June had something to prove.

Her sneakers were at least 3 years old at this point, and she’d put more miles on them than her dad ever put on his fancy sports car he once took out for special occasions. They were cracked and patched with E600 glue, sewed and scrapped back together until they were ugly beyond recognition. To make them more useful in the winter, she’d soled them with running spikes and lined the interior with water resistant material.

Even if she hadn’t, though, not even the rise of the walking dead could stop her from doing her job. It was all she had.

She was six years away from Birmingham now, but sometimes she woke up disoriented, like if she shook her head and rubbed her eyes, her brother might still be alive and she might again hear the rumbling echo of a steel freighter going by. Birmingham was gone. Reduced to ash. The government abandoned the south to the infected, and June fled west in her Nikes alone.

In the pre-dawn light, she put on her winter running gear and downed a glass of water, trying to get the taste of dirt out of her mouth.

Just then Maggie knocked on her door, her bright red hair already braided sensibly down her back as she got ready for her work out on the pastures. Maggie was one of many young survivors who made it out West for the open skies and lower risk lifestyle. Their settlement’s primary business was cattle, which provided the community with plenty of money to live on. June’s income from running supplies between towns was more than enough to pay for her room and board at the ranch, and she enjoyed feeling like she was at least a little connected to other human beings.

Maggie told her once as they shared a lukewarm beer on the back of the water truck that if the universities opened back up, she wanted to conduct a study on the New West. Something about analyzing the effect of a society de-industrializing on a massive scale.

But for now, Maggie was a rancher, and June was a runner, and neither of them bothered much with thinking that far ahead.

“Shipment’s prepared. I checked the hoardecast, it’s pretty bad today.”

Maggie was nice, but the two weren’t close. Every time the other woman had tried to initiate more than casual conversation, it felt too strange. She could still remember hanging out with her brother in their shared apartment, or with her girlfriends. Now the idea of caring about a new person she might lose at any moment felt too painful to even consider.

June began vigorously doing side stretches. “Is the shipment the same stuff as last month?”

Maggie sighed, digging her feet into the packed earth. No point laying down flooring for a structure that was only for sleeping in.

“Yeah.”

“I’ll be fine, or I won’t. Anyway, it’s the living people I’m worried about.”

 

~*~

 

Before the end of the world, did the trains run in the winter in the snow? Would those great iron beasts, those that now sat rusting in junk yards, or knocked off their tracks like children’s toys in the hand of an angry god, have taken the winters off? Or, like June herself, would they still run across their frozen paths and breathe hard into the crystalized air?

June’s sneakers left foot-sized holes in the blanket of white covering Montana. She followed the old train tracks, which were flat and straight and gave her a clear line of sight. That is, except when the tracks cut through a ravine. June was a good runner. She wasn’t about to end up at the lowest point of a valley, not when she’d heard reports that some of the undead still remembered traces of their old lives. Like how to hunt animals.

Maybe it would have been better if she’d been born an animal. Maybe things would be less confusing if they could just call it like it was: a one versus many death match between the survivors and the undead.

June paused when she came to a straight patch of her route, with clear visibility in all directions. Setting down her pack, she breathed deeply and tried to get oxygen deep into her lungs. Unzipping her backpack, she glanced at the contents packed carefully into padded liners. Technically, she wasn’t supposed to open the package herself, but it was hard not to worry that she’d somehow accidentally damage things. June ran her finger gingerly over one of the boxes, her father’s face popping into her mind’s eye.

“I’m not long for this world, kid.”

She shook her head to clear the memory from her mind. There wasn’t time to get nostalgic. She glanced at her watch, took deep breaths for another seven seconds, and shouldered her pack and began again to run.

~*~

 

To get to the Walker settlement, June skirted around the ruins of three little towns. She knew the route by heart at this point: start at Roger’s Ranch, skirt around Three Oaks, two miles north to Trident, then four miles to Walker Township. If she got injured on her route, she’d pay the town to host her for a few days until she could recover.

Today was just another run.

Three Oaks she passed without issue, stopping by one of her storage lockers to check if she had any outstanding messages. There weren’t any. That was a good thing, she told herself. The less need there was for her, the better.

