"Bring Dan!" called James to May, Mark and Robbie. He shoved the nail guns and radio in his backpack, throwing the ruined one away. Grabbing Petra's hand, they raced around the house.

The little boy was hammering on the door with both fists and yelling at the top of his lungs, "Open the door, old man! Let us in! There are goddamn zombies out here, you sum'bitch!"

The two boy Scouts were pressed flat against the wall just to the other side of the door. Their eyes, wide like saucers, twitched from one spot to another in the distant trees.

Mark was slightly farther on still. His face was pressed between his hands against the main window of the tiny house. "I see you, Dad!"

Someone on the other side rapidly drew a curtain closed, then there was the sound of a large piece of furniture being dragged across the floor.

"Timmy!" James called, hushed but intense. "You've got to be quiet, man. The zombies are attracted to noise. All that yelling with your dad is probably what brought them in the first place."

The little boy slapped both hands over his mouth. There was fear in his eyes when he scanned the treeline. He said around his hands, "Sheee-it! I never thought of that."

"Tim, you swear a lot," Viktor said running up with Anna.

"You would too if you had to deal with my sum'bitch of a dad all the time. At least your dad is nice and your mom is always gone."

From the other side of the door they heard their dad yell, "Do it now, woman!"

"Why can't we get in?" Anna said, pushing on the door with her shoulder. "It's not like we have a lock."

Timmy eyed Viktor and Anna's joined hands and said, "Dad is holding the door closed. Mark and I pushed but we can't budge Dad's fat ass."

"He doesn't have a fat ass, actually. He's got a fat gut," said Mark walking up to join them.

Something thumped against the door from the inside of the house. Their dad said loudly, "Now get out of my sight, woman! Wanting to let them in here. Good for nothing, kids."

The Thornton kids gave each other variations of a quizzical face.

"Dad's chair?" Mark half-whispered.

Timmy thumped on the door again. "You lazy sum'bitch! Are you sitting on the other side of this thing to keep us out?"

Their dad's cruel laugh was the only answer they got.

One of the boy Scouts turned his head to look at the other. "I want to go home, Ben." Fat tears leaked from his eyes and ran down his face.

The other Scout nodded. "Me too, Joe. I miss my mom!"

Anna narrowed her eyes briefly at the boys then whispered, "Timmy, Mark, you keep talking to Dad. Try to get him to open the door."

She crept to the Scouts and motioned with her hand that they don't move. "You boys will be all right. Just sit tight." They gave her automatic nods, but the terror in their eyes showed they put little belief in her words.

Anna motioned the others to follow them then took off running around the house.

"Where are we going, Petra?" James whispered.

"Oh, good!" she said when they saw Robbie and Marty walking forward with Dan leaning heavily on their shoulders. May was bringing up the rear with Rex at her side.

"My crutch got covered in zombie gore. I didn't really want to use it anymore," the Scout leader explained.

"Robbie! Marty! Give me a boost! Hold it up, May."

"What?" James asked.

Anna ran to their bedroom window set high in the wall of the house and pried it open. May held it ajar while Robbie and Marty linked their hands to lift Anna up high enough that she could crawl through with practised ease. She dropped down noiselessly on the other side.

"We go in and out of here all the time when Dad goes on the rampage," Robbie explained, watching his sister's progress.

"Where did Anna go?" James asked. He stood on tiptoe to join Robbie peering in the open window.

Not long after a pair of hands with short bitten-down nails appeared over the windowsill. Anna was pushing her mother from behind.

"Petra, you know I can't leave. Your father will be so angry!"

Lucy Thornton faced the window and James bit his lip to stop gasping. Her lip was split and bleeding. Her left eye was well on its way to swelling up, while the right was ringed with yellow and green from a healing bruise.

"Mom, just go. We aren't leaving without you. Now put your foot in my hands and get out the window."

Lucy Thornton stopped struggling to regard her daughter. "Anna, what happened to you? I've never seen you like this."

"Like what, Mom?" Anna said from down near the floor.

A moment later Lucy gave a small "Whoop!" and her shoulders hoisted out the window. Marty and Robbie helped their mother out as gently as they could. When she was standing outside, she quickly touched each of her children's faces as if to confirm they were really there.

"I'll be right back!" Anna whispered and disappeared again.

"Dear lady!" Dan exclaimed when he caught sight of Lucy's face. He raised a hand in concern, but curled his fingers back in and let the hand drop.

Lucy stared at Dan and backed up against the house in fright. She wore a dress that may have once been blue. The flowers were so faded as to be hardly discernible. Her stringy brown hair, liberally streaked with grey, was pulled back into a thin ponytail at the nape of her neck.

Her eyes flit around taking in the people and the surroundings. "I need to go back inside! He'll be so angry!"

May kept one arm up holding the window open and, even though a whole head shorter than the woman who bore her, put the other arm protectively around her mother and squeezed her in. "No way, Mom. There are zombies. Real life zombies. Look!"

