watched the video. Dora had immediately called out for all the council members to 'Get your asses over here like they were on fire!' Leon looked the most rested and seemed ready to get down to business. A general, pissed, grumpy mood was the order of the morning, no one had gotten more than a few hours of sleep, all of them had bags under their eyes and coffee mugs in their hands.

'What is the big news that couldn't wait for this afternoon?' asked Freddy without his usual smile.

'Freddie, you think I would get you up here for bullshit? After the night we just lived through?'

Freddie looked down, and mumble, 'You? Maybe…'

'I didn't. Paige? Play the first one.'

Page had her laptop sitting on the counter; she had transferred all the video files to it and had them paused and ready to play.

The video image was of low resolution, still they knew immediately what they were seeing. An army truck. The truck was sitting beside a QuickStop gas station between the fuel pumps and the store windows. The video had panned around a little showing a street sign and some houses that Dora recognized.

'This is to the north west, just a few blocks over past the bombed area.' The video continued to linger on the truck until two men appeared around the front of it, one looked around at the surrounding buildings and they all heard a low voice that the camera barely picked up. They could not make out what it was saying. Dora volunteered, 'I think it is Jeff. I think he is saying 'Don't see me. Don't see me.''

The man, a white guy with broad shoulders paused looking straight at the camera for a moment. The other man just as tall and muscular stayed at the font of the truck. Dora gestured and Paige paused the video, then zoomed in on the face, it was distorted, but clear.

Leon was the first to see it, 'That's Sargent Waller!'

Beaming Dora said, 'Yes. Everyone agree?' Sargent Waller was the army national guardsmen who rode shotgun on the truck that delivered supplies to the group every week and dropped off any kids the army had found.

'Yeah it is him.' said Freddie, 'Zoom back a bit to the other guy.' Paige zoomed out and he continued, 'But what the hell is he doing over there? And he isn't in uniform. Is that…I recognize that other guy too. Miller or something? He drives the trucks once in a while?'

'Watch, it gets better.' Dora said she gestured and Paige played the movie again.

The video showed Waller getting the keys out of his truck and going back inside the building then the video abruptly stopped. Paige cued up the second video snippet and the audience resumed watching.

The second video was shot from the same location except the scene was much darker. After a moment the back door opened bathing the alley in artificial white light. One of the twin blond girls came out into the alley by the dumpster. Following her was Waller and a third man they all recognized after a moment as one of the soldiers who frequently visited on the supply truck. The three zombies went to a dumpster and Waller unlocked a padlock on the top of it then pushed the lid up. Reaching inside he pulled an adult man out of it, the man was naked and shivering in the cool evening air. Waller lifted the guy with one hand, as if he were lifting a loaf of bread. With contemptuous ease he tossed the man to the ground between the girl and the other 'soldier', the man did not even try to get up. The little girl grabbed the naked man by one ankle and started to drag him into the rear door of the gas station while the unnamed soldier laughed. When the man's hands reached the door sill he tried to hold on, but with a quick tug from the inside his fingers were pulled off the doorway and he disappeared. A moment later there was a brief scream. Waller was still outside, and once again his gaze seemed to find the camera lens, he stared for a moment and then went back into the building, returning the alley to darkness.

The next video on the player showed the alley again from a slightly different perspective, the camera was moving a little, like it was being operated by unsteady hands. There was a shadowy form visible on the screen in the starlight. The camera zoomed in clumsily, showing sky and then ground before getting back on a wiry man approaching the dumpster.

'That is Jeff.' Paige said, for anyone who could not figure that out themselves.

Jeff made it to the dumpster, he had his short double barreled shot gun in one hand and was keeping it aimed at the door, with his offhand he carefully examined the lock on the dumpster. After a moment he tilted the lock back down and it looked like he was talking to someone inside the dumpster. The back door abruptly opened, bathing the area in light, quick as a cat Jeff dodged to the side and put the dumpster between himself and the doorway. No one came outside at first, then there was a shadow and a naked dirty zombie shuffled slowly out of the building. When it was at the doorway it was kicked from behind and went sprawling onto the dirty pavement. It struggled to get up briefly revealing a terrible tear near the top of its left leg, a cut so deep that it looked like a paperback book could be shoved inside of it. There was no blood, none dripping out of the wound and none obvious down the leg or on the zombie's belly. The zombie stood and looked back into the room, where one of the little girls appeared at the doorway, she was swinging it shut and called out to the zombie, something the video camera did not catch.

Paige paused the video, went back a few frames and turned up the volume, 'I had the volume turned down, there is a lot of breathing. We can stomach it for a moment so you can listen to this.'

The video resumed from where the door opened and they could hear some rapid breathing from someone behind the camera. It was so fast that is almost sounded like a dog panting, the door opened and laughter was heard, then 'Welcome to the Army! Time for patrol duty.' followed by more laughter, as the zombie was pushed down they could hear it scrabbling on the ground, flesh slapping on concrete. As one half of the wonder twins shut the door they heard, 'Let me know if you find anything, go.'

The video showed the zombie start to shuffle around the dumpster and head towards the front, abruptly it stopped and faced the deep shadow beside the dumpster where the watchers knew Jeff was hiding. It started towards the shadow and Jeff lurched suddenly into view. He moved with an unbelievable grace and he clubbed the zombie back, then twisted past it and swept one of its legs out from under the thing, the zombie whirled around and fell next to the dumpster as Jeff sped off into the night.

The video stopped again and Paige went on to the next one. The screen stayed dark and they heard Jeff say, 'I told you to go if anything like that happened.' His voice was an angry whisper.

'I know.' came the quiet reply of a young boy or girl.

'You stuck around. I ain't mad. You have the camera?'

'Can we go now?'

'We better… Oh you left it on.'

A loud bang sounded and the camera came up in a blur to focus on the back door again. The light silhouetted a shadowy form making a bee line towards the camera holder and someone from the doorway called out, 'Where the fuck are you going? I told you to go the other way, towards the town idiot!' The male super zombie caught up with the slow zombie and spun it around, pointing it towards the wasteland.

'What?' The super said, 'C'me here!' The slow zombie was jerked around until it was face to face with the super now recognizable as Sargent Waller. The camera was still zoomed in, so it was hard to tell how far away from the zombies the person filming them was. The view was good, even if the faces were cast in shadows by the light from the doorway.

The super zombie was staring intently into the other's eyes, like it was reading something.

'Some sort of mind reading.' They heard Jeff whisper, 'Get this to Dora. Nadine, take it, get it to Dora!'

'Jeff, no! Jeff!' the small voice trailed off, the view of the camera was shadowed out for the briefest of seconds as it struggled to auto focus on what was going on. Jeff sprinted forward, his shotgun aimed out in front of him. Waller was not facing towards Jeff, he was looking more towards the bombed out ruins. Jeff took advantage of this and came in behind the man, in full view of the slow zombie. As Jeff ran up the super zombie lifted the slow zombie completely off the ground and spun him around in an arc designed to hit anyone approaching him from behind. Jeff was quicker. He slid under the swinging body and to the base of Waller's feet, where he pushed his shotgun up towards the zombies head and fired with both barrels. The camera jumped at the noise and when it returned to survey the scene only the slow zombie and Jeff were moving. Fuller was on his back sideways to the camera angle, it was hard to tell, but it looked like his head was missing. The doorway immediately filled with shadowy shapes and dull pistol shots rang out. The duct taped barrel was visible in the upper corner of the camera and bucked each time the small hand holding it fired. The noise was surprisingly faint.

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