Lucy ignored her conscience pangs as Lynn wrapped her foot in some bandages she’d found, padding the heel well before sliding the new boots over Lucy’s feet.
“How they feel?” Lynn asked.
“Pretty good, might be a little loose.”
“Loose can give you a blister just as bad as tight can,” Lynn said, her forehead creasing.
“Yeah, but I need the room for the bandage,” Lucy said quickly, not wanting Lynn to leave the camp again. “And who knows how long it will take us to get to California . . . I might grow into them.”
“Hopefully not that long,” Lynn said, as she lay down on her blanket, eyes sliding to the horizon and the dark clouds piling up above the sunset. “Might rain.”
“Feels weird not running for buckets.”
“We should set out our bottles. They’ll catch something at least.”
They piled their backpacks and blankets underneath the spreading canopy of the pine as the clouds neared, flickering lightning licking the edges of the storm front.
“Think it’ll be bad?” Lucy asked.
Lynn watched the clouds for a moment. “Not very,” she decided. “It’ll be one of those that gives us a soaking and then moves on. I should’ve noticed it sooner. We could’ve been in one of them houses below.”
Lucy slid under the lowest branches of the pine, the needles tickling her back as she lay on her stomach. “There’s good cover here. We’ll be fine.”
Lynn scooted over to lie next to Lucy, her face propped in her hands. “Something’s not right,” she said, her eyes darting over the horizon. “I don’t know if it’s bothering me I didn’t see that storm coming sooner, or . . .”
“Or what?”
“Or if it’s like I feel somebody is watching.”
“Nobody is watching us,” Lucy said quickly. “There’s nobody out here but you and me.”
“Maybe. But keep your gun close,” Lynn said, her nerves still clearly on edge. “I guess I’ll lay here in the dirt and watch the first rainfall I’ve never been running around willy-nilly to collect.”
The next day dawned clear. As Lucy dragged herself out from under the pine, she saw Lynn critically inspecting the water bottles they’d left out the night before.
“Catch much?”
“Not too bad, but I think a critter got curious in the night, knocked this one over.” She held up an empty bottle. “Not a drop in it.”
“Critters, what can you do?” Lucy shrugged, forcing the image of Carter chugging the water, his bruised and broken lips cracked with thirst, out of her mind.
“Shoot ’em,” Lynn said, and shoved the empty into her pack along with the rest. They made good time once Lucy had convinced Lynn her new boots weren’t bothering her. She regretted putting on such a convincing show; if Carter couldn’t keep up with them, he was a goner. They ate a sparing lunch of Stebbs’ venison jerky along with some dried peas, their rations so meager Lucy knew the small amounts she could spare for Carter would only keep him alive for so long.
“Do you think we should hunt while we’re still in an area we know?”
“Maybe,” Lynn said, “but we’ve got plenty of food to keep us going at least out of Ohio. Once we’re low, we can start thinking about hunting smaller animals, something we can eat in one or two meals. We can hit some empty houses up, see if there’s anything left in the way of cans.”
Lucy looked past the words Lynn was saying and into her tone. “But not yet?”
“Not yet,” Lynn said, looking up at the midday sun. “Mostly I want to get moving. The faster we get to California, the sooner we don’t have to worry about things like food and water.”
“Right,” Lucy agreed, knowing full well Carter wouldn’t be able to do “fast” for long.
The gravel road they were on switched into a patchy pavement, then intersected with a wide highway with a straight yellow line painted down the middle. Lucy walked to the edge where the grass had begun to reclaim its territory, shooting up through the blacktop and reaching for the sun.
“Which way?”
“If you still want to see Entargo, we go left,” Lynn said. “Up to you.”
“Let’s go left then,” Lucy said, and walked onto the road, her new boots clunking against the tarred surface.
Lynn followed, her hand resting lightly on the butt of the gun jammed in her jeans. “I don’t like traveling the bigger roads,” she said. “Could mean more people.”
“More than what? Zero? ’Cause that’s how many we’ve seen.”
“Doesn’t mean we haven’t been seen,” Lynn argued, but fell silent as they walked.
The highway cut through fields once sown with corn, now choked with waist-high grass and clumps of maples that had seeded themselves over the years. Houses that had been neglected for decades stood like skeletons, their siding peeling off like flaps of skin to show the framework. Around three in the afternoon, Lynn stopped Lucy.
“We’re gonna want to steer clear of that one.” She nodded into the distance at a house that looked no more imposing than the others they’d passed.