Beyond Green Fields (Book 1): Beginnings [A Post-Apocalyptic Anthology] Read online

  Nate didn’t even bat an eyelash at her arguments. “Your mother doesn’t want you out there looting with us. So you’re staying here.” Sadie’s eyes narrowed, but while she looked ready to continue protesting, she accepted the finality of his words with a sigh. A light frown appeared on Nate’s forehead, as if he wasn’t trusting her backing down—smart man. “Why do you even want to come with us? You’ve heard enough recounts of just how much fun a loot run like this is going to be. If you’re getting stir crazy, I can add you to our close perimeter cycle. Including night watch and weekend schedules.”

  Sadie gave him a humorless grin—she sure hadn’t protested when Nate had left her out of the roster; he hadn’t done me the same courtesy. “I need something. Figured it was easier if I just tagged along to get it.”

  That did nothing to alleviate Nate’s suspicion, even though he made light of it. “Write it down. We’ll see if we can find it, or something close enough to work.”

  Unease made her hunch her shoulders, but after a second she steeled herself. Sadie’s grin turned sardonic as she reached into her pocket to pull out a small paper box, frayed at the edges but obviously some kind of medication. “I need you to fetch me a half-year supply of the pill.”

  Ah, that would explain her trying to keep this under wraps. Quite amused, I watched as most of the guys, previously quite intent on eavesdropping, suddenly had very pressing matters to attend to. Sadie noticed, of course, the set of her jaw becoming both more defiant and a little triumphant. She sure gloated at Nate, who, in turn, looked less than pleased, but overall less embarrassed than most men likely would have in his situation.

  “Yeah, I don’t think you’re going to need that anytime soon,” he responded, already turning away in what was a very obvious dismissal.

  Sadie’s answering grunt was very teenager, and very exasperated. “Oh, come on. Don’t be such an asshole.”

  Bates snickered, and Burns, leaning against one of the cars next to him, mouthed a near-silent, “Language!”

  Sadie ignored them, as did Nate. She waited until she had his attention once more, looking very regal as she kept holding out the box to him. “I might not be the only one who needs it, you know?”

  If Nate’s stare had been neutral before, it turned flat now, making Sadie smirk as she briefly glanced in my direction. I ignored her, instead putting a little challenge in my return look to him. Yeah, two weeks without having to bust open doors and getting a faceful of zombie had been neat. Two weeks locked in with a lot of people in way not enough space and no privacy whatsoever, not so much. And that wasn’t counting Nate’s “no fraternization” speech from earlier this week that I still wasn’t sure whether he considered himself—and me, by extension—addressed by. He grimaced briefly but his stare remained that undefined thing between challenge and neutral that made me want to seethe with anger—and jump his bones, because going on three weeks of celibacy after a too-short interruption of several months of the same did not make me a happy camper.

  “Cramps. I need it because without it, I’m having terrible cramps every time I get my period,” Sadie announced, physically putting herself into the line of sight between us, effectively cancelling our staring match. Her exasperation looked only half fake, a hint of real desperation shining through that wiped away my ire. “Which is heavy enough right now that I’m surprised that the undead haven’t smelled it already and come knocking on our door.” Nate still didn’t move a muscle to take the box. Only then did Sadie turn to me, her gaze all naive and hopeful. I wasn’t buying that for a second. “Bree, help me here! You know that it’s not uncommon that doctors prescribe the pill for menstrual pain.”

  I hesitated in my response, giving Nate the perfect opportunity to interrupt before I could put my foot in my mouth. “Does your mother know?”

  Sadie rolled her eyes at him. “Of course she knows! Who do you think went to the doc with me?” She made a face. “I only had one box in my bug-out bag, else I wouldn’t have to do this right now. But grabbing pain killers and water purification kits seemed more important when I packed it last year. Having an easier time dealing with something not life threatening seemed smart. But now that we have bugged down here and you’re going to raid the town anyway, I figured I might do you a favor and offer you a chance to keep me from turning into a raging bitch every four weeks. Thought you’d appreciate that.”

