Surviving The Aftermath (Book 1): The Dead Linger by Liz Roberts

a dig in on Kurt once in a while. He knew about him, it wasn’t obvious, but Tom wasn’t stupid either.  Kurt squinted and gave him laser eyes.
    “No Jack ass, he told me, and I believe him.” The men continued sorting through the inventory, making list of what they might need. The trip to get supplies was vastly approaching, and they had to go through everything.
    “So, change of subject, I noticed your daughter and some of the other girls hanging around that Tyler guy quite a bit. Are they becoming an item?” Kurt said.
    “Cindi better stay away from him, that guy is bad news, I don’t like him one bit. That Jeff guy either.” Tom did not like, trust or tolerate those two. He frequently snubbed them and made sure to stick them with bull shit jobs to keep them away from others, including his daughter.
    “What do you think about Jack?” Kurt said shaking Tom out of his day dream.
    “Why do you keep asking me about him? What do you like him or something? Then go talk to him.” Kurt choose to ignore that.
    “Because Andy thinks he should come along on the supply run, and I agree. What do you think?” Tom stood there for a minutes, the kid was young, smart, appeared to be able to handle himself.
    “I guess I would agree with you guys on him going.”
    “Oh look, there goes your buddy now with his new GF’s.” Kurt pointed towards Tyler walking by with three girls, Tom’s daughter included. What was her issue, Kurt didn’t see the appeal, he knew cute and Tyler was not cute.
    “I’m telling you, you need to watch her, or keep a better eye on him, cause that whole thing has “bad news” written all over it.” Kurt said while watching Tom glower at Tyler.
     
    One night Jill woke from a particularly bad dream, it was of being chased by zombies, her parent’s possible demise and the woman she saw dragged off from that night, by the bandits. She’d had that nightmare a few hundred times, but it switched in her dream, it was always her they took and the other one watching from a far. It was about 2am, guess it was time to wander around, but she didn’t feel like having Casey’s company at the moment. So she turned in the other direction and went outside by the lumber yard to sit and ponder.
    She’s not here. Casey had expected her to be here, on the roof, where they would have their nightly talks. For some reason this bothered Casey, and instead of following his instincts and staying away, he sought Jill out. He wandered the sleeping store, outside around and by the gates, he even asked a few people if they’d seen her. After some pointing in the right direction he spotted her, sitting over in the lumber yard on a stack of 2 x 4’s, with her feet dangling over, just looking down with her head in her hands.
    “What gives?” Casey said as soon as he was within distance. Jill had obviously been in deep thought because she was clearly startled by his shout.
    “Oh . . .nothing.” She croaked out a voice barely audible. A slight drizzle had begun, but they were covered by the lumber shelters.
    “You weren’t on the roof.” Casey stated this obvious fact and regretted it right away.
    “I just had to walk around some. No biggie.” Jill said looking back down at her feet.
    Casey could feel himself asking the question, one he knew he didn’t want the answer too. Why oh why did he have to set himself up like this.
    “What’s wrong?” He said before he could stop himself. Praying to god Jill would give the normal woman response and say nothing.
    “I just had a bad dream is all.” She said.
    “About what?” Casey mentally kicked himself again.
    “Do you really want to know?” Jill giving Casey the out he was looking for, because she didn’t want to talk about it anymore than he wanted to listen.
    “I wouldn’t have asked otherwise.” Stupid stupid stupid, Casey repeated in his head.
    “I just have issues I guess, like most people left alive today.” She was quiet again, and Casey came to