“Did you get him?” he called over to me.

“Little runner? Yeah, I got him,” I called back as I headed over to Charlie.

“Runner? I’m looking for a crawler. There was a runner?” he asked.

I stopped dead in my tracks. “Where’d you see a crawler?”

“Around here somewhere. It’s like he fell in a hole or something.”

“Did you stand?” I asked, referring to a zombie hunting method of standing still on a small rise and making noise to attract the crawlers. Once they revealed their position, you put them out of their misery. Or yours.

“Look around. Where could I stand?” Charlie sounded agitated.

“How about the road? There’s ditches on both sides,” I pointed out.

“Didn’t think of that,” Charlie mumbled, chastened. He headed over to the road and crossed to where I was standing.

“Runner, hey?” he asked. Charlie was a big guy, nearly as tall as I was but broader. He had lost his family to the Upheaval, but managed to rebuild much of his life by marrying again and adopting a little girl we had rescued. He and I had been through as much as anyone could have expected and by God’s grace and a load of luck, we were still around to battle the bad guys. If a better man existed to watch my back, I had yet to meet him. I trusted Charlie with my life, and the lives of my loved ones. If something ever happened to me, I knew Charlie would gladly raise Jake and do a damn fine job of it.

“Yeah, the little wiener came out like a yapping dog and I needed to take him down. Why the kids are fast is still a mystery to me,” I replied.

“It’s creepy,” Charlie said. “I get the slow ones, the virus trying to keep things going and not really doing so well, but the fast ones don’t make sense. And why just the kids? It’s messed up.”