The day after: An apocalyptic morning

by Jessy Cruise

  "So you're gonna make up with her?"

  "Make up with her?"

  "Yeah," he said enthusiastically. "You're like the coolest boyfriend she's ever had. The rest of those guys were all a bunch of dweebs tryin' to impress her. But you're like the real thing, you know?"

  "Uh... thanks," Skip said carefully. "But I'm not really Christine's boyfriend."

  Jack looked confused. "But you guys were... you know... doing it."

  Skip fought to keep his expression neutral. It was a battle that he won, just barely. "Doing it?"

  Jack blushed a little. "Last night," he said, embarrassed.

  "You... uh... heard us?"

  "You guys woke me up," he said. " Christine's elbow bashed me in the head like five times. You sounded like you were tryin' to be quiet but you weren't doin' a very good job of it. Especially not towards... uh... the end. It kinda grossed me out a little thinkin' that was my sister doing that right next to me, but I got used to it."

  "Jesus," Skip muttered, about as embarrassed as he'd ever been in his life. Had they really thought that Jack had slept through the whole thing? They really had.

  'It's cool though," Jack told him, giving a fairly passable man of the world look. "I mean, what else can you do, right?"

  He sighed, having to struggle just to meet Jack's eyes. "Look," he said. "What happened last night was... was wrong. I did something that I really shouldn't have done and that I regret now. You don't have to worry. It won't happen again."

  The reaction that this proclamation produced was not at all what Skip expected. Jack looked downright alarmed by it. "It's okay," he said quickly. "I wasn't complaining or nothin'. You don't have to worry about me. If you want, I'll get out of the lean-to at night until you're done."

  "What?"

  "Or I'll build my own. I don't want to get in the way of you guys. I'll give you all the privacy you want. Really."

  "We won't need any privacy," Skip said. "What happened last night won't happen again. I'd just assume everyone forget about it. You won't have to build your own lean-to or go out into the rain."

  Jack, if anything, seemed to become even more alarmed. He chewed on his lip for a moment, seeming almost on the verge of tears. Finally, he blurted: "Are you going to leave us then?"

  "Leave you?"

  He nodded. "Go off on your own," he said. "Since you and Christine aren't... you know?"

  So that was what was on his mind, Skip realized. Jack thought that if he and Christine were not going to sleep together and be boyfriend and girlfriend, that there would be no reason for him to stick around. "Look, Jack," he said seriously. "No Micker what happened or happens between Christine and I, I'm not going to leave you guys to fend for yourselves. I promised your mother and I'll promise you, I will take care of you as long as I'm able to and as long as you need someone to take care of you. I'm not going to leave you."

  "Okay," he said softly, but he didn't seem entirely convinced. "But if you and Christine ever want to... you know... do it again, you go ahead and do it. Don't worry about me."

  "I'll keep it in mind," Skip said, letting his head fall into his hands.

  Christine came back a moment later, entering the clearing through a gap in two trees. She did not look at either one of them. She simply unshouldered her rifle and sat back down on a different log. The rest of the lunch break passed in silence.

  An hour later, at the summit of a steep ridge, Skip, on the point like always, spotted something. He saw a small patch of something orange between the trees about fifty yards in front of them, a color that was very out of place in the green and brown environment of the forest. At this first hint of something unusual he held up his left hand, silently indicating to his two companions to halt in place and keep a sharp eye out. It was probably nothing to worry about but you didn't stay alive in a hostile world by assuming that. Christine and Skip, seeing the signal, obeyed it instantly, as he had taught them to do.

  He dropped to one knee, training his rifle towards the area. He gave two more hand signals to Christine and Jack: "Spread out to the sides and cover my flanks". They both trotted about twenty yards in opposite directions, both of them finding fallen trees to use as cover. Had they been under fire, Skip would have covered this move with bursts from his rifle, but since they were not, he simply kept his eyes open and his finger upon the trigger. Nothing jumped out at or attacked them during the move. Once the two kids were in place, Skip took a moment to check their positioning. He was pleased with what he saw. Both of them had placed themselves so well that he had a difficult time even spotting them. Both had their rifles trained outward at forty-five degree angles, covering the sides and allowing him to cover the front. They now had an overlapping field of fire that would allow them to shoot at anything in a 180 degree arc without having to shift position. They really were quick learners.

