The Mississippi Zombie Chronicals

Chapter 23: The Messenger, Part 1

I awoke beside Maria, I could smell her hair and her scent. It was comforting, especially after everything that just happened.

I stretched out, yawning low and slow. It apparently woke Maria up, she turned over and looked at me.

"We didn't, you know, did we?" She asked.

"No, I have enough respect for you not to even try without making sure you were sure about it. You know that. Besides, wouldn't you think you'd remember something as amazing as that?" I smiled back at her.

She smirked, kinda got frustrated in a cute way, and covered her face with a pillow in embarrassment.

"But there is one thing I will do though." Moving the pillow from her face, I kissed her on her forehead, stroking her cheek. "I'm so glad you're okay."

"I know you do respect me, thank you for that. And I'm glad you're okay too, seeing you in one piece is like, a dream come true." Said Maria.

"We need to get dressed. The others are probably up too." I said. "I'll let you have the room." I was already half way through putting my tactical vest and clipping my holster on my belt.

I shut the door behind me, carrying my boots and socks in my hand to the kitchen. I sat down on the bench my grandpa hand made and finished getting dressed. It felt good to be home but man we needed more space, the 1700 square foot house was cramped with nine people in it.

Zig laid passed out on the couch, Jess and Michael lay on the floor still asleep on a pallet. Cody and Morgan were in my old bedroom with Cody on the old bed and Morgan setup on a cot we had found. Cody had just woken up, and so had Bob; he emerged from his dark bedroom, with Drew sleeping on the floor.

"Mind helping me cook breakfast boys?" I asked.

The boys followed me to the kitchen, where we broke out the powdered eggs and salted pork we had been saving for a special occasion. We were lucky it was in one of the bags of food we managed to grab. The aroma crept through the house, waking everyone else up.

"Is that bacon?"

"Next best thing, salted pork and eggs."

"Oh. Where the hell did we get eggs?"

"The magical chicken factory, duh."

The faces in the room looked tired but for the most part happy. Happy to be alive for another day.

Happy to be home.

We all sat around the table, enjoying our meal, and discussing fortifications.

"Well, if we take and dismantle the sheds, reuse the lumber for fences we should be okay. But we'll need to reinforce them with something." I said.

"There is the APC, we could always just use it as a brace. The El Camino too. Hell, even the Toyota pickup and mom's car." Said Bob.

"Excellent idea. We need to be smart about this though. We can't all work on the fences and still be safe. If we have two sentries that patrol the perimeter and rotate every hour or so we should be good and still be able to have fresh workers." Said Zig. It was the most words we had heard him say since Kam died.

Just then, we heard a knock at the door.

Some of the last people on earth alone in a room and there was a knock on the door.

Great.