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Just Like Home

JODY LYNN NYE

“You get that cable run through the wall to the security lights all right?” Billy Marx asked Orin Feldman.

The lanky youth nodded, wiping his dusty nose on the sleeve of his white plastic hazmat suit. For once, the two teens and their companions weren’t wearing them in case of run-ins with endless crowds of infecteds. Those days were over, thank God. Just for the moment, Billy enjoyed the feeling of not having eyes on his back or a plastic shield in his face.

“Yessir,” Orin said, gesturing over his shoulder. “Run up the wall, through the ceiling, and down into the distribution circuit. Let ’er rip.”

Billy grinned.

He knelt beside the electrical box in the half-finished wall and hooked his end of the cable into the connector. He felt the powerful hum through the insulated fingers of his glove as he fastened the termination down with a nonmetallic screwdriver.

“We’re in business!” he said, sticking the tool into a loop on his belt. “Let’s go see how it looks.”

All around him, the banging and clattering of activity felt so good and positive. For once, they weren’t building something purely for defense. No, this was part of a celebration, the best thing that had happened at Foresight Genetics in absolutely months.

After the long, terrifying spell the couple of hundred survivors had spent fighting off victims of the zombie plague and wondering if any trip they took outside the compound of the mountain-top testing facility was going to be their last, the end of the ordeal was in sight. The airborne plague had died out, and the vaccine worked to protect people who hadn’t been exposed yet, so the normals around him were safe enough. The hordes of wild infecteds had been culled down to a few, and what betas anyone could find, Billy had heard might prove to be trainable to menial jobs. The aggressive ones might still try to bite but Foresight Genetics was trying to work out some means of taming them a little. It was going to be a long time before civilization recovered back to normal again, and pockets of infecteds still roamed in the ruins of the Tennessee Valley, but those who had taken shelter in the fenced compound at the top of the hill were starting to think what life might be like after the plague.

Ms. Nora Fulton, the little part-Choctaw woman who had lost her husband and young son to an infected, was an important person in both their lives, to most everyone working with Billy and Orin. Once she had found her way up the mountain to Foresight’s secured facility all those months ago, she threw herself into the protection of the compound and those who lived inside it as if they were her own family. A dead shot who could use any weapon, she became one of their best hunters, bringing down one after another of the mindless, naked invaders like she was shooting cans off a fence. Her anger was a force of nature. While many of the others had seen the infecteds as “there but for the grace of God go I,” Ms. Nora treated them all like rabid dogs. Considering what they did to an unwary person who had been jumped by a pack of them, Billy could see the comparison. Most everybody had lost at least one loved one to the zombies. Only when the scientists in the Hole and Mr. Steve Smith said the betas might be recoverable to a certain extent had Billy started to see them as fellow human beings again. Ms. Nora probably never would, and he didn’t blame her a bit.

The person who really got her was Mr. Lou Hammond. A big, balding African-American man who had been a plumber before the virus started around, he had been a solid and calming presence. He started turning up where Ms. Nora went, and always had her back when they had to go out hunting. Even Billy, who admitted he wasn’t great at spotting subtleties anywhere, could see that Mr. Lou had become stuck on her. He was pleased but not too surprised when she had told everyone the two of them had gotten engaged.

From the moment that piece of news went around the compound, everyone had a smile on their faces. The plans had really begun to solidify with Ms. Melanie Trimble, the surviving manager of Foresight. Ms. Melanie had a gift for organizing. Up until then, the organization mostly had a grim cast to it. Doling out supplies, counting people in and out of the compound to see who made it back and who didn’t, keeping track of the betas they brought in to evaluate, and the spinal cords of infecteds the scientists needed to make the serum. Being able to plan a wedding lifted her spirits.

Like the company name, Ms. Melanie also had a gift for foresight.

“We’re all gonna be able to leave here soon,” the plump dark-skinned woman had told several key people, including Billy, his mom, and his girlfriend Tee Figueroa, during a very late night secret conference in the cafeteria. “I don’t know how you all feel about it, but I’m getting tired of sleeping with five roommates. Three of them snore!”

Billy giggled, and Tee, a petite Latina with long dark hair pulled back in a braid, elbowed him in the ribs. He grunted. His ribs weren’t as well covered on his tall, pear-shaped body as they had before the plague started, but he was beginning to fill out again, thanks to more resources becoming available to them from outside.

“We’ve lived with it because we have to, but now that we can see the end of the plague, we have to think about where we’re all going to live from now on. Now, you all know Ms. Nora and Mr. Lou are getting married. They’re smart and brave. I can’t think of two people who will be more prepared to live outside the compound than they are. So,” she began, with a big smile on her broad face, “as a wedding present, I think we oughta fix up a house for them. Just to get the ball rolling.”

Orin started up a cheer. Tee reached over and clapped her hands over Orin’s mouth in case the noise attracted the attention of anyone else in the dark, echoing concrete halls of the facility. Like it or not, sound carried in there, even footsteps.

“So, you like the idea?” Ms. Melanie asked, surveying the sea of grinning faces. She brandished a clipboard. “Well, then, I’ve made a sign-up sheet of all the jobs that need doing. And there’s lots of them.”

The house she had picked out lay downslope about three hundred yards from the facility. The 1940s frame structure had been abandoned longer than the zombie apocalypse had been going on, and wasn’t in the greatest of shape, but it had, as Ms. Melanie explained, “possibilities.” National Guard Sergeant Angel Velasquez had laughed at her description, calling it a “real fixer-upper.” On first sight of the place, Tee had hooted out loud. It was a wreck. Boards leaned away from the siding. One of the two bedrooms was open to the air, the toilet facilities were out back, and the roof sagged like it was tired. She couldn’t believe anyone had ever lived in it. Billy just started looking for where the utilities used to come in. If they ever did. The whole place was going to take a mass of work.

