Surviving the Dead (Book 7): The Killing Line by James N. Cook Page B

slowly.
    Tears stood out in the young girl’s eyes. Her voice was a whisper, hands trembling as she clasped them in front of her. “My name is Sabrina. I’m your daughter.”
    Gabe reached up a gentle hand and ran two fingers down her cheek.
    “But how?”
    “She was pregnant with me when you left, but she didn’t know it yet. She never told you.”
    “Why not?”
    “She said she was afraid of you.”
    Gabe closed his eyes and put a hand over his mouth. He seemed to collapse into himself. “Did she survive?”
    “No. She got bit outside of Morgantown in West Virginia.” Sabrina reached up and took her father’s hand. “When it happened, before the soldiers took her, she told me to give you a message if I ever found you.”
    Gabe looked up, his eyes red.
    “She said she never stopped loving you, she just couldn’t stand to watch you lose yourself anymore. She was sorry she never told you about me. She told me to do whatever it took to find you. She said if there was anyone in the world who could protect me, it would be you.”
    The big man blinked and tears fell down his cheeks. He tried to speak, found he could not, and reached out for his daughter. Sabrina’s hardened mask fell away and she began to sob, her arms going around Gabe’s midsection, the tension of long, painful years draining away in a flood. Father and daughter held each other tightly, Gabe crying silently and Sabrina like the child she was. Miranda looked at me, and we both left the room. Neither Gabe nor Sabrina seemed to notice. 
     
    *****
     
    The passage of two weeks found me muddling through December. The winter’s first dustings of snow fell on the roof of Stall’s tavern as I walked up the stairs and left the cold winds behind for the warmth of a hot woodstove.
    Solar panels on the roof powered a series of fans that blew hot air from the stove through tubes located around the periphery of the tavern. The result was a comforting heat evenly applied throughout the premises. Mike Stall, owner, proprietor, and executive bottle washer, once told me his profits tripled during the winter. Judging by the crowd on a late Tuesday evening, I believed it.
    At the pool tables were were the usual bachelors who would rather part with a bit of trade than cook their own dinner. They snacked on bread and roasted chicken and sips of Mike’s grain liquor between bits of conversation and whacking balls around with sticks. The tables in the dining area were mostly full, a low roar of conversation hanging like a cloud among the couples and families and the occasional loner. At the bar was the singles scene, people in their twenties regurgitating the same old pick-up lines and awkward flirtations I once reveled in but now found exhausting.
    The far left end of the bar broke off in an L shape. A long table stood next to it with a sign overhead that read ‘STAMMTISCH’. A few regulars occupied the table, so I took a stool at the bar. The seats on this side were painted red to notify patrons that this area was reserved for people Mike had dubbed VIPs. I was one of them. I did not usually sit there, but it was late, cold, I was tired, and the only thing I had to look forward to was going to bed and praying my son managed a few hours’ sleep before he woke up screaming for milk. Allison and I took turns feeding him, and tonight was my shift. Being able to operate a breast pump and store milk in the fridge were two of the many unintended consequences of installing solar panels on my house.
    “What’s goin’ on,” Mike said as he approached. He pronounced ‘on’ like ‘own’. He was old, tall, lean, and hell on wheels in a poker tournament. His two greatest passions were distilling liquor and his rather majestic handlebar moustache. He was never seen without his trademark cowboy boots, ten-gallon hat, and large gold belt buckle he won riding bulls back in some far distant juncture of his youth.
    “It’s cold. That’s what’s going on.”
    “Little