The Longest Road (Book 3): The Other Side

by A. S. Thompson

  Steve's eyes followed the signs, but after the last one, he noticed faint lighting originating from the valley to their right. "It's nice to see more people surviving," he said, wiping away his breath that fogged the glass.

  Eddy was preoccupied keeping his vision forward or he would have looked.

  "Alright, let me know when you want to switch," Steve said, patting the gentle giant on the shoulder.

  Dressed in sweats, Jenny exited the bathroom and limped down the hallway. She opened the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of water. "Steve, do you know where the aspirin is? My ankle hurts."

  "Try the left cupboard.”

  "I can't reach. Do you mind?"

  Steve rose and opened the cupboard. Behind a bag of rice and pack of crackers, he located a bottle of Ibuprofen. "Take two," he said, handing the container to her.

  She put two in her mouth and chased them with a gulp of water.

  "You should go to sleep."

  "I can't sleep," she replied, holding on to the refrigerator door as Eddy made a hard turn. "Why aren't you sleeping?"

  "Not tired."

  "Oh, okay." She turned to go back to sleep but stopped. "What are you doing?"

  "I'm field stripping this gun."

  "Looks fun, can I try?"

  "Um, sure."

  A small smile formed on Jenny’s lips as she sat across from him.

  Steve had the parts on a towel, so they wouldn't slide off the table. He lifted the corners of the cloth and rotated them so the weapon faced Jenny.

  She pulled it closer to her and said, "To be honest, I'm kind of surprised."

  "Why's that?"

  "My dad never let me near guns. Neither would Robert. I've never even shot one before."

  "I was five when I first shot a gun. Don't remember it, but that's what my dad told me."

  He paused the story to show her how to disassemble the weapon.

  "First rule of gun safety is to treat every firearm as if it's loaded, so make sure it's unloaded by visibly and physically inspecting. In this case the pistol is disassembled, so it's obvious to see it, but still," he said, wanting to instill the lesson regardless.

  Then Steve picked the parts up one by one, named them, and assembled the weapon.

  "Handguns can look different, but the basic parts are all in play for semiautomatic pistols. First, you put the barrel into the slide, then the recoil spring goes over it here. Then you match up the slide and frame and pull it back like this," he said, racking the slide back and subsequently putting the gun in-battery. "To take it apart, you have to keep the slide back by pushing up the slide stop so it catches. Like this," he said, showing her. "Sigs have a take down lever, others like Glocks, you have to pinch the sides. Whatever the design, you assist the slide forward and it will come apart of the frame. From there, you take out the spring, then barrel, and that's basically it."

  He set the pieces in front of Jenny and encouraged her to try.

  "You were talking about shooting with your dad," she said, casually as she removed the spring and barrel.

  "I've been shooting for as long as I can remember. My dad was trying to groom me into this super soldier. He wanted me to join the Marines like he did. He used to take me to the shooting range all the time. Most of my friends watched Saturday morning cartoons or got into trouble, but my extracurricular activities were morning range visits and shooting competitions around the country. No, like this," he said, pausing to assist her. “You had the spring in the right place, just backwards."

  "Oh, got it. Thanks." Jenny lined up the slide and frame and then pulled it back. "In battery," she said confidently.

  Quick learner, Steve thought. "Alright, practice it a few more times."

  "That must be why you're so good," she said, taking the gun apart, hesitantly but correctly. "I've seen you shoot, plus, everyone always talks about how good you are."

  "With enough practice, I guess anyone can shoot like I do."

  Jenny sat there assembling and reassembling the handgun more than a dozen times; each attempt gaining more and more confidence as she completed it faster and faster.

  Steve checked her progress and corrected when needed, but not long after, Jenny knew the process. It had been eerily quiet save for the metal clicking and clattering, but as Steve stared blankly out the window, words came without warning.

  "My dad would make me do this with every kind of gun: pistols, rifles, shotguns, you name it, he made me. He said that if you own the gun, you need to know how it works and how to take it apart in case something was wrong. The hard ass Marine in him always used to say 'soldiers need to do it in a hurry!' I'll give him credit, he used to be able to field strip and reassemble a pistol in eleven-seconds."

