by Alex Gunwick
“It’s consistent with her wound.” Luke turned his ice-cold gaze on Derek. “But then again, you could have planted it on his corpse after you shot Sierra.”
“Oh, for the love of—please, think for a minute, man.” Derek took a half step back in case Luke got violent again. “I didn’t even know you were out here. You approached from upwind. I didn’t hear you until you were right on top of me. How would I have set all of this up? How could I anticipate which direction you’d come from?”
Derek’s words hung in the frosty air for a long, tense moment. Then Luke relaxed ever so slightly and crouched over the corpse. He needed time to think, so he began to strip the cultist.
Luke found an energy bar, which he ripped into and devoured in seconds. As he continued to loot the corpse, Derek helped by getting the man’s jacket and boots off. The cultist’s outfit wasn’t of much use, but the camouflage jacket he wore was in good condition. Likewise, his boots seemed fairly new.
They also found a revolver in the man’s waistband and a half-crushed, moist cigar. Luke stuck it between his lips and used the dead man’s zippo to light it. Luke felt like a robot. He was going through the motions but didn’t seem to feel anything. His whole body was numb.
In silence, he trekked back to where Sierra lay. Derek followed.
As he shivered from the cold, Luke wrapped Sierra’s body in her killer’s coat. When Derek tried to help, Luke swatted his hands away. Maybe he hadn’t directly killed Sierra, but he sure as hell had something to do with it.
After gently laying Sierra’s swaddled body in the snow, Luke stood silently as he regarded her. For a time, he didn’t speak. Liz was going to be devastated. Kyle too. God, how was he going to tell them about this?
“What the hell were you doing out here with her?” Luke asked.
“It’s a long story. We found something.”
“What?”
“It’s better if I show you.”
“Do it.”
“Before I take you there, what do you want to do with her?” Derek asked, nodding toward Sierra. “Do you want to take her back to the cabin? I can—I can help bury her.”
“I can’t believe my baby’s dead.” Luke’s face scrunched up. His lower lip trembled. “Why?”
“I’m sorry, man.”
Derek clasped his shoulder, but Luke shook his hand off. He turned away and covered his face with his hands, his shoulders shaking as he gave in to his grief. After a few minutes, he composed himself and cleaned his face with a handkerchief.
“Help me lift her over my shoulder.” Luke bent down and picked up her body around the midsection. Derek assisted him by draping her body over Luke’s shoulder. “I’ll bring her home. Liz will want to bury her.”
“I understand.”
“You said you found something.” Luke shifted Sierra’s slight weight as he turned to face Derek. “I want to see it before I take her home.”
“Yeah, you’re not going to believe it.”
“What the hell could have been so important that my daughter ended up dead?”
“Nothing. But this is still important. You’ll see.”
As Luke followed Derek out of the valley, he steadied his daughter’s body. They crossed a slight rise and then labored to climb a steeper ridge. A rusted metal pipe, covered in grass and snow, stuck out of the earth.
“What the hell’s that?” Luke asked.
“Best I can guess, a drainage pipe.”
“Draining what? There’s nothing up here. I’ve been through this section of the forest several times in the last three days.”
“I think I know where it’s coming from. We’re almost there.” Derek walked faster.
The men clambered over the ridge and carefully trudged down a snowy hill until they reached a small creek. Derek led them parallel to the ice-crusted water for about a quarter-mile before he ducked under a low hanging branch. A vertical rock wall blocked the path. It looked like a dead end.
“What the fuck?” Luke was ready to drop Sierra to defend himself when Derek pointed.
“There.”
Luke’s suspicious gaze snapped to where Derek was pointing. His jaw dropped, and his eyes widened.
“Is that what I think it is?” Luke asked.
“Yes.” Derek grinned. “Yes, it is.”
Luke’s heart pounded against his rib cage. This was going to change everything.
