A/N: Hello, all! So we're back with another long chapter and I'm beginning to wonder if I have any self-control at all lol Anyway, this is the first interim chapter, and it's way longer than the interims in my previous story. Mostly because I'm a poor planner, and when I decided not to write the entire prequel story I had planned, it left me with a lot of explaining to do in-story. Which is fine, I just hope it's enjoyable. The chapter song is "Running Scared (Desert Song)" by The Strumbellas and it's great. The actual chapter has a lot of callbacks to the old series because, as I mentioned before, I have very little self-control. (Then again, it will have something to do with the plot later on, so...) Big thanks to you guys for reading and reviewing, I always appreciate it!

7. First Interim, pt. 1: Running Scared (Desert Song)

Music was the way back.

It took her a minute to figure out how to hotwire the car. Adrenaline had flickered out a while ago but panic had taken the reins, a clumsy but long-burning fuel. Ava slept fitfully in the passenger seat while she worked, apparently exhausted from all the crying.

When the car was running, she quickly arranged Ava as securely as she could. She'd only had time to scavenge haphazardly from the cars near this one. The coats and shirts, she bundled around Ava in lieu of a car seat. The cotton cut from a headrest, she placed against Ava's ears and secured with a headband. And the CD, she popped into the player, rolled the windows down and turned the volume up.

She drove slow, resisting the urge to gun it when she spotted the herd. They blocked her off from the street her house was on, so she went down a parallel street and watched as they oozed out of the alleys between houses.

Terror kicked her pulse up a notch, but she swallowed it down and leaned out her window.

"Come on, assholes!" she hollered, pounding the side of the car with her palm. "Come and get me!"

At least a hundred followed. It wasn't all of them, but she thought maybe it was enough. When she was a good distance away, she turned the volume off and pressed down on the gas, losing them quickly through various turns. Only now in the quiet did Mason realize Ava was crying again; the makeshift earmuffs might have dampened the sound, but only by so much.

"Sorry," she muttered.

There were even less of the dead surrounding her house than she expected, and when she pulled around front, she saw why.

Someone had made a run for it through the front door.

They'd left behind little more than a puddle.

Mason stopped the car, leaned out the window and vomited.

She'd recovered by the time the dead surrounded the car, or at least her stomach had. Numbly, she rolled her window up except for a sliver and picked them off one by one through the gap.

Night fell. Ava continued to wail, but Mason didn't know what to do for her. In any case, she couldn't stop mechanically skewering the dead with her poker.

Fight, Gina had said. But what was there to fight for? Why should she?

The baby, she supposed, although…

She's just going to die, too.

Mason was going to get her killed. Just like Will. Just like Nick and Gina and Naomi, who got all of five minutes to hold her own baby before…

Don't. Don't cry. You don't fucking deserve to.

It took everything she had simply to exit the car. Her whole body felt useless, and it certainly didn't help that the bodies were piled so high outside her door it was like pushing through mud.

"Okay," she said and gently picked up Ava, clothing nest and all. "We're gonna…we're gonna try for the truck, alright?"

Ava whimpered. Was she weaker now? Fresh panic flooded Mason's chest.

"It's okay. We're gonna get to the truck, I promise. There's formula there."

Holding Ava securely against her chest, she raced for the truck, but there didn't seem to be a need. From the sound of it, the remaining dead lingered at the back of the house, or had already wandered elsewhere.

Mason set Ava in the cab of the truck before climbing into the bed to rummage for formula and water. Everything was crammed together, and it seemed to take an eternity before she finally found it.

"Okay. Um. Shit." It was supposed to be warm, right? Well, the water was already lukewarm, that would have to do. She mixed it up quick, held it under her arm in a last-ditch effort to warm it, then took it back out in aggravation.

She wasn't sure how to hold Ava to feed her. She tried to remember seeing people in movies feeding babies but her mind was a blank. All she could see was her mother's skull, mangled on the floor, Naomi reaching weakly for her baby, Will's blood soaking the carpet…

"Come on, come on," she said, pressing the nipple to Ava's lips, who didn't want anything to do with it. "Work with me, dude."

But Ava refused the bottle, and Mason's frustration grew in her throat like a tumor, like a flood, and her eyes blurred, and…and…

"Come—come on, man," she sobbed.

A tear landed on Ava's cheek, and she flinched with a shriek.

"I'm sorry."

She couldn't hold herself together anymore. She couldn't.

"I'm sorry."

Mason doubled over, shaking with grief, and the tears flowed whether she deserved them or not.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

She wasn't sure how long she hovered there over Ava, offering her formula between bouts of sobs, but it shocked her enough when Ava finally accepted the bottle that she nearly dropped it.

"Holy shit," she breathed.

Ava's face remained pinched with discontent, but she suckled greedily. Mason coughed—she didn't think she was capable of laughing anymore—and wiped her tear-bloated face.

"Yeah, that's it," she said. "See what happens when we work together?"

Ava eyed her with what Mason imagined was resentment, and drank until the bottle was empty.

