The Rising

by Eli Constant

  “These things are smart, Sherry. I bet they got the damn message that if they stuck around, they’d be dead for real.” Juan shrugged, like his logic was the only logic.

  “Just seems too easy.”

  “Not everything has to be hard, Sherry,” this from AJ who’d quietly exited the bathroom without my noticing.

  “I thought you’d have a harder take on it. You’ve seen terrible things. Don’t you think all this is a little questionable?” I stood up, my legs aching from sitting on the hard floor.

  AJ smiled and it made her face radiant. A fact that made me dislike her just a teensy bit more. Hello, petty me, girl who’s never been super fond of a full-length mirror. “Sure, I’ve been through a lot of bad shit. It makes me see when things are actually good. I push past my scrutiny and I go with my gut. This place, is good.”

  Crossing my arms, I turned away from the unified front of Juan and AJ. “I get what you both are saying, but I still can’t shake this feeling in my stomach that there’s something ugly here buried under all the prettiness.”

  I felt someone move behind me and that helped me not start when a hand touched my shoulder. It was AJ. “Sherry, are you sure this doesn’t have to do with what almost happened to you? An experience like that, it can make you question everything. It can make you start blending the bad stuff with the good.”

  I whirled around, knocking AJ’s hand off in the process. “This has nothing to do with me almost being raped, AJ. This has to do with my gut. And it’s saying something’s off.”

  The next morning started cool, a touch of frost across the desert that kissed my skin when I walked outside, but soon the sun would be up and the heat with it. By midday the temperature would soar near a hundred and the only thing that would make it bearable was the lack of humidity, and the fact that my body wasn’t resting on a hot rubber tire.

  As I ate the 6 AM sharp breakfast of farm fresh eggs and thin cut steak, I felt the uneasiness in my body wane. Maybe I’d read too much into things. Maybe everything here was just as picture-perfect as it seemed.

  ***

  AJ

  I could see how Sherry would see danger here, the potential for human ugliness. I hadn’t been through what she had, what she had almost experienced. I’d seen the fall out, though. Women doing favors to get a safe ride across the border. Women who got a little more than they bargained for, a few more cuts and bruises. And that was if they were lucky.

  The unlucky ones left a permanent scar on your brain.

  But ‘Fort Del Rio’ was nice. And, sure, I could see myself just kicking back here and staying a while. I could help Hunter run logistics, keep the perimeter of this little oasis secure. But, no.

  I needed to know what was going on. I wanted to be around other agents, people like me.

  And I had to find Mike’s wife and kids.

  I’d been a little uncomfortable yesterday, speaking for the group I’d adopted at the truck station. Sherry hadn’t seemed to like me taking on a leadership role, dictating where we should go. But Juan hadn’t minded. And I didn’t think Sherry would stay here without him. Unless her mother instinct took over and this place was just too good to pass up for Marty’s sake. But would Marty want to stay? He was just a kid. He didn’t like the arguing. Maybe he’d see me as the ‘why’ behind it.

  I realized, finishing up my scrambled eggs, that I had no idea if I’d be leaving this place alone or not. Would that mean I lost the RV? Standing up, I took my now-empty plate to the wash pan on the long gray table near the kitchen. I dropped my fork into the smaller, taller bucket next to it. And then I walked towards the bay of large windows that overlooked one of the golf course lakes. This one reached out from the actual course to move beneath a large deck area with round tables and large, white umbrellas that were tall enough to dot the sky like large clouds too close to earth.

  The sun was a fraction above the horizon now, reaching its colorful fingers upwards, turning a black-blue sky into a riotous display. I loved sunrises and sunsets. They were my favorite thing about being out in the field. They brought beauty into an otherwise dark career. Maybe that’s why I wrote poetry. It let me encapsulate lovely things to brighten up days that got a little too dim.

  “So, when you leaving, AJ? That view got you a little more tempted to stay.” Hunter’s voice, deep and time-worn, broke the quietude that had descended on my skin like a protective shroud.

