She watched the doe through the scope, leveling the crosshairs just behind the front shoulder, her finger resting gently on the trigger, her breath as soft and quiet as the morning breeze. The doe glanced up from the ground, munching on a mouthful of grass, its ears twitching like little antennae, its big, glossy eyes looking in her direction but not seeing her. Satisfied it was safe and alone, it went back to its breakfast.

            The girl did not shoot. She just sat there, breathing and waiting, like she’d been taught to do.

            The deer suddenly cocked its hair to the wind, its antennae-like ears turning like satellite dishes, its nose twitching furiously at the air. The Rotter came bursting out of the bushes like a man on fire, howling and snarling like a beast, black drool dribbling from its mouth of rotten teeth, reaching its yellow-fingernailed fingers for the doe, which bolted out off into the woods long before the Rotter could get to it.

            Even though the doe was far out of the Rotter’s reach it snatched at the air where she had just been in confusion, as if it had disappeared before the thing’s milky, dead eyes. It stopped and stared after her, shuffling and stumbling like a drunken man. It picked up another scent now, one that made it forget all about the doe, and slowly turned towards the direction of the girl hidden in the bushes.

            It was wearing a dark, dirty mechanic’s jumpsuit covered in three parts blood, one part motor oil, the name “Dave” stenciled across the right breast in delightful cursive. The Rotter-Formerly-Known-As-Dave had longish hair that stood up crazily like he’d stuck his finger into an electrical socket, and the left side of his face was a mess of tattered rotting flesh, exposing the rotten teeth and gray tongue, which flicked in the thing’s mouth like the tail of an agitated cat.

            Picked a fight and lost, eh, the girl thought.

            This, her actual target, started to jog in her direction, making sighting it between the crosshairs easy. She watched half the head blow away, the rotting brains and filthy blood spraying the tall grass behind it as it tumbled forward.

            Maddie left her hiding place and sighed wearily. Stupid Rotters, she thought. This was the sixth one they’d found in the woods this month, just this month, a drastic increase from this time last year. She would tell this to Papa Dennis and ask him again if it was time to be worried.

            “It’s always time to be worried,” he would say, the way he always did.

            Maddie rolled her eyes just thinking about it.

           

            She sat there watching the Rotter burn, making sure the fire didn’t get out of control before heading back into the woods to head home. Her mission complete, she put on her hat. Today’s was an aviator cap with a tight pair of goggles she lowered over her eyes. Papa Dennis wouldn’t like it because it muffled her ears, but Papa Dennis wasn’t here, and her ears were better than his at this point.

            She’d found this hat at a second-hand store in the town on her last trip with Papa Dennis a few months back. She’d asked him to pay for it, but he refused, insisting, in his way, that if she wanted something she’d have to pay for it, which she did with the cash they had left over from their trip to the market.

            “A damn waste,” Papa Dennis had scoffed as she put it on after they exited the store, tightening the goggles over her face. “And don’t you wear that out in the woods. It restricts your vision and hearing.”

            “Aye, Captain,” she said with a salute. He eyed her sideways, shook his head, and walked briskly to his truck.

            Maddie had never owned a hat until five years ago, finding a dusty trucker’s cap in a burnt-out gas station on the other side of the mountain. It had the profile of a buxom, sexy lady sitting on the ground, her head tilted back like she was sunbathing on the front of it, was much too big for Maddie, but she took it anyway, wearing it during the ride back into the mountains. Papa Dennis seemed amused by this, the big hat on the small head of what was still a little girl – he seemed to smile more back then – and told her it was a good look for her. She found her next hat, a newsboy cap, Papa Dennis had called it, in one of the abandoned settlements on the edge of the woods, corkscrewing it low on her head. Papa Dennis watching grumpily from across room.

            “You ever wonder what kind of bugs lived in the head of the person that owned that?” he asked.

            “Nope,” she said. “Have you?”

            The ghost of a smile danced across his face, and it came home with them.

           

            “Take a look at these,” Papa Dennis said, placing an Army green metal box in front of her while she practiced her letters in a notebook.

            “What’s this?”

            “Open it,”

            She flipped the metal latches and lifted the lid, which squeaked loudly. Inside were things of Papa Dennis’s that she’d never seen before, some army uniforms and several hats – a red beret, a floppy green hat with a string to hang it around your neck, even a hard metal helmet covered in scratches and dents.

