All eyes fall on me and my stomach drops. Why would someone be looking for me?
“They say their names are Gabe, Ethan, and Waverly.”
This time my heart leaps into my throat. Did she just say Waverly? Surely not. I can feel my mouth hanging open, and I know the look of shock on my face will raise some questions later, but I don’t care.
I’m about to shake my head and tell them that I don’t know what’s going on, but a rumbling from the building’s foundation interrupts all of our thoughts. Then, my ears feel like they burst when a noise that must be an explosion shakes the walls.
Everyone dives for the floor as the table and chairs rattle. The explosion sounds like a bolt of lightning just went off right next to my head. Several of the guards shout out curses, asking what the noise could have been. Finally, the rumbling settles and all is quiet again.
I close my eyes and try to focus my hearing in the direction of the explosion. In the distance, I’m not sure how far, guns are going off. My head snaps upward when the door on the other side of the room swings open. A woman is standing in the doorway, a look of worry etched across her face.
“They are here again,” she says, looking at Samuel. “We’ve got to get to the roof.” The woman glances at me for a moment. She looks to be about forty-five, maybe fifty years old. Her blonde hair is straight and cuts off at the bottom of her cheek. Her eyes stab into me and then flit to Stephen nervously. She has to be the woman I heard talking to Stephen before the meeting. And I can’t help but feel like I’ve seen her before. She seems so familiar.
Is she Shadowface? Surely not.
“Get you and your men to the ground floor,” she says to Stephen. “They aren’t after you. They want us.”
“Not exactly selling me on trusting you,” Stephen says, getting to his feet. Now he hears the sound of gunshots.
“Some don’t like the idea of prosperity,” Samuel says as he walks through the doorway. “Some find it very beneficial to keep the world as it is.”
With that, they leave through the door across from me, and the four of us are alone, with the sound of guns blasting in the distance.
Chapter 2 - Mitch
The motorcycle between my legs rumbles like thunder as I stare at the red traffic light, waiting for it to turn green. I don’t care that the engine is loud enough to wake the dead. I don’t worry about bandits hearing me. I choose to ride this thing and to stop at the light because it is a stark reminder of the world that used to be.
Three years ago, no one went to hell. Hell came to us.
I was just a kid then. A twenty-one-year-old barely out of college. I had plenty of dreams. Aspirations. I wanted to be something. Someone. I wanted to work my way up the ladder of success. I wanted to become famous with my accomplishments. No one could have told me that about a billion people just like myself had the same future in mind, only to be utterly disappointed the day after graduation.
A prospective architect found himself working on a construction crew, digging up ditches in the summer heat. A journalism student found herself writing obituaries part-time for a small-town newspaper, forced to live with her parents because the job didn’t pay her enough for rent. An artist, compelled to pursue the career of pouring drinks and listening to the problems of drunks, never thought he would become the closest thing to a psychologist these people would ever see.
All of us had been promised the world. All of us were deceived.
The ones that did persevere enough to become the bright stars of deception, feeding into the lie that all of us can do it too, became so obsessed with money and power that greed and corruption became a way of life. Cheating on a spouse was flaunted. Love for thy neighbor was not even a concept to be considered. Murder wore the mask of lawsuits and complete annihilation of one’s assets. If you cannot kill your enemies, ruin them. Of course, actual murder was not uncommon either.
Perhaps the world we lived in and hell had already met long before the greyskins ever existed.
No one will say it, but I’m not afraid to: I think the greyskin virus was the best thing to ever happen to mankind. Do I wish things could have turned out differently? Yes. Do I wish that humanity would have come up with a different way to change? Of course. But it would never have happened. If history has taught us anything, it is that it takes a major disaster to change the way the masses look at life.
I’m not ignorant. I know that a lot of bad things have happened and that a lot of people have died. But there are no more bad people. Nor are there good ones. There are only survivors. The virus brought mankind to his knees and now we live by our basic instincts. We are no different from the animals.
I wait at a small intersection just outside the town of Sealy. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for my group. We are here to take the town from the one that calls himself Shadowface. I’ve never seen him. I’ve only heard what our group leader, my father, has said about him—that he’s dangerous and needs to be stopped. From what we know, he’s trying to gain power by influencing all the towns and settlements from here all the way to Salem, and bring them under his control. It’s as if this Shadowface never learned the lesson that I did—that greed and power-hungry people caused all this in the first place. We don’t need one all-encompassing government. We don’t need to look toward one man or woman. Perhaps where I see man’s corruptive downfall, Shadowface sees opportunity.
Maybe this is the way he has chosen to survive. The way I choose to survive is to be the second in command of this tiny group. It is nameless, but I did hear my father contemplate calling us the Light-bearers if the group ever got to be big. I don’t care for names or labels, but I can see why my father made it up. He wanted to bring light to the world by depleting the shadows. Or rather, the Shadowface.
First in the group is my father. Then there is myself and four others. There is Lester who knows more about explosives than anyone I’ve ever met. Josh and Ryan are near-perfect shots with whatever gun they can get their hands on.
