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He understood more than she gave him credit for, perhaps.
“It scares me sometimes,” he whispered in her ear one night, “to realize that, if not for all this shit going down, I would never have found you. And I know you would be happy without me, since you would be with her, but I don’t know what would have happened to me.
Would I have found happiness somewhere else?”
Katie had held him close and stroked his hair. “We have to live with what is, not what could have been. ”
He reached out and snagged the cell phone. “She was really beautiful, Katie. I like her smile and her eyes. She looks really kind. ”
“She was amazing. I loved her,” Katie said in a soft voice. “And you are amazing and I love you. ”
Travis smiled. “Oh, I know. I’m not afraid of Lydia’s memory. I just want her to know I’m going to take good care of you. ”
Katie gave him a loving smile and kissed him. “She knows. I know it. ”
A day before the vote, the little pink stick said she wasn’t pregnant.
Katie was relieved, considering what an idiot she had been drinking the night of the party. But at the same time, she had felt a pang of disappointment. When she showed Travis, he had sighed. She could see he shared the same feelings. They had stood in silence, pondering it for a long moment, then he had kissed her lips lightly and said, “Eh, one day. ”
“I’m thirty-six,” Katie had said.
“I’m thirty-two,” Travis answered. Then he had mussed her hair.
“No fair looking younger than me. ”
But her point was made. That night they returned all the condoms to the supply store. Bringing a baby into the world was a scary thought, but the reality was that they had to keep living their lives or the dead would truly win.
The day of the vote, Travis held Katie tight as the ballots were counted and announced. When she closed her eyes and sank back against him, he had kissed her neck and cuddled her close.
That night, Shane and Phillip were given a sedan with a full tank of gas, two rifles with ammo, and a week’s supply of MREs.
“The bitch will pay,” Shane said to Travis and Juan as he climbed into the driver’s seat.
The gates opened and the two men, who had caused so much pain, were gone.
“Good riddance,” Nerit said as the sedan drove away.
“I hope the zombies eat them,” Jenni said with a fierce look.
“I’m just glad it's over,” Katie sighed.
Travis just stood in silence and had a terrible feeling that it was not yet over.
2. Vigilante Justice
Five hours later, Phillip stumbled up to the far corner of the fort. It was an isolated point, one that was always manned. Breathless and terrified, he called up to the guard on watch.
“Help me! They are right behind me,” he cried out frantically.
“Where’s your friend?” the guard asked.
“Shane? I don’t know. Our car broke down and we tried to make it back here. We got separated when zombies attacked us. Our guns didn’t work. I barely escaped and ran here. Let me in for god’s sake,”
Phillip said in breathless desperation.
The guard’s head tilted. “I don’t think so. ”
Philip looked up at the guard in shock. “You can’t do this. You have no right. You know me. You know I didn’t do anything. It was all Shane!”
The guard’s head shook from side to side. “Sorry, but it ends here for you. ”
Slowly, the truth dawned on Philip. “It’s you! You set it up! You killed Jimmy and Ritchie! You rigged our guns so they wouldn’t work. ”
With a slow sigh, the guard nodded. “Yeah, I did. You should have died out there with Shane. Good thing you came to my post. ” Then the guard’s gun barked and Phillip toppled over, screaming and clutching his leg. With satisfaction, the guard watched as the zombies finally caught up with Shane’s sidekick and began to pull him apart, feasting with ravenous hunger.
3. The Aftermath of the Verdict
The next morning when Katie came on duty, she looked down to see Philip staring up at her with one eye.
“Shit,” she said, and pondered putting a bullet through it. “Ah, dammit. Seriously, dammit. ”
Phillip's horribly mutilated form moaned low in its throat as one badly chewed arm lifted toward the fort. He was torn in half and his torso was propped up by one arm. His legs lay nearby. The zombies that had eaten him wandered around in the street below, not aware of Katie on top of the wall. As always, the zombies seemed listless and confused unless they saw their prey.