2
Three days earlier …
Liz bent her knees in a low crouch next to a fallen log. Several years ago, she would have walked right past the rotting wood without a second thought, but now she knew it could be a valuable treasure trove of sustenance. Liz shifted her weight back onto her left heel and gently lifted the log. A few scurrying insects retreated from the frigid air. She spotted a cluster of yellow oyster mushrooms. Jackpot!
Sandy, the middle-aged woman standing next to her, grinned. White puffs of condensation rolled from her lips as she spoke. “Nice find.”
“Thanks. Let’s hope I don’t overcook them this time.” Liz stared at the meager amount of mushrooms and sighed. “We need to shore up our food stores at the cabin.”
“Us, too.” Sandy glanced over to where her husband, Edwin, fiddled with the knot on his wicker basket. “Edwin hasn’t said so out loud, but I can tell he’s worried our food supply will run out before the end of the year.”
Liz nodded. Her mind drifted back to a time when she could hit the grocery store and load up an SUV when she needed to provide food for her family. Out in the wilderness, one truly began to appreciate the struggle for sustenance. Every morsel, every calorie, had to be earned the old-fashioned way. With hard work.
Her thoughts lingered on the idea. She underappreciated her old life, the one she’d enjoyed before the bombs fell. There was a time when her worst problems were finding a babysitter for Kyle and dealing with Sierra’s teenage drama. She would have given anything to have those “problems” again.
She’d also taken the convenience of modern technology for granted. Now every little chore had become an arduous task. If she needed to wash clothes, she had to carry a full load over rough terrain to the nearby stream then clean them by hand. Afterward, she had to either struggle with a heavy basket of damp clothing or hang them up by the creek, where anyone might happen along and steal the garments right off the line.
Food no longer came out of a can or a convenient plastic wrapper. Rather, it had to be pursued, fished, hunted, or chased down. She and Luke had agreed to try to hunt while there were still animals to be hunted. They wouldn’t dip into their stash of food until absolutely necessary. Still, Liz was determined to provide for her family. Just because the world had gone mad, it didn’t mean her responsibilities as a wife and mother had disappeared. If anything, she felt more important now, as if she were the glue holding her family together.
And, as if life wasn’t difficult enough after the bombs, there was the damned Children of the Bomb cult, which had nearly killed her and her children. She would have laughed at their ridiculous name, but there was nothing worth laughing about. Not anymore. They were dangerous, and although she’d helped to destroy their old camp, several members still hid in the woods. Tracking them down had proved to be an impossible task, so now she was on guard all the time, waiting for their inevitable attack.
Liz always hoped a major catastrophe would bring people together and unite them in the common struggle for survival. However, she rapidly realized that, while there were cooperative people such as Sandy and Edwin Wright, there were many more who would gladly rip food out of her children’s hands without a second thought. Those were the people who kept her looking over her shoulder. Those were the ones to fear.
Sandy’s voice drew Liz out of her brooding thoughts.
“We lost almost a month’s worth of rations to those damn rats.” Sandy shook her head, jaw set hard. “Those bastards are too clever for their own good. I had the rations wrapped in three feet of plastic sheeting and a canvas tar
p, and they still got in and ate everything.”
“We’ve been ‘rat-attacked’ a few times, too.” Liz squinted at a nearby cluster of tree stumps, a good hunting ground for more mushrooms. “You have to be careful about leaving things outside the walls of your cabin. I don’t think it was just rats either. I think some of the other people in the old group are stealing already.”
“Is that why you decided to stop working with them?” Sandy asked.
“Yeah. I think we’re better off staying away from anyone else in the mountains. We trust you and Edwin and Derek, but no one else. As long as we stick together, I think we’ll be okay.”
“I agree. Some of the things the others have been saying make me nervous. Some are talking about joining up with another group.”
“The cult?” Liz frowned.
“Yeah. I think that’s what they meant, but they never came out and said it. Edwin and I stopped going to their meetings a few days after you and Luke stopped. I didn’t like the direction they were headed. We would have been fine if they’d stuck to the plan.”
