by Riley Flynn
“Today.”
“Oh yeah. Christ.”
They sat together on the woodpile, watching the light saunter into the world. Catching a sideways glance, Alex could see his friend looked drained. Tired. They’d never been the type to share their innermost feelings with one another. I’m not going to start now, he thought. Timmy’s got enough to worry about. I’ve got to be stronger. We’ll get there, eventually.
“You should probably get some sleep,” said Alex. “I need you to be fit and healthy later. Just in case.”
“Just in case?”
“You know what I mean.”
Timmy stretched his arms, the rifle shaking on his lap. He handed it to Alex.
“I guess it’s your watch now, man. Keep an eye out.”
“I will.”
“Out there and in here.”
“Get some sleep, Timmy.”
The door opening and closing was the loudest sound in the forest. But it was still almost silent.
Alex felt the weight of the rifle in his hand. His first watch.
Sitting on the woodpile, he stared at the trees, daring them to move.
He watched the sky, daring it to crack open.
But nothing happened.
Forcing himself to stay awake, keeping the nightmares and the dead at bay, Alex sat with the gun and watched, waiting to see what the day would bring.
Chapter 14
The door slammed. Alex opened his eyes. A wet nose rubbed up against his wrist.
“Fell asleep there, did you?” Cam’s voice came from inside the cabin. “Hope you had some crazy vision of our good future.”
“Just resting my eyes,” Alex mumbled, pushing Finn away. He’d fallen asleep on watch.
He hadn’t dreamt at all. One moment he was waiting for the sunrise, the next he was jerking awake. Dawn had only just broken. He couldn’t have been asleep that long. The best sleep he’d had in weeks and it came when he should have been awake, watching over his friends. Every bone in Alex’s body ached with shame and guilt.
“Shame,” Cam told him, not seeming to care. “Always good to start a mission with a prophecy. Get those dreams on your side, my friend.”
Removing the rifle from his lap, standing, and entering the cabin, Alex called Finn to his heel. He could hear Timmy snoring in the bedroom. The dog walked in circles around Cam as he filled two backpacks.
“You’re getting prepared?” asked Alex, eyeing up Cam.
Something about the man seemed… off. Strange. There was a geniality about Cam, a sense of ease. He made people relaxed. He seemed genuinely warm and friendly. Given the circumstances, Alex couldn’t help thinking this wasn’t right.
“Got to hit that road early,” Cam said in his sing-song drawl. “I don’t always sleep so good. Sleep when you’re dead.”
“Guess so,” said Alex, smudging his hand across his face, not letting his eyes leave the other man.
Time to wake up, he told himself. You fell asleep on watch. You’re not going to let it happen again. He watched Cam pack the bags. Two backpacks, filled with bottled water, food packets, and extra clothes. A length of tube and a jerry can. Leaving plenty of space, Alex noted. Space to fill with the loot. The spoils of war. Maybe this was an attempt to make a good impression.
“You pack any firepower?” he asked Cam, looking into the backpacks. “I can’t see any in here.”
Standing up to his full height, eyes a few inches above Alex’s own, Cam gestured to the hunting rifle they’d pulled out of the floorboards.
“Thought that bad boy would suit you well enough. Maybe something smaller as well.”
Two of the handguns from Timmy’s collection were resting on the table, already in their holsters, alongside two packs of ammo. Lifting one, Cam held it out.
“Thought I’d put it in your bag, if that’s okay?”
“You’re not taking the rifle? But it’s yours.”
“Trust me, friend, I think it’s best you get used to it more than me. Besides, you deserve it. Inviting me in, breaking bread. Think of it as my way of saying thanks.”
Alex tried the Savage in his hands. Timmy had been right. There was a clear step up in quality.
But why was he being handed the gun? Cam’s gun. Alex watched the other man walking around the kitchen. It was a gift, maybe. A peace offering. Something designed to win his trust. Or maybe the stranger had an aversion to guns? There must have been some reason to flee the military.