They’d been at it for more than two weeks already. Ms. Melanie had been sounding out Ms. Nora about when they wanted to hold the wedding ceremony. She assured the builders they had about one more week to finish. It wasn’t much time, considering how much damage had to be repaired in the house and its surrounding yard. Like anywhere the zombies had overrun, the place had stunk of feces, urine, the remains of dead animals and the occasional human being, not to mention rotten food dragged out of the ancient fridge and from the chest freezer in the lean-to beside the dilapidated garage. Most of that got hauled a long way outside and buried, since trash pickup had been stopped everywhere for months.

The volunteers were divided up into teams. Protection was the first group, consisting of the members of the National Guard, serving and retired military, the few security guards who were left, and every hunter in the compound. Anyone who had a decent eye with a weapon took a shift with them.

Demolition and rebuilding came next. Lani Sanders, a chemist at Foresight, had learned carpentry alongside her daddy and her granddaddy. She had declared that the eighty-year-old pine flooring in the house couldn’t be saved. The first job had been all hands on deck pulling it up and replacing the termite-eaten joists underneath. A couple of the exterior and almost all the interior walls needed reframing. Once the damaged boards and drywall were out and burning on a pile, they scavenged good wood and panels from all over the Nashville area, along with any decent furniture, appliances, and housewares that could be found in abandoned houses. All of that got put to one side under tarps for the time while the building structure was made sound. Myron Levy, an architect who had escaped Nashville and found his way up the hill to Foresight, laid out a blueprint expanding the little house to have a bonus room and a second bathroom.

“Nobody wants a house with one bathroom anymore,” the sharp-faced man said, with a firm shake of his head. His dark hair, going elegantly gray at the temples, danced on his shoulders. “There’s zero resale value. You gotta think ahead these days.”

Even though he was only eighteen, Billy’s specialty in electronics made him the lead on wiring the house, installing ceiling and sconce lights, a satellite dish, as well as motion detectors, proximity alarms, emergency radio links to Foresight and the police station, security doorbells with cameras, and an electric fence surrounding the little two-bedroom house just downslope from the Foresight facility. With so few people left, there was no shortage of pre-plague supplies. Mr. Jud Tomkinson, in charge of Foresight’s plant operations, had told him that unless there was an emergency, he could spend all his time working on pulling new wiring and setting up all the fancy bells and whistles. Tee, five years older than Billy, had been a sound engineer in New York and Nashville. She was fixing up sound equipment with speakers in all the rooms.

“You gonna talk about all this on your radio program?” Dieter Vance asked, passing by with a load of PVC pipes under his arm. Billy’s hobby as a ham radio operator had brought in news from survivors all over the world, including Antarctica. Desperately hungry for news, everyone had insisted that he broadcast his conversations over the facility PA. They had their spirits lifted by knowing they weren’t alone in the world. Billy’s ham setup was the only non-government-linked communications system in the compound, as the other equipment was tied to the Hole in Nebraska and a few other secure locations that had come back online. His “program” had made him a minor celebrity around Foresight. He got to announce birthdays, notable moments in history, a running trivia contest, and other memos from the brass twice a day, and was excused from perimeter scouting so he could talk with his fellow ham operators and bring in more news. Billy grinned up at the former recon scout, a small, balding man in his fifties.

“Nossir. Ms. Melanie would take me to pieces if I blew the surprise.”

“The hammering and sawing can be heard for miles!” Tee said, puffing a lock of her dark hair out of her eyes. She had a Polk speaker under her arm that Billy knew was worth thousands. It had been scavenged from a club in the music district. “This isn’t what I call a surprise.”

“Well, Ms. Nora and Mr. Lou have been steered clear of this area on purpose,” Dieter said, a wicked twinkle in his eye. “They kind of know, but it’s the details that will be the surprise. We want them to like it.”

“They’ll like it!” Tee said. She shook her head. “This is the nicest thing you could do for them. After everything Nora has been through.”

“All of us,” Dieter said, his usually animated face solemn. “We all lost someone, but she lost her only child, right in front of her eyes.”

The others fell silent for a moment, every one of them remembering his or her dead.

“Infecteds coming this way!” Angel Velasquez barked. “Seven or eight of them!” The National Guardswoman crouched down behind the still-incomplete south fence as the protectors on duty rushed to join her. She waved the barrel of her rifle to the right. “Micky, haul that bale of chicken wire up here! Block that hole!”

Retired Specialist Micky Rollins turned off the welding torch he was using to seal a pipe, but kept the heavy metal mask over his face. Although everyone in the compound had been vaccinated, they were still at risk from injury. The zombies liked to go for the face and try to chew off noses or lips. More than a few of the inhabitants were hoping that a plastic surgeon or two had survived to repair disfigurements. Billy, Dieter, and Tee leaped up to help. Billy made a mental note to send out word over the ham radio to ask about doctors. Soon, he hoped, people would be willing and able to travel again. But not yet.

“Thanks,” Micky grunted. The heavyset man guided the big spool into the fence. It didn’t close the gap completely. Billy reached into his tool belt for the wire cutters and snapped the cable holding the bale. Together, they unwound it across the open area. From his pocket, Billy produced a handful of zip ties. Hastily, they fastened the metal mesh in place. Micky hauled a tranquilizer gun out from behind his welding apron.

“Good!” he said, calmly. “Y’all just keep on working. Angel and I will take care of this bunch.”

Tee stood staring over the chain-link fence into the woods with a forlorn look on her face. She had spent weeks or months holed up alone in a home studio in the suburbs, hiding from zombies and living on what little canned and preserved food she could scrounge. She had nearly been killed a couple of times until a party from Foresight found her. Billy came to put an arm around her slender shoulders.

