Green Fields (Book 7): Affliction

by Lecter, Adrienne

  The next time we zoomed by the settlement gate, I saw movement there, not just up where the guards were posted, but at the gate itself. My stomach seized with anticipation, and I might have run just a little faster to get one last lap done before I’d ease up. True enough, when I neared the same point again, cars started trundling out through the gate, Harris already waiting next to them with a bowl heaped with steaming food. Gita and Tanner were busy getting their part of breakfast, a good idea if anyone had asked me.

  I was already slowing down, changing course to head over to Harris, when I caught motion from the very corner of my field of vision. Instinctually, I tensed, zagging to the left when I more felt than saw Nate make a grab for me. He still managed to get a hold on my elbow, jerking me around and to a halt, but I was ready, kicking high to aim for the center of his body mass. My boot connected flawlessly with his abdomen, sending him staggering back, the fingers around my arm disappearing. Pivoting, I followed that up with a second kick, that one aimed for Nate’s thigh, hitting again—but also leaving myself open for his fist to dive underneath my raised arm and plant itself into my side. It was more shock as the air was driven from my lungs than pain that made me gasp, quickly disengaging from him. Nate grinned back at me, his arms raised in front of his body, taunting. I jabbed toward his face, using the momentum of my body carrying me forward to send my knee up as well. He blocked both attacks, opening his mouth to, without a doubt, offer a scathing retort—which left him completely open and vulnerable from the side, where Burns came barreling into him at full speed. I danced back, making sure not to get caught in the fray as both men went down, Burns using his extra weight to bear Nate to the ground like a cement sack toppling over. Nate was quick to recover, getting one knee between their bodies as he started grappling with Burns, trying to gain the upper hand, but it only took Burns ten seconds to have him back down in a choke hold. Quick on his feet Nate may be, but wrestling? Not so much.

  Grinning down at them, I hopped in place for a few more seconds as my heart rate slowly came down, then allowed myself to stop. Didn’t look like I was needed there anymore as Burns and Nate kept rolling around in the dirt. Still in high spirits, I walked over to Harris, accepting the water bottle he held out to me. The townies from our convoy kept staring, their attention equally divided between the spectacle on the ground and my partially bared midriff, it seemed. Grabbing the hem of my thermal, I rubbed sweat off my brow, then pulled it back into place, hiding the tattoo on my lower back from sight. Tanner held out the bowl of food—scrambled eggs with onions and lots of bacon—which I gladly accepted, using the provided fork to get it straight into me rather than shovel some onto a separate plate. The rate at which I decimated the food seemed even more interesting to the townies, making me smirk around a mouthful of eggs.

  Burns finally let Nate go, who looked rather indignant as he jumped to his feet and started wiping dirt from his body, only succeeding into working it into nice layers of paste wherever dust met sweat. I tried but couldn’t hold back the raucous laugh bursting from my chest. I held out the bowl as a form of appeasement, sure that if I’d been empty-handed, I would have ended up on the ground on my back—and with my body still singing with adrenaline, that wasn’t the worst of ideas out there. Nate took the peace offering from me, still glowering, but gave me a weird look when he realized that I was practically leering at him. Burns snickered, using Nate’s momentary distraction to shovel half of what was still in the bowl onto the lid the container had come with.

  “You should consider therapy,” Burns advised around the first forkful that disappeared into his mouth. “It’s not quite healthy when you can only keep the spark alive by beating the shit out of each other.”

  Snorting, I crossed my arms over my chest. “You’re just jealous because you’re not getting any.”

  Burns shrugged, not exactly denying my claim. “Hanging around camp and being just a boat ride away from New Angeles had its perks.”

  One of the townies—I thought I remembered him being the one who’d protested us tagging along before—sidled up to Harris, looking half of a mind that staying in the settlement would have been the better idea. “Are they always like that?”

  Harris grinned and opened his mouth to reply, but then conceded to me with a nod when he saw me watching them. Stepping closer to the two men, I did my best not to shiver as my body became overly aware of the temperatures now that it had cooled down once more. “Let me ask you a question before I answer that. What are you living for?”

  The guy looked at me cross-eyed before he gave a somewhat awkward shrug. “To make a good life, I guess? Build a family, get us into the next generation. Stuff like that. Why?”

  I ignored his question. “What do you think we’re living for?” I didn’t need to indicate Nate and Burns. It was obvious where the divide ran, although I wasn’t quite sure where he saw Harris and the other scavengers.

  “Uhm,” came the eloquent reply that turned my easy smile forced.

  “I live for living another day,” I explained, letting my arms drop so that I didn’t look as defensive as I suddenly felt. “Of course I could hunker down behind a nice wall and pray that the undead fuckers don’t wise up and manage to eat us overnight. But I don’t want to. I want to be out here. I want to take stupid risks and live life to the max, because, guess what? Today could be my last day. Yours, too. It could be the zombies, or a mountain lion or bear, or God knows what else. There are still hundreds of millions infected roaming the country, and who knows what that virus they are carrying might evolve into. Last year might have just been phase one, and we’re in for a hell of a lot worse still. That’s what you’re all afraid of, huddling together in your settlements, too chickenshit to let us in because we could be carrying something you don’t want to get too close to. Well, guess what, chances are we’re way less likely to catch anything and transmit it than any one of you. What you’re doing is absolutely idiotic. Might as well have fun while I wait for the inevitable to come, right? So I’ll be damned if I let anyone rain on my parade. Maybe you should try it. Makes life a whole lot less miserable.”

