have many guns."

"Do you have one I could have?"

"Probably." Katie glanced in the review mirror. "No one is following us."

"I need a gun, I gotta go back."

"No way, Jose. I ain't going back there. Just enjoy the ride, bub."

"Just pull over and let me out. I'll walk back."

Katie glanced in the review mirror again, adjusting it so she could see the man's face. He looked serious. The woman was slumped against the door, bleeding. Blood was dribbling down the side of her face to smear on the side window.

"She was hit."

"In the head. Let me out lady. Really. They have her kids. Please."

Katie slowed the car down to a walking pace. "Mister, for all I know you are with them, those guys back there and as soon as I stop your friends will jump me."

"No, they were moving us, left us on the road while the three of them went back for the kids. They didn't think anyone would be on the road. They ain't seen anyone in days."

"Neither have I. Until I almost ran you over."

"You gotta stop. I need to go back."

"One guy against three of them?"

"You could help."

"I like killing zombies. Only three?"

"Just three. They were bringing us to a camp. Some sort of a detainment center where all the living people get dumped. I can imagine what happens to us there."

Katie pulled the car over to the side of the road and stopped.

"They your kids?"

The man shook his head, "No, hers. I didn't know her until I was caught. It has been a couple of weeks for us."

"They took you two weeks ago? And didn't eat you?"

"Someone told them not to. They bled me once though, took out a pint or two. They didn't drink it in front of me, but I know they drank it. They talked about how good it was."

Katie opened her door and went around to the passenger side where the woman was. Slowly she eased the other door open and caught the woman as she fell out. The woman wasn't dead, yet. But her head wound was bleeding badly and her breathing was shallow.

"I don't think she is going to make it." Katie said.

"You think I don't know that? There ain't no hospitals around anymore. She got shot in the head, she is a goner. The least I can do is go get her kids."

"What were the names of her kids?"

"Alex and Ethan. Alex is a girl, only about six, her brother is four."

'Well he answered that quickly enough.' thought Katie. She reached into the front seat and pulled the release on the trunk. She had been picking up guns as she came across them. There weren't any people, but there were plenty of firearms lying about on the roads. Moving to the trunk she picked up an M-16.

"I haven't tested this yet, but it should work fine." Katie said as she handed the empty gun over to the man.

He looked at it, then at her. "Thanks. Just point and pull the trigger?"

Nodding, Katie watched as he turned and took a few steps back the way they had come from.

"Wait!" she called after him, "You'll need to load it first." Fishing around in the trunk she came up with a couple of magazines and loaded the weapon for him. "Did you see how I loaded it? Press this button here and you have to slide this lever back when you reload to get a bullet in the chamber."

"Got it."

The man spun around and sprinted towards the small rise in the road behind them.

Softly to herself Katie said, "Sure. I'll come along. Thanks for asking. Just let me get this bitch's head bandaged up first alright. No. No need to wait for me to fix up the kids mom, you go right ahead without me. I'll catch up."

While she was muttering to herself Katie pulled out a first aid kit and scanned the sides of the road around her. Seeing nothing she went back to the woman and pulled her out of the car completely before bandaging her head. Afterward Katie reached into the front seat again and pulled out her.30–06 rifle. She started to head after the man slowly, he was now out of sight over the hill and she was listening for the conflict to begin. Nothing, not even any birds chirping. She had expected shots by now.

Shrugging she changed plans and hopped into the vehicle, starting it up she backed up quickly towards the slight rise behind her. She parked the car on the leeward side of the hill, hopefully out of sight of anything on the other side, then got out and made her way cautiously into the grass on the side of the road.

Creeping up the hill in the high grass was a piece of cake. Katie kept the shoulder of the road within arm's length as she went. By the time she crested the hill she was crawling, below her the road was empty. Glancing behind her the highway was still deserted too.

Katie raised the rifle slightly and stared through the scope to try and spot the man who had preceded her a few minutes before. There! She spotted him at the inside edge of the woods. He was looking inwards, as if he had spotted something. Katie saw him raise the rifle and heard the sharp retort as it went off.

The fool almost fell backwards when he fired. Apparently the gun hadn't been properly braced on his shoulder when he pulled the trigger. He recovered quickly enough and fired again. Then he started pulling the trigger as fast as he could. His gun clicked on empty and he continued to pull the trigger. After a moment he seemed to remember what Katie had told him about reloading. He turned and fled from the side of the woods as he tried to reload. He dropped the empty clip on the ground as he made his way up to the blacktop. The full clip spun from his hand as he tried to slam it home in the gun and he lurched after it as it skidded along the road. Behind the man three zombies came slinking out of the woods.

They looked about suspiciously and Katie crouched down lower in the grass, hoping it would be enough to keep her from being seen by their special zombie vision. Their gaze slid passed her smoothly and they split apart and ran up the hill after the man.

By the time they made it to the top of the roadway, Katie had the furthest man in her sights. All three of the men were dressed in stained shirts that gleamed bright red in the afternoon sun. The man had the magazine in his hands, but it looked to Katie like fear was keeping him from being able to slot the thing home. Shrugging slightly she said, "That's the difference between yahoos and professional soldiers buddy."

She gently squeezed the trigger and the shot caught the far zombie just above his ear, his head jerked sideways and a spray of crimson flew out beyond him in a straight line. Before his corpse had even hit the ground Katie was sighting in on the next zombie, a woman in shorts and with unnaturally pale skin. Both zombies threw themselves down, which ruined Katie's chances to get off a quick shot. Cursing she tried to follow her target along the ground. The zombie was doing everything it could to prevent her from getting in a clean hit. It jerked its head sideways and up and down as it moved, trying to make it back into the tall grass.

As this was happening the man finally slotted home the clip and started firing. His shots hit the zombies in the torso, but didn't slow either of them. From the woods Katie saw the two kids start to shamble up the hill.

'Damn, kid zombies. Those bastards.' The trio must have offed the kids after Katie picked up the adults. 'Focus on the immediate threat first.' The woman was almost to the grass, so Katie took the shot she had. As luck would have it, the bullet hit the woman just as her head was jerking up. There was no spray this time, but the zombie immediately fell face down onto the road.

The man was in the way of her next shot. He had run up to the remaining zombie and put himself between it and the grass. The man stood over it and fired down at point blank range. Nothing happened. He had burned through his entire clip.

"Get the fuck out of my way!" Katie yelled at him.

The man looked up at her, while the zombie used the distraction to jump him. Both of them tumbled down towards the kids, fighting and flailing with their arms and legs swinging wildly. Katie tracked the melee with her scope, but didn't dare take a shot. The men ended up in a pile at the kid's feet and the fight ended there. The children lunged into the melee and Katie watched for a few more moments before she started to back down the hill towards the car.

'No way had he survived that. If the zed didn't get him the kid zombies did. Bit was infected; infected was dead. Fucking waste.'

Katie made her way back to the car and didn't bother to pick up the woman as she continued down the road. The next sign indicated she had only a few miles to go until she entered Florida.

Chapter 21 — Max

"Stewart!" Max whispered as loudly as he dared. "Stewart!"

The woman was still on the couch in front of the small dining table. Giving up on her Max went to the open window and called out softly, "Ruben!"

The older man was standing by the side of the trailer, squinting outwards and trying to see through the thick morning fog that had come up during the night.

"You're up early Max." Ruben said quietly. "You better not wake up your girl-friend, she was a little cranky when she finally turned…"

"Stop Ruben. There are zombies coming. A lot of them. They are all around the park. Get Javier. I'll wake up Stewart."

Bill had already shaken himself awake and was lacing up his boots. Max padded down to Stewart in his socks, juggling his boots and rifle as he went. With an elbow he prodded Stewart, who came awake almost instantly and had her pistol pointing at Max a split second later.

"Wake up. Zombies coming."

It was almost dawn, the fog was lit in a dim glow that allowed them to discern the shapes of Ruben and Javier before the two came into the trailer.

"How close Max?" Ruben asked.

"Close. Less than a hundred yards."

"We gotta get into the trucks then and high tail it out of here." Bill said.

"Did you guys hear anything?" Max asked.

Ruben and Javier shook their heads, but only Ruben answered, "Nothing, just normal animal sounds."

"Well they're out there. I can see them. They are closing in, but slowly. There are a couple of the smart ones, hanging back."

"So the standard way they do things then." said Stewart, "Do we have time to make coffee and chit-chat or should we be moving now?"

Bill nodded at Stewart, "Good point, move now, talk later. Who wants to ride in the new truck?"

Everyone raised their hands quietly.

Grinning, Bill said, "Can you tell I am new at this? Max, you, Ruben, and Javier go in the old one, with Javier driving. Stewart, me and you will take the new one. We'll all go out and get into the vehicles together. Stewart and I will get in from the passenger door, you three from the driver's side. That should make it more difficult for them to get ahold of us." The evening before, they had parked the trucks side by side near the front end of the trailer.

The five people filed out, with Bill leaving last, he took a quick glance around to make sure they had not forgotten anything before he left.

The fog outside was only faintly brighter as the group slogged towards the trucks.

"Go! We gotta go faster, they are moving in." Max muttered. Ahead of them Stewart and Rueben started a quick jog to the doors of the trucks. A moment later someone's rifle went off and Max saw a shadowy form fly backwards in the fog.

Ruben was down on one knee, rifle held to his shoulder, he fired twice more at zombies that glided into view around the hood of the truck. Not waiting to see if his shots were lethal he jerked open the truck door and scrambled into the back, hefting the bomb with him. Javier rested his rifle on the windowless door frame and gestured at Max to get in. Bill and Stewart already had the big diesel started before Max was even in his seat. The zombies closed in around the two vehicles, suddenly becoming visible as gray shades. Max pushed his gun through the window and fired wildly at the closest two. In the back seat Ruben was struggling to get situated with the backpack, cursing loudly as his gun strap had somehow become entwined with one from the pack.

Both trucks lurched forward at the same time, ruining Max's next shot and causing Ruben to tumble onto the floor on his back. With a sickening crunch Javier side swiped the back of the diesel and was shoved off of the narrow gravel road into the camping area, where the truck smashed over a picnic table and a solid metal grill. The entire truck lurched upwards as they drove over the debris.

"Fuck! I thought I was going first!" Javier yelled to Max.

"I don't know, I thought we were too…Hey!" Max yelled at the zombie who had grabbed onto the end of his rifle barrel. Shaking it didn't deter the creature, who clung to the weapon with both hands and practically dragged Max out of the truck. The rifle's strap was wound around Max's shoulder and he could not shake the zombie off.

"Help! He's got my gun!" Max screamed as he was pulled from his seat halfway through the window.

Javier responded by swerving the truck from side to side, which almost threw Max out the window. Ruben's hand clawed up from the floor in the back seat and had a firm grip on Max's pants, holding him tenuously in place. Ruben couldn't raise himself up to get a better grip and Javier was staring at Max's behind as the man slowly lost the battle with the zombie.

"Stop driving son!" Ruben called, "You gotta stop and pull him back or I am going to lose him."

Javier slammed on the brakes and Max disappeared into the fog as he was pulled out.

"I didn't say, slam on the goddamned brakes!" yelled Ruben, finally rising to a sitting position in the back seat. "Pull forward. Slowly! And put the fucking lights on so we don't run him over!"

Sweat was pouring off of Javier's face as he struggled to do as the old man said. He drove the truck forward no more than ten feet and stopped when he saw a body on the ground.

"Ruben?"

"What is it? Do you see him? Is he hurt?"

"It's just…a body." Javier could tell the body didn't belong to Max, it was dressed in casual clothing, sweat pants and a t-shirt. Max was outfitted like the rest of them, in fatigues. "It's not Max, I don't see Max, only his gun."

"Oh shit. Turn your radio on, try and contact Bill."

Javier did just that while Ruben climbed over the seat to the front, "I am too old to be doing this sort of stuff. Humping my ass over seat backs. Crawling under cars. Shooting, goddamned horror movie monsters. I swear the only time I ever climbed over the seat back, there was pussy involved and this is a damn site less fun than that."

Ruben peered into the fog and said, "I'm going out to get the rifle. You keep trying to raise Bill on the radio. As soon as they know they've out distanced us, they will turn it on and try and talk to us."

Hopping out Ruben felt a twinge in his knee, "Too gawdamned old." He muttered as he bent to collect Max's rifle. Off in the distance he heard gunfire, it sounded like two rifles firing in a constant barrage somewhere ahead of him. "Damnit." In a soft voice he called, "Max? Max, buddy? Are you out there?"

His old hands cocked the rifle and wound the broken strap around his wrist, taking a knee he slowly spun a half circle in front of the truck. The fog was too thick. Bending he examined the ground by the body. The zombies head was smashed in, it was dead for good, there were scuffle marks in the dirt that may or may not have been made by someone crawling away. "I ain't an indian tracker. How am I supposed to figure this out?" Ruben was quiet for a moment, then muttered, "But if I lose Max I better not show my face to Bill or Stewart again…" Bending he followed the scuffles up into another camp area. Behind him the truck followed at an idle.

The rifle fire continued for several more seconds and then cut off abruptly. It was followed by a crackling from the radio in Javier's hand.

"Is it on?" Bill's voice asked.

"Of course it's fucking on! See if they are there!" came Stewart's voice, oddly echoing from the radio and the fog in front of Ruben.

"Hello? Ruben? Max?"

"This is, um, Javier."

"Good…" Bill began only to be cut off by Stewart.

"Where the fuck are they? First he side swipes us, then he stops. I mean did you have to give him instructions on how to drive the truck too?"

"Javier, where are you guys?"

"The zombies got Max. We stopped to get him."

"What? I didn't quite hear you."

"The. Zombies. Got. Max." Javier said, annunciating each word slowly.

"You got him back, though, right?"

"We're working on it."

"We're coming back."

"Don't drive too fast, we can't be that far away from you."

Ruben heard the sound of the truck starting up and in seconds saw the headlights pierce the gloom. He waved on arm and Stewart stopped. There was blood on the front grill of the truck. When it stopped a slow trickle ran down the chrome and pooled in the dirt.

"Where is Max?" Stewart demanded, slamming the door as she left the driver's seat.

"A zombie pulled him out. We stopped, we can't find him." Ruben said, meeting her gaze unflinchingly.

"What do you mean a zombie pulled him out of the truck?"

"He had his rifle pointing outside of the vehicle shooting zombies and one of them got close enough to grab his gun. They fought, he got pulled out. It happened right back there. The zombie he was fighting is still there, only dead for real now. Stewart," Ruben said, holding up one hand, "Max's rifle was there too."

"Max!" Yelled Bill into the gloom. "Max! If you can hear me, yell back!"

Silence was their only answer.

Chapter 22 — Max

Max heard Bill call out for him. Answering was impossible with the zombie's hand clamped tightly around his mouth.

"I know you want to answer him. But just simmer down. Relax. Ain't nothing you can do to change what is happening right now." The zombie, one Stewart would quantify as an 'Einstein', continued carrying him down a ravine through the fog.

After he was pulled from the truck Max remembered hitting the ground hard and landing on top of the zombie who had grabbed him. Then things became a little blurry as the hands of the dead pulled at him, lifting him up and away from the unmoving form of the zombie that had cushioned his fall. Now he was being carried like a trussed pig by a large African American man, and there were zombies all around them. In fact, when Max concentrated on his friends he could tell that the zombie attack had been called off of them. The shamblers were dispersing from the glowing sparks that Max had come to see his friends as.

"I'm Lucas." The zombie offered by way of introduction. Turning to his nearby friends, fellow Einsteins, Lucas said, "You truss him, I'll hold his mouth."

When Max had his feet on the ground he tried to make a break for it. The other zombies were not expecting his strength, but Lucas was ready for it. He kept one hand pressed against Max's mouth and used his other to grab him around the back of his head. Max's scream was an aborted muffle that hadn't carried more than a few feet. Lucas lifted Max into the air by his head, held him there and shook him with an almost tenderness.

"I know your kind." Lucas said, giving Max another gentle shake. "You might take more shaking to break your neck than most living, but I could do it. And now you know it. So? You got no choice in this. Come along with us. Either quietly or not, but either way you are coming along."

Max had wrapped his hands around Lucas's arms so all his weight was not balanced on his neck. He couldn't communicate in the position he was in, so he just let the rest of his body go limp. The other zombies quickly closed in and tied his legs, using what looked like metal cuffs on his legs. They put one set on and after a moment's hesitation, snapped a second set into place.

"See? We know about you." Lucas said. "Sorry about this next bit."

Max caught a flash of orange as a strap was wrapped around over his eyes. His feet hit the ground abruptly and Lucas removed his hand and forced some sort of ball into Max's mouth. The cord was tightened at the back of his head and once strapped in Max couldn't speak so much as a word. His hands were pulled behind his back and double cuffed like his feet had been.

"Look at it this way, at least you don't have to walk." Lucas pointed at two of the zombies nearby and said, "Carry him. And don't hurt him."

The zombies hefted Max like a log over their shoulders and the group set out at a jog through the fog.

'Stewart!' Max thought furiously in his mind, trying, hoping to contact her. After all, if he could see nearby people, why not talk to them too. In this case his hopes were dashed and nothing happened at all. Slowly he watched as his friends made every widening circles in a search pattern behind him at the camp ground. One by one, the group slipped beyond his ability to see them anymore.

The sun rose and burned off the fog around them, replacing it with a hot, humid summer day. The zombies stayed away from roads, they travelled through the woods and along stream beds and if they did take a man-made path they practically ran while they moved along it. It was mid-morning before they stopped and Lucas undid the bindings holding Max gagged.

"Sorry, it has been a few weeks since I was alive. It is amazing how quickly you forget about certain things. Are you thirsty?"

Max wanted to respond with defiance, he had plenty of time to think about what would happen when they inevitably spoke with him. He had figured out they would, he didn't know what they wanted, but if they wanted him dead they had ample opportunity. If they wanted live humans, they would have taken Bill and the others. 'No,' he thought, 'They wanted me. And they got me.'

To test his theory he merely said, "I wouldn't say no to a drink."

Lucas nodded, "I think it is pretty safe to say you could yell for help all you wanted out here. Can you still see your friends?"

Max put a confused look on his face and looked around, "No. How could I?"

Shaking his head Lucas didn't smile when he said, "That is not what I am talking about. And I want you to know that I know that. Now, can you still see your friends?"

Shrugging his shoulders, Max answered, "No."

"Not so hard is it? Cooperating, I mean."

"About that drink…" Max ventured.

"Coming up. Adam?" Lucas asked, "Get the man a drink."

A zombie cut from the cloth of male adolescent approached with a shoulder bag and pulled out a liter of bottled water. He popped the lid off of it and held it up while Max drank his fill, then pulled back a little late, spilling water everywhere.

"Sorry." Adam said with a sulky voice that indicated he was anything but.

"Don't worry about it. In this humidity I'll be soaked through in an hour anyway."

"True enough." said Lucas, "Are you hungry?"

"What have you got?"

"Does it matter?"

Max waited a moment and nodded, "Yeah."

"Well how about pancakes, bacon, grits, fresh eggs and plenty of maple syrup and butter? Served with hot fresh coffee. Do you take cream and sugar?"

Involuntarily Max felt his mouth watering, "Both."

"Adam." Lucas said.

The young man pulled out a box of Kashi food bars.

"Sorry, we don't have any of that other stuff." Lucas said. He took a bar from Adam, tore the wrapper off and held it while Max nibbled it.

"So, what do you want with me?" Max asked between bites.

"I don't."

"What?"

"I don't want anything with you."

The rest of the meal was short and silent. Lucas didn't gag Max when they started moving again, but he didn't allow Max to walk himself either. The group only travelled a short distance, when they came across a four lane highway. Max caught sight of a road sign, it was highway 75, the same road he had been travelling south on yesterday. Max couldn't tell if they were at a spot on the road that he had already passed, but if he had to guess he would have said they were further south.

They group stood in the brush just off the road, except for Lucas and Max the other zombies crouched down out of sight from the road. Lucas took Max back about into the trees almost out of sight of the highway, and they waited.

"What are we waiting for?" Max eventually asked.

"You tell me. You got the sight. Don't blink or you might miss it."

A few more minutes passed and Max heard the sound of a car driving along the highway. It was moving along at a good clip and disappeared from sight in seconds thanks to the heavy tree growth. The vehicle was a minivan of some sort, which relieved Max, he had been afraid it would be one of the trucks carrying Bill and Stewart away from him.

"That's it?" Max asked. "You wanted me to see a minivan drive by? You could have just asked."

Lucas shook his head, "Nope. I don't think you would have come. Anyway that was only the first one. We're waiting for the second. Give it a couple minutes." Lucas took ahold of Max and carried him to the edge of the highway, they loitered there in full view of anyone coming along the road now.

Closer to five minutes later a camouflage military vehicle came around the long curve towards them. The Humvee slowed and stopped before them and Max saw the passenger door open and a woman got out. He recognized her.

"You! You're…Harry's girl!" Max said with surprise.

The woman shook her head, "'Harry's girl'? Bah! Harry was my man." She said emphasizing the word 'my', "You almost got it right. A small deception that worked pretty well, though not good enough. Of course you almost killed me. Then again you did get Harry."

"I saw you. You got shot in the street."

"Neck shot. I healed. Harry…not so lucky."

"But, the bombs!" Max stammered, "The bombs started falling everywhere, we barely got out."

"Yeah, I didn't. You know what it's like to be buried under a building? It took me hours to figure out what happened and a day to organize a digging party to rescue me."

Both stood and stared in silence for a moment, then Lucas said, "Are we done with the reunion? He is the one you wanted?"

The woman nodded, "Yeah, Lucas. This is him. Thanks."

"I'm gone then. Want me to pin the others down for a bit, or does it matter now?"

"Nah, let them go. I'll have plenty of time to talk. And I can handle a diversion or two myself if I have to."

"Alright. Bye Aubrey. I'd like to say it was a pleasure, but, well, you know."

"Yeah, I know. If it's any consolation it is for a higher cause."

Lucas snorted, "So you say, I see what you want, but this hierarchy problem is never going to go away. Not until there is only one of us left."

"We can argue what's best later. I need to talk to this guy now." Aubrey said.

Lucas turned and went into the woods, pausing before he stepped into them, he turned and said, "Oh, and Aubrey, he didn't notice. I don't think, you might have to point it out to him."

"Aubrey." Max said, "I don't suppose you brought me all this way to let me go?"

The petite woman smiled and nodded, "That, believe it or not, is exactly what I am going to do."

Chapter 23 — Stewart

"The fog is finally lifting." said Bill. This earned him a sharp look from Stewart.

"So?" she replied, the anger in her voice cut through the hazy air like a knife.

"So we should have an easier time following their tracks now. I think we should go back to where Ruben says it started and try and pick up some actual tracks from there. All this walking in circles hasn't done us any good."

"That old man. Why the fuck are we hauling a senior citizen out here with us anyway?"

"Stop. Not just as your friend, but as your commanding office. It was not Ruben's fault. Max had his gun out the window, he got pulled out. Ruben and Javier did the best they could."

"I don't blame them. An old guy and a kid? No, I blame you. You know how Max is, he hesitates. That isn't good in a fight. You are the one who put the three of them in that truck together."

"I'll take that blame." Bill said.

"You don't sound remorseful enough for me." Stewart said tightly.

"I'm not."

She turn on him angrily, "What do you mean by that? I thought you were friends? Best of buds, the way Max made it sound."

"He isn't dead."

"How do you figure that?"

Bill gestured around them, "The suns up, the fog is burning off. Notice anything else?"

"There's no fucking zombies."

"Exactly. They took him and they want something from us. Otherwise they would have kept attacking." The two of them marched back to the center of the campground. Bill spoke into his radio, "Ruben, Javier, meet us back at the trucks."

"Affirmative." Came Ruben's voice.

"And, Stewart, don't you go treating Ruben bad. Honestly he has been more helpful than you might know. He's from my town and I'm going to have to live with him after all this is over. So are you. If you and Max hook up."

"Optimist."

They trudged the rest of the way to the trucks in silence and waited a few minutes for Javier and Ruben to appear.

"Nothing." Javier said, before Ruben could speak. "No zombies, not even by the gate where you guys were fighting them. Other than Max being gone and that one there," he pointed at the body Ruben had found along with Max's rifle, "you wouldn't know this place had been crawling in zombies a few hours ago."

"So, sir, what do we do now?" asked Ruben, not quite meeting Bill's eyes.

"Knock it off Ruben, we don't blame you. As Stewart has already told me, it was my fault. What do we do? I'm open to ideas."

"There's a first." Stewart chided softly.

"They promoted me, someone had to be in charge. You think I take that lightly?"

"Well, you didn't have to use your authority out here where no one else is around. I think we should have more collaboration, instead of orders."

"Point taken. Now collaborate. What does everyone think we should do?"

"Find Max. One way or the other." said Ruben.

"Find Max." Javier agreed, "I wouldn't want to be left out here, even if I was…one of them."

"Stewart?"

"We don't really have any choice but to find him. Without him what can we do? Unless one of you figured out how to see zombies and track their overlord?"

Bill shook his head, "No. But I am glad just turning tail and running didn't make the list of things we could do. Because that is an option." The other three just shook their heads.

Bill cleared his throat and continued, "Good. I wouldn't want to be left out there either. Okay with the sun coming up, let's see if we can find any tracks."

"Wait Bill, you might as well explain your theory to these two, see if that changes anything." said Stewart.

"What theory?" asked Ruben.

"That they took Max." Bill said, "It only makes sense. They came in, surrounded us and immediately stopped attacking when they had snatched one of us. They even carried off their…dead again. Why would they do that?"

"In wars they do it to deny the enemy a sense of accomplishment and to hide their number of casualties." Ruben said.

"But why now? It's not like we are reporting our progress to anyone. But why the grab and dash? I think they have him and they want something from us. I think if we wait here, they will come back to us with an offer."

"So you want us to wait?" asked Javier

"No. I want us to try and track them down first. Find Max if we can ourselves. I could be wrong. But if we can't I vote for staying here the rest of the day."

"We should leave someone with the trucks, in case they come back." Ruben said.

"No. No splitting up." Bill shook his head as he said it.

"I disagree, I can stay here, I'll sit in the diesel, keep watch and radio you if anything changes. You can high tail it back here and bail me out. Plus you can move faster without a senior citizen along." This last was said with a meaningful glance at Stewart, who blushed.

"Fuck, I didn't mean that. And you were a quarter mile away, no way you heard me from that far."

"I heard what I heard. What deary? You think that you are the only one to get something from killing the dead?"

"What zombies have you killed?" Stewart shot back.

"I cleaned up your mess with that woman in Chicago."

"She wasn't dead!"

"She moved like it!" Ruben said.

"Whoa! Stop for a minute! Ruben, are you saying you heard me and Stewart talking this morning when we couldn't even see you?" Bill asked.

Ruben nodded, still glaring at Stewart.

"That's…awesome! How far can you hear things?"

Ruben sighed, "I know where you are going with this, but it doesn't work like that. It's not controllable like Stewart's 'Speedy Gonzales' ability or Max seeing the dead everywhere with some 'third eye'. It's more like I kind of wonder about something, then I can hear it. This morning me and Javier were walking the edge of the woods and I wondered where you were, then, I could hear you, and knew which direction you were from where I was. But as soon as I realized I wasn't day dreaming it went away."

Stewart snorted, "Sounds like you got some sort of zombie powered hearing aid. That's fitting old man."

Ruben blinked and looked away, "Could be. But maybe it will be useful. I'll take what I can get."

"Well…okay. You can stay at the trucks, the three of us will find the tracks and follow them if we can. But Ruben if you so much as even think there is something coming, you let us know right away. Trust your gut."

"I will. They already got three hours on you." Ruben said.

"Alright, we're going. Everyone make sure you have water and something to eat. Let's go." Bill said.

"Yessir!" was Stewart's smart comeback, which earned her a reproachful glance from Bill.

Stewart turned back to Ruben and asked, "So, can't you just 'wonder' where Max is and point us in the right direction?"

The old man shook his head, "No."

"Fuck all good that does us then."

"Sorry lady, but my ability didn't come with a set of instructions like yours apparently did. I'm learning it as I go."

"Ruben…just get in the truck. We'll go find him. Honk if anything comes up." Bill said.

Ruben nodded and climbed into the truck, where he locked the doors and settled back to wait.

The other three walked over to the corpse sitting a few feet away from the truck and started circling it, looking for an indication of which way their friend had been carried away. Ruben eased himself into the truck and hit the door lock button on the remote. He hated lying to Bill like that; the man was a decent enough fellow, but some secrets needed to stay that way.

"Stewart, you see anything?" Bill asked a few moments after they had circled the body again.

"No. The day light helps, Bill, but we walked all over this place. If I had to guess though, and I do, I would say they dragged him a few feet, then boosted him up and carried him." Stewart pointed to some scuff marks in the mix of dirt and pea gravel, "See? This mess ends about here. Then we just have a couple of clear foot prints heading off that way."

"Not much of a guess then." Javier said.

"They could have circled around. We'll just make for the trees straight that way and see if we find anything." Responded Stewart.

"Fine." Bill agreed.

The three headed away from the body towards the tree line where Stewart had pointed. When they got to the edge of the woods they found a well beaten path leading down through the trees. Stewart squatted and looked at it.

"Boot prints, probably from this morning. Looks like they came up and back this way. See how the prints overlap each other?"

"Yeah, I got it." Bill said, knowing he could have seen the same thing as Stewart, had he looked.

"I'll keep my eyes on the trail, you two watch, in case they left someone for us."

"Why would they do that?" asked Javier.

"She means, 'In case they left someone to ambush us.'" Bill clarified.

"Oh. Got it." Javier glanced about warily.

"I doubt they would have sat here waiting for us for three hours."

Stewart laughed, "Why not? They are dead, they have all the time in the world. Still, I bet you are right Bill. Let's go."

Stewart took off at a brisk pace down the path. After only a few minutes it ended on the banks of a creek. She bent down and looked on the muddy banks. As she rose she shook her head.

"Nothing, they must have gone off the trail somewhere and I didn't notice. Let's go back and see if we can pick them up. Everyone keep their eyes open for anything, bent twigs, foot prints, that sort of thing. I will watch the path and see if I can figure out where they left it." Stewart said.

They proceeded up the path more slowly and close to halfway up Stewart halted and pointed at the path, "Here. This is where they got on the path this morning, but I don't see any return tracks, so they went off somewhere between here and the park."

"This is slower than I was hoping for." Bill said, eyeing the woods around them.

"What can we do? Unless you have some sort of 'Max radar', we are stuck doing this the slow way."

The three followed a scared trail through the woods until the sun was high overhead. Stewart stopped them as they trudged along another deer path. Her sudden stop caused the men behind her to come up short, but not quite bump into her.

"What is it?" Bill asked.

"Look up there." Stewart said, pointed to their left.

"Yeah? It looks like a clearing."

Stewart trudged up the steep hillside, when she got there she turned back around and said, "Shit."

"What?" asked Javier and Bill at the same time.

"Come on up, see for yourselves."

The two men carefully climbed the slope and saw that they were actually on the edge of a paved roadway.

"A road? So? We know we're…" Bill stopped when Stewart raised her hand and pointed behind him along the roadway.

Bill turned around and softly swore under his breath. Stewart was pointing at a sign that said, "RVs, Cabins, Camping!" and had a huge red arrow underneath it. The same sign that they had followed the night before to drive into the campground.

"We've hiked all morning and the campground is right there?" asked Javier with disbelief.

"Let's go back." Stewart said, heading off down the road.

"We can't leave him!"

"Bill, we can't find him either. We've hiked around for two hours and we're five minutes away from the truck. They led us in a circle."

Grumbling, Bill fell into line behind her, Javier took up the rear. The young man kept glancing back behind them, as if still disbelieving that they had come such a short distance.

The trio walked into the campground and saw the two trucks parked where they had left them. Ruben was not in the cab, when Stewart saw this she sped up into a jog that left the others behind. Her gun came up and she started eyeing the area around the trucks.

Stewart pulled to a stop when she saw Ruben at the back of the diesel; he was looking at the bomb. For a moment Stewart thought he was talking to it, but he waved and smiled at her.

"What's up Ruben. You gave me a scare when I didn't see you in the truck."

"I had to water the horses. I decided to check on the bomb when I got back, because, like a darned fool, I left it there instead of taking it with me or locking it in the cab."

"Oh."

"So…no Max?"

"We walked in circles. I'm not a good bloodhound."

"I am sorry to hear that. What are we going to do now?"

Bill and Javier walked up and both grabbed fresh water bottles out of the cooler in the pickup bed. The cooler didn't have any ice in, so the water was warm, but fresh.

