Allens looked uncomfortable and scuffed his foot on the ground, not meeting her eyes.

“We’ve sort of relied on volunteers.” One of the women in the group spoke up, her eye starting to swell from a close encounter with Jason’s fist. “We have lots of people willing to volunteer, whether it’s doing the farming or taking care of the animals or repairing the homes and fences or guard duty. A lot of folks willing to do the work, even though most of us don’t have much experience.”

“We had some firearms experience, but . . . ” Allens paused for a moment before continuning. “Well, we ran out of bullets about a month in. Both of these guns are unloaded.” Jason looked down at the shotgun in his hands and rolled his eyes. Allens noticed and gave a small chuckle. “Yeah, that shotgun usually gets people to back down before things escalate to the point where we’d have to call our own bluff.”

The woman nodded. “Now we just have to rely on what we have, mostly garden tools, baseball bats, rackets, stuff we can find around. Nothing that’s really good for defending against more than one monster at a time.”

Rachael nodded, turning to glance at the rest of her group, eyebrows raised. Peter and Jason looked dubious, but Claudia and Alice both nodded.

“Do you want help learning how to defend yourself with the tools you have?” Rachael included everyone in the question.

The woman looked shocked. “Why would you help us when we tried to hurt you?”

“You were defending yourself, your homes, and your friend. I don’t blame you for that. We’re not the best or most technically trained fighters, but we’ve figured out how to use what we have to survive. There’s different techniques for using different weapons, even shovels and axes. These techniques will help you use the weapons you have to effectively fight off the undead without needing bullets or more traditional weapons. Do you want to learn?”

A few of the men in the line nodded, while others looked skeptical. Allens and the woman spoke quietly for a moment. Then the woman stood, offering her hand to Rachael. “I’m Heather. Thank you.”

Rachael shook Heather’s hand with a warm smile. “Rachael. We all have to do what we can to help out our neighbors in these times. My friends and I need to gather our gear, and then we’re ready to go with you.”

She walked back to her friends, making sure to put enough distance between them and the Happy Valley folks to allow her to speak without fear of being overheard. “Tommy,” she said, “how ‘bout you go help your friends and we’ll be right there, okay?”

He frowned.

“It’s okay, sweetie,” Alice said. “Go on, now.”

Reluctantly letting go of Alice’s hand, Tommy trotted down the path to Heather.

“Okay, gang. Thoughts?”