“It’s okay,” he said. She turned and buried her face in the breast of his hazmat suit.

Thrashing in the bushes heralded the infecteds bursting out just twenty feet shy of the fence line. Like usual, they were stark naked with torn-up feet, jagged nails, and wild hair. Three men, four women, and so caked with dirt he couldn’t tell if they were black, brown, or white, ran straight toward them. Their leader was a tall, wild-eyed man with folds of skin hanging on his gaunt body, meaning he used to be overweight, like Billy had been. Everybody in this world, infected or survivor, had been reduced to subsistence rations. The zombies supplemented theirs with whatever living being they could overpower and eat.

“Arms ready . . . ” Angel said, fixing her rifle through a bend in the chain-link. “And . . . !”

At that moment, a couple of dirt bikes zipped up the hill with a squall like chainsaws.

“Hold your fire!”

The bikers, in full leathers with visored helmets, circled the infecteds at speed. Weapons coughed, one after another. The zombies screeched and tried to break away. One by one, blue-fledged darts appeared somewhere on each of the scrawny, naked bodies. The leader saw what was happening to his squad, and dived for one of the bikers. He missed, stumbling over his feet. The other biker turned in a hairpin and plugged the leader twice in the back. The male let out a bellow, collapsed to his knees, then fell flat on his face in the dust. All the other infecteds had dropped by then.

“They’re out,” Billy murmured to Tee. She pushed loose from his embrace. Billy found her a strange combination of vulnerable and tough, and he liked both facets of her. He still wondered what she saw in him.

The bikers pulled off their helmets. Billy recognized Roger Marshall and Elaine Bey, a couple of the hunters.

“Nice shooting!” Angel called to them.

“Thanks!” Elaine said, holstering her tranquilizer rifle in a sheath along the fork of her bike. She was of south Asian descent, with huge dark eyes and magnificent, long brown-black hair that was tightly braided on top of her head. She had been a biathlon competitor somewhere in Florida. “We’ve been tracking these guys for a few days. We ran them until they were getting tired out so we wouldn’t lose any shots taking them down. Glad we got them all.”

“We have to drive them like cattle,” Roger added. He had silver hair and craggy, reddened skin that made his light blue eyes stand out like LEDs. “If we don’t keep on ’em, they scatter.”

“My goodness, the house really is taking shape!” Elaine said. “I don’t know if Ms. Nora is going to be able to handle living normal again, especially in a place this nice.”

“Why wouldn’t she?” Tee asked.

Elaine and Roger exchanged bemused glances.

“Well, she’s gotten so used to hunting them,” Roger said. “She’s damned good at it. It’s funny, but I think she’ll almost miss it when this is all over. Helps her deal, she says. I dunno. Maybe she’s getting addicted to the adrenaline. Not me. I wish I could go back to my old accounting office and just have to face the IRS once in a while instead of nekkid people who want to eat me.”

Tee laughed. “When all this is over, I don’t think I ever want to see anybody naked again!”

Everyone laughed at that.

“Bad luck for you, Billy-boy,” Roger said, with a snicker.

“How many more zombies are out there in this area?” Billy asked, ignoring the burning in his cheeks. An idea had popped into his mind.

“Oh, a few groups,” Roger said. “Eventually we’ll get ’em. Anyone got a truck handy to help us get these guys up to Foresight? We want them evaluated before they wake up. It’s easier to cull them that way.”

“Sure,” Dieter said, rubbing his gloves down the front of his white suit. “I got a minute. Pickup’s around the side yard.”

“No, wait,” Billy said. “Let me. Orin, can you finish connecting the cables?”

“You got it,” Orin replied. He shot a nervous glance through the fence at the infecteds, but they were totally out.

Billy collected the keys and drove the battered green Ford around to the south side of the house. With the speed born of long practice, the enforcers loaded the unconscious zombies into the truck bed like so many sacks of fertilizer. Billy climbed into the cab and followed Elaine and Roger up the hill.

“Thanks for your help,” Roger said, once they had the infecteds loaded out onto gurneys and strapped down. The big male was already beginning to stir when Ms. Melanie rolled him inside the Foresight plant. “You looked like you had something on your mind, son. Is there a problem of some kind?”

“I dunno,” Billy said. He was trying not to squirm with concern. “How likely is it that any more of those zombie gangs are going to come up this way? I mean, in the week or two?”

Roger and Elaine exchanged another glance.

“I don’t know,” Elaine said. “You’re worried that they might come up and spoil Ms. Nora’s wedding?”

“Kind of,” Billy said.

“Well, we’ll let you know if we see any more of them coming close to the end of the week,” Roger promised him. “You don’t have to worry.”

“It’s not that,” Billy began, then spotted Mr. Lou pulling his little green Prius up the stone drive toward them and clapped his mouth shut. The others noticed Mr. Lou, too.

“Thanks for your help, son,” Roger said. “We’re gonna get cleaned up and get us something to eat. You all are doing a great job.” As Mr. Lou got out of his little car and hoisted a big sack from the back seat over his shoulder, he raised his voice. “Can’t wait to hear what kind of stories you’re getting from your friends overseas on the next show. When is it, eight o’clock?”

“Oh, yeah!” Billy said, grateful for the distraction. “My Welsh friend Geraint and his friends got airlifted last night to Valley Air Station by the Royal Air Force. I’ve got stories. . . . ”

“Don’t spoil it!” Mr. Lou said, coming up with a big smile on his broad, dark face. He clapped Billy on the back with his free hand. “I want to hear the whole thing when I can sit back and enjoy it. Y’all have a good day.”

“You, too, Mr. Lou,” Billy said, as the big man strode into the facility. “I better go.”


“So, Geraint, I’ve got you on PA,” Billy said, leaning into the big microphone, “tell everybody again. How did the Air Force come and get you?”

