Lou Sanchez was so pale that Gideon Turnbull would have mistaken him for a walking corpse and blasted his head on the spot had it not been for his heavy breathing and nervous motions.  He was so wound that any watchful eyes would have known something was going on.  Good thing they were the only two souls in the lower level parking garage and they were supposed to be there.

            Sanchez opened his mouth to say something, but Gideon cut him off.

            “We’re in jeep number four,” he said.

            Sanchez nodded.  The rule was no talking about sensitive issues where others might hear, and there were hundreds of places an eavesdropper could hide in the parking garage.  Gideon and Sanchez had been scheduled to run early morning patrols together in a jeep.  They could do their talking then.

            Gideon unlocked Lou’s door and walked around to take the driver’s seat.  As soon as he backed out of his parking spot Sanchez blurted out: “Grant’s dead.”

            Not only had Grant been a long time friend of Gideon, but the two had been working together for almost fifteen years.  Grant had been one of the few people Gideon had trusted.  This wasn’t good.

            “Did someone blow his cover?”

            “I don’t think so.  Olmstead said we shouldn’t have brought an entire colony.  He told me to toss Grant over the side, and then he said I had a promotion.  Grant tried to knock me out.  Fuck, I should have let him.  I killed him.”

            “He was dead no matter what either of you did,” Gideon said.

            As they rolled out of the parking garage, Gideon spotted the receding darkness.  Dawn was only minutes away, which meant his day was beginning, while Lou’s would end in two hours.  Maybe rest would dull his new lieutenant’s nerves.  The last thing he needed was more casualties before the war began.

            “Grant trusted you.  I’m going to do the same.  Now I need you to unwind and forget about your feelings.  They’ll get you killed.”

            “There’s another thing,” Lou said.  “Buckingham and his stooges dumped a body off of the wall before Olmstead showed up.”

            “He probably had a little question and answer session with one of our guests.  When they don’t see him today, Olmstead will probably say that he ran off.  He’ll probably only keep them alive for a few days.”

            “Why did we bring them here then?”

            “It’s easy to hide a few murders here and there, but three hundred?  There’s no way he’ll sweep that under the rug.  They’ll have to organize a large death squad rather quickly and news will get out.  If the people see what we’ve become they’ll fight.”

            Gideon cut the wheel left and passed between the hotels where their guests were staying.  He sped by without looking for curfew breakers.  Hell, in five minutes there would be no more curfew.

            “What I need you to do is find out who their next target is and get to them before Buckingham.  If we can keep Olmstead from learning what he wants to know, perhaps we can buy our guests a little more time.”

*

            Despite his worries, Scott Hunter slept well.  He’d spent the night snuggling with his wife, Lucy, in a real bed for the first time in what seemed like months.  The .38 revolver he’d smuggled into town and hid under the bed offered a little comfort, but he wished that the rest of his people were armed.  In the last twenty-two years everyone’s lives had revolved around firearms, combustibles, and other weapons.  Now lying on a bed in a room with only one gun, Scott felt naked.

            Franklin was supposed to share a room with Scott, but he hadn’t seen the man all night.  Perhaps he’d awakened earlier than Scott or perhaps Franklin had slept in the lobby.  Even the couches in the public lounge on the first floor looked heavenly compared to a squeaking, rotten, wooden floor.  Undead moans were also blissfully absent.

            Lucy woke up with the sun, her pregnant belly bulging as she stretched and moaned.  Scott put and arm around her shoulders and kissed her on the cheek.

            “Sleep well?” he asked.

            “Very.  It’s nice to have a real bed again.”

            “Anything beats that floor.  I think Franklin fell asleep on a couch down stairs.”

            Lucy giggled, but Scott immediately regretted mentioning Franklin.  He was in charge of internal security and keeping his people safe.  Suspicion had been beaten into his personality even if he hadn’t needed it in the past.  A nagging feeling of wrongness would peck at the back of his brain until he saw Franklin again.

            What if we lost another official under my watch?

            “Honey, is something wrong?” Lucy asked.

            “Hey, why don’t you visit Catherine?  She can see how the baby’s doing and maybe the two of you can have breakfast or something.”

            “Something’s wrong.”

            “No, I’m just still wired.”

            Lucy backed off, but he knew he’d gotten her started on worrying.

            “You think something happened to Franklin?”

            “I don’t know, but I want to talk to Patterson and I’d rather not leave you alone.”

            She nodded.

            “You know how I am.  This might be nothing, but I’d rather play things safe.”

            “Let’s get cleaned up.”

