The Long Road Home

Chapter Six

The group gathered around the campfire sitting in lawn chairs. Pig noticed someone had added a chair just for her. Martha handed her a bowl of stew and a hunk of flat bread. The spread of food shocked her.

'Rabbit.' Tucker explained with a grin. They are every where out here. That deer is the first one we have spotted all week.' Pig tired the stew and let out a happy sigh.

'This is good.' She told Martha. The woman smiled.

'Thank you.' She told her. 'I used some of those herbs you gave me.' Tucker motioned to the bow which Pig had set at her side.

'Where did you get that monster?' He asked.

'I picked it up at the sporting good store where I got my pack and stuff.' She explained. 'I'm no good with guns, but I was always good with a bow. My dad taught my brother and me when we were kids in NY.'

'New York?' Gwen said surprised. 'How did you end up in Washington? Visiting?'

'No,' Pig said shaking her head. 'I lived in Lakeside. My twin brother and I were sent here to live with my aunt after our parents died. I planed to go back to NY, but when my brother signed up for the marines, he asked me to watch over his house. So I just stayed.'

'You said you were heading east.' Martha said. 'Is that where you're going now? To New York?' Pig nodded. 'If you don't mind me asking, why?' She shrugged.

My granddad had a cabin in Hamton County.' Pig explained trying very hard to ignore the dirty look Bret shot her. 'My brother and I inherited it when my dad died. My brother is still alive and if he can get back to the states, I know that is where he would go.'

'That's a long way to go.' Lenard said frowning. 'How do you know your brother is alive? Were you able to talk to him?' Pig shook her head.

'He is still alive.' She told them staring into her empty bowl. 'I just know he is.' She said nothing more. Pig hated trying to explain to people the bound she shared with her twin. The few she had felt comfortable telling looked at her like she had lost her mind. The last thing she wanted was this group thinking she was nuts.

No one pressed the matter and she was happy for that. A long uncomfortable silence hung over the group though. Pig looked to Martha. 'How did you all end up together?'

'Well.' Martha said handing her bowl to Daniel as he went around the group collecting empty bowls. 'Tucker and I lived in a secluded area and were over looked when all hell broke loose. Bret who lived on the other side of town came to check up on us and stayed.

'When we heard about the camp in Nevada, we packed up and headed south. Tucker found Daniel hiding in a house we were checking a few days later.' She frowned shaking her head. 'His mother turned and his father held her off telling him to run. He found that house abandoned and stayed there. Gwen and Lenard were traveling south too. We just ran into them on the road and traveled together.' She motioned to Michel and Hazel. 'Those two, we found trapped inside some kind of military bunker.'

'Some ass hole corporal locked us in.' Hazel said with a scowl. 'He said we would be safe there and he would be right back for us. Three and a half months later, the door opens and there is this lot looking for supplies.'

'Hence Michel's big mouth.' Gwen chuckled amused. 'They spent all that time in that bunker and still haven't gotten used to not being able to make any loud noise.' Pig nodded in understanding.

While trapped in the clinic, she had forgotten more then once about the noise problem. She had even been stupid enough to blast her music on the clinic's speaker system to drown out the noise of the chaos in the streets. The infected swarmed the clinic and if it had not been such a good solid building with heavy security doors, they would have gotten in.