red hill - jamie mcguire

e dark soon, and we’re running low on fuel.”
Nathan and Skeeter traded glances, and then Nathan turned to me. “What do you think”
I shook my head. It was too big of a decision to make in that moment. We didn’t know who these
men were. We could get to McKinney and find it’s more like a prison camp, or it could be sanctuary.
I looked to the girls. “They want to take us to someplace safe.”
Jenna’s eyebrows pulled in. “We’re safe here.”
Zoe looked up to Jenna, and then mirrored her expression. “And they probably won’t let us take
Butch.”
I smiled, kissed their foreheads, and then turned to Nathan. He nodded, and looked to Skeeter and
Ashley.
“We’re staying” Ashley asked. She searched everyone’s faces, and then took a deep breath, a
resolved smile on her face. She turned to the corporal. “We’re staying.”
“Sir” the corporal said to Skeeter.
Skeeter squeezed Ashley to his side. “Let April know we appreciate her sending you boys after us,
but we’re doing just fine here.”
The corporal looked back to his men, who all seemed baffled, and then back to us. “If you change
your mind, anchor something bright like a blanket to the roof. We’ll be making the rounds. Good luck
to you, sir!”
The corporal held a small radio to his mouth. “Pedro to HQ, come in, over.”
A man on the other end of the radio confirmed through a scratchy connection.
“Yeah, we’re out here at Red Hill. The civilians have decided to sit tight, over.”
After a short pause, the radio scratched again. “Roger that.”
The corporal nodded to us, and the men returned to their helicopter. Within moments it was in the
air and out of sight.
“There’s people!” Zoe said, grinning. She clapped her hands together once and intertwined her
fingers.
The sky was nearly clear, finally empty of the fallout from the blast. I climbed up the ladder, and
one by one, everybody followed. We stood, able to see for miles in each direction. Over the past
months, fewer walking dead could be seen. Before the blast, it had been nearly a month since the last
of them had wandered too close to the ranch. We couldn’t be sure why. Maybe they had all migrated
to the city, or maybe others like us were eradicating more shufflers every day. Eventually, the earth
would be rid of them. We wouldn’t live in fear forever.
Nathan reached out for my hand and sighed, sharing my unspoken relief that we had made the right
decision. At Red Hill, we made our own destiny; raising our children in the safest way we could, and
protecting each other in a world made of nightmares and uncertainty. The eight of us had carved a
place there, and we were more than surviving. We were living.
Zoe and Halle clung to my legs, taking in the otherworldly scene. The ranch and its surroundings
were entirely covered in ash, dreary and monochrome, except for a small stretch of red dirt road that
had been uncovered by the blustering blades of the helicopter. It was exactly the way the end of the
world should look. I smiled, and squeezed Nathan’s hand. If the last year had taught me anything, it