Epilogue

"Yeah," Miles grunted. "Sorry." Then she shook her head again. "Not sorry. Thank you."

"No worries," Reese said, smiling widely and feeling proud for having contributed.

Miles was staring at the hole in the wall. "You know," she said, slowly, "there were times when I used to see you chopping wood, and I'd see your arms... and I wondered if maybe you were, like,way stronger than I realized."

At this, Reese eagerly raised one arm and flexed, biceps and triceps stretching the upper sleeve of her hoodie. She knew her bulk was easy to mistake for the fat it had once been, but she was proud of herself.

"Huh," was all Miles added.

They went through the middle shack together, again finding nothing, although the knife she gripped tightly in her palm felt like a huge find. She wouldn't trust it to cut their food until she could boil it for a good twenty minutes, but it was a 100% increase in the number of weapons she owned.

As they stepped back out into daylight, Miles turned to her. "I was distracted back there," she said.

"You don't need to apologize," Reese said, brightly. "It happens!"

But Miles shook her head. "I was thinking about... what you asked."

"Oh," she said, deflating a little. "I'm--"

Before she could get out the apology on her lips, Miles cut her off. "When I was... nine. Ten, maybe. We were at the neighborhood pool. They had all these, like, water toys. Lots of them. Some of them were water guns, and one day thisboy"--she laced the word with such derision--"squirted me in the back."

"Saw it all the time with my kids," Reese added. "Students."

"I turned around, and he starts running, and I grabbed... They had noodles. Pool noodles. You remember? One of them was, like, torn in half, which made it really good for holding in one hand and whacking someone with, and as I started running after him I saw it right there in front of me, on the ground. I scoop it up, and I start running."

Miles made big, exaggerated arm swings, elbows pointed at sharp ninety degree angles as she waded through memory that seemed very important.

"We come around this corner and I'm gaining on him and thisguy, thisdad, he says,you run like a boy as we go by him, and I just... lost all my momentum. It hit weird, you know?"

"That can be a tough time," Reese said, nodding.

Miles nodded too. "I went to my Dad, and I told him, and I think I was expecting him to, like, do something, say something, stand up for me, but instead he gets all excited. He used to run marathons back when my mom was still in the picture. Stopped when he got remarried." She stopped to lick her lips. "We started going on runs after that. It was good. It was happy. I was happy. It made him happy that we had something we did together, I think." Her eyes got very far away when she added, "That was when he started calling me Miles. Like, the distance. My name is Emily, and that's... it's--"

"I get it," Reese said.

'Yeah," Miles said, sniffing hard. A sharp breath in through the nose, and then she was looking out at the horizon. "Yeah, I just... hadn't thought about that in a while. Got me thinking about my dad, and parents, and..."

Reese put her hand over her mouth to hide her smile, and then shook her head when she could hide the snicker that came out a second later. "I'm sorry!" she said, at Miles' annoyed expression. "I'm sorry! I just... I can't help thinking how insane it is that we used to run for fun. Like...for fun!"

Miles just blinked at her as she continued to laugh, louder and more openly.

"For sport! Not because we had to, but..." After a few seconds of chuckling that made her heart feel light, Reese waved her hands in front of her and composed herself. "Sorry."

And then Miles did something that surprised her; she smiled. When they started walking, Reese felt a whole lot less like a tagalong.

***

They didn't find anything usable in the warehouse, but no zombies either. Reese led the way to the self storage, and after peeking into several empty or emptied units, they found one that was locked.

"Well that's promising," Miles said. "Keep watch while I open this."

Reese handed over the hammer and hurried back to the door, nervously looking around the yard and the nearby treeline, grimacing with every loud creak and crack echoing through the corridors. When she heard the door opening, loudly echoing sheet metal and springs, she waited for a few more minutes, gripping her knife handle in whitened knuckles. No zombies showed, and when her curiosity was overwhelmed she dared to leave her post and go back to see what they'd found.

"Clothes, good, winter is coming..." Miles muttered while going through the cardboard boxes piled to one side. She picked one up and set it down on the ground next to her to root through the one below it.

