New Title 1 by Bonnie Dee Page B

to walk the fence if you want to come with me.”
     
    “ Sure.” I stood and the metal chair skidded out from under me across the scarred linoleum.
     
    “ I’ll come too.” Daylon picked up his jacket. “Hang in there, Maureen. You’ll be out soon.” He strode out the door with his usual swagger and Brian and I followed. I wished Daylon would go anywhere else. I wanted to be alone with Brian so we could talk.
     
    It was noon by the time we walked out of the dimly lit building into blindingly bright sunshine. Wind whipped my hair into my eyes, making them water, and nipped at my ears. I wished I had a hat.
     
    “ How many patrols do you have?” Daylon quizzed Brian as we headed down the street. “What kind of weapons do your people use? Have you had any perimeter breaches?”
     
    “ Not so far.” We reached the end of the street, or at least the spot where stockade fence blocked it. The sight of thin slats of wood standing between us and the walking dead was enough to make my skin crawl even though there was nothing on the other side at the moment.
     
    “ So you built this fence shortly after the attacks. Have you improved it since then?”
     
    I glared at Daylon and moved in between him and Brian, determined get Brian talking about what I wanted to know more about—him. “What happened that night? Can you tell me?”
     
    He was quiet, staring at the fence as though seeing through it to the past. “Like I told you, several people went to the hospital in Big Creek to get the A7 treatment. My mom was one.” Brian paused for a beat before continuing. “The hospital wasn’t letting anyone stay long and she was better so my dad brought her home. In the middle of the night I heard my dad screaming. Not yelling—screaming. I ran into their bedroom and tried to pull her off him but it was too late. He was… I couldn’t help him. She turned on me and I ran. I didn’t know what else to do.”
     
    I nodded. We’d all been forced to run sometimes when we wished we’d been braver or stronger. “Nothing more you could’ve done.”
     
    Brian pushed hard against the fence, testing its stability. “That night it was just as bad outside. Those of us who were uninfected fought or left town. Luckily there weren’t too many yet and we were able to clear them out in a couple of days. After that we built the fence.”
     
    “ You’ve survived since then for nearly three months. How’ve you had enough to eat?”
     
    “ There’s only one grocery store in town but a few trucks were making their weekly deliveries when everything happened. We’ve had a lot of certain items and scavenged everything else from abandoned houses. We stockpiled everything and have been rationing them with a system of coupons.”
     
    Daylon gave his own push against a section of stockade and it swayed. “You need to reinforce this fence. Zombies will find the weak spots. Your people are like sheep who don’t have a clue they aren’t safe from wolves just because they’re in a pen.”
     
    “ They’re not as helpless as you think.” Brian’s tone was sharp. Apparently he’d had enough of Daylon’s superiority. “People in this town have fought and killed. Most are armed. We have drill sessions. Everyone except the feeble take their turn patrolling inside the perimeter, but only some of us go outside the wall.”
     
    “ This place is a dead end,” Daylon said. “Maybe it’s time all of you thought about going outside. Once you get snowed in, you won’t have a choice anymore.”
     
    As if to support his argument, a cold gust blew up the street between the buildings and cut through my jacket. Like ghostly hands it rattled the section of chain link we were walking past. On the other side of the fence was a house and a yard full of long brown grass. Deserted. Abandoned. Part of the outside.
     
    Daylon grasped the chain link and shook it. “You think they couldn’t climb over this if they wanted to? If you’re gonna