The Phillip zombie let out another anguished cry and his undead brethren slowly moved to where he stood. As Katie lifted her walkietalkie to her mouth, a few looked up, saw her, and began to moan.
“I’ve got Philip outside the wall,” she said.
“He came back?” Peggy’s voice answered in disbelief.
“Yeah. But not alive,” Katie responded and sighed.
There was a burst of static, then, “Shit. I’ll let her know. ”
Jenni bounced up the wood steps to the platform with two breakfast tacos wrapped in foil in her hands. “Hey, girlfriend, what’s up?” Her hair was up in a ponytail and she wore a T-shirt that read “Zombie Killah” in red puff paint. The women of the fort had a t-shirtdecorating party a few nights back. While most of the T-shirts were decorated with flowers, animals, or cowboy paraphernalia, Jenni’s had fake bullet holes and a nice slogan.
Katie pointed down into the street.
“Whoa. It’s like Ritchie, Part Two,” Jenni said, her eyes widening.
“But like, grosser. It looks like he was a big ol' wishbone. ”
“Nice way to put it,” Katie said, and rubbed her nose. The fragrance of the tacos mixing with the decaying reek of the zombies was not very palatable.
“He is seriously chewed up,” Jenni set the tacos down and leaned against the wall. This made the zombies howl and began to beat against the concrete bricks. “Gnawed down to the bone in some places. Wow. ”
Katie slid the new crossbow Jason had made into position and aimed it downward. It was a huge contraption that slid on a track along the side of the wall. It was loaded and ready. The crossbow was already aimed downward. A small lever let the person firing it adjust the angle. The trigger always remained in the same position. The sight was rigged up with mirrors and was very accurate. It was an easy way to kill the zombies without wasting ammunition. Katie personally thought the thing was monstrous in size, but it was effective. And it made Jason very proud that he had designed and built it.
The zombies below were banging against the wall with their decaying hands, or in some cases, gnawed stumps. One was moving its arms and legs up and down, as if it was trying to swim or climb up the concrete wall.
“Don’t kill the Phillip one. Nerit and Bill are going to want to see that one,” Jenni said as she ate her taco.
Katie nodded and began to fire down at the other dead creatures. It was hard to look into those once-human faces and feel anything other than stark fear. The gapping maws, pale eyes, and decaying flesh were the stuff of her nightmares. As the crossbow fired, there was a satisfying thwank! as the bolts slammed through the skulls of the undead beasts below. Katie gave in to her grim duty and pushed away thoughts of who the zombies had once been.
“Let me see, Katie-girl,” Bill said as he lumbered up onto the platform.
Katie slid the crossbow away and stepped to one side.
Bill looked down at the dead man in the street below surrounded by his now truly-dead brethren. “Yep. That’s Phil. ”
“I like him better this way,” a voice called out from a nearby sentry platform. It was Lenore.
Jenni gave her the thumbs up.
Lenore nodded.
“Zombies definitely had a field day with him,” Katie sighed. “
Any ideas of what may have gone wrong?”
“Maybe Shane ditched him to lessen his load,” Bill said in a low voice.
“I would not put that past him. He is such a total shit,” Jenni said, and continued munching on her breakfast taco.
The sight of Jenni eating with that awful smell wafting up from below made Katie nauseous, but Jenni had a better defense mechanism built into her brain than most of them. It was probably because she was an abused wife. Katie knew from experience that abused women developed extraordinary coping skills to survive their abusive situations. Jenni was quite adept at disassociating herself. It was probably both a blessing and a curse at times like these.
Nerit joined their small group, her sniper rifle held lightly in the crook of her arm. She glanced over the wall and studied the scene. “I want a closer look at him. ”
“Me, too,” Bill said.
“Why?” Katie arched an eyebrow at them. “He's obviously undead now. ”
Nerit pointed to one of the legs. “I want to see that one. Something is wrong with it. ”
“Well, it is chewed down like a chicken leg,” Jenni commented.
“The way the bone is shattered doesn't sit right with me either,” Bill said.