August 19th
Morning couldn’t have come early enough for Carissa. She was the last to take watch; Marcus, being the gentleman he was, had taken middle watch. The sun was peeking through the trees, and the melatonin in her system began to dissipate. She was waking up and beginning to feel energetic when she decided to wake everybody up so that they could get an early start to beat the heat.
Carissa entered the shelter. “Hey, guys, wake up,” she said, arousing Darrick first.
“What time is it?” Darrick asked.
“Doesn’t matter. It’s early and we need to beat the sun if we’re going to make it to Pontybridge by noon.”
Traveling ten miles wasn’t a difficult task, except for the fact they had a kid and a sick woman who were slowing them down. It wasn’t Tonya’s fault, but she had to stop every so often just to catch her breath. She was feeling miserable, and her lack of stamina was proof that she was more advanced than expected.
“Okay. Go get Kara. I’ll get Tonya and Andy up and at ’em.” Marcus was already sitting up and alert.
“No problem,” Carissa replied. She headed over to where she knew Kara’s shelter arrangement was and stooped down to wake her. “Hey, girlfriend,” she joked, but Kara wasn’t in the debris hut. She stood up and looked around. Nothing. There was no sign of Kara anywhere. She jogged back over to Darrick and Marcus to let them know she was missing. “Kara’s gone.”
Tonya was already sitting up and wiping the sleep from her eyes. “Good riddance.”
“Missing how?” Darrick asked.
“Missing like she’s not in her shelter or anywhere in sight.”
“Is her gear missing?”
“It’s all there. Her rifle, too. It’s like she left without it. Is that something she’d do?”
Darrick thought back to the last time she was missing. Tonya came home without her, and later he found out she had been left behind by Tonya.
“No,” he answered. “If she’s missing, then something’s wrong.”
Darrick and Marcus crawled out of the debris hut. They joined Carissa as she searched Kara’s hut and looked around for something out of place. They found a spot that resembled signs of a struggle, but it was hard to tell. None of them were good at interpreting such things.
“If she’s been taken,” Darrick said, visibly distraught, “then we’re not going to be able to do anything. We have to get Andy and Tonya to Pontybridge. Especially Tonya. She’s sick and we don’t have any time to spare.”
“I agree,” Marcus said. “So what about Kara?”
“We can’t do anything for her, Marc. She’s gone.”
Marcus watched Darrick’s demeanor change. He was irate but in control. It was the Darrick he remembered from the Marine Corps days. He wanted to say, “Welcome back, Darrick,” but he also held his composure. Kara’s loss was a heavy toll, but they couldn’t afford the price of tracking her down. They kicked around the dirt and collected Kara’s backpack and rifle. They each headed back to the other debris hut. Tonya and Andy were now outside and their gear was collected and ready to leave.
“Let’s go,” Darrick said, throwing his pack over his shoulders. He seemed strong and focused. The determined and resolute Darrick whom Marcus used to know was back in charge.
Darrick led the way, but in his mind he was replaying the scene of Kara’s debris hut. The struggle hadn’t taken place in the hut. It was outside the hut. If she was taken, she was taken when she left. It hit Darrick like a ton of bricks. They’re trailing us, he thought. He kept the notion in his mind for another time. The last thing Darrick wanted to do was to scare Andy and make Tonya freak out. He knew Carissa would maintain her composure. Oh, if only Tonya had Carissa’s composure, he thought. He loved Tonya, but even when she was healthy, it was always drama this or drama that. He wanted peace in his relationship, but he feared it was going to come about the wrong way.
“Argh,” Tonya cried out. The others looked toward her. She fell to her knees and rolled to her side in the fetal position. The pain was obviously overtaking her. Darrick dropped his pack and ran to her side. When he went to pull her up, she winced in pain.
“Don’t… don’t move me,” she said. “I just need a second.”
Darrick was concerned. His wife was deteriorating rapidly and was more sickly-looking than the norm.
