by Leela Ash
4
Milo was the first to get up. He had moved the barricade back and scavenged for anything that might be useful. He didn’t find much and wanted to get going, his stomach pushing the need to roam. He had been quite a nomad, moving from place to place until the local resources were gone. The area around the apartment building was stripped clean and that told him that they weren’t very far from other people. Someone had been there to take the resources, and Milo wanted to get out of there before he had to find out who it was.
When he got back into the room they had slept in, Michael was finally getting up. “You’re already up?”
He nodded and moved to pick up the few items he had pulled out of his pockets before laying down the night before. “Yeah, I have already been out. There isn’t anything around here to eat. Other people must live around here. We need to leave.”
Michael was still trying to get the sleep out of his eyes. The boy was talking in earnest, looking at him with large eyes, but Michael would have much rather just sat for a few minutes. “Do we have to leave right now?”
“We should.”
He heard something in his voice that pulled him up from his position. Picking up his own knife that laid beside him, Michael stood up and walked towards the door. “Well let’s go find something to eat. I am starving.”
Milo was happy about Michael's reluctant motivation to leave. He wouldn’t have pushed much more, but he was more than ready to go. He had a bad feeling, and getting some distance between themselves and that place was a good thing. Leading them out and down the stairs, the sun blinded him as he squinted. “I found his tracks this way. He is a ways ahead. The tracks are older, but if we move faster…”
“Are you trying to say that I am slowing us down?”
Milo nodded. He wasn’t going to say it, but they both knew that it was true. Michael was used to being on his own and there was no rush in his travels. He didn’t run from danger; he took it out on his own terms, much like he was doing with Billy. For a thin, wisp of a man like Milo, he didn’t stand a chance against most in a fight. He had learned that his survival meant he had learned to go unseen and to get out of an area quickly. He had wished more than once that his older companion felt the same way.
Michael did pick up his pace a little, but not by much. Milo was aggravated that he was moving so slowly, so he was a little happier when they started to make headway. There had been no real wind or rain, so Billy’s tracks were clear. Near the end of the second day, it was getting late and Michael was ready to slow down for the night. He had managed to catch and kill a snake. It wasn’t his favorite food, a mixture of fish and chicken flavor, but it was better than nothing.
He was about to say something to Milo, get him to start looking for a place, when he saw what looked like a convergent of several footprints all together. It looked like Billy had some company and then went off with them. Michael stopped. His heart pounded for several reasons and he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do. Billy had met trouble. Mike could just walk away and know that Billy would most likely be taken care of for him. But on the other hand, if he wasn’t taken care of, he surely couldn’t save him just to kill him. It made no sense.
“Mike, do you see that?”
Milo was now looking down and he was already back to talking in a whisper. He too was thinking what Michael was thinking. Those were a lot of footprints, and he didn’t like the idea of them somewhere in the woods with them. Billy had stayed out of sight, no doubt trying to get back without calling too much attention to himself. Michael figured he knew he was being followed. But it wasn’t him and Milo that found him. He had been found and it looked like after a struggle, he had been drug away.
“What do you want to do?”
Michael wished that the young boy would just stop talking and let him think. They had been gaining on him all day and the tracks were fresh enough that he was feeling the need to look around him. The sun was going down, casting shadows on everything and making him feel even more unsettled. “We have to find him.”
Even as Mike said it, he was already wishing that it wasn’t the case. He didn’t want to go after Billy and wind up in trouble as well. But he had made Jessa a promise and he knew that she needed that peace of mind. He wanted to give it to her, but knew that it was going to come with a price. Looking over at Milo, he realized that the boy would do whatever he wanted him to do. It didn’t look like he was very happy with the idea of going towards trouble either. It was against everything the young man had known to survive. But he would go with Michael, if that is what he ultimately decided. It felt like more responsibility to Mike.
“Are you okay with going Milo? You can always go back and I will take care of this. I don’t know who we are going to run into or how it is all going to work out.”
Milo looked at him solemnly, “Nothing is safe anymore and there are no guarantees.”
It was true but it felt sad for Michael to hear him say it. He had seen far too much in his young life and Michael hoped that his decisions didn’t cause something happen to him. “Ain’t that the truth? Well I think we should go see what is happening. I know there is a lot of tracks, so that likely means there will be a lot of people, but I just want to track them and see what is going on. We will find a place tonight and go after them in the morning. But I would like to get away from here, just in case they decide to come back.”
Milo agreed. He too wanted to get out of the circle of tracks and was ready to get into some kind of shelter for the night. It was never just people that he had to worry about, but the beasts that now took over the nights. The animals were bigger and meaner and Milo had learned to have walls and a roof by night fall. His eyes had been scanning the immediate vicinity for somewhere to hole up. He knew that he wanted to be far enough away from the tracks to give himself peace of mind, but not too far away that they had to backtrack so much in the morning.
