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recover, then we can move on. We realize this is a temporary solution, but we need it. We need a break.”
    Winston nods slowly and scratches at his beard. It’s long now, and he reminds me of a black member of ZZ Top. I guess he decided not cut it any time soon. “You think it’s safe?”
    Angus spits again, and no one even blinks. We’re getting too used to it. “Safest place we been, that’s for sure.”
    We lapse into silence. Since I can’t read minds, I don’t know for sure what everyone else is thinking about, but I can’t stop reliving the past few months. The emergence of the virus in New York, which almost seems like a dream at this point, then the spread. The realization that things were not going to get better, and my determination to make it to Emily. To the daughter I gave up for adoption when I was sixteen. It required travel approval since the country was under martial law and a physical, but I was determined to make it happen. When my car broke down, I thought that was the end for me, but it turned out to be the best thing to ever happen. It’s how I met Axl. He and Angus were running from the virus too, heading to California just like I was. By the time we got there the virus had taken its toll, though. Eighty-five percent of the population gone in a matter of weeks. The world felt like a ghost town.
    Of course, that would have been a much more desirable alternative to the new reality of the walking dead.
    When we realized the dead had come back, we were floored, and the shelter in Vegas seemed like a utopia. The perfect place for us to live out the next few years while we waited for the bodies to die a second time. It should have worked, but life is cruel. The company that built the thing had financial problems, which resulted in selling off all their supplies. We had to make a run out to Vegas to find more food and fuel, and that’s where we met the real enemy. Who knew there were things worse than zombies out there?
    The men who’d taken over the Monte Carlo were the worst kind. Evil to the very core. When they grabbed Hadley and me, we had little hope of escape. If Jon hadn’t been undercover in the casino looking for his sister, we’d probably still be there. He may have been one of the men who grabbed us, but he also helped us escape. We made it out alive, but not without a few scars. The men from Vegas got their revenge, though. They destroyed our shelter, the only safe place left as far as we know. Since then we’ve been wandering. Lost. Looking for a place that will sustain a group this size while we cling to the few scraps of hope we have left.
    We went from Nevada to Utah, wanting to make it out to Wyoming or Montana. Areas that were less populated and had more open space back when people were still people. But a lot of the roads were blocked from when the country was under martial law. The route we followed eventually led us to Colorado, but before that we drove through hundreds of miles of nothingness. Looking for other survivors we could trust or a safe place to live or some sign that there’s still law in this country. We found none of that.
    What we found instead were bodies walking the Earth or rotting in piles. Towns and cities overrun. Stores looted or smashed or burnt. The few living people we came across weren’t as bad as the ones in Vegas, but they didn’t fit in with our group. We saw secluded areas that had been fortified where men acted like frat brothers. Spending their days drinking and eating bags of Doritos while they used the dead for target practice. One house we found had the rotting bodies of zombies tied to the fence circling the property. One every few feet, like grisly scarecrows. It terrified the children and put the rest of us on edge. Who knows what frame of mind the inhabitants were in to do such a grotesque thing? We didn’t wait around to find out.
    After a few minutes of silence, Winston finally nods, exhaling slowly. There’s a good chance he