by Matt Rogers
They both turned on the spot, and made out what appeared to be a makeshift guard booth at the end of the trail. It led straight onto the road leading up and out of the valley.
It was empty.
They nodded in unison.
Slater said, ‘Go wait there. If you see any suspicious activity, get inside the booth and lay on the ground. I won’t be far away, and it won’t take me long to make it back to you. Okay?’
‘Okay,’ they both said at the same time.
‘And don’t say a word to each other. I swear, if you end up fighting and it leads to you both getting captured again, I won’t come rescue you a second time. I’ll leave you to get tortured and murdered. You understand?’
They both went pale, but he’d made the choice of necessary evil.
He had to scare them enough to shut them both up for ten minutes, at least.
Slater said, ‘I’m going to scour this place for any sign of Noah. Okay?’
Twin nods.
‘Now go.’
They set off at a brisk walk toward the guard booth, and Slater turned on his heel and strode back into the centre of the camp with his carbine at the ready. He went back to the destroyed jeep resting on its side in the wreckage of a log hut, and found his backpack in the trunk. There were five spare magazines within.
He fished one out and reloaded the carbine, and then set to work sweeping the barren ETIM encampment for signs of a young man who’d lost his mind.
27
‘Nothing,’ he whispered to himself.
Not the best result he’d ever had.
He’d spent thirty minutes sweeping every single hut. There was nothing in the main warehouse, or in any of the outbuildings. Just corpses strewn everywhere. He’d half-expected there to be ETIM soldiers bunkered down in each of the huts, shielding themselves from the slaughter and waiting for Slater to burst in. He’d expected barrels pointing at his face in every dark and musty room he’d entered. It had proven one of the most nerve-wracking experiences of his life.
Chaos he could handle. But not this.
Not never-ending silence.
Not quiet tension.
Not the incessant thrum-thrum-thrum of his heart as he imagined flinging a door open and feeling his face explode as lead rounds blasted out the back of his head.
He wasn’t the patient, tactical, calculated type.
He brought his heart rate back down when he cleared the final building, and it was like an enormous weight lifted off his shoulders. He stood there, resting against the log wall, staring at the interior contents of an empty single-room hut. There were dirty pots and pans and a portable stovetop and floor mats for sitting and eating.
There was no American man rolling in a puddle of his own vomit.
Which meant Noah had already succumbed to the madness.
They’d already disposed of his body.
Slater hung his head and retreated from the hut. He stepped back out into the chilly mountain air. It washed down off the peaks and assaulted him where he stood. He breathed it in, and then out, and then retrieved his pack from the jeep’s trunk. Then he made for the warehouse.
There was less need for spatial awareness now. He’d cleared the entirety of the camp. He slung the backpack over one shoulder and went to the other end of the long low space, where a convoy of rusting old vehicles sat dormant on the dusty concrete.
There were four of them, but he only needed one.
And they were the same model as the open-topped jeep he’d left embedded in a nearby hut.
He ransacked the same drawers he’d found the duct tape in and came away with four sets of keys. He tried each of them, one by one, and the third key did the trick. The jeep coughed and spluttered and came to life. He put his pack on the passenger seat and drove it out of the warehouse.
He didn’t feel good.
Far from it.
There was no closure. He’d saved two, but there’d been three. It was messing with his head. Dragging him down into the pits of despair. He vowed not to let it show, but it simmered there. He hadn’t found Noah, or his body. A corpse was all Slater wanted. That way, he’d know.
But it was gone. Probably buried somewhere nearby, but there was no use becoming a gravedigger.
The lack of a body spelled out exactly what had happened.
A kid who just couldn’t recover from the most harrowing acid trip imaginable.
He pulled up alongside Samantha and Ethan. They were both restless, shifting from foot to foot in the mountain chill. They looked up with forlorn eyes, and he gave them a slight shake of the head.
Samantha bowed her head.
Ethan did too.
It seemed the downtime had given him time to think. His irrationality had subsided. He’d probably realised, Yeah, Noah led us out here, but he didn’t know any better. We were just as dumb as he was. He didn’t deserve what happened to him.
And Samantha had been thinking that all along.
Slater said, ‘Get in.’
‘Did you find the body?’ Samantha said.
‘No.’
‘What are we going to tell his parents?’
‘You know them?’
‘I know of them.’
‘Were you two an item?’
‘Only for about ten minutes.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘He asked me to be his girlfriend, and then we were taken.’
‘Shit,’ Slater said.
The wind howled.
‘I’m sorry.’
Samantha said, ‘It’s not your fault.’
‘Get in.’
They both clambered into the back.
Slater put the jeep into gear and drove away from the devastation.
28
The jeep’s engine growled and protested as it tackled the ascent.
But they were moving slowly, and the wind had died down, so they still had a chance to speak.
Samantha said, ‘Are you going to be the one to tell Noah’s parents? Is that why you asked?’
