Into the Badlands by Brian J. Jarrett Page B

felt might save the girl.
    The problem was, he didn't have any.
    He could likely find it though, if he tried. If he could locate a drug store that hadn't been completely raided it was a possibility. With a Walgreens or a CVS on every corner it became an even better possibility. Unfortunately he couldn't surf the Internet for store locations anymore. He had to do it the hard way; searching on foot.
    But that would mean leaving the girl in the farmhouse alone while he and the boys searched. It would likely take them a day to retrieve the drugs, if they could find them at all. She'd be without water and protection that whole time. He reminded himself that she'd been worse off lying on the floor of the Target. At least this way she had a slim chance of survival, and better than most.
    It was too late in the day to start the search; night would be falling soon. They could begin the following morning at the break of dawn. That would give them the better part of the day to find the drugs and return. It was still winter, so the amount of daylight they had available to them was reduced. He could provide warmth and water to the girl overnight, provided she made it through at all.
    Ed watched his boys playing on the porch; Zach with his toy car and Jeremy with his army men. He wondered if he'd made the right choice, bringing the girl to the farmhouse. He was putting himself and his boys in harm's way to help a girl who might very well die before they returned.
    But in the midst of the waning daylight, the time he most often considered the choices he'd made so far and the choices he still had left to make, he felt it as the right thing to do. If he and the boys were to die, would he want to die knowing he'd lost his humanity, turning his back on someone so desperately in need? Was there a more noble cause to die for than that of humanity?
    He thought of Sarah. He remembered how she'd been in the end. He couldn't let another innocent person suffer as she had. Maybe things would turn out differently this time.
    He decided they would leave in the morning, the three of them.
    In the end, they had to hold on to their humanity. It was far better to die as men than to live as animals.

CHAPTER 8

    Brenda Peterson and Tammy Koch painstakingly made their way through an overgrown field toward an undecided destination. To their right, the highway was barely visible the overgrown brush, but they kept it in sight to ensure they weren't getting too far off track. The highway was their lifeline. Brenda felt her decision to follow it had been one of her best. In fact, she'd met Tammy along the same highway.
    In her prior life, before humanity had gone virtually wholesale into the shitter, Brenda had worked in a head shop. Before that, she worked the counter at Dunkin’ Donuts. Before that she ran the drive-thru at Taco Bell. And before that just more of the same.
    She’d always struggled with her weight; once an ex-boyfriend had even referred to her as “a fat little hobbit”. She tried liquid diets, carb-counting, detox diets, and a slew of other diets that never worked. Her problem was that she drowned her sorrows in beer and food, and there was more than enough of beer, food, and sorrow to go around.
    Now, however, there was very little of any of those thing in her life. Once she got on the road she dropped the weight like a bad habit. The drinking went with it. And, not surprisingly, the sorrow went with it too.
    Now she was short, lean, and fucking mean.
    Sometimes, even though she knew the world had ended for most, she wondered if maybe it had just begun for her. She'd been coasting in life before the Walking Death arrived, drifting from goofy job to goofy job and from bad guy to worse guy. She'd always chosen the worst ones, the assholes, the ones like her step-father. Sometimes she wondered if it had ever really been a choice; maybe she was wired that way.
    No focus, no purpose, no direction; that had been her life before. Now she had to