“Ah, Effy-bach, you’d hardly credit it,” came the plummy voice into his can-style headphones. “Effy” was an affectionate abbreviation for Billy’s ham call sign, Whiskey Edward Seven Foxtrot Foxtrot Yankee, or WE7FFY. Geraint, all the way over in northwest Great Britain, went by Golf Whiskey Four Echo Hotel India, or GW4EHI, not as pronounceable. “It was quite the adventure, so it was.”

From the pleased looks on Mr. Jud’s and Tee’s faces, Geraint was coming over just fine on the speakers, rolling R’s and over-emphasized diction, and all. The link was clearer than it had ever been, meaning the Welshman had a good signal with boosters to the ordinarily low power frequency. Billy checked his own power readings. Although he had built in capacitance to keep the flow steady, they could still experience a drop in current that would throw his “show” off the air and maybe short out his radio when it came back in. It was a new unit, salvaged from the same sound studio where they had found Tee, but if it got a surge up the line, it could burn the circuitry.

“What happened? It was just last night, wasn’t it?”

“Well, then, you know those RAF-eh chappies, they make a big noise doing efferything! So, you see, a monster great hellycopter cooms out of noweah and begins hovering-eh above us out here on Ynys Lawd. Men rrrrappelling down long skinny black ropes. At first, with our rrrraggedy clothes, they thought the five of us, we might be some of the walking-eh dead. But then, they let us get our things and loaded-eh us into the aircraft! A boompy ride-eh, and a welcome one. My, but weren’t they glad to see us on the base, and we were grateful too! Ah, the food! The first hot-eh meal was blissful, let me tell you that. I’ve-eh constrrructed in my mind the food I would eat when next I was given the chance. I dreamt of the barrrbecue you’ve described-eh to me, with crrrisped meat on the outside and tangy sauce to dip. I longed for Sunday roast and Christmas-eh puddings, but baked beans on toast and a prrrop-eh brewed cuppa tasted like all my Christmases in my life put together!”

Billy laughed at the humble description. “Beans on toast? That’s all?”

“Oh, my boy, it was a feast! And biscuits! Not tasted sweets in a long-eh while, now. I’ve lost more than four stone. But it’s all to the good, it’s all to the good. We slept in clean beds, after a genuine hot showah, so we did!”

Billy’s audience let out an audible sigh of pleasure. He grinned, and adjusted his gauges on the control board just a little.

“That sounds great, Geraint. I’m really happy you’re all okay. Have they started cleaning up the infecteds over there?”

“Ach, yes. We’ve all had the inoculations now, and there’s a muckin’ grrreat infirmary like a warehouse on a fenced area of the base, where they take in the walking dead. A few are starting to come out of it now, more every day. You can’t call them people, exactly, but we’ve had our share of village idiots. We can put them to work, hauling stone and carrying out rubbish, perhaps.”

“Here, too,” Billy said. “We’re getting a lot of the betas trained, too, but I don’t know how many people we’ve lost over these months.”

Geraint’s voice was solemn. “I trrry not to think about that, Effy. We’re alive, and we’ll make our way back to normal. That’s what matters.”

Billy cleared his throat. It wouldn’t do to let tears clog him up when he had another couple of hours to go talking with his ham friends around the world. “So, what’s next for you?” he asked. “I mean, what do you want to do once you can . . . go home?”

“Well, I know I won’t spend all me time in the office-eh! Life’s too precious for that. I want to get married again. Mairi and I became very close during all those weeks in the lighthouse. I’m too old and not good enough for her, but she’s said she’ll have me anyhow. We’re planning to travel around once we can, maybe even come over to the States and meet you Eye Are Ell, as the teenagers say. What about you, Effy? You’ve got your whole life ahead of you? And two pretty girls interested in you at that?”

Tee guffawed, and elbowed Billy in the shoulder. He grimaced. Why was everyone trying to get him settled down so soon?

“There’s gonna be a wedding here pretty soon,” he said. “It’s not me! It’s Ms. Nora and Mr. Lou, two of the best hunters in the compound.”

“Wish them well for me,” Geraint said. “God bless them and let them be happy.”

“They can hear you,” Billy said. Mr. Jud nodded. “Thanks a lot. I know it’s really late over there. Talk to you again tomorrow?”

“I’ll be looking forward to it. Bless you, my boy.”


Geraint’s words stuck with him all the next day while he pulled in wires and ran the pieces of the security system through the walls of the little house. What did come next, once the plague was really over and they were free to live outside the compound?

The question finally burst out of him while he and Tee were helping Dieter put together the kitchen counters across the top of the cabinets taken from a showroom. The new flooring was covered with a heavy plastic tarp to protect it from the light blue paint Myron and the others were slapping on the fresh drywall on the walls and ceiling. The fixtures for the coming track lights were ready, installed by Billy and Orin just that morning.

The section of slate-blue granite between the stove and the sink was hinged at the back. When lifted, it revealed a recess containing control panel with a dedicated line to the compound and a miniature ham outfit Billy was very proud of, override switches for the security lights that now topped all four corners of the fence in the yard and the two gables of the roof, and brackets for Ms. Nora’s favorite pistol and two boxes of ammunition. It was a neat little arrangement, but when he closed the top on it, the boom it made had an air of finality about it that broke something loose in him.

“What happens to us when all this is over?” Billy asked.

“What do you mean?” Tee asked.

Billy wiped his nose with the back of his work glove.

“Everything is going to be different. We’ll all be spread out across the area. I mean, I don’t want to live in one room with my mama forever, but I’ve met all these good people, made some really intense friendships. I hate the thought of losing touch with all of you. I’ve hated nearly everything else that has gone on, but I’ll be sorry to have that part end.”

