Looking Back Through Ash

by Wade Ebeling

  With this chaos as a backdrop, Matt and Terry were forced to roll their possessions into blankets and try to bribe their way out the front gate. After a short search of their belongings, which cost them all of their stockpiled chocolate, they were allowed to leave mostly unmolested. Looking back as they left, for the first time, Matt saw the camp for what it truly was; a prison. Nearly two hundred and fifty transient workers, all clad in pressed gray jumpsuits, had gladly slept, washed, and eaten inside the fence when it was there to keep them safe after work.

  In order to make fast enough time, and still move safely, they chose to travel at night and hide out during the day. The Spanelli’s were trying to make it to a small town before their meager amount of food ran out. The stories of gang rapes and murders inside the unprotected areas, and the long distance that they needed to cover to make it all the way to New Warren, which itself might already be abandoned, had made the decision to walk in silence for both of them.

  Lack of sleep, coupled with the amount of exertion needed to keep full attention at night while wearing improperly balanced packs, had left them both sore and depleted. Matt only left the steaming tent now because he had to relieve the pressure building within his bladder. He pulled his pants up as he stepped out, leaving them unbuckled. He yawned mightily, trying to stretch the kinks away and the tightness out of his muscles by arching his back as far as it would go.

  When Matt straightened back up, he was slightly light-headed, and whirring spots swooped by his vision. He turned his head left, where the sounds of a slow-moving, narrow river could be heard. His movement startled a groundhog into inaction, and he stared dumbly at it, not quite sure about what to do next. The groundhog stared right back, not more than fifteen feet away.

  Matt pulled a small black case from his right cargo pocket that held a collapsed sling-shot inside. He unfolded it and, after fishing around in the little case for one of the steel ball bearings that he had taken from a motor pool bench, loaded the pocket and pulled tension into the elastic material. Accomplishing all of this without breaking his stare down with the quadruped, he loosed the projectile true; he knew to not move his forehand, as this was the key to accuracy.

  The ball bearing thumped dully off the top of the groundhog’s head, and it started to writhe around, mewing loudly. Matt ducked back into the tent, startling Terry with his intensity. He had to flip his rolled pack a couple of times to gain access to the hatchet that finally fell out. Matt rushed across the distance with the animal, which was drunkenly trying to get away, its body curled into a ‘C’ and not responding correctly. He brained the animal with the hammer side of the hatchet, killing it with one blow; the next few hits were just a precaution.

  He knew to let the body sit for a while, giving any fleas or other parasites a chance to leave the cooling body. He briefly scanned the area, looking to see if anyone had noticed the commotion, taking the moment to pee into a small bush. Terry would not want to see the animal’s corpse, so he pinched it between two sticks and dragged it further from the camp; heading closer to the river.

  Matt told Terry to get both a fire going and to start boiling water in both canteen cups, and that he would be back in a few minutes with food. Terry asked him what was happening, concern written all across her face. He just stood there grinning. Finally, after she had slapped his shoulder, he informed her, in his own crass way, that he had caught lunch.

  Grabbing his knife, Matt said they would eat and then head out again to the north. They were trying to find what the truck drivers had called the “Warehouse”. Matt hoped they were close to the right spot, the hand-drawn map that they were relying on was proving to be very inadequate.

  ……..

  Thus far, Daniel had been making good time, noting that even the few houses that he thought to be occupied were now looking abandoned. In his mind, he was again revising the plan to fortify their house as he crossed behind the Korean church. He now felt that their place would stick out like a sore thumb if it was obviously the only house on the block that still looked lived in. Even if he strung up traps and kept the doors and windows barricaded, they would still just look like a target.

  It now made more sense to make the house look like just another partial burn-out; black soot going up from the windows could be easily faked. The boarded-up windows would make it look as if it had burned a decade before, when there was still people around who cared about such things. Even the cars could easily be stashed away in nearby garages, just in case.

  The only problem with this plan was the Drifters. If they were new to the area, they would just see it as a place to search. The plan might solve the concern over invaders, but this was only accomplished by creating a different set of problems altogether.

  Daniel crossed the intersection at the western edge of the subdivision, which was also the last exposed area before making it to the creek that would lead him closer to City Hall and then the Warehouse. He descended the bank to the swollen tributary of the Clinton River. The still damp, waist high weeds soaked his pants thoroughly. This added misery compounded what he was already enduring.

  The rain had ceased falling, and the sun had started to break through the churning cloud cover. Sharpened shafts of light angled across the sky where the clouds were thinnest. The humidity was making breathing difficult, especially while walking at a good clip. It was like trying to suck air through a respirator after it had gotten soaking wet.

  Daniel felt helpless for the first time since being a boy. Desperation was settling in, and he hoped getting his family into the Warehouse would settle these fears. They had to be put into a situation a whole lot safer than living confined to the island that had become their home. Realization struck him hard about the prospects of trying to live like that indefinitely.

