"I'll tell you what, guys," Anthony said as he was craning his neck to look out over the top of the steering wheel, "this beats playing Mario Kart by a million miles any day." Cody dared to turn his eyes away from the road ahead of them long enough to catch the boy having the time of his life.

"You've done okay, Anthony, I'll admit," Cody told him before turning his attention back to the highway.

"No, he's done a lot better than that," Zack interjected. "I say he drove better than you did on your first time. Unless I'm mistaken, you ripped the mirror off the side of your first truck and then, did I ever tell you this story, Anthony? I don't think I did." Zack looked at his brother with a smirk.

"No, I don't think so. What did he do?"

"Well, Cody ripped the mirror off the truck and then he flipped it a little while later."

"Wow," Anthony said, eyes big.

"I'd like to add in the fact that I had help wrecking the truck. We hit a spike strip and it blew the tires out and then, yeah, I flipped the truck."

"You did?" he looked at Cody briefly and Cody couldn't miss the smirk.

"He sure did. The truck was on its roof and we were hanging upside down until we got unbuckled. I won't lie, looking back on it, it was kind of fun. Sort of like one of those crazy roller coasters." Zack lightly nudged the boy in the shoulder and they grinned.

Antony had driven for almost half an hour after their incredible escape from the rest stop and its parking lot of zombies and he went on for another five minutes before he slowed and pulled the Jeep over to the side of the road.

"You okay?" Zack asked from the back seat.

"I'm good. Just starting to get sore. This Jeep wasn't meant to be driven by a little short kid like me." He rolled his neck on his shoulders and both twins heard the pop. "The traffic is getting heavier, too. Maybe one of you guys should drive." He turned the engine off and flopped against the seat.

"You can be my navigator if you want, Anthony," Cody told him as he opened the door and stepped down to the ground to stretch his legs.

"I've been demoted to the back seat for good, haven't I?" Zack asked playfully as he sipped from a bottle.

"I'll sit back there if you want," Anthony offered as he hopped down.

"Nah, I'll be okay as the bombardier." A light that Cody hadn't seen since his brother was firing the big machine gun on the tank flashed across Zack's eyes and he knew without a shadow of a doubt what was going through the boy's eyes. "Or I could be the gunner." In his mind, Zack was standing in the doorway of some military vehicle that smelled of grease and gun smoke, smoldering cigar stuffed in the corner of his mouth while he pounded away at the zombies with large caliber rounds, spent shell casings flying off into the air in slow motion.

"Or you could be that," Cody smirked and shook his head. "If we come across a pack of zombies you can hang out the window like a dog and unload on them.

"I don't think they pack is the right word to use when they're together like that," Anthony told them after a few seconds of contemplation.

"Why's that?"

"Pack, to me at least, says that they're smart and hunting. Like a pack of dogs or a pack of wolves. I don't think that's what they're doing. They're more like...a herd, I guess. One zombie turns to the left and the rest of them follow that one. Like cows or sheep."

"That makes sense," Cody said after he thought it over. "Who would have ever thought that we'd be sitting around naming groups of zombies," his eyes glanced at a road sign a few hundred feet further up the road, "five miles from Kettlekorn, Kansas."

"Kettlekorn?" Zack parroted as he looked at the sign. "Kettlekorn? Really? What's next up the highway? Clown Car?"

"Big Top," Anthony said. "Definitely Big Top."

"Nice one," Zack laughed. "And after that is Trapeze Artist."

"What in the world are you two talking about?" Cody asked, having lost his way in the conversation.

"We're naming circus things, Cody. Making fun of the city's name."

"Right," he told them as he shook his head. "Anyway..." Cody walked around the front of the Jeep and stood by the driver's door. "Elephant Pooper Scooper?" he offered, trying to join their game.

"Oh, I'm sorry but no. Our judges would have accepted Fire Eater or Bearded Lady. We have a lovely parting gift for you," Zack told him in his best game show host voice as he pointed to the inside of the Jeep. "Let's go." Zack climbed in the back and closed the door while he waited for his brothers to get settled.

