The Last Bastion [Book 5]

by K. W. Callahan

  “Sounds like a plan to me,” Wendell agreed wholeheartedly.

  And with that, the threesome in the two kayaks made an abrupt about face in the river, paddling back around the junk jetty, extending like a craggy arm in front of them. Then they made their way back to the northern tip of the island where they’d left the others.

  * * *

  The following day, the group was up at dawn. Caroline had difficulty rousing her husband. He’d had a fitful night’s sleep, keeping many of the others inside his tent up as well.

  These crabby compatriots were a quiet group to say the least. There was little talk as they sat around the campfire eating their breakfast. Their meal was comprised of a mixture of the last bits of creamed wheat and oatmeal combined into one sloppy gruel cereal. The group had the option of a bit of sugar as their garnish.

  The group seemed nervous rather than excited regarding their approach to St. Louis. While the radio message they’d picked up had given them hope, it had been so long ago, and there had been so little information contained within the message, that no one was sure what to expect. Would they encounter some sort of post-apocalyptic Shangri-La where people lived in peaceful harmony, where food was abundant, and some semblance of a normal life could once again be attained? Or would they arrive to an abandoned settlement where all attempts at such a life had failed?

  No one knew. It had been a nice topic of conversation along their travels, something to keep them going in their pursuits of a better life. It was kind of like pondering how one would spend their lottery winnings were they to hit the big jackpot. Today was the day they’d compare that lottery ticket to the winning numbers. There was hope, anticipation, and thoughts of what could be. But there was also the realistic tempering of hope that came with knowing that the numbers on their ticket might not match. They wanted to find out whether they were winners, but there was also an immense fear that came with that answer.

  Therefore, when there was talk among the Blenders, it was mostly about the morning chores. As usual, breakfast cleanup was left to the kids. Louise had taken up the roll of dish collector. She gathered forks, spoons, bowls, and other dishware into a large pot to be cleaned by the other kids. These dishes, once rid of food and wiped down with a rag, were then sprayed with a light water and bleach solution. Ms. Mary had concocted the mixture from a small bottle of bleach she had brought all the way from the tower. She had refilled the bottle from a supply she had found inside the roadhouse mop closet. A light spray from their mix of several teaspoons of bleach to one gallon of water acted as their dishware purification system once the dishes were food free.

  It was far from a perfect solution to their sanitary concerns, but no one had become violently ill yet, so Ms. Mary was content to stick with the process.

  The adults, minus Michael, who was now barely able to stand most of the time without assistance, broke down the tents. They packed them up – all secretly hoping it would be the last time they’d have to sleep in them – and loaded them into the boats.

  With so few supplies left to pack, it only took about 15 minutes to get the boats ready to shove off. But the Blenders took a few minutes to conduct a more thorough weapons check before they headed out.

  “Remember,” Patrick talked while they inspected their remaining weapons, “we don’t want to use these if we don’t have to. Keep them concealed when we meet these people. We don’t want to scare them or antagonize them unnecessarily. I don’t know what their weapon rules are, and we don’t want them thinking we’re there to do them harm or try to steal supplies or anything like that.”

  “I just hope we don’t have to use these,” Christine Franko said, holding up the handgun she was inspecting. “Most of the guns and ammunition have gotten wet at some point. God only knows if they will fire when we need them.”

  “I know,” Patrick agreed. “Try to make sure the ammunition you load is stuff that has stayed dry throughout our trip,” he reminded them.

  He took a minute to check his father’s weapon for him since his dad’s injured hand was unusable now. He really didn’t even want his dad carrying a gun, but with the unknown lurking everywhere, it was pertinent that everyone who was trained to carry a firearm did so. Therefore, after insuring the magazine to his dad’s .45 was loaded, a round was chambered, and the safety was on, he placed the gun securely inside his father’s shoulder holster.

  “There you are. You ready to go, Dad?” he whispered in his father’s ear, patting him on the shoulder.

  “As ready as I’ll ever be,” Michael breathed, his eyelids sagging, his mouth hanging open tiredly.

  “All right then, let’s do this,” Patrick led his father slowly over to the fishing boat and got him settled inside it.

  The rest of the Blenders assumed positions inside their own boats.

  “We’ll take the left side around the island,” Patrick announced as the others prepared to shove off. “That jetty that extends out from the right-hand side of the island could prove harder for the canoes and this fishing boat to get around. Once we’re past the end of this island, barring any other obstacles of course, we’ll head for the western bank so that we’ll be on the St. Louis side of the river as we approach the city.”

  The others nodded that they understood.

  “If we encounter any gunfire or anything that doesn’t look right, we just keep going,” Patrick went on. “We can always backtrack later if necessary, but I don’t want us pulling up into something that we can’t get out of quickly. Make sense?”

  There were more nods and nervous murmurs of understanding. The group had been through this all too many times before. They knew the drill and were ready to be on with things. Only Louise seemed unperturbed by what was taking place around her. Even Justin, Jack, and Andrew seemed to sense that they were on the cusp of finality in their journey. When they arrived to downtown St. Louis, inhabited or not, accepted or dismissed, for better or for worse, they were drawing their lot. The many questions that had been lingering in their minds for so long now would finally be answered.