“That looks like a good place, don’t you think?”
Milo looked over at the office building in a strip mall that he was pointing at. It was actually a horrible spot; ground floor, broken window, very little protection. But he nodded that it would do. It was almost dark and some protection was better than nothing. The world was dark with no electricity and the moon was covered by clouds. He looked up at the sky for a moment and sighed to himself. It looked like on top of everything, there was a storm brewing too.
5
Jessa had been gone for several hours and she had found herself going back into the city that she had left. It felt a little safer in the day time, but she felt more exposed as well. Women were not supposed to travel alone and it was for very good reasons. Since her husband died, Jessa had been in a community for most of the time. The larger numbers of people gave her some security, but alone with Shane a couple of miles away, she had never felt so vulnerable. Once again, she was wishing that Michael would hurry up and come back. She missed him something terrible and felt better with the strong man next to her. Jessa was even missing Milo, with his quiet ways and shy smile.
There hadn’t been much in the way of wild edibles. It looked like that part of the city had been went over pretty good and it was another moment that Jessa wished she was still back in the community. If she wasn’t so adamant on protecting her dignity, she would have still been there. But one of the leader’s friends had tried to force himself on her. Jessa couldn’t let it happen and now she could see the extent of what that decision would cost her.
It had made Michael run off for revenge that she had demanded. He and Milo were both in danger and she now that she wasn’t so upset, she saw what it was that she had asked him to do. She shouldn’t have, but she couldn’t help it. She had only thought of Shane being hurt and blaming herself. If she hadn’t have done what she did, then she wouldn’t have had to run, Billy and his friends wouldn’t have chased her and everything would be different. But she didn’t know then what she did now.
Jessa couldn’t help but wonder what more it was g
oing to cost her; the ripple effects seemed to be never ending. Shane was hurt and alone, while she was out scavenging in a burned down city. It was not how she had planned it going, but nothing seemed to go as planned anymore.
Her eyes saw something out of her peripheral vision, but every time she turned to look, there was nothing there. Jessa was afraid she was losing her mind and hunkered down behind a building and waited. She started to hear voices a block over and watched several men in a group going down one of the streets parallel to the one she was on. It made her nervous, but it was clear that she hadn't been seen. Jessa sighed inwardly and realized that she had to be even more careful.
Finally, she found an old survival store in town and was surprised that it hadn’t been ransacked completely. Part of that was because it looked so torn up that it was most likely passed over time and time again. Able to find a few packs of ration bars and some freeze dried meals, Jessa couldn’t have been happier with her score. It had been a while since she had tasted the gritty coconut flavor of the ration bars, but she knew that they would go a long way. It also meant that she could go back to Shane without having to dodge people that she didn’t know on the road.
Jessa made her way to the outskirts and didn’t hear or see anyone else or anything else the whole way. She was just about to get back to the small cottage when she noticed several sets of footprints. Her heart started to beat harder, convinced that it was Milo and Michael back from their mission. As she got closer to the cabin though, she realized that it wasn’t their tracks. She had been following and walking with them for some time and Milo in particular had a very distinct gait. As she realized that it wasn’t them, she moved faster to the place she had left her son. Jessa was in a full on sprint and stopped when she saw the door moving back and forth in the wind. She had certainly not left it open and Shane knew not to go outside when she was not there. The process of elimination left her with only one thing that it could be; someone had been there.
She was even more afraid then than she had been when she was trying to wake him up. As she pushed in the door and called out his name, Jessa instinctively already knew that she was not going to get an answer. She ran through the small apartment, saying his name and just wanting more than anything to lay eyes on him. When she didn’t and it was clear that her gut had been right, she moved back outside and looked closer at the prints. There were no small prints of Shane’s leaving the place like there was of the two that had gone into the dwelling. Without thinking, Jessa tightened her bag on her back and started towards the tracks she was following. They were moving fast and by the deep grooves the shoes left, at some point they were practically running. It could mean anything, but it meant that Shane was being carried. The idea didn’t sit well with her.
Jessa followed the tracks quickly and it was soon nightfall and she was stuck in the woods alone. There was no shelter around and it was getting too dark to see the imprints in the ground. The weather was taking a turn for the worst and she could hear the skies rumbling above her. Jessa had to go on, sure that the rain was going to wash away all of the prints and she was going to never be able to find Shane again. It had been one scare after another and she didn’t even know if he was still alive. There was no one to help her. She let out a shuddering sigh. She really needed Mike.
She was frantically running through the woods on a path that had been used more than once. There was light up ahead of her from a fire in a barrel and then she saw several people standing around it, cooking something. It wasn’t the smell of food that pulled her from her cover, but the need to find Shane. She was sure that this was where her son was and it didn’t matter that she was supposed to be seeing what was going on first. There was no stopping her from moving towards the group. All she had was a knife tucked in her hand, ready to use it if she had to.