  He watched the mysterious orange blot in the trees for nearly two minutes, waiting to see if it would move or not. It did not. Neither did anything else. He raised himself back to his feet and gave a brief whistle, getting the attention of the kids. They looked over at him and he pointed to himself and then forward, giving them the signal that he was going to move up and check things out and that they were to stay back and cover his advance. They both nodded their understanding to him and he began to pick his way forward, moving tree to tree.

  He made it about twenty yards before the smell hit him. It was the thick, sickly sweet odor of decay, an odor he had smelled a thousand times during his days as a patrol cop. It was the distinctive stink of a dead human body. Not even the rotting corpses of the large animals they had passed smelled quite like that.

  He continued to move forward until he had a clear view of the orange that he'd seen. He was now able to identify it as one of those bright orange hunting caps that some hunters liked to wear to keep from being mistaken for a deer. It was lying next to the body of a man in blue jeans and a T-shirt. He was sprawled on his back under a tree, his arms and legs splayed out to the sides. He was barefoot. About ten feet away was a smaller human corpse, that of a young teenage boy. Thanks to the constant rain there were no flies about them and there were no ants covering them. But larger animals - rats, raccoons, coyotes, maybe even a bear - had certainly taken their fill. Their faces had been almost completely chewed away, as had large chunks of their arms and legs. Though Skip had seen more than one dead body in his time, these were particularly grisly looking to him.

  He examined the area around him for a few moments, searching for anything else that did not belong. Seeing nothing, he waved Jack and Christine up, giving them the all-clear signal. They came trotting up quickly, their rifles clanking as they moved.

  "Oh my God," Christine cried when they got close. "What is that smell?"

  "Gross," Jack agreed.

  They came around the last set of trees and stopped in their tracks as they saw what was on the ground. Both moaned a little in disgust but neither backed away.

  "Hunters," Skip said, stepping a little closer to the bodies and breathing through his mouth. "Looks like a father and son. They were ambushed by someone."

  "Ambushed?" Christine asked. "How do you know? Maybe they just died."

  He pointed to the tree right in front of where the father lie. "Brain and blood splatter," he said, pointing out some grayish specks that marred the bark. "This man was shot from behind as he walked up the hill and then he fell backwards onto his back. It looks like the boy was shot almost at the same instant since he didn't try to run away. All of their supplies, their guns, even their shoes are gone. Trust me on this. It was an ambush. Somebody killed them for their supplies."

  All three of them silently contemplated that for a moment.

  "Skip?" Christine asked softly. "Could that happen to us? I mean, we're probably carrying more than these two were."

  He looked at her, instinctively wanting to lie to her but knowing that she wouldn't believe him. "That is probably the most likely thing to happen to us," he said
. "These guns we're carrying will keep away the casual robber but these packs we're carrying are a magnet for the kind of people who would do this."

  "Is there anything we can do to stop it?" Jack asked, looking nervously at the forest around them, probably envisioning armed bandits just over the next rise.

  "We can try to spot them before they spot us," he said. "We can keep alert for danger. People who ambush will usually stalk for a while before they make a move. Other than that," he shook his head sadly, "nothing."

  They mulled that over for a moment while they stared down at the chewed corpses. Finally Skip said: "Let's get moving out of here. The people who did this are probably long gone, but you never know. They might be nearby."

  They began to walk again, continuing through the muddy forest. Soon the sight and the smell of the two hunters were behind them.

  "By the way," Skip said once they were clear, "that was excellent execution by both of you back there when I waved you to the flanks. You both did exactly what you were supposed to do exactly when and how you were supposed to do it. Your cover was so good that even I had a hard time seeing you."

