“Yes I do,” Gabe says with a smile.
Gabe and I get into the truck, and wave to Nancy and Ray. There are others here too, but I don’t really notice them as much. None of them offered to care for us the way these two have. When I turn away from them, I look forward at the truck in front of us. Scott is in the driver’s seat and Derek hobbles toward the open door of the passenger side. I’m not sure, but I think he scowls at me before he gets in. Finally, Gabe puts the truck in drive, and the tires roll forward.
For some reason, it’s hard to believe that we are going back to Elkhorn. It feels like an eternity since we were last there.
The morning turns into the afternoon. The afternoon turns into night. The darkness covers us, and this is where I become more alert and on edge. I hate traveling at night. All it takes is an engine problem or a blown tire—even a quick stop to fill up with gas reserves is a gamble. Because when we stop, we are vulnerable. We can’t see five feet away from us, much less shoot in the right direction. I’m always hyper-aware at night. How long have we been traveling? Eight hours? Ten? I don’t feel like we drove this far on the way here, though I was unconscious for some of the ride. We’ve had to make a few detours because of the threat of greyskins.
Once, we had to swerve out of the way to miss one that was in the middle of the road. There are few things more creepy than almost hitting a greyskin in the middle of the road at night. Gabe seems annoyed that I constantly ask him if we’re headed in the right direction. Sometimes he shrugs, other times he says that he is pretty sure.
Pretty sure isn’t good enough, I think.
“We’ve trusted people before,” I said at some point in the trip while the sun was still high. “How do we know they aren’t just taking us somewhere to be killed?”
Gabe lifted an eyebrow. “You’re the one that got us on the road, not me.”
I hate the blame game, but Gabe played it…and won. He was right. Why were we going out there? The chances of finding out where my sister is located are next to none.
“Look at it this way,” Gabe offered, “this is just one vehicle with two guys. One of them is injured, thanks to you.” He grins slightly when he says this. “You seriously stabbed him in the leg?”
I shrugged. “I wanted to know what they were up to.”
He shook his head. “Well, at least we know now. Anyway, I was just meaning to say that even if they did plan to try something, I think our chances are good against them.”
It was all I needed to feel reassured about following them. I needed that from him. Now, as the night has taken over and I start to recognize the area a little better, I could use more of that reassurance. The familiar landscape of Elkhorn is not a welcome one. In fact, my stomach feels like it’s twisting in knots. I’ve never liked to go back to this place that was once overrun with greyskins, but it would seem that Elkhorn keeps calling me back one way or another. It feels ironic to be where this all started.
The leader of Elkhorn, Stephen, once told me that the epicenter of the outbreak was the safest because of its reputation, but I now know that’s crap. Maybe it used to be. I can’t really look at Elkhorn without thinking about my sister. I can’t believe we met each other there. I want to think that our paths were somehow connected, but it seems that the only link between our coming together was Shadowface. If I hadn’t been kicked out of Crestwood under Shadowface’s orders, then I would have never gone to Elkhorn to look for Paxton’s daughter, Jessi. Of course, I never found Jessi. She’s dead. But I did find his granddaughter, Evie. The little three-year-old was an adorable child. But I also can’t think of her without being reminded of what my sister wrote down in the notepad.
She had written all these visions of the future that she had seen. For some reason, my future included giving Evie away to someone named Jenna. Apparently, I’m going to be really sad about it. It doesn’t make sense because I have no personal connection with Evie. I found her and tried to use her to get Paxton to help us. Instead, he tried to kill us.
It suddenly hits me that Gabe and I going to Elkhorn is no coincidence. That’s where Evie is—at least that is where she was. Evie wasn’t even part of my plan, but I bet she’s still there. That means that her caretaker, Lydia, is either dead, or will be soon. I can’t imagine another reason I would give Evie away to someone else. But most of all, I can’t imagine why I would be sad to do so. Taking care of a kid in this world would be such a burden. I just hope that giving her away doesn’t mean that I’m sending her to her grave.