Marcus and Carissa gathered in.
“Can you walk?” Carissa asked.
“Maybe in a minute,” she answered.
Andy was being Andy. He had a difficult time understanding tone, body language, and cadence in reference to speech, but he understood pain. He saw that his mom was hurting, but he didn’t really know how to show concern. He just stood and watched as the others gathered around his mom. Tonya thought nothing of it. Besides, she was feeling a little light-headed anyway.
Tonya took a deep breath in. “Okay. Help me up.”
Darrick and Marcus hoisted her to her feet. The tears that streamed down her face mixed with the dirt on her skin, forming blotches of mud. Darrick wiped them, but only succeeded in smearing the mud across her cheek. She smiled at him, hiding her pain. Darrick saw through the facade. He knew Tonya’s look when she was hurting. She was suffering and Darrick felt helpless to do anything about it.
Everybody looked around in the areas where they stayed, being careful to clean up after themselves and to collect their belongings.
“Let’s keep moving,” Darrick said.
Fourteen miles east of Pontybridge
Dissociative identity disorder can be a hard thing to live with. Rueben Reisner had been sent to Three Springs Maximum Security Forensic Center to have his mental illness diagnosed. He was arrested by the police before the Pulse and sent to trial after a couple of weeks in the county slam.
It was apparent that the local authorities were dealing with a head case. When Reisner was arrested, he was standing over the bodies of three men, with a handkerchief over his nose and mouth. With a bloody knife in hand, they had him dead to rights. The police had a lawful shot, should they have decided to shoot him. They were generous in their commands, telling him to drop the knife, not once, but three times. It wasn’t until the third warning that he complied.
Once arrested, Reisner went into a panic over not being able to cover his face with the handkerchief, which was confiscated upon his arrest. To cope with the appearance of weakness, Denver Lee, Reisner’s second personality, took over. Like Rueben, Denver was strong and intelligent. He had certain character traits and abilities that Rueben lacked: things like mercy, patience, and organizational skills.
When the police arrived at the jailhouse with their prisoner, they knew he was not the same personality they’d arrested. The charges would never stand if they couldn’t find out exactly what was going on in his head. The judge deemed him unfit to stand trial and committed him.
After the Pulse, nothing was the same. There were no police, no law and order or societal structure. This was a society where Denver excelled; but to effect positive change, he needed a strongman to make it happen. A faithful follower unafraid to make the tough decisions Denver couldn’t make. Matters of life and death. If Denver had his way, people would follow him and there’d be no bloodshed. That wasn’t going to happen, so he relied on Rueben for those things.
Now, not far behind Darrick and his group, an assemblage of the Enclave’s men (and a few women) were marching along the very same trek that Darrick led his group along. The trackers were leading the way. To the men in the front of the column, Rueben would tell them that Denver was somewhere in the rear. Likewise, he told the men in the back that Denver was somewhere up front. Only Rueben knew the truth of Denver. The way he managed the people was through deception. The men feared Denver because of Rueben’s ruthlessness. Nobody questioned his legitimacy or they would be included in the next Cleanse.
Rueben commanded them to walk in a column because Denver said it was the best way to hide their numbers. Only Denver knew the numbers. He was
the method behind the madness. He preferred saving lives over taking them. When it came to traversing the dangerous new world, Rueben stepped up.
Rueben was walking just behind the trackers when he decided to step out of formation to check on his latest acquisition. He stood still and counted as a hundred and eighty members of the Enclave passed him by. All the way in the back of the column, Denver had two horses and three mules carrying a few supplies. One of the horses, in particular, had a special package it was carrying – rather, dragging.
When the end of the column had finally reached him, he extended his hand and took the horse by the rein, stopping it in its tracks. The horse gave a gentle nicker. He rubbed the mane and stroked the pack animal’s side.
