Rita and Sebastian returned to camp as the morning light started to lighten up the forest floor. The tents and cargo had been packed and put into the cop car already. Sissy's leg had been bandaged but she was already exhibiting signs of a flu.
"How was the last campground?"
"They were dead." Rita answered. "Fucking bullets through their brains." She said not softening her language.
"I-I don't think we should leave Kayla here." Sissy mentioned and the group went quiet. Sissy had not only become more irrational and illogical over the past few days but her behavior was worrying to the group.
"Mom, Kayla isn't with us anymore." Grace answered.
Sissy quickly slapped her daughter and then having a moment of lucidity held her hand. "I'm sorry." Sissy said then walked over to a tree and leaned on it sobbing.
"Are you okay?" Alice asked and Grace nodded. "Here, let me talk to her." Alice walked over to Sissy who was inconsolably sobbing at a nearby tree. She put a hand on Sissy's shoulder and the woman quickly shrugged it off.
"No," Grace tugged at Alice's shirt and shook her head. "Let me."
Alice looked at the young girl and nodded then returned to the police car.
"Mom," Grace started and Sissy looked down at her daughter her eyes wet and her body language remoseful. She was looking sicker by the minute. "Mom, I'm sorry that this is what is happening. I'm sorry about dad. About Kayla. About Auntie Sonja."
"Thank you Gracie." Sissy hugged her daughter and dropped to her knees. Grace felt her eyes well up with tears as she said the hardest words she probably would ever have to say in her life.
"Mom, if you want to stay with Kayla you can." Grace sniffled and Sissy pulled back looking at her daughter realizing the gravity of what she was saying.
"Grace but you need..."
"Mom. I don't know what's coming next. I don't. I'm terrified and I love you and Kayla and dad so much but I know...this isn't a world where you need to survive. You have to want to survive. We've been pretty lucky and I know more is coming."
"Gracie." Sissy whispered, her voice weak.
"Mom I love you." Grace responded hugging her mom tightly.
"Gracie. I am sorry I am not strong enough but will you help me be with Kayla." Sissy whispered in her daughter's ear and squeezed Grace even tighter.
"Mom I don't" Grace couldn't believe her mother's ask – but in some ways it was the kindest thing her mother could say.
"I want it to be you. I need it to be. I don't know those people and..."
"Okay Mom." Grace agreed.
The agreement made, the two walked through the woods to the mound where Kayla was buried. Sissy knelt by the grave and put her hands on the dirt. Grace stood behind her mother and pulled out a pistol aiming it at the back of her mom's head. A bang and Sissy fell to the ground twitching. Another bang and she stopped: a lifeless corpse a few feet above another lifeless corpse. Grace stopped to the hands and knees and burst out crying. It was all so surreal and too much. All the emotion she kept hidden from her family, so she could appear strong, flooded out of her. The strength a blanket for her mother and sister no longer needed.
Rita picked Grace up who cried in her arms as they walked back to the car. By the time they reached the cop car, Grace had finished crying, more out of necessity than lack of emotion. Now wasn't the time for feelings, although they felt overwhelming. Everyone piled in and they left the campground leaving the recent deaths behind them.
Driving towards the road they knew they would be exposed for a little while as they left the forest and continued to the bridge. They broke through the foliage and sped, dodging abandoned cars and the occasional zombie. Rita's maneuvers were perfection and her training as an elite SWAT member was evident.
Before long the left over military were on them firing. It was a car chase. A barrage of bullets hit the back window and spider webbed the bulletproof glass. Grace screamed and turned to look out and see that another military car had joined the chase.
"Look!" Alice shouted pointing to a wall of trucks blocking the roadway of the bridge.
"When I stop everyone run across!" Rita spun the car to it's side as people funneled out. Alice, Grace, Phil started to get out as the military hummer slammed the police car. The baby he was holding and he fell to the ground. The police car jolted forward over Phil's back as he let out a loud scream.
Grace's eyes were wide as the baby few forward and landed, still wrapped in it's blanket a few feet away. Rita was in the car and bruised, her eyes looking confused.
The person manning the rifle on top of the hummer pointed it at Alice and Grace. Then a rifle sounded and the person stopped.
"RUN!" A familiar voice shouted.
Grace looked up to see Milo standing on top of the bridge with a hunting rifle laying down cover fire for them to get ahead.
