by James Cook
I tried to imagine what would preoccupy my thoughts if Sophia were far away, unreachable, and putting my mind in that place, I knew I would remember the arguments, the harsh words, the digs we took at each other. For Mike’s sake, I hoped he had enough good memories to outweigh the bad.
It is easy to be impatient with someone when they are close to you. When you can reach out and touch them, and hear their voice, and apologize for whatever stupid thing you did or said. But distance creates perspective, and when that distance is eternal, there is no salve for the regret of loved ones taken for granted.
Memories stirred of my father, and Lauren, and Blake, and I clenched my fists to keep my hands from trembling. That way held nothing but pain, regret, and sorrow, and its path ended at a cliff. Once over it, no matter how much I clutched and scrambled, there would be no coming back. So instead, I closed my eyes and focused on the immense black nothing in front of me, wondering if it was the last thing they saw before the end. If the empty dark was what waited for us all, the answer to the great mystery of life after death, the idea people had been debating and philosophizing and fighting wars over for millennia. Maybe the answer had been staring us in the face all along, every time we closed our eyes. I wondered, when my time came, if my family would be there waiting with hands outstretched to lead me home.
Sophia stirred beside me, turned over onto her side. I opened my eyes and sat up a little, the light filtering through the tent’s canopy chasing away dark thoughts. The pain faded somewhat, diluted by the soft warm body next to me. I moved closer and draped an arm around her, listening to her sigh contentedly as I pulled her close.
Plenty of time to mourn later, I told myself. For now, hold it together.
Just past midday, I slept.
*****
The next night was more of the same. About five miles from I-40 we turned left and traveled cross-country toward Highway 24, staying well away from the interstate. The scars left over from the horrors we had witnessed on I-35 and I-20 were still fresh, and none of us were willing to bet I-40 was any better.
During the transit, I thought of how I had always imagined Colorado as a wonderland of soaring mountains, sweeping valleys, verdant forests, and flower-covered fields dotted with crystal blue lakes. That was what I had always seen in pictures, magazines, and on television—America’s version of the Bavarian Alps. But the reality was far different from the idyllic setting I had dreamed up in my mind. The region we traveled over was mostly flat with the occasional lifts, saddles, and long, sloping basins.
When we could, we traveled on roads. When we couldn’t, we relied on the Humvee’s off-road capabilities. On four separate occasions, we got stuck and had to drive over wooden planks after digging our way free of wet, clinging mud. Out of frustration, I asked Mike why it was so fucking damp around here despite the lack of rain.
“We’re in a saddle,” Mike said. “A damned big one. Starts back there at 287 and goes clear to the foothills that way.” He pointed east. “The water runoff between flows down here, smack dab the middle.”
“So we’re basically standing in the bottom of a giant drainage ditch.”
“Pretty much.”
“Fantastic.”
At just after four ‘o clock in the morning, I drove the Humvee over a rise and could see the flat expanse of Highway 24 a couple of miles below. “Not much farther now,” I said.
“You see the highway?” Mike asked.
“Yep.”
Sophia let out a sleepy little whoop from the back. Grinning, I angled around a stand of trees and made for the road.
The trip down the hill went smoothly, the dry dirt at higher elevation providing better traction. I glanced at the fuel gauge nervously, thinking about the last two gallons in the back and worried it would not be enough. I voiced my concerns to Mike.
“Just keep driving for now,” he said. “Get a few miles down the highway, then we’ll see what we can scrounge up. Worst case, we’ll pull over somewhere and stash this thing. Go the rest of the way on foot and come back for our stuff later.”
I couldn’t think of a better plan, so I nodded.
When we reached the highway, Mike checked the map under an LED light and declared we were just over sixty miles from Colorado Springs. There was no way our fuel would hold up that long, but I could see no cars close by. All around us was mile after mile of flat, empty grassland. If it had been daylight, I would have seen the toothy line of the Rockies in the distance, but my NVGs could not reach that far.
