“Isaac?” Luke was calling for me from the doorway. “Isaac, I think we need to get out of here.” I stood up and turned to look at him and, as I did so, I heard it too, the faint rumble of a helicopter in the distance. I looked up to see the smoke from the fireplace rising white against the slate gray sky.
“Quick, let’s grab what we can and go,” I said. “We’ll have to go on foot, staying in the trees.” Luckily, much of the land on either side of the road we’d followed to this point had been lightly forested.
“What about Sarah?” he asked, as I ran to the bikes and started pulling out anything useful and light enough to carry on foot.
“We’ll have to leave her here,” I said, although the very thought of it pained me. “We can’t take her with us and we don’t have any time to bury her ...”
“No. We can’t leave her like that,” he said defiantly. I paused and looked at him and he elaborated. “Why don’t we set the house alight, cremate her, so she isn’t eaten by animals or rotting like the people upstairs? It might also distract the helicopter.”
“Yes, yes, alright, do it quick while I get the others out.”
We had run around like maniacs gathering what belongings we could as quickly as possible. Luke stopped for a moment to place a sheet over Sarah’s body and surprised me yet again when he leaned over and kissed her shrouded forehead. That was what amounted to her funeral and, as the hum of the chopper blades got louder, Luke put a match to the kerosene he had poured over the sitting room floor and furniture and we ran out of the house.
A few minutes later, we watched as the chopper circled the burning house. The old timber building had burned quickly and, as we hid in the cover of the trees watching the oily smoke rise into the grey sky, Brooke’s wracking sobs were the only sound that interrupted the heavy chop, chop, chop of the helicopter blades.
8
The bare, dead branches of the deciduous trees that were the most common in the area didn’t provide much cover, but we luckily found a copse of spruce trees to crouch under as we watched. Thankfully, the helicopter didn’t land. We waited about five minutes for it to finish circling the area and depart.
“Great idea to set the house alight, Luke,” said Ben. “I think maybe it worked as a decoy. I’m pretty sure if we’d only left the chimney burning, they would have landed and searched the area. We would have been toast.”
“Yeah, good thinking on your feet, Luke,” I agreed, and patted his shoulder awkwardly.
“Well, it wasn’t really about creating a decoy. I just didn’t want to leave Sarah like that,” he said.
Ben and I nodded somberly, but Brooke, still upset at the loss of the little girl, went to Luke and kissed him on the cheek. I heard her whisper, “Thank you.”
We had been forced to leave most of the supplies we had brought with us from Walmart; basically, all we now had was what we were wearing and what we had in our backpacks. I had gathered what I could from the baskets that the dogs had scattered, but it amounted to no more than some canned food and two sleeping bags.
“We should keep moving,” I said, when the helicopter had flown off to the south.
“Should we go back and gather up more supplies?” Ben asked.
“I don’t think so,” I replied. “They’ve scanned the area from the air but we have to assume that they’ll send a truck with men to search around the house.”
“I’ll bet they are,” Luke said, glancing up from the atlas that he’d been studying while the helicopter was hovering over the house. “They’ll probably be here sooner rather than later.”
“Onward it is, then,” Brooke said, looking sadly back in the direction of the house.
“We should stay off the road for a while,” I said. “Luke, do you think you can guide us with the atlas and the compass you grabbed from Walmart?”
“Does a bear shit in the woods?”
His mischievous smile faded as his funny reply fell flat; the death of Sarah was still too raw for all of us.
“Let’s go, maybe we can find someplace closer to Worcester to hole up,” I said quickly to cover the awkward silence.
After consulting his compass, Luke pointed us in a direction and we started our hike. The terrain rose slightly in the direction that Luke indicated, and the forest got thicker as we went on, although the bare trees provided less cover than we would have liked. The going was slow. Not just because of the forest.
Both Ben and I were somewhat hobbled by our recent injuries, he the dog bite to the butt, and me the pulled muscle in my groin from my slip in the slushy snow the afternoon before. It had been okay while I was warm, but this morning it was quite tender. The snow on the ground certainly didn’t help either. Or the unevenness of the forest floor. We were travelling much slower through the woods than we would have been along the road. We’d been walking about 20 minutes when Luke stopped and looked worriedly behind us.
“What is it?” I asked.
“The snow,” he said. “If somebody finds our trail in it leading away from the house, they can follow it right to us.”
“Crap,” I got a sinking feeling in my belly. “Well, let’s push on, perhaps we’ll find a way ahead that’ll confuse the trail. Besides we don’t know that they actually will send a ground team. We just couldn’t take the risk.”
“There should be a road on the top of this ridge, it runs the same direction as the one we were on,” Luke said. “Maybe we can walk on it for a while before heading off into the woods again. It might at least slow them down if they were searching for our trail.”
We walked on in silence for a good twenty more minutes before we came to the edge of the trees. We found ourselves looking into the backyard of a large house with a small barn-like building off to one side. We stood for a couple of minutes watching, but detected no signs of movement.
“Should we risk a quick pop inside to check for supplies, do you think?” Ben asked.
