"When we had some Army guys visiting, they fired some bullets into Charlie so that we could test bullet damage. I latter found out that they didn't have much ammunition but they used a few of their remaining bullets as they were probably as curious as me. We shot at various parts of Charlie until we hit him in the head. One hit to his head and his body turned into dust and fell to the ground. The wind just blew the dust away."
"I've shot at the dead before, but never in their heads. When we learn to use our rifles we are taught to aim at the centre of the biggest body mass. Shooting in the chest is pure instinct to me. I would never have tried to target the head."
Dave nodded. "You're not the only one to be caught out like that. The army guys from the camp over the river were trying to figure out a way of setting up outposts away from their camp. They set up this intersection as some sort of forward firebase, or however they'd describe it, and promptly got swarmed by masses of the dead. They had no idea that headshots were how you killed the walkers and ended up just wasting their firepower to no effect."
Jane kicked some of the empty casings that were scattered about her feet. "They certainly went to town."
"I wasn't there, but I'm suspecting that the walkers couldn't climb over these makeshift walls. That meant that this base was probably reasonably safe. I've never seen any of the dead climbing over these walls. I've been here for a while and I've never seen anything non-human in the centre of this intersection. Although there are blockages further down this street we did see a talker near where we had Charlie, but those walls are incomplete and there could be still a simple way of reaching Charlie's location with just a little climbing."
"So, the walkers can't climb anything too difficult."
"Yep. When I asked about what happened here, I'm guessing that the Army guys from the other camp were a little embarrassed. As they fired their guns they made a lot of noise. This attracted more and more walkers. Although the walkers couldn't get around or over these hastily made walls, the sheer number of them must have panicked everyone here and they just fled and headed back to their base."
Dave pointed south to highlight the direction of their retreat.
"Didn't the the walkers just follow them?" asked Jane clearly confused.
Jane noticed the dark frown on Dave's forehead. "The river stopped the walkers from crossing."
"What?" said Jane completely unable to hide the surprise in her voice.
"Until recently the river was effective in preventing the walkers from crossing."
"So, something recently changed?"
Dave hesitated. "It doesn't make any sense. I'd rather not talk about it."
"Did you do something?" asked Jane carefully.
Dave jolted in surprise. "No. No. It's what I saw. It just made no sense. A part of me is thinking that I'm just being crazy. I'm worried that if I speak about it out loud, that I might discover that I actually am insane. But that's probably an overreaction. A sign of being tired. I simply have no data. I'm certain a lack of data is the real issue. I don't have enough data so I'm trying to fill in the gaps between known points with wild extrapolation. Sadly, my wild extrapolation is just too wild and the known points too few. I need data to bring it under control and start making sense of it all again."
"That sounds confusing."
Dave had a sad laugh. "That's a fair way to describe it. I need some time and some solid data to put my thoughts together. Until then I feel that I can only contribute useless speculation. Which is another way of saying that I should just shut up."
Jane looked hard at Dave. "We'll just have to work with what we have."
Together they took one more look at the light post where Charlie had been tied, before Jane started moving.
"Where are we going?" asked Dave.
Jane pointed slightly to the left of north. "There's a Police station just up here. It's a small rural one but it should be good enough."
"I saw that before," said Dave. "I didn't bother with it as I assumed that it would be locked up pretty tightly."
"It probably is locked up tightly. But it isn't a big city Police station. I'm hoping that it won't be as well built as a city station."
"What's your plan?"
"I want to break into it."
Dave nodded. Jane's attempt at being mysterious was a little weird, but there was no doubt a good reason for what she was doing. Together, they continued approaching the Police station.
* * *
Dave and Jane looked at the Police station. It was a simple wooden slat house with an inclined concrete ramp leading to its entrance.
"It's going to be tough breaking into here," said Dave.
"I'm not so sure about that," said Jane.
"This is a police station," said Dave gesturing towards the building. "It might look like an ordinary house but I bet that it's probably built way tougher than an ordinary house."
"We might not have to worry about that. Remember, the outbreak occurred during the day."
Dave frowned while trying to understand Jane's point. "It probably started in the morning."
"And it appears to have spread all through the city in a few hours."
"I don't understand how that helps us right now."
"If the outbreak occurred at night then this station would have been most likely locked up and we'd have a problem with getting in. But since the outbreak happened during the day then the front door should be simply unlocked."
As if to prove her point, Jane walked to the front door of the police station, reached out to the handle, and slid the door open.
"Careful," said Dave.
Jane wasn't sure what Dave's warning meant before she suddenly realised and stepped back. They both remained quiet for a minute while listening for any sounds of
