Refuge: Tales from a Zombie Apocalypse

by Anthea Strezze

A Time to Laugh

  Oh when the dead, go marching on...

  Oh when the dead go marching on...

  Oh how I dread to be in that number...

  When the dead go marching on...

  It had been over a week since he'd last seen a living person - or a dead one, for that matter - so when Todd first heard the music, he thought he was hallucinating. He skidded to a stop and swung off his bicycle, and after a quick look around for immediate threats, he took off his pack and dug out a half-full bottle of water. While he sat and drank, the music went on, with the slightly tinny sound of a recording playing from sub-par speakers.

  But when the Lord, welcomes them home...

  Oh when the Lord welcomes them home...

  Oh then at last we'll have peace of our own...

  Oh when the Lord welcomes them home...

  It went on from there, verse after verse of new words to the old tune. It wasn't good, but it wasn't old, either. Maybe someone would have written a song about zombies in the before-time - in fact, they probably had - but the tone of this song was totally serious. There was none of the joking or wordplay that he and his friends would have put in, back when they were just a bunch of bored college kids playing at planning for the zombie apocalypse.

  Which meant living humans had recorded that song. Living humans with enough spare electricity to play music to the prairie dogs and the empty road.

  Maybe they would even have a sense of humor.

  That was one thing he and his friends had never planned for - the deadly seriousness of everyone left alive. While Todd would rather laugh than cry, everybody else seemed to think it was inappropriate, or somehow disrespectful. Not just that, but even a hint of joking made most strangers give him what he'd come to think of as "the look," and encourage him to be on his way. It was like wanting to smile was some sort of mark, branding him as untrustworthy.

  He sighed, wishing for at least the millionth time that any of his friends had survived. Well, Chris had, but he'd gone as serious as the rest of them after the rising, so he hardly counted.

  It was Chris who'd warned him things were going sour, that first time. One last favor to an old friend who couldn't adjust to the new reality of the world, he said. It meant that Todd was ready, at least, when the "elders" asked him to leave. He didn't say a word, just took the sparse bag of supplies they handed him and walked out. Then he retrieved the mountain bike and stash of supplies that he had been building up since Chris's warning, and left for real.

  Since then, he'd just kept moving. On good days, he told himself he was on a quest to find the place where he belonged, but on bad days, he just desperately wished for any sort of human company. Solitude got on his nerves, made him stupid. He'd approach anybody once he'd been alone long enough. Once, he had even tried talking to a couple of zombies and almost gotten himself killed.

  The song wound down while he sat remembering, and a new one started up. He didn't recognize the tune, but the words seemed to be all about peace, harmony, and waiting patiently for the dead to finish their business. There were several references to the "Great Spirit," and "Earth Mother." Combined with the "Lord" of the first song, it seemed to indicate that the musicians were at least multi-denominational. That was a good sign. Religious nuts were ok, as long as they didn't expect everyone else to buy into their dogma.

  "You know you're going to go check them out," he told himself. "So just get up and do it. It doesn't matter how bat-shit crazy they might be - they're people, and if you don't see some living people soon, you're going to be the bat-shit crazy one."

  With that, he heaved himself to his feet, slung his backpack over the bike seat, and started walking in the direction of the music.

  A third song had started and was winding down by the time he reached the source. It was a tiny cinder-block building, in the middle of nowhere, with an industrial steel door in one wall and a pair of speakers duct taped to the roof. There was no sign of people, beyond the music, but there was a nondescript button next to the door that looked suspiciously like a doorbell.

  Todd raised a hand, index finger out, then lowered it again. Then he paced back a few feet to look at the structure again. The roof sloped down into the ground at the back, so there was obviously more of it belowground. It looked military, to his unpracticed eye. He and the few military types he had met got along even worse than he and normal survivors. But he couldn't quite see a military group playing folk music at their front door.

  He paced back to the door, finger out and hovering over the doorbell. Then his hand dropped to his side again.