"I don't know what to do. I thought, maybe when we were gone, someone would come along and drop Max off. Or at least contact us to tell us what they wanted. This feels more like a kidnapping than a bunch of zombies out for a snack." Bill said.

"You were hoping they would contact us, you mean." Ruben said, "Look I'm just going to throw this out there, so don't be mad. What if he's dead?"

"No!" Stewart and Bill said simultaneously.

Raising his hands before him, Ruben said, "It has to be said. How long are we going to sit here before we move on? Another few hours? A few days? Another week? A month? C'mon Bill, how long will it be?"

"I don't know…I can't…"

"Well, they pinned the bars on you, so you have to decide, even if you listen to us first. If I am going to die fighting zombies, I'd rather do it in Iowa defending my town, not where ever the hell we are now."

"So we give up the mission entirely?" Stewart asked.

"Max was the mission. Without our hunting dog we can't find the animal, can we?" Ruben countered.

No one said anything to that right away.

Finally Bill shrugged his shoulders and turned away. He brushed his arm across his face and then spoke without looking at the others. "I'm still going to Florida. Max knew he was in Florida. How hard can it be to find him? He's their leader."

Stewart said, "I'm with you."

"Well I think that's horseshit and you two know it. No Max, no leader, this bomb is big, but it's not like we can plant it in the middle of the state and it'll wipe all the bad guys out. I think the military could use it in some other manner, to help shore up the state's defenses." As he spoke Ruben's old, weathered hand stroked the backpack containing the bomb.

"You said it Ruben, I've got the bars. I'm going. You and Javier can take the other truck and head north if you want to. I'll head south and try and find this guy. If you cut the head of the snake off, the body dies. I think we'll do more good taking this leader out than killing a few thousand zombies near Iowa."

"What about your family?" Ruben countered.

"This is for my family." Bill said firmly, "So they have a better chance. I knew this was probably a one way trip. I would've thought you had figured that out too."

"But it doesn't have to be." Persisted Ruben, "We can turn now and head for home. We don't have to throw our lives away like…."

"Max?" suggested Stewart.

Ruben's response was a slight nod.

"First, we don't know that he is dead. Second, if he is, he died trying to do the right thing. Third, we were air lifted halfway across the country, do you really think the four of us have such a good chance to make it back to Iowa anyway?" Ruben conceded the point by shaking his head slightly, "We're closer to our original goal than home now, even if we don't have much of a chance."

Bill looked at Javier, "What do you want to do?"

The young man smiled, "I'm with you Bill. You and Ruben."

"That doesn't help much." Bill said wryly, "But is it good to know you like us both."

"You think the old man would leave you?" Javier shook his head, "He'll go with you, he's just trying to make you decide and do it. Don't you get it?"

In a flash Bill did understand that. They had already spent more time than they would have if, say, Ruben had been taken. So now it was time to shit or get off the pot. "I guess it's shitting time then." He said softly.

"You got that right. I can't tell you how sorry I am about Max, he was a good guy and we needed him. He would have made our job easier, but wishing he was still here isn't going to change anything."

"I got it. Stewart, do you want to drive the diesel? I'll take the Ford. Javier you ride shotgun with me, Ruben you and that bomb you're so fond of can ride with Stewart." Inside Bill was wondering how he went from determined to find his friend to leaving him behind, 'Fucking old man, there is something up with you, something you aren't telling us, isn't there?'

Without another look around the four of them got into the trucks and drove out of the campgrounds.

Chapter 24 — Max

"You actually want me to believe this crap?" Max said to Aubrey.

"You have to believe it, I can provide you with some proof, but I need…assurances Max that you won't reveal anything to any of our kind. I'm barely holding it together this close to Sentry, I don't trust anyone else. You saw the guys who brought you in, do you think they were with him?"

"I thought they were with you."

"I contacted them. I can still do that, and they were hard to find. There are some of us who have fallen off Sentry's radar, he is a busy…entity, and some people he never knew about, others, like me, he thinks are incapacitated. And then there is that third class, who figured out some way to avoid being subjugated altogether."

"And it can be taught?"

"More like, they can give other zombies a bit of a vaccine against the compulsion. It isn't a full vaccination either. I don't think I would do well against Sentry if we were in the same room. This guy with Red gave me the basics and that was at a great distance. He wasn't willing to meet me either, which tells me something."

"Red? In Nebraska?"

Aubrey's mouth turned into a small 'o' of surprise, but she nodded, "You know Red?"

"He helped me out. But he killed some people who didn't deserve it."

"That club has a large membership these days, Max."

Shrugging his shoulders Max nodded. "So what did he tell you?"

"First, his actions told me a lot in and of themselves. We might not be of the same lineage, but he was afraid to get too close to me. The closer I am to weaker zombies, those that haven't consumed enough flesh and blood, the easier it is for me to control them. That guy who brought you in? I had to ask him to help me. I couldn't make him do it."

"Does that matter, you are all working together." Max said bitterly.

"You really think so? It might surprise you that we aren't. I had to convince him. And it was not easy. I had to share something pretty important to get his help."

"How to avoid being controlled by stronger zombies?"

Aubrey nodded, "Yes. Something I don't want to become common knowledge."

Max grimaced and said, "Oh, no we wouldn't want that would we? I mean that might mean people get to do what they want again!"

"You don't really understand what you're talking about. When we are…freshly made, we are hungry. But I think Jimbo stumbled on this technique of his when he was still hungry, it could be taught to others, with no one to control them humanity is doomed."

Max thought about that for a moment and responded, "You seem to be making a case for leaving Sentry alive."

"You haven't met him. The man is deranged; something went wrong with him when he turned. He killed, as far as we can tell, all the first zombies he created. But there is a rumor…"

"Alright, I'll bite, a rumor of what?"

"That he wasn't the first zombie."

"What?" Max shouted, "You have got to be fucking with me! I'm coming all this way, leaving my family and this tool isn't even the guy I need to be looking for?"

"It's just a rumor. He made me in his clinic and the oldest zombies there weren't that old, but it was whispered that Sentry wasn't the first. One of us who could use the computers in his office, found evidence that there were experiments on prisoners…and others before Sentry came along."

"How did it start?"

Aubrey shrugged, "Hell if I know. But the rumor is that Sentry killed the first zombie after being bitten."

"So that doesn't help us, if the first guy is dead…"

"Wait, let me finish. The first zombie didn't just infect Sentry, he infected someone else too. A cop of some sort."

"So Sentry has a sibling, how does that work?"

"Well affecting a lessor zombie is easy, no matter who it belongs to. Affecting someone more powerful is dicey, even if you are more stronger than they are. Siblings are altogether different, some are worse than your parent zombie, some are easier. I don't know why. But I did a few experiments on my own in Chicago and I know it is true."

"So finding this guy, if he can be found, is a crapshoot."

"I think I know who it is." said Aubrey.

"Yeah, who? And how did you find that out?"

"I found it out by getting a list of the security detail from the clinic, it was a short list. Everyone thought it was a guy named 'Gabe', one of the first children created by Sentry. But I met Gabe, briefly, before he was sent somewhere in the Far East. I think he is the only one of the first group to survive and I think that is why Sentry sent him halfway across the world. The other guards I ran down one by one, talking to people and putting together a picture of who I could confirm was dead. The only one missing was someone named Dan. Daniel Gears."

"And where is mister Gears?"

"I don't know."

"Gosh, I wouldn't have guessed that. So I have to find one guy, who may or may not help me, in the entire fucking world? He could be anywhere!"

Aubrey shrugged, "No. You got it wrong Max, I'm just throwing you that in case you can find him. It is one of three things I am working on right now. You, finding Dan and one other thing that I am saving as my ace in the hole."

"Why do you want me?"

"I want to know what your plans are. Maybe I can help. We both want the same thing."

Max laughed. "Oh, that's awesome. I'm one of your three methods of attack and you don't even know what I am doing! What the hell, if I don't tell you, you'll just beat it out of me, won't you?"

The look Aubrey gave him was reproachful, but she nodded. "I have a need to know."

"We're going old school sister. We brought a bomb to blow the motherfucker up."

"Not a beacon? You're not going to call down an airstrike?"

"No, it's a bomb. Although it wouldn't surprise me if it doesn't do jack shit. The guy who gave it to me has a history of honesty impairment."

This earned him a puzzled look from Aubrey.

"The guy is some sort of Special Forces bad ass. He doesn't think much of me and frankly the feeling is mutual. He headed to Washington to see if he could rescue any parts of the old government there." said Max.

"Then you won't be seeing him again." said Aubrey shaking her head.

"I hope not. In my nightmares I see him is as a super zombie, and I think I've only ever been lucky dealing with your kind so far."

With a smile Aubrey said, "I'll take luck. We're going to need it. So now that I know what you are doing I can help."

"How?"

"I know the roads are clear, but there are going to be checkpoints as you get into Florida. Sentry may be crazy, but he has some sense. I can clear the checkpoints away for you. I can keep the zombies away from you when you need to sleep."

"I don't think the people I am travelling with would care to have you with us."

"Oh Max, you're such a joy! I can't travel with you! I have other things to take care of. You'll never see me at all."

"Well that will make things easier, but what am I supposed to tell the people I'm with about the roads being clear?"

"Tell them what you want. Just go fast, things are coming to a head more quickly than I would like. I hope your bomb is bigger than a bunch of hand grenades."

"It is, by a pretty large magnitude, if it works."

"I tracked you in Chicago, you know. It looked like your group was avoiding the zombies I sent after you. When I spoke to Jimbo he said Red told him stories about you too, that you could see us with your mind."

Max said nothing.

"I know that humans get something when they kill us. I don't know what it is, but Ella, she was that woman the old guy with you killed in Chicago was human."

"I know, I could tell."

"So you do have some sort of sight, I knew it. You can tell who is human and who is dead, can't you? I can do the same thing."

"That's…not comforting. I don't think I like being able to see things the way you do."

"I think I have greater range than you, close to four hundred miles."

Max shook his head, "I can't go that far, not even close."

"But you have other abilities don't you?"

"Not that I've noticed."

"Ella was fast and healed quickly, her eyesight was improved, her other senses were sharper. But she seemed to go rotten after she reached a certain point. She was sex crazed and wanted blood like a zombie."

"Could you control her like a zombie?" asked Max, thinking about that made his skin crawl.

"No, but she said she was starting to be able to boss around the lessor zombies around us. I'm glad she is dead. She was annoying. So Max, when you look at me, what do you see?"

For the first time since he met her, Max engaged his secondary vision and looked at Aubrey and her companions. He was surprised and Aubrey read the look on his face with satisfaction.

"I think I know what you see." Aubrey said smugly, "Or rather, what you are not seeing with your mind's eye."

"I don't see anything." Max said, concentrating on getting a mental picture of the woman sitting less than a foot away from him, "You're off my radar completely!"

"Good. I hope it works against Sentry as well as it does against you. Now we have to get you back to your friends."

"Just drop me off at the campground. I doubt they've left yet."

Aubrey tilted her head sideways and looked at Max closely, "Can you see them?"

"No. They are out of range…"

"So your range is shorter than I thought, we're only a couple miles from where they picked you up."

"But we walked all morning!" protested Max.

"Didn't you keep an eye on them as you went?"

Shaking his head Max said, "It doesn't work like that. I have to focus, unless they are really close."

"So try now. If it helps they are over in that direction." Aubrey pointed into the woods.

"Can you see them?"

"No, they are living. Didn't Jimbo explain this to you? I thought you were best friends or something?"

"He killed my wife."

"So you owe him one." Seeing the look of anger on Max's face Aubrey asked, "Too soon?"

"I loved her."

With a sigh Aubrey said, "We've all lost people. You're nothing new. I was out of line. I'm sorry. I didn't lose all emotion when this happened to me, but sometimes the line of appropriate behavior gets blurry. I really am sorry."

Max nodded, but his eyes still smoldered.

"As to your question, no I can't see the living that far. I seem to be limited to a mile or so, but as I've gotten stronger I've noticed that buildings and trees don't seem to interfere much anymore. When I first came to, I was lucky to be able to see people through a wall. But undead are like lights in the darkness. I can see them all, like maggots crawling across the corpse of the world. And I can tell how strong they are too, it is color based." said Aubrey.

"Red told me…well he said people were like rainbow colors full of swirling life, he didn't really mention about what other zombies looked like. But what you are describing is what I can see too." Max said.

"Have you noticed that you can see zombies farther out than living people?"

"Not really. I haven't tried much. I knew Red could see people a long way off, like a hundred miles."

"I think it varies among us. It probably does for you too. Maybe you should try to extend your range a little. Maybe it's like a muscle; you need to exercise to get better using it."

"I'll get around to it in all my free time." Max said.

"Will you know Sentry? I mean will he stand out? Will you be able to tell what he looks like from a distance without seeing him?"

"I am pretty sure, yes. He'll be like you."

Aubrey laughed, "Oh, he is nothing like me! C'mon, get in the car."

"No bindings?" Max asked, more than a little surprised.

"I don't tie up my allies Max. And you are my ally. Trust is hard to come by. Plus…"

"I don't have any weapons anyway." Max finished for her.

Aubrey didn't deny it, but gestured for him to get into the back with her. Once they were strapped in Aubrey told the driver to head back to the last exit and go west. Another Humvee, a half mile behind them, was already turned around facing north on the southbound lane, it pulled out behind them after they passed.

"Friends?"

"Yes. No need to worry."

The vehicles pulled off the highway onto Raccoon Valley drive.

"How far is it from the highway Max?" Aubrey asked.

"Not far, less than a mile, on the left."

"Okay. Got it." said the driver.

Max concentrated a moment and determined the driver was off the radar too. "I can't see him either. I thought you were guarding the secret? Not handing it out like candy on Halloween?"

Aubrey smiled, "Jimbo taught me a few other things too. Among the things he taught was how to mess a little with lessor zombie's memories. I can go in and edit their minds. I can put in false memories, I erase things I don't want them to know. It's not too precise and I've already had a few of my experiments go bad, but I am getting better. Nathan there couldn't explain to anyone why they can't see him. Could you Nate?"

The driver shook his head, "I have no idea what you are talking about."

"See?"

"That is…that is cruel. Can you change them back? Or is it a one way ticket?"

"One way…unless I am very careful. Like I said, I have a few experiments out there. I can't just press a key and revert to a saved copy of their memories, not exactly. Jimbo was pretty cagey about that, warned me to be careful and he only showed me the very basics of it. I had to do a lot of practice in the last few days."

"Is that it?" asked Nathan, pointing a hand at the Campground sign.

"That's it." said Max.

He pulled into the campground and Max scanned the area. "They left." he said, stunned that his friends would leave so quickly.

"Pragmatic. Are they carrying cell phones? Are you?"

"No… Wait! I've got a radio. God! How did I forget my radio?" Max fumbled in his jacket to turn it on. It was supposed to have a five mile range. Talking into it he said, "Stewart? Bill? Anyone?"

Silence reigned in the back of the Humvee.

"Looks like you're riding with me for a while more then. Do you think they went back?"

"What?"

"Do you think they are still trying to finish the mission to kill Sentry or do you think they went back?"

"Probably they would go on. But without me…I mean, they can't find Sentry, so what would be the point."

"Look at you, mister important! I doubt they gave that much thought, probably they figured out they could find him somehow. If they went back we might be screwed. Nate, pull up the gps and tell me where this road goes."

Nathan did as instructed and Aubrey looked at the screen. "This road by passes the city, if they cut over here they could rejoin the highway….about there." She said pointing to the map. "Nathan, take us back to the highway and we'll cut them off. We'll drop Max at the highway 162 and 75 exchange."

"It looks longer."

"It will be faster, the road is clear."

"You can see that?"

"I just know, trust me."

"If you say so. I think that was the idea, to skirt Knoxville."

"Normally that'd be smart, they didn't know Sentry had the roads cleared."

"Why? Do you know?"

"He didn't fill me in on that. But I think it was just to get things organized again. I did the same thing in Chicago. It's hard to get around when there is an accident blocking the road every two blocks."

Nate took the Humvee up to slightly higher than normal highway speed and they made good time driving through the fringes of Knoxville. Aubrey was silent most of the way and Max stared at her for a few minutes before she noticed, then smiled at him, "Sorry, I'm multitasking. I've got things going on. Many pots on the fire, that sort of thing. Did you need something?"

"What's it like?"

"It sucked at first. It could be worse, I could be Nate or one of the other lower order zombies. I wasn't much in life, but I would have stayed alive given a choice."

"Do you sleep? Get hungry?"

"Not for flesh. I could eat more, it would beef me up, but I made a lot of children already in Chicago and it feels like each additional bit of power is less than the one I got before. Like I am getting less out of it, if you know what I mean?"

Max nodded.

"No sleep either. The weird part is, I feel like I am still growing. Like I consumed so much that it started something within me that is only getting more powerful. You want to know how many people I ate to heal up after the building dropped on me?"

Hesitantly, Max nodded.

"None. I haven't eaten in weeks. I wasn't a psycho killer before I was turned and I'm not now. I wasn't a conservative either. I wish I had been; then I would have tried to set aside a bunch of people somewhere."

"To eat?"

"No, not that. But I don't think we can reproduce the normal way. How will the species go on if everyone is dead? I thought, maybe that setting aside a bunch of people might be good to continue the race. We might be able to live with them. With you. Maybe we could exchange safety for blood or something?"

"Would that work?"

"I don't know. It worked for Ella, but she wasn't even dead."

"If I help you, and it works. What are you going to do?"

"I haven't thought that far ahead. Maybe I will find some people and protect them, get society going again."

"Really?" Max asked, "I don't want to be skeptical, but you could have stayed in Chicago and called off the attacks in that area."

"No, I couldn't. If Sentry thought I was dead I couldn't interfere. He already had others take over the hordes in that area and I could only stay free so long as I kept a low profile."

"But Jimbo taught you to…"

"Sentry would know Max. If the zombies stopped attacking, Sentry would know something was up, probably within hours. The best way to solve this problem is to get new leaders, who aren't so interested in complete racial genocide."

"The king is dead! Long live the King?"

"You're showing your education there, be careful. I envision more of an environment of multiple kingdoms. Some of them human, I hope. I will tell you this. If I survive, I will do everything in my power to help save you, your family, your friends and every human left in and around Iowa. How does that deal strike you?"

"I didn't know I had any leverage to bargain with. Maybe I should ask for more?" Max said tentatively.

"I'm offering that up as goodwill. Afterward, we'll use the trust I gain by helping you as a foundation for our new existence."

Max held out his hand and Aubrey took it. Her hand was soft and cool to the touch. They shook and nodded to each other. A few minutes later Nathan told them they were approaching the intersection.

The Humvee stopped well shy of the intersection and Aubrey asked Max if he could sense his friends yet.

"No." he admitted, "No yet." He started to say something else and stopped himself.

"What?"

"It's just…well a lot has happened this morning and my mind is catching up to where I am right now. So…" His voice trailed off.

"Spit it out, what's the worst I can do?"

"Okay, I'm trying to work things out here on my own first. Can I do that?"

"Sure, don't take too long, your friends will be here soon."

"That's part of it. How do you know that? You didn't know they left before."

Aubrey shook her head, "No, I was preoccupied with you. It is easy to find people now. I can take a hold on zombies and sort of see through their eyes. It's not as good as your radar, but it is better in other ways."

"That's what has me confused. You found me pretty easily and I was trying to figure out how." Max said.

Aubrey shrugged her thin shoulders, "I wasn't looking for you. Not necessarily. I was looking for someone and when the helicopters took off I knew I had better track them and get moving."

"So you followed us from there, by tapping into zombies along the helicopter flight path?"

"Yeah, I couldn't possibly know you were on board, I didn't figure that out until you landed and split up from the other soldiers. Actually I recognized the old guy first. He made an impression on me. He is smart, maybe too smart. Sometimes smart beats youth, speed and strength. He certainly did a number on Ella. But I recognized the woman and you too."

"Why did you contact us, and not the other team?"

Aubrey smiled faintly, "Who says I didn't contact the other teams? Your friends are almost here. Get moving. We're going to get out of sight before they arrive."

"But…"

"Go Max! If everything works out I will see you after this is all over."

Reluctantly, Max got out onto the pavement and watched as Nathan turned the Humvee around and drove back the way they had come. Stretching out with his mind he could see his friends driving towards him.

As they drove into eyesight another thought occurred to him, muttering he said, "She said helicopters…she said other teams…There was only one helicopter, there was only one other team…"

Chapter 25 — Stewart

"Zombie on the viaduct." Javier said, indicating the intersection ahead of them.

The highway they were on had been fairly clear, it was supposed to bypass most of Knoxville and then merge back into highway 75.

"First one we've seen since this morning." Bill said, "Watch the exit, let me know if you see any more of them or if we can just drive on."

At that moment, their radio crackled to life, "Bill? Stewart?" It was Max's voice.

Javier answered immediately, "Max? Where are you?"

The figure on the viaduct waved as he spoke into the radio, "Here! I can see you driving towards me."

Bill let out a whoop of joy and honked his horn. After that exclamation he reached over and pounded Javier on the back, which almost resulted in a car accident as the vehicle hit the shoulder of the road. A moment later he had wrestled the truck back onto the road and hit the gas to merge onto the highway.

"Slow down there Bill!" Came Ruben's voice, "Watch for an ambush."

The truck slowed as Bill hit the brakes, it would be just the sort of thing the zombies would do too, use their friend as bait.

"Anything Javier?" Bill asked.

"Nothing, looks clear to me."

Bill reached the highway and turned the truck around to drive back to the overpass where Max was standing.

"Damn it Bill! You should let him come to us!" Ruben said. Stewart stopped her truck in the break down lane of the highway.

Bill wasn't listening; he jumped out of his truck and threw himself towards his friend. "Max! Are you alright? What did they want?"

"I'm fine, maybe a little bruised, but mostly that's my pride."

"Why? Why did they take you?" Bill asked.

The radio cackled to life and Stewart's voice said, "Bill I know you aren't up there debriefing him without us. Max you keep your cake hole shut and get in the damned truck. Let's put a few miles between here and where we stop before you tell us what happened. Unless you want to tell the story twice?"

"Shit. She's right you know." Max said.

"Of course she is. What happened?"

"Can't we at least head towards the truck before she yells at us again?"

As if on cue, the radio burst into life again, "So help me God if you don't get moving now I am driving up to get you!"

Max and Bill quickly jogged back to the truck and hopped in. Bill backed the truck around until he was once again going the way they intended and drove off down the highway. Once he was in the lead they travelled for less than a mile before he pulled over on a clear stretch of the highway.

Stewart popped out of the cab and ran to the back of Bill's truck to gather Max into a fierce hug as he came out. She then held him back from her at arm's length and looked him over. "Did they infect you?"

"No. Like I told Bill, they only really bruised my ego."

Stewart gave him a reproachful look, "I told you not to start until we were all together. What did they want?"

"An…an alliance. Against Sentry."

"And they couldn't just come up and say so?"

"Well, I think we were moving too fast, the people who grabbed me were just doing a favor for the person who wanted to talk to me. She caught up to us, I think, while they were taking me through the woods."

"Where'd they take you?"

"To the highway, a little further down than we went."

"That's all? Damn. So how are they keeping tabs on us?"

"Wait, Stewart, how about I tell you the story and then you all ask questions?" The others agreed and after Stewart gave a curt nod, Max filled them in on his morning.

His statement that it was Aubrey who had arranged his abduction was met with disbelief.

"I saw her; she got shot and wasn't moving. Then the bombardment started." Bill said.

"It was her. Apparently she was the head honcho. And the building did come down, she told me she was buried in the rubble. Let me finish up then we can discuss it, okay?"

It was not to be, however, as he told the story he was interrupted several times by comments from his friends. By the time he finished at least fifteen minutes had gone by and the questions hadn't stopped. He ended his story by speculating that they were not the only two teams the military had sent out to deal with Sentry.

"But you don't know that for sure?" asked Stewart when he finally finished.

"No. But I know what she said. She said, 'helicopters', plural. She said 'other teams', plural." Max shook his head, "I don't think she is the type to make mistakes like that."

"So she wanted you to know too, but didn't come right out and say it?" Bill said.

"What did she do before this happened?" Ruben asked.

"I don't know, it didn't come up." Max said.

"It's hard to imagine a typical housewife leading the zombie revolution. Did she look like she was military? Or former military?" Ruben pressed.

"Geez, Ruben! How would I know? Is there a secret sign I haven't learned yet to identify ex-military people?"

"I guess you wouldn't know. Don't worry about it."

"Did you trust her?" Javier asked.

"It's hard to say…" Max began.

"You do!" Stewart accused, "You think she is playing straight with us! I can see it in your eyes!"

"Yeah, well, she made a good argument. I don't know about the other half of it, though, what the leftover zombies are going to do if Sentry dies. I get the impression that things will be a little chaotic."

"Just a little?" asked Stewart. "I bet, but would it be better for us? For the living?"

"What do you think? At least the attack on Iowa would be over." Max said. "Maybe we could start over there."

"I don't see why she would help us after we do this." Stewart said, "But I can see that we get something out of taking this guy out too. So we take him out. If she makes it easier, great."

"So let's load up and test what she said about the highway being cleared." Bill said.

The other's looked at him for a moment and burst out laughing.

"Alright, alright. I understand we've all had a rough day already. But the sooner we are done here, the faster we get home. So do you want to lay low for a few hours and then travel for a few? Either that or we travel now, then knock off a little early. Hopefully without the drama of the hotel."

"Fine. You're a real hard ass Bill. I can't see what Max sees in you." said Stewart with a light tone. Bill couldn't tell if she was joking and what she said made him feel oddly proud.

"We should go on, at least four or five hours, if the roads are clear we could get two hundred miles in that time. That should get us well into Georgia." said Max.

"Sounds good. Georgia or bust. Stewart why don't you drive Ruben and I'll ride with Javier and Max in the…."

Stewart cut him off, "Nope, you separated me from him before and look what happened."

Max ended up in the lead truck with both Bill and Stewart. Ruben didn't grumble too much to be in the beat up vehicle, but demanded that they stop at the first sign of a better car so they could all ride in comfort.

Two hours later they were pulled off at an interchange, eyeing a gas station that appeared deserted but had a good looking Ford Escape parked in back. The five of them had stopped at the top of the off ramp and Max was getting a feel for what was around them.

"There are zombies in the store. I think four. Maybe five. But there's a human there too."

"You can't tell for sure?" asked Ruben.

Max shook his head, "They are really close together, like on top of the human."

"Are they eating him?"

"I…well I can't say for sure, but it looks that way to me."

"Then we'll do a mop up, kill them all, get their keys and take their car." said Stewart, "We'll make it an old school car-jacking."

"Sounds good. They are super zombies, right Max? Can you tell how, er, super they are?" Bill asked.

"Pretty super."

"Lips super?" asked Bill referring to the zombie from the evening before at the hotel.

"Yeah. Maybe a little more than 'Einstein' on our scale, but not quite superman."

"But they don't have anyone with them and they don't know we are here yet." said Stewart. "I'll punt this one to our C.O. to decide."

"C.O.?" asked Max.

Ruben hooked a thumb at Bill and said, "Him. 'Commanding Officer'."

"Oh, I see how it is, you don't want me to make any decisions, unless they are to decide potentially dangerous stuff." Bill said.

"Welcome to command." Ruben said gruffly, "Don't you know that grunts run the Army? You officers are only around to get in our way."

"Seriously though," began Stewart, "Is it worth the risk, four or five supers could fuck us up. Just for a nice, shiny vehicle."

Ruben and Javier stared at Stewart for a moment, then Ruben took off his helmet, revealing his hair which was windswept back into a duck tail. Stewart started laughing, followed quickly by everyone else.

"I am tired of riding in a shit car. Hell we could have, should have, stopped for that other F-150 back there on the highway. Why didn't we again?" Ruben asked.

"It had front end damage." Bill said.

"We could've checked it out at least. I mean, for Christ sakes, it had a windshield! If we go on I think Javier and I get to take the good truck."

"Okay, fine, we have plenty of fuel and we don't need the fight. We'll swap trucks and go on. Screw fighting super zombies. Ruben the very next good vehicle you see you stop and we'll take it. Okay?"

Ruben muttered something under his breath.

"What?" Bill asked.

"I'll stop after your hair looks like mine. Sir." Ruben said sullenly.

Bill laughed. "Fine, we probably deserve some 'air time' too."

"It's not the air." said Javier, "It's the gawdammned bugs." This last bit was said in an almost perfect imitation of Ruben's voice which made everyone except him laugh again.

Ruben just shook his head, "What? It is the gawdamned bugs. They hurt at fifty miles an hour… Shit!"

The others looked around and saw what he Ruben did; the zombies were leaving the gas station and piling into the Escape.

"Stay still, maybe they won't see us." Max said.

The super zombies were laughing and pointing at each other as they climbed into their vehicle. They were all armed with rifles of some sort and it was only the driver who spotted Max's group by the road just before he got in. The zombie quickly looked away and got into the car and started it up.

"Think he saw us?" asked Bill. They watched the other vehicle back up and go barreling out of the station where it turned into the intersection accelerating as it went. The Escape turned towards them onto the road.

"Yep. They saw us." Said Ruben reaching into the truck to pull out his rifle, "Damn it, I wanted that car."

Ruben rolled down the ditch into the tall grass and took a knee, everyone else was watching him as he fired a three round burst into the side of the vehicle. The gunshots seemed to act as a catalyst for the rest of them and they sprang into motion. Stewart was the fastest, she had her door open and her rifle propped up on it before the others even moved.

Max and Bill unslung their rifles and mimicked Ruben only on the opposite side of the truck. Javier scrambled into the bed of the pick-up and fired over the cab. Ruben's steady fire had knocked out all the windows in the side of the car facing them and some inaccurate shots came back at them from the Escape. The driver didn't wait to turn at the intersection, he took the vehicle right into the ditch and bounded through it with enough speed to get off of the ground as he raced the Escape straight towards them.

Stewart, braced as she was, fired a one shot, two shot pattern. The first bullet sent spider webs through the windshield and her next two struck the driver square in the face, putting the zombie to rest forever. The Escape didn't stop, it barreled into the pickup head on. Stewart attempted to dodge out of the way, but was clipped by the door and sent rolling down the off ramp towards the highway. Javier was thrown into the windshield of the Escape as it impacted; he disappeared in a cloud of debris and dust. Ruben and Max stared at each other as the truck disappeared from between them, shoved out of the way by the force of the Escape.

"Fuck. Help, Max!" Bill called. He had rolled out of the way, thinking the Escape might slide sideways. The slope he was on was steep and still damp and Bill could not stop himself from going all the way to the bottom. "Gimme a hand here, this grass is slicker than chicken shit."

"Stay there!" Max yelled, running to the back of the Escape. His hand was on the rear door handle, just about to try and open it, when it was kicked open forcefully from within.

A tall, thin zombie in a black trench coat pushed his way out of the door and slapped Max's gun aside. One of the thing's arms was hanging loosely at its side and it stumbled and fell to the pavement after trying to walk on its shattered legs.

When it hit the ground Max jumped it, attempting to stomp its head flat. The zombie's good hand blurred through the air and knocked Max's feet out from under him. This landed Max with his thigh on the zombie's face. He rolled quickly to prevent a bite and tried to bring his rifle around again for a quick shot. Ruben was faster, the old man had come around the back of the Escape and fired a double shot, startling Max.

Ruben's shot didn't stop the zombie, only after the other body fell across the man on the ground did Max realize the old man hadn't been firing at the one on the ground. A third zombie leaped out of the back door to tackle Max. The broken legged zombie on the ground thrust itself up into Ruben while the old man was trying to get a bead on the zombie who jumped Max.

Both men were tossed like rag dolls into the side of the Escape, Max's rifle barrel was bent at a ninety degree angle, Ruben had lost his entirely. The other zombie, a woman dressed in a halter top and sporting short spikey blond hair was struggling with it, trying to figure out how to cock it and fire.

Without hesitation Ruben drew his long combat knife and stabbed her. His training came back to haunt him though and he stabbed for her heart, landing what would normally be a killing blow. They were pressed together for an instance and she belched forth a thick, black goo that splattered Ruben's face and caused him to pull back. However, he retained enough sense to take his knife with him

The trench coat zombie was up on two legs again, wobbling, but standing. He sneered at Max and pulled out a knife of his own. Max reached for his combat knife, only to remember he had taken it off his belt when they were in the truck, it had been digging into him all morning on the ride. His hand came up with his canteen instead.

