They all stopped as they heard the man screaming in agony. Shay didn’t react to this; she kept her head on his shoulder and she felt her hand stroking his beard. The screams were music to his ears. The two women looked fearful toward the back of the house.
“That’s my mommy,” Shay said and the women looked at her.
“My mommy will make sure he don’t hurt nobody again,” Shay said softly and he heard the steel in her quiet voice. Xander squeezed her hard and kissed the top of her head.
“That’s right, your mom will make sure that bad man never ever hurts anyone,” Xander said softly. The women walked over to an old station wagon. The short blonde opened the tailgate and sat down on it, securing the thin blanket about her. The cicadas were buzzing loudly but could not mask the screams coming from behind the house. Xander stood rocking Shay as he waited for Zahara to finish. Then it was quiet and slowly, the birds began to chirp questioningly. Xander turned when Zahara walked around the house, bloody and naked. The women gasped and then looked at Xander for explanation.
“Werewolf,” he said and shrugged, the hint of a smile playing over his lips. When Zahara reached him, Shay let go of him and reached for her. Zahara took her daughter in her arms and hugged her to her, her face buried in the child’s neck. He heard Zahara’s soft weeping and felt his own eyes tear up. He’d never seen or heard Zahara cry and he swallowed hard.
“Thank you, for saving us,” the tall sender woman said.
“You’re welcome to come to the place we found to stay the night. Maybe get cleaned up,” Xander offered.
“No. Thank you, we’ve a farm about seven miles east of here. Mr. Lister was our handyman. He invited us here, said it was safer if we banded together. He said he would take care of our stock and we could survive better. We were hesitant at first, but then we kept seeing more of those zombies. He invited us to come check out his place. He drugged us and chained us down in that hole,” she said and a sob tore through her.
“He won’t be bothering anyone else,” Zahara said, a soft smile on her face as she wiped at her cheeks.
“We’ll go and see what we can salvage from his house and we’ll head home. Thank you again,” the blonde said.
“Look, the place we’re staying is empty. I’m not sure what’s there but you might want to scavenge all that you can. Whatever has happened to this country is long term. I suggest you start gathering supplies in bulk over the next few days. I think the power grid is about to go down. We’ve seen indications that say it will,” Xander said.
The women looked at each other and then nodded.
“We will. We’ll look for others and maybe we can band together,” the blonde said.
“Just be careful who you bring into your fold,” Zahara said and turned with Shay in her arms. She began to turn back into the wolf, walking barefoot in the forest was painful and the two women watched as the vicious monster took her baby into the woods and the blond man followed. Xander smiled when he heard the tall woman whisper.
“Dang, I wish I could do that. I’d have torn that old asshole to pieces.”
Ž
Reggie and Ethan were at the front of the property, reinforcing the fence. It was late morning and they’d been working since just after dawn. Later, they would begin building platforms for the new solar panels. Last night the lights had flickered in the house and had dimmed. All agreed that the power would be dying very soon. Perhaps a day or two but then their part of the country would go dark. That meant that the living who didn’t yet have their shit together were in for a painful wakeup call. As if a zombie apocalypse wasn’t enough, now, the ability to draw water, cook and use appliances was going to end. If they didn’t have enough fuel stored, transportation was going to be a problem.
Ethan stopped and pulled a rag from his back pocket and wiped the sweat from his face. He looked at his truck and smiled. There were seven five-gallon fuel cans in the bed of the truck. In the barn were even more fuel cans. At least for the foreseeable future, they had gas for the trucks.
“Here Uncle Ethan,” Mike said as he held up a bottle of water. Luke and Mike were helping with the fencing.
“Thanks, Mike,” he said and took the proffered bottle and drank deeply. It was hot as hell and muggy. He was not used to this heat and humidity and Rose had warned him to drink plenty of water. Reggie had also picked up sports drinks to help augment with the loss of fluids. Last night on his patrol he’d found an eighteen-wheeler. He’d found the rig empty. It took a bit of time and he had to use his wolf’s night vision but he got the rig hotwired and started. There was roughly a quarter of a tank of fuel left and he drove the rig home. He gritted his teeth while he grinded the gears and nearly stalled three times. He’d never driven one and it was nothing like driving his truck.
He wished that there had at least been keys but the vehicle moved along. He wasn’t sure of the gears but when the truck began to whine, he shifted and it seemed to smooth out. He probably should have gotten Reggie to help him but he wanted to get it back to the farm. He’d run over a few zombies as he went. He didn’t bother slowing down and bumped along. He had
