Coral Deadwater wanted her beach back. The zombies took it three weeks ago, and they still wore the bikinis they died in. She crouched behind a dune now and watched them stagger across the sand where she once sold cold drinks. Sunburned, rotting, and grinning at nothing. She counted forty. That was too many to fight and too many to outrun with a slow pet clamped to her wrist. The pet was a hermit crab. Its shell had gone green and soft with rot, and it smelled like low tide. It clung to her arm and clicked one cracked claw. It was the only thing that came with her when she fled. She kept it because it was hers, and because the horde ignored her when she carried it. Rot knew rot. But she had no place to sleep. Every night she moved, and every night the horde drifted closer. She needed walls. She needed height. She found the tower at the far end of the beach. A lifeguard tower, sun-faded and leaning on rough wooden legs. The paint peeled in strips. The ladder held her weight. She climbed and dragged the crab up after her. Inside the little booth, she found a giant telescope bolted to the floor. Someone had aimed it at the sky long ago. Coral swung the heavy tube down and pointed it at the sand instead. Through the lens she saw every zombie clearly. She saw the way they turned toward sound. She saw the gaps between them. This was it. High ground, and eyes that reached the whole beach. She could spot the horde before it ever reached her ladder. She wedged the door with a broken oar and set the crab in the corner. For the first time in three weeks, she let her shoulders drop. Then a shape moved past the telescope's lens. Not a zombie. Something long and striped, low to the ground, sliding out from under the tower's legs. Coral froze. A sabertooth cat stood in the sand below her ladder. Fangs like curved knives. Green eyes fixed up at her. It did not roar. It made a sound she felt more than heard, a deep rolling purr. It sat, wrapped its tail around its feet, and stared at the ladder. Coral understood. The cat had been living here. The tower was its den. The purring stopped. Below on the beach, forty heads turned at once toward the sound of the big cat. The nearest zombie lurched into a walk. Then another. The horde changed direction and started for the tower. Coral had her safe place at last. But the beast that owned it had just called the whole horde to her door.