“So this husband of yours, how worried I gotta be?”
For a moment, she balks, unsure if she should lie or not, but in the end, she doesn’t have the energy to try. “I don’t know. I really don’t.”
“Been gone three or four days now?”
She nods. “It’s possible he left on purpose.”
Wyatt squints. “You think he abandoned you? But the kid and the baby.”
She makes a sad noise in the back of her throat. “We eat a lot. Make noise. Vincent is a true believer in weakness posing a risk to the mission. Leaving us behind to reach Sedona alone would be the correct option.”
“Sedona? Is that your promised land?”
“Something like that.”
“The more I hear about this community of yours, the more it sounds like bullshit.”
“Are you always so dismissive of things you don’t understand?”
“Are you always so gullible?”
She huffs, her irritation percolating beneath the surface. Defending her beliefs is an ingrained response, even if she may have developed doubts over the years. Some habits are difficult to unstick.
“If he left you on purpose, then I hope a rotter gets him and goes for the balls first.”
It’s such a ridiculous comment that she laughs for the first time in months. Shouldn’t, because he’s making gruesome comments about her husband’s possible death, but maybe the trauma of her situation is catching up to her.
“Or he shows up tomorrow and tries to fight you for this house,” she sighs.
“One problem at a time.”
“So, what’s the next problem, then?”
“Getting some traps set for game. We’ve got food for now, but it ain’t forever. Need to make it last.”
She’s about to ask what they can catch aside from squirrels and possums when that orange cat runs across the yard.
She walks to the window, wondering if they should let him inside when someone streaks across her view at a fast run. She startles backward, bumping into Wyatt’s chair and grabbing his shoulder on reflex, pointing to the scene playing out. It has to be another survivor come to take the farm, but instead of busting through the door, he only chases that cat through the wet grass until it runs up a tree. This new person spends the next five minutes clawing at the bark but making no attempt to climb it.
Then, he slumps and slouches, feet dragging in the mud at a snail’s pace. They get a good look at his face as he passes the window again. A chunk is missing, and one eyeball hangs down to his chin.
“Oh shit,” Wyatt whispers. “I shoulda done more cardio before all this. You get a lotta runners out here?”
“Runners? I’ve actually never seen one until right now. They’ve all shuffled before.”
“Something Gwen said about the virus testing out different strains. Whatever the fuck that means,” he mutters, as if she has any idea who Gwen is. “They’re all fast up north. I kept seeing more slow ones as I got further south, hoping it would flip entirely.”
Turns out the next problem is more than finding food. It’s dealing with the fact that there are runners among the slow and shuffling packs of the dead, and no way to tell them apart until it’s too late.
Chapter 4
Addison offered him sex, and the rotters are running down here just like they did up in Alaska. Wyatt’s not sure which has knocked him for a loop harder. The sight of that rotten corpse chasing a cat ranks right up there. He sure as hell was hoping that things might be different in these parts, but he’s still stuck on the fact that someone tried to seduce him.
He must come across as a complete asshole. She wouldn’t have thought she needed to pay him off otherwise. She explained and apologized. He doesn’t hold any grudges, but it still stings. The proof of that is in the pain radiating from his hand.
He didn’t intend to hurt himself. It just happened. A nightmare left him disoriented and haunted by the memories he’s tried to leave behind. Then he remembered that Addison thinks he’s a bottom feeder who’d take advantage of her. That’s when he pulled out a smoke to take the edge off.
Lighting up indoors isn’t smart, but he did it anyway. That brief respite of calm never came, though, and before he knew it, he was pushing the lit end to his skin.
