- Sounds dumb. Isn't.

  - If the windows are barred, your door is the only way in and out.

  - Zombies don’t knock. You don’t want to be fumbling with a deadbolt when they come to visit.

  - [Jules’ Edit]: He means don’t lock yourself in. Lock them out. Semantics, but important ones.

  ---

  It was a roadside diner. Red vinyl booths, rusting napkin holders, smell of syrup and mold still hanging in the air. We were low on water and energy, and it looked like a good place to rest for the night.

  Jules insisted we barricade the door. “Only one way in means one way we have to guard.”

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  I disagreed. Hard.

  “Only one way out if it goes bad,” I told her. “We need options.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You and your exits. You planning to escape from me too?”

  It was a joke. Probably. But it made me pause.

  In the end, I let her have this one. She dragged a booth up to the front door, wedged it in tight. The kind of barricade that looked great in theory.

  At 3 a.m., the theory failed.

  Something had followed our scent. It wasn’t a horde. Just four or five, clawing at the windows, slapping the walls like they were testing the place.

  One of them—tall, pale, missing half its jaw—started trying the door.

  And it wasn’t dumb. It remembered what doors were for.

  The barricade held... for a while. But not long enough.

  By the time Jules and I grabbed our gear, the thing had pushed halfway through, dragging splinters with it. I had to slam it back with a fire extinguisher just to buy us time.

  Jules brought out her revolver. I tried to stop her. But she got a shot out quickly.

  She hit the jawless zombie up front right through the noggin. It fell limp on the booth. The zombies behind it started climbing through. The gunshot noise definitely got the attention of a couple more zombies.

  We escaped out the kitchen, climbed the back freezer like a ladder and dropped into the alley through a sizable exhaust window after I kicked the fan through.

  After we caught our breath, I looked at her. “Still think one door’s enough?”

  She didn’t answer.

  She didn’t have to.