“How do you think you’re gonna get rid of us?” Dieter said, with a rueful grin. “We’re old army buddies now, Billy. That’s what veterans have. Only we understand what others in the service have been through. And it lasts a lifetime. I can sit down with my guys from the unit, and all one of them will have to say is, ‘remember that time in Mogadishu?’ And you don’t have to say anything else. And, when one of us is having a hard time, we’re the only ones who get it. That never goes away.”

“Do you ever get over those times?” Tee asked, her dark eyes sympathetic.

“I’ll ask you that again in five years,” Dieter said. “You tell me then. Meantime, Billy, why don’t you think about going on like you’ve begun here? You and Tee have made yourself a radio station right here with nothing but some tin cans and string. Once we can start expanding, you ought to take over one of the big studios down in the city. You’ve helped us come together and survive just as much as Mr. Jud and Ms. Melanie.”

“No, I haven’t,” Billy protested.

“You bet you have,” Myron Levy said, getting down heavily from his ladder with a can of paint in his hand. “My kids and I never talked so much as before we got stuck here, but now we’ve had something good to discuss, like your stories from the folks overseas. It’s keeping us optimistic that civilization didn’t end. You oughta think about keeping that up. When the Internet gets up again, you can get an audience all over the world. I’d do your publicity for you.”

Billy stopped working, screwdriver in hand, at the thought. It made him go starry-eyed. What if he could turn his cherished hobby into a job?

“What about you, Miss Tee?” Dieter asked. “The government says the plague is over. Pretty soon, everything is gonna be opening up, even if it’s smaller than before. Where do you want to be in twelve months?”

Tee laughed. “Well, I’m looking forward to when people start coming home again. I’ve been on the radio to Cindy in Nepal for hours and hours. I really like her. We figure that once she’s back, she and Billy and I are all going to move in together. I’ve seen some really nice abandoned houses down in town. I’ve got my eye on a couple that we could clean up and move into.”

Billy’s mouth dropped open. “Now, wait a minute!” he protested. “I just can’t live with two ladies!”

“You’re going to turn one of us down?” Tee asked, eyeing him. “After she’s spent all those months in Asia pining for you? Boy, maybe you aren’t the guy I thought you were. Maybe she and I will move in, and you can go scratch.”

The others all hooted as Billy felt his cheeks burn. There was no good way out of that conversation, no matter what he said.

“You’re outnumbered, boy,” Dieter said, clapping him on the shoulder. “Go with it. We’re all making it up as we go along.”

“Well, she’s better with sound equipment than I am,” Billy said, making a playful grimace at Tee. She beamed. “Maybe it’ll work out. Ms. Melanie calls it the ‘new normal.’”

“That’s the spirit!” Dieter said. “I can’t wait for it to be over so I can get back to my house. I’ve been there with a few of the National Guard. It’s a mess, but the important stuff is still there, including my granny’s cast-iron stove. I just don’t know how long it’ll be until I can stop rolling out of bed with a gun when I hear the least little noise. What’s next is the scary part. If we can live through that and settle in again, I think we’re all gonna be okay. You’re just going to have to take that jump, but you have to do it with your eyes open to the possibilities. You gotta see where you’re going. There will be a period of adaptation. That’s normal. Ms. Melanie has picked the right people to start us forward, you know. There aren’t two braver people in the compound than Mr. Lou and Ms. Nora.”

“Where are they today?” Myron asked, prying open yet another paint can. “I got some colors for the master bedroom, but I don’t want to start until she approves it.”

“Downhill,” Billy said, pointing. “Mr. Lou stopped me on the way out this morning. Something was messing with the water coming up into the compound. Mr. Jud was afraid the infecteds got into the pump house.”

“Damn!” Dieter said. “This ain’t over yet. I better check.” He stepped away and unholstered the shortwave radio on his belt.

“Am I pushing you too hard?” Tee asked, genuine concern on her face. “I know I tease you, but I don’t mean anything by it. You’re just so sweet and innocent, it’s hard to resist.”

“No,” Billy said, regarding her fondly. “I’m glad you do it. Dieter’s right. I’ve got to move toward the future, but it’s hard when I don’t know which way to go. All I figured before all this started happening was I’d go to college and study up for a career, and get that going. When we moved up here, I stopped looking ahead.”

Tee pushed her hand into his. “We’ll figure it out. Who knows when the colleges will start up again, and what can they teach you more than you already know? I can show you how to operate and fix all the technology I use. Anything we find that’s still working in any broadcast facility ought to have a manual somewhere. The zombies wouldn’t have been interested in anything that wasn’t food. If they haven’t wrecked it past repair, we can get it going again and make that broadcast station happen. It’ll be scary, but if we’re together, it’ll be okay. Nora and Lou already know that.”

Billy squeezed her hand. He’d never felt protective of anybody the way he did with Tee, but at the same time as vulnerable as a baby. She was so accomplished and smart and brave, and he was just a country kid who knew something about radios. Still, she considered him worthy, an equal, someone she liked . . . no, loved enough to want to start a new life with. That was a big pair of shoes to step into. He gulped a little, wondering what it would be like to have all three of them living together, him, Tee and Cindy. Well, he knew he wasn’t going to be in charge, no matter what else.

Dieter came back. He looked relieved.

“It’s all right. A rock fell down and squeezed some of the hoses up against the cliff face. Nothing the zombies did. Ms. Nora’s going to meet Myron up at the compound and look at the paint chips in a little while.”

“We better finish up here,” Billy said, gathering up his tools and brushing the clipped ends of wire into a trash bag on the counter. “We’ve only got a couple of days until the wedding.”

“Oh, my God!” Tee said. “I have to figure out something to wear. I’m not going to the only celebration for months in a hazmat suit with dust in my hair. And what do you think they’d appreciate as a wedding gift?”

