Surviving the Fog

by Stan Morris

  “The Chief brought Maria back alive,” was their blunt reply. The boy admitted the truth of that answer.

  All in all, it was a good meeting, Mike thought. And afterwards, he was able to escape to his bunk without having to face Desi. She would calm down by the morning, he hoped.

  Then the next morning, as they prepared to move the cabin floor, Jacob came rushing down from the guard post on the hill

  “Motorcycle,” was all he said.

  Chapter Four

  HECTOR

  “Get across the bridge! Now!” Mike shouted unnecessarily, because there was a general rush for the bridge. Mike hurried up to the guard post with Jacob. He listened carefully for a minute, but he couldn’t hear anything.

  “Are you sure, Jacob?” he asked. Jacob nodded. If it had been anybody else, Mike might have had doubts, but he did not doubt Jacob.

  Mike thought for a moment. “The place where we hanged that guy,” he said. “That’s where he stopped.” Jacob looked down the road, and then he nodded again.

  “Did it sound like more than one?” Mike asked.

  “No. Just one.”

  Mike thought again, and then he said, “Go ask Yuie to bring her bow and arrows, and bring two more girls with their bows and arrows. Tell Howard to send the boys that have the pistols. Tell the Spears to arm themselves. Tell them to stay out of sight behind the girls’ cabins. Tell the guy with the rifle to stay with the Spears. Tell everyone else to hide. I don’t want to be able to see anybody from here.”

  Jacob rushed down to the camp. Shortly, Yuie and two other girls came running up the hill. Three boys carrying the hand guns followed them. Mike explained his plan to them. They would move off the road and into the trees. If only one biker came over the hill, they would wait until he was down at the camp, and then they would come down behind him. Yuie would be in charge.

  “Yuie, if you hear more than one motorcycle, don’t come out of the trees,” Mike commanded. “In fact, if there’s more than one, move farther back into the trees.”

  “Yes, Chief,” she said. Yuie was frightened, but she was determined to do her part to protect the tribe.

  Mike waited on the hill. At last, he heard the engine of the motorcycle. He sped down the hill to the cabins. The Spears were in place, and there was a boy holding the rifle. The boy with the rifle was wide eyed.

  “I’ve never fired this, Chief,” he explained. “I don’t even know if it’s sighted in. I don’t know if I can hit anything with this.”

  “It’s just for show,” Mike reassured the nervous boy. Mike hoped that he would be proved right.

  The motorcyclist appeared at the top of the hill. He waited while he looked around, and then slowly he made his way down the hill. He came close to the cabins, and then he stopped.

  “Hello!” he shouted. Mike shook his head at the others. They waited out of sight, behind the cabin.

  The man started his bike forward again. When he was almost to the waiting boys, Mike stepped sideways into his sight.

  “Halt!” he commanded. He grimaced when his voice cracked. “We have you surrounded.”

  The man froze. He stared at the young boy for only a moment, and then quickly scanned the vicinity. He was a man of medium height with black hair, light brown skin and dark intelligent eyes.

  “It doesn’t look like I’m surrounded, amigo,” he said mildly.

  “I’m going to call for the others to come out,” said Mike. “Don’t move. Come out, Howard.”

  The man’s eyes narrowed when he saw the boys who were carrying their spears, and then he saw the boy with the rifle. Mike realized that he was about to turn his bike and flee.

  “There are others, behind you,” said Mike hastily, and then he called, “Yuie!”

  Yuie and the others came out of hiding. The man looked around anxiously at them, and then he said in surprise, “You’re all kids.”

  Mike didn’t really know how to reply to that. What the man had said was true. They were all kids.

  “We can take care of ourselves,” Mike said bravely.

  The man considered him. “The man hanging from the tree; did you do that?” he asked.

  “Yes. He was a killer and a rapist. He killed two of us, and he raped two girls. So, we hanged him.”

  The man whistled. “Crap,” he said and went on to say, “Look I don’t want any trouble. I don’t hurt kids or anybody else if I can help it. And I don’t want to get hurt myself.”