“You better learn to shoot it straight, that’s all I’m saying,” said Cam. “Weapon like that, she deserves to be shot right.”
Even with his lack of experience in the world of firearms, Alex could tell there was something special about this gun. His old rifle, the one he’d taught himself to shoot back in Rockton, that had been a mass-produced, generic kind of weapon. But he knew how it worked. He knew the kick, how the casing popped out just so and fell beside his foot. It was familiar.
But this Savage was all of that and more. The sensation as Alex held it in his hands was hard to describe. He didn’t know enough about guns to explain it; he lacked the vocabulary. But it just felt kind of… right. After holding it for a few seconds, Alex felt like he knew it intimately. It was reassuring.
The bags were packed. Alex, pistol on his hip and rifle in his hands, stood beside the door. Time to move.
“Finn,” he whispered, worried about waking the others, “wanna go for a walk?”
“No, no,” said Cam as the young dog scrambled to his feet. “Better if he stays.”
“He’s a good dog. He’s got me out of a few scrapes.”
“No. Just the two of us. Two-man team.”
“He’s saying no, Finn,” Alex told the dog. “You’ll have to stay. Timmy was saying he’s going to train you when he’s got a chance. Behave.”
“He’s a distraction.”
The dog sat back on his haunches, tail wagging, ready to leave.
“Sure those other two will do better with him around,” Cam added. “Let’s hit the road.”
* * *
They walked, Cam in front and Alex behind.
Still wearing the same sneakers he’d been wearing from the first day, Alex watched his fellow traveler’s footsteps with envy. Cam wore a pair of battered-yet-rugged military boots. Laced up tight, they steered their owner across any surface.
Every day, more and more leaves fell from the trees. They rustled. They whispered. They drew attention. Between steps, Alex heard another noise. Faint, far away. A rumble, of sorts. Moving. Mechanical. Only there for a fleeting moment and, without warning, it wasn’t there anymore. Only the leaves and the occasional birdsong were left behind.
“Cam,” Alex tried, “can you hear that?”
The man turned around, waving the flat of his palm up and down through the air. Asking for quiet.
“I hear it,” he whispered. “It ain’t no drone. Not a person, neither.”
“It’s those people we saw yesterday?”
“Reckon it’s too early for them. But could be.”
“You think there’s something in this forest?”
“I know there’s something in this forest. Plenty of things.” Cam’s words were shorter. Sharp. “We just stay out the way.”
“You’re not worried about that?”
Cam turned to face Alex, a stern look on his face.
“Sure. Wherever I go, I’m worried. Least out here I can see them coming, know what I’m saying?”
That slow, syrupy Southern drawl had dried up. The words were curt. They didn’t invite argument. Cam’s clipped, thin lips slammed shut and sealed the discussion up inside.
He turned and started walking again. The conversation was over. Alex, surprised, took a moment to collect himself. He followed.
* * *
They trekked over rocks, logs, leaves, and puddles of mud. One tree looked like every other; every stone formation looked the same. Alex was worried they were headed in circles. Either that or his brain
struggled to process the route. Finding the way back to the cabin alone would be impossible.
Too long in Detroit, city boy.
Even as Alex’s mind drifted through the woods, trying to find a familiar sight, Cam pressed on. Occasionally, he would raise a balled fist. This meant stop. A quick lesson to learn. When the fist appeared, they stopped, ducked behind a tree, a ledge, or a mudbank. And they waited.
When Cam decided they were clear, they walked on. Possibly in a different direction. The trees all looked the same. The third time the fist was held in the air, Alex turned to the other man and began to whisper.
“Learned all this in the military, huh?”
“Yessir,” Cam muttered a response through still lips.
“Learned a lot?”
Stepping out from the rock formation they had hidden behind, Cam took the lead once again. This time, Alex walked alongside him, just off to his eight o’clock.
“Taught me as much as they could,” said Cam. “Bad student, I guess.”
“What did you do? Infantry?”
