Born In The Apocalypse (Book 3): Jericho

by Joseph Talluto

  I kept the curtains the way they were and made sure the rooms were not disturbed very much. This house hadn’t been inspected yet, and I didn’t want to raise any suspicions.

  I was in the bedroom, and was putting the last things in my backpack when I looked up towards the window. Staring back at me was one of those flying things. It was about two feet across, with six small propellers keeping it in the air. Underneath the propellers was a small bulb with a dark black spot on it. For some reason, I knew immediately it was a camera.

  I don’t know what made me do it, but the second I saw that thing, I whipped my Colt out and fired. I hit the thing square and knocked it out of the air. It crashed onto the ground and didn’t move. I didn’t stick around.

  I grabbed what I could and headed outside. I knew where the things were by the noise they made, and I kept going east. I stuck to the brush and trees, figuring they couldn’t follow me there. I also kept to the trees, figuring they probably had a couple of those things high up looking for any movement.

  I had to keep moving, and I needed to get away from that place immediately. They would be swarming that area in a matter of hours, and the farther away I was, the better.

  I could hear a great buzzing sound, and I knew that there was a big congregation of flying machines scouring that area. I kept low and out of sight. Part of me thought to just find a hole until dark, but that would allow too many human hunters to get to this area. As long as I was moving, I had a better chance. The trees seemed to expand into a kind of forest, which I was grateful for. I knew I would be getting to the planted forest soon, but there was a little open ground that I had to cover first. Walking carefully, I almost felt at home in the dense brush.

  Thinking about home, I hoped that Kim was okay. She must have gotten back to the homestead, I reassured myself, and was probably figuring out new ways to make loaves of bread into bricks. I’d only been gone for a few days, and Kim knew I could take care of myself. If I were in her place, I’d start to worry after a couple of weeks. Thoughts of Kim caused me to think about other things, and I needed to distract myself otherwise I would get myself caught and killed. I did have to admit to myself that after all this walking, I did miss my horse.

  The woods let out near a small pond, and I stayed in the high grass that encircled it. I spooked several deer and a number of rabbits. I imagine the removal of humans in this area had a marked effect on the local animals. I didn’t know what I might encounter, but I was careful. I had no idea if wolves or coyotes or what were in this state. For all I knew, there were bears and moose.

  On the other side of the pond, there was a larger wooded area, and I got lucky in that there was a road going down the center of it. The trees had grown together overhead, so I was safe from prying eyes. These trees were large and haphazardly tossed all over, showing God’s plan for trees as opposed to man’s. I figured I had another eight miles to go before I hit the wall. I may get to it by tonight, barring any distractions, like a bullet in the back.

  Ahead, I could see the trees thinning out, and there was an opening like a tunnel at the end. I was walking right for it when I detected a faint movement in air. A flying spy dropped down and hovered right in front of the exit. I ducked and dove for the woods, trying to keep out of sight. I don’t think it saw me, as I was in the shadows, but I didn’t want to take any chances.

  The spy started down the road, and in the woods, the noise was loud. It moved quickly, and I stayed behind the tree I was using as cover. I pulled a few fallen branches up and made a small barricade to increase the breakup of my outline. My dad and I had discovered that Trippers reacted to human-shaped outlines more than they did other shapes. Trouble was, it was hard to move when you were covered in branches, so we didn’t do it much at all.

  As it flew by, I had to resist the temptation to throw my branches on it and disable it. I would rather not leave a trail of broken devices as breadcrumbs to the people hunting me.

  I waited until the noise ended, then I waited some more. I amused myself by flipping twigs into a hollow log a few feet away. Probably pissed off a raccoon or opossum sleeping in there, but they never emerged.

  I rolled out of my hiding spot, keeping to the side of the road in case the little flyer looked back or decided to come through from the other direction. I needed to get to someplace hidden to spend the night, and I was glad I had made it to the wooded section of the zone. The road continued west, which made walking faster, but as I emerged from the woods, the trees thinned out significantly. There were a number of trees, but they weren’t like I had been through before. These lined the road, but the rest were sparse, like the people planting them either were either running out or they got lazy.

  With my cover mostly gone, I hurried as best I could. I knew I would attract attention moving faster, but there was nothing for it since I had open ground to cover.

  I kept thinking I was hearing things behind me, but every time I looked, there was nothing there. Maybe it was just residual noise from the countryside, maybe it was just in my head. In either case, I kept moving.

  I passed under a highway, and suddenly I was surrounded by houses. It was a strange transformation. I passed the highway and there they were. They were all over the place, and they had the trees planted everywhere, too. I kept under the trees to keep from being seen, but as I did, I looked at the houses. They were of a rather small variety, the majority of them being a single story. Some of the two story ones had their second floor knocked off, and the debris just lay in the yard. Among the bricks and boards there were beds, dressers, and some clothing that was still intact.