  "What is wrong with you?" he scolded himself. "They won't kill me, because then they'd have a zombie on their hands. The worst that can happen..." He stopped, remembering how many times things had gone worse than his worst-case planning, then shrugged. "Ok, the worst that is likely to happen is that they'll hate me and kick me out. And the best that could happen is that they're nice people who appreciate a bit of clowning around, and we all live happily ever after."

  He stared at the door, and his hand didn't move. Normally, people spotted him around the same time that he spotted them. Then it was just a matter of walking up and saying hi. Staring at that plain metal door, though, he felt like he had his hand on the lid of Schrodinger's box. When he hit that doorbell, all the possibilities would collapse, and he would be left with one reality to deal with. And metaphorically speaking, all of his cats had been dead so far.

  "Coward," he muttered. "Just do it!" He scuffed his feet, glared at the doorbell, and then jabbed a finger into it.

  Immediately, he felt better. The die was cast. The box was about to be opened. He laid a hand against the door, wondering what kind of cat he would find waiting inside.

  It shifted under his hand, and he jumped back, watching as it opened inward and revealed a young woman who met his eyes and smiled.

  "Would you like to come in?" she asked, with an edge of humor to her voice that made him like her immediately.

  "I would love to come in, miss..."

  "Ellen," she said, holding out a hand.

  He took it in his and was pleased when her grip was strong and confident. "I'm Todd."

  Ellen gave his hand one brisk shake before letting it go, and after a moment he realized he was making a fool of himself by just standing there staring into her eyes. He shook himself, though he couldn't wipe the silly grin off his face. "Sorry," he said. "I was expecting... well, I didn't know what to expect, but it wasn't the most beautiful woman I've ever seen asking me if I'd like to come in."

  At her laugh, he grinned even wider. He hadn't heard a laugh like that since before. "No, really," he said, hoping for another. "I would have been less surprised by some grizzled old ogre coming to chase me away, or even an enclave of civilized zombies offering me tea!"

  The girl bit her lips, and though he thought he could still see a hint of laughter in her eyes, her voice was serious. "You mustn't call them zombies here," she said. "David considers it disrespectful."

  His heart sank. "Ahh, so David's the ogre I was expecting."

  She smacked his arm, suppressing a smile. "He's a very nice man. Just a little... serious. Come on. We shouldn't stand here with the door open all day."

  He followed her with a smile in spite of his sinking hopes.

  "So why were you standing there at the door so long, just looking at it and never ringing the bell?"

  "You have cameras set up?" He hadn't seen them, but he hadn't been looking for them either.

  She nodded. "This used to be a missile silo. David bought it to build a commune when the government got rid of the missiles. It's the perfect place to ride out a natural disaster. Securely built, underground, largely self-sufficient even before everything that happened. Plus, the town used to give him a tax break to keep the place stocked as an emergency shelter. We've got enough canned goods and fresh water to keep a thousand people going for almost a year."

  "A thousand! You have a thousand people here?"
His hopes skyrocketed again. With that many people in one place, there had to be a place for him!

  But Ellen was shaking her head already. "That's what they stocked for. What we've got is twenty-two, twenty-three now that you're here." She graced him with another brilliant smile. "But you still haven't told me why you didn't ring the bell. Were you afraid?"

  "Have you ever heard of Schrödinger's cat?"

  "Umm..."

  "It's a... well, sort of a theory, in physics. I don't really understand any of the math behind it, but it boils down to the idea that if you have a situation with multiple possible outcomes, the outcome isn't determined until someone observes it. In other words, the act of observing something has an effect on that which is observed."

  "Okay..."

  "The original thought experiment was written by this guy Schrödinger, who postulated a cat, inside a box, with a vial of poison and a trigger that had a fifty-fifty chance of breaking the vial and killing the cat."

  "That's horrible!"

