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CHAPTER THREE


“Copy, Dispatch. Unit 5-31 responding. Copy multiple reports of . . . zombies? Is this real? Dispatch, Unit 5-31. We don’t have time for your jokes out here. It’s a fucking madhouse!”

From: Collected Radio Transmissions of the Fall,

University of the South Press, 2053



There was a brief lull between when Sister Ann told me to teach Ulla and when I actually got around to it. A really bad storm swung through and dumped a ton of rain on the campus, which caused Dunlap Creek to rise almost high enough to wash out the bridge. I wouldn’t have been too choked up if that’d happened, since it meant there was no way for someone to come up the campus road without crossing the creek beforehand. Unfortunately, after the rain stopped and the flooding went down, the bridge still stood.

The possibility of flash flooding in the mountains was always there, but not usually something we worried about too much on campus. St. Dominic’s, after all, was at the top of a mountain. It would have to be rain of Biblical proportions to threaten us. Granted, some of the older buildings could flood—the basement of the school was one—but the mountain itself wasn’t going anywhere.

Which was a good thing, too. It was a lot of rain.

Instead of traipsing around in the rain being wet and miserable, I began teaching Ulla from the comfort of the bunker everything Sister Ann had taught me about firearms safety: trigger discipline, making certain you keep the barrel pointed down and away, making certain the safety is on if you’re not about to use it . . .  Every little nugget of information Sister Ann had given me, I tried to pass on to her.

To her credit, Ulla was an ideal student. She soaked up information like a sponge. If she didn’t understand something she’d ask me to explain more. Her favorite rifle was a bolt action that Mr. Stitmer, the retired accountant who’d become our Outdoor Activities Director before the Fall, had chambered in .270, which irritated Sister Ann even further for some reason. He had plenty of rounds for it in his safe, though there were way more 5.56. Ulla took to the weapon like a duck to water, and absolutely loved the recoil on it. Personally, it felt like a jackhammer was punching me in the shoulder, but Ulla actually had some meat on her and wasn’t as affected.

Teaching her to shoot involved heading up to the roof and braving the rain, though. That part sucked. Rain in the Alleghanies was either hot and warm, like showering in mosquito-infested soup, or freezing cold. It depended on the time of the year. The plus side now? No mosquitoes or gnats.

I was glad her hearing was fine. There was no way I could have signed to her everything she needed to know.

Another problem that I should have spotted during my prep was shooting. In itself there were no problems. She wasn’t shaky at all when firing from both prone and kneeling positions, and she was fairly steady while standing. The rifle wasn’t too heavy so she managed it fairly well. No, the issue was in the act itself.

A gunshot is a loud noise. Rifle rounds are even louder due to traveling faster than the speed of sound. Noises like that tend to attract shamblers, which is something we were really trying not to do. Granted, if they did show up we’d simply lock up the bunker and try to plug them from the rooftop. It’d be great practice for Ulla, as well as letting us see if she could actually do the deed.

But dead shamblers meant cleanup. God, I hated cleanup. The fluids got everywhere and the smell never really went away.

So we went through the motions of shambler killing instead of doing the real thing for a few days. Dry fire, eject a casing, make certain to not let it fall in the leaves and get lost—not that there were many leaves up on the roof. Not yet, at least. The leaves were turning but hadn’t started to fall. Sister Ann was strict about us taking care of spent brass. She constantly reminded me that we might find a reloading kit somewhere.

On the third day, Sister Ann joined us. I had Ulla show her everything she’d learned. Sister Ann tweaked a few minor things, mostly with Ulla’s tendency to stick her right elbow out during shooting, but otherwise didn’t correct much. The kid was a more gifted shooter than I was and seemed a natural fit for the rifle.

She was very pleased with Ulla’s progress.

Once Ulla was “dialed in,” as the former marine put it, we planned a brief outing. I’d never taken anyone this young out before, and I didn’t want anything bad happening while I was teaching where the paths and trails were around campus. Good weather, no shamblers, and something simple for an objective, like teaching Ulla how to find a landmark. Sister Ann agreed, and we made plans.

