Grunting, I reply, “Thanks man. I don’t think Celeste would be into a one-armed man – I mean, that would really cripple my love-making skills. I like to multi-task when I’m doing the deed.”
“Gross,” Brig replies, puckering her face like she bit into a lemon. “That’s just way too much info Quinn - Let’s just keep with the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy around here. Better for all of us. I don’t tell you about my sex life.”
Both Sledge and I turn to Brig, raising our eyebrows. “Oh, please tell,” I plead.
Brig replies in a threatening tone, saying, “That’s classified – If I ever tell you anything that has to do with sex, I will kill you.”
She flashes her bowie knife in the firelight.
I laugh, though Brig doesn’t return the favor.
“And with that, we’re off,” Sledge finally says wide-eyed. “We’ll be back in thirty minutes, and we’ll get to work, so clean yourself up a bit Quinn – an artist needs his clean canvas.”
Smiling at Sledge, I reply. “But really man, you better make a real DaVinci fake on my arm. I can’t be one-armed Joe.”
Thirty minutes pass. Brig and I talk about nothing related to sex. Small talk, about things like the weather, and survival, and whatever happened to Donald Trump.
Sledge and Rose return, walking very close so their arms touch each other without holding hands. They’re smiling, as if they have an inside joke with each other, and Sledge carries a handful of a long grassy herb with gray flowers. He immediately throws it in a pot and begins to boil the flowers. After the pot simmers for some time, he takes out a dark paste, thick like syrupy paint.
“Alright, Quinn,” Sledge says, patting the rocks sitting near the fire. “Let’s make you an honorary Semper tribe member.”
Taking a tiny brush, Sledge works for what seems like an hour, making faces and sticking his tongue out every now and again, his eyes glowing in the firelight while he glances back and forth between our two arms. Little lines of ink, precisely put in fine curves and sharp angles meet together to form an image, both noble and terrible at the same time. After he’s done, I look down and see on my right shoulder the picture of an eagle sinking its talons viciously into the earth.
“That’s pretty sweet work, man,” I say nodding. Comparing the two arms, there is almost no difference, except for maybe a small dot or two out of place. “Think it’ll pass?”
“If it doesn’t,” says Sledge, “We’ll just let Brig break some arms until you can go find a cave for the rest of your life – no big deal.”
Brig smirks – and I’m sure she’d oblige.
“Speaking of broken arms,” Brig says. “We need to turn in for the night, which means Quinn, you get first watch, then I’ll switch you, and Sledge will finish up until morning.” Everyone notices the snub to Rose, but at this point you can’t blame Brig, considering Rose could slit all our throats as we sleep.
Night settles in, leaving me alone with a panorama of starlight highlighted only by the glowing fire. The smell of burning wood fills the air, smoke saturating my clothes, which at one time I would’ve cared about, but the aroma is a musky reminder of warmth and comfort. Crickets chime across the hills that surround the lake, every now and then a croak from a toad or a howl from a coyote interrupting the orchestral blend of summer sounds.
I try to settle in, but I can’t help scanning the darkness with my finger resting on the side of my rifle. Too much adrenaline to sleep, I stare into the shadows, figures forming occasionally from bushes or trees down by the lake, some even appearing to move.
Hours pass, my eyes begin to droop. The fire is left in embers.
My head begins to bob.
Until I see the eyes.
Glowing eyes.
Blue eyes.
A snort and snarl ring out in the silence.
I sit, frozen in place, finger paralyzed.
As the shadow emerges from the dark, I recognize the flash of brown and black fur.
I had just seen it earlier when it had saved us.
Only now, I wasn’t sure if it was here to save us or finish us off.
I fumble for my flashlight and shine it on the beast.
Throwing caution to the wind, I hurriedly reach into my bag, the large dog just staring at me without blinking. I grab some of the breakfast bacon I had wrapped up earlier to much on and throw it toward the dog.
Bacon doesn’t fly very well.