            “Wow …” she whispered. “These are so neat!”

            She pulled the helmet out first; it settled over her little head like a bucket. She took that off then put on the beret, then the floppy hat, then the helmet.

            Papa Dennis laughed, something he didn’t do often.

            “You look fabulous,” he said. “You can have them.”

            “You’re sure?”
           “Yep.”
           “Why?”

            “Because it's Christmas.”

            “If it’s Christmas then why don’t we have a tree?” she asked.

            “We live in the woods. The trees are outside.”

           

            She had around twenty hats in her room now, her favorites (which included the ones Papa Dennis had given her), lined the top of her dresser while the rest were sitting neatly on her shelf in her closet. She had cowboy hats, baseball caps, helmets, and beanies. Papa Dennis asked often why she wore them and she told him she didn’t know; she thought perhaps it was because Papa Dennis couldn’t brush a girl’s hair worth a damn and it was always a mess.

            That wasn’t why, though. She wore hats because they made her feel safe.

            She knew it was ridiculous, the idea that a hat made you safe. She was a young woman who’d seen much in her short life and knew full well that no hat, not even Papa Dennis’s hard metal helmets, could protect you from a mosquito’s bite, a Rotter’s rage, a stray bullet, or an evil man intent on doing you harm, but there just something about them, the way they encased her head, that made her feel comfortable and at ease, like the arms of a mother wrapped around her head.

            Mother.

            Maddie remembered little of her mother anymore, which was probably for the best. She remembered living in the tall building in the city, the tall building that seemed to have endless stairs, no heat when it was cold, and smelled of pee in the lobby and hallways. Daddy worked at a market down the street back then, she remembered he’d bring her grapes and cherries and oranges when the boss wasn’t looking, and she remembered quite clearly the morning that her mother didn’t get out of bed because she didn’t feel well. Maddie couldn’t have been any older than four at the time, but knowing what she knew now, it should have been obvious that her mother had the Rot – the sweating, the fever, the yellow hue of her skin, and the red of her eyes – but perhaps Daddy didn’t want to believe it after having lost her big brother to it.

            After Mommy bit Daddy and the neighbor shot them both, Maddie was put in a relief camp for kids, ran away with the others when the Rot broke out there, and ended up in the city, found by the Orphans of the Parish where she found a home before she’d been given to Tolliver.

            The horrors of Tolliver eclipsed even her scariest memories of the Rot.

            But then came Tristan and Papa Dennis, who she’d been with ever since.

            Her life had been a series of tragic losses and the respites between them, the longest of which had been her time with Papa Dennis, who’d she’d been with more than half her life now, so long that she was almost used to it and no longer expected it to go away at any moment. Almost. So she wore the hats. Though it was stupid, they made her feel better.

 

            Papa Dennis was standing on the cabin's porch when she emerged from the woods, leaning against the open door frame, sipping a steaming mug of tea. In the full light of day, she saw him for what he was quickly becoming: old. Though far from a young man when she’d first met him, he’d started to really show his age the last couple of years. He was still tough as nails and strong as an ox, she’d seen him subdue a drunken man in the town just nine months back, parrying his punch and twisting him into an unnatural shape with the same ease with which he still chopped wood, but little by little he got slower, a little forgetful.

            “One Rotter,” Papa Dennis said after she told her tale.

            “Yes. West of the butte.”
           Papa Dennis considered this. “Lathrop Commune, I’d wager. I’ll talk to them next time I’m out that way.”

            “I can talk to them. I’m going out again tomorrow.”

            “You spend a lot of time out in the woods these days,” he said. “What’s that about? You haven’t found yourself a boy, have you? Some handsome boy out there in the woods that promises to take care of you.”
           “No boy,” she said. “We need more batteries.” It took her a long time to learn to read Papa Dennis and his moods, and even after almost a decade, it was still hard at times. When he said something like this, he was likely half kidding, half serious. He was deeply distrustful of outsiders, even other Free Zoners like themselves. And yet he seemed to increasingly accept the inevitability of her growing up and forging some kind of existence outside of his sphere of influence. Accepted it, but didn’t like it. “And who says I need taking care of? Maybe I’d be the one to take care of him.”