“We have enough to deal with right now. Trying to work with uncooperative people isn’t on the agenda. Not anymore.”
“Trying to protect our food is a lot harder than I thought it would be. Other people suck if they’re stealing, but don’t get me started on the squirrels.” Sandy gestured toward the east, where her and Edwin’s cabin lay. “I swear they tap dance around the traps I set and nibble on everything. Makes me wish I could get a cat up here.”
Liz nodded in agreement. She sat on the same log she’d overturned, so she could rest her legs for a moment. “Kyle says he saw a mountain lion on the edge of the perimeter the other day. It would be good for rodent control if it wasn’t looking to eat us, too.”
“Have you seen any sign of Justice?” Sandy asked, referring to Liz’s golden retriever.
“No. I haven’t seen him in days. I don’t know where he went off to. I just hope the mountain lion didn’t get him.”
“I hope so too. Maybe he’s just off hunting.” Sandy lifted a rough limestone rock. She frowned when she didn’t find mushrooms. “How are your kids doing?”
Liz chewed her lower lip before answering. “As well as could be expected, I suppose.” She heaved a heavy sigh. “Kyle wants to impress Luke and me so bad that he keeps taking stupid risks to prove he’s worthy of being called an adult.”
“Sounds like Kyle.”
“Right.” Liz nodded, but then her face grew dark. “But at least he wants to help. Sierra constantly whines about everything, from not being able to log into Facebook to not being able to go to parties and missing out on her college years. If she doesn’t toughen up soon, she’s going to drive me and Luke nuts. Yesterday I asked her to gather more prickly pear cactus fruit. She rolled her eyes and said her back hurt. As if mine doesn’t.”
“You can eat prickly pear cactus?” Sandy arched an eyebrow in inquiry.
“Yep. I used to pick a bag full on hikes. I’d juice it.”
“What does it taste like?”
“A cross between watermelon, pineapple, pear, and cucumber. It’s actually really refreshing on a hot day.”
“We won’t have many of those any time soon.” Sandy smirked.
“True, but it has a good amount of vitamin C and magnesium. It only takes three cups to hit your daily goal. Vitamin C’s going to become more and more important as time goes on. Not just because we want to avoid scurvy, but because it will help to keep us from getting sick.”
“We should gather some prickly pear later today.”
“Let’s finish mushroom collection first, then we’ll go. If we’re lucky, we might come across a fat grub to toss into the soup pot.” Liz laughed and shook her head at the massive upheaval in her life. “I can’t believe I’m living in the mountains with no electricity, talking about eating grubs.”
Sandy pursed her lips and stared at the overcast sky. “I don’t think any of us ever considered this future for ourselves. But all you can do is all you can do.”
“What if all we can do isn’t enough?” Liz asked softly.
The question hung in the air as they continued to search for mushrooms. Several minutes later, a tiny white flake drifted from the sky and melted on the back of Liz’s bare hand. She glanced at the sky and frowned.
“Here comes the snow.” Sandy clucked her tongue. “Winter is practically right on top of us.”
Liz turned to Sandy and gave voice to her fear. “I haven’t spent a winter in the mountains since I was a little girl, and it was harsh then. I don’t know how we’re going to make it through, honestly.”
Sandy nodded and picked up a fat mushroom cap.
“Edwin and I aren’t looking forward to it. We aren’t spring chickens anymore.” Sandy winced and clenched her right hand. “My arthritis is already acting up, and it’s not even that cold yet. Not as cold as it’s going to be.”
Liz nodded grimly. It had all been so simple in her previous life. Starvation was such a remote possibility that she hadn’t even considered it. Certainly, she had worried that Luke would lose his job, or that some other calamity would lead to food insecurity, but there were friends, neighbors, and family who would have stepped up to help. Even their community church had a food pantry. But there were no food pantries on the cold side of the mountain, and her friends and family were in equally dire circumstances with nothing to spare. Those who were alive, anyway.
