Four more walking child corpses that Dean was forced to put down and bury.
The last one they lost was a boy named Sam, just a few weeks earlier. He was thirteen, and one day just vanished. They searched the grounds for him, but never found a body or sign of the boy. All they could assume was that he’d decided to strike out on his own. What had possessed him to do so, Dean could only imagine. Maybe he just had to get home and thought he would be stopped if he revealed his intentions to the two adults. It was impossible to say.
Now, there were just eight remaining on site. Dean and Graham were the eldest, Sarah was now technically their third adult, and the other five residents of their small community were all kids between the ages of fourteen and seventeen. The surviving children had adapted as well as Dean could have hoped for, given the unnatural situation they had been thrust into.
JJ was the only girl after the dormitory massacre. The other four minors were all boys, though the eldest – Zain Upreti - was in the same year as Sarah and would turn eighteen at the start of December. He was desperate for the chance to shoot, but Dean refused his pleading. In his opinion, anyone that eager to fire a live weapon needed to learn temperance and patience.
The other three boys were all true minors. Daniel Mason and Joseph Evans were both fourteen, and Alex Chang was fifteen.
Alex, he discovered, was a hell of a shot with a small compound bow. The boy had been doing archery since he was ten, a sport catered for and encouraged by Crenshaw school, and the boy of Chinese heritage was a prodigy, having been the county champion for his given age group for the past two years. It was a skill that would no doubt come in handy, and Dean encouraged the boy to practice as much as he could. Having watched him shoot, the police officer was doubly impressed with his genuine ability. Alex was fast, smooth, and unerringly accurate with his bow. It would be a while before he was willing to let the boy accompany him on a supply run, but his skill with the bow would undoubtedly be an asset. From shorter ranges, he never missed the stationary head targets. A moving, murderous undead skull might be a different proposition, but the foundations were definitely in place.
“Uncle Dean?”
Sarah’s voice pulled him from his thoughts.
“Sorry, sweetheart. I was miles away. What did you say?”
“I asked if you thought I was ready?”
He sighed. “Sadly, yes, I do.”
“Sadly?”
Dean put an arm round her slim shoulders and planted an affectionate kiss on the crown of her head.
“Yes, sadly. You’re eighteen and should be thinking about university next year and planning a bright future to make golden memories. Instead, here you are with a handgun at your hip, ready to venture out into a vicious world where you might have to shoot at living people, and who might shoot back.”
Over the past few months, Dean had heard the reports of gunfire here and there when out on supply runs. Mostly they were single shots of small arms or a shotgun, likely putting down approaching undead, and thankfully never in earshot of the campus. On one occasion back in late August though, he’d heard a ferocious explosion of gunfire while out on a supply run, the obvious sounds of multiple rifles and shotguns shattering the air somewhere in the distance. That kind of firepower and aggression unnerved him, considering he’d never had to fire a bullet in anger in all the operations he had served as an SFO. Firearms were such a rarity, especially in his rural county, so hearing that level of firepower being traded was genuinely unsettling. There were at least two heavily armed groups in the two small nearby towns and worse, it sounded like they were at war.
After hearing that thunderous battle, Dean had withdrawn and confined his supply runs to small villages dotted through the area, or isolated rural clusters of housing.
Food was a problem. Fresh, clean water was not, which was a boon, and there was enough diesel in the tank on site for the generators they were using, now they were all clustered into a single building. This winter at least, with the diesel in the tank and the solar power providing them with plenty of stored energy, they would be able to stay warm through bitterly cold nights.
Food, however, was their most pressing need. They were not gathering enough dried or canned foods from the smaller villages to keep them going, nor were they going to get essential vitamins and minerals to supplement what they consumed from their limited diet. Maria had forever been laying out various vitamins for him on his way to work, making sure he stayed healthy, and every time it made him laugh.
He sighed audibly, and Sarah caught the look on his face.
“You’re thinking of Aunt Maria again.” There was no question, just a statement.
“I am,” he admitted with a wan smile.
Sarah said nothing more, just folding her arms around his waist and putting her head on his chest.
“I miss Mum, and I miss Dad,” she admitted. “Even though we weren’t close, he was still my dad. I wish he were here.”
“Me too, sweetheart. He was always a good friend to me and Maria. And he loved you.”
“I know.”
They held on to each other for a moment more, lost in remembrance.
The day after securing the school, Dean was