~m~

She went back into the house. She told herself it was just to scavenge but that wasn't the truth. Ava slept in her arms, swaddled securely in a large t-shirt, because Mason was afraid to leave her in the truck by herself.

A handful of the dead wandered about. Luckily the fire poker enabled her to keep her distance.

Her bedroom looked like a scene out of A Nightmare on Elm Street. She couldn't help paying close attention to the bodies on the floor, the bloody handprints on the walls, the red smearing her childhood out of existence.

Will's body was gone. She trembled and wished for numbness.

There was nothing to take that wasn't tainted with blood, so she moved on to her mother's room.

Empty cans and dirty clothes lay strewn on the floor. Mason surmised they must have camped out in here while the outside world collapsed.

Her mother's clothes still smelled like her perfume. Tears ran quietly down her face as she rummaged through the closet, remembering how she used to hide in there as a kid, pretending she was lost in a jungle, how her mother would sometimes jump inside to surprise her, acting the part of a tiger or dinosaur.

She ripped the sheets from the bed, and after a moment's hesitation, the pillows, too.

Something crinkled in one of them.

Blinking, she dug into the pillowcase and pulled out a sheet of notebook paper. The handwriting was small and clumsy, trying to be the big bubble letters she remembered the other girls writing with. But her handwriting was never cute; Mason wrote too quickly for that, scared her thoughts would float out of reach before she could get them on the page.

It was a poem. Just a dumb little thing she scribbled out in math class when she was supposed to be learning exponents. It wasn't happy, and not all that well-written. An unintelligible story about a wooden cross on a beach, and purple flowers. A man emerging from the sand, reaching for a woman dissolving into the stars. It wasn't even finished, hanging open-ended on the word "waiting".

Her mother had kept it all these years. She'd slept with it under her pillow.

The world shook, so fast her vision blurred.

No.

That was her.

She couldn't get air into her lungs fast enough. She couldn't see for tears. There was a knot in her chest, pulling tighter, the way it felt when a joint needed to pop but refused.

I'm having a heart attack, she thought, stumbling for the door, but her heart continued to beat, albeit at a gallop.

She didn't take anything. She left everything behind for the dead. She got in the truck and waited for her breath to come back, and then she started driving.

~m~

Smoke roused her from the void. Around her, the blinding blue of a vast sky, and the dazzling, equally vast desert. From the hood, white, sweet-smelling fumes. Something stirred in her chest. Something more than emotionless continuation.

"No," she croaked. She hadn't spoken in…how long had it been since leaving her house? It looked like she was somewhere in Nevada, so probably two days. It didn't help that she'd been limiting her water, saving it for Ava's formula.

She pulled to the side of the highway and hopped out, leaving Ava asleep in her car seat. Mason had scavenged it somewhere in…well, she wasn't quite sure. There were mountains. Maybe Colorado.

The truck belched smoke when she popped the hood, choking her. Everything was too hot to touch, but she figured it wasn't cooling off anytime soon under the ruthless sun. She wrapped her hand in an old shirt and checked the oil first. She didn't know a whole lot about cars, but she did know it wasn't supposed to be this grimy shade of brown.

"Fuck…"

Even with the shirt, the heat bled through to her fingertips as she unscrewed the coolant cap. The reservoir was completely empty.

"Fuck!"

She'd been so concerned with keeping gas in the tank, she hadn't thought to check the other fluids.

"Son of a cunt!"

She kicked the front bumper so hard she sent herself sailing back on her ass.

The pavement seared her hands but still she sat there, listening to the tremendous silence and trying to reorient herself. It felt like waking up from an unexpected nap and not knowing if it was dawn or dusk.

When had she decided to come back this way? Or had she even decided anything? Once she left her house, it was like she went on autopilot. Drive, feed Ava every two hours, change her every three, siphon gas, keep driving. She hadn't thought of anything other than the barest essentials.

Well, she was here now. The truck was dead and there was nothing around them for miles. May as well keep heading west.

There's nothing there for you.

California was a big state. She only knew of the L.A. area, which…yeah. There was nothing there but the dead at this point. But there had to be something else, somewhere to hole up.

What about the others?

The Misfits and their families were long gone. There hadn't been any sign of them during her frantic search for a car, or when she'd gone back to the house. And they only would have left if they thought she and her group were dead.

You can't go back.

She didn't know exactly what she meant by that, but she didn't think she was wrong.

~m~

When the sun went down, she gathered all she could carry on her back, tucked Ava into the makeshift sling across her chest, and followed the highway. There was no moon, only stars. She could've convinced herself they were the last two humans left.

She hoped to come across something by daybreak. There was nothing. She built a tiny shelter out of their possessions for Ava to lie in, covered herself as much as she could, and tried to doze off. But Ava woke every few hours needing to be fed or changed, so by the time dusk rolled around, Mason felt raw and nauseous from lack of sleep.

