Prepper Mountain

by Chris Bostic

  None of the Olsen clan seemed to want to be bothered with getting everyone to their designated spots, at least other than their own kids, and that was fine with me.

  “Our tent’s over here, Zach,” Maddie called from a spot in the middle of camp close to the outhouse, of course. We were always by the crapper.

  “I’m good,” I said. “You go to sleep, alright?”

  “What are you…” Her words trailed off with a sudden realization. “Oh, you’re, uhm-”

  “Staying with Katelyn.” Though I didn’t necessarily need to ask, I added, “Okay?”

  She frowned. “I’m fine, but…you know, Mom’s not gonna like it.”

  “She’s not here,” I replied softly, not meaning to be argumentative. It was just the way things were. I swatted a mosquito on my arm and motioned for Katelyn to head over to her tent. “I’ll be right there.”

  “Good night,” she said to Maddie.

  I watched her go before turning back to my sister. “You okay alone? I’ll stay.”

  “It’s fine. You should go.”

  “You sure?”

  “Positive.” She shocked me by leaning in for a hug. “Thanks, big bro.”

  “For what?”

  She straightened up and brushed an errant strand of hair from her eyes. I caught a wet glint, but she didn’t sniff or wipe it away. “Being you…and not being Austin.”

  I laughed. “I know what you mean, sis. Good night.” I started to head off, and remembered to turn around and say, “Get me if you need anything.”

  “I will, but I’m good.”

  I slowly walked to the front of the camp, and waited to make sure Maddie was inside her tent and zipped up before ducking into mine. I allowed myself a quick image of Katelyn, half-naked and waiting for me to join her under the tiny sleeping bag. Instead, of course, she was fully clothed and motionless. She’d straightened out John’s larger, heavier sleeping bag beside her.

  A soft breath escaped her lips, and she rolled even farther over to face the thin wall of vinyl protecting us from the outside world. Beyond the vinyl, a mountain of cut branches were stacked over the top of us like a beaver dam.

  If I’d had a pillow, I would’ve been asleep before my head hit it. Folded arms had to suffice.

  * * *

  I awoke to the sound of scratching on the tent. I jerked upright, expecting to find a raccoon trying to claw its way inside. From all around, the scratching intensified. I reached for Katelyn to keep her from jumping up, but she only moaned.

  The wind howled, whistling through the clearing with an intensity I hadn’t experienced in a while. The door flap of the tent whipped in the breeze, and I finally put it all together in my muddled mind. The branches covering the tent scratched the vinyl, pressing in on the sides and making quite a racket.

  I turned to Katelyn not quite ready to share my silly fear when I realized I didn’t need to. Somehow, through the building hurricane, she was still dead to the world.

  It had been a little too warm to bother with pulling up the sleeping bag when I’d first stretched out. Right then, some unknown time in the middle of the night, the cool had definitely bowled in along with the storm. I rolled onto my back and folded my arms behind my head.

  I waited for the thunder to come, but the wind gusts were all that materialized. I was tempted to sit up and stare through the door flap like I might’ve back home. I really loved watching a storm roll in, along with feeling the cool breeze wash over me. But I was too tired to move.

  Sleep came quicker than I expected. I didn’t know how long it lasted. At some point, in the middle of the darkness, the ground shuddered like an earthquake. While I was still scrubbing my eyes, a gigantic boom shook the whole world.

  Somewhere on the other side of the camp, a kid wailed.

  CHAPTER 33

  Katelyn shot upright. “What was that?”

  I wanted to say thunder, but the crack hadn’t been there. It’d been close to the ground, and too loud not to make the sharp break that always preceded the rumble. That noise was all boom, but short rather than the elongated stormy growl.

  No fewer than three more distant blasts joined the first.

  “I don’t know.” I sat up beside her and crawled to the door.

  The little kid across the camp continued wailing. Apparently he wasn’t an Olsen, as no one seemed to be around to console him. I stared out the door in a futile attempt to locate the child.

