The Integration (Part I): Still Myself, Still Surviving

by Marlin Grail

  “Don't you worry, you will know, but it will be easier in person, so get to packing, grab that journal, and be ready to write down my directions!” he ecstatically says.

  Will throws his hands in the air, perplexed by what 'journal' the man speaks of.

  “In one of those drawers, I'm sure!” I bring up.

  He starts pulling the knobs to find it, and, sure enough, at the second dresser's lowest section, he pulls out a leather-bound brown journal. A pencil is also found next to it. “Give it to me! I'll write it!” Ashton rushes in, before the man begins speaking out the directions he is proposing.

  Will tosses both the journal and pencil onto Ashton's lap. While he is sitting on his bed, he begins opening a page, and listens to the directions. He strains to hear from Will's, so I quickly get the third radio and lob it to him. As I do it, I see Lissie, Janice, and Will lacking any visible interest in doing anything else, so I respectively nudge them to stay in the moment. “Alright, while Ashton writes the directions down, let's all get ready.”

  Janice comes down the latter and grabs her machete that's laid next to the bag beneath her bunk. Lissie wedges her feet down between her bunk and shoes, balancing her way off to get them on fluently. I go over across where my blanket is, passing Will, pick up my sword, and I move back to the cracked open doors.

  The man's voice is going on the whole time, and I entrust Ashton to be the one paying the most attention, as I only pick up a few details of where we are to go while ensuring we get ready.

  The man finishes speaking out directions, and reinvigorates his voice. “Okay, Will, it's going to take about an hour to get to this land. If you do not arrive on time, then you might as well say your goodbyes by that point. If you don't have all of the directions jotted down, tell me now, but don't radio me back after this contact. I need to test your abilities to take orders without much assistance.”

  “I have it all!” Ashton assures Will.

  “We don't need any more help. We'll be there.” Will states, very bold and hostile in his tone.

  The man chuckles.

  “What's so funny?” Will says.

  “You didn't correct me on your name, but you never shared it.” He answers back, and stops the feed on his end.

  Lissie chimes in her reaction to all of this, disgusted. “I'm glad Harold is dead. He wanted us to go through this on purpose.”

  I notice Will much more in himself this time around, and Janice recognizes this too. “Will, are you going to be alright?” she asks him.

  “Let's just get a move on.” He responds, picking up his radio and heading outside, but before he does he looks at me. “You know what, Gary? I'm now glad we left that man on his own.”

  I can't defend Harold at all with what he's done, but I know how it won't be healthy for us to remain here resenting his past actions.

  “Alright. Everyone, let's get ready to undertake this trial we have in front of us. Regardless, we still are here, and still have a chance to come back undamaged.”

  I go to view the paper with the lock combinations and memorize the codes. After a couple of minutes, Ashton gets himself up, and we all begin walking, but, out of nowhere, Will pushes me back inside. “I saw a haze coming this way! Move back!” he commands.

  I bump into Lissie, who is behind me, and she moves back too, seeming agitated by my abrupt movement. Will seals the doors as quick as he can, while we all stay put where we are at. “How far were you from it?” I ask him.

  “Not too far, but I don't know if it saw me through the trees.”

  Ashton lodges himself into the conversation. “Damn. How are we going to know when it's out of the way?”

  “If it didn't see Will, then it might just scan the area and move on.” I say, remaining calm and analytical to the situation.

  I hear Lissie's voice behind me, which shares feedback she hasn't offered in a while. “Well, we don't have all day to just stand here. I'm sure this guy has the hour running down.”

  “Let's give it a few minutes.” I say out loud, mollifying the emerging anxiety.

  Thankfully hazes can't hear, but they can see, and can be persistent when it has aimed its sights on the living. Hazes have their weaknesses, but, unfortunately, none of them involve being blind, like we are to it at this point.

  Chapter VIII

  More than a couple of minutes have past, but I can tell we are all unsure to go out and guess whether or not that haze has left.

