Prepper Mountain

by Chris Bostic

  “Do you need to check on the boy?” I asked.

  He hesitated. “Maybe. You have this?”

  I nodded and hopped to my feet. Katelyn reached for the hand I offered. John looked to her for confirmation.

  “I’ll be alright. Go on.”

  John headed back across the rocks toward the trail, seemingly eager to check on Jonas. From the edge of the woods, he called back, “Holler if you need help. I’ll send someone back for you.”

  “Thank you,” Katelyn said.

  “He seems nice,” I said, as he disappeared into the woods.

  Katelyn smiled unexpectedly, and the red on her cheeks seemed more like a blush.

  It was odd enough that I had to ask, “What?”

  “Just glad you think so.” She grinned wider. “He’s my brother.”

  CHAPTER 30

  I stood there dumbfounded for a moment, perhaps longer. I wouldn’t have guessed that about John. “You look nothing alike.”

  “Not everyone does, you know,” Katelyn said. “Besides, he’s a lot older.”

  “And hairier too.” It felt better to see Katelyn laugh. “Anyway…I figured he was older. Twenty something?”

  “Twenty-six, maybe. I forget.”

  She tried to test her weight on the sore leg. It was apparent she couldn’t do much with it. As soon as her toe touched the ground, she jerked it back up like a dog favoring an injured paw.

  I held out my arms, eager to help her. “I’ll carry you.”

  “Thanks, but let me try again.” Katelyn grimaced and inhaled sharply. “It burns, like when it’s asleep and really hard to wake up.”

  “Hopefully it’ll go away then.” I slid next to her. “Just throw your arm over my shoulder.”

  It didn’t work out quite the way I had planned. The rocks in the gorge made it almost impossible to go side by side, much like the trail back to camp. So I ended up taking her hands instead and helping her balance on one foot as she hopped through the tougher parts.

  She winced every time she had to use her left leg for balance, but kept going like a trooper. I didn’t know if it was okay for her to put weight on it, but if she was willing to try I wasn’t going to stand in the way.

  Climbing the drop-off up to the trail was the real challenge. The crowd seemed to have cleared out from the waterfall by the time we got back to the path.

  I looked both ways along the trail. “So much for John sending someone back to help.”

  “I’m sure he was worried about Jonas,” Katelyn said.

  “Oh, no, I wasn’t criticizing,” I said quickly. I thought it best to change the subject, but struggled finding something to say. “Uhm, you know it’s kinda nice finally getting to spend some time with you.”

  “I just saw you two days ago,” she teased, letting a grin barely slip through the pain. I supposed it had been a ridiculous thing for me to say, but everything was suddenly so much more serious.

  “Seems like months to me.”

  “That’s sweet…I think.” She paused as if considering her response. “I’m glad you’re with me now.” Before I could reply, she grinned mischievously and raised her voice. “But are you gonna help me up there?”

  I lowered a hand to her hip and let it linger. She didn’t brush it away, so I took that as a good sign.

  “You want a boost?” I hoped. “Or I can pull you up.”

  “Whatever’s gonna work,” she said, before suddenly narrowing her eyes. She glanced at my hand and smiled. “You’re just wanting to grab my-”

  “No,” I objected, perhaps too quickly. “Well, maybe…”

  Katelyn kept her eyes on me, jokingly, but still making me squirm in my boots. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  More than you know, I thought. Instead, I patted her on the butt and bounded on ahead. “I’ll pull you up. Wait right there and I’ll get where I can grab you.”

  “There’s that grab word again,” she kidded with a wink.

  “Hey, you said it the first time,” I replied before climbing up the slope using judicious footholds and several branches. Once settled in, I offered a hand back to Katelyn. It was a clumsy sort of one-legged hop up the side, but it worked.

  She cleared the top of the slope with a final jerk and collapsed into my arms. We slumped onto the trail, gasping hard. Neither of us had enough energy to head back to camp.

  Once I got my breath back, I asked, “So what were you doing here anyway?”

