5 Years After (Book 2.5): Smoke & Mirrors

by Correll, Richard

Brett felt it strange how fast desperation had taken hold. He had been through times with his family and friends when floods, the odd tornado or community hardship befell people. It was always the same, he had pitched in, helped out and they had weathered the storm. This was different. It was a new place or passage in the road of human experience. Brett watched the sleet stay on the ground, resting lightly on the frozen earth like wisps’ of dandelion seeds before the wind picked them up again and carried them away.

  You never know who you are until things start to come apart……..

  The I90 passing west through Minnesota just south of a black umbrella of smoke to the north that was definitely Minneapolis, It was the first time he saw the wheels fall off things. A slow procession of traffic passing bumper to bumper as far as the eye could see. The sunshine seemed to be a stark contrast to the pinched and drawn faces pressed up against the windows of every passing car, truck and SUV.

  It started as a feeling, a tickle of the hairs on the back of his neck. He could see it in the eyes of a few at first. It was slowly spreading like weeds on an untended lawn. The eyes began to look around, dart from vehicle to vehicle, the look of the wolf, the carrion eater or the looter.

  Brett had been on the road for six months now, he could feel the pressure start to build but this time he was not going to be a part of it. The man who sang I believe most people are good should have been with him these past few seasons. At first, Brett had discovered that his uniform and stripes on his shoulder had been an adept peace maker. It was easy, few people really wanted to fight, but nobody wanted to back down. You just found a way where both sides could step away. He had the temperament for that, people had said he should have been a peace keeper but he had other dreams back then.

  “C’mon folks, we’re all gonna lose more than we gain here.” He would reason. “Let’s just turn and walk away, I’ll watch your backs.” That worked for a while, but he could feel the grip of sanity loosening over time. It was like a rope or belt that was being ridden hard time and time again. If it wasn’t re-established, worked on with the presence of at least some kind of authority the buckle continued to grow frayed.

  There would be a fender bender, disagreement or foolish words passed between vehicles. Then harsher warnings were passed back and forth. Brett thought about helping, his instinct, exhaustion and self-preservation intervened. He slowly started to walk away into some woods on his left. He could feel things start to slip over his shoulder. Are you part of the problem now? He felt the sting of his conscience.

  Brett reached the first bits of foliage as the voices raised and the gunfire followed. It had the rat-tat-tat of automatic weapons fire. They blended in with the rising cries of panic, wails of pity and shouts. The noises seemed to blend in to a rise of adulation. Someone was really enjoying themselves. Another voice called out in the same emotional frequency, more gunfire. They blended in again with screams and then a long “ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!” Someone who had owned firearms all their lives and wondered what it was like to use them on real live targets? The eeriness of the moment put his senses on edge.

  He climbed up on an old wooden fence to get some height advantage and then reached up to gain some leverage on the first steady branches of a white oak tree. He didn’t want to walk too far away, he had an instinct here. Just be on the edge of the chaos. It was safe there. The leaves and branches protected him from prying eyes as he climbed further.

  Three men with automatic weapons walked up and down the lines of traffic and fired blindly through windshields. A second, a woman would fling the car doors open and pilfer through the bodies for food, clothing or anything useful. One tall man with a beard stuck his tongue out and waggled it in front of a green mini-van before ripping out a long burst of fire. He paused, inspected his handiwork and then arched like a diver with his head thrust in the air. The bullet had struck him in the back right between the shoulder blades and he collapsed on the bumper. Brett had fired off a short burst and hit him at least once, his conscience felt cleansed for the time being.

  A woman’s head popped out from behind the mini-van and called out to the two others. They didn’t seem to care as they continued to fire into vehicles, then looking for something, anything to satisfy them. The woman raised her head and yelled again, pointing into the trees where Brett was hiding. The left side of her head sprouted a splash of crimson and she disappeared behind the mini-van. A shotgun spoke loudly and another handgun replied in return. The men with automatic weapons found cover.

