Turning Tiller called to one of his men, 'Scott, they will keep them, unload the puppy chow!'
The man grinned and hopped back into the truck, they unloaded eight bags of puppy chow and four bags filled with raw hide other chew toys for the dogs. Scott said, 'I knew you would take them! I put in plenty of chew toys, these guys are going to want them soon and you aren't going to want them chewing up your shoes and stuff. Here is some medicine for them too, don't you got a doctor here?'
'Yes, Mary, she isn't a vet.'
'No but she can give them shots.' Scott pressed a brown bag into Dora's hands, 'This should be enough for rabies and heart worm for the first year, she can figure out the doses and get them taken care of.' The man grinned again then went back to the truck.
'He like dogs or what?'
'Yeah he wouldn't let me put these down, the mother was nowhere around, most of the time we kill the dogs when we see them, so they don't go feral. He thought you could use them and convinced me of it.'
'Well I guess it is too late to refuse them now, if we end up staying here we can always eat them this winter.' said Dora looking as the kids of the town started playing with their new acquisitions.
'I don't think it will that bad. The Guard will help keep the zombies off of your back, I will push hard for that, and if they don't we will unofficially be doing some heavier patrols around the town.'
'That is good to hear. Now we just need manpower to complete the hall and scavenge, plus larger vehicles to do it. Maybe a semi or a bus…yeah a bus would be good, we could take out a bunch of seats. I will get the scouts looking for one.'
Tiller shrugged, 'There are a few schools around, it shouldn't be too much trouble to find one. I would get a truck if I were you, maybe a U-haul style with a box on the back.'
Dora thought about this for a moment and said, 'Maybe, but the problem is getting the manpower to the area we need to loot too. With a bus we could hold ten people to act as guards and laborers once we got to where we were going.'
'That makes sense. Well I gotta get these grunts back to base before they start worrying about us. Good luck, Dora! It was a pleasure to meet you. We will try and stop by sooner than in a week if we can.'
'Good, thanks Sargent. Keep your heads down out there!' Dora said with a smile.
After the military truck took off Dora adopted one of the puppies for Mike and let the kids distribute the others, when they started to bicker over who would get the puppies Dora stepped in. She thought Mary would not like to have more than one in her house so the kids staying with her only got to choose one for the residence, then she split the others up more or less by area. Finally to all the kids who were crestfallen about not getting a dog, she said they could come by and play with hers anytime they wanted, in fact she told them to set up a walking schedule among themselves, leaving it to the older kids to be fair.
'You work well with them.' Paige said.
'They aren't mine. I can just send them home when they start to bug the piss out of me.' The nine kids who would be watching Mike's dog were in the front yard with the puppy arguing about the walking order. Dora stepped up to say the dog could probably use more than one walking a day, and maybe up to three and anyone not holding the leash could go along for the walk. After that the debate among them got down to brass tacks and Dora stepped back to stand with Paige on her porch.
'So, what do you think about our super zombie soldier friends?' she asked Paige.
'Think? I think they are using us for a breeding ground like you think. I think they may have protected us from the worst of the horde that came through here a month ago. I think those two little girls are at the head of it.'
'Pure speculation, but why not? They have to have a reason to keep us, why not as cattle, they just cull the herd as they need to and protect us like any good shepherds would from predators. We could live like that you know.'
'Survive like that, are you serious? Knowing that we are cattle?' Paige shook her head, 'No, not us. Maybe somewhere someday, but not here, not now. We would know that at some point someone was just going to disappear and we couldn't live with that. How many do they need a month to live? God knows we can't produce enough babies to make this work. Do you think this is why they are giving us all the kids they find and no adults?'
'Honestly?' Dora asked, Paige nodded, 'Honestly I think that kids can survive this better than adults. How many of these kids have stories of watching zombies eat their parents and siblings?'
'Pretty much all of them.' It was one thing most of the children had in common, other than Peter not a single child here had their real mother or father with them.
'Okay, now, of the few adults we have here, how many of them watched their children eaten alive by zombies?'
'Well no one…' Paige's voice trailed off.
'See? A mother or father would not stand by to watch their kid devoured, but a kid? No, kids are a different kind of creature altogether aren't they? I hope you were not wondering what they would do if the zombies were coming for you and they were standing around. I know I wasn't. Hell I am not even related to any of them, I know where I stand and what would happen in that situation.'
'Damn. You think of the strangest things.'
'You didn't say I was wrong, or that you disagreed with me.'
'What? Haven't I been telling you that you are right enough lately? Do you really need me to say it more often?' Paige asked.
Dora laughed and said, 'No three or four times a day is enough.'
'Dora, do you think your baby would fight for you?'
'No. No I don't. And I wouldn't want him to. I would want him to run and live, to make my sacrifice worthwhile. See? Kids suck; they will get you killed.' Dora patted her belly, which was not showing her pregnancy at all. 'Well on that positive note we better gather up the rest of the council and have our little talk early today, so we can plan what to do.' Dora called out to the kids in the yard and sent one after each of the council members.
The council convened for their afternoon discussion in Dora's house, about three hours earlier than normal.
'We may have a problem.' Steve said as soon as everyone had sat down.
'Gee, no call to order or anything, no 'Howdee do'?' said Dora, she waved at Steve disgruntled look, 'Oh fine, go on then, what is the problem?'
'What may be the problem.' Steve said, emphasizing 'may', 'Is the scouting parties that got back. They know something is up. They went beyond where our visitors have been telling us the front lines are and discovered there are no front lines. We should have told them not to talk about it sooner. This is my mistake, I didn't have a sit down with them until after those zombies left this morning. And by now they have all mentioned it to the others, the whole town has got to know at this point. Well the adults anyway.'
'Shit. That is not good Steve. I thought I told you to keep it on the down low?' Dora said.
'You did. It was my mistake. What do we do about it?'
'Are the people talking?'
A chorus of 'no' went around the room, except for Leon, who raised his hand. 'Yes. Tim came to me and asked me directly.'
'Fuck, we haven't moved him out to the water tower yet?'
'It was just two days ago, Dora. After we got hit so hard we didn't move him out there.'
'So what did you tell him?'
'That I would ask the council. I am not a good liar, but that was not much of a lie. I need to ask you what we are going to tell everyone.' Leon said.
'Well I think we are fucked now. All it will take is for the zombies to catch one of us who knows and beat it out of us, or kill us and bring us back and beat it out of us.'
'Or maybe not even that.' Steve said.
'What do you mean?' asked Mary.
'Well when I spoke with Peter…'
'Peter is awake?' asked Dora.
