Apocalypsis 04 - Haven

dangerous. We’ll come back for you, or we’ll send someone for you. They’ll ask for you by name, so you’ll know they’re good people. Don’t forget Dane on the side of the road. Maybe you could go get him, Katy?”
    “Who in the sam hill is Dane?”
    “He’s a friend of ours. I could show you where he is,” said Chantal.
    “Fine. I got a four-wheeler with a trailer we can use if he ain’t far.”
    I turned to walk down the stairs.
    “Where are you going?” asked Katy.
    I drew up short, turning around. “What do you mean? I’m going to the Everglades to help my friends.”
    “Well, you gotta wait for your ride.” She frowned at me like I was stupid.
    “You want us to drive that truck?” I asked, gesturing to the semi.
    “Dat’s too loud. Dey will hear us coming from very far away.” Bodo was shaking his head no.
    “No, I ain’t talkin’ about that truck.”
    “Well, what then?!” I was losing my patience with her redneck accent and slow way of explaining herself.
    The sounds of running came from the side of the house again. And it wasn’t the running of a person, either.
    Katy smiled. “Your ride has arrived, my dear.”
    ***
    My eyeballs nearly fell out of my head when I saw Jackson riding up on a horse. He stopped with a sliding of the animal’s hooves right in front of the porch, dropping down out of the saddle like a real cowboy.
    “Here ya go,” he said, handing me the reins. “This ain’t my best horse, but she’s strong, and she’ll get you where you need to go. I just gotta ask you to get her back to me if you can. She’s special, like all our animals are.”
    “Oh my god.” It was all I could think to say.
    Bodo walked up without saying a word, taking the nearest stirrup and making an adjustment to it.
    “What are you doing?” I asked as he walked around the front of the horse to the other side of the saddle. He made an adjustment over there too.
    “I’m fixing da stirrups. Dey are too short for me.”
    I looked at Jackson.
    He just shrugged back at me before addressing Bodo. “Guess you know what you’re doin’. That’s good news.” Jackson moved to the side so Bodo could take the reins from me.
    Putting his foot in the stirrup on the left side of the horse, Bodo hiked himself up, swinging his other leg over until he was straddling the beast. He sat up in that damn saddle like he’d done it every day of his life.
    “Uhhhh …” I was so stunned, no words were coming. We were about to enter a battle on a massive scale, and the boy I loved, who was ignoring me and hurting me on purpose with his pettiness, was sitting up there like a friggin’ cowboy supermodel.
    “Come closer, and I’ll give you a leg up,” said Jackson. “But first, put them shells in your pockets.”
    I placed my shotgun on the ground and opened the box that was on the stairs. Pulling out the shotgun shells a handful at a time, I shoved them into my front pockets until they bulged. I brought the ones that wouldn’t fit over to Bodo and he put them in his pockets.
    “Be right back!” said Katy, running back into the house as I was finishing up.
    I walked back over to the horse, eying it with trepidation. It was so tall. Falling from that height would be more than painful.
    “Bend your leg at the knee,” instructed Jackson.
    I was looking up at Bodo, but he was just staring straight ahead, his shotgun lying perpendicular across the front of the saddle, muzzle pointing out towards the truck.
    I bent my leg as instructed and Jackson put his hand on my shin.
    “Use the pressure on your leg to get up.”
    This was different then the laced-fingers technique I’d seen before, but it worked just as well. As I pushed down on my leg, trying to straighten it, he pushed up and hoisted me to a point that I could throw my other leg over the back of the horse. I wasn’t on the saddle, but I had a bit of blanket under me, just in front of the round part of the horse’s rump.
    I hurriedly wrapped my arms around Bodo’s waist. I’d been on a horse before, but they scared me; I wasn’t afraid to admit that. Now in addition to worrying about my friends being attacked, I was panicking that I was going to break my neck by falling off the back of a horse.
    “You can run her full out for about a hour, maybe two. That’ll get you there. But please, when you’re done, point her home and smack her hard on the bum. Don’t let her stay there.”
    “Why?” I asked totally mystified. “I mean,