As we come upon the outskirts of the town, I notice a trend among the tracks and prints we pass. Though it’s difficult to tell in the dark, nearly all of them appear to be moving away from town. And here we are, entering the place people are so desperate to leave that they would risk exposing themselves to the elements rather than stay. I don’t mention it to the others, but something about the tracks feels ominous to me. What could have changed to make these people finally abandon town after so long? It makes me fear things may be even worse than we thought.
We break beside a jack-knifed semi, it’s bulk an effective windbreak from the icy gales that have plagued us since leaving the farm. Morgan points to a massive, sprawling building to our right, more shadow than substance from this distance.
“That was the hospital,” he says, capping his canteen. “Roughly the halfway mark between the farm and town.” He speaks casually, but there’s a note of regret beneath his words. He grows quiet, and I recall the conversation we had earlier.
“What about the hospital?” Leon asked. “It’s possible he got injured and went there for help.”
“You really think the hospital would still be operational?” Emily argued.
“Not fully, but there could easily have been some who stayed behind to help. At least in the beginning.”
“They're not at the hospital,” Morgan said. “That man and boy we caught stealing? They were hiding out inside when they were attacked. If there are still people in there, it’s nobody we want to meet.”
That same note of regret filled his voice then as it does now—regret over what he witnessed that night—at what he refused to stand up and stop. I take his hand and squeeze, drawing his attention away from the shadowy building.
“C’mon,” I say. “Let’s keep moving.”
The wreckage grows as we enter the outskirts of town. The most congested areas of which, I notice, have been cleared to one side or another. It’s not a straight shot, but there is room enough to accommodate large vehicles if need be. The Animals have been busy it seems. Who else has both the vehicles and manpower to take on such an undertaking? But though they have the lanes open, they have yet to clear them of snow. Apparently, the fringes and countryside don’t fall high on their priority list. One can only hope that continues.
Past the vacant Walmart, we veer right onto a smaller, two-lane highway. A rocky face leers to my right, protective netting, and concrete barriers in place to shield the highway from falling rock. A guardrail runs along the left-hand side of the highway, the steep embankment beyond leading to the river below. Twice the railing is sheared through, cleaved, no doubt, by EMP affected vehicles the day everything went black. My eyes linger on these patches longer than they should, wondering about those who were lost that day. It’s not pity or compassion I feel in these moments, but rather a morbid curiosity about the dead—about their lives before, and the lives they might have had if they survived. Then again, maybe it’s better not to know. Makes it easier to absorb to think of them as statistics: faceless victims of the greatest tragedy the world has ever known. Makes you almost forget how easily it could have been us in their place.
The highway slants downhill, at the bottom of which lies the dark mass of the first true neighborhood we’ve come across on this venture. My stomach clenches nervously at the sight of it. I adjust the sling of my AR, feel the weight of the Glock holstered on my hip, their presence only a small reassurance against the enormity of our task. Deserted as this place appears, life remains in the homes and buildings, danger lurking in the shadowy pools below. Weapons be damned. Should the shadows shift against us, we won’t have the firepower to turn them. All I can do is pray it doesn’t come to that.
We veer left onto a narrow side-street soon as we reach the bottom, keen to avoid the major thoroughfares as much as possible. Squat little houses fill the blocks, their darkened windows like the eyes of ghosts, leering as we pass. I stare back, searching their depths for a hint of movement, a flicker of a flame, anything that might alert us to the presence of others. But the layers of darkness remain, the quiet unbroken. If our progress is noticed, it goes unchecked. For now, at least.
Deeper we enter this residential labyrinth, the disturbed snow and lingering smell of wood smoke the only evidence we are not alone. I study my surroundings the best I can, mapping our route in case I am somehow separated from the others. It’s a difficult undertaking, the streets we pass indistinguishable in the darkness. Only a few landmarks stick out to me: a church; a school; an apartment building; all meaningless if I can’t find them again. Still, I try. It makes me feel calmer, as if by doing so I somehow have more control over my fate. But deep down I know that’s folly. Truth is, I know my fate is tied to those I travel with. If I walk out of here alive, it won’t be alone.
