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Chapter 50


We’ve formed a new kind of family here on the base. Most of us aren’t related, by blood or marriage or anything else. We don’t have much in common, other than the fact that we’ve, so far, managed to survive. Before the Osiris Virus struck, some of us were rich, some of us were poor, and most of us were somewhere in between. We had our own lives, our own families, but they’re all gone now. All we have is each other, and that makes us family. Necessity is stronger than blood, stronger than marriage, stronger than common threads. Necessity is the true tie that binds. We stick together because we need each other; it’s as simple as that.

Of this new family, I am still the father figure, still the leader. These people are like my sons and daughters, my brothers and sisters. It is my duty to protect them and keep them unified. It’s not an easy job. They may have come together like a family, but they fight like a family, too. I can’t say I blame them. There are a lot of different personalities here, and it’s not hard to see why some of them clash. Sometimes I raise my voice, too.

They drive me crazy, just like a family, but at the end of the day, I love them, just like a family. They are my family now. It’s a different kind of family, not one I would have chosen, but really, who gets to choose their family anyway? Most people are born into a family. The ten of us were brought together by destiny – or whatever it was that spared our lives and helped us find each other. Maybe I’ll never know what exactly it was, but I do know one thing: I would die to keep this new family of mine alive.



Friday, April 20, 2012
2:00 p.m.


Kevin had a headache.

Standing outside the church, his gun in hand, he viewed guard duty as a reprieve from the tension stagnating inside the chapel. He was used to living in close quarters with other people, but only military people, people with strong character and discipline. He was not used to being holed up with people who were snotty, whiney, immature, or unrestrained… and he wasn’t thinking of Gabby.

The thirteen-year-old girl, surprisingly enough, had proven herself to be more of an asset than a hindrance. She had helped her mother make the church fit for living, and she had demonstrated a willingness, even an aptitude, for weapons training. Kevin wasn’t comfortable with the idea of arming her for actual combat with the undead, but he had no doubt that she would rise to the challenge, if it ever came to that. She was young, too young for the horrors she had witnessed, but whether because of this, or in spite of it, she seemed mature beyond her years.

If only they could all be that way, he thought grimly. Of the first set of newcomers, only AJ had really contributed to life on the base – another pleasant surprise to Kevin, given his rough exterior. Kevin knew himself to be judgmental; he expected things to be a certain way and was automatically wary of anything that went against the norm, and AJ, with his too many tattoos and too-cool attitude, was one who certainly did. AJ was an artist, an addict, practically an anarchist – uncouth, undisciplined, and unpredictable. He was the last person Kevin would, under normal circumstances, entrust a gun and expect to conform to military training. But while everything around them was deteriorating, AJ seemed to be thriving in this new, zombie-infested world. He had quickly risen through the unofficial ranks to become Kevin’s right-hand man, his best soldier, the major to his lieutenant colonel. Though they were opposites in many ways, Kevin admired AJ’s courage and candor and thought he could understand, at times such as this, why he was so willing to take on extra sniper duty, just to escape the chapel for awhile. In that respect, they were not so different after all.

His eyes searched the landscape around him, alert for signs of movement on the horizon – either zombies, following the scent of his flesh on the breeze, or AJ and the two younger women, returning from target practice. They had been gone an hour now, and he hoped being forced out into the open, with the threat of the undead heightened, would be enough to scare Kayleigh into learning how to defend herself. She was a skinny girl, not strong, but in shape; she would have no problem wielding a weapon, if she would only try. Kevin had trained plenty of young women her size in the Air Force; the only difference between them and her was their strength of mind, a quality Kayleigh lacked. She seemed determined to stay weak, the constant damsel in distress. In that respect, she was as stubborn as Howie, and almost as infuriating.

Howie seemed eager enough to defend himself, but he was too arrogant to learn the proper way to do so. He was a man who liked to be in control, in charge, and he didn’t take direction well. Accustomed to men who followed orders from higher officers without question, Kevin was not used to being challenged. Just as Kayleigh was determined to stay helpless, Howie seemed determined to prove he could learn without being taught. On their trips to the shooting range, he ignored Kevin’s advice and, as a result, continued to waste precious seconds lining up his shot, trying to get his aim perfect, which led to him firing too late and missing his target completely. To make matters worse, he panicked at the first moan of a zombie, and Kevin feared that even if he did learn to aim and shoot quickly, he would still freeze up when confronted with a lurching, undead target.

