When they left the bathroom, everyone was on their phones, backs to everyone else, fingers plugging up their non-phone ears, spread out across the first floor and partially up the stairs. "Mom? Mom, can you hear me?"

"Jason, are you at home? Where's Dad?"

"Hello? Hello?"

Zane thought of Owen, over at Jeff's house and probably freaking out. Before he knew it, his phone was in his hand. Wilson grabbed his wrist before he could scroll through his list of contacts. "Don't," he said. "The first thing everyone does is try to call their loved ones. It overloads the system, which then crashes, and then no one can call."

Around them, there were more exclamations of, "Hello?" and "Can you hear me now?" and "Damn, I don't have a signal. Does anyone else have a signal?"

Wilson tilted his head. His meaning was unmistakable: "I told you so."

***

Once everyone had determined that no one had coverage, no matter if they had AT&T or Sprint or Verizon, they slowly wandered back to the living room and sat down to stare at the muted television with the current news story on repeat. Kendra was crying softly in a corner, using Kyle's sweatshirt as a tissue, which he didn't seem to mind. Ross was prying under the bandage on his arm and insisting to anyone who would listen that he was sure it had been a dog bite and he was in no way infected, and even if he was, the doctors had given him rabies shots so he should be fine, just fine, why don't you believe him?

Ross was easy to ignore, however. The footage from the news helicopters had switched to shots of the evacuation centers and everyone was busy looking for their family members and friends among the crowds, or else recounting the last known locations of said loved ones:

"My stepmother's at home, and my Dad is on a business trip in Houston, so he should be fine, right? He's not coming back until Tuesday."

"Gramma's at an assisted living facility. Do you think those are being evacuated? Everyone else is home. Unless Mom decided to go to yoga class... God, I hope she didn't go to yoga class."

"My little sister went with her friends to the movies. What if they're still sitting in the movie theater and they have no idea this is even happening?"

Then the lights flickered, and the nervous chatter stopped.

"What was that?" Kendra whispered, wiping her wet cheek on Kyle's sleeve.

Darkness pulsed in again, shutting off the television, and now Kendra emitted a little shriek.

"It's fine," said Ricky. "Just a blip in the power. We should probably turn off some of these lights, everyone's probably freaked out and have all the lights in their house on and—"

The lights flickered three times in quick succession and then they all heard that sound of humming electricity stopping and the lights went out completely.

In the sudden darkness more than one person shrieked.

One by one, little rectangular lights appeared – cell phone screens that gave the room a strange, eerie glow.

"My battery's almost dead," wailed Anna.

"Quick, get these candles lit," Ricky said. "Before everyone's phones die."

All of the guys had lighters now, thanks to the preparedness drills from earlier in the week. Zane pulled out his own lighter and fumbled getting it to work. He'd never had to use a lighter before.

Ricky had, thankfully, done his homework. There were candles everywhere. Zane had only noticed the few on the table earlier, but now he saw that there were candles on the bookshelves and on the floors by the walls and there were even little wall sconces. Slowly the room began to brighten into a soft glow.

"This is it, guys," said Wilson quietly.

"We're all gonna die," sobbed Kendra.

"No," Wilson said. "We won't." He stood and surveyed the room. "We're all together, just like we planned. We have the house secured, just like we planned. We've trained, we're strong - we can survive this. Does everyone have their weapons?"

"Yeah!" Fists punched the air, holding handguns, shotguns, weed whackers, axes, baseball bats, and a katana sword. Zane looked around in a daze. He felt like he was trapped inside an angry mob.

"Zane," Wilson said, cutting through the war cries. "What are you doing? Come on, we discussed this!"

"Ross doesn't have a weapon either," Zane said.

"Ross... Fine. Ross, let's go. Ricky, show us to the weapons room."

Ricky gave Wilson a look. "There isn't a weapons room, it's just my dad's gun cabinet in the garage."

Wilson waved a hand. "Whatever, fine. Lead the way."

"Uh, you've noticed there are, like, thirty people here, right? My dad's a gun nut, but he doesn't have a freaking arsenal. There were only, like, eight guns in there. It's totally cleaned out."

"I seem to recall you reported a larger number of firearms during our meeting," Wilson said, crossing his arms.

"Look, I didn't realize that half of them don't work. My dad apparently likes to collect antique World War II guns."

"Ricky, come on! What are we supposed to do now? One of our best fighters doesn't have a weapon!"

"Who said I'm one of the best fighters?" Zane asked, not that anyone was listening.

"I guess he'll just have to raid the house for makeshift weapons like everyone else did," Ricky said.

At that moment, Zane remembered he was the new kid. Of course Ricky would have hooked up his best friends, those guys he'd gone to school with since kindergarten, with the big guns, and new kid Zane would have to pick through what was left.

It made him feel a little less lonely when Wilson stood up for Zane and started chewing Ricky out, but he didn't stick around to hear it. He wandered into the kitchen. Where would he find a weapon?

There was an empty space in the butcher block where the biggest knife was, and the bread knife just didn't have the same oomph. Nor did the smaller steak knives, although Zane decided to slide one into his back pocket just in case. Under the sink he hoped somehow to find a wrench or some kind of heavy tool, but all he found were cleaning supplies. The broom he found in a closet was a possibility after he screwed off the bristle end. He swung it a few times. It was made of a thin metal that he didn't quite trust, although it could work if he used it like a spear.