“Well, this house is from all of us,” Dieter said. “We’re going to sign a card and frame it in the living room right next to the front door. Right above the switch for the electric fence,” he added with a grin.

Tee shook her head. “I’m one of her bridesmaids. I need to come up with something.”

“I got an idea for a present,” Billy said. “But I don’t want to say too much yet.”

Since no preachers or religious folk in the area had survived the infected, Ms. Nora and Mr. Lou had decided that the wedding would be just the two of them standing up in front of the community—that was, the people in the Foresight Genetics compound and a few guests who were flying in from The Hole and the nearest military base for the event. The weather cooperated, shining warm and bright. Any storm clouds that threatened had moved away, leaving a blue sky with a few fluffy clouds in it. It wasn’t even too hot or humid. Just looking up, Billy thought it could have been any nice day. He went over the sound system again and again until he was satisfied that it and the stack of CDs mounted in the multi-disc player were ready to rip. On strict orders from his mama and Tee, who were going to help the bride get ready in her brand-new master bedroom, no one was to enter the house until after the ceremony, so Tee would set the music running.

Ms. Nora had pretty much put the preparations into the hands of Ms. Melanie. Nobody got individual invitations, but details were posted on every bulletin board, and Billy had broadcast them during his nightly show for the last six evenings. Every scrap of wood, every shred of plastic, every loose nail had been removed from the work site. Once the little house had been finished and inspected by the capable plant manager, she had set them to work decorating the outside for the wedding party.

With plenty of threats and cajoling, Ms. Melanie had gotten the foragers to come up with enough flour, sugar, eggs, vanilla and baking powder to bake a cake big enough for everyone to get a piece. The sparkling confection stood on a table right beside the doorstep under the newly restored wrap-around veranda, in case of rain. Even if the three layers sloped a little to the right under its heavy load of decorative icing, it looked amazingly festive. The scent of sugar and vanilla on the air was so enticing, Billy’s stomach growled.

He and the rest of the employees or family members waited in the neatly mowed front yard among a cluster of round tables covered with any kind of tablecloths that the foragers could find, dressed in their best attempt at festive clothing. With months of privation whittling away his pear-shaped body to a tall carrot, he’d scrounged up a pair of black dress pants and a tuxedo shirt from the closet of some long-gone musician in the city. Thank God, the man had gone for clip-on bow ties instead of making Billy have to guess how to tie one. He’d also lifted a handsome Grass Valley switcher from the man’s rig in his living room. Although it was unlikely the original owner would ever come looking for his possessions, Billy had left an IOU note, as he always did when taking goods from houses or stores. He preferred to make things right with God than not to take responsibility for his sins. He straightened the tie as Neeta Patel, one of the genetic engineers, pulled up in one of the company vans.

Neeta was grinning as wide as the sky as she jumped down from the driver’s seat and pulled open the big side door. The slim woman had on a red silk dress covered with glittering sequins and a pair of black sandals.

“Come on,” she said. “You can’t hide in here forever.”

“I’m not hiding!” Mr. Lou slid out of the first seat and marched up to the white-covered table in the middle of the yard as if he was ready to face the firing squad. A leather-bound Bible lay on the table, surrounded by flowers and candles.

The groom wore a dark gray suit whose strained buttonholes made it look like it had once been too tight but hung around Mr. Lou’s shrunken midsection. His hair had gotten pretty long, like everyone else’s, but someone had fixed it into a bunch of tiny braids that hung to his shoulders. The combination kind of made him look like a pop star. Mr. Jud Tomkinson, plant manager of Foresight, popped out behind him, wearing a dark blue suit and a pink plastic flower in his buttonhole. He was the best man. Not that he had to keep Mr. Lou from running away or fainting. Mr. Lou looked happier than Billy had ever seen him. This was a new kind of normal, one everyone could really get behind. If only it would last.

“All right,” Mr. Lou said, with a grin. “Where is my woman?”

“Real soon now,” Billy promised him.

Inside the house, he heard a bunch of giggles erupt. He, Mr. Jud, and Mr. Lou exchanged puzzled glances. Music started to play from the speakers embedded in the posts of the porch.

Suddenly, the door opened, and Tee came out with her hair styled high on her head, wearing a slinky black dress and sandals that laced up her legs. She had a fistful of plastic roses and a look of glee on her face. Carrying the same kind of bouquet, Ms. Melanie emerged in a shiny pink bodycon dress that hugged her comfortable bulk with love. Next, Billy’s mother was wide-eyed with delight in a flowered dress that skimmed her feet and a wreath of the artificial flowers on her head. The plant manager and the other bridesmaids filing out of the house could barely contain themselves. Every time one of them glanced at the others, they broke up laughing.

None of the guests could figure out what was so funny until the CD recording of “Here Comes the Bride” started playing, and Ms. Nora stepped out under the portico.

The bride wore camo.

Ms. Nora, a small, very thin woman in her forties, wore a big fluffy wedding dress, with tight-fitting sleeves flared at the wrist and a scoop neck, and a long train that had to be fifteen feet long, all of it cut out of Desert Storm khaki camouflage cloth. She had a veil, too, over her dark, silver-shot hair, made of duck-blind netting. It was totally absurd. It was perfect.

Billy gasped for a moment, then started laughing so hard that tears leaked out of his eyes. Ms. Nora grinned as she passed him. Everybody broke into giggles and guffaws.

Mr. Lou straightened up as the bridesmaids arranged themselves in a semicircle and waited for Ms. Nora to arrive. He beamed at her.

“My God, Nora, you do know how to make an entrance!” He took her hand and kissed it. All the guests sighed.

“So, you gonna marry me, or what?” she asked, with a challenging look.

“Sure thing,” Mr. Lou said. He took a folded paper out of his breast pocket, then paused. “You wanna go first?”

