I laugh. "You did, Chavo. And it's a damn good thing too."
We sit around the campfire. Ironic that we huddle, seeking warmth and comfort around the very thing which nearly claimed our lives. I'm cold despite the fire, the rain we trudged through most of the day still embedded in my bones, the dampness of my clothes seeping the warmth away. I feel weak. Tired. My stomach growls like a caged beast, but I've no means to fill it. We didn't have much for food, but what little we had was lost in the flames as we fled for our lives. If only that was all we lost. In the panic of our escape, only four packs managed to survive the blaze. Our tents are gone, as are our medical supplies. Our water jugs survived, but our pots and pans weren't so lucky, leaving us with no means to boil our water. At least we have a small bottle of bleach which can be used to make the water drinkable. It will do for now.
We lost some guns, but thankfully most of what we carried on our person made it through, along with half our ammo. Aside from Eli pulling through, it's about the only thing that didn't go completely wrong today. From our remaining supplies. we've made a crude shelter from tarps and paracord, using three close growing trees as a means to suspend the tarp. It's not much, but it should at least keep us dry should it start to rain again. The night is mostly silent. When we do speak it's mostly to reassure one another that we'll be alright, that we'll pull through this. We're still alive. That seems to be the constant refrain we circle back to, as if the fact alone is all we have to cling to. In a way, I suppose it is.
We revert back to the old pairs for watch, finding it no longer necessary to keep Eli and Jolene apart while we sleep. Lauren and I sit beside the fire as the rest of the group retreats to the shelter. I have my right arm wrapped around her shoulders, her body warm and alive against mine. I think of how close we both skirted death, and have to repress a shiver. For any of us to have made it this far should seem like a blessing, but it's hard to shake the feeling like we’re cursed. I wanted to believe otherwise. I wanted to believe that night when I closed my eyes and Lauren sang into the night was the beginning of something good: that the curse that had plagued us—that had plagued everyone—everyone whose life came crashing down around them, and has scraped and clawed and struggled, all in the name of survival, had finally lifted from our shoulders. But of course it wouldn't work like that. The real world never has, why would it start now?
"I still can't believe this morning was real," she says after nearly an hour of silence.
"Me either," I sigh, knowing exactly how she feels.
"It's never going to end, is it?" she asks. I close my eyes at the hopelessness of her words. It hasn't even been 24 hours since Eli spoke to me of the volatility of love, and already I think I understand him better, because hearing the pain in her voice makes it my own. I want to tell her yes, of course it will end. But the words would feel more lie than truth, and I respect her too much to tell her anything less than what I believe.
"Maybe it will," I say. "Maybe we make it home, and we find our families, and somehow things get better. Maybe it never does and we have to scrape together whatever kind of life we can out of this. It's too hard to even try to predict what might happen. The only thing I know is I'll never give up hope that things can get better. I'll never stop trying. I'll do whatever it takes to build a future with you: a future you deserve." She looks up at me, the moonlight framing her face. "You're so beautiful. Everything I want out of this life I see reflected in your eyes…I'll die trying to make that happen."
I don't realize the tears trailing down my cheeks, matching those which trail down hers until after I stop speaking. Neither she nor I make an attempt to wipe them. In a world where we have next to nothing, we have this: our raw and unfiltered love to offer one another. Her lips find mine and I can taste the saltiness of our tears and sweetness of her lips, and it sends my head spinning. I don't know how long it lasts, only that both of us are breathless when we finally pull apart. She rests her forehead against mine, and I can feel her breath, hot and hurried against my lips.
"How can something feel so right and good after everything that's happened?" she asks.
"I think life, especially now, is all about finding the things that make it worth living. If there's one thing that makes mine worth living it's you." Fresh tears spring from her eyes. I cradle her face and wipe them away with my thumbs before kissing her once more. "We're almost home," I breath. "We'll start creating our future together soon, you'll see."
She smiles dreamily at my words. "I see it already."
"I love you," I say.
"Always."
