Michael Reid's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

By morning, Michael counted what they had left. Two cans of beans. Three bottles of water. He sat on the concrete floor and did the math for Lillith. "Enough for both of us four days. Maybe five." The shelter held two people. It held nothing to keep them alive. Lillith leaned against the steel door and said what he already knew. "Then we starve in here, or we go out there." Michael strapped on his pack. The dog rose with him, ears sharp. Lillith took her crossbow. "There's a stream a mile east," Michael said. "And I marked a spot with dried meat before the fog. If it's still there, it feeds us for weeks." The fog had thinned overnight. He hoped the marker held. They walked into the swamp. The dog led, nose low, past drowned trees. Michael watched the water for movement. Halfway there, the dog stopped and growled. Ahead, a shape hunched in the mud. It was a man, or had been. Gaunt. Bent double. It coughed, wet and sharp, and lifted its head. Cloudy eyes found them. It lurched forward fast. "Plague," Lillith hissed. She raised the crossbow. The zombie coughed again and broke into a run, hunched and jerking. Her bolt punched its shoulder. It did not slow. Michael grabbed her arm and pulled her back toward a stand of trees. Then a blade came down. An axe split the thing's skull from the side. It dropped in the black water. A young woman stood over it, blonde hair loose, flannel shirt torn at the elbows. She wrenched her axe free and looked at them like they were the strange ones. "You made enough noise to call every rotter in the swamp," she said. She wiped the blade on her jeans. "Aspen. You two lost?" Michael kept his hand on the dog's collar. "Michael. This is Lillith. We're not lost. We're low on food." He watched her axe, then her face. She had killed the thing without a flinch. "I built a shelter east of here. Concrete walls. I'm gathering survivors before winter." Aspen laughed once. "Survivors don't last. I've buried three." But she looked at the dead thing, then back at Michael. "You got walls?" "Walls and a plan," Michael said. "I know where meat's stored. Help us carry it, and you eat with us." Aspen thought about it. She hooked the axe on her belt. "I know that stream. There's a cellar past it. Dry goods, canned stuff. The rotter was guarding it." She nodded at the corpse. "You'd never have found it alone." They reached the cellar by noon. Aspen pried the door. Inside sat shelves of cans, sealed jars, sacks of rice. Enough to feed a dozen people through winter. Michael filled his pack until the straps strained. That night, three of them sat behind the concrete walls with full stomachs. Michael had solved his shortage. But now three mouths shared the same water. And Aspen kept eyeing the door like she might still leave.