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"Where are the zombies?" Jason asked worriedly "This town has to have some"

The truck sputtered once and died

They were a block frorabbed the CB transceiver, but before she could speak, it cackled and a voice said, "We have a distraction going Run for the corner where we are signaling"

"Corner? Corner?" Jenni looked scattered and afraid

"Calun, her backpack, and the bag of ammo and leaped out of the truck at the ready She spotted aa Texas flag at her "There!

Follow et her backpack on Jason hopped out, backpack on, and the dog leaped out behind him

"Run," Katie said ordered

They ran

Katie was in good shape, but not used to running with so un in her hand was a co boarded up, "for lease" signs faded on their ruined doors They raced past blood splatters on the sidewalk They ran past e with their open doors and s They ran across an old, red brick street and aie yellow ar doard theet in," ait harder to run Her legs felt rubbery fro behind her

"Hurry!"

Her lungs hurt, her back hurt, her body hurt, but she ran

The large scoop of the ed teeth so They ran for it and heard the screeches of the undead

"Run!" A man’s voice boomed out "Get into it!"

Katie reached it and whirled around in the direction of thearound the far corner

Jenni lost her footing and tued to fall into the clawed scoop Jason ju in and Jason and Jenni grabbed hie scoop was pretty

The zo, but realized it would waste ti with a steady whine of its machinery and she half fell, half ju on top of everyone else

Their vieas shifted as they were lifted and Katie felt sickeningly vulnerable She was tre to vorisly and bloodied, grabbed onto one of the dirt encrusted teeth of the yellow construction beast The ar swept up over the crowd, barely a few feet over the heads of the crazed zo to get a better hold Another hand, its other hand, fumbled at her foot Katie was terrified tooff Jason, Jenni and poor Jack and into the crowd below She could only stare at the scrabbling hand in fear

Jack solved the problerabbed the hand of the zorip and fell Theabout Katie felt herself slipping and Jason and Jenni grabbed onto her tighter And the world tilted and they were being lowered

Katie lost her balance, slid, and painfully went over the teeth of the contraption Instead of a plunge into the undead, she landed on soft soil A ently and heaved her to her feet

She stood on the edges of a large construction site Two enors flanked its backside and one side A ses of the site were open to the rest of the town and those were cut off with a hurricane fence Beyond the fence was a ring of construction trucks that had dirt and bags of cement tucked underneath the a secondary wall But there was a third wall already being constructed within the hurricane fence

Already it was connecting one building to the city hall A high wrought iron fence surrounded the city hall and its ere covered in fancy ironwork

Katie was staggered by what she saw The portable office buildings for the site were now residences, that was plain to see, and a lunch wagon was parked in a corner Construction workers werefast to create a se in the site There were people clustered about to see the newcohed with relief as she staggered out of the crane’s scoop She was a bit dirty and ru very relieved

TheKatie’s hand finally ca around He was taller than she was, sturdy in his build, with curly brown hair and the warmest hazel eyes she’d ever seen He radiated warht and build spoke of a man used to hard work

"You, okay?" he finally asked

"Yeah," she nodded and looked at his hand It was dirty, caked with dirt and bits of ceht now," he answered in a voice that would lead men into battle, not because they feared him, but loved him "I’m Travis"

"Katie," she answered and slowly drew her hand away He was like her father One of those quietly strong s