Apocalypsis 04 - Haven

about managing his people. Every single one of us was going to miss his wise counsel, even me. He’d come to represent almost a father-figure to me, even though we were pretty much the same age. It seemed like I’d lost another dad, and that just plain sucked. If anything happened to Peter while I was gone, I wasn’t going to make it. I would just give up.
    “You ready to go?” Paci asked.
    “Yippy kye-oh,” I said without a trace of humor, thoughts of my friend making me feel like we had little time left.
    Paci laughed. “I haven’t heard that in too long. Yippy kye-oh, motherfucker.”
    I couldn’t help but smile at his good humor. I knew he was going to be mourning the loss of his brother a lot longer and deeper than I would be, and it was nice to know that at least for this moment, he wasn’t completely miserable.
    Paci nudged the horse with his heels and made a clicking noise.
    The animal moved forward, jerking me back a little. I gripped onto Paci more tightly, trying to ignore the fact that my hand was lying flat against his abs. I could feel the muscles moving beneath his warm skin.
    “Careful, I’m ticklish,” Paci said softly.
    I was very tempted to test the truth of that statement, but I knew better than to play that game. Bodo and I were cruising through troubled waters right now, and it would be a big mistake to do anything that would be hurtful or rude like flirting, even if no one but Paci and I knew about it.
    The swamp buggy took the lead, winding its way through the corrals and off onto a path that went through the sparse trees circling this part of the compound. I hated that it made so much noise, but there was nothing we could do about that, and we needed its hauling capacity.
    The people riding double on horseback came next, then the cattle and sheep, with the dogs running alongside keeping them in line. The ATVs and people on foot made up our caboose.
    One of the ATV trailers had six chickens and one rooster in a group of small boxes, and the other ATV trailer had two piglets in a dog kennel box. They went from making little grunting sounds to squealing in fright as the four-wheeler started moving. The only ones who didn’t seem to be bothered at all by the journey were the dogs. They ran alongside the walking animals, keeping them in line, totally focused on their work - unwavering and never distracted.
    I wished I could be so singularly-minded. The entire time we walked along, I was jerking my head left and right, waiting for canners to appear out in the distant trees. I worried about how we’d fend them off out here in the open. I thought about the carrier pigeons and the special code we needed to learn so we could send and understand messages. I thought about my boyfriend and the man in front of me whose warm skin beneath my hand felt so inviting. I suffered under the heavy strain of guilt and fear, wondering how I was going to make it to age eighteen without dying of a gunshot wound, a stabbing, or even just a plain old run-of-the-mill broken heart.
    ***
    About three hours into our trip, the swamp buggy stopped. One of the riders spurred his horse on to ride up to the driver’s side of the vehicle, exchanging words with him. We couldn’t hear anything they said; they were too far away.
    “What’s going on?” I asked, leaning to the side so I could see around Paci better. Nothing seemed amiss to me. The path ahead was clear for a long way. There were some dense trees up ahead, but that was it.
    “Don’t know.” Paci shifted in the saddle, making the leather creak.
    Winky and Bodo turned around and came back to be next to us. “What are they doing?” asked Winky.
    “I have no idea,” I said.
    I shifted to get down, but Paci put his hand back, catching me on my side and keeping me in my spot behind him.
    “Just stay. If we have to get out of here in a hurry, I don’t want you on the ground.”
    My blood chilled at the idea of racing off on this horse while all those other kids stayed on the ground. Easy targets. Not to mention how sore my crotch would be from the abuse of this horse’s hard butt muscles.
    The kid who had run up to talk to the driver came cantering back to us.
    “Trouble ahead, maybe. Caught ‘em in the binocs. Four at least.”
    “Where are they?” I asked. I searched the far-off trees, seeing nothing.
    “Dead ahead. We have to pass through that grove to use the shortest route to the prison. We can’t risk going anywhere near the