Free This Shattered Land - 02 by James Cook

you needed to do
some male bonding, or whatever the hell.”
    “If
by bonding, you mean the careful and deliberate consumption of several fiery
libations, then you are correct ma’am.” Gabe said, his southern accent growing
thicker. “Care for some of Kentucky’s finest? It’s good for what ails you.”
    Sarah
smiled. “You know what? I don’t mind if I do.”
    Gabriel
poured her a couple of fingers and handed her a cup. She gave the amber liquid
a discerning sniff.
    “Nice,
you guys have the good stuff.”
    The
night wore on, growing steadily colder. My whiskey buzz grew into a low, steady
hum as the conversation between my companions grew distant. I thought about the
forthcoming river voyage to Marion, and found myself looking forward to it.
Canoeing had long been one of my favorite hobbies, although it now had a much more
serious purpose. Gabe and I had actually paddled the route we planned to take a
few times before the Outbreak, so we knew the way quite well. A significant
problem we faced was avoiding the rapids that poured down a series of steep
valleys to the east. That meant carrying the canoe over land a couple of miles,
a prospect that mitigated my enthusiasm. 
    As
challenging as the short journey might prove to be, my inner scavenger was
chomping at the bit to scare up some salvage. One of the places we planned to
hit was a little boutique teashop located on the town’s small main street. Tea
might not sound like a commodity worth risking our lives for, but when you
consider that it is an extremely rare and valuable trade good, the logic
becomes a bit clearer. Other small groups of survivors we spoke with over
Gabe’s HAM radio over the past couple of years had told us about the trade
networks set up on a barter system all over the country. Some of those groups
scavenged, hunted, or farmed to provide for themselves, but many had come to
depend almost entirely on trade. I’m not sure how they managed to do that in
the two short years that had passed since the Outbreak, but somehow they pulled
it off. Small caravans of merchants traveled back and forth between these communities,
ferrying goods from one place to another. Apparently it was a good living if
you didn’t mind the hordes of walking corpses, or the merciless raiders that
threatened every mile of usable highway. 
    Sarah
let out an especially loud laugh that startled me. I looked across the fire at
her, blinking blearily against the light. She had one hand in Tom’s lap, gently
kneading the muscle of his thigh and leaning into him. I turned my head to hide
a grin. It looked like someone was in for a very nice evening. I couldn’t help
but feel a little jealous, it had been a long time since I had touched a woman.
Well over a year, in fact. Sometimes I thought about Stacy, the girl I met at
the abandoned warehouse in Alexis. I wondered how she was doing, if she was
healthy and safe, and if she ever thought about me. If I happened to cross her
path again, would she be happy to see me? I shook my head at the thought. I had
no right to hope for that. She didn’t walk away from the relationship—I did.
Sometimes I wondered if I had made the right decision. My thoughts wandered
farther back to Vanessa, another ex-girlfriend, but I turned away from those
memories. I didn’t like thinking about her. After she got bitten by a ghoul and
turned, I had to put her down and bury her in my back yard. Not exactly a
romantic ending to the relationship.
    As
I leaned over to refill my cup, a rock skittered down the side of the mountain
to my left. I stopped and turned my head, straining to see. Nothing but inky
black darkness stared back at me from the edge of the firelight. I waited a few
heartbeats, listening. All I heard was crickets and the crackle of burning pine
logs. I was just about to lean back and laugh at myself for being jumpy when a
harsh, gurgling moan ripped through the still night air. Several others
answered in rapid succession. The noise