Page 10 of Cora

“It’s still going to be a lot of work,” I replied.

“True,” Remi conceded, “but not nearly as much work as digging fucking trenches.”

“Hey, check it out!” Trent called. We followed the direction of his voice and found him on the other side of the house, standing next to an old pickup truck. By old, I mean this truck was considered old ten years ago. “Do you think we could get it running?”

I shrugged and looked at Remi. He was our resident mechanic. The car we had been using only just died a few weeks ago, but it would have died sooner if it wasn’t for Remi.

Remi circled the truck before popping the hood and checking out the engine. “It looks like it is in pretty good condition. The owner took really good care of it.”

“What’s that?” Isaac asked, kneeling beside the truck and looking at something under it.

“What’s what?” Trent asked.

We all knelt beside him and quickly saw what he was talking about. It looked like a trap door. “Where do you think that goes?” I asked.

“I don’t have a single clue,” Isaac replied.

I crawled under the truck and cleared the dirt and debris from the depression where the handle was located. I pulled on it as best I could, but the door didn’t move.

“Here,” Remi said, sliding me a flathead screwdriver.

I tried to pry the door open, but it was solid and did not go anywhere. “It must be locked from the inside,” I said as I crawled back out from under the truck.

“Inside where?” Trent asked.

“That seems to be the million-dollar question,” I replied, dusting myself off.

“Maybe when I get the truck running, we’ll be able to move it out of the way and figure out a way in,” Remi said.

“Or there’s another way we haven’t found yet,” Isaac suggested.

“Either way, we aren’t getting through that door anytime soon,” I said, pointing.

I rounded the corner of the house to check out the rest of the property and damn near got bit as I ran into a fucking zombie. “Fuck!” I yelled. I fought the fucker off of me long enough to get my knife out. I plunged it through his eye and tossed the body into another. There were about five in the yard, and we took them all out together. “Right, we need to get moving on that fucking fence,” I panted as Remi and I put the last one down. “There are too many directions these fuckers can sneak up on us from.”

“How exactly are we supposed to get materials for a fence?” Trent asked.

I looked at him like he was stupid and gestured all around us. “The trees?”

“There’s a workshop over there,” Isaac said. “It’s got power tools and chainsaws.”

“Is it smart to use them?” Remi asked.

“I think the speed they will give us is worth the risk,” I said. “Just keep your eyes open for any of the dead the sound might attract.”

“Derrick is right,” Isaac said. “Everyone stay buddied up, one person acting as a lookout if you’re using any of the power tools.”

I went to the workshop and poked my head in to see what we had to work with. “I’ll start digging holes,” I said, grabbing the post-hole digger. While the others started cutting down trees and chopping them into more manageable fence-sized pieces, I started digging holes, keeping my eyes peeled for any zombies that might try to sneak up on us. There was no way of knowing how many were in the surrounding forest, and they didn’t tend to make a ton of noise unless provoked.

The nice thing about the type of fence we were building was that it didn’t take more than some half logs and posts with holes cut in them. By mid-afternoon, Remi and I were able to start building the fence while Trent and Isaac continued to chop. During a small break, when everything was quiet, I looked toward the house and nearly pissed myself when I saw a girl standing in the window. Time seemed to stop as my brain made sense of what I was seeing. She was beautiful in an underwhelming way, and her eyes seemed to beg me to save her.

“Holy fuck!” I yelled as I snapped back into reality. I looked at Remi, who jumped at my sudden shout and pointed toward the house.

“What?” he asked, looking around frantically to identify the threat.

I looked back at the house and saw the window was empty. My shouting got Trent and Isaac’s attention, and they came jogging over to see the problem. “Tell me you saw her,” I said to Remi.

“Saw who?” he asked.

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