Luke's Trek (America Falls Book 5)

by Scott Medbury

  “So, what does one do in Bow Lake Village?” Luke asked, aloud. “Why, go and look at the lake of course!”

  He made his way past the quaint, white washed buildings in the small town center and headed down to the lake. Luke imagined at this time of year it would be quite beautiful in full daylight. He walked out onto a rickety wooden pier. There was mist upon the lake and the opposite shoreline was painted with autumn gold and rust colored leaves.

  “Beautiful! Not bad, Bow Lake.”

  He took off his backpack and sat down on the end of the pier, fishing out the last beef and tomato sandwich packed for him by Randall’s people and began chewing happily.

  Brooke would have loved this spot.

  It was the first time he had been able to think about her without being overwhelmed by grief. After washing down his sandwich with a few mouthfuls of water from the army issue canteen (another gift from Concord), he headed back up the hill feeling almost content.

  “Time to find some lodgings for the night.”

  It was almost full dark now and while he had forgotten the eeriness of the little village when he was eating his sandwich by the lake, it returned quickly. The dark empty windows and the wind whistling through the pine needles put him on edge. He decided he would stop and stay at the first house he came to.

  He turned left from the main road and then turned down 3rd Street. It ran parallel to Main Street. On the right-hand side of 3rd Street was a row of houses. He checked out the first one. It was a white timber double story with flaky paint. A wrought iron gate hung askew on the low fence that ran along the front of the lot. Moth-eaten curtains hung in the windows.

  He thought anyone could be watching him from the darkened windows and he’d be oblivious. He shivered and passed it by. The next house looked just as haunted, but the third was okay.

  He pushed open the stubborn gate and winced at the terrible screech the rusted hinges made.

  Well, if there is anyone here and they didn’t know I was in town, they do now.

  He had barely placed a foot on the path when he heard the soft crying of a child behind him. Startled, he swung around and scanned the buildings across the road. They were the rears of the storefronts he had just passed on the main road. He couldn’t see anyone, but the child’s crying was unmistakable.

  “Hello?” he called.

  There was no response, but the soft crying continued. Concern chased away any sense of disquiet he had, and Luke headed back through the gate and onto the road, pausing in the middle to cock his head.

  The crying was louder now, and he knew it was coming from a small alleyway that led between the two buildings directly in front of him. He took a deep breath and pulled himself up to his full height and strode across the road, hoping he appeared more confident than he felt as he headed for the shadowy alleyway.

  By the thin light of the quarter moon he could see a few feet ahead. The alley looked pretty much like any alley you would see behind a main street. There was scattered trash, an old chair and a big dumpster. That’s where the crying was coming from.

  Behind the dumpster.

  “Hello?” Luke called again.

  The crying paused briefly then continued. Luke looked up and down the street before taking a few tentative steps into the alley.

  “Hey kid, are you okay? Why don’t you come out where I can see you?”

  The soft crying continued. Luke shook his head, nothing for it. He began to walk towards the dumpster.

  It wasn’t until he heard a grunt of exertion behind him that he realized he wasn’t alone with the crying kid. His head exploded in bright agony. Luke spun around, but his world was tilting, his legs suddenly made of jelly. On his way down the express elevator to unconsciousness, he caught a brief glimpse of unkempt hair, filthy faces and wild eyes.

  Part Two: Dog Meat

  10

  Luke’s eyes snapped open. He didn’t move. The back of his head was a hot mess of agony.

  He was on his back, the sun high in the sky above, his axe resting uncomfortably under his right shoulder... his field of vision was framed by the buildings either side of the alley he had walked into the night before.

  Ambushed.

  The bastards had ambushed him with the oldest trick in the book and he had fallen for it hook, line and sinker. Time to take stock. He moved his feet then his hand. He didn’t appear to have any injuries besides a cracked skull. He scanned the alley with his eyes, not trusting yet that he could move his head without its contents spilling out onto the ground.

  He was alone.

  Time to move, old boy.

  He braced himself with his elbows and pushed up.

  Luke wasn’t sure what horrified him more, the white agony that shot through his head or the sound of his hair – glued to the cracked pavement by crusted blood – pulling free.

  He sat until the roar of pain rushing through his head subsided to a dull throb, then slowly raised himself to his feet. The world tilted and for a second, he thought he would fall back on his ass. He didn’t.

  He raised his hand to the back of his head and inspected the damage. Thankfully it wasn’t as bad as it felt. His gently probing fingers found a hell of a bump crowned with a split in the skin under his stiff hair. The wound was about an inch and a half long, but it had crusted over, the coagulants in his blood doing their job.

  Turning gingerly, he took stock of the crime scene. His backpack was gone, clearly it was the intended target of the wild-eyed bastards. There was no sign of the ambushers.