  Burns snickered at the last part, with Bates whispering something back that I sure as hell didn’t need to hear. Nate still looked on the fence, but I wondered if it was more a matter of making a point now than giving in too easily. Emma had spent a good portion of our prep time lecturing all of us only to pick up what she’d written down on the list that was now crumpled in Nate’s jacket pocket—and now her own daughter was the first to deviate from said practice. Then again, that very fact was enough to make me cave in a second.

  “She’s not wrong,” I belatedly answered the prompt Sadie had shot my way. “And it’s actually a smart move on several levels. Any kind of meds will become a damn good trading commodity soon, and all the better if she doesn’t need meds someone else might need for setting broken bones or stitches. The hospital and pharmacies should have plenty.” Nate finally nodded, and I held out my hand for the box to check on the brand and what exactly it contained. Sadie looked relieved if still a little anxious, making me guess that while not a lie, her motivation might run in different directions. Smart cookie either way, if anyone had asked me. Which they didn’t, as per usual. “I’ll see what I can find,” I promised her. “Might not be this one, but I’m sure I’ll get you what you need.”

  Her smile was sincere but disappeared quickly the second Nate turned away, ending in a frosty look that made me want to snort, but I did my best to suppress it. Her favorite person I was not, although we were both working on that. “Thanks,” she said, sounding as chipper as before but not looking it.

  I took it with a stoic nod. “You’re welcome.”

  She grabbed the box on her way back to the house, and I didn’t miss how Pia was watching our exchange. When I caught her gaze, she gave a silent shrug as if to say that she was the wrong person to ask for help. She then proceeded to shoo everyone to the cars, her tone slightly sharper than usual to those who seemed to have taken a little too much interest in the exchange. Yeah, no way Sadie’s potential plans outside of the mitigation of discomfort would come to any fruition as long as Pia and Nate were watching over her like a pair of homicidal godparents. Poor girl.

  I was already heading for the Rover when Nate’s bark stopped me cold in my tracks. “Martinez, Lewis, you’re in the other pickup. Bates, Burns, you take the Nissan and provide backup for them. I want you at the rear, last to come in, first to peel out once we’ve packed every available square inch of space.”

  I made a face but veered toward the old, beat-up pickup truck someone had liberated last week. Andrej and Martinez had spent the time since then to get it running well once more, but I didn’t quite trust it. I also missed the comfort of my sky-blue monster, and I was sure I’d soon also miss the suspension, new seats, and all the many features cars had gotten built-in since I was born—which the truck all lacked. Bates also looked less than thrilled to be on babysitting duty, but nothing could cull Burns’s mirth. “Looks like we’re the babe squad,” he observed as he sauntered behind us to his car. “Get it?” he asked his semi-sullen co-pilot. “Our names, and well, those two are—”

  “Babes, no question,” Bates supplied, grinning.

  I was tempted to throw the next available disposable thing at them, but Martinez silently shook his head at me. Not worth it. He was right, of course, but that didn’t change a thing. “I’m calling shotgun,” he told me, already heading for the passenger side.

  “Like there was any question that I drive,” I mumbled, taking a few moments to store my pack and shotgun before I climbed up and swung myself behind the wheel. Sheesh, even adjusting the seat was a feat requiring a whole body workout. S
tarting the behemoth, even more so, but Martinez suffered in silence as I murdered the clutch, and quite possibly the gear shift as well. All the other cars were already idling at the end of what served as our driveway, waiting for me. As soon as we caught up with them, the lead car—with Nate and Pia, if I wasn’t mistaken—took off.

  It took us a good hour to make it down into the basin, then another north to Cody, hugging the foothills wherever possible. Keeping the car running—and on the road—took my mind off the fact that we were out in the open once more, but only for so long. Martinez noticed that I was alternatively clutching the wheel hard enough that my knuckles must have turned white underneath my gloves, and drumming my fingers on any available surface once I felt secure enough to loosen said death grip. It was only after I didn’t curse vehemently when the truck almost got stuck traversing a shallow ditch to get from a field onto the next small access road that he spoke up.