Grace turned around and pulled open the driver's side door for Sebastian and Rita to tumble out. Rita pulled out a pistol and fired at the hummer quickly disposing of the driver.
The other military hummer was cautious about it's approach.
"Milo!" Grace ran and grabbed the baby turning to look at Phil, dead under the police car. She held her breath and quickly maneuvered through the wall of vehicles blocking the bridge. The strong smell of gasoline hit her nostrils as she emerged from the other side of the wall of cars. The bridge was covered in gasoline.
Alice came up behind Grace and ushered her forward.
Meanwhile, Sebastian, a bit bruised joined Milo on top of the bridge, happy to see his friend who still wore a fox eared cap. Milo's fired again at the hummer. Sebastian knew a more sentimental reunion would have to happen later as he turned his attention to the road.
"You boys got this?" Rita shouted up and Sebastian and Milo continued to have cover fire. "They're calling for re-enforcements we have probably about 10 minutes." She shouted running through the wall of cars and hurrying to lift herself up onto the bridge.
Milo's eyes were intent on the road. He wanted more survivors. He wanted to see Graham running down the road. But he had about 30 minutes before noon. That's when he told everyone to show. He went to 6 campgrounds and found people at 4 – he instructed those to go to a few and hoped they would. But the survivors that showed were far and few between. His plan was working but maybe his expectations for effectiveness weren't strong enough.
"Stay sharp!" Rita shouted and continued to fire as another military hummer showed up and they started firing on the crew.
Suddenly, at the horizon, a Jeep and a trailer spun around the military hummers heading to the bridge. The jeep knocked down some military personal that were firing at the bridge and each spun to the side copying what Rita did to shield their survivors as they exited the vehicles.
The survivors ran between the cars as 6 more military hummers arrived.
"Light 'em up!" A solider shoulders and heavy fire started to rain down on Milo, Sebastian, and Rita.
"Drop!" Rita shouted as she jumped from the top of the bridge landing on the hood of a car. Milo and Sebastian dropped too, their landings less graceful and forgiving. Milo scrambled to his feet and looked around. He didn't see Graham come across but it was too late – they were out of time. The might of the military was too strong.
"The flare guns!" Milo shouted pointing to a bag.
Rita ran to grab one and she turned as Milo and Sebastian continued to pour more gasoline on the cars.
"Boys we are out of time!" She shouted and the two youth started running across the bridge.
Milo looked over the edge at the far drop and river below. He made it across the bridge and turned. Rita was right behind him and the first of the military personal had stepped foot past the car barricade. Rita fired the flare and in a burst of flame and heat the bridge lit up. The wave of heat tossed Milo back. He fell looking at the flames catch the wooden bridge on fire and begin to melt the metal. Car alarms went off and military men were shouting on the other side.
Then there were moans. The military didn't have time to regroup and fire at the remaining survivors because the first of the horde appeared behind them and they had to change their plan.
Milo sat himself up on the hard pavement. He looked at the flames and coughed in the smoke of them. His plan worked but there wasn't any Graham. At that moment, Milo questioned his motives and frowned.
"Proud of you." A masculine voice said and helped lift Milo off the ground.
Milo turned around to see Graham, a few days beard but the handsome older man smiled at him. It had only been a little over a week but every day felt so much longer and Milo couldn't help but feel flooded with emotion looking at his partner in crime. The two looked at each other both feeling an immense set of emotion but feeling uncertain what to do with it. So they gripped each other tightly, for fear that letting go meant letting go of so much more. The smoke burned their eyes and they closed them embracing each other.
Milo took in the older man feeling the warm and firm embrace and returned it. He couldn't hold Graham tight enough in the moment.
A gunshot rang out and Milo turned to see a zombie drop at their feet. The horde, having finished off the military, was walkthrough through the fire across the still standing, but burning, bridge.
"Get back!" Rita shouted.
Graham grabbed Milo's hand. "I got you." Graham pulled the boy back away from the smoke and flames.
They joined the group of about 18 survivors, everyone looked around, to Milo and Sebastian who they all knew. What next?
"There is a ranger station up the road, it's the north entrance of the park. Let's go there and regroup!" The group walked and as they did some reunions happened.
Grace walked beside Milo and held his hand. Milo wanted to ask about his Aunt Sissy and cousin Kayla but the handhold communicated more than he needed to know. They were each other's last family and that was obvious.
