“There was a man down there,” Meat said as he pointed at the intersection.
Window shook his head as he glanced down at the street. “You were asleep.”
“I was?”
“You must have been dreaming.”
“But it felt so real.”
“What did he want?”
“Who?”
“The man from your dream, what did he want?”
“I don’t know.” Meat shrugged as he sat back down.
Window sat down beside him. “You can go to sleep, I’ll take over for you.”
“I’ll be all right,” why are you awake?”
Window shrugged. “I don’t know, I had this sudden feeling that someone was in trouble and I needed to help them.”
“Who was in trouble?”
“I don’t know. It was just a feeling.”
“Well I’m glad you did.”
“Why? What happened?”
Meat watched the distant fires burn around the high rises at the center of the city, his doubts still stirring, filling him with questions for which there were no answers. He sensed that they were near the end of their quest and that tomorrow, or possibly the following day, it would be over and they would either have the children back as they returned to Bremo Bluff, or all four of them would perish.
“I think I might have bitten off more than I can chew.”
“Are you worried about tomorrow?”
Meat nodded. “Aren’t you?”
“They’ve already taken everything I cared for, the only thing left is my life, and they can have that as well.”
“That’s a pretty dismal view, I mean we’re only kids, really, we’re nothing more than children ourselves. We’ve got our whole lives ahead of us.”
“I quit being a kid the moment my mother died. And what we have is only what they left us. Which isn’t much, a dead world filled with bad things.”
“But we control the future, we are the future.”
“And that’s why you’ll survive, you have hope.”
“What about the others?” Meat said, nodding towards Gregory and Billie-Bob who were still asleep.
“I don’t think we’ll have to worry about Gregory, Billie-Bob might freeze up on us, but Gregory will be an asset. He has the same look.”
“What look is that?”
“The I don’t give a fuck look, they’ve taken everything from him and he has less to live for than I do.”
Window had a point. In a fight it was usually the one who had the least to live for that stood the best chance of winning. After all, they were wiling to take the greatest risk. He only hoped that when tomorrow came all of them were ready for whatever was thrown at them.
Sixteen
Gregory and Billie-Bob were kneeling behind the low wall that ran along the edge of the roof, each with a rifle butt resting against their shoulder, their eyes glued to the telescopic sight as the last of the morning mist was burned away by the rising sun. Meat was anxious to get going, to get this over with and get out of Richmond. The memory of the waking dream he’d had the night before was still fresh in his mind and he was worried that it might prove to be a sign of bad luck, an omen that things were not going to go as planned.
“Downtown is a mess,” Gregory said, “I can see people moving about in a couple of the high rises.”
“Any sign of the kids?” Window said.
Gregory shook his head as he continued to scan the city that lay a little more than a mile away. “We’re not close enough yet.”
“Do you see anyone who might be watching for us?”
“Nothing,” Billie-Bob said.
The sound of the bullet slapping into the escarpment just below Gregory sent them all scrambling for cover. It was followed by a report that faded into the distance like thunder.
“Where did that come from?” Meat said as they hunkered down below the edge of the low wall that ran around the perimeter of the roof.
“Hang on,” Billie-Bob said as he squirmed into a new position. Carefully he lifted his head above the lip of the wall. Ducking back down as a round slammed into the edge of the lip, pieces of old concrete dancing across the roof, knocked loose by the impact.
“I think it’s coming from below,” Billie Bob said.
“Keep em occupied,” Window said as he crossed to the door that led into the stairwell inside the building. Meat followed and stood to one side, his revolver drawn, as he motioned for Window to open the door. When he did Meat came around low, his pistol held out in front of him. Window raced down the steps to the landing and established a cover point before Meat followed and pushed down the second flight to the landing where the door for the top floor stood.
Carefully they opened the door onto a gloomy hallway. The doors to a couple of the apartments stood open, allowing some light to come through, other than that it was a dark and dangerous place.
They entered an apartment whose door was standing open and crossed to the windows. Most of the glass had been broken, probably the result of the vandalism that had swept across the city as emergency services were overwhelmed in the initial days of the awakening.
The wall below the window was stained black with mold, the carpet below the wall swollen with moisture and a fine layer of black mold that resembled a well-manicured lawn. Holding a rag over his nose and mouth to filter any mold spores that might be floating in the air he crossed to the opening, Window followed suit.
In this new age it was best to take every precaution possible.
They had discovered that the mold growing in many of the still standing buildings had an adverse effect on the health of anyone who ingested the spores. Taking root in the victim’s lungs and growing until they could no longer take a breath. Lung rot they called it. With only basic first aid and no proper medical facilities available, the littlest cut could prove fatal, and Lung Rot was guaranteed to give you a slow and painful death.
Staying in the shadows Meat searched the area around the apartment building. Movement drew his attention to an open window in one of the vacant houses facing the building. As he watched a young man leaned on the windowsill and sighted his rifle on the roof of the apartment building. He appeared to be alone.
