Back From The Dead: My Apocalypse Level-up System novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: The Gate Scene

Brent's friends piled out of the trucks and lined up along my gate in the headlights.

There were eleven of them, men and two women, holding beer bottles and flashlights.

I knew most of them.

I had gone to their weddings.

Brent stood in front with a bottle in his hand and his sales-floor grin.

Down the road, two neighbors had come out onto their porches to see what the noise was.

"Devon," Brent called. "Come on. Open up. We're not here to fight."

"Then why are there eleven of you?"

"We're here to talk like adults." He turned to his friends with his arms out. "She's been under a lot of stress. She's cut off everybody. She's buying thousands of dollars of supplies and hiding on a farm. I think someone's got to step in."

Murmurs went down the line.

"I think she's depressed," one of them said.

"I think she needs help," said another.

They were nice people.

That was the worst part.

They believed him, because I used to.

Conroy stood a step behind me with the rifle low.

Hattie stood on my other side with a pipe wrench in her hand and her chin up.

I felt very calm.

It was the calm of someone who has already died once and knows the worst.

"Brent," I said. "You left something at the farm store."

I held up his phone.

His grin went stiff.

"Give me that."

"It's been ringing for three days." I stepped up to the gate and held the screen so the lamp lit it. "Lacey calls it a lot."

"Devon."

"Your friends should hear what you two say about them."

"Don't," he said. His voice cracked on the word.

I turned the phone toward the headlights and read aloud, clearly, so every person at the gate could hear.

"Lacey says: Is she gone yet?"

Nobody moved.

"Brent says: Almost. Another week and she'll be begging us to move in."

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