Prepper Mountain

by Chris Bostic

  Against my better judgment, we slunk forward. I wasn’t about to let Katelyn run off by herself.

  Out of the blackness, behind the police car, a dark cloud built on the street. Its edges were formless, shifting like an amoeba. And then it attacked.

  Flames lit up across the shape, transforming it into an angry, torch-carrying mob. Gunshots rang out, flashes and thunderous reports piercing the once quiet night. Someone in the crowd stumbled, but the amoeba enveloped that person’s place and continued on.

  I watched with fascinated anxiety as the flaming torches went flying toward the police car. Flames roared to life as the bottles shattered against the pavement. One hit the car with a giant metallic clunk, and it was enveloped in a firestorm.

  The motor revved as the cop tried to flee. The flaming car shot across the road errantly, missed the turn, and ended up burying itself in one of several shuttered souvenir shops lining the strip. The crowd roared.

  A second police car rounded a corner in front of us, and lined up to block the mob. The driver took one look at the crowd and must’ve panicked. While his buddy was parked inside a shop barbecuing, the new arrival bailed. Reverse lights came on, tires squealed, as the car promptly fled from the direction it’d come.

  The roar built to a deafening volume. There had to be at least forty, maybe fifty, people filling the street, all yelling. Some broke off from the sides of the rebel monster to check out the vacant buildings lining the road.

  I found myself standing, inching my way toward town, when Katelyn stopped me in my tracks.

  “Zach, there’s your mom.”

  “No way. Where?”

  She pointed at a figure toward the front of the group.

  The building impaled by the first police car was rapidly catching fire. The flames threw an orange glow over the crowd, and my eyes settled on my mother leading the rebellion up the street toward us.

  “I can’t find my folks,” Katelyn said, panicking.

  “We’ll find ‘em. Let’s go.”

  I tugged on her hand, and lunged through the brush toward the strip. My eyes alternated between searching the crowd and watching where I was going, making me stumble on a root. I jerked Katelyn’s arm unintentionally, and she cried out.

  “You okay?”

  “It’s my leg,” she said, surprising me. “I kinda twisted it.”

  “Oh, crap. I’m sorry.” I watched her try to put weight on the same leg she’d hurt at the waterfall, and pull it back sharply. “You were doing so good too. I hardly noticed you limping the whole hike.”

  “You’ll see it now.” She grimaced and shook her head like she was steeling her mind. “I’ll be fine.”

  I offered up a shoulder, and she waved me off. So I slowed down anyway, and spun around to find a faster path out of the woods to the pavement. Katelyn kept up, though I thought I heard the occasional sharp intake of air over the noise of the crowd in the street.

  We stepped out of the woods as the mob neared the last couple buildings on the strip. Someone pointed our direction, and several heads turned. I froze, realizing we’d surprised them.

  A flash of metal alerted me to their weapons, shaking me out of the paralysis.

  “Mom! Mom! It’s us!”

  My mother held her arms out wide to hold back the crowd. Someone shushed them, and the volume died down to a dull roar. I yelled again, and her face twisted.

  I was too tired to break into a run, and Katelyn wasn’t going anywhere fast. So we stumbled down the street into the edge of town as several people ran toward us. Mom first, then my dad. Austin was right behind with another man following him, who clutched at his upper arm.

  Mom wrapped me in a giant, almost embarrassing hug, but I didn’t complain.

  “What are you doing here?” she said sternly.

  “You’re a day late.”

  “Not really. More like a half.”

  “Whatever,” I said, letting irritation bleed into my earlier relief. “That’s still late.”

  “Well, sorry,” she replied unconvincingly. “We ended up rendezvousing with a big bunch of other folks, and had to do a little more tactical planning before we could pull off the operation.”

  “Huh? What?” I said, baffled by all the military-speak, not to mention the presence of so many other people.

  Dad patted my shoulder while Austin stood aloof. He eyed me curiously, but didn’t speak as Mom and Dad began grilling me harder about what we were doing in town.