For our first foray out, it was decided that we needed to go and check out the status of the Jackson River. I’d only been a few times since the Fall, and only seen it from a distance. Considering it was one of our first lines of defense against shamblers—as well as one of the biggest magnets for them—it made sense to keep an eye on it. It was also closer to Covington than I really wanted to go. However, since all the grocery stores and hardware shops were in town, eventually I was going to have to go take a look.

I had no plans for us to go alone, though. Some of the other girls would need to help me scavenge and loot—I mean, acquire resources—when we eventually got around to it. Experience was only achieved through action.

Sister Ann’s words, not mine. But accurate.

Two days after the rains finally ended, I found myself walking along the banks of the Jackson River with Ulla and the twins, Finlay and Fiona. None of them were talking much. Ulla, because she hadn’t uttered a word in six months. The twins because they were listening to me explain just why walking around the woods in our school outfits was a really stupid idea and needed to be fixed in a hurry.

“We need to clear out the admin center,” I told them as we carefully picked our way along the small dirt trail of the river. The Jackson was running high again, thanks to all the rain. It’d been doing this almost nonstop since the Gathright Dam failed two months ago and flooded downtown Covington. The very edge of the river was almost up to the footpath we were on. Experience told me it would lessen a little in the coming days. In the meantime, though, we had to be aware of the mud. It was slick and, if you weren’t paying attention, you could slide right into the river. “Parading around the forest in our school uniforms is just asking for trouble. At least we could have worn slacks or something, I don’t know.”

“Then why are we doing it now?” Finlay asked. While they were identical in almost every way, Fiona didn’t have the small mole on her cheek that Finlay did. It was the only way anyone could tell them apart.

“Seems dumb,” Fiona added. Ulla nodded and signed in agreement.

Though silent, Ulla had her own way of fluently communicating with the rest of us. A few of us older girls had picked up sign language as a way to swear at each other without any of the nuns yelling at us back before the Fall. It’d caught on and we’d learned all the bad words. Then the Fall happened and we had more important things to worry about. We really hadn’t kept up with it after until we realized it was the only way Ulla would talk to anyone. Now we were all fairly decent at it, though not fluent—except Ulla, I mean. Most of us were getting there, though.

“It is dumb,” I agreed and shifted Baby slightly. The tactical sling I’d snagged when I’d scavenged the rifle sometimes dug into my shoulder. It was designed for someone with muscles on their shoulders, not skin and bones like me. Still, it was better than carrying the heavy rifle in my hands all the time. “It stands out, and the shamblers would easily see us. Just another reason why we need to clear the admin building and get down to the donations room.”

One of the cool things about St. Dominic’s is that the local community—the entire Alleghany Highlands, really—had been hugely supportive of the school’s mission, pre-Fall. They loved to donate used goods to the school, and a lot of that was clothing. Since we’d been required to be in uniform most of the time, the donated clothing was washed, folded, and placed away in storage bins. There had to be a ton of clothing in there. However, after Tammy had been killed by one of the shamblers—a rogue I’d somehow missed—after getting too near the admin building, nobody had wanted to help me clear it. Or even walk past it.

I’d only made two forays into the admin building before then, and never past the registration office. There hadn’t been any signs of a shambler hiding out there at the time, but I didn’t go into the basement. Instead, I’d snagged all of the campus walkie-talkies I could find and fit into the duffel bag I’d carried. I also grabbed pens and notebooks, though that was on the second trip. Sister Ann had tasked me and a few of the other girls with recording day-to-day stuff since the Fall. Kind of like a living historical diary, I guess. I updated mine every night, but I don’t think the other girls did.

Something caught my eye. There was movement on the opposite side of the bank. I didn’t have a good view of what it was just yet. Still, caution had kept us alive so far. Recklessness was not a part of Sister Ann’s plan.

“Freeze,” I hissed in a low voice. The girls were well-trained by now, having had this drill performed many times before whenever a shambler had wandered too close to the cafeteria. Nobody so much as twitched as I brought Baby up and ready. “Finlay, slowly look behind us. Is anyone behind us on the opposite bank?”

“No.”

“Fiona, left? Anything?”

“Nobody.”

