by Kirk Allmond
As he ran, he investigated the top of the dome that surrounded him. It was similar to being tied inside a balloon. Air could escape a balloon. He could escape this invisible prison cell. It was just a matter of getting small enough. Victor had always said, “Go big or go home.” This was a time when he needed to be more like Renee. He needed to be small and quiet. This was a stealth job and not something he was ever any good at.
Victor used all his willpower to bide his time. Every instinct, everything that made him what he was, told him to smash this bubble and lobotomize the men holding them. Get John to a gun and get Marshall to anything. He wanted to kill them all, every one of these camouflage fucks that was keeping his child from him.
Victor's face was a mask of hatred. He was pure unadulterated anger. His aura turned solid red as he ran. He spoke each word in time with his footfalls. "Bide your time." Over and over.
Reggie was somehow keeping pace with them. Victor hadn't ever noticed how short Reggie was; he couldn't be an inch over five feet tall, but he loped along beside the three younger men as if he'd been born running. "Mister Tookes," said Reggie somewhere in the middle of their twentieth mile, “my father told me a story one time. Would you like to hear it?"
"Sure," Victor gasped, anything to keep his mind off how badly his side hurt.
"When I was a boy, not much older than your young Master Max, times were very different. We did not have it so good as we do now. My people were, hem, slaves put to whichever task our masters assigned. Once a week, my father was given a small basket of grain to feed my mother, my sister, and me. We were the lucky ones; my father had a way with flora. He would often bring us wild onions or grubs to eat, pulled out of the ground as he worked and hidden until his labor was completed. I was an old man when I realized I never saw him eat with us. He would sit and watch us eat, a smile on his face. My people worked and built great things. We accomplished our goals at great cost to my people. My father died when he was less than thirty years old, an old man by the standard of the time."
Victor listened as he ran and noticed Marshall and John perked up too. All three of them had the same thoughts about how easy their lives had been compared to Reggie's. Victor detected a hint of an accent in Reggie's voice, as if remembering the past brought up old linguistic habits.
"I worked late into the night one evening. It was harvest time; the grain was tall and dry in the fields. We had to bring in the crop before the rains came. When we were finished delivering grain, I found my father lying against a tree, his legs violently twitching. He must have been in great pain, although he was smiling. I asked, 'Father, why do you always smile while we're eating and you sit there hungry?’" Reggie paused in his story as they jumped over a log and continued their run.
"What did he say?" whispered Marshall.
"His reply has been with me for many years, through hardships and good times. The language was much different from this modern English, but he said, ‘My son, I smiled because I was happy that we would all live to see the sun rise again.’"
Chapter 17
Thompson’s Station
Kris was nestled between Markus and Alicia on the bench seat of the truck. In the convoy, their truck brought up the rear. Alicia liked making sure that she could keep her eye on all of the other men in the trucks up ahead. Occasionally, she would disappear in a swirl of smoke to check on the other truck drivers. Alicia would never be gone very long before she would suddenly reappear with a smile. Kris hardly glanced out of the window as the city, then the countryside rolled by them. They had left Mobile, Alabama, around seven pm. Kris glanced at the dashboard clock, and it read 1:00 am. It was remarkable how easily conversation flowed between the three of them; six solid hours had passed without Kris even realizing it. The trio in the truck had discussed everything from favorite family vacations to the friends they’d made in college.
Markus, as it turned out, really was a jack-of-all-trades. He had majored in mechanical engineering with a minor in music performance. While he was shy to talk about his musical skill, Markus had no problem talking about his plans to build up the Gander Acres properties. He excitedly explained to Kris that the five hundred-acre farm had a hand-built rock wall that surrounded the property and that it would be simple to make that wall substantial to protect the inhabitants. It had been built in the late 1800’s, and most of it was still standing and in excellent condition. When she asked about how he would bring in all of the extra stone to give the wall depth, he had waved his hand dismissively. There was a broad smile on his face as he did so.
