15. Home Again, Josie!
Home Again, Josie!
By early afternoon, the mountains rose in the distance, and the flat prairie they'd spent days crossing gave way to rolling hills dusted in fresh snow.
Fence lines stretched for miles, weaving through open pastures where weathered barns leaned against the gusts and abandoned windmills turned lazily in the cold air.
Josie hadn't spoken much that morning. For hours, she'd stared out the passenger window, watching a landscape she knew by heart drift past the glass. Every mile presented something familiar, and every bend in the road tugged loose another memory she hadn't touched in months.
"There," she whispered.
Seth glanced over. "What?"
She pointed through the windshield toward a distant Ridgeline etched against the gray sky.
"I used to ride horses up there with my dad.
He'd always hang back a little, let me get ahead.
" A faint smile crossed her face, and she laughed quietly, the sound small in the cab.
"He never told me he was watching, but I just knew. He was always there if I fell."
A mile later, she pointed again, this time toward the rusted skeleton of an old grain elevator standing alone against the horizon. "We'd stop there after church every Sunday. Dad always bought us ice cream from the little store across the road."
The store no longer existed. Fire had taken it down to the foundation, leaving nothing behind except a blackened chimney reaching toward the overcast sky. Her smile faded.
As they drove deeper into the countryside, the destruction became harder to ignore.
Farmhouses stood silent behind shattered windows, tractors sat abandoned in fields half-buried beneath snowdrifts, and a combine rested at an odd angle where someone had apparently climbed out in the middle of the harvest and never climbed back into it.
Movement caught Seth's eye. "Twelve o'clock."
Jay's voice crackled over the radio almost simultaneously. "Visual on infected."
Three of them drifted through a snow-covered pasture while a fourth stumbled along a fence line, one arm hanging uselessly at its side. None of them ever looked toward the vehicles. They simply drifted, lost in whatever instinct still drove them forward.
Josie's stomach twisted as she watched them. "I knew them," she said, pointing toward the nearest farmhouse. "The Wilsons. They owned that place." She swallowed hard, forcing the words out. "They had two little boys."
Silence settled over the cab.
Another infected shuffled through the skeletal remains of what had once been a horse pasture. "the Henderson place," she whispered. "They used to host Fourth of July picnics."
These weren't strangers shambling through the snow. They were the Wilsons, the Hendersons. They were birthday parties and Fourth of July picnics, neighbors who had once borrowed sugar. Every passing mile was haunted by a face she knew.
Finally, she leaned forward, her eyes scanning the roadside with sudden urgency. "Slow down. It should be... right here."
Seth eased off the accelerator as a narrow gravel road, nearly hidden by fresh snow between weathered fence posts, emerged. A laugh trembled on her lips. "My dad refused to pave it."
Jay's SUV turned first, leading the convoy slowly up the lane. Tires crunched softly over the packed snow as the ranch revealed itself: first the red barn, then the machine shed, and finally the farmhouse.
Josie's breath caught. "It survived."
The old white farmhouse still stood proudly beneath towering cottonwoods. Her eyes immediately scanned the porch, finding no movement—only the swing still hanging, the flower beds buried beneath snow, and the windmill turning with a soft creak in the afternoon breeze.
The they spotted the smoke coming from the chimney.
"Mom..." she whispered, unaware she'd spoken aloud.
Seth glanced at Josie, whose entire body had gone rigid. Jay stopped the lead SUV, the second rolled in behind, and no one moved to get out. A heavy stillness pressed against them all. Too quiet.
Then the front door burst open.
A woman sprinted onto the porch, a rifle already rising to her shoulder in one practiced motion. "Don't move!" Her voice cracked across the frozen yard. "You have ten seconds to put your vehicles in reverse before I start shooting!"
Jay slowly raised both hands, visible through the windshield. "We're leaving!"
"You've got five seconds!" The rifle never wavered. "One!"
Seth reached for his door, but Josie grabbed his arm. "No. Wait."
The woman stepped off the porch. "Two!"
She looked exhausted and painfully thin, older than Josie remembered. Her dark hair had been hacked off unevenly, and her coat hung several sizes too big on her frame.
"Three!"
Then her eyes landed on the passenger seat, and she froze. The rifle lowered by an inch.
"...Josie?"
Josie fumbled with the handle, shoving the door open. Seth made a reflexive motion to hold her back, but she was already scrambling out. "Liz!"