"Some better than others," said Reese, pulling out a wedding dress in a see-through plastic suit bag.

She held it in front of her, swirling around, and her smile waned when she saw Miles' passive expression. She shrugged, stuffed the dress back in the box, and carried on.

They found two more locked units, and after some organizing and evaluating they had their loot piled up on the corridor. Clothes, some miscellaneous tools of which none were in particularly good condition, a bucket and a mop, plastic containers that might or might not be passable for storing water after they managed to boil it. None of the clothes really counted as winter clothes, but they might do for layering. There was also some furniture in the units, though they had no means of transporting them nor anywhere to transport them to.

Miles seemed to have reached the same conclusion, saying, "We need a base."

Reese nodded and tried to recall the layout of town. "I think there's, like, a couple neighborhoods ahead. And I kind of think that there was this, like a small lake, or a pond, a bit to the..."

"A lake?" Miles perked up.

Reese nodded. "I think so, yeah. I mean, I've never been there, but I remember signs for a nature trail... and there was blue on the signs... like a... like a lake?"

"We need to find that," Miles said. "Lead the way."

They packaged up their loot and roped it on a baby buggy they'd found. It had one bad wheel, but they balanced it so that the weight kept the wheel mostly off the ground. It was rickety, but they could leave if they had to fight or retreat, and it made hardly any noise when they pushed it on asphalt. The road wound near a few more houses, but they were all empty. Doors open. Windows shattered. They looked like skulls. Approaching them was unnerving, every time.

They walked on, eyeing the forest on one side while keeping an eye out for zombies on the other. The day was already pretty far along, and Reese's stomach grumbled hopefully. Thinking about all the food they'd left behind in Rosewood made her sigh. She wouldn't call what they'd had luxury, or even comfort, but now they hadnothing. Every time she let her mind go there--that she'd grabbed nothing in her panicked flight--it weighed on her, so she tried not to.

They came to a stop at the end of a street, where Reese's sense of direction was pinging fairly strongly. "I swore there was a path," she said, despondently.

"We can't just go wandering around in the forest," Miles said. "We'll just get lost. There has to be a-a path or something? A road?"

Reese shrugged. She wanted to be sure her recollection of a pond in these parts was correct, but she had absolutely no idea if there was a road. They had been--she had been set up on the northern side of Muldraugh, before. Right next to the stream.

The two of them gave up without really talking about it, and turned. There were some mobile trailers down the road to her left, and a neighborhood with some fences on her right. They went for the fences.

There was no sign of other people, living or dead, but the houses had been cleaned pretty thoroughly. They didn't get lucky until, in one of the sheds, they found a pallet of cans of beans, a sight that had Reese in tears out of gratitude. They grinned wildly at each other, making a little victory dance, and Reese's mouth watered when she picked one up.

"Do you have a can opener?"

Miles stopped grinning and frowned. "I mean, I..." She whirled, taking the backpack off her shoulders and setting it on the ground. She rooted, and then she rooted some more, cursing under her breath. Reese's spirits sank again, and she put the can on the table in front of her to stare. There was food, right there.

Right on cue Miles' stomach made noises, and both of them groaned. There was a long moment where they were both staring at the can, and it hurt.

"We can force it with the hammer, or the knife," Miles said, appearing less hopeful than she sounded, "but I'd rather not. We could break the knife, and we could waste the food if the can just cracks or something. Let's try a few more houses to see if we can find one."

Reese nodded and loaded the cans onto the old Radio Flyer. They continued on, Miles muttering under her breath.

"Oh, don't do that," Reese said. "You have stuff.You're prepared. I only have what I'm wearing."

"Better than nothing," Miles said dismissively. "Think if you had to flee naked."

"Yeah, I'd have to wear that wedding dress," Reese said. "That would be a style for the end of the world, alright."

This got another small smile out of Miles.

They found a cluster of nicer houses, each with a big yard surrounded by tall wooden fences. They walked along the streets slowly, minding the zombies, but none appeared. Miles looked around approvingly.