They were on the road shortly and the circus banter continued for another three miles before it began to wear itself out. It was replaced with comments about how ominous the sky was looking as they drove. It had changed from a crystal clear blue to an ugly shade of bruise within minutes.

"That looks nasty," Zack announced as he leaned forward to look through the windshield.

"I've only seen it be that color in movies," Anthony said as he squinted into the distance. "They're usually disaster movies."

"No kidding. Maybe we should find a place to pull over and sit it out for a while."

"Nah, Cody, we'll be fine," Zack informed him. Cody, far from reassured, kept driving, one eye on the road and the other on the sky as fat raindrops began splattering against the glass. He flicked on the wipers. All three of the boys jumped when the rain suddenly turned to hail and pelted the Jeep.

"This is getting better and better," Cody muttered as he drove on. He turned the wipers to their top speed and discovered it wasn't much help. He settled a little lower in the seat as the hail's intensity increased and hammered on the roof.

The sky somehow turned even uglier and Zack looked up and caught his brother's eyes in the rear view mirror and was about to suggest they might want to find a nice, solid building to wait this storm out in when the words died on his tongue. Above and ahead of them, a large swath of clouds had begun to spin. Zack looked out both windows for something, anything, and saw a handful of houses a mile or so off the highway.

"I see them, Zack," Cody told him. Zack wasn't sure if he meant the clouds or the houses but Cody yanked the wheel to the right and started bouncing the Jeep down an embankment and over a field of tall grasses on his way to an access road that paralleled the highway. They caught a second of air after a particularly large bump and Zack's teeth clacked together when they landed.

They bounded onto the road and Cody slewed the Jeep around a corner, nearly losing control on the layer of hail that had coated the road. "Shit!" He mumbled as he fought to maintain control. He picked the closest house and floored it, sparing the clouds behind him a peek in the side mirror. Cody swallowed hard and hoped they'd get there first.

Cody pulled into the house's yard, slamming on the brakes and swearing as the tires did nothing but dig up the ground as they slid. Grass and mud and chunks of hail flew everywhere. They finally came to a stop nearly one hundred feet from the house. Cody and the others threw themselves from the Jeep and dashed for the door in the howling wind. He and Anthony slipped in the wet grass and came up covered in mud and muck while Zack stayed upright and charged straight for the house.

Zack lowered his shoulder and rammed the door, hoping it would break but discovering it was sturdier than it looked and bounced off. He pushed the other boys back out of the way and was about to pull his pistol to blast the lock apart when he caught a glimpse of the sky over his shoulder and paused.

"Jeeeeez," he said aloud, his voice barely heard in the gale. A few miles away, three at the most, a gigantic funnel was reaching down from the deep green sky. Debris almost instantly began spiraling up into the vortex. A lot of something, he thought as he stared transfixed at the sight. He looked over at his brothers and saw that they couldn't tear their eyes away either.

The funnel had halved the distance when the first zombie fell from the sky in the yard behind them. Zack looked up and saw another punch through the roof of the neighboring house. He smiled with black humor as he saw quite a few five-pointed objects spinning through the air. "Now I have officially seen everything," he said as he raised the pistol and blew the door open. "Get in!" he ushered them inside and closed the door just as another zombie impacted on the concrete patio behind him, showering the door and steps with gore.

The three boys ran through the house on a mad search for a door to a basement but didn't find one in their rush. "Interior wall!" Cody screamed to be heard over the wailing wind. "Zack, help me drag that mattress out into the hallway!" Zack looked at him and pointed to his ears so Cody dragged him into the bedroom by the arm. Together they manhandled the unwieldy mattress out of the room and buried themselves and Anthony under it.

Cody had heard the sound of a tornado bearing down on you described as being in a tunnel with a train at full speed or standing beside a jet's engine but had always thought it was an exaggeration. He quickly realized he was wrong as he could hear almost nothing else even with his hands clasped over his ears. He could barely hear Anthony screaming and their faces were mere inches apart. He pulled the smaller boy closer and under his own body and felt him latch on tight.