‘I don’t exist,’ Slater said. ‘Not officially. Informing the families isn’t my field of expertise.’
‘What is your field of expertise, exactly?’
Slater looked at her in the rear view mirror and threw a thumb over his shoulder. ‘That.’
‘You enjoy it?’
‘Not the right word.’
‘I get it,’ Ethan said.
Slater said, ‘No, you don’t. You’ve watched too many movies.’
‘Sorry.’
‘How will his parents take it?’ Slater said to Samantha.
‘Is that what you should be asking someone in shock?’
‘I’m curious. I don’t know how he didn’t understand what it’s like out here. This is an autonomous region. There’s danger everywhere. Great swathes of it are lawless. There’s endless opportunities to prey on the vulnerable. You didn’t know that?’
‘We only knew what Noah told us,’ Samantha said.
In the mirror, Slater saw Ethan shaking his head from side to side. ‘I can’t believe he convinced us to be such idiots.’
Slater thought, I doubt it was as clear-cut as you’re making it out to be.
But then Ethan said, ‘I can’t believe he was fine four days ago. And then everything changed…’
Slater’s heart skipped a beat.
He slammed on the brakes.
The jeep skidded to a halt on the trail, showering mud out to the sides. Samantha shrieked as the seatbelt bit into her collar bone and threw her back against the hard casing.
Ethan grunted in surprise.
Slater stared at him in the mirror and said, ‘What did you say?’
‘What?’ Ethan muttered, flummoxed by the sudden braking.
‘What did you say?’
‘I can’t believe he was fine four days ago. I think that’s what I said.’
‘What do you mean he was fine?’
‘He seemed okay. All things considered.’
S
later sat forward in his seat and stared at the footwell. A thousand thoughts were running through his head. Connecting dots.
Slater said, ‘Describe exactly what he was like.’
‘I saw him the day after we were captured, sitting around the campfire. One of the terrorist guys had a gun to his head. But he didn’t seem surprised. I remember thinking the acid trip had fucked him up in both directions. He went from being far too relaxed, to losing his mind.’
Slater said, ‘Get out of the car.’
‘What?’ they said in unison.
‘Get out of the car.’
‘Right here?’
‘Yes. I’ll be back in ten minutes. Lie down in the brush and keep your head down. Put branches over you, if that what it takes. Just stay here.’
‘Why?’ Samantha said.
Slater said, ‘Now.’
They got out against their better judgment. Their actions were slow and laborious. In their minds, they were leaving the bubble of safety. The bubble of control. They were plunging back into the unknown. And they were scared.
Slater realised he was treating them like shit, so he said, ‘Listen — it’s going to be fine. I’ll be back shortly. There’s just something I need to take care of. Back in the camp.’
‘Take care of what?!’ Ethan said, hovering beside the jeep.
Slater reached back over the front seats and closed each of their doors. Then he put the jeep into gear and turned around on the trail. He pulled up alongside them again, nose now facing the bottom of the valley.
‘What you described,’ he said, ‘is not how acid works. If you lose your mind during a trip, you’re never the same. And you’re telling me he was okay the day afterwards. Which means he never lost it in the first place.’
And then he accelerated down the mountainside.
Remembering what he’d told himself earlier that day.
Don’t trust anyone.
Not even those you came to rescue.
29
The camp was cold, and quiet.
But Slater knew it wouldn’t be for long.
In fact, he thought he knew exactly what he’d find.
His mind was moving at light speed.
The jeep roared back into the mouth of the encampment and churned through the damp mud between the huts. Slater reached the main warehouse and slowed right down. In one motion he reached over and pulled his carbine out of the passenger footwell. He got out before the jeep had come to a complete stop, and ran straight in through the open warehouse doors.
And there was Noah.
Not frothing at the mouth.
Not in the midst of a seizure.
Not losing his mind.
In fact, the kid was sitting calmly on a metal workbench along one side of the repair station, his legs dangling in the air. He had his elbows on his knees, and he was hunched over, staring at the floor.
When Slater came in, a sad smile spread across his face.
A resigned smile.
He was tall, and well-built, and had dashing good looks. He was everything a college girl would want in a man.
So why the hell did you do this, you fucking psychopath? Slater thought.
There was a detachment in his eyes. Like he realised his pipe dream had reached its end. He would have put it together when he came out of his hiding place, after their jeep disappeared up the mountainside and the camp returned to dead quiet.
He would have seen everyone dead, sprawled across the ground, and realised his finite resources were finished. He now had no contacts out here, and no reasonable way to survive. He’d sauntered into the warehouse and taken a seat and contemplated his future.
And then Slater had come roaring back into camp.
Noah said, ‘Was wondering how long you’d take to put it together.’
He wasn’t putting up a fight.
Not even close.
Slater walked right up to the kid and aimed the carbine at him.
Just in case.
‘Help me figure this out,’ he said. ‘I’m missing a few pieces of the puzzle.’
