by Mark Mathews
“So, there are others? Where are they? What happened to them?” Sarah was now on the edge of her seat, trying to figure out if there were others on the mountain besides them.
“There weren’t very many, and they started to disappear, one by one. They would go out on patrols and just not come back. We never knew what happened to them or if they just had run away. One day, I went out to look for food, and when I came back, there were some bloodstains in the grass, but no one was around. I yelled and screamed after all of them, but no one ever answered me. I never found any signs that they ever had been there except for the blood. I think they just abandoned me.” Wade had come back toward the tail end of the story, and had caught the last little bit. Sarah immediately looked at him for an answer to her perpetual question, but he let her know that Tom was still alive.
“I don’t think they abandoned you, April. I think they were taken from here against their will, and just couldn’t come back.” He was trying to make her feel like they hadn’t left her, but he was dancing around the real reason why they hadn’t made it back.
“If they didn’t abandon me, then what happened to them?” Wade looked to Sarah, wondering if he should let her know the truth, but Sarah shook her head. April caught this little exchange, and her whole demeanor transformed.
“You think that I can’t handle the truth, don’t you?” Her eyes flashed and she looked like an animal poised to attack.
This little stunt was engraining the thought in Sarah’s head that the girl really wasn’t that bright. Why would they all leave without the little girl? If they had been disappearing for a while, then maybe it wasn’t because they were doing it voluntarily. She kept her mouth shut.
“I think they got taken away by a pack of wolves that roam these mountains. They came after us as well, and they weren’t afraid of humans at all. That means that they had to have met some before and been the victors in a fight.” The words sank in, and April paled considerably. Enough so that her freckles stood out drastically. It was a good thing she didn’t have any family on that flight, because Wade would feel horrible if he’d put the image in her head of savage wolves tearing apart people that she loved.
“That’s horrible! I was so mad at them all for leaving me, and now I feel disgusted. They didn’t leave me on purpose. That means that I’m the only one left from this flight, doesn’t it?” She looked up at Wade, tears in her eyes, and he nodded once, letting that information sink in.
April wrapped her arms around her chest, like she suddenly had a hole open up and her guts were about to spill out, and her arms would hold them all in if she only held on tight enough. Emily put her arms around her, trying to comfort her with hugs, but it didn’t seem to be working at all. April was gently rocking back and forth in place, trying to escape the thoughts forcing their way into her head. Sarah got up and went to talk to Wade, letting the girls bond over the loss of their families.
“How’s Tom doing? And I would hope that you know better than to try sugarcoating it for me.” She was trying to lighten the mood a little, and she was rewarded with a half-smile from him.
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” He sobered quickly and sighed. “I don’t know if he’s going to make it or not. If he had some medical help, I’d be able to guess better, but for right now, it’s just touch and go, and I just don’t have any answers. I know that he’s in a lot of pain, but there’s nothing I can do for him. I’m glad that he’s unconscious most of the time, because if he wasn’t, then it would be so much worse for him.”
“We can’t stay here for much longer. If the wolves came and took the others from her group, they know that she’s still here. And even if they don’t, they’ve surely been following us. The smell of the blood from Tom is going to draw them before long. We have to try to get him out of here before they get too brave.”
Wade privately agreed with her, but he was also afraid that moving Tom too much would kill him in the long run. It would take both Wade and Sarah to carry him, and the girls weren’t that great with guns, so they would be very vulnerable when they traveled.
“Why don’t we stay here tonight, and then we can talk more about it in the morning?” It was all he could do to hide his fears and his line of thinking from Sarah. With both of them having police backgrounds, it wouldn’t be hard for her to pick up on his clues and know what he was thinking. Sarah nodded, letting the upcoming argument go. She was too exhausted after the day that they’d had, and all she wanted to do was sleep.
“I’ll take first watch.” She started back towards the girls.
