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"Maybe later," I said, standing "Keep Alaric alive I’ out to assist with evac"

"Empty promises," she muttered, barely audible "Alaric! Behindin surprise The sharp report of Becks shooting their captive zombie followed immediately after The ent they seeet out of there alive, they needed to reduce the number of infected as much as possible I didn’t see hermy rifle fro, "Should I…?"

"Negative Stay here, get the equipet ready to drive like hell"

"Check," he said, scra from his seat toward the front of the van I didn’t really pay attention to that, either; I was busy kicking open the doors and stepping out into the blazing light of the afternoon

When you’re going to play with dead things, do it during the daylight They don’t see as well in bright light as humans do, and they don’t hide as hen they don’t have the shadows helping theonna die, make sure you do it on camera

The GPS tracker inin a stationary position roughly two miles away Two miles is the federally mandated minimum distance between an intentional zo safe zone, such as our van Not that the infected would avoid co within two miles out of some sort of respect for the lae just aren’t allowed to lure them any closer than that I did soroup of six, and the infected weren’t h zoood

"Right," I said, and swung myself into the driver’s seat of Dave’s Jeep The keys were already in the ignition

Unlike most field vehicles, Dave’s Jeep has no armor to speak of, unless you count the run-flat tires and the titanium-reinforced fra has been stripped down to the bare ain so le piece left that conforms to factory standards It offers about asan attack of the infected as a wet paper bag A very fast wet paper bag It’s evac only in hostile territory, and we haven’t lost ait

I braced e swaths of California were effectively abandoned after the Rising, for one reason or another "Difficult to secure" was one; "hostile terrain giving the advantage to the enemy" was another My personal favorite applied to the s, in Solano County: "Nobody cared enough to bother" They had a population of less than two hundred pre-Rising, and there were no survivors When the federal government needed to appoint funds for cleanup and security, there was nobody to argue in favor of cleaning the place out They still get the standard patrols, just because letting the zombies mob is in nobody’s best interests, but for thehas been left to the dead

It should have been the perfect place to run Alaric’s last field trial drill Abandoned, isolated, close enough to Fairfield to allow for pretty easy evac if the need arose, but far enough away that we could still get soerous as Santa Cruz, not as candy-ass as Bodega Bay The ideal infected fishing hole Only it looked like the zo softly but steadily tothe Jeep up to the highest speed I was confident I could handle The fraht fly apart at any second, and, alrin I pushed the speed up a little farther The shaking increased, and e I don’t want to be an only child

My grin died "I already am," I said, and floored it

My dead sister that only I can hear--and yes, I know I’ out the obvious--isn’t the only one who’s been worried aboutsuicidal tendencies since she passed away "Passed away" is a polite, bloodless way of saying "wasto explain the situation every time she comes up in conversation Yeah, I had a sister, and yeah, she died Also yeah, I talk to her all the da as I’h to function

I stopped talking to her for alist who said he could "help" By the fifth day, I wanted to eat a bullet for breakfast That’s one experiave up the bulk of ht calet them more worked up I was Shaun Mason, Irwin to the president! I wasn’t supposed to say "Fuck this noise" and take over my sister’s desk job! Only that’s exactly what I did So my own sister in the spine lefte the fact that I was licensed for supportthe yearly exao out into the field any tietting decent footage anyh to Becks and Alaric’s position that I could hear gunshots up ahead, acco toso hard that I probably shouldn’t try to o any faster