"Dammit, dammit, dammit!" Fred dropped the hood of the wagon, giving the undercarriage a kick that bounced the whole car. He winced and met J.D.'s glare through the smeared windshield. "Sorry about that." The larger man was trying to determine a problem from inside the vehicle.

                "Find anything?" J.D. unfolded himself from the front seat, resting an elbow on the roof.

            "What didn't I find. Carburetor's blown, timing belt snapped, and the battery looks like it melted. I think this bird is officially dead in the water."  Fred ran a frustrated hand through his hair.

            "Uh Fred," I said, trying to gently break it to him. The poor man was distracted. "You're covered in grease."

            He blinked at his smeared hands. Grungy brown streaks stuck up through his hair. "Ugh."

            I pushed off from the guardrail, giving his shoulder a pat as I passed. After all the trouble we went through scrounging for gas, our luck didn't hold through the day. Barely an hour beyond the Rochester crater, with the Muppets crowded in the back seat on either side of myself and Wolf Girl, the car shuddered and belched black smoke, rolling to a defeated stop in the middle of the highway. The last rays of sunlight sank below the horizon, leaving us in a gloomy dusk with a busted vehicle, useless canisters of gasoline, a handful of guns, one turning human, and two possibly homicidal zombies.

            "Okay, new plan, we can't stay here for the night, so let's grab our supplies and head for the trees."

            Fred frowned at me. "Seriously, why can't we camp out here?"

            "I have to agree with the lady on this one, we're too exposed out here," J.D. said, punctuated by an unearthly squeal as Wolf Girl raced by, the Muppets hot on her heels, in pursuit of something fast and furry. The soldier paused for a moment. "What's going to happen when she catches it?"

            "Don't watch or listen too closely, big guy," Fred grinned at him, grabbing his backpack from the passenger's seat.

            J.D. shook himself. "Thought so," he said, shouldering his bag o' guns. Aside from my own little pack of  dwindling supplies, the only assets left in the car were the gas cans.

            "Don't know if they'll come in handy or not, but I think we should take these with us," I said, grabbing one of the ungainly canisters. To my surprise, neither argued with me.

            "Never know when flammable liquids could come in handy," said Fred, taking the other one. We headed for the tree line. Wolf Girl appeared out of the shadows, happily munching on the unfortunate critter, the Muppets trailing behind her. Least her appetite wasn't off, which was a good sign. Wolf Girl was our designated crisis of the night.

            We had to come up with something before she woke up dead. Letting out a hearty belch, she dropped the remains of her dinner and fell in beside me, singing a chirpy little ditty, her face smeared with blood and stringy bits. My hands itched to attack her with a bar of soap. Never mind her, I would kill for a shower right now. To my great horror the shirt I hugged Bert in was my last one, leaving me fashionably smeared with dried zombie guts on top of the coating of sewer grime and cement dust we all sported. Hell, I hoped we didn't run into any humans before we had a chance to clean up.

           J.D. found us a clearing surrounded by a dense growth of trees. It was dark under the tree cover. Fred broke out a flashlight, the beam of light marred by a cracked lens. It was enough to build a small fire by, which J.D. was against but I insisted we risk it to keep the natural predators away. It must have rained in the last couple of days; everything was still wet. We sacrificed a splash of gasoline to get the flames going and Fred dragged a few fallen trees into loose semi-circle for some make shift benches and wind cover. The wood was damp, but it beat sitting on the ground. Fred slumped down on the log next to me, J.D. across from us. Wolf Girl didn't care either way, curling up on the ground at me feet, the fire at her back. She was asleep in minutes. The light of the flames flickered over the outline of her body, shadows twisting and winding over her blood painted face.

            None of us spoke for a while. The Muppets shuffled around the perimeter of our circle, their uneven footsteps muted by the carpet of wet leaves. The fire hissed and spit, giving off more smoke than heat. The loudest noise in my ears was Wolf Girl's deep breathing, ending with a soft snore on each inhale. I kept waiting for it to cease. Fred popped his lips, making me jump.

            "So, operation Zombie Child. Thoughts, theories, ideas, the floor is open," he said, using a long stick to poke at the struggling fire. I ran a hand through my hair, or attempted to, disgusted by the gritty tangle of knots. Hair care was low on the list of apocalyptic priorities but, dear god, touching the rat's nest made my eye twitch. A hairbrush was one of the small luxuries I managed to hold onto. I dug it out, wishing I had the foresight to snag some hair ties in my Walmart foraging as I worked through the snarls.

            "Look, I refuse to kill her, and I know we can't take a regular zombie with us while searching for 'people' people." I said. Brushing my hair was soothing. I could feel the tightness of my spine unwind as I talked.

            "No kidding. You know Li, if we don't kill her the Muppets might," said Fred, giving the fire a jab. 

