“I wish I could.” She patted Traveller’s head. “Like this beast.”
“But it just keeps goin inside your skull. I know.” He nodded. “Chewin at yourself, my Nonna used to call it.”
“Apt.” A farmhouse set far back from the road, smothered under all the white, glittered painfully. She couldn’t tell if one of its windows had a golden glow of electric light, and found her shoulders had tensed up. Traveller opened a mild brown eye, peering up at her, and snort-bubbled a little, blowing his lips out.
“I guess that’s what he thinks.” Amused, Lee patted the dog’s hindquarters. “Must be nice, bein a hound.”
“That’s kind of what I was thinking.”
The truck shimmied a little, but dug in again and eased forward. It helped that it was downhill, but she worried about sliding. “Maybe after lunch, I’ll take a turn at driving?”
“Good idea. By then we should be at the highway.”
Now she had something else to worry about. Did he mean the freeway to Lewiston? “I thought there was a back way over the county line?”
“Not in this weather. Figger the bigger the road, the better.”
“What about the…the checkpoints?” That was the single biggest problem she could think of, right off the bat.
“Worry about those when we see ’em.”
Well, that was probably for the best. “So…where exactly are we going to stop tonight?”
“Lewiston, most likely.”
“Okay.” She thought it over, watching the snow rise and fall outside the window. When she closed her eyes, the glare remained, rods and cones too exhausted to stop sending information. Her sunglasses were in her purse, but if she moved Traveller might move too, and the drool-stain on her jeans get larger. “More food, and better roads. But also more…people.”
“Maybe.” His tone didn’t alter. She couldn’t tell if his expression had. It was kind of soothing, to just close her eyes and not think about the snow underneath, or the sweating man on the television screen saying coast-to-coast.
The truck bumped up on something under the snow and her eyelids popped open. “People and those…things.”
“Don’t you worry about that none.”
“Why not?” A jagged laugh threatened to escape her; she swallowed it. “I’m thinking I should be worried, Lee.”
“When we see ’em, that’s the time to worry, Miss Virginia.” He was just the same. Phlegmatic, that was a good word, but too heavy for his leanness. “And I tole you, I ain’t havin you hurt.”
“That’s very nice of you.” She sounded prim even to herself. But that’s also what bothers me.
“You don’t have to do anything about it,” he continued, leaning forward slightly to feel around in the small necessaries-holder under the radio. “I tole you that before, but maybe you didn’t cotton. I ain’t gonna push.” He finally fished out a pair of gold-rimmed aviator sunglasses, and offered them across the bench seat.
Nice of him. “No thanks, I have my own. Did you ever come into the library before I started working there?”
“Once or twice.”
That wasn’t what she was really asking, but maybe he didn’t want to get into it now, while they were sliding around an ice-choked road at the end of the world.
Juju’s brake lights came on, and he rolled to a stop. A crackling noise almost jolted Ginny out of her skin, but it was just the walkie-talkie Lee had produced from somewhere that morning right before they got in their vehicles.
“Lee?” Juju’s voice came through surprisingly crisp.
“I read ya, Juju.”
“You’d, uh, better come take a look at this.”
Good at This
Mark Kasprak and Steph Meacham, trudging along the shoulder, were both bundled up against the cold and wide-eyed as cartoon rabbits. “Oh Lord, are we ever glad to see you,” the boy began, and the girl saw Ginny and let out a high sharp sob of relief. She let go of Mark and staggered for the only other female, who barely had time to get her feet planted before she was clutched like driftwood in a whirlpool and Steph began to tear up.
Lee’s neck itched. Standing on the side of the road with two engines going and Steph beginning to bubble with both tears and whatever had happened to them since the diner was too damn exposed. “Miss Virginia?” He pointed at the truck. “She looks half froze.”
An arched, very pretty eyebrow told him Ginny was on the knife-edge of taking some offense, but she began drawing Steph for the truck, saying those soft low things women did when they were soothing. Lee examined Kasprak, almost lost inside his frost-tinged parka. “Where’s your truck, son?”
“At…at the Meacham’s. It ain’t drivable.” Mark’s throat worked convulsively as he swallowed, an audible click, dry as a bone.
“Why not?” Juju, catching Lee’s unease, scanned the far side of Apple Valley Road. Seen like that—squinting, in three-quarters profile, Juju reminded Lee of Iraq, except it was snow rather than dry rocks. A desert all the same, and just as dangerous now.
“Well, for one thing, it’s froze. For another, it’s got most of Mr Meacham tangled up in the undercarriage.” Kasprak, dead pale except for the tip of his reddened nose, was almost too cold to shiver. “Told Steph we should get out of town, but she ain’t one for liberatin a vehicle, so to speak.”
“So you were gonna…what, walk to Lewiston?” Juju shook his head, the ends of his green wool scarf bobbing. “Oh, man.”
Lee thought it over. “Your daddy’s place is out this way. Right?”
“Yeah. We went there.” Mark’s shoulders hunched. He looked even younger, now. Terror did that—it aged you, or turned you into a baby. Still, both he and little Steph were alive and neither of them had cracked, so there was that. The kid had some grit to him.
“And?” Lee prompted.
