Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse (Book 3): Salvation by Joshua Jared Scott Page A

least once, maybe
twice. I haven’t decided.”
    “Why
ever not?” Lizzy was glaring.
    “Mary
and I, the twins too, have already hiked around some, and you’ve been up with
Xavier so you have a basic idea of the area too. Carlson doesn’t count.” I
looked around. “Where is he?”
    “Sleeping
in his tent,” answered Mary.
    “Why the
fuck is he sleeping! It’s the middle of the day.”
    “Calm
down, Lizzy,” I ordered. “I mean it.”
    She
closed her mouth and gave me a curt nod. That wasn’t like her at all.
    “He’s
too old to be doing lots of work,” said Mary. “You know that. Really, he’s even
older than you.”
    “He’s
here for his knowledge of explosives,” I added, quickly. “He already put in the
claymores and other things. There’s not much else for him to do. Let the man
get some rest.”
    “Fine.”
Lizzy set her mouth in a tight line. “But we are going out after the others get
back, the first time. Hear me? The first time.”
    “I…
Okay, we’ll do it that way. Not to sound like a parrot, but where is Lieutenant
Gikas?”
    “He’s
off meeting with the captain. They were putting in more lookouts between us and
the raiders.” Mary pulled out a map and unfolded it. “He said here and here for
those.”
    “Between
the eyes on the ground and the planes constantly in the air, I’m hoping we know
the minute they start moving. I don’t want a surprise.”
    “No one
wants that,” snapped Lizzy.
    Mary
retrieved some candy from her backpack, putting the map back in its place. “I
want some happy surprises. We never have enough of those.”
    “You are
entirely too cheerful.” Lizzy began to turn red. “Fuck happiness.”
    “What’s
up with her?” I asked, after she stomped off.
    Mary
shrugged. “Haven’t a clue.”

 
    Interlude – Steph’s Story
     
     
    “That’s
a lot of berry bushes,” observed Steph.
    Alan
Myers, the man who oversaw ranching and farming operations within the Black
Hills, nodded. “It is. The ground’s too rough and uneven for much else. We have
potatoes in that flat area and carrots, cabbage, and lettuce over that way. We
didn’t want to let this spot go to waste, not with it being so large, and this
was the best we could come up with.”
    “Are
these from seeds? They look pretty big.”
    “Mostly
transplants. Some were dug up and moved, but the majority were grown in little
pots under fluorescent lights. They’re looking healthy for the most part, and I
think we’ll get a fair amount off them come late summer. We left those narrow paths
through the middle to make picking easier. Got raspberries, elderberries, and
blackberries.”
    “I’m
going to go ahead and say that we will have no shortage of pies this fall. I
assume picking is going to take a whole lot of people.”
    “Not as
many as you might think, but it will be labor intensive.”
    Steph
nodded. “I’ll arrange with Jenny to have the school kids do most of it, the
younger ones. Maybe she can work it into the curriculum, classes on growing
food or something.”
    “It’s
easy enough,” agreed Alan, “and most of the adults are going to be busy
harvesting the real crops. With the sheer volume we planted this year, I’m
expecting to need just about everyone to help get it out of the ground. I wish
we had a combine or some proper tractors.”
    “I know,
it’s a pain in the ass.” She smiled, the morning light glinting off her pearly white
teeth. “But you do have those nifty walls so you don’t have to worry about
animals eating everything, or zombies munching on the farmers.”
    “That’s
something.”
    “A big
thing I would say. What else you working on? Anything in particular I need to
tell Briana?”
    “Not
really,” replied Alan. “Had plenty of calves and foals this year, not so much
with the sheep. Seems quite a few of the ewes are simply too old, but the young
ones will replace these quick enough. I went ahead and separated them. They’ll
be making their