Sarah took two steps and stumbled, throwing her arms out so she could keep her balance. She had her back to Wade, or she would have seen the fear in his eyes, and how quickly he lunged forward to try catching her. As it was, by the time that she did face him, he looked normal, and she decided to follow his advice.
“Oh no, you don’t. You look dead on your feet and like you’d fall asleep almost anywhere. Go ahead and get some rest. I can stand watch.” She glared at him for daring to point out that she didn’t look her best, but he gave her a meaningful look in response, and she threw her hands up in surrender.
“Fine. But when you wake me, it better not be morning yet.” He laughed at her. That was exactly what she’d done. She’d taken watch for a whole night instead of a shift because she wanted everyone else to recuperate.
“No promises.” She walked away, muttering under her breath, and Wade chuckled. Sarah was a fiery woman, but she knew how to shoulder her own weight. It was a deadly and yet very attractive combination.
“Come on, girls. Let’s try to get some sleep. We can’t stay here very long, and in the morning, we’ll talk about where we’re going to go.”
April looked at her sadly, but made no move to get any closer to Sarah or Emily. Sarah had Emily curled up on one side of her, and she fully expected April to come over to her and cuddle up to her for comfort, but she stayed there on the seat.
“What’s wrong, April?”
“Well, if you’re not going to stay long, then I’m going to be on my own again. I don’t know if I could take that.” A single tear slid down her face, but she stubbornly stayed where she was, even after Sarah motioned for her to come over.
“Oh, honey, no. You’re not going to have to stay here by yourself unless you want to. When we leave, you’re more than welcome to come with us.” April had been staring at the ground in front of her, refusing to look at anyone. When the words settled into her mind, she looked over at Sarah.
“You mean you’d take me with you?” There was hope in her voice, and she felt bad for letting it show, because she was afraid that those words were a lie.
“Of course we would.” April ran over to Sarah and threw her arms around her.
Sarah hugged her back, letting the girl settle down next to her to sleep. Emily poked her head up over Sarah’s shoulder and offered April a kind smile. When Wade looked over a half an hour later, the two girls were curled up around Sarah, with all three of them sleeping soundly. It was a little ready-made family for him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
WADE LET Sarah and the girls sleep, thinking they needed some time to recuperate after everything they’d been through in the last few days. All three of them slept like the dead, and he found himself looking over at them and smiling. Tom tossed and turned all night long, and it made Wade worry. Not for the first time did he wish that the two guys they’d met before were still around. Their medical knowledge would come in handy right about now, but he knew that if he woke Sarah up to take watch, and tried to go back and find them now, he wouldn’t even know where to start. He sighed heavily. A few times, Wade made his way over to Tom, just to check his pulse and make sure he still was breathing.
Looking back and forth between the two places where his new family slept, he felt like he really belonged for the first time since his family was lost to him. He felt like in Tom he had a knuckleheaded young son who thought he knew everything and ended up g
etting himself in more trouble than he was worth. Sarah felt like a wife in the way she was by his side in everything, the way she shared the responsibilities of the group, and the way she looked out for everyone as best she could. Emily was the daughter he’d lost. She was doing her best to make everyone happy, and even though some of the worst things had happened to her, she was still holding her head up high and soldiering on, taking the changes as they came, and making sure that she pulled her own weight. April, he didn’t know. It would be nice to add another daughter to the family, but it was still early on, and he was an ex-cop. In his line of work, he couldn’t trust people implicitly unless he knew them, and he definitely couldn’t do it now that the world had gone to hell. Time would tell with April.
Wade listened to the sounds of the night, thinking over what would happen once they got off this mountain. Unfortunately, this line of thinking always brought him back to wondering if all of them were going to make it off the mountain to begin with. Tom wasn’t looking so great, and there was nothing he could about it. Simply moving him could kill him in his present condition, and if he did manage to hang on, what happened when they made it off the mountain? Would they run into the motorcycle gang? If they did, would they be able to fight them off? Wade and Sarah were a force to be reckoned with, but if they had three other people to protect, and they got outnumbered, the gang could just send some its members around to flank them and take a hostage to get Sarah and Wade to lower their weapons.
