Jenni frowned a little. "Katie is gay. She is the gay one."

Juan shrugged. "Travis just…he's always confused about women. You should go for him. He'd enjoy your locaness."

Jenni smacked Juan again. "Get out! Really?" She smiled at the thought of being even a little alluring to Travis.

"Uh, yeah. Stop hitting me. I'm driving." Juan pointed to the road.

"Oh, yeah." Jenni was grinning hard now. "Well, Katie is gay, so he has to know that isn't going to happen. So, maybe he'll look my way. I need makeup. And maybe a cute top." Jenni thought for a moment. "Think we'll get to kill zombies?"

"Your mind just goes all over the place, doesn't it?"

"Pretty much."

Juan pulled into a nearly empty parking lot outside of what had probably been a very "modern" building in the Seventies, but could now be safely classified as an atrocity of architecture. Only two cars were in the parking lot.

Across the street was a nice park. There were no houses nearby, so it was easy to look around and see that the area was pretty clear of danger.

"Just keep smart, Loca."

Jenni nodded and slid out of the truck. She flicked the safety off her rifle and walked slowly toward the main entrance.

The first obstacle to their expedition was in plain view once they got close enough. The library had a set of glass double doors with a small foyer between them. Trapped inside of them was an old man, dead, hungry, and beating on the interior door. It was kind of funny that he still clung to his library book.

"He wants in," Jenni observed.

"Possible survivors."

"That's what I'm thinking."

Juan walked over and peered past the old man. "Can't see anything but a card catalog up against the door."

"Survivors then."

"Maybe. If they had food in there."

The old man became aware of them and turned. He hissed when he saw them and instantly started banging on the door to the outside. Surprisingly, it wasn't locked and slowly opened under his weight.

"Shit."

"Fuck."

"Shoot it, Loca."

Jenni waited until the man managed to stagger outside and fired one shot, neatly taking off the top of his head and shattering the glass door behind him.

Juan looked down at the zombie's book. "Better Sex After 60," he said.

"No!"

"Yeah."

Jenni looked. She broke into wild laughter. "Oh, shit. That is funny. He probably got here early to turn it in before his buddies saw him.

They became aware of three anxious faces looking at them over the top of the card catalog. They were drawn, a little pinched, but live faces. The heavy piece of library furniture was pushed out of the way and a woman unlocked the inner door.

"Oh, thank God! Juan!"

"Belinda!"

Juan hugged the woman tightly and slipped into the library. "Everyone okay?"

Jenni sized up Belinda. She had long black hair, amber eyes, and a tiny frame. She was obviously Hispanic and very pretty. The other woman was older, blond, and very short and stout. The third person was a young teenage girl with red hair and a spray of freckles across her nose.

"Thank God someone came for us," the blond woman exclaimed.

"Gretchen, good to see you alive."

"Same here, Juan," the stout woman answered.

Belinda locked the door behind them. "We've been here since it started."

"We were almost out of food," the teenager said.

"We're here now," Jenni said with a smile. She felt a little weird about Belinda, but liked feeling like the rescuer.

"Oh, Lord, we've been eating snacks out of the vending machines. We're almost out," Gretchen said.

"We got locked in when Mr. Marsters showed up with a bad bite. He said someone bit him as he was stopped at a stoplight. We tried to help him, but he died," Belinda explained.

"We had heard about them coming back and we took no chances and were carrying him out when he did come back," Gretchen added.

"We almost didn't get away from him. He tripped and fell and that is when we managed to lock the door," Belinda finished.

Jenni studied her a bit longer. She was fairly sure that librarians were not supposed to be attractive or sexy.

Juan quickly explained about the fort, the situation, and all they had endured. Gretchen kept clasping her hands and saying, "Dear sweet Jesus."

The teenager just seemed dazed. Belinda kept hugging Juan, which really annoyed Jenni.

Jenni wasn't sure she liked any of them.