  "Wow that's fast!"

  "Ya, but he wasn't happy when I did it in ten."

  Jenny smiled, thinking she saw the corner of Steve's lip move up, but it was too quick to confirm.

  A moment of silence passed, then to Jenny's surprise, Steve said, "Can I ask you a question?"

  "Sure," Jenny said, not wanting to sound too eager, though inside she was elated.

  Steve's eyes met hers for a split second, before falling back to the window and the damp darkness outside. "Why are you staying? Why aren't you going to the bunker where it's safer?"

  Jenny pulled the slide back, and then went immediately into disassembling the handgun again. "The same reason as you. I want to help the group..."

  Not exactly my reason.

  "I want to stop the bad guys; the ones who did all of this." Jenny paused and bit her bottom lip as the rest of her revelation came forth. "And, well, it was kind of the same reason I asked about the gun. I want to learn how to shoot. I'm tired of everyone always protecting me. I want to be able to protect everyone else..."

  What the- How do you respond to that, Steve? he thought.I know children have been fighting wars since the dawn of man, but in modern warfare, they have been restricted to seventeen and eighteen years old. Jenny is barely fourteen! Is this the world we live in?

  There was no denying it. Through his post pandemic travels, Steve saw all types of people doing all types of bad. He had witnessed the hard truth that kids these days were growing up faster and tougher.

  For humanity, it was tragic to witness the innocence lost. Tom Brason might have been prepping Steve for a life of war, but at least Steve had the choice to decline, had the opportunity to live in a world without the infected.

  Jenny’s response was saddening, but maybe worse was the fact that she didn't seem sad about it.

  "I think I have the taking-it-apart figured out. Will you teach me how to shoot it?"

  "Sure. Come on this side."

  Eagerly, Jenny sprang up as fast as her ankle would allow, then scooted next to Steve.

  "What's the first rule of firearms?"

  "Assume it's loaded and inspect it to make sure," she answered confidently.

  "Good. Now for the purposes of learning and practice, always keep it pointed in a safe direction." Then he checked the handgun for himself, held it up, and pulled the trigger. As the weapon dry-fired, there was almost no movement. "It is all about sight alignment and trigger control..."

  Jenny raised an eyebrow.

  "These are your two sights. One's on the front and there's two bars on the back," he explained. "You want to look through the back two and line it up with the front one. I like to have the front sight line up just a hair under the back two. That's your sight alignment. Then comes the trigger control. Some people say squeeze the trigger, others say pull, to me it doesn't matter. That's just semantics. The key is bringing the trigger to the back steadily with the tip of your index finger. You want to move your finger only. You don't want to squeeze your entire hand because that's what creates unnecessary pull and bullets miss right, left, up and down depending. You do want a firm grip to keep the gun steady, though..."

  Jenny nodded and listened intently.

  "If you practice and follow those two i
deas, you'll hit what you're aiming for every time." Steve handed her the gun, and she immediately checked to make sure it wasn't loaded. Then she stared down the sights and pulled the trigger. "Like that?"

  Steve noticed the gun move a fair amount. "Not exactly. You are squeezing your hand. Remember, just your finger. Now rack the slide back and practice again. Actually, let me slide past you. I need to get some water."

  When Steve stood at the fridge, Jenny got a good look at his uninjured shoulder. She went back to firing but asked, "What are those scars from?"

  "I got shot accidentally by a hunter. It was a long time ago."

  "Wow, you got shot? That's crazy!" After a moment, Jenny went back to practicing: racking and firing, racking and firing. The sliding and clicking was hypnotizing. "I guess the guy who shot you didn't keep his gun pointed in a safe direction."

  For a second, Steve was sucked into a memory. Only for a moment, he remembered that day. The day he heard a loud bang; the hot pellets in his shoulder; the blood sticking to his shirt; body spinning to the leafy ground.

