Born In The Apocalypse

by Joseph Talluto

  Trey led us down the road, and at the next intersection he turned north. This took us up a small hill, and we found ourselves looking out over a long stretch of that big road I saw earlier.

  “There’s something you could use,” Trey said, pointing across the way.

  “Doubt there’s anything left in there, but I wouldn’t mind a look,” I said. Trey had pointed to a sporting goods store, and I would have liked to see if there were any arrows in there. I could make my own, and I had a lot back home; neither situation helped me right now.

  “Nice view up here,” Trey said.

  “It was,” I replied, pointing south. I whipped an arrow out of my quiver and nocked it, bringing the string back to my cheek. I barely aimed before I let it go, sending it into the head of the Tripper who came out of the ditch.

  It was a decent shot, but it was a wasted effort, since five more came out of the ditch as well.

  “Jesus! Run!” Trey yelled.

  Chapter 42

  I didn’t need to be told twice. I kept pace with Trey as the pack of Trippers wheezed and roared behind us. They couldn’t run as fast as we could, but then they didn’t need to rest, either. Eventually they would run us down like Trey and I used to do to the deer. I would have thought about the irony if I wasn’t worried about dying.

  We ran over the hill and down the street. At the next intersection, we turned west and as we did, I happened to look over to my right.

  “Trey! This way!” I said, working my way through some thick snow between a couple of small buildings. I saw a building that held the promise of safety if we could just get to it.

  “What did you see?” Trey asked, stepping in my tracks to get through the snow faster.

  “You’ll see.” I hoped the two buildings would mask our escape, and the Trippers would lose our trail.

  We passed another building, a large office type. It was about four stories and was covered in glass windows with a simple front. The doors had been smashed open, and we could see that there once had been violence in there. It looked a little like what a hospital would have looked like given what my dad had told me.

  “Come on, it’s right back here!” I said, running at an angle away from the building. I was trying to make sure we stayed out of sight of the Trippers.

  Trey saw the building I was heading to. “Now that might work. If we block the stairwell, we’re good to go.”

  The building was six stories tall and designed in a cylindrical fashion. What made this building unique was the fact that there wasn’t a ground floor. There was just a small section that had a stairwell leading up to the second floor and beyond.

  We ran to the stairwell, and we just able to squeeze past a broken door and desk that had been tossed down the stairs. If we had been bigger, we never would have been able to get through. Trey and I pushed the desk until it blocked the doorway completely, then angled the door to hold the outer door in place. We got out of that stairwell since the whole thing was glass, and we could be seen if we didn’t move.

  At the top of the stairs was a reception area and what looked like some offices. I went into a room that was nearby and over to the window. I wanted to see if the Trippers had seen us. If they had, we had to get out the way we came in. If not, we could spend the night here relatively safely, since it was doubtful the Trippers could open the door.

  The room I was in had a bed, a dresser, and a small bathroom. The window on the far end of the room was covered in curtains, and I opened one slightly to look out. I could see the road and the small buildings we passed. I could see the Trippers as well as they moved on down the road, having lost our trail.

  I could also see the bars on the window that were secured to the outside of the building.

  “Wonder what these are for?” I asked, pointing out the bars to Trey.

  Trey shrugged. “Can’t imagine what they were meant to keep out.”

  “Or in,” I said.

  “That too.”

  “Should we see if we are alone?” I asked.

  “Honestly? I’d rather just stay here and hunker down for the night,” Trey said.

  I shook my head. “Your dad and my dad taught us better than that.”

  “I really hate it when you’re right,” Trey sighed.

  I unstrung my bow and let it rest, taking the string and looping it into a pocket on my coat. It would be useless in close quarters anyway. I took off my pack and took my Colt out, sliding the holster onto my belt. I didn’t have my other gun belt, so this would have to do. Trey moved his crossbow to the front since it took up less space than my recurve, and he could use it in tighter quarters than I could.

  “So this building makes a complete circle,” I said. “We should be able to check the rooms on this floor pretty quickly, and we can leave our stuff here.”

  “Works for me. You take the left side; I’ll take the right,” Trey said.

  We walked steadily forward, looking into rooms and seeing if there were any surprises for us. It was very creepy since it was getting dark, and the shadows were playing tricks with our eyes. Most of the rooms were identical, just a bed, a bathroom, and a window. Some had dressers, some didn’t. None of them had anyone in them, so we were feeling pretty good about our hiding place. I looked again out the window and didn’t see any Trippers come our way, so that was another good sign.

  The second and third floors were the same as the first, only it was getting harder to see. We couldn’t turn a light on, because that would have been like a beacon to the Trippers. For whatever reason, they could see pretty well in the dark.

  The fourth floor was unoccupied as well, but instead of having beds, the rooms were empty. There were no bathrooms, and the doors to the rooms were heavier, with little windows on them. The windows in the rooms were dark, with no curtains. It almost looked like the windows had been painted over.

  “Wonder what happened up here,” Trey whispered.

  “Not sure,” I said. “I wouldn’t want to spend any time in those rooms. Give me open sky any day.”

