“What?”
“Your trail name. Believer. If you don’t mind me giving you one. We are on a trail, sort of.”
Gabe gets to his knees and throws his arms around me in a hug that’s almost desperate in its need for connection. I return it, hugging this kid who is Jesse’s age and smells of dirt and sweat and patchouli, while I pray that Jesse has someone to hug.
Gabe pulls away and wipes his eyes. “It’s perfect. I thought it’d be Granola or Dumbass or something.”
“Or Cherry?”
Gabe laughs as the others join us, and Lana sets down the stoves and stew. At the thought of food, my constant hum of hunger becomes a roar that drowns out the ache in my legs. It’s been over a month with too little food, weeks with more exercise than usual. I’m not starving to death, but I’ve never known hunger like this.
Troy hands me half a protein bar. It goes into the gaping maw of my stomach like a raindrop into the ocean. I eye where Daisy kneels before the two backpacking stoves, carefully spooning canned corn into the stew in the two small pots. Is it wrong that I want to knock her over, grab a pot, and run off into the woods with it like a feral dog?
Yes, I remind myself, that would be very wrong.
The smell of food draws Lance closer. He takes the half protein bar Troy hands him and perches on the opposite side of the fire with his arms around his knees, chewing his lip instead of the bar.
“You all right?” I ask.
“Fine,” Lance says sharply.
I consider killing and eating him, but I’m not ready to go there just yet. He cheered up when Gabe first appeared and befriended him, but he’s back in obnoxious mode.
Ten minutes later, we eat our food around a crackling fire, faces and bellies warm. Lance brings the pots to the road, where a big pothole in the gravel supplies wash water. Gabe watches him intently, then walks to the road and crouches beside him. After a few seconds of talking, he touches Lance’s arm.
“Get the fuck off me!” Lance yells, rearing back and leaping to his feet.
Lance stalks our way, drops the pots at the fire, then lifts his backpack and storms into the trees without a word. I’m about to go after him, but he stops fifty feet away under a big fir and sits with his back to us. It’s impossible not to stare, and my four companions wear expressions of mild surprise and utter interest. All we need is some popcorn for the show.
Gabe sits by the fire again. The five of us turn to him. “What was that about?” Lana asks.
“I’m gay.” Gabe’s gaze shifts to Lance, then back to us. “Lance and I…last night.”
A chorus of ohs follows this information, and then we all study Lance in his new campsite. After a minute, Lana asks, “Did he tell you about his friends who were with us?” Gabe nods, mouth sagging sympathetically. “They were heterosexuals in a big way. Small town and everything. Maybe he didn’t tell them. Or anyone.”
Gabe roots in his pack and pulls out a perfectly rolled joint. “I’ve been there.”
He lights the joint and inhales, holding his breath before he exhales a huge plume of smoke. He passes it to Daisy, who does the same and sends it to Francis. Troy and Lana are next, and then I hold the joint, undecided. “Should we all be stoned? Who’s going to watch for zombies?”
“Dude, it’ll take a lot more than this to get me that stoned,” Gabe replies. “I could smoke that whole thing and still win Jeopardy.”
I laugh and fill my lungs. It probably isn’t the smartest move, but we’re thousands of feet up a mountain, there are no zombies, and I want something to take the edge off.
After another round, Gabe calls to Lance, “We’re smoking some ganja over here, if you want any.” Lance’s head twitches. He gets to his feet and sways for a few seconds, fighting his body’s inclination to join us. Gabe smiles. “You know you want to. Everyone’s doing it. Peer pressure!”
The six of us crack up. It’s good weed, though I expected nothing less from Gabe. Lance trudges toward us, head down. Gabe holds the joint in the air, not looking at Lance, who takes it from him and sucks in a giant drag, then another, finishing it off.
Darkness is falling. The fire lights our faces orange as a new joint makes the rounds. “How much do you have in there?” I ask.
“Three ounces,” Gabe says.
Francis leans forward, elbows on his knees and chin in hand. “Damn. That’s a lot of weed.”
“I found some of it in Northern Cali. I couldn’t let all that sweet bud go to waste.”