  Sore but thankful that he was still breathing, he couldn’t even raise a puff of anger. There was no point trying to find the backpack, there were a thousand places the little bastards could be hiding, and he didn’t want to risk foraging for replacement supplies and risk another ambush.

  The only thing to do was to get back on the road again. As he left the alleyway he found the map from his backpack wedged under the old paling fence, one corner flapping in the gentle breeze as if to catch his attention.

  He dusted it off, refolded it and slipped it inside his jacket.

  Erring on the side of caution, he pulled out his axe and held it as a deterrent as he made his way back out of Bow Lake Village. This time he travelled via the 202A, a wider road and a lot more pleasant to walk along than the one that had taken him into the village. It would take him south east and join up with its big sister, the 202.

  The day was warm. Besides flies annoying the hell out of him, he didn’t have any more trouble as he continued his journey and stowed his axe after half a mile.

  After an hour of walking he reached the 202 and, ignoring the angry noises coming from his stomach, pulled out the map. In just over a mile he would pass the North River Pond, a big freshwater lake. That would be his first stop. At the very least he would drink a belly full of water and wash the crusted blood from his still sore head.

  The North River Pond was also picturesque, the part of the shoreline he accessed was overgrown with long, lush grass. He took off his jacket and headed into the water, gingerly washing his hair and the wound before moving to a new spot and drinking his fill of the cool fresh water.

  As he was getting out, he found an old plastic soda bottle floating by the shoreline. He washed it out as best he could before refilling it with water from the lake. That would hopefully keep him hydrated for a day.

  He put his jacket back on and, feeling refreshed, investigated two houses on the lake for food. Their pantries were bare. The Colonel’s teams had obviously been this way. He resigned himself to the fact he probably wouldn’t find food anywhere on the 202 and would have to make his way off it to get lucky.

  Dusk came two hours after his stop at the lake and he decided when passing through a small town he would camp there for the night. Town was too generous a word really. It was more a cluster of homes that seemed to have sprung up like mushrooms alongside a gas station/general store.

  Luke didn’t bother checking the store. Its windows were s
mashed in and its door lay in pieces on the pavement. Through the windows it was easy to see the shelves were barren. He didn’t hold out much hope for the houses that ran along the side street either but decided he would check up to three of them for food. If he had no luck, he would bed down for the night in the third one.

  The first two were empty, and he almost didn’t bother with the next. Boy, was he glad he made the effort. The front door was already open, jimmied by past raiders, and he didn’t waste any time heading straight to the kitchen.

  There, in the failing light, sitting on the small Formica topped kitchen table like it had been left by a thoughtful friend, was a pistol and two clips of ammo.

  Luke froze.

  “What the..?” he whispered and cocked his head to listen to the empty house, unable to believe that someone had left such a valuable prize behind accidently.

  He didn’t hear a sound in the abandoned house and quietly crossed to the table and picked up the gun. It was a Glock 17. He weighed it in his hand and knew from its heft that it already had a full clip. Managing a firearm one handed was a bitch, but he got to it without complaining. He placed the gun on the table and, with his left forearm, wedged it against the table and pulled the slide with his good hand. There was a round in the chamber.

  Good.

  First job was to make sure that the owner of the gun wasn’t in the house.

  It only took a few minutes. With newly discovered gun in hand, he searched the house quickly and silently. It was empty save for the mummified remains of the previous owners in the main bedroom. The husks of the dead didn’t bother him anymore; it didn’t take long to figure out live bodies were the much bigger danger in Post-America. The other bedroom was empty and there was no obvious sign anyone had been there recently.

  “Finders keepers,” he said cheerfully as he re-entered the kitchen, not lowering the weapon until he was sure that room was empty also.

  He put the Glock back on the table and went to the pantry, fully expecting to see empty shelves. And they were, apart from one lone can of salt reduced whole tomatoes. He was not a fan of tomatoes (nor were the previous raiders apparently). Tonight though, as hungry as he was, it was like the clouds had parted, shining a beam of light on a heavenly delicacy.

  Plus, it had a ring pull.

  Bonus!

  Luke swallowed the tomatoes right out of the can, drinking them down like a thirsty man guzzling water, only stopping to chew the larger chunks when they threatened to choke him. He washed it down with a swallow of the bottled pond water.

  As dusk turned to night, and with a semi-full belly, Luke headed through the house to the corpse-free bedroom and climbed wearily onto the single bed, boots and all, careful not to bump his tender head on the ornate wooden bedhead.

  He slept soundly.

  11

  Luke left the next morning at dawn. He didn’t eat for most of that day, and by mid-afternoon, hungry again, he managed to shoot a skinny ass rabbit he spotted in some long grass by the road. He took it into the front yard of a house, skinned it and cooked it over an open fire. He’d started the fire with the lens of a magnifying glass. He had carried that damn thing in his pocket since they had left the farm and was gratified to finally get to use it.