The next day was the same, and the next. She came across a few cars stranded on the highway, but none that ran or had enough gas to really get her anywhere. She came across a gas station, but it had been closed for several years and held nothing within but rags and dirt and the skeleton of a coyote. Without a map, there was no way to know how much further she had to go to reach…anything.

She drank little and ate even less, mostly because she'd packed very little food to make room for formula. She didn't even dare listen to her iPod because she couldn't bear to let the battery wear down.

Exhaustion and bleakness dogged her every step. Ava seemed alright, but obviously that was entirely dependent on Mason's survival.

How the fuck was she going to survive out here?

~m~

She started singing.

Fourth night, or possibly fifth.

At first it was just her lips moving, but then her voice caught up. Deep. Strengthening. It built like a dust storm, little imperfections purifying in the fire she kindled in her belly. Ava, who had been fussing, quieted.

She couldn't explain why she did it. She thought she had reached some instinct beyond the primal machinations of survival. Maybe she was just going crazy. Either way, Ava seemed content. She stared up at Mason, sucking on her fist and making little noises that thankfully did not resemble crying.

She sang everything that came to mind. Nothing stirred in the desert around them, no predators, living or dead. She sang louder than her weakened body could bear, until she was stumbling, weaving back and forth along the highway.

That was how she found the box, staggering clear off the shoulder of the road. The toe of her boot caught the corner of it, which startled her so bad she jumped back. Her head whipped from side to side, instantly alert, but there was nothing around but the box and the speed limit sign it sat against.

There was a piece of paper taped to the front. It rustled in the gentle breeze as she knelt to examine it.

"Take what you need, leave what you can," it read.

Blinking, she peeked inside. Clothes, canned foods, a scattering of knives, books, a belt, two jugs of water…

Someone had just…left this stuff. For someone else to have. Even after everything, even after the riots, and the grid going down, even with supplies as scarce as they were.

"Whoa," she breathed. "Look at that, baby girl."

Ava was asleep, but Mason thought she would've been shocked, as well.

As she was looking up from the impossible offerings, she spotted it. A glowing in the distance. Was it…car lights? Flashlights? She didn't think it was either, but couldn't figure what it would be otherwise.

She scavenged the box first, though her first instinct was just to take the whole thing. But someone had left this here for everyone. Two cans of peaches, two cans of tuna, a worn map, a jug of water, and a pocketknife with a pearl handle. That was all she took. Then she followed the strange lights off the highway and into the scrubland.

The glowing unfolded as she approached, separating into distinct but unbelievable shapes.

Cars, sticking out of the ground, like they were growing there. There were probably a dozen of them, spaced out at intervals, each one covered in glow-in-the-dark paint. Three other cars sat among them, parked like normal, but they, too, were adorned in this neon graffiti.

"Whoa…" Mason breathed, pacing slowly among them. Much of the graffiti meant nothing to her, names and phrases that held significance in someone else's story, and still it filled her like the first breath of spring. And some of it…

A painting of a water tower, and across its tank: "Wait. Wait. Wait."

A skeleton hand bursting from a grave, entwined with vines and flowers, and this: "If they no longer exist to feel loss, then I shall feel it for them."

A WALK signal, with words ringed around it like sun rays: "I don't have to keep trying. Remember that, I say to myself, as I keep trying."

She found herself at one of the parked cars, and her eye caught on the glint of keys hanging in the ignition. She didn't figure it would start, but just on the off chance, she reached through the open window and turned the key.

The car rumbled to life. Mason let out a startled hoot of laughter.

"Holy—"

A hand grabbed her from the back seat, wrinkled with decay. The dusty, brittle body rose slowly, gnashing teeth that seemed larger in its shrunken mouth.

"—shit!"

Mason fell back, one hand automatically reaching up to cradle Ava, and so her tailbone took most of the impact. The body didn't come after her, however. Its arm hung limply over the headrest, fingers moving in listless rhythm.

Ava whimpered. Mason rubbed her back soothingly.

"It's okay. It's just one."

Retrieving her iron from the assemblage of supplies on her back, she approached the body. She couldn't understand what it was doing out here in a car with an almost full tank of gas and no visible bite marks, until she found the note, stuffed in an empty pill bottle.

"I am no one now, and I went out on my own terms," it read.

Shock rooted her to the spot. Not the suicide. She'd tried—

Don't think about that.

It was the body. It was the bite marks, or lack of. It was the fact that they'd popped a bunch of pills and died and come back anyway.

What would happen if Mason took the same route? What if she ran the fire iron through her heart right now; would she come back?

Don't think about it.

She was alive for now, and had no plans not to be for the immediate future. She met the gaze of the weltered corpse.

"Sorry you felt like you had to do this, dude," she said. "But thanks for the car." Then she drove her poker through its skull.

~m~

The idea came to her while she was sitting against a half-buried Cadillac, reading Naomi's baby book and trying not to think too hard about certain things. It was almost noon, but Ava had needed feeding and Mason some rest. To shield them from the sun, she'd tied what clothes she could from car to car, tenting off a bit of shade. She planned on heading out soon, but…

The box.

"Take what you need, leave what you can," she whispered.

