“What makes you think that you’re going to get our help. We aren’t going to go out and murder people for you.”
Jason lowers his gun and points it at Mac’s chest. “Well,” Willie says. “I think you owe us. Me for saving your lives the other night and then for our hospitality the last couple of days.”
“You’re crazy.”
“No,” Willie shakes his head. “I’m just realistic. And right now this whole situation, the way the world is, calls for a little realism. We can sit here and hope that everything comes back. Or we can accept the fact that we’ve been knocked back a hundred years, probably more. Our mindset has to shift or we’ll be like all those other suckers out there who were caught flat footed.”
“Am I one of those? A sucker?”
“I don’t think so. That’s why you’re here. You and your girl were prepared for your fight the other night. And you were moving. That’s something. I don’t think you were just wandering aimlessly. You have a plan. That’s more than most. It’s why I brought you in. Well, and …” Willy holds up his hands and wiggles his fingers.
“And what if we say no. We won’t help.”
“Don’t say anything yet. Go back and think about it. Breakfast is soon. But, if you decide not to help then we have no choice but to think about you like we think about the others. You’re just a magnet for the wailers, and you know what we think about that.”
Jason sites his gun and fakes a pull of the trigger. He mouths the word “bang” and smiles.
I nod. “Yeah, OK. We’ll think about it.”
SEVEN
I climb down from the wall and am still stunned. I knew this place was different. You can’t be around here and not get that feeling. Willie seemed like a good guy, but a little odd. Jason was nice but dumb. But I never thought that they’d be brutal, cold, and savage.
I open the door to the apartment and find Caroline asleep on the couch. I sit next to her and the shift in the cushions wakes her. She sits up.
“Are you OK?” She’s rubbing the heels of her palms into her eyes.
“I’m good.” I lean back and let the cushions of this couch do all the work necessary to keep me upright. My heart’s still racing, but my body is screaming at me for sleep.
“I heard the shots. What happened?”
I tell Caroline about the war party and the dead raiders.
“For real?”
“For real.”
Then I tell her about the conversation I had with Jason and Willie after the fighting stopped. How they saw this as being about survival and that eliminating the other camps was necessary.
“You know,” she begins, “it’s not like that doesn’t make sense.”
Mac nods. “Yes, I know. From a strictly selfish perspective it does make sense. Don’t want the rats, don’t provide them with food. But we aren’t rats. We don’t beat this, we don’t come back by isolating ourselves and holing up in our little caves. We have to work together to not just avoid the wailers but beat them.”
Caroline is shaking her head. “Your idea of utopia sounds nice, but it’s not realistic anymore. It’s just a matter of time before you recognize that.”
“Get your stuff together. We’ve got a couple of hours until breakfast. We’ll need to be out of here before then because it’s going to be much harder once everyone is awake.”
She arranges her books on the coffee table into a neat stack. I spin my legs up onto the cushions of the couch and lay my head on a pillow. It takes little before I’m sleeping.
My mind hasn’t let go of the idea of Sylvia, and my dreaming brain is suddenly seeing her packing up her place, slowly taking everything in. Trying to decide what all goes with her once she leaves. She isn’t packing boxes with stuff and puzzle-piecing them into the back of some truck. Her life is now going into a bag and that bag is going on her back or hanging from her shoulder. Every decision is critical. There’s no room for extra, for convenience.
She’s trying to explain this to a 5-year-old dark-headed boy who keeps bringing out every action figure or toy vehicle he has in his room, each one more critical to take than the one before it. In between visits, Sylvia agonizes over her own decisions. Everything feels critical. How is she supposed to go on without these shoes or that shirt? It’s all a big pile on her couch.
Suddenly, a moment of clarity. She digs through the mound of fabric and only pulls out the sturdiest stuff. There’s the pair of deep blue jeans that were too heavy to be comfortable or look cute. But they are perfect for now. She tosses anything aside with a short sleeve, throwing all of those cap-sleeved blouses she had to buy for work just a little farther. What she saves are the long-sleeved flannel shirts that she’d watch football in on the weekends during the fall. She pulled on the Army-green canvas jacket she’d bought a few years ago but rarely worn. The pockets on the front would be good for something even if she didn’t know what yet.
Her pile of things now seemed manageable. It’d fit in the bag that she’d sat aside for herself. On to the boy’s room and the same exercise. Out went anything that wasn’t heavy and protective. No t-shirts. No shorts. She said a silent prayer of thanks that she was able to buy him a new pair of still-white tennis shoes just a month before.
“Here,” she said, tossing him a brown jacket, an embroidered monkey smiling from the back. “Put this on.”
The boy complies and Sylvia kneels down and helps him put on the backpack that now contains his entire world. She cinches the shoulders tight, and he follows her from the room.
Sylvia grabs her own bag from the living room floor and puts it over her head to wear it slung across her chest. The strap pulls tight on her neck and almost immediately begins to cut a crease into her shoulder. She pauses, goes to the kitchen and pulls a dish towel from a drawer. She folds it into a thick rectangle and wraps it around the bag’s strap. Better.
She leads the boy to the front door. They both pause and look one last time around the apartment, then they leave.
