by Jack Hunt
He turned and walked away. Danielle stared at me, unable to find words. My eyes dropped to the ground. There were no thanks given for the return of Tommy, everyone’s mind was on the one who hadn’t returned. Would the outcome have been any different if he had lived? Would it have made them feel any better? I figured not. For all their preparation to survive, none of them had considered the cost of losing lives. Perhaps as they rested their heads on their pillow that night they would think about it.
I soon came to learn that the only reason why they knew we were gone was because of Liam. He had seen us leave, and immediately told Theo. He lingered in the shadows with a smug look on his face. As if somehow he’d managed to get what he wanted.
Dax had little to say. Deep down I think he knew that we weren’t going to be able to stay here. Unlike these people who had known very little about the horrors that lay beyond the safety of their walls, we had seen how bad it was. Reality forced you to make choices. There was no way you could please everyone. I don’t know how many times I laid my head down at night and questioned turning right, when I should have gone left.
Inside the hut that night Dax slept on the lower bunk, I was on the one above him. I tossed and turned trying to sleep. My mind wandered all over the place. The past, the present, and the future.
“Do you ever think about dad?” I asked him.
I heard him roll around.
“Go to sleep, Johnny.”
I wished I could. I wished I could push from my mind the pain of losing our father. I wished I could have built a wall to shut it out. I could see the appeal of hiding in a fortress and imagining that the life we’d once known was not really over. That if a person waited it out long enough, things would change. But some things could never change. They would never return to what they were. Even if tomorrow the world was free of Z’s it would never be the same. The infrastructure was broken. The trust in government a joke.
No, Theo and his community were no different than us. Except our walls were emotional. We had shut out pain, closed it off and tried to forget that it had really happened. We had to, otherwise we wouldn’t have been able to function. However, that didn’t prevent it from hurting any less.
* * *
When morning came so did an overwhelming sense of detachment from the group around us. At least it did for me. I was ready to move on. These people weren’t ready to deal with what lay beyond the walls. Of course they thought they were. They had the gadgets, the T-shirt, the book, and could recite what you should do in a nuclear fallout but they had no idea how to act when faced with the hard decisions of life and death. When it came to survival, theirs was one of being guarded and staying on defense instead of engaging head-on.
Maybe that was smart.
I was rolling up a small section of bedding when there was a knock at the door. Dax went to see who it was.
“Is Johnny there?”
“Johnny.”
I walked over and found Danielle. I closed the door behind me and took a walk with her.
“You don’t have to go. I can talk my father out of it. He tends to take things too seriously.”
I shook my head. “I appreciate that but I think we’ve overstayed our welcome. And your father has good reason to be concerned. He has the lives of these people to think about.”
“What you all did for Tommy, means a lot to their family. To us. To me.”
“You have Lance to thank for that. Not us. It was his idea.”
“But you didn’t have to go.”
“No, but that’s kind of our thing. Maybe we have a death wish.”
She nodded. “So where now?”
“Colorado. NORAD. Yeah we have a long way to go.”
“Do you think you will come back?”
We stopped walking and I paused to think about it.
“I’m not sure. Some days I don’t know if any of us are going to make it back.”
There was a moment of silence between us.
“Why do I get a sense you are not referring to a destination?”
I breathed in deeply. “It takes its toll, Danielle. You should have seen it last night. We’ve encountered our fair share of lunatics along the way and really they were no different. But one of the men had a photo of what I think was his family in his hand before he died. I couldn’t help but wonder where were they? What was he like before this? Would they have approved of what he had done? Who else had they murdered? But more importantly it made me think about my own family and the things I’ve done to stay alive.” I blew my cheeks out. “I’m not proud of having killed people… but I would do it again in a heartbeat if it meant protecting my family. Dax, Baja, Specs, and the others.”
She nodded.
“Anyway I really should get ready…” I trailed off.
As I turned to leave she leaned in and kissed me.
“What was that for?”
“Just a thank-you.”
“For what?”
She was about to reply when Theo came out of his hut. He was having a heated argument with Lance.
“Enough, they are leaving today.”
“But I was the one that convinced them to help. You can’t hold them responsible for Reed. If anyone, it should be me.”
“That’s very admirable, Lance, but my decision is final.”
Theo glanced at me, his eyes narrow, before he disappeared down one of the alleys. Lance spread out his hands with a look of exasperation. Liam leaned against a doorway, chewing on what appeared to be a celery stick. A smile spread across his face. Oh yeah, he would be glad to see us gone. That was for sure.
We had over two hundred and twenty miles to cover. A journey that would take around four days by foot if we didn’t stop or encounter any flesh-chewing freaks, which was a given. We gave ourselves a week. Lance initially mapped out a route that would take us south down US-287. We would pass through Denver city and then arrive at Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station. A few of the others suggested we keep off the main highways and pass through Roosevelt National Forest, Rocky Mountain National Park, Arapaho National Forest, and then Pike National Forest. It would be one hell of a hike but there would be less chance of us encountering Z’s or anyone looking to steal our weapons.
