As Jake looked out over the land, I studied him. He was getting to be such a big boy, but he still retained those adorable big cheeks and little pug nose. His eyes were what got me, they were big liquid pools of chocolate that were used to good effect in getting what he wanted. I didn’t know how I managed to be so lucky and get us both to survive the Upheaval, but I promised to keep doing whatever it was I was doing. Jake was my world and without him I wouldn’t have much left to go on living for.

He grinned as I gave him a hug and kiss, then kicked his legs, signaling to me he wanted to get down. I put him on the ground and watched as he ran over to his toy chest. I smiled and waved at Sarah, who was walking out onto the patio.

“Hey you,” I said, shifting to the wall again. “What’s up?” Sarah and I had married in the middle of this mess after what had to be the strangest courtship ever. We both had lost our spouses to the disease and managed to survive numerous encounters with the dead. We realized we needed each other on several levels after Sarah had been kidnapped and subsequently rescued by yours truly.

“Not much,” Sarah said, sidling up and giving me a quick kiss. “Charlie radioed in and wants you out on the farm. He says he thinks someone is out there”

“Zombie?”

“Nope. Alive.”

That made it news. We didn’t get many visitors by land and ninety-nine percent of the time they were roaming ghouls looking for a meal. We had built up an earthen wall to keep out the odd zombie from the forest, using a borrowed back hoe from a local farm. We had a hell of a time finding gas for it, but eventually we did manage to dig a trench and use the dirt to create a five foot wall around the park. We piled the dirt up on the inside of the trench, making the actual height ten feet. Unless we got swarmed by thousands of zombies which filled the trench, we were pretty good to go.

I gave Sarah a hug and kiss of her own and went inside to put my gear on. Experience had taught me some hard lessons about the world I now lived in. Passing by the huge fireplace of the main hall of the lodge, I threw a wave to Rebecca, Charlie’s wife and Julia, their adopted daughter. Julia was tottering around and getting herself into all kinds of trouble, typical of a two-year-old.