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KATE
Everyone is assembled on the bottom floor of Creekside.
Carter, my son. Johnny, our writer and ham radio extraordinaire. Reed, one of the resident stoners who just so happens to have turned into a damn good runner. Eric, our engineering genius and resident stoner. Jesus, a former drug mule who is as good with a gun as our soldiers. Ash and Caleb, the two soldiers who joined us after I killed their psychotic leader, Johnson. And Ben, who had once been allied with Ash and Caleb before breaking off on his own.
I pretend not to notice him as I enter what had once been a dorm building lounge. He’s counting a stack of magazines, placing them into a large pack.
Since we commandeered this place and made it our home, the bottom floor has been converted into an indoor garden. The solar panels on the roof power the grow lights. More than two dozen sturdy plastic garbage bins scavenged from around campus collect rainwater on the roof.
A clever gravity hose system designed by Eric makes it easy to drain water from the bins to the garden beds. The kid is a genius. I can only imagine what he’d come up with if he laid off the pot. He doesn’t smoke as much as he used to, but I know not a day goes by that he doesn’t take a few hits at night.
“Sorry to keep everyone waiting,” I say.
“Time to shoot some zombies!” Reed slaps high-five with Jesus.
“Don’t let yourself get too reliant on guns,” I say with a frown. “They’re zombie magnets without the silencers. You—”
“Yeah, yeah.” Jesus cuts me off with a grin. “We know. We can’t rely on fire power for defense against the zombies. Mama Bear, check this out.” Jesus produces a scratched aluminum bat.
I grin as he hands me the bat, running my hands over the metal. “Where did you find this?”
“Not just one,” Reed says. “We broke into one of the locker rooms and found two dozen of them.”
He throws back a tarp, which is normally used for storing extra gardening supplies. Beneath the crinkly plastic is a pile of aluminum bats.
“Zombie swatters for everyone,” Jesus declares, throwing his arms open wide.
“That is awesome.” Carter hefts a bat in one hand. “Think we could add spikes or something to the end?”
“Yeah,” Jenna says. “I took a welding class last year. I bet we could get supplies from the metal shop.”
“For you, mi hermosa flor.” Jesus presents a bat to Ash with a flourish and an open, flirty smile.
Caleb, who’s never more than a dozen paces away from Ash, stiffens. Emotion disappears from his face, only his dark eyes revealing how much he dislikes the other man.
If Ash notices the silent battle waging between Caleb and Jesus for her attention, she pretends not to. “Gracias, mi amigo.” It doesn’t help Caleb’s case that both Ash and Jesus are fluent in Spanish.
“Don’t get caught up in the show.” Ben stomps over to me, shouldering the pack full of ammunition. “There’s no substitute for a Sig.” He holds a handgun and holster out to me.
I wave away the weapon. We go through this almost every time we leave the building. “You know I’m not comfortable with guns.”
“You’re not going to get comfortable if you keep avoiding them.” He shoves the thing into my hands. “It’s not loaded. Just wear it and practice getting used to it.”
I roll my eyes. I’ve taken to wearing a loose belt over my running shorts these days. The belt holds a knife, a screwdriver, and now a gun. And a baseball bat, which wedges perfectly on my lower back.
Jenna fidgets with the bat, trying to find a comfortable angle for it in her belt. “It’s a bit clunky,” she says. “Did you know these things are hollow? We could cut off the big end, fill the handle with sand, then weld a cap on the top. That would make it compact and easy to carry, but it would still pack a punch.”
“That’s your project for next week,” I say. The bats are too good to pass up. We can use all the viable hand weapons we can get. “You and Carter figure out a way to convert these into portable zombie-killing clubs.”
“But it was my idea,” Jesus complains. “Jenna isn’t the only one who took a welding class.”
“You can help them,” I reply.
“If you’ll all stop drooling over the baseball bats like cavemen, it’s time to practice with real weapons.” Caleb steps between Ash and Jesus, staring coldly at the other man.
“Amen to that,” Ben mutters. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
“Wait, I have one more thing to show you guys.” Jesus fishes a thick gold chain out from around his neck. Dangling from the end is an even thicker gold pendant. “I found this yesterday on a zombie in the locker room.”
Everyone leans forward to look at the pendant. It’s a haloed man in a robe with a dog at his feet. He looks like every other saint image I’ve ever seen.
“Is that a saint?” Jenna asks.
“Bingo.” Jesus grins. “This is St. Roch. He was the patron saint of dogs, the falsely accused, bachelors, and—get this—he’s invoked during times of the plague.”
His words hang in the air.
A plague saint? It never occurred to me such a thing existed, but why not?
“St. Roch is going to look over the Creekside crew from now on.” Jesus tucks the necklace back into his shirt. “I’m going to build a shrine for him.”
“Dude, “ Reed says, “you and your shrines. You already have two in our room.”
“Those are for our mother, Guadalupe,” Jesus replies. “This one needs to be in a central location. I’m going to build in it in the kitchen.”
“You’ll have to clear it with Lila,” Reed replies. “The kitchen is her domain.”
Jesus waves a dismissive hand. “I got her number, bro. All I have to do I pretend to like her food.”
Ben frowns. “You’re going to lie to her to get something you want.”
“I’m doing her a favor,” Jesus replies. “Lies are okay when they make someone feel good.”
“She’ll see through your bullshit,” Ben says. “You haven’t said a single nice thing to Lila about her food since you got here.”
“Don’t hate me for playing the system, man.”