  “Babysitting.” She smiled demurely. “I know. Not such a great job, huh?”

  I laughed in spite of myself. “Kinda dangerous, isn’t it?”

  “Obviously, though I didn’t think so at first.”

  “Sorry, I meant being away from camp.” I thought back to the vehicles and the airplanes and who knew what else was scouring the mountains. “There’re soldiers everywhere.”

  Her eyebrows shot up. “Really? I haven’t heard that.”

  It sounded like sarcasm, but I wasn’t sure. “Are you being serious?”

  “Yeah.” She looked offended that I had to ask.

  I was quick to backtrack. “Sorry, just checking, you know.” I realized that either her mom was keeping it from her, or maybe she was like I had been earlier. She didn’t want to believe it was possible. “Have you heard much about what’s going on?”

  “Bits and pieces. They’ve kinda had me watching the kids the whole time.” She glanced back toward the falls. “Maybe not so much anymore.”

  I pulled her up and waited for her to steady herself on her feet.

  “Well, I’m not sure how to say this, but…hmmm.” I searched for the right place to start, and ended up launching into my own experiences before the delay became too uncomfortable. “But, wow, do I have a lot to tell you about those last two days.”

  On the walk back to camp, I ran through everything else I’d seen since our Jeep took off for the park. Even when it came to the Mr. Clean and Marisol beat down, I didn’t hold back. She needed to know.

  We stumbled into the campsite to find John sitting at the closest picnic table. His head jerked our way as soon as we stepped into the clearing.

  “About time you got back. I was about to come after you.”

  “It looks like it,” Katelyn replied.

  “Seriously,” he protested.

  “Right.” She pointed at his feet. “You already took your boots off. Thanks, bro.”

  Still draped over my shoulder, she pulled me to the side toward where her mother was talking to a group of older adults. Out of the corner of my eyes, I watched John stare at us the whole way.

  “So you get along with your brother about as well as I do with mine?” I said.

  “I’m just giving him trouble. He’s not so bad.”

  Mrs. Jennings was talking to my mother and several other adults. She broke off the conversation as soon as she noticed Katelyn.

  “Oh, dear. Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine, Mom.”

  “You don’t look it. You can barely walk.”

  “My leg was just kind of asleep,” Katelyn said. Her mom’s eyes narrowed with disbelief. “I mean it hurts a little, but Zach’s been helping me get around.”

  Mrs. Jennings turned to me. “Thank you for bringing my baby back.”

  “Mom, I hate when you say that,” Katelyn protested, groaning.

  “But you’ll always be my baby.”

  “You’re so embarrassing.” She held up a hand to shush her mother’s reply. “Anyway, I just wanted to tell you that I’m back. And starving.”

  “There’s some food ready, I think.” Mrs. Jennings pointed toward a small fire smoking at the rear of the camp. “Help yourselves, but I really don’t want you walking around on that leg until we know for sure that you’re alright. Okay?”

  “Fine.”

  “Sorry, hon, but I really need to get back to this. I’ll check on you soon. Holler if you need something.”

  My mother had stepped out of the group too. She approa
ched me on the opposite side from Katelyn. As happy as I was to see her, I waved her away with my free arm. I hoped she didn’t take offense, but I didn’t turn back to check as I helped Katelyn hobble away from the group. Even after what we’d been through, I was still uncomfortable about having my potential girlfriend meet my mother.

  “So much for worrying about me,” Katelyn muttered as I guided her toward the back. “Her planning stuff is getting kinda ridiculous.” She stopped suddenly and turned to me. “Or maybe not, huh? You were talking about some serious stuff.”

  “You heard the explosion, right?” I asked, remembering that I’d forgotten to mention that on our hike. “We were on the way over here, and I was sure they’d bombed your camp.”

  “Kinda like thunder?” she asked, and I nodded. “I was at the waterfall then. Someone said something about a storm, but it was so loud between all the kids goofing around and the waterfall…”

  She stopped to lean against a table, and stared at me with wide eyes. There was a trace of fear or sadness or something I couldn’t quite place. I had a feeling I shared her thoughts, or more like concerns, and had to force myself to look away.