            Papa Dennis scoffed and poured them some hot water from his kettle.

            He scoffed, but he knew this was true, for he’d made sure of it. The first five years of their time together in the woods had been grueling, so much so that Maddie had run away twice. That wasn’t all due to Papa Dennis, there were times when she was just confused, afraid, or angry, and times she refused to believe that this kind old soldier would never mistreat or hurt her like Tolliver had. His strict rules and stringent demands didn’t help though. Every day was a regiment of chores and then shooting lessons, martial arts lessons, knife fighting lessons, fishing, hunting, building fires, dressing wounds, a dizzying array of activities. Sometimes she’d dig her feet in and refuse to listen to him and other times she was eager to please. When she would refuse to give on any particular issue, he’d send her to Darlene in the town.

            Darlene was the most beautiful woman that Maddie had ever seen but she was as tough as Papa Dennis in her own way. At first, Maddie refused to talk to her, even though she was secretly fascinated by her – she hadn’t known an adult female since her mother died of the Rot – but struggled to trust her the same way as she did everyone else. Darlene sensed this of course, but unlike Papa Dennis, did not show her irritation, Maddie figured Darlene never let anyone see her sweat or lose her temper, and was infinitely patient with the little girl, sitting there watching her eat her ice cream or hamburger or watching her doodle pictures instead of answering questions or doing the lessons Papa Dennis had sent her to do. Eventually, Darlene wore her down, one of her many talents, Maddie supposed, and they became friendly and then teacher and student. Darlene taught Maddie to read, how to do basic math, and a little bit about being a lady, especially those things that Papa Dennis had no desire to deal with, such as her cycles.

            It took her a while to realize what kind of place Darlene’s was, and when she did, she had complicated, mixed feelings about it. Darlene did not seem offended but rather as understanding as she was about everything else, likely due to what Papa Dennis must have told her about Maddie’s background.

            The girls fawned over her and took special joy in finding hats for her, often making them by hand. They’d given her floppy hats with veils and flowers on them and pink cowboy hats. Maddie did not wear these out on hunts or walks or when Papa Dennis was around. She wore them in front of the mirror when she wanted to feel pretty, which wasn’t often but occasionally she’d put on one of the hats and apply some of the foundation, eye shadow, and lipstick the girls at Darlene’s gave her. Sometimes this made her feel pretty and occasionally dirty.

           

            “I can go with you,” Papa Dennis said as he stepped into the kitchen while she was packing herself some fruit and protein bars for the journey to the Lathrop Commune. She glanced his way and finding him still in his pajamas, she knew he had no intention of actually doing this. Of course, he would if she asked, but she wouldn’t do that after the rough night he had. His sleep seemed restless and uncomfortable throughout the night, she’d heard him get up several times, and this morning he’d had a coughing fit as bad as she’d ever heard before. Though he denied it, he was in pain, she could see it in his eyes.

            “I’ll be fine,” she said, zipping her backpack up and slinging it across both shoulders. “I’ll be back by nightfall.”
           “You see that you are, Little Lady.” Some might have taken this as condescending, but that was Papa Dennis’s pet name for her, one he rarely used. She used his back on him.

            “I will, Old Man.”

            The journey to the outskirts of the Lathrop Commune, one of about a dozen settlements in this region of the Free Zone, was about half a day’s walk from the cabin, providing Maddie didn’t run into any issues or suffer any setbacks, which were always possible in the woods. She had food, water, weapons, and the honed instincts of a survivor, Papa Dennis had prepared her well, but anything could happen. At least it was summer and she wouldn’t have to worry about snow. The hat she chose for this journey, careful not to put it on until she was out of the eyesight of Papa Dennis, was a pair of big, pink bunny ears.

            Maddie snaked her way through the well-worn paths between the various territories of the Free Zone, relying mostly on memory but also using the markers and cues left through the forest as guides: symbols etched into trees, petroglyphs scratched into rocks, curious, random landmarks left purposely to guide residents home, random things like rusty, abandoned vehicles, camping equipment, and windchimes hanging from the branches of trees.

