Free Fallback by Lori Whitwam

on the rotting remains of khaki pants still clinging to the middle-aged corpse at my feet. His arms and torso were covered with necrotic wounds, but his face was strangely untouched. If you ignored the gore around his mouth and coagulated in his mustache, he could be someone’s favorite uncle. He probably gave the best Christmas presents, and always slipped you a few bucks when your parents weren’t looking.
    Marcus and Theo approached, their own weapons bearing evidence of our latest skirmish. “I sent Patrick and Davey to circle the house, and Anton and Cooper to check out the barn,” Marcus said, swiping the back of his hand across his forehead.
    “When we’re sure we’re clear, we’ll drag the bodies away from the house,” Theo added.
    I glanced around and saw Melissa calming the horses at the back of the livestock trailer, and the other noncombatants stretching their legs near the vehicles. The guys Marcus had sent to scout around the house and barn came into sight and headed in our direction.
    “Ready to clear the house?” I nodded toward the broad, covered porch and the front door, which stood ajar. This made me think it was likely there were hungry corpses inside.
    Marcus nodded and exchanged his machete for the shorter dagger hanging from his belt. “Let’s see what they found first.”
    Patrick reported the back of the house appeared secure, and no other dead had been seen. The barn also appeared to be zombie-free.
    “Okay, Theo and Ellen, you head around to the back door. Me and Patrick will come from the front,” Marcus said. He added instructions for the rest of the team to secure the gate we’d driven through, and to begin removing the carcasses from the immediate vicinity. “We won’t unload any animals until we clear the house and make sure there aren’t any stragglers.”
    We were just turning our attention to the house when a flicker of movement at a second-story window caught my eye. We all froze as the window eased open and something spilled out, unfurling against the side of the house.
    “Is that a bed sheet?” Theo asked, one eyebrow arched in surprise.
    “I do believe it is,” Marcus replied. “But something’s written on it.”
    The sheet settled, and the jagged black letters came into view. I made out ‘3 Z Inside?’ and looked to Marcus. “Okay, what now?”
    He shrugged. “We go in and kill us three zombies, I imagine.”
    “And rescue whoever hung that sheet out the window,” Theo added, taking a step toward the house.
    Marcus stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “Approach anyone living with caution,” he said, his voice low. “We’re not on a weekend vacation, you know. We don’t want strangers knowing our business.”
    I didn’t see any way the marauders could know our plans, though they almost surely had recon units who had seen the caravans leave the Compound. But how could they know our route or where we’d stop for the night? I asked Marcus, but Theo answered.
    “Marcus is right,” he said, and the four of us formed an impromptu huddle. “There could be any number of people in there. Might be friendly, might not.”
    Patrick glanced over his shoulder at the house and added, “And even if they’re not part of a marauder scout crew, that don’t mean they don’t have connections to ’em.”
    I sighed. The end of the world, and the human survivors were at least as big a danger as the zombies. Maybe humanity really was doomed. “Fine. But there are twenty-two of us, counting the escorts, and I’m pretty sure there aren’t twenty-two people in there trapped by only three zombies, so let’s go see what we’ve got.”
    We all turned toward the house, and Theo and I slipped around to the back door. It had only a basic lock on the knob, which Theo foiled in seconds. We entered the farmhouse kitchen, the large windows giving us plenty of light to take in our surroundings. I heard a scraping from the front of the house. Theo gestured for us to sweep