  I noticed Katelyn had moved off to talk to the injured man next to Austin. With his hat off, it took me a moment to recognize him as her father. I waved myself away from the interrogation to check on her.

  Her face was twisted in despair, and my heart melted. I wrapped an arm around her shoulder and listened to her dad say, “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.” Despite his words, a blood stain grew on his shirtsleeve, and his face took an ashen pallor. His next words explained the real reason for Katelyn’s concern. “We’ll find her, kiddo.”

  She turned to me with eyes glistening with tears. I hugged her tightly and the tears soaked through my shirt. “She’s missing, Zach.”

  I stroked her hair and held her close, myself torn apart while her body was wracked with sobs. When she finally looked up, I searched for a tissue. Of course, I had nothing. Mom was better prepared.

  “We’re sorry, hon. We’re gonna find her,” she told Katelyn as she handed her a folded bandana. Then she fished out another and handed it to Katelyn’s dad. “We’d better wrap that arm up.”

  The rest of the group had caught up, many of whom were carrying boxes of supplies presumably looted from the shops in addition to a wide variety of weapons. They gathered around my mother. It was mostly adults, varying anywhere from under thirty years old to sixty plus. That made me realize I hadn’t seen John yet.

  I turned to Katelyn. “Where’s your brother?”

  “Out looking for Spotted Fawn,” her dad said, and I almost chuckled aloud at the idea that they were still using the code names. It turned out to have something to do with the crowd.

  Something about anxiety and excitement gave me the courage to talk freely among the adults. I asked her dad, “So what happened? Why’s she missing?”

  Having not secured the bandana yet, he kept pressure on his arm and spoke through clenched teeth. “We were going door to door gathering supplies when we got separated. Soldiers pushed us this way, back toward the park.”

  “Soldiers?” It was a more surprising revelation than I anticipated. I jerked my head to the sky out of reflex, fully expecting them to be dropping bombs any second. “What happened to them?”

  “They’re cordoning off the town…slowly,” Mom said. “We were headed back to the park when that cop tried to cut us off.” I looked down the street at the burning shop, and she must’ve seen the conflict in my eyes. “We didn’t mean for that to happen. None of it.”

  Dad stepped into the conversation. “No one would’ve hurt him if he hadn’t shot at us first. You know that, right?”

  I nodded numbly. We’d always been raised to respect the authorities, at least until they started coming to our house in black Suburbans at all hours of the day or night. Even then, we tried to keep things respectful, despite them showing us none. The way things had been going, I’d known it was only a matter of time before it came to blows up close and personal. Other people had already been fighting back. It was our turn to wade into the fight. No use crying over that.

  The die had been cast, several times—first when the bombs fell and we ran, and then Marisol and Mr. Clean took a beating for us. Someone was always taking the hit. There was no waiting any longer; no running from this situation. Not when the police fired on our people, and when we’d been officially branded rebels.

  “We need to get going,” Mom said. “Those soldiers won’t keep taking their time. They’ll be moving in with the town burning. Or…”

  She turned abruptly to the group and shouted orders for them to follow
us into the park and take cover. I looked at Katelyn and immediately recognized the panic on her face.

  “You’re not leaving without her mom, are you?”

  “We have to go,” Mom said. “They’ll level the rest of the town if we stay.”

  “The bombers are probably already on the way,” Dad added more forcefully than normal. “We need to move.”

  I glanced at Katelyn’s dad. His lips were set in a thin, resolute line. What he was determined about, I couldn’t tell. Mom spun him around and started to help him bandage his arm.

  “Well, we’re staying here to find her.” I took Katelyn’s hand and pulled her away from our parents. It felt safer to be out of their reach, especially when I knew they’d object. “Take these people to the mountain, and we’ll meet you back at camp.”

  “Zach, wait!” Dad called, but I ignored him as we headed upstream into the throng of adults rushing toward the exit.