By the time she made it to Trident, it was late afternoon, and she ate her lunch crouched in the sage brush to avoid being seen by a helicopter flying overhead. Runners were a commodity as much as oil and canned goods these days, and the last thing she needed was to end up black bagged and working for the mining cartels. Or worse, to have her pack stolen or upended by hopped up half-deads. But the copter passed overhead without incident, and June ran within a mile of Walker without seeing even one undead. It felt like outrageous luck, which made her suspicious.

So when she heard the sound of a hoard behind her, June was not at all surprised.

She’d been losing speed, maxed out by the long journey and the hard work of running in snow. Her feet were aching and cold, and her face was chapped with the wind. The cluster that found her had been waiting in the hills, their gnarled faces the sickly pale yellow of the infected, red veins striping their bodies with their poisoned blood.

June could outrun them. Even tired, she could jog faster than an undead any day. The only issue was that Walker would never lower its gate for her if she had a whole horde of zombies trailing behind her. She’d have to lose them before she made her approach to the settlement, and it was getting dark.

She put a hand on her pack, willing it to make it just a little further, for their luck to hold just a bit more.

Behind her, she could hear the infected as they lumbered after her. The bacteria did something strange to the human mind, warping its innate faculties and making them strange. They walked, but they did it all wrong, knees bending in a way that would be excruciating for a human in possession of a functional nervous system. They talked, but the words were all wrong. They spoke in a horrible, singsong mashup of syllables crooned on vocal cords that had been deep-fried by disease.

They called to her as she picked up speed, their voices almost pleading: “Sturdy rope, glass, tent, crash, crash, crashed, crashes, crashing—”

June glanced behind her and saw them more clearly. Three of them, in an early state of decay. Their clothes were still intact. Hikers in good gear. Maybe former surveyors for the Army Corp of Engineers. One of them was still wearing a pair cross-country skis, and what she would give for a pair of those—

Her ankle caught on something, some root or rock or piece of trash hidden underneath the blanket of snow. One second she was moving at a brisk pace, on track, safe, and the next she was hurtling forward to the ground, her mouth filled with snow.

June coughed and tried to stand but felt a terrible pain in her ankle where there should only have been strength and surety.

Oh no.

It wasn’t broken. It couldn’t be broken, she was so close. She fell forward, just like she’d practiced, she’d caught her hand not her knees, she could almost see the settlement.

The undead behind her advanced. June limped. Anyone who could move faster than a brisk walk could outpace an infected. She put her weight on her bad ankle and choked on a scream. It was like the pain was replacing the bone itself, shooting up white hot stabs of agony through her ankle, calf, and thigh. The settlement was a mile away. She would never make it there like this.

June set the bag down, carefully placing it on a rock where it could be easily seen. She pulled the flare gun from the side pouch, and for a brief moment she thought of firing it at the undead, just to see what would happen, to save herself.

But then she heard her dad’s voice again in her head.

Not long for this world.

“Corn, voice, neck, crow, decay, cold—”

June fired the flare gun into the sky.

The settlement would see it. They would know what it meant. They could still get the bag in time. Hell, at this point the oil barons could have it. Better them than nobody.

Would the nice med tech who always said hello to her remember her? Or would June exist to her as just another undead, roaming around groaning nonsense words until her body fell to the earth?

Maybe it would hurt. She didn’t know. She was afraid of pain.

June pressed a hand to the ID tag on her wrist, running a finger over the etched lines of her name and all the information a stranger might need to take care of her body after she died.

June Barret. AB+. Atheist. Unvaccinated. Orphan.

Daddy gave it to her. She could still make him proud.

Stumbling away from the backpack, June turned her away from the town, her eyes stinging, and took off as fast as she could manage without screaming into the darkness.

That wasn’t fast at all, it turned out, because standing on her wounded ankle hurt like hell. She was pretty sure it wasn’t broken, but it was at least sprained. As she limped away, the undeads gained on her, their eerie calls morphing into animalistic grunts. What felt like hours of the slowest, most painful chase in the world brought her less than a thousand feet away from where she’d dropped her bag.

Was that far enough? They were close now. June had a knife strapped to her thigh, and if she could take a few of them out on her way down, she would. What had dad said? Go for the heart? But what had any of them known about killing the undead, back then?

It didn’t really matter. It was well and truly dark now, the snow drifts soaking through her running gear. It helped numb the pain from her ankle, but now she was freezing cold, too.

There are worse ways to go, kid.

