Deadland's Harvest (Deadland Saga, #2)(9)

At first, I saw nothing. Then, movement in the corner of my eye caused me to scan again. Sure enough, a pair of slow moving zeds was focused on the garage.

“Is it clear?” Wes whispered at my side.

I jumped at the unexpected question. “Clear enough. But I don’t think we’ll want to stick around here all night.” I threw him a glance. “Let’s go home.”

“You don’t need to twist my arm,” he said before heading back to the Jeep.

Wes started the engine, and the two zeds continued their shamble toward the garage. I shoved open the door, grunting, finding it much harder to open this time. To my right, a zed that must’ve been pressing against the door spun around and was sent tumbling to the ground. I marched over, twirled my spear around, and skewered its head. The two zeds’ moans grew louder.

When it no longer moved, I walked over to meet the pair of zeds. Their groans rose as they reached out for me. I speared the male through its forehead, yanking my weapon back to knock out the ankles of the female zed. It went down on its back, its head making a solid thump against the ground. I stood over it and brought my spear down, putting it out of its misery. I didn’t know if zeds suffered, though they’d never winced whenever I cut off a limb or stabbed one. They just looked miserable.

I figured they just were. They existed—without feeling or thought—and with a single urge: to feed. At least that’s what I told myself to make it easier to kill what had once been a person. The worst part about zeds wasn’t their hunger or viciousness or stench. It was that each one resembled someone I knew before the outbreak. They were reminders of loved ones lost. Then again, maybe I was just trying to anthropomorphize something that was no longer human.

As Wes backed the Jeep alongside me, I turned away from the zeds, grabbed the roll bar, and swung myself onto the open back.

“Let’s get the hell out of this town,” Clutch muttered, his arm cradling his stomach.

Escaping a town where the herd of zeds potentially waited around any corner wasn’t exactly easy. We had no idea if the herd had kept moving or if it had stopped around the next house. Wes drove slowly, creeping up to every intersection so as to not draw attention. We’d gotten lucky today. Once we were back on familiar streets, I think we all breathed easier. The herd was nowhere to be found. At the intersection not far from the roadblock, I finished off a lone zed that approached the Jeep. A block later, another zed lumbered toward us.

Wes sped up.

“Hold up,” I said. “I’ll get this one.”

Wes slowed, and I waited until the zed was close enough that I could stab it from the safety of the Jeep. As we progressed through town, I took out every zed I could because every zed I killed was one fewer zed that would come across the park or join up with a herd later.

By the time we reached the church, the parking lot was empty. We drove by the house where the survivors had been. There were several corpses scattered around on the overgrown lawn outside, but fortunately no bodies wore Camp Fox fatigues.

Once we were safely out of town, Wes stepped on the gas. As we headed back to the park, I shivered in the October breeze. No one spoke. Without things like movies and sports, small talk had become an exercise of discussing what still needed done before winter hit. A person could only handle talking so much about the lack of skills and supplies.

As we approached the park’s entrance, I cringed inwardly at the sight of the newcomers standing outside the gate. It was a larger group than I’d thought. At least ten, but it seemed like a hundred for the amount of food they’d eat. Wearing my actuarial hat, I figured we’d have to add an additional seventeen percent to our calculations of food needed to get us through the winter. The numbers became more and more dismal with more stragglers arriving every week. We’d have to start turning people away or else we’d starve. The question was, would today be that day?

Most of Camp Fox’s scouts were on the other side of the gate, standing with their guns lowered but at the ready. Two scouts stood next to Doc while he attended to someone in one of the newcomers’ three vans, the same vans that had been parked outside the house in Freeley. The rest of the newcomers were busily drinking from plastic water bottles.

Tyler was sitting in the passenger seat of a Humvee, also drinking water, with his window rolled down, and I had no doubt a rifle sat on his lap. His blond hair was matted from wearing a helmet, yet it did nothing to detract from his good looks. He had a killer smile and when he talked, he made you feel like he was talking directly to you, even if he was standing in front of a group of hundreds. There was something charismatic about him that made men want to be his pal and women swoon. He was a natural leader.

Wes slowed the Jeep down to a crawl as we drove past the newcomers and toward the gate. They were a dirty bunch and looked like they’d been on the road for some time. Some waited at the gate with desperate pleas for help. Four ATVs sat nearby to run down any zeds or chase fleeing bandits.

Tyler would have already informed the newcomers that Camp Fox had protocols. Any newcomer had to be fully vetted by Doc for bites, fleas, illness, and other infectious things before being allowed through the gate. Still, it tugged on the heartstrings to stand around when miserable, starving people needed help not even twenty feet away.

Seventeen percent, I reminded myself when sympathy rose in my chest.

Yes, they desperately needed our help. And, if I was on the run and came across a camp, I hoped they’d take me in. Still, I didn’t know these people. What if they stole our supplies or hurt Jase? Keeping an image of Jase in my mind helped gird myself against my desire to help them.