But it lands in front of the dog, which just stops for a minute, stoops down, and crunches the bacon between its teeth. As it eats, I can see the dog is a German Shepherd, a female, though definitely a size or two bigger than any I had seen growing up. It has a black furry face, with patches of brown running down its scraggily fur. Its paws are about the size of my palms, and on all fours, it reaches nearly to my waist. Deep cuts and gashes can be seen across its face, and a chunk is taken out of its right ear. Skinny, to the point its ribs were showing, the poor thing probably hadn’t eaten in days.
Its black eyes, look up at me as if saying, “Come on man, don’t be stingy with the bacon.”
I throw the rest of my bacon out to the dog, which it laps up readily.
“Well I guess I’ll have to give you a name now that I’ve fed you my snack,” I whisper in the dark.
But what is your name I wonder?
The dog looks up at me, expectantly, blue eyes shining in the light.
“Celeste?” The dog shakes it head, and I know Celeste would kill me if I name a dog after her.
“Shaelynn?” Again it shakes it head, though my sister was definitely a bitch, so it’d be a fitting name.
A name pops into my mind – my mother’s name.
“Nora?”
The German Shepherd takes a look at me, not moving, and then in two seconds, she turns and disappears into the dark.
She’s gone, but within seconds, I hear Brig shuffling to wake up and switch me shifts.
“Bye, Nora.” I whisper into the dark and with heavy eyes, head off to bed.
CHAPTER 11
Tripping on Acid…Rain
A gray, gloomy sky, full of marshmallow clouds lined with green greeted us in the morning. The air around us was silent except for a breeze that trudged through the hills we were camped in. Rose was the only one that woke up not looking like she had a hangover from the night before. Washing my face with some of the stock water we had, I could feel the coarse scruff on my face, now having gone several days without shaving. My reflection peered back at me, gray eyes looking very stony today with the sky, and I noticed my cheekbones peeking through lean skin. The deep gash from a couple days ago now scabbed over across my forehead.
I definitely looked like a post-apocalyptic survivor now.
We break camp, eager to make it to Semper tribe’s home city, Vantage. Brig is stumbling around today, the leg noticeably more painful as she winces every now and then, and almost has to drag her leg across the dirt.
But she’s stubborn. A survivor.
We make our way back to the main highway, where a tattered, lopsided sign hangs, signaling the lanes were going to merge. We walk slowly at first, Brig still acclimating to her leg, though the clouds seem to hang heavy, threatening rain.
Brig speaks, glancing up at the sky nervously. “Those clouds look pretty acidic today – we better hope they don’t decide to start pouring down on us. Especially for Quinn’s sake.”
I look over at her, confusion wearing on my face. “Wait just a minute, Brig.” I stop, replying, “You said acidic. Like melt your face kind of stuff? What level are we talking about here?”
She chuckles, though my face is stoic. “Another fun thing you’ll find out soon – the weather can get a little exciting since N-Day. Seems the nukes and fallout kind of altered things a little.”
“A little?”
“Yeah,” Brig replies. “Like those green, glowing clouds above us – between the acidity and radiation those rain drops will carry, unless your skin has been condit
ioned for it like ours, you might have your epidermis slough off a bit.”
She smiles at me, trying to ease the tension.
“What!?” I yell. “I kind of like my epidermis thank you very much! Why does everything want to kill us? What ever happened to the weatherman saying the worst thing would be a blizzard in May?”
“But don’t worry – we’ll beat the rain, and even if we don’t, I have an umbrella, so we’re all good.”
I snort. “An umbrella, really? We have rain that melts through our skin and an umbrella is going to stop that!?”
My feet double their pace.
“Don’t get your panties in a twist, kid – you’ll be fine, I promise,” I hear Brig say as I walk to the front where Rose and Sledge are mumbling to each other.
Sledge and Rose stop chattering and look over at me, Brig trailing behind, but picking up her speed to keep up.
