The Way Back (Book 1): The Way Back

by Giancioppo, Danny

  Most of them knew the towns that they had passed through, and none of them looked particularly good– rotting buildings and forests grown out to high hell– but they were intact at least, so that was good.

  “Alright guys, so let’s go over this again,” Luke said slowly. “We enter the town, and we head to Nolan, Adam, and my neighborhood first. Then we go to Chris and Derrick’s, and then we make our way to Jeremy and Cody’s. We all go together, no matter what happens; no matter what we find. Got it?”

  “Got it,” They all said, seemingly one after another, tripping over each other’s agreeances as they did. Luke gazed in the rear-view mirror and saw all their faces. All trying to contain smiles; all looking out and around the windows.

  So far, everything was managing to look just good enough. Granted, there was a decent stretch of open land between Foxtale and the neighboring south-side city, but still, it wasn’t torn to shreds and there weren’t cars scattered everywhere. It was a start.

  “Okay well… what if like, what is it… some us of find them, but some of us don’t? What then?” Cody asked nervously, though also excitedly. He couldn’t help but shake in his seat. Luke understood it.

  “Then some people stay with others, right?” Derrick said. “I mean that’s a given, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, absolutely,” Jeremy agreed.

  They all went quiet again, and a few minutes later, they saw the sign. Welcome to Foxtale: Where Peace Finds A Home. They slowly drove in, past the last remaining spot of naturally-open land, and at long last, arrived to the home laid out before them.

  It was mid-afternoon, and it was freezing outside. There was no sound but the biting wind, the falling snow touching the ground, and a humming, rolling vehicle creeping its way down the road, stutteringly coming to a stop.

  Nearby, there was the sparse remains of a town. A small handful of tattered and broken buildings; lying as decayed and isolated corpses in an empty mass of land. The rest of the town laid destitute of life. Most notably, there were massive, old scorch marks stretching for miles upon the town’s earth, but not so old that they were no longer visible.

  Outside, there were no trees, no birds, not even leaves. Nothing tall, nothing fully-intact. No sound came from the husk of the community once bustling with commotion. The sound from the world around seeming to echo miles away.

  Seven children could be heard exiting from inside the vehicle. They shakily slopped out from the vehicle’s doors to the ground; each footstep like a poorly planned procedure, a movement without rhyme or reason. The waste that surrounded the miles of desolation enveloped the children, ravenously tearing away at what shreds of innocence remained.

  One of them cracked, almost chirped, if even only slightly. As they made their way inch by inch closer to the town, more of the children vocally fell apart. Every one of them slowly fell to the ground, or otherwise broke down; all of them diving into a well of tears.

  Luke couldn’t believe the sight he was seeing. All of it… gone. The lab was there, the diner was there, two equally torn-up gas stations, and maybe a third of the supermarket. Other than that, it was just scattered rubble, if that, of everything else.

  And it was all visible. All of it. 15 square miles, a couple thousand in population. It was all there. Because it was all flat. Destroyed. Gone. Dead.

  All that travel. All that bullshit they went through. And now… this? Luke could hardly maintain himself. Hell, he couldn’t. Everything just… slipped away.

  They didn’t even bother to consider the possible dangers around them. At that moment, nothing more seemed to matter. For the first time in a long time, as a group, they all lost their guard.

  “No,” Nolan squeaked out, his face running with tears, looking red as ever. “Fuck no…”

  “Oh my… fucking God” Jeremy hardly got out, sniffling like crazy.

  “How c… how could this be?” Cody said, pacing with his hands on his head, running them frantically through his hair. He knew it was possible, but seeing it now, he couldn’t wrap his head around it.

  “No…No this is… this can’t be true…” Chris pleaded, gazing at the wasteland, and then back at his friends. He seemed to be waiting on something from them, but he got nothing.

  “They’re…They’re gone… They’re all…” Adam shivered. He held himself in his own arms as he too paced around, not taking his eyes off the scene before him, and tossing his hat to the ground.

  “Mom… Dad…” Derrick mourned, dropping to his knees and crying into his hands. He too was shaking violently, his breathing quick and rampant, not keeping a steady pace by any means. His hands just shook against the pavement beneath him; he didn’t know what to do with them.

