Revised/Updated 10/3/13
Chapter Seven
"There they are!"
At Patricia's warm exclamation, the group's attention turned to the entrance to the dining room, where Katy's charges had decided to grace the household with their presence. Brooklynn and Abby each clung to one of their guardian's hands, blonde curls sticking up in all directions as they rubbed bleary eyes, while Luke followed dutifully behind like a duckling following its mother. Abby grinned and waved at the group upon noticing she was the center of attention, and a round of chuckles filtered through the dining room as Katy rolled her eyes and directed her two older charges to the empty places at the smaller table housing Carl, Beth, and Jimmy. Once the two children had settled, Katy scooped up Brooklynn, crossing over to the table and slipping the happily-gurgling infant into the highchair situated at the corner of the table. Graciously accepting the extra plates Patricia passed to her, Katy otherwise remained silent as she hastily assembled plates for each of the children.
"There's milk in the fridge if y'all would like that with your breakfast," Patrica offered when Katy had left the table to retrieve several glasses and the brightly colored sippy-cup she'd brought inside for Brooklynn the previous evening. "Fresh from the cows this morning. And coffee, if you'd like."
"Coffee." Katy practically moaned, the two syllables music to her ears. It had been a long time since she'd had a good, strong cup of coffee. She put the thought off for a second, however, in favor of getting the children settled to their breakfast first.
"Thank you," Abby and Luke chimed in unison when Katy slid two glasses of milk and plates of scrambled eggs and biscuits smothered in gravy before them. Brooklynn simply squealed when she received her breakfast, but Katy felt that was close enough as she slid into her seat after pouring herself a large cup of coffee, simply breathing in the comforting aroma before taking a drink and setting it on the table.
"Did you sleep alright last night, Katy?" Lori inquired once the soldier had settled into her spot. "You were up and about really early."
"Wonderfully," Katy assured the petite brunette a few spots down from her at the table. "Old habits of sunrise reveille just die hard even at the end of the world." Katy cast a glance over the table as a whole, setting her gaze on Hershel as she continued. "The hospitality is very much appreciated."
"We're glad we could oblige," Hershel returned, watching as Katy expertly crumbled two biscuits on her plate before smothering them in gravy.
"So, Katy…where did you go to school?" Rick asked, tearing Katy from determinedly devouring the food before her. It hadn't struck her how hungry she was until she'd walked into the dining room and the smell of a home cooked meal had attacked her senses like a starving man would attack a Christmas ham.
"Excuse me?" she asked dumbly once she'd politely swallowed her food, offset by the seemingly random question. Personal. Too personal, her mind screamed, but she quieted the voice down. Her situation with these survivors may have been temporary, but she still needed to seem cooperative until the time came for her to leave. Humans were a naturally curious race, and it would seem odd for her to circumvent every question sent her way. She could do the basics. That wasn't pressing too far.
"Major is an officer's rank," Rick noted, remembering how he'd told the group they would try to learn more about their guest. "Which requires a bachelor's degree if I remember right. And, if I'm not mistaken, that's a college ring." He gestured to Katy's left hand where she reached for her coffee cup.
"Yes, sir," Katy confirmed, pausing in her pursuit of the cup of caffiene before her to slip her thumb under her first two fingers to rotate the gold band sitting on her third finger as she looked down at the onyx stone. She really wasn't one for jewelry: her ears had never been pierced, and she even found herself getting annoyed with her dog tags from time to time. This ring, however, was one she'd worn faithfully for nearly nine years. She'd fought hard for this ring, had even bled for it on multiple occasions, and it wasn't something one simply kept in a jewelry box. "I graduated from West Point. Class of two-thousand-two."
"West Point?" Rick echoed with interest as his respect for the woman immediately grew. "What made you decide to go there? West Point is one of the best schools in the nation, but if you could get in there…why them versus some Ivy League? Yale or Harvard?"
"My family has a huge military legacy," Katy revealed. This wasn't exposing too much, Katy decided. All one would've had to do back before the world had fallen apart was type her name into a search engine to learn most of what she was about to tell. "My dad's side of the family has had at least one person in the Army in every generation tracing back to the French and Indian War. Two Congressional Medals of Honor…I couldn't even tell you how many Purple Hearts…it's a pretty intense heritage. My dad and his dad and his father before him…all raised in the military. I wasn't any different, so it was expected for me to follow tradition. I decided I'd rather go Officer than Enlisted, so I tried for West Point and ended up gettin' in."
