The Way Back (Book 2): The Way Back, Part II

by Giancioppo, Danny

  Nolan didn’t answer, but slowly slipped back into reality. He gazed hazily at his arm, now realizing what he’d done, and pressed down on the wound.

  Derrick already made his way over to the medical supplies in a kitchen cabinet and knelt down to Nolan’s level, cleaning off the wound with a wet paper towel. He swabbed it with some rubbing alcohol, and then wrapped it up with medical bandaging and tape. Luckily, it was only a butter knife, so Nolan didn’t cut very deeply. Even more lucky, Derrick was about the next best with medical supplies after him, so he had at least some idea how to fix Nolan up.

  “So are you gonna answer me?” Derrick asked again, Nolan only then looking over to him.

  “What…?” he asked.

  “What the hell were you doing just there?” Derrick said, the others now filing into the room, seeing the scene laid out before them. Snow walked in nervously behind Cody’s arm.

  “What’s wrong…?” she whispered. Nolan could see her shaking a little as she spoke. He just looked down to his arm in shame.

  “Nolan’s just… having a rough time right now, that’s all,” Cody said. “That’s all.”

  “I…I was just…” Nolan said, trying to explain what just happened as best he could without sounding totally insane. “I-I had to–”

  “You were having another PTSD attack,” Adam said, moving closer to Nolan. “Weren’t you?”

  “Wait, since when does Nolan have PTSD?” Chris asked, looking over at Adam.

  “I don’t have PTSD,” Nolan insisted, still laying on the ground. “I was just…just–”

  “Just having another moment where your thoughts get the better of you, and you feel like you’re losing control, so you lose it and start shouting– and this time cut yourself I guess– so that you can overpower it and feel back in control,” Adam continued. “That sounds like PTSD to me.”

  “It’s not!” Nolan shouted, surprising everyone a bit; Snow even jumped. “What could have possibly happened to me to warrant that? We all went through the same things!”

  “Yeah, but you did have a much more sensitive side during most of it,” Jeremy said, sitting down in one of the chairs. He still seemed so weak, so tired. Nolan felt guilty just looking at him.

  “So what? We…We all had moments of weakness! We got through it! None of that is enough!” Nolan argued. Despite his angry tone, he was actually looking for a reason, an answer to this unexplained pain he was feeling.

  “You pulled the Chirper out of Luke’s head,” Adam said, everyone then looking at him; Nolan said nothing. “You did that. And then you sat outside with him for hours in the cold waiting for something to happen, and almost shot him, right in the head. I can only imagine what was going through your mind then, but now? Now Luke has been on a constant trend of losing his shit and getting locked in these night terrors, that we now also know are probably his experience trying to beg you to stop. Plus, he’s being used as a lure for a bunch of Goliaths, and it’s terrifying to him, and we can all see that as much as he may try to hide it. Not to mention, now he’s missing, and seriously fucked up. All that seems like enough to me to warrant you losing your shit.”

  Everyone fell silent, realizing just how much of this Nolan must have been putting on himself; how much it must have tainted his mind. Nolan stared at Adam, and felt his chin wobble. He had tried to keep his emotions more in check as time went on, but this time, he just had to let go.

  He cried; he sobbed. He leant his head back against the kitchen cabinets under the drawers, and clenched his eyes shut in desperation.

  “I…I hear all these things… everything that Luke has ever said to me. Arguments, jokes, conversations. Before everything happened, after, even now. It all just floods in at once, and I replay that night at the rest stop beat for beat…” Nolan stuttered. “I ca… I can’t stop it… It kills me inside, what I did to him. And now…now he’s just gone. He’s probably dead, and it’s all my fault…”

  Cody hobbled over to Nolan, and sat down next to him, wrapping his arm across his friend’s shoulders.

  “Listen to me, okay? You listening?” Cody said, smiling. Nolan nodded a little and forced out a small smirk. “None of this is on you, you understand that right? I know sometimes you feel all, what is it… guilt-ridden, but that’s all bullshit. Grade-A, bologna, bullshit.”

