“Why are you so suspicious? We’re leaving for Canada. We need it for the trip. What is wrong with you? I got our yearbook. You need to see it.”
I don’t know why, but something didn’t feel right, and as soon as I got a good look at the bike I knew what it was. “Nila, is that my bike?”
“What?”
“It was up at Big Bear. Is that my bike?”
“Lev …”
Hand against the truck for support, I moved slowly to the bike. Nila followed me, almost as if trying to stop me. As soon as I saw the plate, I knew it was. I spun around. “Forty people took over that camp. Some really dangerous people. How did you get the bike back?”
“We … we took it,” she said.
“We did,” Corbin stated. “Kinda snuck in there and grabbed it. Along with a few other things.”
My eyes widened. “Nila, we have kids here. Do you know what kind of risk this is?”
She shook her head. “It’s not a risk.”
“Yes, it is. They’re going to come looking for us when they know you raided the camp.”
“No, Lev, they won’t.” Immediately, Nila turned serious and turned and walked away from me. At the same time, there was a weird awkward silence. Corbin and Fleck instantly occupied themselves.
I reached out and took hold of her arm.
“What?” Nila snapped.
I looked down at her, examining her eyes. There was nothing there. For the first time that I could recall, I saw a coldness in her eyes. “Nila,” My voice cracked. “What did you do?”
TWENTY-ONE – THE MUSIC
August 17
In my entire life I was never able to lie to Lev. I couldn’t look him in the eye and lie. Except at the end of our friendship, when I told him I never wanted anything to do with him again.
I didn’t mean it.
That was the first and last time I was angry with Lev until now.
Lev was an honest man, a good soul and he had a righteous side that came out after we returned. He insisted on knowing how we got the gas and the motorcycle. He assumed the worst of us … I didn’t want to tell him he was right.
I did tell him it was too late to deal with it and I was tired both physically and emotionally. I wanted to just hang out with Katie. The next day I would tell him everything.
Little did I know when I said that, the next day, when we planned to head to Canada things would change.
Bella was on baby duty and woke Ben to tell him that Christian, the name he had given to the baby, was warm and stuffy.
Ben didn’t think the baby had anything life threatening, but he determined that the child was too young to go anywhere yet and it was putting him at risk.
The plan of packing everything we could, including supplies from the Windhaven was out the window.
Fleck mentioned that he and his group always moved at their own pace and he wanted us to still go, he would stay behind with the baby. Bella wasn’t leaving Fleck, but more surprising was Ben. He wasn’t going to leave the baby.
“You can go. Leave word, leave signs,” Ben said. “We’ll find you. We’re not going to leave for a couple weeks so if you don’t’ come back, we’ll know you made it.”
Going to Canada was all Ben’s idea and now he wasn’t going to go? It was approaching fall, and if Canada was actually an option we needed to know. Because if it wasn’t we had to hunker down for the cold months.
“We’ll all wait,” Lev said. “We’ll all go together.”
Ben shook his head. “No, we need to know if Canada is a go. We need to get Corbin there. If they’re infection free, they won’t be for long.”
“What about sending Corbin first, maybe do the search party,” I suggested. “Like we originally planned.”
“And wait out here?” Ben asked.
“No,” I replied. “We wait out at the cabin.”
I saw it. Lev spun his body toward me. “Your father’s cabin?”
I nodded.
“That’s not an option.”
“It … it is now. It needs cleaned,” I said. “But it’s an option. Ben, Fleck, Bella and the baby can hole up there. Or we all can while we do a scouting party. Either way, it’s out of the way and …” I watched Lev limp to the door. He moved slowly and awkwardly in that cast shoe and he held his side. “Where are you going?”
He paused before walking out. “To the cabin.”
Lev was in no physical condition to travel to the cabin, especially alone. So Corbin and I went with him.
I couldn’t figure out Lev’s mood. Why he seemed so angry. I attributed it to the fact that he just didn’t feel well. He was a man who was used to doing, always going. Yet, he was bound by the limitations of his body and they were out of his control.
“You were in no condition to leave,” I told him in the truck as we headed to my father’s cabin.
“I was fine enough to make the trip to Canada,” he argued.
“That’s arguable and different.”
“How?” he said.
“Because that would require you just to ride. You want to get out and walk around,” I said.
“No, I want to see why it’s fine all of the sudden to return to your father’s cabin. A week ago, we were hiding and on the run.”
“Things change.”
“Like what?” he asked.
We pulled as close to the fence of my father’s land as we could so Lev wouldn’t have to walk far. He stood at the gate staring in at the body riddled yard of my father’s land.
A few tents had been erected, but they appeared to have toppled. It was evident that a lot of chaos that occurred. The land was a mess.
Even dead, it was clear, to look at even one body, that they were infected when they died.
Corbin stepped forward. “I went on the property and took them out today,” he said. “They were infected. Freshly turned and in that highest energy stage.”
“How many?” Lev asked.
“Ten,” I said. “I haven’t been in the cabin. Corbin said they had come out,” I told him. “No one’s inside. Only this outer area needs cleaned. We can get it done, get it cleaned and have a safe place to stay.”
