“Amen, brother. Amen.” Nate shifted his position. “Any troubles?”

I looked at him. “Depends on your point of view.” I told him about the problems I had with Pamela and Dane Blake. Nate’s eyes darkened when he heard we were set up for an ambush. I told him about Sarah and Kristen’s kidnapping, and Kristen’s subsequent murder. Nate dropped his eyes at that. I told him about Kevin and Frank.

“Holy shit! A pit full of zombie heads! Who comes up with shit like that? Not that I’m sad to see those two gone, but that’s a hell of a way to go.”

I nodded. “We haven’t been back since, so I’m sure there are a lot of supplies there, but I have no rush.” I talked about leaving Duncan in charge and his standing orders to leave a corridor open to refugees, and also what happened to Chelsea.

Nate shook his head. “Maybe you should have stayed put.”

I thought about it for a second. “No, we needed to make the push to re-establish a workable zone for survival and re-taking what was lost, and we couldn’t do it from just one place. So how about you?” I asked.

Nate held up his hands. “Nothing so dramatic. We had a few bands of zombies to deal with, some survivors to train and acclimate. Most of them are anxious to meet the great John Talon.”

I rolled my eyes. “The only reason I keep going out to risk my neck is because I haven’t any useful skills like plumbing or electric work.”

Nate laughed. “We’ll get you elected yet. Anyway, in our push to the river, we happened across this home that had a ham radio set up in it.”

That piqued my interest. “Really? Anyone know how to use it?” I knew ham radios were used to communicate all over the world, and if we could get one working, we might actually be able to communicate with other people and find out if there was anyone left in the world.

“As a matter of fact, Jim Bigelow knew how to work it. We didn’t have a power source at the time, but we took it with us anyway.”