August Burning (Book 3): Last Stand by Tyler Lahey

him.
    She bit her lip, and nodded.
    Joseph took a step forward and she held him back. “Let me.”
    Stepping in front, Adira took them out of the little backyards and onto the main road. It was too dark to be crawling through enclosed spaces. She led them down the road, and twice halted. Each time, she felt her life hanging in the balance, as she heard things moving in the dark around her. Each time, she advanced only after waiting several minutes in total silence.
    After an hour, they had advanced a half-mile through the town. She could feel her body shaking, terrified at the prospect of failing Jaxton. After stumbling through a fence and hearing something stalking through the bushes behind them for a time, Adira conceded defeat. It was impossible, at least till the clouds cleared.
    She took Joseph by the shoulder. “We can’t do this now,” she hissed.
    “Do we go back?” Joseph asked.
    She hesitated. “How far is the mill?”
    Joseph mused quietly. “Maybe fifteen minutes, down that way.” She could barely see his arm pointing.
    “We go there. There’s a Bear unit there. Or at least there was, yesterday.”
    “If they are dead, the infected are likely to be there, feeding,” Joseph cautioned.
    “I’m going,” Adira said harshly. “That way, we can set out at first light and be that much closer.”
    Joseph exhaled. “So am I, but I need to warn you.”
    “Come on,” she whispered, and they stalked through a grove of apple trees.
    To her left, there was a crunching among the swaying trees. Adira halted them, and crouched closer. She could hear Joseph whispering for her to stop as she approached a tiny glade, surrounded by shivering leaves.
    There was a mass of mottled humans feasting on a dead horse still attached to its carriage. Their rotten canines tore into the beast’s rough meat and through the leather that bound it.
    Adira froze, transfixed by the spectacle of flesh and gluttony. Only Joseph’s shaking hands were able to pull her away from that grotesque spectacle.
    Shivering in disgust, she lead the pair on, clutching weapons that, if fired, would mean their death so far from help.
    They stalked into the forest and down the gully, using the faint moonlight as their guide. Their soft footsteps sent little pebbles scattering down the incline and into the river that gurgled at the valley’s floor.
    “It’s not far now,” Joseph whispered. “There were a few workers trying to get the mill up and running again, for when we get the first grain harvest. There’s the dam.”
    Adira followed his arm, and could just make out a dark pool of water, with a little stone structure to its side, under the leaves. She peered up, and cursed the trees. There was almost no visibility under those leafy boughs.
    Taking Joseph by the arm, she crept closer to the stone walls. The walls ran almost three stories high, the remnants of an old mill from a century past. When she came to the first window, it was boarded up. She considered knocking, then thought better of it. Rounding the corner, she nearly tumbled into the dark, sloshing pool. She trembled, imagining how deep and cool it might be. Hugging the stone fragments of a path, she emerged onto the front side of the mill.
    There was a great wooden wheel sitting in a trough, suspended below a wooden channel which led back fifty feet to a spot further upstream. The wheel was silent, as the survivors had not yet finished repairing the trough that would carry water to it and turn the wheel.
    The trough shook slightly, though she could not see into it, as it ran ten feet above the ground on thick wooden stilts. The pair crouched.
    A thin voice drifted to them on the air. “I think I can hear more. Let’s spray the area.”
    “Spray the area? How much ammunition do you think we have? No let’s just take a look. See if we can’t pick ‘em off in the dark.”
    “Wait!” Adira hissed.
    “What was that?” The voice floated down from above. Two heads appeared above