  "Well, he didn't actually do it, it's just a thought experiment. It only really works on the quantum level, anyway, since a cat is complex enough to observe itself."

  "It's still horrible."

  Todd grimaced, but soldiered on, hoping to salvage some of her good will. "Sorry. But the point is, that with the cat and the vial in the box, and the observer on the outside, there's no way to know whether the cat is dead. And on a quantum level, the cat is neither dead nor alive, or both dead and alive, until you open the box and observe it."

  Ellen snorted. "So it's undead?"

  He laughed, and then laughed again because it felt so good. "Not exactly," he said, grinning. "It's just uncertain."

  "So you didn't want to ring the doorbell, because then we'd answer and be either dead or alive?"

  She was smiling again, and his heart soared. "You could put it that way. All of the different possibilities, of what might be behind that door, would disappear and be replaced by one single reality for me to deal with. It was an intimidating prospect."

  "So by you observing us, we become what we are? That seems a bit egotistical."

  Todd couldn't tell if she was amused or disapproving. He shook his head, partly to try to get a grip on himself. "It only really works on the quantum level," he said. "After all, you're an observer too. You might as well say that by you opening that door and observing me, I became what I am."

  "Interesting perspective." Ellen jogged a few steps ahead and pointed around the corner at the end of the long sloping hall they had been following. "What do you think you'll find behind this door?"

  Todd turned the corner and gasped.

  Where the entry and tunnel had been unrelieved gray-painted concrete, the wall before him looked like something out of Tolkien's Middle Earth. The wall was covered in rounded stones in a variety of earthen colors, from a rich ochre red through several browns to a slate gray that had as much in common with the gray of the tunnel as a fresh baked loaf of bread had with a stale cracker. The door itself was made of beautifully gnarled wood, the texture of the rings and knots polished to a smooth relief that felt like silk under his hand when he touched it. A lamp of multicolored glass hanging above the door added to the fairy-tale feel.

  "It's beautiful," he breathed, stroking the wood of the door.

  "Just wait 'til you see inside," said Ellen. "Welcome to the Grove."

  The living space beyond might have been a military installation at one time, but now it was more comfortable and colorful than he could have imagined. Sofas and chairs seemed to proliferate in every room they went through, well-strewn with colorful blankets and pillows. A few people looked up from books or conversations as they passed by, but Ellen didn't stop to introduce him to anyone until they arrived in a larger room with bookcase-lined walls and a square of sofas and easy chairs in the center.

  She led Todd to one of the easy chairs, where a scrawny man with long gray hair and a colorful homespun tunic rose to shake his hand.

  "David, this is Todd, a peaceful visitor to our Grove. Todd, this is David, our leader and guide in these troubling times."

  The words had the feel of a ritual, like these were the words that were supposed to be said, rather than a simple introduction. Todd wondered what his part was supposed to be. He stuck out a hand, and David took it in both of his with a surprisingly soft touch. Todd immediately softened his own grip, not wanting to offend. "A pleasure," he said.

  David released his hand, and gripped Todd's head just as lightly. "Blessed be the guest who comes in peace," he intoned.

  "Blessed be," came the soft response from Ellen and the handful of other people in the room.

  "You are welcome to our Grove," David said, sitting and gesturing to the empty chair beside him.

  Todd sat, wishing he could go talk to Ellen some more instead. He had the feeling that David wouldn't appreciate his sense of humor at all.

  "Tell us of the world outside, honored guest. Do the dead still walk?"

  "Say what?" The words slipped out, though he could have kicked himself when he heard them. "Sorry. It's just... been a while since I've had the chance to talk to anyone but myself." In truth, his emotions felt like a roller coaster, but they always did when he found people again. "Um... I haven't seen any z... any of the dead in your vicinity."

  "But you have seen them recently?"

  "Well, yes. Actually, I saw a man rise just a week or so ago."

  "Indeed? And what did he die of?"

