Stan and Daria had observed the survivor group, about thirty strong, for a few hours, as they approached in good order and made camp for the night. The two had decided to risk talking to them. They didn’t really have much choice- his broken leg was just beginning to heal and he, Daria and the dog, Scar, were running short of supplies. Stan had not bothered to joke about eating the dog…

He did it for Daria, and she did it for him, the dog, and for one other reason, which was one of the things they didn’t mention in their sales pitch. A gimpy hitter was bad enough, but the whole thing was sort of like an undead version of ‘The Gift of the Magi’.

“We’re down to just the two of us and the dog. We lost a man a week ago. Good man, name of Kermit,” Stan said, and shared a look with Daria. She just smiled and hugged Scar, who grinned a doggy grin over his shoulder at her and kept watch on the open end of the courtyard of the motel which the survivors were prepping for the night. Scar was a good set of eyes, and calm, for a dog, no barking and yapping at the undead. He was a survivor too, and had worked out the rules as well as any human. “Daria’s been keeping me alive, really…”

“Tell me, Mr. Warshawski, why should we take you in, risk me and mine for two, three, more mouths to feed?” Bear asked him, not unkindly.

It was a very good question, Stan thought.

“I’ve done okay up until I broke my leg. I’ll be pulling my weight again, very shortly, and I’ll be worth it. I kept myself alive all this time, and small groups, too.”

“How about you and the girl?”

“Her name is Daria,” Stan said a little bit more testily than they could afford. “She’s good point, a good fighter and scavenger. Level, cool, maybe a touch sentimental…”

“The dog?”

“No,” Stan said, and dropped his voice, “Doesn’t like putting down Kay Zees.”

“Kay Zees?”

“Kiddie zombies.”

“Oh.” The big man looked lost in thought for a moment, and then asked, “Are you two an item?”

“No!” Stan said, and blinked in surprise at the force of his own denial.

The man-bear sat back on low brick wall a little and laughed heartily, if quietly, from the belly. “Well, Mr. Warshawski, you’ll do, I think. You just might do.”

“My friends call me Stan.” They shook on it, and Bear shook Daria’s hand as well.

“Very good, Stan, Daria, Scar,” this last directed at the mongrel, “I’m glad to have you as part of our merry little band.”

He brought them in, so to speak, sending them upstairs before the three-worker team had finished cutting it away from the second floor landing. A pair of carpenters had already put together a ramp for getting back down in the morning, and the wagons and wheel-barrels of stuff had been unloaded and carried upstairs as well. Stan nodded approvingly at all of this.

“Now that’s organization!”

“We have to be organized; wait till we send out drag-teams tomorrow, to draw off any unwanted company. Plus we’ve got a kid with a sling, who can put a stone through a zombies’ skull at fifty yards. Nice and quiet, just like I like it.”

Stan looked at him and decided to ask the question that ate at him, a little. “What’s it like, to be responsible for this many?”

Bear shrugged. “I sorta drifted into it, y’know? Got pushed around a little…” He laughed at Stan’s expression. “I see what you’re thinking, it’s all over your face- who pushes a giant, 6′ 2′, still 200 plus pounds after all these months of want? Well, just about everybody… first there was the little old lady who scolded me into breaking up a fight when I just wanted to mind my own business. Then the wife, slapping her shame-faced husband around, screaming at him when there were Zees about. The kid who wanted just a little more of what I had to eat…”

He was quiet, and they stood at the railing of the second floor, amidst the noises and smells of cooking and eating and bedding down. To the west was a pretty fine sunset. It was good to be alive, Stan thought, even as the leg began to let him know that he needed to get off his feet. He shifted around on his crutch and lean heavily against a steel column with flaking paint.

“The little ones push me around the most,” Bear continued. “I don’t like the, the powerlessness. I guess in a big guy like me, that’s strange, but it’s what gets me. It makes you feel small and afraid, and that’s the worst thing…”

Daria touched his arm and Stan saw that she’d brought two folding chairs, one of which she was handing to Bear. He could almost kiss her. “Thanks.” She smiled and disappeared.

Scar had wandered up to Bear, sniffing his hand and really grooving when the big guy scratched behind his ears. Then the dog whined at Bear softly, looking up into his face with the frank stare he’d used on Stan, Daria, and… Kermit, when the dog had joined up with them. He seemed to be satisfied with what he saw, for he licked the man’s hand and went off looking for Daria. Bear stared after him and then at Stan, who just shrugged.

“I always used to get so very angry,” Bear finally went on, “when I saw the ‘beaten-dog look’ in a small person, a girl or a woman, let alone in a dog. I’m a big guy, nobody wants to mess with me, and I don’t want to mess with them, I just don’t… I like dogs and I never could have done that sort of job, before, to be a good cop or an animal control officer. My idea of justice is five minutes alone with the two-legged rat-fucks-” Bear swallowed, his face hard as stone. “Excuse me.”

“Justice is five minutes with a crowbar and then leaving them alone with their pain and fear for a few days, just bread, water and penicillin. Not because I don’t want them to die- because I want them to suffer.” Bear looked over at Stan, who was wondering if the man had ever done this, or if it was just a fantasy.

“I’ve wanted that, myself.” Stan admitted. “Never have; I wouldn’t trust myself to do the right thing under those circumstances. Besides, examples don’t work on cowards or bullies.”

“So what would you do?”

Stan thought of Daria. “A man like that, or a woman, I suppose, is a threat to us all. No more jails, and… I never liked putting people away, paying for it, the depravity of jails, all of it. I’d kill them, quick and clean,” Stan said looking over into Bear’s eyes, and they both nodded in understanding. “I’m not really a very nice man.”

Bear smiled at that. “We picked up a woman and her child the other day, just two more strays we found along the way. We do that, because we do, that’s all. Because, if you don’t… Well, how could you not? Just… how?”

“They were both small fry, but when the woman looked up and met my eyes later that evening, I smiled at the power that I found there. A survivor, and that’s a fact! They always have a story; sometimes they want to talk and sometimes they just want to forget.”

“‘You want to tell me about it?’ I asked her,” Bear said, looking the same question at Stan. “She was one of those who desperately needed to talk.”

Stan nodded; he knew all about those, and the other kind, too.

“We survivors have all reached down deep to get this far, and found our well-spring,” Bear continued, “Found that we have what it takes. Sometimes it’s ugly, sometimes it’s beautiful, but it’s almost always awesome and life-changing. Or sometimes even mundane.”

***

“We- we were with a larger group, before…” The woman began, and I nodded encouragingly. It made sense; strength in numbers, until numbers attracted greater numbers of the walking dead. If you were careful and lucky, you could handle that, too.

If.

“Frank wasn’t my husband. I don’t know…” She looked at the little boy, fast asleep. About five or six. He was curled up to her like a puppy and now he stirred. “Mommy?”

“Hush, baby. Go back to sleep.”

He went right back to slumber-land, and I wondered at that trust and obedience. Rare in the old world of ‘no!’ and terrible parenting, but a godsend now. He’d do.

“Frank took care of us. He was a good man and we-”

I just nodded. These things happened in the Z-pocalypse and they were beautiful; a little warmth in a cold, undead world. You learned to keep looking for the good.

“Things went bad, fast. Then we were on the run, got trapped and had to climb for it. The back of an alley with half-burned buildings all around, but it was just what we were looking for. They couldn’t get to us, not in a mob. By then we were down to me and Bobby, Karen and Frank… Karen had gotten bit, and hid it from us.”

I winced. I’m always so sad for those poor damned souls; not just for being bit, but for when they lose their way. For denying the facts, for not doing what’s right. Life is so very precious now, and worth any sacrifice to protect it.

“When she turned, she bit Frank before we put her back down. We tossed her body into the crowd… I couldn’t let Frank go. He lingered, he humored me, and then, when I fell asleep, he got up and jumped.”

She couldn’t speak anymore for a while, so I said, for her, “He was a good man.”

“We were alone for a few days… on our own and getting more and more desperate. The food lasted longer, but we still ran out of it and water, but we didn’t run out of zombies. I finally realized that they were attracted to our smells, especially when we had to use the bathroom.” That little wrinkle got more survivors killed at this point than anything else, except maybe for in-fighting. She suddenly laughed. “Apparently, warm piss equals warm flesh!”

She was quiet again and I imagined a woman and a little boy- no, a fine, brave little man, versus the alley full of undead. “Couldn’t you get out some other way?”

