Slowly, and with great hesitation, they made their way toward it, constantly analyzing the area around them to be sure it was safe. Luke stayed with Cody while the others went to look. Derrick’s mind was racing at the possibilities; after all, what could have caused such a visceral reaction like that from Cody, after everything they’d been through?
Well, then they got there.
What Derrick saw, what they all saw, was one of the most shocking, gut-wrenching things he had seen so far in their journey, all things considered. They stood at the very edge of the road, and gazed down at the bottom of the pit. And had they looked sooner, they would have realized the “bottom” wasn’t too far down, as it turned out. Really, it was only about 5, maybe 10 feet below them.
Stacked up, almost a mile wide, and who knew how deep, was a mass of greyed, decayed, skeletal bodies. Human bodies. At least a county's worth, let alone a town's worth, of people. Their hair was gone, clothes gone, insides, and God only knew what else, gone. Just lifeless, haggard corpses, lying in a mass grave. Like a heap of decaying, leathery husks.
“Jesus Christ…” Nolan gasped out, covering his mouth and staggering backward.
“Oh…Oh my God…” Chris stammer, turning around and palming his face in his hand, pulling down the top of his dirty ginger hair.
“No…” Jeremy gasped out, dropping his notebook down at the ground, and cupping his face in his hands.
Adam just took off his hat and put it on his chest, looking away, and putting his other hand in a fist to cover his mouth. His knuckles grew white with pressure.
“Guys?” Luke asked, clearly perplexed by their reactions, and definitely frightened. “What is it?” Nobody said anything back. “Guys?” he asked again. Derrick turned around, with only one thought ringing in his head.
“It’s where they went,” he said, walking away from the hole, past Cody and Luke, down the road to be alone.
Luke made his own way over to see what there was, as the others all walked away. Derrick assumed that he was there for probably 20 minutes, doing nothing but staring in dead-silence. Nobody bothered to move him; nobody even approached him.
Clearly, this was no man-made hole, and they had heard that there were Ships from the Stranger and the tvs, so they had to have been what made it, somehow. Derrick was sure of that much.
It did make him have to wonder though: where were all the others? They hadn’t really seen any other bodies– or holes for that matter– throughout their trip. Maybe these were all over the place, but was it really possible that they happened to miss them? That they may have been just around the corner, and the guys all just had the good-fortune of avoiding them? The very thought made Derrick uneasy, more so than he already was.
About an hour later, they had gathered all the bibles they could find, and laid them out in a line around the edge of the road. They managed to find a few candles, with a handful of matches on hand, and lit them, placing them too in a line with the bibles around the hole’s edge. Luckily, the rain was still light, so hopefully they wouldn’t go out immediately.
“Is uh… is anyone like… a confirmed catholic or anything?” Jeremy asked, sounding a bit choked up. “Because I mean, I just… I think it should be… you know, since they seemed really… you know…” Nobody spoke up. Derrick knew most of them were in fact confirmed, but still, nobody wanted to do it. But someone had to. These people deserved that much.
He paused a moment, trying to muster the strength, and then took a bold step forward, gazing down at the candles and bibles laid out on the ground beneath him.
“Um, okay… I don’t know any like, bible verses or anything, but uh… here goes,” he said. “In this world, we’re told to do the best we can, and to be the best people we can be; and it’s all we can do to try to be good to each other, like the son of God was to us, and live lives filled with joy and happiness.” Derrick took another deep breath, and cleared his throat. “Those who believe in the Lord, and those who follow him, as well as those who simply act out of the kindness and goodness of their hearts, are those who will be accepted with open arms by the Holy Father himself into the gates of Heaven…”
Derrick stopped again, and tried to remain composed. His mind was racing over every person that may have been sitting in there. Every man, woman, and child, who wanted nothing more than to live out their lives; who had dreams and hopes and aspirations. He always remembered Father Stevens, for as strange as he was, constantly telling him that every life deserved the chance to live, no matter the circumstances. For some odd reason, it now rang in his head like an unceasing bell chiming away.