The zombie gave him a puzzled look of bemusement, then was hit from the side by a snarling Stewart. She grabbed his head and twisted as she flew over him, swinging the zombie over entirely. She ended up on her feet and the zombie's body continued its movement while its head was held in her vise like grip. The resounding crack that split the air made Max wince, the zombie became a twitcher in her hands and she dropped it to assist Ruben.

The blond and Ruben had squared off, she was using the rifle as a club, held by the barrel, he still had his knife.

"I haven't seen five humans outside of a camp for weeks." said the blond. "Where'd you escape from?"

"We ain't from around here, darling." Ruben responded.

The blond swung the rifle at Ruben's head, thinking that with the added reach it would be a quick take down move. Ruben ducked sideways, taking a blow that deflected off the side of his head in order to get in close and slash at the woman's throat. His blade went deep, tearing a ragged furrow that exposed the inner workings of her esophagus to the world. Choking, she put her hand to the wound, a purely human reflex. Ruben followed up on by planting his combat knife into her left eye. The woman stayed up for a moment, held there by his knife, then he pushed her backward, where she slide off of his blade to crumple onto the ground, still clutching her throat.

Max approached the door of the Escape, trying to sense any other zombies that were still active. The only thing he sensed was Javier. The young man had been thrown through the windshield to land on both of the front passengers. His combat boot was embedded in the front passengers head. The foot on that side was also twisted around completely and dripping a steady stream of blood into the car. Javier was unconscious and Max resisted his first instinct to pull the young man out.

"Stewart." Max said, "The zombies are all dead. Help me with Javier. Ruben, go see if Bill needs a hand out of the ditch, please."

Stewart came to the open door and looked inside. She stepped back, pulling Max with her. "Shit, I don't know what to do. He's fucked up."

"Do we move him?"

"Do we have a choice? We can't leave him there." Stewart said, "Better to move him now, while he is out, than to do it when he comes around."

"I don't think we'll be able to get the front door open." Max said.

"Fuck that, just drop the front seat back, that will let us pull him out through the back door. We really need a back board or something, in case his back or neck is broken."

"We'll have to risk it."

"Javier?" Bill said, huffing as he came around the back of the Escape.

"Not good." Stewart said, "We need to get him out of there."

"You have a plan?" Bill asked.

Max and Stewart nodded.

"Let's do it, quickly." Bill said, "Ruben do you see any other cars? We just took it up the ass as far as vehicles go. See what you can find."

Max hadn't even noticed, but what Bill said was true, the 'good' truck, had been hit head on and was leaking fluids all over the ground beneath it, worse it had been pushed back into their other truck, which was also leaking green fluid, even though the damage from this latest assault didn't look that bad.

Bill and Stewart had both of the front seats of the Escape lowered back as far as they could get them and had taken a hold of Javier by the shoulders.

"On three. One. Two. Three!" Bill said. They pulled Javier out of the truck, eliciting a groan from the young man.

Max grabbed his legs as he came out and helped lower him to the ground. After he was put down, Max twisted Javier's foot around until it looked more or less how it should if it were not damaged.

"I don't think you are supposed to do that Max." Stewart said.

"We heal faster, he might too. I don't want his foot healing up facing backward."

"Ah, yeah, okay, gotcha."

To one side of them Ruben was moving their limited gear from the more damaged truck to the windowless one behind it.

"We can still take this one, for a few miles. I don't see anything leaking other than the radiator fluid. It will heat up and burn out soon, but we won't have to walk while we look for a new vehicle. Load him up in the bed and let's get out of here."

Max pulled a shotgun and a rifle out of the Escape, to replace his damaged gun. He only found a few shells for the shotgun, all shot, and no extra bullets for the rifle. Bill and Stewart loaded Javier into the back quickly and then helped Ruben finish moving their equipment over. In a few moments Stewart was behind the wheel of the truck and she tentatively tried the ignition. It caught and sputtered to life. She drove it to the top of the exit ramp.

"Which way?" Bill asked, peering both directions, hoping to spy an auto dealership.

Stewart pointed at a sign with destinations and distances on it across the road, "I say we go right."

Bill read the sign and nodded, "I hope it works out."

The sign was simple, the arrows to the left indicated fast food and gas stations. The right arrow also indicated there were gas stations in that direction. However, it was the last line that Stewart had been referring to. The bottom line read "Highway Patrol Headquarters".

Chapter 26 — Katie

"Florida. I didn't think I'd ever be back here." Katie told Randy.

"You've come a long way baby." Randy was dressed in the same fatigues he'd worn when he died. Well, not exactly the same, they were clean and blood free.

'At least my mind can do that much for me.' Katie thought, 'I don't know where I'd be if even my imaginary friends showed up filthy.' The very thought made her giggle and Randy raised a questioning eyebrow.

"What?" he asked.

"Nothing. Just thinking. Besides, don't you know?"

"You're a little weird lately."

"Tell me about it. I think I am going to go for a swim. Do you want to come along?" Katie asked him, hoping he would.

"Sure. I might keep lookout though. Don't forget to bring a towel."

"Oh yeah, there's nothing worse than gritty sand." Katie followed the signs from the highway to get to the state park, within ten minutes she was pulling into an empty parking lot at a public beach. Katie debated parking in the lot; she was worried about going out of sight of it. Looking around she saw there was a beach access road, the only thing separating it from the parking lot was a thin chain stretched over a sandy expanse of ruts.

"We're going to the beach Randy." she said, putting her newest vehicle, a nice civilian Jeep into four wheel drive. The chain snapped on the front bumper as she drove off road. The Jeep had wide tires that were designed for beach driving. Looking both ways along the coast she finally chose to go left and drove for a mile or two until they were out of sight from the public park access.

Closer to the water Katie threw down her towel then stripped off her clothing. Wrinkling her nose she said, "Whew! I smell like death! And in this stage of the game that is saying something!" she tossed the rest of her clothing down next to the towel and headed towards the water. She took a glance back and saw that Randy was still with her. He had been flaky lately, coming and going despite her thoughts.

"Well, c'mon!" Katie called to him.

"I should just watch, you know, in case someone comes along."

"Randy! We can see for miles! No one will sneak up on us. Quit being a wuss!"

The man strode into the waves after her, giving one plaintive look back at the jeep.

Katie forgot about him for a moment, the water was warm and she relished the chance to use the sand to scrub herself clean in the shallow water. When she looked for Randy, he was up to his neck much further out than Katie would have thought he needed to be. She stood and trudged towards him, the water depth increased only slightly with each step she took.

By the time she reached him she was swimming.

"There's a storm coming." Randy said, looking out to sea.

Dark clouds were present on the far horizon, but over the beach there was nothing but sun and cloud free sky.

"We'll be gone by then, or at least back in the jeep."

"Yeah? Where are we going from here?"

"Oh, nowhere. I am pretty happy to just lay about and enjoy the weather for a change."

"All that rush to get here for nothing?"

"What rush?" Katie asked, not wanting to admit something had been driving her this way since she left Chicago.

Randy sighed, and shook his head. "Stubborn as a mule, like always."

"I call it assertiveness."

"I call it mulish." He reached out with both hands and pushed her under, then used his leverage on the sand bar to push away from her.

Laughing Katie surfaced and yelled out for him, "Just wait, I'll get you, paybacks a bitch!"

But he was gone. This cast a pall on her mood and Katie swam in far enough so she could touch bottom. Bobbing as the waves came in she scanned the beach for unwanted guests, seeing no one she turned to watch the approaching storm. The air had an electric current to it, like something was about to happen.

"Me and my overactive imagination." She laughed. Randy leaving wasn't a big deal, she decided, she could cope. Her next move would be to find a nice house to stay in, to ride out the storm and maybe even live in, if the place were as deserted as it looked.

"But for now, I am going to enjoy this afternoon. Fuck it. No take backs." Katie kicked over onto her back and swam parallel to the shore, stretching out her muscles and soaking in the sun.

Chapter 27 — Max

The truck finally gave out as they coasted into the highway patrol parking lot. Stewart put it into neutral and they coasted into a parking space, gently bumping into the curb where the sidewalk began.

"That was perfect." Bill said.

"Only if there is a car here we can use." Stewart answered, "We might just have to walk."

"What do you mean?" asked Bill, pointing to the patrol cars in the lot around them.

Stewart laughed, "Oh Bill! Police cars are driven into the ground, these could all be piles of shit, parked out here to make people think the place is full. I know, I've driven enough P-O-Ses over the years.

"P-O-Ses? Oh yeah, piles of shit, got it. But these can't all be bad! They just can't!"

"I hope not."

"How's Javier?" Bill called back to Max and Ruben. Both men were sitting in the truck bed with the younger man.

"He's still out. He isn't bleeding anymore either." said Max.

"Well, he's got that going for him then." Stewart muttered.

Bill and Stewart got out of the car with their weapons and both leaned up against the truck bed to look at Javier and talk to the others.

"How do we do this?" Bill asked with a nod towards the building.

"Well they probably have a board or something with the patrol car keys hanging from it, or maybe a slot system, like you might put mail in. The keys should match up the cars out here. See how each vehicle is numbered? We just find the keys, run them out here and start the car."

"Let's look for the better looking cars first." said Ruben, "No sense pulling all the keys if can find something good in the first place."

"That sounds fair. Anyone have a pencil or paper to write down a few car numbers?" Bill asked.

"I think I saw some in the glove box." Max said.

Ruben pulled out a small notepad and a thick pencil like the kind used for marking wood on a construction site. "How about you sit here Max and let us know if any zombies get close? The three of us will find us some wheels."

Max nodded, "Yeah, sure, okay. The place is empty though…."

"But?" prompted Stewart.

"Well, I couldn't see Aubrey. I'm concerned; maybe there are others who know her trick?"

"We'll be careful. You look with your eyes as well as your mind and we should be fine."

"Unless they come out of the woods behind the station." Max had a clear view of the road in both directions, but the forest grew right to the edge of the building in the back.

"Yeah, unless they come from that direction. You just watch your part."

Ruben had already gathered up the numbers of three of the newer model state patrol vehicles by the time Bill retrieved the pen and paper from the glove box.

"Check this out." Bill said, showing Max the pen. It looked about half the length of a normal pen. "I think it got cut in half by a bullet passing through the glove box."

Stewart snorted, "Men!"

"Kinda cool." said Max, examining it, "Does it still write?"

"Yeah." Bill said, demonstrating on a piece of scrap paper, "Stewart you've got to enjoy the little things."

"I have, I slept with Max." Stewart quipped.

"Very funny, seriously check it out." Max said.

"It's a broken pen."

"No, not just that. It's a pen that was shot. By a bullet. That makes it cool. Especially cause it still writes." Bill said.

Bill headed to the opposite end of the parking lot from Ruben and inspected the decrepit vehicles parked there. "I think these are the really shitty ones they were parting out." He called back to them.

"Then fuck it, come back here with your cool pen and we'll go find the keys for the cars Ruben found." Stewart called back.

"I'll feel back leaving the truck here, I mean, it got us through a lot. Look how shot up it is and it still works, except for the radiator thing." said Max.

Stewart shook her head, "I suppose. We are going to loot the place for any food and hopefully we'll find a fuel tank for topping off the cars over on that side of the building. That looks like the service area." She was pointing towards the side Ruben had gone.

"Yeah, there's a tank." Ruben said, catching the end of their conversation. "I got five numbers, one or two of them ought to be good."

"Let's go find the keys then."

Bill caught up with them as they approached the entrance to the building. The doors were glass, with metal frames, one of them was shattered into small green squares on the ground. Inside the building was dark and ominous looking, all three of them pulled out flashlights before entering. Ruben tucked the notepad into his front pocket and pulled up his shotgun.

Without a word Stewart went in first. Looking about she saw the place was a mess. There were dark stains covering much of the front lobby and a rotting corpse in state patrol khaki colored clothing lay in front of the main desk.

"Whew-whee. I'll never get used to the smell." Stewart said, approaching the bloated corpse.

"What are you doing?" Bill asked, choking on the foul air.

"He probably has the keys to one of the cars that works in his pocket. This is an easy one." Stewart rolled the body over and jumped back as the maggot ridden corpse disintegrated as it rolled.

The quiet sounds of thousands of maggots wriggling and eating was made more pronounced by Stewart disturbing the corpse they were eating.

"Fuck, this is disgusting!" Stewart pulled out her combat knife and used the tip to poke at the man's belt, where there was a key chain attached. Stewart prodded at it until it unclipped and dropped to the floor by the sprawling filth that had been his stomach. With a sliding motion she shoved the keys through the muck until they were on a clean part of the floor. Stewart looked at the keys, then at the men.

"You know, I think I need a rag or something."

"A bucket of bleach?" suggested Ruben, holding his nose with the same hand that was holding his gun.

"Just leave them Stewart, we'll find something to clean them up inside and bring it back. And for fuck's sake don't roll any more bodies over! I don't think I could stand the smell again." said Bill.

Stewart just nodded and moved the keys over closer to the front door.

"Where now?" asked Ruben.

Stewart shrugged, "I would guess that way. At least that is the way to the garage and the fuel tank, so I would think they would keep the keys closer to that end for doing maintenance."

They passed three more bodies along the way, but Stewart didn't approach them as she had the first. All were very badly decomposed corpses. Most looked like they had been shot in the head, but with the amount of decomposition it was difficult to tell. The smell, if anything, became worse as they made their way further into the building.

"God. It is bad. I think I am going to puke." Bill said.

"You'll be okay. Just don't think about it." replied Ruben.

"If you do hurl, don't do it in the middle of the hallway. I don't want to step in it if we have to run away." advised Stewart.

"Thanks, Stewart. Your usual compassion is appreciated."

"It's here." Stewart said, pointing her light into a darkened recess at one wall that was covered with hooks that had numbers above them.

"Look, a high tech vehicle key solution." She pointed to the wall.

"It works, why mess with something effective?" Ruben asked.

"You'd think they would have an Apple app or something." Stewart said.

"A what?" Ruben asked.

"An Apple…never mind old man. Something on the computer."

"I know what an iPhone is. But why would anyone make a program for state patrol cars?" asked Ruben, genuinely puzzled.

"Really Ruben, I was kind of joking."

"Oh, I don't think I get your sense of humor."

"It's the age difference."

"Cut it out you two, let's just find the keys and get out of here." Bill said.

Stewart turned the handle of the door and swung it open to step into what was really just a closet sized space. She took the paper Ruben handed her and looked for the numbers on the board and came up with four sets of keys. She kept looking about after that, even rifling through the desk set at the back of the closet.

"I can't find any keys marked for the gas pumps."

"They are probably in the shop. That's where I would keep them, closer to the pumps." Ruben said.

"Probably, do we want to go check or see if we can get any of these cars started first?" asked Bill.

"Yeah, let's check the cars first, we can fuck around with the pumps afterward, if the cars are out of fuel." said Stewart.

The three of them wandered around the garage looking for anything useful, but found nothing they wanted to carry out with them.

"We should check the armory, see if they got anything left." said Stewart.

"If we can find it." Bill said, "Lead the way."

Stewart took the lead and they walked back across the lobby of the state patrol station into what looked more like an office area. Looking down the hallways at the 'T' intersection beyond, Stewart shrugged and chose to go left. Luck was with her and they came to an open doorway with concrete steps leading down.

"Dark." Stewart said, pointing her light down the stairs.

"Max said the place was empty. So I guess this feeling of unease is just nerves?" Bill said, flicking his light over the walls and floor ahead of them.

"Dark and man don't mix well together." Ruben added, as he turned on his own small light back on.

The three headed down the stairs and found a sign with directions on it, one arrow pointed towards a 'Gym and Locker Room', the other arrow said, 'Shooting Range'. Stewart hardly paused before heading towards the shooting range. There were two doors at the end of the corridor; both had small rectangular squares that ran parallel to the door frame just above the latch. Stewart shined her light into the area directly ahead of her and took a quick look.

"That's the range, it's built out underground, it must extend beyond the walls of the building. Pretty nice really, for a headquarters built out in the middle of nowhere. So that must mean this other door is the armory."

Stewart went to try the latch, expecting it to be locked, but the handle gave easily, and she gently pushed it open. Inside was what looked like a workshop, with heavy benches, vises and tools for servicing firearms neatly stacked on shelves around the perimeter of the room. Directly across from the door they had come in was another open door, this one was made out of a fine mesh of metal, backed by iron bars.

"Looks like someone beat us to it. Maybe they left us some ammo?" said Stewart as she moved forward cautiously.

"Why would the police have assault rifle ammunition?" asked Bill.

"After all the civilian shootings, are you kidding me? Every department has a few assault rifles around. Hell, even a few of our cars in Denver had military grade assault rifles. The only difference is the rifles civilians have, even law enforcement, fire.223 ammo. The rifles Draper gave us are the real deal, they are chambered for 5.56mm ammunition. But for those of you who were asleep during Draper's mission briefings, he told us we can safely fire.223 ammo out of them. So maybe, they'll have bullets we can use." Stewart stepped into the open doorway of the armory and said, "It looks pretty cleaned out…wait, hey, pay dirt! C'mon Bill, let's put your muscles to use, I think I found us a few reloads!"

Bill joined Stewart in the armory and like her, he saw the empty gun racks hanging on the walls. There were, however, a few boxes of ammunition on the shelves to the right side of the door. Stewart was holding open a military ammo box, one of three that was still on the floor beneath the lowest shelf. The box had a piece of duct tape over the side of the olive drab color, the tape had".223–840" written on it in black marker.

"It's our caliber! Grab an end would you?" Stewart asked.

Bill bent down and brushed her hands away from the other side, he picked the box up and stood easily. "I can get it. You and Ruben just light the place up so I don't trip over anything. Are we going to take it all?"

"We burned through a lot back at the hotel. I think we should take two boxes of it and leave the third tucked under here, so we can get to it if we need to later." Stewart said.

"Fine by me. Are you sure we can fire this stuff?"

"There will be some loss of accuracy, you won't notice, but I might miss a few shots once in a while." Stewart said with a faint smile on her face.

"Thanks. I'll just fire twice to make sure I hit the target."

"You don't already?"

"There is no winning with you, is there?" asked Bill.

"Talking is a competitive sport."

"It shouldn't always be."

"Oh, I am not that bad." said Stewart, "Can you help me with this other one, or do you want me to double you up so I can keep a better lookout?"

"Double me up, they aren't that heavy."

"I know, I just like having my hands free. Even if the building is empty."

"You ladies ready to go yet?" called Ruben from the workroom.

"Yeah, let's roll." Stewart said, leading the way.

The three made their way back outside. Max was sitting cross legged in the back of the truck with his eyes closed. Without looking he said, "Did you find what we need?"

"What are you doing? Taking up meditation?" Bill asked.

Max blushed, "No, but Aubrey said I might try expanding my 'talent' by exercising it a little more, trying to build it up, instead of just using it as it is."

Stewart stared at him for a moment. Max was facing them, but his eyes were still closed. "Is it working?"

Slowly Max turned his face towards her, his eyes remained closed, "Yeah, I think she might have something there."

"Open your damned eyes! It is too freaky talking to you like that." Stewart said.

Max cracked open one eye, "Sure thing. Zombies coming, but slowly, through the woods, they're about a mile away."

"Shit. I thought your girl said the way would be clear." said Stewart.

"I think by 'way', she meant the highway. We're off of that path by more than a little."

Stewart handed Ruben and Bill each a set of keys, and kept two for herself, "Let's get these checked." After a moment she turned back to Max, "How is our boy there?"

Max reached out and put his hand on Javier. He pressed down on him again, harder, "What the fuck?"

"What?"

"He's, he's hard!"

"Gross Max, check at his neck instead, feel for a pulse." Stewart quipped.

Max blushed again for the second time in as many minutes, getting a laugh out of the others. "Not there! I felt his stomach, it's like a rock." Max moved his hand up to the young man's neck, "His neck is stiff too. No, not stiff; hard as a fucking rock."

"What?" Bill said, climbing into the back of the truck on the other side of Javier. Both men put their hands on Javier and pressed his body, which was as hard as a rock.

"What the hell? Could it be internal bleeding, Stewart?" asked Bill.

"How should I know? Bleeding inside his neck? No, I don't think so. Plus he isn't swollen at all, just…I dunno, dense? Max can you zombie-vision him and see if he is still alive?"

Concentrating for a moment, Max nodded, "He is fine, he looks…good Lord! His body is changing as I look at it. His leg, it's, like white, like everything he has, all his energy, it's there working."

"Good. Leave him. Bill, let's check these cars, whatever happened to us, happened to Javier too, he'll be fine. Probably." Stewart said.

Bill gave Ruben a sideways glance, "What about you, Ruben, can you tell us anything about Javier."

Ruben returned his gaze and said levelly, "I think he'll be fine, if we can get him back to Iowa. Are we going to wait here until those zombies get here or what?"

The three of them soon found all four state trooper vehicles, they all looked good and started without any difficulty at all. Each of them drove one of the cars over to the broken down pickup truck and parked it.

"I took the better of the two, but they both looked good. You guys didn't do too bad either. How are they on fuel?" asked Stewart.

"About a quarter tank." Ruben said.

"Same here. I thought they would fuel them up at the end of the shift?" Bill asked.

Stewart shrugged her shoulders and said, "Don't look at me I was a city cop, not a state trooper. My tank is hovering at about half."

"Okay then, let's go see about fueling them up. Are we taking all three?" Bill asked.

"I think so. I can ride alone, we'll put Max and Ruben in one and you and Javier in the other."

"You get a car to yourself?" Bill shrugged his shoulder, "Okay, I guess."

"I'll drive point, so if the shit hits the fan we won't risk the entire group."

They manhandled Javier into Bill's car, putting him at an awkward angle in the back seat. The man's body didn't bend at all, he was as stiff as a sailor in a whorehouse after six months at sea and that made positioning him difficult.

"This is messed up. It is like he has rigor mortis or something." Max muttered after they finally got Javier in the seat diagonally.

"But he is doing okay, as far as you can tell?" Stewart asked.

"Yeah, I guess. I can see his colors pretty well and….and Aubrey was right, I should have been trying to use this power I have, test it and strengthen it. I can't see his bones, not directly, but when I look close I can see where his body is flowing around his bones, which leaves some hollow spaces. It's weird, but I swear I can see that his leg is almost whole again, no blood flowing around the damaged hollow space. When I look at both legs they look almost symmetrical."

"Portal x-ray machine. I'll add that to your list of talents." Stewart clapped Max on the back and walked him over to 'his' cruiser. "You shouldn't have any problems with this baby. It's automatic, but has paddle shifting, you know what that is?"

"No."

"Think of it like an override for the automatic transmission, you can force the car into a lower or higher gear if you need to accelerate faster, I doubt you'll use it to shift up much."

Max examined the steering wheel controls and nodded, "Okay, I can't see how that is useful, but I guess I get it. I'll mess with it when we get on the road. The zombies are closer. We better get that fuel and get out of here."

Ruben had the trunk to their car open and let out a long whistle. He held the bomb in one hand as if he were intending to put it into the trunk.

"What?"

"A box of crap." Ruben replied.

"Good crap or bad crap?" asked Max.

"That's another thing I like about you, Max. You have different categories of 'crap'." Stewart said walking around to the back of the car. She took one look and said, "Mixed crap, we got nuggets of gold here, but other bits are only corn." She reached into a large cardboard box and brought out a short, heavy, machete. The blade was sharp and ugly looking. Someone had ground it down into a sharper point, leaving the blade about eighteen inches long.

"Why would the police need that?" asked Bill, walking over to them.

The box contained all sorts of crude clubs, knives, swords, chains and other makeshift style weapons. Among the 'bad crap' were a few reasonable pieces of equipment, like the machete Stewart had. Max brought out a bowie style knife and pulled it out of its leather sheath.

He tested the blade with his finger tips and pulled it away quickly from his hand, a small drop of blood appeared on his ring finger.

"Ouch! Fucking-a! That's sharp!"

Stewart laughed, "This is probably confiscated stuff, things they took off people they were arresting or found when they searched their cars."

"Wouldn't it go into an evidence locker?" Max asked.

"Oh, Max! You don't know the half of how law enforcement works, do you? If we busted people for every little thing they did wrong we'd need three times as many jails. No, these, I can guarantee, were just taken off of the criminally stupid who hadn't done anything wrong. Think of it as a safety precaution. No sane person is going to come crawling back to the officer who took their bowie knife and ask for it back. In return the weapon is out of the hands of someone who probably didn't need it."

"But that's…stealing!"

"Right. So you'd rather serve a few months in jail for carrying a concealed weapon than give up your, what? Hundred dollar knife? Most people figure out that not spending time in jail and money on lawyers is a better deal. Plus this stuff isn't in evidence, so it would likely just disappear if anyone complained anyway."

"So why did they keep it?" Max asked.

"I dunno. I knew guys back in Denver who did this too, as long as it wasn't a gun. They showed each other what they found on the guys and laughed about it. Kind of a macho thing. But kind of not, any one of the guys this stuff came off of, could have turned it on the officer or someone else. Maybe they used it as a way of keeping score. You want to know the real shit of it? I mean if these weapons had been put into the evidence locker?"

"What?"

"They probably would have been sold at auction to make more money for law enforcement. We destroyed guns in Denver and I don't recall selling junk like this at auction, but I know other places did. Kind of a repeating cycle, huh? We confiscate, it gets sold to help buy us a new radar gun and then we might end up confiscating it again." Stewart looked the machete over and experimentally tucked it into the back of her belt. "Does it make my ass look fat?"

Max stared at the woman's posterior, not knowing how to answer. Combat fatigues made everyone's ass look fat, in Max's opinion. Finally he said, "It makes you look like a central American revolutionary. Real Che Guevara."

Stewart tilted her head sideways and looked over her shoulder at him, "Max, you say the nicest things sometimes!"

"You won't be able to sit in the car with it like that." Max pointed out.

"Oh, I'll just let it ride up a little and tuck it back down when I get out."

"I hate to interrupt your bonding, but where are the zombies at, Max?" Bill asked.

"Close. We're probably going to have to clear them. I think some supers are coming up from further out."

"Well, let's get the cars pulled around and see about filling them."

Bill's vehicle, by chance was the first to the garage area, the yard was surrounded by a chain link fence that was locked with a chain and padlock. He got out of his car and looked the gate over as the first zombie stumbled out of the brush twenty yards away. Stewart, who was in the last car in line, got out of her vehicle, she was holding the machete in one hand and approached the zombie head on.

Max stepped out of his car and steadied his rifle on the top of the vehicle. The zombie stumbled towards Stewart and she swiped it in the side of the head, slicing off the top third and sending the bloody-black hairy bit flying away into the grass. Oddly it resembled a mole hill.

The zombie toppled and Stewart cleaned off her machete on the man's overalls.

"Disgusting. How's that gate coming Bill?" Max asked.

"I've got it open. Let's move on in."

Ducking his head into the car Max said, "Ruben, would you drive? I'll stay here and shoot zombies as they show up."

"Sure. I can drive." Ruben said sliding over to the wheel.

Max took up a position at the gate and waved the old man and Stewart through. She paused and her passenger window, next to Max, rolled down.

"Where ya headed good looking?" she asked with a grin.

"Very funny. There are a few more coming, I'll stay here and make sure they don't get in. You just fill up and get back here."

Stewart looked at Max and then at the pump, which was about forty feet away. Bill and Ruben were already stopped close to it. Finally she nodded, "Jeez, we just lost you, don't go vanishing again on us."

"There's no fog. I'll stay in sight at all times. Go on."

Stewart drove off and left Max staring into the woods. Some of the zombies approaching were moving faster than the others. He turned his gaze away from where they were coming from and towards the slower ones, keeping his mind's eye open at all times. He didn't know what he was looking for, he was going by instinct, knowing something was going to happen. Max reverted to using his normal vision and checked out the gate, the chain was still hanging loosely wrapped through the chain links. One end was weighed down with a broken padlock; Bill hadn't used a tool to break it, not that Max had seen.

"So you're still strong, I see." Max muttered quietly about Bill. Checking on the approaching zombies he noticed the ones that had been approaching quickly had slowed down to a more cautious pace. Concentrating Max tried to get into their heads, to see what they were thinking. Despite his efforts he got nothing. Well almost nothing, while he was watching he noticed the slightest of pulses, a merest trace of their dead, bluish energy that raced from one of them to the slower shamblers off to Max's right side. The dead on that side stopped, just inside the tree line and out of sight from normal vision.

"What the fuck." Max said softly while continuing to watch. He noticed several more pulses until all the shamblers to his right all stopped in a line parallel to the tree line. With growing excitement he realized what he must be seeing was the 'leader' giving the lesser zombies orders. Redoubling his efforts to break into the super zombies mind didn't get him inside its head, but when the next pulse came out Max felt it clearly, it said, 'Move'. The order sprang from the super zombie and raced towards the waiting zeds to the right. Max grabbed the message, and time seemed to slow down as he disseminated it. Then he changed it.

It was a gut reaction, nothing Max would have done had he had time to think about it. He changed the message to 'Move further right'. The shamblers all headed off that direction along the inside edge of the woods. Max was really excited now, he thought he had unlocked a way to force the zombies back and proceeded to issue them new orders, to head back into the woods, to attack the supers, to stop…it all amounted to nothing. No little blue data packet flew from Max's head out to the shamblers. He couldn't create a message on his own.

The super realized something had gone wrong and sent another pulse along to his minions; the second time around Max snagged it easily and reinterpreted it to 'Move back into the woods'. He was disappointed that he could not send out orders of his own, but this was new, and useful. It came as a complete shock when the padlock flew up from the gate and belted him in the side of the head.

"Holy fuck!" Max yelled, thinking, 'one of them is telekinetic!' It took him a moment to realize that no one had flung the lock at him using telekinesis, the lock had merely been shot with a rifle and bounced into the side of his head. While he was so busy keeping an eye on the super zombies messages one of them had moved forward far enough to take a shot at him with a rifle.

Over at the fuel pump, the others were running towards the fence closest to the woods raising their rifles and firing randomly into the trees.

"What?" Max wondered, then he heard Stewart yelling at him to get down. Max fell to the ground out of sight as another bullet whizzed by in the place he had been standing a moment before.

A volley of gunfire rolled out of the woods, forcing his friends to take cover behind the equipment in the work yard. Max had thrown himself down behind a pile of what looked like rail road ties sitting just inside the gate. Reaching out he intercepted yet more orders for the shamblers and twisted them to his own end. The orders were coming so frequently that Max didn't have time to do more than change them to basic marching orders, he settled on directing the zombies to head back into the woods away from his position. Max safely watched the rest of the physical fight unfold while constantly shifting the super's orders to the shamblers.

The return gunfire was more accurate than Bill liked, it must be true that the zombies could see the living through obstacles, not that he had doubted Max's word. He looked over at his companions, then beyond them for a moment to where Max was laying with his eyes shut forty feet away. No one was hurt yet. Thoughts of how to proceed were spinning through his head when he heard Stewart swear.

"Fuck. I liked that water bottle you assholes!" her hip was dripping where a bullet had caught the bottle in her belt pouch. "Indestructible my ass." Stewart muttered looking at the broken piece of plastic. She caught Bill's gaze and nodded, "So? Ideas?"

"Get in the cars and drive?"

"We need to fuel up."

"Oh shit." Bill said, looking behind them at the fuel tank and the three squad cars. The pump was not powered, it was a simple gravity pump and he had left it in the tank of his car, as he watched the fuel filled the tank and then started to pour out onto the ground.

"Go fix that cowboy, I'll run interference."

"Wait! Stewart!" Ruben cried, a moment too late.

The woman took a short leap to the top of what looked like a blue delivery van, it was an impressive jump from a kneeling position and she didn't stop there, she ran down the length of the van and vaulted over the six foot high chain link fence and into the woods. Bullets tried to catch her as she flew, but they were microseconds too slow. Bill paused to watch Stewart's progress open mouthed. Ruben was more practical; he ran back to the overflowing car and shut the pump off.

"C'mon Bill!" the old man yelled shutting the fuel tank. He ran around to the driver's side and pulled the car twenty feet forward. Bill was still staring at him open mouthed when he got out.

"Bill, move the other car up!" Ruben yelled.

Spurred to action Bill raced towards the second cruiser and hopped in, the keys were still in the ignition and he pulled it forward until Ruben could slot the nozzle into the tank to begin filling it up. After getting the pump open he ducked down to the pavement taking cover from the sporadic bullets flying out of the woods. He still couldn't see anything to target.

Bill shut the car off, engaged the emergency brake and ran back to Stewart's cruiser. Thankfully, she had left the keys in the ignition. He moved her car up until it was touching the bumper of the cruiser being fueled. With any luck Ruben could fill this one up without having to move either of them again.

From the woods the gun fire was intensifying. No more bullets were flying their way, Bill looked at Ruben and yelled, "You think you can handle this?"