            She spotted bear tracks and traced them back to a tree with a large swath of bark scrubbed away where it had been scratching itself, some hair and blood left behind in big, messy smear marks, which was odd to Maddie. She hadn’t seen a bear scratch itself until it bled before and noticed another nearby tree with an even larger patch of bark ripped from a tree, judging from the mark left behind this was done not by the bear’s back but by its claws. She wondered if it was sick or injured. The rifle she had with her could take down a bear if need be but hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

            She didn’t come across anyone on that first leg of the journey, though she did spot smoke from a campfire out in the distance and heard the rumblings of ATVs moving through a nearby glen. She hid until that noise faded out - Papa Dennis had taught her to beware of men finding her alone in the woods – not that he had to. She knew that very well.

            An hour or so outside of the Lathrop Commune, she stopped to eat a bar and an apple next to a gurgling brook. It was here that she realized she was no longer alone.

            She’d sensed someone watching her earlier in the day, that unmistakable feeling of eyes on the back of her head, but hadn’t let on to it. Being watched out here in the woods was not unheard of, there were bears, bobcats, and wolves out in these woods, as well as plenty of other Free Zoners hunting and gathering. They often didn’t announce themselves, choosing to stay hidden, keeping a wary eye on strangers from afar. So she wasn’t alarmed at first, just aware, ready to react if need be.

            She almost didn’t stop because of it, but Papa Dennis had taught her long ago that a tired and hungry warrior was a vulnerable warrior, so she stopped to eat her lunch, making sure to keep her back to the brook and her eyes on the woods, which was the direction from which the young man came.

            “Hello there,” he said chipperly. “Lovely day.”

            Madde’s apple went tumbling into the water, plopping loudly as she swung the rifle off her shoulder and aimed it at the stranger in one swift motion.

            “You can stop there,” she said evenly.

            The main man raised hands covered in fingerless gloves in a show of surrender, flashing a toothy smile. “Easy there, darling, easy. I’m unarmed, see?” He opened his oversized flannel shirt to show her that he wasn’t wearing a sidearm. She almost put a round in his stomach as he reached for his belt but stayed her hand.

            “That’s silly, being unarmed in the woods.”

            “Silly?” he chuckled pleasantly, “That’s a fine thing, coming from a girl in pink rabbit ears.”

            Maddie suddenly remembered the headgear she was wearing and cursed internally as she felt her face flush red. This young man’s age was hard to determine, he was old enough to have some stubble on his chin, but she gathered he wasn’t much older than herself. He had long, coppery hair that hung in his green eyes and a friendly, handsome face.

            “Don’t you worry about that,” she said, still steadying the gun at his chest. “What are you going out here?”

            “Looking for my brother. I lost him a while back. We were out looking for a goat that got out of our pen and we split up to find it. Now I’ve lost both of them, it would seem.”

            “Goat.”

            “Yes. We aren’t part of any of the groups out here. Our family lives in the open territories.”

            Like Papa Dennis and me, she thought.

            “What’s your name?” she asked.

            “Pepper.”

            “Pepper. And what’s your brother’s name? Salt?”

            He laughed that pleasant laugh of his again.

            “No. It’s Gene.”

            “Gene. Well, I haven’t seen your goat or your brother, but if I do, I’ll tell him I saw you.”

            “Thanks,” he said. “What’s your name?”

            She hesitated. “Madeline,” she said finally, wondering why she gave him her full name. No one ever called her that.

            “Nice to meet you, Madeline. If you don’t mind, I was hoping I could sit awhile,” he said cautiously, gesturing towards the water. “I’d like to refill my canteen.” He turned halfway around, showing her the small water bottle clipped to his belt.

            “Fine,” she said, resting the rifle across her legs but not slinging it over her shoulder.

            Pepper, if that was his real name, Maddie sort of thought it wasn’t, walked to the edge of the creek, crouched low, and filled his canteen with the cool running water. She saw he had a knife clipped into his pocket and noticed the contours of his slim but muscular body. Seeming to sense her eyes on him, he looked over his shoulder at her and winked, which sent a flurry of butterflies in her belly, so she quickly looked away.

            He came back and took a generous sip of his water.

            “Where are you headed?” he asked.

            “None of your business.”

            “The suspicious type,” he said with a grin, “I like it.”

            “Aren’t we all out here?”

