track them when they’re days ahead of us. He always knows where they are.” She paused and pulled off her helmet and gloves, still smiling. “I must be a real mess.” She fluffed her hair with her fingers; the instantly smitten archer didn’t take his eyes off her. “I’m Gracie, from Cleveland. What’s your name?”
“Terry. I grew up about forty miles from here.” He still tightly gripped a branch, but he visibly relaxed a bit. “You’re a long way from Ohio. We don’t see many strangers around here these days. Why’re you here?”
“We’re taking canoes west, eventually heading to Utah. We noticed you from the river, and none of us wanted to see any more people get eaten if we could help it.” Gracie tipped her head toward her friends. “This is Zach and Maddy. They’re my best friends in the world.” She put her hand on Luke’s shoulder. “And this is my husband, Luke.”
Terry’s eyebrows shot up. “Your husband? You don’t look old enough to have a husband.”
Gracie laughed. “Well, last December I would have agreed with you, but the world’s changed a lot since then. I’m seventeen, how old are you?”
“Just turned eighteen.” He eyed the group below him. “So y’all are just a bunch of teenagers? You fight like frickin’ superheroes.” He quickly added, “But that don’t mean I trust you.”
Gracie shrugged. “If you don’t want to talk to us, we’ll move along.” She picked up her helmet.
“Wait,” Terry almost shouted. “I never said I wouldn’t talk to you.”
Gracie extended her hand. “Are you ready to come down from that tree?”
“You sure there ain’t no eaters nearby?” Terry anxiously scanned the area.
“If Luke says it’s safe, it’s safe.”
Terry disagreed. “Nothing is safe around here.”
Half an hour later, the entire group was heading to the oxbow lake that Zach had pointed out on the map earlier that morning. Once Terry started talking, he had a disturbing story to tell. He’d just escaped from a settlement on the oxbow that was controlled by an ex-con named Jesse and his small group of armed thugs. Terry’s twelve-year-old little sister, Courtney, was still there. Terry said he wouldn’t have left her behind but he was running for his life. All males ages eighteen to thirty were expected to join Jesse’s “security team.” These guys mostly bullied the civilians and acted like they owned everything and everyone. When Terry refused to join the security team, Jesse had laughed at him and said he’d be having a change of heart real soon. Then one of the goons shot Terry’s dog, and they all laughed some more. Terry was carrying his bow and arrows, and, without really thinking, he’d sent an arrow through the throat of the guy who’d shot his dog. Then he ran away as fast as he could and didn’t look back.
Riding in the canoe with Luke and Gracie, Terry felt tremendously lucky. He’d just survived an attack by the largest, scariest eaters he’d ever seen, and now his newfound deadly friends were going to help him rescue his sister.
“How’d you end up at the settlement?” Gracie asked Terry while offering him a canteen of water.
He took a long drink and shrugged. “We left town as soon as the infection showed up there. Dad brought us to our grandpa’s farm to wait out the crisis. Mom was workin’ as a police dispatcher and was supposed to join us at the end of her shift, but we never heard another word from her.” He paused to regain his composure. “Grandpa and Dad got bitten in a fight at the farm; my sister and I ran off with some neighbors who’d heard about a safe area. It was pretty safe, for a while.”
Luke looked at Terry sympathetically. “Tell me about Jesse.”
“Well, I suppose he’s around thirty, but I can’t be sure. He’s got lots of tattoos—skulls, a spider web, some numbers. They’re all just black except for a green shamrock on his arm. He likes to drink and makes his own