"Where are the zombies?" Jason asked worriedly. "This town has to have some."

The truck sputtered once and died.

They were a block from their destination.

Katie immediately grabbed the CB transceiver, but before she could speak, it cackled and a voice said, "We have a distraction going. Run for the corner where we are signaling."

"Corner? Corner?" Jenni looked scattered and afraid.

"Calm! Stay calm, Jenni!" Katie grabbed her shotgun, her backpack, and the bag of ammo and leaped out of the truck at the ready. She spotted a man standing next to the big yellow machine waving a Texas flag at her. "There!

Follow me!"

Jenni followed, struggling to get her backpack on. Jason hopped out, backpack on, and the dog leaped out behind him.

"Run," Katie said ordered.

They ran.

Katie was in good shape, but not used to running with so much weight.

She felt slow and vulnerable, but the shotgun in her hand was a comfort.

They raced past empty stores, long boarded up, "for lease" signs faded on their ruined doors. They raced past blood splatters on the sidewalk. They ran past empty cars, frightening with their open doors and windows. They ran across an old, red brick street and aimed for the large yellow arm of the construction beast extending down toward them.

Katie wondered what the hell it was called.

"Get in, get in," a man's voice was yelling.

Katie was finding it harder to run. Her legs felt rubbery from all the time in the truck. Jenni and Jason were huffing behind her.

"Hurry!"

Her lungs hurt, her back hurt, her body hurt, but she ran.

The large scoop of the machine reached the road, encrusted with dirt, its jagged teeth somehow welcoming. They ran for it and heard the screeches of the undead.

"Run!" A man's voice boomed out. "Get into it!"

Katie reached it and whirled around in the direction of the moans and screams of the undead. The zombies were heading around the far corner.

Jenni lost her footing and tumbled forward, but managed to fall into the clawed scoop. Jason jumped in after her. Katie heaved the dog in and Jason and Jenni grabbed him.

The large scoop was pretty much filled and already lifting.

The zombies were close and Katie considered firing, but realized it would waste time. The mechanical arm was lifting with a steady whine of its machinery and she half fell, half jumped into it. She was barely in it, lying on top of everyone else.

Their view was shifted as they were lifted and Katie felt sickeningly vulnerable. She was trembling so violently she was sure she was going to vomit. The moans of the dead surrounded them and a hand, grisly and bloodied, grabbed onto one of the dirt encrusted teeth of the yellow construction beast. The arm was being swept up over the crowd, barely a few feet over the heads of the crazed zombies The hand of the zombie who had grabbed on was trying to get a better hold. Another hand, its other hand, fumbled at her foot. Katie was terrified to move for fear of rolling off Jason, Jenni and poor Jack and into the crowd below. She could only stare at the scrabbling hand in fear.

Jack solved the problem. He grabbed the hand of the zombie, shook his head violently, and it lost its grip and fell. The machinery's arm lifted faster, higher and swung about. Katie felt herself slipping and Jason and Jenni grabbed onto her tighter. And the world tilted and they were being lowered.

Katie lost her balance, slid, and painfully went over the teeth of the contraption. Instead of a plunge into the undead, she landed on soft soil. A man's hand came down and took hers gently and heaved her to her feet.

She stood on the edges of a large construction site. Two enormous buildings flanked its backside and one side. A small, elegant town hall fit into another corner. Only two edges of the site were open to the rest of the town and those were cut off with a hurricane fence. Beyond the fence was a ring of construction trucks that had dirt and bags of cement tucked underneath them and between the cabs and loads, making a secondary wall. But there was a third wall already being constructed within the hurricane fence.

Already it was connecting one building to the city hall. A high wrought iron fence surrounded the city hall and its windows were covered in fancy ironwork.

Katie was staggered by what she saw. The portable office buildings for the site were now residences, that was plain to see, and a lunch wagon was parked in a corner. Construction workers were moving fast to create a small fort the size of a city block for those taking refuge in the site. There were people clustered about to see the newcomers.

"It's not a mall," Jenni sighed with relief as she staggered out of the crane's scoop. She was a bit dirty and rumpled but alive. Jason and Jack followed her, both looking very relieved.