She shook her head. “We were blocked. No more stairs, just the third floor; no other way back down. And… Frank was crawling around down there. I went down part-way, dropped broken concrete and bricks on a few from above, but there were always more coming. Just enough, looking to see what was up!”

There was a fragile tinkle to her laughter this time, and I reached out to her, took her small hand in my big paw. “How did you get away?”

“It took a lucky accident. I had to make, you know… I had to go and didn’t have time to get to the bucket. So I went; I figured, they don’t count, right? But I splashed a couple of them, not on purpose. It’s not like you guys, I couldn’t aim or anything, but what got spilled… they went crazy, the others attacked the two that I’d urinated on, tore them apart- Tore them apart!”

She smiled a wolfish, triumphant smile; a good one, nothing wrong with that! “I went and got Bobby. I told him to pee for Mommy. And he did!”

She tussled his hair. He stirred and smiled.

“I told him to be brave while I went down and mopped up, and then I called for Bobby. He came down to me and we ran for it! Ever since, well, we’ve been keeping a water-pistol full of it, warm, right next the skin. It works like a charm for when you’ve got two or more…”

“Weaponized pee,” I mused. It was amazing, the things that people will do to survive; a funny world.

Nobody laughed. The skinny man with the smile that didn’t reach his eyes poured his last drop of hot sugar-water into the coals. They were out of coffee, tea, out of everything. Time to get on the road, do some scavenging. He turned to the joker.

“You are hilarious, Kermit, just freaking hysterically funny…”

“I didn’t mean anything by it, Ski!”

Kermit scowled and went back to packing. Breakfast had been stale Oreos and peanut butter crackers. The teenage girl with the dark eyes, who had joined them two days back and not said much, was standing at the second-floor window, looking out on the cold Octobers dawn.

“Why do they do it?” She asked.

“Why, what, Dar? Zombies?” Kermit shrugged. “Coz? Just because they do.”

“But-”

“They fall down, Daria, and then they get back up again,” Ski interrupted. “And now the world is a different place, but it always is; a different place every morning, every day. Now… the dead don’t rest in peace without we help them, and there are a whole lot of them to help.”

They got ready, and used the rope ladder to climb down past the stairs that they had cut away last night. The wood, some of it, had made a fire in the makeshift fireplace upstairs in the little girl’s room. That one had been locked in the cellar, and Ski and Kermit had put her down for general safety and as a favor to the parents, who, according to a note that had been left, hadn’t been able to bring themselves to do it. They had spent a little while last night, over the baked beans, discussing whether those people might have made it. Notes left behind, and loved ones locked away, to keep them from wandering, were a common enough thing on their journey, but they had yet to meet any of the note-writers.

Daria led off. She had established that precedent on her first day with them, always taking point without a word. It was not to be discussed, except between the two men, quietly, when she was asleep (and not fighting in her nightmares) or using the bathroom of a ‘safe’ house for privacy. They headed, generally, east, scavenging houses and businesses and avoiding the herds that formed from time to time. Zeke did what he did, and one thing they did was just start following one another. They hadn’t run into any really big crowds of them, but Ski thought that above a certain size, the crowd might not break up, just making enough of a commotion at the core that those on the edges never wandered away.

The trick to moving through zombie infested areas was to be faster than the zombies, and stay aware. If you saw one, there were always three more you hadn’t seen. Fortunately, these weren’t horror movie zombies. Zeke was slow and dumb, one on one. They rotted away, slowly but inexorably, and Ski wondered about that. He didn’t have the education, or the time, but he imagined that there must be some sort of zombie factor, in the air and water, which caused all the dead to come back now. They also ‘shared the love’, infecting with a bite or a scratch, so that you turned into one. It only affected humans, which meant that there would still be food to eat, when all the supplies ran out. Most animals had enough sense to be where Zeke wasn’t, but their little band had to go where the supplies might be had, houses, stores and warehouses. The other thing to remember was that Zeke was very dangerous in numbers, and some of the ‘walkers’, the walking dead, liked to move together. It might have been some sign of herding or schooling behavior, or like lobsters in a train, the blind following the blind.

The key to surviving was to see them coming and out-walk them, to sleep where they couldn’t reach you, to live quietly and walk softly. They had all seen some of the earlier survivors, drunk on destruction and grief, go out in a blaze of glory, in orgasmic gun-battles that put down hundreds of the undead and called together thousands. In those first days and weeks, ‘Zeke, Mort and Morticia’ had all been fairly fresh cuts of meat, spry and sometimes surprisingly dangerous. These three survivors, even Kermit, had learned the true value of caution. The meek really had inherited the Earth.

By noon they had made a few miles with no appreciable finds, and crossed the river that separated two urban areas. It was burnt out, a firestorm that had happened a few weeks previously from the looks of things. This was typical of the landscape they now moved through, undead and untended by the living; refineries and factories had burned. The oil and natural gas tanks had gone up like Nagasaki or Hiroshima. It had the effect of clearing out some of the undead. Ski and Kermit had actually witnessed dozens of zombies drawn to a firestorm like moths to the flame, snuffed out as they walked around in the inferno, or sometimes spreading the fire when they walked out again, fat rendering and sizzling like a pine log on an autumn bonfire.

“We really gonna do this, Ski? I don’t like it.” Out in the open was vulnerable, now. They could see Zeke coming, but an urban environment offered more vertical routes. Zeke didn’t climb very well. In fact, he or she mostly went downhill, and even a slight grade was a significant obstacle.

“It’s a risk, but we can cover more ground this way. Maybe get to that distribution center, and out again, before dark.”

“I shoulda stayed in bed…”

“Did I ever tell you two about the time when I slept in? An ankle-biter climbed up through a third-story window and right into bed with me! Never woke up so fast in my life…”

“That never happened!” Daria said, and actually laughed. The two men exchanged a look. Kermit gave Ski a sloppy, two-fingered salute. The smile actually reached Ski’s eyes for once. He was always worried about everything now, but especially the young girl and her troubles; the ones she hid away from them.

“Oh yes it did! Surprised the hell out of the guy I was with back then and he… Well he said I was a lucky bastard,” Ski finished lamely, remembering how that one really went. He’d been alone again for a week and then he had found his good buddy Kermit. Ski shook his head ruefully. No good deed goes unpunished.

They went cross-country at march-and-jog, in a pace which ate up miles. You ran or jogged a hundred paces, then walked, then jogged again. Ski had picked that one up from an old novel about a Roman legionnaire. The regimen warmed you up, got you limber and ready, without completely tiring you out, unless you were out of shape to begin with. Ski remembered that joke from the beginning of Zombieland, about how fatty was zombie-chow. He had enjoyed the farce, but it wasn’t so funny now. He’d known one or two people who thought this was all one big amusement park, but they were dead, or undead, now, and maybe had been, even then.

The jogging didn’t hurt your situational awareness much. The idea was to attract Zeke’s attention from a long ways off so that you could avoid him. Walking up on a mess of a zombie that hadn’t been aware of you until you were on top of him or her, perhaps literally, was not fun. Then you bashed it’s skull in and got going, zigging and zagging and doubling back.

They ran into their first real trouble of the day when Daria discovered a void under the ashes. She cried out and jumped to one side, going to one knee. A cloud of ash rose, along with a faint moan from under the wreckage. Ski and Kermit rushed forward, but she held up her hand, palm out and then made a fist, for ‘hold!’

“What’d ya find, Dar?” Kermit called out, turning around to look at the short line trailing them. The best defense is a good offense, and he’d need to put that into effect if they were held up long. He rolled his head on his neck and waited with calm, not bored, not excited, look. It felt like he’d done this forever. He unconsciously rubbed handle of his Halligan tool, muttering, “It’s all good, buddy,” as if saying it made it so.

Ski rolled his eyes at that, but bit back a sarcastic comment. To each his own and whatever it took. After the end of the world, you developed an appreciation for the fine art of getting by. Kermit had his own style, and so did Daria. Ski edged up on her carefully, a timer in his head counting down the seconds until their first arrival. “What did you find, Daria?”

“We’re in a housing development. This was a home, and I almost landed in the basement on top of the current occupant,” she said, pointing. He was at her back and looked over her left shoulder, down into a wrecked rec room, full of water and a half-burnt zombie, now water-logged. The stagnant water hadn’t been kind. It clung to debris with one good arm, not able to climb out, bobbing like an apple. Ski considered sparing it a bullet, but decided against it. Bullets were a finite resource, and tended to attract more trouble than they resolved. Besides, he really couldn’t imagine that this one was dangerous any more. Her burned lower jaw had almost rotted away. As he watched, she opened and closed her mouth, and then her jaw came loose on the left side, hanging down on the right.

