by Cronan, Matt
6 MILES
"Do you think it's still there?" Alex said.
Sam racked her brain for everything she could remember about Lake Mead. She remembered little, but what she did remember brought little hope. The data stream seemed to only work when it wanted to. "Hard to say. If the dam busted, there might only be a river. Or there might be nothing at all. I'm not sure."
"I hope it hasn't," Alex said.
They ambled through the night. When the moon reached the midpoint of the sky, they gathered at the side of the road and ate the rest of their honey mesquite pods. Alex offered Artie some of hers but the dog turned its nose up at the green seeds. Sam's stomach rumbled after she finished the last bite of hers and her spirits sank. They were out of food and water now. Lake Mead would have to be there or they would all be dead by the end of the week. They gathered their items and walked until the eastern sky lightened.
The sun broke over the horizon and spilled rays of yellow and gold that gleamed off of the water ahead of them. They all stopped as they reached the end of the road and stared at the giant lake.
"Am I dreaming, Cole?" Sam asked. The words barely escaped her dry throat. They came out raspy and it hurt her to talk.
"No," he said. "You're not dreaming, Miss Sam."
They stood in silent awe for a long time before Alex said, "Race you."
The four took off in a dead sprint, and when they reached the edge, Sam fell to her knees and placed her hands in the water. It was cool and crisp. She knew they should collect the water and sterilize it, but the thirst overcame her. She lifted a handful of water to her mouth and tasted it.
It was the best thing she had ever tasted. She gulped a couple more handfuls and then dropped her head to the water and drank straight from the lake. Beside her, Cole and Alex were doing the same. She drank until her stomach was full.
"What do we do now?" Alex asked.
Sam smiled and slipped the boots and socks from her feet. Blisters covered her feet, and the skin was cracked and raw from the hard miles. She tossed them aside and said, "Now we bathe." She stripped down to her underwear and ran into the lake.
The water was cold and refreshing and perfect. She stayed underneath for a long time, wishing for the moment to last forever. She had died and gone to heaven, or possibly the next best thing. She emerged in time to see Cole, wearing nothing but a pair of briefs, dart into the water. A moment later, Alex jumped in but Artie remained on the shore. The small dog lapped at the water and then trotted further down the shoreline.
They laughed as they swam and splashed each other. Sam dove underneath the water and ran her fingers through her dirty brown hair. She swam deeper into the lake and felt the dirt and sand and blood and tears disappearing in the cool water. Her eyes shot to the shoreline when she came up for air. Artie was barking.
She swam closer to the shore and let her feet fall to the sandy floor. She scanned the horizon and a wave of terror washed over her. Two large clouds of dust had formed to the north and in the distance a foreign rumble. She listened for a moment longer and stared in disbelief at the two dust clouds. The sound registered and Sam took off toward land.
"We have to go," Sam said and sloshed to the shore. She looked back at Cole and Alexandria. They stared back at her with blank expressions. Sam's eyes widened and her finger shot toward the two jeeps speeding toward them and screamed, "Now!"
Chaos ensued as they scrambled to the shore and pawed for their gear. Artie continued to bark as the two trucks sped down the shore road. They were a quarter mile away and coming up fast. Sam pulled on her dress and it clung to her body. She didn't have time for anything else. By the time she grabbed Cole's rifle, the two trucks skidded to a stop. Sam lifted the barrel of the rifle and aimed. The engines revved and cut out.
The truck doors opened in unison and six men climbed out with guns drawn. They wore in military fatigues, and each carried a service revolver on their hip. Sam wondered whose army they belonged to but figured she'd never find out. She would kill them before she found out.
"Drop it," one of the men ordered. He resembled Cole in both height and build; stocky and intimidating. His thick red beard hung to his chest and a giant spider web tattoo stretched over his bald head.
Sam kept the AR firmly in her grasp and the man in her sights. She steadied her breath and placed her finger over the trigger.
"I'd rather there not be any bloodshed if it's all the same," the man with the red beard said. His words oozed with a thick southern drawl.
"I will shoot you," Sam said. "We don't want any trouble. Let us go."