“All right.” Ms. Nora didn’t speak much at the best of times, so Billy knew it was hard for her to open up in front of all those people, even to the man she loved. She looked up into his face and fixed her eyes on him. “Lou Hammond, you’re the best man I know. Sometimes you’re the only thing that has made this all bearable. I . . . if there’s any time left to us in this world, I want us to spend it together.”

She had tears in her eyes, which said more than any of her words. Behind her, Tee’s lips were quivering as if she was trying not to cry.

When Ms. Nora fell silent, Mr. Lou nodded. He glanced at the piece of paper, then stuck it back in his pocket. He folded both her hands in his.

“Nora Fulton, you make me smile. Stay with me a while. My whole life sings, it grows wings, I think of things I never did before, when you’re with me . . . ” To the astonishment of his bride and practically everybody else in the crowd, he went on to rap out his vows. Billy couldn’t help himself. He let out a yell of delight, accompanied by all the younger people, even as some of the older ones looked appalled at the eloquent, rhythmic patter. “ . . . Be my wife, and I’ll love you all my life!”

For answer, Ms. Nora stood up on her tiptoes and kissed him. He wrapped his big arms around her and held her tightly.

“They don’t need me to say it,” Mr. Jud announced, “but in the eyes of everyone who matters, they’re married! Let’s hear it for the happy couple!”

Everyone cheered. Ms. Nora’s dusky cheeks turned red with pleasure.

Right on cue, the dance music started.

“Everybody on serving duty, get that food out here!” Ms. Melanie commanded. Twenty people streamed into the little house or went to fling open the doors and trunks of the vehicles that had been driven down from the compound. She beckoned to Orin, who was in charge of bringing chairs for them to sit at the white-covered table. Whisking the candles and Bible away, she made room for plates, flatware, and glasses. Billy’s mother, smiling with pride, came over to offer them a bottle of champagne.

“Where in God’s green Earth did you find that?” Mr. Lou asked.

“My son got it for you. God bless you both.”

“Well, thank you,” Mr. Lou said, glancing toward Billy. “Thank you.”

Billy helped lay out the food on long tables that were set up against the side wall of the house. In future months, a strip of garden would go there, but in the meanwhile, it was convenient to plug in Crockpots. Due to the lack of available game or livestock, most of the dishes were vegetarian, but in the hands of expert cooks who had been making do with practically nothing for months, it all smelled amazing. Billy couldn’t wait to dig in. He glanced toward Mr. Lou and Ms. Nora, but they didn’t seem interested in getting up to eat. They stared at each other like they couldn’t believe they were really married.

Tee came over to grab his arm. Her cheeks were flushed with pink. She looked absolutely gorgeous.

“Come and dance with me!” she said.

“I, uh . . . ” Billy pointed at the buffet.

“Come on!” She pulled him out onto the lawn.

Like him, everyone seemed cautious about celebrating, even such an event like this one. Other couples looked as though they wanted to take advantage of the bouncy music, but until Tee dragged Billy out to dance, no one else did. As soon as she started gyrating and waving her arms, a handful of the youngest scientists and technicians joined in. Mr. Jud and his wife Ms. Sharon whirled onto the grass and started doing something old-fashioned but really graceful. Tee laughed.

Billy studied her. From the frail, terrified creature she had been when a group of scavengers from Foresight rescued her, she had recovered to a vital extrovert. Billy regarded her as if she was a wild animal of some kind. She must have read his mind, because she bared her teeth in a mock growl and brandished her nails like claws.

“Grr!”

“Not a tame lion,” Mr. Jud said, as he steered his wife past them.

That was a quote from The Chronicles of Narnia, a set of books Billy had pushed aside as being awfully childish. “What’s it mean?” he asked.

“It means you have to take her like she is, son,” Mr. Jud said. He winked at Tee. “That’s not a bad thing.”

Billy decided he was right. He got right into the dancing, and discovered that even if he wasn’t very good at it, he was having fun. Tee looked gorgeous, the house was beautiful, and the strong lights that he had installed kept the growing shadows from dimming the celebration.

It got even more festive when some of Mr. Lou’s friends produced their own gift for the newlyweds. They had not only found a stash of liquor on one of their runs out to “Wal-Marts” and “Targets,” meaning abandoned homes in humble neighborhoods or upscale ones, but they had been using the lab equipment to distill their own country waters.

“Try some!” Chaz Miller said, coming around the dance floor with a tray of glasses. Tee accepted one at once. She sipped the clear liquor and made a face.

“Wow! Fierce!”

Billy started a hand toward one of the glasses, then pulled it back. Chaz grinned. He slapped a glass into his palm.

“You’ve earned it, Billy. Besides, if you weren’t of age before, you sure are now. All of us have aged twenty years. That makes you almost forty. You think you might deserve a drink?”

“Well . . . ” He tried a sip. The hard liquor burned its way down his throat and made him cough. He had drunk his mom’s beer on the sly now and again for a few years, but this was exponentially more intense. He gave the glass back, still mostly full. “Let’s dance some more, okay?”

“Okay,” Tee said, pleased. “Thanks anyhow.”

“No problem,” Chaz said. “This won’t go to waste!”

Finally, Ms. Melanie persuaded Mr. Lou and Ms. Nora to take their first dance together. Soft, slow music came over the loudspeakers, something with horns and strings. As planned, the lighting softened to moonlight. The wedding couple clung to each other and swayed in the middle of the lawn. Half a dozen of the younger guests recorded it with their cell phone cameras.

Suddenly, whooping and the sound of motorcycle engines rose over the music.

Billy stopped to listen. The noise was unmistakable. He raised his arms to get the attention of the rest of the guests.

“Infecteds!” he shouted. “Coming this way!”

