by Maxey, Phil
By the time he had gotten to her, Michael and Bower were close behind him, and they all lifted her up and got her back to the vehicles. As they did Zach looked back to the splinted mast that Cal was kneeling on and saw his remains lying nearby.
Even though she was concussed she fought with them. Fought for her to go back and rescue Cal even though they all knew that wasn’t possible.
More tank shells rained down on the E.L.F and the huge ape-like creature collapsed backwards onto the ground, sending up a deluge of water from puddles and causing one final shake of the ground around them.
At that point they didn’t know if they had been spotted, so they hid, waiting for the same tank shells that had killed one of their own to fall upon them.
After ten or so minutes, the rumbling from the highway started again, and within twenty minutes the convoy had passed.
By now Fiona had become frantic and hysterical, and had to be restrained, as she still didn’t believe Cal was dead.
Shortly afterwards with the rain still falling in sheets and with the sun completely gone, they were back on the road, this time heading south on highway sixty-five.
Zach wasn’t sure of their destination, he just knew they had to keep moving. At least Camp Bravo knew what was heading their way, and would be at their walls in a day or two. Not being taken by surprise could mean thousands of people could be saved, but he wasn’t sure as he watched the highway flow past him if the sacrifice had been worth it.
He looked up at the mirror to see in the back behind him. Fiona was motionless, her eyes staring but not seeing.
Abbey flashed into his mind and his hand tightened around the wheel. Something was telling him she was still alive, still out there. But how do I find her? The plan had been to get to Columbus and hopefully he would find her there, regardless of what Bower had been told from Core operations. But now it was obvious Geneva was launching a major attack on the camp, and his orders were to return. They needed him. I don’t care.
He went to turn and say something to Cal who was meant to be standing behind him, but stopped. Shaking his head a little, he clicked on his radio. He needed something to break up the silence. “We should turn off to the west soon. Over.”
“I was thinking the same. Over,” replied Bower. There was a slight pause then he continued. “Hayes tells me if we get onto the eighty-four after this next town, that will run us pretty much parallel with the main route west, but be about a hundred miles south of the enemy. Over.”
“Okay, let’s do that. Over.”
Soon they had turned onto the much narrower road as planned. The trees were much closer, and every now and again the convoys headlights would reflect back at them from small ponds and lakes scattered throughout the landscape.
Zach looked up into the mirror again. Fiona’s eyes were closed. She’s asleep, that’s good.
As they moved through a small town, interspersed with high trees that looked down upon them and pretty wooden single story homes, Zach felt Wyatt’s unease to his right. “What is it?” he said looking at him.
“E.L.F’s up ahead.”
Zach clicked on his radio. “There’s E.L.F’s up ahead. Everyone slow. Over.”
He looked back at Wyatt. “Can you tell if they are moving? Heading towards us?”
Wyatt scrunched his face up. “I can’t tell. I have a headache. I dunno, maybe.”
“Maybe they are moving towards us?”
“Yeah.”
“Everyone stop. Over,” said Zach.
Zach pulled the map up that he had near his feet, and looked down upon it with a small flashlight in his hand. “There’s a decent sized river ahead of us, they are probably around there,” he said to not particularly anybody around him.
He heard Fiona swallow behind him and clear her throat. “Give me the map.”
Zach didn’t hesitate in handing it to her. He also went to hand her his flashlight then noticed she had her own.
“There’s no way to cross for miles, this is the only way across unless we go back the way we came,” she said in a slow steady tone.
“We passed some stores and a gas station just a few miles behind us, maybe we should—”
Zach didn’t need Wyatt to finish, as he wanted to take a break as much as the young man did. “Yup, that’s a good idea.” Zach then clicked on his radio. “We’re going to head back to one of those stores we past, and hold up until daybreak. Over.”
“Core wants us back a.s.a.p. Over,” said Bower.
“Core isn’t out here. We don’t know what’s in front of us, other than there’s something there. Let’s find out what it is when we can actually see it. Over.” If Cal had been with them, he might have been willing to risk it, but without him, the better option was to wait.
“Your call Major. Over.”
Slowly each vehicle turned and they drove a short way back along the road until a few buildings past them. One of them was larger than the rest and had a soft drinks machine outside. Zach pulled into the small packing lot out front. Before he had a chance to say anything, Fiona had gotten out. He quickly jumped out and ran around the front of the Humvee as she was walking away.
“Where you going?” he said trying to keep up with her as she walked across the road they had just driven in on.
“I need to be alone Zach.”
“We don’t know what’s out there, those E.L.F’s could—”
“I don’t care.”
Zach looked around nervously at the darkness around them, or worse still what their flashlights could be alerting to their presence.
“Look, I’m just going to be here,” she pointed her flashlight’s beam at a rundown looking small wooden house. “Get back to your people, they need you.”
Zach stopped and watched as she walked up onto the porch of the single story home, opened the door, disappeared inside and closed it behind her.