They weren't sure how long the roaring continued, maybe seconds, maybe hours, but it seemed endless. The house vibrated around them and all three boys' ears popped rapidly as the air pressure changed. Cody could no longer hear anything but the sound of the storm but could feel things raining down on their mattress and bouncing off.

The maddening din finally began to decrease and the boys worked to push their shield to the side and stand up. Plaster dust filled the air but they could clearly see that the better part of the house was no longer there. Pipes jutted out angrily from the concrete foundation and here and there splintered remnants of the wall still stood.

"Holy shit," Zack whistled and that summed it up. "Half the house is gone." He strode through the layer of debris that had filled the hallway, kicking a fallen picture out of the way as he approached what had been the kitchen. "Maybe we should have left a window open or something," he said in an attempt to lighten the mood.

"No, that doesn't really help," Cody told him. "If a tornado decides it wants to rip your roof off, it'll rip it off if you open a window or not." He and Anthony joined Zack in the ruined kitchen and stared out with amazement into the yard.

Zack's first thought when they stepped outside was that they'd walked right into Oz but not in a good way. Everything they could see had been ripped to shreds. A tall oak tree that Zack vaguely remembered seeing in his dash had been ripped to pieces. Someone's hot tub had partially buried itself in the garage to their right. A fence had seemingly come apart over the house, sprinkling broken white pickets everywhere.

"This place is fucked," Zack said. Each house he could see had been destroyed in the storm.

"What about the Jeep?" Anthony asked and Zack's heart stopped. He'd forgotten it in the aftermath of the storm. Their gear was probably spread across four states by now.

"I'm almost afraid to look," he told the boy.

Anthony started walking around the remaining parts of the house to where they'd parked it, flinging a streamer of mud from his arm as he suddenly realized how filthy he was. He poked his head around the last corner and stopped. "You guys are not going to believe this," he said with a laugh and the twins quickly followed him.

"No way," Cody said as he took in the sight. Their Jeep sat before them, nearly completely unscathed except for a zombie that smashed into the roof. "Absolutely no way," he repeated. He walked around the Jeep looking for any damage but found nothing but a few scratches where it had been hit by flying debris.

"How is that even possible?" Zack asked as he inspected the zombie damage.

"Scientists have no idea, Zack. One house can be lifted right off its foundation and flung across the county and the one right next to it isn't even touched."

"Ridiculous," Zack told them as he tugged on the zombie's body in an attempt to get it off the roof.

"Ridiculous or not, we still have all our stuff and a way to get out of here. Once we get rid of that thing, of course."

"Well, Cody," Zack said with a grunt, "it'll be gone a lot faster if I had some help here. It's stuck in the roof."

"Just take the roof off," Anthony advised. "The zombie punched a big hole in it anyway."

"Smart kid," Zack grinned and began working out how to remove the roof panel.

A short while later they had created a convertible and Zack put it into gear and gently pulled away from the remains of the house. He was careful to avoid the part of a picnic table in front of them or any of the other large objects that now littered the ground.

He weaved through the street as he tried to find a main road that would lead them to some sort of town and hopefully somewhere they could resupply. They had plenty of food but they were almost out of water. And a certain two somebodies could due with a bath if we can swing it, too, he thought to himself as he looked over and saw his filthy brothers. I'm a little ripe myself, he added.

"Keep your eyes peeled for any place we can get our stuff," he told the two as he managed to skirt around an uprooted tree. Two side streets later he'd found the main road he was looking for and less than five seconds had passed before he saw the welcoming Wal-Mart sign. They pulled into the parking lot and did a slow circle around the building but saw nothing moving aside from a stray cat.

"Clothes, water, and we're out of here," Zack told them as he parked the Jeep in a handicapped spot near the door.

"No ammo on that list?"