The guests abandoned the buffet and the dance floor, and ran for their firearms. Since they had started to try to rehabilitate betas, everyone was armed with sedative guns and nets, with a couple sharpshooters carrying 30-00 heavy-duty rifles in case the infecteds went crazy. Under the instruction of Chaz, who was a Tennessee State Trooper, and National Guard Angel Velasquez, everyone lined up around the perimeter fence. The security lights kicked on to full, and the electric fence crackled to life.

There they were, maybe the last of the infecteds in this area, arms raised against the sudden glare. Billy counted about fifteen of them. Roger and Elaine had done a great job rounding them up. The two motorcycles revved back and forth behind the mob, preventing them from making an escape.

They didn’t charge right away. They milled around, almost as if some of the memories of who they had been had analyzed systems. Still naked, still filthy, still scrawny from near starvation, covered with bruises, sores, and gouges, with their feet half worn to bone by stumbling over rocks and roots in the woods, but wily like wild animals. They carried sticks and rocks for weapons, but they were looking for the weak places to get in, to get at the normal—and the food—inside the perimeter fence. They bared broken teeth and snarled, trying to make up their minds whether to charge or not. Billy’s gorge rose at the sight of them, but he hunkered down. This was it, a moment that he could remember for history.

The first infected, a male covered in orange clay, charged the fence. As he touched the wire, blue-white electricity arced under his wasted fingers. He screeched and retreated, wild eyes searching the fence line for weaknesses.

Ms. Nora hitched up her skirt and tied it into a knot at her hip.

“Where’s my shotgun?” she demanded, heading for the door of her new house.

Billy jumped up to head her off.

“Ms. Nora, don’t!”

She rounded on him, ripping off her veil and flinging it to one side.

“What do you mean, don’t?” she asked, her eyes on fire. “You think I’m gonna let zombies ruin my weddin’?”

“No, ma’am!” Billy said. He reached underneath the table holding the remains of the cake and came up with a gun. The shining barrel was festooned with handfuls of colored ribbons and a big bow had been tied around the stock. “This is for you. It’s a brand-new tranquilizer gun. We all want you to have it. And we’ve got three boxes of cartridges for you to use. All yours.” He held it out. She put her hands on it, and gave him a sour look.

“You ain’t gonna let me kill ’em no more,” she said.

“It’s your wedding day,” Billy said, hoping she would relent. “It’s a new day. A fresh start. For everyone. These may be the last ones you ever see. Help the ones who can get better. Find a better life, as much as they can have. Find simple jobs to do. Give them a little dignity, even. Help you, too.”

Ms. Nora nodded once, then took the gun. She stuck the boxes in one of the pockets in the seams of the wedding gown.

“You’re a good kid, Billy,” she said. “Thanks.”

Billy went to another emplacement. Tee was already there, a trank pistol in her hands. She leaned over and gave him a kiss. He kissed her back, still feeling bold about showing affection like that, and triggered the spotlights.

“You set this up,” Tee said, with a conspiratorial grin.

“Maybe,” Billy said, then the secret burst out of him. “Yeah, I did. Roger, Elaine, and I discussed it the other day. I wanted to lure the rest of the local infecteds up to the compound for treatment, and this way, it kills two birds with one stone. I figured it would take them pretty much all day to work their way up here, and the motorcyclists to drive ’em toward us at the last minute. I couldn’t think what else would make a good present for Ms. Nora. I just had to make sure she didn’t take a shotgun to them.”

Tee laughed. “You’re a lot smarter than you look.” Billy was crestfallen. She kissed him again. “You look pretty smart, so that’s a compliment.”

Billy felt confused, but decided to enjoy the moment instead of thinking about it too hard.

Ms. Nora stalked toward the south fence, her new rifle loaded with the barrel pointing toward heaven.

“I’ll spot them for her,” Billy said, rising to his feet.

“I’ll do it,” Tee said. “You’re a much better shot than I am.”

She stood up and took the handles of the movable high-intensity light, sweeping it back and forth across the open area on their side of the fenced yard. Billy hoped that the power wouldn’t cut out from the demand, but everybody except a skeleton crew was down here from Foresight. There shouldn’t be too many people using electricity up above except for what was needed to run the coolers and freezers. He crossed his fingers that the transformers would hold out.

Ms. Nora lowered the barrel, and squeezed the trigger. The orange-covered infected dropped. That seemed to arouse the others. They came rushing toward the fence.

“Call your shots,” Mr. Jud bellowed. “Don’t waste shells!”

Everyone gave Ms. Nora first crack. With her dead-sure aim, there was no such thing as wasting ammunition.

“Yee-hoo!” she howled, hauling back the action on the beribboned gun and dropping in a new shell.

Pop! A big infected male staggered as the trank dart hit him square in his bony chest. He took another couple of steps forward, and collapsed with his arms over the wire strung along the top of the fence. Fortunately, someone had turned off the power so he didn’t fry.

In less time than Billy thought possible, the new bride had potted four of the fifteen. The rest of the infecteds collapsed as darts from the rest of the guests took care of the others. Billy just stood and enjoyed the expression of triumph on Ms. Nora’s face. She held her new gun up over her head, and Mr. Lou lifted her high into the air.

“Threat’s over! Take ’em back to the lab and let’s get ’em evaluated,” Mr. Jud said, gesturing toward the fence. “And we’ll leave the happy couple to themselves.”

Billy looked back over his shoulder just in time to see Mr. Lou sweep Ms. Nora up into his arms and carry her over the threshold of their new house, trank gun and all.

“I hate to say it, but that’s one of the most romantic things I ever saw,” Tee said, shaking her head.

“It’s too much to hope we all get to live happily ever after,” Billy said, putting his arm around Tee’s shoulders and drawing her up the hill toward the compound. “I’ll take what we can get a little at a time.”


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Framed