by T A Williams
Ben pretended he knew what he was talking about.
Mason stood back up, only this time he held the assault rifle with both hands.
The commercial buildings gave way to residential housing. The grass had grown nearly waist high around the houses and the existing roads. Trash and broken down cars lined the street. There was a good chance that some of these cars still had gas in them. Ben started to say something to Mason when the man stopped. Before he could ask what was wrong, he heard the sound of voices floating toward them from afar.
“Stay behind me.” Mason said
They cut through the overgrown yards and abandoned houses getting ever closer to the voices and then Mason stopped again. A thin smile appeared on his face and he slung the rifle back over his shoulder.
“Put your gun away.” he whispered to Ben.
They peeked around one of the houses and saw two men sitting on a porch across the street. From his vantage point, Ben could barely seem them but both seemed to be wearing military fatigues.
“Something I can help you with?” came a voice directly behind them.
Ben spun around and saw a man standing behind them with an assault rifle at his side. The man seemed to tower over them. He had a pitch black goatee with gray sprinkled throughout, which helped it stand out even over his dark skin. His bald head was partially covered by a raggedy baseball cap. Ben would have been terrified but the man had a pearl white smile plastered across his face.
Mason turned around slowly and took the sight of the man in. “Jesus Christ, you’ve gotten old.”
“And you’re just as ugly as ever.” the dark man said. Both men laughed and gave each other a quick hug. “Command said you were still alive and on your way. What the hell took you so long?”
“Traffic,” Mason turned to Ben. “Ben, this is Zima, Zima, Ben.”
Zima nodded toward him then looked to Mason with a raised eyebrow. “Refugee?”
“We’ll get into that later.”
“Heard about the Helo. Anyone else make it out alive?”
“No,” Mason said. “I’ll tell you about that later but that has to do with him.” He nodded towards Ben. “He saved my life.”
Zima looked at Ben again but this time he seemed to size him up. “Well then. Sounds like I owe your friend a beer.”
Ben smiled.
“Come on, let me introduce you to the rest of the squad.”
The other two soldiers were dressed similarly to Zima. Plain shirts with cutoff sleeves, a harness that went over top with gun holsters on each side, and a belt that had gun magazines littered throughout.
“Found some trash round the back.” Zima said, announcing them to the squad. “This is Stevenson.” he added, gesturing to a man sitting at the top of a porch.
While most of the men Ben had seen since the power went out had varying beard lengths, this man was clean cut. His ears stood out noticeably from the side of his head and he had a sharp nose that shot out from the front of his face. Despite that, he had a warm smile on his face.
“Nice to finally meet you.” Stevenson said to Mason.
Mason gave him a firm handshake. “You the medic?”
“Yes sir.”
“And this ball of fur,” Zima said, pointing at the last man, “is Rook.”
Rook had a camouflage colored hat that was on backwards with large black sunglasses covering his face. What Stevenson was missing in facial hair, this man more than made up for it. His beard nearly covered the entirety of his face, but the parts it didn’t cover were smooth. Zima and Stevenson’s faces were rugged and worn. This man was younger than his beard let on.
“Rook?” Mason asked, shaking the man’s hand.
“He’s the baby, hasn’t earned the right to use his real name yet.” Zima said.
“Gabe,” Rook said. “The name’s Gabe.”
“Nice to meet you, Rook.”
“Looks like you’re not the youngest of the group anymore Rook.” Stevenson said nodding towards Ben.
“Yeah this is Ben. He saved my ass when my Helo went down. Wouldn’t be here right now if it wasn’t for him.”
Once again Ben noticed the men’s faces change to one of respect. He always thought that Jack had saved Mason, but in reality he did help. That realization felt good.
“Young for a new recruit, isn’t he?” Rook asked.
“Can’t be much younger than you.” Stevenson chimed in.
Rook gave him the finger.
“He’s coming along until we get to base.”
Ben tried to keep his face neutral.
“Well Zima talks you up like you’re some kind of Rambo, so it’ll be nice having you on the squad.” Stevenson said.
Mason looked to Zima, who waved him off.
“Don’t get a hard-on I promised your mother I would make you look good. It’s the least I could do after everything she did to me – I mean for me.”
Mason shook his head and let out a long sigh. “This is going to be a long fucking trip.
Ben
“So what’s your story?”
Ben snapped back to reality as Stevenson walked past him into the yard. The man stretched out toward the stars and let out a groan.
“I…I don’t have a story.”
“Sure you do,” Stevenson sat down on the bottom stair of the porch. “We all got stories. Some of them more interesting than others.”
“Quit harassing the kid.” Zima said as he walked out of the house they had taken temporary shelter in. Rook and Mason followed him out and they all spread out on the porch.
Mason sat down next to Ben and laid his back against the door of the house. “He’s not a kid. He lost a large chunk of his family to the people we are supposed to eradicate, and he saved my ass. No one can be called a kid after that.”
