The Way Back (Book 1): The Way Back

by Giancioppo, Danny

  “This is the Doctor’s tent! The Doctor’s, Luke! What the hell is going on here!?” Derrick shouted, tears rolling down his face as well.

  Luke couldn’t even respond, and suddenly he felt something twist inside of him. A mixture of fear, and pain, and an unbridled anger, the likes of which he had never felt before in his life. One which he did not believe himself capable of feeling. He didn’t know why it came, or even quite what it was, exactly. He just felt… broken.

  He wasn’t exactly sure what to do about it at first, but then, he looked outward, and saw the pillar of smoke from the fire. He knew then. Then… things became all too clear.

  Luke walked over to Derrick, and gently handed him Tyke.

  “Luke, what are you–?” Derrick started, double-taking between Tyke and Luke.

  “Follow close behind, but stay hidden. Don’t let Tyke get touched, don’t even let him be seen,” Luke demanded, storming off toward the fire. His eyes were red from the tears, but much to Derrick’s surprise, he was no longer crying.

  “What!? Luke, what’s going on!? What are you going to do!?” Derrick tried to shout back to him. Unfortunately, it did nothing to stop him, or hardly even sway him. He was gone.

  Back at the fire pit, all of Jack’s people, as well as Adam and most of the other guys, sat around a number of tables all lined up end-to-end, placed next to the pit itself. It was long enough for them all to sit at, eating presumably whatever hunt Jack’s people had just recently taken for food.

  Jack sat at the head of the table, with Jeremy, Chris, Nolan, Adam, and Cody all on one side of the table next to him, sat accordingly, with some empty spots opened for Luke and Derrick. The rest was all taken up by Jack’s fellow community members.

  “So guys, let me get this straight,” Jack repeated. “You want to take two horses? Two? And in return you’re willing to give up some food and a few weapons? That’s it?”

  “Yeah, but our weapons are better than the spears and shit you’ve got,” Jeremy explained. “We’ve got bats, knifes, barbed-wire-wrapped stuff, nailed stuff, all the good shit.”

  “Maybe… What about guns though? We could always use those,” Jack pried, interested, enveloping his fingers together and leaning onto the table.

  “Well, we’ve only got one of those, and Luke always keeps it with him, so I don’t know about that one,” Jeremy said. Chris then kicked him in the leg, hard. “Ah! What?” He barked, turning to him. It was Chris though, so of course that anger only lasted a second. If it were Adam, he’d probably never hear the end of it.

  Adam rather uncomfortably shifted in his seat, readjusting his hands. Chris just shot Jeremy an angered glance with a disapprovingly furrowed brow.

  “Hmm, I see. Well gentlemen, I think we can definitely wor–” Jack bargained. Unfortunately for him, Luke was making his way up to the table the entire time the conversation had been going on from behind him. And Luke looked pissed. Clenched jaw, clenched fists, wild eyes. Adam knew pissed Luke when he saw it; it was honestly never someone he wanted to be in the way of.

  Luke had appeared right behind Jack suddenly, and gripped the back of his head, slamming it onto the table with as much force as he could.

  “Holy shit!” Jeremy shouted, shocked.

  “Luke! What the hell!?” Cody yelled.

  “Back the hell up! Now!” Trevor threatened, getting up out of his seat, moving toward Luke. The others all stood up from the table as well. Nolan immediately fronted on Trevor, and stared him down, stopping him in his tracks. Adam had to give it to him, he was a big guy, so if you didn’t know him, Nolan could be pretty intimidating.

  Jack lifted his head up, and quickly spun around and stood, sucker punching Luke in the face, and knocking him directly onto the ground.

  “Luke!” Nolan shouted defensively, jolting from his seat. Adam and the others all joined him swiftly. Only for a moment, however.

  “Not another step, assholes!” Jack yelled, pulling a pistol of his own out from under his shirt. He aimed at all of the guys, and each of them but Nolan sat back down, frightened. Nolan just stood, frozen. “That’s right, sit down! And stay there if you want to keep things easy!” They didn’t move; they hardly even looked Jack in the eye. Even Trevor and his other allies stood still now. Clearly, this guy’s facade was falling away, and fast. All things considered, it looked like Adam was right, again.

