Jake's Law: A Zombie Novel by James Gurley

her in surprise. “Yoga? Are you a health nut?”
    “If that’s what you want to call it. I teach, uh, taught yoga and nutrition. I try to maintain a healthy body – no meats, grains, processed or fatty foods.”
    He laughed aloud. “Boy, did you choose the wrong time to be picky.”
    She stared at him for a moment, finally got his joke, and laughed with him. “Yeah, it hasn’t been easy. I guess I’ll have to alter my diet, but I think my healthy lifestyle is the reason I haven’t gotten the Staggers.”
    “ If that were true, I’d be dead. I can offer fresh vegetables, eggs, and cheese if you’re not a strict vegan, but everything else is canned, smoked, or still walking around on four legs.”
    “Cheese?” she asked in disbelief.
    “I have goats. I milk them and make cheese, mostly feta, but I have a good imitation of Italian caprino aging. Of course, I have a block of cheddar around somewhere if you prefer, but I salvaged it from a grocery store. I keep goats because cows require too much space to maintain even a few of them.”
    She nodded. “How do you know about making cheeses?”
    He waved his hand at the bookcase against one wall. “Books. You can learn anything from books, although my first few efforts were unappetizing messes.”
    She looked at his modest but eclectic collection books. “Are all deputies survivalists?”
    He smiled at her question. “Not all. Some of my colleagues called me a kook. I consider myself a prepper, ready for almost any eventuality.”
    “Even a zombie apocalypse?”
    He shrugged his shoulders. “The principle’s the same. Survival is survival.”
    “I suppose.” She glanced around the room, noting the disarray. “Are you married?”
    He laughed. Never a very neat person, he had clothes lying across the back of the sofa and dining room chairs, books piled on tables, and the furniture was coated in a fine film of dust. “Do you think a wife would let me keep the house this messy?”
    “Have you been?”
    He shook his head. “No. I came close once or twice, but it didn’t stick, or maybe I didn’t stick with it long enough for it to take. Either way, I live alone.”
    “Me, too, live alone I mean. I had a boyfriend, but he died.”
    Jake simply nodded. There was nothing he could say that would matter. A lot of people had died. Death had become as casual as sex had once been. Death didn’t really matter until it came your turn. “No family?”
    She shook her head. “No. My father left when I was ten. Mom died two years ago. At least she didn’t see the shit hit the fan.”
    “ Do you want to survive?” he asked.
    She stared at him with her head tilted to one side. “What do you mean?”
    “If you want to live, you’ve got to get over your distaste for guns. Running fast just won’t cut it.”
    “Guns kill people.”
    He laughed at her twisted logic and watched her jaw tighten. “I’ve owned guns all my life, but the only people I’ve killed were shooting at me in Afghanistan. A gun is a tool, nothing more. I used them for hunting. Now, I use them to stay alive. If it’s guns in general you don’t like, learn to use a bow or a sword, but you can’t always depend on someone else to save your ass.”
    “I’ve been doing all right,” she said.
    “Maybe you should ask your two dead friends how they feel about that.”
    She recoiled as if he had slapped her. His barb had struck deeply, just as he had intended. Trying to hang on to one’s beliefs was one thing, but allowing them to kill you was foolish.
    He continued, “There are people out there who would kill you for fun, and about half a million creatures that want to eat you. You have to learn to defend yourself, or you’ll die. It’s as simple as that. You can only hide so long. You’ll have to go out among them some time. You need to be prepared.”
    “You seem to have a pretty good hiding place here,” she shot at him.
    “I spent years preparing it, but even I have to go out at