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her down. She hadn't expected to need a cane at only thirty-three years old, but she guessed she hadn't expected a lot of things.
    “Ankle hurting today?” said Carly.
    Angie shook her head. “Nope,” she lied, then changed the subject. “Too bad Old West can't build some traps outside the walls. Maybe then the Guard"—and Angie knew she meant Maylee—"wouldn't have to run outside so often. Maybe we can work something out..."
    "Speaking of West," said Carly, looking at her clipboard, "we need some new supplies soon."
    Angie nodded. “Got it.”
    “I’ve got the list here and—”
    “Later.”
    “Right,” said Carly. “One more thing, then. There’s been some damage to the house.”
    Angie sighed, limping through the snow between two battered structures. “Graffiti again?”
    “Yeah.”
    Angie was getting angry. “What’s this one say?”
    Carly flipped through the papers on her clipboard. She read aloud. “’Must be nice to have walls to write on.’”
    Angie turned her head to her. “You wrote it in your notes?” she said, her voice a little harsher than she expected.
    Carly looked surprised and hurt. “Someone has to keep a record.”
    Angie looked down, remembering what had happened to the rest of Carly’s family. “I’m sorry, Carly. I understand. Tell me, is Dalton with Dr. Graham?”
    Carly flipped through her notes. “Um, yes. He’s there all morning.”
    “Okay. I’ve got something to take care of there. We’ll go over the supply list later, okay?”
    “Okay, Ms. Land.”
    “Thank you for all your help, Carly.”
    Carly headed off to Angie’s right. Angie watched her go as she limped on. She hadn’t expected to have an assistant. Just another unexpected thing to add to the long list. She walked on.
    She hadn't expected the night she reported to work at Lakewood Memorial Hospital so long ago to be the last night of the world. She hadn't expected corpses to dig themselves out of the ground and consume anyone left alive. She hadn't expected to end up homeless and on the run with her two children. She hadn't expected to be part of a crazy war to take over Ashton Memorial Zoo. A war neither side won and which had cost dozens, maybe hundreds, of lives.
    She felt a pang of guilt when she thought back to the zoo. People had followed her to their deaths. She'd told herself it wasn't her fault. She hadn't asked to be a leader. But she'd become one then and, fuck help her, she was one now.
    Again, she hadn't intended it. She and her two children had fled the chaos of Ashton back to the small town of Lakewood. They took shelter wherever they could find it, moving further and further out of town each time. Finally they found an isolated farmhouse along a seldom-used road. It was intact and reasonably defensible, so they had moved in.
    They were alone for almost a year before another person showed up. Then another, then another. Angie took in as many as she could before the house was full. But people kept coming. At first they lived in tents while others stood guard. Then enough people collected to make supply expeditions to Lakewood. They would use whatever they found to construct new dwellings and built a makeshift wall around the whole thing.
    In a little over a year, they had something like a town. And everyone treated Angie as being in charge, which made her something like a mayor. She hadn't been thrilled about it, but she had accepted it.
    But the town had grown too quickly. There were people living in the outer areas she barely knew, and they barely knew her. To them, she was the lady with the cane who got to live in the house. She saw the way they looked at her. She didn't like it, but she didn't know what to do. It was something else she accepted.
    She wished she hadn't accepted how far the medical shed was from the farmhouse. She reached the shed and grabbed the door handle. She pulled, ignoring the dull pain in her ankle as she shifted her weight, and stepped inside, sighing as she