Pity was weakness, and pointless, but he took out his pistol and put one in her skull anyway. This wasn’t about the zombies, after all, was it? Daria said, “Thanks.”

“I’m sorry I got us into this…”

“Don’t be. We’ll be fine-”

“Incoming, people!” Kermit shouted and swung. There was a meaty crunch and a sort of sucking sound as he pulled the spike out of the fallen zombie’s skull. “One more down, three hundred million to go!”

Ski and Daria chuckled. Gallows humor ruled the day, and they both thought that Kermit’s obsession with the Zombie-apocalypse as an American problem, thus the three hundred million number, had a certain ass-backward charm to it. Daria had worked the problem over, for what it was worth, with wildly varying variables. How many suicides, how many competent suicides, how many undead that  the survivors might have already accounted for… All very morbid, but somewhat soothing after a fashion, reality at one remove. Together they said, “Let’s roll!”

***

How the mighty had fallen; this distribution center had been part of one of the world’s most profitable businesses. It was debatable if Big Oil was a better performer, what with the indecent profits on the erratic price of crude. At least no one had to worry about Hubble’s Peak anymore. The remaining half of the world’s oil could remain below ground until it bubbled up by natural processes. Now zombies were no longer just a metaphor for consumerism and affluenza; and the ‘S’ mart was as dead as the United States of America.

“The corporation is dead; long live the corporation…”

“What, Ski?”

“Nothing, Kermit. Let’s go see what’s left to salvage,” Ski told him. The bullet pockmarks were not encouraging but at least it hadn’t burned. There might be something here other than undead sales associates, customers and raiders. Something worth the risk.

***

There was a dog. One moment he was there, and the next one he wasn’t. But Kermit whistled and called, “C’mere, boy,” and then the dog came back out of hiding.

He was a black lab with some other breed mixed in; a big fur ball with a white patch on the back of his neck where there wasn’t a collar. He had a startling, purple-splotched tongue and stood there with it lolling lazily, silently laughing at them in the manner of his kind.

Ski said, “What have you been up to? And how have you survived…”

The dog’s intelligent eyes looked up into his, ever hopeful. He did not bark, but he sidled up cautiously and shied away from the hand that Kermit reached out to his neck. The scarred dog stared intently into each of their faces and then trotted over to Daria, putting his head under her hand. He whined a little and she suddenly went to one knee and hugged the dog for all she was worth. It was a desperate, naked thing, sobs racking her whole body, and both men looked away.

After a while Kermit asked, “Friend of yours?”

“No, I’ve never met this dog before in my life…” Daria answered with her voice muffled by fur. She looked over her shoulder at them. “We had an Australian Shepherd; Mollie.”

Ski walked over and offered the mutt his closed fist to be sniffed. ‘What now?’ he thought, and Kermit drawled, “Well, I guess you done picked up another stray, Ski…” Ski glared at him. Daria was looking at him intently.

“Oh, all right! But if we get hungry enough, I’m dressing him out and we’re eating dog!”

“Don’t worry, Scar, he doesn’t mean that…”

“You named the dog already?” Kermit said. “I was gonna do that!” Daria stuck her tongue out at him.

Ski smiled. “You gotta be faster off the mark, Kermit. This is Daria’s dog anyway, so what did you expect?”

Scar was looking from face to face, tongue lolling, happy, laughing at their curious antics. And then he turned and whined, an urgent low sound, not a scared excited bark.

“Zombies? The wonder-pooch got a spidey-sense?” Kermit muttered, turning towards the indicated direction and casting automatically to the left and right. “Anybody see them, yet? Maybe behind us?” He took the time to look over his shoulder. “It seems clear.”

“No, on your far right. Kay-Zee with a teddy bear,” Daria said. “Jesus wept… two of them, looks like brother and sister.”

Kermit turned half towards them and seemed to fall in on himself. “God damn this. It just goes on and on…” He stood there while the kiddie zombies advanced.

Ski met and made short work of the threats with a swing of his crowbar that caved in the skull the zombie seven year old on his left, followed on his back-swing by the zombie five year old on his right. As the weight of the quieted KZ dragged it off of the hooked end of his crowbar, he reminded them, “They’re dead. You can’t hurt them anymore. And now they can’t hurt you.”

Scar barked once for their attention and charged into a clump of five or six that had turned the corner while they dithered. He didn’t bite, and steered clear of their grasp as best he could, content with knocking them down and getting them all turned around. He didn’t yap excitedly, but growled or snarled or yipped with purpose, as another hardened veteran of the zombie apocalypse. One of the ankle-biters did manage to crawl up behind Kermit, and Scar bounded up to land on its back and then away again. Kermit put the pointy end of his weapon in the zombie’s skull and that was that.

“Thanks for the assist, dog-breath. Good job!”

Scar permitted himself one happy bark and then went to look around the corner. He came back, looking at them as if to say, ‘What are you waiting for?’

There were a few more, but no great numbers of them. The three humans methodically cleared the section which they were most interested in and barricaded themselves away from grasping hands and empty mouths. There were two or three routes out for when they were done, not counting the way they had arrived. As a general rule the group avoided retracing their steps, where there tended to be more zombies stirred up and attracted to their back-trail. Much depended on when and what and how much they would be carrying away with them. The leavings of looters in those first disorganized days were often good pickings, but also sometimes heartbreaking, like a burst bag of flour or a family’s abandoned photo album.

“Why do you suppose they brought that this far?” Kermit asked, pointing. “And then left without it?”

“Some things are too painful to be reminded of,” Daria told him and picked up the album to page through it. There were tear-stains on the last page and she recognized two of the children in the family portrait. Daria closed the album and set it back down.

***

Their little band continued their gleaning and took their finds with them while there was still a few hours of daylight left to find a safe place to fort up for the night. It was a nice house, zombie-proofed but abandoned. The first-floor windows were covered with plywood and the steel-core doors were scratched and covered in dried blood. No heat and water, which was probably why it had been abandoned, but otherwise a good find.

They tired of speculating about that, and fell to talking about other things. Things they missed, or had hated about the old world, a subject which Kermit and Daria went at with great enthusiasm, and Ski rather less so, until he had had enough.

“The opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference- haven’t either of you ever heard that?” They both shook their heads and Ski muttered, “Public education my ass! Criminal indifference is what it was. Look, indifference is opposite because you don’t love or hate; you just don’t care. I don’t remember, this was some guy, some philosopher, talking about the Holocaust.”

“Anyway, Zeke is mostly indifferent to us. He or she doesn’t care about anything except eating our flesh. They… want to eat our life, they need to fill up the emptiness inside, and they never can, because they’re dead.”

The three of them sat in silence for a little bit, while the fire burned low.

“What the hell were you, Ski? A professor?”

“Sure, I was accredited in the school of hard knocks.” He looked into the middle distance, remembering. “I’ve been a lot of things; a college drop-out, a mechanic and truck driver, a scab, and I even did some community theater. I worked a couple of summers in a Ren Faire, and once I worked for the absentee companies buying up sugar-cane down in Belize. That was funny and scary. Some dispute over the sugar content in the crop, and the farmers torched a government minister’s car. Those poor peasants actually screwed themselves over; the company was trying to be fair and pay them by the content, not by weight…”

“I have a healthy respect for learning and knowledge, but little good to say about most of the institutions of higher learning. Except, they’re gone now, and we need a plan for when we actually get back on our feet- a plan, hell, to get us back on our feet. So I made me a list and I’ve been picking up books along the way. How-to books- soap, gunpowder and alcohol; penicillin. Blacksmithing, animal husbandry, plumbing, carpentry. Maybe how to turn a car alternator into a generator for a windmill or a little dam. Hell, steam engines! Whatever I think would be useful.”

Daria picked up a paperback that was on top of the pile. Ski had been browsing through it, re-reading his favorite bits. “What about this novel? ‘Lucifer’s Hammer’?”

“Yeah, well I liked the one with Harry Red better, but Footfall muddles the message with aliens. This has got cannibals and kings; people finding out what they’re made of after the end of their world. Crap.” Ski wiped at his eyes.

“What message, Ski?” Kermit asked.

“That civilization isn’t just the things, the hardware and technology. It’s also the software, the ideas and values. It’s something that you carry with you, in your heart.”

