by A. K. Meek
“There are two types of people I’ve seen,” he continued, “and I’ve seen a lot. There are those who are bad but don’t know they’re bad. They may do an occasional good, but they justify the bad in their lives as small indiscretions.
“The other type of people know they’re bad. Most everything they touch they know will turn bad, will shrivel and die. Every day they fight to overcome that bad with doing good. They still may do some bad but they hate it.” He stopped, reflecting.
“Well, thinking about it now, maybe there’s a third group. Those that don’t know good or bad. Hmm.” Charles thought for a moment. “I guess after considering it, I’d say they’re of the first kind. Ignorance doesn’t excuse your actions. I should know.”
Nate searched for the right words to say. This man, who’d proved such a good friend through the whole mess, sat on the stump, head bowed low. “I’m sorry,” he said. That was all he could think of at the moment. He stood to pat Charles on his slumped shoulder but stopped. It didn’t feel right.
Nate left Charles with the memory of a mutt that died on a dusty road in Afghanistan and of four men who forfeited their lives for that mutt. Just like everyone else in this new, dangerous world, away with all their forfeit lives.
03.01
CAMP MAGNOLIA
Two weeks and countless miles. For two weeks the twenty-five who were actually twenty-two stumbled through Georgian forests and farmlands, heading south.
Melanie, the Hispanic woman who could’ve passed as a model, Juan’s mother, was the latest to succumb to fits of coughing and vomiting. She’d only make it a few feet before having to stop as her body heaved with coughing. That would turn into vomiting, then dry heaving. Eventually, bright drops of blood. Some said that type of bleeding was normal, because she had nothing left to throw up. Nate thought it shouldn’t ever be normal to vomit blood.
By the time she’d finished, she’d worn herself out, exhausted, and would want to go to sleep.
But she wasn’t the first to experience that sickness. About half of the group suffered the same, to lesser extents, as the days passed.
Every time Melanie coughed, it reminded Nate of his own parched throat. He took another sip from his canteen. A feeling of thorns and rocks greeted the swallow.
Putting it away, he hopped an inch, cinching the straps of his backpack tighter, resting it squarely on his shoulders. Most of the weight had been distributed to others performing mule duty. Today he was on soldier duty. Today he was a soldier.
Will had decided for them to do some traveling in the day, since they had encountered so few people. The ones they did were dead.
The forest thinned as the group moved up a low rise of wild grass, the thorny vines thinning. For once the air didn’t smell of burning, chemicals, or death.
In the distance, a metal structure rose from the trees, a massive scaffolding tower supporting high-voltage power lines. They stretched off to the north and south, eventually fading into the green horizon.
Will had figured it would only take an hour or two to reach it, then they would stop to rest. But the couple of hours stretched into four.
“This is more than a few miles,” Feleysa yelled, being sure to make her disapproval known to the stretched line of wanderers. “It’s more like seven or eight.” She stopped to fight with one of her dress shoes that had a busted buckle.
Reggie yelled in agreement with her complaining.
Will, marching a couple of paces from the front, about two ahead of Nate, shook his head. “No. Keep your voice down. We haven’t walked very far, maybe a half mile at best,” he said, squinting against the cloudy-bright but sunless sky.
“Half mile, more like over a mile.” Feleysa wiped her forehead.
Juan reluctantly led the group toward the tower. He wanted to tend to his sick mother, but Will thought it would be good to take his mind off her condition, so he had him lead point. Tala was about ten paces to his left, using her rifle to move stray vines and branches from her path.
Juan rested his rifle on his shoulder. A pretend wooden soldier marching along. “About a half mile more,” he said to no one in particular, like he needed to defend Will’s estimation.
“I’d say over a mile,” Tala said. The tall college girl gave a sideways glance at Juan, but not enough for him to notice.
“You’re wrong,” he responded. “I think you and Feleysa need your eyes checked. Half mile, tops.”
“Maybe that’s why you think you’re faster than you are,” she said. “You don’t know a mile from a half mile.”
Juan slowed, a sudden quirky smile on his thin face. “Really? I guess you, Ms. Tala, the former pride of the Haven High School Eagles, knows everything about distance?”
“I know enough to have won state titles my last two years at Haven. What have you done?”
Juan kept the smile but remained silent, continuing his march forward.
Another forty minutes and the group finally reached a wide easement that cut through what remained of the sparse trees. A good fifty yards had been cleared of dense trees and debris, so that the grass-covered ground was relatively smooth, contoured to the rolling land. In the distance tall metal high-voltage transmission towers spaced far apart bisected the easement, extending high into the air. Large power lines bowed under their own weight as they stretched from one tower to the next, then off over the hills, to be forgotten.
The cleared area acted as a funnel, channeling the gentle daytime breeze, guiding it along. A low hum came from the lines overhead as they cut through the breeze.
Exhausted, the group dropped their heavy loads and packs onto the cool ground and spread out onto the inviting earth. Several groaned in welcome relief.
Reggie, Yvonne’s husband that had made it well known he was too injured to be of any use, said as he rubbed his feet, “How much longer till we stop for the night? This is a good spot. We should stop here.”
