One of the women from Rosewater spoke up. “He told me he was going to take care of the infected in the cabins.” She pointed in the general direction. “He said those monsters had killed his whole family and he wasn’t leaving here until he took revenge. I tried to talk him out of it, it’s a waste of ammunition and these aren’t even the ones who attacked his family but?—”
She shrugged.
“How long ago was this?” Les asked, getting out his projectile gun.
“Half an hour at least.”
He told Ethan to stay with the buses and get them loaded before he sprinted toward the cabins with two of his men at his heels. Fucking idiot, he was thinking furiously as he raced up the paved path. As he came around a curve where the trail branched, he skidded to a stop, raising his weapon and shooting the infected lunging at him, falling backward as he did so and getting to his feet as fast as he could. There were two more infected coming at them, which his two guards dispatched.
“Where the seven hells did they come from?” asked one of the men. “We cleared the whole damn place.”
“I’m guessing when Prescott opened the cabin door he found more than he expected,” Les said grimly as he dusted himself off, checking thoroughly to be sure he hadn’t gotten scratched or bitten. “Come on and stay frosty. We’ve got no idea how many there could be.”
The scene at the cabin was plain to read, however. Prescott had opened the door and been attacked by five uninfected, three more emerging behind those. He’d accounted for two of them and Les and one of the guards got the remaining trio, who came lurching from the back of the cabin.
Prescott lay in a heap on the porch, or rather pieces of him did. The two infected he’d managed to kill lay across each other outside the cabin door. Les controlled his gag reflex while one of his companions threw up his breakfast noisily into the bushes. The other man stayed alert, weapon at the ready, scanning their surroundings in case there were more. Les eyed Prescott’s weapon with longing but it lay in a pool of the black ichor and there was no way he was touching it.
“All right, we’ve seen what we came for,” he said, turning on his heel and walking away from the cabin. “Nothing we can do for the poor bastard now.”
The refugees watched him and his guards as they walked up, grim faced.
“There was a party of eight infected in the cabin,” Les said, raising his voice to be heard by all. “The infected may be dumb as rocks and on the slow side but they’re capable of surprises and they’re lethal. Never forget that. I don’t want any more personal vendettas, understand? If we hadn’t been on the alert, those infected he freed could have gotten down here amongst all of you.”
Angry and disgusted at the needless loss of another life, Les let Ethan and Devora supervise the loading of the buses. He took his place at the controls and shut the door with more force than usual. Initiating the engine he drove away from the hot springs park at an ever accelerating rate and didn’t relax until they were on the open highway again, cruising at a relatively high rate of speed. He and Ethan had managed to disengage the governor on the engines which had been preventing the vehicles from going at top speed. He hoped they could cover a lot of miles today and find another safe spot to camp by dark.
Glastine was closer now and he keenly anticipated the moment he could hand over all responsibility for these people to the authorities and be off on his own. Glancing at the vid, he saw Devora and Jenny coloring in one of the books he’d found for her at the first rest stop yesterday. A pang hit him hard in the gut, thinking about leaving Devora behind. But there was no way in the seven hells he was going to stay in another encampment run by unknown people. Not even for her. They’d only just met, after all, and no matter how good the sex had been or how much he was attracted to her as a person, this new world was better navigated alone,
She’d be safe at Glastine.
She wouldn’t need him.
* * *
The first rest stop along the route north was completely burned out. Les pulled the bus slowly into the scorched parking lot and surveyed the damage in his vids while the passengers peered out the windows.
“Nothing to scavenge here,” someone in the back said.
“Are we stopping?” Ethan asked over the com.
“Yeah, we might as well. Weapons teams check the area first.” He turned off the engine and climbed from his seat. Checking with Devora first, he said, “You’re in charge while we sweep.”
She nodded and stood.
Les and his team, which now included Jane, the woman who’d taken a guard duty shift at the hot springs, exited the bus and met Ethan’s small squad. It didn’t take long to assess the situation since the place had been flattened and there was absolutely nothing for miles. The only infected were a few charred and scorched figures in the center of the destruction, which attempted to crawl toward the new arrivals before Les had the security team blast them.
The passengers were allowed out to walk around and Devora doled out survival ration packs and nutrition drinks from the stash in the bus’s cargo compartment while Les and one armed man stood guard to ensure no one tried to take more than their share.
“If this trip takes longer than we’re expecting,” she said to Les when the task was done and he was sealing the compartment again, “We’re going to run out of food.”
“So far so good though,” he replied, patting the side of the bus as if it were a horse. “I think we’ll make it, barring anything unexpected.”
Devora looked at the devastation and said, “Isn’t that what our lives have become? Everything is unexpected.” She took Jenny’s hand and walked away, heading to the side of the debris pile which had been designated as the ladies ‘room’.
She wasn’t wrong, he had to admit.
* * *
There wasn’t anywhere formal to stop for the night so Les picked a long flat stretch of highway where it was possible to pull off on level ground and he and Ethan parked the buses side by side. After the usual sweep by the security team, he pronounced the place fit for camping.
