“Nate,” said Maria tenderly, placing a gentle hand on his arm. “That’s enough.”
There was a near audible whoosh as everybody breathed in again, Maria’s soft words breaking the spell. Nate nodded and returned to the table, sipping at his coffee like nothing had happened.
“Go and get yourself cleaned up,” said Maria with a heartbreaking amount of compassion. Shit, once the threat was gone, you could see Isaac’s expression just crumble as he became aware of his lapse. Humiliated, he mumbled something like an apology to Maria and fled the room.
Everybody else turned away and went back to their business, as Maria sat at the table to have a quiet word with Nate.
A lion doesn’t care about a puppy yapping at its tail.
But woe to that fucking puppy if it forces the lion to turn.
HOPE
Dean took two steps back from Sarah, refitting the plugs into his ears. His eyes remained fixed on the young woman as she steadied her grip on the pistol.
“Remember, squeeze the trigger, don’t pull it,” he instructed.
Sarah acknowledged the instruction with a nod, her features fixed in concentration. Auburn hair tied back from her face in a single tight braid, and both hands on the Glock, she aimed at the archery target thirty yards away. It was a tricky shot for an amateur, but Sarah had applied herself like she did to every lesson, proving herself a competent handler of the weapon. From short range she could hit the painted silhouette of a human torso and head every time, smacking the bullets into centre mass and the head without fail. The undead, however, were unaffected by centre mass, so accuracy was key.
With her ears plugged against the noise, Sarah’s fingertip squeezed the trigger. The handgun barked, and Dean grinned with pride as a puff exploded from the target’s painted head.
What a world we live in now, he thought with regret. Where I’m smiling at an eighteen-year old’s successful head shot.
“Nice,” he winked, one hand reaching to grip the girl’s shoulder for a light squeeze of congratulation.
For four months, Dean had been the de facto leader of the survivors at Crenshaw school. Both he and Sarah had birthdays in September, and it was now almost the end of October. Dean had turned forty-six on the 8th, and Sarah eighteen on the 19th. She was the eldest of the surviving students, and easily the smartest.
Academically adept, Sarah’s emotional intelligence was also more advanced than her peers, and probably beyond her years. Losing her mother when she was just thirteen, having such a strained relationship with her father, and living at the school during term time had combined to make Sarah Walsh supremely self-reliant. Though she had cried when Dean told her of his last conversation with her father, she then adapted, locking her grief away. Neither of them fooled themselves into thinking he made it out of Chester.
Sarah was a tough girl. Tough woman, Dean corrected himself. She was eighteen now. Barely an adult, but an adult none the less.
Despite the awful state of the world, Dean couldn’t abide the thought of putting firearms into the hands of children, but once Sarah turned eighteen – and shown she had the right mentality for it – he agreed. It was simple fact that supply runs outside the school walls were getting more difficult and doing anything alone was fraught with peril. As much as he hated the thought of endangering Sarah after promising her father to take care of her, this was the best way to protect her. She had to be able to survive in this new world, with an ability to protect herself and others.
It had not been easy these past four months, despite the school’s numerous conveniences that made their continued survival possible. Artesian wells, a huge solar power array across the roofs of virtually every building, backup diesel generators wired in, a huge tank of diesel at the rear which had been three-quarters full, an on-site maintenance area with a massive wood shop and selection of tools, and so much more. The huge fees paid every term by wealthy parents had been smartly invested by the school’s governance, and the early transition to solar power was genius, involving an initially steep capital outlay but one that would ultimately pay for itself over the subsequent years. The term fees kept going up every year, but the energy bills were coming down, making the school more profitable year on year.
Graham Smith, the only remaining teacher that had stayed on site with the last of the children, was well versed in the solar power aspect of the school. Being the head of science, and both a physics and chemistry graduate, his natural scientific leanings meant he was interested by all aspects of it and been the school’s key liaison with the contractors overseeing the installation project. Crenshaw could afford to pick elite staff and pay top wages, keeping the wealthy parents subscribing to their school’s mantra of producing the future elite, and Graham Smith was certainly picked from the top drawer of candidates.
Sarah was now only the third adult on site, along with Dean and Graham. When the police officer had arrived at the school four months ago, only Graham and twelve students remained. One of those children, Thomas, was already dying from a bite and Dean had endured the grim task of putting him to rest for a second time when the toxic wound eventually killed him.
Five more had been lost since then. In the first couple of weeks, one girl had died in the night. Angela had been a timid, shy child that suffered with asthma. Struggling to breathe in the early hours and finding her inhaler empty, she tried to get up and alert someone for a refill but fell against a bedside table and broke her neck. Three more girls died in that small dormitory as the child reanimated and unleashed a silent, murderous