“We’ll figure it out.” Liz tried to fill her tone with a confidence she didn’t feel. “We have to.”
Luke grabbed the Winchester’s smooth black stock and lifted it off the rack near the front door of the cabin he shared with his wife and children. It was his turn to patrol the perimeter.
At first, he’d taken defense-related duties upon himself, but after discussing it with his wife, they had agreed to switch off. It didn’t make sense to have one person do the same mind-numbing task day in and day out.
In addition to staving off boredom, they each had a unique perception. They could get different sets of eyes on the terrain if they rotated scouting duties. If more people watched for trouble, they could find it before it found them.
After the first bombs had dropped, Luke had faced all kinds of trouble. He’d hacked and shot his way through flesh and blood on his way to being reunited with his family. He had no regrets. As far as he was concerned, anyone who got in his way had signed their own death warrant.
It was stressful enough trying to take care of himself, but it was nothing compared to his anxiety about Liz, Kyle, and Sierra. While his wife was a tough, capable woman, she couldn’t rely on a variety of survival tactics like Luke could. Kyle was eager to help but likely to get himself killed in the process. And as for Sierra …
Luke gritted his teeth and gripped his rifle. It was better not to think about Sierra’s irresponsible behavior. He didn’t want to get his blood pressure up.
He consoled himself with the fact that the mountainside was beautiful in the early afternoon light. Overhead, a hawk circled. Its keen eyes sought out prey. A rat squeaked, warning its fellow rodents that a human was on the prowl.
Rats. He grimaced. If they tasted better, he would go out of his way to shoot the thieving little bastards, but that would be a waste of valuable ammunition.
Maintaining their stores was already a challenge. It would grow more difficult in the coming weeks as winter took hold. Fishing and foraging were barely enough to keep his family alive right now. How would he provide for them once snow fell? He didn’t want to dip into his food preps until absolutely necessary. Until then, he’d hunt for whatever he could find.
As he circled the perimeter, the cabin vanished behind a copse of trees. He hiked out a good distance before beginning his route around the territory he’d marked for his family. His legs had become accustomed to the rough terrain. He didn’t slip or stumble even when he traversed the steepest slopes.
Luke trudged up a ridge and reached the crest,
then stared out over a forest of oaks. He spotted a coyote as it bounded into the brush. It vanished before he could even consider taking a shot. Too bad. It would have been enough meat for an entire week. Maybe even enough to share with the Wrights.
Grimly, he realized he would have to let the elderly couple starve if it meant his family would stay alive. After the bombs, morality was painted in shades of gray rather than black and white. His family would always come first, but he’d help his allies if he had extra to share with them.
A movement below him caught Luke’s eye. He dropped down to his belly and dragged the rifle off his shoulder to stare into the scope. Luke made out three armed men who walked with purpose to the north, deeper into the woods. Even with the scope, they were too far off to pick out much detail, but they didn’t seem friendly.
Luke considered returning to the cabin for backup in case things got ugly, but he quickly dismissed the idea. By the time he walked back, the strangers’ trail would have grown cold. He picked his way carefully down the slope and angled for the same direction the men had taken.
Now that he was in the forest, he moved with a great deal of caution. His eyes and ears strained for the slightest hint of hostiles, whether they walked on four legs or two. Luke carefully stepped on patches of bare dirt or live growth so he wouldn’t make a sound. The slightest snap of a twig could carry a long way in the woods, and he couldn’t risk giving up his location.
Luke came upon the path the men had taken. Obviously, none of them were skilled in covering their tracks because they left sloppy signs of their passing. Bent and torn branches, muddy footprints, and a discarded candy bar wrapper left an easy-to-follow trail. Luke was definitely on the right path.
Gradually he became aware of a voice ahead of him. He dropped into a low crouch and moved at a snail’s pace for maximum stealth. Luke blinked away beads of sweat and stared through the foliage. A dozen men gathered in a small glade in front of a rustic log cabin. He was close enough to make out their words.