by J. S. Carter
I watched Zach lean over and flick the air conditioning back on to full blast in an effort to combat the glass fogging up and it immediately began to smell like mold again. I had no idea how he had managed to get us so far without being able to see anything and still remain so confident.
He checked the review mirror to look at Oliver in the back seat. “How you holdin' up, dad?”
Oliver scoffed at that. “Are we getting shot at?”
“No... but—”
“Then I'm fine.”
Zach gave me a look and readjusted his grip on the steering wheel. I knew Oliver had been injured when he had served in the military. As a consequence, he couldn't keep still in the same position for too long without the pain in his legs flaring up every so often. It seemed that he was still brash enough to tough it out, though at the expense of a deteriorating demeanor.
I couldn't help but wonder over the past few weeks of how Zach's life could have been different from my own, especially growing up. Without his mother in the picture, he only had strict expectations to meet as laid down by his father, though I was sure he must have met and exceeded every single one. Maybe he was better off for it. He was definitely better than me.
A sudden jolt of the truck brought me back to earth and knocked us all forward as the car began to skid. I could feel the wheels slip across the dirt until we ended up on the side of the road with another bump to come to a complete stop, the commotion ending as soon as it started.
“Everyone alright?” asked Zach.
I nodded and stuck my tongue over my teeth. I had accidentally bitten my lip, but otherwise I was fine. I glanced through the back windows only to see the pitch black silhouette of trees swaying in the distance. “What happened?”
“I think we hit a branch or something.” He tried accelerating, the engine revving up and forcing the wheels to spin and whir against something unseen, but we didn't move. We were stuck. He put the truck into reverse and tried again when I spotted a yellow flashing light cross down the street in front of us.
I pointed ahead and smacked a hand against his chest. “Check it out.”
Zach turned to catch a glimpse just as the mysterious source disappeared and I fully expected him to ask me if I had even seen anything at all. We sat in silence for a moment, the rain continuing to relentlessly pelt the roof of the car while the only remaining light subtly glowed at us from the dashboard and the headlights beaming out onto the road.
I started to double guess myself and wondered if I had made up the sight entirely. We were stuck on the side of the road, surrounded by trees on a dark and stormy night, and I couldn't help but recognize the familiarity of the situation. It was the beginning of every horror story that I had ever read. Thoughts of UFO's and aliens effortlessly pervaded my mind and I fully expected to see a tall, thin, pale shape stumble out of the woods and knock its sickly body against the side of my window.
I nearly jumped as Zach shifted the truck back into park and turned in his seat to look at the both of us. He kept his eyes on me for a moment, lost in thought, before passing on to Oliver. “Dad, stay in the car. Me and Tess will go and get some help.”
We both began to object and Zach only raised a hand to shut the both of us up. It actually would have been funny if I wasn't scared half to death of the dark. “Look, we're not going anywhere. If we're close, then we can get someone to come back and pull us out of here.” He turned back to his father again, as stern as can be. “But I need you to stay here in case someone drives by.”
I could see a scowl evolve on the Oliver's face, even in the relative darkness of the cabin. Zach had petitioned a good argument, though I was pretty sure that we all knew it was only a front to keep his dad inside. As much pain as Oliver might have been in, having to help him trudge his way outside through the dark would probably do more harm than good. I had half a mind to tell Zach that my legs hurt, myself.
But Oliver eventually gave in to the matter. “Fine. But if you take too long, I'm coming to get you.”
Zach gave that half a grin. “I wouldn't expect any less.” He opened his door and dove outside to expose himself to the elements, and I had to mentally prepare myself to do the same.
I grabbed my door when I felt a hand on my shoulder and I turned around to see Oliver leaning up close toward me.
“Be careful, Jessica. Keep him safe.”
Yeah...
I thought it was weird. He obviously didn't know who he was talking to if he wanted me to keep his son safe and not the other way around, but I gave him a quick nod. I opened the door and jumped out into the darkness and took one step to instantly learn how we had gotten stuck so quickly. My feet sank almost ankle deep into a limitless amount of muck and I had to grab my legs to pull them out without leaving my shoes behind.
I met Zach at the back and watched him open the trunk to swing a backpack over his shoulders and open up a rifle bag that I had not even known existed until then. He pulled out a rifle, very similar to the AR-15 that we had shot earlier, though even against the limited glare of the rear hazard lights I could tell that it was different.
“What's that for?”
He slung it over his shoulders and let it rest on his back before closing the trunk. “Just in case.” The notion was unsettling. He gave the side of the truck one last tap to let Oliver know we were good and we set off down the muddy road while the rain continued to pour down on us.
It didn't take long to escape the beam of the headlights, and by then we were already soaked to the bone. Every single step was a challenge and work in it of itself. Whenever it didn't feel like someone had grabbed my ankles and tried to pull me down into hell, the soles of my shoes would slip laterally on the mud and force me to lose my balance. I found myself holding on to Zach's arm to use him as an anchor, one of my first dependencies on him out of many that I wouldn't come to realize until well after he was gone.
