These zombies reminded him of a hybrid of the two. They certainly seemed fine to wander aimlessly into oncoming fire and would stop at nothing to reach the humans, but they also stopped attacking and retreated the way they’d come. It was like they kept trying brute force and then when that didn’t work; they’d stop and get sneaky. Shawn thought that it had been strange as he fired at the creatures with the hunting rifle he’d traded for the M4. Through the rifle’s scope, he’d seen them shift all at once across the entire line; they simply turned and headed east. Those things were absolutely communicating somehow.

  Maria caused him to jump when she reappeared and asked, “What’d you find out?”

  “Huh? Oh, sorry. I haven’t called yet.”

  “Give me that thing,” she said with her hip cocked to the side and her hand out for the radio. “You may be able to shoot great, Shawn, but you suck as a commander.”

  “I never wanted to be in charge of anything, Maria. I just want to buy Annie enough time to make it to Cleveland and then I’m gonna take off myself.”

  “Yeah, well now we’re stuck in the Army and like it or not, you’re in charge because I won’t do it. Now, give me the radio.”

  He handed the walkie talkie to her and she pushed the button on the side to transmit. “Sergeant Lumsey, this is Maria Bocanegra. Are you there?”

  After a few moments, the sergeant’s voice drifted from the tiny speaker, “I’m here Maria. What are you seeing, over?”

  “The tanks are leaving. I thought the highway was gonna be the line that we held.”

  There was another long pause and then he returned on the radio, “They’re repositioning to our next defend site in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Headquarters is shipping everyone down there to give the Air Force a chance at them with their big bombs. We’ll use Allentown as a staging site before we go over the mountains where we can trap them in the passes and make use of the terrain.”

  “We’re giving up everything east of the mountains?” Shawn asked.

  Maria shook her head and then asked the question into the radio. “For now,” Sergeant Lumsey answered. “Once we can get to a point where we’re not running from defensive line to defensive line, then we’re going to start counter-punching. The Army has been busy building a series of defenses on the western side of the mountains. They need a couple more weeks to get it finished, so we’re moving down to Allentown while the zombies regroup.”

  “Okay, so when do we get picked up,” Maria asked.

  “We have trucks already running back and forth. It’s about 65 miles to the city, so each round trip is about three hours when you include fueling and unloading. The distance should give us about four days of prep time until the zombies reach Allentown, so we want to be ready for them.”

  Shawn grabbed the walkie talkie from Maria and angrily pressed the button. “When do Maria and I—and the rest of my team—get picked up? We’re here at the edge of the city observing their movements and now you guys are leaving. Give us a pick up time.”

  Maria nodded her head. “See, that’s why you’re in charge.”

  He let out his breath with an audible sigh. After a few moments the radio crackled and then the sergeant said, “Looks like you guys are going to be on the third trip. We need you in position there to keep observation on the zombies. Expect pick up around seventeen hundred.”

  Shawn did the math in his head. Five o’clock was still three hours away. He didn’t like the idea of being on the front line all by himself without the tanks guarding them. “You can’t get us any earlier?”

  “No. We need your group there to ensure that they don’t sneak up on us while we’re trying to pull back.”

  “Dammit,” Shawn cursed to his partner. “I hate it, but it makes sense.”

  “What if they forget us?” Maria asked.

  He shrugged. “What can we do?” Into the radio he said, “Okay. We’ll expect you here at the Lanidex at five o’clock.”

  “Roger. We’ll pick you up then. Stay safe and out of sight. Out.”

  The radio went dead and Shawn set it down on the low wall that ran along the top of the building that they occupied. He turned and rested his back against the wall and Maria sat beside him. They’d developed a friendship over the past few days of being stuck up on the roof alone together. The other two men in their team maintained the night watch and creeped out both of them, so they all avoided each other as best they could. It turned out that Shawn and Maria were both from Newark, but in reality, if this hadn’t happened they would likely have never really talked to each other.

  They ran in different social circles. She’d been Newark’s first Hispanic female CEO of a computer company and he’d just been a part owner in his family’s small Italian restaurant. Given Maria’s former position it surprised Shawn that she deferred to him to be the leader of their small observation group. Maria said that it just made more sense because he was more forceful than she was by nature and gladly ceded the command to him.

  “Should I go down and wake up Jon and Terry?” she asked, indicating the two National Guard privates assigned to the outpost with them.

  “Maybe we should give them a heads up and let them know that we’ll be leaving in three hours,” he admitted. He thought about the way that those two watched Maria and asked, “Want me to go instead?”

  “No, it’s okay, I’ll be alright,” she replied, lifting her M4 rifle slightly higher to show him that she was armed. “I’ll be right back.”

  Shawn watched her walk in a crouch to the doorway that led inside and then turned back around to the east. It was still his job—and the job of several other observation teams along Highway 287—to keep an eye on things until the town was completely abandoned to the creatures lurking somewhere out there.

  The small, folding binoculars Shawn wore around his neck worked well enough to discern individual facial features out to about a half-mile and he could detect movement over a mile away with them. He scanned the area in front of him from left to right, but didn’t see anything. It had been quiet for two days. His outpost had only seen five zombies since the big fight a few days before.