"We need to check all these houses," she said. "These were bound to have had good stuff, back in the day. Maybe there's some left. We might as well camp in one, at least for the night."

One of the houses had what appeared to be some kind of a vegetable garden to the side, the ground black and barren but filled with good soil and lined with decorative stones, and they made their way inside.

Most of the furniture was intact. Some chairs had fallen over, but nothing was broken. Kitchen cupboards were empty, but not all the utensils had been taken: they found baking pans and butter knives. They went through the rooms, checking every cupboard, and ended up in the master bedroom on the second floor.

Most of the materials were usable in one way or another. If they only had tools. Apart from materials, the house was quite empty of anything useful.

"We still have a few hours of daylight," Miles said. "We should check the rest of the houses, and try to find the lake."

"I could check the houses on this street," Reese offered half-heartedly.

Miles just nodded, took some supplies from her backpack and went back out.

Reese was tired. The fright of waking up to a fire had worn off, and the suspense of searching for supplies and a place to stay had also dissipated. She really didn't want to go back out, and, to top it off, the first raindrops hit the windows. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply for a minute, and then she pushed herself up from the chair and grabbed the knife on her way out. There would be no rest before they had the essentials sorted out.

***

Miles straightened her back, then stretched her upper back and arms. She was tired to the bone. She looked over the pond, which she had indeed found, and which was large enough that she seriously hoped it would be good for fishing. That would remain to be seen, but at least it was good for water, and for that she was grateful. There were streams entering it from the one side and exiting from the other, which meant that the water cycled through. It might not begreat for drinking, but it wasn't standing water. She had circled it carefully and hadn't seen any corpses in the depths.

It was a little further than would've been optimal. And the terrain was uneven, which had made the search excruciating. There hadn't been many dead lurking in the trees and low brush, but there had been some. She had been on her guard for hours now, listening intently and peeking through the shrubbery and around trees, and she seriously hoped the area was clear now. She would still have to come back to get the water, carry it through the forest to the house, and boil it. She sighed and stretched again. They did have the one dinky bucket, and it would be enough if it had to be enough, but she hoped Reese had found something useful.

Rain splattered on the lake's gray surface lazily. The heavy rain hadn't lasted long, and she had stayed under the cover of the largest trees for most of it, but this slower drizzle didn't show signs of easing. It would likely put out the forest fire, but would have been more useful if they'd had something in place to gather the water.

And some way to dry out their clothes. And a place to build a fire without risking it spreading. Though, looking around to the now sodden landscape, she thought another fire was unlikely. Now wasn't the time to care for anything beyond their highest priorities. God knew they had enough of that sort.

Miles paused when she noticed she was thinking in terms of "them" now. When had that happened? True, she'd sought out the community when she'd figured out it was too risky to try to make it alone, but even with the community she'd always kept to herself. She didn't trust easily, and the incident with the fire had proved her right even if she didn't know exactly how. But now--

It dawned on her that she had left Reese with what few supplies she did have, and wandered off into the forest. If Reese had nicked her stuff and fled, she would be in a very dicey situation indeed. Her heart beat a little faster again, and she picked up the pace following the marks she'd cut on the trees on the way down. She told herself it was because they should hurry and make the water run before losing daylight, but didn't really believe it.

The road was deserted, though she thought she could see a heap further down, close to one building. Reese had encountered zombies too. She stopped in the yard and listened as hard as she could. All was still, only the rain made any sound. She eyed the low fence lining the yard on only three sides and considered where, and which kind of a fence they would need to erect, and then stepped up to the back door.

Imminent concerns. Water, something to eat, a place to rest, preferably before nightfall.

Reese flinched and spun around when she stepped in. Good reflexes, but no weapon in her hands. She sighed in visible relief upon seeing Miles, and to her surprise, Miles felt the same.

"Not a whole lot," Reese said apologetically. "I only went through this street. But I did find one plastic bottle so you don't have to share your canteen,and," she added, dramatically,"check this out!"

She pointed out the window, toward the small shed in the backyard. Miles spotted a small plastic baby bathtub, placed so that the water from the drain would also run into it. "Very good!"