“Stay here,” Meat said as he pointed out the young man to Window, “keep an eye on him I’ll be right back.”
Meat returned with Gregory and while Billie-Bob entertained his would be killer. Gregory stood in the shadows and sighted in on the sniper. The muzzle blast of the shot, confined within the small room, caused some of the plaster above their heads to fall from the ceiling.
A hole was exposed and from the black depths came the unmistakable squeaking of rodents who had been disturbed. With no one to slow their spread rodents had taken over the city and Meat shuddered at the thought of having spent the night on the roof of a building whose walls were full of rats.
“We need to get out of here,” Meat said as he turned to the door and vanished into the hallway.
Seventeen
With the threat extinguished they quickly gathered their gear and spilled out of the gloomy depths of the building into the sunlit parking lot. The house their would be killer had used was directly in front of them and they spread out as they approached the vacant structure. Reaching the wall Meat released his pent up breath, he’d been expecting someone to pop up in the window at any moment, catching him exposed, but nothing moved in the shadowy depths of the house as they rounded the corner to an open door.
Inside they found the body of the lone shooter. All he had with him was a nearly empty backpack with several loose rounds for his rifle lying on the bottom. There were three dog-eared paperbacks whose covers had long since fallen off, leaving a grimy title page in its place. To Kill A Mockingbird shared the pack with The Catcher in the Rye, and Of Mice and Men.
Meat slipped the books into his own pack. He’d never heard of them before and was looking forward to some quiet time spent reading something new. He sensed that they had be
en important to the shooter who now lay dead in a pool of his own blood. Why else would he have kept them? They must have contained a message he found important enough to take up space in his pack, space that would have been better used for food.
Once they were back outside Meat surveyed the group. They were road weary and the lack of sleep from keeping a constant watch was beginning to show in the dazed expressions that returned his gaze. They’d have to take a break soon, get some real sleep, somewhere away from the constant tension of surviving. But that would have to wait. There was a group of children somewhere in the city hoping they would come save them.
“We’ll have to keep away from the roads from here on out. I’ll continue to check for sign, but we don’t want to let them know we’re coming. Once we get closer we’ll find a high spot and look for the kids.” Meat said, if they’re still alive he finished to himself. He had lost the sign left by the group when they entered the outskirts of the city, but he kept pushing on in the only direction that seemed feasible, relying more on instinct than anything else.
It had been nearly ten days since they had been taken. The concept of weeks months and years had given way to the days in the season. Mondays no longer existed, nor did weekends, as the struggle to survive was an endless one. A once mighty industrialized culture, that had taken two centuries to build, had been reduced to an agrarian society in less than a decade.
They kept to backyards as they moved deeper into the city, jumping over those fences that remained as they pushed through the overgrowth. Crossing over weed chocked expanses that had once been immaculate lawns where weekend barbecues had once been hoisted.
Breaking through a tangled line of underbrush they came out into a perfectly manicured lawn. It was a sight so out of place amid all of the destruction that they stopped in their tracks, to stare with wonder at the sight they had found. In ordered formations upon the lawn stood rows of short yard gnomes sorted by the color of their shirt. With pointed hats tilted at a jaunty angle, and rosy red cheeks above full white beards that lay upon swollen bellies.
There were several hundred of the tiny statues standing in regimented rows like soldiers at attention, ready at a moments notice to move forward. Their shirts the colors of the rainbow ordered in groups of red, yellow, blue, and green. They covered the immaculate lawn from one side to the other.
On their right a house stood at the edge of a stone patio that bordered the lawn. On the patio were several wrought iron chairs around a solitary table; everything was clean and white as if it had been freshly painted. It looked like someone had recently been sitting in them and would return at any moment.
“I don’t like this,” Window said on Meat’s left and Meat nodded in agreement.
The windows of the house, while clean, were dark and silent. There could be any number of people standing behind them, watching them as they stumbled out of the forest into this land of gnomes.
“We gotta keep moving,” Meat said as he pushed out across the lawn, carefully stepping around the formation of gnomes closest to them, his head swiveling back and forth as he kept glancing at the house while at the same time keeping his attention focused on where he was going.
Weaving among the ordered formations they moved in single file. Halfway across that sea of grass upon which the armies of gnomes marched Billie-Bob stumbled into a row of the small statues. One fell into the next in line with a soft clunk. Like a row of dominos the gnomes were knocked off their feet, coming to rest in the grass as their neighbors responded in kind.
They finished crossing the yard in a dead run, excepting at any moment for the owner of the house to emerge and find one of his formations disturbed.
They ran through the trees, branches slapping at their faces, the oppressive heat of the forest weighing down upon them like a physical presence. Meat stumbled to a stop as the rest plowed into him from behind driving him to the ground where he lay panting as the absurdity of the situation settled into him.
He laughed at the sheer strangeness of that backyard while at the same time a gentle chill caressed his spine. It made no sense at all. Amid all the destruction that had befallen the world, why would someone put that much effort into caring for such a bizarre display?
