After fifty feet or so, fewer zeds reached up the sides, and the boat moved more smoothly through the water. I swapped my machete for the oar and paddled upriver. With all of us rowing, it took only a few minutes to close the rest of the distance to the trees where we’d hidden last night. Once there, Kurt threw out the anchor and then collapsed on his seat.

“Jase,” Clutch said. “Do you see any zeds heading this way?”

Jase pulled out his binoculars and looked to the south, and then to the other directions. “No. It looks like the coast is clear.”

“Good,” Griz said on a sigh. “Wes, get that engine fixed so we can get the hell out of here.”

“You don’t need to tell me twice,” the older man said. He stepped out onto the deck and opened up the engine cover. Water splashed. “Agh! Help!”

I jumped over the seat and grabbed Wes by his belt. His arms were thrashing around while he reached out. A zed was trying to pull him into the water and had his head underwater already. Wes lost his balance, and it became a tug-o’-war as I tried to pull him back. His yells were garbled by the water. Others joined in, and we all tumbled onto our backs on the deck, yanking Wes back with us.

I jumped up to make sure we hadn’t brought the zed with us. “Holy shit, that was close.”

“Ah, hell,” Clutch muttered.

I turned around and saw the blood. “No.”

Wes lay on his back, looking up with utter terror in his eyes. He was holding his neck, where crimson covered much of his shirt. He coughed and blood leaked from his mouth. I fell on my knees. His lips moved, but no sound came out. With blood loss came lethargy. His features relaxed. He looked around to each of us, though his eyes couldn’t seem to focus. He reached up and touched my face.

He went to say something, but coughed and wheezed as he bled out on the deck. I knelt by him, my hand on his chest, offering what little comfort I could. There was nothing we could do. We waited until he lost consciousness, and tears caused my vision to blur, and I could do nothing but watch. I didn’t wipe the tears away. Griz and Jase recited a prayer. Even Clutch joined in, the first I’d ever heard him pray. I couldn’t find my voice.

His breathing became shallow until I could no longer feel it under my palm. His heartbeat disappeared seconds later. “He’s gone,” I said bluntly and without emotion, even though inside I seethed at the unfairness of it all. Jase tugged me back toward the main area of the boat, and Clutch stepped in. He swung his machete and then rolled Wes off the back of the deck. In the water, the zed tore into him like a piranha. My tears stopped, blocked by numbness, and I sat there, watching my friend be eaten by something that used to be human.

LUST

The Seventh Deadly Sin

Chapter XXV

We made it back to the Aurora just before sunset. Once we’d killed and disentangled the zed in the prop blades, the motor had started. It had run rough—some things were probably bent up inside—but it’d gotten us back to Camp Fox.

We’d returned to receive five minutes of fanfare, but then it was right back to work. Our problems were nowhere over yet. We found ourselves in an endless debate about what to do next. The herds had moved on, but a couple hundred zeds had stayed behind, watching us from the bridge that crossed the river. That number wasn’t even counting the hundred dead or nearly dead scattered on the ground that had been trampled by the herd. Those would be easier to clean up but still posed some risk to walking to the vehicles.

The next morning, Griz led another Pied Piper boat, but the zeds we’d dubbed the “bridge bastards” remained undeterred. Over the next few days, we tried scouting runs to the north using the river since we couldn’t get to our vehicles. Traveling under the bridge was dangerous, and we had to speed under each time. With no land vehicles parked to the north, we were limited in our search radius, and the riverfront had been picked clean by other boats on the river like the Lady Amore.

We’d brought a pontoon full of scouts to the nearest river town to empty the grocery store, but bandits had beaten us to it. They must’ve been right behind the herds because every place we went showed signs of being recently picked clean. Every vehicle we came to that looked like it could run was missing its keys. Likely, the only reason bandits hadn’t come across our vehicles yet was the bridge bastards.

Without access to vehicles, we were running on borrowed time. We couldn’t get the fuel or food we needed without making land runs. Relocating from the Aurora was deemed not an option. Tyler had queried the residents, and no one had wanted to leave. They felt safe there and were tired of looking over their shoulders.

So another option presented itself, one the residents embraced and the scouts balked at. Of course, none of the residents planned to get their hands dirty. They planned on watching us from the safety of the barge.

“We’ll have to burn them at sunset, so the smoke won’t be seen,” Griz said before leaning back in his chair.

“It’s risky,” Clutch added. “We could set the whole countryside on fire.”

Tyler shook his head. “Not if we control it. We’ll set up boundaries.”

Clutch’s eyes narrowed. “Tell me. Exactly how are we going to dig up ground and not get torn to shreds?”

“Fine,” Tyler replied. “We’ll skip the boundaries. So what if the fire spreads? It won’t reach the Aurora.”

My eyes widened. “It could spread over miles and miles. We could destroy everything around here. Any food, animals, everything.”

“Why does it matter?” Kurt asked. “There’s no one left out there but bandits, anyway. A fire would destroy a lot of the rotting corpses and clean up the countryside.”

Clutch clenched his fist but stopped himself before he hit the table. “Sure, the fire will take out all the zeds in this area, but it could also destroy any plants and wildlife. We’d be dealing with the same issue we have now, and that’s no food.”

“We still have the grain,” Tyler said. “Deer are faster than zeds and can run. We’ll hunt them later.”

“It sounds too dangerous,” I said.

“It’s safer than using up our ammo on them,” Kurt said.

“I disagree. We can’t waste our gasoline,” I said. “I think it’s safer to shoot them, but I’d prefer to find a third option.”

“Gas will start going bad before we use it all up,” Kurt replied.

Griz stood and poured himself a cup of tea. “The people need to be free from zeds. Being watched by zeds day in and day out wears on morale. They need the break. Even if it’s only for a few months.”

“And when spring comes?” Clutch countered.

“We have no idea if they’ll even come back,” Kurt said, rolling his eyes and sighing in exasperation. “Every month, they rot away more and more. They can’t last much longer before their bodies completely fall apart.”

“We’ve been saying that for months now,” Clutch said.

Jase finally spoke up. “You’re not thinking straight. You’re all too desperate to live without zeds. Going after a couple hundred zeds is really dangerous. We’ve never done anything like this before. We’d have to burn them to the point that they can’t physically move, or else they could still survive.”

“Then we need to make sure they are thoroughly burned because not going after them is even more dangerous,” Tyler said. “Every day we can’t get to our vehicles and start land searches, the bandits clear out more of the surrounding area.”

“Well, if this boat is the new permanent location for Camp Fox, we need to make sure it’s not going to float away in the spring floods. The residents need to kick up their efforts at turning this from a temporary base to a home,” Griz said. “We’ll have to focus completely on building up our food reserves. Vicki thought we should build a greenhouse so we can grow vegetables this winter.”