Siege (As the World Dies #3)(2)

Looking up, she gasped. A badly mauled zombie face was pressed against the window, its tongue licking desperately against the glass where her head had rested a few seconds before.



Drawing sharply back from the window, she fumbled for her gun. The zombie slammed its mangled hand against the window, moaning. “Fuck,” she muttered. She still felt groggy from sleeping.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Katarina moving around the front of the parked truck, her pistol out. “I got him, Jenni,” she called out.

The zombie, hearing Katarina’s voice, turned away from the window and howled. The homely redhead aimed and fired one shot. The zombie’s head burst, its body collapsing onto the road.

“Thanks!” Jenni called out, rubbing her eyes, trying to wake up all the way. She had fallen asleep on the way back from a scavenging run. It had been very successful. There had been no loss of life and they were returning with a lot of supplies that were needed to make it through to the Spring.



Katarina climbed back into the truck, slid behind the steering wheel, and slammed the door. She let out a sigh. “Felix would have to pee where there are zombies around.” “Couldn’t hold it, huh?

“No. He said he was going to explode. I told him to hang it out the window. He laughed.” Katarina frowned. “I was serious.”



“Boys are dumb. Where is he?” Jenni glanced through the blood-splattered window at the side mirror and saw Felix’s reflection. He was just zipping up and another zombie lay dead not too far from him.

“He better finish the hell up so we can get home. This latest cold front sucks.” Katarina rubbed her hands over the steering wheel, her knuckles bright red from the cold. “I want some nice hot coffee.”

Winter was hitting hard in Texas and it was one of the worst ones in years. Snow had fallen already three times, and Ed was muttering about ice storms. They were barely a week into January, and already Jenni was sick of the new year. It was so damn cold.

“That sounds so good. And a nice warm bed with a nice warm Juan in it.” Jenni grinned.

Katarina blushed almost the color of her hair. Felix wrenched open the back door and slid in. “I urinated on my shoes! Can’t a man relieve himself without those damn things showing up. I’m quite irate!”

Jenni slid around in her seat and grinned at him. “Should have held it, huh?”

“When a man has to go, he has to go!” Felix folded his arms across his broad chest and glared at her. He wore several layers of clothing under his usual tracksuit and his black skin looked beautiful against the whiteness of the fabric. Felix dressed like a gangster, but spoke with a sophisticated air most of the time. He was the adopted son of rich white parents from Houston and would have graduated with a masters in literature if not for the zombie apocalypse. Jenni liked him a lot and they enjoyed teasing each other.

After the nightmare she had just endured, she was glad to joke around again. She could not get the final image of her and the boys fleeing down the zombie-infested neighborhood street out of her head. It had been so vivid, so real. If Katie had not arrived that morning, saving her, Jenni would have ended up fleeing on foot alone and she knew she would have perished. The boys had never made it out of the house. Lloyd had killed them.

Jenni laid her head against the backrest and stared at Katarina as she drove the truck back onto the country road to continue the journey home. The rest of the caravan was waiting up ahead. As their truck drew near, those vehicles slowly began to accelerate. Soon the small convoy was speeding down the country roads back toward the fort.

“I can’t believe my shoes are ruined,” Felix muttered again, then pulled out a book from his backpack. “It will be difficult to find a good replacement.”



“You could try to clean them up,” Katarina offered.

“I scrape zombie guts off my boots all the time,” Jenni added.

Felix just grumbled something that they couldn’t make out and began to read the words of Socrates.

“Boys are so moody,” Jenni decided.

“And they say we are,” Katarina scoffed. Jenni smiled a little and tried to get comfortable in the truck. It felt odd riding shotgun with Katarina instead of Katie. But Katie was back in the fort, helping with other areas of importance. Jenni suspected Travis had something to do with Katie not being assigned to any of the groups heading out of the fort. Her pregnancy had been a shock when announced. Most of the fort was happy to welcome a new life into their barren world, but others felt having children was irresponsible. The comments were never made around Katie or her husband, Travis, but Jenni heard them.



Her own feelings about the baby were mixed. On the one hand, she was happy for her friend and ready to be an aunt, but on the other she feared for that new life being born into a world full of the hungry dead. Was it really fair to bring a new life into a world so full of death? Would it have been fair to try to raise her boys in this undead world? Jason was older, almost an adult, but Mikey and Benji would have lost whatever remained of their childhood innocence.

Frowning, she felt her stomach tighten at the thought of her dead children. Tears burned in her eyes as she realized she would rather her boys were with her than dead. Juan would have been a good father, and they would have worked hard to give the boys a good life. But that would never happen. Somewhere, her boys were part of the undead hordes. “Something is going on,” Katarina said, pulling Jenni away from her dark thoughts.