  “It’s okay to be apprehensive, you know.”

  “Not apprehensive,” I quipped back, for once happy the car took up all of my concentration.

  “Like hell,” he muttered, but had a sweet smile for me when I sent him a sidelong glare. “I’d be more concerned if you were all relaxed, or downright happy to be back on the road, even if it’s just for a few hours.”

  I briefly looked in the rearview mirror at the car trundling along behind us. Even without being able to hear a single word they spoke, it was obvious that the two idiots were having a grand old time making fun of everything. “Why, because I’m a girl? Or because I’m the rookie?”

  Martinez grinned at my guesses. “Because you’re human. And too smart to measure any reasonable behavior on those two.” He went back to scanning the surroundings but wouldn’t shut up. “It’s usually worse after you get some downtime. Not sure why. Maybe because your mind has time to figure out exactly how stupid it is to put yourself in danger, willingly, after you’ve finally gotten out of it. It’s easier when you don’t have a choice.”

  That sounded plausible, but didn’t exactly help me. “You say that like I had the option to stay in the bunker, twiddling my thumbs until you came back.”

  “Not if you want your ego to survive,” Martinez jeered, laughing softly. “Just to be clear, nobody would have faulted you for staying put, but we would have mercilessly ribbed you right into next year.”

  “More like the next century.”

  He snorted. “Come on, you would have been insulted if we didn’t keep egging you on. You looked perfectly annoyed when Miller kept you off guard duty the first two days. If it had gone on three, you would have ended up being mortally insulted.”

  He kind of had a point—but I wasn’t happy to concede that to him. It also made me question my sanity. “Just how much of a nutjob does that make me?”

  “Well, considering you’re the woman who needed to be beat up to finally realize we accept her as one of us, that’s pretty mild.” Him mentioning that made me feel both uncomfortable and kind of fuzzy and warm, which didn’t sound any more healthy. Yeah, maybe that mentally balanced thing was overrated.

  “Actions do speak louder than words,” I offered, not quite sure what else to say. Martinez shook his head at me, but his attention stayed on something to the east, where the highway ran parallel to the route we were taking.

  Our haphazard column slowed down as we got closer to our destination, Nate stopping a few times so he and Pia could check out the terrain and what lay ahead. We still hadn’t encountered any shamblers, but I knew that they’d been out yesterday, and the day before that, likely clearing our trek ahead. Somehow, the rising anticipation made my anxiety even worse, my fingers going back to drumming on the wheel. But then Pia gave the signal for us to get out—if not yet grab all our gear—and my stomach sank. Yeah, that wasn’t better, exactly.

  Nate was still scanning what lay ahead of us until we were all clustered behind him. Only then did he put the binoculars down, and he didn’t look particularly happy.

  “How’s it looking, boss?” Burns inquired, just as if we were about to stroll into a mall—pre-zombie apocalypse.

  “Not good,” Nate confided, sounding pissed off rather than dejected. “No way we’re going into town. Way too many undead in there.”

  I felt myself deflate at hearing the news, but at the same time I couldn’t deny that it was relief that lifted my mood a little. Too bad, really. I’d so looked forward to almost getting chewed to death again—

  “That doesn’t mean we’ll just turn around and head back home,” Nate went on as if he’d read my mind. He hadn’t even glanced my way but I still felt like he was talking directly to me. “Two of the gun stores are on this side of town right on the outskirts, and there’s a residential area hidden in the foothills toward Yellowstone that we might be able to enter from the south as well. We can’t go barging in, guns blazing, but the houses on the outskirts might be fair game if we’re quick and silent.”

  So much for that. I had to admit, using stealth didn’t sound too bad—and likely excluded me from front-line duty. Then again, the fact that he’d set me to driving the pickup had pretty much designated me for hauling cargo already.

  Everyone nodded, nobody feeling the need to sound off on what was a more reasonable plan than what I’d been afraid they might come up with. After all, Cody’d had shy of ten thousand residents, plus who knew how many tourists stranded here or coming down from Yellowstone once they got sick to seek help in the hospital. But there was something nagging on my mind when I saw that Nate got ready to turn back to the car and dismiss us.