And then there’s Ashley. She’s a shining light in this dark world, and is so far the only reason I’ve stayed with the group as long as I have. I don’t know how many times I’ve mentioned to her that we could leave the group and start our own life together. But she is hesitant. With the group she feels like she has purpose. She feels like she is helping. And she is, but I just wish things were different. I don’t care to be near my father any longer, and I’m becoming less and less interested in taking down Shadowface, though I feel he needs to be destroyed.
An explosion to the north of me is bright and loud. I can feel the ground shake beneath me and it is very different from the feeling of the motorcycle. I can’t help but grin as I watch the ball of fire erupt into the sky. The wall directly under the cloud of dust and flame is probably crumbled rocks and ashes now. Lester has done his part. If all has gone to plan, the blast will have been loud enough to attract greyskins from the entire town of Sealy, and the hole in the wall will be large enough for many to get through.
I can’t tear my eyes away from the explosion. Men and women probably just died and all I can do is smile. I suppose that is because their death means that my survival is more secure than before. It is just one step closer to taking down Shadowface and ending another corrupt leadership.
I turn back to the traffic light and briefly wonder what could still be powering it. It’s an odd thing to see it carrying about as though the world hasn’t changed. When it turns green, I rev the engine and lift my feet from the ground as I roll forward. The engine sounds like a machine gun as I burn through the city streets. It’s like a parade has come to town and all the rotting citizens have come out to see it. The greyskins stumble out from their hiding places, groping at the air in front of them as if the source of the explosion is within reach. I pull back on the gas and speed up. I turn a few heads as I pass by, but most are focused on the cloud in front of them. Where there is sound and movement, there is life. Thus, the virus is able to feed and spread.<
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I don’t stop until I reach the other side of town and I slow to a stop in a grassy field, the smoke now behind me. My father stands in the field, leaning against a black, dusty SUV. He shakes his head at me, glancing from my face, to the bike, back to my face. When I kill the engine, he pulls a fat cigar from his mouth and sets his hands on his hips.
“I don’t know how you expect to survive for very long driving that thing around,” he says with a grin.
I ignore him as I hike my leg over the motorcycle and brush the dirt off my jeans. Out of habit I feel for the strapped knife on the back of my belt. It’s so light that I forget I’m wearing it sometimes.
As I near him, I study his face. He’s in his mid-forties, but he’s starting to look like he’s almost sixty. His hair is turning white and wrinkles are setting in. I try to see if there is any part of him that can look like me. His blue eyes are nothing like mine which are brown. His weathered skin is light and mine is more tan. I’ve always thought it was strange that, though he is my father, this man shares very few physical traits with me. The only trait I’ve ever noticed to be somewhat similar are our hooked noses.
I call him my father. It’s a lie. He was never actually a father at all. He slept with a woman. The woman gave birth to me. That was her part and she was done. I don’t even know her name. I’ve never asked. It was my father that took me in, doing what he always told me was his best. But he was too into his work, making more than enough money to hire a nanny full-time. There were entire months that passed where I didn’t see my father. Sometimes I wondered if he even knew the reason so many nannies were quitting. I acted out as a child. I wanted his attention until I finally realized that I wasn’t going to get it. I remember one time when I lit a match and set the drapes on fire in the living room. The house filled with smoke. Alarms went off, and the fire department was there in no time. When my father finally got to the house (three hours later), he immediately fired the nanny, despite me telling him that I had done it on purpose. That’s the moment I stopped caring about what he thought of me. I stopped acting out. Instead of vying for my father’s attention, I fell in love with books, allowing philosophers and great thinkers to father me instead.
Little good that does me now.
My father was at least decent at making sure I had enough money to get by. He made sure to pay my tuition, but once I finally graduated, the world ended and greyskins roamed the earth. I wasn’t surprised that it took him months to even think about looking for me after the outbreak happened. But like showing up late to the house fire, he eventually found me. Of course, he never asked me how I was holding up. He didn’t ask about any of the friends I had lost. It was all business. He told me that he was starting a small task force and that he saw something in me that would benefit the group. It was the first time my father had ever said anything like this to me. I was overwhelmed with joy. But that joy wore off as the past three years started to weigh on us.
We have killed hundreds, if not thousands, of greyskins. We have tracked down Shadowface on more than one occasion…and failed to get him. I have had to come up with my own reasons to want to go after him. My father’s reasoning isn’t satisfying enough. He always says that Shadowface is evil and that he is responsible for the birth of the greyskin virus. But my father doesn’t know my thoughts on the subject. He doesn’t think that I would hail Shadowface as a hero for bringing down civilization. He brought us to anarchy, and for that, he should be praised. But I know Shadowface isn’t a hero. He has taken it a step too far. He brought the world into anarchy, but only so he could eventually rule it. For that, he should die because he is no better than the ones before him.
I still don’t know how my father knows what he knows. Or what he thinks he knows. The greyskin virus is a complete mystery to the surviving world, but for some reason my father thinks that this Shadowface created it for power.
“Shadowface is very rich and greedy,” he once told me.
“Who is it?” I asked.
His answer was a blank stare.