  The sun disappeared, and there was a cold wind coming down from the north. There was a different kind of grey to the clouds, and I knew that there was going to be snow soon. I needed to find a place to ride out the storm, but I wanted to get to the wall as quick as I could. I decided to throw caution to the wind again and move faster than I had been. I cleared the houses and moved through the larger part of town. The sky was darkening quickly, and I knew that it was only a matter of an hour or two and the snow would start to fall. Back in Illinois, this was called Get Your Butt Back Home sky.

  I expected more homes to be on the other side of the business section and I wasn’t disappointed. These homes were roughly the same as the other ones, but they seemed older, and of different styles. The trees were still all over the place, and in a couple of places, the roads had been ripped up and trees planted there as well.

  When the first flakes began to drop, I went over to the first house I could find and made my way inside. The house was mostly empty, save for a few pieces of furniture. There was a nice fireplace that I intended to make use of, but I was going to wait until the snow fell before I started the fire. I wanted the snowfall to break up the smoke and not leave a trace for any idiot to find.

  Chapter 20

  “Sir, you have to see this.”

  “Christ, what now?”

  Captain Vega went over to the monitor of the soldier that had hailed him. The technician pulled up a video from what appeared to be one of the drones. The video was grainy and not in very good resolution, but given what they had to work with, it served its purpose.

  The video showed the landscape as the drone passed over it, and then it showed several houses where the drone was looking into windows. The technician stopped the video when the drone was looking directly at a young man who was looking back at the drone.

  “What happened to him? Did the drone follow him?” Captain Vega asked. “Why did you stop?”

  “Sir, I need to show you this in two ways. First, this is at normal speed.” The technician clicked on the play button, and in the video, there appeared to be a small flash near the hip of the young man, and then the screen went dark.

  “Whoa. What happened there? Did something hit the drone?” Captain Vega was understandably concerned. The drones were expensive, but they had proven themselves invaluable at finding runners.

  “Sir, you could
say that, sir. Here it is at half speed.” The man clicked the screen a couple times and then clicked play. The screen showed the young man’s hand as it went to his hip, and then came up with a gun. It was the gun going off that had created the flash. Even at half speed, it was as if the gun had just appeared in his hand.

  “What the hell did I just see? Where did that gun come from?” Captain Vega asked.

  “I’ll show you sir. I had to bring it down to a quarter speed see everything clearly.” The tech clicked the mouse a few more times, then brought up the video again. This time, it took longer to see what was happening, but the video clearly showed the young man’s hand sweeping under his coat, coming up with a gun, and firing from the hip.

  “Jesus. That’s about as fast as I’ve ever seen a gun get into action,” Vega said.

  “Yes, sir. From what I have seen, this runner is able to draw, fire, and hit a target in just about a quarter of a second,” the technician said.

  Captain Vega nodded. “Let the teams know he’s armed, and that he’s a good shot. Do we know where this took place?”

  “We do, sir; the teams have been dispatched already. Should I inform them about his speed, too, sir?”

  “They’d never believe it, so why bother? If we said he was a gunfighter, some idiot would want to try him, and we’d have a dead idiot to bury as well as the runner. Better keep that quiet. Do we know what direction he went?” Vega asked.

  “Based on the reports from the flying squad, they know he is not north or east. South and west are best guesses as to which is accurate, sir,” the tech said.

  “All right. Keep looking. And if the drone pilots heard you call them the flying squad, they’ll get even with you,” Captain Vega said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Chapter 21

  The snow came down lightly at first, but then it fell with enthusiasm. The flakes went from light singles to heavy clumps and they stuck to the ground immediately, covering the world in what seemed to be an instant. One minute I looked out and the world was green; the next it was white and not a track to be found. It was funny, but I was suddenly homesick, wanting to be back at my home, with Judy and Missy in their stalls, and Kim coming over to read with me by the fire. I wanted to be back to get my things ready for the move south. I wanted to return home and show Kim I was all right. I wanted to tell her what I had seen and what I had done. I smiled when I imagined her face at the news. I couldn’t decide if she was going to be horrified or if she was going to be happy.

  I lit my fire in the fireplace, keeping it low. I didn’t need the attention from a large fire. I wasn’t worried about smoke, just the heat and the possibility of the soldiers using those special goggles to find the house that had heat coming from it.

  I made myself a small meal, and tried to figure out what my move was for getting back over the wall. This side of the wall was much harder to scale, since it was maintained and clear. I needed to figure out a way to get my rope over the wall, and to somehow secure it to something on the other side. My mind kept bringing me back to my bow and arrows, and the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. I just needed to make something that would work as a bow, and be able to launch a hook of some kind over the wall.

  The obvious questions here were how to build a bow strong enough and what was I going to use as a hook? I remembered seeing some fishhooks when I was younger with my dad, and there was a big one that had three hooks on it. My dad said it was for deep-sea fishing, but the more I thought about it, the more the design appealed to me. I just needed to figure out what I could use for a hook.

