The First Days (As the World Dies #1)(71)

She felt Travis following her, and when they were far enough from the arguing two, she turned toward him. His face was a mask of pain and uncertainty. "We have to do this."

Travis nodded. He said softly, "Once we start firing those guns, we may bring more."

"Do you want to risk more of those things figuring out how to get past the trucks?"

Travis sighed. "Yeah, I know. In theory, the spikes could slow a lot of them down. The Hurricane fence would probably stand for a little while, but then they'd be up against the wall."

Katie nodded her face tense. "We cannot afford to lose ground to them."

She felt it to her bones that if the zombies ever breached the first perimeter, things would not go well for them, despite the security of the wall. They needed to gain ground, not lose it.

Travis looked back at Jenni and Juan who were now cursing each other out in Spanish. He blinked. Jenni knew Spanish?

Katie glanced back down the hall then grinned. "Kinda like kindergarten flirting, huh?"

"Uh, you're not jealous?"

Katie snorted. "Yeah, right. Like I'd be jealous of Juan." She gave him a bemused look. But her stomach was coiled into knots. She was horribly afraid. There seemed to never be time for peace.

Travis gave her a decidedly goofy look. "Yeah, well, anyway, let's start planning what we're doing. I guess I'll wake the Mayor."

She reached out and touched his arm. "Travis, it’s a war. We have to fight."

He sighed and said. "The thing about war is that there are always causalities."

Katie felt a chill flow down her spine and she glanced toward Jenni. She felt her stomach tighten and she looked back at Travis. "But we have no choice."

"Yeah, I know," he answered sadly They stood in silence for a long moment and Katie looked toward the still arguing Juan and Jenni. "We better get the Mayor…"





Chapter 15





1. The Killing Grounds





Jenni flipped Juan off discreetly behind Katie's back, then found a place to sit down in the Mayor's office. The Mayor looked weary and overwhelmed with the news of the zombies climbing over the trucks. Tobias' death had weighed heavily on him and he looked haggard.

Curtis looked a little better than he had. It was as if he was finding his role to play in this world and growing comfortable with it. Jenni thought he was cute in a little boy sort of way. Jason and Curtis often hung out, talking, and just being guys. It made Jenni happy. Jason needed a friend, considering all he had lost.

Jenni, meanwhile, was glowing with happiness over what she had gained. Katie was back and she was just ecstatic over that fact. And of course, Travis was back, too. And that made her girlishly giggly with delight. She couldn't help it. He was such an incredible guy.

She phased in and out of the conversation that followed. It really didn't interest her except when they talked about killing the zombies. She was surprised there were opposing voices to the plan. Juan was worried about running out of ammunition if they used so much right off the bat. The Mayor was worried about riling up the zombies even more. Jenni rolled her eyes during some of the discussion and Katie leaned over and took her hand.

Jenni knew it was the "behave" signal, so she tried not to give snarky looks. It wasn't all that easy.

The debate went back and forth. Katie was adamant about wiping out the zombie horde before it got any bigger and they got any smarter. Jenni thought she was making the most sense. Travis was conflicted about the whole gun issue and argued that maybe they should try to find an alternate way to wipe out the zombies. Jenni considered smacking him upside the head.

Juan sat near her and kept muttering in Spanish. Jenni muttered right back at him. Soon they were discreetly swearing at each other. The crux of the argument was that Jenni was a bloodthirsty psycho and that Juan was too stupid to understand guns were made to be fired.

"Where did you learn Spanish?" Katie whispered at one point.

"My Mom was Mexican," Jenni whispered back.

"Oh."

"My Dad was Irish," Jenni added.

"So you're a lazy drunk," Juan quipped and waged his eyebrows at her.

"I am so going to kick your ass," Jenni said with a surly pout.

The Juan thing: she wasn't sure what that was about. A part of her was sure she hated his guts, but another part of her really got off on their arguments. It was too much fun. And, she had to admit a stress reliever.

Neither one of them really took the insults seriously. It was just, well, she wasn't sure. A way to make life more fun maybe.

Finally, just when she and Juan had started to play rock, paper, scissors, and it seemed a stalemate was inevitable, Mike came in.

"Two more. They climbed over the back of one of the trucks. One of them fell right onto a spike and it took his head right off. The other one stood on the truck and tried to jump past the spikes. She ended up impaled at the pelvis. This isn't good," Mike said.

Katie turned to the Mayor. He slowly nodded under her intense gaze.

"When the sun rises, we'll kill them all. Agreed?'

Jenni looked toward Travis, who nodded. "Yeah, agreed."

Juan stood up slowly and said, "Okay, so we have no more time and no choices. But we can't do this again. We won't always have guns or ammunition. We need to be able to defend ourselves other ways."