  Patrick waited until all the other boats were loaded and launched. Then he pushed the front of the fishing boat off the island’s shore. He turned it so that it was facing the right direction, and climbed into the back to begin what he prayed would be their final day on the river.

  CHAPTER 16

  It took almost two hours for the Blenders to make their way downriver and catch their first glimpse of the famed St. Louis arch.

  “Wow!” Justin pointed to the distant swoop of steel welcoming visitors to the gateway to the west. “Look at that! What the heck is that thing?!”

  “That’s the St. Louis arch,” Patrick explained.

  “Do you remember coming here when you were little?” Caroline asked her son.

  “Kind of,” Patrick said.

  “I think you were only two or three years old,” Caroline smiled back at him.

  “He was six,” Michael corrected.

  “Really?” Caroline said. “He seemed so much younger in my recollection.

  “He was six,” Michael assured her. “I remember because that was the year my father passed.”

  “Oh yes,” Caroline recalled. “Your aunt too.”

  “No, no,” Michael shook his head, a hint of exasperation creeping into his tone. “That was a couple years later.”

  “No it wasn’t,” Caroline argued, her own sense of exasperation making itself obvious in her retort.

  “I’m glad you aren’t in charge of the family genealogy,” Michael sighed. “We’d never keep things straight. Don’t listen to her for your family history, Patrick,” he said. “Your mother will have you believing all sorts of falsehoods.”

  “Oh now…” Caroline began, but Patrick cut her short. With the city fast approaching, he didn’t want their focus to be directed toward an insignificant family squabble when they should be paying attention to their surroundings.

  “Okay. You two argue like an old married couple,�
� he joked. “But I need your attention focused on what we have coming up ahead of us.”

  “Yes, sir,” Caroline nodded.

  “You got it,” Michael redirected his attention ahead of them, liking the assertiveness his son was beginning to demonstrate, even if it was with his own parents. As much as Michael didn’t think he’d like it, it felt good to have someone else making the decisions for a change, especially when it was his own flesh and blood.

  They had passed beneath several large bridges, one of which appeared to be a train bridge. This was followed by an extended portion of shoreline that appeared once to have been devoted largely to industrial purposes. Then, after two more bridges in relatively rapid succession, the gleaming arch loomed like a giant horseshoe to their right.

  Finally, the boats docked directly in front of the arch. There was a sort of ramped boat launch that led down right to the water’s edge. This was where the group docked their boats. They disembarked onto dry land and pulled their vessels up far enough to ensure they didn’t float away.

  “It’s weird being in an urban area again,” Patrick said as he helped first his mother, then his father up the ramp to the edge of a nearby street. “It’s been so long.”

  “Yes, we’ve stayed away from cities since we left the tower,” his father agreed as Patrick continued to hold his father’s arm for support.

  Across the street, a wall of concrete steps leading up to the arch, served as almost as formidable a presence as the arch itself. The group stood, silent for a moment, heads craned back as they gazed upward. The top of the silvery band of arching steel was framed high above them, glimmering against an azure blue and almost cloudless sky.

  “Magnificent,” Michael shook his head as he stared upward while Patrick continued to steady him.

  “Why did they build this?” Louise looked up in awe.

  “To commemorate our nation’s westward expansion hundreds of years ago,” Wendell explained.

  “But we still had lots of room where we used to live,” Louise frowned. “Why did we need more room to expand way back then?”

  “Good question,” Wendell considered. “Well, people like to explore. And back then, they were curious about what lay beyond the places they already lived. They wanted to explore new spots and find new places to live in.”

  “But they didn’t have cars or airplanes back then. How did they travel?” Louise pressed.

  “Mostly they used horses or boats,” Wendell enjoyed recalling his time as a teacher during this little session with Louise.

  “Kind of like us,” Louise nodded as though she understood now. “We use our boats to explore new places and look for a new place to live too.”

  “Right. Very good,” Wendell agreed.

  “But what does it do?” Louise pressed on with her curiosity about the arch.

  Wendell tilted his head to one side as he considered how to answer the five-year-old’s probing questions.

  “It doesn’t really do anything,” he said after a moment.

  “Well then what’s the point?” Louise tilted her head down from inspecting the arch and looked over at Wendell, not understanding why people would have gone to such extremes to build such an enormous contraption if it didn’t do anything.

  “Not everything has to do something,” Wendell said. “Sometimes, structures like this do something by doing nothing at all.”

  “You’re crazy!” Louise laughed. “How can something do something by doing nothing?”

  “Careful,” Marta whispered knowingly to Wendell. “I’ve had these conversations before. They can go on and on.”

  Wendell nodded, confident from his years of teaching that he could handle the path the conversation was taking. He knelt down so that he was at eye-level with tiny Louise.

  “You see,” he explained, “sometimes things like this are built with no other purpose in mind than to remind us of our history. And through reminding us of our history, places like this teach us.” He pointed with a finger, tracing the outline of the arch. Louise watched, following his movement. “You see how the arch looks kind of like a big gate.”

