“Thanks. Now help me carry it.”

“I don’t think we’ll need it, but we’ll take it anyway.”

“What do you mean?” she asked as we took the ladder down.

“Dale’s boat.”

Sophia went still. “Son of a bitch. Why didn’t I think of that?”

“Probably the same reason I didn’t. Come on, let’s get back.”

Lance worked quickly; nearly all the downstairs windows had a sheet of plywood and several two-by-sixes covering them. When we returned, he was swinging a big framing hammer with deft precision, driving each nail home with no more than three swings.

“Tell me something,” I said as Sophia and I dropped the ladder on the sparse lawn. “Why are we bothering with all this? Dale’s boat is right there.”

“I know,” Lance said. “But I don’t want those things getting into your house tonight. Or mine, for that matter.”

Just then, Lauren came out the back door with a wheelbarrow half full of food and half full of loaded rifle magazines. “Just in time,” Lance said. “Caleb, why don’t you help her roll that off the porch?”

I looked at Lauren, then back at Lance, and hooked a thumb over my shoulder toward the boat. “You could have told me that was your plan all along.”

His face twitched in what on another person might have been a smile. “And rob you of the joy of figuring it out for yourself?”

“Asshole.” I grabbed the front of the wheelbarrow and lifted it while Lauren came down the steps. She thanked me, then began pushing it across the yard toward the dinghy. After retrieving the outboard motor from the garage and gassing it up, I attached it to the dinghy and helped Lauren load the supplies and ammo inside. Once finished, Lauren and I pushed the little boat into the water. The motor started on the first try.

“You good, or do you need me to come with you?” I asked Lauren.

“I can handle it. Go help Lance.” She motored away.

Back at the cabin, I said, “What do you want me to do with these ladders?”

“Take one of them in the house and put it on the second floor landing,” he said. “Leave the other one on the porch. You find a crowbar yet?”

“Be right back.” I had seen one in the garage where we found the second ladder. After retrieving it, I asked Lance what he wanted me to do with it.

“Get that splitting maul and tear out the stairs below the first landing.”

I stared at him for a good ten heartbeats. “I’m sorry, you want me to do what?”

“You remember fighting those corpses on the balcony, right?”

“Yeah. So?”

“You see anything from ‘em to make you think they’re smart enough to climb?”

I thought about it, and shook my head. “Not really. But we don’t know for sure what those things are capable of.”

“I think they’re dumb as bricks,” Lance said. “How many of them did we shoot down while the others just watched? No matter how many we killed, they just kept coming. That seem like evidence of high-order intelligence to you?”

Again, I couldn’t argue. “No, it doesn’t.”

“Well there you go. Now go on, get to work.”

I couldn’t think of a good reason not to, so I did. While I worked, Sophia helped Lauren cart supplies, fuel, and ammunition to the boat. Lance finished barricading the downstairs portion of the cabin but left the back door open. He placed the lumber he planned to seal it with beside the entrance, then went to his house and set to work barricading it as well.

Dismantling the stairs was surprisingly easy. After clearing away the drywall with the crowbar, I used the maul to bash apart the steps and knock over the support posts. After that, it was just a question of levering the remaining boards apart with the crowbar. In ten minutes, a ragged mess of shattered lumber lay where the first eight steps of the staircase once stood. Sophia came over and stared at my handiwork, hands on her shapely hips.

“Looks like we finally found something you’re good at.”

“Puts me one up on you.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“Again with the language.” I dropped the crowbar and started toward the back door. “If anybody asks, tell them I went up the street to get Lola.”

“Are we bringing her with us?”

I stopped and looked over my shoulder. “You think we shouldn’t?”

“Doesn’t she have her own boat?”

“Safety in numbers, Sophia.”

“That what it is?”

I faced her. “What do you mean?”

“She’s pretty. You think I haven’t noticed you looking at her?”

I blinked twice, mouth hanging open. “Are you kidding me?”

“Do I look like I’m kidding?”

I blinked again, still not believing what I was hearing. “I don’t have time for this.” I walked out the back door without another word.

Lola answered on the third round of knocking, eyes glassy. She swayed unsteadily in the doorway, trying to focus her vision and not finding much success. “Caleb?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Sumthin’ I’cn do for you?” Her breath reeked of wine.

“We have a problem. A big one.”

The eyes settled, coming to rest somewhere around my chin. I wondered how many of me she was seeing. “Wha’ problem?”

“You should come take a look.”

She stepped outside, not bothering to shut the door, weaving a drunken line across the front yard. “Wha’ isit?”

I grabbed her around the shoulders to keep her from falling over. “How well can you see right now, Lola?”

“Jus’ fine.” She tapped her glasses.

“You see that over there?” I asked, turning her to face northward.

She looked, squinting in the distance. “S’people over there.”

“Not people, Lola.” She looked up at me. “Infected.”

She looked again and went rigid in my arms. “Oh shit. Oh fuck, ohfuckohfuckohfuck no. We hav’ta get outta here.”

She struggled, trying to run away down the street. I held her by the arm. “We’re going to do that Lola, but running won’t help. You see that boat down there?”

Her eyes tracked down my arm to where I pointed. “We’re going to take it out and wait until they move on.”

“’Kay. Cn’I come with you?”

“Yes, Lola. That’s what I’m here for.”

I half-carried her back to the cabin. Lauren had dragged the dinghy ashore and gone back inside to retrieve more supplies. I had Lola sit down, pushed the boat into the water, and drove her to the cabin cruiser. Getting her from the dinghy to the fantail was a bit dicey, but I managed to keep her from falling overboard.

“Just stay here,” I said after pushing her onto one of the white bench seats under the deck canopy. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“’Kay.”

“Don’t move.”

She stretched out on the seat and closed her eyes, glasses hanging askew. “’Kay.”

I pulled her glasses from her face and stowed them under the opposite bench, then went to the control panel and turned the engine over. The fresh water tank was full, which was good, and the fuel was at half, which was plenty. Once out in the deep water, all we had to do was set anchor and kill the engine. Didn’t take much fuel for that. The boat had a separate generator to power the electrical system, so we would have electricity without having to run the less efficient five-liter V8 main motor.

Finished, I killed the engine, climbed back down to the dinghy, and drove ashore. Lauren and Sophia were headed toward me with a final wheelbarrow of supplies while Lance nailed the last two-by-six over the plywood covering the back door.

“Is Lola with you?” Lauren asked.

“More or less.” I jumped back over the gunwale and stacked the contents of the wheelbarrow so the weight was evenly distributed. That done, I drove the women to the cruiser. This time, I tied the dinghy to the fantail cleats to make unloading it easier. When it was empty again, Lauren and Sophia went up to the forward lounge, carefully avoiding Lola, who now lay with one arm hanging from the bench, snoring loudly. I untied the dinghy and said, “Be back shortly.”

Back ashore, Lance had just finished the last of his preparations. I helped him put his tools away, then waited while he gathered his weapons. Finally, we made our last trip to the cruiser and secured the dinghy astern. At the controls, Lance leaned against the captain’s chair, cranked the engine, and eased the boat forward to slacken the anchor lines. When they had enough play, I used the windlass to bring them up.