Here among the beauty and the color…wouldn't this be a better place for it? She'd been drawn here like a moth to light. She probably would've spotted it from further out if she'd been paying attention and not slowly losing her mind.

Maybe she just needed other people to see this place. To know.

There was black and blue spray paint in the backseat of another parked car, amid a pile of beer bottles and empty tins of glow-in-the-dark colors. She took them both, and an armful of bottles, to the speed limit sign.

Using the spray paint reminded her of the times the Misfits would take her out tagging. Dray and Ashlee were always the best. Renee and Tanner played tetris with each others' designs. Lily and Dave ate junk food and watched for cops. Mason and Charlie always resorted to drawing dicks.

She missed them so bad.

When she was done, the sign no longer advised on speed limit. It was completely black, except in the center, where she'd written "OASIS" in blue and an arrow pointing where to go. Beer bottles hung down like wind chimes, gently clinking each other.

This would catch peoples' attention in the day. The cars would catch their attention at night. Smiling, Mason carried the box of supplies to the oasis. She felt lighter now than she had in days. The depression still clung to her, as it had since long before the Turn, and the fear, but she felt like maybe there was a chance. For something else, something better.

Once all her supplies were loaded in the corpse's car, she looked at Ava, swaddled in the passenger seat.

"Alright. We'll make a pit stop at the truck and grab the rest of our shit. Definitely your car seat. I don't want you thinking you can live the reckless life straight out the gate," she said. "But after that, where to? We're close to Cali, but…I don't think I wanna go back there."

But she already knew where she was going. The same place she was already headed. And, yeah, it was just her and Ava now, and she had absolutely no idea how she was going to tell the Misfits what happened. How she'd failed them.

She flinched from the thought. "I can worry about that later," she said. "How do you feel about Virginia, baby girl? All your family will be there. They'll be so excited to meet you."

Virginia, where Renee's estranged uncle lived in a house built into the mountains. Where he had stores and stores of supplies. Where the Misfits and their families had placed all their hopes, despite the perils of the journey.

She couldn't give up on them. Ava deserved a chance at a life, at a family; she couldn't give up on her, either.

(You don't deserve that.)

Stifling a pain in her chest, she nodded and started the car. "Virginia it is."

~m~

Virginia was a long fucking way away.

The map she took from the box got her out of the desert, but beyond Nevada it was completely useless. She scrounged up a road atlas in New Mexico, outlining the most direct route in red ink. It looked simple on paper.

It was not simple.

She crossed the border into Texas around midnight. The moon was hiding behind a veil of clouds, so she didn't see the men until they started shooting.

Bullets showered the car. The front passenger window cracked. And then a boom as the rear tire blew.

"Shit!"

She took her foot off the gas, knuckles white on the steering wheel. Ava wailed, and though her voice shook, Mason automatically began singing to soothe her.

In the rearview mirror, she spotted the vague silhouettes of men rising from the grass on either side of the highway. It was hard to tell; she thought there were at least five.

Her mind raced. There was no cover on either side; she'd been driving through treeless prairie for hours now. She might've risked making a run for it if it were just her. But she couldn't just surrender herself to these men, either.

"Get out of the car," one of them shouted.

From what she could see, two of them carried assault rifles. The rest held simple handguns. If she could get a hold of one of those rifles…

Heart thundering, she reached for her pocketknife, flipping the blade out and shoving it up her sleeve. The tip pricked her skin but she held it there, just balanced on the verge of sliding out. It was a risky play. She had never been the best liar, but there didn't seem to be any other options. She opened the door and stumbled out into the night.

"Hands up, asshole!" the man shouted, rifle aimed.

She lifted her hands but continued to stagger, letting out a groan. "Please…you shot me…please…"

"Stop right there," the man ordered, but she risked a few steps closer. She didn't want them anywhere near Ava.

"Help me," she said. "Please." Then she collapsed, face up so she could act quickly.

The man with the rifle knelt above her. "We'll help you, alright," he said. "We'll help you outta whatever you got in that truck, and then we'll help you outta those clothes."

Her stomach turned. The other men approached her car, peering into the backseat where Ava cried. She knew she had only one chance to do this.

The man looked away from her for a split second, opening his mouth to say something. It was his mistake.

Mason flicked her wrist. The knife slid out. She drove it through the man's throat before he could utter a word. Blood showered her face and she struggled to breathe. She grabbed his gun and rolled to her feet, spitting red.

"Get away from the car," she growled.

The men paused. She felt the heat of four guns trained on her.

"Easy now," a bald man said. "That thing's dangerous. You don't want to hurt yourself, do you?"

"No," Mason said. "But I'm alright with hurting you."

His lips thinned, but a younger man stepped forward. He was handsome and earnest and she didn't trust him; he had the look of someone who was used to getting whatever he wanted.

"C'mon, don't be like that," he said. "We didn't know it was you in there. We're not in the habit of shooting at women. Now why don't you put the gun down. You can come with us. We'll take care of you."