Whatever I’d seen wasn’t there anymore, but some type of movement had caught my eye. There wasn’t a breeze and the birds were mostly silent, which suggested something was out there. I didn’t know if it was a wild animal, a shambler, or even some regular old survivor—not that I’d seen a single human outside of the school since the Fall. My brain hadn’t had a chance to identify it. Had I imagined it?

Unlikely. Paranoid, yes. Delusional? Not yet. I had a long way to go before I hit that point.

“On my count, we slowly walk back the way we came,” I told the girls as I swept the far bank with Baby. Still nothing. Maybe I was seeing things after all? The birds were still quiet, though. The air was filled with a palpable sense of danger. We needed to leave. “One . . . two . . . three . . . okay, slowly.”

The girls turned and slowly began walking along the path, back toward the school. I kept Baby up and carefully began to pace backward. I remembered the path had been clear during our trek in, so there wasn’t anything like a branch or rock that could trip me until the bend, which would put us out of sight of the river. Still, I was walking blind. It was a risk, but one I was willing to make. If I fell on my ass, so be it.

I took another slow step back. Maybe we’d gotten lucky and it was only a wild animal, like a turkey or something. It was a possibility. We weren’t that close to the Covington side of the river, and the Jackson was wider than it used to be. Even though we were in our uniforms, the only bright thing were our blouses—something we really should have stopped wearing a long time ago.

If it’d been a shambler, it must have missed us.

“Okay, I think we got lucky,” I whispered to the girls. “Let’s pick up the pace and get back to campus. Stay to the left, near the bushes. We might be—”

“Hellooooo!” a voice called from across the Jackson. I stiffened in shock. That was not the sound a shambler makes, but one that gets their attention. Only an idiot would call out in a loud voice in the middle of the zombie apocalypse. I had seen movement after all, only I’d been wrong about what it was. Grimacing, I half-turned and looked back. There was a burly man standing on the opposite bank, wearing full hunting gear. He had a rifle in his hand but he wasn’t pointing it in our direction. Instead, he was waving at us like some idiot. “Hello! Girls! Are you okay? Y’all need help? I can come get ya!”

Scheisse,” I hissed through clenched teeth. “Hurry. Social security office first, then up the main road to the school.”

“Why?” Fiona asked, clearly confused. Finlay smacked her arm.

“So he doesn’t track us directly to the back way, dummy.”

“Oh, that’s a good point.”

“The back way is still a secret,” I reminded them in a low voice. It was unlikely the guy could hear us from across the river, but there was no reason to risk it. Ulla was signing something but I didn’t have time to stop and translate. Instead, I ushered the girls along. I really wanted to get us out of there. “Hurry!”

“Hey! I just want to talk!” The shouting followed us as we quickly made our way back along the path and toward Dunlap Creek. The guy was definitely an idiot. Any shambler nearby could come looking for a snack. I kept Baby ready, just in case this happened.

There was the slim possibility the dude would try to swim the river and chase after us. Slim, but possible. Granted, he’d have better luck floating across in a boat or something than trying to swim across with all that gear he was wearing. The river was moving too fast for any old person to easily make it across. This was one of the reasons our shambler problem wasn’t nearly so bad as it’d been during the early days of the Fall. As far as I could tell, shamblers couldn’t swim. The shouts followed us around the bend.

“Hey! Wait a sec!”

That wasn’t going to happen. There was no way I was about to acknowledge some random person calling out to us, especially when I was with three preteens. Not without talking to Sister Ann about it first, I mean.


It ended up taking us two hours to get back to campus. It wasn’t the younger girls who slowed me down, no; the hike up the hill on the main road was steep. It was another reason why I preferred the back way into campus. With the high possibility of being followed, it was an easy decision to make. Even if it did suck.

Sweaty and miserable, it was almost dark when we finally made it up the mountain. The girls were on constant lookout for any shamblers while I kept an eye out for any sign of our mysterious man following us. I didn’t see anything, but that didn’t mean much. I was a city girl from Southern California. Locals from around here could probably walk through trees or something, I don’t know. I was still finding Mr. Stitmer’s deer blinds around the mountain nobody had ever known about.

Sister Ann called for an emergency meeting with the student council the moment I told her what we found. Since Ulla wasn’t a council member, she would have normally been sent to the other room. However, Sister Ann didn’t want her telling any of the younger girls anything before the council decided what to do, so she stayed and listened, sitting between the twins.

