by James Cook
When we finally cleared the flat plateau at the top of the mountain, we closed the gate behind us and took turns cleaning up. I finished bathing first, so I started a fire in the pit out front and hung up a pot of water to boil. Through the cabin’s open door, I saw Tom and Sarah seated at the kitchen table. They looked tired, filthy, and worn out. Sarah, like other former law enforcement officers I had met since the outbreak, wasn’t all that happy about having killed a man. Contrary to Hollywood’s depiction of FBI agents, their work rarely involved the use of deadly force. They were trained to prevent people from getting killed, not cause it. I wished I could think of something to say that might make her feel better, but nothing came to mind that she wouldn’t have thought of already, so I let her be.
The stew boiled down into a reasonable thickness and softened up a handful of smoked meat. I set it aside and made some flatbread in a skillet before taking the whole spread into the kitchen and setting it on the table. Tom set out some plates, and everyone dug in. After the day’s hard work, we were ravenous. No one spoke for a while as we ate, we were all too busy shoveling food in our faces. I finished my plate and went back for a second.
“So what’s next, guys?” Sarah asked, sopping the last of the gravy from her plate with a piece of bread.
“Gabe and I were gonna take the river to Marion today, but that kind of got derailed.” I said, turning to look at Gabe. “What do you say we take a day to rest, and then head out the next?”
Gabe nodded. “Sounds good to me.”
“What about after that?” Tom asked, looking up at me from the table.
I shrugged. “Well, I guess me and Gabe pack up our gear and head west.”
Sarah and her husband exchanged a glance. I had a pretty good idea what was coming next, but I stayed quiet. Better to let them get around to it on their own.
“We’ve been talking, Tom and I.” Sarah said. “Everything that’s happened over the last few days has gotten us thinking. We managed to take care of those raiders today, but what about next time? There’s no way to know who else is out there. If today taught us anything, it’s that nowhere is safe. If the three of us are out here by ourselves, we’re always going to be a target for anyone who sees this place. Sooner or later, more people are going to come along and try to take it from us.”
Tom nodded. “In all honesty, I don’t think just the three of us have much of a chance out here on our own.” He made a gesture to Sarah and Brian. “That’s why we’ve decided to go west to Colorado.”
I shot a glance at Gabe. He did not look surprised. “On your own, or did you want to go with us?” He asked.
A faint smile tugged at the corners of Tom’s mouth. “If you’d have us along, we’d be glad for the help.”
Gabe turned to look at me. “What do you think Eric?”
I could tell by his expression that he wanted the Glover family along for the journey. It made sense, really. There is safety in numbers, and the more people we had in our group, the better we could defend ourselves. We had spent enough time with these people to know that they were trustworthy and capable. Besides, I liked the Glovers and it would be nice to have them around on the long, weary miles that lay ahead.
“I think it’s a great idea.” I said. “To tell you the truth, I was a little worried about what would happen to you three when we left. It’s probably for the best if we all leave together.”
Tom and Sarah looked relieved. They both let out a breath and smiled at each other. Brian was practically jumping up and down.
“So when do we leave?” The boy asked.
“I’d say the plan is still the same as it was for just me and Gabe. We get supplies from Marion and leave when we get back.” I said.
“That still leaves the question of how we’re all going to travel together.” Gabe said, gesturing to toward the carport outside with his fork. “The Honda is a two-seater.”
“Well, we’ve plotted out most of the route already.” I said, turning to address Tom and Sarah. “We were going to take the MUV, along with a trailer full of supplies and equipment, as far as we can get with what little fuel we have left. We plotted out places to stop along the way, and places we could hole up if we ran into trouble.” I grabbed an empty chair from the kitchen table and spun it around, sitting down and draping my arms over the back. A few seconds ticked by in silence while I considered what to say.
“How about this, we rotate out drivers and passengers among the adults. Brian is small enough to ride standing in the back and hanging on to the roll cage. The other two follow along behind on foot. The two in the vehicle proceed to a pre-determined stopping point and wait. If you deviate from course, you leave signs along to way to point out where you went. It’ll be slower going than what we originally planned, but it’ll conserve fuel.”
I looked at Gabe to see if he had anything to add. He just shrugged. “Sounds like a place to start. We’ll try it and see how it goes.”
“Alright then. We have a plan.” I smiled at Sarah, and she smiled back. I stood up from my chair and pushed it back under the table. “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m beat. I’m gonna get some sleep.”
The others said a quick goodnight, and I walked outside to the bunker. Gabe stayed behind to go over the details of what we had planned for the journey. I left him to it, he could handle that part without me. It was mostly his ideas anyway. Down in the bunker, I stripped off my boots and lay down in bed. I was exhausted from the day’s labors, and I barely made it under the covers before I drifted off into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Chapter 5
Ride the River
So there we were, back where we started a few weeks ago standing on the bank of the Catawba River. Tom and Brian came with us, and helped us lug the canoe three miles to the little dock we were using to launch it. A beautiful old house dominated the hill behind us. Gabe and I searched the place when we found it, but found no sign of the previous owner. The house was saddening to look at. The exterior was stacked granite and shale with rough grey mortar, and a massive flagstone patio with teak rails graced the back yard. I used to think the shingles on the roof were wood, but upon closer inspection, I realized that they were actually decorative pieces of PVC plastic. Vines crept up the walls, helping the house blend in and seem more like a part of the landscape than an actual structure. It belonged on a postcard from the English countryside, not an overgrown riverbank in North Carolina. Rather than detract from the natural feel of the forest around it, the house seemed to add something to it. Gabriel caught me staring and turned to follow my line of sight.