Attached to the saddle horn was a rope that extended to the rear of the horse. Kara was tethered to it by tight knots around her wrists. She was upright and walking, but couldn’t see for her swollen eyes. A laceration ran from her forehead to the top of her scalp. Her face was covered in a mixture of blood and dirt. Tired and weak from the combination of being pulled by the horse and sustaining a heavy beating, she had very little to say. Before Rueben got too close to his prize, he pulled his handkerchief out of his waistband and covered is nose and mouth.
“Are you ready to talk?” he asked.
Kara faced the sound of the voice. Not able to see him, she tried to utter something, but her voice wasn’t there. Guttural sounds were all she could muster.
Rueben perceived that she had sustained an injury to her throat, possibly damaging her voice box, but he wasn’t sure. He stepped back to the front of the horse and looked up the column of men until he saw a person he knew by name. “Cory!” he shouted just before pulling the horse’s rein to move it forward again.
A man stepped out of formation and stood there until Rueben and Kara caught up.
“Yes, sir?” the man named Cory asked.
“Take my horse here and ride ahead until you find a medical professional.”
Cory looked at Rueben’s horse and saw the woman tethered to it. He went to untether the woman from the saddle horn and Rueben slapped the man in the face. Cory immediately let go of the rope. “Sir?”
“Did I say anything about untying her?”
“No.”
“Then take my horse up the column until you find a medical professional of some type and get this woman looked at. I need her to talk.”
“Yes, sir,” the man said, grabbing the horse by the saddle horn and mounting.
“And, Cory,” Rueben added, catching Cory’s attention.
“Yes?”
“You’d better not finish her off.”
Cory nodded and picked up the pace. The horse moved forward faster than Kara could walk. When her legs gave out, she fell forward. Her body was dragged up the column past several men as Cory shouted, “I need a doctor or a nurse.” The people laughed and jeered at the whole spectacle.
Kara heard the laughter. She wanted to cry, but she felt the point was useless. She conceded her own death. Her body was being shredded by root systems, sticks and other forest debris. The man was dragging a woman to her death, all along calling for help. Nobody took him seriously. When he reached the front of the column and realized nobody believed his pleas, he took it upon himself to stop the group.
It took some time before Rueben realized the group had come to a standstill. In the front of the line, Cory unmounted the horse and tended to Kara. He couldn’t even recognize her as the same person he saw a couple of minutes ago. Her breathing was labored, and blood was pouring from every part of her body. Even if she could stand up, she would lack the life-giving blood necessary to maintain her stance.
“I need a doctor ASAP!” Cory shouted. He knew she was about to die and his life would then be forfeit. He couldn’t let that happen. “Is there a doctor or a nurse?”
Fortunately for Kara and Cory, not everybody in the Enclave was bad. A bald white-bearded man stepped out of the column and ran up to where Kara was lying on the ground, tethered to the horse, and opened a canteen of water. He gently lifted her head and poured the water into her mouth. Dirt and debris filled her throat, making it difficult to swallow.
“Hang in there, kiddo,” the man said. He stood up and dropped his pack then took a knee next to it. He rummaged through it as fast as he could and removed a small bottle of Vicodin from a med kit. He used a dirty cloth to wipe away the blood from her face and mouth so that he could see to give her the painkiller before he went to work on her wounds.
“Are you a doctor?” Cory asked.
“No. I just want to help,” the man answered. “Help me get her cleaned up so we can stop some of the more severe bleeding.
“I don’t think that’s going to be necessary,” Cory said.
“Why’s that?” he asked, looking at Cory, somewhat confused and intrigued.
“She just stopped breathing.”
The man looked back at Kara and checked her pulse. There wasn’t one. He immediately went to work trying to resuscitate her. She’d just stopped breathing, so he saw no reason to give her two breaths. He leaned over her and began giving her chest compressions. One and a half inches to two inches was his goal. He gave her several before stopping to give her two breaths, then went back to work on the compressions.
“What are you doing?” Rueben said. He was now standing directly over their shoulders, watching their futile attempts to revive Kara.