The cop portion of his brain couldn’t stop thinking about all the horrible scenarios the gang could put them through. They’d already killed a good chunk of them, and it wasn’t going to go very well if it turned into a diplomatic mission. He put his head in his hands. He didn’t know if his ears were playing tricks on him, but every now and then he thought he heard leaves rustling, as if something was watching them, circling around them, waiting for the opportune moment to pounce. Every higher pitched noise he heard sent chills down his spine, making him wonder if the wolves were closing in on them.
Being this paranoid was frazzling his nerves more than anything else ever could have. He felt like he was starting to break down inside, and it made him start to wonder if he himself was turning into a liability. Right now, he could classify Tom as one, and April was a variable. Sarah and Emily were steady and constant, that helped him get through it all when he felt himself start to slip downhill. Tom moaned in his sleep, and Wade was instantly on the alert, watching him as he shivered and rolled around, an expression of pain on his face and a cold sweet on his forehead. Wade was poised, ready to bolt across the open space between them if Tom looked to be in any kind of distress. He hoped that it wouldn’t get to the point where Tom’s painful groans would wake the girls and scare them.
When the first rays of the morning sun started peeking through the trees, Wade went to wake Sarah. He needed to get some sleep. Being on edge all night with Tom was wearing on him, and he needed a break. The girls could forage for food or firewood nearby, if Sarah could just stay with Tom. He trusted Sarah’s medical training from her academy days, but he didn’t know if he trusted the girls to watch over Tom for too long. Not that he had anything against them, it was just that they were young and didn’t know how to recognize the signs of someone in danger or fighting for their life.
“Hey, Sarah. Time to get up, darlin’.” He gently shook her shoulder, and she stared up at him through bleary eyes. She gently disentangled herself from the two girls, and got to her feet. She disappeared into the bushes for a few moments, then came back to take over for him.
“Go ahead and get some sleep, Wade. I’m not going to bother the girls just yet. How’s Tom been?” Wade swiped a hand over his eyes.
“He’s still touch and go. I kept checking on him during the night to make sure he was still alive. I still don’t know if he’s going to make it. It could go either way.” Sarah nodded in understanding and went over to where Wade had been sitting.
Tom did indeed look awful. His skin was almost glowing with how pale he was, and it was pulled tightly across his cheeks,, giving way to sunken hollows. He looked worse now than when he did when Wade and Sarah had found him drunk and passed out in the street. At that time, Sarah hadn’t thought he could look any worse. He moaned, and it jerked Sarah out of her reverie.
“Hey, Tom. How are you feeling, buddy?” Her voice was gentle, and she put her hand on his forehead.
Frowning, she wished that they still had some medicine from when Wade had been shot. Tom had a fever, and she was afraid he might die of an infection rather than the actual wound. He turned his head toward her and opened his eyes slightly. His eyes appeared listless, and not in a state of good health as they should be.. She frowned. It wasn’t a good sign, but she didn’t want to give up hope just yet.
“I’ve been better.” He tried to crack a smile, but winced and changed his mind.
Sarah’s heart went out to him. He was a pain, that was true, and he didn’t really belong in this world, but she didn’t want him to die, either. It just made her feel even more guilty about when she’d been mad at him and had let the thought cross her mind that if he died it would be less of a hassle for the rest of them.
“Like when I was with my girl. I was better then. She was the sun and moon to me, and the thing that I regret most in my life right now is that I didn’t go with her. I don’t know if she would have really wanted me to go with her, but if I had, we’d still be together. Well, at least I think we would be. At the very least, I would know where she is right now and what happened to her.”
A tear slid down his cheek. Sarah bit her lip. She didn’t quite know what it felt like to lose someone that you were completely devoted to, seeing as her own marriage didn’t work out nearly as well as she’d hoped it would. She took his hand and he squeezed it. She hated how little strength was in it.