“I’ll think of something,” he said with a wink.
“Have you ever been to this part of the country, Kris?” Alicia asked.
Kris shook her head. “Nah. I was born and raised in North Carolina. Never been anywhere else before.”
“Well, at least the end of the world has given you reason to travel!” Markus said. His laughter was contagious, and soon, the trio was laughing right along with him. Kris was positive that he was super-human just like his sister. The Tennessee native had a similar build to Marshall but was considerably smaller. His overall demeanor was softer, as if he was projecting nothing but pure positivity. Markus had to be some type of mentalist, like Victor and Kris were, but she never felt compelled to ask. People were who they were, and she never expected them to be anything different from that.
Alicia had a beautiful laugh, and more than once, Kris caught herself staring into the woman’s dark brown eyes. It was easy to get lost in them, because as she looked, she could so easily see herself reflected back. Looking at Alicia was like looking into a mirror. She felt rather childish as the words Twin souls flickered through her mind.
“Alicia, Thompson’s Station has been overrun.” The voice over the CB radio was disproportionately calm.
Alicia’s face clenched slightly before she picked up the radio. “Copy that, Scout. Thanks for the heads up. You copy, men? Thompson’s Station is up ahead,” Alicia said into the CB radio in the truck. The radio crackled as the other drivers of the trucks checked in, confirming.
“What’s Thompson’s Station?” Kris asked, raising her eyebrow.
The siblings looked at each other before Alicia finally spoke. “Trouble.”
“Oh good,” Kris said. “I was wondering when that was going to happen. This trip has been way too easy.”
Alicia nodded. “Agreed. The trip down was much too quiet. It was like all the zombies in Tennessee had been cleared out. I knew it was stupid to hope that this hell was over already.”
“They were all in Atlanta,” Kris replied softly.
Markus looked surprised. “How do you know?”
Kris smirked and said, “Because I was there.”
“What the fuck. You were there? How the hell did you end up in Mobile?”
“Uh...” Kris started. “Well--” Her thoughts were interrupted as gunshots rang out about two miles down the road in front of them.
“Shit,” Alicia whispered, “Thompson’s Station. Markus, you have to keep the trucks safe. Remember, brother, we’re nothing without them.” There was a soft WHOOSH, and she was gone in a black swirl of smoke.
“Jesus Christ,” Markus groaned and pushed his foot down against the pedal. “Goddamn martyr. I swear...”
Kris smiled to herself. That certainly sounds familiar. Kris suddenly heard Victor’s strong voice, all too familiar in her mind. It was impossible to forget that morning in Atlanta. “Who the fuck do you think is going to rid this planet of these things? Look around you, Kris. Do you think we have these abilities for fun? Do you think we're supposed to just sit back and try to make life easy for ourselves? We aren't here to do what is easy. We're here to do what is hard, because it’s the right thing to do. You can stay and be part of the solution, or you can go die in a hole, cold and alone. I'm asking you to be a part of something. I'm asking you to be part of the solution.” While she did not regret what she had said to Victor, she wished it had ended differently. It wasn�
��t that she disliked Vic but quite the contrary. She just strongly disagreed with his methods. However, as it turned out, drive and devotion to a cause were what made things happen in this new, insane world. It would be difficult for Kris to adjust to that, but she believed in Alicia and Markus. Their cause was just, as was Victor’s. The difference between them was how they intended to achieve that goal. There was one thing that the Gander siblings longed for—normalcy. As she thought about it, Kris decided that she desired nothing more than to wake up in the morning and have some form of routine. If anyone could make that happen, it was Alicia. She did not desire to rid the world of the zombies. She just wanted to help her people make it by, using what they had to make it better. And that, Kris suddenly realized, was exactly what she wanted too.