"If you were raised Army, you musta moved around a lot as a kid," Maggie guessed before taking a drink of her own coffee just as Katy reached for hers.
"I got really lucky actually. I've moved more since I finished West Point than I did as a kid," Katy said with a shrug, turning her attention to Hershel's eldest after she'd taken a sip of the heady and invigorating mixture warming her hands through the ceramic mug she clutched closely. "I was born at Ft. Sill, on the outskirts of Lawton, Oklahoma. My dad was transferred to Germany for three years when I was five, an' then we spent a year down in Texas. My dad got posted back at Ft. Sill after Desert Storm and I didn't move again until I went to West Point in New York for four years. I've been all over since graduation, though. Missouri, Kentucky, Alabama, Germany, Iraq, Afghanistan…I got posted at Benning back in two-thousand-six before my tour in Afghanistan. Got shipped back to Kansas after my deployment and came back to Benning last December." She shrugged again. "The Samuels family isn't really known for being stationary."
"Why've you moved so much?" Lori asked next. "Problems with the units you were stationed with?"
A derisive snort escaped before Katy could hold it in. "If you've got problems with your unit, command pretty much tells you to soldier up an' get over it or get out." She shook her head. "The units weren't the problem. There wasn't a problem, in all actuality, other than that I wanted to do as much as I could as far as training goes. Kept jumpin' 'round from school to school, tryin' to make myself as much of an asset to the Army as possible."
"How'd you manage that?" Rick threw in, eager to learn what kinds of learning experiences had shaped the soldier before him into the ally he hoped she would become.
"West Point lets their students go through the different qualification programs during the summers between school years, so I did Airbourne school after my first year and got my Air Assault wings after my second. I got accepted to go through Sapper school the summer before my last year at West Point," Katy began. "Then once I graduated I was shipped out to Engineer School before going through aviation school and SERE at Fort Rucker. After my tour in Iraq, I was promoted to Captain and transferred to Benning. After Afghanistan, Command sent me to the Command and General Staff School in Kansas. Since I made Major this past April, I was going back this fall in hopes of earning my Masters degree in Military Arts and Sciences."
"What does all of that mean?" Jimmy asked innocently and eagerly, turning in his seat at the other table so that he could see Katy as the former soldier poked at her eggs that were beginning to grow cold. She hated being the shiny new toy that everyone had to play with and figure out, but she understood the group's desire to suss out more information, and so clamped down the desire to get testy. "I don't think any of us speak military beyond the basics."
"It means I have an extremely varied skill set," Katy said simply, sending a conspiratory wink the teenager's way.
"So you were definitely plannin' on stickin' with the military your whole life," Rick inferred, noting the skills the military had taught the soldier before him were thus far proving damn useful in this dark and brutal new world.
"Yessir," Katy stated plainly. "It's all I've ever planned to do."
"What was it like overseas?" Jimmy asked next, his eyes bright with curiosity. Katy mused that it was probably a good thing the world had ended before the teen had finished high school; he was over-eager, wanting to explore the world outside of rural Georgia. A recruiter would've had him signing a contract before the boy had even stopped to blink.
"No offense, kid, but if there's one thing you learn from a multi-generational military family, it's that warzones are not something to be discussed over breakfast." With that, Katy stuffed a large forkful of eggs in her mouth, a silent sign that she didn't wish to expound on that particular subject. Personal. Too personal. She could tell the kid was disappointed with her answer, but she found herself apathetic. A heavy silence fell over the assembled survivors, and Katy was grateful for the chance to finish her breakfast.
As she rose from the table to deposit her dishes in the sink several minutes later, Katy felt eyes watching her. The former soldier glanced around in what she hoped was a casual manner, not wishing to alarm anyone around her even as warning bells blared through her brain in sync with the hairs at the nape of her neck standing on end. A chill crept over Katy's spine as she mentally accounted for each group member. They all bustled about like an ant colony, Lori, Carol, Patricia, and Beth working to clear away the breakfast debris while the children wandered into the living room to play at Lori's order. Seeing nothing particularly out of the ordinary, Katy attempted to shake off the unwanted feeling of being studied as she scooped Brooklynn out of her highchair and carried her to the living room, but failed miserably as she sense the gaze following her movements through the house.
