“Are you okay?” he asked the boy who stared back anxiously after hearing Luke’s words. He glanced to the third man, and then back to Luke, but he didn’t say a word.
“Why’d you say these kids ran, again?” Adam asked, he too now growing an angry impertinence toward the men. Luke and the boy kept their gazes locked onto one another. Luke knew all he needed to already.
“They’re too young to get how the world works here, and they freaked out; decided to run off,” Hugh explained somewhat scornfully.
“How exactly does the world work where you come from?” Adam continued, seeming to want a fight more and more by the word. Luke put his hand subtly on Adam’s arm, wanting him to calm down.
“Same as you, I’d imagine,” Hugh said. “It’s harsh and cold and scary, and you need to do whatever you can to survive, even if that means you go to dark places.”
“And you take whatever you want if you say it’s for survival?” Adam clarified. Hugh stared at him, and smirked a little.
“If you think you deserve it– if it’s in God’s plan, then yeah,” he said, rather too smugly for either Luke or Adam.
“Hey,” Luke tried again. “Can you talk? I just want to know that everything’s okay with you.”
“He’s fine,” Hugh said. “The longer we stay out here the worse off he’ll be; the kid’ll freeze to death before we reach a checkpoint–”
“Why don’t you let him speak for himself?” Adam said. Hugh glanced back at Adam, and leant back, smirking.
“Oh, well I don’t think I like that tone of yours,” he said.
“Hugh,” Jonah cautioned.
“These are nobodies, Jonah,” Hugh pressed. “They don’t get what we’re doing, here. They don’t know how important this is. I’m not saying I’m gonna kill anybody; I just don’t like this kid’s tone much is all.”
“Not the first time I’ve heard that,” Adam growled. “I doubt you’ll be the last.”
“Adam,” Luke muttered.
“Pride’s a sin, boy,” Hugh warned. “I’d be careful if I were you.”
“Look everyone just calm down, please,” Jonah said. “We all need to settle down, and just figure this out, okay? There’s no need for–”
Suddenly, the boy turned toward the third man, and chomped down on his hand as hard as he could. The man screamed, and dropped the rope from his grasp.
The boy sprinted for Luke and Adam, scared for his life, and amidst the madness of the moment, he managed to make it fairly close.
But he didn’t make it far enough.
Hugh tore the boy down with his shotgun, blasting him in the side of the head and torso. He fell to the ground, dead by Adam’s feet; a pool of blood now beginning to form in between them all, and the gush of blood from the initial shot having sprayed on Luke’s face, and Adam’s clothing.
As soon as Hugh fired, a shot came from the watchtower, and hit him right in the arm, causing him to scream and drop his gun. Everyone became on edge, and pulled their weapons out in defense.
“Hey!” Jonah yelled at Hugh for shooting, while also slinging his own rifle off his back, and around to face Luke and Adam.
“Stop!” Luke ordered, turning around and shooting his hand back at the watchtower, signaling a cease fire.
“Fuck!” Hugh shouted. “I told you we should’ve gone in guns blazing Jonah! Look at what these little pricks did!”
“What they did!? You shot the kid!” Jonah yelled. “We weren’t supposed to kill them!”
“Well guess what? Now we’re gonna kill all these fuckers.” Hugh said, trying to pick up his shotgun with his good arm. Adam aimed at him and cocked his pistol.
“I don’t think so, asshole,” Adam warned. “You just killed your only damn reason for us not to take you out.”
Jonah aimed at Adam, and the third man started moving forward. Luke aimed at Jonah, and looked over to the third man.
“I’d stop if I were you,” Luke warned. “Or the next shot from our walls won’t be a flesh wound.” The third man froze, and darted his eyes around wildly.
“Now look,” Jonah said, “things went wrong here, and they weren’t supposed to. We don’t have to make this any worse than it already is, okay? Now if you have the girl, just tell us, and we’ll leave with her and…and forget about all this. We’ll leave you and your people alone; you have my word.” Luke stared Jonah directly in the eyes, and saw fear in them; a nervous uncertainty of what would come next. A lack of drive behind his facade of power. That tended to lead to a bad combination of stupid decisions.
