Cascade Collection

by Phil Maxey

  “Anyway, I’m tired, I think I’m going to have a sleep. I’ll leave the vouchers here.” She placed the ration book on the table and wandered back into the bedroom, closing the door.

  Jacob turned on the TV. Surprisingly it sprang to life, showing a cartoon. “Well, I guess I was wrong.”

  Zach walked over to the window and pulled back the curtain. It was impossible to see much of the camp beyond just the windows of the tower next to them. He started to feel the closeness of the walls around him. Closing his eyes, he tried to calm his heartbeat, but it was no good and he could feel sweat building on his forehead. “I’m going to take that bike for a spin, maybe see if I can find us some food,” he said. Jacob just looked at him and smiled.

  Bringing the bike down the block’s stairs, Zach was glad they were only on the second floor. The young guys sitting outside had gone, and all around him was only the sound of the wind blowing around the base of the blocks. Without the other buildings to block his view he could see that they were actually on top of a small hill, which allowed him to see some distance to the west. The silver-grayness of walls glistened in the distance, and between were a myriad of small towns with buildings at various heights. There were also the gun towers, almost as high as the block he had just left, with large gun emplacements on top. A man came out of the opposite tower block. Zach waved to him but the man didn’t see.

  “Hey!” shouted Zach. Still the man carried on walking.

  “Hey, bro you needing something?” A young man appeared behind Zach startling him.

  “I’m good,” said Zach, but then continued, “actually where the hell does anyone use these?” Zach held up the ration book. The young guy looked intently at the rations.

  “You sure got a lot there, you want to sell them?”

  “I want to use them. Where’s the grocery shop around here?” said Zach. The young guy looked Zach up and down.

  “You an army guy or something?”

  Zach ignored the question and got on the bike. He hadn’t been on one since he was a kid, and wobbled slightly, but soon was moving down the new sidewalk trying to figure out which direction to go in.

  After riding for a few minutes down a hill, he came across a forecourt with some stores. One of them had a grocery sign above it and standing in front of it were a few hundred people. Zach sighed, and wheeled his bike over.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  By the time Zach got back to the apartment, the sun was setting. He opened the door to the sound of laughter. Jacob was still sitting on the same chair, while Abbey was sitting on the sofa with an elderly woman. On the table near the window were a few plates with leftover food.

  “Hey, where did you go?” Abbey sounded anxious.

  Zach placed the bike up against the wall. “Lots of people waiting to get food.” He took his backpack off.

  “Yes, it’s always best to go very early in the morning, I try to get down there before 8 a.m. Otherwise I’ll starve,” said the elderly lady.

  “This is Janice. She lives across the hall. She’s been telling us how she got here,” said Abbey.

  Zach smiled, it was good to see Abbey happy. She always struck him as someone with a lot of self-belief but over the past twenty-four hours, that belief took some beating.

  “Good to meet you.” Zach opened his backpack and emptied it on the floor. “Do you need anything from this stuff?”

  “Oh I like him,” said Janice, laughing while holding Abbey’s arm. Zach looked awkwardly at Abbey and her new friend.

  “Ha, well…”

  An air-raid sounding siren boomed out filling the air. Zach ran to the window. In the onset of the night sky, searchlights strafed left and right.

  Janice stood up. “Oh no, sorry I have to go.”

  “What’s happening?” said Abbey.

  “One of those things is over the wall.” The word ‘things’ almost sticking in her throat. “We might have to go to a shelter, please I have to go.”

  A ringing sound rang out from inside the apartment. They all froze. It sounded like an old telephone and was coming from inside a small chest of drawers near the TV.

  “You have a telephone? Nobody in this block has a telephone,” said Janice bemused and disappointed.

  “What…we..” Stuttered Abbey.

  Zach opened the drawer and picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

  “Is this Zachariah Felton?”

  “Yes, who is this?”

  “This is the council, you and the rest of your group are required at the Core. A car will be there shortly to pick you up.” The person then hung up.

  Zach slowly put the receiver down. “Someone’s coming to pick us up.” He looked at Janice. “What’s the Core?”

  “I really must be going, please all of you be safe. Goodnight,” said Janice closing the apartment door behind her.

  Zach quickly refilled his backpack with its early contents.

  “Best take some supplies with you in your backpacks, we don’t know what the hell this ‘Core’ is.” Zach then checked the clip on his gun, and told the others to do the same. Shortly afterwards a knock came at the apartment door. Zach opened it to reveal a man in his early twenties in military uniform.

  “Are you…” said the young man.

  “Yes I’m Zach, what the hell’s going on? Are there creatures over the wall?”

  “Please, all of you come with me.”

  They all filed down the stairs and into the car. Streetlights stretched in all directions as the car sped along deserted highways, eventually pulling up to a checkpoint then onto a brightly lit area, with a small building. Getting out of the car the soldier hurried them along into the small building and down some steps to an elevator. Zach felt tense and the quick glances he got of Abbey he could see she felt the same way. Even though it felt like a lifetime since they were imprisoned in that pit in New Mexico, being in a confined space somehow felt right to them and that in turn made them feel ill. Standing in the silence of the elevator Abbey grabbed Zach’s hand.