  Luke got up, and wiped the blood off of his face. His nose was bleeding profusely. Jack just pointed the gun at him and chuckled.

  “Dude, seriously? The hell?” he asked, the friendly bravado having been almost fully wiped away. “I thought we were all getting along really well! And then you come along and pull this shit? Not cool man.”

  “What is wrong with you!?” Luke asked, furious. His face red, and body shaking like a madman. Like Adam said, it wasn’t a pleasant sight, seeing Luke like this. Honestly, he didn’t think he ever even had seen Luke this far gone before. He was shaking, he was so angry.

  “What? What are you talking about, man? Does he take pills or something?” Jack chided, turning to Adam and the others.

  “The kids, Jack! What the hell are you doing to the kids!?”

  “The k–? Oh… you saw…” Jack realized, seeming to very slightly mellow out. “Well, that’s what I get for letting you explore unsupervised, I guess… I did say stick to the general campus.”

  “What? What is he talking about, ‘the kids?’” Jeremy asked skeptically. “Jack?”

  “They kill the kids! They starve them to death, and then they kill them! Slit their throats and cover their mouths from screaming!” Luke screeched out.

  “What!?” Chris shouted, bewildered by Luke’s claim.

  “Are you serious!?” Nolan asked, blown away. Adam couldn’t even think to speak. This went far past what he had assumed when he said something was off.

  “Was any of it true? Were there even any adults!? Did they really leave you, like this!?” Luke shrieked.

  Jack sighed, looking down for a moment. “Look, I told you, they gave almost all of the supplies to us… We were… We were stronger than them…”

  “Oh Jesus…” Adam spat, disgusted.

  “Look, they told us we were the next generation! The ones to carry on with the human race! What’s left of it anyways! They were ready to die… they were just waiting for it to come!” Jack yelled, getting into a frantic kind of excitement as he tried to defend himself. “And then… then there were less of us. Less experienced, less capable. Especially the younger ones… We were bringing in less and less to survive on, and we needed to think of the ones who needed to make it right now, not ten or twenty years down the line! That was done for us already!” Jack finished, crying now as he spoke. “You think we enjoy it!? We can’t stand it! We can hardly stand each other, but it needs to be done! Survival of the fittest has never been truer, and we need to keep the survivors healthy, and the weak out of the picture; no matter how much it hurts us…”

  “You are killing children!” Luke screamed. “What kind of fucking monster kills children!?”

  “I don’t want to hear it, okay!?” Jack shouted back. “You don’t get it… You just… You don’t get it…” He hardly finished, barely maintaining his composure. He too was now shaking violently, just as Luke was. Luke was a lot angrier than Jack, though. Adam thought Luke might bite through his own teeth, he was clenching so hard.

  “Do you even know their names…?” Luke questioned, tears beginning to once again tear through the dirt and grime on his face. His voice shook almost violently now. “Do you even know a damn thing about them…!?” Jack’s chin wobbled.

  “Kate, Mark, Chelsea, and Tyke. Four, five, four, and three years old. Those were the last of them.” Jack’s face now flood like a geyser, his whole body seemingly convulsing at this point. The fire burned against both of their faces, almost singeing the tears away. “We end it quickly, and stop them from breathing first so they don’t feel any pain. Then… we do it, and we burn
them…”

  Luke grimaced at Jack, hardly able to take in the information. “You’re fucking sick…” He choked out. Jack re-aimed the gun at Luke’s head, and cocked it.

  “Well I am sorry Luke, but you’re just going to have to live with it. You’re going to give us your supplies, your wagon, and the gun that we both know you’re holding, and join us. We can’t have you leave. And you can’t just take our life away from us. It’s all anybody has left,” Jack ordered, pointing the gun closer and closer to Luke’s face with every gesture, and every step.

  “You’re even more deranged than I thought you were if you really think we’re going to live with you people. We are leaving. Now. And we are taking the kids with us,” Luke refused.

  “The kids? They’re all dead, you idiot!” Jack yelled. “The only one left is Tyke, and he’s going to–!” He tried to explain, suddenly hearing the sound of leaves and branches treacherously breaking off to their side. Jack turned abruptly, and, having been on such edge, so extremely, fired blindly toward the noise.