A shot rang out, clear as a church bell on Sunday morning. June lifted her head in the direction of the noise just in time to flatten herself against the snowbank as another shot rang out. Then a third. Behind her she heard the wet thump of oozing bodies hitting powdery snow, and then it was quiet.

“Are you human?” came a male voice.

June almost couldn’t hear him over the whooshing, roaring sound of the wind as it picked up, scattering pinpricks of icy cold against her cheeks as she tried to make out the figure in the distance.

“I’m June Barret,” she called. “I’m a runner. I’m injured. Please, help.”

It was a disjointed pitch: hey, I could be valuable to your settlement if I leave, please expend the resources necessary to rescue me.

The figure approached, and June was so cold, so freezing cold, so exhausted and in pain, that she thought maybe if she could just tell him where her pack was, if he could bring it to Walker Township—

“My pack—please, please it’s important, I’ll pay you, just—”

The man stared at her. He wore thick, crude winter garments that clearly served him much better than her lightweight running gear, and he must have seen something on her face, because he nodded and said, “Wait here.”

He moved lightly on the snow, and she realized that he was wearing a pair of snowshoes. June sank back on the snow, her vision swimming. A small eternity passed before he came back, and she heard him say, “Shit.”

There was something about his voice that plucked at her.

“Come on, up you get.” The world whooshed in front of her, and then he was helping her up.

“Left leg,” she mumbled. “It’s busted.”

“Come on,” he said, moving her. It hurt so bad she wanted to cry.

“I can’t.”

His voice was rumbly. “June Barret, Walker Canyon is no place to die.”

Southern. He had a southern accent. She grit her teeth, hung onto him, and they started to move.

~*~

 

He took her to his cabin, and halfway there took off his coat and wrapped her in it. The pain subsided and her body temperature rose, and by the time they made it to the copse of pine trees up the ridge where he apparently lived, she felt almost like she might not die out here.

When his home came into view, she gasped.

It was an old box car, still sitting on the track, but lined with wood framing and surrounded by a few outbuildings. She could see light spilling out solar powered lanterns in the trees, and what looked like a barn behind it.

“You live in a train car,” she whispered, impressed in spite of herself. He offered his hand to her as she limped up to the boxcar he had fashioned into a house.

June wondered where he got the metal working tools he must have needed to make the place habitable. He’d be a skilled laborer and a valuable addition to any settlement, but he lived here by himself.

When he opened the door, it slid to the side on well-oiled hinges, and June hesitated outside as he turned to her to hold out a hand to help her up, spilling light out onto the trodden ground. It was starting to snow. If she didn’t stay with him tonight, she’d certainly die.

She didn’t have a choice, and between her ankle pain and her freezing cold feet, the warmth and glow from inside his cabin was… tempting. She took his hand, and even through his gloves, he felt warm. One final, exhausting lurch, and she was standing in a long, narrow room with a bed at one end and a kitchen at the other.

It was warm and dry, the walls lined with pale pink insulation and covered with maps of the region and a few photos. He had LED lights on the ceiling, and a cook stove nursing day-old embers in the corner. The effect was jarringly cozy, like something out of a wedding magazine. He’d even laid wood floors down.

Compared to the repurposed emergency shelters the ranch used for secondary housing, which was insulated with starchy, plasticy eco-insulate, his cabin felt rustic, and it smelled like smoke and dried meat and coffee. It smelled like civilization.

“You want coffee?” came the man’s voice as he bustled in the kitchen.

“It’s like eight PM.”

Her voice was a rasp.

“You’re gonna stay up all night watching your backpack like a hawk anyway.”

He wasn’t wrong, but she didn’t take drinks from strangers.

“No thanks. How long have you lived here?”

“I bought the land a year before the fallout,” he said, crouching in front of the stove and adding a few logs. “Even had the luck to add a water hookup before everything went to shit. Hightailed it out of Biloxi when it was obvious that the feds weren’t coming with a cure.”

June wondered what happened to his family. She would never in a million, trillion years ask.

“I’m Ford, by the way,” he said, standing up.

Inside, lit better and without his bulky coat, she got a better look at him. He was tall, dressed in canvas work pants and a thick flannel shirt. His hair was a soft brown color that fell into his eyes. He needed a haircut.

“June,” she said. And then, realizing that she’d already told him her name down in the ravine, she quickly said, “You live here all by yourself?”

Ford looked around, his nose scrunching up. “S’not that bad, is it?”