  The door opened to a small dull corridor, with people rushing left and right. The soldier walked them to the end of the corridor and opened a secure looking door, which was guarded by two more soldiers. A cacophony of sound hit them immediately.

  Row after row of desks, each with a person busy either looking at a computer screen or talking on a headset. All the desks were arranged to point towards the right where stood a wall full of more screens, easily thirty-feet high. General Trow was standing next to a tall thin man in his fifties, and a stout woman of similar age. Both dressed formally. Standing near one of the desks was Cal and Fiona.

  The general noticed them entering and walked over. “Welcome to the Core. I was hoping to introduce you to this place tomorrow, but needs must as they say. We call it the Core…well for obvious reasons, it’s our central base of operations. From here we monitor the one hundred and sixty miles of wall, and with our UAV’s miles beyond. We still miss things though, like the day you arrived in Crow Lake.”

  “Why are the air-raid sirens going?” said Zach.

  “Because we are about to be attacked on the east wall.” General Trow then put her hand to her earpiece. After replying to something asked of her, she continued, drawing their attention to one of the large screens. “Here’s a view from one of UAV’s above the E.L.F’s.”

  The screen showed hundreds of winged serpent-like creatures, flying in formation.

  “What were they before?” said Abbey.

  “We have given up trying to guess that, they are what they are now, that’s what matters,” replied General Trow, who then held her earpiece again. “Don’t engage them until they are two hundred yards out, we don’t want them dispersing. Over.”

  “Why are we here?” said Zach.

  “Each of you is high ranking in your field, and you have been out there surviving on your own since you got out, I need people like that trying to hold the line, and when the time is right pushing back.”

&n
bsp; A young-looking officer woman with two stars on her shoulder walked up to the general and told her the E.L.F’s are three minutes out.

  “This is Major General Garland, she’s my second in command,” said Trow.

  Garland smiled. “I suggest you find yourselves somewhere to sit, it might be a long night. And if you have any useful suggestions, feel free to voice them.” The general then walked off with Garland to join the two formally dressed individuals.

  Cal and Fiona joined Zach and the others and sat down against the wall, feeling that taking chairs would be just getting in the way. After a few minutes, the sound in the large cavernous room dropped to a hush and they listened in on the soldiers who were on the wall, manning the anti-aircraft guns and desperately trying to ‘hold the line’ as Trow said.

  A handful of the creatures did make it over the wall and into the northeast quadrant, only to be brought down by one of the gun towers. Their bodies flailing in the air and crashing into cars and buildings on the ground. After two hours the air-raid siren had stopped.

  General Trow walked over to them clearly tired but still full of resistance. “We think that’s all for tonight, but you can never be sure. My driver will take you back to your homes, but I’ll need you all back at zero-eight hundred hours for a proper debriefing.”

  As Zach was leaving, he stopped and turned back to General Trow.

  “The two people I saw you with earlier, they officials or something?”

  She smiled. “They were members of the ruling council, they take care of civilian matters in the camp.”

  Zach nodded and left.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  On their second trip to the Core, Zach noticed that its entrance was actually the opening to an old cave system. After descending in the elevator he, Abbey and Jacob were taken to a waiting room where Fiona, Cal and Michael were already seated.

  “Hey man, good to see you,” said Michael as Zach appeared.

  This had been the first morning since leaving the hole in New Mexico when Zach was able to do some kind of fitness routine. He hadn’t wanted to do it, but he needed the structure, it was the only thing he missed from his years incarcerated.

  “I’m good, how’s life with the parents?”

  “Some things never change,” replied Michael smiling “Any idea why we are here?”

  “None.” Zach and the others sat down. A door opened and out came a well-kept woman in her thirties.

  “Ah, good you are all here. Major McCain will see Mr. Rodriguez first.”

  Cal took a quick glance at the others, then got to his feet, disappearing through the door.

  “Please take a seat,” said a guy in his forties, with mostly gray hair and a stubbly square jaw. Cal sat down.

  “I am Major McCain, but you can call me Jim, at least for the next twenty minutes before you get reinstated.”

  On the desk was a plethora of forms, with important sounding headings. Cal looked at them, then looked back up to the major.

  “Yeah, it’s just a shit ton of words which basically say if you go loco while on duty you will be executed,” said McCain with a smile on his face. He then opened a folder and dropped it on the desk in front of Cal. “This is the report of what you did in Kandahar. Twenty-four citizens in three minutes, that’s some impressive shooting. The kind of shooting I need taking out the things which believe they now rule the planet.” The major opened a packet of cigarettes and offered one to Cal who refused. Lighting one up, he continued. “The world has literally come to an end and my wife is still on at me about smoking. But anyway, where was I. Oh right, yeah so you put your John Hancock where the X is, and you will be given a full pardon and reinstated at your previous rank,” said the major leaning forward with a pen.

  “No.” Cal got up and left the room.

