- Like a three-story zombie named after a doll.

  - Or your grumpy friend asking for dating advice.

  - Or a post-apocalyptic cult empire trying to reclaim Cleveland.

  - You know. Tuesday.

  ---

  I had just begun constructing a toilet paper shuriken when Gail knocked on the Overhole’s basement door.

  “Come in, if you’re emotionally prepared for my chaos,” I said.

  He opened it with his usual dramatic silence, like he was Batman entering a therapy session.

  “Everyone out?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Alex and Jules are scouting Cleveland. They’re avoiding our good friend Barbie.”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “The giant zombie,” I clarified. “She’s either three stories tall or I have a concussion again.”

  Gail grunted. “...Right.”

  He pulled up a chair. Not a word. Just sat down, looked around the room, and then at me like he was doing diagnostics.

  “You dying?”

  “Not today.”

  He nodded slowly, like that was good enough.

  Then—and this is where the world actually glitched—he rubbed the back of his neck and said:

  “I need relationship advice.”

  I blinked. “I’m sorry. I thought you said you needed relationship advice.”

  “I did.”

  From me.

  Elliot. Chaos goblin. Love life: historically on fire.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, genuinely. “Did Barbie throw a rock at your head?”

  He sighed. “Alex is… not like other people.”

  “That’s what they all say before describing someone who’ll stab you for touching their snacks.”

  “She keeps things inside. She distracts, jokes, charges forward. I don’t want to mishandle it. I want to know how to be good to her.”

  Wow.

  Gail. Mr. Brick Wall. Asking me how to handle someone as volatile and complicated as Alex.

  Honestly, I respected it.

  “Well,” I started, leaning back. “First off, don’t ever tell her to ‘calm down.’ That’s like lighting a match in a fireworks factory. Second, don’t assume you know what’s bothering her—ask. She won’t always answer, but she’ll remember that you cared enough to try.”

  Gail nodded, processing.

  “Third?” I added. “When she starts smashing stuff out of frustration, let her. It’s her love language.”

  He huffed a small laugh. “Noted.”

  We sat there for a beat, the silence less tense than usual.

  Then his tone shifted.

  “There’s another reason I came.”

  I sat up a little straighter. Because I knew that voice. That serious mode activated Gail voice.

  “The bandits,” he said. “The ones we cleared out of the station? That wasn’t the whole picture.”

  I frowned. “...What do you mean?”

  Stolen story; please report.

  “They were part of a larger group. Bigger. Older. More organized. Call themselves the Unity Group.”

  Of course they did.

  “They operate like a religion and a military wrapped into one,” he continued. “Take survivors in. Force loyalty. Use people. Sacrifice when needed. They’re not scattered thugs. They’re an empire.”

  Goosebumps. I didn’t like empires. Empires made messes. And we were usually standing in the splash zone.

  “They’re coming back,” Gail said. “A small group first. Reclaim their outpost. Set a foothold. That means we have a choice.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Let me guess. Fight or flee?”

  “Worse,” Gail said. “Stay and prepare.”

  He pulled a folded map from his jacket. Spread it on the table. The station. The fences. All marked in red ink. Notes about defenses. Supply points. Watch towers.

  “I want to renovate the place. Reinforce it. And move there. It’s more secure than Overhole. It has structure. And... we’ll need it.”

  I stared at the map.

  It felt real. Too real.

  “So you want me to help you rebuild a base,” I said. “While partially injured. With a romantic entanglement developing. And an eldritch Barbie zombie lurking a few blocks away.”

  “Yes.”

  “…I’m in.”

  Gail didn’t smile. But he gave me a small nod that felt heavier than any thanks.

  “This Unity Group…” I asked. “You think they’ll bring more than a scouting party?”

  “Eventually,” he said. “The first wave will test us. But more will come. And when they do…”

  He tapped the station’s blueprint.

  “We make sure they regret it.”

