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at this time.  God help us all. We will broadcast each night at 8:00 p.m. for as long as we can.” 
    Next, the governor came on.  Her message was the same, but on a more local level.  She had imposed martial law and started to set up refugee camps; like the feds, they were not ready yet.  She told us that the government was not functioning and that the National Guard was in charge locally but would defer to active duty military under federal control.  Local police, fire, and medical services had been directed to cooperate with the Guard and were complying.  Like the President, her words were somber.  The transmission cut out before she finished.
    My Mom spoke up.  “Let’s talk about tomorrow.  I think we should send out teams to check all of the houses in the neighborhood for survivors and supplies.  Any survivors should be quarantined in the garage for 24 hours.  We should block off the street so that more zombies don’t find us by accident.”
    My kids and I waited until midnight, then immediately let Kate and the animals in.  Thank God! Bobbie immediately fell in love with Shithead.

Chapter Seven:  Monday
    The next morning we went out early in two teams.  One team was Jake and me.  A second team was Kate and Steve.  Steve, Jake and Julie seemed solid and capable so we’d decided to fully accept them and get them to work.
    Julie, Mike, and Mom were in charge of security at the house.  Bobbie would stay on the phones and the internet, Tyler and Cody would monitor the radios, and Mary agreed to cook for everyone.  Sean would communicate with us over the walkie talkies.  We all had breakfast together and moved out.
    We decided to go out on foot and scavenge vehicles as we went. We hoped to grab more bikes as well.  The teams agreed to cover one another; one team would cover and the other would enter.  The teams and Sean were on channel 4.
    We started at the Dillon/Snow end of the street.  The carnage out on Chestnut Street was incredible, as was the stench of rotten meat.  A few zombies were still moving, so I finished them with my crowbar.  The fire had not gone far, just a few trees in addition to the car and the mower.
    We decided to check the Dillon house and grab their vehicles to block the street.  The house was a mess, but totally empty.  We hung out with the Dillons all the time and knew where they kept their keys. 
    Jasper Dillon drove an older Ford pickup and Betty drove a new Mercedes SUV.  We parked them side by side in the middle of our street, facing out, with the keys under the mats.  Zombies would never find or use the keys and we figured that we might use the cars for a quick getaway or that other survivors might steal them, which would be okay. We parked them within an inch of each other so that zombies could not get through. We busted out the back windows, since that’s how we’d have to get in.
    We found some water and supplies in the Dillon house and put them on the front yard to load later.  There were no weapons but we did grab some hand tools including a few saws and tree trimmers.  Apparently, they were going to build a fence and we found a few rolls of chain link mesh, poles and connectors and moved those out front as well.  We also found several rolls of wire.
    The Snows had an old 4 door pickup parked outside their garage.  The keys were in the safe, which I opened.  We quickly loaded it up with the Dillon stuff, the contents of the safe, and all of the food and water that we could carry.  More was left to remove later.   
    The Snows were ham radio operators.  Their shortwave setup looked pretty expensive and several licenses were posted on the walls.  There were a few manuals and notebooks on the desk, so we took those, too.  Ham operators existed all over the world and we hoped to find other survivors, and maybe some help, by using the radio.  With the right radio, antenna, and power supply, a ham in Massachusetts might get through to almost