            “True.” He considered this. “I would say Lathrop Commune. That’s the closest settlement to where we are.”

            Maddie didn’t respond nor did she react, she just looked at him.

            “I lived there a bit,” he continued, “Wasn’t my cup of tea.”

            “And what about your brother?” she asked. “Did he not like it there, either? And your goat?”

            He smiled, and Maddie hated herself for thinking it lit up his whole face.

            “Nope. They didn’t like it either.”
           “Well,” she said, “I best be along.” She stood up and set her rifle on her shoulder, she wasn’t ready to sling it onto her back yet, this stranger was cute but she wasn’t stupid, and she started moving back towards the woods.

            “Leaving so soon?”

            “I have things to do. And you have to find that goat. And Gene.”

            “Yep, good ol’ Gene,” Pepper said, “He’s probably already headed back without me, the bastard. Guess I’m a sucker for a pretty girl.”
           That gave Maddie pause. The only one who’d ever called her pretty in her life was her mother when she was very little and Tolliver, when he bought her a new dress; it was a word that made her feel strange and conflicted.

            “There’s a bear somewhere around here,” she said. “I’d be careful.”
           “There’s lots of things out here. I’ll see you sometime, okay?”
           “Unlikely.”

 

            Papa Dennis had told her all about the various settlements in the Free Zone, and the Lathrop Commune was one she knew well. Papa Dennis had told her they were religious nuts, sort of like a cult, which made her think of Seth and the Parish, but whenever Maddie entered through their tall, wooden dates, she never felt like she was back in that evil amusement park full of children. The Lathrop Commune was full of families – men, women, and children, all of whom were nothing but friendly and hospitable. Two hours after she left the (handsome) young man by the creek, she was checking her weapons into to the man at the gate and was given fresh water and hot bread. A small group of little girls followed at her heels as she walked through the neatly cut grass to the meeting hall, some asking her many questions and one, an adorable little thing that looked much like Maddie had the day Papa Dennis walked through the door and shot Tolliver through the head, gave her a handful of daisies. It made Maddie smile, something she didn’t do often.

            Old Hezikiah Lathrop, who had founded this community almost twenty years ago at the height of the Great Outbreak, sat behind a long table, his wrinkled but strong hands folded on the hardwood surface before him. He was older than Papa Dennis but by how much Maddie had no idea, she wasn’t good at guessing such things, but he still conveyed an air of strength and authority about him. His white hair was combed neatly back over his head, his back was straight, and his voice was still strong. His son Ishmael sat on his right, a spitting image of what his father must have looked like as a young man. On Old Man Lathrop’s left was a bearded man whom Maddie didn’t know.

            “We have had no outbreaks here, young lady,” Old Man Lathrop said, “not for a long time. We keep good control over such things.”

            “I know that, Mr. Lathrop,” Maddie said.  Her bunny ears backed deep in her backpack, Maddie stood across from the three of them in the large meeting hall, standing before the table in the light of the big windows behind them. Folding chairs were stacked against the walls, waiting for whatever it was they met about in here. Through the windows, she could see men and women working and children playing. “We just wanted to make you were aware of it. A single Rotter would be unlikely to wander so far into the woods.”
           “We know that, girl,” Ishmael said, somewhat condescendingly. “We haven’t lived this long out here in the Free Zone by being stupid.”

            “Now now, boy,” Old Man Lathrop said, patting his son on the back of the hand. “Young Maddie here has done us a service by coming out all this way. Be a gracious host, now.”
           “Yes, Father,” Ishmael said.

            “As I said, young lady, we’ve had no one sick from the Rot in three years in the Commune. We keep the skeeters out and in the event anyone is sick, they are quarantined. In the extremely unlikely event someone gets the Rot, they are taken care of accordingly. As my son said rather pointedly, we have been at this a while.”
           “Of course, sir.”