“If they do find our trail, I think it’s too soon to stop, even for a short time,” Luke said.
“Luke’s right, we keep moving for now,” I said, massaging my inner thigh while I crouched in the snow. “There’ll be other houses to search for supplies, once we are further away from here.”
It started snowing again as we crossed the house’s backyard, aiming for the gap between it and the barn. The snow was heavier than it had been before and if we still had them, riding the bicycles would have been a nightmare, or impossible. On foot though, it wouldn’t slow us down much more than what was already on the ground. This time, I was glad to see the snow falling. It was a light fall, but if it fell long and hard enough, it would cover our tracks.
At the corner of the house, we found a large paved driveway that stretched off between the trees. A snow-covered SUV sat on the icy tarmac with its driver’s side door open. I approached it warily. It was abandoned and snow had begun to collect on the driver’s seat.
“Follow the driveway,” Luke said. “It’ll be harder for somebody to follow our trail there because it’s more slush and ice than snow.”
The driveway was a couple hundred feet long, and we found ourselves emerging onto a road. Standing in the shadow of a large evergreen tree we cautiously looked up and down the street. We could see in both directions that driveways led back to houses on either side of the street, most of them closer to the road than the one we had negotiated.
“I say we hang a left,” Luke said. “It’ll confuse followers because it sort of cuts back against the direction we’ve been going and, if I remember the map right, there is a road we can take to put us back on course not too far along that way.”
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this road,” I said.
Whether I was right or not, I had no intention of finding out. “I think we should head straight across it, through the backyard of the house across the way and back into the trees. It looks like there might be more evergreens over that way, so maybe that will make us harder to track if there is more snow in the branch
es and less on the ground.”
“I agree with Isaac,” Brooke said. “I don’t like the idea of cutting back. I know it sounds clever, but it might just be too clever, if you take my meaning.”
“In any case, let’s do something,” Ben said. “It’s colder just standing around than it is walking.”
“I see that I’m overruled,” Luke said, with a smile. “Across and back into the woods it is.”
Looking both ways again, we jogged across the road as best we could and then up a driveway on the far side. The snow was really starting to come down in thick, wet flakes. We hurried past the house and through the backyard, veering slightly to put the house between us and the road. We came to a halt in front of a six foot high chain link fence that separated the backyard from the woods beyond.
“Up and over?” Luke asked.
“I’m not sure I can make it,” I replied with a wince as I thought of my aching inner thigh.
“Don’t be a wussy, man,” he said. “We’ll help you.”
Scrambling over the fence turned out to be far easier than I had feared it would be, no doubt because I had two other guys to help lift me, and we were soon back under the trees. There were more evergreens in this section of forest, which meant the ground was clearer and that less snow was falling on us from above. Luke used his compass to keep our course running north east, the direction he figured that we needed to go.
The going was still slow, but we were making steady progress and I was even beginning to lose my fear that we might be tracked. Twenty minutes later, we reached a road running roughly east to west. The bad feeling I’d been having since the helicopter that morning had begun to fade. We stopped beneath the trees just in sight of the road so that Luke could check his atlas. I checked my watch; it was a quarter after one, which meant that sunset would be in just over three hours.
“I know you wanted to avoid the roads,” Luke said. “But we’d really make better time by following them.”
“Yeah, I know,” I replied. “We can follow this road for a while if you want, but we have to keep a good watch so that a patrol doesn’t drive up on us.”
“Thank the Almighty,” Ben muttered.
In reality, I was nearly as relieved as him. The uneven ground of the forest floor, not to mention scrambling to step over fallen logs and forcing my way through bushes and brambles, had really upped the pain level in the muscle I had pulled.
“I think this road is this one here,” Luke said, pointing at his map. “It goes from Northbridge back to the Worcester-Providence Turnpike. If we follow it to the left a bit, we should come to a road that branches off north east. Following that is a straight shot, well straightish at least, up to Millbury, which is just outside of Worcester, here.” His finger traced along a road on the map.
“How far are we from Millbury?” I asked.
“About two miles, as the crow flies, but probably closer to four following the roads with their twists and turns.”
“About two hours hard walking then,” said Brooke. “Assuming that you two gimps don’t poop out on us,” she tossed a glance at both her brother and me. I felt myself blushing slightly; I didn’t like the thought of holding the others back.
“I think I got another couple of hours in me,” Ben said, and I quickly nodded in agreement, perhaps a bit too quickly.
The snow was still falling, but at least there wasn’t much wind as we began our trek to Millbury. Following the roads we saw no signs of others, no adult survivors, no kids trying to survive on their own, no Chinese patrols looking for anybody, nothing. The world seemed so peaceful, with no planes in the sky, no cars on the roads, no sounds of construction or television. I could almost imagine what it must have been like for the pilgrims when they first landed on this vast, new continent.