"Sure, go help her." Ruben yelled back.

Bill ran towards the exit where Max was lying, stopping just inside the gate and using the thick square-cut logs as cover. "What are you doing?"

"I'm concentrating. I can…do things to them Bill."

"What are you talking about?"

"I can change what they say to the shamblers. I am making the weak zombies go away. It's hard to explain. I kept trying to do what Aubrey said, just kept looking at them and I can see them when they talk to each other."

"Ah, yeah, okay. That's…good?"

"It is. There is more to it than that, I can change it sometimes. I think I made it so the slow zombies won't eat us."

"Max, can we talk about this later? I need to know where Stewart is."

"She's in there. With them." Max said, gesturing, eyes still closed, to the woods.

"We should go help her."

"I am helping her!" Max said, exasperated.

"So she is alive?"

"She is thriving."

Chapter 28 — Stewart

The jump to the top of the van had come as a shock to her. Stewart didn't think she could go that high, she had been aiming to hop on the sloping hood and then jump up to the top from there. The idea had been to use the van to get over the fence, instead of running the long way past Max. After her injuries she had felt slow as if treading through molasses. She hadn't tried to use her speed and strength since being hurt, she was afraid the abilities were gone, that maybe she had just been hyped up on adrenaline and was suffering from mis-remembering. She hadn't shared her fear with the others either. 'Trial by fire. Don't abuse it. Conserve.' Those were her thoughts.

Now she wondered why she had waited so long. Like Max her abilities had a conscious element to them. There was a constant vibe that beat through her body, just begging to be tapped into. When she dipped into it she felt so much more alive, so much stronger, she felt invincible. For these reasons Stewart tried to rein in what she was feeling. She tried to ride the beast, instead of letting it ride her. She remembered the fight with Ella. More importantly she remembered Ella. The woman had been alive and had been taken down by an old man with a knife, he had assessed the situation and used Ella's desires against her. If Ella could be so attracted to blood and killing that it led to her downfall…it almost went without saying that Stewart could have the same weakness.

Still when the bullets started flying at her she didn't hesitate to give the beast she was riding a little more freedom. Raw, animal instinct took over and she spun sideways into the tree line, barely avoiding the projectiles that were flying out at her. Stewart ducked and rolled forward towards the only super zombie she could see, her speed and trajectory took him by surprise and he had barely begun to shift his rifle to aim at the woman lying on the ground by his feet when she kicked straight up, knocking his rifle skywards. Stewart still had her rifle, it was cradled in both arms and parallel with her body, with the barrel towards her head. When her foot came down, the barrel came up, three shots rang out in quick succession and the zombie's head deformed under the onslaught.

This brought his friends out of the woodwork. To Stewart's left two women, with clear, shining eyes rushed into view and stopped when they saw her. On her right three burly men, looking like lumberjacks coming home from work stepped out of the brush. The five lowered their rifles towards her in uncanny unison and Stewart shouted, "Surrender and you don't have to die!"

"I'm gonna eat your pussy lady and not in the good way!" shouted one of the super zombies, pulling the trigger on his rifle. Stewart bucked sideways and rolled to a crouch, the bullet hit the ground where she had been laying, kicking up leaves and sodden twigs.

"She's fast." The older woman murmured, "All together."

But they didn't fire in unison, the woman giving the orders fired and Stewart rocked sideways, bringing her own rifle around, firing as it pulled into line. The younger woman crumpled as at least two bullets hit her in the shoulders, the older woman's shot caught Stewart right in the stock of her rifle, ricocheting into the ground and splitting Stewart's rifle into pieces. Stewart tossed the rifle butt at the lead man, who attempted to block with his own rifle, but was too slow.

Stepping downhill, Stewart lunged for the concealment of a large, leafy bush, and then stumbled over a log to the ground. The zombies behind her riddled the air just above her head with bullets.

'This was a good idea?' she thought to herself, 'Of course it was, the others will be here soon.'

Reaching to her belt Stewart grabbed for her pistol. The holster was empty. With her left hand she pulled the short combat blade from her belt. Another thought struck her and she reached to her back and took comfort in the hard, plastic grip of the machete, still tucked into her belt.

Pulling the blade out with her right hand she got up on her hands and knees to assess her situation. More bullets peppered the ground around her.

'Zombie vision, no fucking fair assholes!'

Stewart shoved herself down the hill at a slant that would bring her closer to where the women were than the men. Sure enough the shoulder shot girl had been trying to make her way around Stewart's flank. By the time Stewart saw her, the woman was already aiming her rifle.

The bullets flew in a burst from the gun and Stewart gave in fully her instincts. She didn't escape unscathed; one bullet grazed her thigh, a deep, bloody wound, that adrenaline surged to overcome. Stewart didn't drop to the ground; the other zombies would be coming for her and she doubted she would have time to recover before they were on her.

'It's like I am riding in the backseat of a fast car.' She thought, trying to keep up with what was going on. If anything it appeared to her that the zombies were moving slowly, as if slightly drugged, the bullets moved faster than she could see, but she could tell from how the zombie angled the gun where they would strike. All she had to do was keep out from in front of the hole in the barrel. 'So, in other words, do what every other person faced with a gun has ever wanted to do.' Easy.

Dodging behind a sapling Stewart zigged back and closed with the older woman zombie, knocking the rifle from her hands hard enough to bend the barrel. She followed through with her knife hand jabbing the blade towards the other woman's chin. The zombie seemed to catch herself, as if awakening from a dream. She swept her arm upward and Stewart's jab hooked the side of its head instead, leaving a wide gash from just below the right ear to the top of its skull. With her other hand the zombie swung the rifle as a club, something Stewart blocked with the machete.

Stewart sidestepped; the zombie turned and faced her, both women thrust out with their limbs. A jab with a knife to the zombie's torso did little, a fist to Stewart's shoulder slide off of her like water from a duck. Finally after a series of fisticuffs that accomplished little Stewart pivoted and swept the Zombie's feet out from under her. By this time the rest of the super zombies had closed and were standing, gawking in a loose semi-circle around the two, their guns slack and not aimed at anything in particular.

When the lead zombie went down the others reacted slowly, trying to pull their guns up to take a shot. Stewart didn't give them a chance and lunged into the man on the left leading with an overhand swing of her machete. The zombie, a hefty, six-footer, was barely able to get his arms up in time, blocking the blow using the rifle held in his hands. Stewart's heavy blade cut through the rifle and split the zombies head like Moses parting the Red Sea.

With her knife hand Stewart thrust into the other woman, hitting her again in the shoulder and knocking her backwards down the hill into the trees.

Stewart heard the gunshots before she felt the pain, her knife arm convulsed and she lost the blade as the zombie fell backwards. More angry than hurt, Stewart threw herself sideways and lashed out blindly with the machete that had served her well so far. The next zombie in line, lost an arm just below the shoulder. He reeled back and fell to the ground, leaving his companion, the only super zombie still on its feet with an open shot.

At point blank he couldn't miss, the rifle was lined up, sighted on her and she saw him tightening his finger on the trigger. The machete came up as he fired three times, then the hammer clicked on an empty chamber and Stewart stepped forward and took his head from his shoulders.

"No fucking way. No fucking way." The super zombie on the ground said, backpedaling after jumping to her feet.

Stewart gave her an angry look and stepped towards her, pausing only long enough to swipe off the top of the one arm man's head as he cradled his severed limb to his chest.

"What's a matter? You don't like it when we fight back?"

"What are you?" the woman whispered, still backing off.

"I'm human. What are you?"

"You're no human. You…you deflected the bullets with the machete, no human could do that! What are you?"

"What I am is not in the mood for talking so fight or run already." Stewart answered.

The zombie turned and fled.

"Goddamn it." Stewart grumbled, taking aim with the machete, when she had a clear throw she tossed the blade at it. The weapon spun as it flew through the air and struck the super zombie in the head with the handle, knocking her to the ground where she lay silently.

Stewart stalked towards her and heard more zombies closing in around her.

"You ain't got no knife this time bitch. Dodge this!" The other woman zombie, still with the knife hilt still in her shoulder was aiming at her from ten yards downhill. A shot rang out, it was the loudest rifle retort Stewart ever heard.

Chapter 29 — Katie

The house was empty. Katie had the feeling that someone had been here recently, the whole place had a strange, 'lived in feel'. She walked through the ground floor without checking upstairs and what she found on the back porch supported her logic; a large grill and twelve canisters of propane. There was also a metal barrel in the overgrown back yard that smelled of smoke. Someone had been living here and burning their trash in the barrel out back.

This was not a coastal house, that didn't seem to be a trend for this area. I t looked like most of the coast line was protected by a green belt which probably cut down on the damage from tropical storms. Still, the place was nice and even if you couldn't see the ocean from the bay window overlooking the back year, there was a path leading to the beach a quarter of a mile away. Katie had pulled the jeep up into the tree line, tucking the keys inside the visor in case she needed to make a quick getaway. Surveying the back yard she noted that the low fence didn't abut the neighbor's yard. Between each of the houses was untamed woods, or so it seemed at first glance. Katie had walked to the houses on path that led between the houses and ended on a lone cul-de-sac, she chose this house on the left for no better reason than she liked the red tile roof.

The place looked expensive, the driveway was three cars wide and the garage was placed towards the street side with a spacious sidewalk leading to the front door. The door had been locked, but it had taken Katie less than ten seconds to force her way in. She was carrying the shotgun and had the.30–06 slung over her shoulder. She had enough ammo in her vest pockets to give her time to assess the situation, if she needed more, she could run back to the jeep. Her other rifle was still stashed in the gym bag, which she had left inside the woods a short distance from the jeep wedged under a fallen palm tree.

"You are not supposed to be here." The voice was sultry, accented in a way Katie had only heard before in movies and came from the patio door. If she had to guess she would place the accent as Cuban, but Katie was no expert.

Twirling she raised her gun to the threat and barely stopped herself from blasting the middle aged Hispanic woman in the doorway.

"Who are you?" asked Katie.

"Who are you?" the woman countered.

"I'm the woman with the gun, so you answer me first."

"You won't shoot me. He said you wouldn't."

"What? He who?"

"The doctor, he said I was safe, as long as I take care of his house. You need to leave."

"Lady, I have no idea what you are talking about. Tell me who you are. Now." Katie brought the shotgun up to her shoulder and aimed it at the woman.

The woman eyed the gun warily, then slumped and said, "Beatriz. Beatriz Bustillo."

"Now that wasn't so bad was it? Turn around, into the house." Katie motioned for the woman to go back inside. Katie followed Beatriz in and locked the door behind her.

"So, Beatriz…tell me what you are doing here." Katie ordered.

"I…I work for the doctor. I don't do much anymore. He never comes home, he just stays at the clinic."

"The doctor? What doctor?"

"Doctor Sentry. At the clinic. He is…he is a good man. I know it."

When the name poured off of Beatriz's lips Katie felt the ground fall out from beneath her. She knew that name, but she couldn't, for the life of her, know how she knew it. She hated him. A man she never met before and she had to kill him.

"Makes you wonder why, doesn't it?" came Randy's voice as he sauntered into the kitchen area.

"You again." Katie snorted.

"What?" asked Beatriz.

"Nothing." Katie said.

"Nothing? I suppose you are right." Randy commented, "I think we are at a crossroad here, which way will we go?"

"What do you mean?" asked Katie.

"What?" asked Beatriz, slowly backing towards the living room.

"Not you! I'm not talking to you! And stay where you fucking are if you want to live! As for you, do we really need to do this now? And what do you mean about the crossroad?"

Beatriz bolted for the living room, Katie fired and the shotgun pellets caught the woman in the side of her lower back.

"Oh, you're in for it now!" said Randy.

Katie ignored him and ran after the woman, who had kept running despite the wound. 'Did I miss? It was close and she twisted around that wall pretty fast.'

Turning the corner with the gun held at waist level, Katie was surprised to see the woman was already at the top of the stairs. The bottom of the woman's shirt was soaked red and a dark stain had spread from there onto her gray track pants.

"Freeze!" Katie yelled. Beatriz, stumbled forward to the ground and continued crawling.

The angle was bad but Katie took a shot anyway as she rushed up the stairs two at a time.

Beatriz had crawled into a bedroom and was fumbling at a night stand when Katie came through the doorway.

"Damn it! Stop!" Katie yelled.

Beatriz pulled her hand back, in it was clutched a revolver with a long barrel, as she lifted it out and tried to aim it back over her shoulder at Katie the shotgun went off. The revolver spun end over end and struck the wall, leaving a dent before rebounding onto the bed. Beatriz's hand had ceased to exist, leaving only bloody stump with the bones of her hand sticking up from the end of her wrist. The woman screamed and clutched the bloody mess to her body.

Katie stood over her with the shotgun, waiting for the screaming to subside. It didn't. Finally Katie reached down and grabbed Beatriz by the ankle and pulled her to the open area at the foot of the bed. With a twist she flipped the woman onto her back.

"What the hell were you thinking? I had you at gun point!" Katie said.

"You're not supposed to be here. I'm going to get the injection. I'm going to live forever! He promised!" Beatriz whimpered.

"You're going to bleed out in about five minutes and I don't think I can stop it." Katie said.

"And why would you want to? Our business isn't about putting people back together, it's about taking them apart." Randy said from the doorway. Katie cast a quick glance his way and turned back to the woman dying on the floor.

"What are you talking about?"

"He said it was safe here. No one would come. Maybe tomorrow he would take me to the clinic. He has a new medicine to test and he wants to try it on me. There is no danger."

"Lady, I have no idea what you are yammering about."

"I…" Beatriz began, then stopped. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she shuddered violently.

"She's leaving." Randy said.

"Maybe she'll haunt me like you?"

He shook his head, "I hope not, I don't think there is enough room in your head for more than the two of us."

"Fuck."

It didn't take long for Beatriz to die. Katie looked around the house and found a generator wired into the building in the garage. It required her to push a button and when she did the power came on inside the house. Once she shut the door to the garage she could hardly hear the noise. Katie looked down at her clothing and was surprised to see it was covered in blood.

"Damn it. This is why I was a sniper; there was less laundry to do after killing someone."

"Very politically correct Katie." Randy said with disapproval, "How'd you get so much blood on you?"

"Splatter, I guess. I hope this dump has a washing machine."

"That's my girl, kill someone in their own house and do your laundry while their body cools."

"It's not like I have to worry about the cops busting me."

"I suppose not. Why are you here, Katie?"

Katie's brow furrowed in thought. "I'm going to kill this Sentry guy. He sounds like a dick. I suppose waiting for him in his own home is a pretty good ambush technique."

Randy laughed, "Sure, but why here and why him? You don't even know the guy."

"Shower first, I'm getting this blood off of me."

"The water will be cold, the generator just came on. The water heater needs a couple hours to do its job."

"I am not sitting around with all this blood on me for a couple of hours. A cold shower will get it off as good as a hot one." Katie marched upstairs past the now closed door of the room Beatriz lay in and continued on to the master suit.

"Nice." Katie said, pushing inside. The room had cream colored walls with dark, mahogany trim. The floor looked like it was made of compressed bamboo and there was a large throw rug on top of it, upon which sat a king sized bed. The bed looked like it hadn't been slept on in weeks. There were two large windows, one overlooking the street below and the other looking out the back yard. Along the far wall were two doors and a doorway. The doorway led to a bathroom that was the size of a bedroom in a normal house. It was tiled with a shower, a Jacuzzi tub, and the usual sanitary facilities. Katie stripped off her clothing and dumped it in the tub before stepping into the shower.

Randy didn't disappear; he followed her to the shower stall where he watched as Katie rinsed the blood off of her body.

"Care to join me?" Katie teased, giving a roll of her hips.

He shook his head, "I never liked cold showers."

"You're dead, you won't feel it."

"It wouldn't be the same."

"You swam with me." Katie protested.

"Yeah, the ocean is large and filled with the souls of the dead. The shower is not."

"I'm done anyway." Katie said, rinsing the last of the shampoo out of her hair. She stepped to the side of the shower and grabbed a teak colored towel. Katie dried herself off, wrapped her hair into one towel and her body into another. She turned the water on in the tub and rinsed her clothing well, then wrung it out and rolled it up into a third towel she took from the linen closet.

"Do you just bet the laundry room is downstairs?"

"A good bet. There won't be a basement this close to the ocean; the water table is too high."

Katie found the wash room tucked away at the back corner of the house and tossed her wet clothing into the dryer.

"Forty minutes and I will be good to go."

"You didn't even wash it, you just rinsed it."

"So sue me. I got the blood out and I am not sure when Sentry is coming home."

"I'm glad you brought that up Katie. What are we doing here again?"

"I just…feel I need to be here."

"Bullshit."

"Well, what else am I going to do?"

"Find an island somewhere, boat out there and ride this thing out?" suggested Randy.

"How about I kill this bastard first and then do that?"

"You are good. You can't tell me why you are here and refuse to think about it."

"A woman's prerogative."

"Bullshit."

"I better check my guns. Make sure everything is ready for the good doctor when he arrives home."

"This is bullshit."

"Go away Randy. I'll talk to you after."

Randy faded away like the fog he was, leaving Katie struggling not to think about what he had said.

Chapter 30 — Max

The zombie who was aiming her rifle at Stewart collapsed in a spray of bone fragments and dark, sticky blood. Her gun slipped from nerveless fingers as Stewart's shoulders sagged in relief.

"About fucking time, Max!" Stewart said, only to turn and see Ruben standing with his gun still aimed in the zombie's general direction. "Ruben?"

The old man nodded. "Your boyfriend and Bill are having a little pow-wow back at the car park."

"So you can see zombies too?"

"No. I just followed the swear words. They usually lead to you. I'm glad I could help out."

"Well, thank you." Stewart said, a little gruffly.

Ruben eyed the thick vegetation around them uneasily, "We should get out of here, I don't like being somewhere they can jump us so easily."

"Uphill gets us back to the state patrol building." said Stewart pointing up the slope.

"Yeah, I didn't get lost walking thirty yards into the woods to save you, believe it or not."

"I believe it. Sorry, I was just trying to be helpful."

"Forget about it."

The two climbed the hill and came upon Max and Bill arguing to their left as they emerged onto the thin strip of grass between the building and the edge of the woods.

"Now what?" asked Stewart.

"Max has something on his mind. It sounds like that sort of argument."

Stepping over to the other two Stewart could tell Ruben was right. Both men stopped talking as they were approached.

"What? Is there trouble with the bro-mance?" Stewart asked.

Max smiled, but Bill scowled and said, "No, just a disagreement." Doing a double take, Bill went on, "Ruben. I didn't even see you leave."

"Well, you two were arguing and I thought someone should cover Stewart's back. What were you two bickering about?"

Max looked at Bill and back to Ruben. "Nothing much. We were talking about the mission and trying to figure out what to do."

"Or if we should do it. I'm sorry Ruben, I was all set to keep going without Max, but now I wonder at the sense of it all, especially with Javier down. It's just the four of us against a bunch of the toughest zombies. Not just tough zombies, but the ones who started this mess? Maybe we should pack it in." said Bill.

"Hallelujah. Let's load up and head home. Let the Drapers of this world deal with the heavy lifting." Ruben said.

Max shook his head, "Go if you want to, but I am going on. We went through this already, before we even left Lake Michigan. Any of you could have backed out then, but you chose to come. What has changed? Javier is incapacitated? Did you really think we would all make it through? I didn't. Which is why I was more than half hoping you four wouldn't come along."

"No, we are in it until you say 'stop', Max." said Bill. His face was downcast with a slight frown, "I just don't know when that will be. Maybe when Stewart dies? Or I do?"

"Maybe, but probably not. I think if I am the one to die that you should turn around and head home, unless someone else can figure out how to find the bad guy. All we have to do is get within a hundred yards of the bad guy and blow him up. We don't have to talk to him. I plan on getting close to wherever he is, dropping the backpack nearby, setting the timer and running like my ass is on fire and my testicles are catching."

"Nice speech, Max. I'll give you that." Stewart said, "But if you die, do you think we'd really be able to go back and face your kids? I mean, maybe Ruben and Javier could, but I've been with you since this started and Bill is your best friend, neither of us could live with ourselves if something like that happened. No offense old man."

"None taken. I would go back, someone has to tell them what happened."

"Okay, so we are going on. Let's load the fuck up and get out of here." Stewart walked through the open gate towards the cars, "Are we all fueled up? I hope so, because I want to make some miles today. If Aubrey keeps the roads cleared we could be down there tomorrow at this time and back to Iowa three days after that."

"That's a good goal." said Max, trailing behind her.

Ruben and Bill shared a long look and Bill shook his head, "Don't. Don't say anything. Lately every time you talk things get confused. I'm not sure what you gained, but I know it's messing with our heads and after talking to Max I know we aren't limited to physical improvements."

"I wouldn't try anything with you Bill. Things aren't going the way I like anymore."

"You and me both. You ready to spill the beans on what your zombie inherited power is?"

"Like I said, it didn't come with a manual. I'm still trying to figure it out." With that Ruben turned and started walking after the other two.

"You didn't come through the gate Ruben."

Ruben stiffened for a moment, and then kept walking.

"Have it your way, Ruben. But you should talk to one of us sometime." Bill said softly.

After traveling more than six hundred miles that day and through part of the night they stopped at a rest area around two in the morning. The latest signs they had passed indicated that they were twenty miles outside of Jacksonville. There were two things of interest that happened that day. First, they were down to two police cruisers. The one Stewart was driving started overheating after only three hundred miles. They had opted not to try and find a new vehicle, fueling up only two was far easier than siphoning gas for all three. They had picked up three gas cans, two and a half gallons plastic affairs which helped with siphoning fuel from the abandoned cars along the highway.

When they finally stopped to get some sleep they still had half a tank in each car and all three gas cans were full. Max had wanted to stop at the last abandoned car they had passed to get fuel out of it, but Bill insisted they wait until daylight. By then everyone was getting tired and tempers were short. As they pulled into the rest stop, the other thing of note happened. After Max and Stewart were sleeping with Ruben and Bill left on watch, Javier woke up.

Chapter 31 — Katie

'The bastard isn't coming home.' Katie thought. She was sitting in a sniper position in the master bedroom. She had set up the nest behind the curtains with her rifle pointed through a hole in the screen and propped up using the window sill for a base. It was almost sundown. The bedroom was a mess. She had pulled in enough furniture to build a nest around the window, a nest that included a firm brace for the rifle and a comfy position to support her while she waited. She had used a knife from the kitchen to cut a slash through the curtain and after getting her rifle set up she had gone outside to see how well her camouflage worked. Katie knew if the zombie used his special vision she was toast, she lacked the camo suit she had worn in Chicago. However, she was betting that the man was used to his house being empty and would not think to check it out before he came in.

'Besides, I've replaced one living body with another one. He should see what he expects, his maid.' Whether Beatriz was supposed to be in his bedroom or not was a different matter, but Katie felt pretty certain she was going to be okay. 'If he will come home!'

"What some company?" Randy asked from behind her.

"As long as you aren't going to lecture me."

"Me? Now why would I do that?"

"You tell me, Randy."

Randy smiled and shook his head, "Now if I tried to do that you would just tell me I was lecturing. Give me some ground to cover here without pissing you off."

Katie laughed and nodded, "Well, you got me there. What is on your mind?"

"How long are you planning on being here?"

"Until this bastard comes home, then I pop him and move on."

"Where to?"

"This is starting to sound like the third degree again."

Randy shook his head, "No. I am just curious, I seem to be stuck here with you and I have to wonder what is next."

"Why? You got plans or something I should take into consideration?"

Flushing, Randy said, "No, not really."

"You're me. You explained that before."

"Yeah, but I think I might have been wrong."

"What do you mean?" Katie asked.

"I think I might know things you don't. Like, remember when we were doing laundry, we ended up alone and decided to get a little hot and heavy on the washer?"

It was Katie's turn to blush, "How could I forget? It was…earthshattering."

"But what happened after?"

Katie shook her head, "We got our laundry and went our separate ways?"

"No. There was something else, do you remember?"

"No. Look it was a long time ago, I don't remember every trivial thing that happened eight months ago."

"So nothing else happened?" Katie shook her head. Randy continued, "See? This is what I am talking about. You don't remember the bottle of champagne? The cheese and crackers? I pulled them out of my rucksack and we had a little post-coitus picnic before we folded our laundry and then went our separate ways."

Katie wrinkled her brow before responding, "No…I, that's pretty cheesy," Randy frowned at the pun, "I would remember that…" It seemed hazy, on the edge of her memory, but she did recall something, "You…you didn't bring glasses, so we washed out the measuring cup from the laundry detergent bottle and poured the champagne in that!"

"So you do remember it?"

"I…I…fuck. No. I don't remember much, only the thing with the detergent cup. But I think you're right, I think it did happen. My head is all fucked up, it's like the memory is there, but I can't connect it to anything. It doesn't relate and makes no sense. You know what I mean?"

"I'm right there with you. We'll figure this out. Not now. There's a car coming."

Katie looked back down the barrel of her rifle and sighted it in on the approaching car; a black sports utility vehicle. The car looked spotless and freshly waxed. Something a doctor would drive. It pulled to a stop in the driveway and two men got out; one was wearing hospital scrubs that were immaculate, the other had on a business suit, black with a white shirt and dark blue tie. The man in the suit had a radio set extending from his ear.

"Get the one with the communications first, if you can." Randy advised.

"If I can? If I can? What the fuck Randy this is an easy shot, he's less than thirty yards away! Say hello to my little friend mister suit!" Katie pulled the trigger and the suited up man fell back against the truck clutching his head.

"You winged him! You know that won't keep him down! Get the other one so we can get out of here!" Randy whispered loudly.

"I hit him dead center that fucker is dead again, zombie or human!" except the man wasn't, he fell to the ground and rolled under the vehicle out of sight. The man in the scrubs stopped dead in the driveway; paralyzed, looking for where the bullet had come from. Katie pulled the lever back and chambered another round.

The doctor went to the front of the vehicle and knelt down to look underneath it. Katie put a bullet through the back of his head, slamming his face into the bumper hard enough to set off the air bags.

"He's down, grab the shotgun and go finish the other one before he gets away." Randy said.

"You know, I used to have a partner who could help out with things like that. You ain't a whole helluva lot of good like this you know."

"I know." Randy said, his voice inflected with remorse.

"Sorry, I didn't mean it. I appreciate your advice."

"Just go get him so we can move on."

Katie was already moving into the hallway, she had picked up the shotgun and carried both firearms down to the front door, Randy trailed behind her. She leaned the rifle up against the wall next to the front door and burst outside at a jog, shotgun held at waist level. The zombie was now behind the back end of the vehicle and had a pistol in his hand pointed at the second story of the house, he shifted his aim slightly and popped off three bullets in quick succession.

Katie continued forward and fired a round from the shotgun shattering the side and rear windows of the SUV and tossing the zombie backward onto his back. The man's pistol went flying and skidded down the slight incline of the driveway to land in the gutter next to the street.

Katie ran up and fired again, striking the man just below the knee, which twisted his body sideways, leaving his lower leg bent at an unnatural angle. She stood over the suited man with her shotgun aimed at his head. He was on his stomach and used his arms to push himself up and roll onto his back.

"The ghost." He murmured.

"What's that?"

"You're the ghost Sentry was talking about. The one we can't see."

"I have no idea what you are saying. You're making noise, but not making sense." Katie said.

The zombie was in bad shape; the bullet that had hit him in the side of the head had deflected forward and taken out one of his eyes and most of his nose. When he spoke it was with a nasally, wet quality.

"He said there was something here. He thought it was one of his first children or maybe…"

"Maybe what?"

The zombie didn't reply, as Katie watched his face was pulling itself together, mending in front of her. He tried to maneuver so his leg was more correctly aligned, but Katie shook her head 'no' and kicked his limb to a ninety degree angle.

"No way mister, I don't need you fully healthy so you can jump me, so leave it!"

The zombie grimaced, "But it will heal that way, sideways and I'll have to have it broken again to set up right…"

"Trust me you aren't going to live long enough to worry about it." Katie raised the shotgun to her shoulder and aimed it at the suit on the ground.

"Wait!" the zombie's eye went opaque and his face started to glow softly in the dusky twilight.

Katie jumped back, startled by the apparition before her. "What the fuck!"

"This is interesting…" Randy said, walking forward.

The suit glanced around, as if seeing things for the first time, his eyes settled on Randy for a moment before shifting ever so slightly to Katie.

"Who are you?" The suits voice had changed, it was slightly higher pitched. Katie felt a pressure on her mind, as if something were trying to squeeze the information out of her head.

She backed up and shook her head, "No."

"Who are you? You will tell me who you are!" The pressure on Katie's head intensified.

"Kill him!" Randy screamed, grabbing at his own head with his hands.

The zombie's face turned to Randy, "Who are you!"

As the zombie's gaze left Katie, so did the pressure that was trying to break into her brain, seizing control she pulled the trigger of the shotgun, the shell caught the suit on the side of the suit's head.

"No!" he screamed, grabbing again at the side of his head, the glowing increased and Katie fired again before the zombie could regain its bearings. The second shot hit it square in the face, but didn't do nearly the damage that Katie felt a shotgun should do as such close range.

With the glow intensifying on the ground, the zombie's face started pulling together with startling speed, all the while the thing's shriek intensified, growing to the volume of a train whistle. Katie fired twice more in rapid succession before the firing pin came down on an empty chamber. The glowing had not stopped, but the screaming had. Katie quickly reloaded five shells into the gun and shot the thing in the head five more times, by the time she was finished what was left resembled a bowl full of ground meat that someone had mixed with short, black hair.

"Holy fuck. What was that?" Katie asked Randy, who was still standing beside her.

"He saw me."

"What?"

"How could he see me? I'm you, remember, not really me. That's what I've been assuming all this time. How could he see me Katie?"

Katie looked at her partner, "Well, maybe you aren't as dead as you thought?"

Chapter 32 — Ruben

"Where am I?" came the voice from the back seat, startling Ruben. He was in the driver's seat, trying not to doze off or let his mind wander, things happened when his mind wandered and it was a struggle to keep control. In the passenger seat beside him Stewart snorted softly in her sleep. The two cars were parked side by side in a rest area and Ruben was on watch in one car. Javier had been comatose in the backseat for the better part of eighteen hours.

"Javier? Kid? Are you awake?" Ruben asked softly, leaning forward and then half turning to look at the young man in the darkness. According to Ruben's watch it was two in the morning, though his watch was set according to a different time zone, so who knew what time it was here.

"Ruben? That you? What happened?" Javier's voice sounded different, like that of a kid, Ruben realized.

"You got into an accident; you were thrown through the windshield and ended up in the other guy's car. You don't remember?"

"I remember firing at some idiots in a crossover vehicle, then…" Javier paused, thinking, "Well not much after that; sounds mostly; breaking glass and stuff. Then darkness."

"Well, then you didn't miss much." Ruben said with relief. He had been worried about brain damage or other trauma. "How are you feeling?"

"Good. Better than good, really. I mean I feel really, really…hungry!" Javier said, "Man am I hungry!"

"We got our packs in the trunk."

"That you Javier?" asked Stewart groggily.

"Yeah."

"Welcome back to the land of the living, such as it is. You okay?"

"Yeah, fine. Just hungry." Javier said again.

"Cool. I'm going back to sleep."

"C'mon, let's get out and see what we can rustle up for you to eat." Ruben opened his door, which caused Stewart to grumble about the light, but she burrowed down into her fatigues and draped her arm over her face to block it out.

When Bill saw Javier and Ruben get out of their vehicle he opened his door and went to meet them, leaving Max asleep in the back seat. Javier repeated for the third time that he was fine and just hungry as Bill tossed the same questions at him as the others.

Javier tore into his pack and gabbed several of the plastic bagged military rations that had been sent with them. None of them thought they were too bad, not at first, but after a few days of the military food they had started grabbing whatever they could find locally to eat.

"I see why every pack comes with some sort of hot sauce." Javier said when he slowed down from eating his second meal, "It adds a little spice to them. I mean, I don't even like hot sauce." He said this as he dumped the small glass container of the red liquid into the open pouch in his other hand.

"Better than the crations we had in my day." Ruben said.

"I think it is 'cause they all taste the same. I mean you might call one 'Chicken with Noodles' and another 'Chili and Macaroni', but they don't taste all that different to me." Bill said.

Javier shook his head and said between bites, "No way man, the breakfast one rocks!"

The other men nodded and Ruben said, "It always seems like one meal pack in any generation is better than the others and that everyone will trade anything to get it. I never would have thought packaged sausages and blueberry granola would be in such high demand. So, Javier, what happened?"