We continued to trudge onward until the same, repetitive, flashing light began to poke through the trees and light up the rippling pools of water on the road. Every step we took got us closer to the source, as well sending my imagination spurring to meet the sinking feeling in my gut. I could start to distinguish individual flashes from each other, now clearly in a harsh yellow color similar to the ones I had seen on tow trucks or snowplows back home, and the fears immediately swept forward from the darkest recesses of my mind.
What if my family had been involved in a car accident? My feet automatically began to pick up the pace at the thought of it. I was already outside, vulnerable and exposed to a situation I had not been expecting, how much further of a stretch would it be to see emergency vehicles surrounding a crash site? The vivid imagery of my mother, father, or sister pinned between the front of a mangled car and the bent bark of a tree began to set me off. I had absolutely no evidence to believe that they were in trouble, but it didn't matter. My mind filled in the blanks. I fully expected to see my entire family dead and lined up along the middle of the road, soaking wet, covered in mud and cold to the touch. I needed to find them to dispel my unfounded misery.
I fell into a flat out run as soon as I laid eyes on the start of the town. I could hear Zach call for me, but I paid him no attention. My soles splashed against the ground while I struggled to take in the sights amidst the pouring rain. An entire row of military style canvas-covered trucks were parked along the main street, each with their own pair of flashing emergency lights that pierced my eyes and caught the streams of water like crystal as they fell from the air.
I didn't even know what to think when I got close enough. A mud-filled staging area filled with lines of huddled crowds were surrounded by men in matte black combat gear armed with assault rifles. The first member of every line was escorted into the back of a truck like a giant human assembly line, but not before they were processed by an armed guard. One by one and in alarmingly quick succession, the inhabitants of the town were being taken at gunpoint. I couldn't believe it.
I stood at th
e font of the entrance to what once must have been a marketplace, only now to be nothing more than an armed brigade of fleshy wares being herded like cattle. I unwittingly stumbled towards a road block like a zombie and a sentry raised his hand at me, though I couldn't hear anything he was saying. I only stared at the organized mob laid out in front of me, all of the guard's words drowning out from the sound of the rain when it hit me—my family could have been down there among them.
I bolted out towards the dwindling crowds and shouted out for Sarah. A guard easily kept me back by the chest, but I couldn't stop. I screamed out for my parents in an effort to try and break through the sound of running water. I screamed for my family.
Then I heard it—my little sister, calling out my name in distress, alone and distant, somewhere among the strangers being forced onto the trucks. She was there. She needed me.
I pushed off against the hands around my waist with new-found energy and it took another man to keep me from escaping, all of us sliding in the mud. “That's my sister!” I fought on. The same words left my lips again and again while I struggled to move towards the sound of her voice. Suddenly, I fell forward just as the arms keeping me back turned around to face their new threat.
“GUN!” The sentries had spotted the rifle on Zach's back. They drew their weapons on him and shouted at him to put his hands on his head and drop to the ground as they crept closer.
I could feel the crack in my gut force me to hesitate, but it wouldn't matter. If it had happened a million times over, I would always choose to leave him behind. It was my only chance to make a move. It was my only chance to get to Sarah. I got back up and sprinted through the roadblock as fast as I could towards the only remaining crowd that continued to bob in confusion.
A small shape etched its why towards me and shouted. The diction of the word was all too familiar for me to doubt it any longer. “Tess!”
“Sarah!” I pushed onward towards the sound of her voice, then at the sight of her face, her hair completely soaked underneath the downpour, yet I knew she had been crying. I dove into the crowd and she pushed herself towards me, but it had not been soon enough. An innumerable amount of armed guards immediately surrounded us and began to pull us back from each other.
I fought against the bodies at my side and reached out as far my arm would go, my feet all the while losing traction and slowly sliding away from her. I could just feel the tips of Sarah's fingers as we neared each other, the water flowing down my wrist and across our hands. I pushed as hard as I could to get anything—an arm, a leg, an embrace around her body. The guards slid in the mud and I only had enough room to claw a hand past her shoulder. My fingers ran through her hair to pull out whatever she had used to fix it together.
They pulled us both back and I screamed for her, the whole time yelling the same phrase over and over again, but they wouldn't listen. They wouldn't give in. They separated us and I watched them force her head still as a man brought a small electronic gun up to her face and scanned her eye before pushing her up into the back of another truck.
I fought on as the convoy began to move against the harsh smell of diesel. Each one quickly shifted into gear and the entire train rolled out of the town, past me and past my only chance to get at them, the emergency lights bouncing off of every reflective surface until finally disappearing behind the darkness of the trees.
The guards threw me into the mud.
I was paralyzed. I cried my heart out, numb to the cold that started to creep over my body, but nobody cared. I watched them turn and walk away and I spotted what they belonged to, each one dressed in a matte black load-bearing vest with the same white letters stamped on their backs. I hated the name with every fiber of my being as soon as I laid my eyes on it.
NEPCO.
The marks burned themselves into my memory as my mind whirled to comprehend who was responsible for tearing my family away from me. I glanced down at the feeling in my hand to see a light blue ribbon tangled up in my palm. It was all I had managed to save of Sarah. It was all I had left of my little sister.