Mason aimed the rifle at his head. "I don't need you to take care of me. Get the fuck away from my car."

"Look, sugar, I know you're frightened. These are dangerous times we're living in, but I give you my word, we are truly sorry about this mess. If you give us the chance, we'll make up for it."

She wouldn't be fooled by his genuine tone. She remembered what his buddy said.

We'll help you outta whatever you got in that truck, and then we'll help you outta those clothes.

Instead, she cocked an eyebrow. "Call me sugar again."

His charming demeanor faltered. His whole face went ugly and cold.

"Alright," he said. "You're not a team player. That's fine. You don't have to be."

She fired at the same time he did, and the men barely had time to react as she deluged them with bullets. The rifle was fully automatic. All she had to do was hold down the trigger and turn, lowering the barrel to avoid hitting the car. But there was a screaming in her brain that drowned the rapid fire, the thud of their bodies hitting the ground. It took her a moment to register the empty click, that the magazine was empty and the men were dead. And then another to notice the sticky wetness rolling down her arm.

She'd been shot. No, not shot. It looked like the bullet just grazed her. She watched the blood trickle all the way to her hand.

She'd killed those men.

They were bad men.

They were. She didn't feel bad about that. She would've killed them again if she had to. That wasn't the issue.

She'd killed the undead. She'd never ended a real life before. Logically she knew she had that potential, but…it was strange actually doing it. She found herself stepping lightly as she approached the car, like the weight of her existence might bring the whole world down.

Ava was screaming her head off, but Mason hesitated picking her up. What if she hurt her? One wrong move, and she could accidentally—

Stop. You've been taking care of her this whole time. Get it together.

A buzz of anxiety lit her veins as she scooped Ava up. But the bawling quieted to whimpers as soon as she was in Mason's arms.

"It's okay, baby girl," Mason murmured. She was crying, too. She hadn't realized it. "We're okay now. We're gonna be okay."

~m~

Mason lost track of time, but she was fairly certain the weeks were turning into months. She'd passed through Texas and made it to the Oklahoma-Arkansas border, all on foot.

It seemed everything was conspiring to keep her from Virginia.

Keeping Ava and herself fed and hydrated was a daily battle. She'd taken all she could carry that night after the men attacked her, including their weapons, but the water ran out first and the food quickly followed. Not to mention diapers, which were surprisingly easy to find but a bitch to transport with as many as Ava went through. She used up nearly all her ammo before she realized knives worked just as well when taking down the dead.

Finding transportation was impossible. The cars she came across that were easily accessible were also bone-dry or completely wrecked. Whenever she saw one that looked to have any potential, they were always accompanied by people. And people, she'd recently decided, were better glimpsed at a distance.

But she kept singing for Ava. Kept walking for the Misfits. She put on little plays for Ava with whatever toys she could scavenge. She read and reread Naomi's baby book; she'd written a bunch of extra shit in the margins, and thank the maker for that.

She was doing just that tonight, though it was mostly to lull herself to sleep. The fire had died so low she could barely discern the words, and her eyes drifted up to the stars, peeking between the branches of the scraggly tree she'd chosen to camp under.

The barest shift caught her eye, near the nest of clothes and blankets she'd made for Ava. Usually she tried to find a box to use as a makeshift crib, but today they'd been lucky to find a safe place to rest. She squinted, half-asleep, trying to place the strange movement. But as it slithered closer to Ava, her heart seized.

A snake. A fucking snake.

Mason moved instinctively, scrambling partially through embers to kick the creature away. It coiled around her ankle, and there was a brief pinprick of pain before she shook it off. It slithered away before she could kill it.

She hovered over Ava, who fussed while she checked frantically for bite marks. Only when she found none did she remember the sting in her own leg and looked down to see the skin above her ankle swelling around two distinct puncture wounds.

"Oh, fuck."

"Let me see."

Mason nearly jumped out of her skin. Her hand darted for the fire iron.

"Hey, it's alright." A woman stepped out from the shadows, hands up. "I ain't fixin' to do you any harm, but you should probably let me take a look at that. Quickly."

Mason angled herself between the woman and Ava, but the pain in her ankle was growing. She could almost feel the venom twisting its way up her veins, quickened by her fearful pulse.

"C'mon. I've handled snake bites before," the woman said. "You should be fine, but only if you treat it immediately."

Mason deliberated, examining the stranger. Curly brown hair framed a face that appeared bright and earnest, and as far as Mason could tell, she had no weapons on her except the knife on her belt. Of course, there was no way to know for sure she could trust this woman, but…

She couldn't leave Ava alone in the world…

"Fine," she growled. "But that's it, alright?"

The woman shrugged out of her shirt and sat down, lifting Mason's leg into her lap. She wrapped the shirt around Mason's knee, efficiently tapering down to the bite, like she did this every day.

"It was probably a copperhead," the woman said. "Obviously they're venomous, but they're not usually fatal. It'll just hurt and might make you sick a few days."

"You a snake charmer or something?" Mason said, trying to sound gruff.

