by TW Brown
“Heather!” Catie hissed, snapping her back to the present.
The younger girl looked around at what could be the matter. She didn’t see anything moving. Turning a full circle, she began to get frustrated.
“What?” Heather snapped, facing her travel buddy (that was Kevin’s term…she could think of another ‘B’ word that fit much better than ‘buddy’).
“To the left,” Catie said with a nod of her head.
Heather turned and it took her a moment to realize what she was seeing. The fence initially made it difficult, but eventually her eyes made out what had to be a cemetery. Only, everything was a charred black or dirty gray. Any foliage that once decorated the landscape was gone or reduced to an occasional black finger that pointed with a seemingly impotent accusation skyward.
“What the…” Heather’s words died on the gentle breeze.
Kevin and Aleah were crossing the median to get a better look. Aleah looked to be explaining something, but Heather couldn’t hear it. The foursome stood in the middle of the highway for several seconds. It wasn’t that they had not seen the signs of out of control fires and the damage that was brought in the wake of the apocalypse. Sometimes entire cities were burned to the ground. With nobody there to put out the blaze, fires could burn for days…weeks. But this, this was something on a different and odd level.
Together, they walked to the fence. As they got closer, they could see how some of the metal had twisted and turned in protest to the incredible heat that must have been present. Once they reached it, they received a new surprise. The ground was strewn with the charred husks of hundreds of bodies.
“Wait here,” Kevin warned as he grabbed a section of the fence and gave it a good shake. The metal screamed its protest, but seemed to hold.
Climbing up in short order, he threw a leg over the top and paused. Reaching down, he grabbed his binoculars and scanned the area.
Aleah, Heather, and Catie all wanted to ask questions, but each kept looking at the other and shrugging. Later, all three would agree that they felt a presence that demanded their silence. Kevin threw his other leg over and very carefully began to climb down.
Aleah noted that the fence, which had looked jet black when they first saw it, was indeed a metallic silver as Kevin was now covered in oily soot. He subconsciously wiped his hands on his pants as he stepped into the sprawling graveyard. Almost immediately, a low wailing moan began to drift on the breeze that suddenly seemed several degrees cooler. Each of them, Kevin included, broke out in goose flesh that marbled the skin of their arms.
“What is that?” Heather broke the sacred silence with a harsh whisper.
“I have no idea,” Catie said as she took a few steps back.
All her life growing up, her grandmother had tucked her in at night with a story. By the time she was eight or nine, Grammy Rose told Catie her first ghost story. She had loved it and insisted that Grammy do away with fairy princesses and little pigs that had serious flaws in their construction ideologies. From then on, it was ghosts and witches and all sorts of denizens of the dark. When she turned thirteen, Grammy had taken her to a “real live” haunted house. They had seen nothing; they had heard nothing. Still Catie was convinced that she felt a presence. Catie believed in ghosts.
“I know what it sounds like,” Aleah managed to say around what felt like a mouth full of sand wrapped in cotton.
On the other side of the fence, Kevin was struggling to make sense of what he was seeing. It looked as if ever single grave had been dug up and unceremoniously emptied of its contents. The mounds of dirt were all washed out and reduced to miniscule hills of brown. Caskets were reduced to an assortment of tarnished fittings that could only be seen if you were up close. The bodies were just scattered about with no rhyme or reason.
When that moaning sound came, he froze and waited for any sign of movement. His first thought had not been ghosts. He was firmly fixated on the possibility of zombies. Even worse, he was initially worried that all these charred remains were the undead. Would roasting the brain do the same as a shot to the head?
He recalled a park that he, Aleah, and Heather had seen with hundreds if not thousands of decapitated bodies. The zombie could ‘survive’ decapitation in a matter of speaking. All those heads were animated. Mouths snapped and eyes followed. It was, at the time, the scariest thing he had ever seen.
With the prosthetic foot, he nudged the closest husk. It did not react. Kneeling, he was able to make out what looked like some staples in a cluster around the split breast plate.
Standing back up, he waded further into the cemetery. The moan rose and fell in pitch and volume. It seemed to be coming from everywhere at once. That only heightened his curiosity. He looked for any place where a person might be able to hide and settled on a small concrete structure that looked like it probably housed the grounds keeping tools.
“You three stay put,” Kevin called over his shoulder.
He smiled when he heard all three gals make assorted squeaks of surprise or fear. He was going to file this away for later and be sure to give Aleah a good ribbing.
“I ain’t afraid of no ghost…” Kevin began to sing softly as he crossed the expansive grounds to the lone structure sitting atop one of the very gentle rises.
By the time he was within a few yards of the structure, he was actually singing out loud, almost at the top of his lungs. “Who ya gonna call? GHOSTBUSTERS!”
Abruptly, the moaning stopped…as did Kevin. His hand went instinctually to the machete on his hip and he tensed for whatever might reveal itself as the source of that sound. He was ready for a lot of things…except for what actually appeared.
“Go away!” the girl said with surprising menace for somebody who Kevin guessed to be no older than eleven or twelve.