Markus flew up I-65, cursing under his breath. As they drove, Kris closed her eyes and projected her sphere forward. It pushed past the other trucks before it finally reached the group of humans that had practically jumped out of their trucks. Alicia was in the lead. She was talking rapidly with her hands, easily dividing the men up into smaller groups to properly defend the road. “Zed and Terrance’s group was watching the town and got over run by them,” she said. “Be careful. Can’t afford any more death tonight.” She paused and looked towards a tall, blonde-haired man. “Jake, what’s our status?”
“They blocked the whole street and all of the back roads. We’re fucked unless we can clear them out.”
“How many we expecting?”
“Around a hundred and fifty, maybe more. Before shit went down, Zed figured, they had to have at least one handler. These fuckers are way too organized to be normal shufflers.”
“Oh, that’s it?” She was very good at hiding her emotions. It was amazing how perfectly she chose her words to mask her fears and build up the spirits of the others. “We’ve had worse, guys. This ain’t no thang.”
Kris’ subconscious grazed Alicia’s, and she heard a single thought. “I was so arrogant to think this would fucking work.”
“I believe in you,” Kris whispered to her.
“Let’s do this,” Alicia said and then disappeared in another swirl of smoke.
Kris and Markus couldn't get to Thompson's Station fast enough. Glancing over to the dash, Kris saw the speedometer creep to ninety miles per hour. The Voice was trailing through her mind again. “Sixty miles an hour is one mile per minute. If that is accurate, then ninety miles per hour is a mile and a half in a minute. Logically, at ninety miles per hour, you will arrive at Thompson’s Station in forty seconds. The speed will not be the problem, however. How are you planning to safely stop at that speed? Inertia is a prime factor in the difference in braking distance between a car and a heavy truck. A fully-loaded semi truck has the gross vehicle weight, depending on its cargo, of up to 80,000 pounds. Compare this to an average car's weight of 4,000 pounds. At a speed of 55 M.P.H., a semi truck's stopping distance is 100 yards—the length of a football field. A mid-size automobile traveling at the same speed can stop within half of that distance. Stopping distance grows exponentially with speed. At 90 M.P., the truck will require four blocks or four hundred yards or a quarter of a mile mile to stop.”
Kris looked quickly over to Markus to tell him that he needed to slow down. As she opened her mouth, Kris suddenly felt nothing but cold darkness, and all of the air in her lungs rushed out of her. She had been teleported out of the truck. It happened so fast that she didn’t even have time to process what had occurred until she was hovering twelve feet above the ground in the middle of a field.
“Oh fuck!” she shouted. Whatever held her up was holding her by the scruff of her sweatshirt. As her abductor released their grip, they purposefully made Kris’ body twist. She was only a few feet from the ground before her body was turned, and she was falling with her back to the ground. Kris held her shield steady as she fell like a rock to the grassy earth. The shield only vaguely dulled the pain as she slammed into the ground. Because of the shield, her body never actually hit anything, but she still felt her diaphragm spasm from the fall and the wind being knocked out of her lungs. She could only lie there, painfully gasping for breath. “The fall results in a temporary paralysis of the diaphragm that makes it difficult to breathe,” The Voice told her. “Just don’t let anxiety get the best of you, Kris. You’ll need to focus, baby. They found you.”
“Who found me?” she asked.
To her left, Kris heard the quiet whoosh of a teleporter. The entry sounded different than Alicia’s did, and Kris didn’t trust it. Heavy, unfamiliar boots crunched across the grass, and Kris struggled to roll over and get away from the person that abducted her. As she pushed the shield outwards, the figure of her abductor transformed into a sharp picture in her mind. He was a bit taller than she was with short, dark hair that was pushed into a faux-hawk. His eyes were as dark as his hair, and as Kris’ shield rolled over him, she did not hear his heart beat nor his lungs take a single breath. As she focused her energy more closely, she realized that he was one of the men from the Sheraton in Atlanta. If he was here, then so was the blonde-haired man that she had mind-fucked. They had followed her.