The latest pair of arrivals showed more promise. Nick had shot well on his first trip out. He had never fired a real gun before that morning, he’d told Kevin, but he was a skilled video gamer, and it showed in his hand-eye coordination. When he took the time to line up his shot, his aim was excellent. Unlike Howie, though, he spent little time actually aiming. He was quick to pull the trigger, but his shooting was chaotic, inconsistent. With some practice, though, Kevin was confident Nick would become a capable defender. He, at least, was willing to learn.

He hoped Riley would be the same way, though he worried, too, about her stubbornness. She was tough to read, even harder to predict. When she and Nick had arrived, she’d been quiet, withdrawn. Her explosion at Kayleigh earlier had come without warning, and even now, it left Kevin unsettled. Riley was a firecracker with a short fuse who had gone off in a small space, surrounded by people who were already on edge. He knew what dissention in the ranks could do to a regiment’s morale, and he worried that if tempers flared and arguments like the one this morning continued, their precariously united group would fracture. He hoped, as AJ had, that both women would work out their emotions on the skeet range.

In the meantime, he massaged his temple with his free hand and tried to enjoy the temporary solitude. It was a beautiful day; the sky was blue, the sun was shining, and a coastal breeze was blowing, bringing with it the fishy, salty scent of the Gulf. If only it were enough to mask the stench of decay that had thickened throughout the base, as bodies, both dead and undead, began to rot in the heat and humidity, without which Kevin might have been able to pretend it was just another typical day.

If he’d counted the days correctly, it was a Friday afternoon. Normally, he’d be looking forward to the weekend – a break from the physical therapy that had kept him here on the base to recuperate from his injury, a chance to get off the base and go out, see the sites western Florida had to offer, or just relax. Now, weekends were meaningless. Time itself was meaningless. It didn’t matter if it was Friday or Monday, day or night; they had to be on alert at all hours, ready to defend themselves against the constant threat of the living dead.

Again, Kevin’s eyes panned the horizon. A distant rumble drew his attention in the direction of the front gate, which was out of his range of sight. He strained his ears, listening. Unless it was just the shuffling feet of a massive horde of zombies, that sounded like something that was running – a motor. He hated to get his hopes up, but it had happened twice before, first with Howie’s purple Lexus and then Nick’s pink Barbie car. Could it be that another carload of living people had found their way to the base?

Forgetting his headache, Kevin jammed his hand into his pocket, fumbling around for the keys to the Humvee. He came up empty and remembered that AJ had driven Riley and Kayleigh down to the skeet range in it. Looking around, his eyes darted between the only two vehicles in the front lot – the purple Lexus and the pink Beetle.

Sighing, he turned to open the one unfortified entrance to the church. “It’s just me!” he called in at once, announcing himself. “Hey, Howie! Can I borrow your car?”

Howie hesitated; at first, there was no response. Then Kevin heard a reluctant, “Uh… well-”

He rolled his eyes. “Nick?” he shouted, cutting Howie off. “Key to the Barbie car, please?”

Nick was there at once, keys dangling from the keyless entry in his hand, a questioning expression on his face. “What’s up?”

“I think I heard another car. I wanna go meet it. Thanks,” Kevin added, grabbing the keys from Nick. “Watch the chapel, will ya?”

“Sure thing,” replied Nick.

Kevin smiled; at least one of them was agreeable. “Be back,” he said, darting out of the church. He aimed the keyless entry at the flowery, pink Beetle and heard a honk and a click as the locks disarmed. His legs protested as he squeezed himself into the driver’s seat, jamming his knees beneath the dash. Turning the key in the ignition, he heard the engine sputter to life and the sound of Michael Jackson’s voice through the speakers, singing, “Thriller… thriller night… so let me hold you tight and share a killer thriller, ow!”

Kevin shook his head, stifling a chuckle. “Really?” he muttered aloud and then shrugged. “Guess it fits.”

He turned the volume down and pulled out of the parking lot. The pink sunflower drooping over the bud vase in the dashboard swayed as the convertible putted up Bayshore Boulevard. Just a short ways up the road, Kevin spotted the metallic glimmer of the hood of the other vehicle, approaching slowly. He honked the horn in excitement and frowned in bewilderment at the feeble “meep!” that sounded from the Beetle. Changing his mind, he slowed to a stop and put the car into park, letting the engine idle as the other vehicle grew near.

