Fierce Flight_A Post Apocalyptic Survival Adventure

by R. A. Rock

  It was Ernest.

  Holy shit.

  We hadn’t time travelled at all.

  ***

  “Ernest,” I exclaimed in shock, running my hand through my short red hair — a habit of mine when I’m upset. When it gets longer it’s curly but if I keep it short enough, there aren’t any curls at all. And the way I had been feeling for the past year, the short hair had seemed more appropriate than my easygoing curls.

  It made me look tougher and, along with the beard, like a guy you didn’t want to mess with, which was what I was going for. I have to admit, though, sometimes I didn’t quite feel like myself without the curly hair. I forced myself to focus on the man in front of me, knowing these thoughts were again just a distraction from the problems of the moment.

  How could we not have got back?

  “It didn’t work,” Gracie moaned.

  Audrey made a frustrated sound but didn’t attempt to say anything, since she didn’t speak much English.

  “I can’t see how it wouldn’t have worked,” Shiv said, sounding puzzled.

  “What do you mean it didn’t work? And where’s Yumi?” Ernest said.

  “We left you… It was only a few hours ago to us,” Grace explained. “But for you it’s been…”

  She left it for him to finish her sentence.

  “Four years,” he said, in consternation. “It’s 2024.”

  “So, we did time travel,” Shiv groaned. “Just not far enough into the future.”

  “Ernest,” I said. “We thought that the bracelets didn’t work. But I guess they did take us forward into the future. Just not far enough.”

  Ernest frowned.

  “What happened, then?”

  “We only travelled four years, instead of four centuries,” I said, glancing at Shiv. “Guess the bracelets weren’t fixed after all.”

  “I can’t see how it wouldn’t have worked,” Shiv said, repeating himself.

  “We’ll just have to try again,” I said, wondering when we would end up this time.

  The four of us stood in silence, contemplating the hopelessness of our situation. When I took a breath, I inhaled the scent of spruce trees. The smell was from my childhood and calmed me enough that I didn’t feel like completely losing it anymore. But I still felt deeply troubled, wondering what had happened to Yumi.

  “Yes, of course you’ll try again. But not before you rest up from this trip,” Ernest said, trying to lift our mood. “We can talk later about your plan to make another time travel jump. Till then, why don’t you come on back to the house and we’ll get you a meal and a bed.”

  “Thank you, Ernest,” Grace said, her voice exhausted but grateful. “We really appreciate it. But we have to find Yumi first.”

  “Yumi’s missing?” he said, sounding concerned.

  “When we arrived, she wasn’t with us,” I said, trying not to think about what that might mean. I was barely holding it together as it was. The disappointment of not having made it back was crushing.

  “I cannot believe we’re spending another night here in this post apocalyptic hell,” Audrey muttered quietly to me in Primary. “This sucks.”

  And despite the warm welcome I knew we would get from our new friends — who hadn’t thought they would ever see us again — I couldn’t help but agree.

  “Can you take me back to where you landed?” Ernest said and I nodded. “She would be closer to that point than here. I can try and track her from there. Maybe we’ll see Matt and Penny. He’s out here, too. We came to investigate the light… guess that was you guys.”

  “Penny?” Grace said. It was late at night and dark.

  “Yeah,” Ernest said, shaking his head. “He takes her everywhere with him. She woke up when we were getting ready and begged to come. He’s such a sucker for that little girl.”

  He grinned.

  “Don’t worry. If anyone can find Yumi, it’s me,” he assured us. And I knew he was right. “Man, it’s good to see you guys.”

  I couldn’t help smiling back, but the anxiety in me cranked up another notch as I thought about the time travel and what had happened to Yumi. I tried to have faith in Ernest’s tracking skills, which were legendary. Surely he could find her.

  Because I knew if only we could find Yumi, it would be alright. We could figure this all out if we stuck together.

  I wouldn’t contemplate anything other than her being lost. I had watched her evade death so many times. There was no way something like a little time travel would kill her.

  No way.

  I was certain.

  Well, maybe I wasn’t completely certain.

  But I hoped rather desperately anyway.

  Because the alternative was unthinkable.

  Searching

  Chad

  We searched and searched through the shadowy woods near Matt and Nessa’s home but we couldn’t find her. I thought I saw her a hundred times, it always turned out to be just another tree or a bush, though. But I desperately kept looking, refusing to accept that she was gone.

  She couldn’t be.

  “Chad,” Shiv said, coming up to me and putting his hand on my shoulder, forcing me to look at him. “We need to go and rest. Don’t you have a headache?”

  Of course. My head felt as though there was a reactor core pulsing in there but I wasn’t ready to give up yet.

  “Grace and Audrey are dead on their feet,” he pleaded. “And I’m sure you are too. It’s way past midnight. We’ll go get a couple hours rest and come right back out at first light. Come on, man. You’re no good to her if you hurt yourself because you’re so tired. Your body needs to recover from the time travel, too.”

