by Calen, Tom
“I keep telling myself I should feel bad, that I should regret it, but I can’t, I don’t,” he admitted. “I shouldn’t have done it in front of Andrew, though. He didn’t need to see that.”
“Yes, he did.”
For the first time in the conversation, Mike raised his head and looked into Sarah’s eyes. There was a force behind her words that made the utterance even more shocking.
“Before all this happened, months ago, I would have said you were right. But, this is the world now. This is our reality. We can hide as much as we want in this cave, but it doesn’t change what’s going on out there.
“It’s funny. I would never buy any video games for him that had violence or guns. I thought I could protect him, shield him somehow from the bad influences. But I can’t do that anymore. Maybe it’s cruel, I don’t know. What I do know though, any day something could happen that takes me away from him. He needs to understand what is happening. He needs to know what the world is like now, that there are people in it who mean him harm and would kill him for no other reason than to see him die.”
“That’s a harsh lesson for a kid,” Mike said.
Nodding, Sarah replied. “Maybe. But today he also saw that sometimes good people have to do difficult things to protect what is right, to protect the ones they love. As his mother, I think it’s a fair trade.”
Mike rose from the table and poured himself another cup of coffee from the still-warm pot. He had no intention of sleeping that night for fear of another attack. Knowing the others needed to rest both body and mind, he did not ask for any help in splitting the night’s watch. Instead he resigned himself to the aide of highly caffeinated coffee.
“We can’t stay here much longer.”
“I know.”
“Not just because of today, though that probably means we need to leave sooner. With winter coming, we need to be able to have shelter and food that this place can’t provide,” he said as he leaned against the wooden countertop.
“I can start packing things up tomorrow. But, where are we headed?” Sarah asked. It was the same question that Mike had been unable to answer for the past several weeks.
“I don’t know, yet. I was thinking maybe a farm, something we could fortify with fencing around the house.”
“Well, wherever you decide, we’ll follow. You’ve steered us right this far.”
“More like we have been lucky this far,” Mike said as a joke, but his self-doubt was conspicuous in his tone.
Sarah left her seat and placed her empty mug on the counter. With a motherly gaze, she stood before him and lifted his chin so his eyes were forced to meet hers.
“We all owe our lives to you, Mike. You may not think it, but you’re the leader we all look to.”
As she stepped away and turned towards the bedroom door, Mike looked at her retreating form and asked, “What if I don’t know what I am doing?”
Sarah reached the door before she turned around and, with a face full of feigned gravity, she answered the question that Mike had struggled with since the first night huddled inside the school’s faculty room with several frightened students.
“Fake it,” she said. “We won’t know the difference.”
Mike could not help but let out a bellowing laugh, which promptly turned into a fit of giggling shared with Sarah. With the exchange of goodnights, he settled back into his chair, placed his guns on the table top, and settled in for the long night.
Chapter Twenty
Hours after departing, the convoy had only covered a little over one hundred miles. Though Mike had wanted to press on, the refugees—having left so precipitously that morning—required a bathroom pit stop. Conceding to their needs, the convoy now sat idly on the side of the highway. The security force was in a hyper-vigilant mode. The Tils that had been sighted earlier were now many miles behind, but still the men and women responsible for the refugees’ safety kept their eyes scanning the area for fear of another force of infected. After answering his own call from nature, Mike received updates from Paul and Lisa regarding the convoy.
“The vehicles seem to be holding up okay,” Lisa relayed from her discussions with the few refugees with mechanical inclinations. “The bus is overheating a bit, so we may have to schedule a stop here and there to let it cool down.”
“That’s the one vehicle we can’t risk losing. After this break, I want to cover another two hundred or so miles before we stop for the night. We can schedule a break half way for the bus,” Mike instructed. At their current pace, they would reach the Florida coast the day after next.
“Any thought to what we do when we get down there?” Paul asked.
Though the message from Cuba purported to offer safe haven from the infected, there was little in the way of information regarding how to reach the island nation. There would, supposedly, be ships that ferried survivors across the sea, but the frequency of the ships had not been mentioned in the notes.
“We wait, I guess,” Mike responded. “We might find that our destination is packed with other survivors, and we might find nothing. If there are ships, we could be waiting a day, a week, or a month. We don’t know, but as soon as we reach the coast Lisa, I want your people to set up as secure a fortification as possible. If the wait is an extended one, we’ll need the area to be safe for us.”
“Yes, sir,” the woman replied. “The camp won’t like it, but we will need to keep our area as condensed as possible. It will be unfamiliar territory, and I don’t want us spread out too thin.”
“Agreed,” Mike said with a nod.
“What about the other possibility?” Paul asked with some hesitation. The council had discussed the risk that the message might turn out to be a trap to lure survivors to a renegade camp that wanted their supplies and weapons. Over the years, the refugees had had several encounters with those that had used the chaos of the pandemic to establish lawless societies. Those groups had survived through greed and aggression and were, in many ways, as irrational as the infected.
“I haven’t decided, yet,” Mike answered honestly. “When we make camp tonight, let’s get the council together to weigh the options.”