I hate thinking like this. It’s the reality we live in and I hate it. I’ve given up the hope of ever finding a place where such worries are unnecessary. I’ve come to grips with it—or at least I’ve gotten used to it. Is there a point in life where all the cynicism just becomes too much to handle? At what point does this type of thinking finally tip someone over the edge?
Having been lost in my thoughts, the last hour went by quickly. I break from the thoughts when Gabe starts to slow the truck down. The red brake lights ahead of us shine brightly and the truck in front of us turns down a road. By the headlights, I can see that we are headed toward the compound where Gabe and I escaped just a month ago. My heart beats fast and I kind of want to throw up.
Scott turns his headlights off, and Gabe does the same. We do our best to watch the truck ahead of us, only using the moonlight. We drive for another five minutes. Sometimes I’ll see a random greyskin groping in the darkness and it sends a shiver up and down my spine. I reach for my pistol and grip it tightly, never knowing when something just might try to attack.
But no attack ever comes. We finally stop and Gabe kills the engine. My hands are starting to shake as we get out. Gabe and I grab our things and meet Scott and Derek at a door to one of the buildings.
“Come on,” Derek says, limping in as Scott holds the door open for us. I step in and it’s pitch black. I grip the gun even tighter, but finally Derek leads us to a stairwell and then down. We descend into the basement level. Here there are bright lights and more of a commotion.
At first, I don’t recognize anyone, but then I spot a familiar face. The surprise I have is delight until I see how drained and dreadfully tired he looks. Stephen sees Gabe and me, and his expression lightens a bit.
I’m about to walk over to him and say hello, but I’m stopped by a voice to my right.
“Hello, Remi,” the voice says. When I turn, I’m looking into the face of Jeremiah. He wears a thick, black coat that reaches to his ankles. His hair seems to grow in every direction, and his sunken eyes study me with intensity. “Welcome to my new network.”
Chapter 9 - Waverly
The way I went from becoming a stowaway aboard the search and rescue vehicle to being the driver of it feels like a blur. A distant memory perhaps. I had been lying down wet and cold in the back for over two hours before guards resorted to driving outside the compound to look for me. They must have been baffled that I had not been found yet. When the engine rumbled, I stayed still and silent. There were two of them. I could hear them approach the vehicle. Both men muttered curses about me and how I got away. One offered a theory, but I didn’t hear all of it before he closed the passenger door. The rest of their conversation was muffled noises for several long miles.
I looked around the back of the truck, making sure I kept low, hoping to find something I could use to kill them. But this was a search and rescue truck. Other than reserve gas cans, there was nothing more than a few syringes that wouldn’t do much against guys with guns. Panic began to set in when the driver finally pulled the truck over and stopped. I didn’t dare look up to see where we were. I feared that they were already finished looking and were now parked back inside the compound. That wouldn’t help me at all. But when the two men opened their doors to get out, I could hear what they were saying again.
“Just because there’s tracks doesn’t mean they’re hers,” the passenger said. “Could be a greyskin.”
“Stay sharp,” the driver answ
ered as he started walking away from the truck.
“I’m going to take a leak.”
“Just be careful. I don’t like being out this late. It’s not safe.”
It was my chance to make a move. The passenger would be caught with his pants down, and the driver might not be anywhere near the truck. I looked toward the back at the tailgate, thinking I would try to go out that way, but I knew it would make too much noise. If the engine was running, I might have been able to get away with it, but the driver had killed it, probably to listen for footsteps nearby.
I then looked at the back window of the truck where I could peek into the cab. As expected, it was completely empty. When I brought my head up higher, I could see that the driver had left the headlights on as he checked some tracks up ahead. The passenger was still at the side of the road to the right, taking a leak as he had announced. I reached for the back window, knowing that it might be locked from the inside. A flood of relief washed over me when I saw that the plastic latch was broken off and the window slipped open silently. I opened it as wide as possible, but I wasn’t sure if I would be able to slide through the opening.
