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“No, no, not the toilet paper running low. It’s. . . we got a large group of zombies heading this way. And not in the numbers we’ve seen before. It’s around fifteen to twenty thousand zombies. ”

There was complete silence and it felt as if no one in the room drew a breath for a few minutes, then suddenly the room exploded into sound.

People were on their feet, some were crying, others shouting, children clutched their parents tightly with fright, and Calhoun’s little pack of dogs started barking wildly.

Travis held up his hands. “Please, calm down! Calm down! We do have plans on how to handle it!” Despite the microphone, he felt as if his voice was small and inaudible to the panicking people.

“Plans? Plans? What kinda of plans!”

“Are the walls going to hold them back?”

“We need to leave!”

Voices mingled as they fought for dominance.

“Please, listen up! Please!” Travis could hear the firmness in his voice getting hard and angry. “I need you to fucking listen up!”

“There are children in here,” a woman snapped.

“Then listen up!”

“Please listen to the man,” the Reverend called out. “Please listen before you let fear overwhelm you. ”

There was much grumbling, but the din slowly lowered in volume.

“We have plans,” Travis repeated. “Solid plans. We will need volunteers to implement them, but if we work together we can do this. ”

“Like what sort of plans?” an older black woman shouted.

“We need to change the direction of the mob or at least get a lot of them moving away from us. Zombies tend to follow after humans. They get going in one direction and stay that course until they find their prey. The helicopters have tried to buzz the crowd and get them to peel off, but it’s not working. So we’re going to use the Durangos from the dealership about fifty miles from here. ”

The cries of dissent began again, but he kept talking over them.

“We’ll send out trucks with fully armed drivers and one passenger. Their role is to try to lure the zombies off track. We’ve mapped out how we want to do this and we already have a few volunteers. We need to split off as many as we can from the main group before they reach our area. ”

“And what about the ones that do reach us?”

“Eric’s been working on estimating the amount of stress the walls can take. The safest area in the entire fort is the original wall around the hotel.

But we will defend the entire area. We’ve been working on fire straps, catapults, barbed traps and a variety of other ways to decimate any undead ranks heading our way. We have firearms and we have crossbows.

But we’re going to try to divert as many as we can and thin their ranks out on the outer edges of the town before they even reach us. ”

The murmur in the room grew louder as people began to talk among themselves.

Katie’s hand was gentle on his arm as she moved closer to him. He draped his arm around her shoulders and squeezed her into his side. He was as afraid as everyone else, but there was no real choice. They had to defend their home.

“It’s suicide to go out in those trucks,” someone shouted.

“It’s volunteer only,” Travis answered.

“And if no one volunteers?”

“I do,” Bette said, standing up, her expression grim. “I’ll go. ”

Linda instantly stood up next to her and took her girlfriend’s hand. “I’ll go with her. ”

“Count me in,” Bill said, and beside him Curtis scowled angrily.