"Where did you learn Spanish?" Katie whispered at one point.

"My Mom was Mexican," Jenni whispered back.

"Oh."

"My Dad was Irish," Jenni added.

"So you're a lazy drunk," Juan quipped and waged his eyebrows at her.

"I am so going to kick your ass," Jenni said with a surly pout.

The Juan thing: she wasn't sure what that was about. A part of her was sure she hated his guts, but another part of her really got off on their arguments. It was too much fun. And, she had to admit a stress reliever.

Neither one of them really took the insults seriously. It was just, well, she wasn't sure. A way to make life more fun maybe.

Finally, just when she and Juan had started to play rock, paper, scissors, and it seemed a stalemate was inevitable, Mike came in.

"Two more. They climbed over the back of one of the trucks. One of them fell right onto a spike and it took his head right off. The other one stood on the truck and tried to jump past the spikes. She ended up impaled at the pelvis. This isn't good," Mike said.

Katie turned to the Mayor. He slowly nodded under her intense gaze.

"When the sun rises, we'll kill them all. Agreed?'

Jenni looked toward Travis, who nodded. "Yeah, agreed."

Juan stood up slowly and said, "Okay, so we have no more time and no choices. But we can't do this again. We won't always have guns or ammunition. We need to be able to defend ourselves other ways."

"Absolutely," Katie agreed.

Travis nodded wholeheartedly. "The guns make us safer for now, but, yeah, you're right."

Jenni stood up and stretched. "Just tell me where to go and I'm so ready."

Juan laughed. "Big surprise there."

Jenni gave him her snarkiest look.

2. Tinkerbell of Death

"I don't like this," Katie said as she stood beside Jenni.

Jenni shrugged. "We have to be able to hit the ones that are out of view from all angles."

Katie sighed. "Yeah, but why you?"

"Cause I volunteered. Besides, I get to be harnessed up," Jenni grinned.

"Kinda like a deadly Tinkerbell of death!"

Katie laughed and watched as Juan rigged up Jenni. Mike had also volunteered to take up a forward position on the front line. They would be positioned on the dirt trucks directly in front of the fort. Any zombies up in that area were not visible from the sentry positions. If Nerit had been at the fort, she probably could have taken them out from the top of city hall, but no one had sniper-like skills.

Jenni kissed Katie's cheek then swatted at Juan's hands. "Hey stop feeling me up!"

Juan gave her a look. "Aw, am I turning you on?"

"Um…ewww," Jenni responded.

She felt giddy and excited. It always felt good to be doing something.

Killing the enemy was something that she actually enjoyed. Each time she pulled the trigger, it was delicious revenge for her dead children.

Katie hugged her once more, then slipped away to join Travis. They were going to be on one of the platforms. Only people who had experience firing a gun had been recruited for this task. Mostly hunters and a few military men were manning the sentry posts now.

"Be careful, Mom," Jason said, and hugged her tight.

Holding him close, she closed her eyes and relished the feel of being a mother. "I will be. I promise.

Jack was giving her a doggy quizzical look, not sure what to make of the harness that had her hooked up to a pulley system that Juan had created in the first days of the zombie holocaust, as he called it. He probably thought it was a weird kind of leash for humans. She leaned down and kissed the top of his head and snuggled him up for a moment.

"I'll be okay. I promise."

"Ready?" Juan asked.

Mike and Jenni nodded.

They were hoisted up into the air and suddenly the horde of zombies swam into view.

"Kinda wished they didn't smell so bad," Mike said stoically.

"Yeah," Jenni said, and wrinkled her nose.

They reached a good height and were slowly moved forward. She rather enjoyed being swung over toward the dirt truck. It was rather like flying, so she struck a superman pose that made Mike laugh. But it died away as the zombies grew more agitated and the enormity of what they were doing was made clear. Juan carefully lowered them onto the dirt truck and they both immediately knelt down as they were told to do. It limited how visible they were to the zombies below.