  Katelyn’s tent faced east. Back home in the flatter land below the mountains, a pinkish-purple glow would light up the underside of dark clouds as morning broke. There in the campsite, a foggy haze was backlit by an odd orange glow. It seemed way too early for the sun to have crested the mountaintops. The reality didn’t register right away.

  While I was busy thinking, someone must’ve quieted the kid. I finally headed off toward where the crying had come from. Though I had no idea what I could do to help, I took it as my duty to make sure everyone was all right.

  As I moved across the camp, water droplets slid from tree leaves. Each splatter shattered an eerie silence, broken only by the occasional sobs of the kid.

  I reached the tent and stopped outside. A girl’s soft voice was singing to the kid.

  “Maddie?”

  “He’s fine, Zach,” she replied through the vinyl. “Just got scared by the…uhm, thunder.”

  “Okay, good.”

  I heard footsteps swishing through the grass and turned to find Katelyn hobbling behind me. She was already looking a lot steadier on that sore leg. She raised an eyebrow expectantly.

  “It’s all good,” I whispered as I stepped toward her. “Maddie’s got him calmed down.”

  Zippers opened one at a time across the camp, and heads poked out like prairie dogs slowly feeling safer in their surroundings.

  “You think we might as well get some breakfast going?” Katelyn asked. “Looks like we’re getting an early start today.”

  “Yeah. Really early,” I mumbled.

  The wind picked up again, changing directions from earlier. An odd, smoky scent reached my nose. “Smells like someone already started the fire,” I said, then realized what I was saying.

  A quick look confirmed the older lady and her husband weren’t moving around yet, or their middle-aged kids. I pulled Katelyn over to the edge of the camp. Though I doubted it, I asked, “Can we see Gatlinburg from here?”

  She pointed in the direction of Elkmont. “Maybe down the trail. We were hiking the other way, so it’s not like I was looking back.” She paused abruptly. “Wait, why?”

  The wind picked up again and I didn’t need to tell her. Her tanned face turned pale, her lips pressed tightly until whitish.

  “That doesn’t smell right,” I said, though she didn’t need me to tell her that. “Stay here and I’ll be right back.”

  I ran back to the middle of camp to find Maddie. She was helping a boy, maybe five or six years old, out of the tent. His eyes were red and puffy, but the crying was over.

  “I need to go with Katelyn to check something out for a second.” Before she could reply, I added, “Be right back.”

  “Wait-”

  “Please just watch the kids, and we’ll be back as soon as we can. Just a sec, I promise.”

  She gave me a cheery wave that didn’t match her grim face. She must’ve known what we were checking on. “Sure, I can watch ‘em.”

  I ran back to Katelyn and grabbed her hand. She led me down the trail as fast as she could go. Not a word was spoken, even when I noticed the orange glow had faded.

  With the early morning upon us, there wasn’t much definition in the woods. Twenty yards deep into the trees, everything faded into a dark gray-green blur.

  The trail was surprisingly wide, and just as easy to follow. We headed up an incline about a hundred yards out of camp, and it wasn’t long before I was sucking air.

  “I need to rest,” Katelyn said, saving me from having to admit it myself.

  �
�Good idea.” I put my hands behind my head to catch my breath, mirroring her.

  She lowered her eyes from the sky and noticed me copying her. A sly smile crept over her face before turning serious again.

  “This is about as high as it gets.” She pointed ahead to where the trail crested. “A little farther and it breaks over into a big downhill that runs all the way to the creek.”

  “Where’s the trail to the waterfall?”

  “We passed that a while back.”

  “Oh.”

  She smiled again but quickly erased it. “Let’s get going.”

  Once we hit the high point, I marveled at the drop down to the creek. It was far from vertical, but would have been quite a climb for anyone headed up to Twenty. I was impressed at the strength and determination of the campers seeing how it was still a good three miles from where they’d parked at the non-existent old town site of Elkmont. They’d lugged a lot of gear up that steep hill, but that wasn’t important to reflect on at that moment.

