Blood Moon by Gwendolyn Harper (books for students to read .TXT) 📕

to look out each window. “We must be close to a hot zone or—"

“We’re near an Ark camp,” she cut in. “Why else would anyone try to warn people not to go any further?”

Booker shook his head. “We don’t know that for certain.”

“We don’t know anything for certain except there’s clearly something up ahead someone doesn’t want us to find.”

They sat in silence, staring out the windshield.

“We should keep going,” Caitlin whispered.

She could feel him staring at her as if she’d lost her mind.

She probably had.

“You wanna push on, and drive ourselves directly into the middle of whatever the hell these folks took the time, effort, and supplies to warn us about?” He twisted in his seat. “Explain it t’me. Why on earth—”

“Think about it, Jack,” she said. “If it’s an Ark camp, it might be the one Scott’s in. If it’s a hot zone or a bunch of goon squads—”

“Then we’d be a prostitute during Fleet Week.”

“Huh?”

“Fucked.” He stared at her. “We can’t risk it. Remember Poplar Bluff?”

She sighed. “That was a miscalculation.”

“It was a goddamn travesty and we barely made it out.” He tapped the steering wheel with his thumb. “We ain’t doin’ that again.”

Caitlin nearly yielded when she glanced over her shoulder into the back seat.

“I call for a vote.”

Booker gaped. “Y’gotta be kiddin’.”

“Democratic process,” she said primly. “Open forum debate, majority rules.”

“You’re gonna wake Nicole up to vote on this shit?”

Behind them, Nicole stretched and sat up. “I’m already awake,” she said, scooting forward to lean between them. “You guys aren’t nearly as quiet as you think you are.”

Caitlin smirked at Booker. “Great, then let’s do this.”

“Cae…” He wrung the wheel in his hands. “I love you. I’d do anything for you, I’d lay down my life. But this? This has gotta be the stupidest thing you’ve ever suggested.”

“Maybe,” she said. “And maybe the answers we’re looking for are on the other side of that sign.”

Pegging each other with a hard stare, they waited a beat before turning to look at Nicole.

“Sorry cowboy,” Nicole said, patting Booker’s shoulder. “You’re out-numbered.”

“You really wanna go poke that bear?” He pointed out the windshield. “Just for some ‘no-stone-unturned’ bullshit?”

Folding her hands together, Nicole focused on the center console in silence for a moment. When she lifted her gaze, her green eyes were stern.

“What if it was Caitlin?”

Suddenly the air in the Jeep felt charged, like just before a lightning strike.

“You just said you’d do anything for her,” Nicole continued. “That you’d lay down your life. What if she was on the other side of some sign that may or may not be true?”

The tension in Booker’s shoulders ebbed as his expression softened.

“If Scott is nearby—if he’s in an Ark camp or with these Rejects we keep hearing about, then I can’t just let a homemade ‘get lost’ sign keep him from me.”

Caitlin looked from Nicole to Booker, a knot forming in her throat.

They’d survived. They’d found each other.

Nicole and Scott deserved that same chance.

After a minute, Booker sighed.

“Alright,” he said. “But we do this safely. And if there’s even a hint of trouble—”

“We bail,” Nicole agreed. “Got it.”

Shifting the Jeep into park, he unclicked his seatbelt with the agitation of a dad having to change a flat tire.

“Well then, who’s helpin’ me move this damn sign?”

* * * * * * *

Caitlin was hallucinating. She had to have been.

Across the Missouri plain, the land a mile ahead was undulating. Wriggling like topsoil after a hard rain, earthworms pushing themselves free.

After staring for a moment, it occurred to her the grassy acreage surrounding them was green… not dark grey.

“What… the fuck?”

Booker eased off the gas, letting them roll to a stop.

“That’s…” He leaned forward over the steering wheel. “All groaners?”

Bewildered and silent, they all tried to process the scene before them.

“But why?” Nicole asked. “There must be thousands of them. What are they all doing?”

Caitlin gestured to her. “Hand me the binoculars from my bag?”

As Nicole gave them to her, Caitlin slowly opened her door and began climbing out.

“What’re you doin’?” Booker asked, frowning.

Hoisting herself onto the roll cage, she said, “I need a better sight advantage.”

Gazing through the lenses, she scanned the horizon.

Geeks. Nothing but Geeks.

Thousands, maybe even ten thousand, all stumbling around in one terrifying herd.

Instinct spiked her pulse, made her breath quicken, caused her legs to tremble.

Run… Run… As fast as you can…

A horrific aberration stretching as far as the eye could see. Everything in her screamed to get as far away from it as possible.

Caitlin sucked in a deep breath and continued searching for signs of the living they’d been warned about.

On the far side of the gigantic herd, she spotted the gleam of metal—A pole or tower of some kind.

“There’s something man-made that way,” she called down. “We’re too far to be certain but I think it’s big.”

“Y’see a camp?”

Caitlin scanned the horizon once more.

“I don’t think so. Nothing visible anyway,” she said, climbing off the roll cage. “If there are people, they’re beyond that huge herd.”

“And doomed,” Nicole added. “Or stupidly unaware.”

“The Geeks weren’t heading for anything,” she said, sliding back into her seat. “At least, not like how we’ve seen them go after food. They were just wandering around aimlessly.”

Booker glanced from the ocean of Geeks ahead to Caitlin. “Y’mean to tell me they’re not goin’ anywhere?”

“Not that I could tell,” she said.

“Well, they definitely formed a mother-herd.” Nicole took the binoculars from Caitlin to have her own look. “Maybe there’s just no food around for them to seek out.”

“Groaners care about two things: eatin’ the livin’ and findin’ more groaners. A