by Phil Maxey
“We have some medical supplies in the boxes you salvaged for us, take what you need.”
Alyssa turned slightly in the direction of the entrance door. “There’s hot food waiting for everyone.”
They all moved into a large, high-ceilinged lobby, with boarded up windows that were framed by a variety of colored tinsel. Occupied chairs and tables sat on one side, while boxes and racks of supplies sat on the other. At the far end a small staircase ran up to a landing, and to the left of that a roaring fire, which warmed the group as soon as they entered. On the fire sat a large pot, with liquid bubbling and steam rising from it. Along the left wall ran cupboards and a counter with baskets of bread and bottles of water on it. A natural Christmas tree covered in ornaments stood proudly a safe distance from the fire.
Alyssa stood in front of the children, who looked at her like they were about to hear from their principle. “There’s some bread for you to eat over there, share one between a few of you, and the same for the bottled water. Sit near the fire if you’re cold.”
The children’s expressions relaxed and they moved eagerly to get their piece of food and then some warmth.
“This was an Inn before the Cascade, now it serves the same kind of purpose. People who are new, stay here first,” said Brandon to Zach.
“We understand.”
Brandon then turned enthusiastically to Alyssa. “They are friends of Brad’s!”
“Brad Crenshaw?”
“Yup”
“Well, I… well I’m not surprised he survived, he was always one step ahead of all of us when it came to the spooky stuff! Anyway, please everyone, follow me and I will take you to your rooms.”
Alyssa then led the group to the small landing, as Zach went to follow, Brandon leaned closer to him.
“We should probably talk. Get some rest, and then I’ll be back in a few hours.”
Zach nodded, and followed the rest to the landing and then up some stairs and then onto another landing.
Alyssa and the group stood in a candlelit corridor. Abstract paintings of sun bathed wheat fields and historical scenes covered the walls. “A few of the rooms are taken, but most are empty, so find yourself somewhere. You can go up another floor as well if you want.”
The kids went to run off, when Mary called them back. “No, no we stick together,” she then looked at Alyssa. “Is there a large room with a few large beds?”
Alyssa smiled. “We have a large family room on the floor above, it’s the last door in the corridor.”
Mary thanked her, and led the children up the stairs, Irene carefully followed.
Zach and Abbey walked into the closest room, while everyone else flowed into the others. Abbey threw her backpack on the bed, while Zach took off his helmet and dropped that and the backpack on the floor.
Abbey sat on the double bed. “Considering it’s the end of the world, this is a pretty nice room.”
Zach walked over to the window, and looked out the front of the building towards the wooden wall protecting them. As he did, the torches Brandon mentioned were lit and he felt like he had been transported into a Saturday morning TV show, about the early settlers. His mind then threw images at him of the certain death he was facing just an hour earlier. He slid his hand over his face trying to wipe away the scene and sighed.
He then realized Abbey was standing directly behind him. “I’m fine. Just, things got hairy for a moment there,” he paused and then started laughing. Abbey wasn’t sure what he was laughing at for a moment, and then started giggling. He then turned and kissed her in one movement, but quickly pulled back, scrunching his face up. “I keep thinking it’s a lot more healed than it is.”
Abbey looked concerned, and gently touched his eye. “It’s a lot better than it was. And you can see out of it now.”
He sat heavily on the bed. “Yeah, all things considered, I’ll take a bruised eye. Did the children see what happened to the soldier, outside of the bus?”
“I can’t be a hundred-percent sure, but Mary did her best to keep them looking the other way.”
“Good,” he paused then continued. “Once, this shit show settles down, they are going to be who has to take things forward. The less traumatized they are, the better.”
“They also need to know what they are facing.”
“I don’t think there’s anyone, kids or adults who doesn’t know that by now.”
Zach smiled, and held out his arm. Abbey came and sat next to him.