  The fifth floor was the same—unoccupied, but still creepy. The sixth floor, though, was the one that really didn’t look like anything that was good for anyone.

  At the top of the stairs to the sixth floor, we had to push through a heavy steel door. Once past that, we found ourselves in a familiar hallway, but the layout was different. Instead of several rooms, the walls were taken out of the rooms so each room was the size of four of the ones on the other floors. Each room was slightly different, but all of them had a very sinister feel about them.

  The air itself was oppressive and thick, and I kept looking over my shoulder, expecting to see whatever it was that was staring holes into the back of my head. Every time I looked, however, there was nothing there.

  “What the hell was this place?” Trey asked. He walked over to the bed that was positioned in the middle of the floor. The sheets were torn and dirty, and there looked to be some kind of stain running down the side of the bed. But the thing that had drawn Trey’s attention was the leg restraints and the handcuffs attached to the bed.

  “No idea,” I said. I kept getting that feeling, but I didn’t bother looking back anymore. I had an idea who or what it was that was staring at me.

  “Hate to think what we might have found on the seventh or eighth floors if this place had them,” Trey whispered.

  “Probably a dungeon,” I whispered back.

  We both snickered at that, and it helped release some of the tension that was nearly visible in the room. We went back into the hallway and kept going.

  I was scared, I’m not ashamed to admit, and as the sun slipped away, the darkness in the building was nearly crushing. But we kept on, finding room after room with those strange beds in them. At the end of the circle, right before the stairs, Trey stopped to pick up a piece of paper on the floor.

  It was a memo of some kind, and the writing was nearly illegible. But at the top of the paper I could read the words “Tinley Park Men
tal Health Center.”

  “Did we just take refuge in a former insane asylum?” I asked.

  “I won’t tell if you won’t,” Trey said seriously.

  “Deal.”

  “My dad would whip both of us,” Trey said.

  I believed it, and we would have earned it, too.

  “Well, it’s empty, anyway, so let’ get back to our stuff and hunker down for the night. The first floors seemed like the most harmless,” I said.

  “Deal.”

  Chapter 42

  We went back to our packs and found a room to stay in. I dragged a mattress from another room into this one, and we spread out for the night. Trey found some wool blankets in a closet, so we were set. We locked the door after checking we could get it open from the inside, and made sure the drapes were secured. Trey wanted to start a fire in the metal waste can, but I pointed out that the glow from that would be hard to miss in the dark, even through the curtains.

  “How about a candle?” Trey said. “Anything to push back the gloom in this place.”

  “That should be okay,” I said. I fished around and pulled out a small flat candle. It was about an inch tall and about inch in diameter. They weren’t good for more than a little light or heating up a small can of water. I put it in my little lantern which was nothing more than an old soda can with a square cut out of the front. The hole in the top let the smoke and heat out, while the aluminum interior helped reflect more light than was possible otherwise. It wouldn’t keep us warm, but it was better than the darkness. Hopefully by the time the candle went out we would be asleep.

  Trey took the mattress off the bed, and we arranged the beds so we would be sleeping head to head. It would allow us to talk without being heard by anyone who wasn’t within two feet of us. I lit the candle and pointed it away from the window, the warm glow of the light driving away the shadows and giving the impression of a small fire.

  I hadn’t realized how exhausted I was until I lay down, and suddenly I could barely move my head. I closed my hood over my face, and when I said good night to Trey, I didn’t get an answer. I guess he was even more tired than I was. I was looking forward to getting home tomorrow. I had had enough of chases and winter.

  My last thought before I drifted off completely was wondering if Kim had found shelter for herself. Guess I’d never know.

  In the morning, Trey and I carefully went out of the building. The sun was bright on the snow, and it was hard to see very clearly. One thing that stood out was the large number of footprints that were around the building and the entrance. There had to have been thirty to forty footprints around the grounds. No one was in sight this morning, thankfully.

  When I saw those prints, a very cold chill that had nothing to do with the outside air ran up my spine. I could see Trey felt the same way since he was unusually quiet as he looked at the prints. I knew what he was thinking, since I was thinking the same thing. We’d be dead right now if those Trippers had figured out how to get in the building.

  As turned out, Trey wasn’t thinking about that at all.

  “The tracks of this crowd go south, same way we need to go. We need to get around them somehow,” Trey said.

  “I’ve never seen a map of this area,” I said. “When my father and I rode out that one time, we went east, not north.”

  Trey shook his head. “My dad has a map of this area, but I haven’t looked at it for a long time. I feel like there’s some water that way.” Trey pointed to the northeast.

  “That might be the way to go,” I said. “If we can get to the water, we can follow it east to the wall. Take the wall south, and we can get home the same way my father and I did that one time.”

  “Well, we need to do something,” Trey said. “Let’s get moving.”

  “How about we start off in the right direction?” I suggested. “That road right there leads east, and we can head north when we come to another road.”

  “Sounds like the best plan so far. You can lead,” Trey said.

  I shrugged, not really caring about who led the way. I walked across a grassy area and found the road on the other side of what looked like a deep ditch. I jumped the ditch easily, but Trey needed a hand since his legs weren’t as long as mine.