  "Really?" Jack asked, beaming at the praise. Christine, though she seemed pleased by it, said nothing.

  "Really," he confirmed. "I don't give false compliments, especially not in this world. You two did good, even if it was a false alarm. You keep that kind of thing up and we stand a decent chance of surviving under fire. Always remember that it's usually the people that can keep their heads and respond correctly that survive a combat situation. Panic kills. You two didn't panic, you just did what I told you. I'm proud of both of you."

  "Thanks, Skip," Jack said, looking between him and Christine. "Wasn't that a nice thing to say, sis?"

  "Yeah," she mumbled, not saying further.

  Jack let it drop. So did Skip. They marched onward.

  That night, after the lean-to was built, after the surrounding area was checked for stalkers, and after their simple though satisfying dinner of canned spaghetti, Jack made a big show of yawning and stretching and proclaiming his fatigue. When Skip suggested that maybe he should hit the sack, he immediately took him up on the offer and stripped down. Ten minutes later he was snoring away.

  Skip reached into his sleeping bag and pulled out the last two cans of Bud. He held one out to Christine. "Care to join me?" he asked her.

  She had been scraping the worst of the mud out of her boots with a stick. She looked up long enough to say, "no thanks" and then went back to what she was doing.

  Skip put the can he had offered her back where it had been without comment. He considered trying to talk to her but could not think of a thing to say. Christine would just have to work it out on her own.

  He sipped at his beer as he watched the coming of night. Before it was even half gone, Christine announced she was going to bed and asked him to keep his eyes forward while she undressed. "Can't have you seeing me naked now, right?" she asked sarcastically.

  "Right," he answered softly, with a sigh. He kept his eyes forward and listened to the maddening sound of her shucking her wet clothes. Her smell, that wet, feral odor of musk and sweat, was even stronger than it had been the previous night. It assaulted his nostrils, kicking his libido into overdrive. The knowledge that she would welcome him turning around to look, that she would welcome his touch upon her, did not help. He began to wonder just how long he would be able to keep up his vow not to touch her. He wondered if it was worthwhile to even try.

  No, he told himself firmly. You have to be strong. Sleeping with Christine was wrong.

  He did not turn around. When she was done undressing she climbed into her sleeping bag and covered up. When night finally wiped out the last of the light he made another one of his trips out into the rain to relieve the aching pressure that had built up. It didn't do much good. As he lay next to Christine later, listening to her breathing, remembering how good she had felt in his arms, he stiffened up once again. He did his best to ignore it and finally, after more than an hour, sleep was able to take him.

  The month of October in the Sierra Nevada Mountains signals more than just the start of deer hunting season. It is also the harvest month for the many illegal marijuana plantations that dotted the heavily wooded, difficult to access portions of the mountains. This was the reason that Dave Madison and Mick Horn had been spared when the impact had occurred. Instead of being in their trailer park outside of Rocklin, where they surely would have been drowned by the water surge that took the valley, they had been at an elevation of 3500 feet in a thickly wooded section of the mountains, preparing the half acre of plants they had raised for picking the following week.

  Unfortunately the two men had been prepared only to stay overnight and had brought only enough supplies to sustain them for that length of time. After the impact they had made a feeble attempt to ration their holdings but had been unable to stretch them more than three days.

  They had been sitting under a tree, on the verge of starvation, when the hunter and his son had walked by them two days before, not even seeing them so intent were they on ascending the hill they'd been climbing. Though Dave and Mick had both been in numerous fistfights in their lives, though both had done some time in the county jail from time to time, neither had ever robbed anyone or killed anyone. They would have been genuinely appalled had anyone suggested to them that they would one day kill for food. But that had been before. Things were different now.

  They had held a quick discussion with very little argument and with a great deal of rationalization in it. Both of them, as was customary in the mountains, were armed with pistols. They had gotten up and, utilizing the last of their strength reserves, began to move through the forest behind the two hunters.