The woman laughed prettily. "No. Not snakes. But I've been told I'm pretty charmin' otherwise. So what's your name? You can call me Coyote."

Mason raised an eyebrow. Coyote laughed again.

"That ain't my Christian name, but I like it better."

"Well, I guess you can call me Snake Bite, then," Mason muttered, hands clenching in time with her throbbing ankle.

"You're funny. Now sit up. We need to keep your heart above the wound."

Mason obeyed, glancing at Ava, who was thankfully still sleeping but would probably need to be fed in an hour or so.

"What now?"

"Well, ain't no hospitals around to treat you with antivenom, but I got a good look at the bite. I have a feeling it's semi-dry."

"…Meaning?"

"It didn't inject a lot of venom. Even if it did, there's not much to do but wait. You just have to let it pass through your system. Best thing is to keep hydrated, but I got plenty of water. You'll be just fine."

Mason narrowed her eyes. "You sound real confident about that."

Coyote winked. "I'm a confident gal."

~m~

The first two days were hell. Mason was already so weary from the journey, the venom took hold of her and shook her like a ragdoll. The world became a whirl of sweat and vomit and aching. Sleep was her only respite, though even that was fitful. Coyote took over most of the duties with Ava, which Mason appreciated, but it still made her anxious to be unconscious for any of them.

Terrible nightmares plagued her. She dreamed of people dancing around her in the dark, wearing the faces of animals, eyes bloody and moon-wide. Sometimes she woke before they reached her. Sometimes they grabbed her and threw her on a fire, and they hooted like wild dogs as she turned to ash.

But one night, in the middle of this burning, she heard a voice. Just a barest whisper, she couldn't make out who it might be, but it soothed her instantly. Her body relaxed, and suddenly it wasn't flames around her but the ocean, and stars.

"Come home, May," the voice whispered, and it didn't make sense, but it filled her with peace anyway.

She awoke that third morning, startled by the absence of misery. It was like the venom had just…dropped off. Her eyes immediately darted to Ava, asleep in a box Coyote had brought back from her own camp.

Her own camp. Mason had been too ill to question her much about that, but today was as good as any.

"Hey, you look better," Coyote said, looking up from a campfire over which she was cooking a handful of small eggs.

"I feel better," Mason replied and nodded toward Ava. "Thanks for taking care of her while I was puking my guts out."

"Of course. Children are our future, right?"

"Um, right. So the other day, you mentioned you had a camp…?"

"I do, yes, but I'm afraid I can't take you there just yet."

Mason frowned. "Why not? Wouldn't I heal up better somewhere safer?"

Coyote didn't answer. She licked her lips, hovering over the eggs like a hungry cat. "Eggs are my favorite, you know. Sometimes I just eat eggs for every meal of the day. Well, back when they were easier to come by. I miss grocery stores."

Mason stifled an irritable twinge. "Yeah, me, too. Why can't we go to your camp? I'm not…"

Dangerous, she was going to say. But she was.

"I'm not planning on hurting you or anyone you're with," she said. "Especially since you helped me. So—"

"We gotta make sure you're all healed up first," Coyote cut in, a new edge to her cheerful voice. "Can't have you dyin' in the middle of camp. Then it wouldn't matter whether you intended to hurt us or not."

Mason stilled. "What do you mean?" But in the back of her mind, she saw that corpse at the Oasis. No bite marks.

Coyote's eyes widened. "You don't know? When you die, you turn. Even if you ain't bit. We're all infected by whatever this is."

Horror slid into her belly, but a part of her wasn't surprised. She nodded slowly.

"Well, that's…a bit of a bummer."

"It's alright once you get used to it. We still take precautions, though. If someone dies, we always like to know exactly where they are. Drink your water. You gotta stay hydrated."

~m~

She was getting real sick of lying in the same spot all day, and even sicker of the strange way Coyote treated her. The cryptic comments she made, doting on her in tones too saccharine to believe. But if she had ulterior motives, Mason couldn't figure out what they might be. She seemed devoted to helping her and Ava, though…

Mason didn't like the way she looked at Ava. With intensity, reverence, like she was some kind of golden calf. But perhaps Mason was just being paranoid. Perhaps Coyote was just an oddball who wished she had kids of her own. Plus, she couldn't deny it was nice to have company that didn't have to scream her head off to communicate.

"How ya feelin'?" Coyote asked on the sixth evening, as she always did after dinner.

Whoever she was with, there were enough of them that they didn't seem to be hurting for food. Mason was fairly certain Coyote went back to them whenever Mason was asleep to replenish supplies, and she might've resolved to follow her, but she'd have to bring Ava, who couldn't exactly be trusted as a spy.

"Really good," Mason said, and she did. There was a faint headache that persisted, and sometimes if she let her belly get too empty, the nausea returned. But overall, she was healing up nicely.

Coyote's eyes gleamed. "Yeah? That's great! I knew you'd be a strong one the minute I saw you. And so brave, too, puttin' yourself in harm's way for the little darling. That's what I told Our Great Keeper, because he's very choosy, you know, about who we recruit."