  ---

  The door upstairs creaked open like it owed someone rent.

  I didn’t even have to look—Alex’s voice carried down with her usual dramatic flair. “We’re baaack! And nobody died! Not even Jules!”

  Gail and I looked at each other. It was weirdly calm between us, the kind of calm that made me wonder if this was the Twilight Zone. Or if I’d just lost so much blood my brain made peace with the world.

  Thumping footsteps came down the stairs, followed by the clatter of bags hitting the floor.

  Alex stopped halfway down and blinked at us.

  “Wait.” Her eyes bounced from me, to Gail, to the table with the map still laid out. “You two… are in the same room.”

  She looked around, mock-suspicious. “And the walls aren't painted red with snark and suppressed trauma?”

  “I think we’re growing,” I said with a shrug. “Like fungi. Or trauma bonds.”

  Jules, coming in behind her, gave me a small smile, setting her backpack down more gently.

  Alex narrowed her eyes. “Okay, hold on. What happened while we were out? I leave for a few hours and suddenly you're not trying to passive-aggressively kill each other?”

  “We upgraded to aggressive-aggressive cooperation,” I said.

  Gail nodded toward the map. “We were planning.”

  Alex moved in fast, zeroing in like a gremlin with a purpose. “Oh? Are we blowing something up?”

  “Sadly, no,” I said. “This time it’s about building something. You’re gonna hate it.”

  Gail filled them in. About the Unity Group. About the fact that the bandits we’d wiped out were just foot soldiers in something way bigger. And more organized. Like cult-military-supremacist-megacorp organized. They probably had a PowerPoint presentation.

  Jules’s expression darkened slowly as she listened, like someone remembering exactly what kind of monsters used to control her life. She didn’t interrupt. But I saw her fingers twitch, like they were remembering too.

  Alex, though—Alex crossed her arms and processed in real time.

  “So… you’re telling me we’ve been squatting in a glorified cardboard box, and we could be living in a zombie-fortified bandit castle?”

  “That’s the idea,” Gail said.

  “I am insulted nobody pitched this with that exact phrase.”

  I gave her a mock-bow. “Apologies, Princess Gremlin. We didn’t know how to market it.”

  Gail looked to Jules and Alex, more serious now. “We’ll need all hands if we’re going to take it and keep it. Rebuild it before Unity sends someone back.”

  “Are we talking full migration?” Jules asked, voice low.

  “Yes,” Gail said. “Within the week, if possible.”

  Alex put her hands on her hips, eyes narrowed like she was scanning blueprints that didn’t exist yet. “We’ll need to scope the place again. Zombies might’ve reclaimed it. Set traps. Maybe leave a few... surprises for the Unity welcome committee.”

  “Booby traps?” I asked. “Or like, glitter bombs?”

  “Both,” she said without hesitation.

  Gail looked at me again. “You still in?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. Long as I don’t have to lift anything heavier than my own damaged pride.”

  Jules looked at me then—really looked. Not the polite glance she’d been giving me lately. Her hand brushed my arm for just a second, grounding me.

  “I’m in too,” she said quietly.

  Alex gave Jules a brief side-glance—neutral, but definitely holding something—but didn’t comment.

  “Well,” she said, clapping her hands once. “Guess it’s official. Operation: Bandit McMansion is a go.”

  Gail arched an eyebrow.

  “What?” Alex said. “I’m not calling it ‘Station 14’ like some military manual. We’re branding this baby.”

  As they argued about names—Alex pitching increasingly unhinged options—Jules sat down next to me on the floor. Close. Not touching, but the intent was there.

  And for the first time in a while, sitting in the middle of maps, weapons, and whatever the hell our lives had become—I felt something familiar.

  Hope.

  Stupid, fragile, probably-going-to-get-us-killed hope.

  But still. That had to count for something.