“We don’t have the fucking girl,” Luke said. “Your man shot the kid, and my people reacted. Your man isn’t dead, and you have to explain to ‘Abraham’ why you just lost another kid. None of that is on us, but if you don’t leave now, and never come back, something will be; you have my word on that.”
Nobody said anything, and everyone glanced around at one another, in a great, horrifying intensity, for what felt like a lifetime. Finally though, Jonah put his rifle down, and stood up from his hunched, ready-to-kill position.
“Okay,” he accepted. “I…I want to believe you, Luke, so for now… I will. We’ll go, but if you do have this girl, and we find out… I can’t promise that our people won’t come back here.”
Everyone else settled, and they too lowered their weapons.
“Fine. Now, fuck off,” Luke growled, backing up a bit, Adam following suit. They shut the door while watching the three men slowly leave. The third man lifted the boy’s corpse off the ground, and Hugh gripped his arm, leaving his own trail of blood along with the body as they marched off through the thickly settled snow.
Adam and Luke finished shutting and locking the door, and waited, listening to the three men walk away, muttering incoherent grievances to one another as they parted from the home.
Luke looked back. He saw Nolan and Snow peering through the window in the living room. Snow cried her eyes out; Nolan just gripped her head against his chest, and stared back out at Luke.
He knew from Luke’s expression, as did Luke from Nolan’s, that nothing about this interaction had gone over well. That everyone was afraid, and that nothing was certain now but one thing.
Luke sighed.
“What?” Adam asked.
“I just… Things are about to get a lot worse,” he said.
Before – 3
“8:45 p.m.”
“Hey pal, what are you still doing here?” Derrick’s dad asked. “I would've thought you'd be out with your friends tonight.” Derrick hesitated before answering, putting the horse brush down.
His family was largely invested in horses and horse-racing, and because of this, they owned a small farm of their own on the edge of town where they would raise and tend to racing horses that either clients or they themselves owned.
Even though he was alone in this interest amongst all of his friends, Derrick still loved it. He went there almost every day, and spent many hours cleaning the stables, feeding the horses, and prepping gear for future travels and races.
Even on a Friday night like tonight, rather than being out with friends, Derrick chose instead to stay at the farm, working independently– trying his damndest not to think about his friends and what they may be doing.
Which never used to be the case– had it been just a year ago this time, he was certain he would at least be hanging out with any of the six other guys, if not more. But things had changed, and he wanted nothing to do with any of them anymore.
“Nope, not tonight,” Derrick said, fiddling with the brush in his hands. “Rather spend my time here.”
“Oh,” his father responded, confused by his son’s blunt demeanor. “So, are you at a stage where you identify as a horse now, or–?”
“What!? No! Dad, what the hell!?” Derrick asked, shocked by his dad’s line of questioning. His father just grinned, making Derrick laugh a little as he did, though he was still confused.
“Well, it just seems like the last se
veral months you haven’t seen or talked to the guys at all,” his dad said. “I thought they were some of your best friends. Did something happen?”
Derrick, who had never really been the most openly emotional person, had of course never told his dad– or anyone of importance in his life for that matter– about what had happened between the guys; if nothing else, simply because it hurt him.
“Nothing,” Derrick scoffed. “A while ago we all got into a stupid fight that had nothing to do with me, and it got way out of hand, and then everyone just stopped talking to each other.”
“Everyone?” his dad repeated, surprised at the shockwaves one fight could have had on such a group.
“Well, for awhile at least. Luke and Nolan made up, and I’m pretty sure Cody talks to them sometimes too. Chris and Jeremy see each other because they were on the same side, and Adam… I don’t know what he does,” Derrick said. “And I, meanwhile, have been left out in the lurch.”
