“Quad-boy’s coming back,” Stuart told her as he made the last trip to the boat.
Mackenzie finished what she was doing, wiped her hands dry on her shorts and picked up her rifle. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do with it, but she wasn’t sure who this quad-boy really was or what his intentions were.
It took considerable time for the four-wheeler to appear over the crest of the hill. The two waiting at the river could tell that engine wasn’t revved nearly as high as it was before, and they anticipated that the four-wheeler wasn’t traveling near as fast as it had before. When the rider did crest over the hill, he was matched with Patrick riding his bicycle side by side. Mackenzie’s bike was strapped to the front carriage rack of the four-wheeler and looked large and awkward bouncing there as the duo traveled towards them.
Mackenzie began to walk, but then trotted towards her dad as they approached. She embraced him in a hug while he was still on his bike when they reached each other. After a moment of reciprocating the hug, he swung his leg off the bike and they walked Patrick’s bike down to the dock. The four-wheeler driver had driven down to the dock as well, and was off the contraption and was introducing himself and shaking Stuart’s hand as the other two walked up.
“My name is Patrick,” Patrick said extending his hand as he walked up to the younger man. “We sure owe you for your help back there,” he said with full sincerity.
“Sawyer,” the man replied and shook Patrick’s hand. The young man was wearing a dirty green button down shirt with the sleeves rolled up and the tail flapping about. His jeans had a few holes in them here and there, but they didn’t look like they were there when he bought them. He had short sandy blonde hair and Mackenzie thought that he looked more strapping and fit standing out in the sunlight next to her dad than he had back at the drug store. He had a strong jaw line and slightly pronounced cheekbones that made hard shadows on his face in the afternoon sun.
Sawyer turned and looked Mackenzie in the eye and said “I’m sorry that one got so close to you. Are you alright?”
Mackenzie suddenly felt warm inside and couldn’t really make the words come out that she was thinking. Sawyer had large brown eyes that seemed to look right into her. After she realized that her lack of response was becoming awkward, she forced out “I’m fine.”
Patrick nervously chuckled, messed her hair with a quick rubbing on top of her head, and said “This is my daughter Mackenzie.” Then he added “And it looks like you already met Stuart.”
“Yeah,” Sawyer replied. “So what in the world were you guys doing going into the middle of a town in broad daylight? You must be really hard up for something huh?”
Patrick and the others looked at each other bewildered. “We needed some medicine for Stuart, but what do you mean?”
“What do you mean ‘what do I mean?’” Sawyer asked sounding somewhat dumbfounded. “Those scaveys back there would have had you for lunch if I hadn’t seen them swarming and headed your way.”
“Scaveys?” Stuart asked.
Sawyer looked at Stuart for a moment while squinting. “Where are you guys from,” Sawyer finally asked.
“What do you mean?” Stuart asked.
“Where are you from?” Sawyer asked again.
“Why? Where are you from?” Stuart replied defensively.
“Where are you from and where are you headed?” Sawyer asked as he took a half-step backwards so that he was facing all three of them more generally. Patrick could tell that he was holding his right arm funny and seemed to be readying himself for the pistol holster on his hip.
“My daughter and I were on a backpacking trip in the Rockies when the cloud came through. We’re headed back home to Nebraska,” Patrick told him flatly and quickly.
Sawyer was visibly aghast. “You survived?” he asked in awe.
“So far,” Patrick said.
“We haven’t seen any survivors. They told us that there wasn’t any. That there couldn’t be any. Are there any more?” Sawyer continued with the questions.
“Just Stuart here,” Patrick replied.
Sawyer stepped backward again and plopped down on one of the benches that made up the picnic table. He was staring up at each of them in amazement. “How did you guys make it?” he asked to no one in particular.
“We’ll get to that. But tell us what you know. Did Nebraska make it?” Patrick asked.
Sawyer conceded and said “Part of it. Some of it. The Stafford Line runs from Sioux Falls, and down through Lincoln to Topeka.”