"Not unless it's near the front of the store, Cody." He picked the shotgun up and relished its feel against his palm. The pistol was workable but this felt better. Felt right. "Actually, we might take a walk back that way after all."

"Why the change of heart?" Cody whispered as they flanked the doors.

"Bow and arrows."

"Really?"

"Really. I don't know why it never occurred to me before," Zack said softly. "They should be just as effective if you hit them in the head and they're silent. Now let's go."

They crept inside and grabbed a cart from the corral. Zack took a second to get his bearings and led them to the left and to the clothes. As before, Zack stood guard while Cody and Anthony worked quickly, piling the cart with things that looked close to their proper sizes. They filled it halfway in two minutes and they were done.

Anthony called a halt and put a hand to his ear and the twins went silent. He nodded and pointed to the aisle behind the one they were in. "Right there," he mouthed and looked at Zack with questioning eyes as he gestured to the gun on his waist. Zack shook his head hard and pointed further down their aisle.

"Not unless we have to," he said just loud enough to be heard. They made as little noise as possible as they walked to where the water should be. Cody made a face as they looked at the one bottle of water left on the shelves and had to suppress a derisive snort. He placed it in the cart with a shrug and they walked on back to the sporting goods section of the store.

"What kind of bow do you want, Zack?" Cody asked as they stood before the display.

"I have no idea," he replied. He examined one, his eyes working out how to adjust the pull in seconds. "This one looks good. Grab a couple of others and we'll go over them at the farm."

"Have you ever shot a bow before?" Anthony queried as he picked one up.

"Nope. Probably wouldn't hurt to know how, though." Zack set the bow in the cart and set about grabbing all the arrows he could see. The other two boys selected bows and dropped them in the cart along with Zack's. "Let's go," he told them as he dumped an armload of arrows in along with everything else.

They strayed close to the grocery area as they made their way to the front of the store and had to cover their noses when the scent of rot reached them. Cody felt his stomach do a back flip and swallowed hard.

"That's not just moldy lettuce," Anthony said as he cautiously walked forward. His small hand was already digging under his shirt for his pistol as he kneeled down.

"I think you're rubbing off on him, Zack," Cody whispered as they followed the boy.

"Yeah, well I had to do something. Couldn't let him grow up exactly like you now, could I?"

"I guess not." A sheet of red covered the floor between two rows of refrigerated cases and the remains of two bodies lay in pieces near what had once been frozen pizzas. Zack turned his head and took a deep breath.

"Why aren't they zombies?" Anthony asked as he stood up.

"I guess because there wasn't enough left to reanimate," Cody told him as he walked over to the bodies. Clouds of flies flitted aimlessly as he approached.

"This is why I don't like being in places like this," Zack said. "I'm willing to bet that they were doing the same thing we are but they got jumped." He looked around nervously.

"This blood isn't dry, Zack." Cody pulled his foot from the floor and they all heard the sticky sound of it coming free. Almost as if on cue, the boys heard a groan from a few aisles behind them. Something metallic clattered to the floor.

"Field trip is over, kids," Zack announced as he pulled the shotgun from his shoulder and directed Anthony to push the cart while he and Cody covered him. "Nice and easy. The main corridor is two or three rows over and then we're at the door."

Not knowing how many walkers were in the building, stealth was their utmost need. As much as Zack wanted to put them all down, getting into a battle against unknown odds was deadly. He walked backwards behind the others, surveying the store.

"The door is just ahead on our right," Cody turned and whispered and Zack nodded. He raised the shotgun into position, sure that something would complicate their escape. He swept the barrel back and forth and breathed a sigh of relief as he heard Cody pushing the door open. Zack flicked beads of sweat from his forehead once they stepped outside.

"You okay, Zack?"

"I'm fine, Anthony. I always get a little nervous when we're in a place like that. So many directions they could come at us from."

The cart was pushed over near the Jeep and the boys began sifting through their loot. Cody took off his shoes and stepped out of his mud-caked pants and pulled on a pair of camouflaged cargo shorts and grinned when he saw Anthony pulling up a pair that was almost the same.