Derrick’s dad just gazed at him, and he himself rather angrily stared down at the ground, and then out from the stable toward the fields nearby.
“Well, that does suck pal, I won’t lie to you,” his dad offered, Derrick looking back to him. “But… You’ve said Luke and Nolan are the two best friends, right?”
“Yeah, I mean I guess so,” Derrick said.
“And same goes for Jeremy and Chris, right?” he asked again. Derrick grimaced, looking down again and shaking his head.
“Hmph…” he scoffed. “I would’ve said that the three of us were, but… I haven’t seen either of them in months, and meanwhile they’re off getting wasted and high off their asses every other day…”
Derrick was bitter, and his father could tell. He never would’ve admitted it to them, to anyone– not outwardly at least– but all the same, he felt betrayed. Whenever he and his dad needed extra workers, if it was only a couple, they’d always be Derrick’s first choices. He always loved going out to get food with them, hanging out, playing video games– anything really.
So when they just stopped talking, and when they only ended up not talking to him, it felt like a real stab in the back.
“Well son, here’s what I think,” his father spoke up, looking softly at his child. “That probably did hurt, and I don’t doubt it for a second. It probably hurts with all of them, but especially with Jeremy and Chris; I’m sorry that it does, especially so close to your graduation. Truth is though Derrick, people share similar interests, and sometimes starkly different ones; friends, family, spouses. It’s a part of life, and a great one at that. If we all did and agreed on all the same things, life would be boring. And sometimes people drift apart. It can hurt, but sometimes it’s just that time.”
Derrick frowned again, and took in a deep breath to steady the painful feeling rising from his chest to his chin and his eyes.
“But…” his father continued, “If you don’t want that to be the case– if you don’t want to lose the people you care about, even if they do things you would never dream of doing– sometimes you’ve got to take the first step. And if they come to you, don’t wave them off because you’re still bitter about the past, no matter how much it may have hurt. Give them a chance, work it out. Because Derry, I’m willing to bet that all of them miss you too; you seven were a real close group. You once all squished into one pickup truck just to plow snow, for God’s sake!”
Derrick chuckled at that last part, and though his dad was a little annoyed at the memory, considering its follow-up, he smiled somewhat as well.
“Yeah well, we knew we were getting donuts one way or another, crashed truck or not,” Derrick remembered.
“Take a chance on them pal, I bet you’d be surprised at the results,” his dad finished, grabbing the horse brush from his son’s hands, and putting it on a shelf as he walked away. “I’ll see you at home, okay? You finish up your business here.”
“Yes sir,” Derrick said, waving his dad off. He pulled out his phone from his pocket and stared at it, both longingly and uncertainly. He didn’t look up until he saw his dad’s car-headlights pulling out and away from the farm, and back onto the road.
Hours later, Derrick sat atop the stable’s roof, gazing out at the sky. It was late in the night, and the stars were shining, bright and plentiful. He had his phone in his lap, and still, he was unsure what to do.
“God… why is this so damn hard?” Derrick asked himself, glaring at his phone’s black, unmoving screen. “Talk to them, any of them! You’ve got six candidates to choose from, just… shoot, you idiot!”
Still though, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. After a moment, he just groaned, and lightly tossed his phone off to the side. It almost slid off the edge of the roof; part of Derrick had almost wanted it to.
He stared up at the moon and took another deep breath; probably his hundredth of the night, at least. The air was quiet. The wind stood still in the night. He could hear birds, bugs, and frogs off in the distance, and the occasional car passing by on the road next to his farm.
Life was busy living, and the night slipped in all the while like a gentle giant, encasing the world in a silent sort of dominance.
Despite how much everything changed, Derrick supposed the rest of the world really didn’t give a shit. It just moved on. And if that were true, then what was the point of Derrick holding on to these hostilities and bitter feelings toward the others? If he just took a chance, then he probably would get something good out of it. And even if he didn’t, at least he could say he played his hand.
