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were just squirming around on the beach. I went over to watch with her and saw that the beach was thick with their bloated bodies. The infected that had been caught in the nets were being washed ashore with the incoming tide, and they looked like beached fish. They were too waterlogged to support their own weight.  
    “How’s the area around the dock looking, Jean?” asked the Chief.
    “Not as bad as the beach, Chief. There are a few that are trying to cross the path that leads to the dock. You’ll have to take them out before you can get to the plane.”
    Allison looked like she was going to be sick again. She was wearing the heavy duty coveralls we had found in the storerooms, so she was well protected from her neck down, but she was holding her machete at an odd angle, almost as if she had no idea how to use it. I didn’t think this could go well.
    After one last hug and kiss from Jean, we only had to wait while Molly was reassured by her parents that they would be fine. They took turns hugging her and telling her to be a good girl for Jean. Molly had been cheerful and always trying to help out with chores around the shelter, but she had stayed quiet, generally listening more than talking. She said she would be okay and that she would listen to Jean, but her lower lip was giving away her fears. Still, she managed not to cry when we began slipping out through the big door to the shelter.
    I closed the door and blew one last kiss to both of them then ushered Allison away from the entrance onto the path. The Chief, Kathy, and Tom had already begun moving forward, stalking the first of the infected dead that were on the path. Bus hung back closer to Allison. Although he was like a miniature version of the Chief, he wasn’t as formidable when it came to killing with a machete. That was fine with us because he had other skills. Besides being really intelligent, he was a good doctor, and there weren’t enough of those to go around.
    I kept Allison in front of me, partially so I could see if anything came at her from the sides, and partially because of the way she held her machete. I figured she was just clumsy enough to stab me in the back with it. I thought I saw Bus glance back at it himself a few times.
    The first infected dead we came to had gotten much closer to the entrance of the shelter than I had ever seen before. The weather had really taken its toll, and it looked like more than one creature had been feeding on it. There weren’t any blue crabs clinging to its clothes, but there was no doubt there had been.  
    I had gotten into the habit of not thinking about what I was doing when I would kill another infected dead. I tried to ignore what they were wearing, how old they had been, or their gender. It didn’t matter what they had done for a living when they were alive. Some wore uniforms, and some wore business suits. I thanked God there weren’t many children.  
    This one was about as unremarkable as the rest, but it went down easier than usual when the Chief swung his machete. He looked back at us with an expression that said, “Did you see that?” Another stepped from the bushes, and Kathy swung low. The blade took off the left leg at the knee, and it fell helplessly backward into the bushes.
    We never really stopped to watch when someone else in our group was busy killing an infected dead because it was while you were watching that you were most likely to be caught off guard. There always seemed to be another after you found one, and sometimes I wondered if they would ever stop coming.  
    A third infected stumbled onto the path, but this one came from the left where the ground sloped upward a bit. The slope made it stumble straight into Allison. Tom and Kathy were busy with their own infected and didn’t know what was going on behind them.
    It reached for Allison with uncoordinated, grasping fingers, and her use of the machete for defense was less coordinated than the infected. All I could do was