Fiona followed Cal into a room with two single unmade beds. He leaned his rifle against a small bedside unit, his backpack on the floor and sat zombie like on the bed. He then laid back, staring upwards at the ceiling.
Fiona dropped her stuff and did the same on the other bed, all the while keeping an eye on him. “That was a close one back there.”
“They always are.”
Fiona turned on her side to face him. “How you doing?”
“What you mean?”
“For a moment there, when the truck was at the point of tipping, I thought you wasn’t going to jump out.”
“I’m here aren’t I.”
“Cal, I know there’s something going on with you, you haven’t been the same since those crazy fucks, back at the base.”
Cal turned over, facing away from her. “I just need to get some sleep.”
Sam stood looking out the partially boarded up window, onto the snow and rocks that formed the area at the back of the Inn. “There’s another wall. These folks have been busy.”
Isaiah leaned back on the single bed. “What’s that?”
“They built another tree wall out the back here, must be another line of defense… smart.”
“I just want to know where their food is, I’m mighty hungry. You stick one of those six-legged furry freaks in front of me right now? I’ll eat it.”
“And here’s me thinking the world had turned vegan.”
Sam sat on the other bed, and inspected his prosthetic leg.
Isaiah looked across. “Any damage?”
“It’s a bit scuffed up, but nope, you?”
Isaiah held up his prosthetic hand. “Still capable of giving you the finger.”
Sam smiled. “All is right with the world.”
Michael rolled painfully on his side. He rolled his t-shirt up and inspected the pink-red three-inch serrated line. It was still painful, but now it was a dull ache rather than a tearing sensation when he moved. A woman with her kid was talking in a foreign language to each other in a hushed tone, just a few feet away in a single bed. At first he thought he had gotten the short straw ending up in this room with them, but after a while, the sound of happiness, even in whispers and unrecognizable words, was something that made him feel good inside. Her name was Hanna and seemed a nice enough girl. As he lay on the bed, looking up at the ceiling and vertical striped wallpaper, he tried not to think about the last few days. He also tried not to think about Cal. The man he escaped with, was not the man in the room a few doors along.
*****
Zach lay looking at the flickering light that was emanating from under the room’s door. Abbey was asleep next to him. They had talked for a while about where they were and the need to find out more about their hosts before her eyes got heavy and she relaxed into the pillow next to him. He couldn’t sleep though. He had almost told her about Tinley, and his wish to stop him from getting to Austin, but if he did it meant she would be brought into what he might have to do, and she needed to stay out of it. The hordes of creatures that came almost too close just a few hours earlier flashed through his mind again, together with the fear. Not the fear of death, but the fear that he wouldn’t be able to exact revenge on who was responsible for his family’s death.
He pushed the images from his mind and instead stilled his thoughts. He was never one for meditation, but he found himself doing exactly that without realizing it. Hopefully the sick they left the camp with would now get the attention they needed and some of them at least
would have a chance of living. He had no idea how much there was to this ‘fort’ but Brandon seemed like he had things organized and that hopefully counted for something in this new world.
Sitting up, he put his boots, shirt and jacket on, and headed back down to the lobby. It was empty apart from Bass, who was toasting a bread roll on the fire.
“Why does it always taste better toasted?” Bass said.
“It’s like a caramelization reaction, or something, I dunno, my son told…” Zach smiled. “Me, years back.”
“Never knew you had a son?”
“Yeah.”
Bass sensed Zach’s reluctance to talk anymore about his child and decided to change the subject. “I thought we were goners, back there.”
“It wasn’t looking good before the chopper arrived. Did you see what kind it was?”
“Looked like an old Huey, real Nam type, with a mini-gun.”
“Be interesting to see what else they got here.”
Zach sat down. “The vets stepped up. I think we got ourselves some fighters there.”
Bass smiled. “You better believe it.”
They both sat for a moment enjoying the fire and a partial feeling of normality. A pickup pulled up outside and Brandon appeared with flakes of snow still sticking to hit winter hat.
