Prepper Mountain

by Chris Bostic

  “C’mon,” Katelyn said as she took my hand. She wisely led us off the main road onto a narrow one-lane road, also paved, that ran past each of the little campsites.

  It should’ve been crowded during a normal summer. I imagined hundreds of people packed into that space—cooking, laughing and playing games. The noise of kids goofing off in the nearby creek and metal clinking as people threw washers; adults sitting in pop-up chairs around the picnic table pretending to be great outdoorsmen as they cooked over a charcoal fire. Mom would’ve ridiculed them, but it sounded more fun than hiking a half dozen miles to get to some cleared off spot in the middle of nowhere, like our new home. Prepperville.

  “There’s the shower house,” Katelyn said. She pointed ahead at a short block building off the side of the road. The architecture screamed eons ago, with thin cloudy windows that probably didn’t open and beaten up wooden shingles covering the roof. But at least they had facilities.

  We were only a couple pad sites short of the building when the daylight finally gave out. The moon returned, neatly sliced in half, and contributed a measure of light. We stopped to rest at the side of the shower house underneath the narrow overhang. Broken concrete sidewalk surrounded the little structure, leading to doors at both ends for men and women.

  I took a deep breath and ran my hand absently over the smooth blocks. They reminded me of the halls in school, only with darker paint adding to the gloom of dusk in the forest. I closed my eyes and envisioned my high school, probably still mostly bright and cheerful—but empty. Joe wouldn’t have a place to clown around between classes. Like a lost puzzle piece, the emptiness would remain for longer than just summer vacation.

  “You hear that?” Katelyn whispered, bringing me back to the present.

  I concentrated, but shook my head. Then I heard it. On the far side of the building, leaves rustled, and my body tensed up, alarm bells blaring in my head. Rather than ignoring them like school, I took the warning seriously.

  Katelyn grabbed my wrist, and I felt her gradually pull as if she was gearing up to run. My feet were concrete blocks, though. I was rooted, staring at the far end of the building.

  A shadow stepped out into the open.

  CHAPTER 38

  The shape lumbered across the sidewalk, moving on all fours to cross the road. Even so, I remained frozen.

  Katelyn’s voice cracked as she whispered, “Bear?”

  “Yeah. A hungry one, and I don’t want to be dinner.” I held an arm out to keep her behind me, though it was unlikely she was going anywhere but backwards.

  “There’s nothing for him to scavenge around here.”

  “Yeah, not anymore.” Every campsite had bear-proof dumpsters, but people were always slobs leaving trash sitting around. I supposed not having the litterers around anymore was one small benefit of the national collapse. “Surely he’s learned that by now.”

  Back in the park’s prime, intentionally feeding the bears was serious business. We’d all seen the signs around the campsites and trailheads: A Fed Bear is a Dead Bear. To me, Fed and Dead went together in a way they never had before.

  “Let him go, then we’ll get outta here.”

  Katelyn released her iron grip on my arm, and leaned in to rest her head on my shoulder. We watched as the bear ambled through the campsite without bothering to stop for more than a second at the big metal dumpster tucked between two sites.

  “Nothing here, that’s for sure.” Katelyn kneeled to adjust the laces on her boots. “Not for us either. Let’s go.”

  That was true. I assumed the faucets were turned off inside the building, and we didn’t really need water anyway. A real shower might’ve been nice someday, though the waterfall would be a whole lot more enjoyable—injuries aside. At least until the novelty wore off and I needed some scalding water to make me feel human again.

  I kept the bear’s dark shadow in my peripheral vision as we started moving again. While its blackness faded into the even deeper darkness of the forest, we hiked through the middle part of camp and kept on going.

  By the time we reached the far end of the site to stare at nothing but winding highway ahead, I realized Elkmont wasn’t really a town. It was the campsite and nothing more. Not that I thought it would be, since no one lived in National Parks. But I thought there might be a cluster of old cabins, or a historic little one room schoolhouse or church.

