Jane patted her face with the wet wipe, swiped on more deodorant from her pack, zipped it, and left the bathroom. She nearly jumped out of her skin at the sight of a person standing right there. It was only Roman, but he’d still frightened ten years off her life.
“Sorry, just came to make sure you were okay,” he said.
Jane only nodded and turned off her flashlight again since he had his phone’s home screen lit, which was enough to see where they were going.
“Thanks. I’m fine,” she lied because her hands were trembling and not just from Roman scaring her.
Outside somewhere far away, one of those things screamed, which was followed by the echoing call of others as if they were wolves on the hunt using sophisticated communications. Jane rubbed her arms. The windows of this home were not boarded up.
When they got back to the living room, the others must’ve found sleeping bags and blankets that were now laid out on sofas and the floor. Jane claimed one on the floor, mostly because it was close to the fire, which was already dying down.
“Everyone, try to get some sleep,” Alex stated. “I’m going upstairs to keep watch out the windows.”
“I’ll help,” Roman offered but was rejected.
“Nah, I’m good. If I start nodding off, I’ll come and get you.”
Roman nodded and took the remaining sleeping bag next to hers. He didn’t lay down beside her, though. He scooped it up and the pillow and went to lay near the sliding glass doors that led out to a snow-covered deck. She tried not to see it as a rejection, but Jane knew it partially was. Whenever they were away from home, he slept close to her, even held her tightly to him.
Now, as she nodded off, staring at the red-orange flames dying down to embers, Jane realized she was on her own again. Maureen probably wouldn’t stay around long. That was just her way, and they weren’t close anyway. She and Roman were broken up because of her betrayal. Connor would go with him if Roman decided to leave her, too. All she had was her father. Jane tried not to let tears form as she thought about the man she’d killed and if his own children were missing him tonight. That could’ve so easily been her many times already. She never felt more alone than this.
Chapter Thirty
Tristan
Riding the horses back and forth between properties seemed to make the most sense in their current circumstances of not knowing how long the gasoline would last. By the end of spring, they’d need gas for sure. Whether or not they’d find some, Tristan wasn’t so confident. He knew of an oil refinery station further south, so he knew there were places for their company trucks to fuel up. Whether or not they’d have anything left was a different scenario altogether. For now, the horses seemed prudent. Each property had hitching posts near their houses and feed boxes they’d built out of scrap lumber to hold hay for the hitched horse to munch on to prevent boredom. The four-wheelers were faster, of course, but he was coming to respect the horses more and more each day as they could go into terrain that even a four-wheeler could not. They were also great alert systems for trouble, sometimes even better than a dog.
He had plans to connect Avery’s property to Alex and Elijah’s farm by opening up the fencing and building a small three-sided shelter for the animals to loiter there, as well. They seemed to like hanging out in the woods a lot, so he figured it made sense to connect their two properties. It would also give him a place to corral a few horses every night near the house so that he didn’t have to walk all the way over to the abandoned farm where Maureen was staying just to wrangle one to ride back and forth every day. He was even considering using the side of the garage where Spence and Renee now lived in the planning of the three-sided structure.
“We should’ve turned back sooner,” Spencer remarked.
Tristan looked around at the purple hues of dusk falling over the woods and nodded, “Yeah, I just thought we had something.”
“Me, too,” Abraham agreed.
They were tracking the serial killer and also doing a perimeter search to make sure none of the infected were encroaching again. He never wanted them to be that close to any of their properties ever again. About an hour ago, he’d caught sight of footprints. Not many, but they were there nonetheless. They went straight across the road, from one side of the road to the other, both concealed on either side by deep forest. They’d pushed through the dense underbrush, mostly packed down by snow, and set out tracking the footprints. They went on for about half a mile until becoming too faint to find anymore. Tristan suspected it was from the snowfall melting and then snowing again. This was probably one of the worst winters he’d seen in a long time, since his childhood living near Cleveland.
“If it wasn’t one of them, then it was probably our guy,” Spencer said and rubbed at his arm inconspicuously.
Tristan felt bad because Spencer probably should’ve stayed behind, but he felt obligated to go. He knew what that was like. Tristan felt it every day. The responsibility of this group felt like a solid, lead weight of new, daily survival moves on his shoulders that only he could manage.
“Yeah, I agree,” Tristan said and sighed. “Let’s head home.”
The fact that the person had cut through their properties upset him. The monsters weren’t too smart, not like real people anymore. He’d seen them hit a fence at a full run without attempting to slow themselves down to avoid self-harm. This person had climbed the fence at the farm Maureen was staying at and also climbed Alex’s fence to continue on. That didn’t sit well with him. His summation that it
