“Maybe we can send out John to have a look,” Rosa suggested. “Maybe there are a bunch of people alive over there.” She turned back to Q. “And we’ll take care of your parents, Quentin. When the time is right.”
Somehow, he believed that. His smile grew slightly. “OK.”
Their conversation was interrupted by Ern’s laughter, cackling through the cafeteria before being joined by Joe’s rich guffaw. They sounded genuine, and it felt good. Several other people started chuckling along.
Rosa patted Q on the shoulder and got up, moving over to join Tammy, Breanne, and the ever concerned-looking Shelley.
There is something special about her, Q thought as he watched her go.
He looked over at Steve, thinking of something macho to say. But one look at the boy killed that idea. Steve was smiling. It took Q a moment to realize that he was smiling too.
Hope.
That’s what this feeling is. Like, maybe we’re going to be OK.
“Let’s go get some more of that orange juice,” he said. The younger boy nodded enthusiastically and led the way.
Chapter 56
John
November 10, 7:45 A.M.
“I think we’re getting close,” BB said over his shoulder as he turned the Humvee down the broad road. “This looks like the place that Ben described.”
More zombies came into view. The destroyed undead along their route showed that they had been going in starts and stops all morning.
Abi signaled the second vehicle as John flipped open the hatch. He watched as Bill popped the hatch on the other Humvee and started shooting.
Easy, cowboy.
He watched Bill waste several shots, maiming the undead that approached but not putting them down for good. John deliberately took time to shoot.
Two for two. That’s more like it. He couldn’t help grinning at the other vehicle before berating himself.
Show-off.
He was about to sit down and close the hatch when the walkie-talkie on his belt chirped.
Ben’s tinny voice emanated from the device. “You’re getting close. I think you’re just down the street from my position, over.”
“OK, BB. Move up. Nice and slow. He’s right around here, somewhere.”
The Humvee moved down another fifty yards before the walkie-talkie chirped again with Ben’s disembodied voice. “Ok I’ve got eyes on. Hold position.”
BB hit the brakes and the Humvees came to a halt. John popped out of the hatch, as did Nat in the second vehicle. They had been switching back and forth at every stop.
Maybe they’re having a shooting contest. John suspected that they did. Nat’s winning, he decided.
John signaled “eyes out.” John and Nat took several shots, downing a small handful of zombies.
After fifteen seconds the coast was clear, and John got back on the walkie-talkie to let Ben know that he could come down. He popped back up out of the hatch to provide cover.
Inside the vehicle, Abi communicated the same to Emily. “Don’t shoot unless 100% sure target is a tango, over.”
John hoped that Nat wasn’t trigger-happy. He didn’t fully trust Ben yet, despite his heroic actions of the night before. That didn’t mean he wanted him shot, though. He lifted his M4 skyward in hopes that Nat would do likewise.
A minute later, Ben came out of a front door and scrambled to the vehicles. He had hidden out in a tall, three-story condominium. John looked up and appreciated the insight that Ben must have had, especially with the pressure of a following horde of zombies. The access to the condominium was elevated, up about ten steps. The condo itself was one of those “up and down” ones, as Melissa called them. Ben would have had a commanding view of the area from that rooftop, along with a reasonably defendable position.
John ducked down and opened his door, beckoning Ben. The soldier quickly ran over and got into the Humvee.
“Job done. Let’s roll,” John ordered as soon as Ben had shut his door.
They had drawn the attention of a small group of zombies further down the street, but quickly turned around and sped away. Fifteen minutes later, the convoy was back inside the safety of the school property, and the warriors congratulated each other warmly.
Combat breeds brotherhood, John thought as he watched the others hug and pound each other on the back. He wasn’t sure who had coined that phrase, but it sure as hell was true.
THAT NIGHT, THE PEOPLE at the Ren celebrated again. There were plenty of challenges and decisions ahead of them, but the immediate danger had passed. While one team collected Ben, Jack had used the previous night’s power outage as motivation to get serious about solar power.
Getting the solar panel arrays up and running turned out to be a lot easier than everybody had thought. As it happened, all the required pieces had already been set up at the Ren. The only challenge was to prevent the system from pushing the electricity back into the grid versus supplying power to the school. Even this was not to be a serious issue, as Jack found a simple switch that connected the building’s main power line to the batteries. The biggest problem he faced was to disconnect one of the panes from the network, as it had been shot through with bullets.
The Ren was running on its own power that evening. The entire population gave a cheer of thanks to the science program at the Ren. Breanne promptly complained that they were too loud. The woman had received an impressive twenty stitches to her head, which was wrapped in several layers of bandaging, giving her a severe look. People stopped their cheer and stood around in an uncomfortable silence for a moment.
“Kidding!” she added. The crowd laughed. She lit up at the reaction. Several people overheard her telling Tammy that being funny was her thing.
Almost overlooked were Ern and Keith. They had gotten to work first thing in the morning as well. Only, their project had to do with water. They cleaned out a couple of barrels and used them to set up a rainwater collection system. Thanks