Mason stared, one hand hovering over her water bottle. Our Great Keeper?

"But I described you to him, and I said I had a feelin', this divine somethin', yes, tellin' me you were a real prize." Coyote nodded zealously. "I won him over, obviously. That's why he let me give you copperhead. I wanted to test you, but I also wanted you to survive."

Realization dawned on Mason like a final shadow eclipsing the moon. Her stomach churned, though not from the aftereffects of the venom.

A twig cracked behind her. She jumped, placing herself near Ava's makeshift crib. Two figures appeared from the twilight haze on either side, hoods drawn up over their heads so that their faces were in shadow.

"Oh, no, no." Coyote reached out like she might embrace Mason. "Don't be afraid. Nature willed you to survive. There is nothing for you to fear anymore. You can join us."

"And what if I say no?" Mason drew her fire poker up, comforted by its familiar weight, though she found herself wishing for that automatic rifle. Her heart hammered in her throat. She tasted bile at the back of her tongue.

"Why would you say no? We can offer you security and companionship. Family. I kinda broke the rules for you, that's how much I think you'd fit in here. I wasn't supposed to help you quite so much. But we're all human."

"You—you fucking poisoned me. You put a snake in my camp, you could've killed Ava!"

The rage built fast, a frightening pressure threatening to crack her ribs. She trembled with it.

"It's okay," Coyote said. "If she's anything like you, she'll survive, too."

The tiniest twitch was her only warning. The shadow on her left, moving quickly. She raised her iron, and it sank deep in something, but she couldn't be sure what. A boot swung heavily into her chin. She thought it was probably meant for her head, but she'd moved enough that it missed.

Still, the force sent her tumbling to the side, and Coyote was on her before she could recover. She straddled Mason's waist, pinning her arms to the dirt.

"Hold still. You'll wanna see this."

The other shadow was approaching Ava's box, holding a length of rope.

No. Not rope. A snake. A big, wicked-looking one; its tail lashed, emitting an ominous rattle.

Panic stole the breath from Mason's lungs. "Get away from her," she choked out.

"Nature is reclaiming the world," Coyote said. "The risen dead are just the start. We are subject to its will, and only those that can serve that will are allowed to go on."

The figure knelt before Ava's crib. Violence flooded Mason's veins.

"Get away from her!"

She twisted, one leg hitching around Coyote's knee to knock her off balance, and slammed her elbow into Coyote's face. Freed, Mason surged to her feet and barreled into the figure, grabbing their wrist so the snake wouldn't go flying.

They landed in a heap a few feet from Ava's crib. The rattlesnake lay half-pinned under the figure's arm. Seething, Mason grabbed them by the back of the neck and shoved their face within striking distance.

The snake took the bait, injured and pissed off as it was. It struck twice, and the figure screamed, bucking Mason off.

Fury sent her straight back to her feet, this time toward the other figure. A man; his hood had fallen down in their earlier scuffle. He was clutching his thigh, bleeding from the puncture wound her iron had left.

She didn't bother picking up her weapon. She launched herself at him, hands wrapping around his throat. He struggled, kicking his legs and beating at her arms, but she held on tight, digging her nails in until blood beaded out.

She held on until his body slumped, eyes glazing. Then she whipped her head around, teeth bared in a snarl, searching for any sign of Coyote.

But she was gone. Escaped while Mason was otherwise occupied. The snake, too, had made its escape. Only the other figure remained, hands clapped against their face, sniveling as they rolling from side to side on the ground.

Mason retrieved her iron and strode toward them. She propped one foot on their chest, pressing them into the ground.

"Hold still," she growled, and ignored their pleas as she drove the poker through their head.

She might've stood there forever, frozen as the rage and adrenaline drained all the way to her feet, left cold in the absence, if Ava hadn't stirred.

Mason staggered over and collapsed next to her crib. "Baby girl," she croaked. "Are you okay?"

She leaned in closer to ascertain Ava hadn't been harmed in the scuffle, running one hand over her wispy black hair. As she did, Ava blinked and smiled, letting out a happy gurgle.

Mason huffed a laugh, or maybe it was a sob. It was Ava's first smile. Her first real smile, in the middle of all this.

"C'mere, baby girl," she mumbled, cradling Ava in her arms. She swayed gently back and forth, placing a kiss on Ava's head. "That's my pretty girl."

It took her a while. But holding Ava kept her from disintegrating completely.

"We can't stay here," she said eventually. Her voice was unrecognizable. She wondered if she'd know herself in a reflection. But they couldn't stay. Coyote and her people could be back here any minute.

And so, once again, Mason gathered up all she could carry, tucked Ava into her sling, and started walking.

~m~

Sometimes she stopped. She didn't count the days anymore, but it was harder to ignore the seasons. She made her home in the gutted remains of convenience stores and on rooftop terraces, sometimes for entire seasons, sometimes just for portions of those. When it was time to move on, she didn't try for another car. She just walked.