  “So where’d you guys park your vehicles at?”

  Katelyn pointed behind us toward the creek. It wasn’t far from where the bear had cut in front of us. “Just off the camp road. There’s a short stretch of gravel leading from the campsites down to the creek. Dad pulled off in there.” She looked at me curiously. “You didn’t notice?”

  “No, not even the road.” Of course, it was pitch black.

  “Good. Guess he covered them up well enough.”

  So she hoped, I thought. There was no telling if there had been visitors already. I suspected not, but I also hadn’t expected being found hiding out at the church within hours of getting there. Somehow Campsite Twenty had been spared, which probably had a good deal to do with being off any kind of roadway. But there was still danger everywhere.

  Despite that fact, we stuck to hiking on the narrow asphalt. It was simply faster, and I didn’t have the energy to spare fighting the brush. So we followed a ridiculously curvy two-lane road along the creek for more than a mile. It was a gentle downhill the whole way, but that didn’t make it any less stressful. With every strange noise or odd glint, I readied myself to dive off the road and drag Katelyn behind me.

  Thankfully, that wasn’t necessary on the lonely side road leading from Elkmont. By the time we hit Little River Road, one of the bigger roads cutting through the park at the bottom of the hill, my feet were burning. The dampness didn’t do anything to quench that, and my legs were stiffening.

  I dragged a tired Katelyn off the road into the ditch to rest. There was still quite a distance left to Gatlinburg, but we could make it in a few hours. Definitely well before daylight.

  “You holding up okay?” I asked before taking the first of several long drinks.

  “Yeah.”

  I wished there was more to say. But, no matter how badly I wanted to change things, we weren’t on a leisurely walk home from school. Words were wasted energy.

  “Tell me when you’re ready.”

  “Now’s fine,” she said. “We’ve got a long way, right?”

  I offered her a hand to pull her back up onto the road. “A few more miles.”

  “Great.” She scuffed her boots on the pavement and took off at a brisk pace. “Maybe we should’ve taken a car.”

  “Trust me, I thought about it…a lot.”

  I matched her step for step, my eyes sweeping the road in front of us, and constantly checking behind us to make sure no one flew up unnoticed.

  She turned around to find the crooked side road to Elkmont had already faded from view. “We could go back…”

  I didn’t have the heart to disagree with her. I paused to reconsider for the hundredth time. We could run lights off, though a moonlight glint might give us away. The bigger problem was what would happen when we ran into someone. But we could ditch the car and take off running.

  “That’s a dumb idea,” she said. “No point tipping anyone off.”

  “Hold on,” I said. “Maybe not.”

  “C’mon, Zach.” She pulled me down the road. “We hiked this far.”

  “Alright. But tell you what…I’m not looking forward to hiking back here tonight.”

  “Then we’ll steal a car in Gatlinburg.” A maniacal grin matched her unexpected tone.

  “Good call.”

  My mind ran through all sorts of different scenarios as we closed on the town. I saw us sneaking through deserted streets, marveling at crumbled buildings. That is when we weren’t hiding for our lives, creeping from building to building like rats.

  I don’t know how long we walked, but my feet definitely knew
it was something they weren’t ready for. Between the stress of constantly checking behind, and ahead, of us and the mental stress of not knowing what was to come, I dragged my boots to a halt in the middle of the road.

  Katelyn’s shoulders hunched forward, and she hung her head. She looked at me curiously through her eyelashes, but appeared to have no more strength left than I had.

  Trees towered over us, mocking our broken bodies. The canopy closed over the road, leaving us in an extra dark little valley with the moonlight choked out.

  My voice cracked as I tried to say, “Break time.”

  Katelyn nodded and shuffled to the side of the road. She started to climb into the roadside ditch when I stopped her.

  “I’m sitting here,” I said, and slumped on the side of the road. My back was so stiff I couldn’t have pulled off my boots without sitting down. Even so, it was a challenge.

  “I should’ve brought more socks,” I whispered.