“How?” Lev asked. “Any ideas how all these people got infected.”
Corbin pointed at me. “Her theory is right. There’s something in them that moves them on memory. We found Lester shot up just outside the fence.”
“How did Lester get out?” Lev asked. “Do you think they freed him?”
I looked at Corbin.
Corbin replied. “I took Lester out and released him at Big Bear. I figured he could wreak a little havoc. But he came back here. Somehow. That memory thing. I don’t know,” Corbin scratched his head. “He could have attacked this camp too. It’s hard to tell. But the infected are here. More than likely they put them here to turn, run their course and die. We all know how fast this virus spreads.”
“When we got here,” I said. “They were running about the property and couldn’t get out.”
“So the cabin and the land is secure and safe” Lev nodded. “Here’s what I don’t get, if they knew they were infected, why didn’t they just kill them?”
Corbin shrugged. “That’s a mystery.”
“Here’s another,” Lev said. “What made you come back here? I mean it was a week ago, what made you come back?”
“Simple,” Corbin answered. “I released Lester. I wanted to see if he caused damage. He did. Threat’s over. It’s finished. We can move back.”
“What about the other forty or so people?” Lev asked.
Without hesitation Corbin replied. “Bluff. It was a bluff. We think that woman in the blue is Helena. For sure Scott is in this group.”
“A bluff, huh?” Lev asked. “You said you think they moved the infected here. Who would move them if it was a bluff.”
“I said that?” Corbin asked. “Wow. Slip of the tongue.”
“So you went to Big Bear?” Lev asked.
“Why are y
ou so suspicious?” I questioned.
“Because it’s not this easy,” Lev said. “We got shot up and you two defeated them all with one infected? It doesn’t make sense.”
“What does it matter?” I asked. “We have our place back.”
“It matters, Nila. We got our place back at what cost?”
“At what cost did they take it?” I asked.
Lev nodded once. “Let’s take a ride to Big Bear.”
“No.” I said adamantly. “Let it go and let’s just get this place cleaned up.”
“No. Why? Is it because they really are there?” Lev asked. “If they are, that’s too close for us to move back here. That’s asking for a repeat.”
“It won’t happen,” I said.
“How do you know?”
“Because,” I said. “They’re all dead.”
“They’re all dead?” Lev asked. “All?”
I nodded.
“How?’
Before I could reply, Corbin without hesitation answered, “They’re dead because I killed them. Leave it at that.”
Corbin’s suggestion to drop it was noble, but not a suggestion Lev would take. The explanation wasn’t enough. I didn’t understand why. It was no surprise to me that we headed to Big Bear.
All the way to Big Bear, I kept wondering why it was important to Lev. Why did he need to investigate our claim like a bad detective? To me, the bottom line was we had our property back. End of story. But it wasn’t to Lev. For some reason it mattered.
We tried. We really tried to convince Lev he didn’t need to see Big Bear. The more we connived, the more he insisted.
We pulled into Big Bear, stopping just inside the main gate.
There were new vehicles everywhere.
Not a person in sight.
Stepping from the truck, the smell of bodies was overwhelming, yet there wasn’t a body to be seen. Lev didn’t need to see a body to know it was a dead camp.
Even though he was moving slowly and injured, Lev looked around.
He didn’t need to search far.
The first camper gave him the answer.
Two men and one woman were inside. In a sickly state, they crawled into a bed. Their ravaged bodies were in a state of decay, but remnants of a violent death were evident.
Not a bloody violent death.
An illness.
Dried vomit and fecal matter encircled their bodies creating even more of a horrendous smell. Pails, buckets and towels were beside the bed. They were weak, vomiting, had diarrhea, and didn’t have the strength to move from bed.
It was obvious they weren’t infected and by the rate of their decomposition, they were dead longer than the people at my father’s cabin.
I saw the horror on Lev’s face. He was in that first camper for only a moment when he left.
“Is it everywhere at Big Bear?” he asked.
“Yes,” I nodded.
“Do you think it was a new form of the virus?” Lev questioned. “Maybe it mutated in a different way.”
Right then and there I had a choice. I could just go along with the new virus theory or tell the truth.
I never could lie to Lev.
“It wasn’t a virus,” I said. “It was poison.”
Lev had this really odd, slow motion reaction. He slowly turned his head toward me, brown eyes piercing my way. “They were poisoned?”
I nodded.
“You poisoned the well,” It was a statement not a question.
“I did,” Corbin interjected. “She didn’t. I did. Lester was a diversion. They didn’t see it coming.”
“Oh, yeah?” Lev raised his eyebrows. “How?”
“How what?”
“How did you poison them?”
“A little of this, a little of that.”
Lev shifted his eyes to me then back to Corbin as he nodded. “As valiant as it is to take responsibility for her actions, poison is Nila. She knows every root, seedling, berry and plant around this area, what is poisonous and what isn’t. Don’t you?”
“Yeah, I do,” I replied.
