“Or if there’s a person in there who needs my help,” she said firmly.
“Like you said, doc, anyone still kicking in there is probably beyond your help,” Zach told her.
Melly made a face, took Mike by the hand and walked away. “Be careful,” Tamsyn told Cody and then followed the doctor and her brother. The three of them waited in the space between the APC’s and the wall of wrecked semi-trailers. Tamsyn couldn’t settle, not overly worried about Cody or the others but wanting the suspense to be over. When he walked around the end of APC2 she rushed to him. “So?”
“Two infected, both male. Zach and Jeff are dragging the bodies across the road to the ditch. No idea who they were, hitchhikers maybe. Anyway, the cargo is mostly electronic goods, which of course does no one any good under the current situation. The captain thinks it was contraband or stolen goods. We found a couple of weapons abandoned in the hauler.”
“I guess the excitement’s over,” Mike looked up briefly from the game he was playing on his handheld. Tamsyn thought he was lucky the device could be recharged from the APC’s engine, as much as he was on it. Melly tried to limit his time to some extent but given the world they were living in, who could blame the kid for losing himself in games.
A late evening snack was quiet, aside from Buddy begging hopefully and scooping up the tidbits he was offered. Melly complained again about him being spoiled and turning up his nose at the dog food but even she didn’t sound too concerned. Most of the group curled up in their sleeping bags, aside from the two soldiers assigned to guard duty. Tamsyn wasn’t ready to go to sleep yet and Cody was finishing up his guard shift so she went to the nearest corner of the truck they were using as a wall and climbed the rudimentary ladder to the top. The exertion felt good after sitting most of the day and once she reached the top she sat cross-legged and stared at the sky, sorting out her emotions. She tried to let her mind go blank but even without a ranch to run there were too many concerns in her head about what the future would bring to be fully quiet. Eventually she heard sounds below and leaned over to find Cody climbing easily to join her.
“Can’t sleep?” he said as he arrived on top of the container.
“Not without you.” Tamsyn pulled him closer, and planted a kiss on his lips, which became involved and turned into heavy petting, with Cody’s warm hands on her breasts under her tee shirt and her hand in his pants. They were both breathing hard and arousal was flowing through her but when Cody regretfully pulled back, she didn’t argue. The rest of the group was literally right below and unlike the situation at the cabin there weren’t even flimsy walls to give an illusion of privacy. She settled in Cody’s lap, enjoying his warmth at her back.
“What were you thinking about so hard when I got here?” he asked, playing with a tendril of her hair. “Are you sorry you came along?”
“What?” Startled she moved so she could study his face in the moonlight. “Not at all. I couldn’t have stayed alone at the ranch, not after finding you.”
“But?” he prompted her.
“So far I’m not sure what we’re doing, or what value I’m adding to this mission. I know Jeff explained it yesterday but out here, right now, it’s hard for me to imagine our tiny group being able to solve the huge problems facing Randal Four.”
“We have our ways,” Cody assured her. “And you’re contributing like everyone else, even the kid. There will be times where you have the skills or the opportunity to step up and be the one and we’ll all support you. Other times it’ll be on me or Jeff or one of the other guys. And when we get to our ranch, we have a ton of equipment and supplies waiting in dropship containers. Enough to make these two trucks combined seem like a drop in the bucket. Five men, five ostensible veterans, setting up to ranch—oh yeah we were given pretty much anything we asked for to accomplish that and our other, covert job as well. Didn’t think to ask for a pair of APCs though.” He chuckled. “Lucky we liberated those two in the capital city.”
“Not too comfortable to ride around in,” Tamsyn said, rubbing her lower back. “But handy when a swarm is approaching.”
“Or any other enemy. Nothing on this world can crack those babies open to get at us and the firepower is awesome.” His voice held pride.
Tamsyn was a little bothered by his attitude. “We can’t get overconfident though. We probably haven’t seen everything there is to threaten us in this post-apocalyptic world.”
He nuzzled her neck, giving her goose bumps. “My precious pessimist. You’ll see, things will be fine. I promise.”
“Is the proximity to the two infected we left locked in the truck cab bothering you?” she asked.
“No, I filtered out the signal. Unless there’s a change I don’t hear it.” He gave her a grin. “I’m good at blocking out too many stimuli.”
Shivering, she couldn’t escape a feeling of dread about the next phase of their journey. Not wanting to give herself nightmares, she rose. “I think it’s time to turn in—I can sleep now. And you have to drive in the morning, right?”
“Let me go first and I can catch you.”
“I won’t fall. Maybe I should go first and catch you,” she said mischievously. “I was climbing windmills and solar rigging when I was five. Heights and ladders don’t bother me.”
“Another skill you bring to the team. I’m still going first.”
* * *
In the morning breakfast was a quick, cold serving of survival rations after which they packed up the sleeping bags and were on their way along the deserted freeway.
“Next stop, Verder’s Ford,” Jeff said. “Drones up yet?”
Cody’s reply was slow in coming and when it did his voice was troubled. “Sir, you need to see this but the civilians maybe don’t.”
Jeff gave him a quizzical look but nodded. “Okay, command screen only.”
Tamsyn was wildly curious what the drones had caught going on in the next town but Jeff blocked her ability to see the screen with his broad back. He whistled and swore before swiveling in his chair to face all of them. “We’ve got a situation in Verder’s Ford. I’m going to have Cody put it on the main screen but Mike, I don’t want you seeing this, okay pal? Tamsyn, Doc, up to you if you want to look or not.” Over the subaural link he added, Someone killed a bunch of townies and left them on the outskirts as a warning or a boast.
The holo screen flickered and then Tamsyn gasped, clutching her stomach as a line of badly decomposed bodies came into view. Their hands were tied behind their backs and the victims included women. She closed her eyes after one horrified look. Violence from the infected was bad enough and hard to handle but the idea of fellow humans committing such an outrage was unbearable.
