The Way Back (Book 1): The Way Back

by Giancioppo, Danny

  The Way Back:

  By: Danny Giancioppo

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Dedication

  “Earlier That Morning”

  Day 428:

  Day 429:

  Day 430:

  Day 431:

  Day 460:

  Day 461:

  Day 462:

  Day 501:

  Day 502:

  Day 503:

  Day 504:

  "Some Time Later"

  For my friends. Thanks for being assholes long enough for me to learn how to write about it. I love you guys.

  “Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain. It’s not something you learn in school. But if you haven’t learned the meaning of friendship, You really haven’t learned anything.” - Muhammad Ali

  “Earlier That Morning”

  “So, what do you think?” Chris asked. “I mean, really.”

  “Really...? I mean, really yeah, of course it was our fault,” Jeremy replied, still rifling through an empty bag all the while. “We lost focus man, all of us. All they did was slip up.”

  “How can you live like that though?” Chris said, uncomfortable at the thought. “I can hardly bear that they’re gone at all, man.”

  “I don’t know I just… I do, I guess,” Jeremy said. He pushed the bag on its side, placing what supplies he found in his own, and stood up. Chris did the same, and wiped his hands off on his pants.

  “That everything?” Chris asked him. Jeremy nodded, writing his final thoughts and details on the place in his notebook, and they exited the building.

  They were in a long-since abandoned market and diner. It was maybe a thirty minute walk from the house, so it wasn’t so far from the others that it was dangerous. Plus, Jeremy and Chris hadn’t got to spend much positive– or just calm, for that matter– time together anymore.

  The building was held together from ripped and rotted wood, and shielded from the outside world through broken and dirtied glass windows. There wasn’t much left to be desired inside, with only a handful of food scraps left, and a deserted backpack under the register’s counter. Still, the guys always needed more supplies, and the less of them that went, the less noise they’d make. Less noise meant less danger, and more importantly, less annoyances.

  “You don’t think the others think like that, do you? Not Luke or Nolan, anyway,” Chris continued as they walked out the door, chiming an old bell softly as the door swung open.

  “Nolan’s probably too wrapped up in his own head to think anything close to that,” Jeremy replied, rather bitterly. “And Luke? I don’t know… maybe. Back in the day he would’ve for sure, but now? I don’t really know if that Luke is really there anymore. He just works; tries to keep the rest of us alive.”

  They walked past the gas pumps near the entrance, and Chris paused for a moment, gesturing to them. Jeremy glanced at him, then at the pumps, and then shook his head.

  “What good would that do us?” He criticized, more harshly than intended. Chris sulked a little, and Jeremy took notice. “I… you know what I mean…” was all he could manage.

  Rather than walking back down the road, the pair made their way into the wilderness a ways, keeping the road in sight, and following its direction. It was always a safer bet to stay more disguised than not, no matter who or what may see them.

  They marched in silence for a good few minutes before Chris decided he still couldn’t let the conversation go. It just ate away at him too much. Jeremy understood it, Chris was a thoughtful person, but this was the kind of topic that was better left unspoken.

  “What about Cody though? Or Adam? Derrick? Or hell even Zack?” Chris said. “I mean I know he wasn’t ever as close to them as the rest of us, but still he–”

  “Chris, I don’t know, dude,” Jeremy interrupted. “We never talk about it, how am I supposed to know any better than you?”

  Again, Chris deflated, and Jeremy scolded himself for sounding so rash. Chris of all people didn’t deserve that, not to Jeremy anyway. Everything was just so… complicated.

  Jeremy sighed, and gazed out at the land ahead of them. There was a field of wheat coming up on either side of the road, and the early morning fog was still rolling in heavy. He moved back toward the street, and Chris followed close behind. They couldn’t see well regardless, but he decided in that instance it was better to have some kind of visual rather than blindly moving through feet of grain.

