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for that stuff?” he asked.
    “The ER,” I told him.
    “Was if full of zombies?”
    I shook my head. “Not yet.”
    Mac looked at Alex and Gabby. “We should go get the monitors and pumps.”
    Alex grumbled, not liking the idea simply because it wasn’t his. After a moment’s consideration, we pulled the car around and went back into the ER. Alex and Gabby took on half the list while Mac and I found the rest of the items. We filled up the back of the SUV in less than an hour. And we got everything on the list…except the medicine.
    We were running out of daylight. Alex wanted to keep going but when thick snowflakes floated down from the dark clouds, we turned off the back road in search for a town.
    It was the tall, unscathed cast iron gates that drew us in. The town seemed ghosted, though the litter that blew atop the powdery layer of pristine white snow led me to believe it was abandoned only recently. I was too busy scanning our surrounding for the undead to read the town’s name on the sign as I passed it, though the paint was chipping and flaking off so badly it would have taken a second glance to discern what it said anyway.
    I lowered my rifle and examined the house we had chosen. Painted a forest green with dark gray shutters, the Victorian house must have been beautiful at one time. The wooden boards creaked as we walked up the porch. I half expected a creepy girl dressed in a white lace dress to pull back the ivory curtains and stare at us before disappearing. I rolled my eyes at my own thought.
    “No,” I told Alex, seeing him raise his foot to kick the door it. I set my rifle down. “I’ll get it.”
    “You’re good and all, Penwell, but I’m stronger than you,” he stated. That was almost a compliment.
    “Chill, Hercules. If you kick down the door, we can’t close it tonight.”
    “Then how are we supposed to get in?” he demanded, waving his hand at the door.
    I pulled a bobby pin from my hair. “Uh, pick the lock.” I straightened the pin and yanked the rubber ends off. I did the same to another, causing my bangs to fall into my face, knelt down by the door, and got to work. Only a minute later, I turned the knob.
    “I’ve heard you are quite the criminal,” Alex sneered.
    “Lay off, Alex,” Gabby snapped. “She got us in. Thanks, Orissa.” She glared at Alex and stepped inside. I dropped the bobby pins and followed her.
    The first thing I noticed was the stuffed dog. It wasn’t a cute, fluffy, toy stuffed dog. It was a real dog—taxidermy at its finest— in a sitting position, set at the bottom of the stairs that spilled into the foyer. The light from Gabby’s flashlight reflected off the glass eyes.
    “That’s disturbing,” she said and cast her light elsewhere.
    “Not as disturbing as that,” Mac said, motioning to where his flashlight illuminated.
    “What the hell?” I asked, tipping my head. I looked around and felt the slightest bit of sickened fear. “We’re in a fucking wax museum.” I stepped forward to the life-size wax figure of Abraham Lincoln that Mac’s light was still on. I pulled my glove off and scrapped at his face with my fingernail.
    “What a lovely place to stay,” Gabby said sarcastically. She took her backpack off, letting it drop to the floor with a heavy thump. “Hey,” she whispered, turning to me. “Do you think there’s a psycho in the basement waiting to dip us into a big vat of wax and turn us into dolls?”
    I looked at her quizzically. “Uh, no.”
    “Never mind, I guess you never saw that movie.”
    We explored the rest of the house. Each room was set up in a different theme with coordinating wax characters. We shoved the dolls out of the living room and broke chairs apart to use as firewood for the fancy, cast iron fire place, which did little to warm the frozen room.
    We slept in shifts. Like usual, I took the first watch. I was too cold to settle down so I walked around the building, jogging up and down the stairs to keep