“I’d like that, darlin’,” he confirmed, and my brain turned to mush at the cute name he’d said without much thought as he stroked my horse’s head.
I stepped closer to him as I admired the golden flecks in his eyes. “So, Micah, what’s your story?”
His lips curled into a smirk as he let his hand fall from Kovu, those pretty eyes of his trained on me. “Not much of a story to tell I’m afraid.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” I teased and stepped back, making sure all the carriers were fastened on the saddle bag. “How old are you?”
“Thirty-four.” He gave a non-committable shrug.
I bit my lip. “That’s an eight year difference between us then.”
He barked out a raspy laugh. “It’s the apocalypse. What does a little age difference hurt?”
His laughter made my chest warm, and my cheeks heated as I grinned. “Good point. Where exactly are you taking us?”
“The Oasis,” he murmured, and I found myself loving the huskiness of his voice. I could’ve listened to him talk for ages, which was funny since he didn’t seem like the type who talked much at all. “It’s what we call our home. We live in the forest in what’s kind of like a village of treehouses. I actually lived there before the apocalypse. It was just me then.”
“Just you?”
A dark expression crossed his face as he nodded. “Just me.”
“And who lives there with you now?”
The tightness in his expression faded. “Nathan and Calix live in my treehouse with me. We have a throuple who live in another, and then we have Nathan’s dad and step-mom in the other. There’s another treehouse we recently built as a type of guest space in case we find more survivors.”
“That’s really amazing,” I said softly. “Does being up high really help with the zombies?”
He nodded. “They don’t notice us. When and if they do, we just stay quiet and turn off any light in the house. They move on after a bit. We have pegs in the side of the tree as a make-shift ladder. Makes it highly unlikely they can get up.”
“That’s smart.” A chill zipped down my spine as I thought of zombies being so close to where we slept and lived. At the ranch, I knew zombies were out there, but theynevergot close to the house.
The rest of the group made their way toward us, leading their horses with leather reins as they talked amongst themselves.
We had four horses on the ranch. It used to be five, but we lost Kovu’s dad a few years before the apocalypse.
“We’re ready when you are,” Dad said as Mom fussed over their horse.
“Here’s your bag.” Spencer handed me my emergency satchel and golf club I had pre-packed in case of anything similar to this happening. I never expected to need it.
“Thanks, Spence.”
“Grace and I will take Dolly. Tori and Spence will ride Kovu, Jay and Daisy will take Belle, and Micah and Nathan will ride Trigger,” Dad said as Nathan cooed at Trigger like he was a dog and not a horse—not that Trigger seemed to mind.
“Thanks.” Micah nodded as he shot me a comforting smile. “We’ll come back after the horde passes and see what survives.”
My gut rolled as a chilly breeze swept through, the long grass of the pasture shushing softly.
Nathan cleared his throat, and his blue eyes hardened. “Make sure any open wounds you have are covered, and if we encounter any infected—don’t get their fluids in your eyes or mouth.”
“Um, guys…” Spence uttered, her face paling before we looked in the direction she was staring at in horror.
The blood froze in my veins as I saw what was over the horizon.
Our pasture was mostly flat, so we could always see a far distance away—but nothing had ever elicited the gut-wrenching fear of what I saw in that moment.
Amassive,shambling horde of zombies with no end to it appeared. It was far enough away that it was no wonder we hadn’t noticed it before, but it was close enough to have us kicking our asses in gear.
“Let’s get out of here,” Micah grumbled. “It only looks about an hour or two from us.”