“Little bit of everything. They shunted me around, place to place. Never really excelled at any one thing, never had the mind to focus much too long. But folks liked me, I suppose. Always transferring me this way and that. Never kicked me out. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride.”
“You ever see action?” Alex tried to be respectful, balancing his natural curiosity with a delicate touch. Cam had boundaries. Some things he didn’t want to talk about. Better to tiptoe around them.
“Not of the fighting type. Came pretty close when I was working as a cook. Hungry soldiers ain’t no joke.”
They talked and walked, Cam listing the departments where he’d spent some time. All grunt work to him. Certain posts would receive lavish praise, while certain officers brought a palpable anger bubbling to the surface. Occasionally, the hand would raise up, ball into a fist, and linger in the air. They stopped. Hid. Scoured the tree line. Nothing in sight. Nothing except that distant rumble, moving all around them. When the fist lowered, they walked again.
* * *
Eventually, they arrived at the site, emerging through a thick line of trees as the forest floor fell away beneath them. A steep slope, cutting down some forty feet. A valley as wide as an interstate, a single lane of asphalt cutting through the center like the Colorado River through a canyon.
Just as Alex was about to step out onto the slope, Cam put an arm across his chest. He pointed down. A thin, almost-invisible wire was strung between two trees.
“Trip wire,” Cam whispered. “Who knows what else we’ve set off?”
Alex’s heart leapt a foot, lodging itself in his throat. Desperately, he looked around, trying to spot anyone between the trees.
“They’re out there?” his voice was a hoarse whisper. “Where?”
“No,” said Cam. “This is old. No one’s been out here in a while. We’re fine.”
Alex’s heart began to slide back down his neck, seeking safety behind his rib cage. He hoped he could trust Cam’s word. It sounded right, anyway.
They stepped carefully over the obstacle and stared down at the world below.
They looked left and right, standing on top of the hill. The road was littered with car wrecks. A battlefield, Alex could see. Burned-out shells and smashed glass. Squinting, raising the rifle scope for a closer inspection, he saw the bodies. Dead men left to rot.
Not natural deaths. Looking over his shoulder, running his fingers over the bark of a young birch tree, Alex found a bullet hole. And another. The sunlight caught on the spent casings down on the road, copper-colored glimmers amid the leaves and the black of the road.
Just like in his dreams, Alex could see the dead. The work a bullet did, the way it ripped into flesh. Even from up on the slope, his mind could piece together the torn apart bark on the birch trees and the pools of dried blood down below. He tried to suppress a shiver, not wanting Cam to see him react. But he could feel the blood congealing in his veins. It was like stepping into a nightmare.
Alex recognized the cars. Two sides, he knew, though it was impossible to imagine how the battle had played out so long after the fact. But there were the Humvees and the Cadillacs, the cars favored by the government men. Military and agency types, intertwined here.
Interspersed among these official vehicles were others. Stripped out, modified. Jeeps that had been gutted to have them run quicker, lighter, and more efficiently. The same ones had been used by the gang members, Alex remembered.
“I saw it happen.”
Cam spoke low, measured his words. Alex could barely hear him. It was a relief to see someone else affected by the carnage.
“Hard to tell who were the good guys and who were the bad guys, right?” Alex ventured.
“Not from up here.”
“You’re on the military side?”
“I’m not on any side, my friend. That’s the problem. Too many people keen to split the world into distinct camps. Us, them. Good, evil. Left, right. Black, white. None of that. Just shades of gray. Best you can do is try to see the spectrum for what it is.”
Alex let the man have his moment.
“So you saw what happened?”
“Saw most of it,” said Cam, making his way down the slope. “Heard screeching tires, ducked out the way, then next thing I know, all hell’s broke loose.”
“You didn’t see who started it?”
The slope was slippery. Alex tried to find firm footing but was fooled by the scattered leaves.
“Saw who ended it. Couple of them Cadillacs were still standing. They drove off. No one ever came back. I came out here every day to check on them.”
