Wake of the Dead | One

Chapter thirteen

Jasper raised a brow as listened to Samantha's report on what the patrol had found. He had gone over to check out what she was so concerned about after Killian had gone off to hunt--or whatever the younger man was planning on doing in those woods. He hadn't told Aubrey to go after him, but she had seen Jasper was getting worried and offered to follow him. Jasper wasn't exactly sure how irritable Killian would be with him when the other man got back to camp, but there were more pressing matters to worry about at the moment. 

Tom narrowed his brows, and Darren had joined them. Jasper stole a piece of Darren's breakfast--part of a granola bar--and the other man glared at him. Jasper just smiled sweetly and popped it into his mouth. It got a small, somewhat annoyed smile out of Darren. "You're saying that you saw a herd in the distance?" Tom said sharply. Jasper was pulled out of his antics with his friend, and jolted back to reality. A whole herd of biters, headed their way? Surely it had nothing to do with the city? 

Samantha's eyes were wide and frightened, Chris' face was pale, but Casimir's expression was blunt and generally calm. "Yes, a whole herd of them. Dozens, couldn't count from that far away." Casimir began to explain, "They seemed to have wandered out of the city, or maybe they're from farther down and migrated up." 

Darren knit his brows together, "Why would they move, though?" 

Casimir's lip wrinkled into a mocking snarl, "Hell if I know. Why do they do anything? All I know is what we saw. We have to get moving as soon as possible. There might be some faster ones at the head of the pack. If they somehow know we're down here for whatever reason, then they'll come straight for us. It isn't like more and more of them have been showing up without a reason." 

Jasper mulled it over for a little while, "Killian and I barely escaped the city alive. When we were there it looked like the biters were nearly out of things to get their teeth in. If there's not enough to go around it only makes sense that they would start moving on. I mean," Jasper shrugged, "Humans and animals do the same thing. If there's a shortage of what we need, we find it somewhere else. The biters are just doing the same thing, and we happen to be in their way." 

Tom nodded, "I think 'in their way' is the worst place to be," He added. "We need to find somewhere to hunker down and wait for them to pass by. We should get going immediately. Darren," Darren perked up at the sound of his name, "Go and get the map. It won't show us specific places we can rest, but there's always some places to hide near smaller towns if we can get to them." 

Casimir suddenly spoke, "I know a place. I'm not from the city, remember? I came down to the city. There's a small town a few miles up, and a motel there. I think it's some really stupid, off-road country place with some farms past the town. We should be safe waiting for them there as long as we keep quiet and board everything up." 

Tom nodded once, "We can do a short supplies run if we have the time, and after the herd is past we can maybe raid a clothing store if it has anything that'll keep us a bit warmer." Tom glanced at Jasper and Darren, "Are you two alright with that?" 

Jasper nodded once, "Sure. Nobody else seems to have a better plan, but you should talk to Cohen about it too, in case he needs anything. We're all low on supplies." With that, the meeting broke up. By the time everything was settled, the afternoon sun was beginning to lower on the horizon. Jasper knew as soon as Killian and Aubrey got back, Tom would host a group meeting around the campfire and give everybody a rundown of the final plan. He just hoped Killian would return soon, since they needed to move on as soon as possible. 

Despite being slow, sometimes biters seemed to show up even faster than possibly thought. That's how it was in the city. First there had been twenty, enough to cause a public panic. Then people were bitten, more started showing up from the highway, and more people were bitten. Tanks were brought in, heavy artillery. Massive sections of the city were evacuated, a few bombs were dropped. People from the evacuation were hiding a bite and infected other people with them.