“Need any company?” I asked when I reached him.
He shrugged. “Sure.”
The storm might have passed, but the night was still chilly, so I wrapped my arms around myself to warm up. Boden was only wearing short sleeves and a threadbare shirt, but he didn’t seem to mind the cold.
“Have you heard anything from him?” I asked and nodded in the direction of Serg.
“Not a peep.” He shook his head, then looked down at me. “I heard you, though.”
I sighed. “It’s just bad dreams, I guess.”
“We all have bad dreams.” He turned back to the long grass blowing in the wind. “This whole world is one long bad dream.”
16.
With the map spread out on the ground in front of us, Boden and I crouched low, both of us scrutinizing the quickest ways to Canada that bypassed major roads and towns. Bishop stood behind us, peering down at it.
“I think that’s the best bet,” Boden said, tapping the paper.
Most of the path he suggested would take us through a national forest, which should be fairly zombie free. But it came out near a city, and I’d been hoping to avoid cities completely.
“I don’t know.” I shook my head. “We’re coming too close to civilization.”
“We’d go around the city,” Boden said.
“We’re still too close,” I insisted. “I don’t like the idea of running into a swarm of zombies.”
Boden smirked. “Nobody does, Remy. But to give it the kind of berth you’d want, it would take us another day or two out of way. We’d be going toward the West Coast when we should be heading north.”
“So what if it’s out of our way?” I asked. “It’s not like we have a deadline when we have to be somewhere.”
“Maybe not, but I for one want to get someplace where we can settle down instead of wandering all over the planet,” Boden said.
“Me too, but not at the expense of everyone here,” I said.
“No, he’s right,” Bishop interjected. “The little ones aren’t going to be able to handle all this walking, not as well as the rest of us.”
I glanced back over my shoulder, where Teddy was helping Stella and Max pack up the rest of their things. The sun had risen about an hour ago, and the morning had been spent eating and getting ready to go. Boden, Bishop, and I didn’t eat anything, but the kids needed to, if we expected them to keep their strength up.
“Besides that, we can’t keep camping out like this,” Bishop said. “We’re too exposed to the elements. We need to find a safe place where we can stay.”
Boden exchanged a look with me, and I sighed. I didn’t like taking risks, at least not with Max’s life, but Bishop was right.
“So we take my route?” Boden asked, and I nodded reluctantly. “Good.” He folded up the map again and shoved it into his duffel bag. “We should get moving then.”
I stood up just as Serg came over to us. He’d woken up roughly the same time as we had, and he’d eaten breakfast out of his own food he carried in his bag.
“I just want you to know that I’m not following you,” Serg said, readjusting the straps of his bag on his shoulders. “But I’m going north, too. I hear there’s less zombies up there.”
“So you’ll be walking in the same direction as us?” Boden asked him.
“Kind of, yeah,” Serg nodded. “I just want to get to Canada as quickly as possible.”
Boden scratched his head and muttered something to himself. “You can walk with us, if you like. We can’t promise you protection, and we won’t share any of our provisions.”
“I understand.” Serg offered a small smile. “Thank you.”
Once he was out of earshot, I turned to Boden and said, “What’d you invite him along for?”
“I’d rather have him walking beside us than sneaking up behind us,” Boden replied simply.
We finished packing our things and headed out. We started out following Boden’s path as closely as we could, but when we heard the rumblings of zombies nearby, we had to diverge from the course.
It was nice that we had a map, though, and for once we weren’t wandering completely blind, even if it was hard to discern where we were since we weren’t really following roads.
The zombies called frequently in the distance, but we never got close enough to see them. But to be safe, we didn’t slow down. We kept as quick a pace as we could manage and didn’t take any breaks.
That ended up wearing on the kids. Teddy and Nolita ended up carrying Stella most of the day, taking turns between them. I would’ve offered to carry her myself, but I didn’t think she liked me that much.