This was different, however. She was about to speak to three people she knew little about. Well, at least two of them.

  As much as she didn’t want to admit this but Elena and Pixie were the same. They’d known what their husbands had done for a living, knew the dangers that came with their job and yet feared that one day it would take their lover away forever.

  Malik opened his mouth to speak when Dominic snapped his fingers. He raised his left hand, the one holding the cigarette and swiped it across the air in front of his throat. Pixie saw the look of seriousness on Dominic’s face, laced her arms across her chest and leaned back.

  Teresa pretended not to notice it and flicked her gaze back to Malik. Outside, the streets were silent save for the occasional groan from the protesting screech from a bird roosting from a nearby treetop or a distant groan from one of the walking dead.

  “Everyone’s safety is a priority.” She said.

  Dominic agreed. Pixie and Malik responded with quiet uncomfortable stares. When presented with a truth that outweighed paranoia, a person’s silence was a sign that they were afraid to admit that you were right.

  Malik nodded.

  “Would you feel better if she stayed out harm’s way?” Teresa said. “I know I would.”

  It was Pixie’s turn to nod.

  “I don’t want anything to happen to her any more than you do.” She said. “None of us would be able to sleep at night knowing that–”

  “Cut the shit!” Malik said.

  He leaped up from the couch and swiped his arms across the air above the living room coffee table in a wide X-shaped pattern. Teresa felt her cop instinct immediately take over. She stepped back with her left foot, snatched a quick breath, unsnapped her holster and braced the checkered black grip of her Glock with her right hand.

  She knew he was angry but she wouldn’t draw him on because of that. Pixie gasped, balled her hands into tiny pale fists, jerked her feet off the floor and curled herself into a tight ball.

  His thick pink lips twisted into an angry lopsided grin. A thin strand of saliva hung off the left corner of his lip and dripped onto his chest.

  “If you had a chance,” He said. “you’d feed us to those fucking things just to save your own ass.”

  “And you wouldn’t?” Dominic said.

  His lips pursed in anger, he exhaled and blew twin streams of smoke out of his nose. A blanket of silence settled over them. Pixie lifted her head from the back of the couch, glanced down at her feet and shook her head.

  “Why are you even taking her side to this?” Malik said. “She’s nothing more than a badge with a dick in its holster.”

  “You can say whatever you want.” Dominic said, taking a drag from his cigarette. “It’s not going to change the situation. We’re all stuck inside of here together and we’re just going to have to learn to get along whether we like it or not.”

  Malik scanned Teresa up and down like he were looking to buy her. When he saw that her hand was resting on the butt of her gun, he sighed.

  “Whether we’re a cop, a cook, a crack whore or a wannabe.” Dominic said. “We’re all in this together.”

  “Fuck you.” Pixie sighed.

  “If you don’t like what I said,” Dominic said, “you can always take the alternative.”

  He jabbed his left hand toward the front door, blew a second stream of smoke across the room, watched it dissipated in thin air and dropped the spent cigarette butt into his coffee cup. It gave a low snake-like hiss that added to the thick suffocating silence still permeating around the living room. He held the cup in his right hand, pressed his fingers around the rim and held it down by his right thigh.

  Dominic said. “No one is coming to save either one of us so get used to it.”

  He met Malik’s angry stare with one of his own, pushed himself from the doorway between both rooms and sauntered back down the hall toward the kitchen. Pixie waited for him to turn his back, squeezed her face into a sour expression and gave him the finger. She perched her right foot onto her left knee and shook her head in disgust.

  “We,” Teresa said. “are gonna be heading out soon. Get ready.”

  She made a back and forth gesture with her left hand to emphasize that her decision had been made, her right hand never leaving her side. She pivoted around, sighed and exited the room, leaving Malik and Pixie to think over their odds.

  CHAPTER THREE

  HIS heart thudding, Colin pivoted on his heels and trained the headlamp at the first pair of metallic and black-rubber batwing doors. His chest rose and fell with each breath, filling his lungs with the mingled smells wafting through the kitchen. He licked a drop of sweat from his upper lip and let it dance on his tongue to keep the rest of his mouth from going dry.

  He should've known better than to come in here. For all he knew, they were stumbling toward him this very second, lured by the smell of his flesh. He swept the light across the kitchen to pacify his fears and found nothing but the dead chef and the silent darkness.

  He tiptoed across the kitchen, stopped in front of the batwing doors and perked his ears. All he could hear was the wind outside sighing through the treetops along with the occasional creak of the house’s joints and pipes. He killed the headlamp, drowning himself in a tomb of semi-darkness and peered through the dirty Plexiglass window.

  A crown of dark hair floated above the booths. He heard a chorus of voices coming from the lobby, each one as insistent as the other.

  “We need to think about how in the hell we’re going to get there first.”

  “We will but first we got to find something to eat.”

  The first voice sounded angry and female. The other, however, sounded adolescent and male.

  In the months leading up to today, Colin quickly learned that all was not what it seemed. There were two rules he stuck to and they were quite simple: you never let your guard down nor did you-and this one was more important-go wandering inside empty cafes no matter how hungry you were.