She knew this hadn't been a good idea. The end of the world was no time to get cozy with strangers, and yet, while Katy certainly hadn't pulled this ragtag group into her inner circle and told them all of her deepest, darkest secrets, neither had she taken the children in her care and bolted for the highway first thing in the morning as she should've. It was all because of that tiny voice in the back of her head—the same one that had convinced her to spend precious ammo on securing a farm full of strangers. The same one that told her these people were good. That it was her duty to protect them. The other voice in Katy's head, the survivalist, the warrior who had seen more shit than she cared to think about, called that tiny voice naïve and reckless and tried desperately to silence it, ordering Katy to obey the rules laid down in this evil new world. And yet, somehow it was the tiny voice that had once again managed to silence the survivalist.
It was the tiny voice that had sent her out into the early morning chill to make sure there would be no unpleasant surprises for these strangers when they ventured outside. It was that tiny voice that pleaded with her to consider Rick's offer when the former officer had approached her, all kind smiles and sincere blue eyes, and invited her to stay longer. That tiny voice insisted Katy needed people in order to survive this brutal existence. Katy hated the tiny voice. Hated it for being loud and clear and right. Even as Katy watched the rest of the group pull on boots and gloves as they prepared to clear out the walkers and Rick outlined the plan for the day, that tiny voice was there, whispering for her to watch. See how this people are good? See how these people smile and laugh? See how they live?
Katy nearly screamed in relief when the tiny voice was cut off by the return of that niggling feeling that someone was watching her. Checking the survivors again swiftly, Katy nearly took a step back when she suddenly locked onto ice. It was Daryl's wolf-like blue eyes that had been watching her so closely, making her feel so uncomfortable. The hunter gave no acknowledgement that she had caught him, but simply turned and followed the others outside to begin clearing the cadavers from the property. Though the survivalist's voice told her .go, Katy found herself ignoring that voice once again, slipping her aviators down over her eyes like a safety mask as she followed the survivors outside to help with the day's task. Still, she did sate the survivalist voice in her head, watching the enigmatic redneck closely while Rick split the group into teams. The former soldier didn't know what she expected, but still found herself staring at the back of Daryl's jacket as though the reason he'd been studying her so intently would suddenly be emblazoned between the angel wings.
Her hands on her hips as she tilted her head back to soak in the sunlight and the gentle breeze skipping across the pasture, Katy inhaled deeply through her mouth, avoiding the rancid stench of decaying corpses cooking in the sun or else slowly burning to ashes that permeated the air. She then leaned backwards until a satisfying pop sounded from her lower back, causing her to sigh in relief. She'd spent hours now bent over and dragging bodies along the dirt before hoisting them into the back of the blue pick-up to be carried to the nearest fire and burned. Though not one to complain, the monotony and physical strain of the labor was something she hadn't experienced in some time and her body protested the adjustment into such repetition.
Scanning the layout before her, Katy easily picked out the four rising columns of black smoke that served as funeral pyres for the hundreds of nameless dead scattered across the property. It had been Glenn's stroke of ingenuity that had resulted in four fires being built: one near the house, one between the farmhouse and barn, and two out in the pasture where most of the bodies lay. With such a large area to cover, the workforce had then divided, with those clearing out the pasture being granted use of the blue pick-up truck and the red truck with a camper shell over the bed, to which they'd hooked a flat-bed trailer. Maggie, Beth, and Jimmy concentrated on the area in and near the barn, and Hershel and Patricia focused their efforts on clearing off the porch and ridding the yard of the cadavers in various states of decay.
Katy had joined Rick and T-Dog in clearing out the eastern half of the south pasture using the blue truck, while Daryl, Andrea, and Glenn worked diligently on the western half with the truck and trailer after a quick discussion had noted Daryl had the most experience pulling a trailer.
Katy had chosen not to point out that she'd been hauling horsetrailers and fishing boats since she'd been old enough to reach the gas pedal and see over the steering wheel at the same time. Such information tread too close to personal with these strangers, and all she wanted was to do her share of the work and then disappear. She wouldn't admit to anyone but the voices in her head that she also didn't say anything because Rick had already put her on his corpse-clearing team, and driving the other truck meant she'd likely be put on a team with Daryl and be constantly attacked by those eerie blue eyes. She wanted to think that after the things she'd experienced in her life she couldn't be unnerved by something as simple as a staring redneck, and pointedly ignored when both the tiny and survivalist voices told her that wasn't true.
