Taking It Back by Joseph Talluto

made to the front. I jumped down and looked outside, stepping around the zombies we had killed. I didn’t see any danger and motioned the rest to follow. Charlie jumped down and I helped Sarah down.
    Moving outside, we spread out and scanned for trouble. A couple of stragglers were in the parking lot, but no immediate danger. We piled into the vehicles and were immediately aware of the extra space. Can’t be helped, just a freak accident, I thought as I started the Xterra. That’s why we check everything.
    I pulled out of the lot and maneuvered around the carts. I stopped close to one of the zombies and let Sarah shoot it. It dropped with a grunt and I went over to the next one. She shot that one too, then sat back.
    “I don’t like that I’m used to it” she said, checking the gun.
    I held her hand. “Me neither.”
    I looked in the rearview mirror and saw that Jim had tears in his eyes as he thought about his friends. Some things you’ll never get used to , I thought as I moved towards the school.
    On the plus side, we wiped out a good portion of zombies. Down side, we lost two men we could ill afford to lose. We were going to have to get back to the basics. But first, we needed to head south and see if we could help out a town that needed it. I felt something I hadn’t felt for a while. Hope.
     
     
     

5
     
    Despite our losses at the grocery store, we managed to press on with clearing the living area and at the end of three days people were moving into homes and condominiums. I chose a brick house overlooking the river that had a fenced, wooded yard. It was probably larger than I was going to need, but it seemed like a good place to settle into. Sarah was going to be settling in with me, so that worked out well, too.
    The first thing she did when we moved our stuff in was to remove any remnants of the previous owners. That included taking down pictures and albums. I had enough ghosts on my tail, thank you very much.
    I spent half a day looking for a crib for Jacob then another half day making sure the wooden shutters on the house worked. That was another reason I chose the house. It was older, but it had functioning wooden shutters which added to the defense.
    I was clearing the yard when Nate rolled up in a truck. I expected him since we were going to be heading south on the river later that day to see what we could do for Coal City.
    “Hey John!” Nate called.
    “Hey Nate. What’s the good word?” I put down the branch I was dragging and came over.
    “Not much, just wanted to see what was up with the trip.” Nate stepped out of the sun into the shade of a large tree that was in the front yard.
    I scratched my chin. At some point I was going to have to shave again, but I was holding at once or twice a week. “We’re heading out later today, using one of the boats we found up on the hill.” I was referring to the subdivisions outside the trench. “We’re provisioned up and ready to go. I figured we’d head out around 11:00 and see how far we drift after a couple of hours. I want to save as much fuel as I can.”
    Nate nodded. “Sounds right. Who’s going with you?” he asked.
    “Charlie and Rebecca are coming, Tommy is coming, and Sarah is coming along as well. Jason Coleman, and Martin Oso said he’d come too.” I thought for a minute. “Bev Shoreman said she wants to come and Casey Steele as well.”
    Nate whistled. “Your boat big enough for all that?”
    I nodded. “We got one of those big pontoon boats and Charlie and Tommy have been making some modifications to it, so we should be good to go.”
    Nate chuckled. “I can only imagine what modifications those two came up with.”
    I smiled. “As long as it floats I don’t care.”
    Nate laughed. “Amen, brother. Better pack your Jesus shoes just in case.”
    I changed the subject. “How’s things coming along here?”
    Nate turned serious. “Trevor is still smarting over the two men lost at the grocery store, but he doesn’t