  As I turned around and walked away, Nate gave me a weird, “where did that come from?” look that I ignored in favor of getting some coffee in a travel mug for the road. Behind me, I heard the townie grumble something under his breath, followed by Nate’s succinct, “Hey, I’m getting laid. What do I have to complain about?” which did make me grunt.

  Gita caught it, flashing me a brilliant smile that forced me to answer with a mellow one of my own.

  We were off ten minutes later, Burns driving, me riding shotgun, and Nate still trying to brush now-dried dirt off his body in the back. Harris aimed to take point, but let us shoot by him once I explained, succinctly, that there was a good chance that the road ahead wouldn’t be as clear as before, and we might as well drive up ahead in case we had to get out to do some cleanup soon, anyway.

  As long as we remained down in the plains, that wasn’t necessary, thanks to the extended lines of beacons that had been installed over the past weeks even up here, but as soon as we turned onto the smaller, winding road heading into Yosemite National Park, things changed quickly. Fallen trees were blocking the road, mudslides had buried it, and about two miles in we saw the first group of shamblers come surging out of the underbrush, hungry for fresh food. Most of them resembled desiccated husks, making me guess that they were stragglers from one of the resident streaks that had fallen too far behind the main horde when the beacons had switched, letting them end up on their own, with the forests looking more inviting than the stark, open flatlands they’d gotten stranded on. That didn’t mean that they weren’t strong as fuck, hunger and desperation lending them extra determination. We stopped as it became obvious that we wouldn’t be able to avoid them as they came for us, me and Nate getting out while Burns lingered in the car. We were using the same equipment that had come in handy back at the siege of Harristown—Nate a heavy sledgehammer while I m
ade do with a well-balanced ax—to cut a swath through them, then finished off the rest. I got some nice claw marks across my cheek for my effort, ending up huffing and puffing with exhaustion as the last headless fucker finally stopped moving. They hadn’t managed to bite through the heavy fabric of my jacket and pants, but there were a few rents and tears that I didn’t know if they were worth patching up anymore. Nate was somewhat less winded but equally covered in gore, and we spent another twenty minutes getting changed and scrubbing our gear while the others built a pyre to take care of the remains. None of the settlement people got out to lend a helping hand, but what they lacked for in usefulness, they made up in staring. It was only then that I realized something: today might have been the first time that they’d come to watch us kill the undead, either since they’d hunkered down behind their walls, or maybe even at all. I had long ago become so used to that level of violence that it was an unusual day on the road that went by without slaughter. Glancing at where my ax, scrubbed clean and oiled now, rested against the back tire of the Jeep, I couldn’t help but ask myself what else I had become used to that still wasn’t “normal” to others.

  We had to wait until the pyre had consumed most of the body parts before we could start dousing the flames so we could move on. It was way too dry to let the fire go on unchecked, unless we wanted to risk burning down half of the state. There were enough areas where previous fires had eaten up anything in their path, unchecked and unchallenged, that we didn’t need to contribute to that. Before we went back into the cars, Nate examined the scratch on my cheek critically, but left it at a grunt after cleaning it thoroughly.

  The climb up into the mountains, using the scenic—and only—route wasn’t as eventful as I’d hoped. Twice more we had to get rid of enterprising shamblers, and the last group was stronger and well fed, giving us some grief until we retreated to get our guns. I gave up on my torn jacket after that, figuring that either of the two spares would do a much better job, many times mended as they were. Either those undead fuckers were truly vicious, or I was not quite up to my usual game. The next time more zombies crowded in around us—coming from a camping area by a lake—I hung back a little, letting Nate and Burns cut through them while I cleaned up in their wake. If either of them noticed, they didn’t say anything. But I noticed, and that was bad enough.

  It was early afternoon by the time the radio squawked, making me reach for it as Nate had to concentrate on the road. A massive landslide had brought down part of the mountain to the north, boulders the size of RVs blocking half the valley.

  “Yup,” I said without formal greeting, figuring that it must be someone who knew us well enough if they had the transponder codes for the Jeep.

  I couldn’t help but grin when Martinez’s voice came out of the speakers. “You’re not dead yet? After how you left us, I’m a bit disappointed.”

  “Glad to hear you, too!” I quipped, getting a little more comfortable in my seat after handing the binoculars to Burns in the back row. “How are things down by the coast? We’re living close to some bona-fide assholes, just saying.”

  “And you only realize that now?” Martinez laughed. “I thought you’d noticed New Angeles was just around the corner.”

  Speaking of which…

  “Let me guess. Greene called you, asking for an update from us?”

  The brief grunt I got was answer enough. “He said it would be too conspicuous if he called you directly. Apparently, playing telephone with his own people was too much of a hassle. Care to tell us what’s going on? Until he called earlier, I thought you’d just gotten bored and would use any available excuse to get out of baking duty. But when your proclaimed arch nemesis is getting nosy, I feel like there’s a lot more going on than I probably want to know.”