Ben didn’t know what to say. He appreciated Mason sticking up for him and for remembering how much Ben hated being called a kid, but having the last two years of his life summarized in two quick sentences was unnerving.
“Sorry to hear that.” Zima said somberly.
“What do you mean the people you are supposed to eradicate?” Ben asked.
“People who take advantage of the weak. The people who think just because the lights went out they can steal, kill, and rape.” Zima said.
Ben looked at the four men. They had plenty of firepower and both Zima and Mason were two of the largest men he had even seen, but they were still just four men. He said as much.
Zima laughed. “There are squads like us all over. They send us into hotspots and we return it to order. And we are just four, but we know what we are doing.”
“What about the invasion?”
All of the men grew quiet. Even Rook who had been in his own little world snapped to attention and turned to Zima and Mason.
“Z, you seem to know more about this then I do.” Mason said.
“Not a lot to know right now. We were attacked in three places. The east coast, west coast, and down south.”
“By who?”
“China and North Korea.” Zima let that hang in the air for a moment as he ran his hand over his goatee. “It looks like China hit us hard on the East Coast and then sent a small force to hit us in the Gulf through Louisiana, while Korea came at us from the west.”
“Then why are you all here?” Ben asked.
“Isn’t that the question of the year?” Stevenson murmured.
Zima shot him a look but the man wasn’t looking. “If Command needed our help then we would be there, but they don’t. Our mission remains, do what we can to hold this country together until the power is turned back on.”
“So, did they turn off the power?”
“Wouldn’t put it past them.” Stevenson murmured again.
“That doesn’t make sense,” Rook said quietly. “The power has been out, what, two and a half years now? Why wait that long before attacking? I can understand waiting six months, hell even a year, but this long?”
Stev
enson snorted. “Don’t try to understand the logic of those fu-“
“Enough,” Zima said. “We don’t have any idea who or what turned the lights out. They could have done it or they could just be trying to take advantage, doesn’t really matter right now.”
They sat there in silence for a few moments.
“We’ve been ordered to a base in Kentucky,” Mason said to Ben. “Once there they’ll determine where we’re going next.”
Ben felt a glimmer of hope.
“They’ll have the resources to get you back home.”
And just like that the hope was dashed.
“Wish you would have brought the radio with you.” Zima said as he took a drink of water.
“Last I heard protocol was to leave the radio in the supply drop.”
“You’re not wrong,” Zima said, staring out at the stars. “I’d just like to contact Command if needed.”
“You don’t have a radio?” Ben asked.
“Piece of shit crapped out on us.” Stevenson answered.
Zima stood up and scanned the horizon. “Rook you have first watch. The rest of you get some shut eye. We’re heading out before dawn.”
Rook nodded while Stevenson grumbled but they went about as ordered. Ben took one last look at the starry sky and then headed in.
Alec
“How is it out there?” Whitford asked.
Alec had been lost in his own mind and didn’t realize that the man was talking to him. By the time he did it was too late, Whitford took his silence to mean the rest of the world had rendered him speechless.
“Damn, I was afraid of that.”
Whitford, much like everyone Alec had known shortly after the world went dark, had aged considerably. His face was ragged and worry lines had been carved into nearly every inch of his face, with the only thing covering them up being a dirty scruffy beard.
The town had changed as well, but not necessarily for the worse. Sure there were buildings and houses that had been boarded up but there was an order to everything else. Whitford and the rest of the people had shrunk the city into the town square. Here there were trading posts, fire pits and other forms of entertainment. Even the houses just off the town square appeared to have been recently renovated and outside of grass that badly needed to be cut it looked like the world had never ended.
“Some of us here went out looking for him as well.” Alec turned his attention back to Whitford. “Wherever the soldier went, it’s nowhere close to here.”
Alec had already known that. He had been out searching for Alec for nearly two weeks and found the same thing he had found when he went out looking for his sister, nothing. Just like Ally, Ben was gone. Ally had been taken from them, Ben had chosen to leave. Alec still had not decided how much of the blame he was going to put on Ben and how much he was going to accept. But he had not come into town to talk about his brother.
“So do you all have room here?” he asked.
“Room we have plenty of,” answered Whitford. “It’s the supplies that are scarce. We’ve got our hunters and a few decent size gardens but we still come up short from time to time.”
Alec had figured as much.
“The people I’m with have seeds and gardening know how. They had been totally self-sufficient since everything collapsed. They’re old but they can help.”
Whitford ran a hand through his beard. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to tell you no; wouldn’t matter if I did. The majority of this town is nothing more than abandoned buildings; they could squat here without us knowing for quite a while.”
There was only so much space they had at his home. Jack had every room in his house doubled up. They filled up Trent’s old house, and even a few more that were a couple miles away, but still they had people needing a place to call home. Yet Alec knew that finding a roof over their heads wasn’t going to be the hard part.
“I understand on the outskirts there were plenty of farms and people with livestock?”
Whitford nodded.
“Have you all searched them all?”