I had always wanted to ask Sledge something – it had bothered me since we met, but I put it on the backburner until now. And this would be the perfect distraction from sloughing skin.
“Hey Sledge,” I say, rubbing the scruff on my cheek. “I always wanted to ask you about the day we met – you know, in the ship we were in, you were freaking out pretty bad by the time I came over to you. You don’t have to tell me, but what was going on? You were full on basket case mode.”
Sledge eyes me for a few seconds, thinking while he bites his lower lip and glances toward the ground.
“You know,” he speaks finally. “That was my first mission actually in the field, I mean I had shot guns before and seen people come in with all kinds of mangled arms and stuff, but the was the first time I had been out, and I guess –“
He trails off.
I reply, “You guess you hadn’t seen people actually get shot?”
“No,” Sledge says. “It wasn’t that – please - I’ve shot plenty of people in the games I used to play, and felt that kind of pressure. It was just a reminder I guess.”
“A reminder?”
Sledge clears his throat, then speaks sullenly. “A reminder of when my family got killed.”
“Oh,” I reply quietly. “I’m sorry man.”
“Nah, it’s okay now,” he says, shrugging. “You see my family had survived a lot, even though I wanted my stepdad to die, he just would not die. And then one day, a few months after the nukes landed, a group of three guys who had escaped from the prison ended up hungry at our trailer. I mean, we were barely making it ourselves, but they looked really bad – desperate, like wild animals.”
“Yeah?”
“Well,” Sledge continues, kicking a rock. “They pulled out their pistols, demanding food, and my mom, my stupid mom, tried to fight one of them by hitting him with a piece of plywood. They grabbed her, said they would kill her if we didn’t give them all our food. My stepdad of course told them to go ahead and shoot her.”
“No way,” I mutter.
“So they did. Shot her first in front of me. Just barely ten, and I got to see my mom get shot firsthand – I can still remember her eyes, just fixed on me, her muttering something, and then she was just gone.”
He trails off. I speak, “You don’t have to tell me anymore man, I get it.”
He tries to smile at me, but just looks numb. “No worries, man. I’m over it – it’s made me who I am today – a survivor, so I can’t change anything. They rounded up my stepdad, threatening they would do the same to him, and I remember the wide smile I had as he pled with me.”
He smiles darkly toward me.
“And then they took you?” I ask softly.
“The leader of the four threw me to the ground screaming next to my mom’s body, pressing the gun into my scalp. I was sure I was going to die right then.”
And suddenly I understand. “That’s why you were crying when I came over with the gun pointed at you?”
Sledge swallows his tight throat and nods. “Yep – brought back all those memories I’ve kept locked up all these years.”
“Well,” I reply, quietly. “I’m so sorry about that.”
“It’s all good – it actually helped me come to terms because I realized I can’t hide everything away. I’ll be ready next time it happens – I just have to accept what happened and move on I guess.”
I notice Rose’s hand reach around Sledge’s, which he takes fully in between his long, skinny fingers.
I pat Sledge on the shoulder, “For what it’s worth, man, I for one am glad I saved you.”
Sledge smirks, replying, “You mean, you didn’t kill me? I saved you if you remember.”
“Potato, Potawto.”
He nudges my shoulder hard, but smiles as we continue walking down the broken highway. The clouds continue to collect above us, threatening silently to pour rain.
“So how did you survive?” I finally ask, realizing somehow he had survived and hadn’t told me how.
Sledge says, “Suddenly I hear a loud pop and I’m thinking I’m dead, but the guy with the gun at my head drops to the ground, and within a few seconds the rest of his group are all dead. I remember hands grabbing my arm and picking me up off the ground, muffled voices asking if I was alright, but I wasn’t.”
“No kidding,” I reply, shaking my head.
“That’s how I ended up at Semper tribe. The guys that saved me were conducting a raid in the area and heard gun fire – so I joined them, because I thought I’d want to be like them. I thought they were superheroes back then.”