“We’ve only been moving,” Will turned his wrist to see the watch face, “for four hours. At this rate we’ll reach Florida when I’m eighty-five.”
“I think we need to vote on this.” Reggie looked around, obviously seeking anyone to back his proposal. “We can’t carry on like this.”
“Like how?” Henry said, shouldering his rifle. “You don’t carry anything ‘cause you say you have a hurt back. We slow down ‘cause you’re the one always dragging behind.”
Reggie jumped up from where he sat and puffed his chest out. “Who do you think—”
“Wait,” Will said, spreading his arms. “Wait you two.” He looked to the south, eyes following the power lines. “Henry, how far you think that next tower is from here?”
“What? Tower?”
“Yeah.” Will nodded toward one of the towers in the distance. “That one. How far away you think that is?”
“Uhm, maybe an eighth of a mile, give or take.”
Will turned to Juan. “You think you can beat Tala there and back?”
Juan absently fiddled with his rifle shoulder strap. “Me, race her?”
“Yeah. I hear you and Tala argue about it all the time. Now’s a good time to settle it. Male versus female, college versus high school, whatever you want to call it. A race.”
Juan glanced at Tala, who pretended not to be listening. “A race,” he said. “What do I get if—when I win?”
Will smiled. “Bragging rights. Is there anything else?”
Tala spun around, already tightening the scrunchy that held her stringy ponytail in place. “I’m in if Junior isn’t scared.”
The two lined up at the base of the transmission tower, a concrete footing that jutted from the ground. They each had shed their chemjackets and chempants and now wore the same street clothes they’d had on when they first entered the fallout shelter. Each went through a routine of last-minute stretches.
The rest had gathered to either side of the racers: the males supporting Juan, the females, Tala. Each group had already started cheering, support
ing their racer while denouncing the other.
Will looked at Dez, who had taken Juan’s rifle and stood next to him. “Maybe you want to join,” he said. “Maybe you can take them both.”
Dez stepped back waving his arms in submission. “Nah, I’ve seen Juan on the track. I’ll pass.”
Laughing, Will walked to the front and between them. “All right. The rules are simple: to the next tower,” he pointed in its general direction, “touch the concrete, and come back. First here wins.”
They both nodded, and after giving game-face stares to each other, they crouched down in a starting position.
Will held up an arm. “Ready, set, go!”
They bolted away from the group and the cheering increased to screaming and laughing.
Tala stood at least a half-foot taller than Juan, and her long, slender legs and lengthy stride propelled her forward. His shorter legs churned quicker, keeping him almost at an even pace with her.
After watching the battle of the sexes for several seconds, Nate went to where Will leaned against the tower base, watching the race.
“Pretty clever,” Nate said.
“What do you mean?” Will responded, eyes still attentively watching the race.
“I call it smoke and mirrors management. Management through distraction.” Nate pointed to the two. “The race. Stopping the argument by giving them something else to focus on. One of my business management classes taught something like that.”
“I’m the oldest of three boys,” Will said. “I learned that skill long ago, watching over my brothers while my mother was at work. Some things are best learned through life, not classes.”
By now, the two had already reached the tower and were headed back. Tala led Juan by feet.
“So who do you think’s going to win?” Nate said. “Who do you want to win?”
“For me? Don’t care. As long as there’s no arguing, I win. We all win.” Will walked in front of the crowd and started yelling for the two to finish. This spurred the rest of the group; the cheering and yelling increased in volume.
Yards away, Tala had clearly pulled ahead, her body working like a machine. Juan fought to keep up but became off balance, and after several clumsy steps to regain his stride he tumbled forward, rolling from his momentum.
Tala reached the tower and slapped her hand on the concrete footing, then dropped to the ground gasping for air, the cheeks of her fair skin splotchy red with the exertion. The females erupted in applause and cheers. They ran to her as she sat now on her knees, heavy breaths intertwined with an occasional cough.
A couple of men went to Juan, who had also sprawled out on his back on the ground, his breathing punctuated with laughs and also an occasional raspy cough.
“You okay?” Martin said, extending his hand to him.
“I’m fine,” he said between pants, waving away the help to stand. “I should’ve known not to race her.”
“Everyone listen,” Will said, standing over Tala. “The winner of the first ever Fallout Shelter 1710 Mad Dash is,” he bent down and lifted her arm, “Tala Gallie. She can now rub it in Juan’s face that she is the fastest of us all.”
The group as a whole laughed and applauded her. She smiled and waved. Will let go of her hand and she plopped back to the green earth.
“Once they rest we need to get moving again,” he said. “We have plenty of distance to go.”
Will stopped about forty yards in front of the group and with deep intensity studied the map that he’d found in the shelter.
After the race and a couple of hours of rest, the group had slowly, painfully, shuffled southward. They had passed through more pecan and peach orchards.
In Nate’s mind, more than once he imagined the lumbering group as being a large, slow, noisy elephant, crunching through the countryside.
He figured they were probably moving at the blazing speed of two miles per hour. At this rate he estimated they could reach the coast if they walked continually for a little over five days. But he knew that wasn’t possible.