  “John might’ve already found her,” Katelyn’s dad added, his voice barely loud enough to be heard over the commotion.

  “Just go. We’ll get her,” Katelyn replied over her shoulder. She found her legs and jogged alongside me. She winced with every footstep but kept moving. A man from her camp bumped into us as he headed the other way, and asked something. I brushed him off too, singularly focused on making our way through the crowd.

  We burst out of the group and continued jogging down the middle of the street. The flames from the burning shop were still raging, and I adjusted course to bring us to the sidewalk across the street from the inferno.

  “Are we seriously doing this?” Katelyn said after the voices disappeared behind us to be replaced with the crackling of the blaze.

  “Heck, yeah.”

  Someone grabbed my arm, and I whipped around ready to knock them off me.

  “Whoa! Easy, bro.” Austin held his arms up defensively.

  I eyed him suspiciously. “What do you want?”

  “I’m coming with you.”

  I looked over his shoulder to see if I could catch a glimpse of Mom or Dad, but they were lost in the crowd as the reformed amoeba slithered into the park. We were on our own. Better some help than none.

  “Fine. You know where she was at?”

  Austin shrugged. “Last I saw, she was by the pancake shop.”

  “There’s one of those on every corner,” Katelyn said as we started jogging again.

  “What’s with tourists and pancakes anyway?” Austin said. “Beats me.”

  “Focus, dude,” I chided, and picked up the pace. “Which one?”

  “The one with the bear on the sign.”

  “Yeah, that narrows it down,” Katelyn quipped. “C’mon, this is serious.”

  “I’m trying to be,” he replied. “Calm it down.”

  She stopped in her tracks. “This is my mother we’re talking about. Be some kind of help or get the-”

  “Katelyn, easy…” I spun her around to diffuse the tension, and she winced. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to do that.”

  She shook her head and glared at Austin.

  “It might’ve been that one,” he said, pointing to a restaurant like he was oblivious to her rage. Knowing him, he probably was. “And a good thing too, ‘cause about everything beyond that point really looks like a warzone, bomb craters and all.”

  “Let’s move.” I started walking, letting Austin run on ahead. Katelyn was still huffing and muttering under her breath. “Welcome to my world,” I whispered. “Just ignore him. Trust me.”

  “I’ll try.”

  She groaned and jerkily tried to jog after him. I kept pace with her easily.

  Austin raced down the block, passing by a t-shirt store, a fudge shop, and a courtyard between two wooden buildings. The second of the two was a giant structure in the shape of a barn, only larger. I slowed when I noticed the cracked sign dangling from one cable. It read Smoky Shine.

  “Good thing the cop didn’t crash into there,” I said, imagining the fireball when thousands of mason jars full of grain alcohol ignited. I veered off course to get a better look at the building.

  “What’re you doing? “ Katelyn asked. “The pancake place is right there.” She pointed to the next structure beyond the faux barn.

  A carved black bear straddled a totem pole placed beside the front door to the restaurant. The door was swinging shut. Austin was already inside.

  “Okay, later.” I hurried to keep up with her, but managed a sidelong glance at the moonshine barn. The windows were dark. Between that and the lack of streetlights, any look inside would have to wait until later.

  Katelyn ripped the door to the pancake shack open and screamed, “Mom? John?”

  There was no reply. We stumbled our way through the seating area toward the kitchen. I stubbed my boot on a table leg and sent a chair skittering across the floor.

  “Jeez, Zach,” Katelyn panted. “You scared the crap outta me.”

  I jammed my wrist into another chair and bit my lip to keep from crying out. “This sucks. I can’t see anything.”

  Katelyn hollered again for her mom. The only reply was the sound of someone clanking around in the kitchen.

  I bumped into another table, and knocked my hip into the side of a booth. Turning back toward the windows, I stopped to take a deep breath. Desperation was setting in. If her mom was down, I’d have to step on her to find her.