  “How? How is it bullshit?” Nolan protested. “I made the call to pull that thing out, I made the call to almost shoot him, and not to. Everything we’ve dealt with over Luke since has been on me.”

  “Bull. Shit. Dude,” Jeremy said, looking Nolan directly in the eyes. “Nolan, look at me. Fucking look, dude. I’ve got one fucking arm, because Luke and I ran into trouble. You don’t think I wasn’t pissed? Horrified? Hurt? I was, but I don’t blame you for that; I don’t blame Luke. I could’ve ran with Cody, but I didn’t. I stayed, ran my mouth, and got got. Like, seriously got. And I dealt with it, and I know I’ve got to push forward, even with this holding me back. But that’s not on you… none of this is.”

  “Nolan, we wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you,” Chris added. “When the time came for it, you were the one who made the toughest call that none of us could, and because of you we got Luke back. Sure, he has issues, don’t we all; it’s a part of life.”

  “Yeah dude, Luke wouldn’t want you blaming yourself for all this either,” Derrick psaid, chuckling a little. “He’d probably be pissed at himself for standing where he was at the laboratory, or not being quiet enough in his night terrors, if he knew just how it makes you feel.”

  Adam walked over to the kitchen table and he too sat in one of the chairs, looking over at Nolan gently.

  “Nolan, you and I have known Luke longest. You by a little more, but still, we were all neighbors. In all the years we’ve known him, have you ever, ever seen him blame you, or me, or anyone he cared about for something that happened to him?” Adam asked. Nolan smiled a little and wiped his eyes.

  “No, not really,” he admitted.

  “Me neither,” Adam said. “That’s not him. He’ll get mad at us sometimes, sure, but that happens with brothers– they fight, they don’t always get along. You having this… issue, let’s call it, I get it, but it’s not your fault, okay? None of it.”

  “Yeah, and as far as Luke goes right now, I’m sure he’s fine!” Cody said. “He’s Luke, for Christ’s sake! The guy has never once yet bowed out to an enemy, and he always finds a way. The Lone Ranger!” he said, for the first time in a while with his radio broadcaster impression. The others all just sighed, especially Jeremy, who glared over at Cody in exhausted disgust. “How will he get out of this one, folks? Find out in the not-so-distant future to come!” Snow chuckled, making Cody all the more excited.

  “God damn it I wish I could choke you out,” Jeremy muttered. Cody just smiled and laughed, making Nolan smile a bit more too.

  Snow quickly hustled over to Nolan, and fell into his lap, gripping his chest tightly with her arms. He wrapped his right arm around her, and after a brief moment of hesitation, put his chin on top of her head.

  “Maybe…” Nolan said. “Maybe… Maybe I do have a problem,” he admitted. Adam smiled a little, the confession finally coming out of Nolan’s own mouth. Snow looked up at him and punched him in the chest a couple times angrily.

  “Hey!” Derrick warned.

  “Of course you have a problem, stupid!” Snow yelled. “You have to say you do for it to get better!” Nolan just chuckled slightly, and rubbed her head with his hand.

  “Yeah, I know,” he said. “You’re right. I…I have a problem.”

  “And that’s okay,” Adam said. “Just like we’re there for Luke, we’re there for you, pal. It probably won’t be easy, and it’s gonna take time, but things will get better, I promise you.”

  “You’re sure?” Nolan asked. Adam nodded.

  “They have to.”

  Nolan smiled a little at Adam, and carefully made his way up to a standing position, Snow still leaning into
his chest. He moved back against the counter, now with a new sense of bravery and heart that he had felt was far-lost for the past several days.

  “Okay, so assuming that things aren’t going great for Luke, though,” Chris said, “I think we need to start talking about a serious rescue operation; if we think it’s come to that.”

  “Agreed,” Adam said. “We’ve been waiting on Luke to figure something out on his own for too long now; I think we need to take action.”

  “Well, if we do, I may have a leg up on our arrival and extraction times,” Derrick said, motioning outside the window of the kitchen, right by the van.

  “What, did you find a plow?” Jeremy asked. “When did you do that?”

  “I didn’t,” Derrick said, getting an all-too-familiar smug look on his face. “I made one.”