***

The next morning Ski and Kermit went down to the stream behind the houses to get a few buckets of water. They sterilized drinking water with a little bleach, and boiled it when they could, which was the plan for this morning. Daria waved to them from a second-story window, and Kermit paused. It was a view worthy of consideration and did all kinds of interesting things for him. Ski shut the door of the house with a little too much force and their eyes met.

“Kermit, we had this discussion. No looking, no touching.”

“I can’t help what I was think-”

“Thinking leads to doing, Kermit. And that’s no good for you.” Ski leaned in close and Kermit winced at each word. “I. Will. Kill. You. And we don’t want that, do we?”

“You can’t talk to me like that-”

“If I have to, then I will. Now get this through your thick, drug-addled head. That old world, where you did whatever you could get away with and kept lawyers gainfully employed? Gone. Do you even understand the concept of a lifeboat?”

“What!? What’s a boat got to do with-”

“Everything and nothing, genius! There is no literal lifeboat, but we are all in the same tight spot. Don’t rock the boat!”

“Well, who died and made you captain?”

“I did, and you did, when you didn’t act like you’re responsible for three lives now, not just your own pathetic rat-” Ski stopped himself, deciding regretfully to change tack.

“Do I have to tell Daria about where I found you?” Blackmail didn’t sit well with him; naked threats were at least clean and honest.

“No,” Kermit answered in a very small voice.

“I can’t hear you.”

“I said ‘No!’”

“Good. See that I never have to, and we’ll all be-”

“Why is it you’re like this?”

Ski actually smiled. The man just might do. “I don’t want to be ‘like this’. I could have killed you, the first time you fucked up and got high. Or left you for Zeke.”

Kermit scowled but said nothing.

“You two are the only people in my world now. I love you both-”

“Alright, now you’re starting to freak me out!” Both men laughed.

“Even so, I will do whatever it takes to keep us all alive, get us someplace safe, maybe find some more people. I’m just greedy that way.”

Kermit nodded and turned to lead off. He stopped cold when Ski put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it tight.

“Tough love, Kermit. Don’t forget or misunderstand.”

The path down to the stream was reasonably clear; they only ran into one of the walking dead and dispatched her without any difficulty. Kermit looked down at the corpse.

“Do you remember what she said? ‘You’ve got nothing to fear from the walkers. It’s other people you should be worried about.’ What do you suppose she meant?”

“That one has a lot to say and someday she’ll say it. But not yet.”

“But what about the other people? I mean, we’ve had our troubles, but…”

“Kermit, she’ll tell us when she wants to, when she can. Come on, let’s get to it.”

“She cries at night-”

“Kermit!” Ski rounded on him. Kermit raised his Halligan tool, and Ski smiled coldly.

“Is that how you want it? I found you locked up, dying of thirst and scared out of your mind. Do you really want it to be this way?”

Kermit clenched and unclenched his jaw for a full minute, then whirled as Ski looked past him and his eyes widened. There were three zombies following their back-trail, and Kermit let loose a strangled scream as he went for them.

“Kermit!”

It was the worst way to fight, blindly attacking with a white rage filling his head. Kermit put everything into that first swung and the big fat zombies’ head fairly exploded into raining chunks, but the halligan got hooked in the neck bones and was wrenched from his hands as the big one went down. Kermit stood there stupidly for a half second, looking from the Halligan tool to the second zombie staggering toward him, then backed up and tripped over a fallen tree limb.

Kermit hadn’t survived this long merely on luck, and he scrambled for the piece of wood. He drew it out from under him and his heart sank as it fell apart with dry rot, but he shoved it up and at the lanky zombie anyway. That one staggered back and over, knocking the third one away. Kermit got his feet under him and threw the bits of wood at the third zombies’ head. She looked like she had been out jogging.

“Ski!? You gonna help me?”

“What’s the magic word?”

“Huh? Please?” Kermit glanced over his shoulder. Ski was standing there with his crow bar at the ready, waiting. “God damn it! Help me!”

Kermit turned back as the third one reached for him and he grabbed her forearms, glad to be wearing work gloves. He shoved her back and away, into the lanky one, and circled around to the right, keeping the fat one’s corpse between himself and the tangled zombies. He reclaimed his Halligan tool and felt a little bit better. Instinctively he circled back around towards Ski and then stopped.

“You really aren’t going to help me?”

“What it boils down to is this- I’m in charge, or we’re all dead.”

“Alright!”

“Not good enough.”

“Oh yeah?” Kermit swung and quieted the jogger zombie, dropping it towards lanky one. He got his tool back with a practiced wrench of the handle. Then he spit and stepped back. “Well, ‘aye-aye, Captain,’ then!”

A nice round rock from the stream bed flew past Kermit and struck the lanky zombie in the forehead. Ski followed close behind it, coming around Kermit on his right. He swung the hook of the crow-bar up behind the zombies’ ear. It dropped and Ski dragged it over to the other two, rolling it on its’ belly and unhooking the crowbar.

“Let’s get this water back up to the house. Daria will be worried about us.”

***

Ski and Kermit came back to the house to find Daria waiting for them with their gear to go. “We’ve got trouble,” she said simply and by way of briefing them led them upstairs.

A rather lot of zombies were going past in the residential street on the front side of the house, going North. Anything they were doing in any great numbers was always dangerous, so she brought the good pair of binoculars with them up to the third floor. Ski looked through them to see what she had already seen. There was something on the horizon, a boiling, rolling mass upon the hills on the other side of the river to the west.

“Oh my god.” Ski realized he had spoken aloud. He handed the binoculars to Kermit.

Kermit swore. “Thousands, maybe tens of thousands. All coming this way, and then our local zombies will swell their ranks…the army of darkness.”

“Do we run or do we hole up?” Daria asked, and Ski looked from her to Kermit.

Even the damn dog was watching him intently, Ski thought. He had to pull himself together, and after a moment he did.

“We run, as fast and quiet, and as far as we can.”

***

They ran for it; they ran through and around clumps of the locals attracted towards the sounds across the river. The little band made short work of what they had to get through, skirted what they could and sidetracked around a crowd of them piling out of a diner in the center of town.

“It’s a good, crisp afternoon for a little jog,” Ski commented with a grin. He was in the lead, for once; he had insisted. Daria and Kermit ran after him and shared a smile. Even the mutt at their heels had a doggy grin.

“What are you,” Kermit gasped, “so happy about, sunshine?”

“Him. He was so close to despair, before. And now- Now he’s got his second wind,” Daria answered easily, finding their pace well within her limits.

Kermit glanced down at the dog. “Is it just me,” he huffed, “or am I stuck in the Z-pocalypse,” and he huffed again,” with two loons and a pound puppy?!”

Scar gave one happy bark and raced on ahead.

They made their way out of town and fast-walked a little while, to rest, although Daria and her dog took the lead again and kept the two men from letting up very much. They came to the interstate cloverleaf at the edge of town and found it blocked and broken. Abandoned and burned-out cars and trucks choked the lanes, but the high over-pass of the two major local roads was completely down, like someone had fought a rear-guard action here and blown it all up behind them.

“Crap!” Kermit said and looked behind them, where half the town, the half that wasn’t going to the river to meet up with the thousands still coming this way, was following them.

“We go up.” Ski said.

“What about the dog?” Daria demanded.

“The dog-“ Kermit sputtered.

Ski cut him off. “Your dog comes with us and takes the same chances as us. Now, quick, let’s rig up a carry for him.”

They roped the dog up, looping around his legs and over his back. Scar waited patiently, looking past at the oncoming threat and licking the girls’ face. She told him “Good dog!” and Scar wagged his tail.

“Up you go,” Ski said when they had him ready. “Ladies first.” Daria just gave him an ironic look and took the rugged slope at a half-run. “Careful, damn it!”

“Because she’d insist on leading the way?” Kermit commented.

“Because she’s in the best shape, and lightest, and damnation! We take care of her-”

“So she can take care of us?”

“She- she reminds us of what’s good in the world. Reminds us to be men!”

“Amen, Ski. Now, can we please get going?”

***

They made their ascent of Mt. Rubble in stages, hoisting the dog up the bad parts. Daria took the lead at first but even she needed a break and switched off with Kermit, who claimed to have done a little rock climbing. Out of shape or not, he had surprised Ski by knowing what he was doing.

