And it wasn’t just the orcs she’d killed. While out on a scouting mission to find resources for her people, she’d come upon a bus full of terrified little kids. She’d pieced together that they were waiting for their protector; Dez, a raw and violent cop from Stebbins—the town where the outbreak began. Dez was in a running fight with a group of human monsters—all very much alive, but all the more evil for that. They called themselves the Nu Klux Klan, and they were rounding up women and children for the sickest kind of entertainment. Into this mix came a man, Captain Joe Ledger, who said he’d been a Special Ops soldier before the world fell apart. Ledger and his big combat dog, Baskerville, joined up with Rachael and Dez. There was a terrible battle at a farmhouse, and when the smoke cleared the Nu Klux Klan had been butchered.

The Rachael who left that carnage was immensely far removed from the naïve and earnest cosplayer who had been at the comic convention in New York. She wondered how she would look to her family, but forced herself to turn away from that thought. That kind of loss was a much more destructive bite than anything the orcs could do.

Rachael propped the long stick she used for training across her shoulders, hooking her arms over it, standing back to watch. She looked like an average early twenty-something, having exchanged her superhero costume today for a worn geeky T-shirt with a Batgirl logo, loose fitting jeans and heavy-duty, knee-high leather boots. Her long auburn hair was pulled up into a loose bun, wavy tendrils escaping around her face and blowing in the breeze. The only thing that seemed out of place was the sharp elven sword and dagger strapped to her hips.

“Brian!” she called out. “Foot! Stop crossing over. That’s how you trip yourself.”

They had only been training for a few weeks, but she was pleased how quickly her team was developing their skills. Brett and Rachael took turns training them, putting their little combat experience from LARPing—live-action role playing—to some use. Their form wasn’t perfect, but it kept them alive, and that was the best they could do.

It wouldn’t help them against a trained, living opponent.

But their targets were slightly easier.

“Again!”

Listening over the sighing wind for any sounds of the dead, she watched her trainees run through the exercises over and over.

Practice meant perfect.

Practice meant fewer people died.

Over the last few months, their numbers had exponentially increased. What once had been a tiny traveling band of survivors that had barely escaped New York was now a full-fledged group. As their numbers increased, travel grew increasingly difficult, so the old hospital located on an earlier foray had proven useful as a refuge. After clearing it out and repairing the makeshift chain-link fences, they’d expanded the yards and added more outside areas—gardens and open areas for people to escape, even briefly, the confines of concrete walls. They set up traps in the surrounding woods, building fences next to it, upping their levels of security, and they drove the dead away.