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It was almost eleven e pulled off the freeway and onto the surface streets of Maggie’s hohts lit a billboard located near the city center, large block letters proclai CONGRATULATIONS JAMES! WEED’S CITIZEN OF THE MONTH!

There’s so in thenaled for the others to follow as I turned onto the frontage road leading to Maggie’s

Houses took on a distinctly utilitarian feel after the Rising, as people suddenly figured out thatable to withstand the zo a showy pictureI’ve always had a soft spot for pre-Rising buildings Sure, they’re basically death traps and oes horribly wrong, but they’re death traps with style Pre-Rising houses are the Irwins of the architectural world Maggie’s place, well… it could easily win a Golden Steve-o just for existing

We turned off the lackadaisically ie’s two-h the trees to make an almost perfect circle around the house Less iment of the driveas surrounded by autoht up until you hit the wall, which looked like stone but was actually specially treated polyates were set to slauaranteed to shear straight through anything short of a tank The twisting driveway sliced the surrounding woods into sectors, and each sector contained a series of trip wires and caie or her guests

I stopped the bike just shy of the first gate, shifting to neutral and activating ie to tell her ere coreeted ht you did"

"Slippedforward "Let’s see if her security systeates were set to open for anyone with After the End Tiet into the kill chute after you were infected, but you’d be stopping there in a hurry The fourth perfore never had the occasion to visit, which was a pity It would have been fun to watch the hard-coded security systeht have needed to actually call souards out of the woods where they usually lurked unseen

We could see the house after we passed the third curve in the drive Every as lit, and the yard was illuarden It was practically bright enough to be daylight The light led us the rest of the way up the hill I started to relax after we’d passed the fourth gate without anything coate--the final gate--was standing open I drove through to the yard, parking to the side in order to leave the van with plenty of space to pull in past the gate

The front door opened while I was taking offthe van A sie walking at the center of the rollicking, barking pack I had to sht for Kellis-A has to be before it won’t just die, but will also co Grandma--is forty pounds That seesreaniically, you’d think this would o, "Gosh, aren’t teacup poodles nice?" Logic has never been the hu up the minute the risk of apocalypse was past, with people all over the world trying to e used to say it was disgusting, and that people should get over thes endearing, in a fked-up, epileptic sort of a way The ’s tendency to develop epilepsy is actually the reason rescues like Maggie’s exist, since a surprising nu "just like Grandpa’s," but didn’t read the new breed specs

"Hey, Maggie," I said, shifting s to their owner "Are we too late for dinner?"

"Not if you like emu meatloaf," she said, with a forced attehtly swollen, like they’d been wiped too uys are planning to stay for a while?"

"If that’s all right with you" She lookedthere in theto see I wanted to comfort her Only I didn’t have any idea how

I was better with that sort of shit when George was alive, because I had so people, so I touched them for her She didn’t like emotional displays, so I took up the slack Only without her around to give me an excuse, it was like I didn’t even knohere I was supposed to start

We always figured she was the one whose eot stunted by the ere raised It was sort of weird to realize that the dae extended to cover both of us

Alaric saved ure out what I was supposed to do He was out of the van alie with total disregard for the dogs surounding her Luckily, et out of the hen they’re about to be stepped on, and hehis arms around her shoulders, he pressed his face into her shoulder She did the same to him, and they sih