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Buell’s motorcycle. A few moments later Buell came down from the roof via the catwalk which leads to the roof hatch. Simultaneously, Max entered as the electric roll-up door closed behind him.
    “You guys okay?” I asked.
    “I am good—or, um, not hurt,” Buell answered.
    “Have you been watching the television, Max?” I asked.
    “Yeah, as a matter of fact, the President is supposed to speak at any moment.”
    “Turn up the television please,” I said to him.
    “Aye,” Max said as he grabbed the greasy remote from the top of a recycling drum.
    He cranked up the volume and dropped the remote back on the drum.
    Our timing was almost perfect. The screen was flashing “The President of the United States will be speaking any moment.”
    A handsome broadcaster was talking in the meantime. “The military has begun to set barriers around principal cities in an attempt to slow the spread of the virus and quarantine the already infected.”
    I took a seat on a stack of tires in the corner of the garage and rubbed my chest. I pulled up my shirt to look at the damage my handlebar had done in my collision with Tubby.
    “Whoa, man!” yelled Max. “What the hell? You look like you fell off your stripper pole again.”
    Laughs all around. Buell spit his cold coffee and gave an exaggerated knee slap.
    “Nope, I jammed my chest into my handlebar trying to avoid a fat Texan monster on the up-side of 280,” I answered.
    “Man, haven’t we all been there,” Buell deadpanned.
    “Fuck it!” I exclaimed as I ripped my shirt off.
    “Easy, Rem, it’s not the end of the world,” Buell quipped.
    I don’t think he realized the irony.
    “Sorry, guys, I have been stressed out this week. Even before this bullshit started. Sorry if I’m being terse.”
    “It’s all good, Rem, but what does ‘terse’ mean?” Buell smiled.
    Always the kidder Buell was. He had a knack for lightening the mood with a well-placed joke or personal jab.
    “We will let you know if you are getting to the point where we may mutiny,” Max said.
    “My cynicism is rearing its ugly head,” I said.
    “So what else is new?” Buell asked. “You know, for someone who has it so good, you sure are a grumpy fucker lately.”
    It was Emily.
    Emily had dated before, but this was the first time she overtly chose anyone over me and it did not sit well. And during a fucking zombie attack too! I knew I had no right to be jealous, but it still stuck in my craw.
    I threw my ripped shirt on the floor and walked toward the front of the garage. I looked out the window at the monsters who were now clawing at the fence. They were thirty feet from my garage, but I could see their jet black, lifeless eyes clearly. The sharp contrast of their eyes to their ashen gray skin was far from human. Many of the infected had blood on their faces and clothes, but others looked unscathed. The only thing they all had in common was the horrifying eyes.
    I shuddered and turned away.
    “So what to do, guys? Look at those fuckers outside, pushing on the gate. They don’t seem to be smart enough to use all their strength together and push the gate over, thank goodness.”
    “That’s because they don’t even know it’s a fence. They are just bumping into it like flies on a window,” Max added.
    “It appears the best way to stop those infected is blunt force trauma to the head. The brain appears to be the only vulnerable organ,” said a familiar voice from the television.
    That sentence caught our attention. As one, we fell silent and turned to the flat screen TV mounted above the door leading to the office. The person speaking on-screen was dressed in a lab coat and sported reading glasses. I recognized him immediately.
    Dr. Howard Evans looked forbidding and authoritative as he spoke.
    “The infected, by all accounts, are undeterred by trauma to any other part of their body. Attempting to disable them by striking their legs, for example, would slow their progress, but it would