First my head. That was fine. My shoulders were much harder. As I tried to squeeze through, I kept my eyes on the beams of light ahead. The driver was still walking in the opposite direction. When I craned my neck to the right, I couldn’t see the passenger anywhere. I felt a mix of claustrophobia and panic as I tried to squeeze my shoulders through. If the guards caught me like this, there wouldn’t even be a chance to fight back. It would just become a funny story to tell to their friends at lunch the next day.
Finally, my right shoulder squeezed through, followed by my left. I fell forward onto the seat and caught myself with my hands. Slowly and quietly I crawled like a toddler on all fours until my entire body was through the opening and onto the seat. My head jerked upward and I could see the driver coming back toward the truck, the lights blinding him. I looked in every direction for the passenger, but I couldn’t see him.
I shook my head. It didn’t matter. I had the truck. I needed to get out of there. I sat squarely in the driver’s seat and reached for the ignition only to find it bare. I looked down to see if I had grabbed the wrong spot, but I hadn’t. The keys were gone. I swore under my breath, wondering how I could have been so dumb to not look in the first place.
“You see anything?” The voice made me freeze like a statue. The passenger stood only about a foot away from the driver’s door. I couldn’t fathom how he didn’t hear me struggling to get into the front seat, but apparently he hadn’t heard a single squeak.
But none of that mattered. In a few seconds they were going to find me and all of it would be over. I would be taken back to the compound in Anchorage.
My eyes scanned the darkness of the cab and then I spotted it—a handgun set in a holster on the floor, its metal reflecting the green light of the clock on the dash. I didn’t hesitate. I reached for it and pulled it out of the holster. The driver was almost back and the passenger remained standing next to the door, looking out into the field beyond. The gun in my hands felt heavy. I waited for them to begin talking before I cocked it.
“She could be anywhere,” the driver said. “Those tracks could be anything. I don’t know why we’re expected to look outside Anchorage at night. There’s no point.”
The click of the gun wasn’t loud enough for either of them to take notice. A cool calm took over me in that moment. I felt that my freedom was secure now that I gripped a handgun. I had never made it a habit of killing people…just greyskins. But like Scarecrow, these men only wanted to do me harm. For that, they would die.
I leaned my torso down into the seat, keeping my eyes staring at the driver’s side door, gun pointed in the air. My feet pressed against the door as I watched and I waited. My finger pressed tightly against the trigger. Any tighter and I would have shot prematurely, but I knew what I was doing.
The door opened, but the driver’s eyes remained on the passenger who was still standing next to him. They spoke of going back, telling their supervisors that there was nothing to be found outside the walls. Beyond that, I was sure they both had thoughts of going to bed and sleeping the night away comfortably. No doubt they would be out again searching for me in the morning.
The driver barely saw the outline of me before three bullets entered his chest, and finally one in his brain. The passenger froze with the deafening shots, and he barely had time to bring his rifle around before I fired a shot into his neck. A mist of blood sprayed into the air as both of them fell to the ground. My arms started shaking. I had to get out of there. I got out of the truck and grabbed all their weapons, and the driver’s keys. There was no point in trying to do anything with their bodies. Their death would be discovered or assumed later anyway.
Fully stocked with weapons, I slammed the truck door closed and started the ignition. At the time, I didn’t know where I was going, and it didn’t matter. I just had to get out of there. So, I blasted the heat inside the cab, needing to warm up and dry off, and headed south.
Several hours pass before I need to fill the truck with gas. I hate stopping in the middle of the road on the darkest of nights, but it is necessary. Leaving the warm cab of the truck makes me feel even colder than when I had been soaking wet, but I know I’ll be back soon. I feel tired, but not exhausted like I would have expected. I suppose the adrenaline from the escape is still with me. Though, being alone out in the middle of nowhere with no light will bring its own dose of adrenaline.
