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She knehat that h people and understood what death was far better than any six-year-old should have to understand

We went to bed after that I still felt too sick to eat, and the kids had already had supper I shared a double bed with Stella and Max, and Stella snuggled up close to me She cried softly as she fell asleep, and I stroked her hair

Max was having trouble falling asleep, too, so he askedhiht after zombies had killed our parents and the virus was still new, I used to sing to hiht

I didn’t know any lullabies, but Max didn’t know that The only song I could come up with that I knew all the lyrics for "Blackbird" by the Beatles So, as the kids drifted off to sleep, I softly sang to the cas and left

The days that followed felt unremarkable We walked froroans following us

Boden and Serg took turns carrying Stella when she got too tired to walk I tried to, but Boden refused to letuntilabout losing so roup was that our food rations suddenly didn’t see to be set for a while, but not forever

When ent to bed one night, cae Raroan all day Just to be safe, alked on another day, and another day after that, and we still didn’t hear anything

Midafternoon on the fourth day without any death groans, we found a house on a lake It wasrooht of the house and ot the full view of the lake

All the furniture was covered with sheets, carefully protected This was somebody’s vacation home, and they’d left one fall and never came back Based on all the dust that had built up and the o But thatyour flesh, a vacation didn’t sound like as much fun

There were four bedrooms upstairs, and the master bedroom had a fireplace One of the bedrooms was done all in purples and pinks, with flowers everywhere The s on it

The other two bedrooe, and the other was forest green with duck tri part wasn’t the view, the bedrooame room in the basement Not only did it have a pool table and a poker table, which were fun enough theuns and many boxes of shells below They even had a crossbrow, and several fishing rods

We’d be able to hunt and defend ourselves against attacks

We were soh I wasn’t sure how deep ere, it was cold enough that the grass was still mostly covered in snow