“Can you believe that?” Billie-Bob said
Panting as they bent over at the waist, hands on their knees to support them, sweat dripping from their faces.
“That was the strangest thing I’ve ever seen.” Gregory said, “I mean who would do such a thing?”
“A little unhinged.” Window said.
“Unhinged my ass, that was loony tunes crazy.” Billie-Bob said.
Meat understood what might compel someone to do such a thing. He’d seen it in the past, especially with the older people whose worlds had been turned upside down by the awakening. Doing anything they could to cling to the old ways. One day they had been going about their daily lives, working, living, and following that endless cycle that led all of them to but one certain outcome.
Overnight they were fighting for their lives. The things around them that they had so long taken for granted were no longer there. The lights no longer came on when one flipped the switch, the heat remained off when they adjusted the dial of their thermostat and to add insult to injury the world had become an increasingly dangerous place to survive.
Survival of the fittest became the law of the jungle as society crumbled and the laws that once protected all of them were discarded in the face of a relentless hunger, not only for food, but also for the security that once offered an illusion of safety.
“We gotta keep going,” Meat said as he climbed to his feet and brushed off his clothes, checking to make sure nothing had fallen from his pack when he’d been knocked over. Each of them nodded in response and Meat pushed on through the dense forest as its secret voice whispered all around them.
Here and there they came upon pools, some filled with stagnant water over which clouds of mosquitoes buzzed, others empty with the skeletal remains of unfortunate animals trapped at the bottom, surrounded on all sides by sheer tiled walls. From everywhere around them came the persistent sound of life in sharp counterpoint to their own silence as they pushed ahead.
Breaking through a dense section of overgrowth they came out into a section of the city that had burned to the ground. Piles of scorched rubble were scattered across the blackened ground. In several spots parts of the once standing structure still stood, silent testament to the density of the population that once inhabited this section of the city. It was empty now, the living having fled, or perishing as a result of the awakening.
The rusting hulks of several automobiles sat in what had at one time been a roadway, the asphalt surface having melted from the heat of the fire, the cars sinking into the morass to become locked forever in black asphalt that matched the scorched ground. It was like a scene from another world, a desolate place located at the end of a perverse rainbow.
The burned out section covered six city blocks, a rolling expanse of destruction with several walls that offered some cover. Directly across from them, its white surface blackened by the smoke from that long ago fire, stood a massive square building that had escaped the fire unscathed.
Heat waves danced in the distance, the sun having emerged from behind a bank of clouds, burning off the earlier haze as the temperature increased to a more summer like level.
“What do you think it is?” Window said as Meat scanned the face of the building with his binoculars. Two rows of square windows were spaced evenly across the façade; one at what had once been street level, the next near the roofline, they had entered the city of Richmond proper, and beyond that squat structure stood even taller buildings reaching towards the cloudless blue sky above.
“I don’t know,” Meat said, “but we’re about to find out.”
As a group they set out across that plain of destruction, cinders stirring at their feet as they trudged across that blackened scar. Here the heat of the sun was intensified b
y the black surface that absorbed the warming rays to amplify them. Sweat ran down their brows, trickling down their backs, staining their already dirty clothing.
Shortly they were in the shadow of the building as they neared what appeared to be a set of glass doors leading inside. The glass had long since been knocked out, with shards of glass lying in a glittering pile inside and out of the building. Meat ducked down and slipped under the metal bar that bisected the door. Once inside he took a deep breath, a familiar scent tickling his nostrils, excitement filling him when he recognized that smell.
Eighteen
After Meat and the others left Einstein kept himself busy cleaning his guns, lost in his thoughts as Maria tidied the house. He was still smarting over Meat’s revelation of the true nature of Bremo Bluff. He’d lived there his entire life and had never suspected a thing. The fact that his mom and dad had been involved from the start, which could only mean they had played a part in establishing the policy about what to do with those who wanted to leave, left him wondering what else he had missed.
He understood how important it was that they protect what they had, but the community had grown larger over the years, boasting well over two thousand survivors, leaving him to wonder if it was still necessary. He wasn’t that familiar with what was going on beyond the fence, this trip being the furthest he had ever ventured from the safety it afforded, but surely the world had not become that dangerous.
Maria passed through, drawing him from his thoughts, and he watched as she worked. She was slim and attractive, and with the warmer weather she had shed her jacket, revealing the filthy tee shirt she wore underneath. It was obvious she wasn’t wearing a bra, as her nipples tented the fabric of the tee shirt. A tear in the fabric under her left breast exposed a gentle curve of bare flesh.
She was unlike any of the girls he knew at the Bluff. They were open and straightforward about what they wanted. Security topping the list, and even though he understood the inner workings of the turbines that provided their power, a knowledge that afforded him certain privileges within the compound, he was still just a scrawny kid.
All Roads Lead To Terror: Coming of age in a post apocalyptic world (Dreadland Chronicles Book 1) Page 8