Unfortunately, a few of the zombies on the far side of the broken overpass were fairly fresh cuts of meat and up to the challenge. They climbed around to the survivors, two, then three, of them between Daria and Ski.

“Ski!”

“Keep going, damn it!” he gasped and then he bashed the first one and then the second one in the head with his crowbar. They slumped and together very nearly pulled the third one with them to roll down the steep slope, over the edge to a forty foot drop to the interstate. Ski turned to put some more distance between himself and the last one just as the damn dog started barking and the girl shouted, “Ski, look out!”

There was an ankle biter in fatigues, the mere scraps of a national guardsman in a crevasse of the concrete, lunging for Ski’s throat. It was inside of his reach, but somehow managed to get the crowbar wedged between then. He held on for dear life as he winkled the undead guardsman carefully out of his hole and over. Then he scrabbled as his handhold gave way and he slid after it.

Ski arrested his fall just enough that he caught another handhold at the edge the other zombies had tumbled over and teetered. He could not pull himself back. Ski felt his strength ebbing as the rotten concrete gave around the rusty rebar and he looked down at the upturned faces. “Not,” he gasped, “this… way!”

He fell. Daria screamed and Kermit grabbed her hand before she could start down. “No!”

“But Ski!”

“He’s dead-“

“You don’t know that! Not for sure!”

Kermit sighed and looked at her and then her dog. He stepped down to where that third zombie was still struggling on, oblivious, and ended its pursuit. Daria was watching him closely.

“We lift each other up, when we fall down.”

‘She reminds us to be men,’ Kermit thought. “He said ’We are the captains of our lifeboats,’ or something like that.” Maybe… it was time to accept that. Kermit sighed again.

“I’ll go get him, or see to what’s left of him.” To the dog he said, “Stay!”

Scar whined disagreeably but sat down and watched him go, then looked up at the girl. “It’ll be alright,” she told him, and wondered who she was trying to reassure; herself or the dog.

***

Ski came around to the sounds of groans; his own. He felt something touching his boots and he kicked instinctively, scrambling back, or trying to. When he tried to move his left leg there was a flash of pain. He gritted his teeth and kicked again, anyway. He got backed up and facing the open end of the little space between two slabs of concrete. The zombie that had been pulling at his boots was trying to climb up into the space, which was at head height, but he was finding it hard, what with the competition. Ski gulped as he took in the sea of undead faces.

Rubble fell from above, and the chunks fell into and beyond the open end. Ski looked up, warding it off with his left arm. He caught a glimpse of Kermit and then the sounds of a struggle, which he couldn’t see. Then Kermit cursed and a body fell into the crowd, but Ski was relieved to see that it wasn’t Kermit. The man climbed down into the ‘V’ of concrete with Ski, winded and favoring his right arm. His Halligan tool was nowhere to be seen.

“Have a rough time of it?” Ski commented. “Or… did you need to think things over?”

“A little bit of both,” Kermit answered. He looked from Ski to the crowd of zombies and then back to Ski again. “You’re probably wondering if I came back down here to kill you.”

“I admit that the thought had crossed my mind.”

Kermit nodded and stomped on some grasping fingers from below, then kicked a nightmare face with good steel-toed boots. “To tell the truth, I wasn’t really sure what I’d do, myself; I told Dar that I’d see to you, if, y’know…”

He held up his bleeding right forearm, showing Ski the bite. “Somebody made up my mind for me; isn’t that hilarious?”

Ski nodded sadly. “It has me in stitches.”

“I was pretty mad at you, y’know? I thought you were playing the ‘Papa Wolf’ thing up or you wanted me out of the way so’s you could have her to yourself, ya dirty old bastard-“

“She’s pregnant and I’m pretty sure it was rape,” Ski cut in.

Kermit shut his mouth with a click of his teeth and turned to consider the zombies for a while. At last he spit and said, “This is a really fucked up world.”

Ski didn’t know what else to say, so he gave Kermit his motto. “You eat what’s on your plate.”

“So you do.” Kermit wiped his right hand off and stuck it out to Ski. “Thanks.”

“What for, for getting you bit?” They shook hands.

“I’ve done a lot of things that I’m not proud of and now I’ll never-” He shuddered. “You never gave up on me, you just kept trying to- Just thanks, damn it!”

“Damnation doesn’t enter into it,” Ski said quietly. “You’re a good man, Kermit, here at the last.”

“Aw hell, it really is messed up, isn’t it?” Ski just nodded. “Let’s get you back up there.”

***

“What took you two so long?!” Daria snapped, and the two men shared a look. “Well?!”

“Calm down, Dar,” Kermit said. “We had to take the long way home and I’m a little tired.” He helped Ski sit down and then sat heavily.

“You’re both hurt!”

“Just a bit. Ski’s broke his leg, a green fracture. I’m more worried about that… tired.” He lay back.

Daria looked from Kermit to Ski to the dog, who tried to nose at Kermit’s wound, but the man swatted at his muzzle.

“Go on, now, leave it alone…”

“You’ve been bit!”

“Yep.” Kermit sighed and sat up. He suddenly hugged the dog to him, burying his face in Scars’ fur. He wiped at his face and got up stiffly. He would not meet their eyes, just looked down into that mighty river of undead that was now pressing past on the broken roads below, coming from God knows where and headed, yeah, God knows where.

“That one with my Halligan tool didn’t get very far. I think- I think that I’ll go get it.”

“No goodbyes?” Ski asked his fleeing back.

The man stopped but did not turn back. “I don’t think I could stand it.”

***

Kermit made his descent with the caution of a man who wanted the last thing he did on this Earth to be done right.

And it was.

He jumped his target from about ten feet up, kicked it in the skull going down and had retrieved his Halligan tool, all in smooth moves, like he had choreographed them. The next three went nearly as beautifully, but Zeke began to crowd him. Then two shots rang out from above, taking some of the pressure off. Kermit looked up, smiling and set to it with a will. There was a little wind-row of quieted undead, twenty or thirty, maybe more, when he went down, not for the last time. He was still for maybe a minute, but Ski and Daria kept close watch for him, and when his body got back up, two bullets took it in the head and neck. It fell for good.

Daria wrapped herself around the dog, and Scar whined once, not fussing, just licking at her tears. Ski sat watching the scene below and also watching for any other over-achieving zombies, but there were none for a while.

“God, whose name I do not know-” Ski stopped and laughed bitterly. “Thank you for my life. And thank you for my friend Kermit.”

Daria looked up, and then got up to stand by Ski. “What was his last name?”

“I’m afraid I really don’t know.”

They watched as the mega-herd filed past. Few of the undead even noticed, and fewer still attempted the climb. The two would be able to deal with those that did. Daria turned back to Ski, offering her hand. “Hello, my name is Daria Parker. I’m pleased to meet you.”

Ski shook her hand gravely. “Konstantin Warshawski… my friends call me ‘Ski’.”

“So, what do we do now, Ski?”Daria asked. Scar crept up to them and whined, and she scratched him behind the ears.

“I don’t know,” he answered, and all three looked back at the army of undead.

“God…” Daria began, “who created all things, even the stuff…” Daria closed her eyes briefly, “even the stuff which has since gone wrong, in us and in the world. But he lives with us, and is in us; he works through us. So that we can make this broken world… better.”

“Do you really believe that?” Ski asked.

“I do.”

“Well… since I don’t have anything else to do, I guess I’ll help you.”

It was murder.

“What’s the matter? You couldn’t round up two thieves to hang on the cross with me?”

“Shut your profane mouth!” one of the lesser body guards spat.

“Mr. Sheridan,” Mother Constance said. She was a tall gray-haired woman dressed plainly but severely in a dark green dress. A small silver cross was pinned above her heart. “I appreciate your suggestion, but unfortunately you are wrong. You are not being persecuted, ‘crucified’ by an unjust secular authority- this is the Kingdom of God.”

“I agree! This is the world that Almighty God has made, and the day! The King of the Universe rules over the sinful as well as the saved.”

“Nice…” said her chief body guard, a man with a katana worn over his shoulder. “Been working on that all night?”

“I had an epiphany.”

“I am listening, Mr. Sheridan. Enlighten me.”

“There are none so blind, or so wicked, as the willfully ignorant, sister!”

“Ah, am I then, still, your sister in Christ?”

“You are my sister; just a Cain was Abel’s brother, or Saul of Tarsus, on the road to Damascus…”

“Let the scales fall from my eyes in the Lord’s good time, Mr. Sheridan. Please proceed.”