Lance sets his ass on the ground, next to Gabe but not too close. I smile at him, and his lips spasm before he stares into the trees.
“There’s one thing we didn’t consider,” Lana says. “The munchies.”
Everyone groans. The joint swings by again, and I pass it on without smoking. My body and brain are mellow, but there’s a too-stoned point where they’ll go into anxiety mode. No one, especially me, needs that.
Gabe tells us how he flew out west and got a ride to the beginning of the trail. How the desert was both plain and beautiful, harsh and lovely, and how his body toughened up over the course of the first two weeks. “I thought I was dying, man. My legs woke me up with charley horses every night. It passes, though, and then you can do any mountain you set your mind to. You’ve just got to push through and believe.”
He laughs at his words and points double finger guns at me. I point my own finger guns back. “Believer,” I say. “That’s his trail name.”
“Cherry and Believer,” Gabe says. “The rest of you need your names.”
“I want a cool one,” Troy says. “Han Solo? Batman?”
“Yours is Atlas,” Lana says with a giggle. “Because you lost ours.”
Daisy laughs over Troy’s complaints. “Too late, it’s Atlas. What’s mine?”
“Spike!” I shout, then cover my mouth. Mitch says I have no volume control when stoned. I whisper loudly, “Because you made them.”
Daisy grins. “Nice. And how about Francis?”
“Fighter,” I say immediately.
Francis lifts a fist Black Panther style, and Troy yells, “How come he gets a cool one?”
“Because he didn’t lose the atlas,” Lana says, and our laughs echo. “Cherry’s good at this. What’s mine?”
I say the first thing that comes to mind. “Poochie. Because you love dogs.” I hold up a hand. “Wait, I can do bett—”
“I love Poochie. I’m keeping it.”
We all look to Lance, who hasn’t said a word. He watches the fire as though he doesn’t care about a name, but not before I see the hope. The wanting to belong. My life’s story in his eyes. “Ladies and gentlemen,” I say, “I present to you Neutral, formerly known as Lance.”
The others clap. Francis explains to Gabe how Lance moved those cars, and Gabe pounds Lance’s shoulder. “Nice one, man.”
Lance’s lips quirk. “Thanks.”
We watch the fire in silence, listening to the wood snap and pop. It’s peaceful, warm. The wind has calmed and the rain has stopped for the moment. I scan the tranquil faces of my new friends. Even Lance has loosened up. Except for the growling of my stomach, I feel as serene as they appear.
“I like you guys,” I say. Once it’s out, I decide it’s one of those stoned thoughts better left unsaid, since I’m not five years old, but I receive giant smiles in return.
“Me, too.” Lana squeezes my shoulder, then sighs. “I can’t stop thinking about those two Hershey’s Bars.”
“We could die tomorrow,” Daisy says, “and it would be a waste if we didn’t eat them.”
“I might lose them,” Troy adds, which prompts a round of snickering.
It’s shaky reasoning, but we need no more than that. A minute later, we’re eating chocolate sandwiched between cookies, laughing like teenagers cutting school. And I’m struck by the thought that despite the way the world has soured, life can still be sweet.
64
Craig
We wake to blue skies and su
nshine. After packing up camp, we set out along the dirt road. Everything aches, and my stomach pleads for food, but I feel the best I have in weeks. I’ve even remembered why people go into the woods. After days of rain and fog, we’re surrounded by a gorgeous view of mountains upholstered in the dark green velvet of firs. The taller ones still have a dusting of snow at the very top. The tallest and more distant are white-capped and streaked with dark veins of rock where snow has begun to melt.
Applegate Valley sits to the east. From here, it looks peaceful, though it’s probably anything but. Today’s hike is a descent toward Murphy, with Grants Pass just beyond. As we walk down one rise to the next, the squares of farmland and swathes of road that mean civilization come into sight. Instead of filling me with relief as it once did, my nerves jangle. No sooner do I get the hang of one thing than another pops up, this time a trip into a heavily populated area.