  "Ahh..." Todd really didn't want to go into details. It wasn't exactly his doing, but he had been the one who slipped that woman the sleeping pills. "He offended a lady," he said, hoping the other man would leave it at that.

  "I take it the offence was grave," David said. "It is unfortunate that our living brethren still number such monsters in their midst. Until the species is cleansed of such things, I fear the dead will continue to walk, and reap the innocent along with the guilty."

  "Mmm." David seemed friendly enough, but the semi-religious feel to everything he said was grating on Todd's nerves. He was trying to watch his tongue, but it probably wouldn't be long before something slipped out that made them send him on his way. He glanced at Ellen, and determined to try to make it at least one day. It'd be a pity to leave without at least one more conversation with her.

  He answered a few more questions as carefully as he could, and listened passively when David went on at length about sin and virtue, the state of the world, and the perfection of their little corner of it. He managed not to yawn or say anything snarky, but his eyes felt a little glazed over by the time a gong rang out, interrupting them.

  David rose, gesturing for Todd to accompany him as the others filed into another room. "You will join us for a meal, of course," he said. "You are welcome to stay as a guest until the next full moon, at which time you may petition to join us as a member of the Grove, or continue on your journey if you prefer."

  "I thank you for your hospitality," Todd said, surprised and pleased by the offer. Most groups either assumed he was joining up to do their bidding, or expected him to be on his way after a single night's rest, if that.

  The meal surprised him too. Traveling, most of what he ate was canned food that he scavenged whenever he passed through a town. He wasn't really familiar with wild edibles, and didn't have the first idea of how to hunt, though once in a while he came across a garden with vegetables that he recognized. This was a hash of potatoes with some sort of gamey meat, crisp fresh green beans, and salty canned corn, all well-seasoned with pepper, salt, and spices. When Ellen set a cup of hot coffee at his elbow, he felt like he had died and gone to heaven, or maybe back to the time before the flu and the rising.

  He complimented the meal and the cooks and the whole commune vociferously, and didn't turn down a second helping when it was offered. The smiles on the faces around him warmed his heart, and made him think that maybe he could make this work after all, and fit in with these people. The food alone was wort
h giving it a try, at least. And if all the people here were as willing to laugh as Ellen, then he might have found a home after all.

  After dinner, he insisted on helping to wash the dishes, and soon had the two teens he was working with giggling at the story of his last flat tire. It might have been a horrible day, but it really had been an awesome comedy of errors, and he'd been dying to share the story. He always felt better about disasters once he could laugh about them. "So then," he said, "After the second spare blew out, I finally realized that there was something stuck on the inside of the tire. And what do you think it was?"

  "A rock?"

  "It was a thumb tack. An honest to goodness thumb tack, just as if I was in a cartoon. The only thing that could have made it more ridiculous is if I'd slipped on a banana peel."

  Suddenly, the girl next to him stiffened and cleared her throat. The boy did the same an instant later, practically standing to attention as he looked toward the kitchen doorway.

  Todd turned to see David standing there, his face stern with disapproval. His own smile froze on his face. "Hi David," he said, trying not to act as nervous as he felt. "I was just telling Kit and Tara here about one of my misadventures on the way here."

  "I see that," David said. "But you must be tired from your journey. I am sure that Kit and Tara can handle the rest of the dishes on their own."

  The teens rushed to agree, and Todd had no choice but to wipe his hands and follow the older man out.

  "Ellen told me that she thought you might need... an introduction to our way of life here, and I see now that she is right." As he spoke, they entered the dining area, and Ellen came to join them. He laid a hand on her shoulder and smiled kindly at Todd. "I know that you are new to us, but I am sure that you would not want to disrupt our peace."

  "No, not at all!" Todd shook his head vigorously, wishing now that he hadn't let himself get so comfortable during the meal. If he hadn't started telling stories in the kitchen...