  Ashton stresses through his tone, based off of the current situation, “If it sees movement, and we're even able to shut the doors on it, things won't bode well for us because it will just wait us out.”

  “Then, what do we do now?” Lissie asks, legitimately open to a possible response.

  I peer over to her, and over to Janice, and lastly Ashton, letting my eyes suggest what we must do in order to come out of it all intact. “If it sees us, then it won't care where we've been, but just where we are. It doesn't think this place as a safe haven we're trying to make, so it won't stalk if we aren't around. Will, how big could you think this haze is?” I ask him.

  “I guess not big enough to get us all in one gulp.”

  “Good. If we see it, and it see us, we'll scatter around it.” I tell everyone, optimistic we will succeed.

  “As much as that plan sounds completely flawed and underdeveloped, we're running out of time.” He says, with a slight head shake. “Ashton, since you have the journal, you'll be the closest to me. He and I will be the beacon for where to go.”

  Ashton gets in front of me to be behind Will.

  I gather the image of my contribution to this plan. “While we are doing that, I will be the one to open and lock the doors.”

  Will and I switch places, with me now shouldered up against the left side of the front entrance. I look at everyone for conformation at the plan we have. Janice is taking practice breaths, with a familiar sight I've known of people who have butterflies in their stomach before a large crowd. Lissie has a similar vibration coming off of her, but she is putting off a more rigorous readiness—looking at Will's back, but through his back at the same time. “We'll begin by going to the right.” Ashton says, reaffirming this goal of ours.

  I nod, and, with 1 free hand, I pull open the left door, letting all of them flood out of the shelter, and, right when Janice speeds ahead of me, I curl around to follow. I hear Ashton yell, so everyone knows where to find him and Will. I start securing the doors shut, intentionally controlling the shakiness of my hands to make it a speedy process.

  Finally, I turn around to see everyone still moving together, which relieves me, but then I see Ashton point his finger to right side of the shelter. Sure enough, a small, but bulbous, blackish, haze slowly hovers to me, like a ghost that floats in the air. I side-step to my left to make the gap between the haze and I wider in distance. I then sprint to Ashton, and we begin hurrying further on the path that descends us down this mountainous terrain we are on.

  Ashton then gives a half-suppressed laugh. “Good thing it wasn't close enough to get to you.”

  “Yeah, and after moving faster than it for some time, it should move on and be out of our concerns. Again, if we can't see it, it can't see us.”

  We catch up to the others, and Ashton gets up front. “I thought I told you to stay with me!” Will says to him in a cold attitude.

  “Hey! The haze wasn't in the placement we thought it would be, and it's not like you went off the beaten path.” Ashton says, irritated, but cogent in his defense.

  I hustle behind Janice and Lissie, and look behind me frequently to be sure we are not being followed by anything undesired.

  “I guess we didn't look to see this clearly put together route last night.” Janice says, having her voice sound profound.

  After a few minutes of seeing more of the same forest, we come across a path which seems laid down with gravel—wide enough for even a vehicle to drive on. “I just… I just don't get!” Will chimes in, with attitude rising i
n him. “Harold doesn't tell us anything about this man—who supposedly has multiple places for people, and, of course what concerns me, people under his control. How come we haven't heard anything about all of this until now?”

  Ashton slows down his movement, and begins pointing out to him, “Be reminded that Harold wanted to take us somewhere we thought was for a supply run, but we know it wasn't. Something seemed not quite right with him after we were raided and traveling in these woods. And, he seemed certain of what he was doing going back to the RV—or so we thought.”

  Maybe Harold didn't count on the aggressors attacking, but he clearly knew who this man was, and this man knew of our group—to the extent we represented the well-being of him. Perhaps, Harold had this endgame the whole time, ever since he met Ashton, Janice, Lissie, and I, and I'm sure even Will, though I do not know how far their history goes between those 2.