“The Stafford Line?” Stuart asked.
Before Sawyer could respond, Mackenzie asked “Did Columbus, Nebraska make it?”
Sawyer wrinkled his nose while he thought for a minute. “I guess I’m not sure where that is at.”
“It’s north-west of Lincoln a hundred miles or so,” Patrick injected.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know for sure. The Stafford Line zig-zags down through Nebraska and Kansas, so some little towns are in the zone and others are outside of it,” Sawyer concluded. Then he remembered “If it helps at all, I crossed the Line just north of town called Norfolk that was just outside the zone.”
“That’s just north of Columbus!” Mackenzie exclaimed.
Sawyer smiled some at Mackenzie’s excitement, but felt like qualifying the conversation so he added “Like I said, the line zigs and zags through there, so I don’t know for sure.”
After a brief pause, Patrick asked “Where are you headed? Can we travel together?”
“I’m going the other direction. To the Park.” Sawyer replied.
“What park?” Stuart asked.
“Yellowstone. The epi-center,” said Sawyer.
“It started in Yellowstone?” Stuart asked.
“Do you mind camping with us for a night? It sounds like we both have a lot of information to share,” Patrick inquired.
“Sure, but not here,” Sawyer answered.
“We have a boat,” Patrick said gesturing toward the dock. “If you don’t mind leaving your ATV here, I think there’s enough room in it for you. We could find a spot on the other side of the river. We haven’t seen any of those creatures on the other side of the river yet.”
Sawyer pondered the offer for a moment and then agreed. He got back on the ATV and pulled it into a stand of cottonwoods some little ways off from the dock. He sauntered back with a regular sized grey backpack slung over one shoulder along with his AR. The others were fastening the two other bikes to the boat and making room for Sawyer.
“Oh – I almost forgot,” Patrick said somewhat alarmed. He reached down and grabbed his mostly empty backpack and flipped it to Stuart. “I got you a present.”
“What’s that?” Stuart said opening the pack. There were a couple dozen pill bottles and paper bags in the back pack.
“Find some of the ibuprofen and amoxicillin in there, and take a few before we head out,” Patrick said.
Stuart felt himself begin to tear up at the thought of Patrick keeping him in mind with all that they just went through. “Thanks…” Stuart said as he began rifling through the bag.
After everything was stowed and tied off, they all climbed into the boat. It was tighter than they had imagined with an extra person. Stuart and Sawyer sat next to each other precariously in the middle of boat, each near the edge. None of them seemed to care much about the tight quarters as they shoved off from the dock because they were too enthralled in their own stories. They mostly talked about Patrick and Mackenzie’s experience with the cloud and their hike to South Dakota. They were just getting to the part where they met up with Stuart when they landed on a small beach a half of a mile or so downstream from where they had been docked.
They continued to tell Sawyer all about them and their travels while they setup camp on the beach and gathered some fire wood as the sun slowly set. About the time that the water was boiling in a cook pot by the small fire that they were all sitting in the sand around, they reached the point in their story
where they had entered the drug store early that morning.
“And that’s where we met you,” Mackenzie said looking across the fire to Sawyer. “And you decided to spray George’s creature-brains all over me,” she said with a coy smile and a slight laugh, but Sawyer didn’t take the comment well.
“They’re called Scaveys,” he said flatly. “They don’t have names anymore. And I don’t enjoy shooting them.”
The whole feeling around the fire felt tense and Mackenzie shifted her weight around in the sand. She had clearly become uncomfortable with Sawyer’s response, but was not sure how to rectify what she had said.
“Sorry,” Mackenzie started. “I didn’t mean to…”
Patrick interjected to ease the tension “So why do you call them Scaveys?”
“It’s not just me that calls them scaveys, everyone calls them scaveys,” Sawyer said as he leaned back in the sand and rested on his elbows. “They’re scavengers. The scientists and doctors on the television say that the first ones ate the meat from the dead animals that were killed by the cloud. Or even ate meat from their refrigerators or from the store that was tainted by the cloud. Once they ate it, they weren’t the same.” Sawyer paused and stared into the fire for a while. The others thought that he was trying to gather the courage to continue.