“How do you know it was plant?” Corbin asked. “I mean, it could be rat poisoning, a whole bunch of other stuff.”
Lev kept his eyes on me. “Because rat poisoning would be strong to the taste.”
“If they don’t know well water,” Corbin said. “They wouldn’t know it wasn’t supposed to taste like that. So you can’t say it was her. They killed my mother, Lev. I wanted them dead. What difference does it make who did it, it’s done?”
“Because I need to know if the woman I have known most of my life is capable of something like poisoning the well.”
“Technically,” I said. “It was the pressure tank.”
“Nila!” he snapped. “It’s the same difference.”
“No, Lev it isn’t! You know that. If I poisoned the well everything would be toxic. I just shut down the intake, by the time they noticed it wasn’t pumping it would be too late.”
“Oh my God,” Lev said in shock.
Both my father’s land and Big Bear operated on well water. We had one automatic pump and the rest were hand pumps. We had to fill the reserve tanks by hand. There was no running water, unless pumped directly. Big Bear was different. They had running water and showers. In order for that to happen, the well water pumped into a pressure tank. I was quite sure that those who took over the campsite, didn’t have a clue. I was banking on it.
“How?” Lev asked.
“Nature provides,” I said. “I took advantage of it. Like Corbin said, a little of this, a little of that…”
“You had no clue that it would work.”
“None.” I shook my head. “I had to try, and I don’t understand why you are acting like this.”
“Did you expect me to be happy?”
“No, but I didn’t expect you to be so righteous about it. Maybe even be a little grateful.”
“Grateful!” Lev blasted.
At that point, Corbin backed up.
“Nila you killed … no wait, you murdered forty people. You pulled a Jim Jones on them.”
I don’t know why, but Lev’s attempt at being serious and referencing the Jonestown kool aid massacre made me laugh in reaction.
“You think this is funny?” he asked.
“No, I don’t. What was I supposed to do? Just say; “Hey, here, take the land, enjoy, have a great life” and go quietly into the night?”
“Yes.”
“No!” I blasted back. “They came and took what they wanted. They took my land, your land, places our fathers built with their own hands. They killed our people, shot you. Raided us like we were nothing. I wasn’t sitting by and letting it go.”
“It was murder!”
“It was justice!” I growled out. “There are no laws. No cops for me to run to. I had a choice. I made it. Was it vengeful? … Yes. It’s a land without law and order. It was also an eye for an eye, plain and simple, frontier justice.”
“Who appointed you judge, jury and executioner?”
“I did.”
“You had no right.”
“I had every right. Fuck you for your holier than thou attitude and passing judgment on me. What I did is my burden, I have to live with it, I have to live with that decision. Not you.”
“I have to live with you,” he said.
“Well, then don’t.”
Lev gasped and stepped back. “I don’t know what bothers me more. The fact that you killed all these people, or the fact that it doesn’t even bother you.”
He said no more, turned, and headed back toward the truck.
Corbin walked up to me. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” I exhaled and looked at him. “It does bother me you know, what I did. I tried not to think about it, a part of me hoping it didn’t work.”
“It did.”
“I know.”
“For what it’s worth. I’m glad.” He placed his hand on my back. “No matter what, this cannot be in
vain. You cleared the camp, don’t let it be for nothing.”
Corbin was right. I got my home back and even if what I did was wrong, I had to find a way to show that in some ways it was worth it.
That was easier said than done.
TWENTY-TWO – RESOLVE
August 19
If it was Lev’s intention to make me feel guilty, he failed. Maybe one day, in the future, it would hit me what I had done. Any inkling of bad I felt was gone when Corbin, Fleck and me returned to the cabin. A place I have known and loved since childhood. A place built by my father. It was destroyed by those who invaded it.
How dare Lev Judge me, I thought. Look at what they did!
Even though they were infected, the rage didn’t do this … spite did.
My stepmother Lisa, in an attempt to keep the kids occupied started a history mural. Every day she and the kids would color or paint a drawing on the long piece of dry wall. It was art, it was part of my daughter who died. It was some of her life force.
They destroyed it.
Kicked it I suppose, I didn’t know, but it was destroyed and lay crumbled. White dust spread about the cabin and when I saw that I desperately sought any remnants of Addy’s drawings.
There wasn’t much.
That wasn’t all.
My mother’s picture was smashed.
The cabin was in disarray and the worst was our little cemetery. Those we loved and lost were not only buried there, their graves were preciously marked.
The vile bastards ran over the graves with a truck as if they were teenagers pulling a cemetery prank.
They desecrated my home.
The smeared shit all over the outhouse.
I knew they had no clue about a well system and I had shut it down, to me, if the poison didn’t work, the lack of water did.
Thankfully, Lester made a comeback somehow and infected those who were there.
I didn’t need justification for what I had done. I had it. All I had to do was look around. I didn’t feel guilty, I felt enraged and glad every single one of them was dead.
There was no way we would get the cabin clean and ready in one day.
When we returned, that first day was body clean up only. We loaded them in one of their trucks, took the bodies thirty miles east, and burned them.
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