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“Dale was a good guy,” Peggy said.

“He was, Peggy,” Travis agreed.

Peggy nodded and dabbed at her eyes with her damp Kleenex again.

Travis and Kevin moved on.

“I didn’t know,” Kevin said finally. “About Dale and Peggy. ”

“I think it was new,” Travis said. “Poor Peggy. Poor Ken and Dale. ”

They reached the doorway to the hotel and both men looked up. It seemed unconquerable and strong, but they could not depend on that impression.

“Let’s get to work,” Travis said, walking into the hotel.

Kevin followed.

Chapter 30

1. The Fine Line

The room was dark except for a small Sponge Bob night light tucked into a wall socket across the room. Kevin sat at her side, his hand tucked under her long, pale hand. It felt slightly cool to his touch and he pressed his other hand on top of it to warm it.

Nerit looked younger with her hair falling gracefully alongside her face.

Her strong features were not what someone would call beautiful, but perhaps elegant. Kevin wondered what she had looked like as a young Israeli sniper.

It was nearly midnight and the fort was very quiet. The day had drained everyone. It was hard to find one dry eye in the entire fort. Dale, Ken and Bill were men who left an impression. The chapel had been overflowing with people trying to attend an impromptu memorial service.

Meanwhile, the meeting in the manager’s office had been crazy. Calhoun had crashed it, bearing his camera like a samurai sword. A few other concerned citizens had forced their way in as well. It had been a tense event with quite a few raised voices.

The recon mission with Juan had showed just how successful they had been in their attempt to draw off the zombies. The two trucks had directed a majority of the zombies traveling along the road toward West Texas.

That had been the good news.

The bad news had been a large swarm of zombies that were trekking through the wild and nowhere near a road. A segment of this group had swarmed the Durango with Ken and Dale inside. Some of those zombies were still standing in the road around the Durango. Another portion had drifted off toward the West. Another faction was traveling down the road.

Despite the success of the mission to direct the zombies away from the fort, the loss of life had been high. Since most of the zombies were off the roads at this point, it was determined not to send anymore Durangos out.

“We’re going to have to fight them on the outskirts of town. We control this area. There are too many variables out on those roads that we cannot control,” Travis had said.

“The secret government is controlling the clones, I tell you,” Calhoun had declared immediately. “They are trying to wipe us out cause we won’t obey their stupid laws. ”

Kevin smiled slightly at the memory and looked toward Nerit’s peaceful face. “You should have been there, Nerit. Calhoun was in top form. ”

“And how the hell do you expect to fight off that many zombies on our territory?” one of the concerned citizens had shouted back.

That question actually led to some positive planning. Kevin had been amazed by the plans organized by a man named Roger and a bunch of teenagers. Evidently the science teacher, who had perished on a mission, had worked with the kids on some very creative ideas to defend the fort. It was Juan’s adopted son, Jason, who had laid out the plans for the adults.

Kevin had been impressed.

Calhoun had to be his weird self. He repeatedly sniffed Jason, declaring, “He is possessed by his dead mother, Jenni! Her wisdom from beyond the grave is guiding him!”

His odd declaration worked in their favor, because Calhoun then shut up and stared enraptured at the teenager.

In the end, the meeting had terrified everyone with the truth of the oncoming dead, but had calmed everyone when the plans to defend the fort were laid out.

It would take a lot of hard work to pull it off, but it was doable. How effective it would be was yet to be seen.