  “Shiv,” I growled. “Don’t you understand? I can’t just leave her out here in the…”

  “Chad,” he said, sounding less patient. “We don’t even know if she made it. She might have ended up some time else…”

  “Don’t say that,” I said, so forcefully that Shiv looked taken aback in the dim light. If that had happened, there was almost no chance that we could find her or help her. There was almost no chance, if that had happened, that we would ever see her again.

  “I thought you guys were broken up,” he said, studying me as if he had just received new information that he was processing.

  “We are completely broken up,” I said, in a firm tone of voice, so he wouldn’t get any ideas. “But she’s been my best friend since we were kids. I can’t abandon her.”

  “Chad, it’s not abandoning her. Just one hour,” he negotiated — always the voice of reason. “One hour of sleep and then we’re back out searching. I’ll come with you. Promise. She’s my friend, too.”

  I stared at the ground, thinking about it.

  I was so tired and my head hurt so bad that I could hardly see straight. How was I supposed to find her like this? Besides, she was tough she could take care of herself.

  But what if she was hurt?

  Still, I couldn’t do anything for anyone in the state I was in. I needed rest. Shiv was right.

  “Okay,” I said, in defeat. “I’ll go rest for an hour.”

  “Great,” he said. “Let’s go tell the others.”

  ***

  When we got back to Matt and Nessa’s home, the Sipwesk community, I was impressed with a lot of the changes they had implemented. The place was more secure and many improvements had been undertaken to make the place better.

  There were about fifty people that all lived as a part of Matt and Nessa’s extended family in various outbuildings and cabins, all within a palisade they had built to protect them from a hostile group led by a man named Brett, who constantly harassed them and stole their hard earned goods.

  The fort’s walls enclosed three of the lots — one wall running along the cabin road. And the other walls went almost all the way down to the lake. The fourth wall ran parallel to the shoreline. The fort had only one entrance facing the road and it was constantly guarded.

  As we walked past the huge
communal garden, I caught a whiff of cilantro. Herbs and greens were probably the only thing still growing at this time of year.

  The whole place was quiet and all I could hear was the wind wailing in the tops of the spruce trees, the sound an echo of how I was feeling. If I could wail, I would.

  “You guys can have the same guest cabin, if you want,” Ernest told us. “Or you can split up. There are several small bunk houses closer to the lake that will hold one or two people. Those are empty right now, too.”

  Shiv shook his head, speaking for all of us.

  “Nah, we’ll stick together,” he said. “The guest cabin will be fine.”

  “You’re like family, aren’t you?” Ernest said.

  “Pretty much,” I said, my voice sounding gravelly to my ears.

  “Closer,” Grace said, putting her arm around Shiv.

  “Can we please just go to sleep?” Audrey said, in Primary. “I can’t think straight with this pain in my head. I’m not even going to change. I’m just going to lie down on the covers.”

  “Go to sleep, Audrey,” Shiv answered her in Primary. Then he turned to Ernest again, as Audrey climbed the two stairs up into the guest cabin. “We’re closer than family because we choose to stay together, in spite of our differences.”

  When he said the last sentence, he gave me a look, which I acknowledged with a small nod. I suppose you could say that Yumi and I were still working together in spite of our differences — though that was maybe a huge understatement.

  Not that I cared one whit right now about any fight we had ever had. None of that mattered. I just wanted Yumi back, safe.

  “Well, I’ll let you guys get some sleep. Looks like everyone’s still in bed here, so I’ll save the news that you’re back till morning,” he said, smiling again. “Wake me when you’re going out again and I’ll come with you.”

  “You’re in the same room?” Shiv said and when Ernest nodded, he stuck out his hand to shake. Ernest clasped his hand firmly and then turned to me. We shook and then he pulled me in for a strong one armed hug, clapping me on the back.

  “We’ll find her, Chad,” he said and the serious look in his eyes said that he understood what I was going through. I remembered how long he had searched for Zoe and how we had eventually helped him bring her back home. “And then you’ll use the bracelets and get home. All of you. I know you will.”

  His confidence was infectious and I smiled, even though I still felt down.

  My mind was afraid that he was wrong. But somehow in my heart, I knew that she was here, in this time with us. Maybe the soul bond was beginning to reactivate again?

  The soul bond was a link between my mind/heart/soul and Yumi’s. Through it each of us could sense the other. We had formed it by accident years ago and there was no way to get rid of it. But time travel seemed to suppress it, the way it did the rest of our powers.

  So, I had a feeling that we would find her. But who knew what condition she would be in when we did? It was disconcerting that she hadn’t travelled with us and we didn’t know why.

  I didn’t know what had happened to her.

  Or where she was.

  Or why it had turned out like this.

  All I knew was that I wanted her back.

  Finding Yumi

  Chad

  We had rested for two hours and then Shiv and I had quietly woken Ernest and we had come back out to comb the forest around their fort in the predawn darkness. We had searched the area we had arrived in but she wasn’t anywhere.

  I had to assume that she had either shown up much further away or had gone to some other time. That notion was not one that I wanted to entertain, even if it was the one that made the most sense.

  Or at least, that’s what Shiv had originally thought. That Yumi had maybe ended up in a different time from us. Though now he wasn’t sure that was possible because the devices worked together to create a field that tore space-time. Then again, we had been testing the stupid bracelets. We didn’t know anything about them.

