by Leela Ash
“We have to push something in front of this door. Before more get up here.”
Michael could see that Milo was shaking and since he was always trying to appear so tough, it was hard for him not to be affected as well. Michael too had a bad feeling, but it occurred to him that Milo had more than likely dealt with the packs before. He couldn’t imagine the things the kid had had to do for so long by himself.
He nodded his head and they moved towards a large dresser. Each man grabbed a side and they were lifting it over to cover the door. Milo was right and they could both hear more animals getting restless outside of the door. The beasts knew that they were there and were just waiting for reinforcement.
Michael tried not to wonder why they were getting so good at cornering humans, but it reminded him that they were no longer on the top of the food chain. Humans were furless animals with no natural defenses. If the rest of the animals got too much smarter, he didn’t know where that would leave the few people that were left.
As they put more between themselves and the beasts on the other side of the door, they were no longer worried about the sounds they were making. The hybrid dogs were making the most wretched sounds. Michael saw Milo shiver and he himself knew why. They were terrifying to listen to and Michael was convinced that being eaten wouldn’t be half as bad as hearing it. It was the damn sound that he couldn’t stand.
“They are all bark until they get in. If you keep them out, they will draw other things in that will take care of them. You just have to wait.”
Michael did not like that idea at all.. The last thing he wanted to hear was that more animals would be coming. Anything more ferocious than what was out there right then made him nervous. “How do you know?”
“I’ve met the packs before. I knew they were tracking us, that is why I picked this place.”
“You knew? Why didn’t you tell me?”
The young man just shrugged. He didn’t want to put more on Michael’s mind when it was already so full. “They never attack in the day time. It doesn’t matter how many there are.”
Michael wanted to say more, but the sounds in the hallway were hard to talk through. Something, or several somethings, were slamming into the door and they could see the stack of rubble moving slightly. Michael moved towards the stack and put his weight against it. The tremors were felt in his body with each push, but they were not getting in. He thought of the moment of fear that struck him and didn’t want to think about what would have happened if he hadn’t woken Milo up. The kid was worth more to him than he realized.
Soon they were exhausted. There was no way to sleep with the constant fear of being ripped to shreds by a pack of mutated dogs. After all of the people left, the pets took over. Not just in the cities, but everywhere as they became roamers. The city was no longer able to satiate their hunger. They were hungry and the sounds were starting to get to Michael.
Milo tried to calm him as he saw his face contorting with fear. “It’s okay. They will be gone soon.” Milo had heard other sounds and though he was a little scared too, Michael was having a harder time of it and he wanted to help him. “They will be here soon and it will be all over.”
Michael still didn’t know what he was talking about, but there was a calmness in the young man that he wished he felt himself.
It wasn’t much longer that they had to wait for something to happen. At first Michael thought he was hearing something; heavy footsteps echoing on the stairs. It stopped the sound of the beasts as they became aware of something else in the building. There was a humming sound and then yelps as the beasts were taken down.
Michael wanted to see what had caused the beasts harm, but found himself intimidated by the dead silence that took over the building. His heart was pounding in his ears and he was unable to hear anything. He looked over at Milo and saw that he seemed to be eerily calm. What had just happened? He wanted to ask, but he wasn’t sure he would want to know the answer.
Finally there were sounds of scraping as the beasts were dragged away. Michael moved from his crouch in front of the pile of debris. He had no real desire to open the door or move the blockade, but he had to see what it was leaving the building. Milo didn’t try to stop him. He was surprised to see people in fur clothes and rags. One of them looked up at him, a large, mangled beast with an arrow still in its chest slung over his shoulder. The eyes that looked back at him glowed and he moved away from the window. Michael had been many places, but he had never seen eyes like that before.
Moving further away from the window, Michael was alarmed to see Milo moving the furniture out from in front of the door. “Stop, what are you doing?!” His words were but a rushed whisper in the quiet room. Michael didn’t know what or who the hell those people were, and the last thing he wanted to do was meet one of them.
“It’s fine. They are gone now. They got what they wanted.”
Michael just looked at him, confused. “There are so many things I don’t know about you.”
Milo shrugged. “They wanted the beasts for food.”
He didn’t like the idea of eating one of the mangy things. There had been skin pulling away from the side of its corpse where an arrow was sticking out. Michael suddenly wondered if that was from one of the men getting a snack first. He shivered to himself and retreated further into the room, refusing to help Milo move anything from in front of the door. There was no reason to go out there, and he didn’t think he was going to be able to sleep without the safety of the barricade.
“Why don’t we just stay in here and get some sleep.”
“I figured we would keep moving. The moon is bright and there won’t be anything to worry about for miles.”
Michael shook his head. There was no way that he was going anywhere. “Billy can wait till morning. I need some sleep and you do too. Put that stuff back and lay down.”
