The first ride out...One...
"I suppose there was a stray thought running around in the back of my head that it might be safer out there, for everyone else. The infected tended to hang around the ruins of the old cities, or they migrated to where people usually were. They didn't spend much time just hanging out where there wasn't going to be food. I would like to think that rationale was what steered me to my eventual location but that's bullshit. I didn’t care about my safety, I just wanted to get away from other people. I wanted to go Robin Caruso for sure, just vanish out into the desert once and for all. Find a small watering hole to hold up next to while I passed my days witling tree branches into kindling until death came for me. I pictured myself and the horse I left on winding up as nothing more than a pile of bleached bones, warming in the sun, and I was totally okay with that idea.."
"I rode slowly and aimlessly, letting the horse's nose do my guiding for me. She kept us away from the things and got us working towards water. I did my part by lightening the load one bottle of booze at a time along the way. I must have stayed staggering drunk for days and if it hadn't been for that horse and its interest in staying alive, we both probably would have wound up just like I imagined we would."
"The horse came to a stop and refused to move somewhere northwest of Raton by my best calculations. There was water and shade in what looked like the remains of a small orchard just down the road from a rest area with a working gravity shitter and a gas station with a healthy supply of cool canned beer. Most importantly there wasn't another human being, or anything that used to be a human being, for miles in any direction. There was no New Denver to New Albuquerque route, at least not one I had ever heard of. If I wanted peace and quiet, I had it in spades. Also, if I wanted oblivion, it was just around the corner and one desperate act away and if I decided to coward my way out of the grand show the horse had plenty of water and food around the orchard on its own without me."
