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do?”
    “If you have something to contribute go right ahead. I haven’t seen Damian or Anne turn down a good suggestion yet.”
    “They never listen to me.”
    “That’s because all you do is bitch and moan.” They had reached the main camp by this time and Ryan gave Matt a shove towards the fire at the center of camp. “Get food. We’re moving again soon.”

IV.
     
    Two days later Anne halted the group, late afternoon, at an intersection. “I think this is it,” she murmured, staring down the length of gravel. She squinted a moment and nodded. “Yes, this might work. I need Ryan and Sean.”
    “You’re making me jealous,” Damian said.
    “We’ll need to camp here for the night.”
    “What’s going on in that head of yours?”
    Anne shook her head. “I don’t want to say anything yet.”
    Damian rolled his eyes and went to fetch the other two men.
    Ryan was surprised that they had stopped early but as he listened to Anne’s request he started to smile. “A four mile jog with no gear but our rifles? Shouldn’t take us more than an hour, two at most.”
    “Good. Don’t stop at any of the houses, just count driveways along the four mile roads and keep track of which side of the road they’re on.”
    “Just don’t leave without us,” Sean said, grinning. He clapped Ryan on the shoulder. “Let’s go. Daylight’s wasting.”
    They set off at an easy jog, their rifles slung over their shoulders. The landscape had changed in the last two days from wide expanses of fields broken by the occasional house or treeline to a mix of field and trees. Here, Ryan and Sean found six houses on the mile, on lots of various sizes, all different sizes and ages, all standing silent.
    Sean pulled out his battered journal and drew a square on the back page. As they walked they put a tick on their make-shift map for each driveway.
    “What do you think she’s up to know?” Sean asked.
    “Don’t know, but walking is going to get mighty tiring. If I was in charge, and I’m not volunteering for the job, I’d be looking for a safe place to hole up.”
    “Villages are all boarded up. We’ve seen that already. No one is going to let in three dozen refugees.”
    “Might be we don’t need something ready-made,” Ryan said. “So what’s your story?”
    “Me?” Sean paused to put a tick on the paper. “I’m a mechanic, nothing special. My brother had a cabin where we’d go to hunt. I’ll probably never see him again, even if he did survive the bombing.”
    “No wife?”
    “No, no wife, no kids. You?”
    “I worked night security for the last eight years, not a great job for holding onto a girlfriend.”
    “Look at us now, two bachelors on a life-changing adventure.”
    Ryan rolled his eyes. “Remind me to hold onto the movie rights.”
    “Shit. Were you looking forward to that new cop movie?”
    “Yeah. Think we’ll ever get a hold of a copy? I mean, maybe we’ll come across a computer with an illegal download on it.”
    “What would be the chances of that?” Sean said and made another tick.

V.
     
    They were still a quarter mile out but they could tell something was different. “Does the camp look bigger to you? And closer?”
    Sean nodded. “I don’t remember a tent that shade of orange either.”
    They picked up their pace and were met at the edge of the new camp by two armed men they didn’t know. “Hold on there, who are you?”
    Ryan and Sean exchanged a look and Ryan said, “We were camped here, with Damian and Anne’s group, from Bismark.”
    “Oh, the camp we stumbled upon. Yeah. Go on through, we’re just set up beside you. Hopefully the bigger group will mean safety.”
    “Where are you from?”
    “Cheyenne, Wyoming.”
    “Wyoming? Are you people crazy? What are you doing heading north?”
    “It’s not our choice, we just follow Sam and Dave. We were headed for Rapid City but by the time we got there the place was a war zone. It took us a while to skirt around it safely but