  “Heard that.” Katelyn grimaced as she took off her boots too.

  I bumped her teasingly with my shoulder. “Whew, your dogs are barking.”

  “You took yours off first.” Her eyes narrowed. “Sure that’s not your own?”

  I laughed weakly. “Of course it is. God they stink from my wet boots. I’m so sorry.”

  “I’m sure mine aren’t pretty either.”

  There wasn’t anything that wasn’t pretty about Katelyn, but I resisted the urge to kid her about that. Instead, I struggled to pull off damp socks and let the cooling night air work its way between my soggy toes.

  I tried to squeeze water out of my socks like a washrag, but the moisture was more allover than dripping. Just enough to turn my toes to prunes, and about as nasty.

  A little breeze kicked up, swaying the trees gently, and a different kind of odor registered in my nose. It reminded me of campfire, but with an edge I couldn’t quite place. Thankfully not burning trash like our supplies behind the church, but just a little off.

  “You smell that?” I asked Katelyn.

  “You still talking about feet?” All joking stopped abruptly and she turned to me, sniffing the air. “I just got a whiff. It…it reminds me of an old fire.”

  “That’s it. Something burned out, like for a day or two.” Though hardly possible to be jumpier than I’d already been, I froze in place, letting only my eyes search around for a clue—not that I could make out much. The idea that we could be close to an active camp, or at least one recently used, set me so far on edge that my emotions teetered.

  The breeze died, but the charred smell lingered in the back of my nose.

  “Is that coming from town?” Katelyn asked. She closed her eyes as if that would make her smell better.

  “You would think so, but I’m not sure.” I closed my eyes too, but only for a second. “It seems close, really close, and we still have a little ways to go. Not far, but…”

  She trembled almost imperceptibly. I reached out and grabbed her hand.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “They’re fine.”

  I shifted over next to her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

  “Thanks,” she whispered. “I don’t believe it, but it helps to hear you say that.”

  It was time to change the subject. “How about we have a snack?”

  I pulled a granola bar out of my back pocket and ripped it open. It was warm from body heat, giving it a mushy texture and a flavor less than appetizing. But I happily choked down a little energy and tried to keep my mind off the old fire.

  Katelyn finished up hers as I unclipped a water bottle to wash down sticky granola bits.

  “No point sitting here. Just another minute and we’ll get going,” I said.

  “That’s fine.” She stared at the sky as if she was checking the time by the moon, only the leaves covered us like a high-ceilinged tent. “I guess so far, so good, huh?”

  “Yeah. It’s been awful quiet so far.” But I had a feeling that was about to change. “Like I was saying, not too much farther.”

  “You still wanna walk along the road?”

  “For a little while.” I pointed ahead through the dark, leafy tunnel to what looked like a narrow opening. “I think I might be seeing the main road way up there.”

  “Like the one through the middle of the park…going to North Carolina?”

  “Yeah, that’s the one.”

  “It could be busier,” she said, tentatively.

  “Maybe. We’ll have to be even more careful.” I stopped talking while another gentle breeze rolled through the trees. The cool air felt good on my toes. “At least everything seems pretty dead so far.”

  That was probably a poor choice of words. Katelyn paused before whispering, “Let’s hope it stays that way.”

  I knew better than to think it would.

  We pulled our socks and boots on and rose to our feet with shared groans. Katelyn looked at me with dark eyes that blended into the forest around us. They stood in contrast to her pale cheeks, which shone as we worked our way toward the main highway where the tree cover thinned somewhat.

  As we drew closer to the intersection, the burned-out smell intensified. Convinced that it couldn’t be coming from town, I searched all directions, mostly left and right up into the dark woods. Nothing stood out.

  “What’s that black spot?” Katelyn asked, and I turned from the side to see her pointing at the road ahead.

  “Oh…”

  She moved to crouch, but I pulled her up, saying, “I think the origin of that smell.”

  “What?”

  “You’ll see.”

