“Stupid heart-shaped plan,” Spencer mumbled to himself as he dashed between the clustered cacti. Speaking out loud might have been a poor choice for his voice attracted the gaze of several zombies heading toward the sounds of shooting that raged before him.

He flipped them the bird and pushed his ten year old body faster. He rounded corners and sped between clusters of prickly pear. Soon the zombies fell behind him, but they remained everywhere. Again, it was only the distraction of the constant shooting before him that enabled him to move through their ranks so easily.

As planned, he curved out and past the shooting and circled back to the conflict from the north. He and his sister figured zombies would be less thick in that direction and whoever shoot at their father would be less likely to expect people coming in from the north.

The shooters worried him most, but soon he realized the amount of zombies could be his real problem. Before he even spotted his first shooter, the undead grew thick. Groups of ten and twenty stumbled through the thick desert. As long as he stayed behind them and amid the cacti, he’d be fine, but if he went into the open he could quickly find himself stalked by dozens of the flesh seekers.

He took a moment to figure out where he stood. Between he and Emily stretched a narrow valley. Most of it looked like it was covered in cactus, but at its center was a swimming pool, long since dry, four tennis courts, and a couple of out buildings. Playgrounds for the rich and undead, he mused silently.

Drawing one pistol, he let his war spike fill his left hand and set off working his way through the chaparral. A rocky area rose to the north and he headed toward it. The zombies came in from the south and the cliffs had stayed clear so far and he made it up to the crest without much worry.

A lone zombie lurched through a flat area within the rocks and turned at his approach. “Say hello to my pointy friend,” Spencer hissed while running forward. His fist lashed out and drove the tip of his wooden spike deep into the creature’s eye. It toppled over and wouldn’t be getting back up.

Feeling more confidence, he reached the edge of the cliffs. He had a better view of the situation below him and it didn’t look good. Four shooters had locked themselves inside of a fenced in tennis court, which was surrounded by a hundred growling zombies. How they intended to escape, he had no idea, but it didn’t seem to concern the shooters for they still focused their bullets on a building fifty feet to the north of them.

Could that be where dad is? He wondered. He tried to spot Emily, but couldn’t see his sister yet. Hope she’s okay. It might be harder for her to get this close if there’s no cliff over there.

He gazed back at the shooters. From the looks of things, at least two of them had already been shot down. He would have liked to have added to that count, but with just a pistol, he would have been hard pressed to do more than lose the advantage of surprise.

So he waited. He couldn’t be sure how this would play out or how his dad would get out of this mess, but for the moment Spencer reamined safe and could at least see what went on below him.

After watching for another three minutes, there remained no sign of Emily. He had begun to consider looping around and looking for her when he spied movement below. Two figures had made it to the roof of the building the shooters fired upon. Looking more closely, he saw that one was his father. Finally. But then he drew back in shock. The second figure was the masked sniper who’d shot and killed Jewels and from the looks of things he was working with Spencer’s father!

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