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with the area was likely to come out our road. Anybody looking to rob or hurt people would stay in town. They wouldn’t come to our house. It wasn’t familiar .” Every time she said the word, it had more bitterness in it.
    “Melissa, nobody knew what to expect. Leaving might have been a good move, or it might not. We were all just guessing then.” I reached for her hand, but she curled her fingers into her palm and continued.
    “Aunt Jenny left, and we stayed, because it was familiar . She said if she found a safe place, she’d come for us, and Dad said if things didn’t work out where she was going, she could come back. We’d be fine.” She almost choked on a sob, but held it back. “We were fine, for a few weeks, hiding. We saw some zombies, but we were quiet. If any came near the house, Dad killed them with his hatchet. But then someone did come. Mason and his gang.”
    I felt sick now too. “He was sly, calculating,” I said. “He had the abandoned hotel set up within a couple of days of the first outbreak, almost like he’d been planning it.” Maybe he had. “Then he got the supplies he wanted by raiding the warehouse club.” And killing my brother in the process.
    “Yeah,” Melissa said. “Guess he ran out of projects in town. So, they found us. Dad was out in the garage when they showed up, way off to one side of the house, getting some gas for our generator.” Her eyes pooled with the recollection. “One of the guys shot him on sight. I’d heard them drive up and was watching out the kitchen window. I saw it happen.”
    “Shit, kid, that’s rough.” Soothing and comforting weren’t really Rebecca’s thing, but at least she was trying.
    “I…then things get weird, like fuzzy and missing bits. They kicked in the back door, and Mom fought them. I tried to run…she kept screaming at me to run. Run, Melissa. And I ran. I kicked one guy in the knee, and he fell, and I ran.”
    This time I grabbed her hand, whether she wanted me to or not. Her voice was becoming more childlike, she was repeating herself, and I was afraid she was going to become so upset, reliving this, that she might revert to some level of her former voiceless, trance-like state.
    “Honey, no. You don’t have to tell us. We can imagine…” Honestly, I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear it.
    She shook her head, and I saw her force herself to refocus. Definitely not the broken little girl she’d been. “No, Ells, I’m okay. I have to say it all, this one time. If we’re going to leave here, you have to know why it’s what I want, and why we can’t stay.” I nodded, and she went on. “Another guy caught me, and Mason said not to let me go, I think. Something like that. But he wouldn’t let them, um, do anything to me. Said he was saving me for something special.”
    When she was quiet for a few seconds, Rebecca guessed the next part. “But not your mom?”
    “No,” Melissa confirmed. “Not my mom. Mason said maybe he’d keep her, but he had to check the merchandise. He…he ripped her shirt, ripped it right off. Kept tearing until her shirt and bra were on the floor. Something cut her, a strap or hook, or maybe his nails. She was bleeding, up on her shoulder by the neck.”
    Rebecca had been part of the rescue team, the ones who found out about us and rescued us from Mason and his men. The look in her eyes clearly said she was glad she’d gotten to kill some of them, and would happily kill them all over again.
    “He touched her,” Melissa said, her voice shifting back to anger. Sick as it was, I took this as a good sign. “He…put his hands all over her, smearing the blood around like finger paint. And he laughed, said maybe she wasn’t bad for an old lady, but he wasn’t sure. He said she’d have to show him what she could do, and I could watch because I’d need a lesson on what to expect later.”
    “You couldn’t have stopped him,” I said gently. I was familiar with Mason’s sadistic nature and