  The couple from Charleston, West Virginia he’d met last month had used their “injured” child to try to jump him from behind just for the little food he’d had on board. They’ll do anything they can to get your attention so they could rob (or even rape) you.

  Colin closed his eyes, snatched a quick breath, opened his eyes, crouched down and crawled out of the kitchen on all fours. He hunkered down behind a plush-gray partition standing shoulder-level between two family-sized dining booths. His body flinched with fear as the chorus of voices grew closer to his location.

  “We got to get there quick before Mom and Dad think we’re dead.” The angry female stated. “We don’t even know what the hell this–”

  When he knew they were close enough, Colin leaped out. A loud girlish shriek blared across the dining room, followed by a loud throaty gurgle. He exhaled, raising the pistol in both hands and sliding his tongue across the roof of his mouth.

  “Don’t fucking move!”

  A tall brunette in a bright pink jogging suit and sneakers paused, her almond-shaped blue eyes wide with fear. The young rangy-looking boy in blue-jean cutoffs, a white tee-shirt and black leather boots shrank out of sight and behind her left knee. The small cap of frayed black hair sat above a round pale face complete with light freckles spread across the bridge of his nose, puppy-dog blue eyes and a pencil-thin mouth.

  A tiny gurgling sound resonated across the lobby. Something writhed underneath the dark blue baby carrier strapped tightly against her chest. A six-month baby with chubby pink cheeks craned its head around, glanced at him for a split second, clenched the front of her sister’s tee-shirt inside of its chubby little digits and burrowed its face against her chest.

  She looked to be about eighteen or maybe nineteen.

  Who knew how young her brother was?

  Who carries a damn baby through the zombie apocalypse?

  The dark-green book bag slung over his left shoulder looked as if it weighed more than him; half-filled baby bottles and stiff rubber yellow tips were crammed inside large fishnet pockets located along the bottom left and right corners of the bag. When Colin lowered his pistol, the boy emerged from behind her with a wide beaming look on his face.

  Before the girl could say anything, the boy asked, "Are you him? Is it really you?”

  "Wait a minute." He said. "Who do you think I am?"

  "You're Colin McCoy, aren't you?"

  "What the fuck are—"

  "Do you mind not using that language around my little brother?"

  "Who do you think I am?" He said.

  "You're not him."

  "Get back over here, Jason.” She said. “You don’t even know him and already you think he’s fucking Santa Claus.”

  She tugged on the back of Jason’s tee-shirt and jerked him back to his original place right beside of her. Colin flashed a stern look at her and raised his brows as if to remind her about what she’d chastised him of a few seconds ago. She noticed the look and rolled her eyes as if to say alright you got me there.

  "I've heard of him. They say he drives a boat and—"

  "I'm sorry, sir." She said, her face creased by an uneasy smile. "I'm sure you know how far a child's imagination can go."

  "What makes you think I'm not?"

  Tiny creases etching across her forehead, Colin stacked his arms across his chest. Jason's face glowed like high beams.

  "I was right, then wasn't I?"

  "Hold on. Are you sure you’re him?”

  “It’s what my driver’s license says.”

  The baby gave a nonchalant gurgle. She shifted the baby further up onto her right hip and paced the room a few times.

  "We need your help."

  "No, we don't." She said. "We'll find another way.”

  "This is the only way, Stacey."

  She braced her hips with both hands, puckered her lips and sighed. The baby glanced at him from the corner of her eye, flashed a wide toothless-pink grin and dragged its chubby little hands across her face.

  "Where are you going?"

  “We need to get to Texas because–”

  She stepped up behind him and clamped her hand across his mouth. He jostled, jerked his head to one side and tore her hand away from his face.

  "Before the phone lines went down," She said, rolling her eyes. "we got a voicemail from our parents telling us where they were."

  "Couldn't they have found a way to get here?"

  "Not everyone has a boat."

  He gave her a thumbs-up.

  "Stop it, Stacey." Jason said to her, then to him.

  “What are your last names?”

  “Russell.”

  He motioned for him to calm down.

  “How do I know you’re not lying to me?”

  Stacey dug her left hand into her front pocket. She produced a thin pink I-Phone, slid her thumb across the screen, tapped it a few times and held it out for him to see. On the screen, a giant red button sat below a trio of thin gray lines.

  She nodded. Colin pushed the button with his left index finger. Static popped and crackled from the phone.

  “If you got this, that means you’re still alive. Your father and I love you very much. We sent your Uncle Eddie to come and pick you up in his Hummer so you need to be ready. They’ve set up a safe-zone at your brother’s base at Fort Gavin and we’ll be here waiting for you. And if you don’t make it, we miss you and love you so much.”

  After the message died, she slipped the phone back into her pocket and sighed. A tear protruded from the corner of Jason’s left eye and cut a faint white stripe down his dirt-stained cheek. The baby stirred as if its mother’s voice was a symbol of protest, kicked its legs and uttered a tiny sob that rattled inside its throat.

  The frightened voice he heard coming from the phone burrowed through the center of his chest and into his heart. He gazed out the left window, past the veranda and across the calm blue waters spread out below.