  He knew that he and his family had been lucky last night. There was no way to defend against several armed and desperate people. Even with the small stockpile in the basement, Daniel would eventually have to go outside, and this could be used against him. He would also have to sleep, his addled brain added for good measure. Daniel had naively put all his hopes into an unknown for his salvation.

  Realizing that he had been traipsing around, heedless of the dangers around him, Daniel willed himself back into attentiveness. He put all of his focus into walking quietly and scanning for threats. This slowed his progress, but it helped ebb away some of his worries.

  Spotting the top of a radio transmission tower, which could just be seen over the rim of the riverbank to the southwest, Daniel pulled out his map and compass from the combat vest. The spire stood just west of an old utility easement, felled lines still draped over the tall, metal framework of high-voltage carriers, like vines on a tree. He took a bearing off of the tower, pre-plotted from previous use, after he had orientated the map to North, and then he marked the point in pencil where the bearing line intersected with the Red Run Drainage.

  Picking the longer route, that followed the oxbow of the creek to the southwest, would eventually lead him to the pump house. Once he got to the pump house, he could then follow the above ground water pipe that led roughly west, ending up just south of City Hall at the pressure house. This line had been cleared of brush and other obstructions making for easier walking. The shorter route would be to pick up a surface street and head due west from where he placed his current position on the map. But that route, he felt, would take him far too close to the clusters of occupied homes that dotted the area east of town. Despite the added distance, he decided it was safer to continue following the drainage all the way around to the pump house.

  Daniel had only gone about a hundred yards, after putting away the map and compass, when he heard a strange animal noise in the woods to his left. Squatting down into a thicket of weeds, Daniel listened. He caught the sound of heavy, humanoid footfalls for a couple of seconds. This was followed by the sound of water being poured out on the ground. After a few minutes, he could make out muffled voices; one male, one female. The sounds o
f someone walking very close to the berm of the river, and him, made Daniel slide down prone and crane his neck to keep an eye on the edge of the embankment. He heard the sounds of the male struggling with something, cursing quietly to himself. This went on for several minutes.

  When the man’s hand shot up, flinging something directly in Daniel’s direction, he almost jumped up and bolted. But the odd flight of the hurled object had mesmerized him. It landed with a dull thud two paces in front of him. It took only a second to work out what he was looking at. It was a poorly skinned and dressed rodent. The big, yellow teeth ended the mystery; it was a groundhog. Daniel figured whoever was up there must be very hungry indeed to be eating one of those.

  The voices picked up as the smell of food cooking filled the air; they sounded happy and unconcerned. Daniel took this as his chance to steal away. This had reminded him that he was not as alone as he felt. He was now looking more for emerging human dangers than he was for the pump house. Overnight, Daniel’s view of the other people sharing this world had changed forever. While yesterday he would have marched right down the middle of the street, virtually concern-free, today it felt like every person on the planet was a threat.

  Thankfully, the rest of his tiring excursion passed without further disruption. Daniel sat in the shade cast by the pressure house that stood at the end of the water line. He could see the south and east sides of the Warehouse across Klondike Avenue, about three hundred yards away. This put him on the same side of the street as the empty-looking City Hall, a hundred yards to the north. He put the rifle down gently by his side, and rummaged through the small pack, looking for a pair of compact binoculars.

  The absence of movement had Daniel on edge. The pathway from the parking lot to the gate was empty, and he wondered where the drifters had gone off to. He scanned the buildings through the small optics, looking for any signs of life. All of the shutters on the Warehouse were closed, and Daniel realized that he had never seen the building without at least a few of them propped open to let in a breeze.

  The two police APC’s had been moved across the street and placed close to the eastern corners of the Warehouse, inside of the chain link fence that had a coil of razor wire as a crown. The tops of the helmets that Daniel could make out up on the roof of the Warehouse gave him hope. The police had obviously taken valiant steps in keeping the building secure, and he now took all of these indicators, even the absence of life outside, to be very good signs. If he could get his family inside, they would not have to worry anymore.

  Daniel was just about to stand up and brazenly walk up to the closed fence gate, demanding to speak with his mother-in-law, when two people came into view walking north on Klondike Ave. They walked up until they reached Cannon Drive, the same road he had driven to the Warehouse just days ago on. The pair then crossed the open road without concern, coming to a stop at the locked gate in front of the Warehouse.

  For a few long seconds nothing happened, despite their yelling, which, in turn, put the dogs in the kennel to barking. Then the northeast man door, just to the left of the large rolling door that led into the bazaar, suddenly opened. Three policemen in full riot gear came out, cautiously checking their surroundings. One shouted a warning to the dogs, which seemed to quiet the majority of them. Once they were certain that the two hikers were alone, the trio casually walked down to the gate with their rifles, most likely basic AR-15’s, at close ready.

  After a brief exchange, the two civilians took off rolled packs, then stepped back a couple paces further away from the gate. Now that the pair had their hands up, Daniel could make out that one of them was a female. A thought struck Daniel that these two were probably the ones that he had passed down by the river. Another brief, yet more animated, conversation ensued, ending with the couple getting down on their knees, with hands still raised.