“I…I know that, whatever they went through to get them where they lay now, they are in a much better, much happier place, and they are at peace. They can rest easy, and no longer have to endure the pain that the world, as well as those within it, inflicted upon them… they can live the lives they deserve to live. And…And they can do so knowing that they did the best they could to live wholesome, decent lives to the very end. May they rest in peace. Amen,” Derrick preached, tears rolling down his– as well as the others’– face.
“Amen,” they all muttered.
“And uh… I don’t… I don’t know how to end this so… let’s just uh… bow our heads and give them a moment of silence,” Derrick decided, lowering his head, once again with the others following his lead.
They stood, locked into place, not saying a word. Listening to the gentle breeze blow cooly around them. It felt even colder now than Derrick had last remembered, but in front of the candles, he still managed to feel a comforting warmth; it seemed to conquer the frost around him, as well as close off the bitter bite of the world they were in, at least for the moment.
After a short time, the guys raised their heads, and Adam placed his hand on Derrick’s shoulder comfortingly.
“That was really nice Der, really,” he said somberly, ducking his head down to try and mask his tears, and slowly putting his hat back on. Derrick could still see the impact his words had on Adam though, and he just made a half smile.
“Thanks,” he said quietly, glancing back to Adam. The others all stayed where they were, gazing out at the hole again. Some of them were looking down at it, and some were looking past it, to the road beyond. No one said another word for a good few minutes.
“Jesus,” Cody eventually said, “I can’t believe it’s only like, one o’clock. We haven't even had lunch.” The others chuckled a bit, and Derrick too cracked a half smile. They stood there for another moment or two, and then Nolan decided to break the silence.
“So uh, guys…” he said. “Do you think– I mean like, is there a chance that, you know, whatever did this is still–”
“Maybe,” Luke interjected, “but I don’t think so. I think this is just a graveyard, and from the looks of it, it’s at maximum occupancy. Whatever it was that did this, it’s probably moved on to somewhere else.”
“That doesn’t necessarily mean this place is safe though,” Adam replied. “Who knows what might be lurking around, or even might just pass by?”
“Well what do we do then?” Jeremy asked, looking to Luke. They all were, in fact. Part of that annoyed Derrick, though he didn’t really know why. Luke certainly earned it, through all the times he pushed them through the shit they had to trudge, but still. They all did their part, Derrick included. As childish as that sounded, he still believed it.
Yet, he found himself still looking at Luke for guidance too, so maybe it was just instinct by now. Maybe this was the exact childishness and bitterness Luke had told them about; the kind of attitude to better themselves from.
“Well, we could leave, or we could stay the night, see what else we can find, and head out tomorrow,” Luke said, gazing around at them. “Your call. I'll follow your lead.”
That was it. That was why they did it, right there. It had to be. Why they looked to Luke. Because even though he thought of the ideas, he left it for them as a group to decide, and ultimately, he’d g
o with the majority. He didn’t demand what to do or how to do it; he put the group to a vote to democratically make decisions, and whatever they chose, Luke would run with, and steer in the right direction. Were it the others, Derrick didn’t know that he could say the same would be done; he didn’t even know if the same could be said for him.
“Well I say we stay,” Adam said. “We need to get more shit, and who knows? Maybe we’ll find a better mode of transportation somewhere around here.”
“Yeah, I’m for it, better than moving around, probably seeing even more depressing or horrifying shit,” Derrick agreed.
“I don’t know guys, I don’t think I can manage to stay here with all of them just... laying here,” Chris said softly, still a strong sense of somberness in his tone, as though he knew them all deeply and intimately. Derrick opened his mouth to object, but then paused, closing it and thinking.
He got Chris’s point, it was pretty depressing, and part of him did feel like it was almost wrong to stay in their homes. Plus, he knew Chris was speaking out of the kindness of his gentle heart. Still, the rain was picking up, and it was going to be getting dark soon. Who knew when they’d get to another safe place to stay the night? Maybe it was worth them staying; Derrick thought so at least.