After what seemed like too long of a pause, Stuart asked “What does it do to them?”
“It changes them,” Sawyer said. “They aren’t human anymore; they’re scaveys.” Sawyer continued to stare into the flicker of the small fire on the beach. This time the others just waited for him to continue. “They got my folks,” he said after a while. He reached up and wiped an undiscernible tear from one of his eyes. “We live outside of a little town called Hubbard that’s just west of Sioux City. We have a small farm with a few head of cattle. My little brother and I had finished our chores and were waiting for the bus that morning when my mom had come flying down the driveway in the old red truck. We thought that she might be running the truck down to us that morning to take into town. I’m old enough to drive, but my folks like it when I ride the bus with my little brother because it saves gas money. Sometimes though, they have me drive him in when there’s something special going on.”
Sawyer took a swig of the coffee Patrick had made and shifted in the sand a little before continuing. “Not that morning though. Mom had heard about the cloud on the radio, and that they were evacuating everyone east as quickly as possible. She was so frantic that she just about didn’t get the truck slowed down in time, and Aaron and I had to jump out of the way. We got into the truck and mom cranked the radio that was tuned to a local talk radio show as she tore across our freshly planted fields in that old truck to make it out to Dad in the north forty.”
Sawyer continued to tell the others about his experience that morning, but his tone turned somber as he reflected, “That radio announcer had been on the radio in the mornings for as long as I could remember. He usually gave the ag-reports and told everyone what to expect for weather for the next few days. When you listen to someone like that for that long, even though you’ve never met them in person; you kind of feel like you know them. I could hear the fear in his voice. He was telling of the satellite images they were showing on the news stations of the orange cloud moving as fast as a single engine airplane across the mid-west, killing everything in its path. He was begging people to leave. To drop what they were doing and head east with just the clothes on their backs. His fear came through the radio. I understood why Mom was so whacked out.”
“Did they say that it started at Yellowstone?” Stuart asked. The ibuprofen had cut his fever and while he still looked worn down, he felt better than he had in the last couple of days.
“No. They didn’t know that at first,” Sawyer answered. “The announcer that we were listening to said that they had all kinds of conflicting reports, but the most common was that China had hit us with a missile that released a toxic gas.”
Sawyer stared into the fire as he continued his story “My dad jumped down off the tractor and ran out to meet us as he saw Mom bouncing across the fields driving like a banshee. Mom told him what was going on, but he had to stick his head in the window and listen to the radio for a moment before he comprehended what she was telling him. He opened the door and got behind the wheel as Mom slid over. Dad took off across the field and left the tractor idling there in the field. Part way back to the house, Dad started barking orders out to Aaron and me. I had to go get the camper trailer ready to hook up while Aaron went to get gas cans. Mom and Dad headed to the house to grab stuff, then came out and hooked up to the camper. We took off and headed east listening to different radio stations trying to figure out what was going on. Mom tried to call different relatives and friends all over, but the phone service was all jammed up and the phones didn’t work at all.”
Sawyer sat up and poured some more coffee in his cup before continuing. “The roads were terrible. My dad was smart enough to take the highways instead of the interstate, but it was still like rush-hour in down-town Sioux Falls. All the radio stations were saying to stay off of the interstates because they were pure grid-lock. People were driving in the barrow ditch, the medians, and cutting across people’s fields. My dad said it was just like rats from a drowning ship. All they did was make the traffic worse.”
Sawyer stared into the fire quietly as if he was lost in his own memories. Finally, Mackenzie broke the silence. She asked “How far did it go? The cloud I mean.”
“The Stafford Line has all of Wyoming and Colorado in it. Most of Idaho and Utah. The better parts of South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas are in it too.” Sawyer paused and sipped some more of his coffee, then added “They said that if they hadn’t dropped the bomb, it could have been most of North America.”