“Did you miss me, Kris?” he asked before disappearing again. The man reappeared to the right of where Kris was laying, about ten feet away. She gritted her teeth together and forced herself to sit up. Kris fought back a groan and then wrapped her arms around her stomach and forced herself to awkwardly stand. The man looked at her with an amused expression on his face.
“You son of a--” Kris started, and then Faux-Hawk disappeared again, only to reappear right behind her. From the way that his body was positioned in her mind, she saw three possible outcomes. Given the arrogance of the man, he would probably want to do as much damage as possible before actually killing her. As the wind brushed over his skin, she watched his muscles tense and his body wind up for a punch. She barely had time to duck out of the way as a fist soared over her head. Kris threw her elbow back to counter him, but he was already gone. “Coward!” she shouted at him. He reappeared thirty yards away, crouching on a rock.
“We can play this game all day, Kris.”
As she brought her arms in close to her chest, Kris gathered the sphere in the palms of her hands. The sphere’s color was deep red, and as she pushed the sphere forward, she placed all of her rage into that ball. With a shout, Kris pushed the ball towards Faux-Hawk. She watched it tear towards him at lightning speed, but she was still too slow. He was gone in a swirl of smoke, and then he was behind her again.
The dark-haired man was carrying a knife that Kris didn’t see before, which was a stupid mistake to miss. It must have been hidden under his jacket. He swung at her, starting at her left hip and moving diagonally up her back. The knife cut her flesh easily, and Kris groaned in pain as it pierced her skin. Then he was gone. She stumbled backwards at the impact. The cut wasn’t enough to kill her, but it certainly hurt like hell.
Faux-Hawk laughed at her again. He was ten feet in front of her, staring directly into her eyes. “Can’t help your precious new girlfriend from here, Kris. It’s just you and me out here. Why couldn’t you have just gone with Victor Tookes like you were supposed to?”
“Go to hell!” she spat at him and threw the sphere at him once more. He disappeared, and Kris retracted the ball back into her chest.
Once he appeared again, he cut her right arm with the large knife and then reappeared elsewhere in the field. “You’re useless alone. You know that,” he called out. “First Jeff. Then Mac. Then Victor and now Alicia and Markus. Don’t you know that you’re not supposed to get your friends killed?”
“Vic isn’t dead, you bastard,” she shouted. “Neither are Alicia and Markus.”
“Do you know that, Kris? Maybe you should try to talk to him like you did before.”
“Fuck you!” she roared.
He has a pattern, Kris. He has too much cowardice to face you head on because he knows you can destroy him. You’re stronger than he will ever be; tha
t’s why he’s afraid. That’s why he hides.
She was handling this entire situation incorrectly. Faux-Hawk was far too erratic to ever catch him in one location and hope to hit him. She needed to think bigger than that. Breathing in deeply, Kris gathered all of her energy into her hands again and waited for the man to appear farther away in the field. He never traveled farther than thirty yards away, and she watched him carefully.
Kris focused on what she had to do. One of the times Victor tried to help her find her powers, he told her to imagine a candle burning in a dark room. The only light was from the candle. Every time something broke her concentration, imagine the candle burning that thought. It had sounded like a bunch of Jedi crap to Kris when he was telling her, but this time it happened almost on its own. Then suddenly, all of the sound in the world around her drained away. As she looked at Faux-Hawk, she could see that his lips were moving, but no words reached her ears. The whole world slowed down to a crawl as smoke gathered around him, forming small spirals. It started at his feet and slowly worked its way upwards before Faux-Hawk was consumed in black smoke. The moment the smoke began to appear, Kris began to push her sphere outward. She needed to be ready when he reappeared. The dome easily stretched a thirty-yard radius, and in the center of the dome, Kris created a small bubble that fit over her head that would block the incoming noise. Concentrating on the area just in front of her mouth, Kris sang a high “C” into a small tunnel that connected the bubble around her head to the dome itself.
