Deadland's Harves(17)

“Here.” Bill handed me a piece of paper. “Here’s a map of the university.” He pointed to a long line. “Here’s where our pilot used to land.”

As I pocketed the paper, Tyler gave me a smile. “Get some rest. I’ll try to catch you before you leave in the morning. If you leave in the morning, I mean.”

“Good night.” I gave Tyler a slight smile before stepping back and then paused, thinking of another problem of being cooped up in a small, enclosed space with a newcomer. “Oh, and Bill? Be sure to wash up. You guys really stink.”

Tyler’s smile widened into a big grin, and I couldn’t help but return his smile. I turned and headed toward the food table. After dumping off my tray and grabbing a bag of nuts and an apple for Clutch, I walked back to the cabin. My leg needed the exercise, and I needed the fresh air. Aside from the random raider and zed herd, life had returned to something that vaguely resembled normalcy. I tried not to show fear, but if Manny was right about huge herds headed this way, I was downright terrified. We couldn’t take out a single herd. How the hell could we defend the park against something ten thousand times the size of the herd we ran from today?

By the time I reached the cabin, the sun had set. Jase was doing push-ups on the floor while Clutch was sprawled out on the bed sound asleep, with a bottle of pills still in his grip. For a moment, my stress disappeared. These two guys were my family now. Like so many other “families” of survivors in this new world, we were just as close as any real family, and I loved them no less than if we were related.

Jase was a bit like the brother I’d never had, but he was more like a son I’d probably never have. He had a good heart. Even with all the shit he’d seen, there was still an unjaded piece left in his soul. I’d give my life for his in a heartbeat. He was a far better person than I was, and I was thankful that he came to Clutch’s farm that day many months ago…the day our family was born.

The idea of a real-life son terrified me. I often thought back to the time Clutch and I had unprotected sex and was thankful that I hadn’t ended up pregnant. I shivered at the thought of having a tiny, defenseless, crying baby surrounded by zeds.

Shaking the thought from my head, I walked over to the table, grabbed the stack of FAA sectional maps, and opened up the one for Minneapolis. I laid the map next to the hand-drawn map Bill had scrawled during dinner. On it, the buildings of the university were squares and rectangles, with a thick line drawn at the bottom indicating a road he was convinced would work as a landing strip. After lighting a candle, I scrutinized the sectional, circling every airport that had fuel along the route to Marshall and back. Taking off and landing wasn’t much of an issue anymore. Any stretch of road without power lines worked, especially since the planes I flew weren’t large by any means. I could feather the prop and land nearly silently. As long as no zeds were too close when I restarted for takeoff, I could be safely in the air before any got close.

“I didn’t know you were doing a scouting run tomorrow,” Jase said without stopping.

“We have a scouting run tomorrow. A long distance one,” I replied. “If Clutch is up to it. Tyler wants him on this run.”

Jase rolled over. His brows rose. “Really? Where are we heading?”

“The folks from Marshall said there might be some herds headed this way. I want to check that out. They seem to think zeds are migrating south for the winter. If that’s true, the more time we have to prepare, the better.”

Jase’s guffawed. “Zeds migrating? Like geese?”

I shrugged. “I suppose so. I thought it sounded pretty farfetched, too.”

He simply gave a disbelieving shake of his head. “How big of herds are we talking about?”

I thought about telling him what Manny had said, but decided Jase had enough bad things to dream about already. “I guess we’ll find out tomorrow.”

Jase’s eyes narrowed. “They must be big for Tyler to want you to fly out that far.”

I shrugged. “We head out at sunrise. This will be a top-off-the-fuel-tanks kind of mission. If we can, we’ll also check out the folks still holed up at the university in Marshall. Otherwise, we’ll at least try to do a bag drop.”

“Cool.” He then nodded to Clutch. “He was out cold when I got home. I’m surprised he’s still asleep.”

“Freeley was a bit rougher than we expected,” I said. “I think it banged him up a bit.”