“Why don’t we just put it to a direct vote?” Cody suggested. “Who’s for staying?”
“I,” said Derrick, Adam, and Nolan.
“And against?”
“I,” Luke, Cody, and Chris said.
“Alright, well, four to three,” Cody tallied. “Looks like we’re staying.” Chris sighed, and grabbed his things off the floor; Luke and Cody looked disappointed about the turnout too. Derrick felt for them– really, he did– but this was for the best. He believed that.
The rain had seriously picked up not much more than a few hours later, and it picked up hard. The wind was blowing, howling even, and it was so dark they could hardly see a thing outside, with only sporadic lightning strikes as a means of outside lighting. Derrick soon became rather skittish, and wondered if they had ultimately made the right decision. The others, meanwhile, sat contently around a small fireplace in the home they were currently residing in.
It was two floors, but tight on space. The inside was pretty worn down, but other than Chris’s unrealistically high-set standards, it was clean enough for them. It was blue on the outside; Derrick thought baby-blue, Adam: sky-blue, and so an argument had spawned between the two. It lasted what felt like an hour in itself, at least to Derrick it did; the others just tuned them out. As per usual, there was no distinct winner, and it ended up just coming to an abrupt halt, both of the two having too little energy to continue.
That’s how it always went though, Derrick supposed. No matter who was on whose case, it always just kind of ended with no rhyme or reason in that group; most of the time at least. Very rarely did things escalate long enough to become a real fight.
At the moment, the guys were all playing rummy with 3 decks of cards they had found in the home, much to their surprise. All the meanwhile, they were talking about a variety of topics, keeping the same constant-moving conversational pace they always came back to. Jeremy even had put his notebook down, and hadn’t peered into it for at least an hour.
“So, who are you again?” Jeremy asked Luke, trying to remember.
“I’d be Captain America,” Luke said, grinning slightly.
“Yeah, okay!” Nolan said sarcastically. “I’m the one with blonde hair, and I’m the strong one.”
“And the humble one, apparently…” Chris muttered, Derrick and the others chuckling along with him.
“Maybe, but if we’re being egotistic here, I’m the purest, you know?” Luke said, the others scoffing.
“No you’re not!” Adam countered.
“Oh and you are!?” Luke retorted.
“No, but you sure as hell aren’t,” Adam said, shuffling his cards around. “No, I’m more Thor I think.”
“No, see here’s the thing though, you’d be Hulk, no question,” Cody said. “Big, moody, sort of dumb.” He smiled at the end of his list, Adam scowling.
“Oh! He’s getting angry! You wouldn’t like him when he’s angry!” Jeremy mocked, pointing at Adam and laughing. The others all joyfully laughed along.
“Right,” Luke said, continuing where he had left off, “so Adam would be Hulk, I’m Cap, Nolan would be Thor, Cody you’d be… Hawkeye? Yeah, that seems right. Jeremy, you’d be Iron Man, and Chris you’d be uh… I don’t know, Vision maybe? Yeah, Vision. And Der… you’d be Black Widow!” The others laughed at the end of his listing, all except for Derrick, who found it ludicrous.
“What!?” Derrick shouted, baffled. “Screw you! No I wouldn’t!”
“Well who else could you be?” Luke asked.
“Lots of people! There are a ton of Avengers!” Derrick yelled in outrage.
“Yeah, but you’ve got that feminine finesse that the rest of us just don’t have,” Chris said, raising his cards up at Derrick as if to signal toward his body.
“No I don’t!” he shouted in protest. “You guys suck! Screw your Avengers!” he said, huffing and angrily shuffling his cards. The others all chuckled, and resumed on with their game. Derrick was never a huge fan of card games though; they were too bland for his taste. And they took forever. Not to mention, seven people playing a card game meant for about half that many players certainly didn’t help.
