by Jack Hunt
“Please. I won’t do it again.”
“No you won’t,” Merle said. “Cut your whining and die like man.”
He reached up and pulled off his hood to reveal the face of Mark Holman. Samuel knew him from having worked alongside friends of his. He knew he had two daughters, a five and ten-year-old, and a wife. He also knew he’d been involved in speaking badly about Frank and trying to cause an uprising. It was part of the reason Ryan was adamant about being careful in their pursuit of taking Frank down.
Merle took a few steps back and made a gesture towards Holman. “Well Samuel, you get to do the honors.”
“What?”
“Like I said earlier, now is your time to prove yourself.”
Samuel shook his head and took a few steps back. “No, I thought we were out here to go on a run.”
“We are. But we need to take care of this first. Well, I say we, but I mean you.”
“No. I’m not a killer.”
“This isn’t about killing, it’s about following orders. Now are you going to do it or do you want to hop up on that tree stump beside him?”
Samuel swallowed and looked up and Mark. He shook his head, a look of desperation in his eyes, like a trapped animal pleading for mercy without words.
“Do it!” Merle bellowed.
His brother’s words echoed in his head. No matter what he tells you to do, do it. We have too much riding on this. He can’t think for a second that you aren’t onboard.
It was one thing to squeal on someone and cause them to be put in the sweatbox or roughed up, but another to take a human life. Mark had done him no wrong. All he could think about in that moment as Merle bellowed for him to do it was his family.
Merle shoved him forward and he looked up at Mark one final time before kicking out the stump below his legs. He dropped, the noose tightened and his body flailed around like a fish out of water. Twenty seconds turned into forty, then a minute. When was he going to die? The longer it went on the worse he felt. He just wanted it to be over. Eventually, he stopped struggling and his body turned ever so slowly, the faint remainder of motion.
Merle slapped him on the back with a grin. “Attaboy!” He lit a cigarette and nodded to one of the other men to cut him down. “We’d use bullets but it’s a waste.”
Samuel watched in a state of shock as his men dragged Mark’s body a short distance away, taking him around a bush. Merle guided him until he got a good look at where they’d dumped the body. There was a large hole in the ground; his corpse lay on top of six others — folks who had gone missing — those who were said to have left the compound. Frank hadn’t mentioned killing people. This was a new level of sick.
Chapter 2
It was bad news. There was no way to cherry coat it. When Elliot returned to camp, Rayna, Jesse and the rest hurried to meet them. They showed up half an hour later than they said they would but he’d already told them not to panic because any number of things could slow them down.
“So?” Jesse said with a glint in his eye. “Was it everything we imagined?”
“Oh yeah, that and more. There was a harem of women for every man, and all the ladies had doors opened for them every time they walked through. An oasis of milk and honey. I had a hard time pulling myself away,” Damon said with a look of amusement.
“No seriously, c’mon.”
“It’s a shithole and a guy named Frank Shelby is the mayor.”
Damon brushed past him and walked over to a campfire they’d created. He sat down on an overturned log and gazed into the fire. Realizing he wasn’t going to get an answer out of him he turned to Gary.
Gary shrugged and followed suit, except he gave a nod towards Elliot. “Ask him. It was his idea in the first place.”
“Elliot?”
All of them leaned forward hoping to hear good news and that the horrendous trip had been worth it — except he couldn’t lie to them.
He dipped his chin and then shook his head. “It’s a no go.”
“No,” Maggie said elbowing her way to the front. “I spoke with them. They said—”
“It doesn’t matter what they said, Maggie. The place is under new management.”
“So you spoke with them?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know?”
Fortunately Damon decided to chime in. “We were held hostage by a band of merry men. They told us.”
Maggie flashed him a dirty look. “This is no time for your jokes, Damon.”
“It’s not. I’m dead serious. There is a modern-day Robin Hood lurking in the forests of Texas. Okay, he’s more suburbia than wild man but nevertheless; they’ve got this whole forest people vibe going on. It’s actually quite cool. Reminds me of Woodstock minus the music, the hippies and, well a shitload of trees.”
“Anyone care to translate?” Jesse asked.
Elliot ambled over to the fire and scooped up a canteen of water. He took a hard swig on it. “There is a group that’s a few miles northeast of the compound. They were like us, hoping to find shelter in the compound. Two of their guys went in a few weeks back. Only one escaped. He said they have this whole militia cult thing going on inside. Punishment, branding, you name it.”
Not satisfied or still hung up on the idea of what she’d been promised, Maggie couldn’t let it go. She stepped forward. “Okay, maybe the branding is odd but you all had to realize they would have some form of law and punishment in place.”
“Except we didn’t bury people in the ground up to their necks and let insects bite the shit out of them,” Damon said before asking if anyone had a cigarette. Clive tossed him one. They’d scored a packet from a convenience store somewhere in Illinois. They’d become so rare that when they found any, they tore off the filters and cut them in half in order to have more on hand for those who did smoke. Slowly folks were tapering off. Perhaps that was the only good thing that had come out of the apocalypse.
