Page 44 (1/2)

Prologue

There was once a princess who lived in a ht up shoes and a naughty smile She loved hih theto fall apart and the princess didn’t have much money left in the castle’s treasure room

Although the prince’s father was the court jester, he did not live in the metal castle He lived somewhere else with a neife and baby The princess didn’t like him much The jester could be funny and nice, but he could also be cruel He’d broken her heart once and she vowed to never let hiain

One day, the jester came and claie at his house The princess always missed the little prince when he had to visit the jester, but she knew his father loved hioodbye as the jester carried hie

What she didn’t knoas that it was her final goodbye

The monsters came that day Monsters that were terrible and cruel They turned the good people of the village intoBy the time she understood that evil had taken over her land, it was too late The little prince and the jester were lost

The princess made a solemn vow to find the little prince in his new monster form and free him from the evil spell She learned how to become a hunter and killed the monsters one by one

Finally, one day, the princess found the jester and the prince They were ain when she saw the little prince’s ht up shoes She freed their souls with an arrow of love and sat down and cried until she had no more tears to shed

In the night, she dreael who told her to travel to a fortress on a hill The angel told her that she would find good people there ould help her fight thethe princess packed up all her possessions and left her metal castle

As she traveled, she started to worry she’d iel That maybe she was foolish to follow the dream And then she saw it The fortress on a hill And she knew the angel had told the truth

The princess was ht who helped her onto his horse and carried her through the gates into the fortress Once inside, she saw all the good people ere valiantly fighting the monsters and knew that she had found a sanctuary

The princess - ould now be a monster hunter - had found a place to call home

1

Paperwork of the Dead

“Zoht rule the Earth, but there’s still paperwork to be done”

“I guess things aren’t as different as I thought,” Eed black wo desk “Can I help?”

“No, no Givein” Dressed all in black fro skirt to the scarf draped over her shoulders, the other woman looked far different fro crews outside Though her eyes were a little bloodshot and there were dark circles under her eyes, the woman had taken care to apply a tiny bit of eyeliner on her eyelids and a touch of dark lipstick on her lips Her thick salt-and-pepper curls were pulled up into a poufy bun with a few tendrils clinging to her forehead E since she’d seen another woman that wasn’t a zombie

The old building smelled of mildew, fresh coffee, the woering froh the tall s into the large office that was filled with banker boxes loaded with more files The walls were bare except for two maps - one of Texas and another of the town of Ashley Oaks - a portrait of an older blackup a nae of the desk for Emma to see A fresh label was taped over the previous name It read: Yolanda Williams, City Secretary

E The fan in the corner did little to cool the roo the bottom of her red t-shirt A little nervous in her new environers just to give her so

After living an entire year on her own, Emma was overwhelh walls surrounding several blocks of don Ashley Oaks were i within them was even more so In the shadow of the ten-story hotel, people bustled about doing various chores while sentries walked the high walls The place was called The Fort, and Emma could definitely see why She hadn’t been this safe in over a year It was hard to i these walls

“Found it!” Yolanda held up a ledger with a faded green cover It looked like a relic of another era “Peggy had everything set up on the computer, but I have my paper backups If we ever lose poe’ll need them”

“How do you have power?” E fluorescent lights overhead

“Hydro-electric plant Sooing We have a ton of generators outside in case we do lose power Travis, Juan and Eric have got all the bases covered”