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Only one thing was worse than living in a truck on the run from zombies. That was living in a truck during the dead of winter when the temperature was minus eight degrees with a wind chill factor of minus fifty. Peter and Barbara decided to move as far south as possible, and shortly after their adopted son Stephen turned six, Peter drove his brand new Winnebago into the city of Miami on Interstate 95.

Although it was mid-December, the temperature outside remained a balmy 78°F, but Peter noticed a disturbing trend. The farther south he drove, the greater the zombie population escalated at an astonishingly disproportionate rate. As he took a good look at the Miami skyline from the Florida turnpike, he ran over about two dozen walking corpses that clogged the exit ramps, and he started to question the folly of his destination. Peter frequently searched the TV and radio networks in search of wild feeds, and while en route to Atlanta, he heard a rumor that the U.S. Navy had established a refugee shelter in Key West, Florida. And the idea of moving his family to a secluded, fortified island close to the equator once seemed like a terrific idea.

But now, he felt like he was needlessly endangering his wife and son in pursuit of an improbable fantasy. On his last department store raid, he acquired a multi-band radio that could tune into any AM, FM, television, police, and military broadcast channel, yet he discovered that the farther south he drove, the more dead air he found. During those sub-freezing Pennsylvanian winters, Peter imagined south Florida to be a warm, inviting paradise, but this trip was turning into a nightmare.

Peter left the interstate and pulled into the parking lot of a large grocery store. He turned to Barbara and said, "I don't have to remind you that we're low on supplies. But look around. Do you want to take a chance on this place?"

Barbara looked at the dozens of frantic, ravenous zombies rushing toward their Winnebago, and she broke into a cold sweat. Since her first zombie encounter at that cemetery and farmhouse, she thought she'd seen everything, but this place scared the shit out of her. And like Peter, she was also struggling with doubts and recriminations.

Why were there so many goddamn zombies? Did they all migrate down south during the winter, or did this state suffer a freaky, ghastlier death rate? The longer they sat and watched, the faster the parking lot began to pile up. The place reeked with the stench of carrion, and the corpses that surrounded their Winnebago looked like they were decomposing faster than their fellow zombies up north.

Barb thought that might be a good thing. Many of the ghouls were so rotten and decrepit that their limbs fell to pieces whenever they battered themselves against the doors and windows. Barbara thought if they sat in the truck long enough to wait them out, the frenzied zombies would eventually batter themselves into a disintegrating mess. But there were too many of them to afford such a luxury. She and Peter had to work quickly.

As Peter pulled into the grocery store's fire lane, little Stephen already knew the routine. He grabbed a .22 caliber rifle as he climbed onto the roof of the Winnebago through the sunroof. Peter had trained his boy to holler at any zombies that approached the truck, and when the hungry ghouls gazed up at the delicious little morsel taunting them, Stephen would aim his rifle site on the whites of their eyes and fire a bullet into their mushy brains.

Peter and Barb, meanwhile, each armed themselves to the teeth with about eight handheld weapons at easy access to their waists, chests, and calves. They each grabbed a large plastic trash bag, jumped out of the truck, and quickly unfolded the edges of the bags over their shopping carts as they rushed inside the store.

Peter bulleted toward the canned food aisle while Barbara raced toward the pharmacy. Peter crashed his cart into a big, moldering corpse, and the impact was so extreme that he knocked a pile of soft tissue onto the floor. Peter drew his nine-millimeter and fired a single shot through the brute's cranium, and the ogre collapsed in the aisle in a putrid, squishy mess. As he started tossing canned food into the bags in quick succession, every so often he overheard Barbara discharging her weapon in the store.

Barbara had a mental shopping list of everything she needed from the pharmacy, and as she quickly tossed disinfectants, alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, betadine, and antibiotics into the garbage bag, she stopped only long enough to shoot the rotted heads off a few bumbling, ungainly corpses. After ten frenzied minutes, she screamed, "Peter, you ready to check out now?"

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