by James Cook
He threw his cup from the table and smashed it against the ground, shattering it and splashing water in the dirt at his feet.
“Maybe you don’t give a fuck about any of that, but I do.” He stabbed a finger into his chest. “And I can’t do this shit by myself, so can we please cut the crap and focus on the problem at hand for just a few minutes here? Pretty please with a fucking cherry on top?”
We were all silent for a moment. Gabe’s anger took us by surprise, and none of us were quite sure how to respond. His stern glare, those two scalding shards of bright gray flint, pinned us to our seats.
“You’re right.” Allison said, giving Gabe a grim smile, and then looking around the table at the rest of us. “The last time the Legion attacked, we were ready for them. We had them outnumbered, and outgunned, and we sent them packing with their tails between their legs. But they’re not stupid, and they’re not going to just go away. When they come back again, it won’t be like last time. They’ll be more careful, and they will have a plan.”
Gabe bobbed his head in a single nod, his temper cooling. “And we’ll need to be ready when they do.”
The voice from my delirious, drug addled dream came back to me, a whisper in my ear: Your friend Gabriel is a good man. He has a lot to teach you if you let him.
I thought for a moment, spreading my hands out on the table. “Gabe, I’m a decent tactician, but I’m good for fuck-all when it comes to big picture stuff. If you have any ideas about what to do, I’m all ears.”
I looked up and saw him regarding me with a strange expression on his face. It was something different, something I hadn’t seen from him before. I think it was surprise.
“There’s a big field about a half mile south of here. Sheriff Elliott owns the land and he’s agreed to let us use it. The Mayor is lending us a few work crews to clear the grass and turn it into a training ground.”
I nodded. “So when do we start?”
Gabe picked his chair up and resumed his seat at the table. “As soon as the training ground and the barracks are ready. Maybe two weeks.”
We spent the next hour or so hashing out details of how to run the training program. Sheriff Elliott had handpicked a hundred recruits from the nearly three-hundred people who volunteered. I had no idea how good the old man was at spotting talent, but judging by the calm efficiency of his deputies, I had to admit he might know a thing or two about picking leaders. And leaders were exactly what we needed.
As the sun sank low behind the surrounding treetops, we finished as much of the food as we could and invited a few neighbors who had been eyeballing our little feast to help dispense with the leftovers. They happily complied. Even in this sheltered town, beef was a rare treat.
Allison walked with Gabe and me to the driveway of the little house she gave us. She hugged me and wished me goodnight, shooting Gabe a meaningful glance. I watched her walk the short distance to her front door, less than a quarter mile away.
“So what was that all about?” I said as Gabe turned the key in the lock.
“What was what all about?”
Gabe liked to think he was a good liar, but after all the years I’d known him, I could read him like an open book. Sometimes.
“That look between you and Allison. The hell was that?”
Gabe shot me his best withering scowl, expecting me to take a hint and drop the subject. Whatever. I was used to drawing Gabe’s ire. “You two been talking about me?” I said.
He hesitated for a moment, considering. Some of his tension left him, the he said, “Yes, we have.”
It was my turn to scowl. “And what have you been saying?”
Gabe opened the door and motioned me inside. We both had to stand still for a few moments to let our eyes adjust to the gloom. Even so long after the Outbreak, I still had to fight the urge to reach for a light switch. I guess old habits ingrained in a person for so many years take a long time to wear away.
“She’s worried about you.” Gabe said, as he opened a drawer in the coffee table to take out a candle and a lighter.
“Worried about me? Why?”
The candle took the flame and cast a dim yellow light around the living room. Gabe sat back on the couch. “Worried about you pushing yourself too hard.”
I snorted. “I’m not hurt that bad. Not anymore, at least.” I said, sinking into the recliner next to the couch.
“My sentiments exactly.” Gabe said. “Doc Laroux seems to think different.”
The dark, silent glass of an old big-screen television stared at me through the evening darkness beyond the coffee table. It reminded me of days gone by spent watching TV with my parents as a kid. I pushed the memories away. They held only pain at this point, and I’d had my fill of pain over the last couple of years.
“She didn’t seem to feel that way yesterday.” I said.
Gabe shot me a look, and I realized that I’d spoken without thinking. “Anyway,” I said, before he could ask anything, “it’s nothing to worry about. I’m not gonna lie and say I’m a hundred percent, but I’m healed enough to do what’s needed of me. If I feel like I’m pushing myself too hard, I’ll speak up.”
“You might want to tell Allison that.”
I nodded. “I will.”
*****
The next day, after Allison left for work and Gabe went to the Mayor’s office for a meeting, Steve stopped by for a visit to see how I was doing. He had been so busy over the last few weeks trying to track down the Legion’s headquarters that we hadn’t had a chance to catch up.
“So what happened to the compound after I left?” I asked him, a little fearful of the answer.
“I went with Lieutenant Jonas and his men and helped them on their recon for a couple of weeks. By the time we got back, quite a few people had already left. Most of them told Bill they were going to Colorado.”
“Any word on whether they made it or not?”
“We get radio messages from Central Command in Cheyenne Mountain every couple of weeks. Lists of names, dates of birth, places of origin. People trying to reconnect with friends and loved ones, trying to find out who survived. I know that Stan, Cody, Jessica Robinson, and her husband Earl all made it. Reports on the others are spotty. Some got there, others...” He let the comment hang for a moment. “Time will tell.”