Shortly after they had started moving, Efrem had a fit of coughing to the point that they had to stop. Again. He couldn’t walk and started dry heaving, much like Melanie. His episode alone took over an hour and a half. No way they would make it to Florida anytime soon.
Whatever was waiting for them in Florida. If anything at all.
He remembered Kurt’s passing mention of safety in the gulf state. That same place Will had used to give everyone a hope, a destination. But it was no real destination; it was a whisper, a whisper of someone fleeing from one awful place to another. He didn’t question Will’s decision to go this route, but where would he lead them if he were in charge? Where did safety live in this new, strange world?
Nate’s M-16 dangled from the strap strung over his shoulder; even that had started to feel like a heavy stone. His arms needed a rest.
Will held his compass in the flat of his hand, eye-level. He pivoted a little to his left and pointed. “You see that grove over there? We need to head in that direction. Let the rest know to wrap everything up, we’re leaving in about fifteen.”
Nate nodded and moved from one cluster of people to the other, reminding them to search their area so they wouldn’t leave anything behind. They grumbled and loaded up their packs, and the lumbering elephant moved on.
Despite the starts and stops and the complaining, they made it a few miles into Georgia’s farmland, crossing acreages of neglected crops and sporadic forests.
They still encountered no other life. If someone—or something—lurked in the trees or in the woods, it stayed hidden for now.
Will finally decided to set up camp once they found themselves in an area thick with pine and oak, making camp beneath a massive magnolia tree, its limbs drooping with dark green leaves and its blooms having fallen off, forming a bed of white petals. Any other time, it would have been an idyllic picture.
The group made camp there for the evening, and Juan called it Camp Magnolia.
“Do you want to go scouting a little later?” Will had snuck up behind Nate while he was scraping pine needles together into a bed.
“Huh, me? Uhm, yeah, sure.” Nate stared at his bed, his eyes heavy and his mind thick with desire to sleep.
Will had obviously seen something in Nate that he trusted. That, or he wanted to get rid of him. Nate preferred to think that Will trusted him, though.
He had learned long ago that certain luxuries in life needed sacrifice. Climbing the corporate ladder needed sacrifice, many times at the expense of peers. Now, proving as valuable to Will the President meant sacrificing sleep. He could do that.
Will knelt down next to Nate and looked back and forth, then behind him. No one else was in earshot. “Nate, you ever see ‘Apocalypse Now’?”
“The movie? Yeah, I saw it a long time ago,” he said, trying to stay in the conversation.
“Remember Robert Duvall?”
“Yeah.” Nate absently flattened a jacket onto his bed: his mattress.
“I’ve been thinking of that scene with him standing on the beach while mortars are exploding all around him.”
Nate laughed. “Yeah, ‘Charlie don’t surf.’”
Will took a branch by his feet and drew in the chunky soil. “That scene,” he said, “whenever I watched it I thought he could stand in the middle of that war and still surf because he didn’t care.”
Nate stopped fiddling with his bed. “What do you mean didn’t care?”
“He lived in that moment, not concerned with what happened a week, an hour, two minutes later.” Will scratched out his drawings and tossed the stick away. “Colton was like that. He lived in the moment. He didn’t care what happened from one moment to the next. That’s why he’s going to make it.”
“Make it? Make it to what?”
“To the end, to safety, to Florida, wherever. I don’t know, he’s just going to make it. Every day, every minute I’m consumed thinking about Sharon, my family, the w
ay life was before the bombs. I know every action I make carries eternal consequences. Not just for me, but my actions affect twenty-one other people. I cannot escape it.” He paused and thought for seconds, which seemed like forever. “I’m not going to make it.”
“No. Everyone feels that to some degree. I’m sure even Colton has things he worries about.”
“I’m not saying he doesn’t have worries, but they don’t control him. He can set them aside, like Duvall. He’s surrounded by the war, but he sets it aside so his guys can surf.” Will pulled his 9mm and popped the magazine out, inspected it, and slapped it back into the handle. “Nate, I’m not going to make it because I want so much to live.”
He stood and put his pistol back in its holster and snapped the cover. He pushed some hanging branches out of the way. “You and I will scout south in a few hours. Get some rest for now. Tala, Desmond, and Ed will be on the first perimeter watch.” Not waiting for a response, Will walked away. He could be heard talking to others, asking how they were doing.
Nate scratched his neck. The stubble rubbed against his collar.
His thoughts drifted to Atlanta, to the people—family—he left behind. If Haven was bombed, then no place was safe. He saw the lights in the beginning, knew deep inside without being told, that Atlanta had been wiped off the map in a grand, cataclysmic way. He felt alone.
The loneliness made this upside-down world even more miserable. Maybe Will was right; if you care too much, that’s when you die. At this point it all didn’t seem to matter.
He pulled his chemjacket closed as a cool breeze caught him off guard. He shivered as he wrapped his arms around himself and lay on his bed.
Even if it meant he wouldn’t make it, he wanted to never forget those he left. If he could, he would make sure others didn’t feel the loneliness, the hopelessness, that he now felt.
But then again, what could he do? He never cared about anyone except himself.