He shrugged, swallowed and said, "I don't remember much, I knew they were going to hit me, I remember that and being just…stuck to the truck. Like I couldn't move, I wanted to jump out before they hit and I froze up. I was so scared, then.." Javier waved his spoon around at the two police cars, "Waking up. What happened?"

Bill spoke to him about getting the police cruisers and their mad dash through several states over the course of the last sixteen hours, ending with them stopping at their current location.

"Is it safe?" Javier asked.

"Max hasn't seen anyone close to the main road. At least not really close. He says that there are a lot of dead people out on the edge of his mental zombie radar. He couldn't see any zombies when we stopped here, so we thought we could get a few hours of sleep. Me and Ruben drew short straws and get to watch first. Max and Stewart will take over in a couple hours and let us get a little sleep. How's your leg Javier?"

Javier looked down at his legs, "Which one? What was wrong with it?"

Ruben laughed, "Well I guess that answers that."

"Your leg was busted up ten ways from Sunday when you played 'stiff man' on us. I'm no doctor, but what I saw…well you shouldn't be able to walk on it now. Do you know what happened?"

"No." Javier shook his head and smiled in the moonlight, "I guess I got something too, huh? I was hoping for wolverine claws or maybe flying like superman, but healing up fast is sort of like wolverine isn't it?"

Ruben shook his head, he had a hard time keeping track of what the youth of today was talking about. Bill nodded and said, "I guess, bummer about having to zonk out like that though. I wonder what would happen if you got shot or worse, bit? Would you turn? Would you heal it up and be fine?"

"Let's not find out." Ruben said.

Javier nodded and reached for his third meal pack.

"Better be careful you don't burst your stomach, we wouldn't want you going all comatose for that." Bill said.

"What? I'm starving here, I missed three meals while I was out and I think I need to make up for them. So what do we do now?"

"Well, Max thinks the guy is over on the coast, from what Aubrey told him, the east coast near the north end of Florida. We got a map and plan to scout the area starting later this morning. Max should be able to scan for the guy as we get closer. I think we are about a hundred miles from the coast, so it's not like we are on top of him yet."

Javier kept eating while Ruben and Bill chatted about their plans. Wiping his face after finishing Javier said, "So let me get this straight, we are just going to drive in, find the guy in his Doctor's office and shoot him?"

"It probably won't be that simple." Bill conceded.

"We have the bomb, we might be able to set it close by and just turn tail and run. Nothing ever works out the way it is supposed to, but the simpler the plan the less we have to change when everything goes wrong." said Ruben.

"Not much of a plan." Javier said with a shrug, "I don't have a better one." He walked around the parked trooper cars, as if testing his legs.

"You have any pain?" Ruben asked him as he completed the first circuit.

"It's…stiff. Like all tight and stuff. Were you ever in track Ruben?"

The old man gave a derisive laugh, "When I was young there was no internet, no video games and the television only had three channels, of course I was in track."

"Ah, okay. Well it's like the first time you get outside for the first day, you are all stiff and tight, it takes you a week to get back into things. That's how I feel. Like the first day of track."

"Well, I hope you don't feel like the first night after the first day of track practice."

"All sore? Me either. That would suck. Are you sure my leg was busted?"

"It was busted." Both Bill and Ruben answered together.

Javier kept on walking, leaving Bill and Ruben at the back of the cruiser Stewart was sleeping in. "What does all this mean Ruben?"

"Coming to me for my ancient wisdom? Sorry, I've got nothing. Everything changes. I've lived long enough to know that. I think of this as the next step. You believe in God Bill?"

Bill shook his head, then stopped abruptly, "No, I mean, I'm not a church goer or anything. I just never caught the bug. Max's wife was though, she talked about all the stuff she did with the church. I think she was trying to nudge us into it. It was lost on Max though. Why?"

"Well, I went to church. I mean for years. It goes back to that lack of video games and three channels on the television thing; there wasn't much else to do and church was a good place to meet up with other people." Ruben paused for a moment, then fished around in his pockets and brought out a pack of cigarettes, "Do you mind?"

"You don't smoke. I mean, I've never seen you smoke."

"I gave it up years ago, but the last couple of weeks has given me reason to believe that I might not be dying of cancer any time soon. So, I can light up?"

"Sure."

Ruben tapped out a cigarette and tamped it down on the trunk of the car, he lit it and inhaled a deep breath, "Ah! And the Lord said let there be light! Besides, what if I start? It's not like they are still making cigarettes, even if I live through all of this, I think the cigarettes will only last a few more months before they are too stale to be worth it."

"You'll go through withdrawal again?"

"I'll deal with it. So you don't believe much in God. Like I said, I was a church goer, but Bill when you do something year after year, decade after decade, you can't help but start to see the cracks in the walls. I've been to enough preaching that I've probably heard the bible a dozen times over by now. It is fair to say I was leaning towards agnostic before all this, if not downright atheism."

"What changed?" Bill asked.

"Max. Stewart. You. Javier. Me. We changed. Them. They changed. They eat people and get 'better', if that makes sense. The dead have risen and among them we walk. The more they consume, the more 'alive' they get to be. And here's the funny part of this improbable situation. If we kill them, we get stronger and better too. A heathen would call it magic. A scientist would analyze the living hell out of it until it turns up being….what's that made up shit from Star Wars?"

"Ah…the stuff in the blood…midi-chlorians? Fans hated that."

"Sounds right, I was going for the 'Force' though, I don't know about blood or anything. Well they got it wrong. It's not magic, it's not the force, it's people's souls. The zombies consume a person's soul. We can't do it without them processing it first, but if we are close by we can absorb it from them before it gets free to go to its reward."

"Interesting theory." Bill said.

"It makes sense. It throws all the church leaning into perspective. There is a soul. We have seen it at work. Twisted to Satan's ends, for the most part, but it proves there is a soul. And with a soul, there must be heaven and a hell. It fits."

"It could, but I am still skeptical, where is God in all of this? Why doesn't he just step in and end it all? Send down the golden ladders or whatever and close this chapter of the book."

"Ah, that sounds like a scientist. I don't have all the answers. I am pretty sure about this one and I am scared Bill."

"Scared? Why?"

"Well if it's all true, I haven't been a very good Christen."

Bill snorted, "You and the other eight billion people on the planet. I wouldn't worry about it."

"This is everlasting, unending afterlife we are talking about. If I end up in hell…well as the kids say today, that would suck."

Laughing Bill said, "You're not dead yet, can't you repent?"

"I already have."

"So you should be all set. Are you trying to save me now?"

"No, I sat through enough sermons to know I ain't a preacher. But Bill, I have to tell you something."

"Shoot."

"I prayed a lot over the years and never saw anything come of it, I never got an answer. But lately, Bill, I've been getting answers."

Bill stared at the old man for a minute, "Like, voices in your head answers? Or 'prayers coming true' sort of answers?"

The old man looked out into the night, focusing on something that Bill couldn't see, he cleared his throat before answering, "I'm not crazy, at least I don't think so. At first I ignored them. It's like, well you ever been to a baseball game?"

"I've been to a few I–Cubs games, but never to a major league game."

"It's kind of like that, the crowd just sort of murmurs in the background, making a noise you just overlook to get on with your own talking. But when you are at a game and your own conversation stops, you might pick up on what people nearby are saying. You following me?"

"Yeah, or even at a restaurant."

"Yes, like that. Well if I kind of stop thinking about anything in particular, I can hear people. I thought it was just people like you and Stewart the other day. But it's not just them. It's people I can't see. People I am pretty sure are dead."

"And you think it is God?" asked Bill.

"I know. Crazy. Not all God. But yeah, I think he is using them to talk to me, to give me advice. To tell me things I should otherwise have a way of knowing."

"What kind of things?"

"Where people are, where zombies are, what they are doing. If I can make a difference in any given situation…or not."

"That's how you found Stewart. But how did you get over the fence?"

"There was a hole cut through it by the side of the building, it was hard to see from where we were, but they, the voices, told me it was there. They said Stewart would need my help and I had to go to her." Ruben said.

"They said 'would need', so they told you the future?"

"Sort of, maybe they were guessing. With Stewart that isn't much of a guess, is it? She's always in the thick of things."

Bill laughed, "Aren't we all?"

Javier finally stopped pacing and asked, "All what?"

"In the thick of things. How's your leg?" Bill asked.

"Good, I think I am okay, but I am still hungry."

"You better wait at least fifteen or twenty minutes, I don't know how much more you can hold."

"The meals aren't that big. How about I wait ten?" said Javier, eyeing the trunk.

"Your call, I won't stand between you and food. We'll have to see what we can pick up locally in the morning to make sure you have enough."

"Okay." Javier set off on another loop around the parking lot.

Ruben finished his cigarette, "So Bill, am I crazy?"

"Near as I can tell, yes. You should have stayed in Iowa old man."

"I couldn't do that, not when people half my age are running around trying to save the world. Not when I could make a difference."

"Ruben, just watch what you are doing, okay? I mean if the voices tell you to do anything crazy just think about it before you act. Don't just give in to them."

Ruben nodded and tapped another cigarette out of the pack. As he smoked he thought about a pop song he had heard so many years before, one that wailed on about good advice you just couldn't take.

Chapter 33 — Katie

"Anything?" Katie asked as she frantically rifled through the office on the ground floor.

"No, this isn't my thing. I was never good with computers." Randy said.

The two stood in the office surrounded by pulled down books and papers spread over every flat surface. They were looking for an address of the clinic the doctor worked at. Both had thought it would just be a matter of finding the location on some stationary or other paperwork, but so far they had found nothing.

"He'll send someone for us. How far do you think it is from here?" Randy asked.

"Now how in the hell would I know that?"

"I dunno, how do you know you are looking for him in the first place? How'd you know this was his house?"

Katie slumped into an overstuffed chair, looking defeated in the near darkness. "Fuck if I know, I just do." She stared up at the portrait hanging behind the desk where Randy was sitting. "Who do you think that is?"

"His father? The founder of modern medicine? His former lover?"

"Thanks, for that last image. I bet he lives about half an hour from where he works. We've spent ten minutes at this, so we should have another ten, then we gotta get out of here."

"Well, I can't get into his computer." Randy was staring at the log in screen in front of him. He was able to type in passwords, but noted, with some amusement, the keys didn't depress when he hit them. So far he had tried a variety of combinations with no luck. The two of them had kept the lights off in the house and the generator was still running in the garage, providing them with power if they needed it. From the bottom desk drawer they had found a notebook scribbled full of numbers and letters and Randy had tried every combination off of the pad as well.

"You know what we haven't found?"

"What?" asked Randy.

"A safe. Move, would you?" Katie stood and walked over behind the desk to the painting. The wall behind the desk was lined with built-in bookshelves. The painting was hanging on a section of wall built out from the shelves. Katie grabbed the bottom corner of the picture and tried to lift it off the wall. It didn't want to move.

"Bingo! There is something here." Katie tugged on the edges of the painting, until the left side pulled free from the wall. The picture acted as a door with a heavy duty magnet keeping it from swinging open. Behind it was a wall safe with two dials. "Gimme the sheet with the numbers." Katie said.

Randy reached for the pad of paper on the desk, but was unable to move it. "Sorry, that seems to be beyond my ability."

Katie whirled and picked up the paper, but paused to lay one hand on Randy's face. He felt solid to her touch. They stared at each other for a moment before Katie turned back to the wall with the pad. She went right to the bottom, skipping the crossed off numbers.

"Fucking idiot. If this works, I mean." Katie said, "See how the numbers are split here, like these four are in a group and then there is a bit of a space to the next group? I bet this is the combo for the two dials."

"Do it."

Katie dialed the numbers on the safe and in a few seconds she heard a click. She pulled the door open and let out a low whistle, "Well, what do you think? Was the guy up to no good or what?" The safe was full cash. Neat stacks of hundred dollar bills wedged tightly into place, to one side of this stack was a manila folder slid in upright. Katie ignored the cash and pulled out the folder.

"Gold! Randy! Check it out! I bet he works here." Katie held up a couple of checks, embossed with a fancy logo and the address of some sort of medical clinic on the front. Katie took out the first check and was moving to put it into the pocket of her shirt when Randy stopped her.

"Hold up. We don't want him to know we know where he is."

Looking around at the mess on the floor Katie turned back to Randy, "I think he might have a clue."

"No, not for sure. He'll know we go in here, but we don't have to be obvious that we got into the safe. Take the last check. Put everything back the way you found it and then stash the note book back in the drawer. Toss it, but make it look like you overlooked it. Then he won't know for sure we found the safe or where the clinic is."

"Good. That's good. I suppose that is why you are the observer and I am the shooter." Katie said referring to their team roles.

"No, you're the shooter 'cause I fucked up on the range and you shot better than me."

"I am a better shot than you."

"I'm not bad."

"But not the best. Admit it. I'll give you that you were the best observer; you always fed me the data I needed to get the shot."

"If it shuts you up, you were the better shooter. But no one can observe like me."

"Standing or lying around was always a strong point for you." Katie teased as they exited the room."

"Earning your pay for one trigger pull seemed to suit you too."

As the two made their way to the back door, headlights flashed onto the front of the house from the street, it looked like more than one vehicle.

Randy looked at Katie, "Go. I'll try to distract them."

Stepping onto the back porch Katie eyed the grill and the propane tanks. "Yeah, you do that partner; catch up with me at the jeep. Be careful."

"I'm dead, I doubt they will even see me."

Katie paused by the grill, it was a luxury model with an electric battery start and came right on when she tapped the button. Hoisting one of the heavy propane tanks onto the burning grill she turned it sideways and brought the grill cover down on top of it. The cover couldn't close all the way with the tank in the way and Katie pulled the whole thing sideways until the half open lid was facing the back fence.

She turned and ran towards the fence, carrying her two guns with her as she went. She had just cleared the fence when she heard the angry shouts behind her. Stopping in the woods she braced herself against a tree and watched as several fast moving figures fanned out in the back yard. Gunfire erupted from inside the house and the figures outside crouched down, making smaller targets in the overgrown grass.

Katie smiled smugly, she could have killed any of them from this range, it wasn't even a hard shot despite the dim light of the moon. She settled the crosshairs on the shadowy head of the figure closest to the back patio. No more gunfire came from within and the zombie she was aiming at pointed at the grill, which was giving off a little flickering light from the open lid. Katie could tell it was a male, and he moved as if he had some sort of training, either police or military, he shied away from the windows of the house, but, of course he wasn't being watched from inside the house.

'That's it, move just a little closer. Stand up a little more, perfect!' Katie slowly squeezed the trigger and the man's head burst apart, the bullet lined up perfectly with the propane tank sitting on the hot flames of the grill and the pressurized tank blew open when the bullet struck it. The resulting explosion sent a fireball screaming into the sky and blew down part of the kitchen wall and shattered all of the windows in the house. Katie felt the massive heat wave from the blast from where she was, a good hundred yards away.

The house caught fire and the pile of propane tanks had been scattered all over the patio, with some blown into the kitchen itself. Katie risked waiting a few seconds for the kitchen to really go up, and then took aim at another of the propane tanks. This explosion didn't seem as fierce to Katie as the first, but its effects were far more devastating; it lifted part of the house up off of its foundation, when it crashed back down fully half the house collapsed.

Katie looked for the figures in the grass, they all still seemed to be there, stunned by the force of the explosions. Most of them were still moving, rolling to their stomachs to crawl away from the fire. 'Easy pickings.' She thought, it was tempting to pick a few of them off as they lay in the yard, but she fell back into her role and decided fading away would be a better idea than getting into a firefight.

Moving at a trot she followed her path back to her duffel back, which she picked up and tossed into the jeep. Starting the vehicle she backed onto the beach, which was much smaller now that the tide had come in.

"You happy?" Randy asked.

"It was a great idea."

"I'm not saying it wasn't. But now it just makes you a larger threat. You can't kick the anthill without repercussions."

"Oh, I think there would have been repercussions anyway."

"Well, maybe you would have been a lower level threat. Now you've done pissed him off. I mean you break into his house, kill his woman, ambush his men; twice, and steal his stuff. Then to top it all off you burn the place down."

"Hey!" protested Katie, "He doesn't know I stole his stuff now! I was just covering our tracks."

Randy laughed.

"Let's find another place to hole up and work on finding him in the morning. I could use some Randy time." Katie said.

Smiling at her allusion to what that meant when they were alive, Randy replied, "I'm all yours sweet heart."

Chapter 34 — Max

"So, Max, can you see anything yet?" Stewart asked. She sounded a little irritated to Max, something that made him chose his response a little more carefully.

"Nothing. I mean no beacon in the sky or anything like that, I know we have to head to the south from here and as close to the coast as we can get."

Bill nodded and pointed on the map he had liberated from a gas station the day before, "Well, you can't get much closer to the coast than highway 1A, or do you think getting on highway 95 would do it? Both are pretty dang close to the ocean."

"I don't know which ones Aubrey said would be clear. Maybe we should go with highway 1?" answered Max.

"Fair enough we don't want to miss the guy. If we end up in Key West we can double back this way on highway 95 to make up for lost time." Bill closed the atlas and continued, "Okay this should be an easy trip, we'll drive east a bit until we hit highway 95, then it crosses over highway 1 just south of Jacksonville, we'll turn onto that road and keep heading south until Max says otherwise. Everybody clear on that?"

A round of 'yeses' and nods answered his question. It was eight fifteen in the morning and the sky was clear to the west, but dark and ominous to the east, there was definitely a storm coming in. The five of them were finishing up breakfast and were planning on doing a weapons and ammunition check before they left.

"So, when Max spots the guy we are going to run in as close as we can get, drop the backpack and bug out fast. That's the plan?" Ruben asked.

"Yeah, I can't think of any way to make it simpler. I don't want any heroics and if we never have to even see him, that's okay with me." said Bill.

"Any back up plans?" Ruben was looking closely at Bill again.

"What do you suggest, Ruben?"

"Well, nothing ever goes like we want it to. I think we should at least have a rendezvous, a fall back location that we agree to meet at if everything hits the fan. I think it should be here first, but if we end up driving another hundred miles we should choose another location closer to the target. Just in case."

"That makes sense, if we get separated we come back to this rest area and wait, say three days? After that we could meet at the campground we were at yesterday, then the airfield they dropped us off at. How about this we scratch our names into the bathroom stall doors along with a date? The last stall in the bathroom should do, then we'll at least be able to know if anyone was there before us or not."

"I like that. Three day layovers at each place and even if no one shows, we are all least making our way back to Iowa." said Stewart.

"Okay, let's check guns and ammo and get this done. We could be heading home by the end of today, wouldn't that be something? To have this over with?" Bill asked.

"Yeah, but I won't be happy until we are back in Iowa with the kids." Max said.

"I'd drink to that." said Ruben.

"Guns first, then zombies, then drinking." laughed Bill.

They laid their guns out on the hood of the cars and went through their available ammo for each of them. Everyone except Ruben still had military rifles and Ruben's shotgun was still in good working order too. Again, everyone except Ruben had pistols as backup weapons, Ruben had his combat knife and Stewart was carrying a second back up pistol and the machete she had taken from the state patrol headquarters. Ammunition was still plentiful. They had been given ten magazines with each rifle along with two cases of extra bullets when they had been dropped off by the military. Unfortunately they had burned through most of the extra ammo along the way, they still had eight magazines of military grade ammunition for each gun, plus two loaded with the less accurate.223 ammo they had found. Ruben was drowning in shells for the shotgun, he had well over a hundred left after taking the shells Max had started with. He made sure his gun was fully loaded and he stashed twenty five shells in various pockets in his fatigues before he stowed the rest in his pack. The others divvied up the loose.223 rounds and put them in their packs as well. Stewart and Ruben looked over all the guns and gave them a quick clean up before they were reloaded and handed back to the owners.

"I'll lead off with Max. You three follow behind us." Stewart said.

Bill started to say something, but Max glanced at him and shook his head slightly until he just said, "Okay."

They were all ensconced into their vehicles and driving eastward a few minutes later. Stewart was very quiet, too quiet for Max.

"Stewart? What's up?"

Max expected her to say "Nothing", in fact he had his response all lined up and ready to go, to cajole her into telling him what was bothering her.

Instead she said, "I think we're getting fucked up the ass by these guys."

"Wh-what?"

"Your friend, Bill and his two soldiers. By Draper, by Aubrey, by everyone involved in this so called mission."

"Whoa, just whoa, slow down for a minute. Draper, sure. Aubrey, maybe; you weren't there. But Bill? No way, uh-uh, never in a million years."

"A million years is a long time. It might not be on purpose on Bill's part, he could have been fed bad information and is just acting on it to the best of his ability."

"What are you talking about?"

"Why aren't the military guys going in here? Why didn't Draper come south instead of heading East? Why level with us about the bomb after we parted ways? I mean hell, why level with us about it at all?"

"One at a time please. I'll argue with you about things all day long if you like, but I can't answer everything in such a quick succession. What is bothering you most?"

"Everything!" Stewart yelled.

"Uh…"

"Fuck. I know Max, I know you can't help me out of this. Could you listen to me and give your perspective though? I need to know how fucked we are."

"I can do that, talk."

"Okay, first thing's first. Why do you suppose Draper leveled with us about the bomb?"

Max shrugged, "I've been thinking of that too, there wasn't any point. Except one; Draper wanted us to know that it would blow up and take out more than we had been told. He wanted to give us a chance to get away. When they told us about the bomb they gave us a safety distance, which we had to be at to avoid dying when it went off. If we would have hidden at the minimum safe distance for a nuclear bomb we would have died when this animatronic one went off."

"Postitronic. You think Draper told us that, just so we would have a chance to live?"

"I do and I think he wasn't supposed to either."

"What makes you say that?"

"Here is what I figure. If you are giving a group of idiots…well, that might be harsh. If you are giving a group that doesn't stand much of a chance for completing the mission, the tools to complete that mission, you want to give them the best chance of taking out the target."

"So far, Max, you are not helping much."

"Let me finish. Most people want to live. A bomb like this comes with an inherent risk to blowing the user up if they are not careful, along with the target. In order to be used properly the bomb has to be placed where the target is." Max held up his hand in a placating manner to keep Stewart from interrupting, "I said let me finish. So newbies like us need to set the bomb off as close to the target as possible, but that conflicts with us wanting to survive too. We might set the bomb too soon; this doctor guy might leave the area if we set it too far away. So they tell us it has a short range and we should be able to hunker down close to it and survive. Makes sense, are you with me so far?"

"Go on, but get to the point."

"What would we do if we knew the bomb was more devastating? We would feel comfortable setting it off further away from the target, giving him a better chance to get out of range. We would be hunkered down too far away to reposition it too, making it even less likely to try. That equals more of a chance for us to fail. Do you see?"

Stewart nodded, "I can see that is one argument. I am not saying that I agree completely with it."

"Well Draper, he is a tough guy, hard to trust and difficult to work with. I didn't ever get the feeling he wanted us dead. I think he went against orders to put that message on the bomb. I don't think it was a planned 'after you separate' thing by the top brass at all. I think he disobeyed orders."

"That's giving him a lot of credit. And your argument makes no sense at all. They could have just left it as it was and not told us anything."

"Well, that's all I got, whether it makes any sense or not. Next question." said Max.

"No, I don't think…"

"Next question. You asked my opinion and I gave it, you said you had a lot of questions, let's go through those first and if you still want to poke holes in my argument after that we can revisit this."

"Oh, we're playing that way are we? Fine. I'll do a two for one then. Why didn't the military send more soldiers or send Draper directly?" asked Stewart.

"Me. That is the long and short of it. I can pinpoint this asshole. I've been thinking back to my conversation with Aubrey and I am not sure we were the only group they inserted either. She said something to me before we parted ways, something about how was I sure she hadn't contacted the other teams? She used plural, when she was talking to me. From my perspective there is only one 'other team' out there, Drapers."

Stewart mulled this over, "You aren't really saying anything I haven't already figured out myself here. Somehow when you say it, things sound better. Are we on a suicide mission?"

Max leaned backed, he hadn't considered it. Given what he had already said about the bomb he was having a hard time stating 'no' outright. "I don't know. I know I have two kids back in Iowa and I know I plan to get back to them. But Stewart, I guess my logic with Draper and the bomb sort of indicates this may be a one way trip."

"I don't want it to be."

"Are you getting cold feet?"

Stewart shook her head, "No! No, this needs to be done, it just feels right somehow, but Max, you have to promise me something. Okay?"

"That depends on what it is."

"If it comes down to me dying to make sure you get away, you get away. Can you promise me that? No lamenting about it, no rationalizing it. If push comes to shove, you shove and get back to your kids."

"Stewart…I…I don't know. I mean how will I know something like that?"

"And not just me, either. If it comes down to all of us dying so you can live, you let us die. Get back to your kids. Bill's kids have Tricia, Ruben is old and Javier's family will know their son died as a hero. But you have to live."

"Why?" asked Max.

"I kinda like you Max and I want you to be happy and live to raise your kids the way you promised your wife you would."

They sat in silence for a while, driving down the road at breakneck speed. Max was clearly agitated, fidgeting in his seat and fiddling with the pockets on his jacket. Finally he said, "Stewart, I don't remember telling you about the promises I made to my wife."

"Oh, you didn't. But I know you Max, and I know you made her promises when she was dying to take care of the kids and I bet she gave you a list of how to do it too."

Max laughed, "Oh thank God, I thought you were crawling around in my head!"

Stewart looked sideways at Max and asked, "How do you know I am not? It's my job after all, to ferret out the truth. I'm a modern day Sherlock Holmes about this kind of thing."

"Sure Stewart, and I am your Watson, no problem."

"So what about Ruben? That guy is creeping me out lately."

"What do you mean?"

"He has something, some other power and he doesn't seem to want to talk about it."

"Well, he hasn't confided in me. Maybe I should ask Bill?" Max said.

"Yeah, if he has told anyone it would be Bill."

"Hey Stewart slow down a bit, there are zombies up ahead."

"On the road? I don't see them." said Stewart.

"No, I think they are away from the road, but about a mile ahead of us." They drove by a sign stating that Jacksonville was two miles ahead.

"We are almost to the point where we turn off to get on highway 1 aren't we?" Stewart asked.

"I think so, Bill said it was through Jacksonville though. Slow down, the zombies are close to the interstate up here, probably by this exit." The highway slowly rose above the four lane street the exit led to.

"Well we should gun it then and get by them quickly." Despite her words Stewart did slow down a little. Behind them Bill matched her pace, but stayed within ten car lengths.

"Ah, I guess you're right, they aren't close enough to reach us, even if they had cars. I don't see…Shit!" Max screamed as he saw the yawning abyss in the road ahead. The bridge was missing completely from both lanes of the interstate ahead of them. Stewart swerved into the guardrail using it to slow herself down, but the heavy car bounced off of it and flew into the hole.

Behind them Bill cursed and hit his brakes as he saw Stewart swerve and hit the guardrail, the car fishtailed, with the passenger side door leading the way to the open hole in the road ahead. Ruben, sitting behind Bill, opened the back door, put his hand in the shoulder straps of the back pack bomb and jumped out onto the pavement. The old man grunted as he landed on his stomach hard and started sliding to the brink of the chasm where both of the patrol cars lay in smoking ruin. He stopped with both his legs hanging over the twenty foot drop; the tips of his boots were worn down to their steel toes.

Ruben stood up, dusted himself off and looked at the ragged hole worn through his fatigues by the slid, his body armor was a shambles, and there were holes and blood around both of his knees, but he would live. Grabbing the bomb he spared only a moment to look at the cars in the crushed rubble where the bridges had been before jogging back down the overpass towards some nearby woods.

"I hope you aren't fucking with me." He mumbled to the voices in his head as he scrambled for cover before the approaching zombies reached the wrecks where his friends were.

Chapter 35 — Katie

"You know I think I am crippled without internet mapping." Katie said while trying to read the sign on the corner through her rifle scope.

Randy was still with her, he hadn't left her since the incident at the house. "Well, is that it?"

"No, it's fucking not. Why don't the names go in ascending order or something sensible like that? This is bullshit trying to find an address like this."

"We just need a map. Walk back to that Wal Mart and find an atlas or better yet a map of Florida."

"I suppose you're right. I'm just afraid it will be full of zombies."

"Not like you can't take care of them." Randy said.

"Sure I can, pop, pop, pop! Then I'll have three hundred of the mother fuckers rain down on me. No, I have to be quieter than that if I am going to crack skulls."

"Let's go and get this done."

"See, Randy? This is why we worked well together, you always took care of the maps and knowing where we were and shit. I'm not that good at this sort of thing."

"True, you are lost without me."

"Ha-ha. Very funny ghost boy."

The two of them walked through the morning gloom, keeping to the yards instead of the street and ready to duck into cover if they saw any sign of movement. It took them half an hour to get back to the big box store. Once there Katie insisted that they watch for another half an hour for movement, and then they approached the building from the side, slithering up to the broken front doors cautiously. Once they were inside the foyer, they looked around the store for signs of unlife.

"I think it is empty." Randy said.

"Looks that way. It's darker than I thought it would be too."

"You still got a light don't you?"

"Sure." said Katie taking out the small Maglite she had found in the Jeep. She turned it on and pointed it around the store, it barely illuminated the gloom.

"You stay here and I will go scout for maps, give me the light."

Katie handed it over and it tumbled to the ground, passing through Randy's hand.

"Asshole." she said as she picked it up.

"That never gets old." Randy said with a laugh. Katie could feel him when she touched him, but Randy couldn't pick things up or move things on his own. This was the second time he had convinced Katie to hand him something.

"Well it better get old, 'cause I am tired of it."

"What are you going to do? Beat me? Ooh I am so scared!" Randy taunted quietly.

"Fuck you, ghost boy. Let's just find a map and blow this joint."

"Alright, alright. Where do you think they would be? Automotive or books?"

"Shit, I was hoping we'd find one next to the cash registers. You know, for lost tourists and stuff."

"Oh, yeah, that would make sense."

A loud crash sounded from the back of the store, causing both of them to jump. Kate smiled and asked in a low voice, "What the hell are you jumping for? Nothing can hurt you!"

"Instinct? Force of habit, maybe. Let's check the cashiers and get the hell out of dodge."

They quickly and quietly scrambled through the debris on the floor and made a beeline for the closest register. The fast check-out lanes sporting signs of "20 or less items" didn't have anything in the way of impulse goods at all, but in the first lane designed to handle a full grocery cart Katie found a whole section devoted to maps. She stood there playing the light over them, while another crash resounded from the back of the store.

"Is now really the time to be a discriminating shopper? Just take one of each and we can sort them out later." Randy said.

"Fine." Katie grabbed one of every map available and a package of pens and jogged towards the front door.

Once they were out into the sunlight Katie made a beeline back the way they had come. Randy jogged silently along beside her until she entered a bright yellow house across the street.

Katie did a quick check of the house, but found nothing. The front door had been bashed in and the glass had been broken out of the patio doors leading into the back yard. Katie finished looking around and then pulled up a stool and sat down at the kitchen island.

"You know, Randy, it's funny that I always end up in these nicer houses."

"Why is that?"

"Well I never lived in a house with an island in the kitchen. All the houses I grew up in had that crappy galley style kitchen you could barely turn around in. The best one I lived in had a hole you could pass plates out through to the small assed dining room. Now look at these places? They're huge."

"Designs have changed to more open floor plans, people seem to prefer them." answered Randy.

Katie stared at him for a moment and burst out laughing. "Whatever. All I know is when we settle down it's going to be in a large house with a kitchen that has an island. Hmm, you know an island wouldn't be bad, would it? Aren't there islands around here with houses on them? We could just row a boat out and pick a house."

"Probably that idea has been thought of already."

"First things, first I supposed, let's see where we are and where this address is." Katie pulled the check out of her pocket that she had retrieved from the safe and looked at the address. It had both a street address and a post office box number on it. Sorting through all the maps she unfolded two of them and circled the area where she thought the clinic should be on both.

"Why are you doing it twice?"

"I want to see which map is easier to read, I think it's going to be this one." Katie held up a map that boasted 'Best Local Street Map' on it along with the line 'Published locally!' "I think the advertisement is actually true, sorry Rand McNally."

Using her pen she highlighted the route to the street they were currently on, the generic map of northern Florida, put out by the larger publishing company didn't look as detailed, so Katie shoved it away from her into the pile of other maps near the edge of the island.

"How many blocks in a mile?" Katie asked.

"Eight or nine, I think."

"Okay, then we are not that far, a couple miles. This time Randy I am going to do things a little better, I'm going to case the joint first and set up a better getaway plan."

"The jeep isn't that far away." The two had discussed the benefit of driving it and decided that walking would be more discrete, so they had parked it above the high tide mark on the beach, not too far from where they were now.