“Speaking of weapons,” Lance said.
It was surprising the arsenal of weapons they had collected prior to the world being overrun. In a small locked hut that had been converted into a storage area for weapons were AR-15s, AK-47s, SIG Sauers, Beretta 92s and Glocks.
“Take your pick, this is just one of two weapon storage containers we have.”
After stocking up and thanking them we were about ready to head out.
Before we left we went into the medical room where Specs was. He had survived the incident. He was the first we had seen to be bitten and live after having his hand severed.
He was now looking as well as you could for someone who had gone through a night without knowing if he would make it. It would take months for the wound to heal properly. And though we had told him there might be no chance of us returning, he wanted to stay. Not because of his hand but because of Eva and the others.
These people were like Specs in many ways. Meeting them was like coming home to him. He had found a sense of belonging with those he’d grown up with. In some small way I was pretty sure it was because they reminded him of his family. No one could tell him what to do. I had a feeling we would see him again, how soon, that I didn’t know. None of us could be certain of living through one more day out there.
Each of us said our goodbyes. I was the last.
“So buddy, I guess this is the end of the road for us?”
“Oh you aren’t getting rid of me that easy,” he replied.
He smiled and nodded to Eva. Eva brought up onto the bed a rucksack. Inside was communications gear. I pulled it out and looked it over.
“Where did you get this?”
“Some are ex-military,” she replied.
“So you know what
that means,” Spec said with a grin on his face. “I’m going to be in your ear every step of the way. I’ll be your ears and you can be my eyes on the road. You know… I’ll let you know what’s going on and if I can help you, I will.”
I grinned.
“You got it.”
“Oh and… one more thing.”
“Name it.”
He got this real serious look on his face. I think I even caught his eyes welling up as he searched for the words. “When you have Jess and the others, you come back, you hear me?”
Specs lifted his good hand.
“You have my word,” I replied, gripping his hand tightly. “See you soon, my friend.”
* * *
Watching that gate close behind us and knowing how far we were going to have to travel by foot was a daunting prospect. My stomach sank as we trudged away.
We hadn’t walked for an hour before we caught sight of a group of Z’s milling around a small lake. By the way they were dressed they looked like hunters or fishermen. They were fresh too, as soon as they saw us they ran at us like it was a hundred-meter sprint. They were the fast suckers. But not fast enough. All eight dropped like flies as we unloaded round after round. It felt good to feel the adrenaline rush again.
It would have been easy to lose our edge in a place like the fortress. With five of us fully armed with assault rifles, handguns, and machetes, there was a sense that we ready for anything that this new hell threw at us.
How wrong we were.
We pressed on into the Roosevelt National Forest. We formed a tight line formation. Had Specs been here he would have taken the lead. As much as Dax didn’t want to admit it, Specs was far more prepared for living rough than he was. He had honed his tracking skills from years of being a prepper. His father loved to get out in the wilderness. I swear he had a boner for acorns and oak trees. I went camping with them a couple of times and he was forever picking up acorns and smelling them. Allan was as mad as they came. He was the kind of guy that would go out into a stretch of hot desert with one bottle of water and see how far he could get before he started to hallucinate. He was always pushing the boundaries. I’m sure the lack of H2O had killed a few brain cells. However now Dax charged ahead of us. Elijah hung at the back keeping an eye on anyone or anything that might come up on us. The rest of us took a side. There was no knowing how many others had made the forest their home. It would have been the first place people would have run to around this area. It offered cover, places to hunt animals, and access to bodies of water.
“After we get Izzy, Jess, and that dumbass, Ralphie, we’re gonna come back here, right, guys?” Baja asked.
“Yeah, if Theo lets us back in,” Dax said.
“Ah, he will have got over it by the time we get back,” Elijah added.
“If we get back,” I said.
Dax stopped, his hand went up. We crouched down and waited until he came back over to us.
“What have we got?”
“A ski lodge. Military vehicles. Now what do you make of that?”
From where we were we could see a huge log cabin with the words Snowy Range Ski and Recreation Area on the side. It had a green metal roof. Outside there had to have been a least twenty-five military personnel loading up jeeps, three helicopters, and a shit load of weaponry on the back of a truck.
“Looks like we might have found our ride to NORAD,” Baja said.
He was about to get up when I grabbed hold of him. “Are you nuts? You want to just stroll in there?”
“Why not? They’re the friggin’ military.”
“I don’t have to remind you that the guy we left behind was military. Wearing the same fatigues as them.”
“So. Maybe he deserted. I mean he was the only one dressed like that.”
“Yeah, and maybe…”
I was just about to say something when Dax told me to be quiet. We were on our bellies looking through the bushes when he came into view. The same guy we had let live. Of course he was bandaged up.
“I say we get out of here now. Go around and keep moving.”
“You don’t think they know about the fortress, do you?”