  I gazed off to the east, hopelessly trying to force my eyes to see through bushy green mountains. There was a wide valley on the other side of the stream leading to Elkmont, but Gatlinburg was several miles off in the distance. A ridgeline and scattered knobs blocked any possible view of the town, but I thought we saw everything we needed to know.

  “Is that what I think it is?” Katelyn asked.

  I didn’t want to answer her. “I’m…I’m afraid so.” I shook my head as if trying to clear a bad memory and focused again on several different clouds of dark smoke rising above a distant hilltop. “That’s gotta be around the town.”

  She turned even paler than before. I wrapped an arm around her waist and hoped she didn’t feel me trembling.

  “What do we do?”

  “They’ll be okay,” I said quickly. “They can take care of themselves.”

  “And if they can’t? I mean…how do we know?”

  “We can’t. We don’t.” I pulled her by the waist to steer her back toward the camp. “There’s nothing to do right now but sit back and wait.”

  “That’s the worst part.”

  “I know.” I couldn’t have said it better myself. Nothing drove me crazier than sitting around doing nothing. Knowing nothing. And we had a big day of that in store for us.

  We hiked numbly back toward the camp. Before we made it inside the clearing, the delicious scent of breakfast wafted our way. The smell of bacon frying was almost enough to make me forget about town.

  Maddie came over quickly before I could forget.

  “Well?”

  “I don’t know, but it’s maybe not good.” I watched her eyes for a reaction.

  “You think-”

  A boy ran up and grabbed the tail of her shirt, begging her to go play with him. She whirled around, and happily plucked him off the ground.

  Maddie headed off without her answer, and I marveled at the way the kids respected her. I never realized she was so good with the young ones. She reminded me of the typical camp counselor everyone loved. I would’ve been hopeless in her shoes.

  I slumped at a table close to the cooks. It wasn’t long before the woman hollered for everyone to gather up and grab a plate.

  Even though I’d had a big dinner the night before, I should’ve been starving to make up for all the other missed meals. Instead, my stomach felt like a bowl of oatmeal had turned into concrete. I hadn’t even had any oatmeal, though I knew that was soon on the agenda if we were out there much longer. I could add that to my lengthening list of things to hate, which showed no signs of ending.

  I played around with my eggs with my fork, and looked up to notice Katelyn staring at me.

  “You better eat,” she said.

  I glanced at her plate and replied, “Same to you.” I picked up a slice of bacon and wagged it at her. “Better enjoy it while we can.”

  “I wish I could. It’s the not knowing that’s killing me.”

  I nodded. There was nothing else to say.

  The bacon was delicious. I could usually eat a pound all by myself. Even in my concerned state, I managed to choke down a couple slices. I considered going back for more, but the way the younger kids were grabbing it up like little addicts made me back off.

  “Bacon is a vegetarian’s crack,” Dad used to say. “Impossible to resist it.”

  But I found a way. Greasy, salty bacon probably wasn’t the best thing for my washing machine of a stomach.

  Katelyn kept staring off toward the trail. I knew she wanted to head out. I considered it strongly myself. Before we could talk about it, the cook was over looking for help. I was so desperate to keep my mind off other things, I volunteered to wash dishes.

  It was either that or split firewood with her adult children. They had been less than friendly thus far, so I was almost happy to pick up a dishrag.

  Sadly, my favorite distractions were non-existent, and would remain that way for an untold amount of time. I knew I would have plenty of opportunities to talk to Katelyn, which was all I’d ever hoped for. But I realized she couldn’t be my entire existence for every waking minute of the day, the week, the years…

  Having her around was the biggest blessing ever, but the mundane still nagged at me. I felt a persistent, bitter sting for missing out on so many of the things we could’ve done together, such as watching movies or playing video games. As much as I made fun of Austin for gaming all day long, I had definitely enjoyed playing a couple different ones with my buddy Joe. Just not so much that my eyes crossed and it looked like I hadn’t showered in a week.

