by John O'Brien
Downing a quick breakfast, we load up into the Stryker leaving three to guard the aircraft and watch over the others we have with us. I reach out in an attempt to find the other one I felt. I feel night runners holed up in groups in various areas. The sense of them is diminished to a large degree and I don’t feel them as clearly as I did during the night, nor do I feel them in the numbers I did. Perhaps their sleeping causes the ability to fade or it’s one of those times when the ability is weaker. I do, however, vaguely sense the other one.
It still feels different than the other sensations I have of the night runners. I can’t put my finger on exactly what that variation is, only that it is distinctly different. The other contrast is that the sense is much clearer. It’s far enough away that I only have a general direction but feel that, if I were to get close, I would be able to pinpoint the location like I can with the closer night runners.
The direction I sense is to the west northwest. I don’t know the area well but flying over the city on our arrival gave me a basic layout. The highway we traveled down yesterday heads through the heart of the city in the other direction. I’m all in favor of avoiding going through such a crowded area. Not crowded in terms of people but rather in terms of buildings. Running into a group of marauders or someone trying to defend their area is not how I want to start my day. Instead, we’ll try to circumnavigate the city and get closer in order to better ascertain where this sensation is coming from.
Heading out to the highway, we take the first large road to the north that runs between the base and the city. The sun is above the plains to the east but still low enough to cast long shadows. A few birds skirt low over the street as we travel along. To the west, a few residences lie near with flat brown fields lining the rest of the road. The windows glare briefly from the sun striking their surface as we pass. We could be on the start of an early morning family outing. The exception is that we are packing M-4s instead of picnic baskets and our ride is not the family sedan.
The road curves to the west and we are soon passing through abandoned industrial complexes. Many of the industrial yards are filled with piles of scrap metal, stacks of forged steel beams waiting for shipments that will now never occur, and tractor trailers parked in rows. A few places house storage tanks. We pass through this lonely area and soon come to the river. The road proceeds along its banks passing a dam spanning the river’s width. With no one to regulate the flow of water, it flows over the top of the dam. I look on with interest. Dams aren’t meant to hold that amount of water for any great length of time and I imagine it will only be a matter of time before the dam gives way.
There is a large dam, actually several large dams, across the Columbia River back home and I imagine it now looks the same with the similar span. The Hanford Nuclear Storage Facility lies just downstream from one of the smaller dams on the upper Columbia River. I wonder how it will be affected when the dam breaks. For that matter, I wonder just how long that facility will last before spilling its contents into the Columbia River and how that will affect us. That’s just one more worry to pile on the list. Frank is keeping measurements of the radiation in the area but a large spill of this nature could cause us a lot of problems. The south winds during the winter months in our area will bring any radiation in the Columbia in our direction.
These thoughts occupy my mind as we leave the dam behind. We are closer to the sense of the other one and I can now locate the source. It’s almost directly north from us across the river. I see several bridges ahead spanning the waterway and we cautiously cross reminded of the barricade Sam threw across the Tacoma Narrows. We haven’t sighted a soul and the only movement has been from birds wheeling through the clear morning sky and a couple of dog packs.
I keep trying to raise the others on the sat phone without success. It’s not like we haven’t been out of contact before but now that we have that capability, I expect it and am a little concerned that we can’t. I still have the sense of the other one but without a return statement like last night. We cross the river without incident and continue to navigate streets drawing closer with each turn. I’m hesitant about this as I don’t know exactly what I’m sensing other than it’s different and there is more clarity about it.
We are out of the town and passing through a golf course. The greens can no longer be named that and the once pristine fairways are now fields of brown grass. Turning around what once looked like it was an open field driving range, we enter a lot with a single pickup truck parked close to the pro shop. I have the Stryker halt at the edge of the lot and see a man walk around the corner of the shop carrying a golf club in his hand. Surely he can’t be thinking of attacking a Stryker with a golf club, I think, watching him come to a stop. It’s just as stupid as shooting at one with a handgun I guess.
The man looks startled at our appearance but continues to stand by the pro shop entrance watching us with a hand shielding his eyes. The.50 cal isn’t pointed directly at him but its aim point is certainly in his vicinity. I look around through the magnified optics searching for others. I can’t imagine one person being alone in this world and we’ve always come across a group of individuals regardless of how big the group is. I see no one in the area and the sense I have in my mind is coming directly from the man in front. I have the ramp lowered and walk out with the rest of the teams flowing out and taking up a perimeter.
I look to see that the middle-aged man hasn’t moved. His medium-length brown hair hangs limply and in disarray. The dirt-stained jeans have holes in the knees and tattered hems cover sullied white sneakers. His plain gray sweat shirt is a little cleaner but shows stains of various natures. He stares at us with interest. I walk up to him making sure to keep clear of the club he is holding in his hand.
“Are you the one who was in my head last night?” He asks, eyeing me up and down.
