At Night's End

by Benham, Tara

  “Mr. Dobbins, so sorry we’re late. We didn’t realize y’all were waiting for us.” Henry shot a quick glare at Denver as he directed his apologies to Dad. Denver just shrugged and gave a slight smirk indicating to anyone paying close enough attention that that had been her intentions all along. Milo didn’t seem to notice anything except for Darcy while all this was going on. When he noticed I was watching him watch her he quickly adverted his eyes and stared down at his hands.

  “It’s alright Henry, please have a seat so we can get started. I received a call from the director of the CDC. He will be sending information to my lab consistently for the next three to four weeks to help configure changes to the antidote. It will be as if I’m gone on a trip. I will not be leaving the labs. I will sleep in the apartment down there and will only come out to get food or drinks. None of you all will be permitted to enter either. I called this meeting to let you know that I have set up a five day trip into the woods and a virtual reality training camp to check how well you can put into use all the things you have learned with all this training. Master Sergeant long, Micah and Henry will not be participating in the trip. Milo, Denver and Baxlie, although I know you all haven’t had the same amount of training as the others you still have skills that may be just as useful, if not more. You have the next forty-five minutes to pack whatever you can think may be of use to you while out in the woods. You all will be leaving in ninety minutes. You all are now excused, I will not answer any more questions. I will say goodbye to you all before you leave. Master Sergeant Long please stay behind so that I may a word with you. Henry and Micah, go with Milo and Baxlie to assist them with packing. See you all in forty-five minutes.”

  Stunned, we all sat at the table for what seemed like an eternity. I’m pretty sure I could hear each of us sweating. Then Ever looked at me, raised her eyebrows, grinned a little too wide and then yelled “Race ya!” and was out of her chair. A couple of seconds after her, we were all jumping up and making our way to each of our rooms. As I rounded the corner I heard Dad and Master Sergeant Long chuckling. I was seconds behind Ever as we rushed into my room.

  “What are you doing silly, go to your room.” I felt giddy even though I was unsure if I should be feeling this way. There was still a possible threat going on and Dad was sending us away. I wondered if he had planned this in order to relieve some of the tension he must have been feeling in the household.

  “I will be as soon as I get my duffel bag from your closet.” She too seemed giddy.

  “You better hurry.”

  “Got it!” And just like that she was through the door between our closets and into her room. I made myself calm down so I could make logical packing decisions. Mentally I made a check list prior to starting. Clothes that would work well in all environments, check. Socks that were waterproof, check. Boots, check. String, check. Extra laces, check. Water canteen, check. Nutrition Bars, check. Deodorant, check. Gum, batteries, blanket, check, check, and check. I was finishing my first run down of the check list when I heard an exasperated sigh. I turned to see Ever looking disheveled like she just survived a tornado.

  “Do you have an extra pair of boots? How many pairs of underwear did you pack?” I must have had a look of confusion on my face, because she began to ask me a second time. Before she could get the words out though, I fell into a fit of giggles. “Have you gone mad?”

  “Maybe! I totally had forgot to pack any underwear or bras!” I threw an extra pair of boots in her directions, still trying to gain control of my giggles. “Where do you think in the woods we will be going?” I dug through my drawers to get out underwear and bras to pack.

  Ever was bent over stuffing the second pair of boots into her bag. “Who knows? I think I’m ready, how about you?” I don’t think she could have put anything else into her bag or it’d burst out of its seams.

  “Yeah, I’m good, now.” I shot her a grin. “We still have twenty-five minutes, wanna go eat some cookies? It’ll probably be five days before we get to eat cookies again.”

  “Oh yes! Grab your bag, we’ll head on down.”

  I’d had my fill of cookies and milk when Denver and Darcy came into the dining room, and right behind them were the guys. Denver and Darcy looked like they had packed as much as Ever. I began to worry that maybe I hadn’t packed enough. We offered them all cookies and milk as we waited for the last fifteen minutes to pass. The chorus of yeses were in unison. I listened to their nervous chit chat as I went to grab some more cookies from the pantry. They were making guesses about our trip and where they thought we would be heading. I was still in the pantry when I heard footsteps behind me. I turned and saw Henry leaning against the entryway of the pantry blocking my exit with a mischievous look in his eyes.

  “My original purpose coming in here was to offer assistance, but with you standing in here without any exits I have other ideas playing in my mind.” His eyes twinkled and I laughed out of surprise. Henry was rarely flirtatious and never outright like this, so I didn’t know how else to respond.

  Shaking my head and grinning I pointed towards the refrigerator to indicate he could grab the pints of milk from there to everyone in the dining room. Before he could get to far though, I reached out and touched his arms. “Henry, did Dad give you any assignments for while we were gone.” I was necessarily trying to get a leg up on our trip, but if I could get help or some hints, I wasn’t going to let the opportunity pass.

  “Uh-uh little lady, I will not be coerced into answering any questions, just cause you think you can flirt with me, but nice try.” He winked at me. I huffed and ducked under his arm to get past him. He snickered and went to grab the milk. The rest of the group was still chattering about our trip as I placed the cookies on the table.