"If I lower my pistol, will you do the same?" the man asked.
"No."
The man smiled. "Well, I'm going to lower it anyway." He let the pistol fall to his side but kept his finger on the trigger. "My men are going to lower theirs too." He nodded and the five other men lowered their weapons. "If you shoot, you'll be doing it in cold blood. Can you live with that?"
"I'll manage," Sam said.
"I reckon that's true." The man with the beard chuckled and holstered his weapon. "Any of you infected?"
Sam shook her head.
"Well, I suppose you need to finish getting dressed and come with us." He spit a brown wad of chewing tobacco on the ground and wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his filed jacket. "Our camp is a little ways up the shore. Got food and medical supplies. Got a couple of doctors that can patch you up."
"And if we don't?" Sam asked.
"If you don't what?" Red Beard asked.
"If we don't come with you?"
"Well," the man raised a hand to his chin and stroked the thick beard, "I reckon you can do as you please. But judging by the way you all look…" the man paused and spit on the ground again, "I don't think you'll last much longer out here. Isn't that right, Albright?"
Sam's heart skipped a beat. "How did you—"
"We can talk back at camp," the man said. "There's a lot to discuss. Ain't that right, Porter?"
"Who are you?" Sam asked.
"Name's Sawyer. Jack Sawyer." He started toward vehicles, took a few steps and turned back, "Don't worry," he chuckled, "it's only going to get a million times weirder." He flashed a smile and then climbed into the jeep.
The men retreated to their vehicles and Sam lowered her weapon. She looked to Cole whose mouth was agape and then to Alex who half-naked and shivering. "Finish putting on your clothes."
"What're we gonna do?" Cole asked, still staring at the jeeps.
"We'll fill our water bottles up and go back the way we came," Sam said. She picked the cargo pants and awkwardly put them on while still holding onto the rifle.
"But they said they have food," Alexandria said.
Sam's stomach grumbled at the concept and she looked over to the jeeps. She could see the man called Sawyer staring back at her through the windshield. She shook her head. "There was food in Lost Angel, wasn't there?" She pulled on her socks. "Didn't mean you wanted to stick around for it."
"They got a doctor, too," Cole said as he shoved a leg into the frayed leg of the tuxedo pants.
"Yeah, I heard that part." She shoved a blistered foot into one of the boots and then the other. The pain made her eyes water.
"Miss Sam—"
"What are you waiting for, Cole? Fill up the water bottles. Alexandria put your shoes on. We need to go."
"Miss Sam," Cole started again, "I think—"
"You think what exactly?" Sam cut him off. "That these men are a bunch of nice guys out for a stroll. That the assault rifles and service pistols they're carrying around are for protection?" Her words were angry and bitter. "Come on, Cole. Use your goddamn head. With food being as scarce as it is and they just up and offer us some? And medical attention? You really think that's what they're trying to do? They know our names. They found us in the middle of nowhere. Why would we go anywhere with them?"
"Sam," Alex whispered, "I'm really hungry."
Sam turned to Alex and lowered her voice. "W
e're all hungry. All of us. But I'm not going to let your brother have died in vain so the first person we meet up with ends up killing us. Or worse."
Alexandria looked away and tears filled her eyes, but when she spoke again her voice was cold and bitter, "But you'll do him the injustice of letting me starve to death? You'll let me starve like he did because these men might interfere with you getting to Concordia?"
The words hit her like a shotgun blast. Tears stung her eyes, and she looked away from the girl. "What if he's a bad guy?" she whispered. "A bad guy like the President?"
There was a long moment of silence. Finally, Alex said, "I think if he was a bad guy like that then we'd already be in the back of their trucks. They know your name, maybe they're good guys. They didn't shoot and they're not forcing us to go anywhere."
Sam made eye contact with the man named Sawyer. Deep inside his face struck a nerve of familiarity. As familiar as the man in the monitor had in Lost Angel. He nodded to her, and she looked to Cole hoping he would err on the side of caution. But she knew she had the lost battle the moment their eyes met.