  Luke still found no words, let alone solid thoughts. He couldn’t help but stare at everything. See where his neighborhood should be; his home. The schools where he met his friends, where he met Emily. The places they ate, played, slept, lived. None of it was there. There was just the lab… the lab…

  Luke walked forward, without a word. The others weren’t even in his sight as he moved past them all, dropping his bags and belongings by the car. For the first time in 504 days, he forgot all about his friends. He forgot about how they felt, or what they were doing; where they were going to go. He just walked. They may have been saying something, but he heard none of it. He heard the wind, the snow, and his heart, pounding fervently in his chest.

  In about ten minutes, he had made his way to the door of the laboratory. They went there in 7th grade for a class field trip; they learned about everything. From the planets and stars, and all the wonders of space, to the human cells, and all the amazing, tiny things going on in their bodies.

  The doors were locked, a chain running inside through the barricades. All the windows were barred off with a layer of some kind of metal sheeting. Luke stood there gawking at it. He looked up at the security cameras: they were hanging down; no lights. He wriggled with the door: it shook, but it didn’t budge; it wouldn’t open from the outside. He looked at the barred-windows: He slammed his hand on them with as much force as he could muster; nothing happened.

  Then the others caught up to him.

  “Luke!” Cody burst out painfully, tears still streaming down his eyes. “Luke what are you doing!?” Luke didn’t say anything back. He just kept staring at the doors.

  “Luke!” Adam shouted, he too weeping. “Luke there’s nobody in there, man!” Luke still said nothing. Chris walked forward and grabbed Luke by his shoulder.

  “Luke there’s nobody in there! Please, we have to keep…keep going!” He struggled. “I know what you said, but there’s no reason anyone would be in there. It’s just still up somehow… that’s all!” Nothing. “We don’t have time to keep doing this! We…We need to keep moving, search around the other towns! Keep…Keep trying…”

  Chris pulled on Luke’s shoulder, but Luke jerked his body, and shoved Chris off with a force, sending him sailing to the ground. Luke still didn’t look away from the door. He focused all his energy onto it, and what was behind it. There had to be something behind it.

  Then, all of a sudden, he heard something. Faintly. Quietly. Like it was hidden behind the barricades, behind the doors. It was…It was the sound of people… he knew it. A man, and a woman. They were whispering, trying to stay quiet, but they were there; he knew they were there. He could hear them.

  “Luke there’s nobody in there!” Jeremy shouted through his tears, truly broken, pleading for his friend to give up. “Please, Luke! Please just listen to us! We trust you, but right now you have to trust us! Chris is right, we don’t have time for this!”

  There had to be people in there. Luke knew what he heard. What he was still hearing. He couldn’t just walk away. He couldn’t give in.

  “Th…They’re in there…” Luke muttered, hardly a whisper, still not breaking his gaze. “I can hear them, they… they’re inside… Somebody, they’re…they’re inside…”

  “What!?” Adam yelled,
baffled, and hurt at how broken Luke appeared before him. “You’re imagining things, Luke! None of us heard anything; you’re delusional! We need to go!” Adam stepped forward, this time with the assistance of Derrick, and they yanked Luke away. They turned him around, but suddenly he turned back, his eyes shooting around faster than a bullet out of a gun.

  He heard something else. The chain, on the door, it rattled. And as he looked at it, it just ended it’s rattling, still shaking the tiniest bit. Something… Someone, must’ve pulled on it, shook it on purpose.

  He broke out of his friend’s grip and turned his body entirely around. The others were so thrown off that for the moment they did nothing to stop him, though that was purely from his sudden jerk; they were entirely focused on Luke, and they themselves heard nothing.

  “It moved…” Luke said quietly. “The chain… it just moved…”

  “Luke…!” Nolan cried in desperation, it killing him to hear his friend like this.

  “Luke even if it did man, so what!?” Jeremy said, walking up to him again. “We can’t get in there! Even if there’s anyone in there, they don’t know us, man! They don’t want us! We need to find the ones that do! We need to keep looking for our families!”