Ben’s expression darkens. Everyone knows he gets prickly around insults to Lila’s kitchen experiments. I find this sweet, even if I can’t understand it. Lila’s food makes me gag on a good day.
I decide to break up the banter before things go south between Jesus and Ben. “Jesus, you can take up this conversation with Lila when we get back. Everyone, outside. We’re leaving now.”
No one argues. We troop outside, locking the door behind us. What was once a swinging glass door has since been converted in what Lila likes to call a wood-and-metal monstrosity, built to withstand zombies and humans alike.
I lead the way, my people spreading around me in a loose circle. Ben shadows me much the way Caleb shadows Ash. He’s been doing this for a while now. Jenna says it’s because he’s taken it upon himself to look out for me. I pretend not to notice. Unfortunately, feigning ignorance with Ben is easier than having a conversation with him.
We’ve cleared the campus as much as possible. We hunt zombies every time we leave Creekside, killing those we come across. One day, the campus will be completely free of zombies. Hell, maybe St. Roch will be up to helping us with the task.
As we pass the university bookstore and enter one of the campus quads, we find a cluster of zombies. They squat around the remains of some poor animal, likely a cat or a raccoon.
I hold up a fist to signal silence. Not that my people talk or make a lot of noise. They know better than to do anything that might draw attention to us out here.
I draw to a halt, counting the undead. Seven in all, against ten of us. I like those odds.
I flick my fingers, indicating we’re to separate into two groups. Ben and Jesus instantly glue themselves to me. The two of them have a protective streak when we’re out here. Eric and Johnny join us. The five of us circle around to the right side of the zombies. The rest of the group circles left.
This is a maneuver we’ve rehearsed countless times. Split up, come at the zoms from two sides, and take them out. It’s not flawless, but it’s effective.
A zombie near the edge of the group straightens as we approach, head cocked in our direction. Its blind white eyes roll in the sockets, as though searching for us. Longish brown hair is ratty and matted with dried blood. Its nostrils flare, neck craning in our direction as it sniffs the air.
I pause, the rubber soles of my running shoes poised on the concrete. My group stills with me. I watch the zoms, well aware of the keen hearing they possess.
On the other side of the quad, Caleb leads the other group. They ease closer to the zombies with weapons in hand. Ash and Jenna both have their new baseball bats out. I follow suit, pulling out my bat.
Across the quad comes a snapping sound. Carter grimaces, shifting away from a tiny twig.
The ratty-haired zombie jerks in the direction of Carter. Its mouth opens, emitting a series of keens and clicks.
Then something happens that I’ve never seen before. The other zombies straighten and turn toward the ratty-haired one as it continues to click and keen.
Its head turns in the direction of Carter. The rest of the zombie heads follow suit. Seven sets of dead white eyes home in on my son. A chorus of moans and hisses drifts up from the group.
My eyes involuntarily flick in Ben’s direction. He exchanges a tight-lipped look with me.
The lead zombie clicks again, then lets loose a long, low keen.
It charges straight at Carter. The rest of the zombies follow, all of them snarling as they surge after their leader.
Fuck. I break into a sprint, the bat raised over my head as I rush across the quad. Ben, Eric, Johnny, and Jesus are hard on my heels.
We don’t make a lot of noise, but we aren’t completely silent, either.
The lead zombie releases another string of keens and clicks. Half the zombies spin in our direction.
My new bat smashes through the skull of the first one. The others fall in with their weapons, cutting and smashing with knives, bats, and screwdrivers. Carter’s group attacks from the other side, also closing in with bats and knives.
The battle is over in less than ninety seconds. I suck in gulps of air, hands sweaty around the handle of my bat. We stand in a loose circle, staring down at the dead zombies.
Caleb is the first to break the silence. “What the fuck was that?”
No one replies. I approach the lead zombie, the ratty-haired man with the blood-stained head. Using my bat, I flip over the body. The face is a mess, having been smashed in by Ash’s baseball bat.
Ben eases up beside me, scanning the body. “He doesn’t look any different than the others.”
But he was different. We all saw it.
I swallow, trying to work moisture into my mouth. “It ... communicated with the others.”
“It issued orders,” Ben states.
The back of my spine prickles. It’s bad enough that we’re outnumbered by the undead. But up until two minutes ago, we had the advantage of organization. Of skilled counterattacks.
“They acted as a unit,” I say at last. “Like a hunting pack.”
“A fluke,” Reed says. “We’ve never seen them organize before. That’s not how they work.”
“That’s not how they’ve worked up until now,” Johnny counters. “We may be witnessing an evolution.”
“Evolution?” Eric asks. “Fuck that. This was a fluke.”
“Maybe,” Johnny says. “But let’s take a brief walk through the history of man. We started as apes. Over the years, we learned how to hunt, talk, and organize. Who’s to say zombies won’t undergo a similar evolution?”
“The explanation might be even simpler than that,” Jenna says. “Maybe the virus mutated differently in a small percentage of those who have turned. Maybe there’s a small percentage who are intelligent.”
“St. Roch looked after us.” Jesus fishes the saint out of his shirt and plants a kiss on it. “He kept us safe.”
“We need to get on the ham,” Ben says. “Find out if this is an isolated problem or if other people are seeing the same thing. We’re in serious fucking shit if this is happening in other places.”
“I don’t buy any of that,” Reed says. “I’m not freaking out over one incident.”
“No one is freaking out.” I wipe my bat clean on the shirt of one of the dead zombies. “We’ll have Johnny reach out to his contacts on the ham. In the meantime, we need to be vigilant. This may or may not be a fluke. We need to be prepared for anything.”
“Amen to that,” Ben says.