“I’ll give it up on one condition Ethel. One condition only. You let me buy a Mustang!”
Luke smirked at his own wit and stripped off quickly, replacing his jeans with the leather pants and throwing aside his denim jacket for the tough, leather one with padded sleeves and shoulders.
The jacket fitted nicely, the pants too apart from the legs being about an inch and a half too short.
“Ankle freezers,” he said, looking at one foot then the other.
He wasn’t sold on the pants, so decided to keep his jeans for the time being. He folded them and put them in his supply sack. Once he’d pulled his scuffed old army boots back on he didn’t notice the short length of the leathers so much.
He put the holster back over his shoulder and slotted the axe before picking up his sack and heading through the garage opening. He pulled the panel door closed and walked down the driveway without looking back. And that’s how he walked out of Manchester too. Without looking back.
***
He thought as he walked. Grief was a strange thing. He could function perfectly well for a while but as soon as something triggered him to think about Brooke or the baby he’d never known, he would find himself crying again. Not tears of anger. That seemed to have past. Just tears of loss.
He had almost forgotten the pain he’d experienced at his parents’ passing, but that, coming as it did with the end of the world, had been diffused. More a state of shock than solely grief. This was different. Much rawer… more primal.
The moments when his brain forgot she was gone didn’t help.
He remembered his grandmother talking about her grief when his granddad had died. Coming home from a trip to the supermarket the week after he’d passed, she’d seen his car in the driveway. She felt happy he was home from work so early, only to have her loss crash down on her again as she came off auto-pilot and remembered.
“It’s like my brain is playing a cruel trick.”
The more logical part of Luke’s mind told him it was probably a coping mechanism. The brain allowing one to function on a basic level without shutting down entirely.
It didn’t make things any easier though.
5
Hours after Luke closed the garage door and set off on his trek, Isaac entered the room of the hotel suite he and Indigo had settled in. Indigo looked at him, her face hopeful but changing quickly. He looked bone tired and the set of his shoulders meant her next question was moot.
“Any sign?” she asked.
He shook his head and walked over to where she was gently rocking Luke and Brooke’s baby girl in her arms. He leaned over and kissed Indigo’s cheek then looked down at the baby. She was sleeping soundly, her skin a healthy pink. It had been left to Ben to name the child and he had chosen his mother’s name, Erin.
Isaac thought Brooke would have approved.
“How is she?”
“Good, the perfect baby.”
“Where’s Max?”
“With Allie and Ava. They took all of the kids down to play in the garden.”
He looked at her.
“You told them about not leaving…”
“Yes!” she said, exasperation creeping into her voice. “Stop worrying so much, Cade is not his father, he’s just a kid.”
Isaac knew she was right, but he couldn’t help being suspicious of Ash’s son. Only God knew what he had seen and been through at the hands of his father. It had to have an effect, surely? And those eyes. He had those damn pale eyes.
Indigo squeezed his hand.
“I’ve told them never to leave him alone with the other kids and to tell me if he says anything strange or acts out. To be honest though, he’s been nothing but well behaved since he came through the door.”
Isaac nodded and went to the small kitchenette and poured himself a water from the pitcher on the cupboard.
“Tell me about today,” Indigo said.
Isaac explained that they had searched the final zone to the west of the city. It was the fourth day since he’d walked out and they’d found no sign of Luke.
“That’s it now,” he said, sitting down and burying his head in his hands. “We can’t spend any more time looking for him.”
Indigo stood up and gently placed Erin in the middle of their bed and went over and put a hand on Isaac’s shoulder.
“It’s okay. It’s not your fault he left.”
“Well it’s my fault Brooke is dead,” his voice cracked. “If I hadn’t…”
“Don’t you dare, Isaac Race. There is only one person to blame and it’s not you. You were only doing what you thought was right. Luke will realize that eventually.”
He nodded, wiping his eyes with the back of his wrist.
“I miss the fucker,” he laughed, trying to cover his embarrassment.
“We all do,” Indigo said, taking him in her arms as he stood up. “He’ll be back.”
“I’m not so sure.”
She didn’t argue with him. What was the point?
“What are we up to with the move to the Brady-Sullivan building?” she asked, changing the subject.
“Beau and his crews have cleaned out the ground floor plus the first and second, so we have enough room for everyone to begin moving in. Once we’re in there we can start making it livable floor by floor.”
“Exciting! Have you thought about where we’ll have our room?”
“No,” he laughed. “You want the penthouse, don’t you?”
She shrugged.
“As long as I’m with you and Max, I’d be happy in the basement or the underground car park.”
They kissed.
“We’ll get started packing up our things at dawn.”
“Well I better head down and pass Erin to Ben,” said Indigo. “It’s time to go and help the girls get started on dinner.”
“Okay, I’ll go find Max and have a playdate with Uncle Ben,” he said impishly.
“You do that!”
As devastating and raw as Brooke’s death was, life would go on, and right then, Indigo’s sadness was tinged with optimism for the future.
