When Spencer saw that his sister was no longer in the back yard of the adobe house, he had to fight the urge to panic. “Figures, leave the ten year old kid to fight all the zombies on his own,” he grumbled under his breath.

One of the many things that made life more difficult during the zombie apocalypse, was when one got separated, you couldn’t call out. The person might hear you, but so would a few hundred zombies. So, biting on his lower lip, he drew his pistol, and crept over to the edge of the wall that separated the upscale home from an avenue of desert.

Undead still moved toward the last place they heard shooting in twos and threes. Why would she have left me? It makes no flipping sense

He was about to climb the wall and take his chances when he heard, “psst, hey Spence, up here.”

Looking back, he saw Emily hadn’t left him at all, but had instead climbed onto the roof of the house. “Damn it, Em, you scared the shit out of me.”

“Shh, quiet down. You know I would never leave you.”

Gazing back over the cactus, Spencer mumbled, “I wish dad could say the same thing.”

She hopped down. “That’s just it, he wouldn’t. Something doesn’t make sense. I think it is going to be up to us to rescue him.” She pointed to the northwest. “The zombs seem to be stumbling in that direction. So I think that’s where we need to go.”

“Great I always love showing up for the big zombie party.”

“That’s just it, I don’t think we should just bolt straight into whatever huge mess is out there.”

“So what, you have another plan?”

She must have been regaining some of her strength after Jewels’ death, for she gave him a half-grin. “Yep. What do we have going for us? We are young, small, and quick. I say we splint up and come to the center of the action in a loop.” She stretched a heart shape on the ground. “We are here at the bottom, be both overshot the place and then loop back.”

“Leave it to a girl to have a heart shaped plan, but should we really be splitting up?”

“Strangely, I think it would be the safest, certainly a lot safer than two kids getting all Rambo and trying to fight our way in there with limited ammo.”

His gut churned. He was already separated from his father and had lost Jewels. He wasn’t sure this was-

His thoughts were interrupted by an explosion of gunfire. It started quickly and showed no signs of letting up.

Emily looked at him wide-eyed. “That’s a lot more than two shooters.”

“Maybe that snipper got reinforcements. Dad’s in big trouble.”

“We gotta go!” She said.

“Stick to the plan?”

“Yeah, stick to the plan.” She moved closer to the wall. “Let’s go rescue dad!”

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