“No,” she choked. It had been so long since she had to use her manners. “I just can’t imagine it.”

“You live over on the big ranch.”

“Yeah.”

Silence. “But you—you’re from the south.”

Something about the accent on his words made something in June crack, a little. It was so familiar, so comforting. She cleared her throat. “Do you have something I can use to wrap my ankle?”

He blinked. “Oh, sure.”

Five minutes later and she was sitting in front of a warm fire, her toes defrosting in the warmth as she gritted her teeth and pulled off her shoe. It hurt. Hurt worse than poison oak or an allergic reaction or a sunburn. Ford grabbed a dish towel from a cupboard and deftly ripped it into three neat strips. She was in too much pain to appreciate his dexterity, but she did appreciate the glass of whiskey he poured her when he saw her expression.

Hell. She didn’t take drinks from strangers unless it was a pre-Fallout glass of whiskey, apparently.

She took the whiskey and the bandages and made a crude brace, wrapping her ankle tight enough that it was partially immobilized. She downed three gulps of the whiskey—awful, awful—and said, “I need to ice it, could you get me some snow?

“Can do you one better,” he said, and went outside. He came back in with actual ice packs, the gel kind she remembered from her school nurse’s office after burning herself on the hot glue gun. Ford was crouched next to her, staring at her face, his expression hard to interpret. He was handsome in an old-fashioned kind of way.

Then she pressed the ice pack to her bandaged foot and her libido took a backseat as the pain flared up again. But gradually, like all pain that doesn’t kill you, it subsided. The worst was over. She wasn’t dead or freezing to death, and she’d bandaged, iced, and elevated her ankle.

Now what?

Ford seemed to be having the same thought, because he suddenly stood up.

“It’s late. You should rest.” He gestured at a camp bed against the wall. The mattress looked decent, and it was decked in flannel coverings. She could see a mosquito net pinned up to the ceiling. He probably slept with the doors open in the summer.

“That’s you,” he said in a firm voice.

“But that’s your bed.”

Ford just looked at her.

June shook her head. “No, I couldn’t kick you out of your own bed.”

He set that blunt jaw of his in a stubborn frown, and then she placed it: he looked like an old-timey P.I., except dressed in work boots and flannel instead of a hat and trench coat. “If you think I’m making some strange woman with a broken ankle sleep on the floor—”

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t be stupid—”

“Ma’am, I’m from the south.” He almost shouted it, and his vehemence seemed to catch both of them off guard, because then he sighed and gave her a wan smile. “Sorry.”

She waved a hand in front of her. “No, no, I get it. Anyway, I’m not too proud. I’ll take the bed.”

Carefully, she stood up. Ford lurched forward and took her hand without asking, and she might have been weirded out by that if his grip wasn’t so damn helpful. Walking on one foot really was difficult without a crutch, and she grabbed onto him as he walked her over to the bed. He lowered her carefully down and watched as she gingerly lifted her injured leg to rest at the bed frame.

Satisfied, Ford turned away from her to grab some of the cushions from his make-shift couch. He arranged them at the opposite end of the room, but they were still only about ten feet apart. The bed was comfortable, and it smelled like laundry detergent and pine needles and… vague man smells she couldn’t identify. Ford settled down too, and then there was silence.

The only light was from the electric lantern next to Ford, and the faint glow of the stove in the corner. It was quiet, but for the cracking of wood and the faint whirring noise of wind and snow driving against the walls.

It was probably the whiskey and the injury that were making her this exhausted, because she usually stayed up much later than this on nights she did runs, but something was nagging at her mind, prodding her—

“Oh,” she gasped, sitting up.

Ford’s head snapped around. “What?”

“My backpack,” she said, frantic, scanning the room for the bag.

“Oh, here,” said Ford, pointing at a hook by the door. “I hung it up.”

June stared at it. Ford looked like a safe guy, but could she risk losing the shipment?

Ford sighed. “You want me to bring it to you?”

“Thank you, yes.”

She felt small and weak, like a little child. It made her feel faintly disgusted with herself, but Ford didn’t seem annoyed. He lifted the heavy pack like it weighed nothing, and set it down as gently as if it were made of glass.

That, more than anything, made her feel better. She wrapped her arms around it, giving the contents a quick check before laying back down, tucking it against her chest. Ford arched a brow at her antics, but didn’t comment. He walked back to his bed.