"Definitely the jeep, that thing is awesome. I wish I had owned one before all this went down. I'll solidify my plans when we see what we are up against, but I think we will head south from here." Katie trailed her finger down route 1 along the coast. "We'll just stick to the coast until we see an island with a house on it, then find a boat and go over."

"Sounds so easy. Maybe they will have their own nuclear plant to provide us with unlimited power and a good boat for fishing so we won't starve." Randy was smiling when he started talking, but his face quickly turned to puzzlement.

"What?"

"I…I, just thought of something disturbing."

"Yeah? Like French kissing your sister?"

"No! Something I hadn't realized before. Now all the pieces are fitting into place. Katie…I figured it out…I" Randy faded from view, winking out entirely in a few seconds.

"Randy! Don't you leave me! Godamn it! What good is an imaginary friend if they keep popping in an out all the damned time? Fuck." Frustrated Katie gathered up her equipment, which consisted of the duffel bag, her rifle and the map and started for the front door.

The sound of a car coming alerted her as she got close to the busted down door. "Shit!" Katie knew the zombies could see heat or life force and the best way to avoid their gaze was to get under ground or get a lot of walls, trees, or other vegetation between you and them. Backtracking, she ran out the back door into the back yard. The yard was well groomed with sloping mounds and two very tall willow trees. Katie ran to the highest of the mounds and put it between her and the street by lying down in the tall grass. The steady sound of a vehicle chugging on the street outside let her know when the car had passed. Once it seemed to be beyond her location Katie got up and ran towards the fence to see if she could catch a glimpse of it.

It turned out to be two vehicles, not one; a large cargo van and a pickup truck, both white, but appearing drab in the overcast light. Both vehicles turned the corner a few blocks further down and Katie nodded, "Yeah, that fucking figures."

She silently counted out the street posts between where she was and where the vehicles made the turn and then consulted her map before swearing again. "Looks like our boy is still active." The count of where the vehicles had turned was equal to the number of streets Katie had to walk down before turning, meaning the vans were going the same place she was. Probably.

Chapter 36 — Ruben

'Go right.' The voices whispered and Ruben turned right where he thought the voices wanted him to go. He had left the others behind without a look back and jogged down a side street into a business district.

The 'voice' wasn't single it seemed like there were a dozen people saying the same words into Ruben's head when he listened. It was like listening to a choir; everyone was synced perfectly when they spoke, but the voices together were greater than any of them were alone. Ruben had been living with the voices ever since he had plunged his knife into the top of Ella's head back in Chicago. He hadn't been following their advice until recently; most of what they told him to do was just plain crazy. Now he thought he had them figured out.

Following the instructions Ruben turned into a small diner; it had a bar with built-in stools along one side and booths along the other. 'Grab the jacket. Keep moving through the kitchen. Out into the alley, you can rest there.'

Ruben reached out and snagged the blue windbreaker that was hanging from a peg next to one of the booths with one hand and continued moving through the kitchen, out into the alley behind the eatery. The alley was deserted and he leaned heavily back on the wall, folding up the jacket to stuff in his rucksack.

'Or do I put this on?' he inquired of the angels in his head.

'Dump the body armor, fold your coat up. Open the backpack.'

Ruben took off his outerwear and removed his body armor. In truth, it was a relief to take it off, the road rash hadn't been good to it, the trauma plate over his chest had been slipping around as he ran, threatening to fall out entirely with every sudden twist and turn. Ruben looked at the bomb; it had weathered the slide well, showing only a few scuffs and scrapes from the incident. He examined the top of the pack and slowly loosened the straps holding it closed. With some trepidation he gently lifted the top of the heavy material and stared inside the bag. He started laughing. His mirth got the better of him and he sat down hard upon his body armor, still clutching the bomb in both hands.

When he finally regained his composure he sat the bag on the ground and started pulling the items out of the top compartment. Inside was a small metal box lined with closed cell blue foam, the box fit inside the bag precisely. Stacked inside this container were cans of beer. At the very bottom of this compartment was a sacks and what looked like an ordinary brick, Ruben pulled both of them out. He pulled open the drawstrings on the sack and opened it up to see that it was filled with sand.

"Shit. We've been carrying this forty pound bag around with us and it's full of beer and sand?" This was not quite true, the bottom of the bag was a separate compartment entirely, "So if I open that I'll find, what? Two liters of whisky?"

'Just the bomb, Ruben. Leave it alone.'

"So it works then?"

'Yes. It has once already.' the voices whispered in his head.

"Why the extra weight?"

'Psychological, if it weighs more soldiers think it works better.'

"Really?" the voices didn't answer and Ruben hadn't thought they would; they didn't tend to speak if he questioned what they had already told him.

Ruben cracked one of the beers; it was lukewarm but otherwise tasted fine. He finished off the can, packed his fatigue jacket into the top of the pack along with a couple of the remaining beers and pulled on the windbreaker. The wind was picking up and he appreciated the lighter covering. "I don't even have a gun." No one answered, but Ruben kept thinking out loud, "I can nuke you back to the stone-age or run or maybe knife you. But not shoot you."

Shrugging Ruben lifted the pack up and headed down the alley, the voices didn't tell him which way to go so he guessed he was doing okay on his own. When he reached the street he looked both ways and saw a bright blue Nissan Leaf parked on the street. Sighing, he reached into his new pockets and his hands touched a key ring. As he walked to the car he pulled the keys out and heard the doors unlock when he was a couple feet away.

"Not even a proper key, just this fob thingy. Give me a good set of keys any day." Ruben climbed into the car and put the backpack in the front passenger's seat. Looking over the dash he didn't see how to turn the car on. There wasn't anywhere to put the key fob into, like a normal key would have. There was just a button where a key would normally be inserted into the ignition. Cautiously he pressed the button and an amber ring around its edge glowed softly. With another sigh, he tucked the fob back into his pocket.

"It is on? No fricking way to tell I guess." The car looked like an automatic style with just a simple shifter to switch from park to drive. Ruben pulled the stick to 'D' and was startled when a soft voice chided him to put his seatbelt on.

"Today, we risk it." he said out loud.

Pressing on the gas pedal, the car silently moved forward. 'This,' thought Ruben, 'isn't nearly so bad as I thought. I wonder if I should even think of it as a 'gas' pedal? It's not gas powered. So quiet, like riding a bike, only with no effort. Maybe those tree huggers have something after all.'

He had no idea where he was supposed to end up, so he turned to the east. He was pretty sure wherever he needed to be was east of here. He drove on for a little while keeping to a sensible, low speed on the side streets and pointing the car towards the ever darkening sky to the east.

'Right, then the next left.'

Ruben did as instructed, muttering a brief prayer as he did so. Up ahead was a Wal-mart. It looked looted and dark.

'Pull into the drive of the yellow house on the corner. It's empty, go inside. Open the garage door manually, put the car in the garage.'

'Well, this is new.' Ruben thought. He found himself to be a little let down at the idea of leaving the car, it had been a smooth ride. Once he was through parking and had the garage door down again he stood in the house, looking around the open kitchen dining room and wondering what he was supposed to do next.

There were some maps on the island, he shuffled through them and spotted one that had been written on with a blue pen. He brought the map over to the front window so he could look out at the street sign; sure enough there was a trail from this house that ended in a circled block some distance away. "How many blocks in a mile?" he asked out loud while counting the streets between where he was and the circle on the map. "Twenty blocks, that's gotta only be a mile or so."

The Lord worked in mysterious ways and Ruben didn't want to take advantage of his angels to ask questions when he could figure out the answers for himself. They had brought him here to find the map; he could take it from here. He examined the map closely, memorizing the street names and details before folding it carefully and tucking it into the deep pockets of his pants. Ruben picked up the pack with his bomb and started walking.

Chapter 37 — Max

Pain. Max's life had devolved to a single, black and red existence of pain. When the car careened over the open space where the road should have been Max had just about wet his pants. Somewhere in the split second before the impact he made the decision to be found dead and dry, instead of with urine soaked pants. Only he didn't die. Beside him Stewart moaned and flailed about with her hands.

'I'm stuck.' Max tried to pull himself free from the wreckage. He was strapped in and upside down, the airbag had deployed into his face and blood was dripping down onto the ceiling of the car. As he fumbled with his seat belt he could hear yelling from somewhere nearby. 'Oh, thank God, Bill must have stopped in time and he is coming to help us.'

Two gunshots sounded in close succession followed by another yell. Max finally hit the release on his seat belt and tumbled to the ceiling of the car. 'I don't think anything is broken. That's a fucking miracle.' The top of the car had been squashed in the impact and Max could barely stay on his hands and knees as he tried to reach Stewart. Finally, he hit the button and she dropped heavily into his arms. Her eyes fluttered and she reached for him awkwardly with one arm. Her hand was hanging limply and it looked like she had an extra joint between the elbow and wrist.

"Max." Stewart said.

"I got ya. Just hang on a second and let me pull you out of here."

"Max. Listen to me. Pull my arm straight."

"What?"

"You gotta pull my arm straight, I can feel my body trying to fix it, but like that other zombie, I think it might heal bad unless you get it straight."

Max looked at Stewart, she hadn't fared any better in the accident than he had, her nose was bloody and she was sporting two rapidly blackening eyes. Keeping his eyes on her, Max gave her arm a sudden jerk.

"Fuck! You coulda pulled it slowly, it's not like it was dislocated!" Stewart said, falling back and cradling one arm with the other.

"Sorry, Jane! I thought…" Max stopped and his body jerked convulsively.

Stewart looked up at him for a moment before he fell over her legs, unconscious. Behind him was a dark haired man in a police uniform, the prongs from a Taser still in his hand, with wires leading to a spot on Max's leg.

"Fuck me."

"No, not unless we're told to. And you wouldn't like that." The man grabbed Max by both of his legs and pulled him from the vehicle. Stewart saw the legs of several men standing outside the car, the men pulled both of Max's hands behind him and double handcuffed them together.

Looking around frantically Stewart saw her gun had been thrown from the vehicle, but her machete had fallen to the ceiling from where she had stashed it in the door.

Outside the car Max was coming around, he was face first in the rubble of the collapsed highway bridge. A moment of struggling and he realized that his hands were cuffed behind his back. There was a group of zombies in uniforms with guns milling about and Max saw two trucks on the street just clear of the rubble. This was all he noticed before Stewart flew out of the car in front of him, machete in hand. The zombie closest to the car had his head sliced horizontally in two just above the bridge of his nose before he even knew what hit him. Stewart vaulted off another gun toting zombie and into a third before the gunfire started.

Max rolled to his back and struggled to sit up, that's when he noticed that Bill and Javier were trussed up not too far away from him. There were two zombies standing above him, one had a length of rope in his hands, obviously getting ready to truss Max up like his friends, in addition to the handcuffs. Max kicked the other man in the knee, buckling it and causing him to drop the Taser he was reloading.

Stewart was unable to get in another killing blow on the remaining half dozen zombies, now that they knew she was there they were reacting quickly. She pushed her machete through the torso of one of them and twisted it as she pulled it out in an effort to slow him down. The zombie standing next to him brought his shotgun up and pointed it in her direction, Stewart was still moving, but it was the zombie dressed as a police officer who knocked the gun sideways and spoiled the shot.

"No guns!" the officer barked, he was limping away from Max and his crew, hearing that order, switched to short clubs. The officer continued to back away and inserted a fresh cartridge into the Taser.

Stewart was fast enough to trade blows with two of the zombies and still get in a few licks of her own, but when the third, a massive man wearing army fatigues stepped up she knew she was in trouble. 'This guy is huge…and as fast as me!' Stewart backed off, looking for a way out. She still hurt, her arm was not fully healed and she was fighting five zombies with Billy clubs. Casting a quick glance behind her she considered flight. The zombie with the Taser didn't try and shoot her with it, instead he shot Max again, sending him into convulsions on the ground. The officer then drew his handgun and stepped over to Bill and Javier.

The army zombie came forward fast and low, swinging to take out Stewart's legs while one of his buddies aimed high. Stewart leaped sideways and lashed out with her weapon, it hit the muscle bound army man mid-chest. There was a loud tearing sound and the blade rebounded from the body armor he was wearing beneath his jacket. Stewart made a clumsily landing and backed another two steps away from the army guy and his buddy. Behind those two the other zombies were fumbling with their belts, it looked like they had Tasers as well.

'I'm not sure how that would affect me, but they have to hit me first.' Stewart thought.

One of the zombies in the second row stepped up with a bottle that looked like a miniature fire extinguisher. 'Surely that's not… Fuck!' The zombie unleashed a torrent of pepper spray onto the area. It was an aerosol type designed to disperse crowds, but it served to blanket a huge swath of ground in a smoke-like cloud that Stewart could not avoid. Instead she charged.

This caught the smaller of the two zombies in front of her by surprise and she lopped through his upraised arm and into his melon like she was chopping wood. Stewart pulled the blade free with a spray of black zombie blood and launched a quick attack on the army zombie. He was, as usual, quicker than he looked. He deflected her blade using the Billy club and punched her in the face with his free hand. The blow sent Stewart reeling back into the cloud of pepper behind her and immediately she felt her eyes swell up and she started coughing. Stewart didn't stop moving; she darted sideways and came through the cloud well out of range of her army nemesis. As soon as she emerged the itching and burning from the pepper spray stopped.

A loud ping sounded and Stewart swept the machete blade in front of her by instinct alone, the blade deflected the metal prongs from a Taser round and earned a respectful eyebrow raise from the army zombie who was coming at her again. Stewart had no interest in fighting him, not until she could clear out his helpers. She dodged towards Bill and tried to circle the big zombie, coming close to the one with the pepper spray. He raised it up to defend himself as Stewart brought her machete down towards him. A bullet struck the machete blade as it descended; Stewart tried to correct it and pull it back on track with the zombie's head, but was only able to sink it into the thing's shoulder, partially severing its arm.

Another gunshot rang out, followed by, "Stop, or I will kill him."

The other zombies halted in their tracks, except for pepper man, he dropped the spray can and stumbled backwards clutching his nearly severed arm. Stewart glanced over to the zombie in the police officer garb and saw that he was pointing his gun at Javier's chest.

"So shoot him, I know what happens if we give up. He's better off dead."

The officer put two bullets into Javier's chest, the young man convulsed upwards and a low moan escaped his gagged mouth. The gun shifted to aim at Bill, "I don't bluff. Drop it and let us take you in."

Stewart was rattled by the casual killing of Javier, the shock must have shown on her face, but she quickly regained her composure, "Nothing's changed except one of us isn't coming back."

"Maybe I'm aiming at the wrong target." The zombie shifted his pistol to aim at Max. The officer watched Stewart's expression and smiled, "I guess I was. Your boyfriend is next little lady, or you come with us and no one else dies."

The Taser caught Stewart in the upper thigh from behind and dropped her like a stone. She fought against the pain of the electricity coursing through her body, but lost control of her limbs and felt the machete being kicked from her hand even as her feet collapsed beneath her. One of the zombies sat on her head while another pulled her arms backward none too gently and locked handcuffs around them.

"Get off my head asshole!" Stewart shouted into the dirt. The zombie didn't move, except maybe to grind himself down harder. Stewart felt her legs being bound up in the rope that had tied Bill and Javier, and then she was turned over and sat up. She saw the police officer looking at her for a moment, then a bag went over her head and she lost even that small privilege.

She could still hear though and their conversation was short and concise.

"Tie him as well, leg shackles for all of them. Clayton get the cuffs and rope off the dead guy." She was pretty sure the officer was calling the shots.

"She about lopped off my arm." said a whiney voice.

"You're fault for letting her get that close. Sentry told you they would be fast." The officer replied.

"Did you even see her come out of the car? I know Matthew didn't, it's like she just fucking appeared." came the whiney voice again.

"Shut it, Jamie. We all knew the risks." said the officer.

"Jeezus Scott, cut us a little slack here, you don't have to play hard ass all the time." Came a deeper voice.

"I don't? Maybe I am not playing. Did you ever think of that? Now get them loaded up and let's go.

Stewart was lifted up and thrown into the back of what she assumed was one of the trucks she had seen. She felt two other bodies thrown in beside her, one on each side.

"Xavier, Johnny and Bobby, you ride in the back with our guests. Jamie you ride shotgun, I wouldn't want to stress your arm anymore." said the officer's voice, who Stewart now pegged as 'Scott'.

"Fuck you, Scott. Fuck you with a horse dick."

The gunshot came so rapidly that Stewart jumped. There was complete silence in the back of the truck, where the zombies had been getting in.

"If Sentry asks, the big guy shot Jamie too. Everyone agree on that?" asked Scott, the malice in his voice weighed heavy on the air.

"I never liked that little prick anyway." said the deep voice Stewart thought belonged to the army guy.

"Sure, no problem. The fat one shot him." said a new voice.

"No problems here." answered another.

"Good. Bobby, hop down you'll ride up front with me."

"Me? Why? I'm okay. Really. I…" Bobby stammered.

"Now, Bobby! Before the big one shoots another one of our team." Scott ordered, "Get on the radio and tell Russell to meet us with the van. We're heading in."

The truck bed lurched and shortly after that two doors shut and the truck started moving.

Chapter 38 — Katie

The place was swarming with undead. On one end of the massive building it looked like there was a business; "Lazarus Industries, Ltd", but all the action seemed to be taking place midway along the building, where there were two massive hanger style doors that opened to the street. There was a sign that read "Marine Restoration and Repair" and that section of the building looked like it could hold several yachts at the same time. There were no boats in sight now, just undead.

"What the fuck are they all doing?" Katie asked herself. She saw the van and the pickup truck, but there was no sign of anyone in or near them. Getting into the strip mall across the street was simplicity in itself. Katie was crouched behind the plate glass of a pizza parlor, hugging the floor and using her rifle's scope to check out what was going on across the street. With all the zombies around it was a miracle that they hadn't spotted her. She kept low to the ground to try and stay out of sight, but doing so kept her from getting a good view of what was going on. Katie needed to be on the roof, not hugging the floor.

"Katie." Randy's voice came as a whisper out of the darkness behind her.

Whirling she brought her rifle around, there was nothing there.

"Randy?" Katie called.

There was scuffled footstep in the kitchen, then the quiet sound of something sliding to the floor.

"Show yourself!"

"Don't shoot."

Katie didn't recognize the voice, it was male and it wasn't the same one that had whispered to her before. "Why shouldn't I?"

"`Cause if you do, all those zombies over there are going to come rushing over here to see what the noise is. And you and me are probably on the same side." called the voice.

"Katie…" came the whisper again, from the side, looking she again saw nothing.

"What are you…are you doing that?"

"Doing what? No. Are you gonna agree not to shoot me so we can talk face to face or am I going out the way I came in."

"I won't shoot you." Katie lied.

"Good enough for me, I am coming out."

Katie saw an old man in army fatigues step through the doorway. In his hand he held the map she had left in the kitchen at the yellow house. In a flash Katie recognized the man. She was in Chicago, sighting down her rifle into the park, through the vegetation by the Art Institute. He and a younger man were struggling to drag a wounded comrade towards the building and a zombie was firing at them blindly through the bushes. Katie had taken the zombies out with a single shot and then covered their retreat to a small open park next to the building.

"You." Katie said, not believing what she was seeing.

"Huh?"

"You were at the Art Institute in Chicago. You were with the guy who could see zombies."

"Uh, yeah. How'd you know that?"

"I was on the building across the street, I saved your ass."

The old man cocked his head to one side, still half behind the door frame, and he nodded, as if listening to some inner advice. "That was you? On the building across the street?"

"Me and my partner were there. What in God's name are you doing here?"

"They sent us to kill this guy. My name's Ruben. And you?"

"I'm Katie. I am pleased to meet you, but with things being as they are, I don't think I want to shake your hand or get too close to you." Katie said, thinking Ruben was a zombie.

"That's understandable. How did you get here?"

A whispery voice belonging to Randy said, "That is the question, isn't it?"

Ruben cocked his head sideways and looked at the spot in the room where Katie thought Randy's voice had originated from.

"You heard that?" she asked him.

"I heard something. What was that?" Ruben asked.

"My partner, he's not quite dead, more like a ghost. His name is Randy. He comes and goes."

"I've heard of stranger things." Ruben said with a straight face. "Now I don't think we have a lot of time, but I was supposed to come here and meet you. I….have a message for you."

"What?"

"It's short. I don't know what it means."

"Who is it from?"

"God." The old man shrugged, "Or at least I think it is, do you want the message or not?"

"No." came Randy's whispery voice.

"Yes." Katie said.

"He is right. That's it. Now I have to go, but we are on the same side and if you see me or Bill or Javier or Max, please don't shoot us."

"What do you mean 'He is right'?"

"I don't make the messages; I just deliver 'em." Ruben hefted the backpack he was carrying and pulled a can of beer from the top flap, he set it on the floor and rolled it towards Katie, it stopped against her knee. He pulled another out and cracked it open and took a long pull from it. "It's warm as donkey piss, but still good."

"I don't get it. Why do you have to go? What are you doing?"

Outside thunder followed a flash of lightning and the first sheet of rain came down.

"Lady, if I knew what I was going to do next I would be a happier man myself. But it's time."

With that Ruben stepped back out of sight and left Katie staring at the beer resting against her knee. She was tempted to follow him out, demand the answers he had, but Randy's voice stopped her.

"Katie."

This time when she turned she saw him beside her, standing and looking down, his face a dejected mask that he could not hide.

"About time, what was this all about?"

"I've figured it out, Katie."

"Yeah, what?"

"About me, about you. I think I can help us now."

The lightening flashed again and created a distorted sight for Katie because the light passed through Randy's form.

"Freaky." She said, "Okay hit me with it. Tell me what we know. I haven't got a shot here and this rain is only going to make it worse."

"When is the last time you ate?"

Katie laughed, "What? Worried about me putting on a few pounds? It's not going to happen with all this running around…"

Randy raised his hand and sharply cut her off, "This isn't a joke, when is the last time you had any food? Or water? Or used the goddamned toilet?"

"Why…I…used the toilet this…" She had been going to say, 'this morning', but Katie realized she hadn't. Her brow crinkled in contemplation. 'No, not this morning, but last night before I turned in…' Only she realized she couldn't remember turning in. 'Well operating on low sleep is normal in combat situations. I'll catch up when I can later.' Katie's eyes opened wide, her mouth formed an 'o' shape and she started shaking.

"You're as dead as I am."

"No!" Katie yelled, hearing Ruben's voice echo "He is right."

A torrent of images came back to her, the Farm and Fleet, Samantha. Katie pushing the younger woman to the ground, tearing her throat out before she could scream. Knocking Kent out in the house, and feeding on his two kids, getting stronger as she fed on them and taking refuge in the car before 'discovering' them the next morning. Along the way, the woman she had picked up, along with the man who was eaten by her kids. Only the woman was in the car, not quiet dead before Katie came back to her. She hadn't survived too much longer. Katie remembered the blood, the taste, the delicious feeling as the colors from those she was killing faded to black.

"Follow it back. Remember everything…" Randy whispered, "Don't stop halfway."

"No. Not me. I…didn't." Katie felt an almost overwhelming surge to forget everything she had remembered, an insidious voice repeated over and over in her mind.

'This is not real, you don't eat people. You're alive. You're human.'

The voice, a woman's, repeated a series of statements, like a music player set to repeat the same tune over and over.

Katie clutched the sides of her head and resisted the urge to forget. Randy stepped forward and interlaced his fingers with hers. She looked up at him, bloody tears streaming down her face.

"Randy…help me!"

"I've always been helping you. Don't forget. Don't forget." Outside the storm rose to a crescendo, almost drowning out his words.

Katie screamed as her vision faded, spiraling into darkness, consumed by a storm of madness as she followed the lines of her fragmented memory back to that day in Chicago, when she died.

Chapter 39 — Max

The hood was pulled off his head abruptly. Max couldn't see anything at first, the white lights above him drowned out everything else. As his vision returned he could see he was in a doctor's office. It was unlike any office he had visited before, for one thing it didn't have the battle of chemicals versus sickness that Max associated with such places. It had the metallic tinge that he recognized as blood. His quick glance of the surroundings showed him the source of that odor, the floor was covered in streaks of dark red and black blood. It looked like someone had tried to mop the room up, but gave up in defeat and had left the floor a motley mess of streaked crimson streamers.

"I see you've noticed the mess. I am sorry about that. All I can say is this is the cleanest room I have left."

Max's head turned towards the voice. It belonged to a man that was very difficult to look at. He was of average height, had brown hair and wearing a white doctors coat with green scrubs pants. Black shoes and a stethoscope completed his ensemble, giving him a 'doctor' look, even if Max knew better. The man radiated energy. Max peeked at him with his zombie vision and quickly had to force his mind back to normal vision before his senses were overwhelmed by what he saw. 'Well, we wanted to find the leader. Now where is that bomb?' This thought was followed immediately by fear, 'Fuck, am I screwed.'

"I am Doctor Thomas Sentry." said the man, extending his hand towards Max, who automatically tried to raise his hand as well. "So, sorry." Sentry continued, hastily lowering his hand, "I've forgotten you are bound, but, well better to be safe than sorry. You would not believe the problems I have been having with the living lately."

Max was bound with his arms behind him and sitting on a solid chair, which pressed his arms uncomfortably into his back. "What do you want with me?"

"Oh, so direct! I can appreciate that, even if I was expecting a little less rudeness. What is your name?"

Max felt pressure in his mind, it was as if a massive headache was starting, his brain felt like it was going to explode. The pressure shifted from an overwhelming pressure to thin, spikes of pain that were seeking to lance through his head. He broke out in a sweat and shook his head, trying to repel the assault. "Stop it!" he said softly, "Just stop it."

The doctor shrugged and the pressure eased, "It hardly ever works anyway. But it was worth a try. I can't seem to get into living brains as easily. But I think I can overcome that. Which brings us to why you are here."

"My name is Max."

"Max, I am pleased to meet you. I am very pleased you didn't perish in the trap I set, but I really didn't know what else to do to slow you down. It is unfortunate that some of your friends chose to resist, but really I only needed two of you. For now."

"What do you want with me?"

"First, I want to continue existing. So you soldiers are all going to have to be put in your place and your superiors are going to have to be defeated. The old world is gone. I would like to keep a few of you alive. It isn't, technically, necessary, but I would hate to have you wiped out and then discover I needed you. I am fairly certain that none of us new types will be propagating and humans are so very good for that. But it comes down to that control issue again, doesn't it?"

Max wasn't sure if he was supposed to respond, so he shrugged his shoulders as best he could.

"Of course it does. I'll give you a little history here, not enough to glaze your eyes over, but I think a little bit is in order. I created this next step in our evolutionary history when I invented a formula for continuing cellular senescence…have you studied biology, Max?"

"I have no idea what you are talking about."

Sentry frowned, "Biology, the study of life. It should have been humanities number one priority. Extend life and we would have all the time in the world to look into other problems or create wealth or kill each other. Instead we wasted it on…"the doctor trailed off, his eyes, already almost a clear white color, brightened.

Max looked closer, bringing up his second sight, but trying to keep it dampened down. He saw a stream of so many orders being issued from the doctor to his minions that the 'packets' might as well have been unbroken lines of light. But he also saw something different; the doctor was also taking in information. Max risked taking a peek at one and what he saw was confusing. The data coming back was in English and looked like a poor resolution video stream.

The vision was in a smoking city that looked poorly built, Max was reminded of some soviet style structures he had seen on the internet, massive structures used as housing projects for the 'citizens'. There were a dozen such buildings in sight and a mob of oriental undead running through the streets, pouring into one of the buildings. The voice coming through had a southern accent and sounded harried, "….Chen is in the building. I'm sending in forces now, but you can see he is holding them back. China is out of control and I need your help or I am going to lose it. Just give me five goddamned minutes of your focus!"

Max skipped around to several of the other incoming and outgoing data streams, they all seemed to be reports from various places around the world.

"Are you listening to me?" Sentry asked, "You aren't hurt are you?" The doctor examined Max's head and looked him in the eyes. Then he took a small light out of his pocket and shined it into Max's eyes, one at a time. "No obvious sign of head injury."

"I'm okay." Max said. He kept his second sight dimmed, so he could focus on Sentry and on the data the zombie was receiving. The man was processing hundreds of thousands of packets a second. Max had never tried to use his power to see in the real world and to see zombies at the same time, it was a new experience and one he wished he had explored before. 'The real news is, he doesn't know I can do it. Can I change what he is seeing?´ Max was afraid that doing so might alert Sentry to his meddling, 'I'll hold off for a little, see what else I can learn before I try anything.'

"So, as I was trying to explain, I found a way to extend human life indefinitely. The first process didn't work out so well. You're looking at the result of an experiment that got out of hand. I am sorry to say that the test subject was, well, rather more clever than I gave him credit for and in my haste to..ah, rectify, the situation I became infected with the series one strain. I had worked up two more series, which were supposed to be tested later, but with all this going on, I hadn't thought of trying them out. Until recently. Do you know how rare humanity is in this region? Trust me, there is nothing left alive for a hundred miles around here." The doctor looked at Max, pausing for an overly long time.

Max intercepted another urgent message from halfway around the world. Chen, it seemed was winning.

"I was going to have some people brought up alive from Miami, there is a group of diehards, so to speak, holding out down there and I have a few camps set up in other states across the south too. Then I sensed your helicopters coming in. You're the first to arrive and I think, for winning that race, you deserve a prize. Don't you?"

Max nodded, "I don't suppose you'd consider letting me complete my mission?"

Laughing the doctor said, "Well, at least you haven't lost your sense of humor. It's all the better that you arrived here first. The others are still a good distance away; you beat them by a huge margin. With any luck I will know if the other series works out before they get here. And you brought a woman with you. I was going to use my maid for the series two test, but your soldier will work just as well."

"No." Max said.

"No? Well, really you came here to kill me. I should just convert you and send you down to Miami to weed out the resistance. I am giving you a chance to live again. Trust me; this is a very merciful gesture on my part. But I am a merciful god. If it works as it is supposed to you will not die. But I suspect it will give me some, well, control, as it were. An access into your mind that will allow me to use you to infect others and bring the living under my command as well as the dead. You get to live and be the living equivalent of what I am to the dead. You'll probably get the series three formula. Two should work properly; I think I'll give that to the woman. I work better with men and you seem easy enough to get alone with. Not like your brawny friend, he wouldn't even give me his name. So for working with me, you get the reward of, well, working with me forever. It is a glorious journey we have ahead of us Max. You, I, and the woman soldier."

"You haven't spoken to her yet?" Max asked.

"Not yet. You're my second stop, she'll be the last one."

'I didn't see Ruben at the wreck. Did the old coot die in the crash?' Max wondered.

Out loud he said, "Well, the 'woman soldier' is a little cantankerous, I doubt she will be as cooperative as I am." To himself Max thought, 'Stewart will do something, she'll figure out a way to stop him.'

"So I saw at the crash site. Don't worry, I can be very persuasive."

"Why not just use me and see if this, uh, series three, works okay and skip her altogether?"

"I can learn from both series Max. I made incremental improvements in both."

"But we still might die?" Max asked.

"That is, unfortunately, a possibility. Without a series two subject to study, I can't know if the adjustments I made with three were in the right direction. Oh, don't look so alarmed, at the very least you'll come back like I am. Probably."

"Probably?"

"There is always risk Max. I will send in some helpers to prep you, please don't give them any trouble, they are under orders to prep you at any cost, and I want this done today, regardless of any broken bones you might suffer at their hands."

The doctor left the room to be replaced by two very capable looking zombies pushing in a heavy steel gurney. Still using his half sight, he felt these two were at least the equal of Aubrey. 'Where the hell is she, anyway?' Max thought as the two approached and began unstrapping his restraints. Of course he fought anyway.

Chapter 40 — Katie

Katie was standing mauled and naked in the rubble; her fingers were broken, twisted things that resembled wriggling worms more than flanges. She shifted the rocks away from the street, just one zombie in a seemingly endless line, clearing out pieces of broken concrete and the odd corpse or broken bit of office furniture from the collapsed building. Two zombies, their eyes glaring at her in intense hatred, carried a squirming man dressed in cut off shorts and a t-shirt towards her from the end of the line. The two stopped in front of her and held the man steady while Katie tore into him. With each bite she healed, with each swallow her mind came back and she remembered what she was and the details of her fight with the zombie on the roof. She remembered she had been bitten several times by the zombie during the fight before the first shell landed on the roof.

Katie pulled away from the dying man, remembering enough to be disgusted and reject this unlife she had been gifted. 'Eat. Eat and forget.' Came the persistent voice inside her head.