Katy returned her focus to the present as Rick pulled up nearby and T-Dog bailed from the passenger seat of the ancient blue truck. The duo had gone to unload a mass of bodies, giving Katy a few shorts moments to herself that quickly came to an end as she looped her hands through the armpits of a particularly hefty former businessman, T-Dog grabbing the ankles and helping her lift the corpse into the truck.
"After this load, we're all takin' a break," Rick declared as he dragged a body to the vehicle. "Carol and Lori got some sandwiches ready for us."
Katy and T-Dog simply nodded and concentrated on their work, piling the bed of the truck full to bursting with corpses. T-Dog and Rick then climbed back in the cab, firing the engine with a low rumble while Katy perched on a clear spot of tailgate, watching the grass and dirt pass beneath her boots where her feet dangled over the edge of the moving truck.
Katy subconciously wrinkled her nose as they approached one of the fires dotting the property. She hated the smell of the burning bodies. She knew it was the best and fastest way to get rid of the twice-damned diseased, but she hated the way the heat of the fire amplified the rotten smell of decay, hated the way the smoke clung to her clothes and hair and caused her to smell as though she herself had died and risen again. She shook her head and returned to the job at hand, dragging bodies from the truck and tossing them in the fire with so many others. The movement was so repetitive she zoned out, her mind wandering until a hand on her shoulder brought her crashing back to reality with a jolt. Personal. Too personal.
"How 'bout we go grab a patch of shade an' some lunch?" Rick's voice rumbled cheerily behind her. Katy simply nodded and shrugged off the friendly touch as she climbed back into the truck bed, moving to sit on a wheel well before noticing the dark goo smeared all over. Instead, she perched on the much cleaner side, gripping the metal tightly as she swayed unsteadily, the truck thumping through holes and over rises in the land. It reminded her of bygone years growing up in Oklahoma.
Oklahoma. The thought of the word alone squeezed Katy's heart and twisted it terribly. She wished Rick had never felt the need to satisfy the group's curiosity by asking that first fateful question and opening the floor for others, even though she'd known they'd ask eventually. Anyone so trusting they would let anyone in their group, even temporarily, without seeking to learn who they were was most likely long gone by now, unable to survive this cruel world where the distrustful flourished and the loose-tounged did not. Still, Katy hadn't thought of her home state since the outbreak began—hadn't allowed herself to. She didn't want her memories of riding horses down to the pond to swim or racing her teammates to the convenient store after basketball or softball practice to fade away, polluted by the image of numerous horses and cattle being taken down and devoured by the people she'd grown up with.
It had been nearly a year since she'd last visited the state she called 'home,' nearly eight months since the first strange stories had begun to appear on the news, heralding the end of civilization as the infection began creeping into cities and towns, and a little over two months since the infection had suddenly gone global, sweeping the world into a firestorm of chaos. Katy wasn't naïve. Katy wasn't an optimist. She knew it was impossible that Oklahoma had somehow magically been skipped over when civilization had imploded. That didn't mean she wanted or had to think about it. She'd rather focus on Oklahoma as it was: obnoxious in its never constant weather and boisterous in its love of football, drinking, and hunting, but lush and teeming with life if one only knew where to look.
Katy knew the world was still full of life. While walking among the fallen walkers to check for any signs of life—or unlife, or whatever their state of being should be dubbed—she'd heard the gobbling of wild turkeys, hoot of an owl, and even saw a small deer—a yearling, she'd guessed, judging by the missing tell-tale spots of a fawn—peeking out of the trees and watching her. Life is not separate from death; it only looks that way. A small grin twitched about Katy's lips as her grandfather's proverb popped into the forefront of her mind. Life and death were indeed looking quite similar these days. She couldn't help but wonder if the gnarled old Cherokee elder of the Paint Clan, her mother's father, was still alive, and if so, what he thought of this new world. Last she'd seen him, the old man was pushing eighty-seven and was as spry as ever, still walking old game trails and amusing the children with his old songs and legends. She didn't know what his secret of longevity was, but she hoped it was still serving him well.
The truck rocking slightly brought Katy from her thoughts. She looked up to find that Rick had pulled up to the second pasture fire and the rocking had come from Andrea, Daryl, and Glenn clamoring up to join her in the truck bed. Glenn immediately came and perched beside the soldier while Andrea sat opposite. Daryl, on the other hand, plopped down with his back to the cab, resting his head against the rear windshield and obviously not caring about the muck and goo soaking into his worn jeans. With everyone accounted for, Rick pulled away from the second fire, pointing the weathered truck in the direction of the farmhouse and the group's hard-earned lunch.