6
Luke made his way north from Manchester on the 93. The most direct route would have been to head straight for the coast along the 101, but that would have meant turning back and heading into central Manchester. He didn’t want to risk the possibility of running into Isaac and co, who, no doubt, would have tried to talk him out of going.
He wasn’t ready for that. Wasn’t ready to speak to anybody. He needed space. Needed to clear his mind of the ghosts of Brooke and their baby.
He knew if he headed north to Concord he could take another road to the coast, then hook up with the 95. That would take him up the east coast through Portsmouth into Maine. From Portsmouth he guessed it would be about 50 miles to Portland.
Walking on the 93 was quick and easy and by the time he stopped to eat a can of beans around noon he estimated he only had another two to three hours walking before he reached Concord.
Concord was the site of their small victory over the Chinese occupiers. It was a good memory and he smiled as his boots chewed up the yards. It had been the first time they felt they’d actually struck a blow against the invaders on a scale that meant anything.
As much as the memory gave him a warm buzz, he didn’t plan to enter the city. Common sense told him if there was danger, it would be more likely to come in the old city centers than on the road. No, he would skirt the city to the east and hook up with the 393 which would take him out to the coast.
He was looking forward to seeing the ocean. It had been a long, long time.
Luke had always found the highways and turnpikes the most haunting remnants of the ‘before days’. An empty house was different, after all, how many times was a home empty even with the largest and busiest of families? Highways though, well, they were never empty.
They were the arteries of the old world. To see them now, their edges overgrown, rusting cars scattered sporadically and the o
ccasional upended tree over the outer lanes, made him feel melancholy.
Two and a half hours after stopping for lunch, he closed in on Concord.
“Hello old friend,” Luke’s voice grated at the Merrimack as its winding course met the road he was walking upon.
To his left Concord looked much as he remembered it from his first visit, just a little more overgrown along the outskirts, but something about the picture was jarring and it took him a few seconds to realize what it was.
Smoke!
Chimney smoke. He counted at least three whitish plumes rising into the clear mid-afternoon sky.
Concord was a ghost town no more. He was curious as to who had settled there, especially since the Marauders had been terrorizing the region for a good couple of years. He decided it must be a large and well defended group.
He decided it was best not to tempt fate and to get off the roadway and hug the riverbank until he could cross the Merrimack. He could then take the back roads past the old airport. While there were a few residential suburbs on that side, he doubted the ‘settlers’ had spread their roots that far.
He had barely taken five steps off the road when he heard the screech of tires and roar of an engine from the direction he had been heading. It was a green army Jeep.
“Great!” he muttered.
No use running, they had seen him, and he counted four heads in the vehicle speeding towards him – a foot chase would end badly. He stood his ground. He’d done nothing and was just passing through. Hopefully these survivors were of the ‘talk first’ rather than ‘shoot first’ variety.
He put his sack of supplies on the cracked tarmac and stood with his hands by his side, waiting calmly for their arrival.
The jeep slowed as it approached and Luke, who could now see the occupants more clearly, raised an eyebrow. They were wearing army fatigues. The driver pulled up about thirty feet away and they piled out and trained their weapons on him.
“Arms above your head,” yelled one of them.
Luke looked at them, his eyes wide in surprise. Aside from the first one to jump out, the men that confronted him were ‘old’. Old enough for him to know they had been grown men and not kids when the Pyongyang flu had devastated the country. To a man, they all looked early to mid-thirties. Not only that, while their fatigues were faded and worn, the men were well groomed with identical short back and sides haircuts.
“I said, put your arms up!”
Snapping out of it, he raised his arms and regarded the leader.
“Just passing through, Soldier,” said Luke, and found himself hit with another surprise.
I know you.
“Frisk him,” said the leader.
Luke stood passively as two men holstered their firearms and approached him warily. The young guy eyed his hook nervously as they patted him down. Then the penny dropped.
“How is Colonel Randall?” Luke asked, conversationally.
The hands of the men patting him down froze and he was rewarded with an inquisitive glare from the leader.
“How do you know that name?” he asked.
“I’m hurt you don’t remember me, Bowman. Has it been that long?”
Bowman squinted, and Luke saw recognition dawn in his eyes.
“Luke? Jesus, no I did not.” He came forward as the other men finished their pat down. Luke held out his hand and Bowman grasped it looking up at him. “Holy hell, you were a scrawny little kid up to my chin last time I saw you.”
“Yep,” he said. “Glad to see you made it out of Drake Mountain. We saw the Chinese begin their attack as we were hightailing it out of there. To be honest I thought you guys were toast.”
Up close, Luke could see the faint lines around Bowman’s eyes. He looked a lot harder than the fresh-faced recruit he had been just six years before.
“I thought we were toast too. Colonel Randall managed to get us out of there though. Long story. What happened to your hand?”
“Ragg. We got him though,” he said, unable to keep a little pride out of his voice.
Bowman nodded.
“We never saw that bastard again. I thought he’d done a runner. Look, where are you headed? You should come and talk to the Colonel. We can share intel.”