Suddenly, Derrick heard something else. Something that broke the pattern of croaks and chirps and clicks. He heard a buzzing, and it came from right next to him.
“What the hell…?” Derrick asked, looking over at his now ringing phone. It was Jeremy. Derrick was shocked, to say the least, seeing that on his screen after so long of he himself trying to do make it appear.
With each ring, the phone shook closer and closer to the edge of the roof, mere centimeters from sliding off and onto the grass below.
Derrick hesitated for a moment, but grabbed it at the last moment, and slid his finger across his screen, accepting the call. He rather shakily put the phone up to his ear.
“Hello?” he asked, still with a hint of hostility in his tone. Some things he’d need to work on before he was Mr. Friendly again.
“Derry, it’s Jeremy,” Jeremy said. Derrick could tell from the acoustics coming from Jeremy’s end of the call that he was driving.
“Yeah, I know,” Derrick said. “What do you… What’s up?”
“I’m with Chris right now, and we just…” Jeremy tried to explain, though he found it hard to express. “Are you going to go to Luke’s Maine house in a couple weeks? With the guys?”
Derrick totally forgot about that. He had gotten a text from Luke something like a month ago inviting him up there, but he just read it once, deleted it, and disregarded it entirely. Hopefully the offer was still good.
“I… Well I kinda forgot about that, honestly,” Derrick explained. “B-But, if Luke would still want me there, I’d probably go, yeah.”
“It’s Luke, of course he still wants you there,” Chris said. Derrick guessed Jeremy decided to put it on speaker now.
“Hey Chris,” Derrick said; he even sounded happy to hear him.
“Hey buddy,” Chris replied, also sounding quite happy.
“Well uh, yeah, I’ll go. I’ll have to tell my boss I want to take off work, and I’ll have to get into contact with Luke, and my parents, but… sure, I can do that.”
“Good,” Jeremy said. “Hey look, uh… C and I were gonna get some late-night food right now, do you wanna come?” Derrick smiled, and laughed a little in amazement.
“Yeah, yeah sure I’d be down,” he said. “I’m at the farm right now, but–”
“Alright cool, we’ll pick you up; be there in a few,” Jeremy decided.
“I… Okay, see you then…” Derrick responded. They hung up on each other, and Derrick ju
st gazed back out into the sky and laughed.
He felt that feeling coming back up, from his chest to his chin, creeping all the way up to his eyes. This time he didn’t fight it, he decided to let it come. And as the tears softly and steadily fell down his warm, smiling face, and his breath slowly but surely became more unruly, Derrick couldn’t help but feel hopeful that everything was going to be okay, and that– if he could just play his cards right– he would be one step closer to getting his friends back.
So long as nothing else came between them, Derrick had a good feeling that everything was going to come together again.
Day 2004
“The Arm”
It was something like 1:00 in the morning, and even though their run-in with the Gilead group happened hours ago, nobody seemed to be able to shake the uneasy feeling they were left with.
“Do you think they’re gonna come back?” Derrick asked.
“I… no, I don’t think so,” Luke said. “I’m not saying they’re good and trustworthy people, but that Jonah guy seemed like he just wanted to get in and get out, so maybe he’ll keep to his word and leave us alone.”
“Plus, I think they believed us about Snow,” Adam added. “So as long as we don’t do anything stupid and reveal her, then they have no reason to come back here.”
Everyone seemed to settle down when Nolan came downstairs, having just gotten Snow to agree to sleep.
“She down?” Jeremy asked. Nolan nodded, and sat down on the couch next to Cody.
“She didn’t make it easy; she kept asking questions about what was going on,” he explained. “I just told her it was all gonna be okay, and that we handled it.”
“Didn’t really sound or look like it, where we were,” Chris said, looking back to Luke. “I mean really dude, you all almost shot each other to death; do you actually think they’re not going to come back, after everything we’ve heard about them from Snow? They seem pretty damn aggressive to me.”
The Way Back (Book 2): The Way Back, Part II Page 8