So we drove on, the needle lowering inexorably toward empty, wheels picking up speed on the unobstructed highway. I eased the Humvee up to thirty-five and let it stay there, figuring it was the point of greatest fuel efficiency. We made it a little over fifteen miles before the engine began to sputter and cough. Thankfully, I could make out the shape of a few buildings ahead and the unmistakable outline of a tractor-trailer.
“There’s a semi up ahead,” I said. “A few buildings too. Might have what we need.”
“Go ahead and pull over,” Mike said. “Hopefully that truck has some diesel in it. Otherwise, we got a long walk ahead of us.”
I tapped the brakes and eased the Humvee to the side of the road. As I did, it struck me as an odd thing to do; we had seen no other vehicles since leaving the convoy. I could have straddled the double-yellow lines if I wanted to, and it would have made no difference.
Old habits die hard, I guess.
Mike stepped out and walked to the rear of the vehicle. I heard the back hatch open, the clattering of a gerry can and funnel being removed from the cargo area, and a few clanks as Mike poured the last of the fuel into the tank.
With the absence of road noise, I also heard the sound of slow, heavy breathing. Turning around, I saw Sophia lying across the back seat, eyes closed, mouth hanging slightly open. Even through the grainy green image of the NVGs, she was a beauty. Smiling, I waited until Mike climbed back in.
“Good to go?” I asked.
“As good as it gets for now.”
I put the Humvee in gear and headed for the truck.
FORTY-FIVE
“Should we wake up Sophia?” I asked.
“Nah,” Mike said. “This won’t take long.”
I stopped the Humvee on the road adjacent to the truck. Its previous driver had backed it off the highway and parked in front of a massive red barn the size of an airplane hangar. Looking to my left, I saw the property was not a farm, but an estate. There was a mansion set back off the road that could not have been less than ten-thousand square feet, a cottage with an empty swimming pool out front, several outbuildings, and at least a hundred acres of fenced pasture. The doors to the giant barn were open, there were no lights visible, and I saw no sign of any horses.
Then there was the semi.
“What the heck is that thing doing here?” I asked.
“Maybe it’s stopped here for the night.”
“Should we look around or just move on?”
“Move on? Why?”
The same uneasiness I felt at Boise City had returned, albeit not as strong as before. “I don’t know,” I said, “but I don’t like this place. There’s no reason that truck should be here.”
“There’s no reason it shouldn’t be, either. Look, it has a sleeper cab. The driver probably stopped to catch some shuteye. Might be he’ll trade us for some fuel.”
Logically, what Mike said made sense. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling we were headed for trouble. Mike noticed my tension and said, “Tell you what, Caleb, let’s just take a look around. If we don’t like what we see, we leave.”
My instinct was to say no, screw that, let’s get out of here. But the fact was we needed fuel, and there was no way to know if we would find any more on the way to Colorado Springs. The roads had been remarkably empty the last few miles—no wrecks, no cars on the side of the road, no dead bodies, nothing—and I was certain I had spotted the even, parallel markings of heavy equipment treads creased
into the asphalt. The most likely scenario was the government had sent crews out to clear the highway, as doing so would certainly make life easier for any refugees approaching from the east. But if that were the case, where was everybody? Surely we couldn’t be the only people headed this way.
I continued staring at the truck, fingers drumming on the steering wheel. Finally, I said, “Okay. We’ll check it out. But let’s stash the Humvee first.”
“Fair enough.”
I put the vehicle in gear and drove on, going a mile down the road around a bend in the highway. When I felt confident it looked as if we had moved on, I doubled back and angled the Humvee off-road on a vector that would take us a few hundred yards behind the mansion. Once there, I drove down the back of a hill leading away from the property, turned the Humvee so it was facing the highway, and killed the engine.
“We should wake up Sophia,” I said.
“Sophia’s awake.”