Chapter 21
I'm soaked head to toe. The rain that tapered off at the end of yesterday came back a hundredfold in the middle of the night. I wake to the cold sting of rain on my face and fierce winds howling through our shelter. Though we have little, it’s a struggle to pack it all. Free from the meager protection our shelter offered, we are exposed to the full brunt of the downpour. I'm cold, but there are no options available that will get us out of the elements. So we march, seeking something more substantial to shelter us. Claps of thunder and flashes of lighting paint the sky, and though they are far off, the events of yesterday have left me paranoid of another wildfire. We were lucky once, I don't know we would be twice.
I fall more than once, but I'm not alone in that. The ground we walk on is coated in mud so slick it's impossible to keep one's footing. I can no longer feel my legs even though they continue to carry me forward. My fingers are numb, fumbling things I constantly blow into merely to feel some bit of warmth. We need to find shelter, but with so many of us, it's not easy. Several times we stop and rest, huddling for warmth under tree's, but still the rain finds us. It is not until the late afternoon the rain ceases its onslaught. It happens quickly: one minute rain falls in sheets, the next it peters out completely, and not long after the storm clouds recede and break apart, revealing a patchwork blue sky streaked with hints of purple. The sun's rays hit my face and I practically sigh, the warmth is so welcome.
Throughout the day my visibility has been limited. Now I find myself soaking up the terrain around me and find it has a familiar look about it. Faraway mountains silhouetted in the distance, jagged peaks, ridges and low hills covered in swathes of trees and vegetation. That’s when it hits me just how far we’ve come and how close we are to home. It seems so long ago we set out from Denver, but for the first time I feel like we’re nearing the end of our journey. I spot a rainbow painted against the sky and imagine it stretching over the ridges and peaks and forest, over the distance between here and home; and that maybe someone—my mother, my father, anyone who occupies a place in my heart—might by chance look up and spot it too, and feel my presence, and know I'll be there soon.
We set up camp early with the hopes we might find something to fill our empty stomachs. Leon and Felix disappear with a rifle and crossbow, while the rest of us set traps and look for anything edible. But though we search high and low the surrounding area, we find nothing. And when the sun has dipped past the mountains to the west, and the world has been thrown into twilight, Leon and Felix reemerge, as empty handed as we are.
The past two weeks have been hard, but always we were able to find something to eat. Now we've gone two straight days without so much as a suckling of food. They aches and pangs of hunger eat away at me that night. Before I lay myself to sleep I pray to God, even though I still have my doubts of His existence in the wake of all that's happened. I pray we find food, that He show us mercy and help us, just a little. I don't think it's much to ask.
But the traps are empty once again the next morning, and with no other option left to us, we press on. It's slow going, the rains of yesterday leaving behind bogs of mud and patches of thick clay we must trudge through. We avoid them best we can but it's difficult, and each time my feet sink into the mud it grows harder and harder to pull them back out. Felix leaves the trail with Maya to scout for food. I hope for a deer but would settle for a handful of anything edibl
e.
Throughout the morning thoughts of food completely consume my mind. It's torture, but try as I might, I can't stop the images from coming: double cheeseburgers topped with bacon and extra pickles, steaks cooked a perfect medium rare, stacked enchiladas with mounds melted cheese. I dream of simpler fare as well; things like fresh baked bread, and bowls of cereal, and Granny Smith apples. When you've been living off a starvation diet for weeks, and haven't had a mouthful of food in over two days, just about anything sounds good. I pause my internal slideshow of food when Felix and Maya find us once again.
"Nothing?" I ask, taking in their solemn expressions.
They exchange an uneasy glance. "Not exactly," Felix says. Felix isn’t vague, so hearing it in his voice immediately peaks my interest.
"What does that mean?" I ask.
He opens his mouth only to close it a moment later. He opens his mouth again and this time his words are vaguer still. "It's better if I show you."