Cory stood up, partially out of respect for Rueben and partially out of fear for his life.
“Is it possible to make a heart that has stopped beating beat again?” Rueben asked the man who was giving compressions.
The man stopped pumping. “No,” he answered regretfully.
“Then why are you doing it? You’re wasting calories.”
The man stood up, never making direct eye contact with Rueben.
“What’s your name?” Rueben asked.
“Darryl Basham,” he answered.
“Are you a doctor?”
“No.”
“Are you a nurse?”
“Not exactly.”
“Then what are you?”
“I was an EMT before the Pulse.”
“I’m gonna call you Dr. Basham. Get back in line, Dr. Basham. You’re too busy burning calories on a dead woman.”
Darryl got back in line.
Cory went to untie Kara’s body from the horse’s saddle.
“Leave it,” Rueben commanded.
The man let go and tried to walk past Rueben to rejoin the column. When he did, Rueben reached out and grabbed him by the arm. A wave of fear rushed through Cory’s body. He knew that if he let Rueben down, there’d be problems.
“I told you to make sure she didn’t die,” Rueben said, burning a hole through Cory’s soul with his intense glare. Rueben’s eyes peered over the handkerchief.
“I know,” Cory answered. There was no denying he had been told that and given a ridiculous command to pull her up the long column for help.
Rueben released the man’s arm. “I suppose I put too much on your plate. She was already damaged goods. I don’t blame you for her death.”
Relief came over Cory. Maybe Rueben wasn’t such a bad guy. Sure, he had his moments, but it seemed he cared for the individual members of Enclave.
Cory started to walk away. As he did, he said, “I’m sorry that I let you down.”
The comment triggered Rueben. He’s sorry! Did he say he was sorry? Rueben pulled his pistol out and pointed it at Cory’s leg. He pulled the trigger and dropped Cory to his knees. Cory let out a yell at the surprise attack and groped at his leg wound.
“Get me a rope,” Rueben called out. A random man came from the formation and tossed a rope to Rueben. He tied the man’s good leg to the rope and tethered the other end to the very same saddle horn Kara had been tethered to. His good leg was unable to move and the man did little to resist.
When Rueben was good and sure Cory was tightly secured, he found it fitting
to say something about weakness. “When Denver started this group, he did it knowing that Darwin’s theory of natural selection would be the way of our existence. Survival of the fittest, people! You will not survive if you are weak. This man showed me today that he does not meet the criteria to move on with this group. Apologies will not be tolerated. An apologetic attitude shows sympathy. Sympathy shows weakness, and weakness leads to the eradication of entire generations. If you want to go the way of the world, then by all means, earn it, as this man has earned it.”
When he came to the end of his speech, he slapped the horse as hard as he could on the hindquarter, simultaneously shooting his pistol into the air. The horse took off running in a westward direction.
Six
THESE ARE MY WOODS
Seven miles east of Pontybridge
Aug 19th, sometime later
Darrick was torn between soldiering on to Pontybridge and moving slowly for the sake of Tonya’s health. If they moved quickly, they could stay ahead of any dangers that might be tracking them eastward. If they moved fast, they had to take more breaks, which meant they weren’t going to make good time anyway. To Darrick it just seemed like it was going to end in a wash, regardless. It was frustrating him to say the least.
When he looked back, Tonya was several yards to his rear, and Andy, Carissa and Marcus followed closely behind her. She was moving slow enough that even Andy was able to keep up. Darrick sighed. It wasn’t a sigh of frustration that they had to move so slow, but that she had to suffer through the whole ordeal. To what end? If Pontybridge didn’t have medicine to help relieve her pain, it would all be for nothing. It wasn’t like she’d be getting any chemo treatments or radiation therapy. It was Tonya versus mortality, and mortality was the undefeated champion of the world.
“Let’s take a break here,” Darrick said, looking back at the group.
Deadfall Page 4