  Just like Will, I do not know when Harold and this man first met, or when they had their 'deal', but now it doesn't matter as much. Clearly, a fallout happened with Harold and this unknown affiliate, and this affiliate wants to twist the wound in Harold's lifeless spirit by taking us for himself. Whatever this 'deal' really was, I know it was between these 2, and I won't let the consequences Harold endured bleed over to our group.

  “Ashton,” I call ahead to him, “how much time has it been since our last contact over the radio?”

  “About 20-25 minutes. I don't know the distances between these points, but I would imagine at the rate we're going we'll cut it barely.”

  “I'm not comfortable with barely,” I respond, “because this man doesn't necessarily sound too patient as is, so Ashton, you'll point when we need to turn direction, and we will follow without talking, which means only running from here on out.”

  We all begin taking longer and more smashing pounds to the unnaturally formed softer ground with our legs, because this kind of rushing is taking more pressure off in the long run. We get to our first fork in the road and take an immediate left without complications. This new path is definitely fitted for walking only, with it being a cliffside and it having very little room to trip or overstep—which could mean severe injury for us.

  As it appears, we are hugging the side of this mountain more than before, which seems to still spiral us downward. After a few more minutes, we are in front of another branching of paths, 3 in fact, each even thinner than the one we are currently on.

  Where do these all go?

  I believe everyone was asking themselves the same question, but that dissipates at once, as growls of undead are coming above us, though their sounds are cutting on and off, and their audible noises get louder and louder. My eyes wander upward to my left, and I see a sight I didn't expect.

  The undead are rolling down the mountain!

  “Watch out!” I yell to everyone.

  We all stop and look, but Lissie is the one who looked to her right instead of our lefts. Most of the undead stop rolling on impact of hitting the trail path we're on, but a couple continue tumbling them to us due to their momentum. One bumps straight into Lissie, causing her to trip. She fumblingly lands on the ground, with her legs over the undead's exposed stomach. It unfortunately finished rolling on its back after its impact with her.

  Janice takes a few steps backward, and kicks the undead's head to prevent it from reaching up and biting one of Lissie's legs. I run past Janice to get to Lissie's arms and quickly help her up. She solidly grabs my hands and pulls her legs behind, bending them under her stomach.

  I get sidetracked from the focus of moving forward, for I set my fullest attention onto Lissie, making sure she is alright. “I'm fine. Thanks for the help.”

  Just as soon as she finishes her statement, she snaps her arms from my hands, pulls out one of my guns, turns around and fires it at the enfeebled undead on the ground. “Janice, are you good?” I ask her, twitching somewhat when I hear Lissie wastes more than 1 bullet on the head.

  Lissie stops shooting, and Janice temporarily stays silent afterward, with us listening to Lissie speak out many profane phrases under her breath. “Yes, Gary. They seem to magnetize to us.” Janice jokes, wanting to keep the enormity of the situation light.

  There are 5 moving undead to our left, all looking menacingly at each of us, which encourages them to try and lift up from the ground. Lissie goes to hand back my pistol. “Keep it. We need more hands on grips right now.”

  Without a response, she makes distance from me, and we all hurry toward the middle path.

  This path is narrower than the past ones, so we all take a single-file approach, with me still in the back. Time exudes us with repetition in breathing and running, until the radio comes on again for the first time since the conversation in the shelter.

  “Hey, Will. I hope you've all gotten far, but you have about 15 minutes left. Tell me, since Harold said your name first, he considered you the next in charge, am I right?” he asks.

  Will looks back at me. I can tell, though he hasn't fully become okay with me being classified as the leader, he looks to me to get verification, since there is a unanimous vote out of majority of us that do think so.

  What we both could agree on is the benefit of the group—as a whole.

  I decide it is time to reveal myself, and fully answer to anyone from the outside who is in fact in charge. I pull out my radio, press down the button and speak, “I am.”

