"Did they say what they wanted?" Sharon asked.

"He said to tell you that it's Karl."

Darn it. He must have followed her to the house, unless he'd already been spying on them for a while. A shudder rippled through her as she closed the book, putting it on the night stand. "Stay with your brother."

Heather squared her shoulders, and her all too familiar stubborn gaze locked on Sharon's. "You need me more than he does."

"Don't argue with me. If something happens, I need you to protect him. Got it?" Her daughter eyes narrowed and she opened her mouth to speak, but Sharon shook her head. "Got it?"

She plunked her butt down on her brother's bed, the crossbow on her lap. "Fine!" she grumbled.

"Lock the door and don't open it unless I say."

With that, she shut the door and picked up the crowbar that had been leaning up against the wall in the hallway. This was the safest place for the two of them. She knew that Heather would protect her brother with her life. It's the type of girl she was —stubborn, pigheaded, but loyal to the bone.

Sharon smiled as she headed down the stairs. She felt blessed that death hadn't touched them yet. But she wouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. They now had a strange man at the door, and she knew what men often wanted, especially in a world where women were scarce because everyone was in hiding.

Heck, even she had to admit that sex was at the forefront of her mind. There was something about it that brought back the familiarity of the world that used to be. One could forget that they were in the middle of a war.

When she reached the door, she looked out the peephole. "Can I help you?" she asked.

"You dropped your food."

How'd he know that? Was he the one who opened the door and let the zombies into the cafeteria. The doors were all closed when she went through to the kitchen. "How'd you get it?"

"Can you let me in before someone sees me standing here?"

"Just leave the bag by the door, please."

"I don't suppose you could show mercy to a man who just wants to help."

"How'd you know we lived here?"

"I followed you,"

She kept watching him through the peep hole and saw him turn to look behind him. Zombies were closing in on him, which meant they were closing in on her house. Sharon leaned her forehead against the door and groaned. If she didn't let him in, they'd be worse off in a matter of minutes.

"Come around to the back door."

Seeming to clue in, he glanced back at the approaching creatures. "Okay."

Rushing through the house, she raced to the back door. When she opened it, she said, "The backyard gate, open it." If the zombies followed him into the backyard, then they might just keep on going if they couldn't find him. That's what she hoped anyway. Once that was done, she let him inside and quietly shut the door, just as the first zombie stumbled its way into the backyard.

"What's the big idea bringing them to my home?" she snapped, keeping her voice low, as she yanked the backpack out of his hand.

"I'm sorry. I was just trying to help. I figured you wouldn't brave going out on your own if you didn't need the food so badly."

She wanted to stay angry at him, but the soft look in his eye touched her heart. She'd always believed that the eyes were the gateway to the soul. Some people didn't believe that, but she'd been right about it every time so far.

"Thank you. We're running low."

"How many of you are here?" he asked, as he pointed to the bottles of water stored on the counter. "May I?"

Sharon waved her hand towards it. "Help yourself."

Should she tell him her kids were upstairs? But before she had much of a chance to contemplate the question, footsteps sounded on the stairs. "Mom?" Heather called

"Hi, hun, we're in the kitchen," she said when her daughter entered the room. "This is Karl. He helped me out at the school."

Heather studied him, her eyes wandering from his runners to his green eyes. "What's he doing here?"

"I dropped our food, and he was just bringing it to us."

Distrust washed over her daughter's face. "What does he want in return?"

Karl lifted up his bottle of water as the corner of his lips curled into a grin. "This works for me."

"Ya sure," her daughter said, placing her bow on the table. "If you try anything, I'll put an arrow between your eyes."

"Heather!" Sharon exclaimed. "Sorry, we're still a little on edge here." She couldn't blame her teen for being wary. They did have a lot to be wary about. They had their fair share of bad run-ins with people, but mostly the dead. "Why don't you go and get your brother washed up, and I'll put a can of soup on?"

"Fine."

Soon, it was only the two of them again. She turned on the propane stove and began warming up their food. "You're welcome to stay and have some with us."