"Now we're twins, too, Cody," the boy said.

"Like the Danny DeVito and Arnold sort of twins," Zack told him. "You're Arnold, of course. Just the really young version."

"Huh?"

"Kids these days. Don't you watch the classic movies anymore?"

"I hate to break it to you, Zack, but Twins is about as far from a classic as Throw Momma From the Train is."

"Cody, you obviously have no idea what you're talking about. They're both classics."

"Definitely not."

"Definitely so. You have zero credibility because you said, and I quote, Doggy Come Home was a masterpiece."

"I was twelve."

"Cody? I hate to say it but I'm going to have to agree with Zack. I saw that movie when I was like eight and thought it was terrible."

"Whatever," Cody said, dismissing their arguments with a wave of his hand. "You're both cinematic Philistines."

"I don't even know what that means," Zack admitted, "so let's just get changed and get out of here. If we hurry we can still make it to the farm by dinner time."

There was a pile of discarded clothes next to the Jeep when they were finished sorting and dressing. Some were sweat covered and stained and smelled terrible while others were fresh and clean but the wrong size. As much as they wanted to, the boys added the water they'd found to their supply instead of cleaning up with it.

"We can take a bath in the creek when we get to the farm," Cody told them while they were debating it. "Not to mention we can just boil the water so we don't have to keep going to find more when we need it."

"That'll be good, one less thing for us to worry about." Zack tossed their bag of new clothes into the back of the Jeep and climbed in the driver's seat. Cody and Anthony piled in and he pulled out. The highway on-ramp was a few miles down the road and he could feel himself growing anxious the closer they got. What would they find when they finally got to the farm? Would his aunt be there? Was she still alive? Was the farm even still there? He sighed as all the possibilities ran through his mind.

"What's up?" Cody asked from the backseat.

"Just thinking about what might be ahead of us."

"Mom and Aunt Jolene?"

"Exactly. Mom might be there or might not but what about Aunt Jo? What if we pull up and she wants to greet us with a nibble on our throats?"

"Then we have to put her down," Cody said with authority.

"What if Mom is there and she got infected?"

Cody wasn't as quick to answer this time. "Then we have to put her down, too. She won't be Mom anymore, just a mindless monster that happens to look like her."

Zack leaned back against the headrest. "I don't even want to think about having to do it."

"If it comes to it, I'll do it," Anthony offered from the passenger seat. "I don't want to but I'll do it so neither of you have to."

"Thanks, buddy," Zack told him as he patted the boy's leg. "But it's not going to be an issue because she's not going to be infected." Or probably even there, he added to himself.

That was the root of everything that had been bothering him. He and Cody, and Anthony as well, had made it because they were all young and adaptable. And lucky. Incredibly lucky. His mother was, to be bluntly honest, pushing forty and not in the best shape and not used to anything more strenuous than a double show on a Saturday night. Yes, they'd met up with those Army guys and they'd seen her out of New York City, but that was over a thousand miles ago.

Zack had continued to believe that she'd make it out and meet them in Kansas because he wished it to be true and because that's what Cody needed to hear. Was it possible she could make the journey? Of course it was. Was it likely? Not as much. He would never say anything like that to either Cody or Anthony but it was always there in the back of his mind. Zack drummed his fingers on the top of the steering wheel.

Cody pulled the battered and stained address book from his bag and began flipping through it. "You know," he said, "I'm going to be really pissed if Aunt Jolene's address isn't in here after all."

"What?" Zack said and jerked his head around. The Jeep swerved and he turned his attention back to the road. "You mean to tell me that we've had the book the entire time and you never thought to look in it?"

"No, it never occurred to me," he said as he flipped through it.

"Cody, I swear to-"

"Relax, here it is. We could have found it anyway. It just would have taken a little longer. Mom even left directions for us. Okay, probably for herself but whatever. We turn off Highway 156 and drive for a while," he said as he did his best to decipher his mother's scrawl

"It's a good thing you looked at it now since we just passed a sign saying we're going to hit 156 in about eight miles."