It was a pick-up truck, he saw, though with the sun reflecting off the windshield, he couldn’t make out the faces of the people inside. The truck rolled to a stop in its own lane, and the driver’s side door opened. A man jumped down from the big truck, temporarily obscured by the open door, but when he straightened up and stepped out from behind the door, Kevin’s jaw dropped open.

“Brian?!” He scrambled out of the Beetle, practically spilling out onto the road as his long legs tangled together, shouting his cousin’s name all the while. “Brian!”

A familiar figure was running towards him, until the two men collided in a crushing hug. “I can’t believe it’s really you,” Kevin murmured, tightening his arms around his cousin’s bony frame.

“Me neither,” replied Brian, squeezing him back fiercely. “I came here on a chance; I didn’t know where else to go... but I didn’t think you would really…” He trailed off, but Kevin knew how the sentence ended.

“Most of the base is dead,” he replied. “There are a few other survivors who’ve made it here. How about Leighanne and the girls?” He looked over Brian’s shoulder to see the passenger side door opening, but the woman who climbed out of the truck was not Brian’s wife. Kevin glanced down as Brian’s gaze flickered up to meet his, and his heart sunk as he noticed the sheen of tears in his cousin’s blue eyes. Brian’s adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed, but he didn’t speak. He just shook his head.

“Oh Bri…” he whispered, and pulled Brian back into another hug, patting his back awkwardly. “I’m sorry.” He pictured Brian’s twin girls, his own nieces, and his heart broke for his cousin.

Brian pulled out of the hug and straightened again, clearing his throat. When the truck door slammed shut, he glanced over his shoulder to see the woman approaching timidly and beckoned her over. “Kev, this is Gretchen,” he introduced his companion, as she came up alongside him. To her, he said, “Meet my cousin, Kevin.”

Gretchen’s blue eyes widened in a mixture of disbelief and delight. “Wow!” she exclaimed. “It’s so nice to meet you! To meet anyone, really… but especially you. We… we didn’t know if we’d find anyone alive down here, let alone you. We haven’t seen a living soul since we left Atlanta.”

“There are a few others here,” Kevin repeated to her. “You guys’ll make it ten.”

“Are there... you know… any of them here, too?” Gretchen asked, looking around apprehensively.

Kevin knew to what she was referring. “Unfortunately, yes,” he replied. “We’ve been going out practically every day, taking out as many as we can, but the base is huge; we won’t get them all for awhile. That said, we should head to the chapel – that’s where we’re staying, for now. It’s as secure as anywhere.” When they nodded, he added, “Just follow me in your truck.”

“Nice ride, Kev,” Brian remarked sarcastically, as Kevin turned to head back to the pink Beetle. He didn’t have to look back to know that his cousin was smirking. He responded by waving his middle finger over his shoulder.

Crap, he realized, as he opened the door to the Barbie car. I just flipped off a minister. “Sorry Lord,” he muttered out loud, as he climbed in, glancing up at the canvas top. “And thanks… thanks for sparing my cousin, and for sending him here.”

He threw the car back into drive and pulled a U-turn, and when he glanced up into the rearview mirror, the truck was behind him. Brian and Gretchen tailed him, as he led the way back to the chapel.

When they reached the parking lot in front, Kevin saw the Humvee parked there. That meant AJ, Riley, and Kayleigh were back. He parked the Beetle two spaces down, leaving a spot for Brian’s truck. He grabbed his gun from the passenger seat before climbing out, looking around for any zombies that may have followed the others back. Brian and Gretchen climbed down from the truck, also wary.

“Looks clear, for now!” called a voice, and they all turned to see Nick standing just outside the church door, armed with a gun. “A few of ‘em followed AJ and the girls back, but we took ‘em out.” Looking around, Kevin could see fresh – or recently dead, anyway – corpses littering the grass. “So hey, more people!” Nick exclaimed, grinning at the new arrivals.

“My cousin, Brian,” said Kevin, slinging an arm around Brian’s shoulders. “And this here is Gretchen. Gretchen, Brian, meet Nick. He just got here yesterday.”

