to move.
He throttled the Harley and moved out into the intersection, making sure the horde followed; not too close, but not so far away that some might lose interest and wander back to the service plaza. He saw Calvin running back towards the green utility box, so he roared over to meet him. Calvin hopped on the back, and Evan took them back up onto the highway.
“We’re in business,” Calvin yelled over the wind.
The raid worked. Evan went in first on the Harley while the caravan waited at the top of the ramp, the hippies watching through binoculars. He used the same tactic, drawing the dead together and leading them away, much further this time, up a road he hadn’t scouted, which made him a little nervous. Behind him Calvin took the caravan in fast, the vehicles lining up two by two at the underground tanks, using a pair of hand pumps to fill each one before the next two pulled up. Every gun was trained outwards, watching for the dead. Finally the spare cans were topped off and loaded back onto bumpers and roof racks.
Evan ran into trouble at an intersection half a mile away, the horde from the travel plaza closing in from behind, and more of the dead staggering out from between buildings and houses. He sat straddling his bike and fired every round from the Sig, and then emptied the shotgun. With something of a path cleared, he tucked low and rocketed between reaching arms. Fingernails scraped his jacket and tore open the sleeping bag on his handlebars, but he got through.
Back at the plaza, they all heard the distant gunfire. Calvin and Faith saw the way their daughter clutched her hands to her chest as she stared off in its direction. Maya climbed the aluminum ladder at the back of a camper and stood on the roof watching and waiting, climbing down only when the shape of a lone man on a motorcycle appeared on the road. She was smiling, and Calvin and Faith glanced at each other, smiling too.
The caravan fueled up without losing a single member, and without firing a shot. After that, Maya rode behind Evan on the Harley.
She was born both deaf and mute, something which surprised Evan, who thought she was only quiet. He didn’t even realize it until later that first night in camp, when he saw Maya signing with her mother. She was also very adept at reading lips.
The attraction was immediate for both of them, and coming together was as natural as breathing. There was no drama with some jealous would-be suitor or ex-boyfriend, and the other members of the Family reacted with smiles, as if it was supposed to happen. Maya started teaching Evan how to sign, used her hands to turn his face towards her when he was speaking, and communicated back by writing on a legal pad. Evan thought her handwriting was more beautiful than any angel’s, and wanted nothing more than to drown in those sapphire eyes.
At night they talked and scribbled for hours, asking each other about their lives, where they had been, what they had seen, what they wanted. Evan wanted to see Bermuda, Maya wanted to go to Paris. It didn’t matter that they never would. They speculated about whether the government might have a secret lab someplace, where scientists were even now working on a cure. Maya’s Uncle Dane butted into the conversation and announced that it was precisely one of those secret government labs which had unleashed a plague of the walking dead in the first place, and they waited until he walked away before laughing. Maya urged Evan to write every day. Sometimes she brought him coffee and would sit beside him, watching in fascination as his pen raced across the pages.
One evening, Evan passed by Calvin and Faith’s VW van and overheard them arguing inside.
“Her place is with us, Cal. I don’t want to discuss this.”
“Well, we need to discuss this. He can get her out of here, get her someplace safe.”
“No.”
“Honey-”
“No, Calvin. I’m not letting Maya ride off so that we never see her again.”
“He’ll protect her. He’s a good man, Faith.”
“Our family needs to stay together.”
A disgusted snort. “Isn’t it enough that we’re taking the other kids into this nightmare? And it’s going to be bad, worse than any of us imagine. There’s going to be thousands of them…Christ, maybe millions. And for what? A fantasy. A ship that isn’t there.”
“It’s there! Goddamn you