  It was then that Brett saw them. They were across the divide of the highway south of the carnage in a tree line and forest. Figures, watching and waiting, they had that odd misshapen stance that always betrayed who they were. Whether it was the shoulders hunched like animals against the cold, the imbalanced way they stood with their weight completely resting on one side, the tattered remnants of bloody clothing.

  Them……….

  It was odd to watch from afar. They were less than casual observers this time. Like a crowd standing in judgment of the accused. A few more seemed to be arriving, it was a slow procession. There was no pushing or shoving among them. The almost mathematical space between each shadow, it had an almost intelligent feel to it. There was enough room for all, the more the better. When the tree line could hold no more the next ones stood a few feet behind, tattered faces and soulless eyes drinking in the destruction.

  Some good ‘ole boy in a baseball cap and jeans jumped on the flat bed of a hopped up pick-up truck and screamed at the top of his lungs, waving a rebel flag. A hand gun fired three times and he fell off the truck with the flag crashing into the mud and snow. There were figures lurking among the bumpers now. Some armed, some terrified and others who looked for what they could steal among the lifeless bodies on the road. A few cars and trucks peeled away from the makeshift battlefield and tried their luck in the field of mud and stones. A two door sports car became bogged almost immediately, the spinning tires and whining engine were testament to the driver’s sense of helplessness. A truck hit the new terrain in a panic and broke a front axle on an imbedded stone the size of a back yard barbecue.

  There was an unseen signal. Something in the wind shifted and they started to move. It was almost casual, a few moved and then a few more. They simply appeared out of the cooling shadows and into the gathering clouds. There was no rush, no hurry or sense of urgency. Judgment had been past and now it was time for execution. It was like they knew they had all the time in the world to get there. It was almost hypnotic watching them slowly traverse across the uneven, broken ground.

  They were shattered and disfigured caricatures of human form, yet they passed over the undulating field with hardly a misstep. It was like a slow, trance-like sleep walk. Their feet barely touched the impure earth. His father had been able to walk among the deep grooves in the potato fields on their farm like that. Brett would watch him with the adulation of a child.

  “He’s walkin’ like Jesus on the water.” His mother once mused. “Like Jesus on the water….’

  One of the men with an automatic weapon paused and strained his eyes toward the tree line. He popped his head up for a better view and his mouth worked slowly in a long, drawn out profanity at the top of his lungs. Before he could complete his sentence, a shotgun blast echoed off the trees and the man’s hands flew up like a bird about to take flight. The automatic rifle performed a complete circle in the air before disappearing behind a half ton truck.

  “Yeah, just like Jesus on the water, Mom.” Six year old Brett had agreed in admiration of his father.

  There was a rustling of leaves beneath Brett. He tore his eyes away from the gathering slaughter and felt his mouth go dry. There they were, three deep just beneath his feet. They were all facing the line of vehicles on the I90. It was like looking at runners before a marathon, waiting for a signal. The faces had a grey discoloration, the clothes hung on their bodies as testament to the passing of time and the spilled stains of blood that had marked their deat
h.

  Then, they started to move. It was like a transition from darkness to light. There was no hesitation or cue to start. It merely happened. Suddenly, their feet were traversing the broken field of brownish weeds, clumps of rock and dead earth. It was a sleep walk. A procession or ceremony of somber march to the execution of lives, judgment had been passed.

  “Na……..Nooooooooooo!” A blonde young woman in jeans and a beautiful ski jacket pierced the air with a shrill cry at the sight of her judge and jury. She gastrulated wildly to someone in the sports car and the motor revved again. The car sank into the earth like a struggling body into quick sand. She abandoned the expensive prize in her previous life and ran back toward the highway. After a few steps she froze and saw the approaching wave appearing out of the other side of the trees.

  “NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!” She screamed at them As if her very commands would make them retreat in fear. “NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!” Her voice was far from defiant, it was a cry of the doomed demanding a second chance from reality. The procession marked her voice and began to move toward her.