            “How’s the old soldier?” Lathrop asked. “Getting on in years, like the rest of us, no doubt. Is he well?”
           “Yes sir. I’ll tell him you asked about him.”
           “A good man,” Old Man Lathrop said, nodding, “We tried to get him to move in here with us in the early days, I bet he didn’t tell you that. But he was obstinate.” Old Man Lathrop smiled and shrugged his bony shoulders. “I suppose all of us old survivors are. You be sure to see Edith in the kitchen hall across the way. You must let us feed you before your long trip back and give you some things to take back to the soldier.”
           “Thank you, sir. I appreciate that.” She hesitated before asking her next question but felt she had to. “Sir, if I may, did you ever have a young man here in the Commune called Pepper?”
           “Pepper?” Old Man Lathrop, the bearded man, and Ishmael all exchanged looks, the bearded man shrugging his broad shoulders. “I don’t recall a Pepper. Most people don’t leave the Commune once they see what we have to offer. Why do you ask?”

            “Just curious, sir. Thank you.”

            After being served a delicious chicken soup, fresh biscuits, and cool, fresh lemonade, Maddie was escorted to another building, where she was given fresh water for her canteen, dried apples, and hearty meal bars for her journey back. On a nearby table were stacks of clothes. The Lathrop Commune was known for being generous once you were behind their gates and she knew she could have anything she wanted there. She spied a furry winter cap with flaps to cover the ears, which she asked for and was given.

           

            Maddie started her journey home wearing her new winter cap, the flaps down and the bunny ears on top of everything but with the afternoon sun beating down on her from above, it grew hot, so she put the winter cap away, leaving the bunny ears on.

            She took a different way back towards the cabin, one that would add a small amount of time to her journey but would give her an opportunity to check for any other signs of Rotters. Papa Dennis had adopted the role of backwoods patrolman once people started moving here to escape the constant outbreaks in the early days, and Maddie had inherited this job from him.

            Two hours outside the commune, she found a dark blue pickup truck pulled off to the side of a dirt road that ran through the woods, one of the ones that had been added once the Free Zone had been established, Papa Dennis had taught her. The driver’s side door was open, the headlights on, and the engine running, so Maddie slung her rifle from her shoulder and scanned the area.

            She approached the truck from a distance and made a small circle around it. Stenciled on the door in white letters was “Dave’s Auto Repair,” along with an address Maddie knew must have been from the town. Maddie recalled the name Dave stitched into the Rotter’s overalls.

            She reached into the open door and shut off the engine, glancing around inside for anything of interest. There was an open lunch box sitting on the passenger seat, a thermos, now long cold, in the cup holder, and a toolbox on the floor, nothing more.

            Outside, she found a depression in the grass spattered with dried blood, and a .45 automatic lying discarded nearby. She picked up the gun and cleared it, noting that three rounds had been fired from the magazine. She reloaded the weapon and put it in her backpack, poor ol’ Dave certainly wouldn’t need it anymore, and weapons were useful. She didn’t know how Papa Dennis would feel about it, he could be snobbish and particular about his firearms, but that was okay, maybe she wouldn’t even tell him about it. She wouldn’t show him the winter hat, either, that would just make him grumpy.

            She didn’t know why Dave was in the Free Zone, perhaps he’d come to help someone work on their ATV or tractor, and she sure didn’t know why he stopped and got out of his truck in the middle of nowhere. Perhaps it was as simple as needing to relieve himself in the grass or perhaps he saw someone who needed help. Whatever it was, it didn’t work out for him in the end, and seeing the man’s thermos, lunchbox, and vehicle made Maddie feel bad about having to put a bullet through his head. It made him a man and not a monster, and a pang of guilt stabbed her in the belly.

            You did him a favor, the voice of Papa Dennis said inside her head, using the same words he’d said to her the first time she’d put down a Rotter. A service. The man he’d been was long gone by now.

            Papa Dennis was wise and annoying, even when he wasn’t around.

            A summer rain blew in suddenly when Maddie was still a good two hours from home, dark, ominous clouds rolling in like a conquering army, eclipsing the sun and pelting the woods with a surprisingly cold rain. Maddie pulled her new hat from her bag and put it on her head. The rain only lasted a few minutes, the storm departing as quickly as it came, but she left the hat on, figuring she might as well wear it as long as she could before hiding it from Papa Dennis.

            She came to a hill of tall grass and tried to navigate it carefully, it was wet because of the rain, but lost her footing and slipped, tumbling down to the base of it, losing her backpack and rifle along the way.