  Following the road we wanted, we passed a huge building on the right. The faded sign said hotel and convention center. I knew what a hotel was, but a convention center was a new one for me. Whatever it was, there was a huge hole in the center of the roof. The blackened edges of the hole suggested a fire at some time in the past, and the broken windows of the hotel told me that place was not friendly to our cause.

  I turned north at the first major road I could find, and it was a long road that led through a small town. The town was centered around a train station, and there were the remnants of shops and restaurants down this street. Trey was fascinated with the railroad tracks, looking at them disappear over the horizon.

  “How far do you think they go?” Trey asked.

  “You know how far,” I said. “Mom gave us a lesson on the railroads that crossed the country once upon a time. I’d bet we could take that track all the way to Mexico if we could get over the wall.”

  Trey nodded. “Be nice to go anywhere,” he said quietly.

  “You can,” I said. “You can cross the wall, deal with Trippers every day for the rest of your life.”

  Trey snorted. “No thanks. I’ll take the ones we have.”

  We moved quickly, and along the way a small building caught my eye. It was a business, but it looked like a house. The sign above the door read Sporting Goods, which piqued my interest.

  “Detour?” I asked.

  Trey looked at the building. “Why not?”

  We stepped over to the building, and I tried the door. It came open easily enough, and then fell off the rusty hinges to land at my feet. I danced back and nearly fell down as the door tripped me up.

  “Graceful,” Trey said. He walked up to the entrance and looked in. “Well, this looks interesting.”

  I gathered myself and followed Trey inside. The interior of the building was crowded with outdoor sports gear. There was camping gear, hiking gear, and hunting gear. We’d stumbled upon a treasure trove of supplies and survival gear. In one section of the small store I found the archery section, and I nearly danced when I found a box full of arrows. Searching the nearby shelves yielded a box of field points, and a box of broad head tips.

  Trey was looking at a large knife when I presented him with a handful of crossbow bolts complete with razor tipped shafts. He dropped the knife and took the bolts.

  “Damn! Thanks, man!” he said as he put them in his quiver. “Did you find some for…yes, you did.” Trey smiled as he saw my full quiver.

  I looked at the shelf behind the counter where Trey was standing and saw there were some boxes of ammunition that had been pushed out of sight. I went around the counter’s edge and walked past some strange racks. They were a mystery until I realized they used to hold guns, probably rifles.

  I pulled the ammo forward and saw that they were a box of 9mm cartridges, and two little boxes of .22 ammunition. I put the ammo in my pack since I had guns that could use the bullets.

  “Hey Josh! Come look at this,” Trey called to me from the other side of the store. He was over at the archery section and was pulling something down from a hook on the side of a tall section of shelves.

  It was a bow, but unlike any I had ever seen. It was compact with three strings connecting some wheels that were on the end of the limbs. The riser was much smaller than my bow’s, and there was a funny looking ring with small points sticking out the side of it. Holding the bow and looking through it like I was going to use it, I saw the little points lined up like the sights on my gun, and realized it was used for aiming.

  “I’ll be,” I said. “I wonder what the draw weight is?”

  “Give it a pull,” Trey said.

  I pulled back on the center string, and the pull was very hard. It came bac
k about six inches, and suddenly I was surprised by the let up as the string came all the way back.

  “That was weird,” I said, releasing the string slowly. I expected it to go slow and then snap forward, but it was smooth all the way.

  Trey picked up the manual that was still hanging on the hook and read the first few lines. “Mission Craze compound bow. Adjustable draw weight from 15 to 70 pounds. Huh. Must be those crazy wheels on the thing.” Trey picked up an arrow. “Give it a try.”

  “What the hell,” I said. “Do we need anything else from here?” I asked.

  “Not that we can carry. I grabbed some candles and matches, but we really need to bring the horses back here and clean up. This place has too much to leave behind.” Trey said.

  “Let’s get the door back up,” I said. “Then I’ll try the bow.”

  We wrestled the door back up into the frame, and made it look like the store had never been visited. Trey stood on a handrail and took down the sign that identified this place as a sporting goods store. We were going to keep this treasure to ourselves. If we played our cards right, we could empty this place and set up our own little shop somewhere, and make a profit off of this.

  As we stepped down the stairs, Trey slapped me on the arm. A Tripper was headed our way, coming down the street from the north. The tree-lined street was a patchwork of sun and shade, and the Tripper went from shade to shade, trying to reach us as it walked along.

  “Guess I can try the bow out now,” I said. I nocked the arrow and pulled the string back to my cheek. The sights were a little weird to me, but I remembered what my dad said about sights, and lined them up on the Tripper. He was about fifty yards away and closing fast. I held the string back for a second, and in that second I realized that holding this string was a lot easier than on my old bow.

  I released the arrow and it streaked towards the Tripper. I didn’t even see it’s flight and suddenly the Tripper was down.

  “Holy cow,” Trey said.

  I looked at the compound bow with new respect. That arrow had taken off in a hurry and had never slowed down.