He took in a deep breath and realized his heart was beating fast in his chest. Turning around he realized everyone was standing looking at him.
He ran back to the vehicles. “Let’s get everyone inside,” he said pointing to the store just a few yards away.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
A few times throughout the night Zach got up and ventured the twenty or so yards across the parking lot, across the road and close to the house that Fiona had decided to escape to. The night had been cold, but he couldn’t feel it. His sleep had been in fits and starts, so when he was awake he thought he might as well make good use of the time to make sure she was safe. It’s what Cal would want.
As he lay, back up against an empty shelf unit, he could see the sun slowly rising, and the dark blue of the night sky slowly become tinged with pinks and oranges. At any other time it would have been a vision of hope, but that was something he was having a hard time holding onto.
Throughout the crazy last few months, Abbey had been his emotional crutch but Fiona was the person that would steady his thoughts. Gave him perspective. As he watched a single cloud float aimlessly across the sky, he knew that help was probably gone, along with the friend which had saved their asses on multiple occasions.
He swallowed and felt his throat tighten as tears started to well up in his eyes. Fuck this, need to stop this feeling sorry for myself bullshit.
He got to his feet and looked about him. It was then he noticed Bower was standing near the entrance looking out with a soda can in his hand.
“Despite the world being dead, the world keeps on turning,” said Bower, his gaze lost in the sky beyond the glass windows. He then turned to face Zach. “There’s a whole bunch of these sodas back there. Taste like cat piss, but it’s better than nothing.”
“Never took you for the philosopher,” said Zach.
Bower smiled. “The end of the world will do that to a man.”
They both heard a noise behind them, and Freeman appeared from the gloom at the back of the store. “Perimeter check completed. Seems clear around here, sir.”
“Goo
d work. Keep the patrols going, change shift every two hours.”
“Yes, sir,” said Freeman walking back from where he came.
Zach looked at Bower. “Thanks for keeping things afloat.”
“That’s my squad’s job,” he then nodded in the direction of the small house that Fiona was in. “She was close to the guy you lost I take it?”
Zach sighed. “Yeah.”
“It’s doubly hard losing someone in the middle of this shit storm. You get through the Cascade and feel you have won the lottery ticket of life, and then something else happens and you still lose.”
“How’d you end up in the camp?”
“I came in from the San Diego camp. Talking of shit storms…”
“I heard it was pretty bad down there?”
Bower crunched his can up with one hand and tossed it to the ground. “That it was.”
Zach noticed the older mans reluctance to go any further into it. “You up for a little scouting mission to the river?”
Bower smiled. “Thought you’d never ask.”
After they both informed their people of where they were going, they both left the mostly white painted building and jogged along the grass where it met the road. Corina Diaz was with them.
A large orange painted bridge was about two hundred yards away. Its riveted beams glinted in the morning sun. They all kneeled, keeping close to the tree line.
“Anything?” said Bower to Diaz.
She briefly closed her eyes. “Nope, nothing. Whatever was here last night has moved on.”
“Then what the hell are we waiting for, let’s get back on the road!” said Bower patting her on the back and standing.
As they approached the store, Zach looked at the small white paint chipped wood of where Fiona was staying. “I’ll be in soon, get everyone ready to move out in twenty.”
Diaz and Bower nodded and he took a deep breath, then walked slowly to the door of the small house.
He knocked gently. There was no audible reply but the door slowly drifted open.
He pushed it further. The interior of the house reflected the exterior, with decor that looked like it belonged to someone previously who had given up on life. A threadbare and stained sofa sat alongside an armchair and a television that looked like it belonged in the 1970s, and along the walls were a number of wooden enameled shelves with glass doors. They housed pictures of people who looked even older than the house.
“Fiona?” he said quietly not really wanting to wake her if she was asleep.
No response came back and his stomach started to fizz with the possibility that she had left during the night. I’m not losing both of them.
He walked onto exposed floorboards that creaked, until he was onto a worn red rug that ran into the small hallway. The door to the only bedroom was open and inside was Fiona. Not on the bed sleeping, but sat at the side of it, with her knees up against her chest.
Her cheeks glistened with fresh tears, and she looked straight ahead, not acknowledging he was even standing a few feet from her.
“Did you get any sleep?” he said.
“I’m not sure… maybe,” her words fell out of her mouth without any emotion.
Zach sat on the floor near her. Each time he went to say something, it felt wrong so instead they both sat in silence. After a few minutes, he could hear engines starting up in the stores parking lot. “We’re moving out. Whatever was at the river seems to have gone.” He slowly stood back up and waited.
“Give me a few minutes.”
He nodded and walked back outside. Most of the soldiers were ready with their packs.
As he walked inside the store to get his things, he passed Bower.
“She okay?”
“Got no idea. Is everyone ready?”
“Yes, sir.”