“What I have learned is that the Bible is God’s instrument, just not the road map you perceive it to be. It is full of God’s ideas and Good News. It’s also a schizophrenic document, a serial journal of the last three thousand years. Five thousand, if you prefer.”

“I do. What is the Bible’s purpose then, Mr. Sheridan, if not to show the way?”

“But it does. It is an illustrated guide to the moral progress of the children of God. A sort of moral I.Q. Test. You only pass if you take what you’ve read and learn from all of mistakes and failures.”

“God is love, Mr. Sheridan. Sometimes it is a tough, fierce and unyielding love that calls for sacrifice-“

Sheridan laughed. “I am a prisoner about to be executed. Only I can choose to be a sacrifice; anything less than a life given freely in service to God and my brothers and sisters is a lie!”

Mother Constance’s face was as stone and she motioned mutely. The prisoner was cast down into the throng of undead below the gate. She stood watching as things proceeded to their inevitable conclusion, and the man with the katana waited at her elbow. When it was done and she turned away, he asked her, “What were you thinking about, Ma’am?”

“I was reminded of Daniel, in the lions’ den, and wondering…”

“Ma’am?”

“I have no doubts, Cal. But my heart was moved to mercy.”

-Bob, Zombie Hunter

***

“Are you there, God!?” Bob wailed. He swung and connected. The meaty crunchy sound was sweet in his ears. He was covered in gore and probably should have been more worried about that. But his world had ended ten minutes ago. All that was left was to go through the motions and put down a few more Z’s. He welcomed an end to grief and pain.

“Why? Why did you take them, you bastard! Wasn’t I doing the best that I could? Did I complain too much? Did I break faith with you!?”

His daughter was back up again. She was wearing the green dress that set off her red hair, a dress that they’d found for her yesterday, the special birthday trip that had led to the big fight, in-group, and led, indirectly, to this. She had been eight, and had asked if they would being going to Grandma’s.

He’d said, “Maybe.”

Bob could not do it. The halligan tool dropped from his senseless fingers, and he fell to his knees. The littlest zombie came at him gnashing her teeth. Bob made no move to defend himself.

A long blade swung lazily into his field of vision from his left. The sword cut into the undead little girl’s ripped-out throat and cleanly separated head from body. The head flew through the air and bounced off of a wall, back at him, to come to restlessness at his knees. Then the sword tip smashed down through the still gnashing skull.

Bob slid sideways into unconsciousness.

***

Bob came back to the awareness of hands holding him and reacted. As he struggled he heard, “Whoa, he’s awake! Break, break!” The hands released him.

Blearily he grabbed up the first weapon at hand, a two-pound stone, a chunk of cement block, actually. Three or four people were giving him space without fleeing. Waiting to see what he would do. Someone said, “Good reflexes…”

Bob took his time then. You weren’t safe now, not ever. Even less so around people. So it paid to be cautious and assess your options. He was half-naked. They had apparently cleaned him up with wet rags- his old clothes and some that he didn’t recognize. The gore was still a thin layer and he didn’t feel clean, just better.

Bob looked up at the point of the sword, and on up at the man who wielded it. A little old black man, bald and wrinkled, he looked like James Earl Jones’ little brother, the runt of the litter. The man smiled and sheathed the sword.

“Do you believe in the efficacy of prayer?”

Bob closed his eyes, felt rage and a soul-weary tiredness, and he shook his head ‘no’. He opened his eyes again and saw that the old man was nodding. He wore cargo pants and a faded yellow T-shirt that read ‘My Boss is a Jewish Carpenter.’ There was a strike through ‘Boss’ with black magic marker.

“Good, you stopped to think. Did you wonder what I wanted to hear, or did you… yes. You did. You thought about it. You are a man who believed in God, until today- easy!”

Bob was on his feet. Stone versus sword, not good. He glanced around at the group, and saw them for the first time. A half-dozen, all different ethnicities, black, white, brown and yellow. Bob dropped the stone and laughed coldly. “What’re y’all, an after school special? Is this supposed to be a ‘Very Special Blossom’, ‘I was a teenage Zombie Hunter?’”

“Friend, I saved your life. Did you… want to die?”

Bob hung his head.

“I heard you, there, just now,” the old man went on. “I talk to God all the time, too, and I don’t even believe in Him! But I accept the possibility that I could be wrong…”

“Whatever. It doesn’t matter.”

The old man sighed. “Our medic pronounces you ‘clean’. We strip-searched you while you were out, for bite marks. That’s SOP with our little band. Thank you for your cooperation!”

The group laughed. They were keeping good watch and had all the avenues of threat and escape covered. Bob looked from one to the other thoughtfully. If only… He sank to his knees again. The old man came over to him and took a knee by him. Quietly, for his ears only, he said. “Well, ‘Whatever’, it’s all up to you, now.”

“What is? And my name is Bob. What’s yours?”

“They’ve been calling me the Deacon, for some reason. If you want to join us, I’ll introduce you to the bunch- good people!” More soberly he added, “We all carry away stones, friend. Lighten the load, if you can. Cast yours away.”

Bob shook his head, but when the Deacon stood and offered him a hand up, he took it. A sandy-haired woman whose good looks were marred by a scar on her left cheek offered him water, and he drank.

“I want you with us. There’s strength in numbers and we can use another good hitter. Look, do you feel that there is no hope left in the world? Just billions and billions of empty mouths that want your flesh and blood? I can’t prove to you that it’s worth enduring. If you keep going, you may come to a better place. If you just give up, then you sure as hell won’t!”

The Deacon turned away. “If it helps to hate God, then hate. If it helps to hope, then do that. If it helps to serve, to go on for duty or love… Whatever it is, come with us.”

We got caught by a herd. Don’t know how or why, but lately the zombies have started to congregate, to gather and move in schools like fish, or flocks of birds. Emergent phenomena, Doc Black says. He was a biologist of some kind, before.

We were moving, driving in a diesel delivery van, and it broke down. Then, while we were trying to fix the van and scouting, looking for food, supplies, and alternate transport, they came flooding in like a rotting tide. We ran with what we could carry, lost a few of ours along the way, and holed up in an old fenced-in warehouse.

That was three days ago, and Zeke is patient. Heh. Patient as the grave, only restless. He, she, they, got back up again.

Clean water, we got. It rained the night we got trapped here, and we collected as much water as we could. There was a little found food, plus dandelion salad and rat-on-a-stick. Yum! The little girl ate some ants, and got sick on the formic acid, we think. We caught and ate some grasshoppers. I made a makeshift net and caught us a few pigeons. Then Zeke got excited about something out there. Before we knew it, they’d chased a little baby bunny under the fence.

I thought that they were going to get in, that time.

The bad moment passed and then we were after it. It was hilarious, the lot of us chasing that rodent around. They are all survivors, we all are, now, but most of them have never been around animals, other than pets, and certainly never caught and killed, slaughtered, meat critters. I was the one who eventually caught that little furry scrap of life.

I held a tiny heartbeat in my hand. I felt power, love and bloodlust. I wanted to protect this little mammal thing. I wanted to eat this little mouthful and not share. I wanted to live, and I wanted it to live. Torn, I looked down at the little girl. She is like this little bunny; without us, she will die. She holds us back; two of ours, that we lost, we lost for her, her father and another stray that we picked up along the way.

The bunny dressed out at just over three ounces on the office scale. We boiled it almost into mush, afraid of parasites but more afraid of starving, and each of us had half a cup of thin soup with the last of the crackers. We fished out most of the meat and gave it to the little girl.

On watch that night, I thought again how like the bunny that little girl is, and my stomach rumbled.

It won’t come to that.

***

“Joseph?”

Joseph paused, mid-stroke, and put the knife and whet-stone aside. He knew the sight of himself, with a knife in hand, made most people nervous. He turned in his seat at the work bench, his hand not far from the weapon, and said to Kowalski, “Yes, ‘sergeant’?”

James Kowalski winced. He could hear the quotation marks, because he was listening for them. The self-serving brevet ranks of both himself and the lieutenant were necessary. He would gladly face a courts-martial, if and when things ever returned to ‘normal’. A world where the dead didn’t go shambling down the street, and he could take a date to the movies, or get this man some help.

“Look, Joseph,” for no one called Joseph simply ‘Joe’, “I wanted to apologize, for saying, ah…”

“That I’m a sociopath, and that we need a psychiatrist, stat?” Joseph’s lips skinned back from his teeth, but the smile never got anywhere near his eyes, and Kowalski saw that, once again, Joseph was trying. Trying so damn hard to be normal, to be human, to put his fellow survivors at ease.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be. You’re right.”