Milo listened and did as he was asked, but he wanted to keep going. If they went through the night, he knew that they could catch up with him. The young man was anxious to get back to Jessa and Shane, but he was going to go with whatever Mike wanted. He knew his place and Michael seemed to be deeply affected by the evening’s events. Milo was used to such things happening and forgot how it felt the first time. He had been alone for so long out there that he just took it all in stride. There was no sense in getting all worked up. It was what he was told when he was younger and he had stuck to that principle.
They both lay back down and Milo was asleep rather easily. He knew the men that came out to feast on the beasts were not cannibals. There were some roaming tribes that were out now and then, but the ‘dark men’ as he called them, had never posed a risk to him, so he didn’t much worry about them.
It was the men like Billy that made him nervous. Those were the men that he didn’t like to deal with. They made no sense and only seemed intent on destruction. That was the only answer he had for attacking them in the middle of the night, going after a woman and child. It made no sense to Milo and he liked to stay away from people and situations that didn’t make sense.
“I hope we catch up to him quickly. I do not like to be chasing someone.”
“Me either Milo, but it has to be done.”
The young man nodded solemnly and then closed his eyes again. It had to be done, but that didn’t mean that he had to want to do it.
4
Milo was the first to get up. He had moved the barricade back and scavenged for anything that might be useful. He didn’t find much and wanted to get going, his stomach pushing the need to roam. He had been quite a nomad, moving from place to place until the local resources were gone. The area around the apartment building was stripped clean and that told him that they weren’t very far from other people. Someone had been there to take the resources, and Milo wanted to get out of there before he had to find out who it was.
When he got back into the room they had slept in, Michael was finally getting up. “You’re already up?”
He nodded and moved to pic
k up the few items he had pulled out of his pockets before laying down the night before. “Yeah, I have already been out. There isn’t anything around here to eat. Other people must live around here. We need to leave.”
Michael was still trying to get the sleep out of his eyes. The boy was talking in earnest, looking at him with large eyes, but Michael would have much rather just sat for a few minutes. “Do we have to leave right now?”
“We should.”
He heard something in his voice that pulled him up from his position. Picking up his own knife that laid beside him, Michael stood up and walked towards the door. “Well let’s go find something to eat. I am starving.”
Milo was happy about Michael's reluctant motivation to leave. He wouldn’t have pushed much more, but he was more than ready to go. He had a bad feeling, and getting some distance between themselves and that place was a good thing. Leading them out and down the stairs, the sun blinded him as he squinted. “I found his tracks this way. He is a ways ahead. The tracks are older, but if we move faster…”
“Are you trying to say that I am slowing us down?”
Milo nodded. He wasn’t going to say it, but they both knew that it was true. Michael was used to being on his own and there was no rush in his travels. He didn’t run from danger; he took it out on his own terms, much like he was doing with Billy. For a thin, wisp of a man like Milo, he didn’t stand a chance against most in a fight. He had learned that his survival meant he had learned to go unseen and to get out of an area quickly. He had wished more than once that his older companion felt the same way.
Michael did pick up his pace a little, but not by much. Milo was aggravated that he was moving so slowly, so he was a little happier when they started to make headway. There had been no real wind or rain, so Billy’s tracks were clear. Near the end of the second day, it was getting late and Michael was ready to slow down for the night. He had managed to catch and kill a snake. It wasn’t his favorite food, a mixture of fish and chicken flavor, but it was better than nothing.
He was about to say something to Milo, get him to start looking for a place, when he saw what looked like a convergent of several footprints all together. It looked like Billy had some company and then went off with them. Michael stopped. His heart pounded for several reasons and he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do. Billy had met trouble. Mike could just walk away and know that Billy would most likely be taken care of for him. But on the other hand, if he wasn’t taken care of, he surely couldn’t save him just to kill him. It made no sense.
“Mike, do you see that?”
Milo was now looking down and he was already back to talking in a whisper. He too was thinking what Michael was thinking. Those were a lot of footprints, and he didn’t like the idea of them somewhere in the woods with them. Billy had stayed out of sight, no doubt trying to get back without calling too much attention to himself. Michael figured he knew he was being followed. But it wasn’t him and Milo that found him. He had been found and it looked like after a struggle, he had been drug away.
“What do you want to do?”
Michael wished that the young boy would just stop talking and let him think. They had been gaining on him all day and the tracks were fresh enough that he was feeling the need to look around him. The sun was going down, casting shadows on everything and making him feel even more unsettled. “We have to find him.”
Even as Mike said it, he was already wishing that it wasn’t the case. He didn’t want to go after Billy and wind up in trouble as well. But he had made Jessa a promise and he knew that she needed that peace of mind. He wanted to give it to her, but knew that it was going to come with a price. Looking over at Milo, he realized that the boy would do whatever he wanted him to do. It didn’t look like he was very happy with the idea of going towards trouble either. It was against everything the young man had known to survive. But he would go with Michael, if that is what he ultimately decided. It felt like more responsibility to Mike.
“Are you okay with going Milo? You can always go back and I will take care of this. I don’t know who we are going to run into or how it is all going to work out.”
