Deadland's Harves(79)

I grinned. Whenever he was stressed, he needed action. Of course, I was the same way. “You bet.”

“Yeah, why not,” Jase said after stretching his neck from side to side.

I grabbed my thermos from my bunk. By the time I returned, Jase and Clutch were already chatting about setting up the boat.

“Mind if I join you guys?” Griz asked as he caught up.

I motioned him along. “Only if you’re ready for an ass whooping.”

Griz chuckled. “Oh, it’s not me who’s—”

Shouting erupted from above deck and I snapped around. “What’s going on?”

We ran up the stairs and to the galley. Outside, Maggie was screaming at the herds. “Go back to hell, you devils! You’ll never get to us! Never!”

“Shit,” Griz muttered. “Our first cuckoo has flown.”

No!

I reached for my pistol, but the others bolted outside, and I followed.

Griz reached her first. He yanked her back and covered her mouth. “I should’ve figured out you’d be the first to go nuts.”

She mumbled something but he kept her mouth covered.

I scowled at Maggie, keeping my hand on my holster. “Fucking nut. You trying to get us all killed?”

Lucky for her, Griz still had his hand over her mouth because if I heard what she seemed to be saying, I might have changed my mind and shot her right then and there.

Clutch and Jase helped drag Maggie back inside.

Before I reentered the galley, I looked out at the herds to see every pair of eyes watching us. The wind whipped at my face.

“Well, that does it,” Clutch muttered. “This mission just became critical.”

“Yeah,” Jase said. “The tough part is that it sounds more like Mission: Impossible.”

I swallowed and turned away from the ocean of zeds.

No, it wasn’t just an impossible mission.

It was a suicide mission.





Chapter XXIII


All of Camp Fox squeezed into the galley the morning we left. It was standing room only in a room made to seat twenty comfortably. Weighted down with food and gear, I followed Jase as he weaved through the crowd. I noticed Hali squeezed his hand briefly as he walked by.

Maggie, who now had a scout assigned to her twenty-four/seven, eyed us with her usual glare of disdain and suspicion. Thanks to her, zeds had proof that we were still here, and their numbers were growing. Her little tirade guaranteed Camp Fox would remain under siege until we starved. I craved to put a bullet between her eyes.

Even so, she wasn’t the hardest to deal with in the room this morning. Everyone else watched with hope. They put all of their faith in us to save them. If our gamble failed, everyone would starve to death because of us. Those were the ones I really avoided eye contact with, as their gazes followed us silently through the room.

On the island, we chose a deck boat instead of the speedboat since we could load a lot more extra fuel on it. The .30 cal was useless, and we only had to be faster than the herds. The speedboat also couldn’t hold nearly the amount of supplies a larger boat could. And boy, did we fill that boat. After all, we had to be ready to live on the river for up to a couple weeks.

Tyler and several scouts had speared the zeds on the land by the Aurora so we could load and get out. Even then, hands reached up from below the surface at us. A vision that would no doubt haunt my dreams for the rest of my life.

While I strapped down our food and gear, Clutch and Jase tied the leftover deer organs to the sides of the boat. Vicki had saved the deer organs “for a rainy day.” The sweet, iron smell of deer innards was strong and unpleasant but not as bad as I would have expected. Vicki had devised a cellar system on barge Four that helped preserve food, and surprisingly the deer had only the slightest smell of decay.

I pulled out one more item from my backpack, unfolded it, and strung it up on the flagpole at the back of the boat. The wind was just strong enough today that the American flag flapped proudly in the breeze. I sat back and admired it. “I think we’re all set.”

Griz tossed me a life vest.

I looked at it and scowled. “It’s going to be harder to shoot with one on.”

He shrugged his vest on like it was body armor. “We play it safe. No unnecessary risks.”

“As soon as you know the herds are moving on, get back here as soon as you are safely able,” Tyler said.

I gave him a salute. “Aye, aye, captain.”