I can only assume that from my father’s occupation, a scientist/professor, and given the so-called epicenter of the outbreak, that Shadowface is a person that he once worked with at Elkhorn University. I can’t begin to fathom why my father would keep Shadowface’s identity a secret, but then again, does it matter who it is if the only goal is to kill him? I never pressed the issue again.
As I lean against the side of the SUV, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with my father, I can’t help but take in the stale scent of his clothes from his heavy use of cigars. The one in his hand is bad enough. From what I remember, my father had never smoked before the outbreak. I know that this new world has taken its toll on a lot of people, but he seems to have taken it the worst. His eyes have begun to sag, exposing the wet redness beneath the eyeball. Apart from the overwhelming smell of cigar smoke, I smell death. It’s like the smell of a greyskin, but not quite. It is as if he has been surrounded by death so much that he is becoming death himself.
“Do you think we will get him this time?” I ask, trying to focus on the task ahead and not my father.
He takes a long draw on the cigar and the ashes on the end smolder. “If we don’t this time, we will succeed the next,” he says. He turns and reaches into the back seat of the SUV. “Take your pick.”
He shows me an open box filled with rifles. I reach for an M-4 and slip a few magazines under my belt. Usually I like to be discrete but the plan is to draw out Shadowface and his men, which will require some noise.
The two of us stand in silence as we wait for Lester and the others to show up. I glance at my father once or twice, but he keeps his eyes fixed ahead toward the smoke. I wonder what a normal father-and-son duo would be doing right now. Would there be small talk? There really isn’t much to have small talk conversations about. It’s not like there are playoffs or tournaments anymore. Gone are the conversations that start with: Weatherman says there’s gonna be a downpour this weekend… Better bring an umbrella…
I suppose small talk has become useless for most people. That’s fine with me. I like the quiet. To know that I don’t have to make conversation if I don’t want to is a relief. The more people congregate together, and the more outside influences there are, the more useless the conversations become. Anarchy destroys all that. It brings us to our basic human level. We eat when we are hungry. We make conversation when something needs to be communicated.
I look back on my life and the few precious years that I have lived. Was it really living? How many classes did I sit through in college and high school that meant nothing to me once I got out? How many ‘how was your day’ and ‘where are you from’ conversations have I gone through? How many hours—days—were wasted sitting in front of a television, watching something that made me laugh; listening to the news about things that would never affect me, the newscaster staring into my eyes as she lied to me day in and day out?
The virus stopped all that.
But let me make myself clear. I am not happy that the virus struck. I’m simply happy because humanity has finally woken up. Sadness overtakes me at times. I am a human being, despite Ashley’s tongue-in-cheek suggestions that I’m too cold to be human. Hardened? Yes. But human. I have lost friends because of this. Close friends. There are people that come across my mind every single day, but I don’t dwell on them. That would be a waste of time. And wasting time is not living. It’s dying. And I’m a survivor.
An engine growls in the distance and my father and I straighten and turn our heads toward the source of the noise. A white truck speeds down the road toward us. Ashley is driving with Ryan in the front seat. Lester and Josh stand in the back bed of the truck, rifles ready to take down anything that gets in the way. Ashley cuts off the engine after she parks in front of us. My father and I walk up to the window, my eyes still fixed on the burning wall in the distance.
“Was the explosion successful?” my father asks, looking back at Lester.
Po
pping noises from the smoky interior of Shadowface’s safe haven indicates that the soldiers are in a panic, trying to kill off a herd of greyskins that have probably breached the wall by now.
“It’s not as big as I hoped for,” Lester says. His scraggly beard and soot-covered skin looks as if he was in the explosion himself.
“What happened to you?” I ask.
“The idiot got a little too close to the blast,” Ashley answers.
“I’m all right,” Lester says.
Ashley rolls her eyes, but then looks at my father. “We should be ready to move in soon. I don’t want to try and push through with so many greyskins.”
My father shakes his head. “No. We have to get in there now. We can’t give Shadowface the time to escape. The explosion indicates an attack. Shadowface will already be on the way out.”
I want my father to listen to Ashley, but I know he won’t. And she knows too, because she doesn’t argue.
“Mitch,” my father says, “get in the SUV. Ashley, we’ll follow you.”
I can see the frustration on her face, and I know what she is thinking. I bet she’s thinking: why did you bring me for tactical decisions if you’re just going to ignore what I say?
When my father turns to get into the SUV, Ashley looks to me for support. Her brown eyes are big and her stare gives me a feeling inside that no one else can give me. I have a deeper connection with her than I do with anyone else. She has been by my side when I have needed her the most. She is the one person, the one exception that I give myself when it comes to surviving. I know it might be my undoing someday, but there are just some things in life that cannot be ignored, no matter how much a person tries. I love her more than anyone. I know loving is not surviving. But I love her more than the idea of surviving. I know that without her, I wouldn’t survive.
And she loves me. It’s not one of those things we express through words very much, but we both know it’s true. Before I met her, I never thought about the notion of love. I never wanted it. I didn’t care. But now I do.
Away From the Sun Page 3