Then his eyes landed on the heavy cast iron frying pans hanging over the stove.

Just in time, too – he became suddenly aware of a commotion in the front hallway.

"He's my brother!" Kendra screamed. Kyle had his arms around her waist and had lifted her clear into the air so that her arms and legs flailed uselessly.

"You can't go out there!" Kyle kept saying.

"Shut that door!" Wilson yelled.

By the time Zane had reached the archway that opened up into the front hall, it was too late. The door was open, and someone was coming inside.

"Joey!" Kendra howled, finally twisting herself free of Kyle's grip. She fell to the floor.

Mason had a gun.

The image did not seem to register in Zane's brain. Mason stepping forward with his gun, looking every bit like a soldier or highly trained military agent. "Stop right there!" The kids standing near him fell back, staring at the gun with their mouths open and eyes widening.

"Stop right there!"

Wilson jumped up and down like a hyperactive Chihuahua behind Kyle, who was grappling with Kendra on the floor now. Zane turned his head to look at what had entered. With his hand around the handle of a seven-pound cast iron skillet, he was ready for some zombie action, finally.

But he didn't see a zombie.

It was just a kid, maybe fourteen or fifteen years old, his dark hair covered with his black hoodie. "Oh, thank God," he was saying as he stumbled forward. "It's crazy out there!"

Only he didn't finish that sentence before he went down.

Kendra yelled and her elbow smashed Kyle in the face. Blood spurted from his nose. Kendra stumbled forward.

Even over all the yelling and crashing around, they all heard the groaning noise that came from behind Kendra's brother Joey.

The kid had stepped over the body on the front steps to get in the door. The body wore non-descript jeans and a gray t-shirt, and by the multiple bullet wounds visible on the t-shirt, appeared to be dead. That is, until the body sat up, revealing a face that had been half blown off, and reached one hand up to snag Joey's ankle.

Now Joey was falling, and the undead thing was pulling Joey's ankle toward the crater that was left of its mouth, and Kendra was falling on top of Joey, and Mason was pulling the trigger.

Kendra's body went limp.

This meant that Joey was now trapped under his sister as a zombie moved to make a meal of his leg, and Mason was recoiling in horror at what he'd done, and everyone was screaming and freaking out.

Zane watched all of this as if in slow motion. He watched Joey's eyes widen and his leg kick and he looked up and made eye contact with Zane. "Help me!" he screamed.

That broke Zane's paralysis.

He took three steps: one over Kendra's body, and another to dodge Joey's other leg, and then on the third step he swung that skillet down and brained the zombie.

This did not kill it, it only loosened its hold on Joey's ankle. Joey jerked his foot away. Hands reached down and rolled his sister off of him so Joey could shimmy out of the way.

Meanwhile, Zane dropped the skillet and got both hands around the broom handle. He raised it up over his head. The creature below now reached for Zane's ankle, but he brought the handle straight down, right through the ear canal. Its skull broke like an egg shell, revealing runny gray matter instead of a yolk.

He stared at the mess. Now he could see the zombie's facial features, and vaguely recognized this as someone who was in his physics class.

"That's Brian Erickson," said Ricky from behind him. "I wonder why he was at my house."

Zane didn't have time to waste wondering about Brian Erickson's purpose in visiting. He put a foot on the kid's pierced skull and pulled the broom handle out of his head. It came loose with a sickening squelch. Then Zane grabbed hold of the corpse's arms and pulled it back outside, just far enough so he could close and lock the door again.

Now he could take in the damage.

Kyle and Joey had laid Kendra out flat. Her eyes were open, staring at the ceiling. Joey was shaking his sister, calling her name, and Kyle was just kneeling there, staring down at her.

Mason had staggered back into the living room with his hands on his head. One fist gripped his hair, the other still held the gun. No one seemed to want to touch him. Zane glanced first at Kendra, then at Mason, and decided that since Kendra was already dead, he might as well deal with Mason.

"Hey, man, it was an accident," Zane said, approaching. "We all know it was an accident."

"I killed her," Mason said. His eyes were wide, his face pale. "I killed her."

"Here, give me the gun. It's fine. No one blames you. It was an accident."

Behind them, Joey's voice was rising. "She's dead, oh my god, she's dead..."

Anna pushed her way through the crowd. "She's dead, goddamn it, she's dead and YOU killed her!" She pointed at Mason.

"I'm sorry." The linebacker's voice was hoarse. "I'm so sorry."

His gun hand pulled away from his head.

"Mason, it was an accident." Zane tried to get in front of Anna, but she wouldn't move. "I know you didn't mean to kill her."

Mason's hand stopped. The muzzle was at his temple.

"You killed her! You killed my best friend!" Anna's voice rose higher and became more shrill as she approached Mason. "You did this!"

Mason looked at Anna with tear-filled eyes. "I'm sorry," he choked out.

The gunshot splattered gore all over Hunter, who was unfortunately standing to Mason's left. Hunter also took the full brunt of Mason's body hitting him.

Anna screamed.

"Shit," Hunter said as he caught Mason's body and lowered it to the ground. "Shit shit shit."

"Shit!" Dylan or Tyler added.

"It got in my mouth! Some of it got in my mouth!" Hunter began shouting.

"He's infected!" someone yelled.

Then all hell broke loose.