"You know," Mike said after a moment, "the black man always gets it in these scenarios."

"Well, in the zombie movies, the black guy is usually the hero," Jenni said in an attempt to console him.

Mike laughed. "Yeah, and the cracker shot him at the end of the first movie."

"Oh, yeah," Jenni said, and winced.

"Just keep steady and we'll both be okay."

Jenni nodded and bit her lower lip lightly.

"We're all in position. Starting the count down," Travis' voice said over the walkie-talkie attached to Mike's belt.

Mike winked at Jenni. "Keep cool, girl."

"Five, four, three, two, one…" Travis voice intoned.

The crack of rifles filled the early morning air.

Jenni rose up with Mike at her side and began to aim and fire. The first zombie was an old man and she split his head nicely in two. She barely moved the rifle, sighted the next zombie, a young woman with her face torn away, and fired.

Aim… fire…

Aim… fire…

She reloaded as quickly as possible and kept firing. The zombies were pushing hard against the truck and tiny tremors could be felt under their feet.

Mike fired with precision and swiftness. She tried to match him the best she could.

Each mangled, screaming, distorted face that dissolved into bloody mist beneath their assault made the knots in her stomach ease just a bit. They were thinning the crowd, making them pay for what they had become. She hated them. She fiercely, passionately hated them, and each time their head burst beneath the hail of bullets, she felt her smile grow.

Ten minutes in, the killing in full swing, she started to reload. It was then a zombie came up over the sandbags and began to charge her. She was so startled by his abrupt appearance that she was surprised when her hand automatically drew her revolver and shot a nice little hole into it’s head.

"Fuck," Mike exclaimed.

Another was scrambling rather easily onto the truck.

Mike took this one down, firing over Jenni's head.

Jenni stood up and Mike quickly went back to firing into the area that he was assigned.

"Cover that area, Jenni," he said.

She stepped cautiously toward the edge and blinked, then blinked again in horror. "Juan, get us the fuck off of here!"

By killing the zombies toward the front of the crowd, they had inadvertently made a nice little ramp of bodies right up to the truck.

Two more zombies rose up at the far end of the truck and started to race for them. Jenni shot both of them.

"Fuck!" Mike grabbed the walkie-talkie. "Get us the hell off this thing!"

More zombies were beginning to charge now. At least four. Jenni kept firing, but more were coming.

Her body was jerked upwards so hard, the revolver fell from her hand and she gripped her rifle tightly with the other. Pain erupted through her back and arms as she was dragged upwards. The zombies kept coming. She curled her legs up to her chest as fast as she could, and they swung their arms under her trying to catch her. Being far taller, Mike was much longer, and one zombie gripped his leg. The large black man screamed in anger and fear and fired point blank into the zombie's face. Another grabbed his booted foot and was lifted with him. Mike kicked his leg hard, but the creature was tenacious and was trying to pull itself up to bite him.

Jenni tried to take aim with her rifle, but they were swinging a bit wildly due to being hoisted so quickly. "I can't get him."

"Muthafucka," Mike snarled and kicked as hard as he could. The zombie fell and landed face first on a spike.

At least a dozen zombies had clambered up onto the truck now under them.

"Why aren't they swinging us back," Jenni screamed.

They were now lifted high enough that no zombie could grab hold.

"We're bait," Mike answered.

Sure enough, Jenni saw that all the zombies making their way up onto the trucks were pooling directly under the two humans hanging over them.

Sadly, Jenni saw their bags of ammo were getting trampled into the dirt.

They both hung there, over the zombies' heads, watching them leap and scream, trying to grab them.

"They can't take us toward the fort or they'll follow," Mike said. "And that will compromise everyone."

"Do we shoot?" Jenni held tight to her rifle.

"Praying sounds good to me. Told you, the black man always gets it,"

Mike said grimly.

Twenty of the undead were now crowded onto the truck.

"Oh, well. We're not dead yet."

"Yeah," Mike said. "Yet."

3. Close Encounters