  “Reading my mind?” I turned around, letting the sight behind me stay with me like a shadow. I clung to it like a lifeline.

  “You’re a kind that doesn’t need mind reading, gal. I read you from the moment you approached the wall.”

  “My partner used to say I was an open book. Always a little too blunt, a little too quick with honesty.” My smile faltered a little, thinking about Mike.

  “Never easy losing a partner.” He didn’t touch me and I’m glad for that. I don’t mind offering comfort, a hand on a shoulder or an arm, a soft touch to assure someone things will be okay; but I don’t like to be touched when I’m sad. Or angry.

  I pretty much only like to be touched if it can’t be avoided, or I’m feeling frisky.

  Right now, I wasn’t feeling like whispers in the moonlight and slow dancing.

  “I want to head out tomorrow morning, but I need to see what the others think.” I looked back to the sunrise behind me. It was almost gone, dying as the sun continued to come alive in the sky. “I think it’s going to be harder for them to say goodbye to this. They don’t have a badge and a duty yanking them away.”

  “Yeah, well, civvies rarely understand what it means to be what we are.”

  “What? You mean insane? Because only a crazy person would choose to leave this place and go back into hell to face demons.” I dropped my hands on my hip and let my head loll forward slightly. Exhaling, I forced my shoulders straight and, at the same time, I pushed resolve into the rest of my body.

  “You’re not crazy. You’re law. Sometimes we do things that are hard as hell in the name of what’s right.” Hunter’s voice was a quiet grumble, a storm rolling over mountain terrain. There was a fierceness to it that wasn’t warranted. For the first time, I questioned him. I wondered what he’d done here in the name of what was right.

  But what could he have done that would be worse than what was already happening? The answer was nothing.

  “I understand you wanting to leave, but we could use you around here. We’ve got a lot of good aims, a decent armory, but a bit lean when it comes to strategists.”

  “Look, Hunter—”

  “I know, I know.” He held up his hands in defeat. “Had to make a last-ditch effort. We’re going to survive here because I’m going to make sure that happens. It’s just an easier road with folks like you watching my rear.”

  “You’ve got a lot of faith in a stranger with a badge.”

  “Look what’s happening around us, AJ. If we can’t still trust in something like a badge, then we can’t trust in anything. You get to your station. I hope to hell it’s intact. If it is, it means someone breathing is trying to clear this mess up.”

  “It worries me that Laughlin couldn’t stand. I know it’s bad on the Mexico side, at least near the border. I saw it myself. Humanity could be on the verge of extinction for all we know.”

  Hunter stared at me with his dark, bottom-of-the-ocean blue eyes and smiled. “AJ, I don’t think anything’s strong enough to knock us all out. Hell, if a handful of old farts could stop what happened here, I’m sure those things were stopped elsewhere. Besides, you know as well as I do that the president, probably his whole cabinet, and the Joint Chiefs were at 30,000 feet before this got out of hand. They’re probably sitting at some secure location drinking whiskey and planning how to re-secure the country right now.” Now he did rest a hand on my shoulder. “You say I have faith in a stranger with a badge. I’ve got a hell of a lot of faith. You take some of it with you when you leave.”

  “I might take you up on that.”
We smiled at each other and I looked over at Juan and Sherry. They were talking to Marty who was still shoveling in food like he hadn’t eaten enough for a small village last night. “How far is that road block from here, Hunter? We didn’t take the best route getting from there to here.”

  “The one on the way to Laughlin?”

  “Yes.” I saw Marty throw his head back in laughter as I said the singular word. Maybe we could stay one more day…peace and comfort were hard-won commodities. If they even wanted to come with me. We should have had a frank talk yesterday after Sherry and Juan’s little bickering episode.

  “About 15 miles. You thinking of borrowing one of those Hummers they had?”

  “I’m not sure who’s going to be coming with me, Hunter. It wouldn’t be to right to take Sherry and Juan’s RV. The Humvee will get me to New Mexico faster, especially if I have to leave the road. Should pull the trailer fine, too.”