Hours pass and we’re just an hour away when Brig suddenly calls out from behind us, hastily dragging her leg to catch up.
“Hey guys,” she says, panting slightly. “Storm’s coming quick.”
A loud rumble and crash above us makes me jump, the scent of water mingling in the air as the earth reverberates from the rumble.
I’m dreading it but I know what’s coming next.
“We’re going to run again aren’t we?”
Brig grimaces.
“You know it kid, hope you ate your Wheaties this morning.”
I feel a drop of rain splash against my arm, and instantly it burns, acidic and corrosive to my skin.
That’s enough motivation for me to book it.
We run for one mile. Two miles. Three.
It’s as if the storm is wanting to devour us as well though. Every now and then a stray drop splashes against my skin and wince of pain drives me forward like a whip, the taste of iron gathering on my lips.
It seems we’re almost clear of it when I hear a loud thud behind us, and then a scream for help.
I quickly round on my heels, seeing Brig lying helplessly on the ground, her leg having given out as she crawls desperately toward us. With leg limp along the ground, I can tell, she probably wore it out with all the running.
Exhaling a deep gust of air, I run back to her as Rose and Sledge look on with concern.
“Brig!” I yell, dropping down to the ground by her. Two drops fall on my head, and I can hear a sizzle sound in my ear.
“Get out of here, kid!” Brig shouts back as rolling thunder drowns out her voice. “I’ll be fine – you won’t be in a minute.”
“Don’t care, Brig! Haven’t you ever heard of no soldier left behind? Come on, what did they teach you – seriously!”
Switching my backpack to the front, I kneel down next to her, and despite her cussing and protests, I make her reach her arms around my shoulders, and pull myself up with a good bit of effort. Once I’m up though, Sledge runs next to me just to make sure I can move with her lying across my back like a piggy back ride.
Clouds gather. More rain starts falling.
It burns every time it touches.
So I run.
And I have a flash of a memory come back to me. An image of the military. Me carrying someone on my back. But I focus on the task at hand and force it to the side for the time being.
There’s only one goal.
Survival.
Though my legs are like lead from
the load being put on them, I’m able to keep out of the storm for the most part as it rolls its way toward us.
The four of us jet out of a narrow patch of trees, nearly falling down a hill, and before us stretches another bridge, but this time it crosses a wide rushing river, ending in an enormous metal gate, large enough to fit large trucks. Brambles of barb wire twist along the tops of metal cables strung along the gate, and extending across the riverfront is a metal fence, at least twenty feet high, with metal towers interspersed every so often along the entire perimeter. Behind the fence, I can spot a city, unlike anything I’ve ever seen in my life, that looks to be made entirely of metals of one kind or another. Tin, aluminum, even some brass and copper can be seen glinting in the bit of sun that has broken through the storm clouds. It’s equal parts intimidating and beautiful.
“Whoa,” I mouth out loud.
Sledge nods to me, and between breaths, says, “Welcome to Vantage, Quinn. The Alloy City.”
“It’s got a nice prison vibe doesn’t it?” I say, rhetorically. “Quaint.”
I hear Brig snort behind me.
Several drops pour upon the backs of my legs, and I yelp in pain.
“Nice break,” I say. “Let’s get going.”
I step foot on the bridge.
“Stop!” Sledge yells out, tugging my arm back.
The rain keeps picking up, and I’m starting to feel my whole body covered with acidic burn.
“What?!” I yell furiously. “I’m pretty sure I’m about to pull a wicked witch move here!”
“Yeah,” Sledge says. “You’re about to die – you step foot on that bridge without clearance and you will be sniped so fast I won’t even have a chance to say ‘I told you so.’ “
I glance up at the two towers surrounding the imposing gate ahead, my eyes stinging between blinks. I can spot some shadowy figures huddled in windows cut out of the metal towers.
Sledge pulls out his flashlight, turning it on and off like a strobe light in a specific pattern. It goes on for a minute until I spot a bright green strobe light on the other end flash once.
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