“Somebody must have paid a fortune to build this place so far away from town.” I said.
Gabe nodded. “Not to mention the dock, the patio, and everything else. Hell, the stonework from the back yard to the river must have cost at least a few grand by itself.”
I stared at the house a moment longer. “Well, I hope whoever lived here made it somewhere safe. Maybe they can come back for it someday.”
Gabe shot me a knowing glance. “You still miss your house in Charlotte, don’t you?”
I nodded, and looked away. “You have no idea. I loved that place.”
Gabe clapped me on the shoulder with one huge hand. The impact made me stumble a bit.
“Who knows, maybe you can go back for it someday.” He said, smiling.
“Sure, and right after that, pigs will fly, beer will grow on trees, beautiful women will fall out of the sky, and the rivers will flow with whiskey.” I replied, grinning at my own joke.
Gabe laughed, his deep baritone echoing in the hills around us. “Hell, I’d settle for any one of those things right about now. Especially women falling out of the sky.”
“You fella’s about ready to go?” Tom called from the end of the narrow pier.
My smile faded. “Yeah, ready to go.” I called back.
We walked to the end of the dock where Tom and Brian had lowered Gabe’s fiberglass canoe into the water. Nylon lines tie
d it off bow and stern to a couple of cleats fastened to the pier. Gabe and I climbed down the ladder next to the dock and placed our packs in the center of the little boat. I checked the small outboard motor to make sure it was in good working order while Tom handed down a large plastic gas can. Gabe stowed it next to our packs, then reached up to take a couple of oars from Brian.
“You guys be careful out there, you hear?” Tom said.
“Always are.” I replied, giving my best reassuring smile.
Brian knelt down on the dock, concern evident on his face.
“How long are you going to be gone?” He asked for at least the sixth time.
“Not more than a couple of days. Maybe three at most. Don’t worry, bud, we’ve done this before. We know what we’re doing.”
I reached up and ruffled his hair. He smiled, and playfully shoved my hand away.
“Just be careful.” He said.
“We will, don’t worry.”
Gabe stood up, and shook hands with both Tom and Brian. “Ya’ll look after Sarah, and try not to burn the place down before we get back.”
Tom smiled as he stood up, thin crow’s feet crinkling around his eyes. “We’ll do our best. Bon voyage, gentlemen.”
Brian untied the canoe from the dock and tossed down the thin nylon line. Gabe and I used our oars to push away from the dock and row out into the center of the river. The temperatures were getting warmer during the day, and the river had swollen a good bit since the last time we’d seen it. The current was swift and strong as it carried the canoe along to the southwest. We steered without having to expend too much effort. Gabe used his oar as a rudder, and I rowed and pushed us away from large boulders and tree limbs jutting up through the water’s surface. The trees around us had finally started sprouting leaves, their branches forming a thin brown canopy above us dappled with patches of green. Bright sunlight filtered down through the spidery tangle of limbs. I was grateful for the warmth, but saddened by the fact that by now there should have been broad green leaves blocking out the sun and providing a cool, shady respite from the heat that had yet to show up. I hoped the weather would continue to warm up, and that the forest I had loved for so long would turn green and verdant again. It had been too long since I had seen the mountain country bloom, and I sincerely hoped I would get to see it again before saying goodbye the Appalachians.
In a couple of hours, we reached an oxbow that descended down into a narrow valley. Gabe steered the canoe alongside the rocky shore. We tossed the oars into the boat along with our other gear, and used handles along the gunwales to carry it up the sandy embankment. It would be faster to simply stay on the river and brave the rapids that wound southward, but we would face the danger of capsizing the canoe, and that was a chance that we simply could not afford to take. About ninety minutes, and a couple of thousand four-letter words later, we grunted, heaved and tugged the canoe out of the forest and back down the riverbank on the other side of the oxbow south of the rapids. I let out a sigh of relief as we settled down and paddled away from shore.
Another hour or so later we rowed ashore again to begin the weary task of carrying the canoe a mile and a half over land to the eastern bank of Lake James. It was a lot of effort to go through, but we would avoid having to cross the old hydroelectric plant that dammed up the river and formed the lake. Thankfully, the ground we crossed sloped downward, and the forest was much thinner due to the larger population of people that lived here prior to the Outbreak. The sparse foliage made for much easier travel on foot. Using nylon mooring lines to lash the bow of the canoe to our shoulders, we dragged the little boat along behind us, the smooth underside of the canoe sliding easily over the sandy ground and making the walk to the lake almost pleasant.