  Just like Jesus on the water………..

  Six feet below Brett’s heals, a boy of ten watched with puss yellow, hypnotic eyes. He had brown hair that clung close to his skull and a few inches above his eyes. A fine young man someone would have probably said in his life. He wore cheap work jeans and a long sleeved shirt, the type Brett used to wear for working around the farm. The shirt was torn open at the right shoulder, exposing a brutal gouge that had stained the back of the boys’ clothes with a crimson waterfall. The mouth for a minute hissed at him and then seemed to regard Brett as a mathematical equation that needed to be solved. Sparse gunfire and rising cries of despair divided the boys’ attention for a second. A man with a thin build covered by an expensive argyle sweater had emerged from the sports car and stood frozen. A long moment of cold shock passed over him as he watched one side of the road and then the other. He ducked back into the sports car and snapped the locks shut while the blonde woman stood on the side of the road and bellowed again at the odds of fate.

  The boy began to walk toward the road with the slow pace of someone who already had a confirmed seat at the feast. For a second, he paused and then casually turned back to Brett in that now familiar sleep walk style. Brett felt disengaged, soulless as their eyes met.

  I’ll come back for you….. The boy turned his head and followed the screams and occasional, desperate gunfire. The now falling sleet and snow began to consume him from sight. At first he was a frail silhouette, then a ghost and finally he had joined the now obscured carnage.

  An electric light bulb burns brightest before it winks out altogether. So it was with the sounds before the white curtain of sleet and snow. The gunshots slowly became more distant. The cries of pity and mercy rose and fell before winking out altogether. There was silence as Brett listened to the sound of his breathing, he watched the clouds and tried to judge the density of the snow they would bring or how long they would obscure him from their senses. Judging such meteorological events came easy to anyone who had grown up in Saskatchewan. He came to a decision and began carefully climbing down the tree. His eyes tried to peel away the white curtain that was thickening around him. When you were climbing up or down, it was all the same. You were vulnerable. Your firearm stashed over your shoulder, the hands and feet already engaged.

  All it would take is one to come out of the forest now and there would be little you could do. Was the boy coming back for you now? Didn’t you feel his eyes on you? He was just waiting, picking his moment. Brett swallowed slowly as his feet touched the ground. Paranoia was just self-preservation on a different scale. He pulled his rifle off his shoulder and kept it at the ready. The knapsack that clung to his back was the chief reason for his careful, almost vulture like patience. It was lighter than ever.

  Hunger did strange things to your sense of what was right and wrong. You should be moving on, he heard himself think. This will only take a second, he replied. Check two or three trucks and get out. They won’t be able to smell me or see me in this stuff.

  Are you really willing to bet everything on that? His survival instinct asked. Yes, the hollowness of his stomach replied. Yes.

  The pickup truck that the good ‘ole boy had waved his rebel flag from was the big score. He found a case of beer and quickly discarded it. It was of no earthly use anymore to him. The canned corn, vegetables and meats were shuffled into his pack quickly as he watched the silhouettes in the snow busy themselves with carefully dislodging flesh from bone. A few faces looked up for a second and sniffed the air before deciding that a bird in hand was worth two in the bush. They returned to feeding. A fetid steam seemed to rise from a few of the bodies that were torn open. Brett tried to rummage carefully and quietly through the backseat of the extended cab that proved to be such a bonanza. He found four precious bottled waters and slipped them in his bag. Times up, he shouldered the heavy contents and kept his rifle ready. Let’s go.

  In his haste, Brett almost tripped over the body of the blonde woman lying by the road. She had been torn open from breastbone to hip by an old woman who was now fishing around inside her for a handful of something. She didn’t even look up in her concentration. A short, overweight man wearing a matching black and red hunting jacket and cap eyed him cautiously but returned to burying his face into her shoulder. He chewed loudly and slowly, his attention completely taken up by satiating his hunger. For a second, the flurries seemed to play tricks on him. Brett swore he thought the blonde woman’s fingers were twitching.