Zach picked up his pack, threw it over his shoulder and turned to face the parking lot and waiting soldiers. In the distance Fiona left the house and started walking towards the vehicles.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The time was 9 a.m. and Zach’s Humvee and the other vehicles passed over the bridge. Even with Wyatt behind him, he still kept a close eye on the muddy waters below.
Fiona had returned to her usual spot of sitting in the passenger’s seat. “Once we past Laurel we have a choice, either we head northwest and end up back near Jackson—”
“Which could take us close to the convoy,” interrupted Michael sitting behind her.
“—Yup, or we keep heading west, eventually we will end up near the camp, but its untried territory. And it takes us closer to the coast and sea.”
“I don’t want us to be any closer to that convoy than we have too. Even though we didn’t see it, they must have air cover or will do at some point,” said Zach.
Michael went to say that they were lucky they weren’t spotted, but stopped himself. “I’ll get on the big gun,” he stood upwards into the position Cal was standing in just twenty-four hours earlier. His movement was swift so not to see Fiona’s reaction.
As he stood watching the woods pass by Michael thought back to when he first met the tall guy with the tattoo in the prison. For some reason he trusted Cal within seconds of meeting him. He sighed. It was a shame they had fallen out of touch since returning to the camp.
Inside Zach clicked on his radio. “Captain, you or any of your squad, know what the coast is like to our south? And heading west? Over.”
Bower’s voice quickly came from Zach’s radio. “If it’s anything like the west coast, it’s not somewhere we want to be. Over.”
“Between a rock and a hard place,” Wyatt said under his breath.
“We’ll keep heading west, and just try to stay way from the coast,” said Zach to those around him, and then repeated the plan to everyone else on the radio.
The weather had started like the day before, bright with clear blue skies and the landscape was one of brown leafless trees with the occasional pond or lake.
As the hours rolled by Wyatt would speak up about E.L.F’s that were around them, and the convoy would stop or take a small detour.
By noon they were heading directly south on the fifty-five and what little frost there had been from overnight had melted away.
In the back of the truck, Diaz and Harper played cards.
“Aw man, when you get so good at poker?” said Diaz letting her cards fall from her fingers.
The tall gangly woman with marine style blonde hair smiled. “Pony up, I know you picked some up in that store.”
Her ponytailed opponent frowned and put her hand into her backpack pulling out some tweezers covered in molded plastic. “Damn I really need these,” she handed them to Harper, who quickly slipped them into her own pack.
“Maybe I’ll let you—”
A roar of a fighter jet above them made the truck shake. Both immediately moved to the rear gate and looked out, trying to see which direction it flew in.
Their radios came to life with Zach’s voice. “We have to get off the road!”
Back in the Humvee, Michael was scouring the blue sky above their heads. “I see it! To the west!”
Zach clicked on his radio again. “There’s a town just up ahead, we’re heading into that. Over.”
The Humvee bumped up and down as he drove it over a grass verge and onto another smaller road, which headed into the small town of Realty. The vehicles behind followed.
“Did he see us?” said Wyatt trying to see the sky from the Humvee’s small windows.
“We can’t presume he didn’t, he might make a run at us,” said Zach. He briefly looked at Fiona. “If you see shelter for us, tell me,” his attention then turned to Michael behind him. “You still see it?” he shouted.
“I think it’s making a turn… it’s hard to see, hand me those binoculars,” shouted Michael.
Fiona handed them up to him and he looked again. “Okay I see it, it’s a F15. Looks like it’s been patched up. It’s definitely turning back around.”
; The distant rumble of the jet’s engines hung in the air, and Fiona desperately looked around them as they moved further along the brown mud covered road.
“There!” she shouted, pointing to a gas station with its low hanging roof covering the pumps.
“That’ll work,” said Zach clicking on his radio and telling the others their destination.
He pulled over the grass bank and straight onto the stations forecourt finally coming to a screeching rest under the large flat metal roof. The truck and the tank did the same.
“Everyone out!” shouted Zach, while grabbing his things and opening the door. Once outside he waved to everyone else, and soon they were all running to the store part of the station.
Just as Zach ran inside the jet’s engines started to build to a crescendo. “Get inside now! He’s coming in low!”
Hayes was the last one to run inside, just the jet’s main Gatling guns started to open up. They all watched as a stream of neon sliced through the flimsy looking roof outside and tore into the back of the Humvee, exploding its tires.
“Fuck,” said Zach to himself. The jet roared overhead. He looked around at the small space they were all crammed into. “We can’t stay here, if he comes back for another run, we’re all dead.”
“The good news is it seems he’s not armed with any bombs,” said Bower.
Zach stood and looked out the side through the large glass panels to the woods beyond. He then looked back at the tank that was sitting just in front of the Humvee and had an idea. “Corporal Bell. Sergeant Bass told me you have Stinger missiles in that thing? Could they take down that jet?”
The young man looked unsure how to answer. “Err yeah, if we got a good lock, but an F15 flying that fast and low, it would be a lucky shot.”
