Numbers 19:11-13

The gunshot and the sound of the front door cracking broke the silence. Everyone in the room, the whole dozen of them, scrambled for their weapons and turned to face the hallway to the foyer. Kent and Paulo bumped into each other near the entrance to the kitchen, jostling the oil lamp on the table next to them.
"Watch the lamps!" Leon shouted as he ran up the hallway to help Kurt. More gunfire.
"They shouldn't be here!" Jason said.
"Can we get out the back way?"
"Some negotiation this turned out to be."
"Enough sarcasm, Walter," Rose said. "Dad, is the back door secure?" More gunfire.
"Yes," Mr. Redding said, "but there's a window broken out back there."
"You mean we won't hear them..."
A zombie grabbed Paulo from behind. Glass shattered in the hallway. More gunfire.
"Get out! Go out the back!" Leon shouted from the hallway.
Rose raised her pistol to the zombie in the room and fired one shot to the head. Pure efficiency. Crunching sounds came from the kitchen as more unwanted guests tried to join the party.
"Tell me again why we had to meet in an abandoned mansion?" Paulo said as he picked himself off the floor.
"[Bleep] off," Jason said. "There's a side door, hurry!" He entered another hallway, beside the fireplace, and turned right, the others following closely. More gunfire, punctuated by the sound of breaking glass.
"What are we even doing here?!"


THE DAY BEFORE
The room is too warm, Walter thought. He knew complaining about too much climate control was ridiculous when few human dwellings had any heat at all anymore. Still, with everyone else just coming in, it would only get warmer.
"You're early, Walter," Mr. Redding said as he and his wife entered the room. Leon, who was just ahead of them, chuckled lightly.
"I'm always early, except for when I'm late, which is usually," Walter said. His wife had encouraged him to leave early for the meeting, and he had listened this time.
"I'll bet Daisy made sure you didn't keep us waiting this time," Joan said.
"Clairvoyant as usual," Walter said. "How's Roger?"
"Cassie's watching my favorite lab rat," Joan said. "She and I are the only ones who've seen him since you and Rose put him in the lab. His ability to heal from surprisingly severe wounds is, let me say, really cool. Too bad he wants to eat us."
"We just can't catch a break," Walter said.
Reed and Liv Wright entered the room, followed by Flora (wife to Paulo, the guy who got zombie-grabbed a few paragraphs back).
"Hello, Walter and Joan, how are you?" Flora said.
"Hi," The said back.
"No greeting for us?" Leon asked with mock indignance.
"Hello," Flora said, smiling.
"Alright, guys, can you sum it up for me?" Reed said. He looked harried and tired, as if from too much leading and not enough sleeping.
"Before we get started," Mr. Redding said, "I'd like to open the meeting with a prayer."
Leon sighed. "You know you're not a priest, right?"
"A lucky thing, since I'm not catholic," Mr. Redding said.
"No, but I am," Leon said. "You know I don't have a problem with the Our Father, but you're not even a minister."
"No, our minister is sick and resting, as you recall. And I was going to use the Valley of Vision," Mr. Redding said.
"Again with puritans?" Leon said.
"You guys really want to do this now?" Reed asked. Leon stared at Reed for a moment before relenting. Mr. Redding prayed.
"Alright, basic business first," Reed said. "Flora?"
"We've got about as many vegetables as we can out of the Field," Flora said. "We could move a few things to the greenhouse and keep them going as long as we have power, but it'll probably frost soon, so everything outside is done."
"How are we doing on saved food?"
"Fine, like I've said, we have enough for three times as many people, as long as the freezers don't give out. Oh, except we're running kinda low on pork."
"That's still great," Liv said. "We can just spread it out a bit more."
"OK, speaking of power, Walter?" Reed said.
"They tell me it's the wind-power that's keeping the physical plant going," Walter said. "These new turbines are pretty much no maintenance unless something breaks, which it hasn't yet. I've been keeping an eye on the gas and ammunition rations. We should probably try to get another tanker, and from the maps I think I've found a truck stop that's a likely candidate relatively close. I haven't detailed that plan yet."
"That's good, Walter, really good," Reed said. "Let us know when you've got a plan."
"Reed?" Leon said. "I need to say here that I'm getting concerned about the number of missions like this we're running. We've still got more gas than people, and it's getting riskier even in the out-of-the-way places. I'm pretty sure they're spreading out from the suburbs, and we can't afford to keep losing people like Roger."
The room was silent for a moment.
"You're right, of course," Walter said. "Pretty soon I think we're going to have to go several miles around the city to find anything relatively safe, and without more people we're going to have to hold out here a lot longer than we hoped. I think this one will be worth the risk, and will make it easier to reduce our trips outside in the future."
"Leon, you make a good point," Reed said, "but let's deal with that once we actually have a plan. You guys should work on that together. Anything else before we talk about the important stuff?"
After a moment of silence, Walter spoke. "Just that it's too hot in here," He said. "And if you could send someone to fluff my pillow, that's be swell." Several at the table laughed. Walter wasn't afraid of conflict, but he didn't like things to stay tense.
"So what's the story with these 'others'?" Reed asked.
"There's a lot of them, so they claim, probably more than there are of us," Leon said. "They said they'd like to join our camp, since we've got electricity." He paused. "I'm not sure how trustworthy they are."
"Right, we can't just let anybody in," Mr. Redding said. "That's been a problem, especially when people we don't know yet try to change how we're doing things."
"On the other hand," Walter interjected, "If they do get here, we would have to change things, alot for the better I think. They have engineers and mechanics, so if something does break down, Mike wouldn't be the only one trying to fix it."
"We do need the help," Flora said.
"Sure," Leon said. "I just want to make sure that they don't think they can come in here and take control. Reed, we put you in charge here for a reason. That reason still holds, and won't change just because some people with their own ways of doing things show up."
"I appreciate that," Reed said. "But I'm not mostly worried about staying in charge. I just want to make sure we can make it. We may have to make more sacrifices than they do."