“Lance said no one followed him back.”
“You want to tell me why they look as though they are gearing up?”
“Maybe they just checked out, or checked in,” Baja said.
“Of course. A skiing vacation for the military. Why didn’t I think of that?” Dax palmed his forehead.
Benjamin moved in tight and handed a pair of goggles to me. I didn’t even know he had a pair. I looked through and could see them close up. One of them had a large map out on the hood of the truck, he was talking to the guy we had shot. He immediately pointed in the direction that we had just come.
“I don’t think they’re getting ready to leave. They’re gearing up for war.”
ZOMBIE SQUAD
We weren’t oblivious to what we were seeing. For all we knew the group of military personnel could be rolling out to the next camp or it could be what we imagined — they were about to come looking for those that had killed their own.
“What do we do?” Elijah asked, crouched down.
“Look, the fortress is hours away. We have no way of knowing what they are up to. For all we know they were here for a short time and are moving on. I say we communicate with them back at the fortress, give them the heads-up, and keep on moving,” I said.
“Are you sure? Specs is back there,” Baja said.
“They made their choice. If we don’t go now, we aren’t going to make it to NORAD.”
“But.”
“Listen, make up your mind.”
While they chatted among themselves I removed the bag from my back and pulled out a comms unit. Eva had shown me how it worked.
“Phoenix, this is Johnny, do you copy?” I repeated.
A few seconds passed then someone replied back. “Go ahead, Johnny.”
“Looks like you guys might be getting some company. There is a lot of military personnel that might be coming your way. Over.”
“Roger that.”
I looked at the others. “Happy?”
Baja shook his head. “I dunno.”
“Listen, they have ex-military at the camp. A shit load of weapons. You saw how well protected that place was. It’s not like they are going to be able to roll up there in their jeeps. The forest is too dense. If they wanted to attack it, they would need to do it on foot which immediately places them at a disadvantage.”
Like it or not, we all knew we weren’t wanted back at the fortress. So we pressed on.
We remained out of sight and trudged our way through the trees. That day we traveled by foot non-stop for eight hours. I wanted to get in as many miles as we could before it turned dark. It was early evening by the time we reached a place called Spruce Mountain Fire Lookout Tower. Lance had told us about the place prior to our leaving. It was a fifty-five-foot-tall structure made from wood that was originally used as a fire lookout back in the seventies. Since then they had turned it into a place people could rent overnight between the months of June and September. Apparently Lance’s parents had taken him there when he was a kid. He said it had pretty much everything you needed: two single mattresses, table with chairs, cookware, dishes, propane, and a stove. There was also an outhouse and campfire near the bottom. Now maybe we were naive to think that no one would be there. I mean the place was isolated, perched up on a mountain. We were wrong.
Darkness had fallen when we saw it. A yellow light flickered from beyond windows. We saw a few shadowy figures inside. Three at most.
“That’s cool, man. It’s like a house on stilts.”
Whoever was up there had jammed large amounts of wood in front of the stairway that snaked its way up inside the frame like the Eiffel Tower. No doubt this was to protect themselves against the dead or surprise attacks from folks like us.
“You want to keep moving?” I asked.
Benjamin slumped down on the g
round. “I don’t know about you youngsters, but I have got to rest my legs. I never did this much walking even when I was on the job.”
“Well let’s go and say hello.”
“How?” I asked
Dax tossed his assault rifle to me, and handed over his handgun. “The old-fashioned way.”
He then burst out of the tree line yelling at the top of his voice.
“Help! Help!”
My eyes darted between him looking like an asylum patient and the lookout tower. Sure enough one of them came out and peered over the edge. Dax started scrambling to get past some of the wood they had stacked on the steps.
“Hey, don’t go up that way. They are going to follow you. Are you an idiot? Can you hear me?” The guy could have only been fourteen at the most. He turned around then tossed over a large, thick piece of rope. Like the kind that schools had. It dropped to the ground in a heap. Dax dashed over to it and started to climb.
Before he reached the top the kid pulled out a gun and aimed it at Dax. I couldn’t hear what they were saying but he must have convinced him that he wasn’t a threat as he let him up. A few seconds later another one joined them. He was sporting a purple Mohawk. They nodded and looked out into the forest. Dax leaned against the side and shouted.
“Okay, all good. Come on up.”
That’s when we lumbered out. One by one we climbed up this thick rope. Once up, that’s when I got a better look at them. They were just kids. No older than fifteen. First, we had the one that looked like a punk rocker, the second was a Chinese guy dressed in military gear with a bandana around his head as if he was Rambo, and the other looked like an emo with black eyeliner and black clothes.
“Been a long time since we’ve had anyone out here.”
“Where are your parents?”
They scoffed. “Are you serious?”
“Guessing they’re dead.”
The guy with the Mohawk shook his head.
“What are your names?” the Chinese guy asked.
We went around the room giving our names. After Baja gave his, he finished with, “And I’m an alcoholic.”
