by Burgy, P. J.
“And if we find them?” Hooper asked.
“If they’re on foot, run back here. I’ll run them Brethren over in the Bella. But I ain’t wastin’ the gas goin’ on a wild goose hunt. Five hours, they’re prob’ly long gone. Hell, maybe they’re hidin’ somewhere though. If you find ‘em, we got guns, jus’ need to know how many of ‘em there are. If you see a rover, run. Jus’, please, don’ get caught.” Renshen looked off and Kara frowned.
Hoop whistled sharply and the dogs came running. He began to stalk off toward the direction of the front gate and Kara caught up with him in a few long strides. The five dogs trotted by Jensen Hooper, eyes on him and waiting for his next command. Kara peered back over her shoulder, hearing Renshen giving orders. Then, he was marching off, and Hodges, Sam, and Miranda followed after him. They would be heading over to the bodies first, to get them out of the fort, and to the memorial garden out front. Wooden pyres would be made, and the dead covered in branches and leaves. In Pleasant Tree, they had plenty of wood at their disposal, unlike Blue Lagoon.
Kara and Hooper stepped outside, through the open gate and passed the Bella. Taking his mask off, Hoop attached it to his hip, glancing over at Kara as they walked side by side. He holstered his rifle and the barrel struck softly against the side of his leg with each step. His tone was low, cautious. “I don’ think this is wise, Kara.”
“I know, Hoop.” Kara swallowed. She fastened her mask to her belt, pushing the straps through a loop and connecting their ends snugly. When Hooper stopped, she stopped too. He studied her with his blue eyes, lips drawn back taut across his teeth. She heard him exhale, saw the look on his face. He wasn’t pleased, but he was a man who followed through with his word. She frowned. “Thank you for going with me.”
“Let me ask yah,” Hooper said. “If we don’t find ‘em, what’ll you do?”
“I don’t know. Go on living, I guess.” The lie burned her throat, her words hollow.
“And if we do find something? Yah think we’ll be able to make it back quick enough?” He asked.
“I will,” she replied.
“Y’know, I run pretty fast too,” Hooper told her, “When I send the dogs, an’ they go, we gotta keep up. They won’t be runnin’ full speed, but they still move pretty damn fast. You prepared for that?”
“Yes. No question,” Kara told him.
“Okay.” Hooper turned to the expectant canines, looking over them as they stood at attention, seeing that their master was about to address them. Hooper pointed out and around, from left to right, gesturing at the vast expanse of the lands directly in front of the fort. “Find folk! Pack! Find folk! Pack! Pace! Pace!”
The dogs rushed out, keeping together, moving as a unit, and began to sniff at the ground. Two or three began to whine and growl simultaneously, then one let out a howl and ran toward the field to the left, through the tall grass. The other four followed, and they spread out briefly before forming a unified front once more. They sniffed around, furiously scouring the grass with their sensitive noses. A dog howled again and bolted, continuing left and heading toward the horizon. The others followed, and Kara took off after them.
The dogs stopped every five to ten minutes after a hard run, reassessing their surroundings while sniffing at the grass, moving in circles around one another. Then, one would pick up the scent and run in that direction.
So far, it had been steadily moving toward the horizon in a straight line, but, when the dogs took them toward the ruins of a farmhouse, the trail turned onto the road.
After running through the grass for so long, Kara was partly thankful to be on the cracked blacktop. She was also acutely aware of how exposed she and Jensen Hooper were, chasing the dogs in plain sight.
While there were tall grasses and unattended tall corn stalks on either side of the road, there were no trees to hide behind or houses to duck around. There was the odd rusted old car on the shoulder, but nothing that could stand in as shelter should they need to hide.
The sun shone directly above them, the heat of the day baking her in her riot gear.
When the dogs stopped again, she looked to Hooper, who needed a breather and called the dogs to him. They milled around, sitting on the ground, or came over to push their sides up against Hooper’s legs waiting for a pat.
