Zombie Fallout by Mark Tufo

that to be she was agreeing to Jed’s will.
    “Back to the refugees,” Jed said. I could tell that even he was having difficulty with that word. “Eventually it will become more and more problematic to house and feed them. We’d be all right for the first hundred or two until it began to tax our resources. But if we start taking people in we can’t get to a point and then start turning them away. I mean we could, but I don’t want to be that person that turns a family away because we’re out of space. If we open the doors for one, we open it for all. We may get to the point where we will run out of empty homes and will have to open our own houses too.”
    “Oh for heaven’s sake,” Mrs. Deneaux interjected. “I will not open my doors to any strangers, especially if they’re not the right color.”
    Mr. Hernandez stood up, angry as all get out. Even Tommy would have been able to tell where this was going.
    “Sit down, Don,” Jed said sympathetically to Mr. Hernandez. “Is it really worth arguing with her?”
    Mrs. Deneaux glowered. This wasn’t one of those touchy feely moments like in the movies, where Mrs. Deneaux reluctantly saw the errors of her ways and eventually accepted a black family into her home as they overcome all obstacles set in their way. She lived as a racist bigot bitch and she would probably die as a racist bigot bitch. C'est
la vie.
Mrs. Deneaux was happy Don hadn’t said anything. She liked it a lot better when they stayed quiet and mowed the lawns.
    I sucked in my breath as I watched Mr. Hernandez do his best to control the rage that was threatening to boil over.
    Jed didn’t like Mrs. Deneaux any more than anyone else at the meeting. He was probably wondering if she had become this ‘difficult’ before or after her husband left her. Tension mounted, the pressure was palpable. That was of course until the nightmare began again. Where someone had dug out an old WWII siren, I don’t know, all I know is when the siren went off I got to taste my scone a second time, and believe me it wasn’t better this go around. Most everyone got up, unsure of what we should do next. Eyes invariably shifted to Jed.
    “Just hold off until the siren stops and then we should hear some directions,” he stated.
    Just how many air raid sirens had this man lived through? The siren cut off as if it was placed under water. Then we heard, faintly at first and then with more vigor as the message passed on from sentry to sentry, “Zombies at the gate, zombies at the gate!”
    “You idiots,” Jed mumbled. “Which gate?”
    As if in answer to his question, “Northwest and northeast gate, all hands!!”
    Gerry, Mrs. Deneaux and a few of the older folks didn’t move. Hell, I thought darkly, most of them already look like the walking dead, without the walking part. I wanted to pull Jed aside and tell him that we had already been infiltrated, but I somehow didn’t think he’d find the humor in it.
    I grabbed Jed’s arm. “Do you want me to go get the boys?” It would delay my arrival by ten minutes but I’d be bringing more firepower with me.
    “How many rounds you have for that fancy gun of yours?” he asked, looking down at my M-16.
    “Four full clips, so a hundred and twenty rounds,” I said as I began to shuffle my feet. Adrenaline had started to surge, I needed to direct this energy and quickly.
    “Ants in your pants Talbot?” Jed mused. (When was the last time I’d heard that? When I was ten?) “Go to the gate and see how bad the threat is, they’ll either come running when they hear the shots or I’ll have a runner sent.”
    I was halfway out the door, when I turned. “Thanks Jed,” I told him.
    “For what?” came his grizzled reply.
    “For a chance,” I finished before dashing out the door.
    I ran as fast as I could to the northern end of the complex. I knew this wasn’t the proper approach. My slamming heart was going to make it difficult to steady my gun. There was no need for