by AR Shaw
This time, Walt nodded.
“I’m really sorry I can’t help more.”
“Shut it, Walt. I need you to stay conscious. Don’t even start that other crap. I need you to help me. We won’t make it otherwise. We don’t have any COMs. Everything was destroyed in the crash and fire. We’re lucky to be alive at all.”
“Are we? Lucky…I mean.”
Yeager shook his head and rubbed his eyes again. “Don’t. I can’t deal with you doing that. I need you to help, Walt. I just don’t know what else to do.”
That’s when Walt realized how desperate a situation they were in. Yeager was at his wits’ end. He was right. He needed him. And if all he could do was be a sounding board and adviser, that’s what he would do. Perhaps that would be enough to keep Yeager going so that most of the survivors would stay alive.
“Look, Yeager, you’re their only hope. Go out for a hunt. Get what you can. After we all have a little food in our systems, things will look better. Look what you’ve already accomplished. We have shelter. Smells God-awful, but at least we’re safe tonight. Then, you need to sleep, bro.” That much was true. Yeager looked almost as bad as he did.
Walt looked around their enclosure. His eyes blurred a bit more. Whimpers from the children echoed off the high ceiling. They were crammed inside, every inch of floor space taken up by bodies.
“How long have we been in here?”
“Um, just a couple hours now.”
Walt nodded. “We need a fire. You’ll have to pipe it out somehow, but we’ve got to get them warm in here.”
“Yeah. That’s my next task. I just needed to talk to you first. And…I’m pretty sure some of these kids have frostbite. You definitely have it on your left foot. You’re going to lose a few toes.”
Walt reached for the water bottle. “Losing a few toes is the least of our worries.” After taking another sip on his own, he said, “I’m here, Garrett. I’m with you. Go ahead, get the fire going, and then you sleep.”
28 JAX
Sneaking around the third bus, Jax saw the horseman holding Austin around the neck and pointing his shotgun down at him with his right arm. The horse danced around in the deep snow that covered the highway, dragging Austin a bit in each direction.
Austin already sported a bloody nose. Trails of bright red ran down his face. His arms were outstretched in surrender.
“I said, ‘Who’s in charge here?’”
A testy female voice answered, “No one’s in charge, you idiot. Leave us alone. We’re just passing through. We mean you no harm.”
Cook never knew when to keep her big mouth shut. Suddenly, Jax’s hands started shaking.
Stepping out of his hiding spot, he wasted not even a second before firing at the man atop the horse, hitting him to the left of his sternum. Though the man didn’t know he was shot, at first, the horse did. And the horse didn’t like being fired at one bit. The animal reared upward, allowing Austin to run for cover between the buses.
“I’m in charge here!” Jax yelled, firing at the man again, this time, catching him at center chest. The horse took off then, galloping as best it could through the deep snow. Jax aimed again at the fleeing man, lined up his sights, and fired at the man’s back. He watched as the body slumped to the side of the horse. Eventually, the body surrendered to the snowy ground and sank out of sight. The horse, free of the weight, veered to the right and trotted away.
“Are there anymore?” Jax yelled.
Austin emerged, wiping blood from his face, smearing the red river over his sleeve. “No, that’s the only one I saw. He killed Miriam.”
“Did you check the tracks? He probably had a lookout somewhere. Everyone on the buses!”
No one replied, knowing that the order was just to move out now. Move out fast.
Engines started. Jax, still on an adrenaline high, grabbed the radio. “Anyone else hurt? Make sure you all take count.”
The bus driver tapped him on the arm. “We’re short one.”
“Who? Why?”
“It was Miriam.”
“Who is Miriam?”
“The redheaded lady who sat back there.”
Jax lowered the mic. Remembered her curt look at him last night as the lights went black. She was afraid of the dark. He didn’t give a damn then, but he did now.
29 BISHOP
“How much longer until we reach the crash site?” one of the guards asked Bishop inside the pop-up tent. The walls of the tent flapped noisily.
Bishop shook his head and raised his voice to be heard over the relentless wind. “When we reach that area, we still have to find the crash site. It’s not that easy. I wish it were.”
The guard nodded and then took a bite of a ration bar, ripping off a chunk of the protein with his teeth.
“The truth is, we may find nothing. Or we might find something we don’t want to find. We can’t hold out hope. This is just a discovery mission. Nothing more,” Bishop said, knowing that Alyssa was still seething over their earlier conversation.
The flap opened suddenly, and when Bishop looked up again, he saw Alyssa stepping out into the wind.
The guard looked at him as if asking if he should go after her.
Bishop held his lips in a thin line and shook his head no. No one would go after her. No one would sooth her ache. Not even a little. If she wanted to freeze her ass off out there, then let her go.
“She needs to man up,” one of the other guards said.
Bishop looked at him hard. “She’s not a man. She’s stronger than you, asswipe. Get to sleep,” he yelled, glaring at him.
THE TENT only held four people, and barely, at that. They lay like grapes on a vine, with just enough room to draw up their legs in a fetal position. Bishop, at the far end, lay on his side, staring at the nylon fabric until he heard Alyssa return a few minutes later. No one was dumb enough to stay out in the elements for long. Not even hate would make you that stupid. When she returned, the guys in between moved over a bit, and he knew that Alyssa would take the spot against the other side of the tent, as far from him as she could get.