“Raisa!” another voice scolded. “You weren’t supposed to let him see you. He could be one of the bad people!”
To his left and right more small faces appeared; many from out of the graves. Although they were pretty dirty, it looked like they were all girls. Not only that, but the oldest one was probably thirteen. Kevin couldn’t tell. And it wasn’t just because of the dirt. He found that, the older he got, the younger everybody else looked.
Kevin was about to say something. It was probably going to be sarcastic, until he saw bows come up and arrows fitted into place. The moment changed from one of amused annoyance to that of actual concern for his wellbeing. He quickly raised his hands above his head and dropped to his knees.
“I am not here to hurt anybody!” he exclaimed. He noticed just a slight cracking in his voice, but was too scared to be bothered.
“We’ve heard that one before,” a voice called from somewhere behind him.
“Seriously, if you want, I will go back and climb the fence and leave. I promise to never come back.”
“Heard that one, too,” another voice from a different direction taunted.
An arrow plunged into the ground just a few inches from his right knee. A few of the closer faces were grinning like demons. Kevin could almost swear that these kids were enjoying this.
“What do you want me to do?” he asked. He tried to let his gaze sweep over as many faces as possible in hopes that he might find just one that looked like it would listen.
“We wanted you to not come into our safe place,” a voice jeered. “But you did not take the warning.”
“What…those fake ghost sounds? Those were your warning? Why not just say I wasn’t welcome and ask me to leave?”
“This is our safe place. We don’t have to ask you to do anything.” This voice was almost directly behind him.
Kevin turned and discovered what he was pretty sure had to be a boy under all that dirt and wild hair. He looked this boy in the eyes and was a bit unsettled. He saw nothing but darkness in those coal black eyes that glared down on him with no more compassion that one might show an insect.
“Too many of you grown-ups have come…and you always hurt the childr
en.” The boy’s façade cracked just enough for Kevin to catch a glimmer of pain, but it was quickly thrown back up.
“I am not here to hurt anybody,” Kevin said. “I will get up and leave…promise never to return if you let me go.”
“Kevin!” a voice screamed.
All heads turned at once. Aleah, who had been climbing the fence, froze for just a moment. She seemed to be confused by what she was seeing. She shook her head as if to snap herself back into action and dropped to the ground. A few of the children nearby hissed at her and drew back their arrows in a menacing gesture. Aleah seemed to only consider them briefly before giving a dismissive wave of her hand and striding to where Kevin still knelt.
“Wait for us!” Heather called.
Kevin saw Catie and Heather both swinging their legs over the fence as they scrambled to catch up to Aleah. He saw the expressions change on the children in his field of vision. It was as if he had suddenly been forgotten.
“Is this man with you?” the boy still standing over Kevin demanded. When he said the word ‘man’ it came out almost like a swear word.
Kevin had to wonder what these children had experienced that had changed them so drastically. However, even more interesting to him was the question of how they had survived. It had almost been a year, and then there was that horrendous winter. And while it might not have been as bad here, it was still not something that very many people would have fared well during.
That notion caused his mind to begin to wander along the path of how many of those who survived had not made it through simply because of their inability to withstand the weather. That cascaded to thoughts on how people needing medications to stay alive must have suffered; which all led back to his sister. This chain of thought all took less than a few seconds to play out, but that last one actually caused him to slump over as if his gut were being wrung.
“He is, and I would appreciate it if you let him up. He has done nothing wrong and has helped many others to stay alive,” Aleah said as she walked purposely to Kevin and took a spot at his side.
I know two people I didn’t help, Kevin thought morosely.
“He saved me from one of the bad men!” Heather added as she hurried to join the others.
Catie remained by the fence. Her mind was already going over the scene and searching for weakness. She hoped that it would not come to such a terrible conclusion, but she was prepared for anything. There was one thing she had learned since this whole nightmare began: none of the old rules applied any more.
Heather went on to give a somewhat edited version of what had happened to her. As she spoke, Kevin saw some of the children glance at him with more scrutiny than anger or aggression. When it was over, Aleah went on and added some bits about Valarie, although she hardly told the entire story.
“Wait here,” the boy standing over him demanded. He retreated back several feet and was joined by a dozen other children. Kevin looked around and tried to get a guess at the number of kids who might be here. He stopped counting at fifty.
“You are free to leave if you promise to go and not come back,” the boy announced as he returned to where Kevin had remained kneeling.
Kevin stood up and gave a polite nod. He put a hand on Heather’s and Aleah’s shoulder to direct them back to the fence. Heather spun away and stepped in front of the boy who had been the speaker for the group.
“Why don’t you come with us?” Heather asked. “We are going someplace safe where there should be very few people. Kevin wants to build a place where we can grow our own food and live long happy lives.”
Kevin groaned inwardly. He did not picture it exactly as she was saying it. He knew there was a long road ahead and some serious hardships that would almost certainly rise up, not only along the way, but once they got to where they were going.
“There is no such thing as a place that is safe,” the boy said. For the first time, his voice sounded like that of the child he was and not the seemingly hardened leader he obviously portrayed.
