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in a bedroom. When they got that down, we had no choice but to climb out on the roof.”
     
    He looked past us to make sure Amanda wasn't listening. My mom had her occupied on the sofa bed. “I begged Lisa to get out on the roof, but she refused. She was scared of heights, and thought she could bargain with the zombies.”
     
    He exhaled loudly, his eyes bright with tears. “We had to watch them tear into her. She begged them to stop, but they never even registered it. They might look human, but there is nothing human inside of them. They live for one thing and one thing only. To eat us.”
     
    “You needed a gun, James,” my dad said.
     
    “I sure as hell wished I would have had one,” James replied, his face grim. “God forgive me for saying this, but I would have put her out of her misery myself if I would have had one. Lisa suffered, and there was nothing I could do for her. I'll have to live with that for the rest of my life, as long as that might be.”
     
    It was a horrible thing to hear put into words. I changed the subject. “How did you get here?”
     
    “It wasn't easy. By then, most of the zombies were in our house. We had to jump off the roof and pray we didn't break a leg or arm in the process. My car keys were in the house. We tried a few of our neighbors, but they were either dead themselves or to afraid to let us in. Amanda actually thought of coming here. Thank God you're okay.”
     
    Dad nodded. “Same to you. I'll tell you what. Why don't you go upstairs and take a shower. In fact, we could all use one. We can take turns. Then we will see about getting some breakfast and making some plans.”
     
    James nodded in agreement. He gestured at his shirt. “Do you have a change of clothes I could use?”
     
    “Sure, I'll get them.”
     
    They started up the stairs, leaving Jayden and I standing there. I looked in the living room at Mom and Amanda. They were talking pretty seriously, so I didn't want to disturb them. “Want to go in the kitchen?”
     
    Jayden gestured for me to go first. We were silent as we walked into. The sun was up, the kitchen bright and cheerful. It was a mockery of our circumstances, and the world outside these walls. What was the point of having such a cheerful looking room when you could walk out the door and die immediately?
     
    Jayden sat down, pushing his hair back from his face, but I wanted to take a look outside. I moved from window to window, but couldn't see anything out of the ordinary. At least it was ordinary if you considered a completely silent world with no signs of life normal.
     
    There were no cars moving down the streets at all, no people in their yards or on their sidewalks. It reminded me of this show I'd watched once. In an old, abandoned mining area they had built a fake town, literally out in the middle of nowhere. It was complete with new, suburban type homes and mannequins instead of people. There was even a lawn sprayer that would come on at preset intervals. My neighborhood reminded me of this abandoned town, where nobody lived. 
     
    Except it didn't have the dead walking the streets.
     
    I filled Jayden in on my thoughts. “I keep hoping this is something just temporary, that a few days from now life will be back to normal. Deep inside, though, I know that's not the case. Things will never be what they were before. What kind of future are we going to have when we could die anytime?” I asked, turning back to look at him.
     
    He was watching me patiently with a wary expression across his attractive features. “I guess we have to learn how to live in the moment,” he finally replied, turning his face to stare out through the window next to him. “I mean we have no guarantees about tomorrow. We will just have to live the best we can, take happiness when it comes along, and learn to cope with the pain of losing the ones we love. It's definitely not going to be easy.” He sounded really mature to be twenty years old.
     
    “How