Free A Single Girl's Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse by JT Clay Page B

ground, hit the floor and assumed the position.
    â€œIt’s okay, Q. You can have it.” Angela put her bag on the bottom bunk. “Someone already took the single. Can I borrow your torch?”
    Q gave her the head torch and Angela tied it to a beam on the roof. The swinging light made their shadows swell and writhe. Q searched for switches but found none. “No power, I guess,” Q said. “We’ll have to rough it.”
    â€œHoney, this ain’t roughing it. Three kids at feeding hour during a blackout is roughing it.”
    â€œCan you smell that?” Q said. “Like rotting licorice.”
    Their roommate entered and conversation stopped. Pious Kate glared at Angela and Q, as if they’d be last on her list of preferred roommates. “I can’t believe I gave up my yoga retreat for this.”
    â€œCheer up,” said Angela. “No power, no water and no distractions. Think of it as a chance to learn how the other half live.”
    Q leaned over to Angela and whispered. “The other half are the dead, right? Because I’m pretty sure they outnumber us. You should say ‘the other ninety-nine hundredths.’”
    Angela whispered back. “No, Q. The other half are the world’s poor.”
    â€œOh.”
    â€œThey outnumber us too. It’s an expression.”
    â€œWhat are you two muttering about?” Pious Kate said.
    â€œSounds like someone got bit by Pinky the paranoia flea,” Q sang. “That’s, uh, something the kids in Kindy Koalas say to each other.”
    â€œHow did you know I got bitten?” Pious Kate said. She rubbed her right hip. “It was some bloody kid out shopping with his mother.”
    Since when did little boys bite? Okay, always, but since when did they bite strangers at the mall, instead of their sisters at home? Well, when the strangers were as obnoxious as Pious Kate, probably pretty often, but it was still weird. Q reached for her book.
    â€œDo the kids really talk about Pinky the paranoia flea?” Angela said.
    â€œNot as such,” Q said. “I’m hoping it will catch on.”
    â€œStop talking behind my back!” Pious Kate said.
    â€œWhat, in front of your face?” Q said.
    Pious Kate began to unpack. “I’m going to bed,” she said. “Take that awful bright light when you leave.”
    *
    The group clustered around the fire. Princess Starla and the Scarlet Terror were chatting and Sheath of Power had his legs crossed and his eyes closed in some kind of hippytrance. Rabbit watched the flames dance. Tinkabella stirred a large pot over the coals at the edge.
    Q was pleased to see that they had built a decent fire. Who would have thought vegans had skills, other than pamphlet composition and guilt? She complimented Tinkabella on it.
    â€œWhoa,” said Rabbit through the smoke. “Who said that?”
    â€œHuh?” said Q.
    Rabbit grinned. “Check it out,” he said. “It’s invisible army girl.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œIt’s your outfit,” Angela said. “He’s making a joke.”
    Q considered her green-and-khaki camouflage kit. “This is what you wear in the bush,” she said. “It’s normal, right?”
    â€œYou sure are,” said Angela. “Plus extra fashion points for matching your gloves to your beanie, your sweater, your pants and the landscape.”
    Q sat down by the fire to the left of Rabbit and noticed that no one else was wearing camouflage anything. She had a moment of self-doubt. If she were the only one dressed in camo, did it make her stand out? Damn hippies and their reverse camouflage.
    â€œWhere’s your wood?” she asked Rabbit, then reddened.
    â€œOver there.” Rabbit pointed to a large stack of firewood piled at the edge of the circle.
    â€œNice,” she said. “Who got all that?”
    â€œIt was already there.”
    It hadn’t been