A group of zombies probably made it through the flames but the bridge hopefully burned down by the time the group arrived at the ranger station. Breaking the lock of the backdoor the 18 survivors regrouped.
Alice, who was a trained surgeon, helped mend the wounded and tend to bruise with the first aid kits found in the station. Grace helped her where she could.
Rita and Sebastian built a perimeter with a few of the other able-bodied survivors.
Milo and Graham found each other in an office at the station. "What you did was...it was impressive Milo." Graham commented leaning against the door. "People are looking to you as a leader."
"I don't think I deserve that title." Milo replied looking through the file cabinets. "Now I feel all this pressure to have a plan and I don't know, I'm just a nervous little kid with anxiety."
"I don't think so." Graham replied. "You managed to do what we couldn't do individually."
"Ya know, when Dan was around." Milo noted that this was the first time he said his dead boyfriend's name and didn't feel sad, he missed him but didn't feel sad about it. "We would play all these strategy games together. You had to control armies, manage resources, and fight enemies. When I was up in that ranger watch tower that's what I was doing – I think that's what we need to do to survive." Dan felt too far away to miss now. His mission had changed and he wasn't quite sure what his mission was but it included Graham. It included keeping Graham safe and close.
Milo found a map and spread it across a table. "But I don't know if I have the skillset to keep it up. Like that bridge. It didn't burn down how I thought it would. We stopped the military but the zombie horde is still coming across."
"Hey kid." Graham walked over and gripped Milo's shaking hand. "You don't have to figure it out for everyone. You did a lot."
"But we can't just take a break!" Milo replied only realizing he was shaking when Graham held his hand. Milo stopped and looked up at the man gulping. Their eyes met in the dimly lit office and Milo smiled. "I guess my anxiety is being channeled in the right way finally."
Graham looked the boy in the eyes, Milo's sweet face covered in soot from the smoke earlier. In some ways this was the same Milo he got into fights with on the side of the road, the same features of a high school teen uncertain and insecure, but it other ways this was a boy who had seen this new world and understood it better than most. They had both lost a lot and in that loss found each other and kept finding each other. Graham's heart started to race, noticing himself, holding the boys hand like he would his wife and staring at him like he would his wife Camille. Graham had felt these feelings before, in bits and pieces of nightly embraces but he had never let himself feel them. His past with Camille and his daughter was not part of this new world. In some ways, Graham realized that everyone was starting at zero and some people were adapting faster than others.
The two were quiet both stunted with societal expectations that no longer existed and in the growth they had yet to endure. Their breath matched each other and the hand hold felt not just comforting but intimate and without saying anything they each knew that but also didn't know what to do with it.
Milo swallowed hard, "I think, I think I did all of this to get back to you." The boy said softly. "I don't want to be separated from you again. I thought you died. I don't know what to hold onto in this world and I...I like you around."
Graham smiled and still holding Milo's hand caressed his thumb against the boy's palm. The small notion of intimacy felt dangerous for so many reasons.
They both stood on a precipice of an unknown a dangerous emotional world that Graham saw but had never traversed in. He'd never felt this way toward someone like this or felt like this before. Each centimeter he dragged his thumb and moved his hand felt more intimate and wanting.
Milo was nervous too. The older man was a dominating figure, standing much taller than him with a body build of muscle over the years. His heart raced and he was frozen with Graham caressing his hand and Milo squeezed back a confirmation of affection without speaking a word. The two looked each other in their eyes seeing the intimacy in a way that only each of them could, each wanting but also fearful at how far they could or should take this.
Sebastian entered breaking the moment and the two quickly released each other's hands returning their focus to the map.
"The fire is out and the military is gone. The bridge won't fall and the horde is slowly crossing. It's almost sunset but we can't stay here. What do we do?" Sebastian said and Rita entered after him.
"I've been looking at this map. I think we continue up this highway, it will take us into Colorado and we can head into the mountains. The horde will be slowed walking up hill and they may actually continue the other direction. But I need help. We need a base. Is there anyone in the group that knows Colorado better that we can ask?"
"Let's check but we have about an hour before the horde is here." Rita noted and she and Sebastian left the room.
Graham and Milo looked at each other the intimacy they both acknowledged hidden and uncertain when it would be allowed out.