  Go, he didn’t bother for a second look. Go now…..

  He kept his pace slow, fluid and careful. No sudden movements to raise the curiosity of those that wandered from body to body, looking for a spot to claim their part of the slaughter. On his right the sports car loomed out of the furiously dancing snowflakes. The windshield was suddenly two hands waving at him. Brett took two seconds and turned his head. A face flashed behind the windshield, it was the guy in the argyle sweater, fear and pity in his eyes. At the driver side window, a tall thin woman was working her fingers into bending the glass inward. A bigger stronger man with a huge burn mark extending from his face and covering his back was pushing the glass as well. They were making feverish progress.

  Brett quickly looked around at the figures in the dancing fog. He nodded to the argyle sweater man. Here we go……

  Brett took two sudden steps toward the sports car caught up in the mud and squeezed the trigger. At this distance, he couldn’t miss. The woman’s head jerked sideways and seemed to crumple as she fell to the cold earth. The big man turned and met Brett’s eyes with a look that could only be described as dismay. Symons squeezed the trigger a second time and the top part of his skull disappeared in a splash of muddy red fluid. The argyle sweater guy was already pulling at the door and stepping out of the car, he nodded to Brett as they started toward the tree line.

  Brett didn’t need to look around. He could feel them.

  The gunshots were so loud. It made them look up from feeding, it made the ones wandering among the bumpers and broken bodies to pause and begin to alter course toward the man-made sound. Instinct would pick it up from there. The snow flurries had hidden so much from casual instinct. But now they concentrated on the place where they had heard the sound. Now……….

  Yes, something was there. It was warm, alive and created a burning inside of them. Another would fall into line from the first one moving in that direction. Then, another would turn and follow. The bodies that had been eaten were now starting to reanimate. Then, the ones feeding would stop, turn and begin to walk away. It was an instinctive motion. The prey was now part of the pack. The blond woman stood up and a section of intestines peeked up over her jeans and the massive bloody wound that exposed her rib cage. She raised her nose to the cold air. There was something there, something that she had to follow.

  The argyle sweater man stumbled through the field in cowboy boots that had never
seen a hard days’ work or a farm. The constant crevices of the earth kept him off balance as Brett pulled him to momentary safety, the trees were false sanctuary. But for now at least they could catch their breath.

  “We gotta get moving.” Brett turned and surveyed their surroundings. They could come from anywhere. The shots would bring them for miles. “We can’t stop here.”

  “Drop your gun, soldier boy.” Brett heard his voice for the first time. It had a sarcastic ring to it. Brett turned back to the man in the argyle sweater and saw the gun he had for the first time. “I’ll take that bag now.”

  It was one of those gangsta things that was more for show than anything else. Overly large and cumbersome with polished nickel plating. Brett had the suspicion the man had never used it in his life. It was just a piece of show to make up for the substantial things he lacked. Yeah, sometimes guns and people came together for those reasons. Brett let his rifle drop to the frozen earth.

  “You are kidding me?” Brett tried to reason with him.

  “Things are tough all over, man.” He licked his lips and then repeated himself. “I’ll take that bag now.”

  Brett slipped the pack off his shoulder and dropped it in front of the argyle sweater man. A smirk of shallow satisfaction crossed his face as he bent down to pick it up.

  Brett had his boot connect with the man’s face the minute he looked at the pack. It collided hard with his cheek bone and sent his world spinning. After that, it was easy to relieve him of the gun. It practically slipped out of argyle sweaters fingers. Brett checked the safety and tossed the gun into the back pack after he retrieved it. As an afterthought, he picked up his M16A3. Not that he needed it. I could take this guy down with my bare hands. Brett looked past the man on his hands and knees and watched for forms in the flurries. They would be here soon.

  “C’mon, you can’t kill me.” He was pleading now. A trickle of blood was dripping from his nose. “Pleeeeease…….”