  “What about the airport?” I hedged, my voice needing the first half of the sentence to firm up, making me wince inside at the mix between a croak and a squeak that I inadvertently uttered.

  Nate’s attention snapped to me, a hint of annoyance crossing his expression, but also something else that I couldn’t quite read. Was that interest?

  “What about the airport?” he echoed my question.

  I shrugged, momentarily uncomfortable. “It wasn’t just for passenger flights, right? They likely grounded whatever cargo haulers were waiting there for takeoff, and they might have had up to a week of deliveries backed up when the logistics slowly broke down. I don’t think delivering packages was high on people’s list of priorities when everyone got sick.”

  That was definitely interest sparking in his eyes, and for once he didn’t immediately shoot down one of my suggestions. “Not sure what we can do with someone’s FedExed contract files, but there might be something worthwhile in the larger packages.” He turned to the Ice Queen. “How are things looking around that area?”

  While he’d briefed us, she’d remained standing on the hood of the Rover, continuing to check on our surroundings. “The road from Greybull is clogged up, same as the highway coming up from the south, but not too much movement,” she reported. “We can’t drive the cars on the roads, but should be possible to go around that lake to the east to get into the airport. Looks like one plane crashed down on the runway, but several are parked near the loading docks for the trucks.”

  Nate took that with a brief nod. “We need to head that way, anyway. Might as well check on that cargo.” He took the map Andrej held out to him, flattening it against the back of the Rover so all of us could see where he pointed. “Teams one and two, we go for the gun stores, located here and here.” He pointed at two locations south of the airport, one in what still looked like the basin well outside of town, the other just north of the two lakes that we could see glinting in the brightening sunshine. “Team four”—which were the babes, as Burns had self-titled us—“you check the airfield. Team three, you scout ahead of them and do support if needed. If not, you head to team two. If we find the area clear enough close to the gun store, we might explore a bit further.” Turning to face us once more, he made sure to make eye contact with everyone as he went on. “Don’t forget, this is a grab-and-dash operation. We go in, we grab whatever we can, and then we haul ass out of ther
e. We can always return another time to stock up on whatever else we might find useful.”

  It was only then that I realized he hadn’t looked at Emma’s list even once, or mentioned any of the many staples for preserving food that she’d scribbled on there. I couldn’t help but grin at his silent show of defiance, until the reason for it sunk in—we’d likely need those guns and ammo we were here to liberate if we wanted to get anywhere that we might find what we’d need not to starve to death over the winter. Suddenly, sitting in the bunker, waiting for someone else to bring in what my life would soon depend on, took on another, entirely horrifying side. Thanks, but no thanks. Even if the very thought of eating cat food for another few months made my stomach turn, it was better than that feeling of helplessness and being at someone else’s mercy. Even the likely prospect of having to go toe to toe with the shamblers paled in comparison.

  “Everyone know what they got to do?” Nate asked, barely waiting for anyone to speak up. Nobody did. “Good. Move out. Remember, if shit goes sideways, your first priority isn’t the cargo. You have each other’s back, you retreat as one, and then you run. We’ll meet at one of the rendezvous points, or back at the bunker. Would be a shame if we had to leave the cars, but we can always come back for them, or get new ones. We can’t replace any one of you, even if a few deserve to be left standing in a mob of undead assholes.”

  Bates grinned even as Burns elbowed him. I already felt so much safer knowing those two were guarding my ass.

  We split up into two groups—one team with Nate, Pia, Andrej, Taylor, Clark, and Moore was heading for the lakes while the other gun shop crew joined us to traverse the highway here, several miles outside of the city, where it wasn’t completely clogged yet. We were still half a mile away from the road when I saw the first head pop up between the few wrecks scattered across the lanes, the shamblers roused by the sound of potential food approaching. My heart rate went up as I tensed, and while I still felt just as much apprehension as before, that bone-deep fear had changed into something a little more manageable.