            She felt stupid, as the voice of Papa Dennis cursed her in her head, but she also laughed because it was funny. She didn’t know how she managed to lose her bag and gun but the hat, the one from the Lathrop Commune, was still on her head. She imagined Papa Dennis would have all sorts of curses to throw at her about that.

            She rose unsteadily, but before she could stand to full height, someone grabbed her by the wrist.

            Maddie reacted instantly, doing a grip break technique taught to her by Papa Dennis, whirling on her attacker, coming face to face with the young man, Pepper.

            “Madeline!” he said, rubbing his elbow where she struck him. “You okay? I saw you fall?”

            “What are you doing sneaking up on people?” she hissed. “I could have shot you!”

            “No, you couldn’t have,” he said with a smile she did not like, “You lost your gun back there.” He cocked his head towards the hill.

            “Well, you never know what I have on me.”

            “I bet a tough girl like you has all the weapons, don’t you?” His tone, friendly by the creek, was different now, more playful but in a menacing way. Maddie didn’t like it and thought of the knife in her boot. She didn’t need Papa Dennis to curse her now, she was cursing herself for wearing the hat, which had muffled her hearing. She should have heard him.

            “Well, I’ll be getting my stuff and moving along my way.” She didn’t turn her back on him but started to look for signs of her fallen equipment, seeing the punch when it was too late to duck or block.

            Pepper’s fist connected with her jaw, sending an explosion of fireflies in front of her vision and making her legs drop out from underneath her. She was in the grass again, Pepper pouncing on her like a jungle cat and raining more blows on her head. She covered up with hairbrush blocks, another trick Papa Dennis had taught her, thrusting her hips forward to buck him off, but he caught himself.

            “Hold still, sweet Madeline,” he cooed. “Let Gene make a woman out of you.”

            Gene, so that was his name, not his brother’s. She clawed at his face, managing to rake her fingernails across his cheek but before she could buck him, he threw another punch, this one landing. He reached back with a hand and pulled the knife she had seen earlier from his pocket, deploying it with a flick of the wrist. Maddie felt him redistribute his weight so she bucked with all her might, this time throwing him off her hips. She rolled over on top of him and gave him an elbow to the head, opening a cut above his left eyebrow. Hopping to her feet, she started scrambling around in the grass looking for her rifle. She heard a noise behind her and knew that he was up but didn’t take the chance to turn around to look. She spied the stock of her rifle sticking out of the grass and dove for it, just as she heard a zipper being pulled somewhere behind her.

            As her fingers closed around the stock of the rifle Gene’s boot came down on her fingers. She yelped but still managed to spin around, hoping to kick him in knees or groin but finding herself staring into the barrel of the .45 she found on the road.

            “You’re a feisty little thing, ain’t you?” he said with a crazed smile. His unkempt hair was even messier now and the fingernail marks on his face made him look like a Rotter. “If you think I won’t do it after I put a bullet in your head, you’re sorely mistaken. Sorely.” He leveled the gun at her head. “Don’t prefer it that way, but it wouldn’t be the first time.”

            Maddie opened her mouth to curse him but stopped when she saw something move behind him. For an instant, she thought it was Papa Dennis, big, strong, protective Papa Dennis come to save her again, but whatever it was that stood up behind Gene was a giant, blotting out the sun behind him.

            Gene seemed to sense the danger he was in, perhaps he saw the look on Maddie’s face, and he spun around with the .45 just as the black bear swiped him across the face with his claws, shearing a flap of skin off his skull that hung limply like a banana peel off his jaw.

            Gene fell backward and the bear, the largest black bear Maddie had ever seen, pounced on him and tore into his body, ignoring the flailing hands that swatted at its face. Maddie hopped to her feet, grabbing her rifle and then her backpack, which was behind the bear mauling her would-be attacker. She started to run but then the sounds of Gene’s agonizing screams reached her ears, she’d been so intent on survival that she hadn’t heard them, and turned around.

            He was a mess of blood with likely mere minutes left to live. She shouldn’t have cared, he was going to rape her for God’s sake, but Papa Dennis had taught her that sometimes a warrior was merciful, so she put a bullet in the bear's large, furry said. It didn’t react, other than to glance at her with the same level of annoyance one would give to someone who shot them with a rubber band, then went back to its feast. Maddie did not like what she saw in that bear’s face, and the more she looked at it do its work she didn’t like the way the bear looked at all. Something was wrong with it, something bad.