Maggie looked distressed. “Admittedly that’s extreme but—”
“No buts, Maggie. It’s over. We’re not heading in,” Gary said.
“We said this wouldn’t be a dictatorship. Does everyone agree?”
Elliot groaned then took another swig of water. He glanced at Rayna who came over and put an arm around his waist. She had his back no matter what decisions they faced. That would never change. At least he didn’t think it would.
“Those who think we should at least find out what’s going on inside, raise your hand.”
Out of the fourteen of them, seven put their hands up in favor.
“C’mon, you have got to be joking?” Elliot said. “Look, if you want to see for yourself or need to speak to the forest folk then by all means but we shouldn’t be hasty with this. It’s our lives we’re talking about here.”
Clive spoke up and said, “We’ve come a long way Elliot. We left everything behind for this. Now I understand it could be dangerous but so was Lake Placid, so was driving through those cities on the way here. It’s not like we are able to avoid danger. It’s everywhere we turn.”
His wife, Wendy, agreed, and he managed to get a few others to agree.
Elliot stared, understanding the dilemma they all faced. Being able to survive for the next two years even if it was under a heavy thumb was tempting. Maybe six months ago it wouldn’t have been but these were desperate days.
“Anyway, that’s seven votes to seven. No decision will be made tonight,” Elliot said getting up and heading for his tent to get some rest and think about the situation. It wasn’t his way to make choices in the heat of the moment if he didn’t have to. There was no one breathing down their neck, no one’s life was in jeopardy and in fact for the first time they weren’t having to worry about what each of them was going to do. They were on the same page — somewhat.
“Then what do you suppose we do?” Maggie said.
“Mack Larson invited us to join him at his camp. Give some thought to it. One thing is for sure, he’s not in the habit of
burying people alive.” Elliot stopped at the opening of the tent. “Well, I don’t think so.”
He ducked in and Rayna joined him, zipping it up so they could have some privacy. Outside they could hear the others moving around, talking among themselves and discussing the way forward. It wasn’t easy. No matter what they did they would face struggles. Society had become a very different place.
He lay back and put an arm under his head and gazed up. Rayna lay beside him and placed her cheek on his chest.
“Well at least we tried,” she said.
“I know but it pisses me off we came all this way for nothing.”
“There are no guarantees, Elliot. We might have been able to survive a few more months in Lake Placid but with the winter on the way, who knows how many would have succumb to illnesses? At least down here it’s warm. That’s a positive, right?”
He chuckled. She always had a way of seeing the glass half full.
“Yeah, we can sunbathe. I’ve been meaning to get a tan.”
She slapped him playfully on the stomach. He raked his fingers through her hair and for a few minutes they lay quietly enjoying each other, then Elliot asked, “What happened in Lake Placid?”
“What do you mean?”
“You told me that Jill rescued you but you didn’t tell me what happened when these druggies handed you over.”
She shrugged. “Not much to say.”
“Well they must have had a reason.”
“Drugs. They wanted drugs.”
“So you were payment?”
She paused before replying. “Something like that.” Rayna sat up. “I think I’m going to give Maggie a hand.”
“With what?”
“She asked me earlier. I…”
“Why are you dodging the question?”
“What do you mean?” she asked looking back at him.
“I’ve raised it three times since we left Lake Placid and each time you keep changing the conversation or you walk away. What happened, Rayna?”
She dipped her chin. “It doesn’t matter now. The guy is dead and so is Jill.”
With that said she unzipped the tent and exited leaving Elliot to think the worst. He might not have given it much thought but Gary had brought it up a few times. Over the past two days Gary had wanted details, like anyone who lost their loved one. What happened in those final moments? What led up to it? A part of the healing process was coming to terms with all that had occurred, except he didn’t know much because anytime he asked Rayna she would button up and say she couldn’t remember. He knew Rayna better than anyone else, and one thing she wasn’t good at was lying. She wasn’t telling him the whole truth and it didn’t take a lot of chewing over to imagine what had happened. He wanted to hear it from her, and eventually he knew he would but it was clear she wasn’t ready to share.
He lay back down and pulled out of his bag a dog-eared copy of On the Road by Jack Kerouac. He’d snatched it up from a used bookstore back in Lake Placid. It had been one of the many books he’d wanted to read but due to his work and life, he’d never really got around to it. That was another upside to the apocalypse. Cell phones, Internet and work no longer pulled them away, and there was more time for meaningful things. They gazed up at the stars more. Had deeper conversations, and read books. These were just a few of the things that at one time had been pillars in people’s lives but had been pushed to the fringe of living through the hectic pace of trying to survive. He read a few lines and chuckled to himself. The reality was, since the birth of humanity, the focus had always been on survival, it had just changed over the years, and now even more so.
He hadn’t read a page when the crack of a gun made Elliot bolt upright, he scrambled out of the tent only to see Damon emerge from the forest a few minutes later holding a rabbit up high. “We’ll eat like kings tonight.”
He tossed the rabbit down and told Jesse to skin and gut it before he headed back out to find some more. He’d become a pro at the hunting game.