Ava grew. Babies changed a lot in a short amount of time, Mason learned, and she found that each transition left her feeling both sad and proud. Soon Ava was walking on her own, and spouting babble that Mason learned to interpret ("oh chit" were her first words, in response to Mason spilling an entire can of beans on herself).

Mason sang for her and scavenged toys and thought up stories to tell her. She even managed to scout out a portable solar charger for her iPod; Ava soon had favorite songs she demanded they listen to every night. Her smiles and laughter kept Mason grounded.

But outside of their little familiar bubble, Mason felt the world encroaching. She stayed far away from people now, going out of her way to avoid them even if it meant a whole day figuring out a new route. Of course, she saw them less and less; the dead were more prevalent. And though she hated seeing them, at least they were getting easier to deal with.

She thought perhaps she was sinking. Depression was certainly no stranger, but it seemed this time it had cast new legs and was stalking her through the flatlands and woods, the summers and winters. It hovered over her shoulder anytime she had to dispatch the undead, reminding her that that wasn't all she could do.

She didn't think she was going to be okay, even if they reached Virginia.

It was winter when she crossed the border into Georgia. The south had the same unpleasant, middle-of-the-road chill that California had this time of year, and she found herself wishing for the bitter winters of Kansas. At least that felt real. At least when you shivered, it was what you deserved.

She avoided Atlanta, which wasn't difficult; she spotted its skyline several miles away. There likely weren't people there, which was her main concern, but she remembered the bodies in L.A., stumbling about, reclaiming their city.

It was shaping up to be a wet, miserable day, although Ava seemed excited. For some reason Mason could not understand, she enjoyed gray, rainy days. All they ever seemed to do for Mason was bring down her mood. Still, she let Ava play a bit in the puddles before drying her off and scooping her back into her sling.

"No!" Ava pouted. "I walk!"

"Not today, missy," Mason replied.

Ava scrunched her nose in an adorable rendition of a snarl, which Mason was able to tickle away pretty easily. Hopefully there wouldn't be any tantrums.

The sky overhead darkened, brewing up something cold and violent. Ava watched the clouds roll in, enthralled. They would have to find shelter soon.

It appeared in the form of a short, grimy bus, parked in the woods but just a few yards from a highway. Mason wasn't too thrilled at the proximity to the road, but the other option was fashioning a tent out of tree limbs, and she was getting tired of that.

"What do you think, baby girl?" Mason asked, turning so Ava could get a better glimpse.

"Big car," Ava said, clearly more interested in the sky.

"It's a bus," Mason said and drew her fire poker. She and Ava both had gotten used to clearing cars and buildings, since Mason always had to carry her inside on these errands, but it didn't stop the pinch of fear as she stepped inside.

The bus was empty. Musty from disuse, with kudzu climbing the windows and speckling everything with shadows. With a sigh of relief, Mason slid out from the supplies on her back and rolled her neck from side to side, hoping to work out the kinks.

A scream, brief but close. Mason stiffened, iron coming up defensively. She couldn't have people around.

Ava held Mason closer. Mason hid her more completely among the layer of clothes she wore before venturing outside. She would go see what was going on, figure out if she needed to move or…take care of the situation.

Icy rain began to fall as she ran. The telltale snarl of the dead led her to a ravine, and at first all she saw were them, piled against a fallen tree. But then she spotted a pretty young woman, scrambling backward in the water, trying to shake the corpse attached to her ankle. Her blond hair was stained with mud and blood, her eyes wide and panicked.

Mason didn't see anyone else. That made it easier. She wouldn't even have to do it herself. The dead served their purpose sometimes.

But her stomach twisted as she turned away, and she found she couldn't take that first step away from the woman.

Just go. Let the dead have her.

She hovered uncertainly. Killing someone in self-defense, to protect her own…that was one thing. Leaving someone to the dead…

Will's body flashed in her mind. Nick, Naomi, Gina. She closed her eyes like that might block out the image, but of course it didn't.

Ava squirmed, one little hand gripping the nape of Mason's neck. "Macie," she whimpered and pointed toward the ravine. "Help. She go uh oh."

Mason swallowed. "I can't—" But could she leave?

Ava kept pointing. "She need Macie."

From behind, the woman let out a sound. Not quite a scream, but full of terror nonetheless.

Mason sagged, rolling her eyes to the sky.

Aw, fuck me.

And against her better instincts, turned back to help.

A/N: So a few things. This will NOT be the last we hear of Coyote and her weirdo cult. Also, there are two quotes from the Oasis, the "If they no longer exist to feel loss..." and "I don't have to keep trying..." ones, that come from Welcome to Night Vale, my very favorite episode entitled "WALK" (which I highly recommend listening to. Actually, I highly recommend listening to the whole show, but...lol) WTNV is just something I always associate with the Oasis, partially because they both take place in the desert but also because of the whole...ethereal, odd aspect. Anyway, I know this chapter focused mainly on Mason and Ava's journey, but the next chapter will include Beth in that, which I hope y'all will enjoy. Until then, much love! xoxo