  “Chad,” Ernest said. “Let’s go back and get breakfast. We’ll get all able bodies together and organize a proper search party of a much larger area.”

  He was right. I felt faint from time travel, lack of sleep, and walking through the forest all night. I stared around at the woods.

  There was a big hole in my chest.

  And god damn it, if Yumi didn’t fill it.

  Losing her…

  No. I couldn’t lose her.

  We had to find her.

  “Come on, Chad,” Shiv said, patting me on the back and turning me towards Matt and Nessa’s.

  I nodded.

  “But we come back out as soon as we get organized.”

  “Promise,” Ernest said with a nod.

  ***

  Thirty minutes walk later and I separated from Shiv and Ernest. They were going to the bathhouse to take showers.

  Matt and Nessa had showers that were gravity fed from a large rain water cistern that stood on high legs. There were solar water heaters on the roof of the building providing hot water. The showers worked in three seasons, which I thought was certainly better than nothing. In winter, they had to heat up water inside to take baths once a week, they had told us.

  “We’ll see you back up at the house for breakfast?” Shiv said. He seemed worried about me and I appreciated that he was concerned but I needed to be alone for awhile. Though after being up all night, I was starving and the smell of moose stew coming from the house was making my belly rumble.

  “I’ll be up in about twenty minutes to eat.”

  I turned, then, and meandered slowly down to the shore. I walked out on to the dock and stared at the lake. The sun was only beginning to rise and the sky in the east was pink and tangerine. Wispy tendrils of clouds stroked the sky and I missed Yumi even worse.

  She hated pink.

  And how many times had we come down to swim in the early morning after working out when we were teens? Too many times to count.

  I pulled my shirt off and threw it on the dock. Then I took off my pants and dropped them, too, glad my underwear was black. Goosebumps appeared all over my body, but I didn’t care.

  I took a running start and jumped off the end. I hit the water with a huge splash, belatedly remembering that it was fall and the water was really damn cold.

  My head burst out and I gasped, trying to draw deep breaths into my lungs. I was out of practise. As a boy, Grace, Yumi, and I had joined my parents in cold training. We had jumped into the lake all fall until it finally froze over. And we had taken saunas and then rolled in the snow. So, I knew I would be fine. The water wasn’t even close to freezing. I just needed to move.

  I stroked hard for the island, hoping the swimming would warm me. When I arrived at the small piece of rock with only one tree on it, I touched the rock and headed back, swimming as fast as I could. Trying to forget everything by pushing my body to its limits.

  I arrived at the dock and climbed the ladder, water streaming off my body. I felt energized and filled with adrenaline.

  When I looked up, I froze.

  It was her.

  Yumi.

  Sitting on the dock, looking like she was waiting for me.

  Unless I was hallucinating.

  “Yumi?”

  “Hey,” she said, softly, getting to her feet. “I heard you were out looking for me.”

  Her hair had been brushed smoothly back and braided and she was wearing someone else’s sweat pants and hoodie. Her gorgeous eyes looked worried and as though she felt as if she were to blame for something. As I drank her in, she seemed pale and small and all I wanted to do was protect her from everything that could ever hurt her.

  In that moment, I couldn’t remember what we were fighting about. All I knew was that I was so so very glad she was okay. And nothing else mattered.

  “It’s really you?” I said, suddenly finding myself standing in front of her and not knowing how I had got there. I took her hands
and she didn’t flinch, though mine must be icy. “We thought…”

  “I know,” she said, looking guilty. “I’m fine. I’m sorry you were worried.”

  “What…?” I didn’t know where to start with my questions.

  “I arrived not far from you guys,” she said. “Matt and Penny found me and we came back here. I wasn’t…”

  She bit her lip as if she were embarrassed.

  “I wasn’t doing so well.”

  “Are you alright?” I said, studying her and taking note of the dark bags under her eyes, and that the whites seemed red, maybe from crying. “Are you hurt?”

  “Nah,” she said, dropping her gaze away from mine. “I was pretty disappointed to find out we hadn’t made it.”

  Oh.

  Yumi wasn’t one for being overly emotional. But she also tended to understate things. So, if she said she wasn’t doing well, that probably meant that she had been having a complete break down.

  And I hadn’t been there for her.

  “Matt went out to tell you, but he must have missed you guys. And then you came back when he was sleeping and before he got up, you were gone out again. And… well, you get the picture. Life without comm units and telepathy.”

  She gave me a half-smile and shrugged.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said, gratitude overwhelming me so that I had to blink back tears.

  “It does,” she insisted, looking upset. “Here I was fine, sleeping at Matt and Nessa’s and you and Shiv and Ernest were out wandering around the forest looking for me, thinking something terrible had happened. I feel awful.”

  “Not your fault,” I said, and finally a smile made it’s way to my face. “You’re okay. That’s the important thing.”

  “Chad?” she said, studying my face. “Are you okay?”

  “I am now.”

  “You were really worried, weren’t you?”

  “You’re my best friend,” I told her, my voice getting a little rough. I swallowed hard. “I can’t manage without you.”