Soon after the discussion came to a close, the convoy was once again making its way south along the highway. As the miles slowly passed behind them, Mike turned his mind from thoughts of the future and focused them on the vistas beyond the truck’s windows. The road stretched through rural communities with fields of untended grass, overgrown and wildly high. He could only assume that cattle once grazed in the fields, but now the only sign of domestication and civilization were the sporadic wooden fence posts that had enclosed the grazing land. Even those posts were infrequent as much of the wood had long ago been looted for fires.
The road itself in these areas was marked by the encroaching power of nature reclaiming its dominion. The black macadam was riddled with pot holes from several winters. Strong weeds and other flora had pushed through the hard surface and stood brazenly amidst the work of man. Downed trees, either from storms or age, blocked lanes and forced the convoy to travel through some back roads before once again finding the highway.
Though like any interstate, the rural areas it passed through were as abundant as the remains of metropolitan cities. The stark contrast of “once” and “now” was thrust into a greater vividness. Wind-tattered billboards beseeching travelers to visit various locales flapped unhindered in the wind, the colors of the advertisements having long ago faded and blended together to resemble the ink blots of a Rorschach test. Felled trees no longer impeded the convoy’s progress, but were replaced exponentially by abandoned automobiles and the sun-bleached skeletons of old victims. Whether having fallen to the Tils, renegades, or the ravages of time and starvation, the remains gave no indication to the final moments of their respective lives. Guess it doesn’t matter anymore, Mike thought to himself, there’s not enough of us left to mourn them.
He had traveled through cities several times over the last six years, but
there had always been a task or mission to focus on. Now Mike was able to observe the sights as he passed them. Tall skyscrapers reached to the heavens. A few stood relatively intact, but most had windows blown out from their facades. Others had toppled to the ground, while some remained standing yet completely burned, leaving only the steel skeletons that had supported their immensity. Bodies, fences, and buildings, he mused. All skeletons now.
Empty businesses and store fronts lined the city blocks. It was difficult to recall the times when people bustled along those streets, wrapped in a contended self-oblivion. Mike acknowledged he had been one of them, once. He could picture those days when he woke in his bed and begrudgingly set about his morning routine. His outlook for the day had often depended on the quality of that first cup of coffee. He wondered how many moments he had missed in a cloud of what he had considered important.
Thinking back to his long journey south to begin his life of independence, he was unable to bring to mind the sights he was sure to have passed. Instead he had been focused on the destination. Well-kept farms had meant nothing to him then, save for the thought that the people who tended them surely were living in the “wild.” Now, even the wild west of early America seemed tame when compared with his reality.
The steady rhythm of the tires soon lulled Mike into a deep sleep. Exhaustion and his injuries kept him unconscious even during the second stop to cool the bus’s engine. It wasn’t until the early hours of dusk, as the convoy rolled to a stop, that he woke to feel the press of the passenger window against his head. A half-remembered dream, a scene from his youth where he had built a fort with his brother in the woods behind their family home, slowly evaporated as he regained his bearings and exited the truck. A dense field of tall grass stood off to the right, while on his left a truck rest stop and disused gas station were beginning to fill with the other refugees. Ahead and behind, the highway stretched interminably.
“You should’ve woke me,” Mike said to Paul as the other man approached.
“Were you asleep? Huh, I didn’t notice,” the ranger replied with a smile.
“Yeah. I’m sure. What’s the status?”
“Lisa took two of the smaller cars and scouted the area. There doesn’t seem to be much around in the way of Tils or human, so we decided this would be a good stopping point for the night.”
Mike was slightly surprised that Lisa had taken part in the scouting herself. He assumed word of his earlier dissatisfaction with the short warning had gotten back to her and she had taken it upon herself to verify the camp’s safety.
“How far?”
Paul handed him a map, indicating with his finger their current location in Florida, just south of the state’s border with Georgia. Mike estimated that the party had exceeded his goal of three hundred miles by another fifty.
“Well, we’re certainly committed to it now, aren’t we?” Mike joked.
“If the road ahead is like what we’ve already seen, we’ll arrive the morning after next,” the man replied, unable to hide the hope from his voice.
“Yea, and in your mind you think we’ll be smoking some Cubans by that night,” he teased.
“Of course,” Paul shot back with a smirk. “And having drinks with little umbrellas in ‘em. Heck, I bet my buddy Fidel even greets us personally.”
“You have a demented little mind. You know that right?”
With a slap to his commander’s back, Paul continued. “This could really be the end of this nightmare, Mike. Even you have to admit you’re hopeful.”
“I am,” he allowed. Mike realized that once the journey began the same infectious optimism that had spread through the camp had reached him, though perhaps to a much lesser degree. His wariness, however, was undiminished. “Maybe once I light that cigar, I’ll relax. Until then, we still have some five hundred miles to cover, and who knows how long of a wait after that.”
“I think the camp is torn between crippling fear and blinding excitement,” Lisa interjected as she joined the two men’s conversation.
“As long as everyone keeps themselves in check,” Mike responded, adding, “Thanks for taking scouting detail before.”