Milo looked at him solemnly, “Nothing is safe anymore and there are no guarantees.”
It was true but it felt sad for Michael to hear him say it. He had seen far too much in his young life and Michael hoped that his decisions didn’t cause something happen to him. “Ain’t that the truth? Well I think we should go see what is happening. I know there is a lot of tracks, so that likely means there will be a lot of people, but I just want to track them and see what is going on. We will find a place tonight and go after them in the morning. But I would like to get away from here, just in case they decide to come back.”
Milo agreed. He too wanted to get out of the circle of tracks and was ready to get into some kind of shelter for the night. It was never just people that he had to worry about, but the beasts that now took over the nights. The animals were bigger and meaner and Milo had learned to have walls and a roof by night fall. His eyes had been scanning the immediate vicinity for somewhere to hole up. He knew that he wanted to be far enough away from the tracks to give himself peace of mind, but not too far away that they had to backtrack so much in the morning.
“That looks like a good place, don’t you think?”
Milo looked over at the office building in a strip mall that he was pointing at. It was actually a horrible spot; ground floor, broken window, very little protection. But he nodded that it would do. It was almost dark and some protection was better than nothing. The world was dark with no electricity and the moon was covered by clouds. He looked up at the sky for a moment and sighed to himself. It looked like on top of everything, there was a storm brewing too.
5
Jessa had been gone for several hours and she had found herself going back into the city that she had left. It felt a little safer in the day time, but she felt more exposed as well. Women were not supposed to travel alone and it was for very good reasons. Since her husband died, Jessa had been in a community for most of the time. The larger numbers of people gave her some security, but alone with Shane a couple of miles away, she had never felt so vulnerable. Once again, she was wishing that Michael would hurry up and come back. She missed him something terrible and felt better with the strong man next to her. Jessa was even missing Milo, with his quiet ways and shy smile.
There hadn’t been much in the way of wild edibles. It looked like that part of the city had been went over pretty good and it was another moment that Jessa wished she was still back in the community. If she wasn’t so adamant on protecting her dignity, she would have still been there. But one of the leader’s friends had tried to force himself on her. Jessa couldn’t let it happen and now she could see the extent of what that decision would cost her.
It had made Michael run off for revenge that she had demanded. He and Milo were both in danger and she now that she wasn’t so upset, she saw what it was that she had asked him to do. She shouldn’t have, but she couldn’t help it. She had only thought of Shane being hurt and blaming herself. If she hadn’t have done what she did, then she wouldn’t have had to run, Billy and his friends wouldn’t have chased her and everything would be different. But she didn’t know then what she did now.
Jessa couldn’t help but wonder what more it was going to cost her; the ripple effects seemed to be never ending. Shane was hurt and alone, while she was out scavenging in a burned down city. It was not how she had planned it going, but nothing seemed to go as planned anymore.
Her eyes saw something out of her peripheral vision, but every time she turned to look, there was nothing there. Jessa was afraid she was losing her mind and hunkered down behind a building and waited. She started to hear voices a block over and watched several men in a group going down one of the streets parallel to the one she was on. It made her nervous, but it was clear that she hadn't been seen. Jessa sighed inwardly and realized that she had to be even more careful.
Fi
nally, she found an old survival store in town and was surprised that it hadn’t been ransacked completely. Part of that was because it looked so torn up that it was most likely passed over time and time again. Able to find a few packs of ration bars and some freeze dried meals, Jessa couldn’t have been happier with her score. It had been a while since she had tasted the gritty coconut flavor of the ration bars, but she knew that they would go a long way. It also meant that she could go back to Shane without having to dodge people that she didn’t know on the road.
Jessa made her way to the outskirts and didn’t hear or see anyone else or anything else the whole way. She was just about to get back to the small cottage when she noticed several sets of footprints. Her heart started to beat harder, convinced that it was Milo and Michael back from their mission. As she got closer to the cabin though, she realized that it wasn’t their tracks. She had been following and walking with them for some time and Milo in particular had a very distinct gait. As she realized that it wasn’t them, she moved faster to the place she had left her son. Jessa was in a full on sprint and stopped when she saw the door moving back and forth in the wind. She had certainly not left it open and Shane knew not to go outside when she was not there. The process of elimination left her with only one thing that it could be; someone had been there.
She was even more afraid then than she had been when she was trying to wake him up. As she pushed in the door and called out his name, Jessa instinctively already knew that she was not going to get an answer. She ran through the small apartment, saying his name and just wanting more than anything to lay eyes on him. When she didn’t and it was clear that her gut had been right, she moved back outside and looked closer at the prints. There were no small prints of Shane’s leaving the place like there was of the two that had gone into the dwelling. Without thinking, Jessa tightened her bag on her back and started towards the tracks she was following. They were moving fast and by the deep grooves the shoes left, at some point they were practically running. It could mean anything, but it meant that Shane was being carried. The idea didn’t sit well with her.