I turned to see her sitting up in the back seat. “This field has so many holes in it I thought my brain was going to bounce out of my head. Where the hell are we, anyway?”
I explained the situation and then waited while she thought it over. Her eyes turned toward the mansion as she grabbed a canteen and took a long pull. “I’m coming with you,” she said, wiping her mouth.
“Good idea,” I said. “Mike?”
“Fine by me.”
Sophia made a disgusted noise. “For Christ’s sake, Dad, I … wait, what?”
Mike turned, smiling. “I said it’s fine by me. I’d rather have you close by where I can keep an eye on you.”
Her eyes widened, mouth open in surprise. “Oh. Okay, then.”
“Don’t forget your rifle.”
Mike and I exchanged an amused glance, then got out of the Humvee.
I fitted suppressors to all three carbines, gave Mike and Sophia each a pair of NVGs, and swapped out my VCOG for our sole night vision scope. Mike attached a PEQ-15—an infrared laser sight visible only through night vision optics—to his weapon, and another to Sophia’s.
“So let me get this straight,” she said, after we explained to her how it worked. “I can see the laser, but no one else can?”
“Unless they’re wearing NVGs,” I said. “Also, don’t think just because it’s dark they can’t see you. The human eye is attracted to movement, even in low light situations. So move slowly and be as quiet as you can.”
She gave a mock bow. “Hai, sensei. Can we go now?”
“In a minute, smart ass.”
Out of habit, I tilted my rifle, checked the safety, tugged the charging handle to make sure there was a round in the chamber, leveled the scope to make sure it was activated, and clicked the button on my radio transmitter.
“Check, check.”
“Copy.” Mike said.
Sophia ran her fingers along the cord connected to her earpiece, found the transmit button, and said, “I can hear you.”
“Try pushing the button,” I said.
She did, and I heard a click.
“Say something, Sophia.”
Another click. “You’re an annoying shit when you get like this.”
“Okay, we’re good to go.”
Mike grunted.
We fanned out and crossed the field, staying low and quiet. Sophia turned out to be surprisingly stealthy. When we were a hundred yards from the back of the mansion, I clicked my radio. “Stop. Time to come up with a plan. Over.”
“Copy, over.”
“What he said.”
We crawled through the tall brush and met at the top of the rise, heads low, eyes scanning for movement. “Here’s what we’ll do,” Mike said. “Caleb, you work your way around to the barn. If it’s like most barns it’ll have a hay loft. You’ve got the scope, so climb up there and provide overwatch.”
“Okay,” I said. “What about you and Sophia?”
“I’ll approach the truck and have a look around. Sophia, you see that tool shed up there, the little square one to the left of the cottage?”
“The one with the wind vane on top of it?”
“That’s the one.”
“What about it?”
“I want you to take cover on this side, facing back toward the Humvee. Stay low and watch my back while I’m checking the truck. Can you do that?”
“Sure.”
“Let’s go then.”
I swung around to my right, staying well clear of the mansion. Ten minutes later, I walked through the open doors of the barn, found the wooden ladder to the loft, and climbed up.
Each side of the loft was huge, easily the same square footage as my old house. A wide gap separated the two halves, and there was a thirty-foot drop to the ground between. The barn housed two rows of more than a dozen stalls each, all standing open. The scent of urine and horse manure was faint, but still strong enough to reach my nose. What little hay remained in the loft reeked of mildew, telling me this place had been abandoned for at least a few weeks.
I made my way to the wall facing the semi and carefully pulled open the shutters on a window. The window had no glass, just two pieces of plywood hung from hinges with a hook-and-lanyard to secure it shut. I had seen the same setup before. The idea was to open the shutters during good weather to let air flow through and keep the hay dry, and close them for the same reason when it rained.
The height of the window required me to stand in order to see through it, so I backed off a few feet to conceal myself, set my feet, bent my knees a little, and waited. A few minutes passed. No sign of Mike.
