The Living Dead 2 (The Living Dead, #2)(103)

Before we curled up in our blankets that night, I told the boys to hold my hands. We sat there silently, but I prayed that we would make it. All we had to do was lay low and survive long enough, and my boys would have a chance.

It was in the morning, when we went outside, that we saw the footprints in the snow.





Josh spotted the tracks first when he left the tent to pee. I heard him running back, feet crunching through the snow. He yanked open the tent flap in a panic. “Dad, you gotta see this. Somebody’s been watching us.”

We all three went. I carried Nick, if only to keep him from hanging onto my legs and tripping me. He growled and bit my shoulder and pounded on me with his fists.

“Look, they’re the same size as mine,” Josh said. “It’s just another kid. Maybe he’s out here all by himself.”

Nick squirmed out of my arms at that point, eager to take a look himself.

Together, we trudged through the snow, following the straight line of the trail through the woods. When we came to the road, I realized how stupid I’d been.

“Don’t move,” I whispered to the boys. And then stepping over to a pine tree, I reached inside and broke off several branches, using them to try to cover up my tracks as I retraced them.

Nick fidgeted, shifting from foot to foot, kicking up the snow, but Josh wore a look of horror. “If we can follow them, anyone who comes by here could follow us.”

I nodded. “We’ll go back to camp, stepping in the same footprints as we go, okay? We’ll use the branches to cover our steps.”

“What about the other boy?” Nick asked as I scooped him up in my arms.

“What?”

“Yeah,” Josh said. “He’s probably really scared out here.”

“You can’t leave him out here, Dad.”

I damn well could, I thought, but then I saw their faces. If the boy was infected, he would have walked straight into our camp.

“Okay,” I said. “But you two have to stay here. You can hide inside this pine tree, and watch me go.”

I thought that would be the breaking point, that Nick would change his mind, but he scrambled through the branches, spilling snow, as soon as I put him down. “I’ll take care of him,” Josh said.

I crossed the road, brushing away both sets of prints as I went. I figured to take a quick look around, then report back to the boys that I couldn’t find anything. We’d move our camp again, and this time I would keep a better eye out for other people.

But I was only ten or twenty feet off the road when I saw a splash of camouflage, bright green against the snow, amid a flash of movement.

“Hey, come back!” I called.

I ran after the kid—it was definitely a kid—without bothering to cover my tracks. I came into a small clearing, and saw him standing on the other side, half-hidden by a tree.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Baby?”

That was a new voice coming from off to my right. The kid said, “Dad,” and ran across the clearing into the man’s arms.

Another little family, surviving in the wild, just like us. I put my hands in my pockets, feeling more than a little nervous.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare anyone,” I said, taking a step back.

This other man almost made me feel ashamed of myself. He was clean-shaven, with his hair buzzed short; his clothes were clean, and neat, not covered with stains; he had a pair of sunglasses on his face, so that he wasn’t squinting at the glare of the snow, and a rifle slung over his shoulder. He had a big wad of gum in his mouth, and he was chewing with loud smacks.

He came toward me fast, hand extended in greeting. “No problem,” he said. “You’re that guy who’s been camping up on the ridge with his two boys right?”

“Yeah—” I said.

But as soon as his hand closed on mine, I felt something snag in my coat. Looking down, I saw the tip of a hunting knife at my stomach.

He looked me straight in the eye. “Peace, okay?”

I said, “Okay.”

He said, “I just want to be clear. We’re not friends. If you or your boys do anything to hurt my daughter, or even attempt to hurt my daughter, I will kill you without a moment’s hesitation.”

I looked over at the kid. Now that he said something, I could see she was definitely a girl—the longer hair, the small chin, the thinner body—probably the same age as Josh. Her dad lowered the knife, let go of my hand, and took a step back. “Are we clear?” he asked.

I pulled my hand out of my coat pocket and showed him the .38 that I had aimed at him all along. “I feel the same way about my boys. So I think we have an understanding.”

A small grin twitched at the corner of his mouth. Like he was a man who’d used a gun, and knew how to recognize one who hadn’t. Holding up his knife, he said, “You should save those bullets. They may be hard to replace.”

“I figure I won’t use them unless I absolutely need to.” I hoped that I was implying, Don’t make me need to.

He blew a big pink bubble and let it pop. “You boys make an awful lot of noise up there.”





The guy’s name was Mike, Mike Leptke, and his daughter’s name was Amanda. She was a year younger than Josh, but about ten years more mature in that way that girls have.