May pointed at the carnage at the far corner of the house and Lucy gasped in shock. "I don't care if Dad gets eaten by zombies. But there's no way we're leaving you behind. He'd probably push you in front of him so he could get away."

Two large jugs appeared over the sill. "Here!" Anna said. "Hide them in the bushes over there! I'll get the rest."

Faintly through the house they could hear Timmy and Mark hammering on the door and berating their father who responded in kind.

The boys grabbed the jugs Anna handed through and ran them into the woods, hiding them buried beneath leaves they scraped together at the base of trees.

"Pull me out!" she finally called after multiple trips. As soon as she landed, Viktor grabbed her for a quick hug.

"Did you take it all?" Robbie asked.

"No, I left him ten jugs. That'll last him a couple of weeks. The still will be okay until tomorrow. We'll need to come back later with a car and move the jugs, though."

"Do you think he'll do anything to the still?" Marty asked.

Anna snorted. "Not if he knows what's good for him. Even if he does, we'll just build another one in town."

"My Scouts," Dan began.

James blew air through his nose and swivelled his head between the driveway and the forest. "The two that ran towards the road are probably ok, if they stay on it. One way they'll hit the main road, and the other will just take them deeper in the bush, but the road goes for a long ways."

"And Ian? He went into the woods," Dan asked.

The trio and Thornton's exchanged looks. Depending on which way the boy went, he wouldn't be the first person to get so deep in the woods he'd be lost forever, despite the zombies.

"He probably hasn't gotten very far, but we have to let the Chief know before we go looking. We aren't prepared to do a search-and-rescue ourselves, so we can't go very far in."

Dan's shoulders sagged. "These kids are complete city slickers. They just joined the Scouts a couple of months ago. They have no forestry skills at all. I've camped here before, so I thought it would be a safe place."

"Well, we don't get a zombie outbreak every day," Viktor said. His face was pinched with annoyance.

"I don't mean anything bad. Who thought we'd have to deal with zombies? Like, ever!" Dan scrubbed a hand over his face and peered into the woods.

Petra crossed to her ruined pack on the ground and pulled out the walkie-talkie. "Anna, can you get Timmy, Mark and the other kids? All of you head out to the road and make your way into town. I'll call the Chief now and update him. We have a few hours of daylight left.

"He probably won't want us heading into the bush at all in case he has to send a rescue mission to rescue the rescue mission," Viktor said.

"If we're lucky, we'll be able to find Ian quickly. Is there anything you can take as weapons?" James asked the Thorntons.

Robbie nodded and said, "Yeah, in the shed there are shovels and hoes."

James shrugged. "Better than nothing. Take what you can. We'll meet you in town. Go to the rectory. There's food in the fridge."

Anna took Viktor's hand. "I want to go with you."

Viktor touched her cheek gently. "Anna, mi vida, Timmy listens to you. The others will be careful, but I worry about him."

Anna huffed and raised their joined hands to kiss Viktor's. She nodded. "You're right. The kid's a menace."

"At least with his mouth," Viktor laughed. They could hear Timmy taunting his father mercilessly. "But he might try to do something risky because he's trying to be brave. Please."

She nodded again and distributed the Scouts gear among them. "Alright. Marty and Robbie, you take Mom and Dan down the road. I'll go get the kids."

Anna grabbed Viktor's t-shirt and pulled him down for a quick, but passionate kiss, that made Lucy Thornton gasp in surprise. Anna gave a long look back at Viktor before she turned the corner of the house.

"She'll be alright," James said, laying a hand on Viktor's shoulder.

"What has happened to my daughter?" wondered Lucy aloud as they started towards the driveway.

Dan chuckled. "I've been a Scout Leader for a long time. In my experience, she's gotten a dose of confidence. She saved my life, you know."

Lucy gasped again. "No! My Anna? Saved you?"

Dan answered but they were too far away to hear his quiet answer.

The trio began moving towards the spot where the Scout had entered the trees.

Petra held the walkie to her mouth. "Chief, this is Petra. Are you there?"

After a few moments his crackly voice came back, "I'm here. How are you doing? Are you in town yet?"

"Not exactly." She gave him the rundown, finishing off several minutes later, "If you can send someone up McLaren Road for those Scouts, and Father Lee to the rectory for Dan's ankle, we'll just go a bit of the way into the woods then we'll turn back."

"Now listen to me, you three. I know you are very capable, but I don't want you tramping around looking for a lost kid, especially with zombies in the woods! I'll have someone come up and meet you. What's that?"

In the distance a boy's scream had pierced the air.

They ran headlong into the trees. "I think we might have found the Scout, Chief! We'll call you back!"

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Thanks for reading!

Do any of you go camping regularly? (hopefully minus the zombies!)

WORD COUNT: 1978

NANO WORD COUNT: 27, 321

TOTAL WORD COUNT: 29, 146