The rifle slipped from numb fingers, hitting the porch with a dull thud. Liz stumbled forward, her expression a mask of disbelief, as though her own eyes had betrayed her. "Oh my God... Josie?"
"Liz!"
The sisters collided halfway across the yard, crashing into each other so hard they nearly went down together in the snow. Liz clung to her, as if letting go might make her disappear again, her sobs breaking apart against Josie's shoulder.
"I tried..." Josie could barely breathe through her own tears. "I tried to get here."
Liz's hands cupped her sister's face, and for a moment neither of them could speak. "You made it. You actually made it."
Behind them, Jay quietly motioned for everyone to stay back. This moment belonged to two sisters who had found each other at the end of the world, and no one intended to intrude.
Then Josie's eyes searched past Liz—toward the porch, the windows, the barn. "Where's Mom?"
Liz's smile vanished. Neither spoke for so long that Liz looked away first.
Josie's chest tightened. "No..."
"Where's Dad?"
Her sister looked away, unable to speak.
"Liz." Josie's voice now shook violently. "Tell me."
Liz squeezed her eyes shut, and the words came out broken. "When I got here... they were already gone."
Everything inside Josie stopped. "What?"
"I was too late." Liz's composure crumbled. "When I got here... everything looked normal. Too normal. The truck was in the driveway, the generator was running… like they'd just stepped out. But they weren't here." She faltered, her gaze drifting toward the barn. "And there was blood in the snow."
Josie stepped backward, shaking her head as if refusal alone could undo it. "No. No!"
Her knees buckled, and Seth caught her before she hit the frozen ground, though she never noticed. Her eyes stayed fixed on the red barn, her voice fracturing into pieces. "My dad... my mom... they can't..."
Liz dropped to her knees beside her sister and pulled her close. "I looked everywhere. I searched for days—the house, the fields, the creek, the neighbors' properties. I never found them."
Josie cried out then, a high, broken sound that didn't seem to belong to her. For months she'd clung to hope, imagining her mother's hug and her father's smile, one more family dinner, one more chance to say goodbye. All of it gone before she'd ever had the chance.
Liz wrapped both arms around her. "I'm so sorry. I tried to get here faster."
Josie sobbed, the words torn from her. "I should've come sooner."
"No." Liz shook her head fiercely. "You couldn't have known."
Her cry’s echoed across the empty ranch. It carried on the wind, through silent pastures where horses no longer grazed and past barns where chores would never again be finished—a sound of pure, final loss.
Seth stood silently behind them, one hand resting gently on Josie's back. He had no words to offer—not for this. Some losses ran too deep for comfort. He simply stayed, a silent anchor, letting his presence be the one thing he could give.
The introductions came quietly, subdued in the aftermath of everything that had unfolded in the front yard. No one seemed to know what to say after such a storm of emotion.
Liz wiped her face with the sleeve of her flannel shirt before bending to retrieve the rifle she'd dropped, slinging it over her shoulder with practiced ease even as her hands continued to tremble.
"I'm sorry," she said, her gaze sweeping from Jay to Cara and finally to Seth. "I... I wasn't expecting anyone."
Jay offered a tired smile. "You don't owe us an apology."
"In times like these," Seth added, his voice low, "you did exactly what you should have done."
Liz nodded, her jaw tightening. "I've had people come through before. Most weren't interested in asking permission."
"I imagine not," Jay replied.
Josie finally found her voice, gesturing to each of them in turn. "Liz, this is Jay." He tipped his head politely. "Cara."
Cara smiled warmly. "It's nice to meet you."
"And Seth..." Josie's eyes lingered on him for a heartbeat before moving away. "He... he saved us."
Liz looked at Seth differently than, gratitude plain and unguarded in her expression. She stepped forward and held out her hand.
"Thank you."
Seth shifted uncomfortably. "You don't have to—"
"No." She squeezed his hand firmly, refusing to let him deflect. "I do. If it weren't for you..." Her voice cracked under the weight of the thought. "I would have been all alone."
Seth had no answer for that, so he simply nodded.
Liz drew a slow breath and glanced back toward the house, managing the ghost of a smile. "Come on. It's warmer inside."
The farmhouse smelled exactly as Josie remembered—wood smoke and coffee, old pine floors, and something baking in the back of the kitchen. Her chest tightened, and she had to stop in the doorway just to breathe.
"It still smells like home."
A faint smile touched Liz's lips. "I couldn't let that disappear."