She walks confidently across the courtyard. A group of young men, Jason included, sit at the tables in the middle. Dominoes are spread out in front of them, but they stop their game to watch Sylvia walk by. Jason says something. Sylvia gives him a look but keeps walking. Another of the men calls out something, this time a little louder. She doesn’t respond. Then the third yells something even louder. The boy stops and turns. He stares at the men for a moment, but Sylvia keeps walking toward the wall and the gate.
They navigate the winding entrance, and a moment later she and her son disappear through the gate, and that’s when I wake up.
Caroline has been sitting across from me watching me sleep.
“How long was I out?” I ask.
Caroline shrugs. “Half hour? Long enough for me to get this ready.” She lifts her bag to show me that it’s packed.
I go to the window and pull the blinds to the side. The horizon is already beginning to glow behind the dust and clouds. Jason is still on the wall. His shoulders are slumped forward, his chin on his chest. He’s crashed, all the adrenaline from the fight gone. His gun is leaned forward, resting on the wall.
I go back to my room and grab my pack. I pull it on my shoulders. I haven’t unpacked. I’ve been meaning to, but I just haven’t done it. That feels fortunate now, and I begin to wonder if my subconscious wasn’t letting me get too comfortable, if the little me inside of the big me never thought that this was going to be more than a quick pitstop.
I head back to the living room and begin disengaging the locks on the front door when Caroline says: “Stop.”
She moves to the window and peeks through the curtain. “Let’s go out back.”
I nod my agreement and follow her to a sliding door that’s off the little area that some leasing agent would call a dining room. It opens to a small patio. The patio is ringed by a low wrought-iron fence. Caroline tosses her pack over and then clears the fence in one smooth move. I do the same.
Maybe it’s the lack o
f lights or the lack of a gun fight, but the night feels cooler than it did when I was on the wall. The creak and croak of animals and bugs is cutting over the muffled rumble of the generators, and it actually feels somewhat peaceful out here.
“Where to now, chief?” Caroline asks. She’s bouncing on her toes waiting for my instruction.
I look around, hoping that I’ll be able to find some kind of alternative exit. There’s about a ten-foot gap between the end of our porch and the edge of our property. It’s the area that Willie and his band of farmers have cultivated to grow vegetables for the camp. At the edge of the property line is a fence. It’s about eight feet tall, and it’s face is flat. There’s no way we climb it without a ladder. Even if I was able to boost Caroline up and over the wall she couldn’t lift me across it. And I don’t trust her magic enough yet to suggest that she try to levitate me over the thing.
“Looks like there’s only one way out of here,” I say. “Same way we came in, the door in the wall.”
“So, no sneaking out of a window?”
I shake my head and say, “Unfortunately not.”
This, in theory, shouldn’t be that hard. Still, I pull the pistol from my pack. I check for ammunition. It’s about half loaded, and I think for a moment about stopping to top it off, but decide that getting out of here is more important.
“Ready to walk out the front door?” Caroline pulls the machete from her pack and then nods.
She follows me to the corner of the building. I steal a look at the wall. Jason is still there and still sleeping. I walk us out into the courtyard. Loaded down with all of our things, we are conspicuous, but the few people that are up and out either don’t see us or don’t care. I think for a moment about Sylvia and having to make this same walk.
The wall and the little maze that it takes to get to the door seem a mile away, but we continue to walk with heads high and chests out, projecting fake confidence.
We hear voices talking behind us, but no one tries to stop us. A pair of steel bars lay across the door, one high and one low, each bar resting in what looks like cupped metal hands. It’s not technologically genius, but it works.
I carefully lift the top bar up and out of its holder. It’s heavy, and I drop it. It clangs off the lower bar, and Caroline and I both freeze.
I keep repeating “It was louder to us because we were closer” in my head while we wait for Jason to react. He never does; he just keeps sleeping. I lift the lower bar from its holder and carefully lay it onto the ground next to the upper bar.
The door itself is heavy, and I lay a shoulder into it to get it open. There’s a gap wide enough for Caroline with her pack to slip through, so she does. I follow and ease the door shut behind me.
I don’t know if it’s that it’s not quite dawn or the feeling of freedom or what, but this view, one I saw just a couple of days ago, feels different now. Better somehow.
Caroline is beside me. This is the first time she’s seen the remainders of the gunfight from just a couple of hours earlier. The bodies are still on the ground in front of the wall. We’ve seen bodies. Plenty of them. But these don’t look like those bodies. They aren’t brutalized like the victim of a wailer. They are almost peaceful, something that feels weird and wrong to think.
“Now where?” Caroline whispers.
“There, I guess.” I point out in front of us to the tree-line that’s a few hundred feet away and across a street.
“So, we just walk away casually?”
“No.” Everything feels farther away and less secure. I scan both sides of the road then point to the trees on the right. “In there. Let’s give ourselves at least a bit of cover.”
Caroline walks off ahead of me. She’s headed right for one of the bodies of a raider from earlier. He’s fallen face forward into the street. When she gets close enough Caroline puts the toe of her boot under his shoulder and lifts his upper body off the ground. His head hangs loose, face still staring at the ground. She kicks him all the way over then gasps.