  “It’s serious, whatever it is. But that’s enough of that for now. How about you rest here and I’ll go grab some food?”

  Her lips parted ever so slightly and curled. “You’ll wait on me?”

  “Of course.”

  Her dimples were insanely attractive as she broke into a big smile, and I lost the ability to reply. I mumbled something unintelligible and hurried over to the fire to grab a couple hamburgers off a plate.

  Having not had real food for what seemed like weeks, I could’ve eaten them both before I got back to Katelyn—and gone back for more. I forced myself to wait, my stomach churning in anticipation the entire way back.

  I handed Katelyn the burger. “Here you go.”

  “Thanks. I’m so hungry.”

  “You are?” I said incredulously. “I haven’t had anything other than rabbit food the last two days. This is so good. You almost didn’t get one.”

  “Then I suppose I should thank you for controlling yourself.”

  I took a giant bite, and another. The burger was gone before Katelyn had hardly started eating. She held hers out to me, but I waved her away. “You need that.”

  I sat and watched her eat, my eyelids growing heavy with sleep that hadn’t come for quite a while. At least not decent sleep.

  My head bobbed, and I wrenched my neck to keep from hitting the table. Katelyn laughed while I massaged my tired, sore muscles.

  “You nearly fell off the table.”

  I took a deep breath to clear the cobwebs. “Man, that was as bad as Miss Pratt’s Spanish class.”

  “Oh, I haven’t had her yet. Is she tough?”

  “Not as bad as Hooper. She’s terrible.”

  “I’m not looking forward to Spanish next-”

  Katelyn froze mid-sentence. I assumed she was struck by the same thing that hit me. There we were talking about going to school next year when it seemed so obvious we had no idea what might happen next week. The idea of going back to school was ludicrous—and depressing.

  Long walks to and from school with Katelyn weren’t going to happen, I realized. There would be no sneaking a couple minutes with her between classes, or maybe even getting in the same class. I hadn’t even talked to her about her schedule for next year, but understood that it no longer mattered.

  Our classroom was shaping up to be the great outdoors, so we would be together for our education in some weird sort of way. Of course, Joe wouldn’t be there to annoy the teachers. None of my friends would be there, and I had no clue where they were at or what they were doing at the moment. No doubt Joe would be off causing trouble, and the city would need half the police force to keep an eye on him. However, if a full scale rebellion happened the way my parents were thinking, there was no telling if any of my buddies would make it. Or if we would make it.

  Sleeping through Spanish class didn’t matter anymore. There were bigger concerns weighing on me harder than an overstuffed backpack. Mostly they all boiled down to one key point: what good was having Katelyn there if everything else was horribly, terribly, forever changed.

  It wasn’t fair.

  I closed my eyes, and quickly buried my face in my hands to keep a tear from breaking free.

  “You okay?” Katelyn said softly.

  “Yeah. Just thinking about school, and…you know.”

  I finally pulled myself together to look at her. She smiled demurely, and said, “Me too. I was really looking forward-”

  She abruptly turned her head to the sky. It took my foggy mind a moment to realize she’d picked up on something out of place.

  “Get down!” someone yelled from the other side of the camp. “Choppers coming!”

  It was too far to run to the woods. As others scurried like mice, Katelyn and I slid to the ground to hide underneath the table.

  CHAPTER 31

  A pair of helicopters hovered overhead. The downdraft from the low-flying military craft beat at the trees like a tropical storm. My blood pressure pushed to the boiling point, ready to burst as the helicopters camped out overhead for seconds that turned to minutes. Finally, after stirring up a cloud of leaves, the engines roared and they moved off to the east.

  “It seems real now,” Katelyn whispered as the dust settled.

  A sharp pain was tearing into my forearm, and I looked down to find her fingers wrapped tightly around me. I didn’t want her to know, so I gently laid a hand over hers and waited for her grip to relax. It took her a lot longer than it took for the helicopters to completely disappear.