Aubrey. The woman was buried in the rubble that Katie was clearing. The woman wanted Katie, wanted her functional. At first Katie thought it was for revenge, Katie had throat shot the woman and killed her partner Harry too. When Aubrey was finally revealed, a compact, ragged figure, so covered with dust that she resembled the concrete that was found covering her, revenge seemed imminent. The woman had sent Katie to stand inside one of the other downtown buildings, along with hundreds of other zombies. Katie thought maybe she would just end up being another wheel on the cog, forgotten.

But the living kept arriving like clockwork, a child here, someone old enough to be her grandparent there. All for Katie, all a constant reminder that she was not forgotten. The zombies around her were mindless dead, and stared only at the victims hungrily, held in check from ripping them apart only by Aubrey's will. The ones bringing her the food knew, they knew, but could not talk to her, just as Katie herself was compelled to remain silent as they held the victims in place.

Days went by, the feeding continued and Katie grew stronger. As much as the process disgusted her, she had hopes that Aubrey would go too far, that the woman would overfeed Katie and make her strong enough to break free from the bitch's shackles. Eventually Katie tried; she shrugged off the other woman and managed to race almost three steps before Aubrey's will re-asserted itself.

Soon after she was summoned to Aubrey's presence, what she saw along the way was not comforting. There were zombies that were very clearly not right. They looked like the intelligent kind, the fast ones who could talk, however, most were babbling incoherently. One was reciting what sounded like the Gettysburg address while walking into a wall. It would fall over, get back up, say another line from that historical document and walk into the wall again and then it would start over. Others were crying, one was using a piece of glass to cut its wrists to the bone. The wounds healed quickly, but not before spilling a black mess out of his veins, he had been at it a long time, given the size stain on the ground beneath him. Aubrey was not in a conference room, she held court in an empty street, surrounded by other super zombies.

The memories faded out and Katie found herself back in the pizza parlor. 'Now what was that daydream all about?'

"Katie, when did you last eat?" Randy asked her again. She looked around to see him standing beside her.

"Randy! Good to see you…" Katie faltered.

"You're dead Katie, you need to remember. Tell me what happened."

"I…" Katie's world disappeared again, the pizza place fading in and out, with only Randy remaining beside her, a steady beacon, an anchor in the swirling chaos of time, places and memories.

Back on the street in Chicago Aubrey gestured behind Katie at the insane zombies, "I've been experimenting and I think I just about have this down. I need to act now. It's sooner than I would like, but we can't always choose when to do what must be done, wouldn't you agree."

"I shot you."

"Yes, very observant. I survived and you did too, in a fashion. I need you and I will have you. How would you like to kill the man responsible for all of this? Isn't that better than just taking out a couple of his leaders?" Aubrey asked.

Katie shook her head, "You killed Randy. I'll kill you, I swear I will, if it's the last thing I do."

"I've killed a lot of people; it wasn't personal, but you almost got me, it if that is any consolation."

Katie remembered struggling, pitting her will against that of Aubrey, she was like a kitten fighting against and elephant.

"I see we'll have to do this the hard way. Well, that is what I've been practicing for. Now I've learned that what is taken away can never be restored, but I've also been trying some things to work around that problem. You might think I am just shaping you to be a tool that I never think about again, and truth be told if you accomplish what I need, the end would justify the means. However, my tests have proven that I am more of a mechanic than a surgeon. I lack the finesse of wiping out vast swaths of your memory and replacing them with my directions and I need your skills and abilities as intact as I can have them."

"I will kill you." Katie ground out between clenched jaws.

"Yes, yes, we'll get to that later. First things first. You're alive. You never died. You will forget all of this until I tell you otherwise." Aubrey said the words and Katie felt the changes in her head. The woman was inside her head, moving things around. She wasn't removing things, she was putting instruction in Katie's brain of what to remember. Katie screamed, raising her head to glare up at the shattered windows of the office building on one side of the street. That was when she saw Randy.

He looked serene, a link to her past and, thankfully, he was not a zombie. Katie was sure of this. "Shoot me! Kill me Randy! Shoot me!" Katie begged.

Aubrey paused in her work, "Randy?" the woman looked closer into Katie's head, "Ah, your partner. You're lover. Naughty-naughty, you know the rules against what you did! You were a cold, standoffish bitch to him weren't you? Just a friend with benefits?" Aubrey snorted, "Well I think you did a pretty good job of deluding yourself there, didn't you?" She turned back to her work.

Randy stepped out of the building and approached Katie's side, holding out a hand and shaking his head quietly, finger held to his lips, his voice, a bare whisper said, "Don't speak. I don't know everything, but I can keep part of you, for a little while. I can come with you. I can help."

Katie screamed again and yelled, "Yes! Yes!"

Aubrey, misunderstood Katie's outburst, she nodded her approval, "It is better if you just accept it. After this we'll work on hiding yourself from our kind. I think you will be the best pupil yet. I have a whole slew of mission objectives for you, don't worry; we'll get through this."

The memories faded again to the present where Randy's arms encircled her in the restaurant, holding her tightly. She quickly composed herself and tried to pull away. He held onto to her.

"All done?" he asked.

Katie relaxed and leaned back. Randy wasn't real, she had nothing to pull away from. "I'm missing large chunks of memory."

"I was too. Whatever Aubrey did to you almost affected me. I've been a little off ever since you started heading south. I knew something was wrong, I knew I had to provoke you to figure it out, but I couldn't do it on my own."

"You're dead."

Randy's soft laughter echoed in the deserted shop. "So are you."

"But you're not a zombie."

"No. I guess I just wasn't finished here yet."

"So, you're a ghost?"

"Listen, Katie, I don't know what to think. I suppose 'ghost' covers it, well enough, but I think we have to make a decision about some things and we have to act fast. Do you remember the old guy who was just here?"

"I remember."

"Good. I don't think he is alone. I think the man who started this mess is across the street and we might have a chance at taking him out." Randy said.

"Why bother?" Katie asked bitterly, "I'm on his team now."

"He killed me. He killed you. He killed the entire world. I'd like a little payback."

"Again, what's the point?"

"Where the hell is the old Katie? We hate these things we want to send them back to the grave. Nothing has changed."

Katie snorted and wiped her arm across her eyes, "Except we're dead. I find this whole thing pretty goddamned pointless now. God I just want to throw up. But I know I can't. If you want this guy so much, you go after him."

"I doubt my ability to press keys on a laptop will impress him much. But a bullet in his brain would be nice."

"If he doesn't stop us first." Katie said, "Aubrey controlled me like a puppet on a string. And this dude was her boss."

"I don't think he knows you're here."

"How can that be?"

"I…well if he knew you were sitting outside his evil lair, I think you'd be dead by now. Dead again, I mean. I think Aubrey did something to you to keep you below his radar."

"If she could make me go below his radar, that means she could do the same thing. So…she might be there too. I could kill her."

"After killing him."

"Whose side are you on?"

"I think there are two revenges to get here, one for humanity, one for you. Which is more important?"

"Damn it, Randy! You'll always be a soldier, won't you?"

"This we'll defend." Randy answered, quoting the Army service motto.

"Fuck you."

"I hope you like it cold."

Katie laughed, "Okay. You win, again. But I am saving a bullet for when I run into that bitch Aubrey."

Katie rolled over onto her hands and knees, the memories still spinning in her head made her pause for a moment.

"You okay? I thought you said you were okay?"

"Gimme a minute."

"You might not have it." Randy said, he was staring out the window.

"What? What do you see?"

"Your good friend Aubrey has arrived, and she brought help, it looks like."

Katie pulled herself up to the low window, no longer too concerned about avoiding the eyes of the zombies across the street. What she saw was amazing. Randy was right, Aubrey was there and she hadn't come alone. The dark cloud hanging over the clinic continued to pour rain down on the street and it made the fighting all that much more interesting to watch.

The zombies stationed outside the building across the street didn't seem to notice anything going on at first. Then, as one, they turned towards the attack. One of the people outside the yacht restoration place turned too late to avoid being axed in the head by another zombie, but he did convulsively pull the trigger of his assault rifle and sent a trail of bullets right at Katie, the window shattered inward with the rain and wind.

"Fuck me! That was close!" Katie said, pointing at the bullet holes in the wall behind her.

"Look! The second stringers are all down! Looks like the royal guard is coming out now." Randy said.

"How can you see anything in this shit?" Katie asked picking up her rifle and hoping that the scope would help her see things more clearly. Putting the rifle to her eye Katie saw the zombies moving so quickly that they looked like a special effects stunt from a movie. Two of the attackers went down under the onslaught, none of the defenders who were left were using guns now, instead they all had clubs or blades of some kind. In a moment Katie knew why, Aubrey's troops tried to shoot them and they simply stepped out of the way.

The defenders outnumbered the attackers and moved faster and more fluidly than their opponents, the sole exception was Aubrey, she more than matched them for speed and agility. Katie rested her sight on Aubrey's head, tracking it as best she could. 'Can she dodge it, if she can't see it coming?' Katie wondered.

"Don't." Randy cautioned.

"Don't what?" Katie asked innocently.

"I know you. If you have to shoot, kill one of the ones she is fighting. I think Aubrey could use the help."

"So you can see what I am doing now? If you ask me there are too goddamned many people in my head."

Randy shook his head, "No. I just know you. If you're going to help her you better do it soon, she's down to three guys against about twenty."

Katie signed and changed her sight to the men fighting across the street. "I ain't got shit for a shot here." She switched her aim away from the men fighting Aubrey to those fighting the most competent of her supporters. When a head popped into view, Katie stroked her trigger. The shot went wide and stuck another defender in the throat.

"Nice," Randy commented, "Aim for the head. That won't keep him down long."

Katie grunted, too embarrassed to tell him she had missed her intended target. She aimed again and her second shot caught the man trying to clobber Aubrey's boy full in the face. His brains sprayed out onto Aubrey, who Katie swore was smiling. "Yeah, laugh it up bitch. I'll get you too."

The fight continued with Katie taking pot shots that slowly turned the tide of the battle. At least until the group of defenders fell back into the building. A zombie shoved one of the wide door closed and obscured the fight from Katie's sight.

"I'm gonna have to move. I can't see any targets from here. I thought being dead came with the ability to see through walls?"

"Maybe Aubrey blocked it, so you wouldn't get suspicious?"

"Her fucking loss then. I'm going across the street and getting under one of those vehicles." Katie said, pointing at a row of cars that would let her see into the building.

"That'll only help until they close the other door."

"I am not going in there." Katie fished around in her duffel bag for more ammunition to reload the rifle's magazine, then picked it up and headed out into the rain to cross the street.

Chapter 41 — Max

Doctor Sentry popped into the doorway to his room less than ten minutes after leaving and gestured for the two handlers to push Max out into the hallway on the gurney he was now strapped to.

"I am sorry Max, but things are very fluid right now."

Max thought he heard the sound of gunfire from outside the building.

Sentry had his assistants push Max into a longer room with four beds in it. One bed was empty, the two others were occupied by Bill and Stewart. Bill's bed was lying flat, but Max could see the rise and fall of his friend's chest as he struggled to get free of his bonds. Stewart had one arm strapped to the rail on the side of the bed, much as Max did. Her arm was bruised and bloody, also just like Max's. Though she was gagged with an orange colored ball strapped into her mouth, Max saw the short nod of approval as she looked him over.

Max was not gagged; apparently he had not been fiery enough with his speech to warrant one. Keeping his vision on what Sentry was doing Max waited to seize his chance, for once the doctor appeared to be focused wholly on what he was doing. The doctor was busy preparing a syringe he had taken from a small glass refrigerator built into the counter. Sweat mingled with the blood from one of the bruises on Max's forehead and trickled down into his eye.

Doctor Sentry turned with the needle and walked towards Stewart, "Series two for you dear. It should work just fine, but isn't as advanced." He checked her arm as she struggled, "I thought we've been through this already? Hold still."

Stewart continued to struggle, making it difficult for the Doctor to line up a vein. Sighing in frustration he mentally sent for the two goons by the door to hold Stewart down. Max intercepted the orders and changed them. Sentry seemed surprised when his two assistants tackled him to the ground, sending the syringe flying.

"What?" he cried out in alarm as he fell. "Stop this now." Max saw him emphasize his words with a strong mental push, which he changed to indicate they should continue to hold the man down.

Sentry's brow furrowed in anger and his whole body lit up like a halogen lamp. The two assistants dissolved where they were touching him, their bodies seemed to be absorbed into Sentry's own and he called out with his mind for more assistance as he got up. The remnants of the bodies of the two men who had jumped him fell off in pieces to lie in a disorganized pile at his feet. Sentry's clothing was as blood free and spotless as before.

"So, we have a comedian here then. Who is playing games with my men?" His eyes roamed the room and locked onto Max. "I choose you, Max. Your other friend here has incredible strength, the woman is both stronger and faster than normal, but you! You, my friend haven't shown your cards until now have you?"

The four men Sentry had summoned appeared in the doorway and charged the doctor, having had their orders changed by Max when they were called. These men were dressed for war, carrying pistols on their belts, along with knives and wearing military style fatigues. Sentry watched them for a moment as they charged and then sent out a burst of orders that blanketed the area. Not hundreds of orders, not even thousands, it looked to Max like millions. Max grabbed onto as many as he could, but when the burst was over the four zombies were approaching Stewart and holding her arm steady, not attacking the doctor like Max wanted. Somewhere in the world there were thousands of zombies who were on their way here to rend the doctor limb from limb. Max hoped they arrived soon.

"I knew I was right." Sentry said smugly. He bent over and picked up the syringe and approached Stewart's arm. "You can't order them yourself. Clever, but I am not your run of the mill second stage human anymore. I am a God." Sentry stabbed the needle into Stewart's vein and depressed the plunger. The zombies woodenly let go of her arm and approached Max.

"Stewart? Stewart, are you all right?" Max called.

"She's fine, or she will be, soon. Things will go quickly now, and soon I will have double agents to infect the few I choose to leave alive."

Max laughed, "We don't have medical training; we'll probably mess up the injections, even if you tell us what to do."

Sentry stopped and stared for a moment at Max, a slight grin on his face, "Max, I don't have any more of this." He raised the syringe, "And I don't think I could make more. You'll pass on the subjugation just like we do, via saliva, blood or other bodily fluids."

"What? You mean, we'll eat people?"

"I don't think you'll do it by choice, but I will be able to force the issue. And anyone you infect as well." Sentry plunged the needle into Max's arm.

The doctor pulled the needle out and casually tossed it into the sink over by the counter. "There, that wasn't so bad, was it? Tell me Max, can you affect verbal orders? Let's see shall we? Kenneth, go see what is going on in the warehouse." Max didn't see any mental emphasis on Sentry's words and Kenneth hastened out the door quickly.

Sentry nodded and said, "I see. Very interesting. I wonder why this is? Well, I won't have to wonder long will I? Soon I will be able to crawl around inside your head to my heart's content."

Bill was struggling on the gurney, trying to sit up against the massive webbed restraints holding him down. Sentry glanced at him, "There is one who won't give up. A shame, really. Aaron, if that one breaks free, shoot him."

The assistant he addressed pulled a pistol from his belt and stepped towards Bill.

Max felt the liquid spreading through his body, it felt like fire, like it was killing him, it hurt like the Hell his wife always warned him about. More gunshots sounded from outside and Sentry cocked his head and took in many data packets, but Max, distracted as he was, didn't intercept any of them. He could barely focus his eyes on Sentry.

The doctor nodded and probed against Max's mental defenses gently, "I think you are weakening. Very good." He moved over to Stewart, who was lying almost motionless on her gurney. Taking out a scalpel Sentry ran it across Stewart's arm, blood pooled on her skin, which Sentry brushed aside with one hand to reveal unblemished skin. "Amazing. Even faster than series one."

Sentry moved to Max's side and plunged the small blade into the flesh above the injection site. He pulled the knife down Max's arm and watched with interest as the precise cut healed over with a minuscule amount of blood loss. Looking Max in the eyes, he asked, "And you don't want to give this gift to your fellow humans? To not do so would be…criminal." Again Sentries thoughts pressed into Max's head, getting further in than they did before and causing Max to cringe backward.

"What? You want me to stay out of your mind? That's what you want isn't it?" Sentry asked.

"Fuck. You."

More gunfire came from nearby. The man named Kenneth came rushing back into the room.

"Doctor?" the man began.

"Yes, yes, I am still getting your information. I know the warehouse is experiencing some troubles. Maybe I shouldn't have knocked a hole in the wall between here and there after all. Well, Max, I am afraid there is another situation that I simply must go and clean up. We'll talk later. You're going to live forever now you know, so we'll have plenty of time to discuss things. I am on top of this new world order and you…you, are my chosen son to carry the word of my greatness to the people." Sentry cocked a thumb at Stewart, "She'll be my backup, my covert agent, as it were. After she knocks out a kid or two for me to study. Congratulations, Max, you're going to be a father, if you aren't already. I'm afraid it will all be invitro though, things are going too fast to do it the old fashioned way. I'll get what I need before you leave."

Sentry's voiced faded off as Max fell into a dazed state of semi-consciousness. It felt like the series three formula was eating away at his insides. Sentry gave Max's mind one last probe and was pleased to find it had almost fully collapsed and that he was able to rifle through it with no trouble at all. Pulling away from the memories, Sentry nodded at the men in the room with him, "Okay, Kenneth, Chad and Chris, you come with me and cover my back. Do not let anything happen to me. Aaron you stay here and watch the subjects."

Sentry left the room with his thugs in tow and turned right down the hall.

Several minutes went by and all the gunfire in the distance ceased, but the sounds of fighting and yelling did not. Bill continued to struggle against his bonds. One of the many loops of rope around his chest snapped, sounding like a fire cracker as it broke. Aaron raised his pistol. "I will shoot you if you break free." This caused Bill to slow down, but not entirely cease his struggling.

Max threw his head back against the gurney and screamed in agony. The guard looked his way and Bill flexed again, tearing off another of the many strands holding him down. The screams were not acting on Max's part, 'It is tearing me up inside.' The pain became a white rod of hurt coursing through his system. Stewart wasn't doing much better, but the gag in her mouth prevented her from screaming like Max.

The two of them thrashed around uncontrollably to the distant sounds of combat, then, almost at the same time, they both stopped moving. Stewart looked across at Max, she had a sheen of bloody perspiration coating her brow. Her look seemed to ask if he was okay. Max was not okay, his head was roaring. His senses were alive and questing outwards like millions of psychic worms tunneling through his surroundings. Max was able to sense everything on a much more intimate level than before. It was like going from a silent film to a three dimensional interactive entertainment extravaganza compared to his abilities before.

The process to gather the information was slower than gathering similar detail with his eyes, but so much more thorough. He knew the contents of the room as if he had brought everything inside himself. He even knew that the burly assistant had a key ring in his pocket and what the keys opened; the door on a Kia Sedona and the door of his house. He knew that the man had photos of both his wife, now dead, and his lover, also dead in his wallet. Also, Aaron had a son, a young kid who had touched both the photos. 'The kid's prints are all over his wallet. I wonder if he got in trouble for that?'

Slowly, Stewart bit down into the gag holding her mouth open. The thick red ball crumbled under her assault and she spit pieces out as she made progress. Eventually she was able to speak and said, "Max? You still with me?"

Max didn't respond, his eyes were wide open assimilating the information he had gathered. 'There is so much here. I could get lost.' He was examining the blood on the floor. It came from two hundred and thirty seven different individuals. 'I don't know how I can tell, but I know I am right.'

Stewart's voice brought him out of a detailed examination of the contents of Aaron's pockets, "Max!"

Aaron was looking at Stewart, and Bill took that opportunity to rend the handcuffs off of his arms and burst free form his gurney. He fell over as the gurney collapsed beneath him and Aaron swiveled back towards the man, raising the pistol up.

"Stop!"

Bill launched himself at Aaron and the pistol barked three times in less than a second. Aaron crumpled as Bill hit him. They went down in a tangle of limbs, but only Aaron rose to his feet, kicking Bill off of him to stand. Bill rolled over onto his back, feebly clutching his stomach with both hands, trying to hold in his life blood.

Max thought, 'I should be doing something. What's wrong with me?' He struggled with his bonds, but it was hopeless, 'Apparently the injection didn't give me any sort of physical strength.' Max screamed in frustration, "Bill! Damn it don't die!"

Across from him Stewart's arm came from where it was bound on the gurney. She calmly reached over and started tugging on the straps holding her down. Aaron shifted the gun to her, "Stop. I will kill you."

"Sentry wouldn't like that buddy, boy. I got you in a tough spot. You can't kill me, I'm one of his experiments. Kill me and you're just as dead and we both know it."

Aaron hesitated. Stewart released her other arm and with blazing speed started tugging on her chest straps, tearing them free, instead of carefully undoing them one by one.

Something in Aaron snapped, he stepped towards Stewart and raised his gun to pistol whip her, then a noise at the doorway distracted him. An old man stepped into the room, his eyes were closed and he seemed to be counting his steps, his lips were moving as he did so. When he reached 'three' he turned and counted two more steps. Aaron turned and fired at him, but the old man stepped sideways at the last possible second and the bullet hit the wall beside him.

Another shot and another miss and that was all the time Stewart was going to give the zombie. She tore off the arm rest and smashed it into the back of Aaron's head. Snarling he turned and unloaded the rest of the clip on her. Stewart calmly tore the straps off of her legs and turned sideways to let them hang over the edge of the gurney.

"I didn't miss." Aaron stammered, pulling the trigger of the pistol again and again on an empty chamber.

Stewart shook her head. Aaron reloaded and Ruben knelt down next to Bill and opened his eyes. "Aw, Bill." He said softly, "What a mess you got yourself in this time."

"Untie Max, Ruben!" Stewart yelled, rushing Aaron.

"I didn't miss!" Aaron yelled, he brought his gun up to block Stewart's first punch.

"I know." Stewart said, remaining calm as she brought a fist up into the zombie's rib cage.

The two traded blows and Ruben stayed by Bill's side. "I don't have any bandages. Why don't I have any bandages? They didn't tell me to get any. Why wouldn't they tell me I would need bandages? I'm sorry Bill." Ruben pulled the gag off of his friends head.

Bill tried to respond, but only blood poured out of his mouth.

"Shh, it's okay. You'll be okay. You were okay before, remember? You broke your leg and it healed up in only a few days." Reuben said.

Max continued to struggle with his bonds, then switched tactics and focused on Bill instead. He sent the worms into his friend and saw the horrifying damage wrought by the three bullets. Bill's body was fighting back, but the damage was severe, he wasn't going to make it.

Aaron brought his combat boot up into Stewart's groin; she turned and took the blow on the outside of her leg. She kept spinning and hooked his leg with her arm, tugging him off balance onto one leg. Continuing her effort she pulled him up by his thigh and shook off his attempt to grab her around the neck by swinging the man outward. She spun him once and took a large step toward the wall, smashing his head into it. Stewart had thought the wall was just made of gypsum, but the zombie's head rebounded off of it without doing the slightest bit of damage. Aaron's head didn't fare so well, it looked like a water balloon attached to his neck now, his shattered skull leaking fluids as Stewart turned and slammed it into the wall again. She let go of his legs and watched his body crumple into an unmoving pile at the base of the wall.

Stewart was at Max's side in an instance, tearing aside his bonds and helping him over to Bill. She brushed the blood off of his face, to see unblemished skin where his bruises had already healed. She smiled briefly and knelt with him over their fallen comrade.

Bill tried to sit up, but Max put his hand on his chest and pushed him back down. The physical touch sparked a connection between the two and for a moment Max was inundated with Bill, the two of them mingling in a way that made them one. There was no communication between them, they didn't need words; Bill was dying and Max couldn't save him. Tears came to both men's eyes and Max knew he was going to have to go back to Iowa alone, to face Trisha and the kids. Bill lay back on the floor and pulled in a deep breath, understanding and seeming to accept his fate.

"Do something, Max!" Ruben said.

"I can't."

"You have to. I…I got nothing, but I'm supposed to be here, I'm supposed…to get Bill out." Ruben's voice trailed off and he bowed his head.

Outside the room the sounds of fighting had lessened, it sounded like Sentry was talking down to someone, monologueing the error of their ways or something. A quick glance in that direction showed Max that he had a woman on the ground and was hovering over her. It was Aubrey, she was still herself, but her mind was struggling not to let Sentry inside of it. Nearby several other zombies stood frozen, watching the unfolding drama.

"We gotta go." Ruben said.

"Yeah?" asked Stewart, she looked Ruben over and asked, "Where's the bomb Ruben?"

"Gone. I only came here for Bill, you have to go…to him."

"Stewart," Max said, "He's winning, if we are going to hit him, we need to do it now, she's almost spent."

Max got stiffly to his feet, looking at his friend beneath him. Stewart grabbed his arm and tugged him towards the door. He noticed there were holes in the front of her fatigues, but no blood. Pulling to a stop at the doorway he paused to look back over Ruben and Bill.

"Wait, Stewart, one second." Max rushed back over to Bill and got down over his body again, he licked his lips and bent down over the wounds in his stomach. With both hands he pulled Bill's shirt apart, eliciting a wearied grunt from his friend. Max put his face to Bill's wound, hovering just over the worst of them, he spit into it. He sent another probe into the wound to see the effect and when he rose there was a slight smile on his face, "Get him out of here, Ruben!"

"What'd you do? What did you do, Max?"

"I think I fixed him, just get him out of here! Get him back to his family."

Ruben nodded, "I intend to." With that he grabbed Bill by the hands and swung him up onto his shoulder in a fireman's carry. By the time Ruben reached the hall he just caught the last of Max and Stewart running through the hole Sentry had made in the wall to get to the warehouse.

Chapter 42 — Katie

Katie fell down halfway across the street. It took her some time to realize she had fallen over, she was lost in the flood of memories. When she finally came to, she found herself lying in the pouring rain trying to piece together the fragments of her mind. 'It's like doing a puzzle during an earthquake. The pieces keep shifting faster than I can get them into place.´ When she came back she found she was crouched over her rifle trying to shield it from the worst of the rain. 'Old habits die hard. Always protect your gun.'

Randy offered her a hand up, which she accepted and he pulled her to her feet. She looked at her hand for a moment, then at Randy. "What'd I miss?" she asked him as she ran over to, and rolled under, a late model Ford.

"Aubrey went inside with her troops, more zombies are trickling in, but they seem to be ignoring the melee in the warehouse and heading deeper into the building. Look at the doorway, there is where they all went."

Randy was sitting with his legs crossed in front of the Ford, he was pointing at a ragged hole in the otherwise pristine warehouse wall that their new angle allowed them to see. "That looks new." Katie said.

Shrugging his shoulders, Randy said, "Yeah, does it matter? Oh, I saw the old guy run around back of the building too. His eyes were closed and he was stopping and going in a strange pattern."

"Strange pattern?"

"Yeah, he would take three steps and stop dead still for a second, then take a few more steps and stop again. Sometimes he'd run twenty or thirty paces before stopping. Sometimes he'd only take a single step. The time he stayed still varied too."

"I don't really care about the old coot. I am surprised one of the contestants for 'best dressed zombie in military garb' of the year didn't put a cap in him though."

"That's just it; I don't think anyone saw him. I mean anyone who cared. Team Aubrey wasn't exactly interested in capping his ass. The others probably would have. I think, but they always seemed to be looking where he wasn't at."

"Weird, but it doesn't matter. How's our team doing?" Katie took a rag out of her pocket and wiped the scope down, then proceeded to give the gun a quick wipe down as well.

"Down to her and her man Kurt."

"Kurt? You know his name."

"Yeah, sure, I went to high school with him."

Katie grunted, "Small world."

"I'm just shitting you. I don't know who he is, I named him Kurt, so I could root for him. He is like, one of the good guys."

"Asshole." Katie lined up her rifle and tried to get a bead on one of the men inside the building. The bright lights were a stark contrast against the dim light made from the approaching storm.

After a moment, Randy asked, "You gonna take a shot or what?"

"They're moving too fast. What's with all these assholes going into the building, but not fighting?"

"How should I know? Just pick a target, even winging someone will slow them down enough for Kurt or Aubrey to finish them."

"Good point. I was looking for a head shot." A split second later Katie's bullet winged the zombie Aubrey was fighting in the shoulder. Aubrey wasted no time, she swung her fist around to shatter the thing's skull and moved on to the next opponent.

"Good shot! Were you aiming for him?"

"Quiet, you!" Katie snarled.

"Sure, sure, the rain and the thunder and the grunting and screaming isn't a problem, but me commending you throws off your aim."

"Randy…." Katie warned. Her next shot took one of Kurt's zombies in the ankle, the zombie stumbled and wheeled away from Kurt, whose attempt at a coup de grace missed by millimeters.

"Shit." Katie chambered another round and missed her target completely.

"That's one for three. You can do better than this."

"Better than you could do." Katie mumbled.

"At this range? Not likely." retorted Randy.

"With this gun? Very likely. You'd be lucky to get one into the building." The next bullet struck the only other woman in the hanger right between the breasts. It knocked her backwards from Aubrey, directly in front of Kurt, who slammed the double sided combat knife up under her chin into her brain.

"That was clean. Go Kurt!" Randy cheered.

"Hey, that was me all the way!"

"Go Katie!"

"Six more. Uh-oh, their peeling an 'A' lister off of Aubrey for Kurt. Kill that bastard!"

"You in love with Kurt now or what?"

"Two versus six, I gotta love the underdogs!"

Katie fired again, twice in rapid succession, hitting the man once and putting another bullet into the wall behind him. Kurt swung his knife in a vicious arc towards the guy's head, but the man he was fighting blocked with his wrist. Kurt's blade severed the wrist easily, but the 'A' list fighter hopped back out of the fight to recover.

Katie was reloading and cursed, "Sure the bastard stops now, I totally could have had him myself!"

"You should have reloaded after the first three."

"Nag, nag, nag."

As she raised her gun to fire again, Katie stopped completely. A man was coming out of the hallway. One of the many slow, shambling zombies reached towards him and disintegrated as the two touched.

"I think the boss monster has entered the building." Randy said, "Shoot his ass Katie!"

Katie was looking at him and immediately became cognizant that he was aware of her too. She sighted down the barrel of her gun and fired at the bridge of his nose. The bullet struck true and rocked his head back…before ricocheting into the ceiling. When his head tilted back down his eyes were glowing white with an inner fire.

"What. The. Fuck." Randy said.

The zombies fighting Aubrey stopped when the man came into the hanger, and Aubrey made quick work of two of them, sending one's head rolling, before smashing in another with nothing more than her fist.

"That's the guy who did all this shit. That's the one who started this!" said Randy as he pointed at the man.

"Yeah, thanks Captain Obvious. Like the pictures at his house weren't enough of a clue. I think his name is…" Katie concentrated, trying to recover a fragment of her lost memory. "Thomas Sentry."

Upon saying his name she felt pulled forward. This was not an urge to move forward, Katie was literally dragged across the pavement out from under the car towards Sentry, many of the zombies in the hanger suffered from the same violation. When she stopped Katie did feel an immense compulsion to move towards the Doctor again. Dropping her rifle she stood up and walked into the warehouse, her duffle bag still hanging from her shoulder.

Sentry stepped towards Aubrey, the sole fighter who hadn't been pulled towards him. "So, this is all you've got? A common shooter and jumped up fighter who isn't even as good as half of my body guards?"

"It got me this far." Aubrey said between gritted teeth.

Sentry gestured at 'Kurt' and the zombie fell over, clutching his stomach, which started to smolder, a moment later he screamed in agony as his abdomen burned white, then burst into flame. In seconds he was a torch, with flames shooting out of his body as he curled into a ball on the ground. The concrete beneath him blackened and cracked from the heat and nearby bodies began to start smoking.

"And her? She isn't even half as powerful as he was." Sentry gestured again towards Katie. Randy stepped in front of her and absorbed the wave of energy that was released. Katie wanted to cry out, but she was held steady and unable to do so. "Well, isn't that interesting." Sentry said. He seemed almost as surprised as Aubrey, who looked at Katie with wide eyes.

Randy was undaunted by the attack and turned to give Katie a quick thumbs up, though she noticed he was sweating profusely. She had not seen him sweat since he came back from the dead to haunt her. "Shrug it off, babe. I can't do this all day."

While Sentry continued to stare at Katie with a puzzled look in his eye, Aubrey launched an attack. Her left hand knocked into his jaw at an inhuman speed, followed by an overhand knife thrust towards his ear. Sentry barely seemed to move as he caught Aubrey's wrist in his hand with the knife point pressing into his cheek.