  “Look, Cody’s a bouncing ball of annoying energy, right?” Jeremy spoke up, not looking back at Chris. “So he probably tries to just brush it off, and stay positive; for everyone else, at least. Adam’s a negative asshole, but he’s got feelings, so he probably just shoves it down and projects it out at all of us. Derrick just works with his hands to keep busy, and Zack… I don’t know, Zack just loves to shit on everything regardless; if anything maybe that’s just increased.”

  Chris made a soft grumble of agreement, and Jeremy found himself contented, easing his conscience at least somewhat. They continued to move without much conversation other than directions back to the house for another solid several minutes. Another field had risen ahead of their path, on the right, leading them back to the main road once again. The other side of the street had some tall trees sparsely hanging above the it with thick, twisted branches, but there wasn’t enough deeper off that way to warrant any better cover than the road itself.

  Then, Jeremy spotted something. Something irregular. Something they hadn’t seen the past seventy or so days, at least.

  It was another person.

  “Chris, get back!” Jeremy whispered panickedly, ducking into the field. Chris followed swiftly. “Did you see that!?”

  “See what?” Chris asked. “I couldn’t see anything through the fog.”

  “There was a guy, I think,” Jeremy said. “Just someone random, walking in our direction.” Chris got nervous, and tugged at his old and stained clothing.

  “You think he saw us?” he asked. Jeremy shook his head, unsure, and signaled they remain quiet.

  They weaved cautiously through the wheat field, and tried to keep their eye on where Jeremy presumed the man was on the road. They were just a ways inside the field, so it would take only a few steps to get a clear view, but that view went both ways.

  After a moment or so, Chris heard the person’s footsteps, and tapped Jeremy lightly on the shoulder, motioning toward the source of the sound. Jeremy nodded, and they waited a moment before moving further. Chris’s hand seemed to be shaking as he alerted Jeremy, who was fairly nervous himself. Still, they had to be strong; that was how people survived, after all.

  The steps lingered on slowly, as though whoever took them was exhaustedly roaming down the barren street. Had the two been closer, they’d have been able to hear the tired and heavy breaths that followed every movement made. The August heat, now almost passed, still hung in the air, sticking to every ragged and damp article of clothing the traveller wore, draining them of what energy they had left.

  The sun just then managed to peek through the towering trees ahead of Jeremy and Chris. It glistened on the dew laid out upon the wheat surrounding them, and surely hit the stranger’s back with a glowing force, cutting through the mist as best it could; signaling the start of a brand new day.

  “Why’s he moving so slow?” Chris wondered quietly. Jeremy shook his head once again, and continued to listen as this traveler moved farther and farther away from them.

  Then, rather suddenly, a branch from one of the trees shook, dropping leaves onto the cracked and vine-infested pavement. Following immediately after came the sound of a heavy thud, smacking the ground. Subsequently,
the footsteps ceased.

  Jeremy and Chris glanced at one another confusedly, and slowly stepped out of the field. There, lying just a few feet from the ground, laid the man Jeremy had spotted just moments before, now seemingly lifeless. Chris hustled forward, trying to inspect if the man was alright or not; much to Jeremy’s dismay.

  “Chris, what the hell!” he said, though still in a whisper. As he moved closer himself, he noticed the strange creature lodged atop the stranger’s skull, and felt his heart skip a beat. “What the hell is that…?”

  Chris just knelt down, and took notice of the man’s head. There was something stuck in it. No bigger than a foot, at best. It was shaped like a cone, and had quills that seemed almost a substitute for hair, or some kind of feather. There were two small crescent shapes, also quilled, that jutted out on either side of it. Chris thought they may be… wings, or gliders if nothing else.

  Most notably– and more so with every passing second– there was a glowing, cyan-colored, worm-like parasite that slithered further out of whatever kind of shell, or body, or armor the quills shaped. As it did, Jeremy and Chris could both here soft, chirping sounds coming from it; the more the parasite emerged, the quieter its chirps became. They both looked up cautiously, but saw no other sign of these creatures anywhere in sight.