“Nice to meet you,” said Gretchen at the same time Nick said, “Welcome.” Brian merely nodded his greeting.

“We’ve got some supplies,” Brian spoke up, motioning to the truck bed. “Should we unload them now, or…?”

“Yeah, might as well do it now, while there’s no zombies around.” Kevin hurried to lower the tailgate. With Nick’s help, they were able to unload everything – bags of food, clothes, guns, blankets, and other survival supplies – and carry it into the chapel in one trip.

“We’ve got more newbies!” Nick announced, as Kevin secured the door shut behind them.

Gabby came scurrying out of the sanctuary to see the new arrivals, Jo and Riley behind her. A flurry of chatter rose in the entryway, as introductions was made, the women hugging, Brian shaking hands. Gabby led them into the sanctuary to meet the others. Kevin noticed Kayleigh and AJ slouched in opposite corners, leading him to wonder how their training session had gone. They both glanced up at the group’s noisy entrance, but neither of them got up. Howie came right down from the altar, his hand outstretched pompously, to greet the newcomers. Kevin led another round of introductions.

Gabby offered to take Brian and Gretchen on a quick tour of the chapel, while Jo set to work organizing the new supplies, adding them to the inventory of what they already had. While this was going on, Kevin slipped off to AJ’s corner and sank down beside him. “How’d everything go?” he asked in a low voice, with a pointed look toward Kayleigh.

AJ snorted. “About like you’d expect. I guess I should be congratulated on the fact that neither of them shot each other. And Kayleigh did have a gun in her hand.”

Kevin smirked. “Did you get her to actually pull the trigger?”

“Once or twice. She’s a terrible shot, but I don’t think she was really trying. She wants to suck at it. She wants us to think she’s so bad at it, we’ll never put her on sniper duty.”

Kevin nodded. “Sounds about right. How about Riley?”

“She’s good. Real good, for a chick. Once she quit bitching at Kayleigh, she was fine.”

“Good. Thanks for taking them.”

“No problem, man.” There was a long pause, and then AJ added, “Thanks… thanks for trusting me to.”

Kevin was surprised at the hesitancy in his voice. He smiled and clapped AJ’s shoulder. “Sure. If anyone could’ve gotten Kayleigh to shoot a gun, I knew you could.”

AJ snorted again. “So,” he changed the subject, “that guy Brian, he’s your cousin?”

“Yeah, from Georgia. He came here on the off chance that I might still be alive, or at least that the base would be a safe zone.”

“That’s pretty lucky.”

“I know. What are the chances, right?” Kevin’s voice dropped to a whisper, as he added, “His family didn’t make it, though. I don’t know the details… don’t know if he’s ready to talk, or if I even wanna know… but he had a wife and kids… two little girls…”

“So the chick with him – she’s not his wife?”

“No.”

“That sucks, dude.”

Kevin nodded, and another awkward silence fell. When Gabby returned from the tour with Brian and Gretchen in tow, he stood up and motioned for AJ to follow. “Come on, man, come join the group.” Even Kayleigh slunk over from her secluded corner to sit on the outskirts of the cluster, as they all settled down into a section of pews together.

“So you two came all the way from Georgia?” asked Riley, surveying the newest additions to their group. “No wonder it took you so long to get here; it took me and Nick forever just to get across town!”

“Yeah, we only traveled by day…” Gretchen explained. “We stayed a couple of nights in abandoned houses, and we got held up for three days at a gas station. We kept having to switch vehicles for fuel; the gas pumps won’t work with the power down.”

“We’ve got good generators here,” supplied Kevin, “so it won’t be a problem, at least not for awhile.”

“Good weapons too, I bet,” added Gretchen. “We just have a couple of hunting rifles we took from a farmhouse… although your cousin showed me how to make a Molotov cocktail. That’s how we finally escaped the gas station; we were surrounded! Pretty impressive, for a music teacher.” She grinned at Brian, who didn’t quite meet her eyes as he flashed a quick smile back. He cast a furtive glance at Kevin, who stared back at him in confusion. Why had he lied to Gretchen about his occupation?

“You’re a music teacher?” Nick spoke up. “Rock on, man. We need another music lover up in here. Riley gets annoyed by my singing.” He stuck his tongue out at Riley, who rolled her eyes in response, grinning the whole time.

Brian chuckled, but the sound seemed forced. “Yeah? You work in music, too?”