“Damn, I’m out of shape,” Hooper muttered, hunched over and gripping his upper thighs. He shook his head at her, trying to smile. Patting one of the dogs at his side, he let out a sharp breath of air. “Hot day. Doesn’t help.”
“You’re doing good, old man,” Kara told him, hands on her hips. It was hard to force a smile, and it must have been obvious to him that her heart wasn’t in it as his own smile faded.
“Comin’ from you, I’ll take that as a compliment.” He stood up straight again, hands on his sides. “Don’t like where this road is leadin’ though. You never run out that way, but you seen the maps, I’m sure. In another few miles, we’ll be hittin’ a business district, if we stay on this course.”
“Plenty of places to hide.”
“We ain’t more than half an hour out, Kara,” Hooper said. “They had plenty of time to get further than that. You keep goin’ that way, turns into a town. They could’a gotten there easy. Can’t go that far.”
She wiped the sweat from her brow and then pointed down the road, to the far horizon. It was flat lands surrounding them in all directions, all fields with one barn out in the distance. “At least we know what direction they went. We can get in the Bella and-”
“Half a day and yah’ll be in midtown. They would’a gone there. They have over five hours on us,” Hooper interrupted her. “When yah hit midtown, it’s a clear shot, right to the city. I’ll bet they got a stronghold near there, the crazy bastards. Infected all over that area.”
“The city?”
“Yeah.” His eyes were sharper than usual when she met his gaze. She saw him thinking, his lips drawn back, swaying from foot to foot. “Kara, if they got to midtown, which they probably did, we ain’t gonna find them. We can keep goin’ for a little bit, but I think we best turn around.”
“Let’s get to the business district. Just, let’s try. Please.”
He sighed. “If they’re hidin’ there, we’ll have time to run right back. But I won’t go no further. The closer you get to the city, the more likely you’ll run into bad company.”
Kara nodded. “If we don’t find them there, we’ll go back.”
“Okay.” He whistled at the dogs. “Find folk! Pack!”
The dogs rushed off with Kara and Hooper in pursuit.
The business district started with a few broken down stores, their windows shattered or missing, and their roofs caved in. The road widened, the dogs moving back and forth across the fractured blacktop, its painted lines long washed away long ago. Metal poles on the side of the road extended up from what was left of the sidewalks. These had once been traffic lights, she knew that. They had fallen, or been pulled down, and been scrapped. There was a large sinkhole that they needed to avoid, and trenches had formed in the parking lots to their left and right. Nature had been working very hard to reclaim the shopping centers they passed, vines creeping up the outside of the crumbling buildings.
Kara looked over at what had to have been a large super market. A sign had crashed into the cracked pavement below, blocking the doors of the storefront. Cars had been left behind, a few on their sides and some others trapped in growing sinkholes. The tall shopping center signs that detailed store locations were still standing, but they’d been ruined by the elements, and, as she wasn’t too shocked to see, bullet holes. Now and then they would pass a building covered in hideous graffiti of lewd language or images. The smaller shopping centers, the ones with the interconnected stores, had fared better than the larger, single buildings. Their windows were all smashed, but the roofs were still intact.
So far, the dogs hadn’t seemed interested in much at all, continuing to run forward until Hooper whistled for them to s
top. As she slowed to a halt, she saw that he was stepping over toward something on the ground, reaching to it, and picking it up. When he turned around, he showed her a large, black combat boot, something that a guard would wear. They exchanged puzzled expressions.
“If this belongs to someone from Pleasant Tree, maybe they left it as a clue. A breadcrumb,” she said. “They know that we’d be following the trail.”
Hooper shook his head, eyes closed, brow furrowed. He dropped the boot to the ground and the dogs padded over to sniff at it before looking back up at him. He gripped the bridge of his nose, his other hand on his hip. “If I didn’t know any better, didn’t know that they were animals, brainless, I’d start to ask myself if the Wailers carried all them people off.”
“I thought about that too. Crazy.”