Elliot shook his head. Great, our own real-life Elmer Fudd.
He was about to duck back in when he caught sight of Gary talking to Rayna. He placed a hand on the small of her back as they walked off. As much as he wanted to believe things were over between him and Rayna, a small part knew that breaking that bond wasn’t going to happen overnight, he just figured he wouldn’t feel such jealousy when Gary was around her. Now he filtered every tiny action through the lens of betrayal.
Chapter 3
That evening as they sat around the fire picking at the small pieces of rabbit they’d divided up among the fourteen of them, there was a somber atmosphere. Besides a few comments everyone was quiet. Only the sound of tree frogs and crickets could be heard. Lightning bugs flashed on and off as a crescent moon shone down through a canopy of leaves.
Clive tossed a small bone into the fire. “We need to make a decision.”
“We’ve discussed it already. Seven against seven,” Elliot said.
“Against?”
“You know what I mean.”
“We can’t survive on rabbits.”
“There is more out there. Wild boar, deer, we just need time to hunt for it.”
“And in the meantime we starve?”
“Look, Clive, you want answers immediately and I can’t give you them. I’ve told you what we are up against if we enter the compound. Now, if you want to go in alone — be my guest but don’t expect us to come saving your ass if things go south. At least that’s one thing Mack was right about, it’s too risky.”
“Mack this, Mack that? How do we even know the guy is real?”
Damon scoffed and flicked a bone into the fire.
“Something amusing, Damon?” Clive asked.
“You think we’re making this shit up?” he replied.
“Well it does seem a little strange. You go out, return a few hours later with a story of being captured by a group of men who tell you if you enter the camp you’ll be screwed and then they let you go.”
Damon scowled at him. “We weren’t a threat.”
“So? How do you know they aren’t?” he shot back. “For all we know they might have followed you here and could massacre us in the night.”
That got a laugh out of Damon, enough to cause Clive to rise to his feet.
Damon gestured at him. “Sit down. This isn’t the Wild West. We’re not facing Indians who scalp.”
“No, I’ve seen what people are capable of.”
“He’s right,” Tristan said, clinging to her sole surviving child.
“Then knock yourself out, big boy. Go on into the compound, access the situation and report back to us in a week. If they haven’t dug you a grave or cut your balls off, we’ll give it the thumbs-up for the rest of us.”
Clive lunged forward but before he managed to do anything, Damon was up with a knife under his chin. “I would advise you to sit your ass back down.”
“Okay fellas, I think that’s enough testosterone for one evening,” Rayna said.
“Like old times, eh, Gary?” Elliot found it amusing, Gary didn’t. It reminded him of his time in the military. Iraq could bring out the best and worst in men. The heat could drive a man insane, but the small amount of downtime could do the same. It wasn’t uncommon to have two of his platoon duke it out. It was a great way to burn off excess energy and put things to rest.
Twenty minutes later as each of them retreated to their own areas of the camp, Jesse and Brian Hanson came rushing out of the darkness. The firelight illuminated their faces.
“We got company.”
In a flash everyone was up, grabbed their rifles and took a different vantage point in preparation for the unexpected. Time living on the same street, and traveling together had honed their skills. Small disagreements were laid aside as they waited.
Three men emerged from the forest. Elliot immediately recognized one of them as Calvin.
“Evening all.”
Elliot lowered his rifle.
&
nbsp; “You know this guy, Elliot?” Jesse asked keeping his rifle raised. Elliot nodded and placed his hand on the muzzle to lower it. Calvin extended his hand and shook it.
“How did you know we were here?” Clive asked.
“We had a man follow you. Had to be sure you were who you said you were.”
Clive eyed the rest of the group as if proving his point.
“So did we pass?” Damon asked with an amused expression.
“Mack asked me to invite your group for supper tonight. You eaten?”
Elliot looked at the others and their eyes widened. They didn’t need much convincing. The amount of meat they got off two rabbits wasn’t enough. They gathered up what small belongings they had in bags and headed back with them. They came to learn his name was Calvin Ridley; a neighbor of Mack’s. Along the way he filled Elliot in on some of the finer details that hadn’t been covered in the conversation with Mack.
“When we first formed our group there were only a handful of us — Mack, his wife and kids, and myself. Along the way we met others, you know, folks struggling and all. Mack helped them out and that’s kind of how it’s gone since the lights went out. To be honest we probably live better now than we did in that first month after the EMP. Everyone brings something to the table. Individually we might not have what it takes to survive but together it’s incredible what we’re able to accomplish.”
They trudged through the dense forest; the two men who came with Calvin were twenty yards ahead keeping an eye out for trouble.
“So none of you are in the military and yet you act and move like you’ve had training.”
“One of us at the camp owned a hunting store. Most of us knew how to fire weapons, those that didn’t were taught. The rest we picked up through trial and error. There were more of us four months ago. We lost eighteen people in different ways. When we heard the message about the compound we decided to check it out but like yourselves we were a little leery of heading in so I volunteered along with a friend of ours, Aaron Wade.”
