Zombiekill by Russ Watts Page B

action instead of waiting for something to happen. She was also scared. She hadn’t been outside since the motel, and that experience had been terrifying. Having corpses attacking them and having to literally run for their lives had been the hardest thing she’d ever done. Now they were willingly going out there again knowing what they were going to have to face. Rilla looked at her father with admiration. He had already been out there, already faced them, and returned to do it all over again. He was the strongest man she knew. “Let’s do this.”
    “Magda, remember to stick close to me and Rilla,” said Schafer as he tightened the straps on her backpack. He tugged the bag on tightly and then turned her around so he could look into her eyes. “We’ll be fine. I’ve already been out there once. This time is no different. If anything it’ll be easier. We have strength in numbers. We’ll be at the house on the hill in no time.”
    Magda bit her lower lip and stared up at her husband. “Okay. So we go now. It will be okay. It will be all okay, yes?”
    Schafer grabbed her face and kissed his wife’s firm lips. “Vertrauen Sie mir.”
    Magda carried a long-handled screwdriver, but Schafer knew she was unlikely to use it. His wife wasn’t a fighter, and whilst he carried the baseball bat he intended to make sure that neither she nor Rilla were obliged to use their own weapons. He grabbed the ladder they had placed by the wall. There was no secret about what they were doing and no need to take any chances. The ladder was cold, but its feet dug into the ground and would hold them all as they ventured over it far more securely than the garbage bins. He climbed up the first rung and turned around. Five sets of eyes stared at him with hope, but each with their own secrets too. Jeremy held bitterness in them, as if he didn’t want to accept that all of their fates now resided in what Schafer did next. Lyn had anger in hers, though Schafer could not know if it was directed at him or at her own husband for failing to stop him from taking them away from their home. Victoria was sad, too young to fully understand what they were doing but old enough to know they weren’t just going on vacation as they had tried to tell her. Magda tried to hide her terror, but was managing to convey to Schafer that she was completely out of her comfort zone and failing to hide her fear at all. When Schafer looked at Rilla, he felt pride rising inside of him. There was hope there but determination too. She was just like Magda had been years ago, before motherhood and age softened her. He saw himself in those eyes of his daughter’s. She would fight to her last breath, he had no doubt, yet he hoped it wouldn’t come to that. He was going to try to lead them down the clearest streets so that they didn’t have to fight. Killing them wasn’t easy. It was like killing a real person; something nobody should have to do. He didn’t want Rilla to be put in that position, yet they had no choice but to leave. They had barely gathered up enough food to fill their six bags, which was a timely reminder of why they were leaving.
    “Keep close.” Schafer smiled and lifted his baseball bat to the blue sky. “Today is a beautiful day. Tonight we will eat and sleep in a stranger’s house. But we will be safe. We will be happy. It will be beautiful.”
    He climbed the ladder quickly and dropped down the other side waiting for Magda to follow. As Schafer planted that first foot on the neighbor’s property, he felt exhilarated. It was as if he were marching to war and should be waiving a flag above his head with a bayonet in hand, singing songs about a great leader. Instead, he was armed with just a baseball bat about to face an army of walking corpses with his family behind him. His exhilaration quickly evaporated when he realized the enormity of what they were doing. Lives were depending on him and what he did next, and not just his own. He did not doubt