  Of those five that they’d seen, he’d shot four of them in the head and Jon had shot the other one on the night shift. The other two watchers slept for about half of the day while Shawn and Maria were on guard and then they switched at night so Terry and Jon were on guard while the day shift slept in the office below. It worked well to keep them apart from each other.

  The door creaked and he turned to see the three of them come slowly over to him so a zombie watching from the wood line wouldn’t notice their movement. He nodded to the two newcomers and said, “I guess you heard the news.”

  “Yeah,” Terry stated. He was a driver at FedEx when he wasn’t participating in weekend drills for the Guard and his hulking frame showed that he spent a lot of time lifting heavy boxes. “So Maria gave us the rundown, but what’s the plan?”

  Shawn allowed the binoculars to rest at the end of their strap against his chest and turned completely around to face his group. “What do you mean? The plan is that we leave in three hours when they come to get us.”

  “No, man. I mean, how are we gonna do it?”

  “Oh, that kind of plan,” he replied and then thought for a second. “Okay, what about if we pack up our gear—you shouldn’t have much—and then we’ll consolidate it down by the front door. We’ll observe from up here since we don’t know if they’ll come into the Plaza or if they’ll just stay out on the highway. I’d be willing to be that they’ll stay on the highway since they can get away quickly instead of getting trapped in the Plaza with all the small roads and buildings everywhere.”

  “So we don’t know where they’re going to pick us up at?” Jon glared over the top of his glasses.

  “It didn’t come up.” Shawn responded. “They were busy trying to coordinate their withdrawal.”

  “And how do we know that they’ll even come get us?” Jon continued. “I mean, we’re way out here on the edge of everything; wouldn’t it be easy to just abandon us too?”

  “Yeah, it would,” Maria cut in. “But think about it. They’re not abandoning people, they’re abandoning the location. We’re gonna need every person that we can to fight these things later on. Just do your job.”

  “I don’t take orders from a woman, Maria,” Terry retorted. “Especially from some illegal Cuban bimbo. You better remember that or you’ll regret it.”

  “What the hell, man?” Shawn said as he placed a restraining hand in front of Maria. “We’re all in this together.”

  Jon cleared his throat and said, “The Army doesn’t give a shit about four people out here in the hinterlands. Once the zombies realize that the tanks are gone, they’re gonna come streaming in here, fast. We should get going while there’s still a chance to leave.”

  “Yeah, but if they abandon us, we’re just four more potential zombies that they’ll have to fight later,” Shawn reasoned. “They’ll be here, guys. But in the meantime, we need to pack up our gear. Maria and I will stay up here while you guys make sure you have everything you need. Then, we’ll need you to come up and change out with us so we can pack. Any questions?”

  “I think they’re gonna leave us, man,” Terry reiterated with a glare at the Hispanic woman.

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we get there,” Shawn said. “For now, let’s plan that we’re gonna get picked up and go pack our stuff.”

  He turned back, bringing the binoculars up to his eyes. It wasn’t worth arguing with them. They were both so headstrong that they couldn’t see beyond their own preconceived notions of what the military would do. Nothing moved out across the highway in the parking lots, but there were several buildings across the way that created a huge blind spot where anything could sneak up behind. Shawn didn’t like the position, but it beat being down on the ground in the defensive line every day of the week.

  “Good job putting those two back in line,” Maria said beside him. “I don’t get it. This is hard enough in the first place without people complaining about what needs to be done. It’s the damned zombie apocalypse for Christ’s sake!”

  Shawn glanced over at her and frowned. “It’s not the apocalypse, Maria. We can’t think that. Otherwise, what would be the point of us fighting?”

  She tapped a long, thin finger against her cheek and replied, “Maybe you’re right.” She thought for a second and then nodded hard. “You’re right. This isn’t the apocalypse; we’re just fighting off an insurgency. These things are threatening our country, but we can stop them.”

  He grinned at her analogy, “Well, I wouldn’t go that far, but I like the way you’re thinking. Once we can get beyond the mountains and stop them from turning anyone else….”

  She reached across and rubbed his shoulder. “I’m sorry about your wife, Shawn.”

  He suppressed the urge to cry; the time for crying was over. “Shana was a good woman. But I have to stop these things so Annie will have a future.”

  “Well, my future went down with my company and I don’t have any family left that I know of, so I’ll stick with you and fight as long as we need to.”

  “I appreciate it, Maria. I really do, but as soon as I can, I’m gonna go to Cleveland and get my daughter.”

  “Okay then. I’ll stick with you until you leave and then find another unit to join up with.”

  Shawn stuck out his hand and said, “Deal.”

  Maria shook it, “Deal.”

  They sat in silence for several minutes until Maria said, “I’m gonna go check on those two. It shouldn’t be taking them this long to pack up their backpacks.”

  “Good idea. I’ll keep on watching.”