  At my beckoning, she hurried along beside me, and we soon came to a stop at a gap in the road. This was no simple pothole. From our right, a stream rolled off the mountain above to join a creek to our left, and all that remained of an old timber bridge was some broken up asphalt and rock in the bottom of the newly-formed chasm.

  “Remember the missing propane tanks?” I asked. “I think they blew the bridge.”

  Katelyn nodded. “Huh. So it was all wooden underneath, right, and the smoke we saw from camp was the bridge burning?”

  “I think so. Probably several of them. I saw a bunch of different columns of smoke rising.”

  “So it wasn’t the town at all. That’s a relief, I think.”

  “Yeah it is. Now we just need to get across here.”

  The stream ran about ten feet below the pavement, but it was easy enough to climb down to the bottom. The sides of the streambank were steep, but not vertical. Vehicles definitely couldn’t cross; however, we had little trouble sliding down the bank, skipping over a few rocks and asphalt rubble, and climbing back up the other side.

  After a deep breath that smelled of scorched wood, I turned to face away from the chasm, wondering exactly why our parents had blown the bridge. Obviously, they’d wanted to keep the rangers and anyone else from using the roads, but I couldn’t grasp the timing. It seemed strange to blow the bridges before going into town rather than afterwards.

  Katelyn took my hand. Our fingers interlocked, and with a semi-confident nod, we continued on toward the main highway. We hugged the edge of the pavement, going single file, but I kept hold of her to make sure she was right behind me.

  “Be ready for anything,” I said as we finally paused just short of the intersection. It wasn’t much wider than the road we were on, but there was a little more shoulder. I took a quick look both ways and turned the corner to walk along the rock platform lining the travel lanes.

  Our boots made a racket on the gravel, jarring me at first. Walking the asphalt hadn’t been quiet, but the scuffing and crunching on the gravel was disconcerting. I was convinced I wouldn’t hear anyone driving up behind us, and ended up turning around often, sometimes making Katelyn run up on my heels.

  She finally stopped to ask, “You wanna stay back in the woods?”

  I shrugged a shoulder and kept plodding toward town. “Not really.” We were making much better time along the road. />
  “I can watch behind us if you’ll keep going.”

  “Teamwork?” I kidded.

  She squeezed my hand. “Yeah, that’s right.”

  The road dropped rapidly, bringing us from the mountaintops toward the valley where Gatlinburg was nestled. I knew from past trips that the town was long and narrow. Only a few streets bordered each side of the main strip running through town before the mountains closed in around it.

  We arrived on the outskirts of town fairly quickly, and I slowed our pace looking and listening for any sign of life. I expected to see streetlights poking through the trees, but we were still several turns away from a clear view. The streets were quiet as well. No music or raised voices traveled to us from the bars, and no horns or tires squealed in the normal crush of people going back to hotels after a night out on the town.

  We finally rounded the last turn, lining us up with the strip. There was nothing. Not even a stray dog. We’d come so far hoping to find our parents, to help out if necessary, but there were no signs of life. I stood there growing discouraged at what seemed like a wasted trip.

  I turned to Katelyn to see if she wanted to venture into town or hang back in the woods. Before I could ask, it all changed in a blur.

  CHAPTER 39

  Headlights popped on from a few blocks down the strip. I dove off the highway into the woods, pulling Katelyn with me. There was no ditch to stumble into this time. Instead, we slammed our way through the brush along the roadside, putting several tree trunks between us and the strip.

  Red and blue lights flashed from the top of the vehicle. My stomach sank. It was a feeling so much worse than a cop pulling behind a driver to write a speeding ticket. I thought I’d have to pick my stomach up off the ground. But there was no time.

  I twisted to run deeper into the woods.

  “Hold on,” Katelyn whispered harshly and stood her ground.

  “What?”

  She crouched beside a giant tree and pointed toward town. I followed her finger to the flashing lights. I crept next to her and lifted a branch to spot the vehicle turned crossways in the middle of the strip, blocking traffic in both directions. Only there were no other vehicles.