30 WALT
“We don’t know that they’re coming for us. In fact, we have to assume that they’re not,” Walt said as he ate another small piece of venison.
“Actually, we don’t know what we don’t know. That’s what you’ve always said in the past. Don’t change now, Walt. I count on your optimism. Let’s try to remain positive.”
“Ha. I didn’t think you listened. That’s something, coming from you, man.”
“I learned from the best,” Yeager said and gave him a quick smile.
“In the past, your answer to everything was ‘If in doubt, blow it up.’ Don’t tell me this has changed you.”
Yeager cleared his throat, glanced at him quickly, and then shifted his gaze to the kids huddling together on the cold floor. This had changed him. This had changed all of them. No response was acceptable in this new social norm. That was enough.
“I’ve got to collect some clean snow and melt it down. They need to stay hydrated.”
“Yes, that’s important.”
As Yeager got up to leave, Walt looked around himself for Mary. Then he looked at the other children to see if he could spy her cuddled against one of the groups. Not locating her, he asked Yeager as he walked away, “Garrett? Where’s Mary?”
Yeager’s step faltered slightly, but evidently, he hadn’t heard the question because he continued out the door.
31 JAX
“We left the body. Shouldn’t we try to go back and bury her?” Austin said into the mic.
“You’re not serious, are you?” Jax replied.
“I know…I can’t believe that just happened.”
“It happened. It wasn’t a good day, Austin. Understand now?”
There was a pause.
“Yes.”
“Out.”
32 BISHOP
When they woke at dawn—at least, that’s what time his watch t
old him it was—Bishop said little. He felt like taking a shower, but they didn’t dare even wipe down with a damp rag. Doing so would ensure hypothermia. With an instant heat pack included in the MREs they’d brought with them, he made his own personal coffee. Everyone else performed the same daily ritual, even though the coffee didn’t stay hot for long. Few words were exchanged. If one guy yawned, Bishop found, the action was annoyingly contagious. Day and night seemed indistinguishable now, as they were using their night-vision helmets. Even without them, day was hardly discernable from night.
Alyssa had walked passed him earlier, and he assumed she’d found a private place to do her business. They were all sore from the relentless pace of yesterday, and today would be more of the same. Once camp was packed up, he guided them northwest. It wouldn’t be long now, if they could keep up their rate of speed. He needed to get there, assess the situation, and get back to the bunker as soon as possible. Something about leaving Maeve alone in the bunker was eating at him. Tearing at his soul. He kept telling himself that it was merely the distance, but now he was starting to doubt his own intuition.
Maybe there was something more—something more he should worry about—not that it would do them any good. Keeping his head screwed on straight was always a challenge in war, and this was war.
After what seemed like an entire day, interrupted by only a few breaks, Alyssa said over the mic, “How much longer?”
Her voice sounded jagged and tired, as if she rode a snowmobile all day long and couldn’t cope with the constant drumming any longer. Hell, neither could he, and he’d pushed them to brink by the end of the day. The closer he traveled to Walt’s crash site, the farther away from Maeve he was but the sooner he could return to her. It was agonizing.
“Your defrost not working again?”
“It’s glitchy.”
“But can you see enough without endangering anyone?”
“Yes.”
“Not much longer, then.”
33 WALT
As Yeager entered the building, he glanced at Rebecca, who was still wide-awake. She nodded toward Walt’s sleeping form.
Yeager raised his eyebrows at the girl.
She shrugged her shoulders. Everything seemed fine, more or less. Walt’s condition deteriorated daily; he was conscious only for little periods at a time.
“Hey,” he said to Rebecca and held up a furry pelt by its hind legs. “I got a rabbit. I’m going to cook the meat before it gets too dark. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Rebecca scrunched her eyebrows together and whispered loudly, “Take someone with you. The smell will bring in other animals. You can’t watch your back and cook at the same time.”
Pulling a free hand through his too long, oily hair before pulling his hat back on, Yeager said, “No, we don’t have time for that. I’ll return soon. Stay here. Keep things covered.”
She nodded reluctantly.
He heard Rebecca get up and bar the door behind him. She was dependable, and he had to admit that she was right: he needed another set of eyes. But risk another young life? He wasn’t going to do that again. If he had the option of bolting every one of them inside until he got them safely back home, he would. Losing Mary to a bear attack that he’d failed to prevent was a waking nightmare for him. Her screams never left him. They echoed his failures every moment, night and day. Even when he did try to sleep, all he saw on the dark side of his eyelids was her little body being ripped apart and the blood-soaked snow around the torn flesh that remained. He would never forget placing her mangled form in the shallow grave he’d dug. “I never should have left them,” he said to himself as he slapped the recent hunt onto a snow-covered log.
Taking out his knife, he performed the gutting ritual, as he’d done many times, and then peeled the soft, furry, gray hide from the corpse. The act made him sick to his stomach.