I pressed my fists into the mud, hunching over the only shred of evidence I had left of my family, and I screamed for them. I could feel the anger explode into life within my chest. Someone needed to pay. Someone needed to feel exactly as I had and I couldn't think of anything more fitting than a molten hot piece of metal burrowing itself deep into their gut. I rose up onto my knees and pulled out the hidden revolver that had been tucked up against my back. I pointed it at the nearest body, a man in a simple coat assisted by another who kept an umbrella over his head.
He had already been walking towards me before stopping at the sight. The others surrounding us pointed their rifles at me, but hesitantly lowered them at the wave of a hand. I didn't know who he was or what he had been trying to do, but he was in charge. He was my target. He slowly took a step up to me, the arm holding an umbrella over his head to follow, and my hand began to shake.
I could feel my fingers vibrate uncontrollably around the cold, wet metal as the mysterious man stopped just in front of me. I had never pointed a gun at anyone before. I had only wanted to have someone to blame, and now that he was in front of me, I had no clue of what to do anymore. I couldn't shoot, though my finger never fully came off the trigger.
The man looked down at me and I could just start to make out his face from underneath the umbrella—sleek, pale, and hairless. Another beckoned to take me away, but he only shook his head.
I kept the gun up towards his chest. My mind was frayed and short circuiting from all that I had just seen. I couldn't get the thought out of my head. “That's my sister...” The words were choked up into oblivion. The streams came down my eyes, only to be washed away by the storm that continued to lay in on us.
The man brought a pair of bony fingers around my chin like a pair of tweezers and tilted my face to the side.
I stared into his sharp, amber eyes with black slits in the center that grew in width as they bored into me and glowed on their own accord. I couldn't move.
Even as a sly smirk left the corner of his face, I had no idea what to make of it. “Leave her.” The voice was harsh and brittle. The fingers slipped away from my chin and he turned to walk away, the armed men following with complete obedience.
I gazed at my hand while it stayed up in the air. The sights were still poised on the man's back, but I couldn't pull the trigger. I was too scared of what might happen. I merely watched the unknown group pile into a series of trucks and drive off, leaving me alone to drop my hand into the mud and join the rain in washing the dirt onto the road.
A hand grabbed my shoulder soon after and I turned around to bring the revolver up to meet a familiar face.
Zach slowly lowered his gun and gingerly pulled my own away before dropping down onto his knees. “Are you okay?”
I grabbed onto him and shook my head, the only sign I could make before throwing myself into his chest and letting myself go again. I had seen Sarah taken away from me in front of my own eyes. I had felt her with the pads of my fingers, but it had not been enough. I was sure my parents were with her. My family was gone and I couldn't understand why. I had not been strong enough to save them. I had been a coward when they had needed me most. I didn't know anything about the world around me except for what I had seen. None of it mattered. I only knew of my life. My world was ending. My existence was over.
Zach pulled me up onto my feet and we began the long walk through the mud and rain back towards his truck. The houses and small buildings on either side of us were as dark as the sky, and I felt as hollow as the scene in front of me. Nobody was left except for us. Whoever had taken the population left no sign that they had been there except for the tracks on the ground, but even those were destined to fade away as well.
Whatever sadness Zach had feigned for me, if any at all, quickly become genuine as soon as we crossed back onto the road that we had originally come from. The truck was gone. Oliver was gone. There was no beam of t
he headlights nor subtle rumble of its engine amidst the patter of the pouring rain. The tracks had been all but washed off. It seemed as if every shred of hope had been wiped clean from our shitty stretch of the Earth and the world had been in on it the whole time.
I stood in the middle of it all and crossed my arms in an effort to stave off the water that sapped the warmth from my body. I started to shiver and I could feel my muscles spasm and tighten knots underneath my jaw. I watched as Zach continued to shout out for his father for what had to have been too long. I had given up way before he had, but it didn't hurt any less to see the pain in his eyes as he finally ended the search in vain and pulled himself back towards me.
“I don't get it,” he said, his voice rasp from competing with the storm. “It doesn't make any sense...”
I couldn't help but only shake at that and he seemed to finally notice my existence since the disappearance of his own family.
“Hey...” He pulled me close and ran his hands across my back in a failed attempt to warm me up. It only made me feel like a baby. “Come on, we gotta get outta this.”
I agreed, and he held me in his arms the whole way back to the town. If the circumstances had been completely different, a hidden bystander could have easily mistaken us for a pair of prom dates as we walked the road and leaned in close to each other in the rain, but it was more than simply huddling for warmth or affection. I needed Zach to keep my body alive while my mind slowly came back from the dead, and I was pretty sure he needed someone to protect. He was a fighter. He couldn't shoot at what wasn't there. He could only help me, and it just so happened to be that together we stood a chance at making it out intact.
A few teeth-chattering minutes later, I joined him inside of a worn down sedan that had been left unlocked and parked just beyond where the large trucks had been, the keys still in the ignition. It seemed eerie to view our new tiny bit of luck as someone else's hurried, mass misfortune. Maybe with that logic, by losing my family some poor girl in the world would soon get hers back; I hoped it would be me.