Turtle Doves | Joel Miller

Chapter Sixteen

The material of the map crinkles in my hand as the wind blows, folding the corner down so that I can't see. With a huff I straighten it back out and try my best to see what, or who, we should be expecting next. So far the map has been pretty accurate and I have no reason to question it, not yet at least.

"Doesn't look like there should be anything for a while." Skepticism is evident in my voice and I pass the map to Joel, who has his hand reached out for it. He looks over the map with his signature scowl plastered on his face.

"Hm. Either they're lyin' or they don't know what's out there." He hands the map back to me, and I fold it back onto itself and put it back in my bag.

Before we leave the farm, Joel insists that he scours the property for another vehicle. He's convinced these people had some sort of transportation. I told him that I don't think they did, that they were entirely self-sufficient here. So now he's looking extra hard just to prove me wrong. We've trekked back into the fields on both sides of the house and have come up empty handed, and unfortunately I don't think that's going to change.

"Hey you think we should just get going?" I ask and stretch my back out, feeling the ache from my uncomfortable sleeping arrangement. The sun is already up and it's probably around noon. Joel sighs and rests his hands on his hips.

"We probably should. I was sure they'd have something." He sounds disappointed as we walk back towards the road. I wish we had found another car but we can't seem to get that lucky.

Once again the two of us are on the road, baking in the afternoon heat. Sweat falls down my back in beads and it negates the cleanliness of the shower I took only a day ago. That farm is sure to be heavily on my mind for a while, and it'll make it difficult to return to Boston on my way back. I'll definitely miss the shower and the berries very much.

And like all the other days of our traveling, my mind begins to wonder out of boredom.

"What did you mean earlier, when you said they didn't know what's out here?" Joel's head turns and he squints in the sunlight. His shoulders shrug,

"Exactly what I said, they don't know." His answer is unsatisfactory and so I press further.

"Do you know what's out there?" I ask, feeling nervousness bubble inside of me with what horrors he could be talking about. Joel sighs and wipes the sweat from his brow.

"Bad people and infected." He keeps it simple, but I know his words are nuanced.

I know Joel well enough by now to know when he doesn't want to talk about something, and I think this is one of those moments. His words become more clipped, his answers as short as possible. Just like yesterday when we were talking about our lives before the fall of society. I drop the subject but the worry is blossoming in my mind.

Bad people can mean a lot of different things. Some may even consider me a bad person for drug running in the QZ. There are too many degrees of bad, but I'm almost certain he's not talking about lowly pill smugglers. There are people like the T group and the deranged men from that town, and I know we're probably going to run into more before our journey comes to an end, it's just inevitable.

But I remember the promise I made to myself back at the campground; I will be stronger. I have to be. Back when I used to run patrols in the QZ I was able to compartmentalize my emotions, and through that I was able to gun down people and infected indiscriminately. Obviously I don't take pride in that, but I know I have it within me to do so.

Out of the corner of my eye I look at Joel and appreciate his broad, strong form. After everything he's done for me, I know that I would kill for him in a heartbeat.