He pulled off his gloves. “Got room near that fire?”
CHAPTER NINE
Zach stood waiting for Brandon outside the Inn. The sun was just beginning to illuminate the mist that meant you couldn’t see more than a hundred yards, and was accompanied with a silence that led credence to the idea that world had ended. The night before, he, Bass and Brandon sat and talked for hours. They learned that Brandon and Alyssa had been running their prepper shop in another part of Oregon for twenty years and had been ready for the ‘Crunch’ as Brandon called the Cascade, long before it actually took place. But even they weren’t prepared for the C.C’s or crazy critters as he called them, and they soon realized that their B.O.L. or bug out location wasn’t going to enable them any kind of protection from an onslaught. ‘We always figured it would be humans we would have to defend against, not man-sized bat’s and spider things as big as a car!’ They had vacationed a few years earlier in this location near Mt. Hood and thought it would be a good spot to try and make a stand. They also realized that they weren’t going to make it alone. ‘Preppers tend to be more about doing their own thing, but as we traveled to here we picked up other survivors. We wouldn’t have made it without all of us working together.” The smaller internal wall went up first, which protected a number of homes and important buildings, and then soon after the external wall was added which expanded the area to include the Inn and highway.
Zach had relayed his own story of how he and the others left New Mexico and eventually made it to the camp near Austin. And then what had happened over the previous week in getting to the Portland camp. Zach wondered how Brandon would take the fact that some of the group that had arrived were previously in a military jail, but he hadn’t flinched when learning of the information. The fact that they knew Brad seemed to count for a lot. Afterwards he had talked a little with Fiona, who he found at the end of the corridor upstairs, staring out into night, watching the snow fall. They agreed that they would stay here for a day or two before heading back out.
Brandon told Zach he would show him around the fort today, and to be outside at sun up. As he waited in the icy morning cold, he paced back and forth, trying not to think about Tinley’s journey to the other camp, and that while he was here, there was nothing he could do to stop it. The sound of crushed snow and ice came from the right, and Brandon’s pickup drove slowly down the road and into the parking lot of the Inn.
Brandon pushed open the pickup’s door. “The heaters on.” Zach jumped in. “You slept?”
“I did,” he lied.
Brandon drove them back the way he came to the inner gate. This one was smaller than the external, standing only twenty-feet high, but still looked substantial.
Zach noticed some claw marks in the wood. “How often do you get attacked?”
“It varies, but it’s slowed down recently. Nowadays, maybe a few times a week, that’s down from a few times a day months back.”
“You did well to survive.”
Brandon smiled. “Well they don’t call us survivalists for nothing.”
They drove past rows of two-story homes, all with boarded up windows. Brandon noticed Zach looking at them. “We quickly learned that having glass windows wasn’t much of a defense, so we boarded them all up. We’re slowly converting them to open up, but right now there’s not much light in these homes.”
“How often do you go on supply runs?”
“Once a month. Mostly to get medical supplies. Everything else we can take care of. We have fresh running water from the creek. For fuel we burn wood, obviously we have a ready supply of that.”
“What about food?”
“We have a few warehouses full of food, and we will be planting crops in the spring. We also have another source.”
Zach looked at Brandon, unsure of what he meant.
“That’s the first place I’m going to show you.”
They drove past some stores, and then pulled down a small side street, stopping outside a single story plain looking building with no windows and just one door.
As they got out of the truck, a man came out of the building and walked up to Brandon. “Got at least a few weeks worth in there.”
Brandon turned to Zach. “This is Tyrone, our head chef, he’s in charge of making sure there’s enough food to go round.”
Zach smiled and Tyrone waved, then got into another pickup. Brandon held the door open, and they both went inside. Instantly the smell hit Zach. The sweet, foul smell of fresh meat. Brandon led them both down a small corridor, and through another door to a room that was even colder than the outside. One light lit a small area with a series of hooks suspended from the ceiling, and hanging off them were skinned pieces of E.L.F’s.
