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“She’s dressed in Chanel. I swear it’s Hilary Clinton,” Stacey insisted.

“That’s even more ludicrous,” Rashmi protested. “How could she possibly travel here all the way from the East Coast?”

Ennis sniffed loudly, glaring at Rashmi. “My ex probably stole a nice outfit. I’m telling you it’s her. With all these damn ghosts running around, I bet she possessed her zombie body so she could track me down! I know what she’s capable of!”

Emma suspected this was a recurring argument. Ennis was definitely the stubborn type.

“We’re off track,” Katarina cut in.

“Sorry,” Rashmi said, obviously annoyed. “Please, continue.”

“As I said, our job is to give Nerit cover if anything goes wrong. We’ll split up along the wall to make sure we cover the whole area. Don’t open fire unless she’s in direct harm. Once the runners are dead, we’ll clear out any of the slow ones that follow with the spears.” Katarina tapped a pile of makeshift spears with her foot. The weapons were made out of long pipes with trowels, knives, and screwdrivers secured to the end. “Firearms are a last resort. We don’t want to attract more zombies after we got rid of the horde.”

Thrusting his hands into the pockets of his jeans, Ennis rocked on his heels while twisting his mouth into odd shapes. “This plan don’t make sense. How the hell is she going to make it over the wall? We got razor wire traps all along this side.”

“Juan is rigging up the elevator.”

Ennis snorted. “Like that’ll be safe.”

“What’s the elevator?” Emma asked curiously. The Fort was much better equipped to deal with the zombie threat than her home had ever been. The ingenuity of the layout and the defenses impressed her. Despite all that, she couldn’t imagine them building an elevator.

“It’s not an actual elevator,” Stacey explained. “It’s some sort of crane.”

Katarina gestured vaguely at the horizon. “There was a crew doing work on a highway overpass when it all went to shit, so we acquired a crawler crane. Juan rigged it up so we can either lower heavy items over the wall or bring something in,” Katarina answered. “Take a peek out there and you’ll see why she needs it.”

Emma looked through one of the windows cut into the hunting blind at the rest of the street stretching out in front of her. Some areas of the road bore graffiti warnings.

“The spray painted areas are fire traps,” Ennis explained.

“Isn’t setting the zombies on fire dangerous?” Emma asked.

“They’re afraid of fire. They’ll either retreat or evade the flames, hopefully stumbling into the razor wire traps,” Katarina replied.

Ennis pushed his hand past her face to point. It reeked of gun powder and tobacco. “She’ll have to drive between the traps and catch the elevator on that yonder corner.”

Emma was a little skeptical. “Will that work?”

“Don’t know. First time we’re bringing anyone in that way.” Ennis shrugged. “Gonna be interesting.”

“It sounds risky,” Emma said. “But I guess there isn’t an easy way over the wall, huh?”

Tucking her unruly red hair back from her freckled face, Katarina turned toward Emma. “Sometimes we have to get imaginative. They used to bring people over the inner wall in an excavator. It’ll work.”

“We should have sent a kill team out to take out the runners,” Rashmi mumbled.

Stacey shook her head, disagreeing. “There are too many crews out beyond the wall. If the gunshots bring in any stragglers from the horde, we’d be risking everyone. Nerit rounding up the runners near the fort and bringing them here is a solid plan. Especially since we don’t know how many there are.”

“Playing Pied Piper didn’t go so well last time,” Ennis pointed out.

Katarina’s back stiffened, her expression hardening. “Yes, it did! We redirected a good chunk of the horde! Our people gave their lives leading them away and did a damn good job doing it!”

“Just shut up, Ennis,” Stacy whispered. “She’s hurting.”

“I didn’t mean no offense about Bill,” Ennis said, raising his hands defensively.

Blinking away tea

rs, Katarina pointed at the various points along the wall. “Pick a spot and get ready.”