Orpheus: Homecoming (The Orpheus Trilogy Book 2) by Dan DeWitt

where he attached the rope to other wall via duct tape. He repeated the process several more times, making a net. By the time they'd completed clearing the top floor and came back to the starting point, there would be no chance of them missing a random zombie due to nothing more than bad luck or timing.
    He took a few tugs on the net, and was confident that it would hold up under its own weight. He transmitted to Lena that they were starting their sweep. "All right, you two. Your show."
    Enough light seeped through both the external windows and the smaller ones in the classroom doors that the hall wasn't in complete darkness, so they used the flashlights sparingly.
    They began a room-to-room sweep. Ethan remarked to his father that they'd already done this once before, and there was no reason to believe that there were any zombies in any of these rooms, but agreed that not even the slightest risk was acceptable. Ethan and Rachel led the way, he on the left, she on the right. Tim was with Rachel, Fish with Ethan. Orpheus stayed in the middle to ensure that the halls were clear. He marked each door with a piece of duct tape as it was cleared, and radioed in to Lena so she could electronically mark their progress, as well.
    Everything they did had a redundancy somewhere, because Orpheus was tired of taking chances.
    They worked in relative silence, breaking it only occasionally to acknowledge that a room was clear. As suspected, the second floor was as Rachel and Ethan had left it during their evacuation.
    Orpheus had just finished marking a door when he heard Fish blurt, "What the fuck happened in here?" He trotted to where Fish and Ethan were standing. Fish seemed to be embarrassed that he'd lost his noise discipline, whereas Ethan just looked stunned.
    Rachel joined them and quickly understood. "This is where Denise ...?”
    "Yeah. I'd, uh ... I'd forgotten about this. Damn."
    "Who?" Orpheus asked.
    Ethan responded, "Might as well show you."
     
    O
     
    The first thing that Orpheus noticed was the odd white substance that covered half the room. At first he assumed that it was flour, and that they had walked into a Home Ec classroom, but the assorted beakers and microscopes told him that he was wrong. "I give, what is that?"
    "It's from a fire extinguisher. There was a bad guy here. And there's a body on the other side of that table."
    Orpheus leaned his weapon up against a sink and went around the other side. Ethan was correct. A body lay under a clear plastic tarp. Orpheus was pretty sure that it was a female, but he had no inclination to lift up the tarp to confirm it. There was almost no odor of decomposition now, but under the tarp was a completely different story. "You never told me anything about this."
    "I never told you about a couple of things. That whole day was just fucking awful." Still, Ethan managed to relate the details of Trent's betrayal and Denise's death.
    When he was finished, Orpheus advised Lena of the situation in the science room. He put a hand on his son's shoulder and said, "Hey, we'll make sure she gets a real burial. Is, uh, there anyone else that we need to take care of?"
    Ethan took a moment to answer. "No one who still has anything left to bury. Let's just keep moving."
    Ethan led them back out, and they continued clearing the floor.
    They circled the entire floor without incident and ended up on the other side of Orpheus' net, which was fully intact. "Okay, down we go."
    The group stood at the top of the stairwell. The first flight of stairs and landing were clear, but the stairs took two ninety-degree turns before they reached the bottom floor. "We're blind here, so be careful," Orpheus said.
    Fish asked, "Hey, guys? What music do you think zombies would hate the most?"
    Tim and Ethan answered simultaneously. "Country."
    Rachel rolled her eyes. "You guys just don't know good music."
    Fish fiddled with his cell phone. "Country ... it ... is." He looked at Orpheus. "Try something?"
    "Go