  The woman pulled herself up by the low wall and walked quickly back to the door. He picked up the binoculars again and looked through them. What’s the point? he wondered. The zombies hadn’t been around for a couple of days and he checked for them a few moments ago. They’d pulled back to lick their wounds and weren’t coming back anytime soon.

  Movement in his periphery vision around the edge of the binoculars’ eyecups caught his attention and he pulled them away so he could see. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered as he realized that it was the two men who’d went downstairs to pack their bags. They were taking off.

  The door behind him opened and Maria burst out. She crouched next to him as he pointed toward the two deserters. “They took all of our stuff,” she hissed.

  “What?” he said in alarm.

  “They took our stuff. Sleeping bags, food, water. It was starting to get dark, but I think they even took our backpacks.”

  He looked through the binoculars again, sure enough, Maria’s purple backpack bounced off the back of one of the guys. “Can we shoot them?” she asked.

  Shawn looked back at her. “No. We can’t do that.” He sighed and then slapped his fist against his thigh. “Dammit! Why wouldn’t they just wait for the trucks?”

  “You heard them. They think we’re getting abandoned.”

  “Now they’ve deserted us. Classy guys,” he replied and then had a thought. “Crap! We need to secure the door.”

  “Those assholes!” Maria exclaimed and stood back up.

  Shawn briefly considered taking the radio with them, but decided against it in case someone tried to call while they were trying to sneak around. The radio would be a dead giveaway to their location. He set it down and followed Maria to the door that led to the building’s stairwell. She had her M4 against her shoulder as they descended and Shawn wished that he had kept one of the military rifles instead of trading for the hunting rifle so he could shoot quickly in case something was in the building with them.

  They reached the first floor landing and he peered through the small window in the door that opened into the cubicle farm. It seemed empty, but from where he stood, he couldn’t be sure. “Alright,” he whispered. “I’ll go first, cover me. If anything bad happens, get back in the stairwell and up to the roof. Intel says that they can’t climb stairs, so you should be safe.”

  “Got it.”

  He pressed the handle down and gently eased the door open while still staying in the relative safety of the stairwell. Nothing jumped out at him so he placed a tentative foot into the office space. Long shadows stretched across the floor as the sun angled in from the west. Cubicles and other pieces of office furniture created deep patches of darkness that could hide other survivors or zombies who’d made it through the doors that Terry and Jon undoubtedly left open.

  Shawn doubted that there were any of the creatures in the building since he’d have seen them cross the highway, but he’d feel stupid if he was ripped to shreds because he didn’t properly check the area. Maria stayed in the cover of the stairwell so she could shoot anything trying to sneak up on him.

  He padded as silently as possible across the space toward the door. The shadows were so damn disorienting that he was certain they were full of creatures waiting to finish him. He risked a quick glance back at Maria and she gave him an encouraging nod to keep going. It was nerve-wracking but he finally got to the door and twisted the lock home.

  He relaxed slightly, but knew that he still needed to clear the floor before they could feel safe. Dammit! Why didn’t the trucks just come directly here and pick the two of them up? If they’d done that, Jon and Terry probably wouldn’t have deserted either.

  Shawn’s nerves were shot by the time he’d walked around the entire lobby and office space, but they were safe. “Okay, let’s go back to the third floor and see what they left us,” he called softly to his partner.

  When they got to the offices that they’d shared, everything that Maria had gathered over the past few days, including the precious few belongings that she’d salvaged from her home, was gone. “Those dickheads,” she muttered.

  Shawn grinned in the darkness despite his anger. He’d never heard the woman curse before. “They knew that most of the stuff in that bag was just personal stuff from my house in Newark,” she continued. “I had photos of my parents in there, some cards and letters from my past, my jewelry box and a couple of changes of clothes. They didn’t need any of that stuff; they just did it to be hurtful.”

  “You’re right. If we see them at the Army camp in Allentown, we’ll make sure to turn them in for theft and desertion,” he stated.

  “I’ll stab one of them in front of the other one until he tells me where my things are,” she promised. “What did they take of yours?”

  Shawn was luckier than Maria had been since he’d put his pack inside a desk drawer. They’d taken his sleeping bag and the food that he had sitting on the desk, but they hadn’t found the bag with his clothes and the family pictures of Shana and Annie. He breathed a sigh of relief because those pictures would be the only memory of his deceased wife that he’d be able to pass on to little Annie when she got older.

  He shouldered his backpack and said, “Alright, let’s get back up to the roof. We left the radio up there and they might have been trying to call.”

  “Yeah, okay. Lead the way, boss.”

  No one called the walkie talkie the remaining two hours that they watched together from the roof. They both checked their watches repeatedly as the five o’clock deadline drew near with no word from the Army if things were still on track. The thought of being forgotten was maddening and they had to convince themselves to give it time and let the evacuation continue.

  Finally, Sergeant Lumsey called with only fifteen minutes to spare. “Observation Team Four, this is Sergeant Lumsey.”

  Shawn picked up the radio and mashed the button down, “This is Shawn Ford.”

  “Alright, Shawn. The trucks are moving down the highway toward your location from north to south. They’re picking up the first three teams and then they’ll get you. You should be seeing them soon.”