  Mike was undecided as to how to continue. This man could be a threat. Still, the man seemed a lot different than the other bikers.

  “Please, get off your bike,” Mike instructed him.

  The man hesitated, and then he nodded. He shut down the motor, and then he swung himself off the bike.

  “Now, please, undress,” Mike said.

  “Pardon?” responded the startled man.

  “You heard me,” Mike insisted. “Take off your clothes.”

  “Why the hell should I?” demanded the man, who was becoming irritated.

  “I want to see if you are carrying any weapons,” Mike explained.

  “Crap,” said the man. He thought it over. “That’s sensible,” he growled.”

  Slowly, deliberately, the man doffed his baseball cap, and then he unbuttoned his brown flannel shirt and removed it. He sat down and removed his black work boots and his woolen socks. Next he unbuckled his leather belt and pushed down his jeans. Finally, he took off his undershirt. This left him standing in only his white briefs. At a gesture from Mike, he moved away from his clothes.

  “Jacob, check his clothes,” ordered Mike.

  “Take it easy with my cap,” the man exclaimed. “My papa gave it to me.”

  Jacob went forward, and he carefully pawed through the man’s belongings. “No weapons except for this,” he said. He held up a black case containing a sturdy folding knife.

  “Can I put my clothes back on?” the man asked politely.

  “Um…sure,” Mike replied.

  As he was putting on his clothes, the man said, “My name is Hector. I’m a logger most of the time, but right now I am the caretaker at a logging camp. It’s back down the road and up a side road. Do you know about the mist covering the ground lower down?”

  Mike realized that he had to make a decision. “He’s okay,” he said to the Spears, and then he gestured at Yuie to come to him.

  “Yeah, we know about it. We call it the Fog. Do you know that it’s dangerous?” Mike asked.

  “Si, I know that it’s dangerous. I’ve been waiting weeks for the crew to show up for the spring job. When no one contacted me on my cell, I rode down and found it. I didn’t want to ride into it. I saw a rabbit by the road. It was standing in just a few inches of the junk. Then I saw the rabbit get dragged into the junk. The Fog. It tried to escape. Then it went under. I couldn’t see what took it.”

  Hector finished dressing and then he asked, “Who are you kids and what are you doing here? And where are the grownups?”

  They all started talking at once, until Howard shushed them so that Mike could tell their story. Hector listened with interest, and then with astonishment, and then with anger.

  “Those bastards!” he exclaimed at last. “So that’s what that smell was along the road. I thought it was a deer or a bear.” He looked at the kids in wonder. “This sucks, but you kids are alive at least. Me, too. I hope we can all stay alive.”

  “Yeah, that’s what we hope, too,” Mike replied.

  “Do you kids got enough food?” Hector asked. “I got a lot up at my camp. The supplies for the summer and for the fall logging crews were dropped off the first of May. I know I can spare some food and maybe other stuff. There were four women expected on the crew, so I found a lot of…uh…girl’s stuff for when they have their periods.” There was a loud cheer from the girls.

  “We have some food, too,” said Mike. “But we don’t think that it’s going to be enough for the winter. Can you take a look? Can you see what else
we need?”

  The cabin floor that they were moving was abandoned for the moment. Mike gave Hector a tour of the camp. They were followed by many of the kids who were glad to see a helpful adult at last. Hector saw that they would need more food. He approved of many of the measures that they were taking, but when he saw the cave and heard their plan to build a lodge, he shook his head.

  “This won’t work,” he stated.

  “Why not?” Mike asked.

  “A wall of rocks without using concrete will be unstable. There’s too much danger that it would collapse and bring the whole thing down,” explained Hector.

  “Well, that sucks,” said Howard, and the others agreed.

  “So we can’t use the cave at all?” Mike asked.

  “Maybe there is a way,” Hector slowly answered, as he considered the problem. “If I could get some logs down here, I think I could build a wall with them. I could use heavy duty metal straps to tie the logs together and then brace them. That should work.”

