Kevin marched out the front doors, bow and arrow gripped tightly in his hands. He couldn't see anything that could have bothered Razor enough for the firing of the flare, but he trusted the survival instincts of the former scavenger. The clans were all about survival, so Razor wouldn't be the type to panic at something small. Whatever was wrong, it was something serious.

George lingered behind to assist Isabella, taking her pack to lighten the load she carried and increase her speed. He brought up the rear of the expedition, urging his people on to greater speed.

Kevin adopted the brisk pace of a slight jog. It was quick enough for the others to keep up, but it offered a slow enough velocity to allow enough time to stop if a threat were to appear in front of them. Truthfully, Kevin never expected it to come from all sides at once.

Taking a different route than the one they'd used coming in, Kevin had hoped to reduce the amount of time required to reach the boat. As he took a step, the ground under the leaves wasn't there to stop him, and Kevin lost his balance. The leaves covering the ground suddenly erupted around him, exploding into the air as the zombies underneath reached up to grab hold of him. He realized he was in a small hole filled with zombies.

Kevin had lost his bow in the stumble, and it rested on the ground out of reach. Reacting quickly, his training as a police officer kept him from hesitating despite being severely startled, and he pulled out his shotgun, dropping two zombies with a close range blast. They vanished back under the cover of the dead leaves.

A zombie on his right was about to lay hold of him when the entire side of its face exploded outward, spraying the corpse next to it in blood and brain matter. As the headless zombie fell over, the sound of a rifle shot reached Kevin's ears, and he knew Razor and Red had him covered.

George and the team attacked the zombies between them and Kevin, either shooting them or shattering their skulls with bats, clubs, and metal pipes.

Although the initial five zombies who'd ambushed Kevin had been put down, the leaves all across the orchard were beginning to stir. Kevin had no idea how much was of the movement was caused by the wind and how much was a result of zombies underneath. One thing he knew for certain was they couldn't wait around to find out.

"Move!" Kevin shouted.

The people who'd originally defended the orchard had dug pits across the landscape, hoping to trap the zombies inside. Although it'd worked, too many zombies had attacked for the holes to capture them all, and the zombies had reached the main building. As the seasons changed, the autumn leaves covered over the zombies trapped in the holes. The humans had wanted to stop the zombies, but they'd created the perfect ambush points.

Kevin understood why the animals hadn't returned. It was because the zombies had never left; they were still here, hidden everywhere around them.

A decayed arm, more skeleton than flesh, reached out from the base of a tree and snared Isabella by the ankle, causing her to trip. Her fall landed her near the edge of a zombie hole, and the living corpses inside were quick to grab hold of her in an attempt to pull her in with them. Larger and deeper than the hole Kevin had fallen into, the pit held far more zombies, and the depth put them out of the line of sight for Razor and Red on the ship, preventing them from helping.

Kevin and George heard Isabella fall and skidded to a stop, the loose carpeting of leaves almost causing them to lose their balance. They raced back to the pit and began firing. Headshots dropped one after another, but more than three dozen of the rotting dead existed in the hole; Kevin and George couldn't kill them fast enough. Isabella managed to fire her shotgun, but too many remained, and they fell upon her with savage abandon.

George ceased the use of his gun and drew his sword as he jumped down into the hole. Blood and severed limbs began flying in all directions as George laid waste to the zombies between him and Isabella. His sword cut through flesh and bone with equal ease, slicing corpses in half or removing their heads. George was in full assassin mode, and the skills of his old life coursed down his arms and into the blade he held, making it a part of him; his attacks flowed one into the next without the time for conscious thought.

The last zombie was on top of Isabella, and George grabbed it by the shoulder with his left hand. Pulling back hard, he spun around, dragging the zombie with him and hurling it up against the wall of the pit. Continuing his turn, George brought his sword around and impaled the corpse through its eye socket. The sword went straight through the skull and into the dirt behind the zombie, pinning it in a standing position.

Leaving the sword where it was, George turned his attention to Isabella. Blood covered her in multiple locations, but only some of it belonged to the zombies killed around her. The entire base of her throat was completely hidden under a coating of red, and she coughed up blood. When George approached to tend to her, she leveled her shotgun in his direction.

"Stay back," she ordered weakly.

"Isabella," George began, but she cut him off.

"Don't bother," she told him. "You can't do anything for me, and if you try, you could get infected from the zombie blood. You need to leave before the horde shows up. They're still following. They may be slow, but they're relentless. Go."

George crouched in front of her, careful to avoid getting any infectious material on him.

"You've been my support for so long," he whispered, his eyes staring at the ground. "How can I continue without you?"