"I didn't get it in place for the heavy downpour," Reese said apologetically. "But looks like this'll go on for a while, so."

"I found the lake."

"You found the lake!" Reese perked up considerably, and Miles understood she had also known how perilous their water situation was. Reese was talkative and basically bright and optimistic, but it seemed she wasn't as oblivious to survival skills as Miles had originally thought.

She berated herself for the thought. Nobody this far into the end of the world could be totally oblivious to survival skills. She should know better, and she shouldn't be so prejudiced.

"Okay, how was it out there?" Reese asked. "Zeds? Can we go on a water run now?"

"Cleared what I found," Miles said. "Don't think there's that many out in the woods, but who knows."

"Yeah, better go while it's still light."

Reese went to the pile of loot she'd gathered on the dining room table, and picked up the bucket and another, bigger, plasticky one. "Lead the way!"

From the way Reese moved, from how heavy her step was, Miles deduced she was also very tired. She knew better than to complain or acknowledge it, and that made Miles hopeful. Maybe they did have a fighting chance. One more last chance. And really, what more could they ask for?

***

They'd almost made it back. Two buckets full of water. There had been a layer of something on top, a bit of green, but Miles had pulled a screwdriver from her pocket and neatly skimmed it off. Then she said something about how she'd take water with a little bit of growth over water that looked clear, but that no animal would touch, any day of the week.

The sun was below the horizon so they were hurrying, each of them carrying one bucket. Miles was leaning a little harder, to the opposite side, to manage hers, but it wasn't easy for Reese either. She'd almost forgotten how heavy water was, and she was getting ideas about using the buckets for curls and whatnot...

...and as she was thinking about this, making the classic mistake of thinking too far into the future and thinking about things that didn't matter right now, like what she would use to work out, something moved beneath a tipped-over tree trunk.

Reese screamed, jumped, dropped her bucket, and leaped away as an arm reached for her. She brought her heel down hard on the wrist, heard an awful crack, and lost her focus entirely. She grabbed the biggest rock she could find, a grayish-white thing she could barely manage with both hands, raised it up over her head, and brought it crashing down on the dead thing that peeked out at her.

And again.

"Heck," she exclaimed, as she turned around, and grabbed for the bucket. All the water in it was gone, having tipped over completely upside down, and she started shaking as she crouched next to it.

Miles caught up to her a few seconds later, and gave her a very slight frown. The taller woman's eyes darted back and forth between her and the blood spatter on the leaves behind her.

"You okay?"

"I'm going back," Reese said, standing up.

"No, come on."

"It's not that far."

"The sun is already down," Miles said, holding out an arm to block her way. "We haven't cleared a path yet. We don't know the terrain. You won't be able to see." She tried to brush past, and this time Miles put the bucket down and raced around in front of her again. "It's not worth it."

"Easy for you to say," Reese said, dejectedly. "You came prepared, and I am not holding up my end."

"It's beenone day," Miles said, placing hands on her shoulders. "There are gonna be days where I contribute nothing, and you're gonna have to do it all."

Reese met her gaze, if only briefly.

"There might be one or two of those days coming up in a week or so," Miles said, widening her eyes meaningfully.

Reese gave one last look over her shoulder, back toward the water, and let go of the idea of trying to hike it in the dark. She could barely see the path they'd just taken, and it was only going to get darker when night actually arrived.

"You get bad cramps?" she said, turning around and moving back to the body.

"Sometimes. Worse than most, I think."

Reese nodded, twisted her lips as she grabbed the shirt the body was wearing, and pulled with a heaving grunt. "Ohh," she said, wincing as the body slid out into the clear. "Lost the rest of that leg somewhere."

"What are you doing?" Miles sounded horrified.

"Just checking." Reese gave a few gentle pats to the pockets, pulled out a wallet and a dead phone, and then rolled over the body. "Got a comb."

"Didn't have one of those before," Miles said. It was hard to tell if she was being sarcastic, but Reese didn't bother looking to check. Miles kept her hair pretty short, as did she.

"Do we want this shirt?"