Several surprised faces looked at her until finally an older woman stood up and stared at her.
“Where is my son? I know you took him!” Jessa cried.
Malinda shook her head. “We have not taken him, but brought him with us to feed him. You had been gone some time and we were afraid that you weren’t coming back. The city has been full of danger lately.”
Jessa wasn’t really listening, her eyes searching the small village for her son. “Where is he?”
“In there, by the fire getting warm. That little place he was in was getting quite cold.”
Jessa went from nervous to feeling judged, and she marched over to the small makeshift structure. Her heart sank back into her chest when she spotted him. “Mommy, there you are. I thought you were going to be home before dark?”
She put her arms around him and started to feel the drizzle going down her eyes that she could not stop. “I was home baby, but you were not there.”
“I went with them because they had something to eat. They said I could stay here until you got back.”
Jessa nodded, still not sure if she liked the whole idea of it. She didn’t like the idea of her son leaving without her, but she knew that he had to eat. He hadn’t been in a situation without her there before, and she felt guilty that she hadn’t been there. Shane seemed better. His blue eyes were not so hollow looking. It had been more than food that they had given him. When she asked about it, the old woman named Melinda told her that she had given him a tonic to revitalize him. The ingredients were much of what she would have used, if she had taken all of her herbs and supplies with her.
“Well I don’t know how to thank you Melinda. I was so worried when I saw him gone. It is more likely to run into bad, instead of good.”
Melinda nodded and her brown eyes closed for a few minutes, remembering something in her own past that made Jessa’s words true. There were far more bad people in the world. They were the ones that survived and as the bombs had hit and the years of struggle went on, it was always the ruthless that made it through another long winter. It was not because they were stronger or better, just merely more willing to take and kill to get what they wanted.
“If you really want to help us, there is something that we could really use some help with…”
Jessa nervously listened to what they needed. She wanted to help them, but what they asked was too much, too strange. They had fed and cared for her child and there was nothing more worthy of her help than that. Shane chimed in that they were real nice and needed her. “You should help them mom.”
Jessa knew that he had no idea what he was talking about and she just nodded and smiled at him.
6
The office building where Milo and Mike had hunkered down in was not good coverage at all, especially not for a storm that seemed to be bringing more and more rain down on them. It was not coming from above, but seemed to be riding in on burst of air that found them. The horizontal rain soaked them both and Michael worried about the tracks being washed away. He knew they were close though and no one was traveling in that kind of weather, so they would not be too far away in the morning.
“Are you sure you don’t want to just go? It doesn’t look like there is going to be any sleep here tonight.”
Michael knew he was right, but going out in it was not that advisable. The rain was like the landscape, foreign. “No, let’s go further back, there has to be a warm place in here somewhere.” Moving towards the back rooms of the building, there were several places where the roof had given in and they could see the dark clouds illuminated by cracks of lightning. It was almost beautiful, if it wasn’t coming down on top of them.
There was one room that had the door pushed in, but it was a noticeable difference. When the door was shut again, the wind was no longer as loud and there was finally peace. “That’s better.” Michael pulled off his jacket and hung it over the side of an old refrigerator. He had learned long ago to not open them and resisted the urge. He wasn’t that hungry and there wouldn’t be anything edible. Perishable foods had done just what they were supposed to do.
“What are we going to do when we find them?”
M
ichael still wasn’t sure. He had been asking himself the same question and still hadn't come up with an answer. More or less, he was really just going to confirm Billy's death. There would be only a couple of reasons that a group of people would drag someone off into the woods. None of the reasons were that far from each other and none of them were good. Billy was already going to meet his death, Michael was sure of it, but he had to make sure utility had been done. Even though it wouldn’t be by his hands, it would be done and that was good enough.
“We are going to watch and wait.”
He didn’t think they would actually have to wait at all. Billy would not make it through the night. Michael was sure of it and the idea of it made him sleep a little better with the storm raging outside. He tried to look on the bright side. At least they didn’t have to worry about water the next day. They had some collecting while they slept, ready for the next day.
***
“Mike. Let’s go. It’s not raining and the sun is up.”
Squinting his eyes, Michael looked up at Milo. He was always up first, checking everything out in the wee hours of morning. Michael would have rather slept in a while longer and waited for the outside to heat up a bit. It was far too cold to be walking around. He never liked the chill in the air.
“Yeah, okay.” He had to get up though. His mind went to why and it helped propel him up.
“How does it look out there?”
“No tracks, but I know where they went. There is a fire burning not too far from here and I think that is where they are. It won’t take long to get there. Maybe they like to wake up late like you.”
Michael doubted it, but it was a nice idea and it did the trick to get him motivated. Whichever way it was going to end, they would be on their way back and he would be back to Jessa. It had been far too long without her. Milo looked eager to get back together with the group as well. Both groups were vulnerable without the other. “Well let’s get going then Milo. I want to be back to Jessa by nightfall.”