"We can't do this alone, Miss Sam." His words were somber but true. "If you want to make it to Concordia then we need to take their help."
Sam winced at the words.
"When we left Lost Angel," Cole continued, "we didn't have nothin'. We pieced together what we could from the scrapyard and we got lucky with findin' water, but we ain't gonna last much longer without food and some medicine. If Nick dying don't prove it then I don't know what else will." He wrapped an arm around Alex's shoulder and squeezed the girl tightly. She buried her head in his chest and sobbed.
"We can't go with them," Sam pleaded. "This is all wrong. Don't you understand? We're in the middle of the desert and these men come out of nowhere and they know our names. We can't go."
"You're free to do what you like, Miss Sam." Cole took a deep breath as if the words hurt to say. "But me and Alex are gonna go to that camp regardless."
A wave of terror washed over her. "You can't leave me."
Cole frowned. "I ain't leavin' you. If you don't go to the camp, you'll be leaving us."
She looked to the road leading back to Las Vegas, back to Lost Angel and to New Hope, and then she looked to the men in the trucks. She could make it alone but at what cost? If she turned her back on them and the men turned out to be evil then whatever happened would be on her.
When she turned back to Cole and Alex, she saw Jordan's ghostly frame lingering behind them. He nodded, as if to confirm Cole's words, and then gave a sorrowful smile. Sam blinked, and he was gone.
"Okay," she whispered. "We go with them."
The threesome gathered their gear and walked to the fleet of vehicles. Alex picked Artie up from the desert floor and he vigorously licked her face. Sam crawled into the empty passenger seat next to Sawyer and Cole, Alex and Artie climbed into the back. Sawyer looked at them and then smiled.
"Glad you decided to join us," he said.
"Didn't have much of a choice," Sam said.
"Well, I'm glad none the same."
Sawyer shifted the tranny into drive and turned the jeep around. "The camp's on the north side of the lake," he said over the roar of the engine. "It'll take us about an hour to get there. Used to be a town called Overton. It got walled up during the infection. After the first couple of us were awakened, we cleared it out. Started rebuilding."
"Awakened?" Sam asked.
"I'll explain that part once we get to camp. I find it's better to hear things on a full stomach."
As the jeep rolled north, a question emerged at the forefront of Sam's thoughts. How did they know where to find us if their camp is an hour away? They had only been at the lake for 15 minutes when the soldiers had shown up. Panic clutched at her heart and she gripped the handle of the knife and slowly pulled it from its sheath. "What were you doing an hour away from your camp?"
The jeep sped up as they reached the remnants of an old service road.
"Had to come pick you up, Albright. Why else would we be burning all this fuel?"
"How do you know our names?" Sam asked and shifted the knife to her other hand. A millisecond later and she poked the tip into Sawyer's abdomen; not hard enough to break skin, but enough to get his attention. The man looked down at the blade and then back to the road. "How'd you know where to find us?"
"How about you holster your weapon and enjoy the ride?" Sawyer said evenly. "You'll be debriefed when we get back to camp. Don't worry your pretty little head about all the details."
Blood-red rage flashed in Sam's eyes and she lifted the knife to Sawyer's throat. "You'll tell me now."
The half-smile Sawyer wore beneath the bushy beard faded but he kept his eyes on the dirt road ahead of them. Suddenly the jeep slowed and a moment later they pulled off the road. The convoy behind them pulled over as well.
"What's going on?" Cole asked from the back.
"Albright seems to have a wild hair up her ass," Sawyer said. The handle of the knife vibrated in her hand with each word he spoke and a bright red trickle of blood emerged from underneath the tip of the blade. He lowered his voice to a whisper. "Holster your weapon, Captain. That's a goddamn order."
"Captain?" Sam asked, taken aback.
"Yes," Sawyer said. "Captain Samantha Michelle Albright. Daughter of Randall and Connie Albright. Sister of Rebecca Albright. Your father was a plumber and died when you were three years old. Your mother was technical engineer for a large healthcare corporation and died during the quarantines. Two hours ago, a blip appeared on our radar. There's a GPS tracking chip inserted in your left frontal cortex. There's one in all of us. That's how we knew you were out there. That's why we're here."
