I took my watch post just as dawn was breaking. I made sure that everyone was safely in our car and instructed the driver behind that we should leave asap. I was eager to get back home. To make sure that Will, Nia, Adam and the rest of our people were safe.
Jacks who had now taken the front seat woke up groggily. “What the?” he looked around, squinting at the bright sunlight.
“Go back to sleep, ill drive for a while. I just wanted to get home quickly” I spoke quietly, careful not to wake anyone else up.
Jacks grunted a reply and lay his head back against his seat. Within moments his low snores filled the car.
John and Lewis had moved to the back seat with Cory, each of them embracing the child as they slept.
It was kind of peaceful driving on the open road like that, everyone sleeping, the only other moving vehicle was the one in front of me that I was following back to home camp. There was peace in this new world, there was still beauty if one cared to look past the rotten flesh and dead people walking.
We stopped again after a few hours for a bathroom break. Everyone was awake although still extremely quiet. Each if us thinking about our loved and lost ones. Lewis took over driving, I was in the front with him and Jacks, Cory and John stayed in the back playing eye spy. I knew that it was the last thing that Jacks wanted to be doing but he did it anyway, knowing that Cory had lost a lot of people too and that it was harder for him.
“Heads up, there are trucks coming towards us” the crackle of the radio informed us.
I grabbed up the radio quickly as Jacks and John checked their guns.
“How many?”
“Uh we see three” came the reply.
“Ok start slowing down. We don’t know if they are friend or foe. Get your weapons ready” Jack instructed me.
I repeated Jacks message, word for word as he told me.
The trucks stopped, still facing us, and for a while nobody got out. Then the driver’s door on the front truck opened. Will stepped out and held up his hands. I was out of the car before anyone could stop me and was running towards him. I knocked him over with a bear hug. Even though it was only a few days since I had last seen him I had missed him, I had missed them all and the loss of Billy had only strengthened that longing to be amongst my friends again.
We landed on the floor with a thud, quickly joined by Nia and Adam and eventually a very reluctant Amelia. We all just sat there on the dusty road, hugging and crying. We finally checked the perimeter and set up a camp fire to boil some water that we gathered in a nearby river to try to save our bottled water.
We told them of our adventure and wept with them when we told them of the previous teams demise all except for Lewis. We grieved as a family, hugging and comforting each other.
Their group was made up of Nia, Will, Adam and Amelia. Mr and Mrs snow, an elderly couple whose name matched their hair colour. They seemed jolly and nice enough. They had with them their granddaughters who I vaguely remembered seeing back at camp two when we rescued them. They were called Maddie and Amber.
Another couple, the Price’s, Heidi and Andrew. They had five children, Molly was 15, Leo was 14, twins Paisley and Peyton were 9 and the youngest was Ollie who was 7. Molly was their child and Leo was their nephew, the other children they had taken in as their own when the little ones had lost their parents.
In the third and final truck was Frank, Jack’s friend from camp two, Brian Cook, Nia’s teacher friend and the chef and my new friend Sheila.
“What Happened?” I asked after all the introductions were complete.
“Bloody Gary, that’s what. As soon as you guys left he rallied his men and they took over. There was just too many of them to fight, I’m sorry Lt.” Will explained.
“We started putting some food and water away and talked to our group about leaving. Most wanted to stay. They are blinded by what they think is a safe place. But Gary will run that place into the floor.” Nia chipped in. She looked angry and hurt, I could see the fire in her eyes.
“That asshole. Ill show him when I get back” Jacks also looked annoyed. I knew that he wouldn’t take any nonsense off Gary. I just hoped that there was a camp left when he arrived.
“We decided to leave. He made it clear that we are not welcome back” Adam told us.
“Ok then, what’s our plan?” they knew that I would not leave them behind.
“We don’t know yet, we understand if you would like to go back to camp and try living there in relative safety.” Nia said, she looked at me and then bowed her head.
“What? And miss all the zombie fun out here on the road? Never!” I grinned at her. She looked up, smiled crazily back at me and ran into my arms.
“Yeah us too” John and Lewis agreed nodding their heads. Lewis pulled Cory in close.
I guess that they were taking the boy in. My heart grew larger for them, they would make amazing fathers.
“I’m going to go back to camp and see if I can straighten things out. I’ll need to check on Annabelle and Rochelle.” Jacks told us.
I wasn’t going to try to talk him out of it, he had a duty and nothing would
