“Nathan is with the girls. Skeeter and Scarlet went down the road.”
“Clearing?” I asked.
Bryce nodded.
“Just the two of them? After what happened?”
“I’m going with them. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
I took a deep breath. “I know Scarlet feels like she needs to do this, but I think it’s time we accept that her girls aren’t coming. It’s been nearly four months now.”
Bryce shrugged. “I don’t know. It took Nate and Coop almost all day to cross fifteen miles. That’s a long way for two little girls if they’re on foot. I think if they don’t make it by winter, we can call it.”
“That’s a long time to let her hope.”
“Not long enough, if you ask me.” He kissed my forehead. “See you soon.”
“Be careful.”
I watched Bryce leave, jogging to catch up to Scarlet and Skeeter, who were already out of sight down the road. My stomach felt like it dropped, and I wondered if it was a good idea for him to be alone at all, even for the few minutes it would take him to join Scarlet and Skeeter.
Once Bryce was over the hill, I pushed the door open, and noticed the ladder against the roof. One hand after another, I climbed to the top, seeing Joey sitting on the seam with a hunting rifle, a box of ammunition, and what I was sure was my father’s best scope.
“Want some company?” I asked.
Joey looked up to the sun and squinted. “Always.”
I sat down, but could see the bottom part of Cooper’s grave, so I moved closer to the middle of the house. Nathan was by Butch’s pen with the girls, watching them talk to the bull. He looked away only long enough to take a quick glance around, and then his eyes were on them again.
“Zoe seems okay. It’s kind of weird,” Joey said.
“I don’t think she’s like us.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think she’s a little different, that’s all.”
Joey nodded. “Nathan is a saint. I’m glad he and Scarlet have each other.”
I smiled. “Me, too.”
He glanced around, in every direction, and then pointed. “Look.”
There was a single tree in the middle of the north field. A group of birds that were perched took off, all at once, from the branches. Joey looked through his scope and cocked his rifle. “There are four of them. You see?”
I narrowed my eyes; the wheat was now tall and golden, nearly ready for harvest. In the tall crop, it was easy to see a ted stumble through it. I looked at Joey. I could see three heads, and wheat moving around a shorter fourth. It was either a very petite person, or a child. “You can see them? They’re teds, right, not humans?”
“Definitely teds.”
“You got it?”
“I got it,” he said, cocking his rifle.
One.
Two.
Three.
And after a pause, four.
Joey looked up from the scope, took another quick look through it at the area, and then put his rifle in his lap.
Nathan gathered the girls and yelled to Joey from the ground.
“Clear?”
“Clear,” Joey called back.
“You see Scarlet?”
“No.”
Nathan seemed frustrated. Cooper’s death had been a reality check for us all. None of us could talk Scarlet out of clearing because there was no way to argue with her reasoning, but it was still a huge risk.
Joey wiped his forehead with a dirty rag. We were baking up there, even under the partial shade of the oak tree. Joey leaned back, supporting himself with his hands. His index finger brushed my pinky, and then he intertwined all of his fingers in mine. We didn’t acknowledge it or talk; we just sat there, soaked with sweat and content that for a moment we didn’t have to pretend.
Scarlet
“HEADS UP!” SKEETER YELLED.
We were downwind, and it was easy to smell the rotting corpses as they approached. This time, though, the smell was exceptionally bad. At first I thought it was because we were nearing the hottest part of summer, but then I saw them.
Skeeter laughed once. “Blackened and crispy fried. Like Nathan’s fried chicken!”
“They don’t smell like chicken,” Bryce said, revolted.
We hadn’t even reached the highway when we ran into a small herd. They were coming from the south, and as I was busy slamming down the hatchet into the tops of skulls and the sides of faces, I wondered why we were seeing so many more of them. We had been clearing for weeks; it didn’t make sense for there to be more on the road, and that frustrated the hell out of me.
Skeeter and Bryce helped me pull the rotting bodies to the ditch. It was a rule I’d made when we started. It was too much work to bury them, and too risky to pile them and burn the bodies because of the heat, wind, and lack of rain in the last month. I just didn’t want the girls to have to walk over them as they made their way to the ranch.
I stood up, breathing hard and wiping the dirt and sweat from my face. “I think they’re coming from Shallot.”
“I was thinkin’ the same thing,” Skeeter said. “These guys must have gotten too close to the gas station fire.”
Bryce jerked his head to the south. “The fire must be out, and they don’t have anything attracting them to town anymore.”
“And they’re starving,” I said, nodding to another small herd trudging down the highway less than a quarter mile away. They were skin and bones. I wasn’t sure if they actually needed to eat, or if it was just the natural state of decay, but they definitely looked starved. “Look at them. Maybe they’ll eventually fall apart, or their bodies will give out from lack of nutrition.”
“That’s a promising thought,” Skeeter said. “But I wouldn’t count on it. Them ones we just cleared were burnt to a crisp. They were still walkin’.”
“They’re headed north,” Bryce said. “Let’s just let them pass.”
I shook my head. “Maybe someone saw the one that got Cooper and let it pass. We’re putting them all down. As many as we can.”
Nathan
I PACED THE LIVING ROOM WHILE dinner cooked, checking the doorway every few seconds for any sign of them. My emotions bounced from worried, to angry, to frustrated, to panicked.
“They’ll be back anytime now,” Miranda assured me. “Dinner’s burning.”
I ran to the laundry room and out the side door to the grill. “Damn it!” I said, pulling the chicken off with my bare hands. I licked my burning fingers, and shook my hand, as if that would help.
Miranda stood at the doorway. “I know it’s hard for you, watching her put herself in danger like this.”
I took a quick glance around our surroundings. Looking over my shoulder was a habit I’d developed; I wasn’t sure at what point I’d started doing it, but it happened every time I was outside, like a tick. “Bryce is out there, too . . . and Joey.”
Miranda’s cheeks flushed, and she looked behind her before coming all the way outside. “Is it that obvious?” I