As happy as I was for the people who made it, doubt over what might have happened to the ones who didn’t was a heavy tightness in my chest. I lived among those people for a little over three months, talking to them, eating with them, even fighting for them. It pained me to think that they had endured so much, survived so much, only to meet a painful end somewhere out there in the treacherous wastes. But that was the way of things in this shattered land we now lived in.
“What about Ethan and Andrea? They doing okay?”
Steve smiled. “Andrea took a management job at the hospital, and Ethan had worked his way up to sergeant last time I saw him. Justin wound up enlisting when he couldn’t find any work in Bragg other than sweating it out on a farm crew. They all share a house together, with Emily watching the kids while the others are at work. She’s a great mom.”
I nodded, wondering what their kids were like. Especially little Aiden. He was barely over a year old the last time I saw him, but nearly two years had gone by and he was probably running around and tearing up the place.
The morning silence hovered still and heavy while I worked up the courage to ask the question that had been haunting me since the day I left the compound.
“How’s Stacy?”
Steve looked over at me, not quite suppressing a knowing smirk. “She took it pretty hard when you left.”
I nodded silently. A cold ball of guilt rolled up in my stomach.
“She didn’t talk much for a while.” Steve continued. “I think she might have loved you.”
“I think I might have loved her too.” I said.
Steve took a sip of his tea and sat back, his chair creaking under his weight. “Well
don’t spend too much time mooning over her. Wasn’t a month after we got to Bragg that she started shacking up with Noah Salinger.”
That didn’t surprise me. There was something growing between them even before I left.
“I’m glad to hear that. Noah is a nice guy.”
As the morning wore on, our conversation turned to the subject of training Gabe’s recruits. I’m not sure why we thought of them as his recruits, it just seemed to fit. Steve promised to offer what help he could, but spying on the Legion was a full-time gig for him. He wasn’t sure how much time he could spare. I let him know that anything he could do would be greatly appreciated, and shook his hand when he left to make a ten o’clock meeting with Sheriff Elliott.
Gabe got home late that afternoon, and we went for a walk outside the wall. My rifle’s weight was cumbersome after so many days of not wearing it. The sling chafed at my neck, and my web gear felt heavy around my hips. We stopped at the northern end of town beneath a memorial cross that some of the townsfolk had erected with hollow steel poles scavenged from the surrounding ruins. The towering crucifix stood in a thick concrete anchor dug several feet into the ground. A large carved stone, flat and slate-grey like a tombstone, gave voice to the town’s memorial.
This memorial stands as a tribute to the victims of the Great Outbreak, both living and dead. So long as the memories of your lives remain with us, and the light of hope shines forth from the hearts of those who survived, you will never be forgotten.
- The Congregation of Hollow Rock Church
“Pretty words.” Gabe muttered. “I’m surprised there’s anyone left alive who still believes in all that bible stuff.”
I stepped up onto the short raised platform around the base of the crucifix and leaned a shoulder against it, stuffing my hands in my pockets. Even this far into June, it still got cool enough at night to wear a jacket and a knit cap to fend off the chill.
“I’m with you on that one. Hard to believe there’s a loving God out there with the world gone to shit.”
The sun was beginning to disappear behind the hills in the distance. Swirls of yellow, orange, and crimson descended down toward the horizon in a dazzling, fractured haze. The brilliant colors would have been beautiful except that they were caused by the floating ashes of a dying civilization. And it was a dying civilization. I, and all the people like me who could remember what the world was like before the Outbreak, would not be around forever. Eventually we would pass on, and the generations that followed behind would be left to stare in puzzlement at the ruins of all that humanity had ever accomplished. I could almost see them, gaping at the sight of a collapsing skyscraper, or scratching their heads at the mystery of a billboard on some lonely, forgotten highway, the advertisements empty of any meaning they once held.
Gabe stepped a boot onto the platform and braced his weight against his thigh with one brawny arm.
“Got a lot of work ahead of us.” He said.
“That we do.”
He looked over at me, the lines in his weathered face standing out in stark relief. “Think we’ll get out of this one alive?”
I smiled and shrugged. “Nobody gets out of this world alive, Gabe. What matters is what we do with the time we still have. You know that.”
A ghost of a smile brightened his eyes for just a moment before he turned way. We stood in companionable silence under the amber sky, staring at the last fading light of another day.
I wondered how many more I would get to see.
Table of Contents
COPYRIGHT
Author’s Note
EPIGRAPH
Chapter 1 Unexpected Guests
Chapter 2 Close Calls
Chapter 3 Swarm
Chapter 4 Ambush
Chapter 5 Ride the River
Chapter 6 Go West, Young Man
Chapter 7 The Journal of Gabriel Garrett: Gauntlet
Chapter 8 Bear Country
Chapter 9 The Journal of Gabriel Garrett: Confidence Course
Chapter 10 Hog Teeth
Chapter 11 Conspiracy Theory
Chapter 12 The Journal of Gabriel Garrett: Threat Response
Chapter 12 Old Friends and New Enemies
Chapter 13 The Journal of Gabriel Garrett: Scar Tissue
Chapter 14 Thunderheads