  The door in the waiting room opened and Cal came out looking at the others. “We need to discuss some stuff, somewhere private, not here.”

  Walking down some nondescript corridors they eventually found a room with some chairs in it that might in a previous life have been a classroom.

  “What do we need to discuss?” said Abbey.

  “They are offering us a pardon and reinstatement, but if we go along with that, we all get split up, we end up in different units, it’s like the last few days never happened,” said Cal, pacing around. The others found some chairs and sat. “We survived because we worked together. We were in solitary for all those years, but we went through the same shit, before and after.”

  “So what you saying?” said Fiona.

  “He’s saying we tell them we form out own unit,” said Zach, smiling.

  “Fuck yeah!” shouted Michael, who then realized that was maybe not the best response. “I mean that’s a good idea.”

  “Why would they give us that?” said Abbey.

  “They need people who get the job done, and I’ve only been in this camp for two days but it’s already obvious that the situation is just one E.L.F. attack away from going to hell… and Trow seems a reasonable woman.”

  “My grandma always used to say ‘No harm in trying,’” said Jacob.

  They all agreed and started making their way back to the waiting room, when an agitated young officer ran into them.

  “Major McCain is freaking out, he wants all of you back there now.” Following the officer back, McCain was waiting.

  “You do realize that without a pardon I could throw all of you back into prison, right? We do have them here.”

  “I need to talk to General Trow,” said Zach.

  The major was about to reply when General Trow appeared from the corridor, causing him to instantly salute.

  “At ease, Major. I hear your latest recruits went AWOL before they were even… signed up.”

  McCain went to reply, but again was stopped.

  “We need to talk,” said Zach. The general showed Zach into McCain’s office and closed the door.

  “This is a good deal you are being offered Zach.”

  “I know and we appreciate it, but I don’t think it’s making the best use of our talents.” Zach then proceeded to tell the general some of the events of the past few days, and how they managed to survive, apart from the loss of Ray. “If you want us to be the most effective then let us do what we were already doing. You said last night you wanted to push back, let us do the pushing.”

  “The council wants you split up, they think you are a threat to the people behind the wall and looking at all of your crimes I can understand why,” said Trow sitting on the edge of the desk.

  “We know the things out there, use us to help find other survivors, and bring them into the camp, that way we are not behind the walls.”

  The general looked down and sighed. “I guess it would be a solution. And we do need a team out there. Okay, then if that’s what you all want. You will all still need to sign these papers though,” said the general holding up a form. “And you even want the cook?”

  “We all got to eat right?”

  Zach and the general appeared from the room, shaking hands. The group sat all looking up at Zach.

  “What’s the plan?” said Fiona.

  “Looks like we are putting the band back together,” said Zach, smiling. “Let’s get some air.”

  “Jacob, can I have a moment with you.” It was said more as a statement than a question. The others looked at each other, but Jacob dutifully got to his feet and went into the room.

  “I’ll send him along in a bit,” said General Trow, smiling, then closing the door.

  After a short ride to the surface, they walked out of the small building which they could now see was a former gift shop, and into the winter sun. Small patches of ice clung to leaves and some of the ground glistened.

  Zach explained the agreement he had come to with the general.

  “So you want us to go back out?” said Michael.

  “I do, but it’s up to you. If you stay the general tells me you will still be pardoned and reinst
ated, but you will be assigned an appropriate unit inside the walls,” said Zach, leaning up against a wall.

  “Fuck,” replied Michael. “My mom’s not going to take this well.”

  “So a slave for the man in here or a slave for the man out there,” said Abbey.

  “There are people out there that could do with our help. Being behind these walls, it just feels…” said Zach.

  “Like you’re still locked away,” said Jacob, walking up to them.

  “Yup. What did the general want?”

  “Oh just wanted some good old fashioned police advice. I know about the agreement you came to, and I know I’m old but if you want me I’m in.”

  Zach went to reply, but Fiona started talking.

  “Someone told me it’s Christmas day in a few weeks’ time.” She looked off into the distance, her breath taking form in front of her.

  “Oh… your daughter. I’ll understand if you want to stay.”

  “I’ll give you my answer tomorrow night,” said Fiona walking off to the nearby waiting driver.

  Zach looked at the others.

  “If you’re in, then we might as well get those forms signed, I’ll pick up Fiona’s at the same time.”

  On their way back to Block 59, Zach, Abbey and Jacob drove through a bustling street market. The car slowed to a crawl due to the number of people in front of it.

  “Because there are no big stores anymore, most people buy what they want from street markets like this one… although there are rumors the council will be clamping down on them soon,” said the driver.

  Looking like a cross between a Moroccan Bazaar and a flea market, products old and new jostled for space amongst the hordes of people. Zach noticed Abbey was wide-eyed and smiling at the scene around them.

  “Hey, wait up,” said Zach, leaning forward then turning to Abbey. “Let’s get out. Jacob we’ll be back later.” The car stopped and Zach and Abbey climbed out into the throng.

  “You know how to get back?” said Abbey.

  “No idea,” he replied as he took her hand.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX