Days of Love and Blood

“You’re alive! You’re here!”
    I grabbed her face with both hands and studied her for a few minutes. I carelessly let a few tears of happiness escape my eyes. “Ivy. My Ivy.”
    “This is my best friend!” she cried out.
    “Wait, wait, Ivy.” I suddenly remembered the danger and my face must have reflected the change because she frowned.
    “Your parents?” She shook her head and cast her eyes downward. “I’m sorry, Ivy. So sorry. My parents?” I asked hopefully.
    “Oh, I don’t know, Carson.”
    “That’s okay. It’s alright,” I sighed. “We just passed a big herd.” She looked up at me and cocked her head. I pulled away from her and turned around to face the gathering of people. “There’s a herd, a big herd of homicidals right down the road. We just passed them. They’ll be here in twenty-five minutes. Half an hour, tops. It’s a big group, way too big.”
    The same man who tried to introduce himself a second ago stepped toward me. “How many do you think?”
    “At least seventy-five. At least. Probably closer to a hundred.” Some of the women began to yell and search for their children. Ivy stood still, looking back at the house.
    “Are y’serious? She led ‘em to us!” An angry-looking man with piercing green eyes stepped into my presence and pointed at me. “Ya jus’ show up and suddenly there’s a shitload’o homicidals breathin’ down our necks?” he screamed. His accent was thick with the typical southern drawl of the area.
    “ Cooper. That’s enough!” the tall man ordered.
    “ It’s okay,” I assured him. “I get it.” I fully understood. I would have probably felt the same way. “But you gotta listen,” I yelled. “You’ve all got two choices and you need to decide right now. You can get inside and hunker down. With any luck, they’ll go right past us if we stay quiet. If not, I’ll help you fight them. I won’t leave you. And I have a lot of experience fighting the herds. Your other option is to run. But you would all have to go right now. You can leave, circle around and then come back as soon as they’re gone. But you need to decide now.”
    “We can’t leave,” Ivy said. “We have someone in the house who can’t be moved. We can’t leave him.” I heard Cooper grumble and noticed him sizing me up out of the corner of my eye. He probably couldn’t figure out how a female of such small stature could be so commanding. Typical, for a local inbred.
    “Alright, then we don’t have a choice. All I ask is that you take my son into the house and protect him.”
    “ Of course,” she replied.
    “ Let’s go, then,” I huffed and clapped my hands together. “Everyone should get inside the house right now, immediately, those who don’t want to fight. There isn’t much time left. Anyone who wants to stay and help me fight ’em off - you’re more than welcome.” I ran to the door of my camper and ushered Ronan to the top of the stairs, picked him up and swiftly carried him to the house. The tall man followed me as I placed Ronan in the care of an older woman who held her arms out for him when I reached the porch. When I turned around, the angry man referred to as Cooper looked past me, his eyes squinted and intensely focused on my son.
    “The problem is, we don’t have enough ammo to fight that many people,” whispered the tall man. “My name’s Solomon. I help out around here. We can fight. We’ve done it before. But we’re running low on supplies and we don’t have enough to fend off that many people. Do you have some kind of plan? Help me out here.”
    “I have weapons,” I said. “I have a lot of weapons. Guns, ammunition. In the R.V. Plenty. You’re welcome to it all. I just don’t know which bullets go with which guns. I don’t know how to use any of it.” Solomon and Cooper glanced at each other.
    “And jus’ how in the hell were ya plannin’ on takin’ out seventy-five homicidals without guns?” Cooper asked while raising one side of his lip in disgust, his hands gripping his hips.
    “I have my own weapons. And I have my own ways. I’ve done it before. By myself.”

A Battle In The Fields
    We were in Ritchie’s kitchen, finishing up dinner. Grilled salmon, asparagus with hollandaise and butternut squash. He cooked it himself to demonstrate his culinary skills and did better than I ever could. When he excused himself to use the bathroom, I began to do the dishes as a compliment to the chef. It was the least I