It was almost eleven when we pulled off the freeway and onto the surface streets of Maggie’s hometown. Floodlights lit a billboard located near the city center, large block letters proclaiming CONGRATULATIONS JAMES! WEED’S CITIZEN OF THE MONTH!

There’s something in the mentality of small towns that I’ll never understand. Shaking my head, I signaled for the others to follow as I turned onto the frontage road leading to Maggie’s.

Houses took on a distinctly utilitarian feel after the Rising, as people suddenly figured out that maybe being able to withstand the zombie apocalypse was more important than having a showy picture window. I’ve always had a soft spot for pre-Rising buildings. Sure, they’re basically death traps and most of them should be torn down before something goes horribly wrong, but they’re death traps with style. Pre-Rising houses are the Irwins of the architectural world. Maggie’s place, well… it could easily win a Golden Steve-o just for existing.

We turned off the lackadaisically maintained frontage road and onto the smooth pavement of Maggie’s two-mile driveway, which wound like a ribbon through the trees to make an almost perfect circle around the house. Less impractical than you might think: Every segment of the driveway was surrounded by automatic sensors and motion trackers, right up until you hit the wall, which looked like stone but was actually specially treated polymer over a steel core. The gates were set to slam shut in less than half a second, and they were guaranteed to shear straight through anything short of a tank. The twisting driveway sliced the surrounding woods into sectors, and each sector contained a series of trip wires and cameras that would make sure nothing ever snuck up on Maggie or her guests.

I stopped the bike just shy of the first gate, shifting to neutral and activating my helmet’s intercom. “Uh, Becks? Did anybody call Maggie to tell her we were coming?”

A long pause greeted my question before Becks said, “No. I thought you did.”

“Slipped my mind.” I sighed, starting forward. “Let’s see if her security system kills us, shall we?”

The first two gates were set to open for anyone with After the End Times credentials. The third required a blood test—you could get into the kill chute after you were infected, but you’d be stopping there in a hurry. The fourth performed a mandatory ocular scan. George never had the occasion to visit, which was a pity. It would have been fun to watch the hard-coded security system try to deal with her retinal KA. Maggie might have needed to actually call some of the live guards out of the woods where they usually lurked unseen.

We could see the house after we passed the third curve in the drive. Every window was lit, and the yard was illuminated by floodlights concealed in the carefully manicured garden. It was practically bright enough to be daylight. The light led us the rest of the way up the hill. I started to relax after we’d passed the fourth gate without anything coming out of the trees to kill us all. The fifth gate—the final gate—was standing open. I drove through to the yard, parking to the side in order to leave the van with plenty of space to pull in past the gate.

The front door opened while I was taking off my helmet and Becks was parking the van. A small flood of furry bodies poured out into the yard, Maggie walking at the center of the rollicking, barking pack. I had to smile. I couldn’t help it.

The barrier weight for Kellis-Amberlee amplification—that is, how heavy something has to be before it won’t just die, but will also come back from the dead and have a go at eating Grandma—is forty pounds. That seems to be a reasonably hard cut-off point; some things may not reanimate under fifty pounds, but nothing reanimates under forty. Logically, you’d think this would mean the dog fanciers of the world would go, “Gosh, aren’t teacup poodles nice?” Logic has never been the human race’s strong suit. Breeding programs sprang up the minute the risk of apocalypse was past, with people all over the world trying to miniaturize their favorite canine companions.

George used to say it was disgusting, and that people should get over themselves. Me, I’ve always found Maggie’s miniature bulldogs endearing, in a f**ked-up, epileptic sort of a way. The miniature bulldog’s tendency to develop epilepsy is actually the reason rescues like Maggie’s exist, since a surprising number of families wanted a dog “just like Grandpa’s,” but didn’t read the new breed specs.

“Hey, Maggie,” I said, shifting my attention from the sea of bulldogs to their owner. “Are we too late for dinner?”

“Not if you like emu meatloaf,” she said, with a forced attempt at a smile. Her eyes were red and slightly swollen, like they’d been wiped too many times in the past few hours. “I assume you guys are planning to stay for a while?”

“If that’s all right with you.” She looked miserable, standing there in the midst of her little swarm of rescue dogs and trying to seem like nothing was wrong. I wanted to comfort her. Only I didn’t have any idea how.

I was better with that sort of shit when George was alive, because I had something to protect. She didn’t like touching people, so I touched them for her. She didn’t like emotional displays, so I took up the slack. Only without her around to give me an excuse, it was like I didn’t even know where I was supposed to start.

We always figured she was the one whose emotional growth got stunted by the way we were raised. It was sort of weird to realize that the damage extended to cover both of us.

Alaric saved me from needing to figure out what I was supposed to do. He was out of the van almost before Becks had the engine off, running toward Maggie with total disregard for the dogs surounding her. Luckily, miniature bulldogs are smart enough to get out of the way when they’re about to be stepped on, and he made it to her without incident. Putting his arms around her shoulders, he pressed his face into her shoulder. She did the same to him, and they simply held each other. That was all. That seemed to be enough.