We enter the mouth of an alleyway, a feeling of anticipation rising among us as we do so. Morgan’s quickened breaths. The edginess in Felix’s movement. We’ve nearly arrived.
“This is it,” Morgan whispers as we come to a stop at the end of the alley. A wooden fence fills my vision, the skeletal branches of a tall tree the only thing I can make of the home or yard. Felix tries the gate. Locked. Wordlessly, he hands his pack to Morgan, grips the top of the fence, and is up and over a heartbeat later. There’s the sound of shifting snow, a scrape of a bolt, and the gate swings open.
The anticipation I felt at the mouth of the alley multiplies with each step we make across the snowy yard. Weapons are drawn. Flashlights at the ready. Felix tries the door. Open. He shares a wary glance over his shoulder and then disappears inside. Morgan and Leon follow, Emily and I bringing up the rear. A cramped laundry room opens to the kitchen, cabinets and drawers flung open or else ripped out entirely. Broken dishes and cutlery crunch underfoot as we pass through. The living room. Two bedrooms. Bathroom. We find each in its own state of disarray, long ransacked of anything valuable. What’s more important is what we don’t find: people, Felix’s family or otherwise.
“It was always a long shot they would have stayed here,” Felix says. “But it was the logical place to start.” Long shot or not, the disappointment in his voice is noticeable. Then again I can’t blame him for hoping. I had my hopes up as well.
“Would have been too easy,” Leon says. “Where’s the fun in that?”
He smiles, and I find myself returning a tired grin. Tired as I am, I can appreciate the attempted humor. Felix must feel the same, a small smirk crossing his lips before replying.
“True,” he says. “Since when has any of this been easy?”
“It doesn’t have to be easy,” Morgan says. “It just has to be worth it.”
Felix nods once but doesn’t reply, perhaps wondering if this trip will indeed be worth it. If he does, he doesn’t mention it, taking the opportunity to change the subject.
“Sun will be up in an hour,” he says. “I’ll take first watch. The rest of you should get some sleep.”
It’s an offer I can’t refuse. I take the smaller of the two bedrooms, an audible sigh escaping me as I sink onto the bed. I stack my pack and AR beside the bed, ready to grab at a moments notice. My Glock remains in its familiar position beneath my pillow. Morgan enters a minute later.
“How’s he doing?” I ask.
“He’ll be fine,” Morgan says, settling himself on the bed beside me. “He just needs some time to collect himself.”
“At least there’s no blood this time,” I say, recalling the gory mess we found when we first arrived at the farm.
“Yeah, there’s that,” he sighs. He wraps his arms around me, pulling my body closer to his. “Let’s hope that trend continues.”
Chapter 22: (Morgan)
I sit on the edge of a bare mattress, stained and torn bedding lying in a heap at my feet. Like all the homes we’ve searched, the place has been trashed and looted, long stripped of anything valuable. Slowly, the room comes into sharper detail, the early morning sunlight revealing more and more of the debris left behind. Wh
at draws my attention most, however, isn’t the wreckage, but one of the few features that remains intact.
Across from me, above an upturned desk, hangs an artistic rendition of the sci-fi series Stranger Things. In the depiction, four youths stand on a desolate highway, their bicycles stalled as they face a sinister storm brewing in the distance. Thunderheads the color of blood and fire consume the sky, flaming bolts of lightning dancing across its expanse. And in the midst of it all, an unearthly creature of mountainous proportions, its form more shadow than substance, looming over the quiet town below. It’s the Upside Down they face: an alternate dimension where the towns and cities of earth have fallen into darkness and menacing creatures rule the land. Gripped in shadow though the print may be, the images no more than dark outlines from where I sit, it remains as vivid in my mind as the day I hung it upon the wall.