  I hesitated, but it wasn’t like this was critical information. The line was likely as secure as it got simply because no one would bother to try to listen in on us, anyway. “Who else is there with you?”

  “Romanoff and Zilinsky,” Martinez reported. “Sadie’s too pissed off to care, and everyone else bought the excuse theory that we’ve spent the last days spreading whenever we could.”

  Nate jerked his chin toward me, making me extend the mic in his direction. “Thanks for that,” he offered up, his eyes never leaving the road. I raised my brows, surprised that neither he nor Burns had told me about that order, but it wouldn’t have been the first time.

  “I’m not sure what it says about the lazy lot of you that you’d so easily believe we’re simply gallivanting through the country because we got cabin fever,” I muttered.

  Burns laughed behind me. “My guess is they bought it because of some other, much more believable, reasons,” he offered, then went on to do some bow-chicca-wow-wow noises.

  I bit down on the inside of my cheek, trying to sound more annoyed than amused. “And what exactly does that make you, huh?” I shot back, then turned to the mic again. “What can I say? I’m not dead yet. Might as well enjoy life as it is.”

  I’d meant that as a joke, but the fact that Martinez took a few moments to reply set my teeth on edge. “But you’re concerned enough that you didn’t just stick your head in the sand and ignore it until it goes away? If you’ve already started looking for another shabby, rundown motel on the side of the road, this time we’re coming after you, just saying.”

  What a heart-warming consideration. I tried to disband the unease rising deep inside of me with a quick chuckle. “I hope it won’t get that far, but you’ll be the first to know. Well, after the guys at the Silo, and us, and Harris and his guys, and likely the townies that are tracking along, too. How does thirtieth to know sound to you?”

  “Like bullshit,” Martinez grumbled, but the concern in his voice was already dissipating. “Makes sense. That you’re heading for the lab that contains your most current blood work. I told Romanoff that but he wouldn’t listen.”

  “When does he ever?” Nate griped, but low enough that the mic didn’t pick it up. I quickly responded, hoping to tide over that point of contention. To me, the fact that it was debatable whether Andrej might ever run again was punishment enough for going against Nate’s orders when they’d traipsed into the trap that had incapacitated half of what was left of us.

  “No need to worry too much about us,” I assured our medic. “We’ll head up there, have us a little fun, then I get poked with needles again, and that’s it. We’ll try to make it back down before full winter hits. Should be back with you before Christmas. We’ll try to hit a mall or two on the way to bring back some nice and completely useless presents, promise.”

  That last remark made Martinez laugh. “You do that, and I’ll help you smooth things over with Sadie. It really hit her hard that you pretty much abandoned her. Bree might get a pass, but I don’t think mere words and a bib for the baby will make her stop spewing vitriol in your direction, Miller.”

  Nate looked surprisingly unperturbed by that. “Tell her to grow the fuck up. I had to prioritize between standing around uselessly while she is doted on by every single female in a fifty-mile radius, or making sure that my wife remains as strong and biting as her sarcasm. Not exactly a hard decision.”

  “Gee, you say the sweetest things,” I retorted, but didn’t try to hide a silly smile that made Nate shake his head with a grunt.

  “Will do,” Martinez replied. “Verbatim. You come and see how well that goes.”

  Nate snorted. “Well, there are benefits to being half a state away sometimes. We’ll keep you in the loop once we know more. Until then, keep telling everyone that we’re shirking guard and building duty, and maybe someone will start believing it if they hear it often enough. No need to raise any more red flags.”

  I half expected Pia to take over once Martinez had acknowledged the order, but the line went dead after we’d all said our goodbyes. As much as bantering with Martinez had left a slight smile on my face, I couldn’t ignore the churning in my stomach. I had the sinking feeling that there
was a lot going on that he’d left out. It was easy to understand why Sadie would be upset, but I hadn’t expected anyone else to really care what we were up to. Maybe I was just reading too much into this.

  More to disband my own unease than irk him, I nudged Nate’s arm with my elbow. “Priorities, eh?”

  He took his eyes off the winding road for a second to glare at me. “You can wipe that smirk right off your face. Jeering doesn’t become you.”

  “Oh, I think it does. A lot,” I quipped back, feeling the squeezing hand around my heart ease up.

  The second leg of today’s journey proved less eventful than the morning. Whatever had caused the incursion of shamblers that we’d had to deal with earlier, we saw none of that now. The local wildlife seemed to have taken care of any human remains a while ago, those still moving included. Besides some critters scurrying away after taking a look at us, we didn’t encounter anything that was large enough to be interesting to become prey for us, either. Not that any of us planned to hunt on the road, but fresh meat was too good to pass up when it happened to traipse across the road right in front of our guns. Before long we were trundling into Mono basin, the lake stretching to our right as we turned north. The entire area was deserted, no trees, no animals, just desert—and the lake.

  “How much farther to Bridgeport?” Burns asked from the back, scanning the hills we’d come from rather than the endless flatness stretching out in the other directions.