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I half rose from the ground and used my foot to keep the infected in place, keeping the knife handy.

Ava lifted the rock above her head and rammed it down with all her strength. This time, it splintered the man’s forehead.

Kirby grabbed another rock and slammed it into his skull again and again, breathing harder with each strike. “This is disgusting,” she said.

After the third hit, he finally stopped moving.

Chest heaving and grip still tight around the knife, I stood over the body with Kirby and Ava.

Kirby huffed. “That’s a bit… labour intensive, don’t you think?”

I dragged my arm across my forehead. We needed a better system.

Ava lobbed the rock back into the garden bed and dusted her hands on her jeans.

Neither she nor Kirby had noticed the guy in the window, and I left it that way. Now that the worst was over, he’d backed off until he was barely visible.

“We thought kitchen utensils would be a waste of time,” she said, picking up the meat tenderiser from where it had fallen. “At least we know now.”

And none of us had been hurt in the process. We needed to take our wins where we could get them.

I rolled my shoulders and stepped around the body, giving the young man a silent salute as we left. “Let’s go find some real weapons.”

We were walking down the main street when Ava saw it. She stopped and planted her hands on her hips. “There you go. Finally.”

Kirby and I gathered on either side of her.

On the opposite side of the road, tucked between a bakery and a pharmacy with a smashed door, a black and white sign hung from the eaves. Sheldon Tools and Camping.

“Just in time, too.” Kirby’s eyes flicked to a group of seven or eight infected loitering down the far end of the street.

We’d made it here without having to fight more of them, and there’d been no signs of traffic in a while. The only humans we’d encountered had stayed on the footpath on their side of the road without glancing in our direction.

After the guy in the window, I wondered how many more were watching us from inside their houses.

The front of the shop was intact, bright posters in the windows advertising their last sale. Through the tinted glass, I could just make out the aisles and shelving. Nothing appeared to be moving in there.

“The door’s closed,” Ava said. “At least we know there are no infected inside.”

Kirby shifted her grip on the rolling pin. “Sure about that? We don’t even know if they can work handles.”

No. No, we didn’t.

“We’ll check it out,” I said. “See if anything sets off alarm bells.”

“We should keep an eye on them, too.” Ava nodded to the left.

A car headed toward us now, still a few blocks away, slowing while the driver figured out how to weave through the infected. They’d be passing by here in a minute or two, with a posse of the dead behind them.

“Hopefully they’re too worried about the infected to be watching us,” Kirby said.

We crossed the road together, and Ava approached the glass, peering inside. “Can’t see much from here. The shelves go way back, so it’s hard to tell if anyone’s inside.”

A slight breeze swept down the street, sending a fast food wrapper floating along the footpath.

Ava shivered as she backed away from the window, her cheeks pink, the tip of her nose reddened.

I wanted to put my arm around her and share some of my body heat. “We need to go in there either way.”