"What about Tammy?" Liz asked.
"We can't take her with us. She's too weak. For all we know, she's going to die anyway." Theresa said.
Joan looked Theresa in the eye and said, "I can't leave her. I won't."
Katie nodded and said, "If Joan stays, then I stay."
"That decides it for me," Mort said.
Theresa looked at the three survivors, flabbergasted. "Don't be stupid. If you stay, you die. If we fight, we die. Our only hope is to leave… leave her behind and break through the dead."
"Then that's the way it has to be," Joan said. "We don't run. We don't leave the helpless. Especially not… especially not when we put them there."
"You didn't put her there," Liz said. "That's just the way it is. We can't control how her pregnancy went. That's God's plan."
"I don't believe in God," Joan said. "Especially not now."
"If you don't believe in God, then stop acting like you are one. There was nothing that you could have done. It is what it is. We can just leave and live," Liz pleaded.
"No," Joan said.
Theresa let out a long sigh. She put her hands to her face, and then slowly dragged them away. "If we're going to stay, I'm all for fighting, but I don't want to wait until I'm too weak from hunger."
They all nodded.
"What about the baby and Tammy?" Dez asked.
They all turned, regarding the unconscious Tammy on her bed.
"We'll give her a day," Joan said. "I don't think we can wait any longer. The baby comes with us. Maybe we can find some formula and some baby bottles."
Dez made a face and looked down at the baby in her arms. "And some diapers."
In other times they would have laughed. Instead, they went about the solemn business of cleaning up the baby's mess.
****
Joan stood over Tammy, feeling for her pulse. It was stronger than she expected, but it was time to go, while they still had strength, while they could still fight. "Wake up, Tammy. I need you to wake up."
"She's not going to wake up," Katie said. "We've waited long enough."
Joan knew it was true. She knew that they had waited longer than they should have. They were burning daylight, and none of them wanted to be stuck in the wilderness when the sun went down.
"I'll do it," Dez said, showing the impatience that she had shown all morning. Joan couldn't blame her. In one way or another, the ranger station had been her prison for two-thirds of a year.
They had discussed ways of putting Tammy out of her misery, although Joan now suspected that if they had enough time, she would make a full recovery. Joan had wanted to smother her. But Dez said, "She's just gonna come back after that, and then we'll have to put a spear or a bullet in her brain anyway. Why not just cut out the middle stage and end it all at once?"
It had made sense, but Joan wasn't ready to give up now. She cursed under her breath, and her emotions overtook her. She slapped Tammy across the face and yelled, "Wake up!"
Tammy groaned in pain and mumbled, "Why are you hitting me?" She sat up, and their plans all went to shit in that moment.
A hand punched through the wall of the ranger station, right behind Tammy's bed. The dead hand pulled backward, grasping onto the top of the board it had penetrated. The board gave way with a groan as the ancient, rusty nails pulled free.
"Oh fuck," Tammy groaned, looking over her shoulder.
"Mort!" Joan called.
A dead thing put its rotten face to the hole in the boards, and it thrust an arm in through the gap, pawing at Tammy. Mort rushed into the room with a spear in his hand. He jabbed it at the face between the boards, and it fell backward. When Mort pulled his spear back, it was coated in syrupy blood. Two more dead faces appeared at the gap, jostling to get inside, their dead fingers grasping onto the adjacent boards. They heard the groan of the nails on either side of the gap, and they knew their time at the ranger station was over.
"I got Tammy," Mort said.
"Why didn't you just let me sleep?" Tammy whined as Mort bent down and threw the tiny woman over his shoulder. She groaned in pain.
"She can't go out there like that!" Joan said.
Dez and Joan rushed around the room, finding clothes for Tammy to wear so she wouldn't freeze to death in the elements.
"They're coming!" Liz yelled from the room across the hall. They heard the splintering of wood.
"They're super-pissed right now!" Theresa yelled from the front of the room.
Once they had pants, shoes, and a jacket on Tammy, Mort picked her up again. "Who's got the baby?" he asked, his eyes big and round in his face.
"I do," Dez said as she slashed at a pillow with a knife. She pulled the stuffing from the pillow and wadded it up, stuffing it in the baby's ears to protect it from the sound of gunshots. It was the best thing she could think of. She placed the baby in a backpack and zipped it up, leaving enough room for air to get in. Then she held the rifle in her hands. Liz, Theresa, and Katie all had rifles. Mort walked with his hammer in one hand and his shotgun slung over his back. They left the room, the nails of the loosening boards still groaning as the dead thrust their arms in through the crack.
"We're going!" Theresa called, and Liz appeared from the back room.
Katie gave last-minute instructions, saying, "Whatever we do, keep moving! If you fall, you're done! Don't turn back for your friend. Break through the circle,
