that she, too, was worried about the coming winter and had no wish to subsist on increasingly stale granola bars), but Riley had glanced fearfully from one to the other.
“What if someone tries to get us?” he asked.
“I know. There are a lot of monsters out there, and all of them look like humans,” Red said. She could lie, or dismiss his fears, but that wouldn’t be fair. “But don’t worry, I’ll be there to protect you.”
Human monsters were everywhere, roaming free without the leash of civilization to hold them. And those human monsters were the reason Red and Sam and Riley were huddled up next to a rusty old door instead of entering the town.
There were three of them, all men. They seemed youngish—younger than middle age, but older than teenagers. This she could tell by the way they walked, with that loose-limbed swagger that so many young men had.
She wasn’t worried about the swagger. She was worried because all three carried rifles.
Why does everyone have a fucking gun? she thought. Red didn’t want to take Riley and Sam anywhere near those young men. She was confident that she could protect herself, but she didn’t want to endanger the kids, especially since she didn’t know how they might respond in a high-stress situation. It was best not to risk it, even if Sam and Riley seemed more together than most kids.
There wasn’t a main street or a town proper like so many of the other places Red had passed through already. Rather, there were several houses clustered together (but not too close together, because this was America and a large yard was a God-given right) on the state road.
There was a chain convenience store/gas station about half a mile from where Red and the children stood. No sign of a convenient sporting goods supply or anything like that. Red imagined that there was a mall within a fifteen-to-twenty-minute drive where most of the residents did their shopping. That meant they’d have to find what they needed in these houses, because Red wasn’t going to wander across the countryside with two kids in tow in hopes of discovering a Walmart.
The three youngish men had small backpacks, not huge carry-everything packs like Red’s. Red and Sam and Riley had just reached the Field of Abandoned Metal when they saw the three men come out of one of the houses a short distance away. Red had pushed the kids behind the biggest vehicle she could find, although the men didn’t seem to be concerned at all about anyone sneaking up on them. Maybe that was the kind of stupid confidence you got when you carried a gun.
What if I had a gun and ill intent and shot you three dummies while you strode in and out of houses like you own the world?
And while I’m on the subject, she thought, why have I seen so few women?
There were three possibilities—first, more women had been infected by the Cough and died and thus there were fewer female survivors.
Second, more women had done the sensible thing and gone to the quarantine camps as they were told to do by the numerous announcements before the television broadcast went off the air forever.
If they had children they probably had sprinted there—Red was sure that any mother with young children would do her best to make sure her kids didn’t get sick. Keeping your child away from infected people was a good way to do that, and most people didn’t view quarantine camps as free-floating prisons the way Red did.
Third, any remaining women out there had been spirited away to become handmaidens for the militia weirdos.
Red didn’t like any of the possibilities but was somehow sure that the last possibility was more of a sickening probability.
All the more reason to keep myself and these kids away from any human contact, she thought.
The men had checked in a few houses, but in a lazy, undisciplined sort of way. Red wasn’t sure if they were looking for food or other supplies or if they were looking for survivors or what. They had the vague look of a group out on patrol, but a very unserious