Smokey mellowed out as we travelled. By lunchtime, Diane no longer had to hold his lead line. Diane showed me some of her speed and strength. It was quite impressive really, in short bursts of speed she almost blurred since she moved so fast. She said that the really high speeds burned her muscles though, so she didn't do it very often.

We made a camp in a baseball diamond and hung up a pair of hammocks from the tall backdrop. Good thing that I had learned to nap in a hammock in basic Forager training. I gathered firewood as that had become my routine while Diane prepped our supper. Diane always managed to find a huge selection of greens and I stuffed lots of them onto my plate with some smoked rabbit and flatbread.

Diane pulled out her map again and gazed at it while eating. I took a sip of my tea to clear my throat, "What are you thinking about?"

She continued to stare at the map, "If we travel at the same speed we did yesterday then we should be able reach a village about mid-afternoon."

A village? As in a place with people? I was really enjoying our traveling the last three days, I didn't want a bunch of strangers to disturb this newfound peace. I frowned slightly in concern, "Are we running out of something?"

Diane glanced over at me idly, "Not really, unless you want something in particular. We can probably trade pretty easily for it."

In that case, I really didn't want to stop. I remembered the village we stopped at with the Traders where several locals had tried to convince me to stay there. I didn't want to go through that again in case someone tried to force me to stay. I didn't think that Diane would allow that to happen, but I didn't want to take any chances. Besides, if we stopped anywhere, Diane wouldn't be so relaxed and open around strangers. That didn't take my shyness and nervousness around strangers into account either.

I fiddled with a piece of flatbread, "If we don't need anything, can we just keep going without stopping?"

She turned her head as her bright blue eyes examined me in curiosity. After a few moments, she spoke softly, "You don't want to stop there for the night?"

I nodded, unsure of how to explain why I would rather camp above zombies instead of inside of a zombie-proofed village.

Her eyes never left me. I had a feeling that she somehow understood my unspoken concern. She tilted her head slightly in inquiry, "Can I ask why?"

I dropped my gaze to my plate as I struggled to explain my feelings. I didn't like strangers and didn't trust them. I didn't want to see her carefree manner disappear after only seeing it for three days. I knew she would be more concerned for my safety than anything else.

I spoke slowly, tentatively feeling my way through my explanation while watching her reaction, "We don't need anything and we don't have anything that we are trying to trade. I don't want to stay inside those walls alone when you have to leave to run. I would rather camp out here with you than sleep in one of those places."

I watched her hopefully as she considered my words. She slowly nodded, "If we don't need anything and you don't want to sleep there, then we can bypass the villages. Our journey will go faster as well. If we meet someone on the road and they welcome us in for a meal, then it is only polite to visit for a bit. I can take you outside of the walls when I leave, if you want. When we get closer, we will have to approach a few places, especially to see if we can get directions."

Yes! It worked! I did not want to be in any village if she was outside of the walls. I nodded happily, "Thank you. I would like you to take me outside of the walls when you go out. We can always camp not far from a village and visit them in the morning and continue on later."

She nodded easily, "We can try that and see how it works."

That was one thing I loved about Diane, if I had any concern she would always listen. Often she was aware of it and she either had a good reason for what she was doing or she would come up with several possible solutions.

She turned back to the map and tilted her head as she traced her fingers over various routes, roads, and bridges as she now ignored the villages. She pulled out her compass and made some notes on some scrap paper. I dried the small pot we had boiled water in and packed it in the saddlebag. I packed everything up while Diane decided on a route, although there wasn't much to pack. We were traveling lightly.

Days turned into weeks and I loved every minute of it. We weren't rushing and often stopped for a swim in a lake. It was so fun, Diane would let me hang onto her shoulders while she dove under the water. I always ended up letting go to swim back up for air while she flaunted her ability to remain submerged for almost a minute at a time without running out of breath.

We occasionally stopped at abandoned towns to see the sights. I hadn't realized just how many towns had the world's biggest something or other. Diane had to explain to me what a chuckwagon was. She told me that much further south was a massive dinosaur you could actually climb inside to reach a platform.

We visited lots of the U-Pick berry farms and often stopped for a few minutes on scenery lookouts simply to enjoy the view. Everyday had something new to see and I tried to remember everything. I kind of wished I had a camera so I had an actual record...

I looked at the Connect Four game in my lap. I had figured out that Diane preferred to start off on the two spots on either side of the centre and build horizontally. With that in mind I dropped my yellow chip in one of those spots. Diane predictably chose the other spot and told me to drop her chip there.