  He said. “Where’s your uncle? The one your mother mentioned?”

  Jason and Stacey traded a few quiet and uncomfortable stares. Although he already knew the answer, he had to ask. If they weren’t alone, now was a good time for them to speak up.

  “We ran out of gas seven blocks away.” Stacey said. “He was pumping gas into his Hummer when they got him. He told us to take Rosie and run as fast as we could.”

  “They tore his throat open and–”

  A river of hot tears brimmed in Jason’s eyes. Colin shook his head and sighed.

  "I didn't hear anything about a Safe Zone."

  "It isn’t exactly something you share with the other kids.” Stacey said.

  She flashed an angry stare at her brother and sighed. Jason rolled his eyes.

  This wasn't the only act of sibling rivalry he’d been witnessed to. He’d been a victim of it at the hands of his older sister Becky. Compared to the many wedgies, Indian rope burns, Purple Nurples and other practical jokes he’d endured, it was much cuter coming from them.

  "I’ll do anything if you’ll just take us there.” Stacey pleaded.

  Colin scratched the left corner of his forehead and sighed.

  Stacey unclipped the baby carrier from around her waist and handed the baby over to Jason, her face sagging under a mix of sadness and rejection. A thick, suffocating cloud of dread permeated around the diner, raising the hairs along the back of Colin’s neck. The baby’s bright blue eyes flicked from Stacey to Jason and then back at her, its chubby little face overcome with confusion.

  Outside, the river glinted like copper pennies.

  "Take Rosie back behind the bar and don't come out until I tell you."

  "But—"

  "Don't argue with me." She said.

  It was his turn to be confused.

  When Jason did as she asked, she took Colin's hand and dragged him across the room. A second tear slid down her other cheek; the light caught the brown-gold flecks in her eyes. She backed up and slid up and onto the edge of a nearby booth.

  She laid back, pulled him against her and pressed his palm to her chest. She closed her eyes, trapped his fingers in her right fist and drew them down the front of her blouse; the smell of sour milk wafted from the front of her shirt. She must've been carrying that baby the entire way.

  Come on, Colin.

  A familiar whisper filled his ears and echoed in his head.

  His skin prickling with fear, he scanned the diner. He'd heard it before, its bitter spiteful tone sending cold shivers trailing down his spine.

  You know you want to.

  Go ahead, Colin.

  Fuck her good, fuck her real good.

  Fuck her for me, why don’t you?

  When Stacey slid his fingertips down the small gap between her soft pale breasts, Colin snatched a quick breath, jerked his hand back and leaped away from the table. She gasped and sat up, her tear-soaked face looking both relieved and startled. A lone strand of dark hair fell down across her forehead just above her right eye.

  "No way."

  "Don't you think I'm pretty?"

  For her sake, he said. "You're beautiful but I just can't do this."

  She slid off the table. Footsteps paraded toward them. Jason held the baby against his chest and approached the booth; the baby shimmied and gave another protest.

  "What can I—"

  "Nothing." He said.

  Colin felt a sense of uneasiness he hadn’t felt in a long time. It clung to him like a piece of bad skin he could never peel away.

  Stacey had probably turned a lot of heads before everything went to Hell so it wasn’t her. He had something that no one else in this dog-eat-dog world ever had: pride. There was only one woman he would ever genuinely love but nothing ever lasts forever.

  Jason came around from behind the bar, flashed his sister an "I told you so" look and handed her the baby.

  "I said I'd take you, didn't I?"

  "You didn’t say–”

  "He just did." Jason said. "Do you know if there's any food around here?"

  "I was just about to find out myself.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  WHILE Jason and Stacey elected (volunteered was more like it) to remain in the dining room, Colin flipped on his headlamp and went back into the kitchen. He still was still curious about whether or not the contents of the walk-in freezer were still worth all of this trouble.

  The time he spent alone would give him something to think about. Something he hadn’t thought about in quite a while. The voices.

  At first, he could only hear them at night, repeating the same mantra in his dreams before shifting onto another much insulting chant. They’d kept him up at night, ghostly reminders of a time he’d like to forget about right now because there were other things to worry about.

  The chef shimmied to the left and plopped down sideways onto the floor with a soft thud. Colin leaped back, pressing his feet to the floor in a cat stance and raised the pistol.

  Wrapping his finger around the trigger, he waited for the chef to make another move. His heart flinched. Cold snakes of fear coiled around his spine and pinned his heels to the floor.

  He knew the man was dead but it was better to be safer than sorry. When he realized the chef would remain immobile, he sauntered toward the walk-in freezer.

  Colin drew a long breath, pinched the tiny metal pole jammed into the top of the handle between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand and jerked it free. The pole swung on a thin silver chain connected to the right side of the doorway and rolled across the front of the door. He grasped the handle in his free hand and, as the touch of cold metal prickled the hairs along his forearm, threw the door open.

  A noxious cloud of decay burst across the doorway, stinging his nostrils and twisting the pit of his stomach. He made a sour expression, slipped the front of his tee-shirt back over his mouth and nose to avoid it. He gave a protesting grunt, squinted through the dark hollow doorway and peered inside.