I don't answer because I don't know. Maybe it was just survival sex—two people clinging to life in the face of death. Maybe she woke up and regretted it. Maybe I read everything wrong.
Maybe caring about someone after a year of staying professional was the stupidest decision I've made since Alaska.
We ride for another three hours before making camp in a clearing Ken scouted last year, with a defensible position, good sightlines, close to running water. The crew falls into familiar routines. Patricia and Eric set up the perimeter alarms. Jess organizes medical supplies. Ken gets the fire going with practiced efficiency.
Everyone stops. I raise my fist, and the convoy goes silent except for idling engines.
"How many?" I ask into my radio.
"Can't tell. Definitely not human movement. Too erratic."
Zombies, then. Probably a small group, drawn by our engine noise.
"Jess, take point with me. Ken, Patricia, Eric—defensive positions. Keep the engines running."
I swing off my ATV, and Jess follows. We move toward the treeline where Eric spotted the movement, weapons ready. The forest is too quiet—no birds, no small animals. That's never a good sign.
Then I hear it. The shuffle-drag of dead feet through underbrush. The wet, rattling breathing.
"Three of them," Jess murmurs. "Maybe four."
They stumble into view—decomposing bodies in various stages of decay, drawn by the sound of our convoy. Old ones, probably from the initial outbreak. Slower than fresh zombies but unpredictable.
"I've got left," I say.
"Right."
We take them down efficiently. Headshots, quick and clean. I've done this hundreds of times. It should feel routine.
But when the last one drops and I turn back toward the convoy, I see Hazel standing beside Eric's ATV, her good hand white-knuckled on the medical kit she pulled from the cargo netting. She's pale, breathing hard, watching the treeline like more might come.
She's not afraid of the zombies. She's afraid of losing more people.
Something in my chest cracks.
"Clear," I call out, loud enough for everyone to hear. "Let's move."
I walk back toward my ATV, and for a second I think Hazel might say something. Her mouth opens, then closes. She turns away, climbing back onto Eric's ATV without a word.
The rejection stings more than it should.
"Still giving you the cold shoulder?" Jess asks as we mount up.
"Drop it."
"I'm just saying, you could actually talk to her—"
"I said drop it."
She does, but I can feel her disapproval radiating from behind me. Great. Now my crew thinks I'm the asshole.
We ride for another three hours before making camp in a clearing Ken scouted last year—defensible position, good sightlines, close to running water. The crew falls into familiar routines. Patricia and Eric set up the perimeter alarms. Jess organizes medical supplies. Ken gets the fire going with practiced efficiency.
Hazel helps without being asked, moving between tasks with the competence of someone who's done this a thousand times.She checks Jess's inventory, helps Patricia string the alarm wire, assists Ken with the cooking pot.
But she doesn't look at me. Not once.
My crew likes her. More than that—they respect her. And watching her laugh at one of Ken's terrible jokes while Patricia braids her hair so it won't catch on her injured shoulder, I realize something that makes my chest ache.