  There stood Derrick, holding Tyke in his arms. There was blood all over Derrick’s shirt and face, and he looked down at what he had hoped– what he had prayed– was a bullet hole in his chest.

  Instead, he looked down to find Tyke, a bleeding hole now in his fragile, three year-old chest. The bullet lodged inside of him, and fortunately, not killed Derrick in the process. His small, fluttering eyes suddenly hanging lifeless. Derrick stared down at the child, and everyone else looked at him too.

  There was a beat, and then, Adam fired. The bullet flew right under the table, past Jack’s chair, and into his stomach. Everyone jumped, and looked in horror at the blood staining his shirt.

  Jack looked down, and Adam glanced at Luke. Without a moment’s pause, he swiped Jack’s gun from his hand, aimed at it at his head, and fired. Jack’s corpse collapsed to the ground. Everybody else stood silent. Shocked.

  Nobody knew what to say. For the others, their leader had just been shot, and for the guys, Luke had just murdered him. The first human being any of them ever killed, and Luke was the one to do it.

  Luke dropped the gun, and stared over at the others. Adam nodded, and stood from his seat, as did the others. As they went to grab their things, and Jeremy and Chris went to take the horses, Adam watched as Luke’s eyes stayed transfixed on Tyke, Derrick having laid him on the ground.

  Hours later, outside the soon to be empty campsite, Luke made two crosses, and planted them deep into the ground, just in front of the gates.

  From that day on, if anything were to ever cross the wasteland that was once the home of Jack and his people, there would be only an empty graveyard, and two wooden crosses that read: “Tyke - 431 Days,” and “The Others - Day 1.”

  Day 460

  “N.Y.C.”

  The sun blistered through the entrance of the wagon, now being pulled by two horses. The wind aggressively toying with the ever-quicker decreasing temperature. Jeremy and Chris sat at the front of the wagon, leading the animals, and having an isolated conversation amongst themselves. Chris had wished not to disturb the others, and Jeremy agreed.

  The others, being those who sat in the back, were all mostly quiet; borderline silent, in fact. Adam slept, as did Derrick, leant against the increasingly smaller packs of already far-past expired food and water, both with arms crossed. Cody and Nolan played some kind of card game with what little space they had, though they didn’t speak to one another. Luke just sat leaning on the side of the wagon, staring down at the ground, focusing on nothing even remotely close to the world they waded on through, heavily though they did.

  Having gone through a mass of forestation, which Chris was very on edge concerning fungi and and just general rotting grossness about– and though it was difficult really to get away from nowadays– the group currently found themselves in a slightly different environment.

  They ventured now a bit further south, having moved somewhat consistently the past thirty-some-odd days, minus foraging for more supplies in some way or another. Derrick and Adam hunting small prey when they could find it; though to say it wasn’t often would have been an understatement.

  Now, having hesitantly transitioned onto the roadside-travel, they were currently on what used to be a highway, now the path being completely reborn into a new habitat for nature to slowly reclaim. The road, fairly empty of any kind of working or otherwise intact vehicles. It made Chris feel like he was in an entirely new environment… Like he was lost.

  “Hey guys, we’re crossing the line, I think,” Jeremy said lightly, gently grabbing the attention of those who chose to listen.

  “Yep, there it is,” Chris confirmed, noting the sign. “Welcome to New York, everybody. Or whatever’s left of it…” he muttered to himself. Jeremy lightly jotted down the information in his notebook. A weird tick, sure, but Chris didn’t mind it. It was kind of cool, honestly. Like a record book of the new world, and hopefully some memories of the old one, too.

  “The Empire State,” Nolan sarcastically chimed in.

  “Excelsior…!” Cody added. That was the state’s motto, Chris recalled. At least, he thought it was. He was surprised Cody knew that, if it were true.

  Despite their comments, those who were awake did somewhat admire the meaning the sign held. They had made it far, and with a surprisingly moderate level of supplies still in their possession; though it was dropping. Still, “Ever Upward,” right?

  Though no one would dare say it at this point, Chris was sure none of them genuinely expected that they would ever make it this far. Some, like Adam, likely having doubted their survival more than the others.

  “Hey,” Cody attempted, tapping Luke on the shoulder to get his attention. Luke looked up hazily and turned to face Cody.

