She blows the hair out of her face, then takes a knee, panting heavily.
"You're lucky I was here."
The battle worn man's brow furrows, his upper lip pulls to one side.
"Technically, I killed both of them." she says with a grin.
He huffs, his eyes close, his brow raises.
"I'll take that as a thank you. You're welcome."
"After what we just went though."
"What can I say, humor is my coping mechanism."
"You know, sometimes, you can be so-"
He stops himself, gritting his teeth.
"Funny?"
"Grating."
Her head bobs, her lower lip curls.
"Accurate, harsh, but accurate."
"Let's get the hell out of here."
"Roger that."
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
After their deliberation The Family invited KP to join them around the fire. The group sat and conversed until deep into the night. KP told The Family of Oasis, largely repeating the details she had previously told Rosaline and Zee. The Family talked of their pasts, explained their self given names, and how they had been able to maintain a stable life on the farm these past couple years.
KP didn’t mince words when she assured them that the few infected that had wondered onto the property a month earlier were likely only the beginning to a new wave of migration. A migration of death spreading out into the country and hillsides, cities and towns having already been depleted of their heart pumping resources.
She is all but certain that more and more infected, and Adapted, would find their way to the farm, and their mostly idyllic life would cease to be--at least in the way they have been experiencing it. She’s witnessed this happen many times before, to many places that started out just as their farm had.
Though none of them fully trusted KP, with Rosaline and Rad holding the most skepticism of her, they saw no reason to continue to stay on the farm any longer. Since they’ve decided to go to Oasis, they established they would awake at dawn, gather the few things they wanted to bring, and promptly set off to their destination.
KP informed them that their travel would take about twelve days, with the high probability of a few added days due to obstacles they would surely encounter. Even though she’s been Guiding for fifteen years these journeys are never easy. That was two days ago, and The Family is now progressing through Georgia.
“How far have you traveled?” Hawaii inquires, his pace picked up to join KP at the head of the group.
“You mean how far out have I gone?”
He bobs in head.
“I’m positive that I’ve been to Utah, saw the welcome sign. Pretty sure I’ve been to Idaho and Arizona too, though it’s possible those three occasions were all in Utah. Do you know where that is?”
“Not really.”
“It’s far out west, almost to California, which rests on the coastline of the United States, along with Oregon and Washington.”
“Yeah, I know that.”
“What about you?”
“Um, well, the community we’re all from was in Indiana. We went south when we left, but hit some bad spots so we turned east. We knew the coastline to the east was closer than the west, and we thought getting around there could be a good idea. At least we’d be near a constant source of water.”
“The oceans are dangerous, coastlines are filled with the dead, and infected don’t seem to want to leave those areas, for some reason.”
His head bobs again as his fingers scratch his scruffy neck.
“Yeah, we knew that. Some in the community had been to the coastlines, said they were bad news, but the water is what we were most attracted to.”
“Ocean water is also dangerous, hard to know how much of it is contaminated, given oil rigs and other structures not having been maintained for so long.”
“We figured that too, well Zee did, but we didn’t really know what else to do. We thought maybe we could get a boat, sail to Europe or Africa, maybe it’s better there. No one really seems to know if it is or not.”
“As far as I’m aware, they still don’t know. There’s been no communication with any other countries since the outbreak. All phonelines were pretty much useless after twenty four hours, almost all other technology before the first week was up. No news reports, radio reports, or public broadcasts of any kind were sent out to inform the public on what to do, or where to go. I’ve been told it was complete chaos, everyone for themselves, and we can see how that turned out. If anyone did know what to do, or if it’s safe overseas, they’re long dead by now, and they didn’t tell enough people for it to get around.”
KP’s gaze studies the young man’s face. She estimates the conversation may be a bit out of his element, given his awkward expression.
“So you went east and happened upon the farm? Zee glossed over that last night. It was really just a stroke of luck?”
“Yep, just fortunate. We found it about mid-day and decided to stay for the night. It seemed secure and it was pretty far away from anything else, from the direction we came at least. That day went smoothly, and so did the next, and the next, and then we just never left.”
“And Rosaline just randomly found you all?”
“Kind of. Rad, Sweetie, and Outlaw went out to get firewood, and wood to make new sitting stumps with. They had to go out pretty far to find wood that wasn’t still wet, so it would chop properly and burn that night. She and Mikey followed them back to the farm.”
He hesitates for a moment, then chuckles.
“They didn’t even know she was there, and they had to walk a long way back to the farm. Rad’s really attentive, and even he had no clue.”
A sense of delight rises within KP, hearing this young man talk. His naivety is endearing, even more so that he doesn’t realize how naive he
