He straightened his posture and took a deep, steadying breath, but his hand remained on the butt of his Glock.
“We have several troops of Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts at one of the group campsites,” he explained. “They’re here for the annual fall campout. Set to head home tomorrow morning.” He grimaced. “I can’t believe I forgot about them.” His expression turned apoplectic again. “Tell me you didn’t hurt them!”
“Are you completely batshit-crazy?” I straightened my back as much as my binds would allow, the awkward position putting a strain on my sore muscles. “Come on, Ranger! Do we really look like we’re here to hurt a bunch of kids?”
My own reddened face and outraged expression caused his to falter a little. Turning toward the others, he must’ve noted the troubled glaze in their eyes because, when he faced me again, all anger had drained away, leaving renewed confusion and concern in its wake. Maybe he’d finally started to believe our story.
“But why else would you need all those guns?” he muttered, as if pondering a rhetorical question.
I slumped against the backrest. “I’ve already told you why. You didn’t buy our story.” I leveled a determined gaze at the foolish man. “But, at some point, Ranger—and hopefully not too late—you will believe us.”
“We’ll see.” Squinting at me with suspicion, he headed for the doorway. “We’ll see.”
“Ranger,” George asked before he’d gone too far, “how many kids are there?”
“About a hundred and fifty boys, another hundred and fifty girls… plus at least thirty adults.” His suspicious glare amplified. “Why?”
George and I looked at each other, a silent understanding passing between us.
The thought of more than three hundred people—most of them children—camping somewhere in the zombie-infested woods of a 192,000-acre forest concerned the shit out of me. Presumably, she shared my distress. A quick glance at Clare’s ashen face, and I knew she was thinking the same thing.
The kids were sitting ducks for the zombies—or worse, they’d already joined the ranks of the undead. Either way, it was bad news. For all of us.
I glanced at Ranger Bob, who still lingered in the doorway. “Where are they?”
Please, please be far away. Preferably on the other side of the forest.
He hesitated, as if not wanting to give away their location to a bunch of potential terrorists. “’Bout a half-mile from here… just down the road from where you parked your rig.”
“Oh, my god!” George shrieked, beating the rest of us to the punch.
Somewhere nearby, hundreds of people could be utterly unaware that a world-ending crisis had occurred—especially if they had no cell service and didn’t think their families expected them home yet. All of us—George, Clare, me, even Jill—understood the danger they were in.
Unless they’re already zombies… in which case, we’re all fucked.
From the anguished look on George’s face, I figured she was thinking about her son, who was presently on his own in an enormous, zombie-infested forest. Even though I’d initially hoped that he would climb down the tree and head out to rescue us, I now found myself wishing he’d stayed high above the campsite and out of harm’s way. As skilled as he was, I doubted he would survive a battle with three hundred zombified kids.
“You have to warn them,” Clare demanded. “They’re in serious trouble.”
“We all are,” Jill grumbled, expressing aloud what the rest of us were thinking.
He scoffed. “Warn them about what? Your mythical zombies?”
“Ranger, please be reasonable,” I implored. “I know it all sounds too crazy to be true, but just remember… you’ve been out of touch for several days. Anything could’ve happened. Even a zombie invasion.”
“You might not have gotten a good look at our van,” Clare added, “but if you had, you’d know that’s not human blood on there.”
Jill huffed, glaring pointedly at the ranger. “Yeah, it looks a lot more like the crap I left next to your car.”
Clare winced.
“Fine, whatever,” the ranger said, obviously sick of the conversation. Or just sick of us. “I’ll stop by the group campsite on my way up the road.”
I opened my mouth to retort—if Casey couldn’t handle three hundred undead kids, this dimwit sure as shit couldn’t—but he’d already slammed and locked the office door.
“What an imbecile,” I spat. “He’s gonna get himself killed… and we’re gonna lose most of our guns in the process.”
Since three portable lanterns illumined the front area of the unfinished ranger station, I could observe Ranger Ramjet as he yanked open the front door and stepped outside. But instead of shutting the door and marching toward his SUV, he halted on the stoop.
“Hey,” he yelled, half-turning toward us, “there’s one of them now! I’ll just ask her if there’s been any trouble.”
“Ranger, wait!”
But he either didn’t hear me or didn’t care. Instead, he scurried down the steps and into the moonlit clearing.
Even from my awkward position in the rear office, I could see an adolescent girl approaching the building. Dressed in her scout uniform, she shuffled deliberately toward the steps. Or, rather, toward the juicy-looking ranger unknowingly awaiting his death.
“What the hell would a little girl be doing out at this hour?” George exclaimed, projecting her voice toward our foolhardy captor. “And all by herself!”
As the girl in question stumbled toward Ranger Bob, I noticed holes in her vest and shorts. And blood streaked across her limbs.
“Oh, no,” I muttered.
“What?” Clare asked breathlessly. “What do you see?”
Sitting behind the desk with her mother, she had an unobstructed view of the front door, but without her glasses, she couldn’t make out the horrifying details—even on a moonlit night.
“Ranger, get back,” I hollered. “Don’t go near her! She’s probably infected!”
Having remained at the foot of the steps, he could apparently still hear me, as he pivoted toward the office, flashing me a disdainful glare.
“For Christ’s sake,” George shouted, “we’re not