“I do believe I was. And you are?” I say, unbelieving that what I sensed is actually another person.
The sense of him still feels something like a night runner and then the light dawns bright in my mind. He is like me — this is what I must feel like to him. He is much the same as me with regards to being able to sense others.
“I’m Ken. And you would be?”
“Jack, Jack Walker,” I answer, shouldering my M-4 and holding out my hand. “Did you get bitten by the night creatures and survive?”
“Yes, I did,” he replies. I nod at the verification of my thought.
I tell him my belief about what happened and is happening with regards to our ability to sense each other. I send a simple thought image to him which he returns. That further verifies the concept of what surviving a bite brings. I never thought for a moment that there would be others similar to me. This has interesting implications. We finish conversing about our remarkable connection. His shoulders relax.
“I thought I was going crazy and thought sensing you last night was part of my insanity. With you standing right here, it’s obviously real. These others that I see nightly are driving me crazy though. I can’t get them to shut up and luckily, I’ve been able to keep them out. They are here every night,” Ken says.
“I thought I had lost it when I first came to and found these images running through my head,” I respond.
“I was pretty sure my mind had turned and, to be perfectly honest, I was about ready to pack it in,” he says. “I can’t take any more nights of this shit but having you arrive and knowing I’m not going insane helps. I’ve actually heard a couple of others like us some nights. I haven’t felt them in a few nights though.”
“Well, Ken, you are more than welcome to join up with us,” I offer, explaining out situation.
“I was going to hit a few more balls and maybe play a round or two but what the hell. Give me a second to get some of my things and I’ll be ready,” he replies, accepting the offer.
With Ken’s small pack loaded up, he tells of where he last sensed the others. Loading up once again, we head toward the nearest one picking up a woman hi
ding out in a storage facility. She seemed a little shell-shocked but mostly relieved to find someone else alive and joins with us willingly. I’m curious as to why I could sense Ken but not the woman named Linda.
“I had to shut all of them out before I went insane. The ability to do that came about accidentally,” Linda comments.
The third is strangely back in the abandoned industrial complex we passed earlier. We pull up to a small, cinderblock warehouse located toward the rear of all of the other foundries, manufacturing plants, and warehouses. As we disembark and spread out, a man about my age opens one of the heavily sealed doors and emerges.
“Get out of here. You aren’t real,” he shouts, waving a couple of long knives about.
“We’re plenty real,” I reply.
“No, you are in my head and I’m imagining you,” he says.
“Do you think the night runners are pretend?” I ask.
“Who? What the hell are you talking about?” I go on to describe who and what I mean.
“Oh, them. No, they’re real alright,” he states.
“How is it we are figments of your imagination then?” I ask.
“Because I’m the last one alive and my mind is fucking with me. This is what happens when you are the last one left,” he answers.
“So, why are you talking with me if we’re merely something you made up?”
“Because, it’s what the mind does when there’s nothing left,” he replies.
“So, if I shoot you, say, in the leg, you won’t feel it or bleed, right?” I say. He hesitates pondering that question.
“See, that hesitation means you believe that we’re real. At least a part of you does,” I state.
“Now you’re just trying to fuck with me.”
“That would mean you’re fucking with yourself,” I respond.
“Aaaaaaah… get the hell away from me and leave me alone,” he loudly says.
“Dude, just for a moment, wrap your mind around that we’re real. Have you ever seen a vehicle like this?” I ask, waving at the Stryker. “I mean anywhere… TV, books, movies?”
“No. I can’t say that I have,” he answers.
“Then how can you imagine something you’ve never seen or imagined before? You have to base imagination on experience.”
“No, that’s not true,” he says, but I see that he is perhaps contemplating the situation differently.
“Okay. If you’re imagining something you made up, wouldn’t it change each time you looked at it? In some small way?” I ask. He rubs his chin, coming close to shaving his eyebrows with one of the long knives.
“Perhaps,” he responds.
“Well, had it changed?
“No, but I wouldn’t know if it had if this is all imaginary,” the man states.
“You know, we could go back to shooting you in the leg,” I say.
“Don’t even think about it,” he says, taking a step back.
“What do you say you come with us and see just how imaginary we are? I mean, what do you have to lose?”
“I could wake from this and find myself stuck out at night with those nasty creatures about to come out,” he replies.
“I tell you what. Why don’t you try coming with us. If you find that you are still imagining all of this shit before dark settles, we’ll bring you back,” I offer.
He hesitates another moment and then responds, “Okay. I’ll try that but you better bring me back long before the sun sets.”
“You know, I could still shorten this and just shoot you,” I state, chuckling.
“I’d really rather you didn’t,” he responds.
“I’m Jack,” I say, offering my hand.
“Randy. Just so you know, I still don’t think you’re real,” he states, returning my shake.
Randy gathers some gear and comes with us and, by nightfall, begins to believe we are real.