Hooper shook his head again, and then turned to look down the road. He made a sharp scoffing sound in the back of his throat and then made his way toward another, less solid shape. The dogs followed him and Kara did too. When he reached the pile of dung, he cleared his throat. “Lookit this. They’re either riding on the horse or walkin’ him along.”
They continued down the road.
They continued on for another half hour until Hooper called the dogs back. They had stopped along the road further into the business district, nothing of interest catching their attention along the away, and no further clues left for them to find in the street. On either side, dilapidated stores and derelict shopping centers sat quiet and still. Kara frowned when she saw Hooper peering back the way they had come.
“We should go on a bit further.”
“Naw, I’m sorry, Kara. We’re headin’ back,” he told her. “Came this far, but I can tell yah, they’re headin’ right to the city. They gotta be. And there’s no way we’re goin’ there.”
“Hoop,” Kara said, stepping over to stand beside him. “For whatever reason, they haven’t killed anyone.”
“That we know of.”
She shook her head. “There would’ve been a body, or blood, or something. They’re alive. The citizens of Pleasant Tree are alive. That means, even if they went to the city, we have to go after them.”
“Kara, yah said if we didn’t find anythin’-”
“I know what I said, and I take it back. Hoop, please. Maybe you can talk to him.”
“Come on, girl. We’re goin’ back.” Hooper whistled to the dogs, who stood at attention and waited on his next command. He slapped his thigh. “Come on.”
When Hooper began to walk back the way they had come, she watched him. She stood still, right where he had left her, and turned to look in the direction the road took toward the city. She heard Hooper sigh loudly. He came up beside her, placed his gloved hand on her shoulder, and gave her a gentle tug. Kara met his eyes.
“Please, Kara. Come on,” Hooper pleaded.
“They’re alive, Hoop. He’s alive.”
“Ain’t nothin’ we can do, Kara. Not me. Not you,” Hooper said. “We went far as we could, didn’t see anythin’. We’re too far behind ‘em anyway. By the time we get a posse together, they’d be close enough to the city that whoever, or whatever else was out there would be all over us.”
Kara frowned and nodded her head.
The journey back to Fort Pleasant Tree felt like it took an eternity, each footfall taking Kara further and further away from where she wanted to go. There was a tightness in her chest, an empty pit in her stomach.
The image of Jim’s face, his sleepy eyes looking off into the sky, kept flashing through her mind. She saw Ash, the last time they’d been together, and she remembered how he had called after her as she stormed away from him. The void in her stomach became a sharp pain.
Watching Hooper jog made her want to sprint past him, leaving him behind. Kara wanted to stop, spin on her heel and begin running back the way they’d come, but Hooper had been right. If she were going to make that trip, she would need more guns. More protection.
She would need the Bella.
By the time they had arrived back at Pleasant Tree, the bodies of the fallen had been covered in wood and branches out front, given their own individual little pyres about a foot apart from one another. Kara couldn’t see the corpses under the kindling, and Renshen was in the process of placing the last stone at the head of the third pyre.
She made her way to him, stopping as he stood up.
“Amanda Kane. James Kalamon. Rinesh Patel,” Renshen said, backing away from the pyres. He turned to look at Kara, then back to the bodies. “Did’n find anythin’, did yah?”
“They were being taken to the city,” Kara said. “Dad, I’m going to ask you a question.”
“An’ I’m gonna say no.” Renshen met her gaze.
“The Bella. We could catch up to them before they reach the city, if we went now.” She pointed over to the rover vehicle. “I know we could.”
“The Bella is fulla’salvage and we got few hours left t’waste. Yusha, even if we’d went right after ‘em in the Bella, they’d’v been too close t’the city. If they’d’v stopped ‘long the way, maybe, but they didn’t. Y’saw. Y’know we can’t. I’m sorry.”
“Why did you let me go look then?”
“’Cause maybe they’d been stopped somewhere closer. Worth a shot. But they weren’t.” Renshen moved past her and walked over to the Bella. He spared her one last glance before he shook his head at her and walked up the ramp into the cabin of the vehicle. After a moment, Renshen stepped back out and returned to her side, near the pyres. He couldn’t meet her eye no matter how hard Kara stared at him. “We’ll put ‘em t’rest.”