  “It moved!” Luke shouted, tears finally starting to run down his eyes, slowly, painfully. They stung his face. “I heard it! And-And when I turned around… it was still shaking! Just a little bit!” He ran back up to the door, banging on it with all his might. “Please! Let us in! Open the door!” he screamed, begged, and pleaded. “We’re just kids! Please! Our families may be in there! Please!”

  “Luke enough!” Adam yelled, grabbing Luke again, this time by his waist, and dragging him away as best he could, all while Luke fought against him.

  “If you don’t let us in, you’re killing us!” Luke screeched. “Please! We came all this way, you can’t! We need to get inside! Please!” The tears poured down his face now, staining his dirtied and scarred face. It was all coming apart. No, it was all already gone.

  Adam threw Luke back a ways, keeping him on his feet, but away from the door. The others hurriedly followed behind them, Adam now turning away from Luke to try and compose himself.

  “Look…” Adam said, shaking steadily, “We can head farther north. We can go up and around, and head back to Cyrus’s camp. We know we can–”

  “Oh shut the fuck up!” Chris yelled in protest, interrupting Adam. “We are not doing that!”

  “Oh so what are we doing then, huh?! Staying here!?” Adam asked incredulously, “For what!?”

  “We can’t just leave!” Cody yelled back. “We still don’t know–!”

  “The hell we don’t!” Derrick countered. “What else could be here, Cody!? I hate to agree with him, but Adam is right! There is nothing! Everyone is dead!”

  “Derrick shut the fuck up!” Jeremy shouted, storming up to Derrick’s face. “Now is not the fucking time!”

  “Yeah!? When is!?” Derrick spat. “When we’re literally standing on the ashes of our homes and families!?”

  “Adam, you and Derrick need to stop and think realistically for a second!” Chris continued. “You don’t get to make the calls! We don’t all want to go back! We are not going back!”

  “Realistically!? Us!?” Derrick protested in disbelief.

  “Yeah!? Who does make the calls, C!?” Adam asked rhetorically. “Because the only guy that ever could seems like he’s about to break the fuck down! So excuse me for trying to keep us a-fucking-float!”

  “Fuck you!” Chris screamed, tackling Adam to the ground. The storm grew heavier, and by then at least a foot of snow covered the ground. Derrick ran over to pull Chris off, but Chris elbowed him in the nose, causing it to bleed profusely. Then Jeremy ran over and grabbed Derrick, throwing him off of Chris. Nolan and Cody tried to get them to stop, but they just continued to get caught in the crossfire.

  “You’re a terrible fucking friend!” Chris yelled at Adam, as Adam swung at Chris from the ground. “You never cared about the rest of us! You only ever cared about you!”

  “You don’t know a god damn thing about me!” Adam yelled back. “You’re a fucking idiot! Everything I’ve been doing, I do it for you!” Adam turned their position around, and began to swing at Chris from on top of him.

  “If we go back, we’re leaving all this behind!” Jeremy shouted to everyone, threateningly pacing around Derrick, who was also threateningly pacing around Jeremy, both of them moving in a never-ending circle. Nolan stood between them, holding them away from each other as best he could.

  “All of what!?” Derrick shouted back. “This is the same as the house! The same as every other place we’ve seen! It’s all the fucking same! And every other town is going to be exactly like this one! We need to go back! It’s all we have left!”

  “This is all we have left you fucking moron!” Jeremy screamed, sprinting to tackle Derrick. He shoved Nolan to the ground and ran at Derrick, who swung at Jeremy’s head. Derrick landed his hit, and Jeremy landed his tackle, Derrick now under him. Nolan got up fast, and ripped Jeremy off, his eyes still running rampant with tears.

  “Are you insane!?” Nolan screamed in his face. “You’re gonna kill him! His head’s still concussed you fucking asshole!” Jeremy stared Nolan down, and swung at his face. Nolan fell to his knees, his lip now cut wide open. However, he quickly rose, and swung back at Jeremy with all his might, immediately knocking him down to the ground. Derrick tried to get up, but Nolan pushed him back into the ground. “Don’t get up. Either of you. Not until this is over,” he ordered, moving toward Chris and Adam.