  “Made one?” Chris asked.

  “How?” Cody questioned, he too now standing by the kitchen counter; he still struggled to make his way over smoothly.

  “Metal scraps. I’d been keeping them lying around by the van for a while– the dream was to make it all armored and shit, but that was never gonna happen. I used our soldering and welding tools to form a plow that’s just big enough for the front of the van.”

  “That’s what all that was about? I thought you just like collecting old junk,” Cody quipped, the others smirking.

  “Just big enough?” Adam repeated. “As in, it can’t burst through the snow no problem?”

  “No, but we can maintain a decently quick pace and push through it without it becoming too much of a problem,” Derrick said. “Maybe like fifteen, twenty miles per hour.”

  “Derrick the speed demon!” Cody broadcasted. “So fast you can lap him on your feet!”

  “Seriously, don’t push the radio thing,” Jeremy said. “I’ve got enough shit to hate right now.”

  “How the hell did you find the time or skill to make this, Derry?” Chris asked.

  “The last couple days I’ve been doing it to keep myself busy. I figured since we’d brought it up it was better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it. And as far as how: it’s just like landscaping. I just had to make a design and mold it.”

  “One of those things is mowing lawns, the other is molding metal. You’re an idiot if you think that’s a valid reason to explain how you did that,” Adam argued.

  “Well, I did, so what the hell do you want from me?” Derrick protested. The others all just backed out of the conversation, knowing it was useless trying to get reason out of Derrick. It was true though, logic aside, all that mattered was that they had a plow, which would make driving to the camp– or just leaving the house– significantly easier.

  “Alright, well how long do we wait before we go to find Luke?” Jeremy asked. “Not to be a pessimist, but odds are– if he’s not dead– he’s with them in some way or another, and I’d be willing to bet he’s in their home-turf. How long until we make that call?”

  “You’re not making that call, period,” Chris said. “You’re only like two days into having one arm, with very little medical attention. You’re ass is resting here.”

  “No god damn way,” Jeremy said. He looked at the others, and they all just stared back at him agreeingly. “No!”

  “Dude, don’t be stupid, come on,” Derrick said.

  “You don’t…!” Jeremy said, his exhaustion catching up to him in the moment, worse than it already was. “Don’t…! Oh, fine, whatever…” Chris rolled his eyes, and moved to the fridge to grab him a water.

  “Look, let’s all just wait a little longer,” Adam said. “You never know what Luke might be hiding up his sleeve. For all we know he could be on his way back right now.”

  “Wake up,” Hugh said, shoving Luke. He was awake, he could hardly ever sleep to begin with; he was just shutting his eyes to focus.

  He had been tied up by the legs and arms– a precautionary measure Hugh made sure to take after both hearing Luke’s threats and seeing his eyes. He was placed in a wagon that horses carried, something they had waiting at one of the closer checkpoints they stopped at over their travels back to headquarters, where the snow wasn’t as heavy.

  Now though, it looked like they had finally made it to the base of operations: Gilead. It was walled off, and from what Luke could tell, it enveloped the whole town– at least, what was left of it. From what he saw on the map, it was a tiny town, so he believed that was probably the case.

  A few short conversations and signals later, and they were making their way into the camp. Luke couldn’t see a lot from his position, but he could tell there were crosses mounted at several places that he could see. So his hunch was right, they were a largely religious group. Hell, it sounded like the leader’s name was Abe, as in Abraham, and his brother was Jonah. Not much more religious than that after God and Jesus.

  Still, the way these people acted– minus maybe Jonah– this seemed to be more of a cult than a religious group. And based on their bloodthirsty, quick-to-shoot-first and ask questions never attitude, Luke imagined these were not good, wholesome-loving Christian folk.

  In the circle that formed around he and Jeremy, he got the idea that most of these people were morons, but if they were big on religion, and Jonah and Hugh were at least somewhat intelligent, then that angle– as well as the misconstrued perspectives on it– were probably brought in by the higher ups. More specifically, probably from the “Abe” guy.