  “How are you going to get big logs down here?” asked Mike, his tone dubious. “I don’t think we can carry them. And how are we going to put one big log on top of another?”

  “We have a machine that does that,” replied Hector absently, while studying the area. “It’s got a grapple that grabs the logs and lifts them. We use it to put the logs on the truck. That’s the problem. No one brought the truck yet. We need a truck to move the logs down here. Unless…” He looked back at the parking lot.

  “Does that bus run?” he asked.

  “The school bus?” said Mike. “Yeah, I guess it does. But how would you put logs in it? The seats are in the way.”

  “I think I can take out the seats,” Hector replied. “The real problem will be using the machine to get the logs in the rear emergency door and doing it safely. But if I can load that bus, I should be able to bring a load of logs down here.”

  “How will you get the bus over the river?” Howard asked. “Will we have to carry the logs across?”

  “I think I can bring the machines down here,” Hector answered. “Usually we move them by flatbed truck, but some have tracks like a tank and the others have tires, so I can drive them down here. It will take a long time, because they are very slow. Then I can lie some of the logs across the river, and roll the bus across on them.”

  “The river’s not running as fast as when we first got here,” said Eric. “Why is that?”

  “There is not as much water because a lot of the snowpack has melted,” Hector explained. “How do you plan to use the bathroom during winter?” The teenagers exchanged grimaces.

  “We have Porta Pottys,” said Mike. “But they are full of crap. We made a place in the forest where we piss.” Someone sounded the speaker calling the kids to brunch.

  “We only eat two meals at day, brunch and supper,” Mike informed the logger, as they walked back to the dining hall. “We’ve been trying to conserve our food. Jacob, here, has managed to catch a few birds. Some are okay to eat, but most don’t have any meat. We’re thinking of using the rifle to try to get a deer. Jacob says that he knows how to skin it and cut it.”

  Hector was thinking that this camp would be a better place to live during the winter than the logging camp, so he decided to sound the boys out about it.

  “Do you think you have room for one more person?” he asked. The boys looked at one another.

  “You don’t have to let me know right now,” added Hector hastily.

  “Mike’s the Chief,” said Eric. “He decides.”

  Hector looked at Mike who blushed. Now that there was an adult around, he felt somewhat self conscious.

  “If you’re going to share your food with us, I guess it’s only fair that we share our space,” Mike acknowledged. “But there ‘s a couple of things you should know.”

  Mike told him the rules they had made. He emphasized the one about not forcing the girls to have sex.

  Hector stiffened. “I don’t mess with kids,” he said angrily.

  His voice and body language caused the kids to become nervous. They didn’t want trouble with another adult.

  Mike didn’t back down. “Good,” he said bravely. “I just wanted you to know. I mean, after what happened.”

  Hector calmed down and nodded. “That’s a good rule any time, amigo,” he admitted. “Looks like you guys got yourselves a good leader,” he said to the others, and the teenagers relaxed.

  Hector agreed to eat brunch with them, and then they showed him how they were trying to bring a cabin across the river. Once again, they tackled the wood floor. They managed to get it to the bridge, but the bridge was too small for more than two or three to stand abreast.

  Hector solved the problem by angling the dolly under the side of the floor closest to the bridge, and then carefully balancing and pulling the dolly until the floor was covering the bridge with each side of the floor frame barely touching a different side of the river bank. Then the kids on his side of the river lifted the floor until he could get the dolly out from under the floor. Carrying the dolly, he stepped on to the floor and walked across to the other side. Once there, he forced the dolly under the floor again. The kids on the boys’ side lifted and pulled, and Hector balanced the floor until it was over the river.

  “Whoa,” Mike said. “That was harder than I thought. I don’t know if we could have done it without you, Hector. Thanks a lot.”

