nvisible passed between them. Not a jolt of sexual attraction between sexes, but the knowledge that someone profound had entered their life.
And in his gaze, she knew, he felt it, too.
Chapter 8
1. The New World
Travis motioned to an older man standing on the back steps of the quaint little city hall. The older, balding man with the rotund belly nodded and headed back into the building.
Jenni let her backpack fall to the ground with a thunk and shook out her hair to get all the caked mud out of it. But there was a flare to the movement, a bit of feminine guile tingeing her movement.
Katie smiled even bigger. Jenni was trying to get Travis' attention.
He walked toward them, dirty, tired, but smiling.
"Okay, sorry, things are a little crazy right now. Your arrival really surprised us. We had a truck driver arrive a few hours ago. Honestly, at this point, we weren't sure anyone was left out there that was alive. " Travis set his hands on his hips and shook his head. "We were listening to the Emergency Broadcast but nothing made sense. They don't' seem to have a clue in hell what is going on. "
"Zombies," Jenni said with a smile.
He looked at her, grinned, and nodded. "Yeah, zombies. "
"When did you figure out what was going on? This had to have gone up immediately," Katie said motioning all around her.
"Well, yesterday we were supposed to break ground. We were going to rebuild a historical building that burned down a few years ago. This whole area is about to undergo a serious-or was going to undergo- a serious reconstruction. A developer was keen on turning it into a tourist attraction complete with the rebuilt vaudeville theater and the hotel," he pointed to one of the tall redbrick buildings "being the focal points. Anyway, I was on my way here to work when the reports started coming in. "
"The race riot story," Katie said.
Travis nodded. "Sounded weird to me. I couldn't figure out why there would be race riots breaking out all over the country. Anyway, got here and already we were hearing horror stories out of the cities on the CB. Truckers were reporting all sorts of crazy stuff. We were all on edge, not sure what to think. It sounded like an April Fool's joke, but of course, this is March, not April. Juan over there kept saying over and over again it was zombies, but we all just blew it off. " Travis shook his head and looked at Katie in the eyes. "I mean, it sounds crazy. "
Katie sighed and ran a hand over her blond hair. "Yeah, it does.
Completely. "
"Anyway, the Mayor decided that the best thing to do until we were sure of the threat was get everyone in town out to the new high school. He told us we could go ahead and start to break ground, but he wanted the civvies safe. "
Travis leaned toward Katie. "The Mayor is in the back pocket of the developer, you see. "
"Ohhhhhh," Katie said.
"So we went to work, but kept getting distracted by all the stories pouring in on the CB and on the radio. So, anyway, Curtis over there, that cop, comes by and tells me that there was an attack at a service station down the road and the officer on the scene had to put down the attacker he was so violent. They took the lady this freak attacked down to the clinic. He was real jittery and I didn't blame him. It all felt wrong, you know?"
Jenni's head was bobbing up and down furiously.
Travis shook his head and looked past the wall into the distance. "Just fucked up. Anyway, we start to finally get down to moving the equipment into position to start digging when we hear a big commotion down the block.
Those cars out there just crash. Out of towner cars. And all hell is breaking loose in those cars. And we can see them rocking and hear screaming and what sounds like growling, then suddenly there are these…things…crawling out of the cars and they start running down the street toward us. Now, it's not normal for a man to have his intestines tripping his feet and he still keeps running. "
Katie winced at the thought and vividly remembered the first zombie to attack her. The grievous wounds on the man who had nearly dragged her out of her car had been a clear indicator that things weren't right.
"Four of them ran straight for us and Juan, he's a crazy son of a bitch, just sweeps them right off the road into that building over there with the arm on the excavator. The whole time he's yelling about zombies and honestly, at that point, we believed him. Two of those things didn't get up. Their heads were bashed in. But the other two, despite having arms and legs that were clearly broken, were staggering toward us. So we grabbed up some shovels and dented their heads in. About that time Curtis is back and tells me that some shit was going down at the clinic and that the dead were walking again.
The Mayor was out in front of city hall freaking out because he saw us take out the four zombies from the cars. Now, we know the town is up at the high school, so we go over and tell the Mayor that anyone bit needs to be tossed out on their ass. " Travis shook his head. "Because in zombie movies…"
"The bite is what makes them zombies," Jenni said helpfully.
"Yeah. And so far…well. . damn…so far it was clear to me and I think everyone else that ever watched those movies that they got a lot right. " Travis fastened his gaze steadily on Katie. "But despite seeing it, I found it hard to believe it. But I couldn't afford not to believe. "
Katie agreed silently, her gaze steadily matching his. "Yes, because you have to survive. "