Concerned, I shifted a few steps to my right, looked toward the mansion, and saw Sophia creeping closer to the shed where she was to take position. Reassured Mike as still out there somewhere, I swiveled the gun back to the semi and waited for him to show up.
Another few minutes passed before I saw Mike’s bulky form step away from the barn and approach the truck. He began a pattern of walking a few steps, examining the ground, glancing up, checking his surroundings, and walking a few more steps. Realizing I was on overwatch and not there to observe Mike’s activities, I began moving the scope from building to building, watching for movement, ears straining.
Sophia had reached the tool shed, a sliver of leg just visible around the corner. Confident no one would spot her in the dark, I did another sweep, letting my gaze linger on each outbuilding, then the mansion, and finally back to Sophia’s hiding spot.
Just as I began to turn away, I realized I could not see her leg.
Must have stepped to her right.
I was about call her on the radio just to be on the safe side when I heard raised voices and looked back to see three men emerge into view. One of them stepped out from a tack shed next to the barn, while the other two emerged from a small bunkhouse on the opposite side of the truck. They approached Mike with their weapons up, two of them carrying shotguns, the third a lever-action repeater.
“Fuck,” I whispered.
“Drop the gun,” one of the men shouted, the one from the tack shed.
Mike unslung his rifle and eased it to the ground, then did the same with his .45 automatic. “Okay, I’m unarmed,” he said.
Mike was lying; he always kept a .380 revolver in a concealed holster at the small of his back. I had personally witnessed him snap it out and hit a target center of mass at twenty-five yards faster than most people could clap their hands. But he sounded earnest enough, even managing to force a little manufactured fear into his voice.
Worried someone might be coming up behind me, I turned, knelt, and swept the loft, carbine just below my line of sight. Nothing. This meant one of two things: either they didn’t know I was up here, or whoever they sent after me was extremely stealthy. For the moment, all I could do was keep my ears open and hope it was the former, not the latter.
Returning my attention to the situation on the ground, I saw the two men from the bunkhouse closing in on Mike, one on either side. Stupid, I thought. If they shoot, they’ll hit each other.
Mike recognized this, and I saw a slight tension gather in him as he prepared to make his move. But before he could, the third man, who had stopped ten feet in front of him, said, “Caul, move a few steps towards me you fucking idiot.”
The man looked up, realized his mistake, and scrambled to his right.
“What do you want?” Mike asked.
“Where are the rest of you,” said the man in charge, the one who had yelled at Caul.
“It’s just me.”
“Bullshit, Fed. There’s always more of you.”
I looked more closely at the leader. His hunting coveralls looked too big for him, his face sunken and gaunt, skin loose from rapid weight loss. The other two men didn’t look much better, dressed in filthy, billowy rags that probably fit not so long ago. The Outbreak and the hardships it caused were having that effect on most people, myself included.
“Fed?” Mike asked, genuinely confused. “Wait, you think I’m with the Army?”
The leader—who I dubbed Henry because of his lever-action rifle—started to say something else, but a shout from where I had last seen Sophia interrupted him. “Hey, I got another one!”
Henry grinned viciously, staring Mike in the eye. “Is that a fact?”
I felt cold, like someone had dumped ice water over my head. Shifting my aim, I saw a man nearly as big as Mike emerge from the side of the shed, one brawny arm around Sophia’s neck, the other holding a revolver to her head. She had a gag in her mouth, hands bound behind her back, one eye swollen nearly shut.
The sight shocked me into stillness. A grinding sound grated in my ears, and for a few seconds, I wondered what it was. Then I realized it was my own teeth.
I knew there wasn’t much time. Now that they had Sophia, there was no reason to keep Mike alive. My only hope was they would be less anxious to kill Sophia, for obvious reasons.
Henry, the leader, was the biggest threat. The others clearly deferred to him, so taking him out first would cause the most confusion. At least I hoped it would.