  I fed the fire a little more and went into the house to see what I could find. I started in the garage, and while there was a number of pieces of wood, there wasn’t anything there that I thought would be strong enough to launch a hook and a rope over the wall. I did find some materials for a hook though. The brackets holding up a set of shelves in the garage were good pieces of sturdy metal already shaped into a ninety-degree angle. I took all of the stuff off the shelves and unscrewed the brackets. I took one of the smaller pieces of wood and attached three of the brackets with screws and some twine I found in a drawer. I tested the hook by putting two of the brackets over the garage door rail and hanging on it. It only needed to hold me for about ten minutes, so I was okay with the test.

  Down in the basement, I found some white pieces of plastic pipe that looked like it might work out. I chose a piece as tall as myself and brought it upstairs. I needed to shape it a bit, and to do that, I was going to need a little more fire.

  Stepping into the living room, I dropped the hook and the pipe and swept my hand toward my gun. Sitting near my fire and looking at my gear was a couple of people I had not seen before.

  “Jesus Christ! Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot! We’re sorry! Didn’t know you were still here!” The speaker was a young man, probably near my age. He was thin with an angular face and longish hair. His hands were long as well, better suited to doing something refined like building small things than working hard. He was wearing a long dark grey coat and had a backpack at my feet.

  The other one was a young woman, probably slightly older. She was wearing a tight leather jacket and carried a backpack as well. Her hair was short, with streaks of purple running through it. Her face was heavy with makeup, especially around the eyes. I couldn’t stop thinking of raccoons when I looked at her. She stared back at me hard, like she was trying to decide if she wanted to make a move for my weapon or for one of her own.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked, keeping a hand on my gun.

  “Same thing you are, looking for freebies,” the man said.

  “I’m not here to loot,” I said. “I’m just getting out of the storm. How did you two find me here?” I asked.

  “Smelled your smoke,” the girl said. “Watched the chimneys until we saw some mist off yours.”

  I nodded. I wouldn’t make that mistake again. “What did you take out of my bag?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” the girl said.

  “Nothing,” the boy said.

  “Let’s try again. And keep in mind, I don’t like to be stolen from,” I said. “What did you take out of my bag?”

  “You calling me a thief?” the man asked, taking a step forward. The girl snuck a hand under her coat and my gun was out in a flash.

  “Yes. I’m calling you a thief. I can see right now my rope is missing, and there’s a lamp missing, too. Now we can do this the easy way or the hard way. You choose,” I said, trying not to chuckle at the two pairs of really big eyes staring at the muzzle of my Colt.

  The missing items came tumbling out of the man’s backpack. I kept my eye on the woman; she seemed like she still wanted to try her luck.

  “That will do. Now just put them back and you can get on your way.” I said, holstering my gun. The man complied and they started for the door. The woman stopped and looked at me.

  “Like your hat, by the way,” she said.

  I took it off. “You got something to trade for it, it’s yours.” An idea popped into my head, and although I wasn’t proud of it, they did try to rob me.

  The woman rummaged in her pack for a second, and I kept my hand on my gun. She came up with a small silver necklace. It had a little pendant on it, and when I looked closer, it seemed like the pendant was a coin. The date on the coin was 1941. I didn’t recall seeing anything that was from that date, so it must be old. I tossed her the hat.

  “Deal,” I said, slipping the necklace into my pocket.

  She handed the hat to the man and he put it on. He looked at himself in a hall mirror and he must have liked what he saw.

  “Very nice,” the woman said. The man looked at her and they suddenly were in a big hurry to go out into the storm.

  Good riddance, I thought. I didn’t expect to see them again. I didn’t have enough for them to care about. I was wearing my money belt, so they couldn’t have known about my gold and silver coins. I wondered about what they were doing
and realized that all these abandoned homes presented an opportunity for those willing to take the risk. I wasn’t sure what would happen if they were caught, but I knew it wouldn’t be pretty.

  Chapter 22

  I put an extra bit of wood on the fire and worked on bending the plastic pipe I had. I needed to make sure this would work or I was going to spend more time than I wanted looking for materials.

  I set the pipe near the fire and let it heat for a minute. I tried to bend it, and it went absolutely nowhere. I left it on for a few more minutes, and when it was hot to touch, I braced it against a wall with a table and pulled it towards myself. I held it in place and when I released it, it kept a small bend. It wasn’t much, but it was what I needed. I cut some chord and using my knife I notched the ends of the pipe. Some more chords created a kind of riser.

  When I finished, it was quite possibly the worst bow I had ever seen. But I didn’t need it for its looks; I just needed it to be able to launch my hook over the wall. I strung the bow with three strands of cord braided together. Pulling the hook back in the bow, I realized I had too much length on the shaft of the hook, so I had to cut off about three inches.

  I wanted to test it, but I didn’t really feel like going outside, so I settled in for the night. I made sure the doors were locked and my gun was handy.

  I must have been a lot more tired than I thought. When I finally woke I was cold, the sun was up, and my fire was out. Time to get moving.

  I packed up my things, thinking again about the couple I had met and I briefly wondered what they were up to. After a second, I realized I didn’t care and headed out the door. I kept the sun at my back as I went under the trees, keeping to the shadows as much as I could without running into things.