I open the tailgate and reach for one of the gas cans, glad to find that it is full. I set the nozzle into the tank opening and tip the can forward. The cold wind starts to blow. Moments like these are dangerous. I look in every direction, waiting to see the outlines of greyskins, or the shadowy movements of raiders. The urgency for the tank to fill up more quickly starts to take over me, but I do my best to remain calm. I take deep, long breaths, remaining focused. Finally, when I feel like it’s full enough, I set the gas back in the bed of the truck, close the tailgate and lock myself in the cab.
I search the glove box for a map of some kind, but I don’t find anything. I want to get to Elkhorn, and I know south is the right direction, but I don’t know what road to take. I drive a little bit longer, looking for roadsigns that can lead me to somewhere I’ve been before. A few more hours pass by before I finally see a sign that tells me I’m only a few miles away from Oakridge, my hometown. I hesitate to take the exit, but I know how to get to Elkhorn from there. I have to take a road on the other side of the city.
It’s been three years since I’ve walked these streets. I knew people here. For me, Oakridge is a place that brings happy memories, but also the worst memory of all: the day we learned of the outbreak. I drive the truck a little more slowly as I reach the residential area. It isn’t imperative that I drive this way, but I want to see my house. There’s no good reason for it. It will only make me sad—bringing up memories that are from a different lifetime, maybe even a different world.
The streets are dark and quiet. Within a few minutes, I find myself parking the truck in front of my house. It’s only a couple of hours before dawn, and part of me would like to sit here and wait for the sun to reveal the house in its true vibrant colors with a trimmed lawn and bees buzzing around the tulips in the flowerbed. But I know the sun will reveal none of that. I can already see that the grass would come up to my thigh. Most of the flowers are probably choked out by the weeds. The air all around is as cold as death.
I think of my mother. My father. Even more than them, I think of Hattie and all the conversations we had together. I remember how much I admired her for the way she stuck with us. It was her job to pretend that my parents were good parents, but to actually be the real parent in my life. When I sit here in the truck, I do miss my old life, but not in the way that I thought I would. I don’t yearn the be the same person that I was. I like who I’ve grown to be. If there is anything to be said about the sickening
world we live in, it’s that it will show you who you truly are. Though I was merely fourteen years old when all of this started, I can’t help but think of the way life carried on before the greyskins. How much did I worry about what others thought of me at school? How often did I fret over things that didn’t matter? Since the greyskins came, it seems that every thought and effort is put into what will make me stay alive. The relationships that I find worth investing in, are truly worth it. Now there is no time for frivolity.
If I could have my way, I would have it where the outbreak never happened, but the person I am now would remain the same. I look back on the Waverly that was and I almost feel embarrassed by how little I knew. I look at myself now and wonder how little I know still.
Movement in front of my house distracts me from my thoughts and I squint my eyes to study it. A greyskin starts moving for the truck, enticed by the glowing headlights. There is a lot of decay and rot, but I’m glad to see that it isn’t anyone that I used to know. It’s a cold reminder that the world I used to be a part of is gone and never coming back. I sigh and put the truck in drive, making my way toward the highway that will take me back to Elkhorn.
I guess the only thing that keeps me going in that direction is someone from that world I used to be a part of. Remi. She’s now the only link I have left to that part of me. She’s a reminder of where I came from. I just hope she is still alive. More than that, I hope I can find her.
It seems the only constant in my life is that the sun always rises. I haven’t slept in a long time, and the night wore on as if it was never going to end. As I stare at the orange and purple sky, I can’t believe the month I’ve just had. It was the strangest, and in a way one of the worst experiences of my life. The mental terror of having to watch someone be tortured day after day was excruciating, though it can’t come close to being the one tortured. I feel sad for Amber. She had so much hope. She wanted nothing more than to get away from Shadowface forever and she was so close. I owe everything to her. I wish there was a way for me to thank her—to tell her that I’m sorry for being unable to change her future.
The Starborn Ascension: Books 1, 2, and 3 (The Starborn Saga) Page 55