  “Yeah, that was a lot of work,” Hector agreed. “But we did it. That proves we can get the cabins across the bridge. If we can build a wall, I’m sure that we can get the bottom cabins on the wall and ledge. The problem will be to get the floors from the other cabins on top of the first layer. They will have to be lifted a lot higher.”

  Hector decided that it was time to ride back to his camp. He wanted to take an inventory of all the items that he could bring back to the lower camp. To Hector’s surprise, Jacob asked if he could catch a ride.

  “I’m going to explore a little,” he told Mike.

  That worried Mike but he just asked Jacob to be careful. Mike had learned by now that Jacob was the kind of guy that would always want to explore his surroundings.

  Jacob climbed behind Hector, and the motorcycle roared to life. They rode back over the hill, down past the Hanging Tree, and then onward to the junction of the road that led up to Hector’s camp. Hector paused when they came to the path on their right leading to the clearing where the dead bodies still lay.

  “We need to bury those men,” Hector said.

  Jacob gave out a non-committal grunt. Hector gunned his cycle again. Before they came to Hector’s camp, they passed the entrance to another dirt road on the left.

  “Where does that road lead to?” Jacob asked loudly over the roar of the engine.

  “The firebreak road? I don’t really know,” answered Hector. “I saw a man in a four by four pull out from it once. And once, I saw a woman on the road who was riding a horse. I think it must lead to another cabin or maybe a house.”

  “How far is your camp, if I walked to it from here?” Jacob asked.

  “Walking? Maybe an hour. The road goes up and down. It’s muddy in places.” They continued on until they came to the logging camp. There were several buildings and several pieces of heavy machinery. The equipment impressed Jacob.

  “What do these machines do?” he asked.

  “That one can take a downed tree and strip off the branches. The other one is a John Deere harvester. It can pick up a stripped tree, cut the end off, shoot a certain amount of it out one end, and then slice it off, turning it into a log. That one over there can pick up the logs and load them on a truck. We were supposed to get a machine this year that could cut the trees down safely, but the company said it would cost too much. So we still have big chainsaws to cut down the trees. It takes a lot more people to cut the trees with chainsaws. Luckily for us, because that’s why they delivered so much supplies this spring.”

  “Do you have gas for all this stuff?” Ja
cob asked.

  “Yeah, we have a big fuel truck back there. Thank heaven, it arrived before the Fog. The supplies came at the same time; food, water and plenty of toilet paper, plus the stuff for the mujeres.”

  “Huh?”

  “Women.”

  “What kind of stuff for women?”

  “Sanitary napkins I guess, Jacob. Pads and all that stuff they need for their periods. I don’t know. Hey.” He stopped talking and looked at the heavy equipment. “Maybe, we can use that to lift those cabin floors up to the second level.” He pointed to a forklift.

  Jacob saw that most of the buildings at the logging camp were made of sheet metal. Hector led the way into the only cinder block building. It looked like a combination office and storeroom. There was a bunkhouse in the rear. After a few minutes, Jacob realized that Hector was searching for something.

  “Ah, here it is,” Hector said with a satisfied smile. He brought out a long box. Inside was a large roll of black plastic.

  “What’s that for,” Jacob asked.

  Hector stopped smiling. “I’m going to use it to wrap those dead guys before we bury them.”

  “Why bother,” said Jacob. “They were murderers.”

  “Because I’m not like them,” Hector answered. “I may not be the best guy in the world that’s left, but I’m not like them.”

  “Pete and Jackie didn’t have any plastic to be wrapped in,” said Jacob resentfully. “We just had sheets.”

  “I’m sorry about that, amigo. I truly am. But I got to do this.”

  Hector went outside, and he placed the box in a small pickup truck. Then he and Jacob got in the truck, and they drove back down the road. When they got to the side road, Jacob asked to be dropped off.

  “Where are you going?” asked Hector startled at the request.

  “I’m going to explore that road some,” Jacob replied. “Can I stay at your camp, if I get back there tonight?”

  “Sure. I’ll be back later. Hell, kid, I don’t like the idea of leaving you here.”