“I’m saying goodbye right now,” Cole pointed out as he fidgeted with the straps of his backpack.“And you all know I’ve been sick for a while.We’ve tried everything we can out here, but… I’m not getting any better.”
“How do you know they’ll be able to help you anywhere else?”Murphy asked.
“They have actual medical professionals,” Cole said, then looked to Boden and me.“Right?”
“Well, we’ve got a nurse and a doctor,” Boden answered carefully.“A small infirmary with some medicine and equipment.I won’t guarantee anything, but they might be able to help you.”
“Okay.But why so fast?”Bianka stared intensely up at him, and her lip trembled as if she were holding back tears.“You just found out about this place yesterday, and now you’releaving?”
“Come on, Bianka.You know I’ve been sick.”Cole lifted up his shirt to reveal protruding ribs, and all along his side were deep purple welts.“I got these bruises from sleeping, and my body aches all the time.What’s the point in waiting?So you can watch me get sicker?”
Bianka lowered her eyes instead of arguing that, and Murphy reached over and squeezed her hand.
Ryder was the one who broke the tense silence with, “I know you all have people to get back to, but if you wait a few hours, I could pack up and go with you.”
“Ryder, what are you talking about?”Murphy asked, looking over at him in dismay.“You were the one who wanted to come to the Lakehouse, and you kept talking it up.We haven’t even been here a year yet.”
“You can stay if you want, but Cole’s right.”Ryder stared down at the table as he spoke.“He needs help.And I think I’ve been here long enough.”
Leandro leaned on the table, looking at his friend emphatically.“Are you sure you wanna do this?”
“I suggested the Lakehouse because we didn’t have anywhere better to go.”Ryder lifted his head and met Leandro’s gaze.“A floating hotel with medicine sounds a hell of a lot better than another winter here.”
“So you’re all going then?”Bianka asked, sounding increasingly distressed.
“Fuck it, fine,” Murphy said with a sigh and leaned back in xer chair.“If this is what’s best for Cole, and we’re all going, then let’s all go.”And then xe looked to Boden.“If that’s okay with you.”
“I mean, it’s not really up to me, but yeah,” Boden equivocated.“The Barbarabelle is a pretty welcoming place, and we have newcomers join from time to time.”
The population on the boat wasn’t static.Most of us came as refugees from Emberwood, but over the past two years, other survivors had found us and taken home on the boat.Sometimes, people only stayed for a few days before moving on, and sometimes people never left.Of those who did emigrate, most went back to New Emberwood, but others headed out to find somewhere that suited them better.
And then, of course, there were those we lost.A grizzly attack had left one of our best hunters dead last summer.In February, a bad bout of pneumonia had taken three of our residents, including a beloved gardener, Florin Walsh.Last fall, little seven-year-old Clementine Dumont had wandered away from the stables while her mother was tending to livestock and she had been eaten by zombies.
I suppose, like all things in life, the boat was a place of subtraction and addition.
Even though there were far more people hiking back through the woods, it was somehow quieter.Bianka would occasionally point things out, like a round Northern Pygmy-Owl (Glaucidium gnoma) nearly invisible against the tree bark, or to complain about the constant buzz of the annual cicadas (Okanagana occidentalis).Sometimes Cole would grunt or cough, and Leandro or Bianka would ask if he was okay.He would always insist he was, so we kept going.
As the sun began to set, we made camp in the forest.Underneath the canopy of trees, I lay on my back on my bedroll.Because we’d gotten a late start, we’d pushed ourselves walking, trying to cover as much ground as possible.The good part about that was that I was tired enough to fall asleep almost the moment my head hit the pillow.
My sleep was wonderfully dreamless, but I was pulled from the darkness by the sound of huffing and heavy footsteps crunching around campsite.Something was here, and it wasn’t human.
10
Stella
The firepit in the center of our campsite was smoldering embers, so there was very little light.The others appeared to be sleeping, unmindful of the ragged breathing mere feet from where they slumbered.
I sat up, and in my mind, as forcefully as I could, I thought,Get away.I emanated the pheromonal scent of repellent musk, but it had no apparent effect.The rummaging in our bags went on undisturbed.
“What’s going on?”Leandro asked groggily, the first one to wake up after me.“Is there something here?”
In response, thesomethinglet out a chuffing growl, and I realized that it wasn’t a zombie.
“Shit, there’s a bear!”Boden shouted, instantly alert and on the move.
“He’s going after the food in our bags!”Murphy yelled, and by then everyone was scrambling.
Someone lit a lantern, and I finally got a glimpse of the big black bear digging into our provisions.Boden, Murphy, and Ryder shrieked and clapped their hands and charged at the bear.That was enough to scare the bruin into running off in the dark forest around us.
