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"The race riot story," Katie said

Travis nodded "Sounded weird to ure out why there would be race riots breaking out all over the country Anyway, got here and already ere hearing horror stories out of the cities on the CB Truckers were reporting all sorts of crazy stuff We were all on edge, not sure what to think It sounded like an April Fool’s joke, but of course, this is March, not April Juan over there kept saying over and over again it was zombies, but we all just blew it off" Travis shook his head and looked at Katie in the eyes "I hed and ran a hand over her blond hair "Yeah, it does

Co to do until ere sure of the threat was get everyone in town out to the new high school He told us we could go ahead and start to break ground, but he wanted the civvies safe"

Travis leaned toward Katie "The Mayor is in the back pocket of the developer, you see"

"Ohhhhhh," Katie said

"So ent to work, but kept getting distracted by all the stories pouring in on the CB and on the radio So, anyway, Curtis over there, that cop, comes by and tells me that there was an attack at a service station down the road and the officer on the scene had to put down the attacker he was so violent They took the lady this freak attacked down to the clinic He was real jittery and I didn’t bla, you know?"

Jenni’s head was bobbing up and down furiously

Travis shook his head and looked past the wall into the distance "Just fucked up Anye start to finally get down toe hear a big commotion down the block

Those cars out there just crash Out of towner cars And all hell is breaking loose in those cars And we can see the, then suddenly there are these…things…crawling out of the cars and they start running down the street toward us Now, it’s not nor his feet and he still keeps running"

Katie winced at the thought and vividly rerievous wounds on the ed her out of her car had been a clear indicator that things weren’t right

"Four of theht for us and Juan, he’s a crazy son of a bitch, just sweeps the over there with the ar about zombies and honestly, at that point, we believed hiet up Their heads were bashed in But the other two, despite having ar toward us So we grabbed up some shovels and dented their heads in About that ti down at the clinic and that the dead alking again

The Mayor was out in front of city hall freaking out because he saw us take out the four zoh school, so we go over and tell the Mayor that anyone bit needs to be tossed out on their ass" Travis shook his head "Because in zombie movies…"

"The bite is what makes them zombies," Jenni said helpfully

"Yeah And so far…welldamn…so far it was clear to me and I think everyone else that ever watched those aze steadily on Katie "But despite seeing it, I found it hard to believe it But I couldn’t afford not to believe"

Katie agreed silently, her gaze steadilyhis "Yes, because you have to survive"

"Exactly So we convince the Mayor to call the school and tell theet any of the other officers from the town on the horn Well, there are only four cops for the whole town, but none of the bad The forh school and tells the present Mayor to go fuck himself four different ways and upside down Finally, he adh school and that the school nurse is taking care of theh Emorton The school was completely filled with zo us here They’ll probably be here in a little while," Jenni added

Travis blinked "Shit"

"We didn’t mean for them to follow," Jenni said quickly

"Yeah, it kinda just happened," Jason said helpfully fro to look as cal bad news, Katie said, "Probably around twenty"

Travis just ran his hand slowly through his hair and nodded "Okay

We’ll deal The wall should keep them out Where was I? Oh, yeah Within 15 minutes we lost all communication with the school That is e kneere in for a shitload of trouble So we quickly drove all the trucks around to block off any vulnerable areas and packed sandbags and ces around theood number, but if the whole town decided to coreed She looked at the newly constructed ceht away"

"About one o’clock yesterday," Travis said "Been building ever since We should have the rest up soon"

Katie’s gaze swept over the three buildings, her back to the road they had driven in on Directly in front of her was an old building with advertising painted on its wall barely visible due to ti that reached skyward and looked like it was topped byover her shoulder to her right was the city hall with its heavy fence Two portable buildings that were originally offices were now dorms it looked like

Construction workers, city workers, and a few children and wo build the neall There were maybe thirty people in all in the co off for ho down people want to get to their families," Travis said softly