I grinned as I tried to work on my strategy, every once in a while I actually managed to beat her without her letting me. More and more chips built up as we kept blocking the other person's progress. Sometimes the game came to a point where I had two different spots where there were three in a row and no matter where she dropped that chip, I managed to drop my on top of hers and get four in a row.

"I win!" I cheered enthusiastically as she chuckled in good humor. I put the game away. She stretched her arms as she glanced around. She suddenly swung up onto the saddle pad behind my saddle. Both Smokey and I jumped a bit in surprise.

I looked around quickly before spotting some people and horses in the distance. They weren't on the road, but resting along the tree line. I looked up at Diane who was watching them carefully, "I didn't think there were any villages near here."

Her eyes dimmed even as I watched her face, "Neither did I. We may have found some lone travelers or a place Dave wasn't aware of."

Her guard was back up. Her eyes weren't as dim as they usually were in the Fort, but their brightness was nowhere near as noticeable as it had been for the last two weeks. I passed her the reins and she slowed Smokey's easy trot to a walk.

We were close enough that I could see the three men were eating apples beneath an apple tree. It took them quite a while to notice us. One guy finally glanced in our direction, possibly hearing the hoof beats before pointing us out to his friends. I murmured softly, "They are not very observant, are they?"

Diane chuckled softly, "Apparently not."

We both fell silent as Smokey kept walking. The three men got to their feet in surprise. I had no clue how they hadn't noticed us considering we had been walking on the road. I could just imagine the words some of the Raider Group Leaders would have had for this unobservant bunch.

One guy was probably in his late twenties, he raised his hand in a wave and called out, "Hello! How are you doing?"

A big part of me wanted to hide behind Diane, I had been with just her for weeks now and my shyness had come back full strength. I leaned back into her slightly as I tried to remain still and avoid too much notice. It would be better if they focused on her and not me.

Part of me didn't like them simply because they had interrupted our great trip. I knew that thought wasn't nice, so I tried to squash it. Diane slowed Smokey even more, "Doing well enough. May I ask where you came from?"

The guy had reached the road and was just in front of us, "We come from a village about half an hour away. What about yourselves?"

"We are coming from the Wainwright Fort and we are looking for someone who is supposedly with a large band of survivors closer to the mountains." Diane brought Smokey to a stop as she spoke with him.

He nodded, "Would you like to stay the night with our village? It is getting late anyways. Our walls are strong enough to keep the zombies out."

No, no, no... This is exactly what I didn't want to happen... I kept a slight shy smile on my face, hiding my dismay. Diane considered it for a moment, "Thank you for your hospitality. I believe we shall accept and stay for the night."

The other two men had reached us now and passed the first guy the reins for his horse. I knew that their offer was typical for any village in the zombie world. Hospitality was almost guaranteed for a night or two.

The guy grinned as he mounted his horse, "Please follow us. I am Dan, and this is Jerry and Tom."

She nodded, "Thank you, I am Diane and this is Laura."

Their horses started walking beside us as they openly watched us. They seemed curious and excited, but also very confused. Diane started the conversation, "How large is the village?"

Dan responded, "About a dozen of us."

I blinked, how did a dozen people count as a village? It made no sense. I also couldn't figure out how such a small group survived the zombies.

Diane nodded, "What are the odds of us bartering some knowledge of local edible plants for some flour?"

I knew that our flour had been running low, so now I had a pretty good idea why Diane had accepted their offer to come so easily. She wanted to trade.

They were confused and didn't seem to know how to respond to her question. Dan eventually replied, "I am not sure, we would have to ask old Mike that one."

She nodded amiably, "Of course, it is an odd trade. I wasn't aware that there was a village here and we passed by several on our travels. Have you ever had any traders come through before?"

They looked a bit shocked, "We really haven't seen anyone since last year. How many other villages are there?"

Well, according to our map there wasn't supposed to be any village anywhere close to here. Perhaps they were unware of the other settlements.

Diane tilted her head as she examined them, "I am not aware of any in this immediate area, but we have passed at least four since we left Fort Wainwright. I know of at a least two dozen within a two month ride of the fort."

They looked at each other with big eyes. Jerry finally spoke up, "Wow. We have only seen two people so far and they stayed with our village."

They swiftly started asking Diane for more details as we continued to travel. They were very curious about anything she could tell them. They were getting more and more excited. I somehow suspected that they truly had not had any company since the zombies showed up.