Page 62 of One Adult, Please

She's walking ahead of me now, toward the interaction pavilion, friendship paddle in one hand, tote bag on her shoulder, and I'm behind her.

Beck reaches for her, casually. He's going to tap her shoulder, redirect her attention toward something he's spotted near the pavilion entrance. His hand moves toward her, fast, the way people move when they're comfortable with each other.

Grace flinches.

It's faster than a conscious response. Her shoulder pulls in, her head dips, her body contracts toward its center, preparing for impact. It lasts less than a second. She recovers immediately, turns, sees Beck's hand, registers what it was actually doing, and relaxes. The whole sequence takes maybe two seconds.

Beck's attention is on the pavilion entrance, his hand reaching her shoulder after the flinch resolves. He points at the thing he wanted to show her and they keep talking and the moment passes.

I don't know whether that response is older than Thursday. I'm not going to ask. I know what to do. Announce my presence before I'm close. Give her the space to see me coming so she can choose whether to stay.

I follow her toward the pavilion.

We clear the interaction pavilion. Empty. The veterinary substation, also empty. We're moving fast, ahead of Captain's twenty-minute window, and the group is developing a rhythm, a clearing pattern that's becoming automatic. Joel locks, Beck sweeps, Grace directs, I watch.

We're on the last stretch. The path between the petting zoo and the aviary. Captain's screams are still coming from the east perimeter, fainter now, which means his vocal energy is diminishing. We have maybe five minutes before the infected start drifting back.

The path runs through the garden section. Raised flower beds. Decorative stone paths. And a garden hose running along the ground near the irrigation control panel that someone left out when they evacuated.

Grace walks toward the hose.

I open my mouth to say something.

Grace's foot catches the hose. Her ankle rolls. Her body pitches forward with catastrophic enthusiasm. The tote bag swings. The friendship paddle goes wide. And the foam trident dislodges from its drawstring binding and launches forward like a javelin thrown by an athlete who didn't know they were competing.

There's an infected in the flower bed, lying among the overgrown plants, motionless, hidden by the dense ornamental foliage.

The trident hits the infected in the face. The decorative foam splits, exposing a rigid plastic support beneath it. Grace’s falling tote drives the prong into the left eye.

The plastic handle snaps at the joint.

The infected jerks once and stops moving.

Grace is on the ground face down in the garden path, arms splayed, friendship paddle three feet away, and tote bag contents spilling across the stones.

She lifts her head. There's dirt on her chin and a leaf in her hair. "No," she says.

"Yes," Beck says. He's standing six feet away. His face is incandescent. "Grace. You just threw a foam trident into a zombie's eye while falling down."

"I didn't throw it. I fell and it fell and we fell in the same direction and it's not…"

"That's a trident kill. Has anyone in history ever gotten a trident kill?"

"It's not a kill, it's a... I tripped on a hose." Grace sits up. She looks at the foam trident. "The stabby fork," she says quietly.

"The stabby fork," Beck confirms.

"It's dead."

"It went out like a warrior. The stabby fork scored the kill of a lifetime and retired on top. Athletes dream of that."

Grace stands up. Slowly. She brushes the dirt off her knees and retrieves the trident handle. The glitter catches the light.

"Goodbye, stabby fork," she says. She places the broken handle on the edge of the flower bed, gently, the way you'd place flowers on a grave. "You were the first weapon I ever had."

Beck puts his hand over his heart. Joel is focused on Grace in a way that isn't about monitoring or protecting.

Grace picks up the friendship paddle. She catches me watching. "You okay, animal doctor?"