16: Renewed Hope for the Future

We cannot live only for ourselves.

A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men,

as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes,

and they come back to us as effects.

Herman Melville

Thomas, Jefferson and Fredrick greeted Leza, as Linda, Helen and Rebecca said goodbye to their zombie hosts before reentering the Collective’s walls. Several women were shepherding animals to the grazing areas, despite the abundant numbers of zombies outside.

“It’s wonderful seeing you active again,” Thomas said. “If I hadn’t seen it myself, I wouldn’t believe you died a few days ago.”

“Yeah, the unbelievable is becoming fairly ordinary since she showed up,” Helen observed.

“How are you feeling?” Fredrick asked, studying her face for clues to her mental state.

“I’m fine. I’m still sore, but I suspect the zombie cells give me an increased healing capacity. That’s why the undead get up and fight so soon after dying.”

Helen studied the Collective women who’d been out with Leza’s zombies. “How’d the girls do?”

“They did wonderfully,” Leza said, clearly proud of her protégés. “As I suspected, they’re better suited to this than the men. We still need the warriors for rogue zombies, but I prefer the women take the lead role in handling my people.”

“No troubles?” Thomas said.

“The ladies were more bothered by what the undead ate. They also got up more frequently to monitor their zombie wards, rather than lying in fear of things going wrong. That’s a huge difference in mindset.”

Jefferson approached, having followed the conversation. “I’m sorry we forced you to endure our crude efforts. I’ll admit, the women handled things better than we did. We must have frustrated you immensely.”

“No, it was a necessary step. I didn’t mind, but the risks were greater. My earlier attempts ended badly. The chance you men would overreact and the entire operation fail was higher than with the women. Yet, if I didn’t take you first, you’d never have authorized their getting involved. Once they did, they quickly demonstrated their advantages. It’s too bad we didn’t have many recognized female warriors. If we had, it would have been a quicker transition.”

“Well, you can apply those principals when you train David Nash’s people,” Thomas suggested. “They’re eager to begin the training program. They’re impressed with what they’ve observed here. If they’re freer to work outside, they can boost their petroleum output, just as we did our grazing ability. Martin Spenser’s group is different. Without as much need for bullets, they can concentrate on building supplies for further development. That’ll help everyone, but they won’t see an immediate productivity increase. Not only do they need to retrain their people, it’ll take considerable time to accumulate the necessary equipment.”

Leza chuckled, her deeper voice ringing out. “Ah, there’s no rest for either shooting victims or the undead. Seems I’ll be busy for some time. There’s hardly any time for baking cookies or shopping anymore.”

“Don’t worry,” Helen said, giggling herself. “We’ll bake all the treats you desire. Without the constant fear of zombie attacks, we can afford to become more domestic. That is, if you don’t keep drafting us into your undead training program.”