            She fired her next shot into Gene’s chest, she would have gone for the head but the bear was currently gnawing on it the way a man would a chicken leg, and then darted off into the woods as fast as her legs would carry her.

           

            Had she lived in a different era, Maddie might have thought she’d seen a lot of awful things in her life, but in the world today, everything she’d seen had been normal. Routine. Still, watching Gene being ripped to shreds by a bear was a step up. She thought back to Dave, right before she put a bullet in his head, how she noticed part of his face had been scratched away. She wondered if it was the same bear. She knew it was.

            Papa Dennis was waiting on the porch when Maddie, filthy, bloody, and bruised emerged from the woods. She was wearing the winter hat with the bunny ears on top of it. She knew it muffled her hearing but she just needed something to keep her feeling warm and safe after the day she had.

            “Where the hell have you been?” Papa Dennis asked grumpily. “I was about to fire up the truck and go looking for you.”

            Maddie didn’t look up at him but judging from how he’d gone suddenly quiet he must have seen the bruises on her face. “You had trouble.”

            “I need a minute,” she said tersely, disappearing into the bathroom where she turned the water on full blast to hide the sound of her tears.

            Papa Dennis didn’t bother her while she was in there. He learned early on living with a girl to not enter a room when the door was shut and knew as a soldier that another warrior wouldn’t tell their tale until they were ready.

            After she’d showered she came out, finding a sandwich, some water, and an ice pack sitting on the table in front of Papa Dennis’s rocking chair, where he waited patiently. She told her tale.

            “I’ve told you a hundred times not to wear those stupid hats,” he said finally.

            “Might not have made any difference,” she said, taking a bite of her sandwich, wincing from the pain in her jaw due to Gene’s punches. “I was out of sorts after falling down that hill.”

            Papa Dennis’s response was just a grunt.

            “There was something wrong with that bear,” she said after a moment of awkward silence.

            “Like what?”

            Maddie thought back to it, replaying the moment it looked her way after she saw it. She pictured its shaggy body, remembered the wound on Dave’s face, remembered the bark scraped off the trees.

            “It’s eyes, they were red. Red like the Rot. It drooled a lot too. Not normal. The drool was black. And there were big patches of fur missing from its body, and the skin underneath looked … I don’t know. Bad.” This detail came back to her just now, safe in the cabin, the big missing patches of fur and the discolored skin underneath. “It looked like it had the Rot.”

            “Maybe it was just sick. Animals don’t get the Rot.”

            “Yeah, I know,” she said, and then they both were quiet for a long time.

            “The Lathrops gave me some meal bars,” she finally said, “the kind you like with the raisins. They’re in my bag if you want them. I’m going to bed.”

            Sleep didn’t come, and she lay there in bed staring up at the ceiling. It had been a bad day, but unfortunately, nowhere near the worst she’d ever had. In her short life, she’d had so many bad days it would have been impossible to choose one that had taken the cake, but this one came with its own unique surprises.

            When she’d rolled over, she was going to tell Gene that there was nothing he could do to her that hadn’t been done many times before, and planned on biting his throat out if he got close enough to her. She supposed that’s how his day, if not the worst day in his life certainly his last, ended up ending anyway.

            She was glad to be home with Papa Dennis, but she sort of wanted to go and see Darlene, she thought that the presence of a woman would comfort her more after a day like this, and thought of going to see her, but that would have to wait. She knew Papa Dennis wouldn’t let her leave the cabin any time soon after what had happened today.

            When she closed her eyes she saw the bear, the red eyes, the yellow drool, the oddly colored patches of skin, and it frightened her. Something was wrong with it. Something bad.

            Animals don’t get the Rot, Papa Dennis had said, which was true. But she’d also shot the bear with the red eyes and black drool and discolored skin and it didn’t seem the least bit bothered by it.

            She got up from her bed, went to her dresser, and found what she was looking for, a warm blue and white beanie with snowflakes on it, and put it on. Tristan had sent it to her a few years ago and it always made her feel cozy and safe.

            She got back into her bed and when sleep arrived, which it did quickly, she slept well. She slept like a little girl. One that liked hats.

​

Maddie and Moreland will return.