Getting Home

17

Minutes had passed.

The dead man was right next to her. So was the dead deer. Blood stained the ground.

Georgia felt cold. The day might have been warm, but her body felt cold. Cold from hunger, cold from fear.

She thought of her children, of Sadie and James, back at camp.

She lay on her stomach. She’d crawled behind a tree. Only a part of her was exposed. Only her hands and head were a possible target.

She didn’t dare get entirely behind the tree because it would give whoever was out there an opportunity to make a move without her knowing it.

It was a long-range standoff. The enemy was unknown, as was the outcome.

Her heart rate hadn’t gone down. Her fingers felt freezing. Her feet did, too. It was the adrenaline. But she’d gone past the timeframe when it had pumped her up, readied her for action.

Now she just felt its negative effects. She felt the cold and the fear. She felt the worry, the anxiety rushing through her like a tidal wave.

How could she possibly get out of this alive?

She needed to talk herself through it.

She could outshoot many. She had experience. She knew what she was doing. Whoever was out there had already taken some shots at her. And they’d missed.

She couldn’t count on them missing again.

But she did know that she wouldn’t miss.

Her rifle was ready.

Her eye was pressed to the scope. She was ready. As ready as she’d ever be.

There was movement off in the distance, near a cluster of trees.

Nothing but a flash of something. Clothing, or a sneaker maybe. Something reflective. Maybe camping gear.

Georgia moved her eye away from the scope to check her surroundings. But just for a moment.

Then she was back at it. She hadn’t moved her gun. She was honed in on the place where she’d glimpsed the movement.

Now there was someone there, practically right in the crosshairs.

It was a man, short and plump. He held a rifle.

Georgia didn’t bother studying him. She didn’t bother taking a second look. She’d already recognized that he wasn’t one of her own. She’d already recognized that he was the one who’d been firing at her.

She took aim.

She pulled the trigger.

The gun kicked.

It was a clean shot.

Right in the heart.

The man fell to the ground.

Georgia waited, the gunshot ringing in her ears.

She stayed there, pressed to the ground, for a full ten minutes before moving. She used the scope to check on the dead man, to scout the area, and she also made sure to check her surroundings.

There wasn’t any movement. There wasn’t anything out there.

Or if there was someone out there, they were staying still. Very still.

She couldn’t stay there forever. Most likely, that had been it. Just two men. Nothing more.

Georgia stood up slowly. Her body felt weak.

She’d have liked to check the dead man. His gun would be useful, as well as his ammunition and anything else he had on him. She’d have liked to check Baxter as well, the other dead man.

She’d also have liked to try to find their camp, to see if they were the ones who’d stolen the food.

She would have really liked to start processing the deer, bringing some of the meat back to camp.

But her legs were wobbly. Her injury was hurting her. Her vision was going blurry with fatigue. She wondered if she could make it back to camp at all in her state.

It was hard for her to admit that she couldn’t accomplish something. Especially something physical.

But she wasn’t going to let that kill her off. She couldn’t exhaust herself and succumb to some bad fate out here. Not when her kids needed her.

So she started off, ignoring everything that needed to be done. Her focus became simply getting back to camp.

She walked slowly but at a steady pace. She didn’t want to exhaust herself anymore.

It’d take a couple hours to get back at the rate she was going. She stopped only once, to make herself a makeshift staff from a piece of wood. It made the going a little easier, and she found herself leaning on it more and more the farther along she went.

She took a more direct route back towards the camp than she had when she’d been heading out. On the way out, she’d been hoping to catch a deer somewhere along the way. Now, she just wanted to get back.

When she was about a half hour away from the camp, she saw something that made her pause.

It was an empty plastic bottle. It looked like a milk jug. A gallon. Crumpled and lying on the ground.

She stood there, perfectly still, staring at it.

What was it doing out here? She knew it hadn’t come from her camp.

A noise in the distance sent her heart thumping again in her chest. It was the sound of a human voice.

Many human voices.

They were shouting. Some were laughing. But it wasn’t real laughter. It was crazed, high-pitched laughter that sent a chill through her exhausted body.

There was no question in Georgia’s mind about what it was.

It was the mob.

Or another one.

But they were all the same.

They acted the same way. They “thought” the same way, if you could even call it that.

She’d thought they were done with the roving groups of desperate people. They’d defeated them last time, hanging on to their lives and their camp, but just barely.

Now another mob was back. And close to their camp.

Georgia didn’t even blink. She just continued, picking up her pace, ignoring her protesting body.

She needed to get back as soon as possible. She needed to warn the others.

They needed to prepare.