The rest of the ride was quite awkward with three people on a single motorcycle but I somehow managed to hold on.
After four hours of holding on for dear life we finally reached the farm where Jones' family was, they went outside as soon as they could hear the loud motorcycle. We parked it near the house and before I could get off the people already swarmed Jones.
"Dad! I'm so glad you finally made it back, that vacation to New York really came at a bad time." He looked at us for a while. "Who are these two? Wait... Don't tell me you actually had a second family so that is why you went there... Tell me, dad! Tell me!"
"Calm down you clown, I just stumbled upon these two along the road, and I already told you that the trip was for my speech about war, you son of a bitc..."
"Whoa there, dad. You're really going to speak like that in front of the kids? Shame on you."
"You damn! Hah... You're right, my apologies."
"Sooo... What are your names?"
"My name is Jack."
"I am Emma." She said in a low tone.
"Nice to meet you, my name is Robert. I'm this brute's son, glad to have you here."
After Robert finished his introduction another man cleared his throat and got our attention.
"Name's Kenny. This here is my wife, Olivia." Kenny was almost as tall as Jones but his hair wasn't as white, his face had some wrinkles but you could barely notice them and he was rocking a mustache that suits him very well. He was wearing some kind of coveralls and a cap witch were fortified with leather.
On the other hand Olivia seemed to be in her thirties, she had a beautiful face and a very warm atmosphere surrounding her. She was wearing a casual dress that accentuated her curves that was way more relaxed than what the others were wearing.
"Where's dad?" Jones asked Kenny.
"He's in the house. Go say hi to him, he's been waiting for you. We'll show the kids around." He complied and went inside the red painted house.
"Come on guys, it's pretty rare that we get guests here, there isn't really much to show, right there is the barn, it also doubles as a garage since we don't have any animals right now." He pointed to a building 50 meters away. "That's it, I think..."
"How about we go inside and I make you some tea? You kids must be tired from the road." Olivia proposed.
"That would be lovely." Said Emma, I just nodded and we went inside.
The door opened to the kitchen where Jones and his father were sitting. They noticed us and we got introduced to Henry. He told us some stories and I found out he's from England and that Jones and Kenny are brothers.
We drank the tea Olivia made and had some more small talk and soon enough it was bedtime.
Robert showed us to our room which was in the attic, it was spacious and was actually really clean.
"Sorry guys, but you're going to have to share the attic, we don't have any more rooms in the house, good night!"
"Good night!"
"Night!"
He left and the room turned to an awkward silence, I was scratching my head for things to say and I really wanted to know more about magic but words just wouldn't come out of my mouth.
"Soo... Emma. Can you do magic?"
"...Yes. I am a witch, and... that's kind of what we do. Do you want me to show you a trick?"
"Could you? That would be awesome!"
"Hehe" She got a book from a shelf nearby and set it on the ground, she had this really concentrated face on but the book was barely moving.
"Maybe you have to cast a spell or something?"
"Hmph! It's just that this book is too heavy. I'll get another one."
She then returned to the shelf and picked a really small prayer book for kids, she again set it on the floor and got really concentrated then *whoosh* the book was flying around like a plane.
"Wooow, that's so cool! Can you teach me how to do it too?"
"Maybe... I'll think about it." She had a really smug grin on her face that she was unable to wash away however much she tried.
"Cool!"
Emma made the small book fly back in it's place on the shelf as I stared in awe, I really couldn't tell how she was doing it. I wondered day and night how she did it and I would ask her to teach me how to do it for the next three years.
Life was good on the farm, the adults got a little farm going on where we would get a lot of fresh vegetables, they got some animals too and we were really stockpiled on resources, we had an abundance of cans, candy and really anything that wouldn't go bad really fast.
On one of his supply runs, Kenny brought back a small hunting dog that no one else would play with except me and Emma. I named him Ray, he was a really good boy and really liked to run after my bike when I would sneak out to the small town 1 mile away to get comic books from the store, although my runs there got fewer and fewer as I already read everything there.
After I read everything there I kind of graduated to books and started with classics like "Lord of the flies" and "Moby Dick" and after a while I amassed quite a collection, the books wouldn't even fit on the shelf anymore.
Emma was already reading books since we met so when she saw me take an interest in them too our relationship grew closer everyday and now we were really close friends.
Life was beautiful... but the monsters never left, did they?
Sooner or later the food, the water and even the oil will run out so we will be forced to scavenge further away where the danger was bigger but the rewards were also better, but that day hasn't come yet, and I hope it never does.