Noah sighed, and hunched down lower, and bit down hard on a piece of chewing tobacco.
Likely given to him by the terrorists he’d befriended.
Slater said, ‘When you came here, did you know these men?’
‘No.’
‘But you do now.’
‘I did. Until you killed them all.’
‘Ethan saw you having a seizure.’
‘I had to pretend I’d gone off the deep end so they didn’t suspect anything. I mean, I knew they were going to die anyway — slowly, painfully — but I guess I’m human. I didn’t want them to think bad of me. I didn’t want them to know.’
‘He saw you a few days before the seizure. Sitting around the campfire. Calm as could be.’
‘Because I was calm. I’d already convinced them to let me join them by that point. I was in the brotherhood. And then they brought Ethan out of his hut, so I told them to put a gun to my head. Pretend the dynamic hadn’t changed. At least until they were out of the equation.’
‘Did you know you’d be taken by ETIM in those ruins?’
‘I figured I’d put myself in a situation where it was inevitable.’
‘Why? You’re not a radical.’
Slater could see it in the kid’s eyes. He wasn’t deluded. He knew exactly what he was doing. He was just … not there.
Noah said, ‘Far from it.’
‘You believe in what they’re doing out here?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Then what the fuck are you doing out here, kid? You deliberately got yourself kidnapped. And then you convinced them to let you join them. How?’
‘Because I told them why I’d come here. And I held nothing back. Because I just don’t care anymore. I don’t give a shit, man. I wanted something different. I wanted something … pure.’
‘Pure?’
‘What’s it all for? I drop out of college, I work odd jobs, I save a bit, I have a couple of kids, I die. Why not spice things up? Why not go looking for something crazy? Why not?’
Slater had heard similar sentiments before.
It was nihilism, coming from a kid who’d lost all hope.
But why?
Slater said, ‘What happened to you, Noah?’
The kid smiled another sad smile. He said, ‘My sister died.’
‘Was this a dying wish of hers?’
He just smiled again, and shook his head.
‘You’re going to have to talk to me.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I’m the one who decides whether to bring you back to the States or not.’
‘You think I want to go back? After all this comes out? I’d be crucified.’
Slater made to speak, and then he froze. He said, ‘Hold on. Why didn’t you just fake it?’
Noah looked at him. ‘What?’
‘Your friends hadn’t figured it out. You could have pretended you were okay. No-one would have ever known.’
Noah laughed.
The saddest laugh on the planet.
He said, ‘I thought they would have put it together by now. I didn’t know they were that dumb.’
‘What happened to your sister?’
‘I told you. She died.’
‘What was her name?’
‘Colby.’
‘Why did that lead to this?’
‘She was the only person who could calm my dad down. With her gone, he was free to do whatever he wanted to me.’
‘Oh.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Did he rape you?’
‘No. He just beat me. And the verbal abuse. That was worse. I’m thick-skinned. I can take a beating.’
‘You wanted out?’
‘I wanted something so radically different that I’d never have to think about my fucking family ever again. My sister was the link holding it all together. When she died, it fell apart.’
‘How’d she d
ie?’
‘Cancer.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘You don’t need to be sorry. Not to me. Look what I did to this place. Look what I did to my friends.’
‘Does anyone back home know about your family situation?’
‘No.’
‘So you heard about insurgents in the mountains, and you thought — that’s what I want to do?’
‘I never knew what I wanted to do. I figured if I let them take me, I could convince them to let me stay. I don’t believe in their bullshit, but I could pretend I did.’
‘And your friends?’
‘I don’t care about them. I don’t care about anything.’
‘I see.’
The warehouse lapsed into silence.
Slater lowered the carbine’s barrel to the floor.
He said, ‘What the hell do we do now, Noah?’
30
Noah said, ‘I’m not going back.’
‘I’m afraid you’ll have to.’
The kid lifted his eyes to meet Slater’s. There was something sinister in there. Even if he didn’t truly believe in ETIM, even if he knew nothing about their views or values, there was something deeply corrupt in his core if he’d gone through with something as horrific as this. And he hadn’t done it on his own, either. He’d dragged his friends into it, due to the sheer fact that he didn’t give a shit what happened to them.
That was a dangerous individual, no matter his motivations.
Slater said, ‘You’re coming back with me, Noah. It’s either going to be by your own free will, or in restraints. I don’t mind which way this goes.’
Silence.
Noah kept staring.
There was no emotion in his eyes. There never had been. Not the whole time Slater had seen the kid. His human decency had died along with his sister. A tragic outcome by any stretch of the imagination, but there was nothing Slater could do to change the past. All he could do was prevent something worse happening in the future.
Slater said, ‘If I let you go, you’ll roam these mountains until you drop dead or find another camp to join. And you’ll do terrible things out here, Noah. I know it.’
Silence.
Slater said, ‘Environment creates monsters out of men. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Too many times to count.’