Zach felt revulsion of seeing the unnatural things swinging against each other. “You eat them? How do you know it’s safe?”
Brandon walked over to one of the slabs of exotic meat and put his hand on it. “Before man dropped the first seeds, we were hunters. If it looks vaguely like how animals used to look, we kill it and see what the meat is like.”
“Why you showing me this?”
“If you or any of your group want to stay here, then you need to know how we do things. We can’t force you to eat this if you don’t want, but sooner or later you might have too.”
Zach wanted to tell him that he had no plans on staying for too long, but maybe the idea they might stay longer was what was helping them get such a good welcome. The idea of eating one of those things, turned his stomach, but he also saw the sense in it, if the creatures were not poisonous.
“I understand, I’ll tell the rest.”
Brandon patted him on the back. “Good. Now let me know show you the rest of our town.”
Instead of getting back into Brandon’s pickup, they left it where it was and trekked though compacted snow out onto the main street. Across from where they were was a large sign “Seth’s store.” Brandon headed for it.
A tall man with graying hair and a cap on was shoveling snow away from the front entrance. “Hey Brandon.”
“Hey Seth, we had quite a fall overnight.”
“Yeah, but maybe it keeps the CC’s away.”
“Maybe. This here’s Zach, he’s part of the new group that came in yesterday.”
Seth stepped off the front steps and shook Zach’s hand. “Heard you had some bad business at the landslide.”
“Would have been a lot of worse if it weren’t for Brandon and his people.”
Brandon smiled. “We got some good meat out of it!”
Seth waved at Zach’s camouflage pants. “You were part of the military?”
“Still am, I’m Captain Zach Felton, from the camp n
ear Austin.”
“We heard the camps were all gone? Destroyed by bomb or creature.”
“They are, apart from the camp near Austin, they’re holding out.”
Seth gave a surprised nod.
“How’s Eleanor?” said Brandon.
“She’s getting by, we think the infection is under control, but time will tell. You know what she’s like.”
Brandon smiled. “Sure do. Okay, I better be off, I’ll catch you at the meeting later.”
Brandon then led Zach back across the street to a large flat area between buildings, sitting on the ground were two helicopters. An older Huey and a newer sleeker model from the 90’s which was covered in bright red and yellow stripes. Around the outside, a small group of men, some with hardhats and tools, were constructing something made of wood.
Brandon smiled. “This is our airport, as you can see it’s still being built. The Huey came with a prepper from down south, he brought his family up here in it. That mini-gun has saved our hides on more than one occasion. The other was a rescue chopper that ran around these parts, used to save stranded skiers on the mountain.”
“Where do you get the ammo for the mini-gun?”
“That’s also where these beauties help out, we make a flight to a military base once a month to pick up what we can. The Huey acts as fighter escort from the other.”
This is a smart setup. Zach nodded in appreciation.
Brandon’s radio crackled and he clicked it on. Zach turned and looked out over Main Street as more of the townspeople started to emerge, when his own radio came to life with Fiona’s voice. He clicked it on.
“You there, Zach. Over?”
“Yes.”
“We have a problem.”
Zach was about to reply, when he noticed Brandon’s voice sounded concerned and he had stopped talking.
He looked at Zach. “We better head back to the pickup.”
CHAPTER TEN
Cal sat watching the water in the stream trickle over clear ice. His breath was still visible even though he now had a chance to rest for a while. Running from the fort hadn’t been the plan, when he lay his head on the pillow in the room with Fiona, but as he tried to sleep the drumming in his mind started up again, and he knew he had to get away. Not for himself, but for those around him. He couldn’t trust that what happened all those years ago in Afghanistan wouldn’t happen again. So he had to leave. He felt bad for the young guy he had to take down at the north wall, but he had spotted him climbing over, and if he hadn’t quietened him, and if he was brought back, more might have been hurt, it was a sacrifice that had to be made.