  Which, Luke assumed, he was being brought to. He looked over to Jonah, who also sat in the wagon. He still seemed somewhat shell-shocked, though Luke couldn’t tell if it was from what happened Jeremy by his own people, or Luke’s “religious” gift– or curse, depending on how they looked at it.

  “Jonah,” Luke said.

  “Hmm?” he asked, turning back to Luke.

  “Abraham. Is that who you’re bringing me to meet?” Luke asked.

  “You’re not allowed to talk,” Hugh spat from the edge of the wagon.

  “Right… Well assuming I’m right, you kill me and it’s your ass on the line, so I’m good,” Luke spat back. Hugh just glared at Luke, and then turned back to the outside.

  “Yes, it is,” Jonah answered. “He’s my brother– older brother. He runs Gilead.”

  “Is he as insanely religious as all these other people are?” Luke asked.

  “It’s not insane,” Jonah insisted, “it’s our belief. You said it yourself, isn’t the idea of aliens coming from far away and invading just as outlandish?” Luke paused.

  “Maybe, but not by much,” he muttered. “Can you please untie me? I already told you the eyes are all I’ve got, and even then I’m not sure how to use it.”

  “Sorry, no,” Jonah apologized. “If for nothing else, it would look bad. It’s not much longer, we’re almost at the church.”

  Luke leant as best he could to get a better view of the outside. Jonah was right, almost directly in front of them, right in the middle of– based on the sign that was still for some reason up– what used to be Bridge Street, was now a huge wooden church with a second floor; Luke assumed for Abraham to live in.

  They eventually stopped the wagon and filed out, Hugh untying the leg binds and pushing Luke toward the entrance. All the members of the community seemed to be outside, ogling him while muttering to one another.

  It seemed somehow– either through word of mouth or more likely walkie-talkie– news of Luke and his “magical powers” had made its way to their home. They almost seemed afraid of him, at least some of them did. Others looked fascinated, like they wanted to get a better look at him. None of them seemed smart enough to do so though, as no one dared to follow into the church, meaning to Luke that these were just more lackeys and uneducated followers to this insane cause.

  “So, where is he?” Luke asked, looking over to Jonah, who walked next to him. Hugh just shoved Luke again in the back, making him almost trip and fall over.

  “Shut up. You’ll see him soon enough,” Hugh said. Jonah just frow
ned, unhappy with Hugh, yet he did nothing about it. Luke was really having difficulty getting a good read on Jonah’s character.

  On the one hand, he seemed to be second-in-charge, or at least above Hugh, yet he did nothing to stop Hugh’s many heinous actions, and for that reason alone, Luke despised him for being either just as evil or too weak of a leader to make change.

  However, it also seemed that Jonah had a sense of humanity, and if it was really his brother that lead this charge of a religiously driven lifestyle, maybe he believed in the genuine nature of that, and not the barbaric twist it was being given. He was nice to Luke and Adam when they first met; nice enough, anyway. It was hard to tell, but Luke was getting more and more of a feeling that Jonah was simply too weak to do anything, even if he did believe in good.

  Moments later, they stopped at an entrance leading upstairs, and Jonah turned to Hugh.

  “This is where you stay,” Jonah ordered. “I go to see my brother, and I’ll take him myself. You go back outside, and get everyone to settle down and go back about their business.” Hugh frowned, and reluctantly turned around, walking out of the church. Jonah and Luke then made their way up the stairs.

  “That was surprising,” Luke said. “Seemed like he was calling the shots more often than you lately; I was starting to wonder who the real power was between you two.”

  “Hugh just gets impulsively angry sometimes; he does stupid things. I truly am sorry about your friend, Luke. I made sure someone I trusted would lead him back to your home, untouched, and then leave,” Jonah explained.

  “How thoughtful…” Luke muttered.

  They got to the door, and then Jonah stopped, pulling out a knife.

  “I’ll untie you now, but you have to listen to me,” he said, waiting for Luke to respond. He simply nodded, and Jonah cut the rope surrounding Luke’s wrists. “My brother is… complicated. He’s different, maybe not so much in his own mind, but still, he’s not stupid either. And as much as it’s a joke to you, he believes heavily in the cause.”