by Gary Chesla
Charlie looked up at me as I approached.
“You’re late,” Charlie said.
“Sorry, but if I might say a few words I would appreciate it,” I replied.
“But our morning meeting has already started,” Charlie protested.
“It will only take a minute,” I replied. “Then I will be on my way.”
Charlie’s eyes lit up and he nodded.
“I just want to thank everyone for making my time here at the fort as nice as it was,” I said, “and to tell everyone goodbye. I’ll be leaving later this morning and probably won’t be back until sometime next spring.”
“Where are you going?” Dave asked, obviously surprised by my announcement.
“I am still trying to get back home to see what’s left,” I replied. “There are also a few other places I want to go while I am still able, and I just feel it is time for me to move on.”
“Tom, we’re going to miss you,” Ken said.
“I also didn’t want to leave without thanking you and Dave for all the good work you did on the tunnel.”
“That was the most fun I’ve had in a long time,” Dave smiled.
“I also wanted to thank you and Albert,” I said looking at Barry, “for the fine work you did making that barrier out in the field. It played a big role in helping destroy the dead yesterday.”
Barry and Albert got big smiles on their faces.
“And I just wanted to be sure that I thanked everyone for your hospitality, I will miss all of you,” I added. “You guys work hard and take care of yourselves and I hope to see all of you again next spring.”
“Ghee, Tom,” Ken said, “I wish you could stay a little longer, it was really nice having someone like you around.”
“Thanks,” I smiled then added. “There is one more thing, I think Bear wants to tell Dave goodbye too, they seem to have become good friends. Bear, go tell Dave goodbye.”
Dave’s eyes grew large and at first, I thought he was going to pass out, but a big smile spread across his face as Bear licked his ear.
“Tom, do you think it would be OK if I petted him?” Dave asked.
“Sure, go ahead,” I smiled.
Dave nervously reached out and ran his hand down Bear’s back. Dave was beaming by the time his hand finished running down Bear’s back.
“Well, take care of your self Tom,” Charlie said. “We’ll keep an eye out for you next spring.”
I nodded.
“One more thing,” Bill spoke up. “I’ll be leaving with Tom and I just wanted to say goodbye to everyone too.”
“Can I go too?” Dave asked. I also saw a few of the other guys expressions light up their faces when Dave asked if he could come too. I had anticipated that there would be a few others that might want to leave too if given the chance, but I also knew they and I were not ready for something like that. I honestly wished I could take a few more of them with me, but until I had Bill trained in the ways of the world, it would just be too difficult of a task to take on. Unless it was a matter of life or death, it would also be too much to ask of them, to force them to actually survive on their own in the wild. For now, they would be better off staying here. Besides, Charlie would probably turn violent if he thought the men were all trying to desert him.
“Maybe in the spring when I come back,” I said. Charlie’s eyes grew dark and the expression on his face grew angry. “I couldn’t handle any more than one person with me on this trip. You just take care of yourself and we’ll see what things look like when I come back.”
“Then good luck Tom,” Dave replied looking disappointed. “Just remember me when you come back.”
“Good luck to all of you men too,” I smiled. “May our luck last at least for another year. Good luck to us all. Thanks again.”
The men were all shouting out their goodbyes as I turned and walked back over to my lean to.
Bill came running over to my site carrying a duffle bag.
“I’m all packed,” he smiled.
“Do you plan on carrying that bag up over the mountain?” I asked. “Don’t you have a backpack?”
“No, this is all I have, I found it lying on the ground outside the fort the day after you said I could go with you,” Bill replied. “It was either this or a box.”
I pulled my knife out of my pocket.
“Give me your bag,” I said.
Bill looked confused but handed me his duffle bag.
He watched as I cut four small holes in the bottom and the top of the bag, then pulled two pieces of rope from my backpack and pushed the rope through the holes. I then tied the rope together to form two loops.
“Here, put the bag on your back and slide your arms through the rope,” I instructed. “This will work just like a backpack. When we are out in the hills, it’s important that you have your hands and arms free.”
Bill grabbed the bag and did what I told him to do.
“Wow, this will make it a lot easier,” he smiled.
“You never know when you are going to need to grab something or defend yourself,” I added. “It’s a lot easier to do that if your hands aren’t full carrying a bag.”
Bill watched as I took down my lean to, rolled it up and tied it to the top of my backpack. I tossed Bear one of the dried deer jerky treats that I always carried with me to help keep his energy level up. Actually, Bear didn’t need much help at keeping his energy level up, but I felt that I needed to keep him happy and let him know that I appreciated everything he did. With Bear, there was no better sign of appreciation than food.
He wolfed down his treat, then he began to prance around excitedly, his way of letting me know he was ready to go too.
“We’ll, I guess we’re ready to go,” I said. “Are you sure you have everything you want to take?”
“I took everything I have,” Bill smiled. “I didn’t have much when we came here, we were taking a tour and I didn’t expect to be gone for more than a few hours.”
“Ok, this is your last chance to change your mind,” I grinned.