The man holding Katie's hand finally came into view as she stopped looking around. He was taller than she was, sturdy in his build, with curly brown hair and the warmest hazel eyes she'd ever seen. He radiated warmth, power, and kindness and his height and build spoke of a man used to hard work.

"You, okay?" he finally asked.

"Yeah," she nodded and looked at his hand. It was dirty, caked with dirt and bits of cement. "That was scary."

"Only way to get people in right now," he answered in a voice that would lead men into battle, not because they feared him, but loved him. "I'm Travis."

"Katie," she answered and slowly drew her hand away. He was like her father. One of those quietly strong men who inspired people to great things.

Instinctively, she knew Travis was behind the rapid building of this fortress.

Jenni stood next to her staring at the handsome man. "Hi, I'm Jenni and this is my son, Jason."

Travis greeted them both with a gentle hello and a warm handshake. He kneeled down to greet Jack. "I saw what you did. You're a good pup defending your Mama."

Jack grinned in response and licked his hand.

Travis stood up again, tall and imposing, yet his presence was amazingly comforting.

Kate realized, much to her surprise, that she felt safe.

Travis smiled at them and said, "Give me a moment and I'll show you around." He turned to talk to the man who had manned the machine that had brought them over and a few other men who ran over to check in.

"He's not black," Katie joked under her breath to Jenni.

"But I'll kiss him anyway," Jenni said dreamily.

Katie lifted an eyebrow at her.

"Well, you won't!"

Kate just gave her a sly smile and shook her head slightly.

Travis glanced over at them and Kate had to look away. She felt unnerved by his gaze and she had trouble understanding why. Something had happened when she had first looked at him. A knowledge had sprung strong and sure into her mind. This was now home. And Travis, somehow, was going to play a very important role in her life. That knowledge was almost too much to comprehend or sift through. She didn't even want to pick it apart and examine it.

She looked back toward him and again she saw him looking at her.

He knows, too, she thought.

The wheels of destiny had turned and a new reality was already being spun into existence.

She looked at Jenni to see that she was in crush city.

Katie smiled at that.

Jason, meanwhile, was playing with Jack, looking relieved, looking like he, too, felt safe.

"We're secure," someone said through a bullhorn and those in the "fort" cheered.

Travis smiled at Kate and she smiled back.

War buddies, her father's voice whispered through her mind.

We're going to fight this war together, Kate thought. You and me, Travis.

We're important and now that we're both here things are going to happen. Do you feel it?

It didn't surprise her when Travis looked her way again and something strong and invisible passed between them. Not a jolt of sexual attraction between sexes, but the knowledge that someone profound had entered their life.

And in his gaze, she knew, he felt it, too.

Chapter 8

1. The New World

Travis motioned to an older man standing on the back steps of the quaint little city hall. The older, balding man with the rotund belly nodded and headed back into the building.

Jenni let her backpack fall to the ground with a thunk and shook out her hair to get all the caked mud out of it. But there was a flare to the movement, a bit of feminine guile tingeing her movement.

Katie smiled even bigger. Jenni was trying to get Travis' attention.

He walked toward them, dirty, tired, but smiling.

"Okay, sorry, things are a little crazy right now. Your arrival really surprised us. We had a truck driver arrive a few hours ago. Honestly, at this point, we weren't sure anyone was left out there that was alive." Travis set his hands on his hips and shook his head. "We were listening to the Emergency Broadcast but nothing made sense. They don't' seem to have a clue in hell what is going on."

"Zombies," Jenni said with a smile.

He looked at her, grinned, and nodded. "Yeah, zombies."

"When did you figure out what was going on? This had to have gone up immediately," Katie said motioning all around her.

"Well, yesterday we were supposed to break ground. We were going to rebuild a historical building that burned down a few years ago. This whole area is about to undergo a serious-or was going to undergo- a serious reconstruction. A developer was keen on turning it into a tourist attraction complete with the rebuilt vaudeville theater and the hotel," he pointed to one of the tall redbrick buildings "being the focal points. Anyway, I was on my way here to work when the reports started coming in."