“For the most part. Before last winter we went out and hit every place within a few miles distance from here.”
“What about the livestock?”
The realization dawned on Whitford’s face. “Those that survived are running wild but they’re out there.”
“I have plenty of land, if we can gather up the cattle and even a few horses then we can start large scale farming and even have some meat for winter.”
“It’s sure as hell possible. A lot of damn work, but possible.”
“The work isn’t an issue, we have plenty of helping hands.”
Whitford laughed. “Good to have you back. Tell you want I have a few able-bodied men who can help you with fence building and wrangling up the animals.”
“I’ll take all the help I can get.”
Jack and Trevor came out from one of the buildings and approached. Trevor had been helping the town’s doctor and Jack had just been along for the ride. Alec still couldn’t meet the man’s gaze. It was mostly an irrational anger but in the back of his mind he couldn’t stop thinking that the old man could have done more.
“Everything good in there?” Whitford asked.
“Yeah, you all have more medical supplies than I was expecting to see, not nearly enough for a group this big, but more than I expected.” Trevor answered.
“That’s this town’s motto,” grumbled Whitford. “Appreciate you helping out the Doc, he’s not as young as he used to be.”
Jack respectfully stood a few feet from Alec. He had not talked to Alec since the day he returned. He seemed to understand Alec’s anger and was giving him time to work through it, and Alec didn’t know how long that would take.
Whitford began discussing what they had decided so Alec let his mind wander. They could provide houses, they could hunt for food and they could learn to grow enough food for everyone, but what then? Once their community was settled was he just going to continue living there and pretend his brother and sister weren’t out in a world that nearly killed him? But if he left, where would he go? As Whitford droned on Alec tried to convince himself to focus on one problem at a time, but his mind kept slipping back to his scattered family.
Ally
Ally didn’t like this part.
She placed her bow beside a large tree and placed her arrows next to it. She grabbed some of the nearby brush and placed it on top rendering her most valuable possessions nearly invisible. She ran her hand through her hair trying to get out the large knots that had formed since the last time she had bothered to try this. Once done, she wiped down her clothing until she felt as presentable as she was going to get.
“Alright Tiger, remember - stay close.” And with that she walked down the hill towards the town.
The place was once a much larger city and technically still was but people only lived in part of it. As she approached, the sound of people and the smells of cooking filled her nose. Even though she had already eaten, it still caused her mouth to salivate, and Tiger licked his lips beside her. She walked down a side alley but no one even glanced at her. The people, all in their worn out and partially stitched up clothing, went about their daily lives. Trading, farming, herding: they only seemed to come together in this area if they needed something, then they went back their own way. Ally still didn’t want to take any chances, especially since she didn’t have her bow with her. She learned early on that the sight of a small girl with her own small bow was enough to get people to pause from their daily routines.
The sidewalks had been overgrown by nature and very few people here had cars, so everyone just walked in the road as if it were a giant sidewalk. Some of the store fronts of the buildings had been taken over by people trading, others set up wooden stands that served as trading booths. Ally walked past all of them and made sure Tiger stayed close.
She made her way to one of the only trading booths she ever went to. A lady, who looked to be around her mothe
r’s age, sat behind the old wooden structure with a gentle smile on her face. Her clothing was worn but clearly washed and her stitching somehow seemed cleaner than the others Ally had seen. The lady was using a Ping-Pong racquet with a large piece of cardboard attached to it as a fan. When she saw Ally approaching, she smiled.
“Well hey again! Ally, is it?”
Ally nodded.
“Haven’t seen you in a while. See you still have your guardian with you?” she asked, nodding at Tiger.
Ally again nodded as she took off her backpack and began to rummage through it.
The woman looked around. “For some reason I can never remember your mother. Have I met her before?”
“Yep, whenever we first came here. She likes you that’s why I can come to your booth by
myself.” Ally lied.
This seemed to please the woman. “Well, in this day and age that is quite a compliment. Tell your mother thank you. You looking for anything in particular or you just looking for some more oranges?”
Ally started to say something when she caught sight of the woman’s handmade fan. “How did you do that?”
“Oh, this old thing? Just traded someone for the paddle and glued some paper to it, nothing fancy.”
“Do you have any more?”
“No, darling. Sorry, this is my only fan.”
“No, not the fan,” Ally said. “Glue.”
The woman looked the girl up and down approvingly. “Don’t think I’ve ever had anyone ask for that yet. Why yes I do. Have some super glue that I found shortly after everything got messed up.”
Ally pulled out two of the candles she had found. The lilac one she had left in her room; it would help get rid of Tiger’s smell whenever he got wet. She placed the two candles on the table and the lady’s eyes lit up.
“Well I’ll be. I haven’t seen scented candles in who knows how long. Can I?” she asked, gesturing towards them. Ally nodded and the woman bent down and took in two long whiffs of the candles. Her eyes rolled back and she gave off a long sigh. “Honey, that’s just a piece of heaven right there. What do you want for them?”