“Not a chance,” Bill replied.
“Then I say it’s time we get started,” I said. “I expect to travel two hundred miles today.”
“Two hundred miles?” Bill asked. “Is that even possible to walk that far in one day?”
“I’m just joking, I don’t know how far we’ll go today, but it will feel like we’ve walked that far on some days,” I laughed. “I’m just trying to motivate you.”
“Maybe you should wait a few days before you try to motivate me,” Bill grinned. “I would like to get away from the fort for a day or two before I have a heart attack and die.”
I laughed again, it was good to see that Bill was laughing and excited to be leaving the fort. Our journey would be long and difficult, I wanted to be sure he was ready to at least start that journey with a good attitude.
“Have you seen Ed this morning?” I asked. “I can’t leave without telling Ed goodbye.”
“No, I haven’t seen him since last night,” Bill replied.
“Let’s go tell Ed goodbye before we go,” I said.
“You go ahead and I’ll catch up with you in a minute,” Bill replied sheepishly. “I want to check my room one more time before we go and make sure I didn’t miss anything.”
“Sure, you go ahead and I’ll wait for you at Ed’s quarters,” I said. I knew Bill probably was suddenly feeling sentimental and just wanted to take one more look at where he and his family had spent their last year together. When he left the fort today, all he would have left of his time with his family would be the memories of this last year. The memories would be both good and bad, how many of each he would have I could only guess, but sometimes one last look would burn all the good things they had together securely in his mind. I remember my last look before I left home, I will never forget the surge of emotions that shot through my body that day. In many ways, it is one of the reasons that keeps pushing me to go on.
I walked across the c
ourtyard, hearing another unanimous vote deciding another one of the days important survival activities here at the fort. Ed’s building was clear over in the corner of the fort, away from the other buildings. I wonder who decided to put Ed and his family in the back corner of the fort, I’m sure it was some kind of punishment for one of Ed’s famous screwups.
I knocked on the door and called Ed’s name.
“Time to get up sleepyhead,” I said.
I thought I heard something, a muffled sound or a scraping noise coming from inside somewhere, but other than that there wasn’t any response from Ed.
I knocked again.
This time I thought a heard a muffled answer of some kind, but I couldn’t make out what it was.
All I could think was that maybe Ed was sick or maybe he had an accident and couldn’t make it to the door.
I was starting to worry about Ed, but when Bear started to growl and the hair on the back of his neck stood up as he looked at the door, I knew something had to be seriously wrong.
I grabbed the door handle and began to open the door. The door didn’t seem to be locked so I slowly pushed the door open as I called out Ed’s name.
The door had only opened a few inches when the strong smell of death almost knocked me over. Even out next to the field yesterday, the smell of the dead hadn’t been this strong. I quickly held my arm over my face, trying to shield my nose and mouth from the horrible odor. Then I cautiously pushed the door open further so I could see inside. As the door slid open further, I saw Ed lying on the floor on the other side of the room. I pushed the door completely open as I scanned the room to make sure there wasn’t anyone else in the room. My first thought was that someone had broken into Ed’s quarters and hit him over the head with something so they could rob him, but none of these people had anything of any value that would make someone resort to such extreme measures in order to rob them. At least Ed didn’t have anything of value or importance that I was aware of. Then there was this smell. I knew Ed had smelled like hell ever since his wife had disappeared, but this smell was extremely strong.
I decided that I needed to be careful, the familiar smell of death was always followed by trouble. Could Ed be dead? Did he die last night? Was his body beginning to decay and smell already? The weather was warm, but it shouldn’t have caused him to smell this bad so soon.
Bear growled and slowly walked into Ed’s room. I followed him carefully, keeping a close eye on Ed’s body. If Bear was growling, that was his way of telling me the dead were close by. But where would they be, Ed was the only other person in the room?
As I moved closer, I saw that Ed’s arms were bloody and there were large wounds up and down his arms. Ed was almost as pale as the dead, but I finally noticed that he was still breathing, short labored breaths. I moved over next to Ed and knelt down to examine his wounds. The floor around Ed was red and Ed’s body appeared to be lying in a pool of blood.
“Ed,” I said. “Can you hear me?”
I put my hand on his forehead, it was about the only place on Ed that wasn’t bloody.
Ed’s forehead was hot, he felt like he was burning up.
When my hand touched his head, he slowly opened his eyes, scaring the hell out of me.
“Tom,” Ed whispered so softly I was barely able to hear what he was saying. “I’m sorry.”
“Ed, what happened to you?” I asked. “Who did this to you?”
“Cheryl,” Ed replied as he struggled to breathe. He couldn’t have just said Cheryl. Maybe he was delirious and had mistaken me for his dead wife.
“Who did this?” I asked him again.
“Cheryl,” Ed replied again, a little clearer than his last response.
I looked down at Ed, trying to decide what I could do to help him, but from the far away look in his eyes, the way his arms had been shredded and how high a fever he was running, I knew he didn’t have much time left and there wasn’t anything I could do to help him. The last time I saw someone torn up and bleeding like this, my wife Sandy died a few minutes later.