  I subtly rubbed my sore arm as we remained hiding underneath the table. The rest of the camp slowly came back to life while I remained in no hurry to get back up. Not with the worry of what might arrive next, and not with Katelyn pressed close to me.

  I looked up from my arm to find her face millimeters from mine. My short hair grazed her long brown locks, and I leaned in to rest my head on hers. Her breathing was shallow and fast. If I had any blood flowing through my wrist, I could’ve checked my pulse and found it to be racing—not entirely from the helicopters.

  If I’d had the courage, I might’ve checked Katelyn’s pulse in her neck with my lips. Instead, I kept my forehead against hers and listened to her breathe. My hands remained on top of hers, and she weaved her fingers into mine.

  The temperature went up dramatically until I pulled my head away, not wanting her to feel the sweat building on my brow. I let go of her hands long enough to wipe them on my pants, and grabbed them again before she could pull away.

  “This is crazy, huh?” I mumbled, not knowing what else to say.

  “I never believed it. Even with all that no travel stuff, I never believed this could happen.”

  “My dad always told us the country was going to hell, but I didn’t listen.” I shook my head and continued cowering under the table. “And Mom was all about us being prepared for that to happen. But physically in terms of supplies and stuff…not really mentally.”

  “Is she here?”

  I pointed over toward a newly reformed group of adults, who appeared to be speaking into a walkie-talkie like the kind we’d had back at the church. “She’s talking to your mom now.”

  “Oh.” Something about the way she said it sounded weird. I shot Katelyn a look and she backpedaled quickly. “I meant that in a good way. She’s very pretty.”

  It was my turn to say, “Oh.” I cleared my throat to reorganize my thoughts. “That’s not exactly what I was thinking.”

  “Of course.” Katelyn chuckled under her breath. “So I guess our parents know each other, huh?”

  We watched as the two of them seemed to carry on quite a spirited, but friendly, conversation. “Pretty well, I’d say. I guess that’s a good thing.”

  “So why haven’t I met her?”

  I wanted to mention that my parents were crazy, but I was q
uickly learning I’d maybe judged them incorrectly. They might have been awkward and embarrassing, but that was keeping us alive right then. Exhausted, but alive.

  “How about now?”

  “Sure,” Katelyn said, somewhat more confidently than I had anticipated. I was always terrified of meeting the parents, not that I’d had much experience with that sort of thing. My first time had been a couple days earlier, and that had gone surprisingly well.

  It was hard not to like Katelyn’s mom. She had a big personality, and was far more friendly than prying. Besides having put me instantly at ease, she’d seemed to accept me into her house right away.

  Mom stayed busy talking. I stood behind her for a moment to wait, and spotted Maddie at a picnic table. Her head was resting on her hands, elbows perched on her knees. I brought a limping Katelyn over to her instead.

  “Hey, Mad.”

  She looked up at me with eyes swollen from fatigue, I hoped. Not that I would’ve been surprised to find her crying. She turned her head inquisitively as she glanced at Katelyn, and I started to regret bringing her over.

  “This is, uhm, Katelyn,” I said, stumbling over the words for some unknown reason.

  “No way.” She sat up a little straighter. “The Katelyn?”

  “The one and only,” I said.

  “You know me?” Katelyn asked, her words chasing mine.

  “Sure.” Maddie looked happier than I’d expected. I figured a big-time Luke meltdown was on the horizon. “Zach talks about you all the time.”

  “He does, does he?” Katelyn gave me a sly grin. “Tell me more.”

  I shook off a blush to scowl at Maddie.

  She laughed in return. “Oh, things I could say.” My irritating little sister rubbed her chin. “Where to start, really?”

  “That’s enough.” I grabbed Katelyn by the arm to steer her back over toward my mother. Oddly, that seemed like safer ground.

  “Not so fast,” she purred. “I’d like to hear more.”

  Maddie lapped up the attention. “Let’s see…well-”

  “We need to go see Mom,” I interrupted.