Ford’s voice was raspy and low. “You mind if I turn the light off?”

“No, go ahead. And… thanks.”

“No trouble….ma’am.”

They were quiet for a long time after that, but she could tell that he wasn’t asleep either. He rolled around, shifting and moving the cushions around like an uneasy labrador retriever. It made her feel restless, too. Or maybe it was the searing pain, her aching limbs, or the near death experience keeping her up.

Either way, something about the moment made her feel like talking.

“Hey Ford, can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” he said, like this was a normal situation and not at all hugely bizarre.

“Why do you live out here alone, instead of joining a community? I mean, you could live anywhere you wanted.”

He blew out a long breath. “I thought about it, but I really just… I don’t know. I never felt comfortable. Going there, making friends, trying to pretend that life was normal. Out here I’m alone but at least… .At least I can do whatever the hell I want.”

“A lone cowboy.”

“I guess.”

“Well, I s’pose that makes me the damsel tied to the train tracks. Thanks for that, by the way. For what you did. You saved my life.”

He made a noise that was halfway a grunt, halfway a chuckle. There was another silence. How were you supposed to fill the kind of silence that comes after telling someone that you owe them your life?

His voice was easy, though. Everything about him seemed easy and relaxed. Like he did this sort of thing all the time. “But you could go anywhere. Couriers are in short supply, why not join up with one of the mining colonies?”

June scrunched her nose. “God, no. All those cheery slogans and radio ads about finding new family.”

“Don’t you want that?”

“I had a family,” June said, her voice a little rawer than she would have liked. “I don’t want a new one. I want to live someplace I don’t have to pretend things are fine, or good. The ranch is unglamorous, but it’s honest.”

“You an orphan?”

He asked it so calmly, and if it had been anyone else she would have been mortified and offended. But this man saved her life, and she figured that he had a right to at least ask. She didn’t have to answer. She could tell him to mind his damn business. But in the light of the twinkle lights on the ceiling she could see him, laying on his back, staring up at the ceiling. He looked so innocuous. So nice.

“Yeah. Though that came before the whole… everything. Mom died in a car crash. Dad got cancer.”

She didn’t mention her brother. Not even to him.

Ford said, “I’m sorry. That’s awful.”

It was. It was awful.

“But now I have a job, and a life, and…” she trailed off. Did she still have a job? She’d be out of commission if she couldn’t run.

“How’s that gonna work, with your busted ankle?”

June gripped her backpack. “I need to deliver the last drop. Then I’ll figure it out.”

Ford didn’t say anything to that, and it felt kind of lonely, waiting for him to say something in that comforting drawl of his. It was strange to realize how badly she wanted him to tell her that everything would be okay, that she would be fine. Evidently, Ford wasn’t the sort of man given to useless platitudes.

He cleared his throat. “You want some bread?”

More than anything in the world.

Ten minutes later and she had a loaf of bread the size of a frisbee in her hand. Ford had cut it down the middle and slathered it in butter, and when she bit into it, it tasted so good that she sort of wanted to burst into tears.

This was nothing like protein bars and oatmeal. Fresh bread.

Ford watched her eat from a few feet away, his own portion in his hand. “You eat like you’ve never had bread before.”

“Not like this,” she enthused. “You eat like this all the time?”

“Bread ain’t hard.”

“Yes it is,” she countered, thinking of her own pathetic forays into cooking. “Bread is very hard.”

“Well, if you ever end up in this neck of the woods again, I’d be happy to teach you.”

“You sure you won’t come work at the ranch?” she said, licking butter off her fingers. “I swear, you’d be the most popular man in the tri-county area.”

His answering laugh was genuine. “Nope. I’m happy out here.”

“Don’t you get lonely?”

He looked her dead in the eyes. “Yes. But I guess, if I had someone to appreciate my cooking a little more, that wouldn’t be too bad.”

Was he flirting with her?

“You’re just being nice to me because I’m the damsel tied to the railroad tracks to your lone cowboy,” she stuttered.

He laughed, and she laughed, and she felt really, really nice.

Ford cleared his throat. “Hey, if you want to, you can crash here for a few days. I don’t mean anything weird. I’d leave you alone, but you’re nice company. I wouldn’t mind a roommate, and you need to rest.”