  “So has any of this talk garnished any viable options?”

  “Seriously you sound like a total dork sometimes, Caid.” I tossed a crumpled napkin at Darcy and she stuck her tongue out at me in retaliation.

  “Actually Baxlie thinks he has an idea on possible scenarios but none of us really know a location.” The way Denver boosted up Baxlie’s ideas I was beginning to think maybe she had a crush on him.

  “Well” Dad’s voice came from the doorway of the dining room that was attached to the foyer by the front door. “You all are about to find out. So everyone grab a milk from Henry then join me in the foyer. We will be gathering your things and heading out to the training site.”

  “Formal voice, Dad. Really?” I tried to sound sophisticate but it only ended with the group in a short bit of giggles. Dad raised an eyebrow in my direction by he didn’t say anything. We crowded into the front foyer and waited for Dad. Instead of heading outside though as we expected, he had us heading towards the basement. To get to our basement you had to go through the hallway that passed went down the middle of the house. On the left side was the formal living room, the den and Dad’s official office, on the right side was the kitchen and dining room. The stairs going up to the bedrooms were on the left against the wall and you had to go past them and to the back of the house to get to the steps that lead to the basement.

  “Dad? I thought we were leaving.” Darcy questions came somewhere from the back of the group, but was loud enough for him to have heard her.

  “We are, but we need to make a stop in the labs first to equip you with bracelets that will monitor your vitals at all times. The bracelets will show your health statistics as well as letting you know if you ‘die’ in the session. If situations get too serious the bracelets will help the emergency providers find you more quickly. Please don’t be frightened it’s just a precaution that was suggested by the training company for insurance purposes.” The nervous grumbles that were going around as Dad was speaking increased afterwards as we all being to speculate about what kind of training we would be doing. Down in the basement area that wasn’t off limits, Master Sergeant Long was waiting with the bracelets for each of us. Micah was also with him and they looked like they had been having a good ti
me.

  “Are you six ready to test your abilities?” Micah’s lazy smile was contagious, even among us who were nervous about what may be coming up.

  “What abilities?” Milo was the first to speak up. Micah in turn stated that each of us had a set of unique skills that may come in handy at any moment during the next five days. Just as we finished placing all of the bracelets, Dad sprung another surprise on us.

  “You all will be splitting into two groups of three. To make it a fair split, I’ve placed all of your names in a hat and will be pulling them to determine who goes with whom. Once in the settings, you all may try to find each other and work as a group. Team 1: Baxlie, Milo and McCaid. Leaving team 2 to consist of Ever, Denver and Darcy.” Ever rolled her eyes at me but didn’t say anything.

  “That’s not fair, McCaid has both boys on her team.” Denver whined. She might have said more but Dad interrupted her and reminded her that the boys were not as trained as Ever and Darcy. She crossed her arms and pouted but didn’t say more.

  “McCaid’s team you will go with Master Sergeant Long, Ever you all are with me.” Giving each other one last look of encouragement we went our separate ways. We were talking through doors I didn’t even know existed that became underground hallways. They seemed to be miles long. After about twenty minutes of walking we came upon a door. Micah who had been in the back of our group, made his way forward.

  “Okay guys, from this point on you all will be by yourselves. You will be enter a room immediately through this door that will have full body scanner. You will each be scanned so that system will allow you to be able to use anything that you have brought with you during the virtual reality settings. After you each go through the scanner, you will then put goggles on that must be worn at all times. Wait until all 3 of you have completed both of these tasks before you put on the goggles and activate your bracelets. You can activate them by touching each of the two sensors on either side of the bracelets with your thumbs and forefinger. When you have completed each of these tasks, you may exit through the second door. Do you have any questions?” None of us did, either from fear or because they had been very basic directions. We wave and entered the first room. The door slammed behind us causing us all to jump.

  Chapter 14

  It took a while to orientate ourselves to the room and during this time none of us spoke. The walls were bare, gray and concrete. There was a door in the room directly across from us. In the middle of the room is what I assumed was the body scanner. It looked like one of those machines people had to go through at airports. I decided to set an example and stepped up to the scanner first. I made sure that I had my gear secured to me in order to make sure everything I had packed would be included into the program. Once I stepped inside of the scanner, it instructed me to lift my arms above my head and hold still. It took about thirty seconds to scan me from head to toe. Once it was finished it instructed me to exit out the other side. Baxlie entered next and did the same thing, then Milo. We got our glasses on and activated our bracelets. Each of us took deep breaths and went to open the door. I had just grabbed the handle when Milo put up his hand. “Okay. Wait. Don’t you think we should have some kind of game plan before we start out at least? I mean I know we don’t know what we will be facing but we should have some idea of what we need to be doing.”

  “Sure, do you have any ideas?” I was kind of at a loss. I knew we would be in the woods, but I didn’t even know if it would be ours or somewhere else after that long walk we just completed.