  ---

  The stars were out tonight—what was left of them, anyway. Half-hidden behind smog and smoke and the occasional fire someone probably should’ve put out hours ago. Romantic, if your idea of romance included the faint smell of burnt tire and the distant moans of the undead.

  I carried the bottle like it was sacred. Because, in a way, it was.

  Bourbon. Good stuff. Aged. Found it tucked away in the secret backroom of a liquor store months ago. Had a note on it that just said “For the end of the world.”

  Felt appropriate.

  I found Gail exactly where I thought I would—on the roof of the Overhole, sharpening a knife the size of my forearm like it owed him money. His back was to me, but he didn’t flinch when I sat down beside him.

  Didn’t say anything either. Just looked over, saw the bottle, and gave me a nod like, Ah. So it's that kind of talk.

  I pulled out two slightly cracked mugs—because we weren’t classy, just desperate—and poured us each a splash.

  “To surviving the week,” I said.

  He took it without a word. We clinked mugs. Drank. Let the silence hang for a bit.

  Then I said it.

  “So. Why?”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “Why are you doing all this?” I clarified. “The bandits. The Unity Group. The suicide missions, the quiet brooding, the ‘John Wick but make it rural’ routine?”

  His face didn’t change. Not at first.

  Then he sighed. One of those heavy ones that feels like it’s got a whole lifetime behind it.

  “I had someone,” he said. “Back before all this. Back when the world still made sense.”

  He didn’t look at me when he spoke. Just stared at the skyline, eyes tracking something invisible.

  “We weren’t... official. Friends. Complicated. It worked.”

  I said nothing. Just waited.

  “Had a dog too,” he added, voice softening in a way that kind of broke me. “Goofy little mutt. Barked at his own reflection. Bit me once for eating the last hotdog.”

  He took another sip, slower this time.

  “Columbus got bad. Not just undead—people. Raiders, looters, worse. So we left. Came here.”

  I didn’t interrupt. Couldn’t. He had that tone. The one you don’t mess with.

  “We thought Cleveland would be safer. Made it two days before Unity Group found us. They were scouting—recruiting, they called it. Looking for people with ‘skills.’ We didn’t want in. They didn’t take it well.”

  His voice cracked—barely—but I heard it. A ghost of something breaking.

  “They made an example. Him and the dog. Left me for dead.”

  Silence. A long one.

  And then he looked at me. Really looked.

  “I’m not doing this for revenge,” he said. “Not entirely. I’m doing it because nobody else should go through that. Not if I can help it.”

  I swallowed around the tight knot in my throat.

  I could’ve made a joke. A bad one. Something about dogs and vengeance and tragic backstories.

  But I didn’t.

  Instead, I poured him another drink. Then one for myself.

  “Alright,” I said. “Then I’m in. Not just for Alex. Not just because I’m tired of being someone else’s pawn. I’m in because you’re right. Someone’s gotta stop them.”

  He looked at me again, like he was trying to read something I didn’t write down.

  Then he nodded. Once.

  “But,” I added, turning my mug a little, “speaking of Alex…”

  Gail didn’t tense, but I saw his grip tighten slightly.

  “You serious about her?”

  He blinked. “Yes.”

  “No hesitation,” I said. “Points for that.”

  I leaned in, dropping my voice. Not joking anymore.

  “Listen, Abigail. I like you. I even trust you now, a little. But if you hurt her—if you get her killed, or break her, or leave her alone in this godforsaken world—I will end you.”

  He didn’t laugh. Didn’t smile. Just nodded, slow and solemn.

  “She means something to me,” he said. “More than I know how to say.”

  I leaned back again, letting out a long breath. “Good. Because if she dies because of you, I will personally reanimate your corpse just to kill you again.”

  That got the barest flicker of a smile from him.

  “I’d expect nothing less.”

  We sat like that for a while longer, passing the bottle back and forth in quiet solidarity. Two broken men, with nothing left but scraps and promises.

  And maybe, just maybe, something to fight for.