June’s heart did an odd little spasm. She imagined it. Eating Ford’s bread. Sleeping in his warm house. Maybe he’d let her cut his hair, and she could borrow his shirt, and maybe he would let her give him a kiss—

Her hand brushed the edge of her backpack, the material coarse and sturdy and built for a very specific purpose. She put her bread in her lap and gave the canvas straps a fond stroke.

Ford sighed. “You’re gonna be out of here at first light, aren’t you?”

She grimaced. “I’m sorry. My job is really important to me.”

He shook his head. “I get it. I get being committed to a certain kinda life.”

“You’d probably be good in the Navy,” she said, and then regretted it. The idea of him leaving the valley when they’d just become friends made her feel kind of depressed.

Ford shook his head. “Can’t. I can’t do any of those floating cities, and I don’t feel comfortable being locked up behind a fence. Makes me feel claustrophobic. But I guess you know what I mean.”

“Do I?”

“Well, if you like to run, you’re probably not the settling down type.”

June glanced around Ford’s cozy cabin with its cupboards and its stove, its blankets and lights. Everything felt so solid, like it had been hewn from the earth and set down with finality and permanence. It was hard to imagine something more different to the transient, restless life skipping between camps and ranches.

“I never really thought of it, but I guess I see the appeal. And it’s not that I don’t want to settle down,” she said, unexpectedly defensive. “It’s just that doing deliveries like this, it matters to people. People need me, and it gives my life meaning to think that…”

She trailed off, realizing she was spilling her guts to this guy she’d met only a few hours ago. Honestly, this was more talking than she’d done in maybe a year. Something about the pain in her body, and the good feelings in her heart, made her want to open up to him.

Ford spoke in a gentle rumble. “To feel like someone gives a damn about you. Like someone needs you.”

And that really was what it was like. She thought about her dad, dying in a hospital six months and three days before the end of the world. Her heart cracked open as he passed, as that link to her own genealogy went gently into the night. He wasn’t in pain when he died, but June was. She still ached for her good, honest father.

“Yeah,” she said. Ford rubbed the back of his neck. He looked like he wanted to say something, but didn’t know what. She liked him for that. For his silence. “But I’ve got my work, and that adds a lot of meaning to my life. I have to hold onto that.”

“You got your deliveries, I got my cow.”

She brightened. “Did you name her?”

He grimaced. “Don’t laugh. Her name is Bessie.”

June laughed.

Ford held his hands up defensively. “Look, I’m old-fashioned.”

“It’s great. Give her my compliments on her butter,” June said, taking another bite.

Ford smiled. “I’ll be sure to. You should get some rest.”

The carbs and the soothing talk made her sleepy. June wrapped her arms more securely around the backpack, feeling better, somehow. Unburdened. Like letting go of something heavy and running free and clear in fine weather.

“June?”

Ford’s voice sounded far away. Her eyes drifted closed.

“Yeah?”

“What’s in your bag?”

Her eyes flicked open again. She should lie. She should tell him it was computer parts or cigarettes or something. But something about him made her feel generous, like for the first time in a long time, she had enough to spare.

“It’s a pharmaceutical drop.”

He let out a low, reverent whistle. “Damn. They got a cure yet?”

The optimism in his voice made her want to laugh. “No.”

“So sue me for hoping,” he said cheerfully.

June ran a finger along her ID tag, her thumb tracing the familiar names of her last name.

“It’s mostly chemo drugs, actually. The ones that come in pill form.”

“Wow. Are you a pharmacist?”

“I was going to be. After my dad died I thought… well, who even knows. But this is as close as I can get out here.”

“So you keep running,” he said solemnly.

“For as long as I can.”

“Then get some rest. Sounds like you’ll need your strength.”

 

~*~

 

He was gone when she woke up.

The first thing she did was to check that her backpack was still there, but of course it was. None of the boxes had been tampered with, their seals intact and their padded containers all correct.

The second thing she did was experience an odd head rush. In the light filtering through the narrow, plexiglass skylight, his cabin looked homey and human. There was a coffee pot on the stove and a stack of old paperbacks next to the couch, which he’d already re-assembled from where he slept the night before.

The third thing she did was to test her ankle. It still hurt like hell, but not quite as bad as she’d feared. She set it on the ground and knew there was no chance in hell she’d be able to run on it, but if she could immobilize it further, she might manage to hobble. If she could get a stick from outside, maybe she could make a crutch?

