The two young women kept to a southern course as best as they could manage for several days. Progress was slow on account of the snow and the cold, and the winter days were short. As soon as the sun began to set, Abby and Emma would stop at the first available shelter and sleep the night away, huddled up next to each other to share their warmth. They saw no one along their road, living or dead, for the entire first week since escaping from Isaiah and were grateful for that. There weren’t many survivors out here, and it seemed like most of them were insane.
As they traveled further south, it did in fact feel a little bit warmer during the day, but this was due to a brief warm spell that was passing over the region. Regardless, it lifted Abby and Emma’s spirits, though they still seldom spoke, and when they did talk it was never about anything important or meaningful. Emma had hoped that perhaps she could get Abby to open up a bit about her past, especially about Zach. But the young, grey-eyed girl was a vault, and she trusted no one with the key. Emma understood this, and so she did not pry.
However, the warm weather only did them so much good. Hunger was an ever present specter hanging about their heads, and despite their careful rationing of food Abby and Emma feared running out altogether. They would stop and search any place that looked like it might have some food, though this was mostly guesswork and rarely yielded anything of value. They would hunt when they could, but only if they saw signs of wildlife.
On the eighth morning since their escape from Isaiah, Abby and Emma began their day by checking out a small cluster of three homes along an old country road. The first home had been picked completely clean, though in the second home Abby managed to find a handful of .45 caliber, hollow-point bullets, which she added to the spare magazine for her pistol. She also grabbed several match grade 5.56mm rifle rounds, and despite having no immediate use for these she dropped them in her ruck anyway, figuring they could come in handy for barter.
In the third home, nothing more valuable than socks and shoestring had been procured by Emma. Together, she and Abby searched the last room of the house, on the second level at the end of the hall, but found only old artwork and furniture, some covered with bedsheets.
“Hm,” Abby grunted as she holstered her pistol.
“What?” Emma asked.
“Nothing, I just kinda had my hopes up for this house,” Abby replied.
She wandered into the room to look at some of the paintings leaning up against the musty, green walls. They were landscape paintings, possibly of the surrounding area in various seasons. It was clear that a trained eye and a delicate hand had been their creator, though some blemishes and inconsistencies betrayed the painter’s amateurism. Painting must have been little more than an occasional hobby for this person, Abby thought. Glancing at the corner of a painting of an old red tractor plowing through a field, she saw “G. Morris, ‘97” scribbled there.
“Not too shabby, G. Morris,” she whispered. Abby glanced over at the painting next to it, but turned suddenly when she heard a loud noise behind her, her pistol half out of its holster.
Emma was standing in the corner, her hand resting on the keys of a black piano that she had uncovered. Abby sighed, annoyed, and clicked her pistol back into place before walking over to stand next to Emma. “How ‘bout a heads up next time?” she said to Emma, who looked at the piano like she was entranced.
“Sorry,” Emma responded without looking up. She plunked a few more keys absentmindedly, and then played a few more that actually sounded like a tune.
“You know how to play?” Abby asked as she rested her hand along the top of the piano.
Emma looked at Abby with a small, sly grin. She stepped over to the middle of the piano and paused for a moment, then began to play a song from memory, her hands moving lithely across the black and white keys. Musical notes bounced off the walls of the little room and filled Abby and Emma’s ears with their grace.
Abby moved over to the nearest wall, leaning against it with her arms folded across her chest as she listened to the music. It was a classical piece, like Mozart or something, she mused.
After a few minutes, Emma stopped abruptly, her hands hovering over the keys. “I forget the rest,” she whispered, looking a little sheepish.
Abby clapped quietly anyway, a smile on her face. “Mozart?” she asked.
“Tchaikovsky,” Emma said, correcting her. She stepped away from the piano and said, “I learned how to play as a kid, and never stopped playing. Until, well, you know.”
Abby nodded. “Until zombies came around and fucked everything up.”