"Rely on God," she instructed. The shotgun slipped from her fingers as a fit of coughing shook her.

George made no attempt to reach her, even with the gun no longer directed toward him, as he knew she'd been right. He couldn't do anything for her.

"How can you still believe?" George questioned. "God clearly didn't protect you."

"Didn't He?" Isabella asked right back. "Do you remember being in school, just before the end of the semester and the start of summer? I used to watch that clock on the wall as those final few minutes ticked down. Every test and all the problems with my fellow students didn't matter any more, just those last few minutes separating me from freedom. It's the same here. My time is almost over, and I'm going on a summer break that won't end. You say God didn't protect me, but He's saving me from this death filled world."

She smiled weakly at George, her teeth stained red with the blood in her mouth.

"I'll never see another zombie or scavenger," Isabella went on. Every word seemed to drain her of energy, but she kept going because she still had something she wanted to impart to George. "I won't have nightmares any more or be forced to scavenge for stale food supplies. No more pain, death, or fear. God's taking me out of the worst and into the best. Who says He's not protecting me?"

Her breathing started becoming labored, and the wet sound of her coughing let George know she had blood in her lungs.

"You've still got work to do," she told him, fighting to speak every word. "Don't give up on God. He hasn't given up on us."

Isabella slumped against the wall of the pit and breathed her last.

Stillness settled over the small group of survivors gathered around the hole in the ground. No one moved or spoke. George slowly stood up. Even through the blood covering Isabella's arms and neck, he could see her skin turning gray in the initial stages of the transformation. Pulling back the slide on his gun, he checked to see if a round was chambered. Taking aim, he fired once.

George retrieved his sword, and when he pulled it free, the zombie he'd pinned to the earthen wall wilted to the ground. He paid it little attention. Putting away his sword and gun, he took off his jacket and used it to collect Isabella's shotgun without touching it. Carefully wrapping it, he'd clean it back at the ship.

Drawing a knife from the sheath at the small of his back, George dug a small hole in one of the walls of the pit. When he felt it was deep enough, he jammed a grenade into the hole and pulled the pin. Accepting an offered hand from Kevin, George quickly vacated the pit.

The grenade went off, and the explosion followed the quickest and easiest route out from where it was contained. A jet of fire spewed from the hole George had dug for the grenade, but the hole was too small to release the full energy output of the explosion. The entire wall of the pit collapsed and the expansive force inside it shoved the dirt out of position and buried everything in the pit, including Isabella.

George said nothing as he and Kevin gathered those who were still alive and continued their evacuation back to the ship.

***

Razor had seen George dive into the pit after Isabella, but when he came out alone, Razor knew they had lost another. He glanced toward Red, but she looked unconcerned.

Having been raised among the scavengers, the preservation of oneself was all that mattered. Joining with others was simply a better way than standing alone. The Bloody Hand tribe hadn't mattered to her any more than the Snake Eye clan had mattered to him, but Razor remembered his life before, the family and friends who had died in front of him. He knew what loss felt like, and he saw the haunted expression of it on George's face as he returned to the ship.

The pain of his own memories chewed on Razor, but he'd learned to push such things aside, and he did so again. Switching off emotions was a necessary skill as being subject to them in the horrifying world could drive a person insane. Continuing his vigil, he swept the trees with his rifle, looking for a way he could prevent any more losses.

***

The expedition party scaled the ladder and climbed back onboard. Those who had remained on the ship were silent as they noticed the grim expressions on the faces of those returning; a few looked as if they were about to be sick.

George walked past everyone without saying a word. Pressing his back against a cargo crate, he slid down to a sitting position with his wrists resting on his knees. Those who had looked to him for guidance didn't know what to do.

The golden retriever they'd picked up at the military base padded over to George and put its nose under his hand. It wagged its tail slightly, but when George didn't respond, the dog simply laid down beside him, offering comfort and companionship in silence.

"What is it?" Alana asked Kevin. The Walton school teacher clearly didn't know what had happened.

"Isabella didn't make it," Kevin told her softly,

She looked with concern toward George. "What can we do?"

"Give him some space," Kevin suggested. He touched her reassuringly on the shoulder before turning to the refugees in the deck. "Engine crew to your stations. Let's get out of here."

The people who were required at their posts moved, but they lacked any kind of enthusiasm. Isabella had been a kind and dear friend to many since leaving Walton, always happy to listen to what others had to say and never too busy to offer a kind word of support. Her absence left a void in their lives, and all of them were feeling her loss deeply.

Razor and Red came down from their sniper perch, joining Kevin and Alana as they entered the bridge before the ship got underway. Because of their one quarter speed, the vessel leaving the tree lined shore had all the somberness of a funeral procession.