I don’t know how long I’ve sat here, staring at the print without truly seeing it, my mind beyond these walls I once called home. I thought I was prepared for this, that I knew what to expect by returning here. I was wrong. This town has fallen so much harder than I would have thought possible. Waste fills the streets and gutters. Gunshots echo through the air. The smell of death is not uncommon as we search, often warning us of the grisly scenes waiting around corners and behind closed doors. Perhaps the best illustration of how dire things have grown came within minutes of leaving Felix’s cousins house, when, in the very next alleyway, we came across the corpse of a man lying face down in the snow, his frostbitten hand frozen around a single can of cat food. I wish I could say it was the only body we’ve found, but it was only the first.
Five days we have scoured this forsaken place, following every lead, every hunch in our search for Felix’s family. So far nothing has come of it. Making contact with others has proven difficult, most of those we’ve come across preferring an exchange of bullets rather than words. Only the night before last we were shot at while passing Riverview Elementary. That nobody was hurt is nothing short of a miracle, the attack itself clumsy and desperate. Soon as we took cover and returned fire they fled, leaving us whole but shaken. For Felix, we didn’t let the incident scare us away from our task, but another encounter may change that.
The few occasions we’ve actually managed to parley with others have been tense and brief, hands hovering over weapons in case discussions turned south. Most of the town’s residents have either fled or died. Those who remain are deeply guarded, mistrustful of our intentions. Can’t say I blame them. Surely they’ve seen things that warrant such mistrust.
I wanted so badly to find solidarity among the survivors—some small semblance of the community I grew up in. I realize now how foolish of a hope that was. This isn’t the town I know and love. It’s only a broken reflection of what once was. The Upside Down.
A sharp throb beats at the back of my scalp, drawing my focus away from the conversation taking place around the table. Not that it much matters, it’s the same conversation we’ve held since the night we left the farm: where do we look next? But after nearly a week of searching our ideas are growing thin, each location we search more far-fetched than the last. It won’t be long until one of us mentions that unasked question hanging in the back of our minds: when do we call off the search? I look across the table at Felix, the stress eating away at me reflected ten times in his troubled eyes. He knows that time is nearly upon us.
“Museum, hotel, what does it matter?” Leon asks. “Can we risk either of them after last night?”
For the first time, my attention is focused entirely on the conversation that has suddenly grown quiet, the room tense and alert. Last night we crossed a church, a daycare, and a house of our search list, all of which had at least some connection to Frank or his girls. As has been the norm, all three were found stripped and abandoned. What set last night apart however wasn’t something found, but something felt. Goosebumps. Hairs rising at the back of the neck. From the moment I entered the church, I was overcome with the inexplicable feeling of being watched.
At first, I attributed the feeling to the church itself—to the figures etched in the stained-glass windows and the statues lining the walls around me. Even in the world before, churches made me edgy in a way I could never quite explain. Only that edginess persisted, stalking us as we hit the street and searched the daycare where Lena was employed. By then I wasn’t the only one who felt it. Unnerved, we retreated to the house I shared with Leon and Felix before the collapse, and which has served as our base of operations these past few days. Once this was a place of peace, of safety. My home. Now it’s no different than the other derelict buildings on either side of it.
“We don’t know for sure that we were followed,” Emily says. “If we were, they were damn stealthy about it. Doesn’t sound like AA.”
“Agreed,” Felix says. “No need for stealth when you’re the one running the streets. And in any case, they would have sent in a raiding party by now.”
Yes, they would have. The Animas Animals have descended on this town like a plague of locusts, devouring people and material in their bloody campaign to claim this place as theirs. The rifles and packs we carry would have been too much enticement for the greedy bastards to resist.
“You don’t have to be AA to pull a trigger,” Lauren says.
“Exactly!” Leon agrees. “In a way, that would make them more dangerous. They have less to lose.”
“What do you suggest then?” Felix challenges. “We can’t stay here forever.”
“No, we can’t,” Leon says. “But we also can’t head out with a half-cocked plan just because we’re running out of time.”
