Speedy turned and wandered into the newly lit room. Helen went behind him with the cell phone held high. Lisa had no choice but to follow. Her eyes went wide to absorb the dim light, she held out her hands for reassurance, and her feet shuffled forward.

The next room was a kitchen, and her mind started listing all the supplies they didn't have: food, water, barricades, weapons. She started thinking about her prescriptions, but she almost crashed into the counter when the cell phone light went out.

"Sorry," said Helen. "It doesn't stay on very long." She pushed a button on the phone and the screen lit up again.

The pit of Lisa's stomach tensed. Even when the phone was lit, she could barely see. If there were zombies here, they might attack before she even saw them. She held up the bat and tried to scan the room, but Helen kept waving the phone around, giving Lisa no chance to get a sense of her surroundings.

Speedy was already wandering through the next door. Helen went with. Lisa followed them into a narrow hallway.

"Where are we going, Speedy?" whispered Lisa, but Speedy didn't answer. He poked his head into every door they passed. The scent of tile cleanser identified one part of the darkness as leading to a bathroom, but other than that, Lisa had no idea. She ran her hand along the wall, testing to see when it became an open doorway and potential threat. "Speedy," she tried again, "at least point the gun. You don't know what's here."

The light went out again, and Helen took a second to turn it on.

Speedy went faster towards the end of the hall. He opened the final door and went in. Lisa craned her neck to see inside, baseball bat ready to strike, and saw the room in flickers of Helen's waving phone. At first, she thought she was losing her sense of scale, but when the phone cast silhouettes of the plastic unicorns on the table, it explained the child-sized mattress and little pink dresser.

"Clara." Speedy's voice was hoarse with pain. Helen pointed her phone at him, and Lisa saw his formerly conflicted expression now frozen in panic and staring straight at her. "Where's my niece?" he said. "What happened to her?"

Lisa's mind conjured a dozen tragic possibilities, but all she could say was, "I don't know."

"You know about these things," he shouted and took a step closer. Lisa started to panic. For an instant, nothing seemed real. Her lungs pulled a short reflexive breath, and she looked into Speedy's sad eyes. "Why don't you tell me?" he pleaded.

Lisa barely knew where she was at that point, let alone where anyone else was. The silence dragged on, but she couldn't look into those eyes and be the one to tell him his family might be dead. It was too much. Speedy's face became more desperate until Lisa was saved by the crackling of the gravel driveway outside. The zombies had arrived.

Speedy did exactly what not to do, he ran out of the room and stomped down the hall shouting, "Estoy aqui!"

Lisa ran after him, navigating the unfamiliar hallway by touch. "Quiet," she whispered as loudly as she dared. "I'll help you find your family. Just don't do that." Behind her, the cell phone light waved across every surface, calling even more attention to their presence.

They reached the kitchen as the phone light went out. Lisa froze. Her heart was pounding, and excitement had replaced her fear. "Hold on," said Helen from somewhere nearby.

The headlights didn't reach this room, so there was only dim reflected moonlight through the window to see by. There were footsteps in front of them, and Lisa didn't know if they were Speedy's or not. There was a glint of something metal, and Lisa raised the bat.

Helen's phone lit up, and Lisa found herself face to face with another woman and a long curved sword ready to strike. Her blood pumped too fast to stop and find out if she was human. She swung the bat.

"Wait!" shouted Speedy.

Lisa checked her swing, and the bat missed the woman, colliding with the sword in her hands.

"Goddamnit!" shouted the woman. "What the hell are you doing here, Speedy?"

"I live here," Speedy said.

"And who the hell is this?" barked the woman, pointing at Lisa.

"Who the hell are you?" Lisa barked back. She felt excited and relieved to have an enemy she could see, but this woman wasn't a zombie.

"She knows what to do," said Speedy, pointing at Lisa. Then he pointed to the woman with the sword, "This is Farah, Kaveh's sister."

Watching Farah keep an eye on her, Lisa repressed the rush of her first instinct and lowered the bat. There was a small chunk taken out of one side from its encounter with the sword.

"Where's everyone else?" asked Farah.

Speedy's eyes wandered around, as if his family would suddenly appear. Lisa spoke for him, "We don't know."

Farah shook her head in disapproval. "Let's get out of here. We'll be safe at my house."

Lisa still wasn't so sure.

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