  Cody had already begun pulling Adam off of Chris, but with Adam being much bigger than Cody, he struggled. All the while, Adam now fought off both he and Chris at once. Chris still swung at Adam, and clawed at his face with his hands.

  “This is why we drifted apart in the first place!” Chris yelled in Adam’s face. “Because you could never really let anyone else have their way! Because it was always about what you wanted! You always had to be right!”

  “You are so full of shit!” Adam countered, equally as enraged. “We drifted apart because you and Jeremy are the bad fucking friends! You backed him up when he wanted to be with Lily! You two were the assholes! This is why everyone hated you!”

  Nolan came over as fast as he could, and grabbed Adam by both his shoulders, pulling him literally up, and off of Chris as best he could.

  “Guys stop!” Cody pleaded. “Just…Just stop!”

  “Shut up! You never helped mend things!” Chris attacked. “You just tried to play every side, but you never brought us together! You never could!”

  “Chris, Adam, enough!” Nolan shouted, continuing to hold Adam back to the best of his ability, who reared his head back wildly, trying to hit Nolan away.

  “Like you care! As soon as the others took Jeremy’s side, you abandoned everyone to hang out with all your other friends, you asshole!” Adam spat bitterly. “You left us all!”

  “Cody, grab Chris!” Nolan ordered, ignoring Adam. Cody quickly followed, and dragged Chris out from under Adam by his armpits, holding him back from continuing this fight any further.

  Nolan put Adam into a headlock, and held it as best he could, though Adam made it increasingly difficult.

  “Adam, just stop! Please!” Nolan pleaded, still crying. “Stop it!” They all cried, in fact, but nonetheless, Adam would not desist.

  “No!” he yelled, struggling as much as he could. “Let go of me you prick!”

  “No!” Nolan shouted back, gripping onto Adam tighter, determined to not release him until he calmed down.

  Nolan jerked back to try and get a tighter grip on Adam, and simultaneously pull him further away from the others, but he was losing his grip, and they could all see it. Adam was slowly gaining control over the situation, and he still glared at Chris, who stayed locked in a defensive position, even with Cody holding onto him.

  Suddenly, Adam broke free of Nolan’s headloc
k, and Nolan fell back onto the ground. Adam lunged forward, and landed on top of both Chris and Cody. Cody flinched, gripping onto Adam’s forearm, which was now pressed up against his neck, while Chris did his best to get a fist up and ready. But then, they heard a noise. A deafening thud.

  Their fight had been entirely in the snow, so aside from their shouting and physical impacts, there were very few loud noises coming from them. So when it happened, they all heard the thud.

  Immediately, they shot all their glances back, and saw Luke on the ground, not moving. Something had lodged into his head. It wriggled a bit, and had a whitish-green, glowing tip at the end of it. It was one of those… things… that the Stranger had talked about, below the bridge. That Jeremy and Chris had seen up close, now so long ago. A Chirper.

  “Luke!” Nolan screamed, getting up and sprinting toward him. The others all followed, forming a protective circle around him. Jeremy and Chris gazed up at the roof, making sure there were no more around them, and luckily, there wasn’t. They all watched as it wriggled further into Luke, and made quiet sounds, like soft chirping. Then, as it ceased all movement, it fell silent.

  Luke laid completely still, and his eyes weren’t moving at all; not even closing. The others could see his breath, but it was barely leaving his mouth. It was as though the air was moving in a robotic sort of rhythm; like Luke himself had nothing to do with the action, and was just put onto autopilot.

  Adam and Nolan grabbed him, and carried him out from under the roof of the building, into the blood-soaked snow they had just beaten one another in.

  “Oh my God!” Jeremy panicked. “Where did that come from!?”

  “I don’t… the roof, m-maybe!?” Derrick thought aloud, looking all around them frantically, the others following his fearful direction; some of them even backed away. “He was still under it, and it’s dark enough up there that maybe we couldn’t see it!? I don’t know!”

  “I-I… What do we do!?” Cody asked, his heart beating a thousand miles a minute. “Sh-Should we pull it out!?”