The zombie lunged at the side of the hole. It clawed the dirt, but it couldn’t get purchase to climb. It snarled. Saliva coated its chin. I tossed the dead rabbit to it, and it tore into the flesh.

Frustrations swelled through me. This was more difficult than I had assumed, but I figured after a week, I would’ve made progress with training a stupid zombie.

The zombie had finished eating. It looked up at me. Was that disappointment in its eyes?

“Maybe we’re going about this the wrong way,” I said. I had been holding out entire dead animals and expecting the zombie to resist. That was a leap. I needed baby steps. I rose and dusted off my jeans.

Back in the base’s reception area, I unpacked the dead animals from the cooler. The stench of dead flesh seared my nose. I gagged and worked faster. Outside, the zombie moaned.

“Patience,” I grumbled.

Blood had congealed in the bottom of the cooler. I ran outside, found a stick, and returned. I swished the end of the stick in the blood. Clots stuck to the end. “All right. Baby steps,” I said as I returned to the hole. I tossed the stick in.

It landed at the zombie’s feet. The zombie looked at me then at the stick. Its nose twitched as it sniffed. A grumble rumbled through it, but the sound was halfhearted.

I smiled broadly. “See? You can do it.” A cold wind blew my hair around my face. Brown leaves skittered across the parking lot. I shivered and wrapped my arms around myself.

The zombie whimpered as it watched me. I swore it looked concerned.

Stomach clenching, I popped to my feet. I was humanizing it too much. Zombies were no longer human. The one below me had left its humanity behind when I put a rope around its neck and killed it.

Guilt flooded me again. I ignored it. I’m not a murderer. It had to be done. The world depended on me training this zombie.

After covering the hole and grabbing my shotgun, I headed away from the base. The streets were empty, and the wind blew debris and leaves across my path. I held my shotgun at the ready and scanned back and forth, hyper-aware of any movement.

Downtown Sault Sainte Marie had been cleared of zombies six months ago. A man-made canal surrounded the area, and the bridges that crossed them had been destroyed. No one could get to or from downtown without a boat. The chance of running into a zombie was nil. I only had my friend because he was a resident of the area and had been alive eight days ago.

Still, I had to be vigilant. Zombies weren’t the lone threat. You never knew how desperate a survivor would be, and you’d be forced to defend your life. In the apocalypse, death was commonplace.

As long as the body was destroyed so it couldn’t rise as a zombie.

My thoughts went to one of the last broadcasts before communications stopped. The deceased had been reanimating as zombies for months. Scientists struggled to figure out why. Eventually, they tracked it down to a virus, one we hadn’t known existed, that infected every person on the planet. Everyone would become a zombie when they died.

We were all doomed.

To save the world, Erin needs a zombie. Every human in the world becomes a zombie when they die. But Erin refuses to accept the world as it is now. She’s heard about a cure locked away in a lab in Upper Michigan, and she plans on retrieving it. To do so, she needs a zombie. Not just any zombie, though. Zee is Erin’s link to the lab. His connection to the living world is her bargaining chip. But only if she can teach him to control his mindless impulses. Can a zombie be trained? Or will Erin be Zee’s next meal and become a zombie herself? The fate of humanity rests in her hands.