Unwilling to take anything further from Ford, she took one of the stiff cardboard dividers from her pack and re-wrapped her ankle with them. Then she laced up her shoes, shook out her clothes, and pulled her hair back into a ponytail.

She opened the massive train car door by herself (those hinges really were well oiled), and when she emerged outside she was greeted by a bright, beautiful Montana day. It was strange to think she’d nearly died out in this very valley just hours before. In the morning light, it looked serene and beautiful.

“Ford?” she called.

No response.

An old, familiar fear gripped her.

“Ford!”

Nothing. She limped around the house until she could see the little barn where Bessie stood, eating hay and staring blandly at June as if Ford wasn’t missing or possibly dead.

“Ford!”

What if he hadn’t actually gotten those infected when he’d rescued her? What if they’d come all the way here, following her, and surprised him in the morning when he went out to do his chores? She couldn’t lose another person, not so soon, and not someone with so much honesty and genuine good humor. They wanted her, not Ford.

Who would take care of the cow? Who would make bread? What would she do—

“June!”

She whirled around in time to see the figure of a man walking across the valley.

“Oh thank god,” she said.

Ford made good time, loping across the valley on those snowshoes of his. By the time he made it back to the house, she’d almost forgotten the pain in her ankle. As he came closer, she could see he had something strapped to his back. A crutch? Firewood?

“Guess what I got!” he called.

She threw her arms around him. It jostled her ankle but she held it stiff and straight against the brace, and anyway it didn’t matter because he was okay, and she was okay and he had—

She pulled away from him. “Are those cross-country skis?”

Ford looked faintly dazed, staring down at her. “What?”

“The—the skis, from those infected, you went and got them?”

“Oh!” He said, collecting himself. “Yeah. I thought you could use the poles and kind of skate along. Not ideal, but you could use your arms to get you most of the way and keep your injured ankle stiff—”

She hugged him again, and this time he caught up to her and hugged her back.

“Thanks,” she whispered into his jacket.

“No problem, June Barret.”

 

~*~

 

In the end, leaving him felt like having an adhesive bandage peeled off very, very slowly. Even as she skied away (slowly, awkwardly, and with much cursing of her neglected upper body workouts), she kept looking back at him. He stood at the edge of his trees, waving at her every time she glanced back like he was going to miss her, too.

Nobody’s long for this world, kid.

 

~*~

 

It took her three days of recovering at Walker Township before she finally felt better. Her medical contact at the township gave her a firm dressing down for cross-country skiing on a bad sprain, but she gave her a firm handshake and a grateful nod when June presented the package. The potentially life-saving chemotherapy drugs would stock their dispensary and treat their residents battling cancer for months. As June recovered in the medical tent, she even got to see the drugs get used. It didn’t look pleasant, but it looked like living. Like hope.

June rubbed the back of her neck and wished for the taste of bread, the smell of pine trees. She had never done physical therapy with such vigor in her life.

When she radioed back to Roger’s Ranch, Maggie was frantic with relief. “You idiot, why didn’t you call for backup? I could have come and got you, what were you thinking?”

June was startled by the outpouring of emotion. “I’m—I’m fine, Maggie.”

“I told you the hoardcast was bad, I told you. Promise me you’ll be more careful in the future.”

“I promise,” June said, gripping the handset. “I’m sorry, Maggie.”

“You’re really okay?” Maggie said, apparently mollified.

“Yeah.”

“Well stay that way,” Maggie said, and disconnected the line.

It struck June that all the time she’d spent resolving not to be friends with Maggie had done nothing to stop Maggie from becoming friends with her. June looked down at her hands. They felt warmer than before.

 

~*~

 

A full week later, June put on her skis (which she had waxed and painted in the long, idle days of recovery) and began the slow trek home. She could already tell that with the skis on she’d be able to move much faster than running and with less effort. It was going to be a game changer when she got her strength back, and the effort of the exercise made her feel happy. Hopeful.

Ford’s cabin came into view in what felt like no time at all.

“Ford!” she called, skiing right up to his door and gingerly removing her boots from the snaps on top of the skis. Her ankle still hurt, but she could manage it. The door to the cabin opened, and there he was. His hair was wet, and he was wearing that same flannel, a look of patent wonder on his face.

“Well well, how do you do, damsel?”

She grinned at him.

“I’m just swinging by,” she said casually. “You know, you’re on the way.”

“The way to where?”

“Home.”