It’s a kid, not much older than her. She puts her hand to her mouth.
“Oh, Colin,” she whispers.
“Know him?” Clearly, she does, but I ask anyway.
She nods. “Fifth period. Math. Mrs. Flynn.”
“Come on,” I say, “we need to keep …”
I don’t get to finish my thought. There’s a gunshot then a shout from the wall. We both spin. Jason is awake and his rifle is shouldered.
“Willie!” he shouts. “Deserters!”
He closes one eye to sight the rifle. “Run,” I shout to Caroline.
EIGHT
The lights are still illuminating most of what’s in front of the wall. That means we have some kind of cover in the dark. If we can get there.
“This way!” I shout as I turn. There are more shots that pass over us, and I’m beginning to wonder if they really want us dead. I get to the dark first and see Caroline scrambling toward me. A bullet catches the ground next to her, sending up a shower of concrete and dust. Yes, they want us dead.
Caroline flinches at the gunshot. She tumbles forward then rolls to her feet facing the wall. As she gets up she screams something that sounds like it comes deep from the ground beneath her. Her hands burst blue, energy pulsing from her palms. The blasts dig deep into the earth in front of her, and as she raises her arms she creates deep and wide trenches. She’s pushing growing piles of dirt and asphalt directly at the wall. Jason and Willie stand and scramble to get out of the way, but they can’t. They disappear as Caroline pushes earth through the wall and into the back of the courtyard.
I scream her name repeatedly, but I can’t seem to break whatever spell she’s in. The bursts from her hands continue to pulse into the piles. Then she stops, and everything is quiet. Caroline collapses. She rolls onto her back.
I run out to get her, and when I get there her eyes are closed. I hook my arms under her shoulders and pull her into the dark. I get us positioned behind a tree then start to try and get her to come back to me.
“You there? Caroline. Caroline.”
Nothing.
“Come on, kid. I need you awake.” I shake her shoulders and lightly slap her cheek. “Caroline. Come on, girl.”
Her eyes flutter then close again. I slap her harder, and she’s back.
“You OK?” I ask.
She nods and tries to say something, but it only comes out a raspy garble. She pushes herself up on her elbows. I stand and offer her a hand to pull her back to her feet. Voices start coming from the other side of the pile beyond where the wall used to be. They are shouting, organizing.
“Come on,” she says, clearer this time. She starts walking.
She stays in the dark, although the dark--and our cover with it--is quickly disappearing as the sun comes up. I still have my pistol at my side and try to do a mental count of how much ammunition I still have loaded. Everything that just happened at the wall is a big blur. I don’t know how many shots I have left, and I’m hesitant to stop and count.
Caroline is out in front of me by a dozen or so feet. She’s walking determined now, like she knows where she’s headed. There is no pausing at corners to decide next steps. She turns left and right, and I am beginning to figure out where she’s taking us.
We walk past the old woman’s house where we’d met Willie, and thoughts of crisp, fresh vegetables momentarily overtake any thoughts I have of the people who are likely closer behind us than I’d really like to know.
Then we pass Caroline’s old apartment. She hesitates then stops. She’s still for a moment, her eyes narrowed and focused on the building that looks worse than it did just a few days earlier. Wailers? Could be, although I hadn’t even thought about wailers in a week.
Caroline purses her lips. She raises her left hand, and the beams that she’d used earlier to blast trenches into the ground in front of the wall, shoot out of her palm and disintegrates the building into a bunch of broken boards and burned shingles.
&n
bsp; She watches the destruction settle then begins walking again, but her pace has slowed. She’s lost some of the confidence and direction she’d had before. She’d been operating off of adrenaline, feeding on the chase. But that only lasts so long, eventually you come down. Caroline is crashing.
I step in front of her and take the lead. She doesn’t protest, and I steer us into alleys. I pause at a corner and consider where to next. That’s when we hear the voices again. It’s Willie barking some kind of orders. They aren’t close enough to be clear, but that we can hear them at all lights a fire.
“Left,” Caroline says. “That takes us to the highway.”
I follow her direction, and we start down a slow sloping hill. From here I can see an overpass. I can see the highway. Willie and his team won’t follow us north. Caroline damaged their little commune, but she didn’t destroy it. They can clean up and dig out. They’ve put too much work into making the place livable to abandon it. So that’s why the highway is so important. It’s our way out, we just need to get there.
Caroline steps back in front of me to lead us again. The highway is getting closer. We are at the point where traffic should be loud enough to require raised voices to communicate, but it’s still and quiet. Quiet until we hear the voices behind us again. Jason and his team are arguing. Jason shouts and takes back control of his team. We turn to see them coming over the top of the hill.
They see us. Caroline turns and runs. I follow. Jason and his team do too. Caroline makes a quick left then a right. We run through the crashed front gate of a public storage place. The buildings here were hit hard on the initial night when boulders and death rained from the sky. Piles of busted concrete are scattered across what should be the wide aisles between storage units. And what wasn’t destroyed the first night has been pulled apart, either by wailers or looters looking for anything that might be useful.
The Road North Page 7
