“I could be delusional,” said Tom, half smiling.
“You could. Not sure you actually need to believe in anything much yourself except life. You do believe in that, and don’t tell me you don’t.”
Tom nodded.
“So, as I interpret the whole End of Times thing,” said Ledger, “an actual apocalypse should be all exit doors and no other options. I’m not seeing that here. Neither are you. Fuck, even those ass-pirates who are preying on survivors think there’s a chance at a future.” He shook his head and tossed the blade of grass into the wind. “We’re living in a fully dramatized example of that old samurai concept. Nanakorobi yaoki. You know that one?”
“’Fall down seven times, get up eight’,” said Tom.
“This is one of the times we get up.”
“What if we get knocked down again? What if that doctor in Arizona doesn’t really have a cure? What then?”
“Then we get up a ninth time,” said Ledger. “And a tenth.”
They watched the zoms, standing just outside of the reach of those dead hands. Then Ledger raised himself on his toes and looked over to the side of the farmhouse that stood on the edge of the field. A smile blossomed on his weathered face.
“What?” asked Tom.
“Maybe there’s a God after all,” said Ledger, “and maybe he’s not a total dick.”
“Huh?”
Ledger pointed to the porch. There, exposed by the slanting rays of the sun, was a pair of heavy-duty mountain bikes. “Not horses, but then again we won’t have to feed and water them.”
Tom pulled out his binoculars and studied them.
“Shit. The tires are flat.”
Ledger shrugged. “This is a farm in the middle of no-fucking-where. You trying to tell me these people didn’t have spares, patch kits and hand-pumps? Really?”
Forty minutes later they were pedaling along the road with the farm and its people falling slowly behind.
—6—
Top and Bunny
Bunny estimated they were less than a mile outside Sun Valley when they heard the screams. They’d traveled until early afternoon the first day, then slept during daylight and resumed their journey at night and into the early morning, winding up doing six hours the first day and over seven since they’d started out the previous evening. The journey had been quiet and unexpectedly uneventful — the two soldiers having somehow managed to avoid any pods of zombies or other hurdles the entire way. Until now.
The screaming came from multiple voices.
“Does that sound like children?” Bunny asked.
Top nodded. “Women, too.”
They spurred their horses simultaneously and raced in the direction of the screams. The undead didn’t scream, they moaned. Some humans were still out there and in danger — probably under zombie attack. As they rode, they checked their weapons. Bunny’s chest tightened and he took a deep breath, focusing his energy and senses as he always did when preparing to go into combat. Beside him, he saw Top go through similar preparations, though they each put their own spin on it. They’d faced fire together hundreds of times, yet the prep remained the same. Military discipline and common experience.
As they topped a small rise, they began making out voices mixed with the screams — shouting, pleading, arguing… No distinct words yet, but enough to confirm there were several humans involved — male, female, and children.
They rode into fields of heavy cacti and petrified rock, and Bunny spotted a fading, cracked sign saying, ‘Welcome to Petrified National Forest’. A trail had been laid out, lined with logs connected by pillars of stone. The well-worn dirt path between them was around ten feet wide, so they turned their horses and began following it in the direction of the voices and screams.
Some nearby cacti bore beautiful purple and green flowers in stark contrast to the sharp spindles shooting out of every other available surface upon them. Bunny briefly wondered if animals were fooled. For what purpose had the plants grown such camouflage and how many generations ago?
Then the trail turned and they were winding along the top of one of two facing natural stone walls, layers of red, yellow, tan, and grey revealed along the sides that ran down into the canyon between them — loose rock, grass, and cacti growing scattered along the slopes. It was stunning, a clear reminder why the place had drawn the attention of the Department of Interior and become a National Park.
The shouting and pleading became intelligible now.
“No, they’re just babies!” a woman sobbed.
“Hold her down!” a man yelled. “We can’t help them now!”
“How did they find us again?” another woman wondered, her voice filled with pain and mourning.
“Get back under cover or they might come back for you,” the yelling man ordered.
Then Bunny spotted a dirty cargo van, its white exterior spotted with mud and debris, peeling along a thin natural road that ran down the middle of the valley on the canyon floor. Gunshots echoed as rocks and pebbles shot up from the road, the rounds missing the van as it peeled away as fast as it could manage on the slippery surface.
“Who the hell has a working van and frigging gasoline?” After the EMPs hit the cities, most above ground vehicles and gas pumps stopped working. Bunny had heard rumors that vehicles parked in metal buildings or underground might escape the problem, but it had been a long time since he’d seen one. “Should we stop it?” he called to Top.
Both reined their horses to a stop and aimed their weapons, eyes searching for targets, trying to determine who was attacking whom.
Finally, Top shook his head. “We don’t know what’s going on yet.”
“Someone stealing children,” Bunny said.
“Or rescuing them,” Top countered.
Then they heard the distinct click of a shotgun and pistols being cocked behind them and whirled to find two men and a woman, faces dirty from dust and sand, standing near the trail edge, weapons aimed right at the two soldiers’ chests. Bunny knew that with quick movements, he and Top could be off their horses and taking the three out, but Top shot him a look that said, ‘wait’, so he hesitated, watching his partner.
“Drop the weapons now!” the man with the shotgun ordered. He looked to be in his thirties. From the way the others responded to his voice, Bunny suspected he was the leader.
“Easy there, we mean no harm,” Top said, as he and Bunny lowered their guns, moving them slowly toward their holsters.
“Freeze!” the woman shouted, shifting nervously, her .45 swung toward Top’s forehead. She was tan with long blonde hair and looked a decade younger than the leader. Top and Bunny stopped moving.
“Yes, ma’am,” Bunny said. “Just trying to put them away.”
“Who are you?” the leader demanded. “What are you doing here?”
“Soldiers, come to help,” Top said. “First Sergeant Sims, US Army Rangers and Master Sergeant Rabbit, USMC.”
“Army and Marines together?” the leader said with a quizzical expression. “You aren’t official then.”
Top shook his head. “Not many official teams left, you know. With the troubles.”
“Yeah, we’re all on our own,” the woman said angrily. “And we don’t like strangers.” She took a breath and her .45 faltered a bit, but then Top shifted slowly in the saddle, turning to look at her and she snapped it up again, stiffening.
“Just wanted to say that we understand,” Top said. “We don’t know who to trust anymore either. That’s why we’re together. We trust each other.”