  “I hate the idea of you going alone, but if that’s the verdict then I’ll run you up after breakfast. A little drive in the morning would be a nice change of pace.”

  “Thanks, Hunter.”

  “Not necessary,” he replied, beginning to move away from me. “Come see me on the wall if you get bored.”

  I watched as Hunter strolled out of the club house. There didn’t seem to be a shred of doubt in the man—the government was out there, working day and night, to get this under control. People had made it out of towns alive, escaped the monsters. All the things he believed walked with him, like a visible superhero cape. I was trying to keep my own sense of faith in the system and our ability to survive. I could be like Sherry and question this place, question Hunter—hell, I’d had a moment where I wondered about him, but I think that was just Sherry’s misgivings seeding their way into my skull.

  Juan, Sherry, and Marty were finished eating now, cleaning up and walking towards me. It was as good a time as any to have a conversation and find out their final decision on leaving or staying. I wondered if Juan would stick to what he’d said yesterday about going with me.

  They were going with me. Even Sherry had come around. Her gut was still saying that things at the ‘fort’ were too safe. I wondered if she’d wake up later, and realize she’d been irrational and abandoned what could be the only Garden of Eden left on the planet.

  “I’m going to take a walk,” I said the words at Juan’s back. He was bent over the RV bathroom sink, scrubbing his face and using a razor from the original occupants.

  “Want company?” He turned around, his eyes half closed as water clung to his lashes.

  “No, I just can’t sit here all day doing nothing. You guys rest, watch some TV. It’ll be a lot of road tomorrow.” I turned to Sherry and Marty. They were coloring on the floor of the RV, a bed sheet spread across the carpet so they weren’t making contact with the dried blood stains. The smell of the RV had cleared out a lot since I’d joined them, maybe from the broken windshield constantly cycling in new air. Juan had told me how bad the stench was when they’d first taken possession.

  “Yeah, sure. If you change your mind, come back and get me.” Juan went back to shaving. His voice held a thread of too-careful casualness.

  “Yeah, I will.” I grabbed the pack I’d set up the night before, a bug out bag with an array of essentials, and asked Sherry if I could borrow some shells for the Benelli since I was running low. She’d nodded absentmindedly whilst coloring a goldfish a strange hue of light purple.

  The sun was high when I pushed out into the heat. The warmth didn’t kiss my skin, it assaulted it, like a dozen hands were holding hair dryers and blowing air against my body. Remembering what Hunter said, I made my way towards the wall. Even from a distance, I could see him standing atop the makeshift border, hand resting on the butt of his gun, talking to a taller person wearing a pale-hued hat.

  Shifting the pack onto both of my shoulders instead of one, I carried the shotgun loosely in one hand, barrel pointed at the ground. It felt natural to carry the weapon and walk down the street flanked by still perfectly-manicured trees and bushes, even though the image of me dressed in comfortable, somewhat-masculine clothing, with my hair pulled into a high, so-tight-it-hurt ponytail didn’t exactly suit the surroundings.

  I could make myself comfortable anywhere. I’d never been in a situation where I couldn’t find ‘myself’ within the mix.

  “Need an extra eye up there?” I yelled up at the armed crew. Hunter and a few others turned to me.

  “I was about to do my daily rounds,” Hunter hollered back and then he turned to one of the wall guards and said something I couldn’t hear. Moments later, he was climbing down using a long, paint-splattered ladder that had seen better days. “Why don’t you join me?”

  ***

  Hunter led the way out into a parking lot adjacent to a building that housed about a dozen golf carts. A big diesel King Ranch Ford stood like a giant in the relatively empty lot. Hunter seated himself in the driver’s and I made myself comfortable in the passenger, tucking my pack at my feet and the shotgun across my legs, butt directed at Hunter. The power stoke diesel made a comfortable thrum and I relished the ice-cold air that started blowing through the vents. It had that just-opened-the-fridge crispness to it.