  "Good," David said, his voice kind and gentle. "Ellen has volunteered to show you around the Grove, and explain our ways to you. I am sure that with a little effort, you will fit in just fine."

  "Thank you sir," Todd said respectfully, his heart sinking. If he had violated an actual rule just by washing dishes and making a couple of kids laugh, he didn't want to fit in here, even for the awesome food.

  David nodded beneficently, and Ellen put a hand on Todd's arm to lead him away. "Let me show you the facilities first. I'm sure you must be needing them."

  Once they were well down the corridor, he glanced around to make sure they were alone and asked, "What did I do?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "That bit about disrupting the peace, and fitting in... I was just telling the kids a little story while we washed dishes!"

  "I'm sure it was nothing," Ellen said. "David takes things seriously, but you don't have to be afraid of him. He really is as nice as he seems, even if he's a little crunch-fruity."

  "A little!" Todd bit his tongue. Being snarky would just get him kicked out sooner, and he really wanted to have another real meal or two before then. "I'm sorry. It was very nice of him to welcome me as a guest," he said, trying to be polite. "When's the next full moon, anyway? A couple of weeks?"

  "Ten days. Here we go, let me show you how this works." She showed him the bathing and toilet area, explaining in detail how the water system worked. They had a well, but also used an intricate re-use system, keeping the cleanest water for drinking and cooking, and using the gray water for cleaning and watering the plants in their greenhouse. The toilet didn't use any water at all, but routed waste into a digester that produced heat, clean gas for cooking and power generation, and sterilized fertilizer for the greenhouse.

  "I didn't see any sign of a greenhouse above-ground," Todd observed, once he had used the facilities and rejoined her. "Where do you keep it?"

  "In the missile silo," she said gleefully, taking him by the hand and leading him down another corridor. They pushed through flaps of plastic into a space that was warm and humid, and filled with the smells of earth and growing things. It was dark, except for the light bleeding in from the corridor, but Todd could see that the original roof had been replaced with thick glass panels. Looking up, he could see a half moon hanging in the black sky, while all around them were tiers of planters. "Impressive," he breathed.

  "David wanted to create a fully self-sufficient community, before," Ellen said, taking his hand again and leaning against his shoulder as she looked up at the moon. "Kind of as a proof of concept, to show the rest of the world that it could be done, that we could overcome all our problems with waste and energy and food supply. I guess it all seems kind of silly now. There aren't enough people left to worry about using up the planet."

  "No, it's good. It's very good. You don't know what it's like out there. Just having electricity, fresh food, hot cooked meals... This place is like a slice of the world as it used to be."

  "But you're not going to stay, are you?"

  He turned and met her eyes, surprised that she could tell.

  "Why not?" she asked.

  He took a step back towards the corridor, watching her face come into the light as she pivoted to follow him. "I just... wouldn't fit here," he said, trying to see what she was thinking by the expression on her face. The way she had bantered with him when she answered the door didn't seem to fit with David's disapproval in the kitchen, but she was evidently trusted to indoctrinate a potentially troublesome newcomer. "I don't think I fit anywhere anymore," he went on, watching her carefully. "I miss living in a world where it's ok to laugh."

  Her face worked, but he couldn't tell which emotions were behind it. He just didn't know her well enough yet.

  "Come with me," she said after a moment.

  She led him back into the corridor, through a winding set of sparsely furnished rooms, and down a side hall to a little office. Once inside, she closed the door behind them and dropped a towel across the crack at the bottom.

  Todd looked around silently. Here, the commune's military origin hadn't been so carefully masked. There was a built-in console that took up most of the room with assorted dials and knobs, and the walls were the same dull gray as the entry tunnel. When Ellen pulled two chairs up to the desk, he sat quietly and watched while she fiddled with the dials.

  "We have to be quiet," she said. "David doesn't like us listening to their broadcasts." Static gave way to the faint sound of a voice, and she turned another dial to bring the volume up to an audible level.