He casually looked around the room, checking briefly outside the windows without getting up, just to double-check their perimeter. He didn’t want to raise any unneeded anxiety toward anything, and he knew it was probably safe, but Derrick still couldn’t help but do security checks, just to be safe; if nothing else, he did it for his own sake. There was nothing but rain, lightning, and rolling thunder occasionally dropping by however, as he expected, and so he returned to the game. He wanted to try something; test the waters.
“Okay…” Derrick began slowly. “What if we included everyone else?” he asked. It was a risky ask, as it could have gone very poorly, but the mood felt right, and Derrick phrased it gently enough– he believed– to where it would go over well. The others paused, clearly hesitating, and then Adam chuckled a little, breaking the silence.
“Okay, well Zack would’ve been like, Quicksilver. Maybe War Machine,” he said, the others smiling and following suit.
“No, he’d have been Hawkeye,” Cody said.
“Yeah, that’s fair,” Luke agreed, smiling. He glanced down, pausing, almost contemplating something; Derrick could tell what, of course, because then he said it. “Emily would’ve been Black Widow.” He smiled again, this time a bit gentler, then looking at Derrick. “Which would give you… I don’t know, Jarvis? Pre-Vision, that is.”
“What!?” Derrick once more retorted, thrown off by the continuation of this shit-talk. “Seriously!?”
In all reality, Derrick didn’t really care very much about any of that. It was just a stupid game, and he knew it. No, he reacted that way more to help keep the show going, as he always saw it. After all, that’s what he always did, even way back when. The outbursts, the pissieness, it was all just to keep the energy alive, and it always made his friends laugh. Now especially, Derrick felt he needed to drive it home.
“Lily would’ve been Scarlet Witch,” Nolan spoke up fondly; Derrick noticed a slight tear welling up in his eyes, but still, he kept his composure, even smiling. That was the first time that was able to happen in a while. Luke was one thing, but Nolan was a whole other, clearly. There was a small pause, as the others sat in a calm state of remembrance and nostalgia, trying as well to give proper respect to those who may have needed it in that moment. The silence enveloped them like a warm blanket, rather than the cold sting they were so used to.
Suddenly however, Derrick perked his head up. The silence had been tainted.
“Guys,” he whispered, looking up and out toward the front window. “You hear that?”
“What?” Cody said, grow
ing quickly alert, as did the others.
“Sounded like something… I don’t know, like, scratched the side of the house or something.”
“I mean, are you sure it wasn’t just the rain?” Chris asked, looking at Derrick curiously.
“No, no I’m sure,” he said softly, getting up, and cautiously moving toward the window. He felt oddly naked as he approached; if he was right, then whatever was out there was just staring in, watching them.
“Der, weapons ready?” Luke asked quietly, slowly pulling out his gun. Derrick nodded, just to be safe, and the others all armed themselves. He moved closer to the window, and placed himself against the wall right next to it. He tilted his head a bit to get a slight view of the outside.
He couldn’t see much, but he knew he heard something, mixed in with the rain. It was like a low, sort of… rhythmic… hum. Or no, more like a growl, he decided. And it sounded like there was more than one; different volumes, different pitches, back and forth. Whatever it was– whatever they were– were communicating.
“Sounds like animals,” Derrick relayed to the others through an increasingly panicked whisper. “Like a pack of something.”
“You think it’s just like… animal-animals?” Cody asked.
“No, sounds too… foreign…” Derrick wagered vaguely. They’d never heard of anything like this before…
“Well what do we do?” Nolan asked, growing quite nervous. “Should we just hide? We won’t be able to make it running, whatever it is. It’s too dark and stormy to even see out there!”
“Adam, put out the fire,” Luke directed, Adam then poured a water bottle over the small flame. It went out with a sizzle, their main source of light now evaporating into the chimney, seeping out into the blistering night sky.
“Great, now we can’t even see in here!” Jeremy complained, still whispering.
“Well now they can’t see us either!” Adam countered.
“Technically we don’t know that…” Chris responded hauntingly. It certainly didn’t help lifting any of their spirits.
The Way Back (Book 1): The Way Back Page 16
