Strike
Page 19
Before they began the ascent, they all paused to cinch their pack straps and stow their rifles. From somewhere, a creature made a sound like a howl. Wolf, or coyote, maybe. They had encountered a few of those so far, but nothing too dangerous. If they found packs, that might be another story.
“You hear that?” Yorick asked.
“Sure did,” Tenney said. “Sounds like dinner.”
Rosia raised an eyebrow. “You would eat a wolf? That’s gross.”
Tenney shrugged. “I haven’t had meat in days. I’m a growing boy.”
“Full truth?” Yorick said. “I would definitely eat a wolf if it came to it.”
Rosia looked at Malina for an ally. Malina put her hands on her hips as if to say she had no opinion on the matter. “You guys are disgusting,” Rosia said.
“That’s fine,” Yorick said. “When me and Tenney have our delicious roasted wolf feast, you can’t have any.”
Rosia rolled her eyes and set off up the slope. They all four hiked up the hillside toward the wreck of the plane, and Yorick observed as it all gradually came into view. The middle of the plane—the cylindrical part, Yorick didn't know what it was called—had broken into three main hunks. The wings were crumpled and torn and spread over hundreds of meters around the wreck. Bits of grass had grown over some of the pieces, meaning it had been here for quite a while.
Tenney pointed. "Doesn't look stable on the ends."
Yorick squinted as they hiked, taking in the parts of the cylindrical base of the plane that teetered on the edges of boulders. "Good idea. We should stick to the middle."
Rosia opened her mouth to add a comment, but she stopped short. She whipped around. They all heard it too. From down the highway, back from where they'd come, the rumble of the car engine arose. The highway blurred like smoke as the brown vehicle sped along the road.
The same road bandits from before. White Flames.
"Into the avión,” Yorick said. “Let’s move.”
Gripping the rifles, they hustled up the rocky side of the mountain along the last two hundred meters to the plane. Yorick pointed his feet at the middle section, seemingly the most stable piece of the broken structure.
As he approached it, he realized it didn't look anything like the interior of airplanes he had seen in the books. There weren't cloth covered seats with armrests and screens for watching entertainment. The inside of this vast machine was sparse, with seats lining the outer edges, and cloth webbing around the interior of the cylinder. But, Tenney had said it looked like a military plane, so this must be the style. Like so many other experiences, this was all new to Yorick.
"Hurry," Rosia said, helping Tenney push Malina inside. Once they were all four aboard, the whole thing creaked, like a giant metal bird squawking.
"Down," Yorick said, urging his three companions toward the wall. He could no longer see the road, which hopefully meant the White Flames could no longer see them. If they hadn't seen them already.
Tenney looked all around as the metal creaked and cried. "Is this thing going to fall down the mountain? Maybe this was a giant mistake.”
No one answered him. Yorick held up his hand to ask for silence. He then shuffled toward the edge of the broken end of the plane, peering down to the road. A little at a time, trying not to stick his head out too far.
The car had stopped on the highway. Only a few hundred meters away.
The back of the car was open, like the trucks that used to arrive at the plantación. There were four White Flames members in the car, and only one of them had hair that wasn’t either spiky or a fluorescent color. Three males and one female. That one had deep auburn hair, down to her shoulders. She was in the backseat, standing up. She lifted a pair of binoculars to her eyes and pointed them up toward the plane.
Yorick whipped back, out of sight. Were these White Flames looking for them specifically?
"What is it?" Rosia asked.
Yorick shook his head. "They're just looking. Surveying the mountain.”
He waited for ten seconds, and then the curiosity burned at him, so he had to take a look. He crept forward until he could barely see around the edge of the wreckage. And when he looked down at the highway, the car had gone.
“It’s all clear now.” He turned around and studied his companions, to let them see the relief on his face and hope they would feel it too.
But, Rosia didn't appear hopeful. She winced. “For how long?"
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If you like post-apoc, you’ll want to take a gander at my Five Suns Saga. It’s an epic tale of espionage and a military thriller set in a dystopian and post-apocalyptic world. Featuring stories set before, during, and after a global economic and societal collapse, this decades-spanning trilogy dives into the mystery to answer two big questions: how did the world collapse, and how will the survivors put it back together?
About the Author
Jim Heskett was born in the wilds of Oklahoma, raised by a pack of wolves with a station wagon and a membership card to the local public swimming pool. Just like the man in the John Denver song, he moved to Colorado in the summer of his 27th year, and never looked back. Aside from an extended break traveling the world, he hasn't let the Flatirons mountains out of his sight.
He fell in love with writing at the age of fourteen with a copy of Stephen King's The Shining. Poetry became his first outlet for teen angst, then later some terrible screenplays, and eventually short and long fiction. In between, he worked a few careers that never quite tickled his creative toes, and hasn't ever forgotten about Stephen King. You can find him currently huddled over a laptop in an undisclosed location in Colorado, dreaming up ways to kill beloved characters.
He believes the huckleberry is the king of berries and refuses to be persuaded in any other direction.
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