  “You’re the trained one.” Milo scoffed and Baxlie nodded in agreement. They both had wide, almost scared looks in their eyes as they waited for me to answer.

  “Remember guys, firstly this is just virtual reality camping mostly, but I guess I’ll take the lead. Baxlie you take the rear, and Milo take care to watch our sides. Other than that we’re going to have to wing it because we don’t have any insight into what we will be presented with when we go through the door. That is really the best I can do for right now.” They were now looking at me like I was crazy but neither said anything against my plan. Once again I placed my hand on the handle. The sun was the first thing we noticed. It was still bright out, but we were in the middle of a clearing. I turned around and looked at the door we had just came through and realized it had been hidden in a mound of earth. I took a moment to observe the rest of our surroundings.

  “Do you hear water running?” Baxlie was walking towards the noise as he was speaking to us. Whatever fears he had before, must have been eliminated when he saw we really were just in the woods. I shrugged at Milo and trekked off to follow Baxlie. Outside was nice and bright, but taking into account the time we started and now, we were heading towards noon time, which means it was going to be getting really hot soon. I didn’t really have a game plan, but water is always the best way to start.

  “Did Dad give you all a brief rundown on how things work here, what he’s been doing?” I was unsure how much they knew what we were doing and why. They both shook their head, so I filled them on everything that has happened in my life since the death of my mother. I wasn’t sure when we had stopped walking, but when I became aware that we had I realized they were both standing at me with their mouths open. It would have been funny if I was sure they were not in shock. “Are you all okay? Do you need a moment?”

  “No, I’m okay. I think I’m starting to process it. I guess that’s why the fenced in area we are in was adding in secret to the other plans at the end. He was creating a training area for you all.” Milo looked pleased with himself. Baxlie had sat down on a nearby stump with his head down and shoulders shaking. I was about to touch his shoulder to give comfort when he looked up and had tears of laughter in his eyes.

  “I love it. It’s brilliant. I am going to beg my parents to let me to continue to live here if this thing blow over quickly. Seriously McCaid you should be ashamed of having not told me sooner! I’d always heard Mom and Dad say they were sad at the changes that had happened with your dad but they never told me what the changes were though.”

  “Well I’m relieved you both don’t think I’m strange, but Milo what was that about the new fence designs. We don’t have anywhere on our property that looks like this, so when and why did Dad put a fence around it?”

  “Well I suppose I can tell you now that we are in here. Two days before the fence was finished your Dad came and said he had just purchased an adjacent fifteen acres of woods in the back area and wanted a fence that was separate but connected to the original fence. It has the same dynamics, its goes down and up the same distance and is five feet wide in the force field area. The only changes are that it’s a dome, completely enclosed. He never said way, but I guess we know now.”

  “He was planning this training trip the whole time?” Silently I was wonder why he had it completely enclosed. “We need to find the water and make base camp. I know Ever and she would come to the water as well if she can hear. We can’t both search each for the other so we need to be stationary. She’ll come to us. Maybe she’ll have information that we don’t.”

  “How do you know she’ll come to us? What makes you think that she didn’t decided to tell her team to make a base camp?” Baxlie had regain composure and was standing again.

  “We have a contingency plan in place for situations similar to this.” This comment brought more stares. “Training for years remember.” To which they both nodded. “Let’s get back to walking and traveling towards the sound of water.”

  “You are top rank in martial arts, you can shoot any gun, fight hand to hand combat, grow your own food, hunt, and fish, but what else can you do?” Milo asked but Baxlie glanced back like he was curious as well.

  “We have been trained in basic lifesaving skills, cooking” Which caused Baxlie to snort, and for me to send him a silly grin, “we can make remedial medicines from plants, do land navigation and then each of have individual training with experts in different areas. Ever works with Dad in the lab but no othe
r experts, I do wood working and Ever is in sewing currently.”

  “Shh!” I looked towards Baxlie about to make a comment, but noticed he was pointing towards something. I quickly but quietly stepped over towards him to get a better view of what he was pointing towards. About fifty yards away was a deer drinking from a small running creek.

  “I don’t think we need to kill anything for food. Not yet at least, for many reasons, one being that I have food in my pack. The other because if something ever really did happen, we may need that animal more at that time than we do now. Let’s go in another twenty-five yards and build camp there. We can fish for our lunch and scourge around for edible plants. If Dad purchased fifteen acres it should only take two hours of searching for them to find us.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Training” Baxlie and I answered at the same time. Milo might need a little while longer to catch on to the fact that I have been trained in things that most haven’t. When we both answered Milo gave a quick glance but shrugged away his inability to remember this.

  “I’ll go collect some wood for a fire. Did either of you happen to pack anything that would work as a tent by chance?” I already had figured they probably hadn’t and wasn’t surprised when the both shook their heads. “Okay, Milo can you collect large branches that are between four and six feet long, Baxlie clear a spot on the ground from rocks and check for snakes. I have a blanket that we can use to help make something close to a shelter.” I headed off to get firewood before either of them could respond or ask for further questions.