Kowalski found that his hand was on his pistol, and moved it away. Joseph, with an effort that cost him, turned his back to his knife and sat, leaning back against the bench, with his hands together, in front of him. He willed his muscles to relax, and sighed.

“What do you mean by that?” Kowalski asked.

“I am what I need to be, but it’s not easy. If I could, I would… stop.” Joseph’s eyes were bright. “What little we have, I love, and I will protect what I love, but I won’t pretend that I’m right, just… Righteous.” This time he did smile, and it made it all the way to his eyes.

“Joseph…”

“It’s good that you’re making a new life for yourselves,” Joseph went on, looking down. He was referring to Kowalski and Barnes’ sister, Susan; they had announced their engagement at dinner, the night before. “I’m happy for you and Suzy. You two should get married as soon as possible.” He looked up, again. “It’s a good match, the sister and the right-hand man of our two main leaders, and it’s something normal, something hopeful.”

Joseph turned back to his work. “I was talking to ‘Little Jay’ about it, and she agrees-”

“Joseph, are you jealous?”

The man at the bench chuckled. “No! She’s a nice woman, pretty, too, and she deserves to be happy. So do you, Jim.”

Kowalski started; Joseph had never used his first name before. It was always ‘Kowalski’ or ‘Ski’, ‘corporal’ or, now, ‘sergeant’.

“I know that people have been saying that I’m marrying her because she’s got a claim on the ranch…”

“And people are saying that she’s with you because you’re a big macho soldier, ‘him kill heap many zombie!’ Don’t listen to idiots, and take their jealousy with a grain of salt. I know that you love each other, are in lust with each other, but security has got a little something to do with it, too. Accept that, don’t deny it. Safety is one of those ‘need’ things…”

“What’s that?”

“Food and shelter, you know the hierarchy of needs? In our case, freedom from getting munched by zombies…” Joseph examined the blade, seeing his bleak eyes reflected there. He wiped it clean, sheathed it, and turned around on the stool, holding the knife and sheath tightly.

“Mother Constance is the leader of that group, the so-called Army of God. She’s responsible for over a thousand people, I hear tell, and we know how she maintains order in her flock, Jim. She exposes the ‘sinners’; thieves and rapists, maybe, but also the dissenters and unbelievers and the odd homosexual? She puts them outside.” His knuckles were white from gripping the knife in its sheath so tightly. “She’s mine.”

“Jesus, Joe…”

“That’s the first time you’ve ever called me that,” Joseph said, sadly. “I’ve exxed out my share of zombies, put Zeke down for good, and helped more than a few people who’ve been bit; but this is a straight up assassination, and I’m you’re man. If the snipers get her, fine. But I’ll make sure of her. She’s got unclean death inside of her, Jim, and she’s too dangerous to let live.”

***

Joseph crept up on the enemy sniper in the little flat roof-corner. The snipers’ lookout was already staring sightlessly up at the big West Texas sky. Joseph had complete surprise, and put his gloved hand over the man’s mouth, the knife to his throat, a knee in his back, and said quietly, “Sorry,” drawing the blade sideways. Life spurted, hot and very red in the pale morning chill.

Andy was the replacement sniper for the home team. He looked from the body, to Joseph, and then got into position without a word. He made approving noises, clucking happily at the found sniper rifle, a better rig than he had brought along. The bitter complaints about going back to his gun-shop for his own monster of dubious legality and provenance, supposedly a Vietnam-era souvenir, were forgotten. Andy put down an air mattress and sleeping bag, wiped the rig off, and set to work, talking quietly with his spotter, his teenage daughter.

Veronica, Ronnie, spared the body a briefly look of pity, and gave Joseph an unabashed blank stare, so he dragged the dead man back around to where the stairs came up to the roof before he made doubly sure of him. There was always the possibility he had just been bit, or that Zeke had changed the rules, again. He did the same with the lookout.

Someone else was taking care of the other enemy snipers nest, and Barnes’ neighbor was set up over there. There were two prisoners, who had been camped out at the Baptist Church; they had decided not to cooperate, so the word on the snipers nests was simply, ‘kill them’. Joseph got down to the little welcoming committee, where his job was to wait, be mildly intimidating, and watch the Lieutenant and Rancher Barnes’ backs. If things went very badly, which they probably would, he would be within yards of Mother Constance, and he tried not thinking about all of that.

“Joseph… are you with us, Joseph?” Lt. Marshall asked. Joseph nodded, and then remembered to add, “Yes, sir. I am.”

The Lieutenant eyed him, sighed, and walked over to Barnes. They talked quietly, and Joseph did his best not to eavesdrop. He heard most of it, anyway; about Suzy and Ski, the second, fully functional tank and crew of two survivors that that-bastard-Smith had located and gotten back to their base in the wee small hours of this morning, somewhat redeeming himself, plus contingencies. They didn’t, or felt that they couldn’t, talk about Joseph, which left a big hole in their planning. Joseph helpfully switched off with Gomer, saying he needed to relieve himself.

Zeke was out there, of course, so Joseph didn’t wander far. What was more worrisome this morning was how many more living, breathing hostiles might also be out there. Mother Constance was due, coming to make a deal sweetened by the tank. A very simple deal; join the Army of God, or die. Their foraging parties overlapped, and competition would not be permitted.

Bill, Not-Bit, came along and did his business at about the same time, and they wordlessly agreed to stand back to back, eyes scanning all around. A question nagged at Joseph, and he asked, “Why are you out here?”

“I asked if I could volunteer. Bob,” Bob-the-Electrician, and one of the ‘heads of state’, the representatives of the survivor groups that had joined over the last three weeks,” talked to Barnes.”

“Why?”

They finished and made their way back. Joseph took the lead, and found that an ankle-biter had crawled into their path. It was a truly pathetic example of zombie-dom, and Joseph motioned for Bill to crush its skull with his bat, which he did, while Joseph cast around. Where there was one… but they moved on, unmolested.

“I suppose… I thought that I had something to prove,” Bill said, quietly.

“Stupid. You’ve got vital skills-“ Joseph shook his head. Why was he giving the man a hard time for doing what he had to do? It made no sense; it just was. “Look, do us all a favor, will ya? Don’t catch a bullet, don’t get bit, and don’t die.”

“I’ll try-“

“You will damn well do better than try, damn it. Do you hear me?”

Bill looked startled, and would have said something, but they heard the sound of approaching vehicles. Joseph’s belly did a slow, sickening roll, and then the uneasiness passed away, and he was centered, in himself and in the world. Ready. He nodded.

“Show-time.”

***

There were roamers, and ankle-biters, Zeke-in-a-box, Kenny’s and Kay-Zee’s. It was the specialized vocabulary and jargon of the zombie-apocalypse. Joseph reviewed the list after somebody from the A-of-G side of this little shindig mentioned ‘gut-busters’; that was a new one by him, but apparently, when Zeke fed a little too well, well…

The tank rolled up, and the little group from to the South oohed and ahed appreciatively. His opposite number rolled his eyes, and Joseph found himself imagining sinking his knife up to the hilt, right under the big guy’s chin.

He had definitely been doing this for far too long.

Mother Constance was suddenly by his elbow, and Joseph felt the raw power of her personality. She was definitely mad, but it was the sort of madness that comforted you, held you tight and made you feel safe. It took you up, took you out of yourself, and made you part of something. To belong, to not be alone.

“Very impressive, friends,” Mother Constance said, “But be not led into the sin of pride, of vanity. This, too, is God’s Plan,” and she held her hands high, turning towards their vehicles. “Look upon the power and glory of The Lord, Our God!”

“Behold, a Mystery…” she added, almost as an after-thought, and one of her acolytes, the one with the Japanese sword over his shoulder, opened the back door of a police car. A zombie lurched out of the back seat. It turned to the next nearest human, Bill-Not-Bit.

“No! In the name of The Lamb of God, hold fast!”

And Zeke stood still; not happy, if it could be said to be happy or unhappy, but agitated. It turned to Mother Constance.

Joseph looked down at the knife, in his hand, and wondered how it had gotten there. There would be time enough later, to piece together what he had done wrong, if there was a later. He advanced on the old woman. Then he watched as, in his peripheral vision, his knife hand moving far too slowly, the katana blurred towards it, and made a bias cut that separated it from his lower arm, leaving blood, pain, and two pointy bone ends.