"I wouldn't want to impose."

Sharon peeked out the curtain and noticed a few zombies strolling through the yard. "Well, considering you have my house surrounded by those things, you might as well stay for the night. Is anyone expecting you back?"

"Nope, it's just me."

"Have you been alone all this time?"

"I was with a group, but they took the low road, and that's not what I want my last days on earth to be like."

"What do you mean by the low road," she found herself asking.

"You don't wanna know. Let's just say I bid my fairwell in the middle of the night."

"That bad, huh," she asked, stirring the soup with a ladle.

"Sweetheart, you have no idea."

"You'd be surprised," she murmured.

She longed for the world to go back to the way it was. She wanted to be able to go to work, buy food, watch movies, and take her son to the park. But those days were long gone. There were more crooks than there were level headed people now. With no government and no jails as such, people were free to do as they pleased. It was a free for all now.

"How have you managed to stay here all this time? I thought they evacuated this area a long time ago," he asked her.

"My dad was a prepper, and he made sure that our house had what it needed to survive."

"I wish I'd been the same, but all I ever did was go to work, come home, then go to work again."

That was the grueling grind that the normal world had come to know. Things were so expensive that people couldn't even afford to retire. Now, it was like the entire world was a third world country. They didn't have electricity or technology. Everything was back to the stone age. Things worked for a while, but as people disappeared so did everything else.

The grind wasn't something that she really knew though. She'd been a stay at home mom until her husband left. Two days before the alert went out, she'd secured herself a job for the first time in years. Nick hadn't wanted her to work. In fact, he was quite adamant about what she was allowed and not allowed to do. Good riddance to his rigid ass.

She glanced up at Karl and blushed when she caught him staring and quietly went back to stirring the already boiling food. What was she supposed to say? Butterflies fluttered in her stomach, making its way to her womanhood down below. "Go away," she mumbled under her breath.

"What was that?" he asked.

Her face heated. "Nothing."

Her reaction reminded her of when she was 16 years old and had just started dating for the first time. It's a feeling she hadn't felt in a long time. She didn't even want to be intimate with Nick by the end, even though she forced herself to just because it was easier than fighting with him.

When she glanced up again, he was still staring, except this time his gaze travelled down her chest and back up to her dark chocolate colored eyes. "Stop it!" she said, giggling nervously.

"Sorry. There's just something about you that I can't put my finger on."

She looked at his large hand splayed on the counter and a picture popped in her mind of what those fingers could do to her. Moisture coated her panties and her nipples hardened. Oh god, what was she thinking? Sharon gave her head a quick shake and turned her attention back to the food.

"Just look somewhere else, I'm trying to cook," she said hoarsely as she crossed her legs.

He let out a deep chuckle. "Sorry, I don't mean to make you all hot and bothered."

Warmth spread up her neck and fanned into her cheeks. Funny enough, though, she didn't get the creepy vibe from him. Her body was reacting in a way that she hadn't felt for a long time, not since before her husband flipped his charm switch. After spending years with Nick, she'd gotten pretty good at detecting liars and fakes. He was the king of fakes. But there wasn't anything fake about Karl.

Sharon couldn't help but smile and let out a school girl giggle. "I think you did."

He held his index finger and thumb just a wee bit apart from each other in the air. "Okay, maybe just a little."

"I should kick you out right now," she said, wagging the ladle at him, making a few splats of soup land on his shirt. "Oops." Her hands flew up to her mouth and even more flew in his direction, this time landing on his face. Laughter bubbled up inside her until she couldn't keep it in anymore.

Karl pulled his lips to one side as he took a spoon and dipped it in the pot. "You think that's funny, do you?"

"Oh, no you don't," she cried, holding her hands in front of her. "I just put on clean clothes."

"Don't worry, I'll help you change," and he let it rip, right down the front of her shirt.

She was about to send more in his direction when they heard footsteps up the back porch. Karl lifted a finger to his lips and quietly walked over to the peep hole.

"Is it them?" she whispered.

A loud thwack on the door, followed by a growl, proved her right.

Crap!