  “I go around checking the weaker areas of our defenses daily. Back half is the worst, still trying to build that up. We’ve got enough good people to man it, got a warning system in place, but can’t be too careful.” Hunter took a right turn about a quarter mile past the club house and the parked RV.

  We weren’t on the road for long, passing the gated-off areas of golf course that now played home to roaming cattle, before Hunter pulled to a stop in front of a second bus, but this one looked like it’d been through its own personal war.

  “Not to point out the obvious, but this bus doesn’t look like it’s had an easy go of it.” I was out of the Ford now, walking forward to trail my fingers across the dented metal surface. I let my index pause at a bullet hole and I traced the outer edge.

  “Bastards are smart. They tested every potential entry point. We lost ten folks here.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. We make the bastards pay.” Hunter tilted his head up and yelled, “Charlie, Dean, Luca. You boys doing okay up there?”

  I moved away from the side of the bus in surprise. I hadn’t even known someone else was here. They were like ghosts atop the metal vehicle, seated and quiet.

  “Fine, Hunter. No activity here today.” A man with black as tar hair and eyes nearly as shadowy leaned into view.

  “Good, good.” Hunter had his hands on his hips and he rocked from the balls to the heels of his feet.

  “How’s it going over in the hen house today?” Another man popped into view

  “Hen house?” I turned to Hunter, smiling and brow quirked. “That where you keep all the wives?”

  Hunter laughed, but the sound wasn’t as easy as I’d gotten used to hearing from him. It had a forced feel to it. “Not exactly.” He looked back up at the men above us. “No eggs today, Luca.”

  “Damn.” The man named Luca’s face looked disappointed.

  “Come on, lots more to check out.” Hunter walked away from me, heading for the Ford.

  “Hey, I thought Martha said you had quite a few good layers. Are they having issues all of a sudden?” I walked around the truck bed to get back in.

  Hunter didn’t answer immediately, but when he did, the words sounded studied. “Not a lot of entertainment around here. I mean, with the generators we can run things. Like the projector we snagged from the Regal. Aside from that, the boys make their own fun. Betting on how many eggs we’ll get in a day being one of them.”

  “Thrilling.” I closed the door and propped my elbow on the frame. The inside surface of the window was cool, the truck still running and the A/C still blowing.

  Hunter chuckled. “Don’t knock it. Those boys could be getting into real trouble instead of betting on chickens.”

&nbs
p; “I suppose that’s true,” I say, tapping my fingers on the window sill.

  We drove a bit longer this time, winding through a series of vehicles, tents, campers. I thought of the other buildings around the club house area. “I’m surprised that people are living out here instead of bunking in one of the buildings.”

  “Some people bunk in the buildings, mostly folks with children who escaped the disease. Everyone agreed that we should keep the kids inside, less exposed. We let them play in certain areas, make sure they don’t get near the barricade, that sort of thing.”

  “If they didn’t get a vaccine, they won’t get infected.”

  “Unless they’re attacked by one of the kids who are sick. Then they do turn into one of those things. I’ve seen it.” Hunter handles the steering wheel deftly.

  I nod, “Yeah, I’ve seen it too. So you’re protecting them in case one of the sick kids, the zombie things, shows up.”

  “Yeah.” Again, Hunter didn’t sound his usual self, but someone else, someone who wasn’t paying attention, might not have heard the discrepancy.

  We checked two other points before ending up at what Hunter called the ‘back gate’. Here, he shut the Ford down, telling me that we were going to be here longer than the other locations. After exiting the vehicle, he started walking. I followed, my gaze roving the area and taking it all in.

  Cars where interlaced with chain link fence, a metal on metal sandwich. Barbed wire curled atop the hoods. But there were big gaps. More men and women than at any of the other guard points were here, crawling about like worker ants. Three large men pushed an old Cadillac forward to fill a gap, pressing it up against the fencing. Others were drilling big pieces of salvaged steel into side-by-side cars. This part of the barricade needed to be taller, though. It was currently half the height of the other wall sections.