Before the collapse I always thought things more in terms of black and white, right and wrong, with shades of gray mainly being the excuses people made for their poor choices. Perhaps because I had always been firmly entrenched in the middle class, and while I couldn't have anything I wanted, what I did have: a bed to lay my head at night, food in the fridge and cupboards, a family full of warmth and love—things I always took for granted because I had never known life without them—were more than enough. I was never faced with outstanding debt or felt the uncertainty of where my next meal would come from, and growing up, never once did I feel neglected or unloved. The hardships so many people carried were never placed upon my shoulders. But things have changed. I know hardship. I can feel its weight pushing down, trying to break me. And suddenly the whole world seems painted in shades of gray, black and white nothing more than tall, thin pillars on opposite ends of the spectrum.
Which is why as I lay atop a small knoll, looking out at the expansive farm just past the treeline, all I can think of is how to sneak in undetected. The place is huge. From my vantage point I can make out a plot of several different crops planted in rows adjacent to a massive cornfield. Beyond the plot and cornfield lies a barn at the foot of a long, gentle sloping hill, atop which sits the farmhouse, its white facade and blue shutters like a Norman Rockwell painting come to life. I have no doubt the farm continues on the other side of the house, but it is a long way to navigate, and it increases the chances we might be spotted by one of the many men and women who work the field.
"So, what? We're thieves now?" Leon asks, voicing his distaste. Thief. The word stings coming my friend’s mouth. I've struggled to toe a line that grows thinner by the day—struggled to keep my feet on the right path, knowing how quickly the alternative can lead a man astray. But the simple truth of the matter is we're desperate, and the choices before me are limited.
"Look at all that food, Lee," I say gesturing to farm. "You think a couple bags full is going to cripple them?" I can see the longing in his features, but it doesn't erase the uneasiness he feels. He averts his eyes and shakes his head. "That doesn't make it right," he says. He looks over to Felix on his opposite side. "What do think, Felix?"
Slowly, Felix tears his eyes away from the farm and turns our way. "I think if we don't get food, we don't make it back home," he says. "Hunting and gathering on the move for a group this large isn't cutting it."
"Yeah," Leon says quietly. "We could try to barter," he suggests halfheartedly.
I shake my head, wishing it were that simple. "We both know we can't afford that risk," I say. The trail, while shielding us from the teeming masses which would have awaited us on the interstate, hasn't allowed us to completely escape the fallout. I've had enough experience with other groups to know the odds of them being friendly or hostile are about even, and that from this distance it’s impossible to tell. Those are odds I'm not willing to gamble with the price so high.
"I don't like this," Leon says. I couldn't agree more, but when I thought of backing off all it took was one look at my desperate, starving friends, to harden my resolve. "There's nothing about this situation to like," I say.
We confer with the others about a plan of action, discussing how to get inside the farm undetected. It is agreed the cornfield is our best bet, its tall stalks providing concealment once we're inside and its combination of calories and protein exactly what we need. The only problem is the stretch of land between the treeline and fence, and fence and cornfield, roughly fifty yards each way. The sun steadily creeps higher in the sky, and still we have no idea how to get what we need. I'm almost ready to suggest we retreat and come back under the cover of darkness, willing to forgo a day of hiking if it means we might get enough food for the rest of the trip home, when three sharp blasts of a whistle reach my ears. The sound is faint from this distance, but unmistakable.
When I reach the top of the knoll, I see the workers in the field abandoning their positions and making toward the farmhouse. "This is our chance," I say, my pulse picking up at the prospect.
"There could be more on their way to relieve them," Maya says.
"Which is why we need to leave now," Felix says.
"Agreed," I say. "Leon, Felix and I will be the runners. We'll fill up what we can, and haul ass back. Shouldn't be too difficult." Several protests break out at that: If you're caught. Don't be stupid. We should wait till dark. "No arguing!" I snap. "We don't have time for it." Silence and stunned expressions surround me. I hate both coming from my friends. While I may have led us from the start, it has always been with a gentler hand. But I have an open window before me, and I’ll be damned if I'm going to let it close while we debate.
Leon, Felix, and I quickly empty our packs to make room for the corn. But we’re not alone in doing so. "What are you doing?" I ask sharply, noticing Lauren mirroring our actions with her own pack.