  Looking back down, there were also four very noticeable slashes cut along the man’s lower abdomen. Clearly the claws of some kind of wild animal– though, “animal” wasn’t strictly true nowadays– that pierced through most of the man’s flesh. It was poorly wrapped up around him with what looked like an old shirt. That could have still likely been a bear though, so the two were less cautious about that. Perhaps less so than they should have been.

  Jeremy pulled out his notebook again, and began to take note of what they were looking at. Chris just placed his hand hesitantly over the man’s face, and waved it back and forth. His eyes were open, but they weren’t moving; they weren’t even closing.

  “Is he dead?” Jeremy asked.

  “I don’t know…” Chris muttered. “Check his pulse.”

  “Why me? You’re right there,” Jeremy protested. Chris just frowned and gazed back at him.

  “Because if he is, I don’t want to touch a dead guy!” Chris said. “And you know that!”

  Jeremy sighed, and put his notebook down, moving closer and placing his index and middle fingers on the man’s throat. He kept it there for a few seconds, and then pulled away. He felt two beats, and they were absurdly spaced out.

  “So…?” Chris questioned. Jeremy shrugged.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I… He’s on his last legs, that’s for sure.”

  “Well what do we do? We can’t just leave him here, right?” Chris said anxiously, though Jeremy just shook his head.

  “You saw the same broadcasts as me, C. People aren’t people anymore,” Jeremy said. “Not after things like this showed up,” he pointed at the creature, now almost totally silent and still. “We don’t know what this thing is, or what else may have caused his injuries. Plus, this guy could’ve been a murdering, raping creep; I’d rather not take any chances.”

  “Well… we can at least pull the thing out, right? That might ease the pain, at least,” Chris pushed. Jeremy shook his head once more.

  “For all we know that might make it a lot worse,” Jeremy argued. “We’ve got to go back to the house, Chris. Before we know it the others are gonna wake up, and if we’re not there, Luke will get all nervous, and Adam will never shut the hell up about it.”

  Chris grimaced, and Jeremy reached his hand out supportively, then hesitating, and pulling it back before Chris could even notice. Jeremy clenched his eyes shut briefly in disappointment, and then just stood up.

  “Look, we can lean him over by one of those trees, okay? We’ll search his bag for anything, and… and we can leave him with what we don’t need,” Jeremy offered. Chris didn’t look pleased, but he was willing to at least not argue with Jeremy, which was something. Were it any of the others, Jeremy wasn’t so sure Chris would be so accommodating.

  They both stood up, and Chris wiped his nose on his arm, then his hands on his pants once again repeatedly.

  “Fine, but you’re moving him. I don’t want to get any kind of disease from this guy,” he said. Jeremy rolled his eyes, but nodded, and in a just a couple moments, moved the man over to the tree he stood next to; the creature still sat in his head, and his stomach still dripping out bits of blood. Chris had searched through the man’s things, and held a small assortment of supplies in one hand. In the other, he still held the bag, and placed it next to the man, now leant against an old tree.

  Chris put his supplies with the rest of Jeremy’s, and after a small moment of pause, they moved back down the road. Again, the duo kept their conversation to a fairly strict minimum, even after an event like that. After all, it was over and done with now. Whatever threat that thing had posed targeted someone else. Someone that, for all intents and purposes, didn’t matter. And that was all that mattered.

  Finally, the two returned to the home, just outside one of the main roads they were travelling down.

  “Jeremy,” Chris said, getting Jeremy’s wandering attention. He looked back at him once again as they stood in the front lawn of their home.

  “Yeah?” Jeremy asked.

  “You don’t seriously think it was your fault though, do you?” Chris asked. Jeremy paused. “I mean you seriously put that all on your conscience?”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “None of us could have seen that coming, Jer. It was an accident! With everything that had gone down those first few months, who wouldn’t be shaken up? Off their game?”