He called out for everyone to come over to him, and the other guards obeyed. Hooper was already there, standing with his hands on his sides. He clasped them together as Hodges, Miranda, and Sam appeared. Kara watched as Renshen sprayed starter fluid on the pyres. One at a time, he soaked the branches of each memorial plot, and then, when he was done, he backed up and fished around in his pocket, producing a little box of matches.
He lit the first match, tossed it onto the pyre. The fire took quickly, the smoke rising. The sound of the crackling wood grew louder as the flames licked higher into the air.
In unison, Renshen starting first, they all began to say the following words. “We lay you down to rest, my brother, and return you to the earth. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. May your soul find peace everlasting, and be free.”
They repeated this with the second pyre.
When they came to the third pyre, the name ‘James Kalamon’ etched into the smooth stone at the head of the memorial, Renshen handed the box of matches to Kara. She took them from him, held the little box in her hand, and then slid it open to reveal the matches inside. She took a match and struck it on the side of the box. When she dropped the lit match onto the pyre, she watched it go up in flames. Kara stared at the fire, and then, in unison with her leading, they all spoke the prayer.
“We lay you down to rest, my brother, and return you to the earth. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. May your soul find peace everlasting, and be free.”
Kara stared at the burning pyre and felt the same heat growing within her chest. It was not in her nature to cry, it never had been, not since she’d been a child. Crying did not fix anything. As much as it hurt, she couldn’t allow more than one tear to slide down along her smooth cheek. Her eyes felt wet and warm, her throat was quivering, her lungs trying to contract and force her to cry out. But, she would not. Instead, she watched with narrowed eyes, her lips pulled back into a grimace, as her friend was sent to find peace, to become ashes and pulled down into the earth with the next rain.
She wished that they could have stayed longer, to watch the fires burn down low into embers, but that would have taken too long and Renshen was trying to hasten their leave. The ride back was silent save for the sound of the metal sheeting and crates of salvaged supplies banging and clanging around whenever the Bella tilted or hit a dip in the road. Kara could only sit and look out the wind
ow, watching the scenery as the vehicle drove back to Blue Lagoon.
Kara knew that this would be her last night at the fort. She had already made her decision, and as she glanced around at the pale faces in the cabin, she sensed that they somehow knew what she meant to do. Jensen Hooper did, that was for sure. He met her eyes and held her gaze, his lips taut and his brows furrowed. He knew.
She resumed looking out through the small window.
It was still early when Kara checked on what she had stashed away in her backpack. She counted the bottles of water and cloth bags of food rations. Dry foods would be the best, but she also included mixtures that she could add water to. She grabbed her water filter, her flashlight, her machete, anything she could think of that she might need. Rolling up blankets, she knelt on her mattress and stuffed those into her bag too. It wouldn’t be cold, but she didn’t like the thought of sleeping on a hard floor in some rotting old house during the night.
Through her window, she could see the glow of the red lights. Sunrise was close. She moved quickly, climbing down the ladder through Tengen’s room, through Gencho’s room, and to the first floor. They had been fast asleep, unaware of her passing, and she looked up through the square hole in the ceiling, waiting for a moment to listen for any movement. She heard nothing, and so walked out through the front door.
The lake looked so calm and peaceful that Kara had to pause to take it all in, her breath short as she prepared herself for the trek through the town and across the bridge. There was a breeze, pleasant and cool, and when she looked up into the sky she saw the last holdouts of the night, the faded stars and the remnants of the moon still clinging to the black tapestry of the heavens even as the dawn encroached from the east.
The shadows would run back to their dark hideaways, the sun chasing them off like bad dreams. She swallowed, adjusting her backpack on her shoulders. Her machete in its sheath swung at her hip as she began to stride across the board walk. She wore her long-sleeved camo top, her camo shorts, the black leggings and her high socks. Her sneakers felt like they’d fall apart soon, but had one last trip in them.