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“Maddie, holy fuck!”
The man lunged forward, his arms outstretched, a wide smile of relief on his face.
But Saff’s instincts kicked in again before she could stop them. She shifted her body to the right, planting herself solidly between them.
Maddie’s grip around her tightened.
The man halted then, his eyes returning to Saff with a look of both confusion and caution.
“Who is it?” Maddie asked timidly.
The man’s eyes slowly slid away from Saff’s gaze back to Maddie, and for a split second he almost looked guilty, like he was catching himself after making a mistake.
“Sorry—its—its Carter.”
“What—Carter?” Maddie asked in disbelief. Then she stepped fully around her. Although she moved her hand to her arm and kept it there. “Is Josh with you?”
The man tucked his gun into its holster on his hip. Saff lowered the barrel of her rifle slightly, but kept it aimed at his chest.
“No. It’s just me and Dean. We left the new compound to do a big supply run. We’ve been gone for a couple days. But Josh is there with your parents.”
Saff felt Maddie’s body relax beside her.
“Thank God,” Maddie exhaled, and although Saff didn’t look, she could hear the smile in her voice. “So everyone made it? Everyone is okay?”
“Your mom and dad and Josh are all okay. Most of the group got split up after the zombie horde attacked, but people have been slowly making it to the new settlement throughout the last couple of weeks.”
Maddie loosed a breath. “I’m so glad. I was so worried about them.”
“We were worried about you,” Carter said, taking another step toward her. “We searched for you for hours after the horde came through. Where’d you go?”
Maddie shook her head slightly. “I was standing near Tyler when the shooting started. When things started getting crazy, he led us away. But the infected followed us for a while. I didn’tknow how far we’d gone until we realized no one from the group was nearby anymore. We tried to go back, but there were still infected people everywhere.”
Saff could imagine the scene in vivid detail as Maddie spoke. She’d been through enough zombie hordes to know the chaos they brought with them.
Carter nodded, his eyes moving back to Saff. Then they flicked to her gun. “You uh—have you been okay since?” he asked, the caution returning to his voice as he eyed the gun in her hand.
She couldn’t blame him.
“Yeah,” Maddie said, nodding. “Yeah, a lot has happened. But I’m fine.”
He nodded, eyes still glued to Saff and the gun.
“You mind asking your friend here to stop pointing her gun at me?” he asked carefully.
“Oh—uh,” Maddie turned her head toward Saff and placed a second hand on her arm, giving it a gentle squeeze. “It’s okay. He’s fine,” she whispered.
Saff didn’t really care if he wasfineor not. She figured that already from their conversation. It just made her feel better having him at gunpoint.
But still, she reluctantly lowered her rifle, watching Carter as he looked back and forth between them curiously.
“Where’s Tyler?” he asked after a few moments.
Maddie removed one hand from her arm and adjusted her cane in front of her. Saff could see her shake her head out of the corner of her eye.
“He didn’t make it,” she breathed.
Carter’s eyes flicked down to the ground as he slowly nodded.
