Milepost 291

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The end of the world had taught Rachel Wheeler many lessons, but the most recent one was this:

Running for your life was a bitch when you only had one leg.

She tightened the moist, stained bandana that kept the worst of the leaking to a minimum, then hobbled forward another ten feet. The wild dog that had bitten her could have inflicted any number of infections, but it wasn’t like she could hobble into the ER and have modern medicine deal with it. In After, there were no insurance plans.

She leaned against a tree, its rough bark rubbing her spine as she sneaked a look down the forested slope. The Blue Ridge Mountains were sheathed in October’s mellow gold, but the leaves were steadily raining down in the breeze as the forest braced for winter’s sleep.

She couldn’t see them, but she could hear them. Their footfalls were heavy in the crisp leaves, as if the Zapheads had no awareness of the noise they were making. Stephen was higher up the ridge, making better time than she was, but the boy had stopped to wait for her.

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