What remains of the war...One
"At first all I saw was a giant matt of filthy brown hair, sunken features, dirty clothes. The woman looked like one of the infected, so much so that I nearly reached for a weapon before realizing that the infected don’t knock politely on truck windows. I looked from the haunted eyes of the woman knocking on my window over to the horse who had drawn near enough to the woman to be patted on the head by her. The horse always trumpeted alarm when she saw the infected."
"I shifted, just slightly, reaching for the crank to roll the window down. Emma had fallen asleep next to me, tucked under one arm, and the baby was snoring softly in a small space behind my seat."
"The woman whispered, “I hate to bother you folks, but I smelled the coals. You left skins laying out, and cooked meat next to the fire. You gotta be weary of that. The things might come through and gobble you all up.”
"I looked out at the coals of the fire, and at the two idiots passed out around it. The woman had a point, we hadn’t policed the camp at all before we called it a night. I moved my eyes away from the woman and looked around at the horizon."
“Oh, there’s none around right now, at least not from the west, but I thought I’d mention it all the same.”
"I turned back to the woman, squinting and looking at her more closely. She wasn’t dressed for the cold nights and she wasn’t carrying much with her."
"I continued to use the horse’s intuition as my guide, she wasn’t bothered by the strange woman, she wasn’t jerking about, smelling anyone or anything coming at us. I whispered, “Thanks for the warning, guess I should have thought about that. You’re welcome to the skins and what’s left around the fire if you’re hungry.”
"The woman smiled, showing rows of blackened and yellowed teeth, she walked around the front of the truck and crept silently over to the remainder of the cook fire. From the straps over her shoulders I assumed she had a backpack of some kind, instead it turned out to be one of those fashionable baby carriers that were all the rage right before the world went to shit. There was a weathered little body still strapped into the pack, its stiff arms and legs sticking straight out, still bundled in tattered, tiny winter clothing. I sat and watched the woman pick around the fire, folding up snake skins and stowing the leftovers of our dinner in a small sack tied to her belt."
"The woman turned at the far edge of our little camp, she smiled and waved at me before she kept walking to the east, picking her way through the prairie and up onto the black top.
I looked over at the horse who proceeded to stick her head in through the truck window, nudging me with her nose. We stood there while the woman got smaller and smaller until she disappeared into the false dawn. I never told the rest of them about our strangest of visitors. It seemed too surreal and too macabre to bring up out of the blue."