  The lady handed me the last pot to dry, and stopped mid-bar in her idle humming to say, “We’ll have to get some water before dinner.”

  “Where do you go?”

  “John got the last batch straight from the creek,” Katelyn answered.

  “The waterfall or the steep hill?”

  “The hill.” Katelyn shrugged. “It’s the closest.”

  “Wherever you like,” the old lady said. The way her forehead wrinkled reminded me even more of my grandmother than just her mannerisms. “I’ll need it by this afternoon so I can get to boiling.”

  “To purify?”

  She bobbed her head and went back to whistling. Chores were finished, and there seemed no way the older two could handle the task. They had their hands full with cooking, so I gathered up a couple buckets apiece and set off with Katelyn for the creek. There was no point waiting until later.

  “You’d think there’d be somewhere closer,” I said when we reached the top of the hill, staring off into the creek valley.

  “What did you say?” Katelyn asked. She was fixated on the horizon again. I followed her eyes to the tops of green mountains, bathed in mid-morning sunlight. All the separate columns of smoke from earlier had dissipated to a haze, which I hoped was just the normal air pollution rather than a hint of fires burning somewhere in the city.

  “Nothing, really. Just thinking.”

  “Me, too.” She put both bucket handles in one hand and reached out for mine. I didn’t hesitate to follow suit.

  We stood there a while longer. I wouldn’t say we were admiring the view, though a few days earlier it would’ve been a pretty good place to curl up on a blanket on the side of the trail for a picnic. I nudged her gently with my shoulder, and she gazed at me with those big brown eyes.

  Thanks to the climb, the color had come back to her cheeks. I couldn’t help but smile, and a rosy glow framed her dimples.

  “Are you gonna be able to get back up?” I asked, abruptly changing the subject. I was clumsy like that when I was nervous. Seeing how we were still standing, she shot me a confused look. “I mean your leg. Can you climb back up the hill, with water?”

  “I think so.” She hopped on one leg for a second, then the other. “It really is feeling a lot better.”

  “You were pretty lucky.”

  “I guess a couple good things came out of this trip.”

  I harrumphed, not seeing m
uch to be happy about so far. “Like what?”

  She dropped the buckets to run her hand across her damp brow. The frown appeared for a moment, but quickly disappeared. “I’m trying to think positively here.”

  “Sorry.” I felt bad about pressing her on it, but it was such a strange statement. I had to know. “But seriously…like what?”

  “Well, I can still walk. That’s good.”

  “That’s true, I guess. Not sure how that qualifies as good, but…”

  She grabbed my other arm and stepped in front of me. With a voice barely above a whisper, she added, “And I finally get to spend time with you.”

  I dropped the buckets. She laughed as they clattered and started rolling downhill.

  “We’d better get those,” I said weakly.

  “Not yet.” Katelyn stood on her tiptoes and leaned into me.

  I wrapped my arms around her waist and held her tightly. The moment our lips met, I was soaring. The ugly world disappeared, and I was back in the clouds again.

  A shadow passed over us. Katelyn pulled away suddenly, pointing overhead. Circling lazily like a vulture was another kind of predator.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “Drone.” I dragged her underneath a tree at the edge of the trail. “I hope to hell they didn’t see us.”

  CHAPTER 34

  “Quiet,” I told Katelyn as we hunkered under the shade of a tree, but I didn’t know why I said it. Fear makes people do strange, unpredictable things.

  The drone circled a while longer. It was whisper soft. There was no telling how long it had hovered before she’d pointed it out. Not that I regretted the previous minutes with Katelyn, but I needed to keep my head in the game with threats everywhere.

  The skinny white plane with the bulbous nose seemed like it was barely above the treetops. It reminded me of one of those fancy remote control planes I’d seen people flying at the park a few years back. I was convinced I could throw a rock and knock the drone out of the sky. But I wasn’t about to try. If I’d had a rifle, maybe. It would’ve been easy enough to take out, but there was no point in making ourselves known.