"I'm going with you," she says, determined.
"No, you're not," I say shouldering my pack and concealing the Glock under my shirt.
"You can't stop me," she argues. I swipe the pack from her hands. "What the hell, Morgan? Give it back!"
"No, I need you here," I say, holding the pack away.
"Bullshit, you just—"
"We don't' have time for this!" I say, the desperation making my voice sound harsh and cold. "You're not coming! You'll only be a distraction." The last line comes out harsher, still. She stops struggling for the pack. "A distraction?" she says, her voice stinging. She's hurt, and more than that she's angry.
“Moe, we gotta leave," Felix urges.
I shake my head once, willing her to understand. She doesn’t. “I’m, sorry,” I say. Before she can reply, I turn my back, and move with haste through the trees and toward the fence. It's for the best. That's what I tell myself. But I can’t shake the look of betrayal which flashed across her face when I called her a distraction.
We eat up the ground between the treeline and fence in seconds, but seconds as exposed as we are, bend and stretch and feel like forever. We climb over carefully, accounting for the coil of barbed wire crowning the top. And then it's another endless dash before we're swallowed up by the cornfield. No time is wasted as we sling the packs off our shoulders and begin to rip cobbs from their stalks. It's trickier than I anticipated and takes more time than I'd like. Sweat beads down my face, from nerves more than anything else. Relief workers could be heading this way any second, and it's a wide expanse of open land we'll need to cover. My pack is just over half full when I hear a Felix curse silently from my left.
"You alright?" I call out. He's close, but the stalks limit my vision and I only have a sense of where he is.
"Yeah," he replies. "Watch your footing, I almost stepped on a damn bear trap."
Leon curses, somewhere out of sight as well. "Damn. Good thing we didn’t wait till dark," I say.
"My thoughts exactly." The voice is cold, but the chk-chk sound of a chambering shotgun shell is what turns my blood to ice. They materialize out of air, out of nothing
, the concealment the stalks provided not exclusively limited to us. More voices sound and are accompanied by my friend’s curses. "Hands behind your head," the voice behind me commands. I immediately do as instructed, not wanting to give him a reason to shoot me—he has plenty already. "You move a muscle and you're dead before you can move another," the voice warns. I'm patted down and removed of my Glock, knives, and spare mags. As soon as they're confiscated, my hands are bound behind my back with a coil of wire.
"Turn to the left," says the voice. I comply. "Walk." I walk, even though my limbs feel like lead. I try to mentally count the pairs of footsteps behind and around me, but it's impossible to tell. I don't know what I could do with the information anyway. We exit the cornfield and find a line of five men, and three women waiting for us. I'm led several feet before them and brought to my knees by a sharp command. Leon and Felix are brought to kneel beside me but I keep my head forward, unable to meet my friend’s eyes. My fault, my fault, this is all my fault. The thought plays a loop inside my head. We shouldn't have come here. Shouldn't have taken the risk no matter how desperate we were. Shame and disgust flood me. I could have stopped this, but I let desperation overrule rationality. And now I may have led my two best friends to their deaths.
Our captors move past to join the line that faces us, bringing their number to fourteen. Our weapons and bags are placed at their feet, but no move is made toward them. Nobody speaks, nobody moves, they simply glare at us with cold eyes. It's seriously unnerving. The urge to speak, to plead for our lives is hard to resist, but I fight it, feeling to speak first would be a mistake. A minute later I hear a pair of footsteps from behind. "All clear," says a female voice. It's not until she and her companion join their people, that we are addressed.
"Don't see too many raiders in broad daylight." One of the men says, taking a step forward. I'd peg him in his early sixties. He’s tall and thin, his hair and beard, white and neatly trimmed. He stares at us each in turn, his blue eyes hard as diamonds. "You're either stupid or desperate." It occurs to me how we must look to them: like nothing more than filthy scavengers, taking food out of their children’s mouths. The sad thing is, there's truth in that assessment.
Echoes of a Dying World (Book 1) Page 24