            I paused, glancing at the shadowy shapes of Bert and Ernie circling the perimeter. There was an unpleasant thought, though I wasn't sure it would play out. The Muppets were changing, both in appearance and behavior. I expected them to wander off for the night after Wolf Girl went to sleep, but they stayed close. In fact they hadn't sabotaged the fire either. Whatever was happening to them, their reactions were less predictable. Maybe they would recognize their friend after she turned and not kill her. I could hope, right?

            Yeah, sure.

            "As I see it, we have two options, and one of them is a big maybe. One, I attempt to make her like the Muppets. I don't know if I can repeat the results but I'm willing to try. It's not like I can hurt her, since she'd be dead anyway. If it works, I think she won't hurt living people." I looked at the silent J.D., hunched over and staring into the flames. "The other option is to catch one of those wily E.T. bastards and make her like us. Of her choices, I think that would be the best outcome." 

            "Are you sure she's going to change?" J.D. said, his eyes caught the fire light, two burning coals in his heavily shadowed face.

            "What?" I frowned at him, not sure what he was thinking. I passed the denial stage hours ago.  

            He nodded at the sleeping kid. "Come on, you must have noticed those scars. You been around her longer than I have." He sighed at my look, shifting around the edge of the fire to kneel beside Wolf Girl. Without waking her, he gently angled her free arm towards the fire light. "Didn't you notice the shape of these?"

                J.D. traced a dark finger along some of the larger scars dotting the girl's arm. They were thick crescent shaped welts of pink shiny tissue. Deep wounds, it was amazing she hadn't died from infection. The one at her shoulder was so deep it left an indent in her skin, as if a piece of the flesh was ripped away. I scrubbed over these scars and never really looked at them. Mostly I was amazed she survived so much damage, alone with no one to help take care of her. Now, I looked at them and saw what J.D. meant. Those nasty scars were bite marks. Did I really think Wolf Girl went without encountering another zombie for the better part of a decade?

            "Do...do you think she's immune?" I asked, my voice rife with disbelief. J.D. knew more of how the world fell apart, but he didn't know the cause of the zombies any more than we did. If Wolf Girl had immunity, it supported the theory of some virus at the root of this mess. Damn, if that was the case, the kid survived  for years on her own and being attacked by hungry zombies. I grinned. She wasn't going to turn.

            "I think this makes Wolf Girl an official badass," I said, turning to Fred. His eyes were fixed on the sleeping girl's face, lost in a train of thought. He almost looked like he was afraid of her. "Fred?"

            He snapped out of it, a smirk replacing the intensity of his expression. "Yeah, definitely, though can you imagine what she'd be like if she turned into one of us? She'd totally Xena out on us. So, one crisis averted, now how the hell are we going to find the breathers?" I blinked, wondering if I imagined the whole thing. J.D. settled back on his log, crossing his arms.

                "If the military's plan was successful, then we should skirt the highway and head for Buffalo. From there we can follow the Queen Elizabeth Way, see if there are any survivor settlements along the lakes."

            Fred snorted. "You're suggesting we walk to Buffalo? Why not just head north until we hit Lake Ontario? No matter how skewed our trail gets, we'll eventually hit water. Besides I thought we wanted to avoid the highway since it was so exposed."

            J.D. pinched his chin looking thoughtful. "I think they meant to pull the civilian population further in than Ontario, but there's no reason not to check there first. If I thought about it sooner I'd have headed in that direction rather than following the highway out of the city." He cocked an eyebrow at Fred. "Nice call white boy."

            Fred sniffed. "Please, I am a fount of wisdom," he clapped a hand on his knee. "That settles it, in the morning we begin Operation Wilderness Trek."

            "Is everything going to be Operation something or other with you now?" J.D. asked, baiting another round of bickering. I let them at it, it was like their version of male bonding. I was so relieved about Wolf Girl they could get in a fist fight for all I cared.

            "Yes, yes it is, because-"

            An ear splitting whistle rent the air. The Muppets bolted and Wolf Girl sat up with a shriek as light exploded overhead. J.D. was the only one with the sense to close his eyes, the rest of us were blinded. I clapped my hands over my face, trying to rub the spots from my vision. Fred yelped, falling off the log while J.D. cursed. I heard a series of slaps and thumps before he hit the ground hard enough to feel through my shoes. My sight finally cleared.

            There was a barrel of a gun trained at my nose. My eyes moved to the pale, black-veined, hand holding it, including fingernails painted black with hot pink ribbons. My vision readjusted, taking in the rest of her, from the tips of her spiked pink hair to the studded, knee- high, Goth boot planted on J.D.'s chest. Above the boots, her fishnet tights disappeared under a grey plaid skirt. A black Sex Pistols tee shirt hugged tight over her chest, complimented by a choke chain around her neck and safety pins in her ear lobes. My perusal finally met her eyes, the same dark grey color of the gun aimed at my face, made all the more piercing by a kohl outline and pink eye shadow. A sneer twisted her fuck-me red lips.

            "Stand and deliver, bitches."

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