He hoped the mild praise would assuage any further guilt or embarrassment his security chief might feel as a result of the morning’s rant. Lisa’s reply was a simple nod of the head. Her years in the military had prepared her well both in terms of combat training and also in hearing apologies in the masked words of superiors too proud to voice them outright.
With Gazelle eagerly pacing alongside him as he walked along the site, Mike could hear snippets of conversations as the refugees spread out across the truck stop. There was muted talk of what might lay ahead, the hope of an ending to so many years of struggle and sacrifice and loss. Just once, he thought, let there be a light at the end of this tunnel.
Finding a relatively level patch of ground, Mike gingerly lowered himself down, hoping not to aggravate his many aches. Fishing her bowls and food from his pack, he poured a generous portion of the hard, brown bits into one bowl and filled the other with water from his bottle. The dog buried her head into the food and crunched hungrily before taking several laps of water. When she was finished, Mike picked her up and placed the small canine on his lap, her tongue licking his face to express her gratitude and devotion. He thought back to the first days of the struggle when he risked his life, and those of his students, to rescue Gazelle from the infected that had surrounded his home.
His fingers scratched her soft fur, and he knew his instincts had been correct. She had been a constant companion through his journey, a source of solace and peace in times darker than he had ever imagined possible. It occurred to Mike that perhaps Gazelle was the only one among the camp that was unfazed by the interceding years.
The conversations steadily died down and were replaced by the stillness of the camp members wrapped in sleep. As planned, the council gathered to discuss the plan for the arrival in Miami. Speaking in hushed tones, the topic soon focused on the possibility of treachery.
“As much as the others are going to be impatient to reach the city, I don’t think it is wise to send everyone in without first inspecting the area.” This from the doctor, who shared a rare opinion in camp policy and security.
“Lisa?” Mike asked the security chief.
“I agree with the doctor. It will be early enough when we get there for a small team to go ahead, inspect the site, and return to the convoy. I’d say the rest hang back about a mile while my people secure the area.”
“That’s fine. But, we need enough to remain with the convoy for protection,” Paul added.
“Okay,” Mike said as he brought the debate to an end. “Take eight to scout and the rest stay with the convoy.”
There was no further need to discuss the possible eventuality of a prolonged wait for rescue. The council had spent several hours planning in detail the establishment of a temporary perimeter to secure the refugees. Mike wanted to take no chances thus the plan had been hashed out to allow for as many potentialities as the council could imagine. Confident that the camp’s leaders were working in strict cohesion, he disbanded the meeting. Though the others left and sought sleep before the morning journey, Michelle stayed behind.
“What’s on your mind?” Mike asked as he studied the girl. Any shadow of the shy, naïve girl he had taught years ago were gone when he looked at her. Twenty-three years old now, Michelle’s face revealed the maturity and experience few should ever have had to carry. Her blonde hair, once long and flowing, was now cut short, the disheveled strands framing her face. Many women in the camp had adopted the shorter cuts due to ease of maintenance and diminishing supplies of shampoo.
Michelle had, as a result of Sarah’s death, quickly taken on the role of the nurturer among the survivors of the early days. Mike knew the other refugees looked to her as a strong leader and caretaker. To him, as hard as it was with the figure before him, Mike still was able to see her as the girl who had once so timidly
asked for extra homework.
“Nothing, really. But…I can’t help but think what happens next,” she replied.
“Is there something about our plans that worries you?”
“No, it’s not that. I mean after all that. If Cuba works out, what do we do? Do we just go back to living normally? Do we get jobs, live in houses, start families like we would have done before all this?”
“Wouldn’t that be a good thing?” he asked her.
She sat quietly for a minute before responding, “Can it really be that easy? After everything we have seen, all we have been through, all the people we lost…can we really just go back to…life?”
Michelle had been the first to learn that members of her family had been infected and what infection meant. Even in the chaos of those last televised moments, she had been taken aside and told of her father’s death. Like so many others in the camp, she rarely spoke of loved ones that were forever lost. Mike understood the reasoning. He had spent many isolated moments in those first weeks tormenting himself with wonderings of what had become of his own family. Eventually time and events forced him to bury those thoughts deep, survival demanded the sacrifice of mourning.
“I suppose it will take time to adjust,” he told her. “But we’re used to that I think.”
Michelle looked up from tracing lines in the dirt in front of her. “Everyone else seems to think it will be just picking up where we left off.”
“We know better, don’t we?” he smiled.
She returned the smile in kind, and in her eyes Mike could see it was sincere.
“So…you and Andrew, huh?” Mike teased.
“Shut up,” she laughed, tossing a small pebble at him.
* * *
The rest of the night passed without incident and by the early light of dawn, the refugees once again assumed their seats in the convoy’s vehicles and began the long drive through Florida. Mike recalled a handful of family vacations he spent in the state. Following the lead of many retirees, his grandmother had lived out the remaining years of her life in the warm sea air. His parents had made the obligatory trip to Disneyworld and the Epcot Center for which he and his brother had begged relentlessly. As a late teen, Mike had joined his friends on a spring break excursion to Miami. During this drive, he reflected on how vastly different this trip would be from the one with college kids eager to try out their fake IDs.