This encounter had changed things for Luke. He was still heading to the coast, but his natural curiosity meant this was an opportunity too good to pass up. It would be good to know what had happened at Drake Mountain after they’d left.
“Are you inviting me for dinner and a sleepover?”
Bowman grinned.
“Still a smartass I see. Sure, a sleepover, why not. Come on.”
Luke picked up his sack and they walked over to the Jeep. Feeling as upbeat as he had in days… he quickly shut down the direction his mind was heading.
“Saracen,” Bowman addressed the young soldier whose face Luke didn’t remember from Drake Mountain. “I’ll get you to walk back to town – we’ll let our guest have a seat in the Jeep.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Thanks,” said Luke, reaching over his shoulder, pulling the axe out of its loop by the blade and fluidly flipping it in the air before catching it by the handle.
Bowman nodded appreciatively.
“Nice trick.”
“Yeah, getting there. You want me to put it in back?”
“Yes, and your pack if you want.”
7
On the short drive to the city center, Luke took in as much as he could. Apart from the lack of cars, the section of Main Street that the Drake Mountain guys had occupied could have passed for any town pre-attack.
It was neat and well-ordered and then Luke spotted something that made his mouth drop open. Light in some of the shop windows, but not the flickering light of candles or a fireplace.
Electric light.
“You guys have power?”
“Yep, and some water,” said Bowman.
“Wow, that’s amazing. Good old army know-how, huh?”
“Yep. The Colonel runs a pretty tight ship.”
Luke spotted clothes hanging in the window of what according to the old signage used to be ‘Betty Lou’s emporium’.
“And stores?”
Bowman waved vaguely at the shopfronts.
“Kind of. Clothes and food shops but no one pays for anything. If they’re pulling their weight, no one goes hungry. It’s all free but rationed.”
“Communist paradise, huh?”
Bowman bristled, and Luke immediately regretted using the term. “No offence, I mean in the purist sense of the word. I mean the community owns everything and everybody contributes to receive what they need.”
Bowman relaxed.
“Yeah, the Professor came up with a system and it seems to work pretty well.”
The color drained from Luke’s face.
“Oh, the Professor,” said Bowman. “Don’t worry about him. Things aren’t the way they used to be. We… well actually, I’ll leave it for the colonel to tell you about it.”
“How many of you are there?” Luke asked.
“About five hundred. We managed to evacuate some of the kids when we got out of there but there were a lot left behind. We’re about half Drake Mountain survivors and half people we’ve assimilated since.”
“So, they live in the houses, right? I saw chimney smoke.”
“Yeah, when we first got here we bunked down in an old school but as we rebuilt we started repopulating the town.”
Bowman turned off the main street onto Green Street.
“The Colonel and us grunts use the old City Hall as our base.”
“Oh, I thought you’d be in the State House,” said Luke.
“No, the Chinese used that as their base here and pretty much gutted it. Here we are.”
They pulled up in front of a pretty, triple story red brick building surrounded by neat, manicured lawns, with white arched windows and an impressive spire atop it. It was a jarring sight for Luke considering the vacant and overgrown post-a
pocalyptic landscape he was used to travelling through.
Luke could see now how he had been spotted; he could see at least two figures in the shadows of the viewing area under the peaked iron cap of the spire.
They got out of the vehicle and headed into the building. Up close, the facade of the building was even more impressive and harkened back to an earlier time. Once they stepped through the entrance though, its decor was ‘90s council office.
Luke received curious stares from the few uniformed occupants of the building that they encountered as Bowman took him up two flights of stairs to the Colonel’s quarters on the top floor.
There was a pretty, dark-haired girl around his age at a desk outside grand double doors. She looked confident and her gaze locked onto Luke’s briefly before dismissing him and passing to his escort without so much as a raised eyebrow.
“Lieutenant Bowman,” she said, all business.
“Hi Becky. I need to see the Colonel. We have a visitor he’d be interested in talking too.”
“I see. One moment.”
She stood up and went to the door. She wore a crisp black skirt and white shirt, with patent leather shoes that looked like they had seen better days. She knocked lightly before opening the door.
“Bowman has someone to see you, Sir.”
She looked over her shoulder at Luke, her eyes curious, then back into the office.
“Not sure Sir, definitely not one of ours.”
“Send them in,” came the response. Luke recognized Colonel Randall’s gruff voice immediately.
“Yes, Sir.”
Becky returned to her desk.
“The Colonel will see you now.”
Am I in a time warp? Luke asked himself, unable to shake the feeling he was watching actors in a TV show.
He tipped an imaginary hat at Becky and was rewarded with a brief curl of a smile before she found something more interesting in the papers on her desk.
Luke followed Bowman into the Colonel’s office.
Colonel Randall regarded the big leather clad man that entered his office with a steely look.
“And this is?” he asked, without breaking Luke’s gaze.
“It’s Luke, Sir, from Drake Mountain. He’s changed a bit.”
Luke's Trek Page 3