“I wonder how much longer the dam is going to hold up down there.” Gabe said at one point, nodding his head southward toward the old hydroelectric plant.
“I have no idea. Honestly, I’m surprised it lasted this long. I guess the people who worked there opened the floodgates enough to let the river flow through before they evacuated.”
We walked a little farther in silence, and then a thought occurred to me. “Hey, do you think there might be someone still alive there?”
Gabe shrugged. “If they are, there ain’t much we can do for ‘em. I’m not taking this canoe anywhere near that dam, and I’m sure as hell not going to try to walk through the front gates. Place is probably crawling with infected.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right.” I said, growing thoughtful. “Still, though, do you ever wonder how many people survived the Outbreak? Maybe a few hundred thousand, you think?”
“Could be more than that.” Gabe replied. “There were over three hundred million people here in the U.S. alone before the Outbreak. If even one percent survived, then that’s about three million people. Problem is, I doubt that as many as one percent made it longer than a few months. If the dead didn’t get them, then starvation, disease, exposure, or plain old human violence towards his fellow man probably did.”
I pondered that for a few minutes as we trudged along. “Okay, so let’s say, hypothetically, that one percent of three hundred million survived. How many of that three million would have made it as long as us?” I asked.
Gabe stared blankly ahead for a few seconds before responding.
“Back when I worked for Aegis, we had briefings where the CDC lab rats would come in go over different outbreak scenarios with us. One time, they had a guy come in to talk about the Phage. He showed us a map of the world and went through the different ways that a major outbreak could play out.”
Gabe went quiet for few moments, remembering. I waited for him to speak again, fascinated. He had never told me about this before. Over the years, he had always been reluctant to broach the subject of his work with Aegis, and rarely talked about it.
“What it boiled down to was,” He continued. “if the Phage got loose somewhere rural, or isolated, it would be a hell of a lot easier to contain than if it broke out in a heavily populated area. The infection spreads exponentially once it gets out. The more people you have around, the worse the problem gets, especially if they don’t know how to fight it.”
“I remember.” I said.
Images of cities burning, hordes of infected slaughtering millions, and the mass panic that consumed the populace in the wake of the Outbreak flashed through my mind. Sometimes I still had nightmares about it.
“Yeah, I guess you do.” Gabe said, his gaze sharpening as his mind came back to the present. “Anyway, the worst case scenario was an outbreak in a major city with a large population, especially one that was a major land transportation hub. There were seven cities in the U.S. they thought would be the worst places for an outbreak to occur; New York, L.A., D.C., Chicago, Philadelphia, Phoenix, and…well, I’ll let you guess the last one.”
“Atlanta.”
Gabe nodded. “That would be the one.”
We were quiet for a few minutes before Gabe spoke again.
“So back to your original question.” He said, “The little guy who did the presentation ran the numbers by us for worst case scenario survivability. I think they were trying to impress upon us the gravity of the situation.”
I turned my head to look at him. “How bad was it?”
“After six months, ten percent or less survive. After one year, the numbers go down to one to two percent. After two years, about three quarters of one percent, and the numbers only get lower from there on out.”
“Jesus.” I said, my voice down to a whisper. “I knew it was bad, but less than one percent…that’s billions, man. Billions of people dead, and the whole damn world burned down with them.”
Gabe nodded solemnly. “I know. I didn’t believe it when they first told us that, didn’t want to believe it, but damn if the Phage didn’t prove ‘em right.” A short, bitter laugh escaped him. “And now here we are, the last of a dying race. Sometimes I wonder if there are enough people out there for humanity to have
a chance at coming back.”
“Only one way to find out.” I said.
A short time later we cleared the tree line and emerged onto a narrow rock-strewn beach. Lazy sun-dappled waves lapped at the shoreline, sending little rocks and pebbles tumbling along under their wake. Cranes took flight in the distance, and ducks swam along the edges of the water near the shore. In the face of such an idyllic scene, it was easy to forget that most of the world around Appalachia lay in ruins, trampled under the rotten feet of the undead. I raised a hand up over my eyes to shade them as I looked out over the water.
“Too bad we didn’t bring our fishing tackle with us.” I said.
“No time for that.” Gabe replied. “Let’s get moving.”
We put the canoe into the lake and used the oars to push ourselves out into the open water, following the contour of the shore and enjoying the scenery. Less than an hour’s easy rowing saw us reach the far tip of the lake closest to Marion town limits. We dragged the canoe ashore, threw in the oars, and stashed the little craft behind a thick growth of bushes. The packs we brought with us were the biggest ones that we owned, the idea being to maximize the amount of supplies we could bring back.
Leaving the canoe behind, we followed an old two-lane blacktop that would lead us straight into town. The sense of relaxation I enjoyed during the pleasant ride across the lake evaporated as we hiked due south. Old habits took over, and I began scanning the forest on both sides of the road for signs of movement. Gabe and I both left our trusty rifles behind, not wanting to carry the extra weight, but we did bring our pistols with us. I had my Kel-Tec, and Gabe carried his ever-present .45 caliber Sig Sauer.
