Chapter 57
The horses carried them west as daylight gradually slipped away.
Charlotte rode with one hand on the reins and the other pressed against her ribs, wincing at the heat of the infection that the antibiotics seemed powerless against. The mare’s steady gait provided some relief to her aching lungs, while Mason, clinging to the gelding’s back, fought to keep his eyes open.
They had left the familiar logging road behind and were now on a county highway winding through fields that, once bustling with life, now felt eerily empty.
The EMP had disrupted vehicle movement, leaving a haunting landscape of abandoned cars and trucks scattered along the roads.
Charlotte guided the mare carefully between them, her eyes scanning for any signs of life, potential dangers, or the unsettling stillness that signified the presence of the undead.
The addresses on the envelopes were obscured from view along the highway.
She knew Ridge Road was somewhere ahead, branching off to the north.
The community center on Spruce Street felt like a distant memory, a reminder of everything she had walked away from in Tuckerton.
With a heavy heart, she made her decision.
She would prioritize the Ridge Road letter first if the detour felt safe enough to manage.
Mason’s head drooped. Charlotte saw it from the corner of her eye.
She guided the mare closer to the gelding and reached across the gap between the horses, her gloved hand finding Mason’s shoulder.
Mason lifted his head. The mask had slipped again, and Charlotte tightened the strap behind his ear to its last notch.
The seal was still poor, but whatever gas leaked through hadn’t harmed him.
“Hey,” she said. “You need to stay awake a little longer. We’re almost somewhere we can stop.”
“Okay,” Mason said.
His voice was thin. He took the water bottle she offered, drank two swallows through the mask’s port, then handed it back.
The dog wandered ahead along the roadside, then circled back to Mason before moving forward again.
Charlotte trusted the animal’s assessment more than her own eyes.
They passed a house with a white sheet in the front window.
As they rode by, Charlotte saw an older woman appear briefly at the glass before the curtain fell back into place.
Someone living. Someone watching. Someone wise enough not to call out.
Dusk arrived, and Charlotte began looking for shelter, as the highway offered no protection.
She found it where the road crossed a shallow stream.
Trees lined the banks, offering cover and water for the horses.
Charlotte guided the mare down the embankment, dismounted, and helped Mason down from the gelding.
His legs buckled, and she caught him before he fell.
She led the horses to the stream, where they drank hard.
The dog lapped at the edge, then returned to Mason and sat at his feet.
She unpacked the saddlebags. She checked the tree line twice while she worked.
She was securing the mare’s lead to a willow branch when Mason spoke next.
“There’s smoke.”
Charlotte turned. Mason was standing at the edge of the stream, pointing west, and beyond him, a thin gray column rose from what looked like the next ridge.
The smoke was pale and steady, the product of a controlled fire.
Fire meant people. She moved to his side.
There was one column. It was steadily rising from what the map suggested was a valley beyond the ridge.
It wasn’t a wildfire or a house burning out of control.
Someone was feeding the fire and keeping it contained.
“We’ll check it in the morning,” Charlotte said. The words came out with the flat certainty of a decision already made, though she had made no such decision until Mason pointed at the sky. “For now, we stay here. Eat. Sleep. The horses need rest.”
Mason nodded. He sat on the blanket, accepted the can of beans she had opened, and ate with focused attention.
Charlotte ate beside him through the mask’s port and watched the smoke on the horizon.
It rose steadily, and in that she read the first good news she had found in days.
Whatever waited beyond the ridge had organization.
The envelopes were in her pocket. One of them was addressed to a community center that might, if the geography aligned, be where that column was rising.
Charlotte didn’t trust coincidences. Still, as she lay on the bank with Mason already asleep beside her and the dog curled against his ribs, she allowed herself to consider that the letters might matter for reasons beyond sentiment.
In a world without systems, the only thing left to deliver was what people had asked for.
If the smoke belonged to a real camp, then maybe it belonged to people still trying to hold on to rules.
The smoke continued to rise. Charlotte watched it until her eyes grew heavy. The fever pulled her under, and her last thought before sleep took her was that, for the first time since the beach, she was moving toward something rather than away from everything she had lost.