By the time the pasture group reached the porch, the others were already there, reaching for sandwiches and glasses of iced tea from the trays Carol had brought out and trying to avoid getting sprayed by the water hose with which Patricia was spraying the porch floor. She and Hershel had managed to clear their section of the property, aside from cleaning the blood and grime residue from the porch, stairs, and walls, which was the last task Patricia was finishing now. Katy decided it definitely was nice to be able to climb out of the truck and up the porch stairs without having to dodge around walkers.
The last to climb the porch stairs, Katy immediately had a sandwich and a glass of tea thrust in her hands by a smiling Carol. "What is it?" the soldier dared to ask, watching the group bite into their lunch with zeal.
"Just peanut butter and jelly, I'm afraid," Carol said with a smile. "It's not much, but it's good and filling. Patricia made the jelly herself with strawberries from right here on the"—
Carol stopped in surprise as Katy dropped the sandwich on the platter as if it had burned her, stepping back and wiping her hand frantically on her fatigue pants. She then looked up, catching everyone staring at her as though she'd just grown a second head.
"I'm so sorry," she finally managed after her initial panic wore off, meeting Carol's concerned and slightly offended gaze. "That was horribly rude of me. It's just—I'm allergic to strawberries."
"Oh, Katy, I'm sorry!" Carol cried as understanding replaced the surprise in everyone's faces. "If I'd've known, I'd've made sure there was something else for you…Let me go see what I can find."
"No, that's okay," Katy immediately replied, stopping Carol from setting down the platter she held to rush indoors. "No sense in you havin' to go through the trouble of makin' somethin' extra. I'll just grab somethin' of mine." Before Carol could protest, Katy had set her glass of tea down and descended the porch, power-walking across the yard toward the military truck still parked by the barn.
"Poor thing," Carol tutted once Katy was out of earshot. "I don't know that I'd survive being alleric to strawberries."
"Can't miss what you ain't never had," Rick supposed before biting into his own sandwich. The homemade jelly was, indeed, delicious.
"Hell, she just helped a hungry brother out," T-Dog declared, rising to swipe Katy's dropped sandwich from the platter before turning to see Rick looking at him with curious amusement. "No sense wastin' a perfectly good sandwich," he shrugged in explanation.
Everyone paused as they heard the distinctive growl and rumble of the Humvee's deisel engine starting up. A few moments later, the sand colored vehicle pulled around the house and into the yard. Expertly whipping the vehicle into place with only enough pause to shift gears from drive to reverse, Katy moved the truck into position in front of the porch, effectively completing the protective circle of vehicles Rick had ordered formed around the house.
Hopping down from the vehicle, Katy made her way to the back, popping the hatch and lowering the tailgate. She then seemed to be swallowed by the Humvee, her boots the only visible part of her as she climbed into the cargo area. She slid out a few moments later, a bottle of water in one hand while she dragged a large plastic tub with the other. The soldier proceeded to dig through the container, mumbling to herself as she'd pick up one package just to throw it back in and pick up another.
"Are there really so many choices for it to take that long to pick your lunch?" T-Dog asked when Katy finally came back to the porch with a package and the bottle of water.
"You'd be surprised," Katy returned easily, sipping the iced tea she'd left sitting on the porch rail before busting open what most everyone recognized as an MRE. "It's definitely better than what my dad an' uncles were stuck with in their day."
"What'd you finally decide on?" Rick inquired with an amused grin as Katy took up the same perch she'd assumed earlier that morning, her back to the roof support as she balanced cross-legged on the banister with the MRE package in her lap.
"Let's see," Katy began, pulling the package contents out and spreading them before her much like she'd done with the parts of her pistol hours earlier. "Mediterranean chicken, stuffing, wheat bread with cheese, a caramel apple ranger bar—those are my favorites, a peanut butter and chocolate candy bar, french vanilla cappucino—I'll save that for later, and the usual accessories—barbeque sauce, salt, pepper, etcetera." Without further ado, she began getting her chicken set up to heat, devouring everything else while waiting.
