“Yeah, came up on foot. Eight of ‘em. Tired and dirty but alive.” Howard’s eyes gleam with satisfaction, and I share that sentiment. We’re always excited to see more living people, although, with that, we’re exposed to more danger.
Another hazard of this fucked-up world, you can’t trust everyone, even when sticking together means survival.
“Where were they coming from?” Cole asks.
“They said they came from Phoenix.”
Wow, that’s dangerous. We fled Phoenix almost immediately after the outbreak, unwilling to fight millions of zombies when just a few hundred miles north, we would have smaller populations and less extreme temperatures.
Cole nods his thanks, and we drive slowly so as not to stir up dirt toward the house, which sits at the end of the drive with a semicircular path in front. A swing I love to sit in at dusk decorates the wraparound porch of the two-story home, and to the left of the house is the barn with silos behind.
Gazing at the cows grazing in the fields, I consider the news. Eight people could be good because we need more people to scavenge and work the daily chores of the ranch, which once upon a time had a hundred employees. With these newest additions, we have somewhere around fifty. Still a long way off from a fully functioning farm but closer.
The ranch still has cattle and pigs, which we baby in the hopes of breeding more, because these could be the last cows and pigs in existence, and we don’t want to eat them without trying to ensure the continuance of the species first.
Even now, people roam the pastures, the barn, and the house, each contributing in some way to the chores necessary to keep everything going. From feeding the animals to cleaning the stalls, working on the machinery, cooking, and laundry, the list is endless.
Pulling to a stop in front of the house, we exit in a flurry as Jan emerges with a smile. She’s perked up over the last few weeks, her solemn demeanor fading. Over the summer, they suffered a vicious attack from strangers they welcomed into their community. These few infiltrated from the inside, killing off the men and brutally raping the women.
Some of the women haven’t recovered, and although they go through the motions, it’s easy to see they’ve given up. Jan, however, even after losing her husband, is looking better, for which I’m relieved. This is her land and ranch, and we need her. But more importantly, she’s a kind woman who deserves a little peace.
“You’re back, safe and sound. Good,” she says with a smile in her tired blue eyes.
I nod and smile back, relieved to find everything is as it should be after being gone for a few days. Impulsively, I slip around the door and walk up, leaning in to hug her, and she blinks but returns the gesture.
I’m relieved to see her, to see them all.
Katie, a young girl who lost both her mother and father to the same attack as the others, comes flying around the corner, her pretty blonde hair wild around her face.
For some reason, she took a shine to me when I first came and now follows me around devotedly. It made me uncomfortable at first because I am not good at small talk, and making new friends has always been a struggle for me, but she bulldozed past all my barriers, and I couldn’t help but give in. I still don’t know what to say half the time, but she doesn’t seem to mind.
Truthfully, I love that she’s emerged from her shell because, after the brutality she witnessed, she had a perpetually blank expression that scared me.
“You’re back. You’re back,” she sings in a sweet tone, her blue eyes bright when she spots the aviators she gave me hanging off my shirt.
I laugh and circle my arms around her when she comes in for a hug. There’s definitely something to be said about hugs, something I hadn’t been graced with much as a child, but I’m starting to instigate them myself, which is a surprise, but I find myself enjoying the contact.
This is a game-changer for me. My instinct is to shy away from anything leading to a connection for fear of the loss that inevitably follows. It’s safe to say I’ve got a lot of deep-seated issues rolling around in my head, but with each person who comes into my life and stays, the cracks around my heart slowly fill in.
Who knew the zombie apocalypse would cure my crazy?
“Yes, we are,” I sing back, breathing easier to find my people safe and sound.
My companions give me a weird look, and I can see Michele approaching and gearing up to say something annoying, so I lift my chin toward her and say, “Shut it. You.”
She grins, turning away, and I smile after her, the weight pressing at my chest since we left easing now that we’re home.
A woman I don’t know well but who was here before I came smiles at me grimly, loss shining behind her eyes, and I look away, the smile fading from my face. I’m lucky because my people are alive, and most others can’t say the same thing.
We empty our scavenged goods from the vehicles and hand them away to be cataloged and stored. The medical equipment was a good find considering the exposure to injuries around the farm and, of course, the zombies.
We didn’t find much food, though, which means we will be going back out again and soon. It’s a harsh reality, but we won’t survive without food, and it could take years to create something self-sustaining. It’s all a relative unknown until we attempt to grow and see what the soil yields.
For now, we are focusing on scavenging, but in the coming months, preparations will need to be made to determine whether we can grow at all. Most of this is beyond my understanding, but Jan and a few of the others have been reviewing several options for the surrounding area.
One of the many reasons to hate the damn Turned wandering the world tirelessly.