Gather ye rosebloods while ye may

I'm Adam. I drive the EarthRoamer. Trust me when I say it has run over a few of the Zombs along the way. There is strength in numbers, and I like to sleep sometimes, so I've picked a few folk along the way.

Reading in the seat next to me is the Librarian. She's tough as nails. When I wandered into her quiet space a few weeks back, being a reader myself, she didn't want to tag along. "I'm safe here alone in the country," she said. But I saw her heart wasn't in it. She was dead lonely, live as she was. So I persisted a bit, letting her make a show of being fine, but my patience was rewarded. She's reading now out here on the open road, but when we pass through cities, her sharp eyes are good to have shotgun.

Napping in the back is a cute little blonde girl we found whimpering on her front porch. When she saw us, she was more than ready to have the company.

Across from her is a Hispanic young man who likes to write. He has boxes of pens in his backpack, like they are his reason for existing. And a handful of journals, mostly waiting to be filled. I think she and he like each other. Or they will before too long, way things are going.

Our latest arrival is from the town we just left, a package deal. We were about to exit the town, thinking the Zomb-Pox had killed em all, when I saw two of the critters peering a little too curiously in the window of a house. I pulled to a stop and nodded at Agatha. She turned to the backseat, "Kids, you want to help us with a little extermination?"

By the time I had finished assessing the area and assured myself we could do the job without getting swarmed, Agatha had her machete, Sue had her shotgun, and Gustavo had America's Rifle, the AR-15. I raised my own AR-7 into position, and we moved into position on the numbers, Gustavo and I on point, Agatha behind us, and Sue bravely turning her back to us and the two ghouls so she could keep watch on our backs. "Trust leads to survival," I told them, and I was glad she took it to heart. The sound of her shotgun going off had saved us more than once the last two weeks. Two weeks. More like two life times.

"Hey, you there in the house!!!" I yelled it at the top of my lungs. "Get down low. We are about to shoot your friendly neighborhood zombies!!" The two at the window immediately turned. They had clearly been through the ringer once or twice. One of them was ragged with bone showing through in his face, and lucky for us, he was a limper, which gave us time. The other was stained all over red, but she moved a bit faster, and was halfway across the yard when I calmly told Gustavo, "I got her, buddy. You get slow-poke." I knew Aggie would follow up my kill, so I aimed at the head, fired, and moved right down the line of the little white picket fence. My aim was true. Her head blew apart nicely, which made her wibble-wobble there on the lawn. I took my time taking out her knee cap and then planting one in her chest, watched her go down.

By the time I hopped the fence, I saw that Gustavo had put Pokey in hell (my subconscious told me three shots fired from his rifle). So far, clockwork. I passed our Zombie Gal on the lawn but turned to keep my rifle leveled at her head, while Agatha brought all her weight to bear in one mighty slice through the creature's neck, severing the head off neatly, much to her satisfaction. Her smile was not unlike the one she had when she'd just finished a really good book.

Gustavo took a bailing hook off his belt and hauled his kill away from the side of the house. It was still twitchy, but Agatha gathered herself and dropped all she had down into a crouch-swing that did the coup de grace with panache.

"If there is anybody in there, this zombie couple out here is more than dead. It is safe to come say hello, if you like." We waited. One of the rules of survival is not to tempt fate, if you can help it, and time was on our side at the moment. Sue's shotgun had not gone off. No use getting killed by a living, breathing civilian, if we could help it. I stroked my growth of beard and was thinking of giving another reassuring yell, when I heard the sound of movement from inside. Just wait.

I saw Gustavo raise his rifle up a bit, getting ready. Agatha wiped her machete on the grass and stood up with that good posture she has.

"Just a minute. I'm putting my dogs on leashes." Those were not the words I expected to hear, but then again, I'm not sure what I expected to hear exactly. I was still surprised a few moments later when the door opened and a pretty brunette walked out with a Doberman attached to one leash and a toy poodle stretching out a retractable line on the other. "Hello and thank you all. My name is Carol. This is Max here, and the little baby is Peanut. I thought I was done for this time. I was just about ready to give up in there."

So, that is how it happened. My name is Adam, and I am driving. And we just added Carol, Max and yes, Peanut, to our zombie killing band of refugees. Lord help us, we will make it work.