9

Remy

I had been at the top of the outcroppings, trying to get a better look at the forest that stretched on beyond the dunes. Serg decided to go with me, but neither of us said much, since we were focused on climbing to the top.

And then I heard the lion growling a moment before Stella let out a frightened yelp.

I rushed to the edge of the rocky spire to get a better look, and Stella, Max, and Boden were only five meters below me, standing on the smooth canyon trail. Ripley was in front of Stella, glaring straight ahead, and the fur on her beck was raised up as a group of strangers stood before them.

I counted five of them: an older white man with a baseball bat in the front with a black woman standing by him holding an axe, and three younger people huddled together in the back. One of those three was a teenage girl with medium brown skin and long black hair in a loose fishtail braid. The other two were a boy and a girl, both pale skin and matching brown curly hair and pale green eyes, and they appeared to be a bit younger, around Max and Stella's ages.

"Stand back, and we'll take care of the cougar before anyone gets hurt," the older man said, and the woman beside him raised her axe like she meant to throw it at Ripley.

"No, she's with us! She's our pet!" Stella shouted, and Max grabbed her and pulled her away from the lion, because if the axe missed the cat, it could easily hit her.

Ripley growled again, likely reacting to the tension, and Boden rushed around her holding his hands up and moving deliberately to defuse the situation.

"Hey, why don't we all put our weapons down and introduce ourselves?" Boden suggested genially.

"Tell your pet to stand down, and then we might be willing to put our weapons down," the woman with the axe said.

"Well, she is still a cat, so she doesn't always listen," Boden explained. "But if we calm down, she won't hurt anybody."

"That's not very convincing," the older man said.

At the end of the rocky spire where I stood, there was a slope heading down the trail behind the three teenagers huddled together. I rushed toward it and slid down it as quickly and quietly as possible while Boden tried to reason with them. Ripley refused to move and continued to glare at them while flicking her tail aggressively.

I dropped in right behind the trio of teens, and I pointed my crossbow right at them.

"How about this?" I asked loudly, and they all whirled around to look at me with startled eyes. "You put your axe and your baseball bat down, and I'll lower my crossbow, and then nobody is hurt."

"We don't mean you any harm," the man said, and he was already lowering his baseball bat and setting it on the ground. The woman beside him seemed much more reluctant to lower her axe, and she narrowed her eyes at me.

"Good because nobody needs to be harmed if we all stay calm," I said and kept my crossbow pointed at the teenagers .

"If you get that crossbow off my daughter and the other kids, that would really help ease my fears," the man said, and he held his hands up in a gesture of peace.

He was an average looking survivor, at least compared to the ones I'd seen drifting around the lakehouse over the years. His hair was graying, and a wild, thick stubble hid the harsh ruddiness of his face. His eyes had that weathered desperation of someone who has seen things that no one was ever meant to see.

That haunted look could fit almost anyone who had survived this long, but it morphed depending on who held it. In the woman, it had become a fierceness, a clear declaration in her dark eyes that let anyone who crossed her know that she would do whatever she had to do. Her black hair was worn in long box braids, and she appeared to be in her forties.

"I really don't think they meant anything," Max called to me from where he stood on the other side of the strangers, with Stella and Boden. "They were just spooked by Ripley."

"We didn't realize the lion was with you, and we were looking out for you," the man piped up. "We thought it might be hunting you." He gave a sheepish smile. "You understand our confusion."

"Where do you even get a lion anyway?" the girl with the fishtail braid asked. She was a bit taller than the other two teens, and I guessed a bit more bold since she spoke up first, and her gaze had an unabashed intensity.

I finally lowered my weapon, and the woman lowered her axe.

"I found her a long time ago, when her last owners were killed by zombies," I explained my origin story with Ripley.

"Well, we'll just leave you and your friends to go about your business," the man said, stepping back closer to the teens. "No need to hold you up when the journey to Emberwood is already long enough."

"You're going to Emberwood, too?" Stella exclaimed, and inwardly, I cringed. We didn't know these people, and there was no need for them to know our destination.

As Stella greeted the others with a delighted smile, I once again worried about the unseen effects of raising Max and Stella in such isolation.

Not that we had really much choice to do otherwise. They had been just north of kindergarten when civilization had fallen to the zombies, and when I had first met Stella, she had seemed nearly feral. It had taken us so long to get her to open up to anyone outside of Max, but after we'd retreated to the lakehouse, she had really blossomed.

In those intervening years, for safety and necessity, Max and Stella had interacted with almost no one outside of our family. Which meant that they had little understanding of how the real world worked, and how fear and distrust should be the primary reaction when meeting new people, not excitement and friendship.

In a world full of unimaginable horrors, we had somehow managed to shelter Max and Stella from too much.

"We could travel together," Stella suggested before introductions had even been made.

"Well, yeah, sure! Yeah!" The older man went from reluctant to enthusiastic with almost comical speed. "That would be great. I'm Garrison, and this is my daughter, Samara." The bolder teen girl stepped closer to him, and she gave a forced smile.

"I'm Lillian Waterston," the woman with the axe said.

"I'm Castor," the boy said, and he motioned to the matching girl beside him. "This is my twin sister, Polly."

"It's short for Polluxia," she added. "Our parents were big fans of Greek mythology."

That had explained why the names sounded vaguely familiar to me. Castor and Pollux were the twins of Gemini in astrology, which I had an interest in during my younger days.

"And who would you all be?" Lillian Waterston asked, and her sharp gaze went from Stella's belly – visibly swollen underneath her threadbare dress and knit cardigan – to Boden standing tall nearby her.

His jaw tensed, but he didn't hurry to explain the circumstances, and instead went on with the introductions. "I'm Boden, the cat is Ripley, this is Stella, and that is Max. Remy is the one with the crossbow, and Serg is the one up in the spires that you probably haven't even noticed yet."

Everyone turned to look up at Serg, and he gave a wave before skittering down the same way that I had.

"Is that everyone in your group?" Garrison asked, still wearing his pleasant smile.

"This would be all of us," Boden said.

"Well, no need for us to waste any time, if we're all going the same place," Garrison said. He stepped to the side, motioning for Boden and the others to join me and lead the way on the trail straight ahead.

"Have any of you been to Emberwood before?" Stella asked them.

"Nope, we have not had the pleasure yet," Garrison replied.

"We haven't either," Stella admitted. "But Remy knows someone who has, and he gave us a map."

"Well, won't that be nice then?" Garrison asked. "All of us seeing the town together for the first time?"