Free Green Fields (Book 3): Escalation by Adrienne Lecter

in the no man’s grassland of Thunder Basin, huddled together for warmth, not daring to light a fire. As soon as dawn arrived, we made our way down to the outskirts of the town where we left our cars, ready to be stocked with whatever we could scavenge. In winter, when Martinez had outfitted all cars with a system that used the same keys for all of them, I’d laughed at the very idea of anyone actually stealing our rides. Now, I was a lot less amused by that idea. Sure, there would be cars aplenty all over Douglas, but likely few of them with a battery that would still start—and none that had been zombie proofed. If worse turned to worst, we could always hunker down in our fortresses on wheels and just wait until the undead fuckers lost interest. Seeing no less than twenty undead come out of the grasslands even five miles away from town—drawn by the sound of our engines—made me very glad about that.
    Armed to the teeth and carrying backpacks that were too large for comfort—even empty—but just small enough not to be a true hindrance, we set out, first disabusing those shamblers of the idea that we were their ideal meal, then spreading out in the teams Pia had sorted us into. It came as no surprise that I was—once again—teamed up with Andrej, Burns, and Bates, and although I would have preferred to have Nate by my side, with just thirteen people and three entry vectors identified, it made no sense to set up our group as the fiver one. Pia’s group would hit the truck and auto repair shops to the south; Nate and Martinez were honing in on the hospital, care center, and what schools they passed; and our job was to clean out the two larger gun stores and the police station.  
    Just before we split up, I shared a lingering look with Nate that was packed with a lot more emotion than it probably should have been, making me hope that it wasn’t the last. Then we headed south while the rest swung to the east, planning to split up farther along the way.
    With silence and stealth being key, there was a lot less joking going on between Burns and me than usual, with only the odd word exchanged when we had to stop and duck, or take care of a shambler. The last few days had been balmy already—not quite warm, but warm enough that we’d ditched the winter gear for the summer jackets, with the odd layer of fleece underneath. The sun was shining with not a cloud in the sky, making this the perfect weather to enjoy spring—if not for what lay ahead of us. When we’d first come to Wyoming last summer, we’d made a beeline through the state, avoiding all towns. So far, we’d only hit the small ones, and usually gotten away before most of the resident undead population could even become aware of us. But Douglas was the largest settlement we’d even come close to since we’d left Lexington back in May last year, leaving us at a complete loss of intel for how bad it would get in there. And the increasing number of shamblers that greeted us the closer we got to the city limits didn’t really bode that well for our undertaking.
    It shouldn’t have taken us significantly longer than one and a half hours to make the five-mile distance to town, but we spent closer to two hours with all the sneaking we had to do—not easy on flat ground with nothing to hide behind. It quickly became apparent why so few people we’d met at the meetings were from larger towns—even now it was hard to get close, let alone bug out with your entire family in tow. At least there were buildings—of course—and trees around the closer we got, but it was still slow going. The longer it took us, the happier I was about the fact that we only had three destinations to hit. The others had up to seven.
    The town had once, without a doubt, been a green jewel in the otherwise brown grassland, but the trees were pretty much the only thing left untouched. While the winter had been a hard one, it in no way accounted for the overall damage that was apparent