  “I…I don’t know man, I don’t. All I know is, the girls would still be here if even one of us had been paying the littlest bit of attention. Let them take a damn break. Be ready enough to put out…” Jeremy tapered off, looking down at the ground, and shaking his head. He held up his notebook, and showed it to Chris. “You know that’s the one thing I never wrote down? The one thing I never bothered to remember. And you know why?”

  “Yeah…” Chris replied.

  “Yeah,” Jeremy said. “I can never fucking forget it, and I’d rather not keep it with me. Try and tell me that’s not the conscience of a guilty man, Chris. We can never get that back. You need to move on.”

  Jeremy turned, and walked inside without another word. Everyone else would be awake soon, and for at least some of their sakes, Chris knew it was best to let this conversation go, even if he still wrestled with it. He just wished there was a way he could apologize to them, all of them, really. To let them all know, both alive and passed, that he just wanted things to go back to the way they were.

  It was odd to Chris, maybe even a little funny, in a morbid sort of way: Even after the end of the world, all he seemed to worry about was how to get his friends to like him again.

  Day 428

  “California Dreamin’”

  It was dawn, and it was misty outside. There were large, decaying pine trees all around, and a vast, silent mountain range in the distance.

  The house, vacant of any neighboring life, stood in a clearing. Two floors, a driveway; everything wooden and blue, sitting isolated, surrounded by the frail, sparsely inhabited forestation. It lay old, and decayed. Most notably, a large, old scorch mark ran up one wall; an everlasting memory of a day filled with loss for everyone inside.

  Outside, a handful birds chirped lightly, and the wind softly blew against the trees, brushing the long-dead leaves off their infested resting place on the ground.

  Inside, as Jeremy came downstairs from putting away his bag, it was not so serene.

  “God damn it Nolan! Do the dishes when it’s your night!” Derrick yelled from the kitchen, holding a cup in his hand.

  “Shut up, you’re fine!” Nolan waved off.

  “I almost died tripping on this!” Derrick insisted. “All this work to survive, and then boom, death by cup! I d
o all the hard work around here, I’m the only one who can use his own two hands! You need me to survive!”

  “Guys, come on. Calm down,” Luke said, running his hands through his dark, brown hair. He was hardly even awake, that much was obvious. His disheveled head was just the cherry on top.

  “Look I know you’re a god damn beanstalk, but even for a freak like you the fall wouldn’t have been that bad,” Nolan pushed. “Plus, the nose would have stopped the fall like a foot off the ground.”

  “Take it back!” Derrick said, immediately fueled by a new anger, surprising no one. “Take it back or I’m kicking your emotional, cry baby, albino-ass with this cup!”

  “Nolan, come on,” Luke said, this time a bit firmer.

  “You really want to try that?” Nolan asked Derrick. It was a good question; as much of an emotional wreck as the guy was, Nolan could probably bench Derrick twice over at least. It wouldn’t be much of a fair fight. That was Jeremy’s two cents, anyway.

  Jeremy moved into the living room, and sat down on the couch, waiting for the fight to inevitably either blow up or over, as they always did. For the moment, he just wanted to write in his notebook, and shut the world out. It wasn’t working very well. Chris walked back inside around the same time.

  “You see anything out there?” Luke asked, with both Jeremy and Chris now returned. His back was to them, but he glanced over his rather broad shoulder to give them some attention.

  “Not really. Nothing major anyway,” Chris said. “Gross shit.” Luke nodded understandably.

  “Well, that and some weird bird thing in a dude’s head,” Jeremy added, not looking up from his notebook. “It was like it made him–”

  He didn’t finish the thought, as all of a sudden a door slammed shut, and Zack came down the stairs in a huff, making Jeremy jump a little, and watch in annoyance. Not long after, the eccentric and upbeat bounding of Cody’s feet followed.

  “He’s going to make me blow my top, I swear to God…” Zack grunted under his breath, walking into the kitchen. “Shut the hell up, it’s annoying,” he barked at a still bickering Nolan and Derrick, who just scowled at him.