*

            Sam had kicked Jack out of bed with the first sliver of sunlight.  He’d probably showered and shaved before dawn.  On command, Jack took the quickest shower of his life and tossed on jeans and an olive colored t-shirt.  By the time Jack had shoes on his feet; Sam was on the other side of the door.

            Jack wasn’t sure if there was urgent business or if Sam was trying to prevent him from becoming too comfortable.  This wasn’t home and he was quite paranoid about their hosts after all.  Despite his nightmares, Jack could not believe that their hosts had malevolent intentions.  Sure they had some strange rules, but they were a far cry from the cultists who’d attacked his team days before.

            After leaving the hotel room and closing the door behind him, Jack followed Sam down the stairs to the ground level.  Until waking up from the first night he’d spent in an actual bed in days, Jack noticed pains and aches he hadn’t realized he’d had before.  His legs throbbed as he walked down the steps.  With his hand that wasn’t fixed to the railing, Jack rubbed a sore spot on his back.  He wondered if this was what it felt like to get old.  He wondered if he’d ever live to find out.  Their walk ended at Catherine and Helen’s doorstep.

            Sam knocked on the door.

            Before anyone answered, Jack looked up and spotted Ted racing down the stairs.  Jack wasn’t sure if his friend had also gotten up early or if he’d dashed out of bed at the sound of movement.  He wore corduroy pants and a long sleeved plaid shirt, which he buttoned as he ran.

            As a sleepy-eyed Catherine opened the door, Jack spotted Scott and Lucy Hunter cross the street.  The large man draped an arm over his pregnant wife’s shoulder, perhaps to keep her from tumbling on to the asphalt.

            “Mrs. Thorn,” Ted spoke.  “Are Helen and Erica up yet?”

            “Yes, why?”

            “We’re going to the movies.”

            She glanced at Sam.

            “I’d prefer to have Helen and Jack here, but it looks like we’re going to have a full house,” Sam said.  He’d seemed to want a private meeting with Catherine and Helen, but he knew there was no way to get rid of their unexpected guests without arousing suspicion.  “Go ahead.”

            Suddenly Catherine stepped backwards and held the door opened as Erica appeared in a casual, backless dress.  The blue material reached down to her knees.  She wore white tennis shoes and her arm was still in a sling.  Apparently she and Ted had planned the outing the day before.  Jack hadn’t heard anything about a movie theater.

            Helen followed the injured girl outside, dressed in jeans, a denim jacket, and black gloves.  Even without her rifle, Helen looked like she was prepared for a full outbreak of Hell.  She gave Sam a weary look and he nodded.

            Erica moved to Ted and he put his arms around her, careful of her broken arm.  They walked off hand in hand and Jack and Helen followed.  They greeted Mr. and Mrs. Hunter as they passed.

*

            To maintain civility, Sam shook Hunter’s hand as the officer greeted him.  They locked eyes and engaged in a battle of grips.  Under normal circumstances, Hunter would have won, but his mind wasn’t in it.  Sam had been hoping that the couple was here to visit Catherine, but Scott seemed to want to talk to Sam as well and that wasn’t good.  Under normal circumstance, the two men tried to avoid each other.  Sam locked on to Hunter’s eyes and didn’t look away until the other man glanced at his wife.

            The two women embraced and exchanged a genuinely warm greeting.

            “Has Franklin come to talk to either of you this morning?” he asked.

            Sam shook his head.

            Catherine said: “I just woke up.”

            “We thought he might have come over here,” Hunter said.

            “We haven’t seen Kyle all morning and Scott’s worried,” Lucy said.

            Definitely not good.

            “You think he went for a morning walk or something?” Catherine asked.

            Not likely, Sam thought.  Kyle Franklin had never liked going out alone, even in the safety of their compound.  Sam wondered if their politician feared a collapse in the walls or if he’d feared solitude before the undead were more than just fantasy.  Sam had never seen Franklin alone without Hunter or another guard around.  He’d been the guard on a couple of occasions and it had been the only gimps he’d had behind Franklin’s public persona.

            The previous July, Franklin had delivered an Independence Day speech before a fireworks display, directed by Gerard Falk.  Gerard and a small demolitions team had taken over the ruined of a pawn shop so they could give a show from a safe distance so Franklin was at the protective wall instead of the stadium like he’d wanted.  He’d delivered the speech eloquently, but before the crowd gathered, Franklin kept eyeing the walls as if he expected to see an expanding series of cracks that would eventually allow a mob of ghouls to pass through.