“No… not really. I don’t really… work,” Nick replied awkwardly. “I mean, I’m sorta… between jobs. Or I was, at least, before all this shit went down. Guess it doesn’t matter now, does is? Money’s worthless.”

“Fine with me,” AJ chimed in. “Doesn’t matter now what class anyone is – or was, I should say. We’re all equals now – no one’s better than anyone else just because they’ve got more money.” Kevin noticed that his gloating smile seemed directed mostly at Howie, who looked disgruntled.

“So what did everyone else do, before last Friday?”

“Infernal Friday, I’ve been calling it in my head,” interjected Riley. “The day the world went to Hell. I was gonna use it in my news report – you know, play up the drama. As if the situation needed to be any more dramatic.” She rolled her eyes at herself, her cheeks flushing.

“Infernal Friday… I like that,” said Gretchen, offering a grim smile. “So you’re a reporter?”

“I was.” Riley put on her news anchor voice. “This is Riley Blake, for Channel Three News…”

AJ smirked. “I’ve seen you on TV.”

“Me too,” added Kevin, as a sudden realization dawned. He hadn’t recognized Riley without her makeup and hair done, but now he remembered her as the reporter who had toured the base just a couple of weeks earlier for a report on the new jet prototypes being tested at MacDill. “You interviewed me.”

Riley smiled. “That’s right. Small world, huh?”

“I’d say so.”

“So what do you do, Gretchen?”

“I’m a teacher. Third grade,” added Gretchen, and there was a sadness in her voice. Kevin thought of all the military children who had died on the base, and of Brian’s daughters.

Then Howie said, “That’s the grade my son was in. He was nine.”

Everyone looked at him. To Kevin, it looked as if they were all as surprised as he was. Only Kayleigh did not react. No one else, it seemed, had known that Howie was a father. He had never mentioned having a child. They noticed his use of past tense, though, and for a few seconds, no one spoke, for no one knew what to say.

It was Brian who broke the silence. “My twin girls were seven. First grade.”

Howie met his gaze with sympathy. “What were their names?” he asked quietly.

“Bonnie and Brooke.” Brian’s voice was shaky. “How about your son?”

“Bartholomew. We called him Bart, or Barty, for short. I was supposed to have him for the weekend, but…” Howie trailed off, shaking his head. Then he cleared his throat. “In any case,” he went on briskly, changing the subject, “I’m the CEO of a major corporation, Dorough International, which owns and manages over a hundred hotels worldwide.”

“Hm… too bad. It looks like this zombie crisis is really gonna put a damper on travel and tourism,” remarked AJ in mock seriousness. “You might have to lower your room rates… or at least bump up the amenities. Personally, I always thought the continental breakfast could be a lot better, don’t you?”

“Would you like to tell the others what it is you do?” snapped Howie. “Or should I say, don’t do?”

“Sure.” AJ’s tone was as cool as Howie’s was hot. “I don’t drink anymore. I don’t do drugs anymore. Before Howard here was hospitable enough to offer me a ride in his Lexus, I was an unemployed, starving artist in rehab. So there you have it: I’m a loser. Make you feel better about your own life?”

Howard scowled. AJ smirked. Nick spoke up, “Actually… yeah – it does me. Good to know I’m not the only loser in the bunch. Like I said, I was unemployed. I wanted to be an actor, but all I ended up doing was waiting tables in Hollywood for eight years, before I gave up and moved back here to live with my parents. Look up ‘loser’ in the dictionary, and you’ll see my picture.” He smiled good-naturedly, but Kevin could see the sting in his eyes.

“At least you followed your dreams,” put in Jo, smiling at Nick. “It’s just so hard to make ends meet in this economy, especially in a field as fickle as entertainment. There’s no shame in working as a waiter.”

“Thanks.” Nick looked pleased. “So what do you do, Jo?”

“I’m an ER nurse. You don’t remember, do you?”

“Huh?” Nick blinked, taken by surprise. “Me?”

Jo smiled patiently. “Speaking of it being a small world… I treated your head wound last week, Mr. Carter.”

Everyone looked at Nick, who appeared bewildered. “You did? I don’t remember…”

“Short-term memory loss is a common side effect of a head injury like yours. You were in and out of consciousness for several days; I’m not surprised you don’t remember,” Jo explained.