As the sun begins to set behind the hills in the west, I try calling base but don’t get a response from the satellite phone. I try Captain Leonard with silence my only answer. I keep trying until night falls before giving up. Maybe the satellite finally decayed enough to quit working. Who knows? For whatever reason, we are out of communication for the time being.
Unconscious to the world, Alan throws off the bedding. His only drive is the need to be outside… the need to hunt. He makes his way down the unmoving escalator. He sees, but not with the eyes of the waking world. The seed that was planted has taken hold and he knows only that he wants to feed. He wants the freedom of the open air and it fills him with the intensity of it. The vast room is mostly empty but he smells the others inside. He has an urge to turn back and rampage through them but the pull of the outside is stronger.
Remembering the call of the one the other night, it motivates him to join in the hunt. He misses the chase… the taste of the sweet blood pouring from prey… the succulent taste of flesh in his teeth. He is only vaguely aware of where he is but knows the way out. That is the driving factor, the need to lose himself in the night.
Making his way through downstairs and into the warehouse facility with the docking bays, he removes the clamps locking the doors down. Lifting the doors enough to crouch through, Alan hops down and drops to the ground. The feel of the night air is refreshing and almost fills the urge he has deep inside, but the freedom isn’t complete and he knows prey lies outside of the high walls surrounding the place where he finds himself.
He lifts his nose to the night air and smells prey in abundance. Some of that prey lies on the other side of the mostly high wall that surrounds the interior of this lair and he wants to be completely outside. The need to be completely out holds him and he begins trotting toward the big portal that will let him be free.
The cool night air flowing across his cheeks feels good as does the sweet smell of the tall grass brushing against his pant legs. The urge to find the pack leader he heard the night before is strong. The bright stars and silvery moon accompany him as he jogs through the open field. The walls in the distance slowly grow taller as he draws near. He senses others like him a short distance away and he only needs to get through the heavy portals to be with them.
He sends an image to them which isn’t returned. This perplexes him as he remembers them always answering his calls. He can feel them and hear them but they don’t seem to be talking with him. That doesn’t matter much as he approaches the large gate. He’ll be with them shortly.
It takes some doing but he eventually manages to lift the heavy bar holding the portals closed. The heavy metal bar falls to the ground with a loud clang. Alan pulls on the gigantic door and it slowly swings open a few inches. Eagerly wanting to be out of this lair, he pulls harder. With the hinges emitting a mighty, metallic grind, the steel door inches open. It’s enough to squeeze through and Alan finds himself standing on the very spot he squatted down on upon his arrival. This memory is lost as all he knows is he is free. He wants the thrill of the chase and relishes in his ability to do so.
Watkins, standing on the upper balcony, watches Alan walk downstairs and vanish beneath the overhang. He has observed him and others wander the facility on many of the nights he has kept watch so thinks nothing of it. It’s not uncommon for people inside to become restless and meander the interior trying to work off whatever is causing their sleeplessness. He’ll investigate if Alan doesn’t appear before long. Keeping the man in his mind, he turns back to watch the interior. His mind wanders to the times before the world changed.
Sandra heads to the same area close to the two-legged lair where she has been on many nights. She knows Michael won’t be pleased, especially when he finds out she and her pack didn’t gather the alternate food as he ordered. Going against his explicit order and endangering her very place within the pack, she feels close to a solution to getting inside. She wants to see if she can sense this other one and get him to answer her. Wanting information about the inside, she opens up just enough to see if she can sense the strange one that has somehow bec
ome enmeshed in the lair.
She still isn’t sure how he came to be inside or why the two-legged ones tolerate that one being in there with them. As confused as she is about the situation, she is not against using it and seeks to establish some form of communication with the one. She sensed him and sent messages but hasn’t received any indication that he even heard her. His thoughts and movements were easily seen and she understood all of them. She knows that Michael will know of her coming to the two-legged place and she will have to find another lair before the night is over. She knows of several possibilities and will have to reserve some of the evening to search for one that will accommodate them.
She has kept her ear to the skies listening for that unforgettable droning sound but the night remains quiet. On occasion, the shriek of one pack or another finding prey drifts through the evening air. With her keeping watch once again, her pack rushes forward into the rubbled ruins to forage.
Sandra immediately senses the strange one just a short distance away. She locates his exact position and follows as he makes his way through the inside of the lair. His thoughts don’t give her a picture of what the inside looks like but she does see his desire to be outside. The hesitation the one had about staying in and feeding on the two-legged ones gives her no small amount of worry. Not understanding how he is controlling himself with two-legged prey so close, she is relieved when she feels his thoughts change and he moves on.
She squats on the boundary line where the intact structures meet the ruined ones. The bright white light in the night sky casts rays through a small tree above her, creating dancing shadows as a very light breeze blows through the area. Her focus though is on what is transpiring only a short distance away and her curiosity is peaked as to what this strange one will do. Knowing he wants outside, she wonders if he’ll be able to scale the tall walls from inside.