“You’re right,” Kevin said before Heather could open her mouth and write any more checks that he would not be able to cash. “There is no place that is truly safe. However, with some hard work and sticking together, we can at least try to create something from all of this.” He opened his arms to include the torched graveyard.
There was a long silence. The boy seemed to be looking from one face to another for some sign that Kevin was not privy to. After what seemed like an eternity, the boy stepped forward.
“No.” That was all, one simple word.
Heather prepared to protest, but Kevin took her by the arm and turned her to him. He shook his head and then urged her towards the fence. Twice he had to stop her from trying to go back. He simply caught her arm and gave another firm shake of the head.
Eventually, the foursome were on the road headed west once more. A couple of miles later they passed another site of a large fire. However, this had been some sort of plant or processing station. There were no readable signs, but there were structures that at least hinted that something used to be made or stored here.
This gave them an even greater idea of the oddity that they had witnessed at the cemetery. While the damage was complete and extensive, it was different. This fire had been a result of an accident of some sort. What they had witnessed back up the highway was something very deliberate.
Nobody spoke all the rest of that day. Like Kevin, each was deep in thought. Only, not everybody was on the same wavelength. Kevin was once again torturing himself with thoughts of how he could have cared for his mother and sister. Heather was fuming over how easy they had simply walked away from those poor children. Aleah was wondering if her body might be trying to send her a signal; her last period had been several weeks ago. Catie was wondering if she might be just a little bit paranoid; she was almost positive that they were being followed. She could only hope that she was either wrong, or a few of those children had undergone a change of heart.
As they made camp for the day, the introverted moods seemed to change to something a bit more sour. They had spotted an airport just off the highway and managed to gain entrance to one of the private jets that sat useless on the runway. By the time they had eaten a meal consisting of something that Catie had found while off hunting (but had skinned and gutted it before returning, so only she knew that it was possum), the glares and icy silence was becoming more than Kevin could bear. He knew from experience how fast things could go wrong when there was a problem with the group dynamic.
“Okay, Heather,” he broke the uncomfortable silence as everybody sat in a chair by themselves not talking, “let’s hear it.”
He had expected her to just sit there and continue glaring. Apparently she had been waiting for somebody to knock a small hole in her mental dam so that the flood waters could come with all their fury.
“How can you just leave those children like that?” She stood up, fists clenched at her sides. “You know as well as anybody what is out there…what could be targeting them. I am pretty sure that Mr. Abernathy is not the only sick freak to survive this horror! If you came across somebody like how I was when you found me…would you just walk away?”
“Completely different,” Kevin said. He held up his hand to stall her protest when she immediately opened her mouth. “You came of your own free will. Those children stayed of theirs. What did you expect me to do? Do you think I could just round them all up and drag them along? Those children have survived on their own this long. I am as perplexed in regards to how as you might be, but they are alive, they did not seem to be starving, and from what I saw, they were fairly well armed and not afraid to face any threat that comes their way.”
“But they are only children…that oldest boy couldn’t be any older than thirteen or fourteen,” Heather insisted.
“Yes, and I also think that something is going on with them…something more than meets the eye. Don’t you find it just a bit strange that there are so many? That they are staking c
laim in a freaking graveyard? I have no idea what they went through, but I imagine that whatever it was, it was nasty. However, they seem to have overcome it and are now very content to fend for themselves. They did not want or need our help. And in case you forgot, I was the one that was basically held hostage with a few dozen arrows poised to make me into a pin cushion.”
“But that is twice,” Heather said as tears began to pour down her face. “Two times we have seen people that we could help and both times you just decided that we should walk away.”
Kevin was silent for a moment. He wanted to blow up. He wanted to yell and scream at this girl. Didn’t she think that he knew what they had done…what he had done? However, the truth was that there was nothing in either of those cases that they could have done. The one group was hopelessly surrounded and as for those children, they would have reacted badly if he had tried to force them to do anything.
Once he felt he could speak without being too much of an ass, Kevin said, “We can’t save everybody, Heather. The best thing that we can do is get to South Dakota and get our place set up. We will make it so that, when people do come, we will be able to take them in and make them part of things. But the harsh reality is that we are very limited with what we can do. I am working on one leg.
“We have very limited ammunition for the only gun that we do still have bullets for. And I might add that the gun in question is Catie’s. As for food, we have used almost all of our supplies and have to forage or hunt if we want to eat. Things are just too rough right now. Brining in others would do nothing but add to our troubles.” Kevin glanced over at Aleah and Catie who both seemed to be nodding their heads at least a little.
“So we are just out for ourselves now?” Heather asked. It wasn’t asked in anger, merely as a very direct question.
“Absolutely not,” Kevin said. “But the reality is that we will have to make sure that we have ourselves taken care of first. Before we can help others, we must be able to tend to our own needs.”
Heather looked at the others. The nods were slight, but she saw them. That didn’t mean she had to like it. It had never been a thought that they would reach a point where they would not be able to help others.
