“Ow! My arm,” Angel cried out before shrieking in pain.
Q paid her no mind, jogging back into the yard as he dragged the crying Angel along. She lost her footing, and still he dragged her. She lost a boot in the dirt, but he continued to drag her with him. Q headed straight down the narrow lane separating the corn and sunflowers. The chicken wire was up ahead.
Behind him, the screen door slapped the frame as Angel’s mom stepped into the back yard.
“Mama!” Angel cried, seeing her mother. She started to struggle against Q’s grip as they arrived at the fence. “Let me go. You’re a bad man. I knew it,” Angel yelled angrily as she pounded ineffectively at Q’s arm.
Q knew they could not climb the chicken wire fence. He also knew he couldn’t pull it loose.
The only way was to go under.
He hoped fervently that the wire was not secured into the ground as he reached down and pulled. It came up easily.
“Mama! Mama!” Angel yelled as she struggled. Q tried to work with one hand. All the while, he knew that a zombie was bearing down on them.
“Shut the fuck up!” he yelled in frustration.
“You let me go! You said a bad word. I want my mama,” Angel started beating at Q’s arm again as he sought to restrain her. Q lifted the bottom of the chicken wire several inches. He knew it wouldn’t be enough to fit under. He needed both hands.
Just then Q yelped in pain and released Angel. She had bitten him!
“Mama!” Angel turned and ran to the approaching shape. Q lunged to try to grab her but missed.
She was only several yards away from her mother. The zombie stretched its arms for the girl, and the girl did likewise as she ran to her mother’s embrace.
Q had no time to think. He pulled the bottom of the chicken wire fencing with all his might. He felt the chicken wire cut into his fingers as he pulled, but the wire came up well over a foot. He dropped down to his belly and lifted the wire in one hand, while squirming under the fence.
Just then, a shrill scream pierced the relative silence. Angel screamed and screamed. It felt like her scream lasted way longer than it had any right to. Q refused to look back and continued to squirm under the fence. His chest was clear of the wire, and he used both hands to drag himself through.
The scream ended as abruptly as it had started. Still Q refused to look back. He was past his butt now. He frantically pulled himself out, got to his feet, and ran straight out into the pasture, never once looking back.
THE GROUP SAT IN STUNNED silence as Q told his story. He dropped his head, although it was unclear if this was done out of shame or sadness. After a pregnant pause, the teenager looked up at his audience.
“I didn’t stop running until I got to the highway. I figured I would run to town and maybe get some help. It was about a mile down the road when Michelle drove up in her truck. I knew her.”
He struggled for the briefest moment before continuing.
“My parents worked on her farm for a couple months every year. Anyway, she said that the town was fu—" He caught himself. “I mean, messed up. So, I joined up with them instead.”
Tammy only nodded. There wasn’t much to be said. It was in this moment of silence that several people realized that the shooting outside had also stopped.
Sure enough, several minutes later Jack, Ethan and Maria arrived back in the library to give the all clear.
Chapter 22
John
November 7, 8:45 A.M.
The residents of the Ren sat down to a late breakfast. The morning had been busy.
Thankfully, the clearing of zombies from the fences had been completed relatively quickly. At least the shooting part. The four teams of shooters had covered the entire perimeter of the school yard in less than fifteen minutes. They’d found out that the job wasn’t done when they had all gathered back at the school entrance, though.
John had insisted that the bodies in front of the gate needed to be removed, in case the group needed to get out. He ran into the school and came back a minute later with a box of latex gloves. Half the shooters put down their guns and donned the gloves, and as one group they opened the gate and started to pull away the bodies under the protection of the rest. Only two zombies showed up as they were clearing out the school entrance. One was a crawler, his legs apparently useless. The other one was a little girl, probably about ten years old in life. Abi emitted a noise of pure anguish as she shot the child.
Mike approached John as they made their way back to the school.
“We’ll have to think of a better solution soon. Those bodies are going to start to stink.”
John nodded as he walked. “Yeah, you’re right. But I have to think about our safety first. There were over half a million people in this city. They’re going to keep coming.” He stopped and met the veteran radioman’s eyes before continuing, “I think the fact that we’re in a gated community is saving us. God knows how many of these things are on the other side.”
It was a sobering thought.
There had been one more task to complete before breakfast: the burial of a soldier named Paul. Nobody knew his name, but John had filled them in.
“How do you know that?” Ern asked as he stood on the edge of the hole that John and several others were digging.
John dug in silence for a moment. Then he stopped. He dumped the last shovel full of dirt on the growing pile beside the grave, stabbed the head of the shovel into the ground and leaned