  “Huh, yeah?” Luke asked, refocusing.

  “You think we should go through New York City? Oughta be worth the trip, right? Might as well see what some of the uh, what do you call it… big cities look like,” Cody asked curiously. “Could be fun.”

  “Uh, sure, yeah I don’t… Jeremy and Chris are driving, so just, check with them…” Luke suggested, losing focus, falling back into the nothingness. Cody frowned, and gazed upon his friend, seeing the life having seemingly left his eyes. It certainly sounded that way to Chris anyway, and that was heartbreaking enough. Cody looked to Nolan, who, gazing back, just closed his mouth and shook his head slightly, looking back to his cards without a word.

  Cody glanced over to Jeremy and Chris, and scooching forward, repeated himself.

  “So, what do you say guys? Off top the big apple? The Ol’–!” he asked.

  “So long as you don’t do the god damn radio voice, then fine. I’m in,” Jeremy insisted, cutting Cody off before he could get to it. “We’ll ask the others when they wake up. Now shut up.” Cody just shut his mouth and huffed a little, returning to his cards.

  “I don’t know man,” Chris whispered, continuing the previously held conversation with his copilot. “I mean, it was an apocalypse, sure, we all know that, but don’t you think there’d be a little bit more evidence if that was the case? Like, don’t you think we’d see like, wreckage of stuff, or something?”

  “Not if they did as well as we think they did; you saw the same things I did on the tv. Little as it was, we saw shots of those ‘Goliaths’ people were talking about, heard about ‘Chirpers,’ ‘Ships’ or some shit; all kinds of shit,” Jeremy said, flipping through pages of his notebook; pages of “evidence,” surely. “I don’t know. You seriously think it was anything to do with religion though?”

  “I… maybe…? Maybe the government, if not? I mean, remember what happened to D.C.?” Chris thought aloud.

  “D.C.? All of Virginia got nuked to hell!” Jeremy said. “How could I forget that? That was like, day three.” Chris nodded, and Jeremy just shrugged.

  Jeremy sat quietly, pondering all the options. Chris knew it was crazy, but so was Jeremy’s idea, for God’s sake! Human beings live fo
r thousands and thousands of years with nothing, and then things from another world just… show up? Why?

  “Look, I know it’s kinda crazy, I’m not saying I even totally believe it. I’m just trying to put all the pieces together,” Jeremy insisted, knowing how to read Chris’s face all too well. “Big storm, big monsters, little monsters, god damn UFO’s. Loss of power, cable, technology, society as a whole in what, two months? If even? I don’t know what else could have happened, dude.”

  “Well, we know something like that happened. I mean it did only take like two months maybe, before the broadcasts were gone. The lights just… stopped. Christ maybe even sooner. The only reason we still even had anything that long was because of the juice we were taking from the cars, and that only lasted us a few extra days. So I mean, yeah… I guess something like that must be true,” Chris persisted.

  “Yeah… something like that…” Jeremy finished, lost in thought at the possibilities. That was, after all, how these conversations always seemed to end, no matter how many times any of them had them. After a brief pause, Chris quickly shifted subjects.

  “Hey uh, do you… I mean, you think Luke’s alright? I get it, we all do, but it’s been like a solid month or something! That’s a little excessive at this point, isn’t it?” Chris judged, glancing at Luke, who was still solemnly caught up in his own mind.

  “No, not really,” Jeremy said. “I mean, he killed somebody, dude. He looked like he was willing to kill them all. It was pretty scary. If I didn’t know him, I’d say he was insane. I still might.”

  “Yeah but what else could he do? Jack was gonna kill him! And us!” Chris retorted.

  “Yeah, I was there man, I know,” Jeremy snapped back, then realizing, and calming down. “Still, I think it all just… went overboard for him. With the kids, and then Jack, it bent him the wrong way, in a major way.”

  “But why, though?” Chris pressed, still perplexed over the whole situation.

  “Other than the fact that he killed a human being? I… He’s probably ashamed he was tricked into leading us all there, you know? Trusting people like that,” Jeremy explained. “I imagine that that, mixed with what he and Der found, just turned into an intense anger in him. And hate, you know? Luke never let himself hate like that before. And then…then he just let loose.” Chris was quiet, but only for a moment.