“Yeah. Anyway, I saw a gas station or something not far down the road,” Emma said as she threw her pack back on her shoulders. “Let’s check that out.”
“Okay,” Abby said, retrieving her ruck.
The pair made their way back out of the house and cut through the surrounding fields to get to the place Emma had seen. It was indeed an old gas station, and a quick search of the property revealed no threats or signs of an ambush. They moved inside the building itself to look around.
Abby got down on her knees to peer under the shelves, hoping to find some food, but there was nothing. She sighed and called to Emma, “Nothin’ here.”
Emma was behind the cash register, looking under the counter. “Nothin’ here either,” she replied. She moved towards the back office and looked around inside to no avail. With a loud sigh of frustration, she sauntered back over to the cash register and pulled the drawer open.
“Want a few hundred bucks?” Emma asked Abby, holding up a wad of cash.
Abby chuckled and said, “Sure. If nothing else it might help start a fire.”
Emma stuffed the cash into her backpack and headed back towards the front door with Abby. She stepped through the door and turned to say something to her companion, but was suddenly grabbed by powerful hands and shoved into the wall.
Emma whipped her head to her right and came nose to nose with a large zombie. It held her right arm in both its hands, trying to pull the limb into its mouth. She cried out in pain as she tried to wrench her arm away from the creature, but it held on, twisting her arm cruelly and now shoving it into the side of the building, trying to bite into the flesh. But Abby slammed her knife up into the zombie’s soft head, killing it.
“Did it bite you?” Abby asked as she sheathed her knife.
“No,” Emma hissed, her face twisted in a fit of pain, “but I’m pretty sure it broke my damn arm.” Her arm hung limp at her side, and she could hardly lift it.
“How the hell did we not hear this fuckin’ thing?” Abby said as she gazed at the dead creature. Indeed, neither she nor Emma had heard any of the telltale sounds of approaching zombies.
“Hell if I know. Must have had damaged vocal chords, before or after turning,” Emma said.
“You gonna be able to keep going with a broken arm?” Abby asked.
“Yeah. It’ll suck, but yeah. Just gotta make a sling for it,” was Emma’s labored reply as she unslung her backpack.
Abby watched her for a moment as she fashioned a make-shift sling for her arm, then said, “Well, good thing it was your arm and not your leg. I’d hate to have to leave you behind.”
Emma laughed as she worked and said, “Oh yeah, you’d ditch me with a broken leg?”
Abby shrugged and said, “A broken leg would slow us both down, get us both killed. Like you said before, I like you, but I’m not gonna get myself killed for you.”
“Liar,” Emma said. “Oh sure, you play a pretty good ‘bad bitch’ act, but you can’t fool me.”
“It’s not an act. This is who I am.”
Emma shook her head. “But it’s not who you really are. Hopefully I get to see the real Abby before we die a horrible, painful death out here.”
She finished tying up the sling and gingerly laid her arm inside it. “Wanna help me get my pack on?”
Abby hesitated, looking annoyed, but then obliged Emma’s request. “Don’t get used to this kind of maid
service,” she said as she put her own ruck back on her shoulders and retrieved her rifle.
Chapter Eight
The pair left the gas station behind and returned to their southbound journey. Emma now carried her pistol on her left side, tucked into the back of her pants. She could shoot left-handed, not as well as with her right hand, but good enough to still be dangerous. As they walked along the worn country roads, Abby would cast the occasional glance over at Emma, to make sure she was keeping up. She was, but the pain was clear on her face.
Suffer in silence, Abby thought. She respected Emma for her toughness, and her survival instincts. She was good company to keep.
As was their custom by now, the two young women continued their hiatus in conversation. In the few hours following their unfortunate stop at that gas station, not a single word pierced the silence. However, as the afternoon dragged on and evening signaled its coming, it became necessary to discuss their plans for shelter that night.
“We probably should stop earlier than we have been lately. It’s starting to get colder again,” Abby said.