  "Recent newcomers to Refuge report that vigilantes are now roaming the countryside; destroying zombies, aiding travelers, and freeing enslaved women. While we still urge everyone with a secure location to try our zombie-soother methodology, we can only applaud anyone who chooses to aid their fellow humans in these times of widespread lawlessness. Three cheers for the vigilantes!"

  As the announcer spoke, it slowly sank in for Todd that this was a live broadcast - that someplace, the survivors didn't just have electricity, but a full radio station.

  "What's a zombie-soother?" he asked, but Ellen just shushed him.

  "Coming up next is another installment in our classic radio play series, a newly unearthed episode of Johnny's Jaunts!"

  A man with a British accent came on, and started recounting a series of the most ridiculous adventures Todd had ever heard, all taking place some time before the advent of the mobile phone. In spite of how dated the material was, he and Ellen were soon holding their hands over their mouths and snickering uncontrollably. By the time Johnny signed off and the radio segued into an hour of classical music, he felt like he had laughed more in the past half-hour than he had since the news of the flu first broke.

  "I can't believe David doesn't approve," he said. "Has he heard this stuff?"

  Ellen sobered. "David doesn't believe that laughter is appropriate when the world is in the midst of judgment."

  "I did get that feeling," Todd said. "So he think
s God sent the zombies? That is so..."

  "The divine spirit of nature, but yes, essentially. He doesn't... Look, David is a good man, but his core beliefs before were that nature was divine, and would take care of those who honored her. When the flu hit, the Grove only lost two people, while the town lost eight hundred, and that just confirmed it for him. They were living right. That didn't stop him from helping the townsfolk, or opening his doors to us once the dead rose - not that many of us made it here - but that was just part of living right, helping out your neighbors. But then..."

  "With only twenty two people here, I'm guessing something happened."

  She sighed. "One of the survivors from town was a bully, and he had a few hangers-on. Enough that they thought they could take over this place, run it the way they wanted. They laughed a lot, and mocked the hippies, and beat David and anyone else who tried to protest. So David's wife Mathilde drugged them, and then we dragged them all up to the desert, and locked them out."

  "Mathilde... which one was she?"

  "She's dead."

  Todd winced. "I'm sorry. I was just thinking she sounds like a very sensible woman."

  Ellen nodded. "She was. Sensible, and gentle, and just a beautiful woman, in every way, but also entirely ruthless if you threatened what she loved. I really respected her for that."

  Todd waited patiently, watching her stare into space.

  Eventually she shook herself and went on. "They woke after a while, and spent hours hammering at the door, until the dead from town came and killed them. After that, we thought things would calm down, that we could just hunker down and enjoy ourselves until the world outside sorted itself out. Mathilde encouraged us to make music, and art, and she told the funniest stories." She smiled fondly, then shook her head, a shadow of fear crossing her face. "But she was pregnant."

  Todd waited, but she just hunched her shoulders, looking sick. "Isn't that a good thing?" he asked. "I mean, most of the groups I've met, they're actively trying to breed, and restore the human race." He kept his tone of voice light, trying to coax a smile out of her.

  Instead, she shuddered. "It was stillborn," she said.

  He shook his head, confused. "I'm sorry to hear that. I know it's always hard on the parents..."

  "It died, Todd," she snapped, suddenly staring into his eyes with frightening intensity. "It died, in her womb."

  He stared back, trying to understand.

  "And then it rose."

  His breath caught in his throat, and he sat back, feeling stunned.

  Ellen nodded. "It tried to claw its way out. She was in such agony... None of us are doctors, but David carried her to the infirmary, poured a whole bottle of alcohol over her belly, and tried to do an emergency C-section. It was... horrifying. So much blood, and then this tiny body striking out at us. David smashed it against the wall, and one of the other guys finished it off, but then there was Mathilde, with this gaping, bloody hole in her belly, screaming."