Sam's head spun. "Rebecca?"
"Rebecca wasn't infected," Sawyer said and gently pushed the knife from his throat. "But her situation is a little more complicated."
The image of the little girl from laundry flashed through her mind. Her fingertips gripped against the doorframe as the Ministry's soldiers carried her to her death. The panic in her eyes. "How old?"
"That's complicated too," Sawyer said. "But if I had to guess, I'd say about nine."
"No," Sam said. Tears rushed to her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. "No. Her name was Rebecca Young." Sam remembered how the two of them looked like sisters. How Sam always felt so close to the girl. She dropped the knife to the floor and buried her head in her hands. "No, no, no, no." Her chest heaved and breath quickened. The memory of Rebecca in the old apartment. The memory of her being dragged to her death. Sisters. "No!" she screamed.
4
The jeep sped north up the coastline until the lake disappeared. A steel gate, pieced together from sheets of aluminum, appeared on the horizon and the jeep slowed to a crawl. A makeshift wall of old cars, worn-out appliances, and other junk had been stacked and stretched in either direction. Sawyer honked the horn twice, and the gates rattled open.
"How did you know all that?" Sam asked. It was the first time she had spoken since Sawyer's revelation about Rebecca. Her body was numb. Empty. "I can't remember anything before…"
"Before the fires?" Sawyer asked.
Sam nodded.
"That's how it works for everyone. Trust me, Albright, I can't promise to make things less strange moving forward, but they will become a lot clearer. By the time it's all said and done, it'll be crystal. Just hang in there a bit longer."
"Okay," Sam whispered.
Once the gates opened all the way, Sawyer nosed the jeep inside and parked just within the barrier. Sam marveled at the city inside as she stepped out of the truck. Military-grade tents stretched out on either side of a dirt path; dozens on either side. Men and women, all clad in military fatigues, bustled through the encampment.
"It's unbelievable," Cole said as he climbed out of the back of the jeep.
The other truck pulled into a spot beside them and the gates clattered shut. The half-dozen soldiers climbed from the truck and stared at Sam
. Cole helped Alex from the jeep and she set Artie, who had ridden silently in her lap, onto the ground. The dog sat down beside its new owner and scratched at his ear with his hind leg.
Sawyer exited the vehicle last, and started barking orders. "Herd. Sanchez. Front and center." Two men broke away from their squadron. "I need you two to track down the Dr. Alvarez and Dr. Etter and help them prep the medical tents. Let them know that we've got three in need of an oil change and two that'll need a tune up. Full diagnostics for all three."
"Sir, yes sir," the two said in unison and took off toward the epicenter of the camp. Sam watched as they disappeared between the rows of tents.
"What's an oil change?" Alexandria asked.
"I reckon you three are pretty dehydrated from being out in the Mojave," Sawyer said. "Couple bags of saline should get any toxins flushed out of your system and have you headed back in the right direction."
"And a tune up?" Sam asked.
"We need to awaken your brains," Sawyer said and stroked his beard. "Let you in on what's been going on out here for the last 300 years."
"Sounds good," Sam said.
"Baker," Sawyer continued, "you and Price go tell the chef to get us three extra plates and don't be stingy with the fixin's."
Alex cleared her throat.
"Oh," Sawyer said and smiled down at Artie, "and tell him to make a bowl of chow for the pooch."
Two more men sounded off in unison and then took off into camp.
"That sounds even better," Cole said and smiled.
Sawyer chuckled. "Well, you look like you missed a few meals, Sarge." He clapped Cole on his shoulder and smiled. Cole looked back in stunned amazement. "Hell, last time I saw you, you were about—" Sawyer's words cut out and the grin faded from his lips.
"What's wrong?" Sam asked.
"You three came from the west, didn't you?" Sawyer asked, not taking his eyes off the back of Cole's neck.
"Yes," Sam answered.
Sawyer turned to Alexandria and looked her up and down and then spun back to Cole. His face grayed despite the mid-morning sun beating down on them. "Lost Angel?"