The road turns to pavement, and a mile later we’re on two-lane blacktop by a few houses on large wooded lots. Two of the houses’ doors hang open, though the third is tucked away from the street, screened by a thicket of tall firs, and surrounded by a fence made of log poles with rigid metal mesh in the open spaces. It reminds me of Rose’s fence, and I’m very happy to see it intact.
Nothing moves in the long driveway or detached carport, the latter of which contains two cars. The wrought iron gate is locked but easy enough to climb. Even if a vehicle only brings us a few miles closer, it’ll be less walking. Less time to reach Eugene.
When we’re nearing the carport, an upstairs window of the house opens with a crash, and the barrel of a shotgun appears through gauzy curtains. “Turn around and keep walking,” a woman’s voice calls. It’s high-pitched with fear, though firm. “Or I will shoot. Don’t think I won’t. I’ve done it before.”
We stop. Troy’s hands raise, fingers splayed. The rest of us do the same, heavy breaths mingling with the sound of the breeze. “Hiya,” Troy drawls. “We thought the house was empty, and we need a vehicle to get north to Grants Pass. Sorry ‘bout that. We’ll be on our way now.” Out of the corner of his mouth, he murmurs, “Turn around and go slow.”
I about-face and wait for the others to move ahead, then keep near their backs. Troy is beside me two steps later, hand on his holster.
“You won’t have much luck going north in a car,” the woman calls, and we stop.
Troy walks a few steps toward the house and squints at the window. “Why’s that?”
“The roads are blocked up to Grants Pass. If I were you, I’d follow the power line easement to the Applegate River. Cross it, and the easement will get you to the Rogue River. You’ll have to figure out your own way from there.”
“Where’s the easement?” Troy asks.
“Go north on this road. When you get to the school, cut diagonal across the fields. You’ll see it.” A screech travels out the open window. A child. “Good luck.” The window shuts, cutting off the kid’s next screech.
I wave at the glass in thanks and climb the fence with the others. Two miles later, past trees, no fewer than eleven zombies, and houses stripped of all food, we reach a school set back across an open field.
“And not a moment too soon,” Troy murmurs, eyes on the stopped cars up the road.
We set out across the grass and follow the string of power lines—two telephone poles connected by steel far above ground. The grass beneath is overgrown except in two ruts left by years of work trucks. Bugs whine in the grass and birds fly overhead. It’s warm after days of cold rain, and Daisy lifts her face to the sun with a happy sigh. The road on the other side of the woods is blocked and zombie-filled, but we walk in a world that feels like the world of before, where animals still do their animal business.
After a mile, we hit a two-lane road where no zombies lurk, and the sound of water draws us forward until we’re at the river’s edge. It’s two hundred feet across and shallow where it burbles and bubbles over a gravel bar. Only the middle remains a mystery as to depth, though the current isn’t dangerously fast, even with the recent rain and snowmelt.
“How deep could it be?” Gabe sits on the grass and begins untying his boots. “Tie your shoes around your neck and hold your pack overhead. That’s what I did in the mountains. You can strip down if you want, but pants will dry fast in this sun.”
Gabe pulls off his socks and stuffs them into his pack, then produces a pair of water sandals. “I have these, but I don’t need them.”
He tosses them to Lance, who catches them and then watches as Gabe hefts his pack over his shoulders and steps into the water. Lance loosened up last night, and I was on watch when he crawled into Gabe’s tent. This morning, he isn’t exactly lovey-dovey with Gabe, but he isn’t walking ten feet away at all times, either. And though he probably thinks no one notices, he watches Gabe constantly, face mirroring Gabe’s expressions. I’ve seen a lot of people in like through the years, and Lance definitely has a case of the likes.
Once past the gravel bar, Gabe wades into deeper water. When it’s up to his waist, he turns back with a grin. “It’s cold up in this bitch!”
We laugh and untie our shoes. I tuck my socks in my pack and hang my boots around my neck. The river is cold, but not as cold as some of the rivers I’ve been in, and I step carefully across rocks smoothed by years of flowing water.
“Stay on this side,” I say to Daisy, the shortest of the group, as she picks her way beside me. She holds her pack above her head, the muscles in her arms sharply defined. If the water is over waist-high on Gabe, it’ll be near chest-high on her, and she won’t be able to fight the current as easily. If she’s swept off her feet, I’ll catch her. I hope.
