The Dead zone In the wake of Covid-19 a new pestilence spread through the land, bringing with it famine, destruction, and desolation to many once thriving and populated areas.  Some had called it War other had called it Utter Stupidity.  Regardless, there was one aspect on which all seemed to agree.  The dead in those dead zones didn't seem to stay dead.  Like restless wraiths doom to wander in ceaseless search of something they could not find, they shambled about, seldom straying beyond those haunting grounds that seemed to call them up.  Not every night, but mostly when the moon was full, or the night sky clear and bright, than they would stir.   No one knew it better than her, and those like her.  Zone Riders.  Lone warriors, who, for various reasons, had signed on to ride the wastelands and secure the borders between Zombie-land and People-land, as the officials who employed their services like to colorfully distinguish between the places where the undead were said to walk the earth and the living lived in mortal dread that they would one day come to avenge themselves, in mass, upon them for having made it so.  In truth, they seldom bothered her, so most of the time she just let them be. There was only so much ammo she could carry on her at one time, and it was best to conserve it for when it was most needed.  Actually it was the tourist and the hunters who gave her more trouble.   The tourist, because most of these came in large numbers as part of sanctioned guided tours through the wasteland, and were annoying and ask her questions and took pictures, and their flashes had a disturbing effect on the inhabitants, and, invariably a few always strayed away from their guide and the rest of the group into areas where they shouldn't.  Sometimes not returning.  Then there was all that paperwork.  The hunters however were worse.  They liked to engage in what they called zombie baiting, where they would flash their lights and make a lot of noise and movement to get the inhabitants stirred up, and then start taking pot shots at them. All the while laughing and drinking and having a merry o' time.  But it was illegal. The officials didn't want the inhabitants stirred up like that, perhaps out of fear of what it might lead to, since they did seem to have some sort of dim awareness.  So, it was part of her job to run the poachers off.  And sometimes that lead to hostilities, with them taking pots shots at her, and her having to return fire.  At that point, the hunters, who didn't clear out fast enough, usually ended up being zombie bait of a different kind. With her having a bunch more paper work to fill out and to send into the company. That was not to say that the inhabitants were totally peaceful and didn't cause her problems at times as well.  Now and then, one would go rogue and try to cross out of the zone, or would come at her, and she'd have to put it down.  And, every so often, for reasons not fully understood, they all got restless, as a sort of almost hunger came on them, and they would start coming at her in droves.  They didn't actually eat the living, they just tore at them, until they were in shreds.  And left the remains, for the actual carrion creatures that scavenged those wastelands to devour, while they shambled away.  Perhaps it was some sort of rage or hate or retaliation against the living.  No one knew for sure what it was that set them off like that.  But whatever it was, that's when it paid to have lots of ammo, as she usually had to put them down by the score, when they got like that.   It seemed tonight was going be one of those nights.  A restless night.  A busy night for her, in the Dead Zone.