“Almost like you’re checking back to make sure it happened,” said Alex, looking down on the scene. “It almost doesn’t seem real.”
“It’s real,” said Cam, a little too quickly, his voice snapping. “Trust me.”
Alex, trying to keep his footing, felt awkward. He’d said something wrong. He’d triggered the trip wire. Best to move the subject along.
“So why didn’t you take anything then?”
“If you seen two gangs go at each other and leave their valuables out in the open, would you just walk up to it?”
“I might.”
“Then we’re different people. Me, I wanted someone with me. Someone spotting the horizon.”
“That’s me.”
“That’s you, buddy.”
They reached the bottom of the slope. The ruined shells of the vehicles lay around them.
“Now, you’re going to keep watching in either direction while I check in these trucks. You saw the trip wire. They’re watching this site.”
“There’s no one here.”
“Not yet, there’s not.”
Cam’s voice rung hollow, almost portentous. Alex stopped for a moment and stared. Did he know something? He wouldn’t be here if that was the case, he reassured himself. Trying to figure out Cam was, at times, like trying to solve a Rubik’s cube while skydiving.
Alex walked to the middle of the road, keen to put some distance between himself and his companion. He had the rifle. Unlike the other paths which cut through these woods, this route was straight. Standing still, watching through the scope, he could spot a car before he heard it.
While Alex watched, Cam moved from place to place.
“Remember. Like we said: check for medicine,” said Alex. “That’s what we really need. That’s what’s most important.”
Leaning out of a bullet-riddled Humvee, Cam waved a green box.
“Med kit,” he called. “Should be a few of those.”
Every time Cam found something, he brought it back to Alex. Soon, a small stockpile was beginning to form. Five of the med kits, cased in hard green plastic shells. Rounds of ammo in varying calibers. Tech items – radios and cellphones – with dead batteries and tangled wires. A couple of meal kits, scavenged from a gang car.
Alex knelt down and pried open one o
f the medical packs. Bandages, needles, thread, catheter pieces, IV lines, tape, gauze, and plenty of unrecognizable technical pieces. Dead weight. They had these back at the cabin. Buried in the bottom of the packs was the real treasure. Morphine. Epi-pens. Painkillers with scientific names. He took it all, exactly as Joan had told him.
Breaking open the third med pack, Alex gave only cursory glances to the road. Nothing was coming. Cam was paranoid. The stench of rotting flesh hung around the road. As great as the rewards were, as many medical supplies as they managed to collect, there was no escaping the shuddering queasiness. No matter how many times he came into contact with the dead, there was no way to get used to that smell.
It came from beneath the nearest vehicle. Leaning to take a look, Alex could see a dead man under one of the wheels of the Humvee, his rib cage shattered by the sheer weight. Military clothes, ear pieces with the twirled wire still emerging from his collar, the man looked exactly like the professionals who’d chased them out of Rockton.
Cam was still searching. Taking a jerry can from one of the Jeeps, he began siphoning fuel, huffing on the rubber tubing until the gas began to trickle out into the jerry can. A slow job. An essential one. Alex dreaded the thought of the car coming to a spluttering stop along a freeway because they’d missed the chance to stock up on gasoline.
Alex looked at the body again. Exactly the kind of person who’d given up the flash drive in the first place. This man might have another. Was it worth it? He would never be able to forgive himself if he didn’t check.
Taking a last look up and down the road, Alex abandoned his post. Another flash drive and they might have another valuable clue. Definitely more valuable than another pile of ammo. The smell was overpowering as Alex leaned under the car. A smell that could turn hairs green from the root. It shut down the senses, numbed the brain.
If this man had anything worthwhile, it would be in the breast pocket. That was where the other agency professional had kept his important items. Grabbing the wing mirror with one hand, leaving the rifle on the ground, Alex allowed his fingers to fumble around the dead man’s chest. The clothes felt stiff and dirty. He found the lapel of the jacket and reached inside.