Then he realized that was exactly what he was doing, leaving them to fend for themselves. “Screw this,” he said, digging deep into his pockets for the remaining pieces of jerky. He decided that after the rabbit meat was cooked and delivered, he would spend the rest of the day setting up simple snares. He’d patrol the traps in the mornings and evenings, hoping to catch a few things, while he kept close watch on the survivors. They had enough rations to last them a few days, though supplementing those dwindling resources was now a priority. Otherwise, starvation would set in. Catching a rabbit or two a day would help to keep that from happening, at least. Looking down at the skinned offering of the day and the crimson snow surrounding it, the child’s screams were never far away.
What was worse was the work ahead. He limped as it was—nearly every survivor would lose some body part to the blackness of frostbite. The middle toe on his own left foot was beginning to turn. The wolf bite on the back of his thigh, he thought, was infected.
Keeping his own injuries as a timeline guide, he checked the children and Walt daily for infection. So far, the frostbite injuries were on course to self-amputate, but he wasn’t too sure about Walt’s. The left foot on his injured leg looked more and more dubious. If gangrene set in, he was doomed to die, for sure. For now, keeping it clean and dry was the only option. He’d try amputation only if that became necessary.
Then again, hearing the agonizing screams of the child who would never leave him, he wondered if it wouldn’t be a greater mercy to let Walt go too. His chances of survival were not the least bit good—especially with the exposure to the incessant cold, lack of antibiotics, and lack of food. No, perhaps Walt was right after all. Why waste dwindling resources on a dying man?
34 JAX
“We can’t see three feet in front of us,” Austin said through the mic, though his voice was scattered and broken. For each syllable that came over, another was lost in the next blast of wind hitting the side of the bus like a sledgehammer.
Jax held the mic close. “Just stop where you are. We’re here for the night.”
“We’re not going to make any significant progress in this whiteout, anyway,” Saul said as he hung over the steering wheel, motioning out the front window with his hands. He was right. The blinding snow and wind were relentless. They couldn’t even see where the roadway was any longer. Even the concrete barriers were hidden below the ice. Luckily, they’d made it over the Fourth of July Pass the day before. They would have been blown clear off the mountain in this kind of wind. “This day is over. We’re stuck here.”
Knowing that Saul was just trying to come to grips with their circumstances, Jax didn’t think he or anyone else quite grasped their predicament. Though their bus was retrofitted with tracks, they were doomed to be snowed in shortly. And that wasn’t even the worst of it. They weren’t there for a night or even for a few days. Jax swallowed hard. They were likely there for weeks with that kind of storm. “This was inevitable, Saul. These buses were only meant to get us so far. We camp. We plan. We keep going for as long as it takes.”
“We knew this wouldn’t be easy. I made sure each and every one of you knew the risks before we set out,” Jax said with more annoyance than usual.
“I’m not complaining, Jax,” Saul said, raising his voice above the din of the wind. When suddenly, a huge gust rocked the bus, they all had a moment of terror. Then a great crash sounded somewhere in front of them. That’s when the radio signaled.
“Jax, supply bus is on its side. We haven’t heard from him yet.”
“Harry hasn’t radioed in?”
“No.”
“Let’s get someone over there. I’ll go, dammit. Out.”
Saul looked at him. “Jax, let me go. You stay here.”
“No, I’m going. He’s probably pinned under snowmobiles. You know how to drive the bus. I’ll radio as soon as I know what the problem is.”
“All right. Take security with you.”
“It’s the damn wind. Not marauders. It’s the one time we’re safe in this world, when Mother Nature is more a threat than man is, and even then, you have to watch out for the
vengeful ones. It’s when things are calm that you should watch your back constantly, Saul. Not the other way around.” Grabbing his helmet and goggles as well as his constant companion, his rifle, Jax opened the bus door. When he did, the others inside guarded against the wind and snow until Jax met the pitch black of night. Flipping on his flashlight helped little, as a curtain of snow blew in front of each step. Every minute, it was a little more blinding. Finally, he did see another light in the distance and then the underside of the bus in front of them.
“Get back, Austin. You don’t need to be out here,” Jax yelled. But either the young man didn’t hear him or he defied him. Whatever, thought Jax. He made his way to the back of the bus, where the door was easier to access.
Grabbing the latch, Jax yanked it down. The door fell open and bounced on its hinges. Snow and ice clanged down like miniature chimes.
“Lift me up,” Austin said.
Since he was the lighter of the two, Jax formed a step with his gloved hands over his knee, and Austin hefted himself inside the dark void. Jax watched as he slipped into the bus and disappeared. He flashed his light around in the sideways curtain of snow, trying to see how they might put the bus to rights when he heard a quick clamoring inside the bus coming toward the exit. Austin poked his head out the opening.
“He’s dead.”
Shining the light on Austin, he asked, “You sure?”
“Yes,” he said and climbed out, landing with a thud next to Jax. Then he promptly bent over and threw up, heaving the contents of his stomach into the snow.
“Ugh…can you warn a person before you do that?”
Between heaves, Austin said, “I’m…sorry.”
“What happened?”
Austin took a breath and looked like he was going to answer the question. Instead, he retched again. After he wiped his mouth with his arm, he said, “He was crushed. His head…snowmobile…”