  “Like it’s a gate for giants,” Louise nodded.

  Wendell smiled. “This arch symbolizes a giant gate that leads to the western part of America. It’s big so that lots of people will see it and think about it. They’ll ask themselves the same sorts of questions that you are asking. And people like me will explain to them that this gate represents a point here in St. Louis where many people came to cross the river and explore new lands, lands that eventually made the country we live in now…America. It represents our curious nature and our willingness to be brave and explore new lands, peoples, and possibilities.”

  Wendell paused, hoping his answer made sense to the youngster.

  Louise looked at him, and then frowned. After a moment, she said, “But now that things are the way they are, do we still live in America?”

  Wendell took a breath to begin his answer, and then paused. He looked up with a slight frown. The others had turned their attention away from the arch and were now looking at Wendell, also awaiting his answer. Then he looked back at Louise. “Yes,” he nodded firmly. “We still live in America. Even if it’s not the way it used to be, we are still Americans. If nothing else, we represent what America stood for…stands for. We’re the new explorers.”

  “We’re the brave explorers?” Louise whispered excitedly.

  “Yes, we’re the brave explorers,” Wendell smiled at her. “And we’re going to explore new lands, new peoples, and new possibilities. Are you ready?”

  “Yes,” Louise whispered, a huge smile on her face, her eyes wide with excitement.

  “Good. You’re going to make a great explorer,” he patted her little shoulder and stood.

  Charla came over to him and took his hand, a proud look on her face.

  “Should we just leave our stuff in the boats?” Andrew Franko brought the group back to more relevant matters.

  “Good question,” Patrick considered. He turned around and looked behind them. Due to the rise in elevation from the river to the street where they stood, the boats were almost unnoticeable unless one knew they were there. “I think we should just leave the stuff. Finding a place to stash it would take some time, and in all honesty, we don’t have much to lose at this point. We’ll take packs with us with most of our remaining food and ammo anyway, just in case we get cut off or detained for some reason. So we’ll have our most valuable supplies with us.”

  The group took a few minutes to return to the boats, packing up the majority of their remaining food, water, ammunition, and weapons. They left things like extra bedding, extra clothing, the tents, and similar supplies in the boats.

  This done, they made their way over to the stairs leading up toward the arch.

  Michael seemed to be feeling slightly better upon their arrival and was able to walk unassisted, although no one was sure how long this surge of energy would last.

  As they crossed the street to stand at the base of the steps, Ms. Mary observed somewhat doubtfully, “It certainly doesn’t look too lively around here.”

  “Hopefully the settlement is farther into town,” Patrick said.

  “They may not have wanted to settle too close to the river for fear of wayward travelers causing trouble,” Wendell offered.

  “After that flooding, they might have been forced to retreat from such a location either way,” Michael added.

  “That’s a good point,” Christine nodded. “God only knows how high the river got here. There’s a lot of junk around,” she nodded around them at the trash, debris and general overgrowth that had appeared since the dissolution of human caretaking.

  Weeds had grown up between cracks in the street pavement or in the steps leading to the arch. Weeds were waist-high in spots where flower beds once existed. And an array of newspapers, plastic wrappers and jugs, trash bags, clothing, empty cans, cardboard boxes, and any number of other discarded items lay sprinkl
ed throughout the area.

  “Either way, doesn’t look like anyone has been taking care of this area for a while. Guess that means we’ll have to take our search inland a bit,” Ms. Mary observed.

  The group slowly mounted the cliff of steps ahead of them. Justin and Louise immediately started running ahead, but Marta stopped them with a stern, “Kids, no! Stay close! This is not play place!”

  Both children retreated, waiting for the rest of the group that was progressing steadily, yet watchfully, up the stairs behind them.

  “Just stay vigilant,” Michael reminded everyone. “We don’t know what the situation is here. Just because this has been billed as a ‘happy place’ it doesn’t necessarily mean it actually is. We need to be ready for anything.”

  The sexagenarian looked pale, thin, and haggard compared to when they’d left Brookfield less than half a year prior. His physical condition, paired with a week’s worth of white stubble, made him look 20 years past his true age.

  Caroline moved up beside him and took his hand in hers. He turned to smile at her tiredly. But with his attention turned, the toe of his boot caught the lip of the next step, causing him to stumble and fall forward.

  Patrick and Wendell rushed to his aid as Caroline stood looking dumfounded at her husband who was there beside her one second, and collapsed on the ground the next.

  “Just give me a minute!” Michael said angrily, waving the two assistants away as he cringed in pain.

  “Are you all right, Dad?” Patrick knelt over his fallen father.

  “Fine,” his father gritted his teeth. “Fine…just angry, angry and embarrassed.” He slapped the top of the next concrete step with a hand. “Goddamn it!” he swore angrily. “I feel like some sort of damn invalid. Nothing but a pile of sagging bones,” he shook his head.

  “We’re gonna get you help, Dad,” Patrick assured him. “We’re almost there. You have to keep your spirits up.”