Somehow managing to avoid joining the conversation surrounding her aside from when she'd offered to share her candy bar, Katy simply sipped at her sweet tea and studied everyone around her, at times closing her eyes and just listening to them speak. She quickly decided this group was a sincere one. She could pick up no threads of deceit, no trace of hesitation in answers. When the group spoke to one another, they met each other eye to eye. That was good. Straightforward was something Katy could deal with. She also began to pick up on some of the relational undercurrents. Being husband and wife, she already knew about Lori and Rick, but her observant gaze from behind her sunglasses was just catching the soft smile on Jimmy's face when he talked to Beth, the intertwining of fingers between Glenn and Maggie. The tiny gestures made her smile. It was nice to see that romance hadn't quite joined most of the human population in death.
Rick's offer to stay longer burrowed into Katy's brain and clenched around her shoulders like an unwelcome hug. One would think, considering it was only temporary, that the decision would be an easy one, and to someone who hadn't had Katy's upbringing or training, maybe it would be. For Katy, however, the situation had too many variables for a decision to be reached easily. What would she have to give up to stay? Worse, what would she have to give up to leave? To make such a decision, Katy wanted a read on all members of the group.
Katy had spent many years perfecting the art of reading people—it was extremely useful both when playing poker and trying to decide the best way to get the men and women under your command to work together as a cohesive unit. The group as a whole could be labelled as 'good,' but she wasn't positive about all of the individual members yet. Some she couldn't pin down simply because she hadn't spoken to them enough, others because she couldn't get a read on them at all. The second group worried her the most, and only contained two members: Daryl and Hershel.
Katy was nearly certain she could get a read on Hershel by talking to him more and getting him to open up; he seemed to be the general cookie-cutter southern patriarch. The problem lay in that he was primarily quiet and had an expressionless face. A crucial part of getting a good read on someone was reading their face: did their eye twitch when they lied? Did they clench their teeth when they didn't like what was said? Hershel, however, didn't seem to have any physical tells: no nervous twitches, facial tics, nose rubs, or head scratches.
Daryl Dixon was an even more confounding problem. Katy knew a hunter when she saw one. She'd grown up with them. She was one. Daryl Dixon was also one. She hadn't missed the confidence and certainty with which he'd held his crossbow—outfitted with homemade arrows!—when they'd met at the highway the day before, hadn't missed the fact that he made no noise when he walked and had the keen eyes of a hawk and ears of a deer. She'd seen him look around at sounds the others didn't even pay attention to: a scuffle of a boot on a rock, the whining scratch of a fork on a plate.
She'd felt his eyes on her, those stabbing shards of ice attempting to cut through her skin and into her very soul. He was trying to figure her out just as much as she tried to do the same to him. They were both protectors, he of this haphazardly thrown together group of survivors, she of three children she'd promised to keep safe at all costs. Until either she'd left or he'd determined that she wasn't a threat to his group, Katy knew he'd watch her as much as he could with that unreadable and icy gaze. Katy couldn't help but wonder how he'd learned to hide his emotions so well, keeping everything behind an expressionless mask of calm indifference. Katy had a strong dislike of puzzles she couldn't solve, and had a feeling that Daryl Dixon would be one of those puzzles. A cloud of anger choked her brain just thinking about it.
After finishing her food, Katy crept inside the house under the smoke screen of everyone else's conversation to check on her children, finding Brooklyn toddling around the living room under Carol's watchful eye. Abby was coloring, immediately pausing her work to show Katy the princess she'd colored to look like her guardian, as well as the one a few pages over she'd made to represent her mother. The cartoon in a purple and pink dress with blonde hair and blue eyes did Abby's mother no justice, and Katy's heart clenched with the thought that Abby probably wouldn't even remember her mother's voice or smile a year down the line.
After sadly answering Abby's question that no, she didn't think walkers could be princesses, Katy quickly set out to find Luke, grabbing him as he ran past in attempt to hide from Carl in their game of hide-and-seek. After helping the kid find an excellent hiding place beneath the upstairs bathroom sink and then sending the Grimes boy to the basement to look when he slyly asked if she'd seen him, Katy returned outside to find everyone ready to return to the day's work. Feeling her muscles stiffen just at the thought of the next morning, Katy loaded back into the blue pick-up, vaguely thinking that she really owed a large thank you to the commanders and older cadets who had made her life a living hell during SERE training and her summer of basic training before the start of her plebe year at West Point. Once again, her life was a living hell, only this time there was no end in sight.
