Deadland's Harves(72)

Griz pointed to the west. “There’s a farm a few miles straight west of here. We found a black SUV in the driveway that runs. You can’t miss it. I can take one of them to go get it. That’ll help them get some distance between them and the herds.”

“Until they run out of gas,” Clutch said. “If we don’t take them in, they’re zed bait.”

Griz gave him a knowing look. “They could distract the herds from us.”

My heart pounded. Even though my brain was telling me the same thing, my gut was screaming at me at how wrong this felt.

Clutch gave me a look and his features softened. “We take them with us. It’s only six—well, five—extra mouths to feed.”

Griz looked relieved but then frowned as he looked at the injured woman. “She bit?”

Clutch gave a slow shake of his head. “Gangrene.”

Griz grimaced. “We came across a vet clinic this morning. We have the supplies on board to give her peace. It’s the only thing we can offer her.”

“I’m not sure her husband and daughter would agree to that,” I chimed in. Without modern medicine, people often died horrible, painful deaths from infections. Euthanasia was one of the few things we could offer the doomed, and vet clinics offered plenty of the drug guaranteed to bring painless death.

“Then we give them the choice. They can either stay here with her or come with us,” Griz said. “Gangrene isn’t contagious, but we can’t risk bringing any new sources of infection onto the Aurora in case she’s got more than a case of gangrene. Not with how many are just recovering now.”

Clutch stiffened and snapped around as Don hurried toward the Humvee.

“Stand back,” he ordered Don.

Don kept walking toward us. “I heard what you said. You can’t leave Brenda behind. You don’t know her. She’s strong. She’ll recover.”

“She has gangrene,” Clutch said simply, as though that answered everything.

“She may also have contracted a secondary infection that could potentially spread. We can’t risk it,” Griz added. “Now, please step back.”

The man’s features morphed from desperation to anger. “So you’re going to leave her here to die all alone in the middle of the road? What kind of sick monsters are you?” His fists clenched and he rushed Griz and Clutch.

Griz hit him in the stomach with the butt of his rifle just as Don reached them. “Get on the ground! Face down and arms stretched out!”

His daughter screamed, and the teenager rushed over and grabbed her to keep her from running to Don.

“Keep her quiet,” Clutch snapped.

“Don’t hurt my little girl!” Don cried out.

“Please,” Maggie limped forward. “Let’s all take a moment and talk. Don’s just worried about Brenda. He doesn’t mean anything by it. We’ve all been through a lot lately.”

“She’s going to be dead soon,” Clutch said. “It sucks, but wishing for something different isn’t going to keep her alive.”

“She’s not coming along,” Griz said. “If you want to stay with her, you can.”

Maggie wagged a finger. “We’re good people. We work hard and wouldn’t wish harm on anything. Please don’t leave us here.”

“The choice is yours,” Griz replied.

Don guffawed. “That’s no choice. I won’t abandon my wife.”

“Uh, guys?” I said, motioning to the tree line. “We need to make a decision and fast.”

Several deer ran out from the trees and across the road. Deer were skittish creatures, tending to hide unless spooked by a predator, and, there was one predator in abundance around here.

Zeds.





Chapter XX


I stepped around the Humvee. Don climbed to his feet. No one spoke while we waited to see how big a herd we had to deal with.

Finally, a single shape emerged. We all let out a collective sigh.

Maggie’s hand fluttered over her heart. “Oh, thank God.”

The huge, mangy wolf—or large dog; it was too hard to tell from this distance—stepped out from the shadows, eyed us as though deciding which would be easier prey, and then slowly turned to follow the deer. The deer had made a large U-turn around us and stopped only a couple hundred meters from where we stood. Wolves had multiplied since the outbreak. Large dogs were now joining their ranks, and these new packs feared neither humans nor zeds. Both became their dinner.