The First Days (As the World Dies 1)

Jenni, meanwhile, was glowing with happiness over what she had gained. Katie was back and she was just ecstatic over t

hat fact. And of course, Travis was back, too. And that made her girlishly giggly with delight. She couldn't help it. He was such an incredible guy.

She phased in and out of the conversation that followed. It really didn't interest her except when they talked about killing the zombies. She was surprised there were opposing voices to the plan. Juan was worried about running out of ammunition if they used so much right off the bat. The Mayor was worried about riling up the zombies even more. Jenni rolled her eyes during some of the discussion and Katie leaned over and took her hand.

Jenni knew it was the "behave" signal, so she tried not to give snarky looks. It wasn't all that easy.

The debate went back and forth. Katie was adamant about wiping out the zombie horde before it got any bigger and they got any smarter. Jenni thought she was making the most sense. Travis was conflicted about the whole gun issue and argued that maybe they should try to find an alternate way to wipe out the zombies. Jenni considered smacking him upside the head.

Juan sat near her and kept muttering in Spanish. Jenni muttered right back at him. Soon they were discreetly swearing at each other. The crux of the argument was that Jenni was a bloodthirsty psycho and that Juan was too stupid to understand guns were made to be fired.

"Where did you learn Spanish?" Katie whispered at one point.

"My Mom was Mexican," Jenni whispered back.

"Oh. "

"My Dad was Irish," Jenni added.

"So you're a lazy drunk," Juan quipped and waged his eyebrows at her.

"I am so going to kick your ass," Jenni said with a surly pout.

The Juan thing: she wasn't sure what that was about. A part of her was sure she hated his guts, but another part of her really got off on their arguments. It was too much fun. And, she had to admit a stress reliever.

Neither one of them really took the insults seriously. It was just, well, she wasn't sure. A way to make life more fun maybe.

Finally, just when she and Juan had started to play rock, paper, scissors, and it seemed a stalemate was inevitable, Mike came in.

"Two more. They climbed over the back of one of the trucks. One of them fell right onto a spike and it took his head right off. The other one stood on the truck and tried to jump past the spikes. She ended up impaled at the pelvis. This isn't good," Mike said.

Katie turned to the Mayor. He slowly nodded under her intense gaze.

"When the sun rises, we'll kill them all. Agreed?'

Jenni looked toward Travis, who nodded. "Yeah, agreed. "

Juan stood up slowly and said, "Okay, so we have no more time and no choices. But we can't do this again. We won't always have guns or ammunition. We need to be able to defend ourselves other ways. "

"Absolutely," Katie agreed.

Travis nodded wholeheartedly. "The guns make us safer for now, but, yeah, you're right. "

Jenni stood up and stretched. "Just tell me where to go and I'm so ready. "

Juan laughed. "Big surprise there. "

Jenni gave him her snarkiest look.

2. Tinkerbell of Death

"I don't like this," Katie said as she stood beside Jenni.

Jenni shrugged. "We have to be able to hit the ones that are out of view from all angles. "

Katie sighed. "Yeah, but why you?"

"Cause I volunteered. Besides, I get to be harnessed up," Jenni grinned.