  Chapter IX

  There is a pause in the chatter from the man, after I have announced my existence.

  “And, who might you be?” he asks me with utmost curiosity.

  “My name is Gary. Harold was the one who considered me leader after he left us, so that should answer your question.”

  We all stopped briefly after I came on the radio, but I want the breather to be short. I gesture we continue, as though no sound was coming from this man. “Well then, Gary, thank you for finally catching my full attention. You see, I thought this whole time it was Will. You could have left yourself hidden forever, but you didn't. That's admirable; granted, you we're a little late on your introduction, but nonetheless you got your pair on before our real meeting began, speaking of which you have 10 minutes to arrive. You already sound reasonable to me, so I'd hate to have to meet your messy corpses instead of who you are right now.”

  I bring my mouth close to the radio, while huffing behind the group.

  “You don't worry. We'll be there.” I say with a passive-aggressive tone.

  He snickers, and the radio goes quiet.

  “So, what are you thinking? Want to take care of this the way we've known?” Ashton asks me, looking back behind his shoulder to see me.

  “No, because I want to know how drunk off power he really is; plus, we don't know how many people follow him for a sip of it.”

  “I think that's as wise and as safe of a move we can do right now.” Janice says to us both.

  A few minutes pass, and the descending trail we are on turns to a flat field with wheat patches—looking relatively new in growth, and leaving us free to see all around. We are getting a glimpse of what exactly this man's projects involve, as this field has completely placed together barbed fencing around—definitely over 5 feet in height.

  This is likely to keep wandering undead out.

  Ashton says we have to keep going straight beyond this wheat field.

  We go around it to the left side, seeing the thickness of the youthful wheat stems gliding with the breeze of today's chilly weather. “Man, the length of this seems almost like the size of a football field.” Ashton brings up while gazing at it.

  “Oh yeah, no, this has nothing to do with the people we're running right towards!” Will comments, sarcastically.

  Straight on the opposite side of this fenced-off field is a vast open trail—padded with soft dirt, empty of trees on the trail, and it goes straight into the forest. Everyone gets into a widespread arrangement, and I let myself take the middle. We hurry ourselves as quick as we can, knowing time is not
on our side. The trail is smooth and easy, but, after a couple of minutes on the path, a few undead can be spotted around some of the trees.

  “They aren't the real trouble, right now,” I firmly tell everyone, “just keep moving.”

  I know we have likely less than 5 minutes left before we are radioed back. I'm not accepting we come all the way out here to die, but I feel the need to say what is on my mind.

  “Everyone, this is not because I think we are defeated, but I'm wanting to say thank you for deciding to give me a chance. This was not how I was expecting us to spend our morning, but I see you all as my first and only priority—and as that priority I will not let you go down today. If he tells us to do something, see it as me telling you to do something.” I tell them, each word becoming more passionate than the last. “Don't overestimate, but don't underestimate.”

  “It's gotta be one way or the other.” Will says, unaffected by what I shared.

  “He wants balance. Show him you know balance.” I say back, more stern in my throat.

  I no longer am okay disputing with Will about what prudence should be taken, but, as much as I say to everyone the advice that I know is difficult to intake, it doesn't mean I swallow it any smoother than they do.

  The sky has dimmed from overcast, and the tall trees move subtly with the wind that is blowing contradictory of where we are headed. Our running has a cadence not of rhythm, but of feeling, and we are all feeling the quiet need to push as fast as we can without stopping.

  Already this man has us under his whim, and we have not even met him yet.

  “Time's up!” he yells in our radios. “Ohhoho, I'm sorry, but looks like you guys just didn't want it bad enough.”

  I respond back, starting to sound unsettled, “We are on the trail, so we're probably not that far from where you're at. Truth is, we had a haze invade us around the shelter, and it caused a delay. We respected what you said about not radioing you back, and we still rushed as fast as we could with the obstacles that got in our way.”