“He…Sir, you’re gonna think I’m crazy, but…”
Only as crazy as the rest of us, son. “You get bit? You or Steph?”
That got a reaction. “What? No. Shit, no.”
Lee pressed a little further. “What about Bull Meacham?”
“He…he tried to…God.” Mark’s lip quivered. He was putting up a good front, but he was, after all, only a kid. His breath plumed, short puffing clouds. Was he even shaving yet? “He tried to kill us both, I…we called the 911, but nobody—”
Lee raised a hand, and the kid shut up so fast he almost lost his tongue-tip between his teeth. It might’ve been kind of amusing, if he was in the mood to laugh at anything. “Yeah. I know. So, neither of you got bit?”
“Nosir.” Mark shook his head, vigorously.
“What about fever? Coughin?”
“Nosir.” Mark studied him closely. “So you know about the zombies.”
“That what you’re callin em?” Lee decided it wasn’t a bad term, tried to think logically about what came next. The kids were deadweight, but… “We’re headed out of town, Kasprak.”
“Can…” the kid blinked, hunched his shoulders. “Can we come with you? Lee? I mean Mr Quartine, can we go—”
“You don’t even know where we goin, kid.” Juju’s gaze met Lee’s.
He knew the question Juju was asking, because it was probably plain as day on his own face.
“I don’t care.” Mark stamped his feet, not childishly, but to keep the blood flowing. Sun-glare had blushed his young cheeks raw, and he didn’t look like he’d been getting much sleep. “Always wanted to get out of this shithole town anyway. Now it’s got zombies.”
“Whole continent’s gone under,” Juju told him.
Mark’s muddy eyes got big, and he rocked back on his heels.
Lee half-turned, looking at the truck. Traveller was probably having a fine old time in there, with two pretty girls cooing over him. Looked like the dog was licking Steph’s face, and the girl’s mouth was going a mile a minute.
Food. Clothes. Ammo. More people to worry about, take care of.
Ginny slipped out of the truck, slamming t
he door. She picked her way over to them, graceful in her expensive, all but useless boots. “Lee?” Big, worried dark eyes, curls doing their mightiest to strain free of her braids. “I think…” She glanced at Mark. “Her parents are gone. And yours, too, Mark? It’s Mark, right?” Calm and quiet, and she laid a gloved hand on his elbow. “You look cold. Go get in the truck, we’ll figure this out.”
Are you serious? Juju’s gaze asked. He knew as well as Lee did that this was not optimal.
But…shit. She pushed Mark for the truck. “Go on, now.”
The boy went gladly, probably relieved a full-fledged adult had given him a task. When he opened the passenger door again, Traveller’s excited yips boiled out. The dog, too. Jesus Christ, it was a three-ring circus here.
“A dog. Two kids.” Juju didn’t add, a civilian, but he didn’t need to. “Lee…”
“We can’t just leave them here.” Ginny sounded very sure. “Lee?”
What the fuck were they asking him for? The weight settled on his shoulders again, cutting a little deeper this time. They were looking at him because he was good at this, he’d been good at it all his life, and that was that, as Nonna would say.
“No,” he said, finally. “Reckon we can’t. Who you want in the four-by, Juju?”
“Aw, hell. Give me Kasprak, at least he won’t cry at me.” Juju sighed. “We gonna have to look for more food.”
“I don’t think there’ll be a shortage for a while,” Ginny pointed out. Her shoulders had gone down, and the relief shining in her dark eyes was enough to make a man feel faint. “Unless the looting was really bad. But if it spread as quickly as the guy on the television—”
Lee’s neck was itching. “Get on in the truck, Miss Virginia. You get on in yours, Juju, and I’ll bring Kasprak up to you. I don’t like standin out here.”
It was faintly gratifying that neither of them argued. And also—useless to deny it—gratifying when he got back into the truck to find Ginny had scooted into the middle seat, Traveller wedged between her and Steph and damn pleased to be so. It almost made up for the distraction, the new worry of more mouths to feed, and the way Steph Meacham kept rattling on about her mama.
Lee dropped his truck into drive, and shook his head a fraction.
They were, he suspected, in for a hell of a trip.
* * *
>>>
Acknowledgments
Thanks are due to Mel Sanders, who keeps asking, “What next?” and to Skyla Dawn Cameron, who keeps saying, “Sure, we can do that.” And to my children, who keep asking, “But will the dog be all right?”
A generous helping of gratitude goes to my lovely Patreon subscribers, who made it possible to write this particular tale—and the next three seasons as well.
Last but not least, my constant, faithful, and beloved Readers…come in, stamp your shoes clean, and let me thank you the way we both like best, with yet another story.
About the Author
Lilith Saintcrow lives in Vancouver, Washington, and can’t stop writing.
www.lilithsaintcrow.com
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Also by Lilith Saintcrow
A Saint City Novel
Selene
Essays on Writing
The Quill and the Crow
Roadtrip Z
Cotton Crossing (Coming Soon)
The Marked
The Marked
The Steelflower Chronicles
Steelflower (Coming Soon)
Standalone
Rose & Thunder
SquirrelTerror
FISH
Desires, Known
Watch for more at Lilith Saintcrow’s site.
Lilith Saintcrow, Cotton Crossing
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