Walter didn't see who knocked over the lanterns. He got distracted when Leon ran back into the house to join them, carrying Kurt's gun.
Rose looked Leon in the eye. Leon shook his head.
"This way, there's a high fence around this side, and they won't be able to come across the pool," Jason said.
They approached the side door, which was also lit with two lanterns on opposite sides. A stairway led off to the left.
"Dom! Check the door," Jason said. The short African-American pushed his way to the front.
"If we cannot run this way, go up these stairs," Dominic said. "You can come back down by the back door and hopefully get behind them." As Dominic openned the door, an arm reached in.

The fire spread quickly as Leon, Jason, and the others began racing up the stairs. Behind them, the zombies were blocked out by the ever expanding flames. Walter, Rose, and Mr. Redding brought up the rear just as one of the hungrier zombies decided to charge through the flames. (There is a reason flamethrowers are never recommended weapons against zombies.)
The three had no choice but to turn and run the other way. Rose shot several zombies ahead of them as they tried to reach the back door through the meeting room. As they reached the back of the room, two more zombies came around the corner. Rose only shot one before running out of bullets. Mr. Redding, fire poker in hand, attacked the zombie, pushing it to the other side of the doorway.
"Dad!" Rose shouted. The fire spread behind them.
Walter looked out the window and saw the others running away from the house. Leon looked back at Walter, but was quickly distracted by two zombies coming around the other side of the house.
A yank at Walter's foot send him hurtling to the ground, hitting his head on the windowsill on his way.
His vision was blurred, but he caught a glimps of what looked like a very hungry Kurt-zombie on the floor behind him, back-lit by fire. Some tall woman moved between the Kurt-zombie and Walter, some kind of stick in her hand.
With a stabbing pain, for Walter everything faded to black.