“Other survivors . . .” Kayla said breathlessly once I’d finished my report. She had a hopeful look on her dark face. “Like families . . . our families?”

Everyone started talking in loud, excited voices at the same time—except me. I remembered the news reports, and the images on the TV and internet before the Fall. There was no way any of our families survived. Well, almost zero chance. The possibility was always there, even if it was slim to none. The last images of New York City on fire before we lost power had been burned in my memory for all time.

Survivors in Los Angeles? Philadelphia? New York? Hell, even Kenosha? Wishful thinking.

But the others didn’t seem to care. I could hear it in their voices as the volume in the room rose. Looking around, it took everything in me to not dash those hopes. I couldn’t do that to them. As much as they sometimes annoyed me, they were my sisters here at the school. We’d survived so much. Telling them that their hope was a waste of time now, right after discovering other survivors nearby? There’d be no coming back from that.

Sister Ann must have been thinking the same thing I was because instead of shooting down the talk, she subtly shifted the subject.

“Maddie? You and . . . Lucia sneak back down to the river where you spotted the man,” Sister Ann said. She was staring into the distance, thinking. We’d seen the look on her face many times before. “If he was alone, then we keep an eye out and see if he needs help.”

I blinked, confused. “Sister . . . ?”

“It’s our duty to help those in need,” Sister Ann said firmly. “If he needs help, then we assist. If he doesn’t, we leave him be. St. Dominic’s has always been here to help those in need. These are dark days, Maddie. The Church has always been a beacon for the lost in the darkest of hours. A light in the darkness.”

That’s not what the brochure said, but there was no way I was going to argue with Sister Ann over this.

She did have a point, though. I still needed some backup. While the plan was to train Ulla up to where I was, we hadn’t really gotten a chance to work on much just yet other than her shooting. Fiona and Finlay were two others who might one day be willing to shoot. For now, though, they seemed like they preferred more extreme methods of shambler removal.

One of them—Fiona, I think—mentioned something called Tannerite, and how effective it could be for removing shamblers permanently. I had no idea what it was and asked Sister Ann how to get some for the twins. She’d almost had a heart attack for some reason and mentioned talking to the duo, and for me to forget about the stuff.

However, I did teach them two of the most important lessons I’d learned from Sister Ann: keep your finger off the trigger unless you’re ready to shoot, and never point the rifle at anything you don’t plan on shooting.

Everything after that, as Sister Ann said, was fiddly bits.

“We have the housing to help out many families,” she continued, her eyes back on me. “We have eight cottages sitting there. Has anybody been inside any of them?”

“Other than the two senior cottages? No, ma’am,” I supplied. There’d been talk early on of clearing one of the younger residential cottages the elementary girls stayed in before the Fall, but after the mess outside the admin building with Tammy, Sister Ann had decided against it. Many of the cottages had broken windows and doors. While the likelihood of a shambler inside one was slim, it was still possible. The cafeteria had been prepped for the Fall. The cottages? Not so much.

“What about . . . you know . . . the bodies?” Emily asked, nervous. I fiddled with my hair and thought about it for a moment. I couldn’t remember noticing any nasty smells coming from inside any of the abandoned cottages, but I honestly hadn’t been paying attention to smells during the early days of the Fall.

“We’ll handle it,” Sister Ann answered quickly. “Their immortal souls are gone. Only the bodies remain. Even so, we’ll treat them with the respect they deserve. We might not be able to bury them, but we can give them Rites before finding a place for them. And we will consecrate the ground as best we can.”

Sister Ann was a better person than me. By far.

“Maddie? I need you and Lucia to go down to the river tomorrow—no, the day after.” Sister Ann pursed her lips, her expression turning thoughtful. “If he wasn’t alone, I’m willing to bet there’s going to be a message for us.”

“Message?” I asked, confused. She nodded.

“The Jackson’s too wide to jump, and moving too fast to wade across. Plus, the bottom is very rocky and dangerous. Anyone trying to wade across could break an ankle.”

“Still . . . they could try to cross,” I pointed out.