"Zack?" Cody asked after a mile of silence passed.

"Hmm?"

"What do you think we're going to find when we get there?"

"Well, the rosy version of it will have us pull in and we'll see Mom and Aunt Jo and her half-elephant dog sitting on the patio with a hot apple pie and a pizza waiting for us. What I'm hoping we'll find is either Mom or Aunt Jolene at the house, maybe both, and we'll have MREs for dinner." Zack stopped and looked out the window. "Do you want me to tell you what I expect we'll find?"

"I do."

"I...think we're going to find an empty house." Zack censored his next words and said no more.

"Do you think your mom will make it there eventually, Zack?" Anthony asked him after a few seconds.

"I honestly don't know. I hope so but that's about all I can say. We'll wait for her as long as we can. After that, well, I haven't thought that far ahead yet."

Zack looked into the mirror out of the corner of his eye to try to judge his brother's reaction but Cody had put on an impassive face.

"We'll have to leave the farm one way or another eventually," he finally said. "We can't stay there over the winter. Hopefully Mom will be with us when we leave."

Their exit came up as Cody was speaking and Zack turned off the Interstate. Aside from directions being given, not a word was said as they slowly drove down the back roads. Anthony could feel the tension growing as they neared the farm but didn't dare speak. He'd never even met the woman but he wanted her to be there as badly as the twins did. He leaned forward slightly in his seat and looked harder out the windshield.

"Back up, that was it," Cody said as they drove past a mailbox at the end of a long, winding driveway.

"Shit," Zack muttered as he stopped and put the Jeep into reverse. He goosed the pedal and gravel sprayed the undercarriage. He instinctively ducked and hoped no one noticed once he realized what it was. He turned into the driveway and stopped and turned around.

"We're going to drive up and take a look around the property before we take a look at the house, got it? I'm not going to get chewed on while we knock on the door." The other boys agreed to the plan and Zack drove on, keeping the needle on the speedometer pegged at five miles per hour.

Three sets of eyes scanned everything there was to see as they came to a stop. Zack turned the Jeep off and grabbed the shotgun from between the seats. As he stepped out, all three boys noticed the eerie quiet. With hand gestures, Zack pointed behind the house and they carefully advanced. They fanned out as they walked toward the creek but came up with nothing.

The barn was next on their list to explore but the only thing in there worth notice were the dog food bags that had been ripped open. "Looks like Spot helped himself," Zack said quietly as he looked at the shredded paper.

"Either Spot or a raccoon or something," Cody answered.

"No, probably Spot," Zack said as he pointed to an extra-large pile of shit further back in the barn. "That's almost as big as a raccoon."

"It it fresh?" Anthony asked as he looked back out into the yard.

"Fresh? I don't-wait, that's actually a good question," Zack admitted as he walked over and toed the pile with the tip of his boot. "Rather fresh. But since I'm not a shitologist, I'm not sure how old it is."

"So maybe the dog is still here after all," Anthony said. "And if the dog is here..."

"Don't get ahead of yourself," Zack told him and gave the boy a reassuring pat on the shoulder even though he wanted to believe as well. He turned to leave the barn and froze in his tracks when he heard a deep growl. His eyes jumped to the right and he saw a shaggy matte black shape sauntering up the path from the creek.

"What the hell is that?" Anthony squeaked as he took an involuntary step back.

"That is Spot," Cody told him.

"Your aunt was either blind or had a very interesting sense of humor when she named him," the boy replied as the dog made its way to the barn and joined them.

"Definitely the latter," Cody said as he knelt down and rubbed the massive dog's head. "There's a good boy." He stood back up and the dog moved over to Zack and Anthony and gave them a healthy sniff.

"He probably thinks we smell great," Zack said as he rubbed the dog's muzzle. Anthony gently reached out and stroked the beast's back.