“Bomb?” Stuart exclaimed. “What bomb?”
Sawyer took a deep breath before he continued with his story. “We drove all day and most of the night with the other rats as we all headed east as fast as the clogged highways would let us. We made it to a town called Waterloo in Iowa where we ran out of all of the gas we had taken with us. The gas stations there for the most part had been looted and taken over by scum. They were charging people thirty dollars a gallon with cash only. We didn’t have enough money to buy a full tank if we had wanted to. We had been hearing on the radio for the last several hours that the government was planning to drop a special bomb on the epicenter that they thought might stop the cloud. So my dad found an underground parking lot in the downtown area and we pulled the truck and camper down into it. We couldn’t get radio signal down there, so my dad left and scouted the area out for what seemed like forever. He eventually came back and we all walked down the street to a casino where other people were gathering to watch the news coverage on flat screens that were mounted around the inside of the building.”
Patrick could read the tenseness in Sawyer’s face. He could only imagine how terrifying the experience must have been for Sawyer’s family and all those people. He couldn’t help but ask about the cloud that had mesmerized him for hours. “What did it look like from the satellite?” Patrick asked.
Sawyer thought for a moment before answering “It was amazing.”
“What do you mean?” Stuart asked.
Sawyer thought for another moment. He finally turned to Stuart and said “It’s hard to explain. It was a thick orange and dark yellow fog that just continued to boil out of the epicenter. You couldn’t see anything through it. It didn’t waft like a cloud, it kind of crawled along the ground. You could just feel death coming from even the pictures of it. The news stations kept looping some footage that a jet took as it flew above the cloud, and it reminded me of a big bowl of that nasty warm cereal that Mom would make for us in the winter before school.”
Sawyer dug a flat can with a metal lid out from his back pants pocket. He thumped the lid twice, then opened it up and put some tobacco in his front lip. He put the lid back on and held the can up to Patrick, off
ering him a pinch but Patrick shook his head. Sawyer sat the can down on a rock next to him and turned his head to spit.
Mackenzie’s stomach tightened and Sawyer somehow didn’t look near as handsome to her as he did a moment before. She told him “That stuff isn’t good for you, you know.”
“Yeah; I know,” he said.
“So, what about this bomb?” Stuart asked again.
Sawyer turned his head to spit again before continuing. “Well,” he said. “The government supposedly figured out how this cloud was coming out of the ground and built a two-stage bomb to stop and dissipate the cloud.” Sawyer held up one finger as he said “The first stage was like one of those bunker busting bombs that was supposed to go deep into the ground before exploding so it would plug whatever hole that stuff was coming out of.” Sawyer took the time to turn his head and spit again before holding up two fingers and continuing. “The second stage let off some top-secret explosion in the low atmosphere that was supposed to cause the cloud to dissipate. They called it the EMD stage, but I never heard them explain what that was.”
“Isn’t that what you guessed happened Dad when all the electrical stuff got fried?” Mackenzie asked her dad.
“Kind of,” Patrick replied. He was deep in thought and trying to absorb all what Sawyer was telling them. “I thought it was an ‘EMP’ caused by a bomb. That stands for an Electro-Magnetic Pulse that occurs when a big nuke detonates. It causes a voltage surge in anything inductive that burns out electronics and electrical things. I don’t know what an ‘EMD’ is, but it sure sounds similar.”
“It does sound almost the same,” Sawyer said. “We didn’t get to see any footage of the jet flying the bomb in, but they had a countdown clock in the corner of the screen that started with thirty-eight minutes on it that was supposed to be the time for when they dropped the bomb. The casino was full when we got there, so we had to make our way around to a television near the back wall to watch all of this. We’d stood there all day long and into the night before that count down timer was on the screen. People kept trickling into that casino all day long. The place wasn’t exactly shoulder to shoulder by then, but it felt like we were packed in like there like sardines.”
The Hike (Book 1): Survivors Page 24
