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so rounds of .223, in addition to my shotgun and 9mm pistol.
    They could hunker down in town then beat feet for the camp—a 4.5-acre piece of land with a double-wide on it near Tygart Lake in West Virginia, about two and half hours north of them. We lived there for several years before I transferred to Charleston.
    My daughter, Auddy, lived in South Carolina, and that was my biggest fear. She was afraid to own a gun; all she had was a damn Taser and some mace I’d bought for her. Her boyfriend was smart and tough and would do what he could, but the not knowing haunted me.
    Somehow, I managed to fall asleep in spite of the rantings of my conscious mind.
    I woke to Max’s whispered insistence. I sat up and tried to make sense of what he was saying.
    “Ryan, wake up! Something is out there, Ryan!”
    I sat up and waved him quiet. Listening for a minute, I could hear the shrieks I’d come to associate with the freaks. Yeah, that name is going to stick, I thought before my mind flicked back to Max.
    “Are they trying to get in?” I asked him, feeling around for the M9 I left lying next to me on the bed.
    “No, but there seems to be a bunch of them running up and down the street.”
    He was standing by the window, peering out of the cracks he left specifically for that purpose. I cupped my hand over the end of my flashlight and flicked it on and off to check the batteries, then located the M9, holstered it, and got up to stand next to him. We stood there together, looking out through the crack and over the driveway to the street.
    It was a rare clear moonlit night in western Washington, and I could see fairly well. Several of the freaks were jogging down the middle of the road. They stopped and lifted their faces toward the sky, as if they were sniffing the air. Every so often, one would break off from the pack and head off on its own. This was the first time I saw that type of pack mentality. Up until then, I’d only experienced them mano-a-mano. This was new, and new scared me. It meant they were developing traits they didn’t possess last night, or perhaps I just hadn’t seen it. It showed a level of intelligence, this cooperation between them, and that didn’t bode well for us. Their methods had not found us yet, but it was concerning nonetheless.
    “How is Lisa doing?” I asked, almost too low to be heard. “And what time is it?”
    Max looked at his watch. “It’s 1:30, and Lisa seems to be resting much better than earlier. Without the thermometer, though, I can’t tell if she still has a fever.”
    “Well? Does she still feel hot?”
    Max shot back a hurt look. “How the hell am I supposed to tell?”
    We are making too much noise. I raised my hand to try to quiet him. I had it about halfway up when I heard a loud shriek right outside the window, then another at the front of the house. That’s when the banging started. It sounded like they couldn’t tell the difference between the boarded windows and the exterior walls.
    The booming noise grew more frequent, and Max raised his M4. I began waving frantically in the half-dark room at him. Thankfully, he saw me, lowered the rifle, and mouthed “WHAT?” back at me.
    I pointed to the other room and made what I thought was the universal sign for someone sleeping, then pointed again, hoping he understood we needed to go to Lisa. He looked at me as if I’d lost my mind. No, dumb shit, I don’t want to take a nap.
    “Go to Lisa,” I whispered and pointed again.
    He acted like he couldn’t read my mind and flipped me off as he headed to the front room. I turned the flashlight on again, keeping my hand over the light, letting just enough spill for me to see my way. When I got to the couch, Max was there feeling Lisa’s forehead.
    I heard panting noises coming from the door a few feet away. As quietly as I could, I crept over to it. We had only put a couple of two-by-fours across the front door in case we needed to use it as an exit. The door was steel, with