But this had to be something different.
“Tom,” Ed struggled to whisper. “I did what I thought I had to do. I tried to save her. She was all I had left.”
Ed stopped trying to talk as he began to cough violently, spitting up blood and gagging and choking on his own blood. I tried to hold his head up slightly to help him breathe.
“I thought it would work,” Ed choked out the words. “I had to try, but I was wrong. I’m sorry.”
Ed began choking again as his eyes rolled up into his forehead.
I just stared at him, confused and saddened to find Ed this way, bloody, delirious and dying. The poor guy’s life had been difficult enough, then he lost his wife and daughter, then some son of a bitch had to do this to him. Life had never been fair, but what Ed had endured recently was beyond unfair, it was downright cruel.
“Just take it easy, don’t try to talk, buddy,” I said trying to give him some comfort in his final minutes.
“I thought if I fed her, she would, she would recover,” Ed said as he briefly recovered his senses for a moment. “Tom don’t let me become one of them.”
“Become one of what?” I asked, but there would be no further response from Ed.
His body fell limp. I watched as his eyes slowly glazed over, the blue color of his eyes being replaced by a milky white color.
I sat up quickly as I saw the dark veins slowly creep up from the collar of his shirt and spread over his neck.
As I looked down at Ed’s arms, I saw more of the dark veins spreading over his arms. Then it hit me. Between his bouts of delusion, Ed was trying to tell me he had been attacked by the dead and in his final moment of clarity, he was asking me not to let him turn in to one of the dead.
“You poor bastard,” I said under my breath as I stood and looked down at Ed’s rapidly darkening body. “I won’t let that happen to you.”
“But where the hell did you get attacked by the dead?” I asked out loud. I hadn’t seen Ed go outside of the fort for the last few days. None of the dead had gotten into the fort. I didn’t know where this could have happened to him.
As I tried to figure out what the hell had happened, I started to look around the room. I had been so focused on Ed that I hadn’t noticed that Bear had been growling the entire time we had been in the room. I looked over at Bear and was surprised to see him sniffing at the space under the door on Ed’s back wall. As far as I knew, all the other buildings in the fort were only one room buildings. This was the first building that I had seen since I have been here that had two rooms.
Was Ed given this room because the back room in this building wasn’t secure? Did the dead somehow manage to get inside Ed’s back room and then attack him when he went back there?
I then noticed the streaks of blood that ran across the floor from the door to where Ed laid on the floor.
Ed had obviously been attacked in the back room and somehow managed to get out of the room and drag himself across the floor before his strength gave out.
Whatever had attacked Ed had been in that back room, or maybe it was still in that back room.
I grabbed the torch that sat on the table, the only piece of furniture in the room with Ed. I slipped the lighter out of my pocket and lit the torch.
“Bear come,” I said.
Bear got up and ran over to my side.
“Sit,” I said and waited as Bear sat down next to me.
I walked over to the door, ignoring Bear’s continued growling and held my ear up to the door and listened.
I could hear something moving around inside the room, the slow scraping sounds against the door told me what was inside.
I blew out the torch and grabbed my bow instead, then turned the door handle slowly. When I was sure the door was unlocked, I pushed the door open, stepped back and raised my bow.
I had expected to see a grotesque dead body come out through the doorway at me, but never in a million years di
d I expect to recognize what was left of that dead body.
I pulled back the string and let my arrow fly. I did it three more times. I pulled out my penknife, knelt down next to Ed and slid the blade in through the back of his head, just like I had done for his daughter.
I looked down at Ed’s body.
“Ed, you were my friend even though I knew you were a crazy son of a bitch,” I said. “But I never realized just how crazy you were. Rest in peace buddy.”
I stood up, called Bear and we went outside, then I closed the door behind me. For the first time in a long time, I leaned forward and puked my guts out.
Chapter 17
I was just pulling myself together when Bill came running over to me.
“Are you sick or something?” Bill asked. “Did you get to talk to Ed?”
“Bill,” I said. “Go get Fred and Charlie and bring them over here.”
“OK, but I thought we were leaving.” Bill replied.
“We are still leaving, but there is one last matter we need to take care of before we leave,” I said. “Just go get Fred and Charlie.”
Bill looked at me with a puzzled look but turned and walked towards the sleeping quarters to find Fred and Charlie.
I sat down on the wooden walkway that ran in front of Ed’s building. I had seen many crazy things over the last year, but nothing compared to what I had just witnessed. It was disgusting, and so warped that it was downright insane.
Maybe my first opinion about these people had been right, maybe they were all certified crazy. Maybe I had gone half insane myself to have even had a passing thought that these people could have been saved with just a little guidance. This if nothing else, this was proof that the entire world had finally gone mad.
Before I could make any sense out of what I had just seen, Bill, Fred and Charlie came walking across the courtyard.
“I thought you were leaving,” Charlie said. “What is so important that you had to drag us over here, I have work to do.”