“Yeah, it has,” replied Emma. She adjusted her backpack, wincing from the discomfort in her broken arm as she did so. “I think around five o’clock would be a good time to stop.”
Abby checked her watch and saw that it was a quarter to four. She nodded her head and said, “Sure.”
Another hour passed, and the red-orange sun slipped behind the horizon. Abby and Emma walked through yet another large farming region, flat and even save for the occasional rise in the terrain or wooded area. They passed lonely barns and small clusters of farmhouses, and here and there some silos and big, empty warehouses.
In the distance, they could see the hazy outline of a rather large town looming, but in the twilight it was difficult to make out just how significant a town this one must have once been. At any rate, it was farther west than either Emma or Abby cared to stray from their southerly route, and neither of the women had had very good experiences with large towns lately, so they chose to continue on their way.
“How about one of these houses?” Abby asked, pointing ahead to a group of three houses, sitting on the opposite side of the field through which they were currently walking.
“That’ll work,” Emma replied as she adjusted her arm in its sling.
The pair moved quickly now, eager to find refuge inside a house and to escape the rapid onset of yet another freezing winter night, the setting sun having dragged away its warming fingers from this piece of land. Staying outside in such low temperatures could be fatal, and even though the inside of a long-abandoned house was not much better, they could at least huddle together and share body heat for warmth.
It was an unconscious act by this point in her life, Abby scanning the world around her from right to left. She took note of possible points of ambush, as well as a few spots of cover, like the big John Deere tractor about halfway across the field. Emma did this too, she noticed, and that made her feel a lot safer. Having a teammate made the future look brighter, especially when that teammate was a woman like her.
“Shit,” Emma whispered, and she immediately dropped to one knee, and Abby did the same. “Tracks. People tracks,” Emma said to Abby, pointing away to her left.
“They look fresh,” Abby whispered, and Emma nodded in response. “What’s our next move?”
“Not sure,” Emma replied. “Could have passed through already, could be people living right around here.”
Now Abby nodded her head in response, running through different scenarios in her head. It did them no good to just sit here out in the open like this. They had to be moving soon. But if there were people around, Abby and Emma could stumble right into them without warning. That could get them killed.
“Let’s get a closer look at those houses, see if they really are empty. But keep a sharp lookout,” Abby said as she and Emma slowly got back to their feet.
Abby unslung her rifle and carried it in the alert position: in front of her with her hand around the grip, trigger finger resting straight alongside the trigger guard, and muzzle halfway up but directed towards the ground.
They hurried towards the shelter at the end of the field, already feeling like dozens of eyes were watching them, lying in wait to ambush them the moment the two young women dropped their guard. Abby felt tense, and despite the cold she could feel a pinprick of sweat on the back of her neck, gliding out from just underneath her hazelnut hair and traveling down to the collar of her ragged coat.
She hated this feeling of being on high alert. She didn’t think she’d ever get used to the hyperawareness. It just felt so unnatural, especially for such a young—
Abby saw the man just as he noticed her, in the distance to their right, leaning against a fence post not even twenty yards away. They locked eyes for a moment before Abby swung her rifle up and over, aiming at the man while dropping to one knee. She didn’t even need to speak a verbal warning to Emma, who had already followed Abby’s lead and sought cover over by the old tractor just ahead of them.
Abby peered through her scope at the young man. He looked terrified, his hands trembling as he held them above his head in the universal signal of surrender, a lit cigarette clinging to his quivering lower lip. She was thankful that she hadn’t pulled the trigger right away like a part of her had wanted. The man had not yet raised an alarm, so shooting would have given them away, plus he didn’t appear to be any kind of threat.
“But he might have friends that aren’t so timid,” she thought. Abby stood up, rifle still pointed at the man, and backed away towards Emma and the safety of cover. She stepped carefully, keeping an eye on the man but also casting glances to her left and right, looking for any other people who might have noticed them.
“We need to get the hell out of here. Now,” she whispered over her shoulder to Emma, who nodded in reply.
