Free Alaskan Undead Apocalypse (Book 3): Mitigation Book 3) by Sean Schubert Page A

workin’ on the Slope and then doin’ jobs around town when I was home. I mostly just paid the bills until I came home one day and they was gone. Duke was the closest thing I ever had to a family and he’s just a dog.”
    Duke didn’t seem to be insulted by the comment as he made his way over to Neil. The dog sniffed and wagged and wagged and sniffed. Neil was all too eager to scratch the grateful dog behind his ears and pat his side with a friendly hand.
    DB continued, “I don’t know if what I got now could be called a family or not, but I can say that I’m feelin’ more and more protective of them every day. Della there, she don’t need no protectin’ from nobody. She’s hard as nails but don’t let her kid you though. When it comes to those kids and even Ricky here, she’s all mama.
    “Me, Ricky and Duke found the three of them back in Soldotna. She said she was working at a hotel...the Aspen I think. She found both of those kids at the hotel. Can you imagine? I always wondered what happened to their parents and Della ain’t never said. I guess I pretty much figured out what happened to their folks but I never got how them kids stayed alive. They’re just so little.”
    Neil answered, “Without her and then you, they wouldn’t have. They couldn’t have. You’re what’s kept them alive.”
    Emma asked, “How long have you been on the road? And where’s your truck?”
    DB shrugged, doing little else to answer. Instead, he said to Della, “We got visitors,” as if he was coming home from work with company for dinner. Della was not as casual with introductions. She was as deliberate as a glacier in her movements, always careful to keep the children shielded behind her ample frame. She measured the newcomers, trying to divine their intentions. Her expression was guarded, her eyes filled to their bright yellow corners with questions and calculated assumptions.
    Neil felt completely disarmed by her eyes. There was little to no discernible distinction between her irises and her pupils, which appeared be swirling, dark eddies in small but consuming seas of yellowish-white. Neil found it impossible to guess her age. She appeared neither overly young nor old and frail. Her face, though, bore the wisdom of experience arrived at only after several decades of hard decisions and toil.
    She neither extended her hand nor shared her name. She merely watched and waited as she walked slowly across the pavement toward the van. Without so much as a look over her shoulder, she said, “We ain’t got much, but what we have we can share.”
    “Likewise. I’m Neil. This is Emma.”
    “Okay, Steve.”
    “No, I said my name is Neil.”
    “Yeah, I heard you the first time, Steve.”
    Neil looked at Emma and was all set to ask a question when DB said, “I’ve been with her for a few weeks now and she still calls me Steve. I don’t think it’s an accident and I don’t know why she does it, but I don’t see any point in fightin’ it.”
    Neil knew that DB was right, but Della’s seeming disregard for his identity bothered him nonetheless. He watched Della walk away and wondered to himself if her attitude was a product of their current circumstances or if it originated sometime in the past. Had she been hurt by some man or a series of men who had melded into a single amalgam of personalities all with the common title of “Steve”? Who was “Steve”?
    What a weird day it had become.

14.
     
    Reunited.
    It took some convincing on Neil’s part and some trusting on DB’s and Della’s parts, but finally it was decided that they would all venture up the railroad track and join the others at Neil’s and Emma’s camp.
    Neil offered to help with carrying supplies only to learn that there were no supplies to be carried. There was nothing. Well, not precisely nothing. There were five more mouths to feed...six if you counted Duke. What was the sense of adding more? More mouths? More children needing care and