“Sorry, friend, can’t have you ki-“ The man with the sword said, and was cut off as Joseph swung up and under his chin, but off-center, opening a jugular, stabbing up all the way through the back of the man’s tongue, and just barely reaching the brain.

The pain was a blinding white-out, and when Joseph came to, lying by a car, the acolyte was just about finished. He had voided himself, and was drumming his feet in the gravel. Mother Constance was trying to hold him, stricken and in shock. The snipers took her, one bullet in the shoulder so that she spun around, and then her head exploded.

It was glorious, and Joseph basked in guilty satisfaction. Once more, proof that he was not a good man. Then a shadow fell across him. Zeke had wandered close, looking confused. It staggered against the car and fell onto him as a bullet buzzed through the air where its head had just been. It bit him, deep, before Joseph could knock it away, and he sat up, looking in wonder at the big chunk that the zombie had just taken out of his thigh.

This was embarrassing; a clumsy, stupid-Zeke trick, and he laughed. “Damn.”

There was a sickening pop, as Bill’s bat connected, and Zeke was ‘outta here!’ Bill looked down at Joseph, and Joseph winked up at him. “That’s the high cost of living, Bill; an arm and a leg!”

“What if we-“

“No; just bring me my knife, will you? I guess-“ He swallowed, mouth suddenly dry. “I guess that I won’t be adopting Little Jay, after all…”

Bill’s hand was shaking when he handed him the knife. Joseph took it with his left hand; held it up and looked at his reflection in the blade. His eyes no longer had a haunted look. Just so. At least now he didn’t have to worry about becoming a monster, either because he’d given up his humanity or because some zombie had ‘shared the love’; that would inevitably happen, if he didn’t take steps. Freedom is… nothing left to lose.

“Don’t you want to wait around a bit and talk to the Lieutenant or… Little Jay?”

“I’ve never wanted to burden anybody else with this shit, Bill, and it’s not going to get any easier, if I wait. Say my goodbyes for me, please?” Bill nodded.

Joseph took a deep breath. It was understandably awkward; left-handed, under the chin and into the brain, so that he would not rise and join the restless dead. Unfortunately, he needed a little help, or he would have botched it. Afterwards Bill pulled the knife out, wiped it and sheathed it, and placed it on Joseph’s chest, next to the severed hand.

Joseph had seen them heading out to check out the zombies hanging around No. 4 wind turbine; ‘Sarge’, ‘Gomer’ and Barnes, the rancher that they’d hooked up with two days back. The ranch had five wind turbines built on easements leased to a Texas power utility, and the ranch was unlikely to ever be without power. They had power, and a good, deep well; now they needed food, some kind of fence, and a lot more; an endless list.

He and some civilians made a morning sweep of the area around the ranch house, barns and outbuildings, after those three drove off in the ranchers’ pickup, a mobile treasure with its portable generator, hundred gallon diesel tank and pump. A little later, he heard gunshots, and saw zombies go down for good a half-mile away. It was a wonder, this new situational awareness; surreal, hyper-real. There were zees about, and where you saw one, yeah, where you saw one, there were always more.

Always.

The three, plus two, rolled back soon after, unhurt and un-bit. No, make that plus one. Gomer was holding a young woman’s arm behind her, and his ugly mug had a look of infinite sadness. That’s when Joseph knew, even before they got out of the pickup and he saw her bloody pants leg. She’d been kicking at the zombie, the fresh cut of meat that had still had it enough together to climb up after the young woman and the little girl.

There was also something ineffably sad about the skillful way that they had separated the little girl from the woman, her older sister. “Go on, little Jay. Big Sis has to go.” ‘Jay’ didn’t ask, didn’t need to ask. Those eyes were full of knowledge, and she was only being brave for her sister. She went with the old woman, the rancher’s momma. She was seven or eight, and her sister was barely a woman, but they both had haunted eyes, ancient.

Sarge called him over. “Joseph? We’ve, ah… come here, please.”

Joseph had made himself the ‘designated hitter’, their self-appointed executioner. In his opinion, it made more sense that only one man should have to carry this burden, and that it shouldn’t fall to the Sarge, who was not even really a sergeant, although they called him one. Everybody had to be able to trust Sarge, and it wasn’t right, or safe, to put it on the bitten.

“How bad?” he asked, businesslike.

“It got me deep, and carried away a chunk of m-” ‘Big Sis’ suddenly turned and threw up against the corner of the barn that that bastard, Smith, had shot near to hell on the first day. Most of the men looked pointedly away. The vomit smelled like rotted lettuce and probably was, for all Joseph knew. He put a hand out and carefully squeezed her shoulder. She reached around and grabbed his wrist, so fast and violently that Gomer jumped and his rifle went halfway to his shoulder. Joseph didn’t start or wince.

“Do you know what happens?” He asked her. Even now, days after, some didn’t; but the young woman nodded.

“If you’ll come with me, ma’am, there’s something we have to do. Do you understand?”

“Y-yes,” she stammered.

“Lean on me, if you need to; I’m here to help.”

Gomer had gone pale as death, only they all knew better, now; death was bloated, black and mottled, and smelled bad. Joseph knew, because he had seen death go a-walking, shambling along the road. His job was to keep death away, to keep it out. The problem was, death still managed to get inside, no matter how hard you guarded against it. He had seen death in the mirror this morning, and that was very, very bad.

The two of them went around the corner of the barn, a slow three-legged race with her leaning increasingly heavily on him. They found a little privacy out behind the buildings, on a hay-wagon with the high metal framing on three sides. The steel was rusty beneath the flaking red paint. He sat on the front edge, legs kicking loosely, and she sat inside, cross-legged, leaning back against a post.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked. He always asked.

“Not particularly, but I guess that I should.” She looked up at him. “Why would you even want to know?”

Joseph shrugged, helplessly. “It’s sort of a barometer. When I don’t care, it’s time to stop.” He had picked out a bullet against that need, when he was no different from the walking dead. It rolled around in his pocket, over his heart. With any luck at all, he’d use it on the real deal, instead. Luck!

“My name is Sarah, and the little girl is my baby sister…” Her face crinkled up in grief, then smoothed out a little, and she did not cry. There were more than ten years between their ages, Joseph thought. Mom and Dad and how many children? “Jacqueline, ‘Jay’. There were three Jackies in her 1st grade class. She’s seven, going on thirty-seven, so she’ll make it.”

“I expect that she will.”

“Do you have any idea what happened, I mean, why?”

Joseph couldn’t say that he did, but he felt the need to say something, anything. “I heard, well, I heard it was terrorists…”

She started laughing, bitterly, and crying. Joseph set his rifle down, and crept over to her, scared and sick of it all. He wondered, idly, if he was trying for ‘death-by-zombie’; maybe.

She was feverish to his touch, a very bad sign. This normally ran its course so very fast only when the bite was in the neck. Her eyes were yellow and bloodshot, whereas, just a little while before, they had been the prettiest blue. Those eyes held death, promised death, and very soon would yield to death.

“Why?” Did she mean, why was she dying, why she had to?

“I don’t know. I wish to Christ that I did, but I don’t.” Joseph shrugged, again with the helplessness. “I really don’t want to be here, doing this, not anymore-”

“Don’t you dare give up!” Sarah pulled his face around in her hands. “I don’t know these people, but I-” She swallowed, then coughed and coughed. Death had her by the throat.

“I need to know that someone will look after her. Not just her, but not give up just because it’s all gone to shit, and-”

“Sh, sh; I will.”

“I can barely see; it’s so dark.” She looked around, her eyes cloudy, now. It was a bright and sunny morning, turning into an unseasonably warm October day. “I want you to hold me, but I don’t think that you should…”

Joseph held her anyway, and after a while she asked him, “What happens next?”

“Do you trust me?”

“Yes.”

“Think of something nice, and I’ll take care of the rest.”

She was smiling, but oh, how she trembled, from fear and her body giving way to the inevitable. He would not have to steal too much away from her, at least.

Joseph got his knife out, and then he used it.

When he was alone again, he made sure that she wasn’t going to get back up, ever. Then he carried the body over to the little pile of exed out roamers. They really needed to dig a pit and burn the pile, for hygiene. Walking dead wasn’t the only way to get dead.

“She had such pretty eyes,” he said to himself. Then he turned away and went in search of Sarge, the guys from his squad, and the rancher.