Over my shoulder, I saw the dead man's legs draw upward in spasms. The woman stood and moved in front of me. Tears ran down her cheeks and her shoulders drooped. She pulled a pistol from a thigh holster, and I stepped back. Her pain and sorrow showed on her face as she steeled herself to the task.
"I can do that for you," I offered.
She didn't look at me. "I'll do it. He said I had to do it if this happened. I have to protect the ones he left behind."
Faster than I'd have believed possible, the new undead body threw the fast moving zombie off and surged up off the floor with its mouth gaping open. Frighteningly quick it reached for the young girl in one unbridled lunge. She scampered away. The woman reacted just as fast. She raised her arm and three shots from the large caliber handgun blasted through the zombie's right temple. Blood and brains splattered against boxes on the shelves and ricocheted through the air.
The girl screamed and leaped to the woman. They both wailed loudly and sank to their knees clutching each other tightly.
The other man, middle aged I noticed, spoke. He had vivid blood splatters on his shirt. His hands, neck, and the left side of his face were speckled with red. He muttered, "I don't know what to do next. My son-in-law was our strength since the zombie attack. He made the major decisions in these types of situations." He turned to look at the woman and child. "I guess we'll finish collecting supplies and head back home." He looked at us with tears streaming down his cheeks and laid his hand on the woman's shoulder. She sobbed and looked as distraught as the older man. She stood and pulled the girl up with her.
I turned and looked questioningly at John, then Janice. They each nodded.
"I'm Tom. My friends are John and Janice. We have a compound in Iowa, and you're invited to join us if you'd like to. There are twenty-six of us, and you'll be welcome and safe there."
The man wiped away tears with a shirt sleeve. His brown hair was thin at the crown; a bare circle was forming. I judged him to be five feet ten inches tall and about two-hundred–thirty pounds. "Kira is my daughter, and Paige is my grand-daughter. I'm Walter Conley." He pointed to the corpse that had just turned. "That was Carl Schafer, Kira's husband." Carl had been a big, powerful, rugged looking man
Walter and Kira conferred for a minute. "Thank you." Kira said. "We'd like to go with you. We'll work and earn our way however we can help."
Janice stepped forward and extended a slender hand to Kira as she introduced herself. "We have strict rules, but they're common sense things for the good of all. There are daily work assignments and mandatory training for everyone. We also have a teacher for the children. Paige makes five students."
I drew the attention of our new members. "One thing I want to be clear about up front is the requirement that you'll be separated and placed in solitary confinement for three weeks. If you're infected, you'll be put down. After the three-week period, you'll be members of our group, but only then. Do you agree to that?"
Walter and Kira exchanged glances before they silently nodded. Kira spoke to Paige to comfort her and assure her that everything would be alright. Paige still stared at her daddy's body but stood straight and tall beside Kira.
I dug in the rucksack hanging on my left hip and tossed bottles of water and disinfectant to Walter. "You need to clean up, get the blood off of you before it finds an opening in your skin." He headed toward a restroom at the back wall to use a mirror. John pulled a flashlight from his utility belt and followed.
As the situation calmed, I noticed Kira was attractive, a tall, slender, brunette with lovely features. She wore a long sleeved pullover shirt and jeans over hiking boots. Paige was slender like her mother, cute, and dressed similarly.
When I spoke to Kira, she looked up. "We'll load your truck and you can follow us. We'll use it until it needs major repairs. When that happens, it'll be junked. We have newer Ford trucks, all diesels. It makes repairs and parts replacement simpler to keep one brand. The three of you can help load all the supplies we can find into the trucks and our trailer." She nodded, so I continued, "We'll wrap your husband's body and place him on top of the trailer. We'll bury him at our place. We have a cemetery for our members, and since you've joined us, he'll be interred there."
We found enough food and other supplies to fill our equipment that evening, and then we headed back to Iowa in the dark. My thoughts were somber; I kept going back to Carl Schafer and the speed with which he transitioned into a zombie. This was a new development for concern. We would have to address this issue at the next weekly group meeting. Everyone needed to be aware that a dead body could possibly turn into a zombie in a fraction of the time previously seen. The most important impact was that the new creature could attack
