“That makes sense,” Allison said. “I mean, that really makes a lot sense.”

I nodded. “It does.”

“But will they turn normal again?”

“I don’t see how they can. They’ve died. They’re dead. A better question might be, will they just eventually stay dead? Maybe the rigor mortis will stop them, and hunger and time will kill them, again, but for good,” Andy said.

“I still don’t understand why there aren’t more survivors, or government action, or military involvement,” Robert said. “I can’t believe that you guys are the last of New York, and we’re the last of Pennsylvania. That’s just, I don’t know, it seems impossible. Improbable. It all happened too fast to wipe out billions of people. Right? Or am I wrong? Am I missing something?”

“I agree,” Michelle said. “So none of us got the flu shot. There’s got to be more like us, people who are against it. Hell, the Appalachian area alone has got to be filled with people who didn’t get the shot.”

“There are probably a good percentage of people who didn’t get the vaccination, but have they survived not getting bitten, too? How many planes have crashed, or trains derailed, or cruise ships sunk, or are floating aimlessly about on the oceans?” Gene said. “Forget the military, they get vaccinated for everything. Those shots probably killed our armed forces in days. Days.”

And the military had a heads up, too. Just not a timely warning, unfortunately. I still suspected there were more military and political groups around, alive. It was a guess, of course, but seemed likely. “We have to assume pockets of people are all that is really left. Maybe pockets per county or town. Maybe only thousands of people per state, but not much more. I don’t know,” I said. “It is pretty mind blowing.”

“So, I want to get this right,” Gene said. “Your plan--what you guys want to do--is go to…Mexico? That’s what you were saying, what you want? To cross the border because you think it will be safer there?”

I nodded. “It was my initial thought. Poorer countries didn’t vaccinate their people. It’s really all I was going with. I mean, this all came out of nowhere, I heard something on the radio…”

“Radio?” Gene said.

I shook my head. “That was days ago.”

“But they’d still have zombies. Travelers, and people that were vaccinated, and then people who were bitten, too,” Andy said. ”That country isn’t infection free. Or do you think it is?”

“They would have zombies, too. No doubt about it. But less than what’s happened here in our country. And the wall we built to stop illegals from sneaking into the U.S., could now be used to keep infected Americans out. You’ve got the wall and the Rio Grande as a natural border. The things hate water,” I said, but remembered the zombies aimlessly fell from the bridge over the Genesee River when we’d climbed onto the Coast Guard vessel. They didn’t know enough to stay away from the river, despite not appreciating water. If they learned, however, it might not happen again.

“But why leave? Why risk crossing the country to get there, when we have everything we need here?” Andy said. He spread his arms wide and looked around the cafeteria.

“He’s right,” Gene said. “This place is great, but it isn’t going to last. And hiding here, it’s not going to rid the country of the millions of zombies. We’d just be biding time until we eventually ran out of supplies. And we would run out of supplies.”

“We’ve got months’ worth of food,” Robert said.

“Exactly. Months. Then what? Then what do we do? Raids? Visit Costco and Sam’s Club?” Gene shook his head. He reached for his wife’s hand. “Chase has a point.”

“But Mexico?” Megan said. She sounded doubtful. I shared that doubt, but wouldn’t admit as much.

“Look,” I said. “I wasn’t telling you this to convince you to come with us. I was just telling you what we were thinking, explain what we’d been trying to do. That’s all. Nothing else.”

“You don’t want us to go with you?” Gene furrowed his brow, narrowed his eyes.

“That’s not what I mean. You want to come with us, that’s fine. There’s safety in numbers, and the work can be more evenly divided.” Thought about clearing a building, or making that run through a Costco or Sam’s. Everyone takes a turn, makes it better than just Dave and I always doing it.

“I know you weren’t,” Gene said. He looked at his wife, and she nodded. And he nodded back. “I’ve got a bus.”

I closed my eyes. We didn’t need a bus. We needed to travel a few thousand miles. We needed another plane. A bus was shit, a shit method of transportation.

“No,” Melissa said. “It’s not like you’re thinking. It’s a school bus.”

I was glad my eyes were closed, because when I rolled them, no one saw. The fact that guy had a school bus really didn’t make that bus any better, any more attractive an offer.

“Their right,” Megan said. “I’ve seen it. It’s a converted school bus perfectly designed for the apocalypse. If Romero had seen this thing, he’d of used it in one of his movies. It’s even got one of those cattle scoopers on the front, you know -- like the ones you see on trains? They clear the tracks of animals and well, shit, anything, so the train can chug right along.”

“Thing will destroy any cars blocking the road. Destroy them.” Gene smiled, grinned really.

I looked at Allison, Charlene, and then at Dave.

Dave cocked his head to one side. “Let’s see what this thing looks like.”

“Good.” Gene clapped his hands together. “Great.”

“All right,” I said. “So where is this monster masher of yours?” I asked.

“Well, see, that’s where there’s something of a problem,” Gene said, his smile gone, his shoulders deflated. “It’s not here.”

“It’s not here.” I ground my teeth. Seemed like a school would be a perfect place for a school bus, but maybe not for a school bus with a cattle scoop.

“No. It’s not.”

I shouldn’t have to ask the next obvious question. Gene didn’t get the idea. It was his turn to talk, and reveal the location of his school bus. “Gene,” I said. “Where is it?”

“Home.”

“Home,” I said.

“I was at work when everything started. I called Melissa, like I always did at the end of a day, you know, for a ride home.”

“He doesn’t have a license,” Melissa said.

“I can drive. I drive fine. I know how to drive.” Gene shook his head. “But, I lost it. Couple years back.”

“He drives fine, sober,” she said, and smiled at her husband, as if drunk driving was cute, and their little inside joke.

“And about the time she came to pick me up, hell was breaking lose all over town. Sirens blared. Cops running this way and that. We didn’t know that it was zombies eating people. We had no idea what was really going on. When she got here, there was a ruckus going on over on the main road, fire engines and trucks had the road all blocked.”

“Thought it was an accident, cars smashed all together, someone was trapped,” Melissa said.

“So she came in,” he said.

“And we never left. We followed all kinds of reports and started locking the school down. Knew we had to make this place as safe as one of them underground bomb shelters. Our home is that way, too. End of times, and all that. People used to laugh at me, stocking supplies and weapons. I just always believed in being ready for anything.”

“No one’s laughing now,” Melissa said, and placed an arm around her husband’s waist.

No one is left alive to laugh, I wanted to say. “Gene. How far away do you live?”

“Across town,” he said.

“I’m going with you,” Charlene said.

“Honey, I didn’t say I was going anywhere,” I said.

“I’m going, too,” Allison said.

I looked over at Dave, and he nodded. “You know I’m going. Don’t need to hear me say it.”

Gene nodded. “Well, kids, looks like we’re taking us a field trip.”

I needed to accept that Charlene was no longer a baby. I couldn’t help recalling her days in kindergarten…