  They'd moved tree to tree, making short dashes from one place to another, steadily closing the gap between themselves and the hunters without alerting them. They'd known that they would have to get very near in order to make their plan effective. Pistols were notoriously inaccurate at much more than ten yards. It was when their quarry stopped for a moment to catch their breath before climbing the last section of hill that the two men managed to get near enough to act.

  They crept slowly, carefully forward the last few feet, their guns out and ready to fire at the first sign of detection. But the hunters remained oblivious, the father saying something to his son that could not be heard. They were able to get within fifteen feet before Dave, who was tacitly in charge of this operation, signaled that it was time. He took careful aim on the father with his .357 magnum, putting the sights right on the back of his head. Dave was not an expert shot by any means but he had done a fair amount of shooting at cans and signs and other inanimate objects during his many trips to the mountains in the past. When he pulled the trigger the bullet went where he wanted it, dropping the older man instantly to the mud. Less than a second later, while the kid was still turning to see what had happened, Mick pumped three rounds into his chest with his 9mm.

  They had been disappointed to find that the only food the hunters had had on them had been a few energy bars and a bag of trail mix. It was hardly enough to sustain them for more than a day or two. Had this been the only bounty they'd taken from the operation they would have probably felt guilty for murdering two people for it. But the thick, winter jackets that the two had had on almost made up for the lack of food, as did the fine hunting rifles that they'd carried. They had stripped the bodies of everything usable and had sat right there eating the bulk of the food.

  Now, less than two miles from where they'd killed the first time, they were reasonably warm and fairly well armed but once again on the verge of starvation. Their last rations had been consumed more than twenty-four hours before. They were resting with their backs against a tree, both feeling the heaviness in their stomachs that went with extreme hunger, when movement below them caught their eyes.

  Both stiffened up, watching as three people, a man and two teenage children, passed less than a hundred yards from
them. All were carrying assault rifles and they were walking in what appeared to be a military formation. They all three had large packs and sleeping bags upon their backs and they did not appear to be grappling with food deprivation.

  "Did you see that?" Dave whispered to Mick, his mouth actually drooling. "I bet they had food in those packs."

  "Yeah," Mick said, drooling himself, "but did you see those guns they was carrying? Those are fuckin' M-16s."

  "Let's follow 'em," Dave said, getting to his feet. "We need to get those packs."

  "There's three of 'em," Mick protested. "That's three people with combat rifles. We're only two with hunting rifles."

  This argument did not carry as much weight as it would have with full stomachs. "What do we got to lose?" Dave asked. "If we don't get some food pretty soon, we're gonna die anyway. Maybe they'll drop their guard. They have to rest sometime, don't they?"

  Dave thought this over for a second and found himself swayed. "Yeah," he said, standing. "I guess you're right. Let's go."

  They kept to higher ground as they stalked their new prey, moving, as with the two hunters, tree to tree, steadily closing the gap. They kept that gap a little larger with these three however and they kept themselves more carefully concealed as they moved in. This group was considerably more alert than the hunters had been. The one in the lead, the older man, made a point of turning around every fifty feet or so to check their rear. It didn't Micker too much though. They, the stalkers, were now equipped with weapons capable of hitting targets from a much greater range.

  "When they stop," Dave whispered at one point, "I'll bag the big one and you bag the boy."

  "What about the girl?" Mick wanted to know.

  Dave grinned. "We'll try to take her alive if we can. Maybe we can have a little fun with her after we eat."

  Mick returned the grin. "Yeah baby," he said, imitating Austin Powers.

  Skip had had this feeling before. It was a prickly sensation on the back of his neck, a quickening of the pulse, a feeling of being watched. He sensed something up on the ridges above them, something hostile. It was an instinctive knowledge, born from years of working in hostile situations, and something that he had long since learned to trust. Had he been asked, he would have attributed this instinct to some sort of extra-sensory perception, a weak psychic ability that some people learned to utilize as an early warning system of danger. In fact, it was no such thing. It was merely his subconscious processing a variety of tiny inputs from his normal senses, inputs too weak for him to notice individually.