  He remembered his dad had been with Mike not too far away. Tom heard the shot, and when Steve didn't respond on the radio, he rushed over to his son's position. Initially, there was a sad relief when Tom found Steve alive, but a fury worse than anger took over as Tom tore off on a mission to find the man who almost killed his son.

  As he stood in front of the open refrigerator door, Steve thought about that day.

  For his faults, Dad was a good man, and a great father.

  "You would have liked my dad," Steve said, sitting across from her at the table. "He could be a pain in the ass, but I know he loved me. He was kind of like your dad actually. He would have saved people like your dad did, but…"

  Steve paused there as yet another memory surfaced. It was of the night it all happened. The night his dad was bitten and unwilling to depart Fullertown with him and his cousins. Just like that, Steve's depression returned.

  "That's probably enough for now," he said, taking back the gun. "You should go get some sleep."

  Jenny frowned. "Okay."

  Steve slid in a fresh magazine and racked the slide.

  "Night, Steve. Thanks for the lesson," Jenny said before sliding the back door shut.

  Steve walked into the bathroom and closed the door. Neglecting to flip on the lights, he gripped the sides of the sink and stared at the mirror. He couldn't help but think about all he had lost, starting with his mother.

  Barbara was of Middle-Eastern descent and a woman of natural beauty. As Steve continued to play the memories of the past, he could not find a time Barbara wasn't happy. From the goodnight kisses to singing while making breakfast, Barbara always had a smile on her face; even until the very end.

  Then came the thoughts of Tom and the rest who died in Fullertown.

  Then the ones who died in the months since: Mike, Billy, Collin, and Sarah.

  Sweet, beautiful Sarah.

  Steve’s lower lip began to quiver uncontrollably. A tear was in the process of forming. A release- the first good emotional release- was moments from transpiration.

  Then Steve felt the impact against the side of the RV. His head smacked against the door, and he found himself rolling around the inside of the bathroom as the RV tumbled violently down the side of the mountain.

  ***

  "Why are we slowing down?" West asked, eyes closed. He was in the first passenger row and was supposed to be sleeping but sensed the breaking.

  "The RV," Travis replied, shifting into park, "it's not behind us."

  Agent Clint and Harry Jones were asleep in the back row, but Alex, West and Travis all turned around and looked through the rear window. In fact, there were no headlamps shining behind them.

  Sitting in the seat behind Travis, Alex wore a look of concern. "I don't get it, Sweetie can't just disappear."

  "Turn around, Travis," West ordered. "They must have turned out. Maybe they got a flat."

  Travis performed a U-turn, and after driving around the bend, they discovered the answer. A gigantic boulder and stones half its size were occupying the two-lane mountain road. Worse, the guardrail had a large section missing.

  "You gotta be kidding me!" Alex exclaimed, hopping out of the Suburban before Travis had shifted to park.

  He ran to the side of the mountain and shined his light over the edge. The small beam was useless, but it didn't matter. Alex could see a lone headlamp and the wreckage one hundred feet below.

  Alex looked back at the mud and rocks and put it together.

  It was a freak accident.

  Sweetie had been hit by a rockslide and sent over the side of the mountain. She had toppled and smashed through tree after tree for nearly one hundred feet before being caught by a larger, thicker cluster of trees.

  "If anyone is still alive, they're lucky as hell," declared West.

  Rainwater dripped down Alex's angry face. "What do you meanifthey're alive? And why the hell would you callthat lucky?"

  "Follow the light twenty-five feet up," West said, pointing.

  Had the incident occurred twenty-five feet further, the RV would have rolled to the bottom of the mountain; a 5,000-foot death drop.

  Alex rushed back to the Suburban and clutched the CB. "Steve! Come in!"

  He repeated himself four times more, waiting only seconds between calls.

  No one answered.

  "They're probably dead," Jones suggested unsympathetically.

  "Shut the fuck up! Don't you even say that!" Alex threw down the mic and met the others back outside. He took off his sweatshirt and began to tie his shoelaces tighter.

  "What do you think you're doing?" asked Clint.

