Apocalypsis 03 - Exodus

other and nodded silently.
    The blonde answered me again. “We’ve really got no other options at this point. So we’ll go until we decide we don’t want to be with you anymore.”
    The dark-haired girl spoke next. “We appreciate the offer, though. Don’t think we don’t.”
    “Yeah,” agreed the blonde. “You didn’t have to come in here after us, and we know that. And you took care of those monsters, so we owe you big time.”
    “We’d better get going,” said Jamal. “I’m afraid of who else might have heard the ruckus.”
    I nodded my agreement. “Let’s go.” I looked at the girls. “You should probably wait on the road. We have to get our bikes and crap. We’ll bring them up here and then we’ll go.”
    “We’re not going to wait until it’s safer to travel?” asked Ronald.
    “No. Like Jamal said, we caused a ruckus here. I just want to get the heck out of this area. Maybe we’ll find a place we can stop farther down.”
    “Sounds good to me,” he said, taking off at a jog.
    “You girls okay?” I asked.
    The blonde nodded. “We’re good. Hurry back, though.” She cast nervous glances at her friend, the one who’d been sleeping. Her sudden burst of energy seemed to have faded significantly in the last few minutes. She looked like she was going to go to sleep again.
    “Back in a few minutes,” I said.
    Bodo put his hand in mine, and we walked together quickly through the weeds to the road, where we stopped to look north and south. No one was there that we could see, but it didn’t really make me feel better since I had the sense there were people there, hiding.
    “Have you tried to reach Nina lately?” I asked.
    “I haven’t seen her. I will keep blowing my harmonica, but I’m afraid she iss gone.” He pulled it out of his pocket and blew it three times, waiting between each attempt. We didn’t see anything.
    “Maybe she’s just pouting. Once we settle down at our final spot you can work on getting her to come down.”
    He shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t want to do it too much because den maybe canners will hear us.”
    I nodded. “Probably better that you don’t.” I felt bad telling him that, but we really couldn’t risk it. I hoped he’d be able to find some new hawks to train near the prison.
    We walked back to Peter who was standing behind a tree with his gun ready and Buster on his leash.
    “Oh, thank God you’re back,” he said, shoving the gun in his backpack that was at his feet. “I heard those gunshots and thought for sure you were dead.” He rushed over to hug me, throwing his twiggy arms around my neck.
    I hugged him back hard. “Winky got grazed, but she seems okay.”
    Peter left me to go examine her back. “Oooh, that looks painful,” he said, lifting up her shirt. “It’s like a cut and a burn at the same time.”
    “Yeah. That’s exactly what it feels like,” said Winky, looking over her shoulder at him.
    “Let me just clean it real quick and then we can go.” Peter looked up at the sky. “It’s stopped raining. Do you think you could walk without a shirt on?”
    Winky raised an eyebrow at him.
    “Don’t look at me like that,” he said gently slapping her arm before going to one of the backpacks. “I just think it would be better to save our supplies, so if you can just let your wound hang out in the air instead of having me cover it, it might be better.”
    Winky shrugged. “I have a bra on. I don’t care if you guys see it.”
    I walked over and helped her out of her shirt. Peter made short work of cleaning her up and putting salve of some sort over the injury.
    “Okay. That about does it,” he said, patting her on the shoulder. “Better?”
    “No.”
    “Good. Let’s go,” he said, ignoring her frown.
    We pushed our bikes out onto the road, all of us struggling a bit under the heavier loads we now had on our backs, thanks to Peter having emptied the trailer. The only thing left in it was the suitcase of grenades.
    The girls were waiting for us, leaning on the car. The tired one was sleeping, curled up on the crumpled hood.
    “Do you think she can ride in the trailer?” I asked.
    “Yeah,” said the blonde.
    “What are your names, anyway?” Winky asked.
    “Oh, sorry. I’m Gretchen,” said the blonde. “This is Bianca, and that’s Jenny.”
    Everyone gave a little wave or a nod of the head in greeting.
    “Nice to meet you,” I said. “Can you wake Jenny up and help her in the trailer?”
    The two girls