“They could. But the man also probably saw Baby. If he has any sense, he’s considering the odds of his survival against fording the river.”

“The idiot was yelling for us to stop in the middle of the zombie apocalypse and standing there like an idiot.”

“Fair point,” Sister Ann acknowledged. “Still, my instincts are telling me that he’s not alone. Nobody survived this long on pure luck, or while being immensely stupid. Two days, then go down to where you spotted him. Wear natural colors, not anything bright. No school uniforms this time. Stay hidden and keep your eyes open. Dollars to donuts there’s going to be a message.”


There was a message, all right. Sister Ann was scary like that.

We were up and moving before dawn, working our way down the back entrance to the school just as the darkness was changing to gray. It was a little more dangerous than broad daylight, but since shamblers saw about as well as regular people did, we felt reasonably secure. Still, I was armed, and even Lucia carried one of the hunting rifles we’d acquired from the deceased Mr. Stitmer. It was unloaded, but anyone we might run into didn’t need to know this.

Instead of coming up to the site along the river, we cut down a game trail hidden behind a mimosa tree. Up in the branches was yet another deer stand—probably put there by Mr. Stitmer, but considering the school bordered on the George Washington National Forest, it could have been anyone. The ladder was gone, so I couldn’t take advantage of the surprise find. I made a silent promise to fix this later and we pushed on in silence.

The brush grew thicker the closer to the river we got. Carefully moving through the thick foliage, we made sure to not step on any small branches or twigs that could make noise. This close to the river it was unlikely anyone would hear us, but we hadn’t stayed alive so long by being careless.

After what felt like an eternity the river came into view. Crouching down, I surveyed the opposing bank. The sun was just starting to rise and the sky was already shifting from gray to orange. I could see clouds in the distance, but they looked like they were going to miss us to the south. Which was good. We’d gotten enough rain the past few weeks to make me wonder if we needed to build an ark.

Lucia tapped my arm twice to get my attention. She pointed at a weird-looking white square on the other side of the river, a little downstream from where we were. It was by the ruined bridge which had, once upon a time, been the only way up to the school.

It took me a few moments to realize it was a whiteboard. There was writing on it. It was small so I couldn’t quite make out what it said. Lucia held out a pair of binoculars she’d found somewhere. My questioning look was answered with a shrug of her shoulders. Fine. She could have her secrets. I had plenty of my own.

It took a moment to adjust the binos. Once set, though, the words written on the whiteboard chilled me.


To the survivors up at St. Dominic’s,

You are under the authority of King Dale the First, King of Appalachia and ruler of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Meet at the ruined bridge by the old motel at 3PM Friday to discuss your surrender.

Do not resist.

King Dale I

King of the Blue Ridge


“What the . . . ?” I hissed quietly. Was this guy serious? That idiot who’d been yelling at us thought he was king? He wanted to meet in three days and, apparently, fully expected us to surrender. Or maybe he only hoped we’d show our hand or do something stupid. Who knew?

Reading the sign again, I couldn’t believe it. With shamblers running around and no word from the government in months, this maniac thought he could call himself king? It was hard not to laugh. We had the mountain, guns—well, okay, I was the only one willing to use them so far, but still—and the river between us. Only someone insane would pick the zombie apocalypse to try and say they were the King of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Or Blue Ridge? Was that a kingdom?

Still, there were ways to get to the campus that didn’t involve crossing the Jackson. Most of them would take days to hike, but it was possible from this point. Maybe even without attracting the attention of every single shambler in a five-mile radius.

I shuddered at the thought. That could be bad.

This guy has an ego, Lucia signed. I nodded in agreement. Who in their right mind wanted to be king out here? The only thing this entire area offered—besides meth and teenage pregnancy—was the paper mill, and our school.

Time to go. First, though, I had to make sure there was nobody lingering around. The odds were pretty good this so-called King Dale would leave someone in a safe place to see who checked out the sign and how they reacted. They could possibly follow us back, to see if we would show them something if we were careless.

Sorry, Dale. No gnashing of the teeth or wailing today. The panicky girls didn’t survive the Fall.

Still, we ended up taking the looooong way home, making sure we ducked inside the old abandoned ranger station at the base of our mountain to see if anyone was following us.

Just in case.


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