“It’s going to be okay, Tom. You’re going to get better, and then you can go and try finding her.” Sarah was horrible at trying to reassure people with lies, but right now, he was so far gone that she was hoping he wouldn’t notice. Tom closed his eyes, and another tear danced down his cheek.
“I don’t think I’m going to make it off this mountain. I’m not trying to be dramatic, and I’m not trying to be negative. I’m being realistic. If that happens, I want you to promise me something.” He paused, then opened his eyes and turned toward her again, fixing her with the most halting stare that he could muster. It was a little comical, and she wanted to laugh, but considering the circumstances, this was hardly the time. She squeezed his hand, letting him know that she was listening.
“I’ll do whatever I can to help you, Tom.” That much was true. She didn’t want to promise him something, then break that promise. Granted, if he really didn’t make it off the mountain, and she did have to keep the promise, he would never know that she broke it…but she would.
“If I don’t make it, I want you to promise me that you’ll try to find her. Please? For me. I just don’t want her to be alone in the world with it being the way it is. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to watch over her after I’m gone, but I would have a much easier time of it if I knew that you were with her. No one can best you, and when you throw Wade in the mix, you two are unstoppable. I know that I’m just extra baggage, and I’m sorry. If I don’t make it off this rock, then at least you won’t have to worry about me anymore.” He closed his eyes and his face turned grim. “And I’ll actually be able to help you guys more after I’m gone than I could while I was here.”
“What are you talking about?” This speech was sounding more and more like he’d already resigned himself to dying, and she didn’t want him to just roll over and give up. He wasn’t much of a fighter, but right now would be the time to start. If he didn’t, this would be the last time he’d get the chance.
“I mean, don’t bury me, and I can slow down the wolves. They’ll have me to eat.” Sarah’s stomach lurched as she fleetingly saw that picture in her mind’s eye. A shiver
went down her spine.
“No. Even if the worst happens and you don’t make it, we’re going to give you a proper burial where those scavengers never will be able to reach you. You mean more to us than that.” Sarah was a little outraged at his thinking that they just would throw him to the predators to save their own skin. If they’d wanted to save their own skin, they never would have taken him along with them from the beginning.
“You’re going to be fine. You just have to keep fighting. Don’t you dare give up! What if she’s still in the area and just fine? You’ll find her again and still be able to spend the rest of your life with her. You can’t just abandon her like that.”
Sarah waited for an answer, but Tom was silent. Her heart started racing as she gently shook his shoulder. His head lolled, and she thought that maybe he was gone. Checking his pulse, she found that it was weak, but there. He must have lapsed into unconsciousness from either the fever or the pain.
Sarah promised herself she would do what Tom asked. She would find the girl if he didn’t, and she would do her best to take care of her. The thought made her mind wander to her own ex. What was he doing now? Was he even alive? Maybe once she got Emily settled, they could start collecting enough supplies to find both of them. Without the job in the way, maybe the two of them could start over. Sarah’s cheeks warmed, and she looked around quickly to make sure that no one was watching. It wouldn’t do to be blushing like a schoolgirl over a crush in the middle of the apocalypse.
“Sarah?” April was awake, and a tousle-haired Emily was wiping her eyes sleepily, too. She hitched a smile to her face and left Tom’s side.
“Good morning, my sleeping beauties. Think you can look around for some berries and nuts, and maybe some firewood? I don’t want you guys to go too far from the plane. We don’t know what else is out here in the woods with us.” The girls nodded and set out together.
Wade still was sleeping, snoring lightly. Sarah set to work taking her pistol apart and cleaning it the best she could. It wouldn’t do to have it jam up when they met an adversary. Taking whatever time she could get to do her weapon maintenance was tantamount. How much time had passed, she wasn’t sure, but she was in the process of putting her gun back together when she heard the scream. In ten seconds, she had her pistol together and loaded, and was on her feet and running toward the sound. She didn’t make it very far before she found the source of the scream.