  "I'm going down there!"

  West grabbed Alex's wet shirt. "Don't be stupid, Alex. Look down there. That wouldn't be easy during the day, dry with no wind. Throw in near pitch blackness, violent rains and water flooding down the side, jagged rocks and split trees, the earth could give away at any moment...you see what I'm getting at?"

  "He's right," followed Clint. "Even if you were stupid enough to go in these conditions, you don't have any gear. You'd just be adding one more person to the rescue effort...or body count." The last phrase was mumbled.

  "We can't just leave 'em down there! No one's responding! Maybe they are dying and need our help!"

  Unsure of what to do, Alex stared down at the RV, hoping, praying.

  ***

  Sweetie was totaled.

  She rested on her left side; all four tires were popped and there wasn’t a section of her body that wasn’t bashed in. Fluids seeped from every place inside the engine and mixed with the muddy, mountain rainwater. One headlamp was smashed, the other somehow survived the rolling and repeated impact. The horn, too, worked and let out a constant, annoying yell.

  The inside was a complete mess. Cupboards were open and contents spewed out. Guns, ammunition, clothing, food, supplies, trash; everything scattered everywhere.

  Steve moaned as he stirred awake. He didn't have to put a hand to his head to know there was a throbbing red bump, nor did he need to see his back to know how cut up it got from the shattered mirror. Luckily, the stitches in his shoulder held.

  He pulled back the bathroom door and dropped to his feet very unsteadily; the pounding headache was exasperated by the small impact.

  The interior lighting was still on but intermittent.

  "Nick!”

  The Native American's body lay half in, half out of the side bunk. He was unconscious but mumbling the name of a female. Then, with a few gentle nudges from Steve, Nick awoke.

  "Where-what?" Nick said. He to get up, but the blood flow to his head dropped him back momentarily.

  “Whoa, hold on. I’ll help you sit but move slow.”

  Jenny...the girls! Steve thought.

  Walking along the walls of the RV, Steve made his way to the back. He opened the slider door and found the three girls, all alive but injured. Jenny had a softball-sized bump on
her forehead and was being nursed by Lisa, whose body sustained numerous cuts and soon to be bruises. Kelly had it the worst, by far. Her left forearm had a distinct bump; the bone was broken but had not pressed through the skin.

  "You girls alright?"

  "Not really, but we'll live," Kelly answered. "How's everyone else?"

  "Nick's okay. I am about to go check on Eddy. Stay here."

  Steve regrouped with a more coherent Nick, and the two men made their way to the driver's cabin.

  It was bad news.

  Blood was everywhere. The windshield was cracked and splintered so that not a single section could be seen through. Eddy was unconscious, body resting against the window and the muddy earth that spewed in. Flakes of glass covered his hair, beard and body. His left leg was pinned against the door, while a tree branch came within an inch from impaling his throat.

  "I can see steam from his mouth," Steve said, relieved.

  "Don't move him, not until we know the extent of his injuries. Switch places with me, so I can check him out."

  A constant crackle emitted from the radio, but was interrupted when a call came through. "You there...pick up..."

  Steve grabbed the microphone. "Hello? This is Steve.”

  Between the constant crackling and annoying horn, Steve was unable to discern who the voice belonged to. “Travis, is that you?”

  "Ya! Thank God, you're alive! Is everyone else okay?"

  "Everyone's alive. Eddy's banged up, but he's breathing. Still don’t know what the hell happened."

  "We didn't see it, only the aftermath, but it looks like the rain caused a rockslide. There’s a huge ass boulder sitting in the road where the RV used to be."

  "No shit? How far did we fall? How the hell are we still alive?"

  Steve recognized West's voice take over. "About a hundred feet. Take a look outside and you'll see...you could have rolled a lot further and I'm pretty sure we wouldn't be having this conversation."

  "I can't see shit out of the windows," Steve said, trying, but the splinters in the glass made it impossible. "Are you telling me that we are teetering on an edge or something?”

  "No, you are on a small bluff. From what we can see you are braced up pretty good next to some trees.”