            How honest did he want to be in front of Hunter ad his wife?  Lucy had no field experience and she wasn’t in a condition for action, but Scott Hunter was the highest ranking security officer left.  Even though they hated each other, there was no reason for mistrust.

            Scott and Sam locked eyes.  Scott frowned and nodded.

            “After what we’ve all been through, I don’t want to start a panic,” Sam said.  “Let’s gather some people we trust and assign guard duties.  Also, I don’t want anyone wandering off alone until we know what’s going on.”

            “What about the kids?” Scott said, pointing in the direction the teens had walked.  “Should we go after them?”

            “Jack and Ted can take care of themselves.  I’ve commanded both of them and I feel sorry for anyone who tries to mess with Helen.”

*

            The theater was located halfway across the town and the group of teens walked the whole way.  Along their trek, Jack and Ted talked about trouble they’d gotten into as kids.  Helen sensed that they were trying to keep their minds away from the last few days now that it seemed they were temporarily safe.

            “When I was sixteen, Zach had this crazy idea,” Ted said.  “Bob used to talk about playing mailbox baseball.  We’d have four people in the car – two teams of two – and the object of the game was to smash the most mailboxes.  Every miss was a strike.  Every dented mailbox was a foul.  Zach thought it was a great idea with one problem.  There aren’t too many mailboxes around any more.  But there are plenty of dead bodies walking around.”

            Erica giggled and Jack wasn’t sure how to react.  He didn’t seem surprised, but he’d never liked Zach.

            “That night Pete Foster, Hue Williams, Zach, and me broke into the sports locker and took six baseball bats.  Then we borrowed a jeep.  Pete and Hue were supposed to be watching the front gate, so sneaking out wasn’t a problem.  We didn’t get caught until we got back and The General was ready to burry his hook into us!”

            “His hook?” Helen asked.

            “The General wore a pirate’s hook where he should have had a hand.”

            “I heard he went down swinging,” Ted said.

            “What’s playing?” Jack asked.

            “I hope it’s a western.”

            The marquee on the matinee looked like it had been neglected for years and the film title was missing letters, reading: “RKYI.”

            “What do you think was playing?” Erica asked.

            “Ricky?” Ted guessed.

            “Rocky II,” Helen said.  “We found a copy of the movie before… eleven years ago.  I remember my dad was excited about seeing it.”

            Jack put a hand on Helen’s shoulder as the others fell silent.  All four of the teens were orphans, but none had been forced to watch their parents die so cruelly, as Helen had and that was a secret she had to keep until things settled down.

            Maybe seeing a movie wasn’t such a good idea, Jack thought.

            Five young soldiers played baseball in front of the movie theater.  There seemed to be no coherent teams, just two basemen, a pitcher, a catcher, and a batter.  Although the pitcher and batter had bantered loudly, Jack couldn’t make out what they said until he was closer.

            “Who hasn’t fucked your mom, Fox?”

            The pitcher, apparently named Fox, launched a curve ball at the batter’s head.  The batter lunged towards the ground and threw his hands over his hat.  The other team members laughed as the batter lifted himself from the ground and dusted off his clothes.

            “Maybe that’ll teach you to keep your fucking mouth shut, Briggs!”

            The catcher looked at Jack and his friends, then said something to Fox, while the others moved in to form a conspiritory huddle.

            “What the hell is that?” Ted asked.

            “Just keep walking,” Helen said.  “They’d be stupid to try anything right now.  There are four of us and I think I could take on all five by myself.”

            “Is that a bet?” Ted asked.

            “Let’s just get inside,” Jack said.

            The ticket booth was empty and probably hadn’t been manned in years.  When they passed through the front door, Jack noticed that the concessions stand wasn’t in any better shape.  Maybe this town had only been used as a militia base, and the theater had only been opened within the last couple of days with the expectation of visitors.  Maybe Genesis wanted to maintain some semblance of civilization and normalcy.

            A spindly old janitor mopped the floor, occasionally rubbing his bald head.  He could have been old enough to not only remember the time before the dead walked, but also the time before World War II.

            “Go right on in,” the old man said.  “I’ll start the show in just a couple of minutes.  I haven’t had a patron in this establishment in over twenty years.”

            Has he been here through all of this?

            Without another word, the janitor pushed a door opened, revealing stairs.  After he disappeared, Jack looked at Ted.  Ted shrugged.

            “I guess we should go in,” he said, taking Erica by the arm and leading her into the auditorium.

            Jack put a hand on Helen’s back and gently guided her in front of him.  After she walked into the dark room, he lingered at the doorway.  As he looked back, Jack saw the baseball team enter the building.

            Maybe going to the movies was a bad idea.

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