"I think we can rest easy now," Cody told them. "If Spot is acting normal, I'd say it's a pretty good sign that there aren't any walkers around here." Zack nodded and looked at the house.

"Ready?"

"Let's do it." The dog followed at their heels as they approached the steps to the door. Zack shouldered the shotgun and pulled out his pistol, the tight confines of the house making it a better choice in case of a firefight. He pulled the screen door open and turned the knob on the storm door, finding it unlocked. He gave it a slight turn and pushed it open with the barrel of the pistol.

Zack heard nothing as he stepped into his aunt's house but he still took slow steps, clearing first the mudroom and then the kitchen. He'd taken one step into the hallway leading out of the kitchen when Spot came barreling past him and darted into the living room. The boys followed the dog into the room.

"Down, boy. Get down already," Zack heard. That voice. His mother's voice. His heart leapt into his throat as he stepped into the living room.

"Mom?" he gasped, his voice rising an octave.

Carey, looking disheveled and freshly awoken, sat up in a flash and saw Cody come in behind his brother and a much smaller boy peek around them. "Zack? Cody?" she threw the light blanket she'd curled up with off her body and jumped to her feet. Zack shoved the pistol in his pocket and Cody absently tossed his aside and they rushed to her and were enveloped in a hug.

"I can't believe it," Carey said between sobs of joy. "You made it. You actually made it." She squeezed again before releasing her bear hug and held them at arms length and studied them. "You've grown so much since I last saw you," Carey told them. Cody wiped his wet cheeks dry with the back of his hand.

"Not that much, Mom. We still only come up to your chin," Zack told her.

"That's not exactly how I meant it, honey. You just look older. More worldly."

She hugged them again before turning to their companion. "And this must be Anthony," she said as motioned him over.

"Hello, Ms. Martin," he replied sheepishly.

"Wait a second...How do you know that, Mom?" Zack asked incredulously.

"Motherly intuition," she told her son with a smile and Zack was prepared to believe it. "No, in all honesty, I ran across some people in Louisville that met you." She turned back to Anthony and gave him an endearing smile. "I'd like to thank you for shepherding these two on the way here. I'm sure they were more than a handful."

"They weren't that bad. Send them to bed with no dessert and they straighten right up," he said bashfully, suddenly discovering something interesting on the ground in front of him and not seeing her cross the room and scoop him up into a hug.

"You didn't think you were getting away without one, did you?" she said when she finally put him back down on the floor.

"I figured that I'd let your sons get all they could handle first, Ms. Martin," he told her as Cody put an arm around his shoulders.

"Nonsense, kid, you have to deal with them, too. You're part of this family now," Cody told him.

Carey stepped back and looked the three of them over again. "I still can't believe we're all here," she said as she pushed her hair back. "Just can't believe it." She shook her head.

Cody leaned in for another hug. "Mom, we can't believe that you're here."

"Hey! What's that supposed to mean?" she said as she ruffled his hair.

"Well, um...you, um.."

"It's okay, Cody, I understand. Sometimes I can't believe that I'm here either. Some of the things I've seen and done." Her gaze drifted off for a bit as her mind replayed selected scenes from her trip across the country. "There's a few times I didn't think I'd make it."

"Same here, Mom," Zack admitted. "We did our fair share of things that still make me shiver."

"Oh the stories we have to tell," Carey mused and wrapped all three of them in yet another embrace.

Finally! I always forget how November is my craziest and busiest month and plan all sorts of things to do in its 30 days and usually end up completing none of them. Anyway, Halflife is over now and I kind of already miss it. That means that there will most likely end up being a sequel to it sometime down the road in addition to the "lost chapters" that I cut out of this story for various reasons. Neither will likely happen any time soon since I want some time away from the story, have a few smaller things I want to do before the year's out, and have a Star Wars crossover in mind for my Next Big Thing (probably kicking off in January).

Thanks again for putting up with me for 120K or so words and for all your reviews. I appreciate it!