  She was breathing hard now, holding herself tight. Todd eased closer to put a comforting hand on her shoulder, and wrapped his arms around her when she didn't push him away. "She died," he said, sure of it.

  Ellen nodded.

  "And then they had to kill her, because she rose as a zombie. Just like her baby."

  Ellen nodded again, and broke down into sobs, leaning into him. He stroked her hair, and tried not to think too hard about the amount of damage you had to do to a zombie to make it stop moving. The amount of damage David would have had to do to his wife.

  After a while, Ellen sat up, pushing him away and wiping at her eyes. "I'm sorry," she said, "It's just... a hard memory to bear."

  "I can imagine," he said. You didn't travel the country these days without accumulating quite a few memories you'd rather not have. He shuddered, and pushed some of his own away. "And I'm sorry," he said. "After something like that, I can see why David wouldn't be interested in laughter, or in anything that might sound like disrespecting the dead."

  An unhappy smile twisted her lips. "It's not just that. Before, he thought the Grove had been spared the worst of the horror because they were better, that others had somehow earned what happened to them. That meant that Mathilde and he and the rest of us must have earned what happened to her. It made him... much more serious about avoiding sin and embracing righteous living. Do you know you have to take a vow of celibacy to be a member of the Grove now, even if you're married?"

  Todd shuddered, the vision of a baby zombie still vivid in his mind. "I can see why."

  "But not just no sex. No oral sex, no masturbation, no kissing. We lost a bunch more people when David announced that. They said they'd send word when they found someplace else that was safe to stay, but no one has ever come back... That was before we started receiving the broadcasts from Refuge. And that's not all. We've got all sorts of weird little rules. No jokes or laughing out loud. No expressions of anger. No wishing for the past."

  Todd rolled his eyes. "Ugh. Why not just kill you all and be done with it?" He winced as soon as the words were out of his mouth. "Sorry."

  She laughed humorlessly, and let her head drop down against the chair back, staring up at the ceiling. "Sometimes I do feel like I'm dead already."

  "Except when you sneak away to listen to Johnny's Jaunts," he said, patting her knee. "Right?"

  She rolled her head to smile at him, her cheek resting against the chair back. "If David knew, he'd disown me. But it's like you said. I miss being able to laugh."

  "You could come with me," he said, the words slipping out before he could think about them. Then he remembered the woman from last week, who preferred dying at a zombie's hands to letting her abuser live. "No, that's a stupid idea," he said, shaking his head. "Forget I said anything."

  "Why?" Ellen demanded, grabbing his chair and forcing him to face her when he would have swiveled away. "Why's it a stupid idea?"

  "Because it's not safe. God knows I'm not strong enough to protect you - I'm barely managing to keep myself alive, and that's mostly because the bike gives me a head start when I need to run. And I'm not even running to anyplace, just away, over and over."

  "We could go to Refuge."

  He blinked. "The radio people?"

  Ellen nodded, pulling a map out of a drawer and spreading it open. "They give their location sometimes. I've planned it out so many times, but I was always afraid to set out alone."

  Todd let out a low whistle, looking at the highlighted routes on the map. "That's about five hundred miles..." Unfolding the map further, he traced his own path to the Grove. He hadn't realized how much distance he'd really traveled. "But it's doable," he added.

  "I know it's dangerous," Ellen said, leaning her head against his shoulder. "But I'm willing to take the chance, if you are. For a chance to laugh out in the open instead of hiding away in this little room. What do you say?"

  It was Schrödinger's cat all over again. If they set out on this journey, they might never finish it. They might fall afoul of zombie hordes, or human predators. But on the other hand, the cat might be alive. They might make it to Refuge, find a new life with people who weren't afraid to laugh, and really live rather than just surviving. And in the meantime, he wouldn't be alone any more...

  He wrapped his arm around her shoulders again and hugged her tight. "Promise you'll laugh at my jokes?"

  Ellen laughed out loud. "I promise!"

  ~~*~~