"You have to realize I am beyond such physical concerns now. Even if your knife had thrust into my head, it would have been just as ineffective as your sniper's bullet." He threw Aubrey backwards into the hanger door, bringing it down in a crumpled heap out in the parking lot with the woman wrapped in the middle of it. Sentry stalked forward towards the door, which now resembled a crumpled piece of paper. As he walked Sentry cast a sideways glance at Katie, who continued to stand and stare blankly ahead, trying to regain control.

The crumpled ball of light metal crackled above even the sound of the pouring rain as Aubrey struggled free. Sentry picked the edge of the door up and spun around to toss it across the parking lot towards some distant houses. He watched in satisfaction as the whole mess hit the ground over three football fields. Aubrey still stood where she had been before he threw the door, she shook a piece of the door from one of her legs and smiled at Sentry's surprised look.

"I guess I have a few surprises too."

"I doubt you have anything more to amaze me with. You were a bit player when I sent you to Chicago and we know how poorly you did there. I should have sent Heather, she'd have that Iowa problem resolved by now and would have been back here to help oversee the next stage."

"The next stage?" Aubrey asked circling around until she was inside the building once more, leaving Sentry to stand in the pouring rain.

"Of human evolution. I suppose your incompetence will give me more subjects to work with." Sentry again stepped towards Aubrey, this time focusing on her, attempting to overwhelm her defenses and seize control of her mind.

Aubrey stepped further back into the building under the assault, using everything she had learned to keep him out. She almost failed under his initial attack, but slowly she adapted to his mental pressure, deflecting and rebuffing his attempts on her mind. Just when she thought he was about to give up, she counter attacked and launched a probe at Sentry. This caught him by surprise, but he deflected her blow as an adult might swat down a child's fist.

Sentry turned his head back and laughed, "You've been studying. I have to tell you I am impressed, but I am not worried. You might hold me off for a moment, but only just. You lack the skill, your attempts are childish and it's obvious you haven't been at this very long. I'll give you her." Sentry nodded at the still rigid Katie, "She is a piece of art that I look forward to examining. But you are simply not much at all." Again he assaulted her mind and again Aubrey stepped back physically from him.

Slowly Sentry walked towards Aubrey, she stopped moving backwards when she reached the center of the building. When he was close enough Sentry's hands shot out and he grabbed both of Aubrey's wrists, she continued to stare at him, trying to keep him from pouring into her. He bent her backward, until she eventually went down on her knees, and finally onto her back with her legs folded under her.

Sentry felt her defenses begin to crumple, just in his moment of victory, when he was going to find out all that she had been up to after he thought she had died, he heard the voices. Lifting his head he saw Max and Stewart step into the warehouse.

Chapter 43 — Max

"What do you think he did with the bomb? I mean, I doubt he left it in the car." Max asked Stewart as they advanced.

"Shh, Max. You talk too much." Stewart said.

"I was just wondering."

Sentry seemed glad to see them. From his position on top of Aubrey he looked like a rapist caught in the act, a happy rapist. He stood up and put his hand out in front of him, Aubrey grasped it and he pulled her to her feet.

Max found using his zombie vision was much more precise than it was before, he could discern subtleties he hadn't noticed before and he was having almost no difficulties using it while still maintaining his normal vision. Aubrey wasn't on Sentry's side, nor was she under his heel yet, what Sentry did was designed to convey a message that all was well, but it was merely a front. Max steeled himself for what was to come next and Sentry didn't disappoint. A wave of mental power slammed into them and sent Stewart to her knees. Stewart reached her hand up to Max and he grasped it tightly as her mind was buffeted like a flag in the wind. Max shaped his mind like a knife and started to counter Sentry's efforts immediately, but not directly.

Instead of putting up a wall for Sentry to wear down, Max envisioned a ship, riding out the storm as wave after wave crashed into him. While he was keeping his mind afloat he started to grab the packets of orders Sentry was sending out to Aubrey, Katie, the other zombies, and towards Stewart. Slowly he started changing them, subverting the attacks to make them ineffective. At first Sentry didn't notice what was happening, then Aubrey snatched her hand from his and stumbled away from him.

Sentry glanced at her and forced his mind into a lance to penetrate Aubrey's defenses for the last time and bring her into compliance with his will. That moment was all Stewart needed, from her knees she launched herself at Sentry and pushed the man backwards away from Aubrey. With Sentry's attention broken, Max started to try and handle more and more of the messages that the man was sending. The effort to handle the traffic took all of Max's attention, but he finally had Sentry isolated, unable to send out anything that Max couldn't twist. For the moment Max just converted all of the outgoing orders to "You are free! Do what you want!" and it was working the zombies in the room started to recover and slowly began to move again.

Katie dropped the duffel bag onto the ground and it looked to Max like she was talking, but he couldn't hear her over the sound of the rain and thunder outside. Aubrey put her hands to her head and slowly sank to her knees rocking back and forth. On the ground Sentry started to glow.

"Stewart! Get back!" Max shouted, knowing what was coming.

Stewart didn't let go of the man, she grabbed him more tightly and as Max watched she started to share the glow with Sentry, her skin became translucent first, then her clothing, until she was a bright light attached to Sentry on the ground. Pulling back her hand Stewart punched the doctor in the head. Her blow had little effect, so she hit him again, then started to beat him repetitively, sitting up on his torso and raining blows down on him with both hands.

Sentry watched each blow come down and didn't react to any of them. Finally, with a shrug, he exploded. That was what it looked like to Max anyway, one minute there were two glowing people on the floor blackening the concrete, in the next Stewart was flying up into the beams high overhead and everything else around Sentry was pushed forcefully away from him. When the dust cleared, Max saw the man rise to his feet, he looked ten feet tall and radiated an aura of despair. Max felt overwhelmed, 'How can we stop this?´ The doctor brushed some imaginary dust off of his spotless white jacket, then smiled as Stewart fell to the ground beside Max.

"I didn't want to do this. I like being subtle and I would prefer to have allies by my side than to have slaves to trod under my feet, but you have made your decision haven't you Max?" The orders Sentry sent out doubled and then tripled, overwhelming Max's ability to deal with them.

Seeing the packets of details escape him, like running water through his fingers almost prompted Max to give in completely. Stewart stood behind him and leaned to whisper in his ear.

"Just keep him off of us. We'll do the rest."

Max looked around and found that there were just five people left in the warehouse, he could sense super zombies running like mad to get away from the area and he found Ruben a quarter mile away, carrying Bill at a jog in a beeline down the coastal road. Examining the people in a quarter mile radius he found that Sentry was only spending about half his efforts to bend them to his will; the other orders were going out all around the world.

'I can't solve anything if I am dead.' Max thought, 'Time to see if I can play defense.' With that thought he switched his ability to intercept the packets going only towards the people around him in the warehouse, anyone else out there was on their own. To do this he formed four tight circles around the people in the warehouse, parrying each effort by Sentry to reach them.

Sentry didn't seem to sense that Max had changed anything and he turned back to Aubrey, "First things, first. Here is my offer to you, a paternal partnership. Join me as a goddess of our people or die and be forgotten."

Aubrey lunged for him. Sentry batted her aside, but then Stewart was there, weighing down one arm and trying to tug him to the ground again. The doctor didn't budge, he tossed Stewart into the wall to one side where she crushed a section of the concrete wall before falling to the floor. Aubrey returned to the action and hit Sentry in the back, staggering him forward.

Max did his best to subvert the orders Sentry was sending, but a few were getting through to his companions due to the pure volume the zombie was sending out. This worked both for and against Max, he couldn't create orders of his own and Sentry wasn't sure if what he sent would get through, so he kept sending a stream, which enabled Max to amend anything he missed the first time. The result for Aubrey was a stuttering sort of movement that made the physical battle easier for Sentry. Stewart seemed to adjust better to the wreath of protection Max was bestowing upon her. Katie wasn't; she was still struggling inside, despite what Max was doing. She just stood over her duffle bag, muttering to herself.

Sentry grabbed Stewart when she came at him, though both were the fastest of blurs to Max and he didn't see how either could intercept the other at the speeds they were moving. Sentry grasped both of Stewart's arms in his hands and swung her out from him into Aubrey as the woman came at him. Both women went down in a broken pile and sprang up quickly, but Max noted slowness in the two women that he hadn't seen before; they were hurt.

The shotgun blast took Sentry from behind and staggered him forward two steps. Another shot, another two steps, he turned to recover and Katie shot him in the head, rocking him backwards, but not knocking him down. Katie stepped forward with each shot, her hand under the barrel fed in another shell with every step.

Sentry took four shots before he reacted, he moved towards Katie, glowing white, she slammed the butt of the shotgun into his face and dodged out of the way, when he went to follow her Stewart tackled his legs, tripping him and allowing Katie to get some distance away. Aubrey tried for a high tackle, but through luck or skill Sentry ducked and the woman flew over his crouched body without touching him. Sentry peeled Stewart off of his legs and flung her into the far wall of the warehouse once again.

The doctor launched a fresh attack on Aubrey, stepping over to where she was tottering on her feet only to be hit by another blast from the shotgun. Max's face was showing the strain from his mental battle with Sentry; it felt like his brain was ready to ignite. Katie fired three times in rapid succession, driving Sentry towards Max. Aubrey, taking a page from Stewart's book, dodged low behind the Doctor and one more blast sent him staggering to the ground at Max's feet.

'I know what I have to do.' It was so simple Max didn't understand why he didn't think of it before. He fell onto Sentry, making a connection with him like he had with Bill. Stewart landed at his side in the next instance, and then Aubrey was there, wrapping the man's legs in her vise-like grip. Katie stood above them reloading slowly. Max was fighting a losing battle with Sentry, the man's mind was an unassailable fortress. The intimate touch he had experienced with his friend was not replicated with Sentry, the details were still there, but Max felt dirty, tainted by the touch. 'I can't win this fight.' Looking at Stewart he lowered his face to Sentry's throat and pinched the man's flesh between his teeth.

The skin, unbroken by numerous gunshot and blows, parted like dry parchment under Max's bite.

"No!" Stewart screamed.

Max knew he couldn't pass on his infection to the doctor. The doctor was already dead and whatever Max was carrying had to pass between the living. Still it seemed to have some effect on the doctor, his throat started to smolder. The wound closed almost as soon as Max ripped away the skin, leaving behind a smoky haze

Katie lowered the shotgun to Sentry's throat and when Max pulled another fleshful away, she fired into the wound, splattering Max's face with the dark blood of the dead. If this affected Sentry in any way he didn't show it. Nor did he stop his invasion of Max's mind. Max was trying to maintain a control of his physical ability, so he could keep holding the doctor down and keep biting him. The doctor was invading other parts of Max's mind, examining and discarding the memories at lightning speed.

The partial memories of everything from Max's childhood to the fights he had with his wife were tossed out with reckless abandon, shattering his mind in a wake of destruction as Max fought to hold on for just a few more seconds until…. 'Until what? The cavalry saves the day? My only hope is that the goddamned bomb goes off and Ruben didn't even have it with him.'

Sentry caught the last part of Max's thought and focused on the bomb reference and on Ruben, immediately everything Max knew Sentry had access too.

"You stupid fool!" Sentry hissed, throwing everyone off of him and rising to his feet better than the star of a kung fu movie. Katie gave him another blast to the face that slowed Sentry down for a moment as he turned towards the open hanger door. Aubrey caught one foot, Stewart caught the other and Katie fired again, the force was enough to lay Sentry out on the floor and Max retained just enough of himself to land on the man's back once again.

Pushing to his knees, Sentry inexorably rose. Katie, out of ammunition, slammed him in the back of the head with the shotgun butt, shattering it into a thousand splinters of walnut. Max crawled up Sentry's body and grabbed the man in a wrestling move he hadn't used since college, holding him around the torso. This afforded Max a good view of Stewart, clinging desperately to Sentry's leg.

Max smiled at Stewart and looked into her eyes, searching his mind for words to express what he was feeling. In the end he merely nodded politely, unable to find what he needed to say. Stewart returned his nod and said, "Don't worry Max, I know. You've been a good partner. I love you too."

The group fighting Sentry had a brief moment of clarity, of knowing that they had fought when called upon and somehow understanding at the last second that the fight was over and they had won.

Ruben's bomb exploded.

There were two waves to the bomb that those in the fight noticed immediately. The first was a blast that virtually destroyed every atom of material that it came into contact with, including the physical beings of those fighting in the warehouse. The combatants were not destroyed on a spiritual plane and the fight continued at another level even as the explosion destroyed their surroundings.

The second wave created by the blast sucked material into the point of the explosion to fill the vacuum of the first wave. Unlike the airburst in Denver, this bomb created a crater, reshaping the coastline into a new harbor that was a quarter mile deep. At the edges of the explosion there was an eerily clear demarcation where the force of the bomb ended. This edge lasted for the merest of seconds before being eroded away as air swept into the void left by the explosion.

Chapter 44 — Ruben

When the apocalypse started trash service ended. For Sentry the trash creation didn't stop and the alley behind the warehouse was piled so high with rubbish, including the bodies of his failed experiments and other humans. The last body had been placed there more than two months before, so the smell was almost tolerable when Ruben opted to hide the bomb among the rubbish. His angelic voices hadn't given him any instruction on where to place it, he was getting the sense, more and more, that the advice they were giving was not with an eye towards the future, but with the best information available at the present.

He had heard nothing after getting to the clinic, and it was only with much grousing that he was able to convince them to get him to his friends. Once he gave them a new task the angels seemed to get on board with it quickly, leading him to Bill and the others, but also advising him of the terrible danger he was in. Carrying Bill out was much easier than Ruben had imagined, 'I suppose when you are running for your life everything seems easier.'

The angels told him to dodge into a sturdy looking hotel lobby and guided him to an inner office, he had just closed the door in the pitch black room when the bomb detonated, shaking dust loose from around him. Ruben took out a flashlight and made sure the walls weren't ready to collapse. There were no cracks and the ceiling looked sound, so Ruben angled a chair in front of the door and sat down in it. Bill was unconscious on the desk in front of him. The man had been convulsing as Ruben carried him, and then became unduly hot, now he just looked like he was unconscious.

Ruben dozed off and didn't wake up until Bill shook him awake. The old man's hand reached for the gun on his hip and automatically pulled out his knife when he discovered his pistol was missing. 'I ditched my pistol in the car. Old habits die hard.' Bill was staring at him intently. There was a light sitting on the desk where Ruben had put Bill when they came in. 'The man does not look happy.'

"You left him." Bill stated.

Ruben nodded, there was no use denying it. Bill didn't seem angry; instead he seemed unreadable, cold, as if made of stone. With a barked sob Bill turned and smashed both hands down on the heavy desk behind him. The light went flying and pieces of the desk went bounced throughout the office, embedding themselves in the walls. The light hit the floor and rocked back and forth until it lay pointing in Ruben's direction.

Bill walked to the metal filing cabinet and took more of his grief out on it, battering it into a small lump of metal with his bare hands. He left bloody streaks on the cabinet as it was crushed and his flesh parted from hitting the jagged tears his pounding created. When the cabinet was but a small, round lump he knocked a set of shelving off of the wall, breaking them with such ease that Ruben couldn't help but laugh. This got Bill's attention and he whirled on the older man.

"Why did you leave him? It should have been me!"

Ruben shrugged, "He told me to take you and go."

"He was my best friend!"

"I gathered that. How are your hands?"

Bill held his fists up in front of him, the blood was still wet, but he wasn't bleeding anymore. With one hand he wiped the other off, revealing whole flesh that appeared never to have been damaged.

"They're fine." Bill sighed and kicked through the debris to another office chair. "What are we going to do, Ruben?"

"I have a car. We can take it and go."

Bill leaned forward and put his head on his hands, "I can't go back. Not without Max. How will I look his kids in the eye?"

"You love them like you loved Max, you raise them and someday you tell them what happened."

"I don't even know what happened." Bill muttered.

Ruben let him sit brooding for a few minutes, then stood and kicked the chair he had been sitting in away from the door.

"What are you doing?" Bill asked.

"Me? Nothing. We, however, are leaving."

Ruben stepped outside and examined the building, it still looked sound, but the windows had all been blown out. Moving into the street he found the entire area was a rubble strewn mess. The facings of most of the buildings had been torn off, littering the streets with chunks of brick and slivers of glass. Without a word Ruben set off towards the house where he had left the car. Bill followed, looking, hoping, they would run into something to kill.

The streets were empty. It was still raining, but the downpour had ended. Ruben and Bill trudged through the wet until they arrived at a yellow house across from a big box store. Bill followed Ruben inside, where the old man made a beeline for the garage. There was a hybrid car sitting in the space closest to the door to the house. Ruben struggled to get the garage door up and then gestured at Bill to get into the vehicle.

"Where are we going?"

"I want to check the crash. See if Javier is dead or just, you know, all stiff again."

"Right. Okay, then what?"

"Then? I don't really know Bill, let's get to Javier and figure out what to do from there."

It wasn't a long drive. Ruben pulled onto the highway and drove at a sedate pace to the west. At every overpass he slowed down to a crawl until he was the road was still sound. When they found where the highway had been knocked out, Ruben took the long, broad ramp down to the street level where the crumpled ruins of the patrol cars sat.

Bill and Ruben got out of the car and approached the body of Javier, which was where the zombies had left it. Something was nagging Bill, he approached the body suspiciously, looking around and eyeing Ruben.

"You bailed out of the car. Did you stick around to see them shoot Javier?"

"No."

"Okay, so how…"

"No. I don't feel much like going into this right now. Not here, not with all these people. Check him."

"All what people?" Bill asked.

Ruben gestured at the body and turned to face the trunk of the closest patrol car. He stared at the empty space.

"He's all hard again, Ruben. I think that means he will make it." Bill said pulling his hands away from Javier, taking a glance at Ruben, Bill looked to where the man was staring. He didn't see anything at first, but after a moment his vision started to blur slightly and he thought he saw something there. From his position on the ground he picked up a small chunk of concrete and tossed it at the blob. The concrete bounced off of something well before it hit the patrol car.

"God damn it." A voice said softly from where Bill's rock had hit.

Bill fell back as a figure shimmered into view. Draper pulled the hood of the garment he was wearing back, revealing his broad smile and too white teeth.

"I knew these things wouldn't work very well in the rain. And what's with the staring act Sergeant Ostling? If you saw me you could have just said something."

Ruben continued to stare, "Well, I was wondering what it would take for you to break your silence. How did you find us?"

Draper held up a familiar brick sized chunk of material, "Funny thing, all that shit in the pack wasn't exactly inert. What's this look like to you?"

"A goddamned brick someone stuffed into our bomb sack to make it feel heavier than it really was. Thanks for the beer." Ruben said.

Draper nodded, "Well to you old school 'before high tech' soldiers this is a brick." Draper threw the brick to the ground, bouncing it off of a piece of twisted metal. When it came to a landing the brick split, revealing a thin casing which surrounded what looked like a battery.

"A bug." Ruben said, "I should have known that you didn't want to lose us."

"A bug." Draper agreed, "And a fine bug it was, it led us to an alley behind a diner about two miles away. I'm glad you sweat a lot old man, or we never could have tracked you back here. Not that this was where we wanted to be, but what choice did we have. We couldn't figure out where you'd gone after you left the alley. I figured you got into a car, was I right?"

Ruben pointed back to the car he and Bill had driven up in, "Yes."

"Valencia, you owe me five buck!" Draper barked.

"Valencia's dead, sir." called out an unseen voice from nearby.

Bill looked around and slowly counted off the people around them. It looked like there were over a dozen.

"Shit. That's right. Whatever you did towards the coast, sure stirred up a bunch of the super zombies, they were running like crazy people to get away from there. We had a few dustups and not everyone lived through them. Did you know some of those bastards can see right through these things?" Draper pulled at his hood. "That was a surprise to us, I can tell you that. Thankfully most of them are just as blind to us as you are. Were."

"What are you doing here Colonel?" asked Bill.

"He is here for us." Ruben said, "Ain't that right, Colonel?"

"We finished our mission, caught a ride from our friends off the coast and came down to lend a hand. Or recover the bomb, as the case may be. So was your mission a success?"

"Was yours?" asked Bill.

Draper stared at Bill for a moment; finally he broke into another of his grins and shook his head. "No. We found a lot of dead people. And hordes more of the undead variety. We blew the safe house with one of our bombs and blew the ultra-secret safe house we weren't supposed to know about with the other. We even went by the old Greenbrier, just to see if anyone had made it there. Nothing good. We found a few very bad ass type people and I supposed you could say we rescued them, but we didn't find what we were looking for. Did you?"

"We found him. Sentry is dead. Max made sure of that." Ruben said.

"And you Lieutenant? What did you see?"

"Ruben's ass. I got shot, he carried me to safety. Max told him to and I was out of it."

"You're looking pretty good for a man who got shot." Draper's gun came around until the barrel was pointed at Bill's stomach. "Sanchez! Get a heat reading on this guy!"

"Just above norm, Colonel, he checks out. He ain't a zed."

"Is that how you can tell now?" asked Bill.

"It's quick and dirty, but they run cooler than we do, a good ten degrees. To someone like Sanchez the zeds show up like a beacon."

"And you couldn't share that tech with us?" Ruben asked.

"You had Max, what would you need with our toys?"

Ruben snorted, "Now what?"

"Well, we should go and check on your target, just to be sure. Then I think we will head south. The anchor-clankers can get us back on board, something is brewing with Cuba and I'm hearing a show of force is necessary to get them to back off."

"What?" asked Bill, "I thought we'd be going back home?"

"Relax, there shouldn't be any fighting. We'll sail around Florida and check out the base at Pensacola and then head towards Corpus Christi. I hear there is a Naval Air station there that is still functioning. We'll get you two on a plane back home in no time."

"Three." Ruben corrected, "Javier will recover, we've seen it before."

Draper raised an eyebrow to this, but didn't say anything.

"How long?" Bill's voice came out in a whisper.

"Well, we have to debrief you and the trip may take a little time. I won't shit you Bill, we have half a dozen things to check into already, a couple cruise ships, a lost destroyer, the Cuban's. And these are just what I know about. I hope to have you home by Christmas, but I can't guarantee that your country won't need you for something else. I know one thing though, the country, what's left of it. Needs a hero, one that can unite everyone and show them we can beat these things. They won't want you killed."

"It's just longer than I expected."

"So, shot you say? It looks like there won't be a lack of stories on out travels, will there?" Draper smiled again and nodded, "So let's get started. Ostling why don't you ride with me in that, whatever you call it, that you drove up here and take me to ground zero. Bill you'll have to make do with the vehicles the boys have scrounged up."

It would take Bill six months to finally get home and by the time he arrived every survivor there knew his name.

Epilogue

"Am I dead?" asked Katie.

"I like to think of it as 'body impaired'." Randy replied.

The explosion was frozen, with its heart only a short distance from where they were standing now. The initial blast had destroyed their physical forms, but all of the key players were still here and still struggling on a spirit level. Aubrey, Max and Stewart clung to a fighting Sentry as the slow wave of energy dissolved everything as it crept along.

"So we can leave?" Katie asked. The balance of power had shifted when their bodies were destroyed. Although Sentry was still strong and struggling the three on top of him were able to hold him in place. It would all be over in a few minutes. 'Although it's not really minutes. More like billionths of a second in normal time.' Katie thought.

Randy nodded in answer to her question, "And we should leave too." He was looking into the heart of the storm, which was an all devouring storm, obliterating anything it came into contact with.

"What about them, Randy?"

"They get to die heroes."

"I thought that was our job?"

Randy laughed. Although Katie could hear him, she couldn't hear the others, they were animated, but quiet. The whole world was quiet, a noiseless shadow of itself.

"Randy, I don't think I want to go."

Randy took her hand and looked into Katie's eyes.

"I don't think I can take anymore right now. I think…I think I am going to stay." Katie stepped towards Sentry.

Shrugging, Randy mirrored her movement. "I understand. I'm a little tired too."

Katie embraced him, he returned her affection and they both turned back to the spirit bodies on the floor. Examining them Katie said, "I think I can get in on his legs. Can you help out on his head?"

"I love you Kim Tonya Tucker."

"I love you Randal Justin Stevens."

When they latched onto Sentry's form, the yelling of the four people became a torrent of sound.

Stewart's voice rose above that of the others, "…throw this fucking asshole into that goddamn hole!"

"I can make you gods!" Sentry yelled.

"We're already dead, you stupid son of a bitch!" Stewart retorted.

Randy, shouldered Stewart out of the way, breaking her grip. She gave him a baneful stare as she tried to get back into position.

Randy looked her in the eyes and said, "Go."

"I got this. Get out of here." Katie told Max. Aubrey looked on and started to loosen her grip on the thrashing Sentry. "Sorry honey, or should I say mommy?" Katie said in a sickly sweet voice, "This is a three person job. It looks like you get to come with me on this last trip."

"Fucking figures." Aubrey looked on at Max, whom Stewart was trying her best to drag away, "Just go, Max."

Max and Stewart fled.

It was a bright night in Iowa. Bill's wife Tricia was woken to the sounds of young voices talking. 'Those kids! Don't they know its…two a.m.? Good God what are they doing up so late?' Tricia climbed wearily out of bed to investigate what the kids were up to. She checked the bedrooms and with growing alarm realized some of the kids were missing, Nick and Jessica, Max's kids. She was about to wake Claire to help her track down the missing children when the sound of voices caught her ear again through the open window near the back of the house.

Quietly Tricia eased herself passed the dogs, who were alertly watching the back door but strangely silent, and into the back yard. The two kids were standing in the full moonlight, not too far from where Bill and John had put up the solar collector. She moved forward to collect the kids, but at the last second held her tongue and just moved forward into the dark shadow of the house to hear what they were saying.

Both children were crying, not sobbing, but in the moonlight Tricia could see their tear stained faces clearly. Nick was bare-chested and Jessica was in a long, thin night gown, both kids were standing in the field barefoot and sporting the mussed hair that only sleep produces.

"Why dad?" pleaded Nick.

If anyone answered Tricia didn't hear it.

"We don't want you to go!" put in Jessica, imploring the thin air.

"I don't care about that. I don't care about everyone else, I just want you!" Nick said again, punctuating his short speech with a sob at the end.

Tricia still couldn't see anything in the empty field, out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of movement. Turning she barely stifled a gasp as she saw, Stewart, that cop who came with Max, standing right next to her. Only she wasn't all there, Tricia could see through the vinyl siding through the other woman's body. Stewart was watching the drama unfold in the field as well.

"You know this isn't a dream." Stewart said offhandedly, "He is really there and I am really here."

Tricia didn't trust herself to talk, fearing that even starting to say anything would result in a scream.

"I thought you were religious? Isn't this covered by the 'holy spirit' clause?"

Tricia shook her head.

"No? How about we are just good old fashioned ghosts? Does that work?" not waiting for an answer, Stewart continued, "We lost our bodies, you could say we died. Tonight. In Florida. We aren't coming back."

"Bill?" Tricia asked, finally finding her voice.

"Last I saw he was fine, the old man was carrying him to safety, but Max and I didn't quite make it out on time." Stewart jerked a thumb in Max's direction, "He wanted to see his kids. I came to see you. We've got to be going after this."

"Wha-why?"

"To let you know we aren't coming back. To let you know your Bill is as much of a hero as we are. To ask you to look after Max's kids and to prove to you that we were really here."

"I–I, well I think I might still think this is a dream."

Stewart leaned in close, "No, you won't. His kids are going to be worked up over this, you'll all be awake for a while, I predict. I told him this would happen, but you know Max."

Tricia laughed a little.

"What?"

"You sounded just like his wife."

"I'm not sure if that makes me feel good or bad."

"Good. It should make you feel good. She was a good woman and had her hands full with him. Just like I do with Bill. Is Bill…is Bill really okay?"

"Yeah, this is about that proof I was talking about. Bill got shot in the stomach in Doctor Sentry's clinic. You know it before it becomes public knowledge. When you hear it, you'll know you weren't dreaming."

"Oh my God! Shot in the stomach!" Tricia's hands rose to her mouth, she felt nauseas.

"He's fine. Tricia, he, well, he's a different man now. How different I can't say, but he'll live through the bullet and I think he'll make it back here, if anyone is bullheaded enough to do it, he is."

"Now you sound like me."

Stewart nodded.

"Max! We should go. I don't think you are making it any better." Stewart called out. The kids didn't turn or acknowledge her in the slightest.

Stewart seemed to listen to a reply that Tricia could not hear and then nodded.

"What did he say?" Tricia asked Stewart.

"He's telling them we have to go, that we did the right thing and sometimes the right thing requires a sacrifice. One day they will understand. He's saying that you are their new mother now and Bill is their new father…" Stewart's voice trailed off.

Tricia watched as both children crawled up into seemingly thin air to be held there embracing something she couldn't see.

"Why can't I see him?"

Stewart shrugged, "Heck if I know. He isn't here for you maybe."

"Then why can I see you?"

"Because I am?" snorted Stewart, "We've got to go Tricia, we won't be back. I feel thin, pulled out and worn, like an old set of shoes. It's all I can do just to be here now."

"Take us with you!" cried Nick in a moment of desperation.

Stewart shook her head and turned away from the scene, "I can't watch this, bad enough that I have to listen to it. Consider yourself lucky that you don't hear Max. Tricia, take care of the kids. I know I don't even have to ask, but I am anyway. You know, I think I could have been your friend."

"Of course! I don't…I, Stewart! What's happening?" Tricia pointed at the children. A white light was forming between them.

Stewart turned back to the scene and yelled out, "Max! What are you doing?"

The light went off like a flash and both kids were dumped on the ground in a crying heap. For a moment Tricia thought she saw Max, a thin pale outline a few steps away from the kids, his arms were held wide towards his children. Stewart rushed to his side and both of them flared briefly before fading from sight. The cries of the kids brought her eyes away from where the figures had disappeared and she rushed to them.

They were a mess, sobbing from the experience with their father and bloody from falling into a thistle patch on the ground when he dumped them.

"Nick, Jessica, c'mon, let's get you inside."

"Our dad was here!" Nick said, sobbing. "And he left. And he wo-wouldn't takes us with him!"

"It's okay Nick. I know. I know everything. You'll be okay. C'mon, let's go in."

— END~

Author's note

Thank you. Really that is all I want to say. More specifically thanks to the supporters who have dedicated countless hours to helping me in all my writing. In no particular order thank you to:

Kirk Allmond, Mike Keleman, Josh Detwiler, Michael Picco, Jessie Masoner, Shabbir Safdar, Anne Clodi, Ricardo Morales, Cassandra Stryffe, Chris Philbrook, Elina Kelley and all the guys on the 'First Eyes' website.

If you see your name up there and don't know why, well, you may have just given me a bit of encouragement when I was down or made me laugh when I needed it. Or maybe you even provided the name for this latest 'The Zombie Chronicles' book (Kirk). Some of the names are old, some of them are new, but to all of you I owe a debt of gratitude. Thank you. Oh and if you think your name should be up there, drop me a line, that is the wonder of digital copy, I can fix things pretty quickly and will do so if I've overlooked anyone!

For the record I started writing this book on August 7, 2010 and finished on April 25th, 2011. Not too shabby for 8.5 months and 110,700 words. Hopefully you've enjoyed this book; it is the last one that Max and Stewart appear in, but not the last one in the series, not even close.

Mark Clodi

April 26th, 2011

Content

Clodi Mark Ascension

Mark Clodi. Ascension The Zombie Chronicles -3

Chapter 1 — Whatever happened in Nebraska?

Chapter 2 — Whatever happened in Nebraska?

Chapter 3 — Whatever happened in Nebraska?

Chapter 4 — Whatever happened in Nebraska?

Chapter 5 — Whatever happened in Nebraska?

Chapter 6 — Katie

Chapter 7 — Max

Chapter 8 — Katie

Chapter 9 — Max

Chapter 10 — Katie

Chapter 11- Max

Chapter 12 — Katie

Chapter 13 — Max

Chapter 14 — Katie

Chapter 15 — Max

Chapter 16 — Katie

Chapter 17 — Max

Chapter 18 — Katie

Chapter 19 — Max

Chapter 20 — Katie

Chapter 21 — Max

Chapter 22 — Max

Chapter 23 — Stewart

Chapter 24 — Max

Chapter 25 — Stewart

Chapter 26 — Katie

Chapter 27 — Max

Chapter 28 — Stewart

Chapter 29 — Katie

Chapter 30 — Max

Chapter 31 — Katie

Chapter 32 — Ruben

Chapter 33 — Katie

Chapter 34 — Max

Chapter 35 — Katie

Chapter 36 — Ruben

Chapter 37 — Max

Chapter 38 — Katie

Chapter 39 — Max

Chapter 40 — Katie

Chapter 41 — Max

Chapter 42 — Katie

Chapter 43 — Max

Chapter 44 — Ruben

Epilogue

Author's note