The water rises to my knees, then my thighs. The smooth rocks change to larger ones mixed with river debris, and I feel each spot before I set my weight down. Gabe hits mid-river, where water swirls his shirt around him. “It’s getting shallower already!” he calls. “We got this.”
“Gabe, watch out!” Lance yells from behind.
Something—a log, maybe—surfaces in the current and slams into Gabe’s side. He goes down with a yelp of surprise. It’s not deep, but he disappears under the water with a torrent of splashing and waving of appendages. Too many appendages. It’s not a log—it’s a zombie.
Before I can drop my pack, sacrificing it to the river gods, Lance is past us and diving into the shallow water. He cuts through it like a pro swimmer and quickly reaches where Gabe wrestles with the Lexer, then yanks up a slightly bloated man and tosses him downstream.
Gabe is next, coughing and sputtering while water pours from his dreads. Lance holds him by the waist to keep him upright. “Are you okay? Gabe?” His voice is panicked. “Gabe!”
“Dude, let me finish choking to death,” Gabe coughs out. He extends his arms to inspect them. A few spots are the deep red of a pre-bruise, but there are no bite marks. “Check my back?”
Lance spins Gabe around, lifting his shirt and examining the skin until he relaxes. “You’re good.”
Gabe raises two thumbs to our side of the river, and my breath comes easier. I don’t want to lose anyone else. Bury anyone else. Josh and Tanner were more than enough.
After retrieving Gabe’s waterlogged pack at the base of a rock, we wade across the rest of the river, then collapse on the riverbank in the trees. Lance’s pack is only partly wet. He dropped it on the gravel bar in his haste, and Lana plucked it from the water immediately. Gabe has dry bags to hold his sleeping bag and clothing, and he reposes on a log in a new outfit while his sopping clothes dry in the sun.
We crack open three MREs. I once had the thought that they were unappetizing, but now I eat every molecule I’m allotted and wish for more. Four zombies have floated by during our rest stop. Daisy points out another, this one face up as though peacefully watching the clouds.
“Can’t believe one almost got me.” Gabe folds his hands under his chin and bats his eyelashes at Lance. “My hero.”
Lance smiles at the ground.
Lana winks at Gabe over his head, then settles on the grass with her pack as a pillow. “How much longer, Francis?”
“A hundred-forty miles, give or take.” Francis consults the atlas and shows us where it denotes power easements, though he hadn’t thought to use them this way. “About six miles to the Rogue River.”
When all the food is gone, we set off again. The plan is to cross the Rogue River and make it to the highway. My feet are dry, my pants are drying, and my good mood is made better when we come across an abandoned house with a pickup truck. We throw our bags in the bed and drive along the rutted track. We’re closing in on Eugene, about seventy percent finished with our trip. I know better than to jinx it (Rose and I have a strict no-jinxing policy) but I can’t wholly tame my excitement.
The six miles take only twenty minutes to cover and deposit us on a well-traveled road. Troy whizzes past houses, turning at an intersection onto Rogue River Highway. The street name is a good sign; the traffic-blocked road and advancing zombies are not.
Troy swings into a restaurant parking lot. We exit the truck quickly, circling the building for the river, and come to a halt twenty feet from the water’s edge. Something downriver has stopped it up, and bodies bob and float as far as the eye can see, spinning with the current and bashing into each other. We sure as hell aren’t fording this.
At groans from the parking lot, Francis points left. “There’s a bridge that way. Less than a mile.”
I grip my spike as we weave through trees and bushes, around flowerbeds and decks of the riverfront houses. A Lexer tangled in blackberries at the shoreline thrashes, and it sets off the ones around it. Water flies and groans pass from body to body until the river is a roiling soup of limbs.
We break into a jog-run. Days of walking and hiking have exhausted me, but they’ve also given me endurance. We’re in a park-like area a few minutes later, running for the nearby bridge. Even at a distance, I can see it’s four lanes full of cars and zombies.
“Plan B!” Francis calls.
The Cascadia Series (Book 1): World Departed Page 63
