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IT’S HOTTER TODAY THANit’s been since Impact—like one of those sweltering July days from my childhood—so I leave before noon to hand out lunches to the perimeter guards.
Despite the early hour, I’m dripping with sweat when I reach the northwest corner of the wall and chat for a minute with Gail. She keeps her rifle propped on her shoulder, her eyes on the dirt road and surrounding woods, as she tells me she saw a herd of deer just after dawn. Eight of them, including three fawns.
We went almost two years without seeing any deer at all—or rabbits or squirrels or possum or raccoons or birds except carrion feeders—so this news makes me smile. “They’re coming back.”
“Maybe Jack will let us hunt again soon.”
“Don’t count on it.” I turn toward a motion to my left and relax when I see it’s just a couple of crows having a heated interaction over who has rights to prime position on the wall. “You know the rules.”
We have a long list of rules here at New Haven Farm. It’s one of the reasons we’ve survived so long when the whole world went to shit. But the first rule has always been that we don’t kill anything—human or animal—unless it’s necessary.
For a long time, hunting was the only way we had enough food to survive, but our chickens and pigs are doing well this year, and the depleted animal populations in the woods are very slowly coming back. Jackson will never allow picking them off one by one for recreation.
I’ve got four more lunches to pass out, so I don’t stay with Gail more than a few minutes. Hampton (who bizarrely prefers to be called Ham) is on duty in the northeast corner, and he grins when he sees me approach.
“Faith! You got lunch for me? I’m starving.”
“I’ve got lunch.” I pull out one of the lunch packets from my bag, about to toss it up to him when he climbs down from his perch.
He should probably stay in position the way Gail did, but I don’t correct him. I like Ham. He’s cheerful and sincere and makes me laugh. A big, gangly, seventeen-year-old redhead. He’s been with us for two years, ever since Jackson found him on a supply run, hunkered down all alone in an abandoned diner, barely living on gumballs and canned beans. Six months ago, Ham got promoted to guard duty and earned a spot in the main house, and he’s been flying high ever since.
He grins at me now as he unwraps his lunch and exclaims over the bread, boiled egg, and tomato. “A whole tomato?” he asks me, hesitating before he chows down. “Really?”
“Yeah. The garden is growing like crazy this season. We’ve got tons and don’t have enough jars to can them all. So we don’t have to ration the vegetables so much this year.”
He bites into the tomato like it’s an apple and gives a blissful moan as juice runs down his freckled chin. “Thank you, Faith. This is the best tomato I’ve ever tasted.”
I chuckle. Most of the folks we take in at New Haven are appreciative and work hard to earn their place since it’s so much safer and more comfortable here at the farm than it is in the rest of the world. But no one is as earnestly demonstrative in their gratitude as Ham.
Before I can respond, I hear the soft buzz of an engine in the distance. I climb up to the perch and put a hand on my belt holster as I search for the source of the noise.
Ham has climbed up behind me, but I see the motorcycle first. A man is driving with a woman seated behind him. They’re moving at a normal speed and look like they’re just passing through, but I pull out my pistol and fire off a warning shot so they know to keep their distance.
The woman waves in acknowledgment, and the man veers off to the far side of the road to give our wall a wide berth. It’s a courtesy gesture. What any decent person would do to make it clear they aren’t a threat.
I’m not worried that these people are hostiles, but Ham and I wait, guns poised, until the motorcycle is out of sight.
By the time the travelers have passed, Jackson has climbed on the perch too, hovering just at my back. He’s so close I brush against him as I holster my pistol.
He’s sweating even more than I am. It’s beaded on his tanned skin, broad forehead, and square jaw. He doesn’t back up to give me more room even though there should be plenty of room for the three of us on this perch.
He’s tense. Glowering. His hazel eyes are narrowed.
It’s his normal expression, so I don’t react to it. He obviously heard my warning shot and came running over to address a possible crisis. “Just someone passing through. No worries.”
His eyes flick over me briefly—from my messy red-gold ponytail to the gray tank top sticking to my skin and then down to my dirty boots. Then he turns away as if I haven’t spoken.
“Tell me why Faith gave the warning shot and not you,” he demands gruffly of Ham.
I have no idea how he knows I’m the one who fired the shot. Maybe he can tell the difference in the weapons by the sound alone. Ham doesn’t question it though, and he doesn’t defend himself. “I’m sorry, Jack. I’d just gotten my lunch, and she climbed up here first. I shoulda done better.”
Everyone calls Jackson “Jack” except for me. I don’t know why I still use his full name. It started when I was younger and didn’t like him. I felt like it gave me an advantage. If he was going to treat me like a spoiled, silly little girl, then I was going to call him Jackson as if he were a naughty kid getting reprimanded with his full name. I got used to it, and it stuck. Now I can’t think about him as anything else.
He says to Ham, “You better do a lot better if you want to keep this position.”
Ham is visibly cowed by the words and Jackson’s stern glare. Part of me wants to step in and soften the blow because Ham is such a nice guy, but I bite my tongue. No good will come of my interfering in this. Jackson is in charge of the perimeter guards. If he tried to stick his nose into the food prep, household chores, or gardening, I’d be mad as hell at his intrusion into my responsibilities. I’m not going to do it to him.