  I was in the middle of cursing the darkness one last time when the street out front lit up bright as day. I ducked below the tables as light flooded through the windows. Worse yet, the rumbling sound of heavy wheels shook the walls.

  CHAPTER 40

  The light showering through the windows made it too bright to see outside, but I knew what that meant. The traffic that would’ve crowded the streets from summers’ past was no more than a ghost of a memory, but there were vehicles out there now. Big ones, and probably all military green.

  “The soldiers are here,” I whispered, though the sounds of diesel engines and rattling windows nearly overpowered my voice.

  Katelyn was calmer than I anticipated, and seemingly less stressed than me. My eyes raced around the room, trying to find a way out. We’d have to use the back door.

  “You ready to steal a car yet?” Katelyn quipped.

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Follow me.” She took off for a swinging door in the rear of the seating area before I’d spotted it.

  We crawled as fast as we could on hands and knees. Katelyn was impressively fast, beating me to the door and slipping inside a kitchen barely lit by what must have been battery-powered, eerily red-colored security lights. I joined her and Austin a second later.

  “Reinforcements out there?” he said more than asked. Any trace of cockiness was gone.

  “Yep.” I rose up from my knees and headed to the back door. “That’s our cue to leave.”

  “What about my mom?” Katelyn asked.

  “She’s not back here,” Austin said. He wiped his shaggy hair out of his eyes, showing the beads of sweat on his forehead. “The kitchen’s wrecked…and something slick is spilled all over here.” He pointed off to the side toward a ransacked shelving unit. “Anyway, we’d really better go.”

  “I didn’t see her up front,” I said, trying to convince Katelyn to move on though I hated to do it too.

  “Me, either. I looked everywhere,” she added. Apparently that was what she had done while I was busy staring into the light and panicking.

  “Maybe John has her,” I mumbled as Austin led us to a heavy metal door and gave it a shove. It opened, but only a sliver.

  “It’s not that heavy. What the heck?” He put his shoulder into it. I stepped up behind him to add a little more force. It budged again, but still little more than a crack.

  Then I heard the moaning.

  “Careful,” I said as Austin kept slamming his shoulder into the door.

  “I’m fine,” he said, mistaking my concern for him.

  “There’s something out th
ere.”

  “Just push,” he growled.

  I put my hands back on the door. Katelyn joined in too, and we shoved with all our might. The door slid wide enough open to get a foot out. Even though the sound of the military vehicles bounced off the walls of the buildings behind us, I noticed the moaning grew louder.

  Katelyn slipped underneath us and wedged herself into the opening. “Just a little more,” she said breathlessly, like she wouldn’t inhale in order to keep herself as thin as possible.

  She squeezed her butt into the door opening somehow. It wasn’t going to slam shut, but we’d reached a point where it wouldn’t go any farther. With an inelegant jerk, Katelyn popped free and tumbled outside.

  She screamed for help, disappearing behind the door.

  Austin and I were almost slender enough to slip out the gap too, but I wasn’t sure we could make it. With heart racing and Katelyn gone, I braced myself for one last push.

  “C’mon, do it!” I hollered at my brother and gave it everything I had left.

  The door slid a little farther, then suddenly flew open. Austin slipped to the ground, and I stumbled over him.

  I caught myself with a hand, barely avoiding smashing my face on a railing above a darkened alley. My wrist stung, but I ignored it to clamber to my feet, which slipped on something slick. Katelyn kneeled next to me, arms wrapped around the shoulders of the doorstop.

  “She was stuck tight, blocking the door,” she said softly, tears welling.

  Despite the blood smeared across her cheek, I instantly recognized her mother. Spotted Fawn’s legs were twisted awkwardly underneath her. One arm looked to be pinned under a massive brown sack.

  “Did we…” I faltered, thinking back to repeatedly shoving the door. “Is she-”

  “I don’t know,” Katelyn sobbed. She ran her fingers along her mother’s neck aimlessly. I scooted next to her, and noticed the landing and the steps were covered in cooking oil, not blood.