Murphy's Law (Roads Less Traveled Book 2) Read Free

before the moaning could begin. Less than a minute later, the horde had been eliminated, quickly and efficiently. We moved fast, knowing noise would attract any nearby zombies. Without a word to one another, we reloaded our weapons, snuck back down the bank, mounted up, and moved on, over the hill and across the interstate as proficiently as we could with seven horses and a dog lollygagging around.
    From there we headed northwest, following the wide swath of trampled ground left behind by the convicts’ horses and the women they’d dragged behind. Every hour since leaving the house I had thanked God the hard winter had preserved the trail. We’d have been totally screwed if it had been a mild winter.
    “Nancy, how far to the next town?” I asked after we’d traveled a mile or so in silence.
    We were riding up a grassy hollow perpendicular to the interstate, boxed in by thickly wooded hills on either side of us. I preferred to stay in the trees, but I also needed to know how close the next town was. It wouldn’t be prudent to suddenly break out of the woods and ride headfirst into a hungry, freshly thawed gang of deadheads. After taking the map from her saddle bag, Nancy wrapped the reins around the saddle horn and let her horse walk on, spreading the map out in front of her and tracing our route with her finger. I moved in alongside her and scanned the area.
    It was evident there had been some activity around here during the winter, not counting the trail left by the convicts. Off to our left there were several huge scorch marks on the ground. Further ahead there were a few fairly large piles of dirt, covering what I could only assume were mass graves. There were some vehicles parked here and there, turning the once vacant valley into a junkyard. To me it seemed like this place had been used as a dump and a cemetery. Perhaps a group of survivors from a nearby town had brought their dead here and burned them, burying some, and either towed or pushed these dead cars and trucks here as well, in an effort to clean up their neighborhoods. Of course this was only a theory. Unless we planned on traveling through all the bordering towns to look for survivors, we’d probably never know.
    Nancy jerked her thumb to the right. “I’d say about two miles, as the crow flies.”
    I looked over at the map to the spot her finger was pointing out. Just as I thought; there was a town on the other side of the ridge to our right. I frowned and looked up ahead. The valley was long, ending in sort of a bottleneck at the base of yet another hill. Hills that, like the rest of the state, were thickly covered.
    “Thanks, Nancy,” I said, raising my voice so the others could hear. “Looks like we’ll have to stick to the trail, at least until we hit the end of the hollow. If we have to, we’ll head into the hills there. Let’s just see where the trail goes once the valley ends.”
    There were grunts of agreement from the others, all except Jake. He was staring straight ahead seemingly lost in thought. Or a daydream. Knowing Jake, I probably didn’t want to know.
    Gus was up ahead of us, nose to the ground as always, no doubt catching a hint of the cons’ scent here and there. The tall weeds and grass had been beaten down by previous snowfall, yet there were still plenty of hiding places for his favorite game: the fuzzy-tailed, long-eared beast. I pulled the scarf tighter around my neck and watched him hunt, darting first one way then the other, his nose shoved into the grass and his tail twitching back and forth. I had to smile; seemed like business as usual for the old boy.
    The dog had worked his way around one of the wrecked vehicles roughly thirty-five yards ahead and was out of sight when he started howling and snarling. Mia, who was in the lead, snapped her head around, fixed her eyes on me for a split second, then headed in his direction at a gallop.
    “Shit.” I pulled hard on the reins and rushed to catch up.
    Gus was