Emma led the way in retracing their steps as Abby gave the man one last look. She brought the index finger of her left hand up against her lips, then drew it across her throat, hoping the man understood her warning. He nodded but kept his hands in the air, too frightened to even realize they were still up above his head.
Now confident that their existence in this field would be kept secret long enough to make an escape, Abby lowered her rifle and prepared to follow Emma, but she cursed as she heard a loud female voice behind her.
“Gerald, what are you—“ the voice started to say, but it cut off.
Abby looked back and saw a woman standing outside the open door of a house, her hand over her mouth. The man Abby had ambushed still had his hands up above his head, and that pitiful look of terror was still painted across his face.
“Alarm! Alarm!” the woman screamed as she stumbled back into her house, slamming the door shut. The man named Gerald finally snapped out of this stupor and dove behind a large rock with such force that Abby wondered if he had broken his own nose in executing that maneuver. But she didn’t have time to let her mind wander, not now.
“Split up! I’ll find you!” Emma cried and she dashed off towards the east.
Abby sprinted north, back the way they had come. She didn’t have much of a plan besides escaping the immediate area, but she thought that once she hit the last road they had crossed she could move east to link up with Emma.
Bang bang bang! A rapid trio of shots rang out and Abby heard three loud snaps above her. That meant the bullets passed well above her head; they would have made a sharp hissing sound had they been more accurate. Knowing this, she didn’t immediately jump for cover, but she did begin to warble, that is to run in a zig-zag pattern. Those three shots had been close enough together that Abby knew the shooter had a rifle that could fire in ‘burst’ mode, probably a government-issued M16.
Abby slid to the ground, turning her body as she did so, so that she was facing back towards the cluster of houses. She lay prone in the field, hoping she was successfully concealed in the long grass and the encroaching darkness of night. She
put her rifle forward and peered through the scope. About a dozen people stood near those house, all armed and getting distance between themselves.
“Hey, you! Don’t shoot, we have your friend!” a man shouted.
Abby swung her rifle towards the man who had yelled and saw that he did indeed have Emma next to him, but she didn’t look like his prisoner. She was just standing there, still armed, and by herself. The man next to her cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted again.
“That gunfire was an accident, I’m real sorry!” he said, his voice dripping with a thick, country drawl. Abby watched as the man turned and barked something at a boy standing nearby, sheepishly holding a black rifle by the barrel with both hands. He trudged over to the man who ripped the weapon out of the boy’s hands and slapped him across the head. “And Donny’s real sorry too, ain’t ya boy!”
“S-sorry,” the boy said, barely loud enough for Abby to hear. She couldn’t help but smirk. That man must be the boy’s father, and his no-nonsense style of discipline reminded her of… Zach. The smile faded and retook the form of a scowl.
“Look, we ain’t gonna harm two young ladies, ya hear?” the man shouted again. “My boy is jumpy, although I guess I can’t really blame him too much. World’s gone to hell, ain’t it?”
Abby remained motionless where she was, but she no longer watched the small crowd of people. Using her rifle, she scanned windows, doors, and rooftops, looking for rifles aimed back at her. But she could see nothing.
“Hey Abby,” Emma called, “I actually think these folks are alright.”
Abby looked back to Emma. She stood there with her broken arm still in a sling, her pistol holstered. If Emma was already feeling that safe about the situation, Abby supposed perhaps these people weren’t psychopaths.
“If you’re wrong, I’m killing you before they do,” Abby yelled.
“That’s fair,” Emma replied, her voice lacking even a hint of levity.
Abby slowly got up to her feet, holding her rifle but with the muzzle aimed towards the ground to her side. She strode forward, towards the strangers and Emma with her head up, still scanning all around her, occasionally glancing over her shoulder. She came to a stop about twenty feet away from everyone and stood there in silence, unsure of what to say or do now.
His Name Was Zach (Book 2): Her Name Was Abby Page 8