  Initially he’d been worried about the smoke and attracting unwanted attention. His hunger overrode that caution, and, in the end, it wasn’t the attention of the two-legged variety he needed to worry about.

  He spotted them as he ate. They were slinking around about a quarter of a mile behind him, not game to come any closer, even with the delicious smell of cooked rabbit in the air. He paid them no mind, other than to glance at them occasionally as he ate. They loitered where they were, apparently too chicken to come any closer.

  After he’d eaten his fill, Luke pulled off the last strips of meat and stored them in an old plastic grocery bag he’d picked up off the road that morning.

  “Thank God for non-degradable plastics, huh Bugs?”

  He left the ravaged rabbit carcass on the grass for the dogs, then moved on. He glanced over his shoulder at them occasionally. The dog moved cautiously until it was clear the carcass was closer to them than he, then they pounced on the kill. He watched them brawl over it for a while then rounded the bend out of sight. Hopefully that would keep them busy for a while.

  At dusk he found another empty house to spend the night in. There was no exciting find in this one but there was a bed. He had a few pieces of rabbit and went to sleep thinking of Brooke. The thought of her brought pain, but also warmth.

  ***

  He ate the rest of the rabbit the next morning, knowing it wouldn’t be good for much longer, and then hit the road again. He didn’t see the pack anywhere. A few hours later he skirted Rochester on the 202 and crossed the border into Maine.

  That’s when he discovered the dogs were still following him. They were still a good way back, but it was definitely the same pack. Again, he put them out of his mind. He would worry about them when or if they got closer.

  Even in Maine, any homes or stores along Route 202 (this section called the Carl Brogg highway), were already stripped bare but he managed to refill his water bottle from rainwater in an old trough. Towards dusk he tried a few more houses for food but was without luck. He picked one to spend the night in and didn’t spot the dogs as he closed the door.

  But he wasn’t so quick to assume he’d lost them as the day before.

  ***

  The next morning, a hungry Luke had only water for breakfast and set out again. Almost immediately, the dogs fell in behind him again about a quarter mile back. He was more fascinated than alarmed to realize they were stalking him.

  Unlike the packs he’d seen before, particularly the one that had attacked their group as they travelled to Drake Mountain, these ones didn’t look crazed with hunger. They looked methodical and focused on their quarry and he’d come to the unmistakable conclusion, that he was their quarry. Feeling a little uneasy, but not frightened, he picked up his pace.

  An hour later Luke came to an intersection; the left turn was a road that looked a lot more recently constructed than the 202 and the sign on the corner read:

  Turn left for Willatan Green Subdivision-

  Lots available

  Come join the happiest little community in Maine

  The road sloped down the gently sloping hill into green fields and then wound its way through a copse of trees in the distance. Beyond that, he could see the late afternoon sun shining on the tiled rooves of a modern housing development.

  He turned and looked back the way he’d come. They slowed as soon as he turned, but the dogs were closer now and he knew before long he would have to deal with them. He started down the hill and towards the happiest little community in Maine.

  The pack loped after him.

  12

  The young boy whistled sharply twice without taking the binoculars from his eyes as he watched the stranger turn towards Willatan Green. He heard shouts behind him and knew the alarm was being passed along.

  Within a minute, a woman with dark hair pulled back in a ponytail climbed up into the lookout with him.

  “What have we got, Sam?”

  “Some big guy. He’s got a pack of dogs following him. He should be coming out of the trees soon.”

  “How many dogs?”

  “Six. If they don’t get ‘im in the trees we should be able to see them soon.”

  “Six? That’s enough for the Brothers and to keep two for ourselves if we get ‘em all. Lord knows we need ‘em. Is he armed?”

  “He has an axe on his back.”

  “Guns?”

  “Don’t think so. But he has a hook hand.”

  “A what?”

  “You know,” he said holding up his hand with his index finger curled. “A hook. Like the pirate in the picture book.”

  She wasn’t interested.

  “Good boy. Give me the binocs and go get Tommy and Jacob. Tell ‘em to bring t
he shotgun and their bows and tell the other mothers there might be trouble coming and to lock the doors until I give the all clear.”

  “Yes, Momma.”

  The woman watched her seven-year-old boy go and then leaned her elbows on the top of the wall and raised the binoculars to her eyes. She focused them on the road where it emerged from the trees.

  The lookout they had built against their side of the wall was well hidden in the shadows under the leaves of the oak tree that grew on the other side. Ostensibly it was to give them early warning of the Brothers coming to visit, but on occasions like this, it was a real handy early warning system for other visitors too. Especially since the Brothers wouldn’t allow them to have a gate.