Mr. Dresden in American History had told us that just a short while before Europeans arrived, there had been a large and thriving native culture, not only on the East coast of North America, but stretching nearly to the Rocky Mountains. The only reason that the continent had seemed so empty to the Europeans and they’d encountered so few Native Americans was because a plague had swept through, killing off the majority. While nature had conspired to give the Europeans a continent ripe for conquering and colonization, it seemed that the Chinese had taken matters into their own hands.
“Where do you suppose all of the kids are?” asked Luke quietly. “I mean, we’ve seen hardly any ... there is no way the Chinese could have rounded up more than a fraction.”
I shrugged. I had been wondering myself, but hadn’t liked the answers that had sprung to mind.
“Well, it’s winter, there is no power or water, no adult supervision, no fresh food.” I lowered my voice so Brooke wouldn’t hear. “I think a lot would be dead already. In this region at least. It might be different in some of the warmer states, but then there are probably more Chinese there for that reason. They had to know that the cold would kill a lot of us.”
“Maybe the dead ones are the lucky ones,” Luke muttered, kicking at the snow.
9
The snow, coupled with Ben’s injury and my own, meant that we still hadn’t made it quite to Millbury when the sun started its descent beneath the horizon. Based on the increasing frequency of houses, it appeared we were coming up to a small town. As we walked past a cemetery with the name ‘St. Johns’ above the gate, Luke told us the town was called Wilkersonville. We were still about a mile from Millbury.
“We should find someplace for the night,” I said. “There is no way we’ll be able to make it to Millbury before it gets dark at this rate.”
“Quite so,” Ben said, his limp had grown more pronounced in the last half-hour or so.
Just past the cemetery we came upon a house sitting well back from the road, on a half-acre of land. It was big and well-kept, and, I have to say, it looked inviting. We all agreed it would be a good place to bed down for the night and we turned to trudge up the long driveway.
We were about 30 feet from the front porch when the door opened, revealing a warm, yellow light within. Shocked, we all froze in place. My hand crept toward my pocket, but I relaxed when I saw it was a blonde-haired boy. He appeared to be about 13 and looked around quickly with wary eyes as he urgently gestured for us to come inside.
Whether it was the cold, the pain, or the tiredness, or maybe a combination of all three, we rushed as one toward the door without a second thought.
The boy stepped back quickly to allow us to pile in. He slammed the door behind us and shot three large bolts home to secure the heavy door. We came to a standstill, all four of us panting and catching our breath as we took in our surroundings ... and the three other teenagers that surrounded us.
Each of them was holding a different weapon. They looked tense, and I thought briefly of pulling my pistol, but thought better of it when I saw that one of them was holding a crossbow similar to Luke’s. The other two had a baseball bat and a machete, respectively. I relaxed and prayed that Luke would do the same.
“Hey, sorry to rush you in like that, but we couldn’t take the chance of you drawing attention to us.”
The blonde boy circled us and gestured to the other three who lowered their weapons. He looked surer of himself now, and I reevaluated my first impression of him. Close up, I could see that he was probably my age; not only that, he appeared self-confident and was clearly the leader of their group. “I’m Will; this is Beau, Ryan, and Rodney. Who’s in charge of your little group?”
Luke gestured toward me, “Isaac is. I’m Luke, and this is Ben and Brooke.” The twins nodded, still looking wary. Will smiled at them almost dismissively and his gaze honed in on me. He appeared to be sizing me up. I stared back, not dropping my own gaze. I don’t quite know what it was about him, the blonde good looks or his crooked smile, but I felt an instant mistrust toward him. Finally, he nodded and held out his hand. I shook it and said, “Hey.”
Formalities over, he pointed to a corner of the room. “Please,
relax. You can put your stuff in that corner if you want. You must be hungry? We were just about to eat.”
Everyone seemed to relax and we dumped our backpacks in the corner, including Luke’s with the shotgun in it. Luke took his crossbow from his shoulder and placed it with his pack. I kept my jacket on, comforted by the heavy weight of the handgun.
We stood in a richly furnished parlor. The yellow light was coming from gas lanterns located at various points around the room and the toasty warmth immediately evident when we had come in was coming from a gas radiator. The windows were blacked out by black plastic that hung behind the white lace curtains, giving no clue outside to the light from the lanterns. Ben and Brooke followed Will out of the room and Luke looked at me. I half expected he had hung back to tell me he was also wary of the occupants of the house, but instead he clapped me on the shoulder.
“Come on, Isaac! It smells like hot food!”
He was smiling ear to ear as he propelled me toward the door through which the others had gone. I didn’t like the way the other three boys had waited for us to go through. I especially didn’t like that they hadn’t put their weapons down.
The stockiest of the boys, the one carrying the crossbow, Beau, I think, stayed behind and settled into a chair by the window. He pulled the dark plastic that was over the window to the side and peered out into the rapidly darkening afternoon.
The short hallway opened up into a large kitchen and dining area that was also well-lit and invitingly warm. My mouth dropped open. All the available floor and bench space in the kitchen was taken up by canned and packaged food, and against one wall stood a stack of gallon containers of fresh water. On the gas stove, a large, probably industrial, kitchen-sized stock pot steamed happily.
The After Days Trilogy Page 8
