Clutch shook his head. “Hell, no. I had to wake him last time. It’s your turn.”

I scrunched my nose at him and then tossed him my empty cup. “Fine. Wish me luck.”

As I trudged toward to the galley, I could hear Clutch chuckling.

When I reached Jase’s bed, I grabbed the spear lying next to his cot and took a step back. With four feet of space between us, I gently poked at the pile of blankets with the flat end of the spear. A grumble emerged, and the blankets wiggled. “Go away.”

“Wakey, wakey, eggs and bakey,” I said softly in a singsong voice.

I grinned when he grumbled louder and rolled over, taking the blankets with him and leaving his back exposed. “Lemme sleep.”

Too easy, I thought to myself. I ran the dull wood bottom of the spear up his spine, and the insanely ticklish teenager jerked up.

He whipped around and went to throw his pillow but held onto it, which was a good thing. It wouldn’t have taken much to land me flat on my ass.

I laughed.

He scowled and hugged his pillow. “Not cool.”

I laughed. “Rise and shine. We’ve got a run this morning.”

I think he might have actually growled at me, but he did kick his blankets away and sat up. I handed him his spear and he plucked it back.

“I’ll see you in the galley,” I said, still chuckling, and left him rubbing his eyes.

An hour later, after Jase had time to ingest caffeine and some breakfast, he was back to his usual self. The boats had already left on their scouting runs. We were one of the two teams assigned to make a land run. Jase, Clutch, and I took one Humvee, while Griz and two other scouts took another.

Our Humvee was the easiest to spot out of all Camp Fox’s Humvees. It had a coyote head painted on the hood and front doors, thanks to Jase. He’d dubbed our team the Charlie Coyotes and the name had stuck. Luckily, only one zed still lingered around our vehicles this morning. Jase easily dispatched it, and we headed out for a day of adventure.

The plan was that we’d drive east and Griz’s team would drive west, since it was far too risky to drive north. We’d check out rural gas stations and farms and meet at the boat ramp in four hours. If any of us succeeded in finding fuel, the six of us would bring a fuel truck with a Humvee lead vehicle back to the places to fill up. Getting the diesel to the ramp was the easy part. Getting the diesel onto the Aurora would be a bit more complicated since we had to move it in fifty-five-gallon drums on pontoons.

Jase took his favorite position manning the .30 cal on the back of Charlie team’s Humvee. He had a warm leather coat on to fight the late fall chill in the air. I drove. Clutch was by far a better driver, but since his legs were still healing, he rode shotgun.

I drove slowly, even though we had a lot of ground to cover. We had to be careful to avoid the river towns that dotted the river. The good thing with towns every ten miles or so was that zeds tended to group together and hover around populated areas rather than in the fields and around farms. The bad thing was that we couldn’t find a single rural gas station clear of zeds. “I guess the fuel will have to wait until after the migration,” I said.

“Let’s see what else we can find,” Clutch said. “Try that gravel road.”

We searched farms for the next three hours, finding only a few dozen cans of food, which we tossed into duffle bags. As I turned off a gravel road and onto the winding river highway, I hit the brakes. “Shit. You see that?”

“They’re not biters,” Jase called out from above. “What’s the plan?”

A group of ragged survivors were standing near a vehicle in the intersection. The van hadn’t been there when we’d passed through the area a few hours earlier. Steam pouring out of the open hood gave hint at why it was there now.

It was a group of mostly women, and they looked in rough shape. A man stood by the hood. A hunched-back elderly woman stood in the middle of the road, staring off into the distance. A teenaged girl stood near a little girl playing hopscotch. A pale woman lay against the van. They had crowbars and spears, but no one seemed to be carrying rifles or pistols. Still, it could have been a setup.

Another man walked around from the other side of the van, saw us, and started waving wildly.

Jase kneeled to our eye level. “They’ve seen us.”

“Hold on,” Clutch said before he picked up the radio. “Charlie calling Alpha.”

A couple seconds later, Griz’s voice came on the radio. “Alpha here. Report.”

“We have a sit rep. Charlie has come across at least six survivors ten clicks straight east of the RP.”

“Are they raiders?”

“Negative. Just civvies. Looks like their vehicle broke down.”

“Alpha is heading your way. Do you want to wait for backup?”

Clutch looked at me, Jase, and then back at the group. “Negative. We’re going to check it out.”

“Roger. We’re on our way.”

He hung up the radio. “Here’s the plan. We’ll pull up close. If anything throws off a red flag, we’re out of there. We all stay with the Humvee. Only if we’re absolutely sure they’re safe, Cash and I will get out. Jase, you stay behind the .30 no matter what happens. You never, ever leave the .30, got it?”

“Yes,” we both replied at the same time. We’d been together for enough months that we understood one another.

Clutch checked his rifle one more time. “Okay, Cash, take us in nice and slow.”

As we approached, the man quit waving and stood between us and the woman propped against the van. The little girl stopped playing her game and jogged over to stand by the man. The other man, the one who’d been standing behind the hood, grabbed the teenaged girl and pulled her to him.

Clutch rolled his window down.

I pulled up alongside the van and stopped, but left the engine running.

The craggy old woman limped over to us first. Her hands were gnarled with arthritis that looked like it’d taken over much of her body. How she’d survived this long was beyond me.

“I need you all to stay at least four feet back,” Clutch ordered.

Her gray eyebrows rose, but then she stopped and smiled warmly. “Oh, I’m not any danger to you, I promise. I knew God would answer my prayers. He’s never let me down yet. He’s really outdone himself this time, sending one of those big Army trucks and strapping, able-bodied young men,” she said, her voice crackly. She noticed me and touched her chest. “Oh my. Young men and woman. Well, God bless you for coming. Your timing couldn’t have been better. You see, we’ve gotten ourselves into a pickle.” She motioned her people. “We’ve been on the road for days, only stopping for gas and rest breaks, and I’m afraid we overworked our poor van. Praise the lord for sending you to our rescue.”

“Save your prayers, lady. God didn’t send us,” Clutch said with a grumble. “It was just luck we happened to be passing through.”

She chuckled. “Well, you can call it what you like. It’s all the same. You’re here now. I can’t tell you how relieved we are to see you. I’m Margaret Fielding, but you can call me Maggie.”

Clutch nodded at her group. “Nice to meet you, Maggie. I’m Sergeant Seibert from Camp Fox. Where are you from and where are you headed?”

“Well, you get straight to business, don’t you, young man? I can understand, with all those infected folks out there. We were staying at the Wisconsin Dells, but things went downhill. We were planning to keep driving until we found another group of God-fearing folks like yourselves. In fact, you’re the first people we’ve seen since we’ve left. I must admit, when our van broke down, my faith was tested. But as soon as I saw your truck, I knew everything would turn out fine.”

Clutch didn’t speak for a long moment while he scowled at Maggie while she continued chattering away. When he finally spoke, he pointed to the pale woman sitting against the van, and interrupted. “What’s wrong with her? Is she bit?”