While Eddie slept, Melanie crouched in the corner of the living room, drawing a blade with slow and methodical strokes against her sharpening stone. She worked on one weapon at a time starting with her right wrist blade, then her left, and finally her sword. The task was repetitive and nearly instinctive after having performed the action so often over the years. It allowed her mind to wander and consider the questions to which she still lacked answers.

One question, shoving its way forward and refusing to be silenced, demanded to know why the answers even mattered. She had her mission; wasn't that enough? Her blade slid across the stone again in a raspy whisper.

A glance toward the front window showed the zombies crowding the lawn. The windows were strong and framed in metal, so they'd easily resist any effort by the rotting hands of the undead to break through. Melanie knew the horrid things would have to be cleared in the morning, but for the time being, they were only a distraction.

Her sword blade slid across the stone from guard to tip. She knew the reasons for taking Eddie to Geargarde, but it still seemed a waste of her time to be escorting the living when she should be destroying the undead. Keeping him alive prevented more zombies from being in the world, but so would killing him right now. Her eyes turned toward the stairs leading up to the room he'd selected as his own for the night. Melanie knew she could be up the stairs in a few seconds, down the hall and through the door without a sound. A single swing of her sword would end the mental debate in her head before he even had a chance to wake. Her blade whispered across the sharpening stone again.

***

The headless corpse tumbled to the grass as Melanie dispatched it. Looking back to Eddie, she found him removing his hatchet from the skull of another zombie. The undead had been put down, but the front lawn was no longer visible, covered in decaying remains. She didn't ask if he was ready to leave. In truth, she didn't really care and was still debating in her mind why she was even bothering to assist him.

Pausing at the base of a tree, one house down from her own, Melanie shoved aside a large boulder and took hold of a handle sticking up out the dirt underneath. A twist of the handle engaged the mechanics. A copper cylinder was mounted under the handle and began pushing itself upward until spider-like legs of jointed metal came into view. Once out of the hole, the three foot tall cylinder sat down beside the tree, its legs folding up into compartments that almost immediately sealed closed.

"What's that?" Eddie asked. "Did you hide it, or did you know it was there all along?"

"It's something the scientists gave me," Melanie explained, picking up the device and hooking a loop of leather around its handle before securing the opposing end of the strap to the underside of the cylinder's base. She slung the entire assembly diagonally across her back. "I hide it when not in use so as to not be burdened by its extra weight. I also try to put something heavy on top to make it less accessible should anyone else try and retrieve it."

"Makes sense," Eddie agreed. "But, what does it do?"

"We should get moving before more zombies arrive," she stated, ignoring the question completely and heading further down road leading out of town.

Eddie cleaned off his hatchet and holstered it in the special loop on his belt; adjusting the position of the pack on his back so it wouldn't interfere with his ability to draw the throwing knives sheathed behind him, he hurried to catch up with Melanie's long-legged stride.

"You said earlier that your mother taught you to kill," Eddie reminded after they had traveled several blocks. "Was that before or after you were altered?"

"Before, long before," Melanie answered. "I was on my own by the time I was caught in the explosion."

"Did she die?" Eddie asked.

"I don't know," Melanie admitted. "Probably. Nothing stays alive long out here without numbers or enhancements of some kind, and even then it's not guaranteed. One day I awoke, and she had gone. I tried to follow her trail, but I lost track of her. I haven't seen her since."

"Sorry," Eddie apologized.

"For what?" Melanie questioned.

"I didn't mean to bring up painful memories," he explained.

"They are memories only," she countered, her gaze searching the surroundings for any sign of threats.

"What about your father?" Eddie prompted. His tone sounded to Melanie as if he wanted to change the subject quickly, but she didn't understand why.

"I never knew him," Melanie answered. "My mother only told me they had parted ways before I was born. She never gave the reason, no matter how many times I asked. She would only say it had been for the best."

"My father had been an airship captain," Eddie offered. "When the zombies first appeared, and the airship disasters followed, he grounded his ship and joined the army. If I hadn't already become an inventor's assistant, I might've joined too. He was at Weld Ridge."

"The last stand of the army," Melanie recalled.

"They held against overwhelming numbers of undead for over eighteen days," Eddie confirmed. "The last communication out of the area told of the lines being breached. After that, it was only silence."

Like a curtain drawing closed, their conversation ended, and the two of them continued on.

They passed beyond the borders of Kensingdale, leaving Melanie's hometown behind. The widely spaced houses grew even further apart on the outskirts as less and less of the land had ever been settled. Soon, only the broken road with grass sticking up between the cobblestones testified of civilization having ever been there.

The sunlight on the fields of grass and the wind gently drifting through the trees gave a tranquil feeling to region, but Melanie knew it to be a lie. The undead were everywhere in the world, so unless she was looking directly at a location, she had to suspect a zombie might be there. She'd seen too many people lower their guard at the wrong time with disastrous results. Her eyes were constantly moving, checking for any threats. Her fingers curled around the grip of her pistol and the hilt of her sword; they were merely tools, for she was the weapon, and she had only to wait for the undead to come to her; they always did.