  Without warning, the three police officer’s rifles rose up and began firing at the couple, and the dogs started barking wildly again. The man danced and spun violently as the bullets, fired from point blank range, struck him in the legs and body. He fell to the ground in a heap, and the woman, untouched by the flying lead, fell over from fright, landing on top of his twitching legs. She tried to roll away, screaming as she made it to all fours. She started crawling away, but stopped to look back at the still twitching man.

  The police officer on the left made his way to the side of the gate, unlocking the chain that held it closed. As he walked the swinging gate inward, the other two policemen crossed behind him to make their way out. One took aim at the still form of the man, putting one more bullet into his brain pan. The other began laughing, poking his rifle barrel at the girl’s rear-end. She made an attempt to crawl away, swatting ineffectually at the rifle as she went.

  Daniel tried to slink further back into the shadows, as slowly as he could manage. He fought the urge to move as fast as his body wanted to. ‘Quick movements can be seen a whole lot easier than slow ones.’ He actually heard his father’s voice say this inside his head.

  Shock was what kept Daniel from moving further away. Some unknown part of human nature, the dark part, would not let him shift his eyes away from watching the rest of what took place. The large rolling door opened, and an orange dump truck came out from the shadowy interior. The truck deftly maneuvered through the gate and around the body. It pulled forward a ways then backed up. Two men jumped out of the cab wearing blue coveralls, both running around to the back of the truck.

  The city truck blocked most of Daniel’s view, but he could just make out what was happening. The workers pulled a wheelbarrow out of the truck’s bed and loaded it up with the packs, and a few other items were tossed in alongside those. Daniel figured these things must have been taken off of the man’s body. From the posture of the worker that he could see in back of the truck, Daniel knew that the lifeless flesh of the man had been tossed into the back of the truck.

  One of the Police men pushed the wheelbarrow back up to the open rolling door while the other two dragged the woman along by the wrists and hair. She seemed to lose consciousness at some point, offering no more resistance as she disappeared from view, pulled into the belly of the Warehouse. The workers locked the gate after the policemen made it through with the new entertainment. Both of them quickly jumped back into the idling, hunter-orange truck. The metal rolling door closed at exactly the same time the truck pulled away, turning to the north on Klondike Avenue.

  Daniel tried to lie out as flat as he could against the cool block wall of the pressure house, hoping against hope that the combination of being in the shadows and the brief period of time that the truck had enough of an angle to see him by were enough to keep him hidden from view. The truck zoomed away, giving no indication of slowing down. Daniel crawled away after a few, torturous minutes of silence had passed.

  He had to try and get far enough away, as to be out of sight of the sentries he had seen up on the roof, before turning to head east. After crashing through the underbrush of overgrown and abandoned lawns, Daniel made it back onto the cleared water line. Taking a minute to catch his breath and to make certain that he had not been spotted, or followed, he jogged the entire way to the creek.

  It would be dark soon, and this alone was forcing Daniel to move slower than he wanted to. When his stomach started growling with hunger, it seemed to sap the rest of his strength. He forced himself to stop running and pull a small baggie out from the pack. Robotically, he nibbled at some dog jerky, washing it down with some warm water from his canteen. Even though he had not eaten for several hours, what he had just seen, and the burned-in images of the bloodied bodies in his backyard, made it a struggle to keep the small amount of sustenance down.

  Daniel raced down along flourishing flood plains. He trampled cattails and stomped through patches of nettles with little regard to the obvious trail that he was leaving behind. The darkening sky and long weeds began working against him, bringing his pace to a slow trudge. Suddenly, it got very dark. The sun had bowed out f
or the day, but its light still muddled the reddish-brown atmosphere. As of yet, no stars had shone through, and the moon, which could be seen low on the horizon, was of little help to travel by.

  There would be no refuge found at the Warehouse. Either the police, or the Council, or that politicking Mayor, or maybe even all parties working in collusion, had commandeered the last of the supplies for themselves. The way they had murdered that couple looked well practiced. Whoever it was that remained in charge of the holed-up people in the Warehouse had kept them well organized, or afraid of reprisal.

  Daniel tripped over a thick clump of weeds that the engulfing darkness had hidden from view, making him fall right into a nest of dried reeds. Some of the stalks had broken off, and they poked and scratched his right ankle and calf. Daniel was forcing back tears when he finally picked himself back up. It was the thought he was having that made him want to cry: he would have to turn into a ruthless murderer, just like the ones he had just watched, to ensure his family’s survival. He would have to make anyone who dared mess with his wife and child pay such a severe price for it that no one would want to suffer its cost.

  “We have to get out of here,” he said to himself, deciding once and for all that it was time to get realistic. “I’ll pack up Corrine’s car tonight…We’ll find a way to get out of this…Have enough gas if we take that…I’ll crash through the barricades if I have to!”