Felix has no response to that. None of us do. For the first time, our ticking clock has been mentioned. Leon’s expression softens as sees the effect this truth is taking on our friend.
“Look, all I’m saying is we need to think this through,” he says. “If we were followed last night, whoever it was could have a trap waiting for us the moment we leave here.” He meets my eyes. “We’ve been blindsided before...we can’t let that happen again.”
Maya.
I thought the pain of losing her might dull with time. It hasn’t. Even now, remembering that night is like a knife to the heart. I can still see the smile she wore before the light left her eyes—before she left this cruel world for whatever lies beyond. My sweet, brave girl. So full of love and loyalty that she didn’t hesitate to sacrifice her life for mine. It was her choice, I know that. Still, there’s guilt in surviving, in owing your life to another. It’s a burden I carry with me each day. I don’t want my friends to know this guilt, this burden. More than that, I don’t want to add to my own. Leon’s right, we can’t let it happen again.
“We won’t be,” I say.
Hours later we make our leave. Despite my assurances, I’m shot through with nerves as I step into the fading twilight. The shadows seem deeper. The sound of our footfalls overly loud. The feeling of being watched returns tenfold as we proceed down the block, Felix at our lead. It’s only with the greatest restraint that I resist the urge to look over my shoulder for pursuers. If there are eyes watching us, it’s best to let them believe we’re oblivious.
Night falls fast, the light growing darker with each block we pass. By the time we reach the maze of crushed and twisted metal that has become Main Ave, the sky has turned to black. We cross quickly onto another side-street, careful to remain in the center of the lane. To our left sits a hotel, and beyond that, a snow covered trail and footbridge spanning Junction Creek, no more than a bed of frozen rock and snow right now. We turn left, the trail a deeper shade of darkness than the street. Pass the bridge the trail splits, the left side leading toward the high school, and the right to Rank Park. We turn right. A dozen paces later we make our move.
We melt into the shadows off the side of the trail, the dense foliage keeping us from view. My heart beats hard inside my chest, adrenaline flooding my veins as it always does in moments such as this. I remind myself to breathe,
to remain focused. My eyes close as I drink in the sounds around me: the wind’s howl sweeping in from the south, the creaking of branches overhead. I’ll hear any potential threat long before I see it. The seconds stretch like minutes and still, no one approaches. Then, just as I allow myself the possibility that we were not followed, I hear it. The slight shifting on my left and right tell me my friends notice as well.
The footsteps are feather light, noticeable only for the soft crunch of snow accompanying each step. I strain my ears for more information, a scrap of conversation, the tread of a second pair of feet. Nothing. Only a solitary pursuer then. I track his progress as he approaches the fork in the trail and veers right. I shift my weight, ready to explode from the brush the moment he comes into view. But then the feet come to an abrupt halt. A pause. One second. Two. Then without warning, our pursuer is in full flight back the way he came.
I drop my pack and tear after him, no fear or hesitation in my movement. The moment he fled he became prey, and I, a predator. My eyes zero in on him as I round the corner, his retreating form nearly at the bridge. He’s fast. I’m faster, the anger and frustration I’ve felt propelling me forward. I’ll catch him before he reaches the street. He knows this too, altering his course by hurdling over the side of the bridge, landing with the grace of a cat on the snow-packed creek below. Without thinking I plunge after, ignoring the shouts from above. He can’t escape. We need to know why we’re being followed.
My landing is less graceful, the force of the drop sending me to my knees, buying my target precious seconds. I continue my pursuit but the gap between us only widens. My target’s no fool. He chose this route for a reason, his lighter build allowing him to skim atop the deep snow instead of sinking through as I do. He continues to pull away, rounding a bend in the creek bed, momentarily blocking him from view. I reach the bend just in time to see him scamper up the creek’s right bank. My stomach drops. Main Ave lies just beyond the bank, its minefield of wrecked vehicles the perfect place to lose us and disappear into the shadows. And I’m too far, too slow to catch him. He’s going to get away.
A Cruel and Violent Storm Page 25