"So there are no doctors or nurses in the fort?" Gretchen asked in horror after Juan was done with his story.

"Nope. Clinic got wiped out right away. That's why we need books," Juan answered.

Belinda clasped her hands over her mouth and tears welled in her eyes.

She shook it off and said, "Okay. Give us the list."

Juan rummaged around in the pocket of his worn jeans and pulled it out.

Belinda took it and immediately scanned it.

"Okay, we'll divide it up, load up the book carts, and get out of here,"

Belinda said.

Jenni tried not to frown at her. Who had put her in charge anyway?

But being the good sport she was, Jenni trudged along behind Gretchen, pushing a book cart while it got loaded up with what looked like a bunch of really boring books. Juan went with Belinda and the teenager collected all the remaining candy from the vending machine.

Jenni was almost disappointed when they got out to the truck and there were no zombies in sight. She was feeling edgy and irritable and wanted to shoot something.

They all squeezed into the truck. Belinda sat next to Juan with the teenager on her lap. Gretchen squeezed in next and Jenni ended up crammed in last, almost on top of Gretchen.

The trip back was even more boring than the trip out. Again she saw some zombies trapped in houses, beating on windows, but none broke out.

She thought of Mikey, sighed, and felt even more like shooting stuff.

Back at the fort, the ladies were helped up over their defenses and into the construction site while Juan loaded up the old pallet Travis had built with the books while Jenni and others stood watch.

Finally, she went over the wall, Juan behind her.

"Well, Loca, we're safe and sound."

"Big fucking deal."

Juan looked at her and frowned. "What?"

Jenni just wrinkled her nose at him.

"What?"

"I didn't get to kill anything on the way back. At all!"

Juan started to laugh. "Yeah, but you're back and okay. So you can go flirt with Travis."

Jenni considered this for a moment, but it didn't seem quite as alluring as before. "Oh, yeah. I guess I could."

"Time to come out of the straight closet, chica." Juan mussed up her hair with one hand and strode off to join Belinda.

Jenni just scowled after him. She stomped her foot once and stormed off to pout.

Chapter 17

1. The Terrible World

Jenni walked out of the new gate cautiously, her rifle in her hands, safety off, ready to fire. Bill walked with her, also sweeping his gaze over the abandoned street. Curtis was right behind them, looking very nervous. This was his first time out of the fort and he was already sweating profusely.

Jenni had been asked to accompany the former cops on a search and rescue expedition. Either Juan had talked up her skills and craziness to grandiose proportions or her actions in the fort had made her seem crazy, yet competent. Or maybe it was a combination of both. But it did amuse her that they wanted her to tag along, because they knew she had no issue about killing the zombies. Unfortunately, there were those who did seem to have issues with killing their former townspeople. Already on one rescue mission, someone's aversion to killing their zombified grandmother had resulted in one death.

The construction workers attempted to shut the gate behind them, but there were a lot of teeth jarring screeches and a lot of swearing. Juan had told Jenni that there had been some issues with the gate and obviously this was true. Hopefully, they would have it fixed by the time they got back.

Despite her efforts to not be annoyed, Jenni was having trouble dealing with Juan. It was all about Belinda and she hated it bothered her so much. It became clear that Juan's real reason for the library excursion was to hopefully save Belinda. And since she was one of the town's librarians, everyone knew her, which annoyed Jenni to no end. Since Belinda had arrived, they dynamics had changed again. Juan was constantly acting like a total idiot around Belinda, trying to act all smooth and sophisticated and if Jenni even tried to pop a joke in his direction, he'd get annoyed. Though she was utterly loath to admit it, she missed their banter.

She strode quickly toward the mini-bus they had begun to use during the rescue missions. The fort population was slowly growing and the number of men and women was slowly evening out. There were at least a dozen children now and Peggy's son had plenty of other kids to play with. At times Jenni felt annoyed with their presence. It was hard to see other children alive and well when hers had died so quickly.