“Sorry,” said Nick. “I remember getting into it with some douchebag frat boy-” Kayleigh suddenly looked up. “-and then I blacked out, and the next thing I knew, I was waking up in a deserted hospital.”

“Very 28 Days Later,” AJ put in.

Gabby shuddered. “Ooh, that movie was scary! Do you think that’s what caused this? Like, something like the pure rage virus in that movie?”

“I haven’t seen the movie… and I’m not sure you should have seen it either,” said Jo, frowning at her daughter, “but it was definitely some sort of virus, spread through the air…”

“The Osiris Virus.” Kayleigh spoke out of the blue. All of them turned to look at her. Blushing, she elaborated, “After Osiris, the Egyptian god of the underworld. He was brought back from the dead.”

“It’s a cool name,” said AJ, with a nod in Kayleigh’s direction.

Kayleigh actually smiled, still looking a little embarrassed. “I… I’m a history major at UCF; I’ve studied ancient Egypt,” she explained. “I just thought it would be a good name for… you know… the virus.”

“It does have a ring,” Gretchen agreed, with an awkward chuckle. “There’s probably some official sciencey name for it, but that works for me.”

“Well,” Jo spoke again, “whatever it’s called, this virus – the Osiris Virus – was definitely airborne. All of the patients at the hospital died of it, even the ones who were admitted for other reasons. All of them, except… you.” She looked directly at Nick, still frowning. “I… I’m ashamed to say I left you for dead, Nick. I wonder why you didn’t get it. Or why I didn’t.”

“Why any of us didn’t,” Kevin spoke up. “It was the same way at the base. You know,” he added, to Jo. “Everyone without a gas mask died within a day, except for me. Why didn’t I get sick when I took my mask off?”

“I dunno why I didn’t get it either,” said AJ. “Everyone else at the rehab center had already kicked the bucket when I decided to bounce.”

“It was the same way at the college,” added Howie, and Kayleigh nodded solemnly.

“Maybe it’s something in our genes,” Gabby suggested, her brown eyes lighting up with this apparent revelation. “You know, like, our DNA! Think about it – my mom and me are both fine, and so are Kevin and Brian, and they’re related!”

Howie raised his eyebrows, looking impressed with the thirteen-year-old. “She could be on to something. Maybe we all have an inherited resistance, an immunity.”

“If it’s inherited, how do you explain our whole families dying?” asked Riley. “My dad, my brothers… all dead. How could I be the only one in my family with some kind of genetic resistance?”

Howie’s paused, pressing his lips into a thin line. “Not everything gets passed on,” he answered finally.

They were quiet for a moment, all of them deep in thought. Then Gretchen said, “Shawn would have answers. My husband. He works for the CDC in Atlanta. He was sent up to Maryland to study the virus after the first outbreak. I haven’t heard from him since Saturday, though… the cell phones are out of service. Hey!” Her eyes widened suddenly, as she looked at Kevin. “You don’t have a way to contact Fort Detrick, do you? He might still be there, at USAMRIID.”

“Sorry,” said Kevin. “The only means of communication we’ve got here is radio. I’ve been broadcasting over an AM frequency – that’s how most of the others knew to come here – but I don’t think the signal is strong enough to reach all the way up to Maryland.”

“Oh.” Gretchen sighed. “Oh well… He’s probably already left there, anyway. We should keep broadcasting. Maybe when he gets far enough south, he’ll hear the message and come here.”

If he’s still alive, thought Kevin grimly, but of course, he didn’t say it. He caught a look from Brian that told him his cousin had been thinking the same thing. “We’ll keep broadcasting,” he assured her. “If there are ten of us, there may be more. And in the meantime, we’ll need to secure the base, and get rid of all the zombies. It’ll be easier, now that we have more numbers.”

“It will be nice to get out of this church,” said Jo, and Riley nodded in agreement, with a sour look towards Kayleigh. “For today, though, we should rest. You two have had a long trip,” Jo added, to Brian and Gretchen. “We’re so glad to have you here.”

“Thank God,” Kevin agreed, slinging his arm around Brian’s shoulders. He felt Brian stiffen and gave his cousin a searching look.

Gretchen smiled and replied, “We’re so glad to finally be here, too.” But Brian just nodded once and said nothing, avoiding Kevin’s questioning eyes.

***