“Not bringing trouble…er, with whom am I speaking?”
“Logan Harper.”
“Pleased to meet you, Logan Harper.”
“Can’t say the same,” Logan replied. “Not yet, at least.”
Irving’s nephew laughed. He was older than Brad, but not by much, but younger than Logan.
“Understood,” Irving replied.
Logan peered through the barricade and saw his smiling face. It seemed genuine enough. Still, he was wary. He had people to protect, simple as that.
“State your business,” he said to the strangers. He had seen too many movies where bad things happened to people when it was dark and strangers came up to their door.
“Look, Logan, we’re not bad people. That, I swear to the Lord,” Irving said.
That really means something these days, Logan thought, rolling his eyes.
Irving cleared his throat. “We come from a decent sized compound. We got food, we got shelter, but most importantly, we got each other. It’s our job to go out and scout for new recruits, I guess I’d say. We patrol the area a few times a week, Blake and I, and we smelled your smoke and saw the flicker of light inside the restaurant.”
Logan cut him off. “How do you know we’re not bandits?”
“Bandits stick to their own kind, in their own places. This town isn’t one of those places. Also, seeing as how you didn’t fire on us and try to steal the shoes off our feet, I’d say it’s pretty safe to say you aren’t bandits. Listen, you don’t have to open the door or nothing like that. We’re just offering you a place to stay. The feeling back at the Falls is that things, believe it or not, are gonna get much worse than they are now.”
Jane stepped toward the bar, lowering her gun. She motioned Logan over to her and the others. He arched an eyebrow, wondering what she wanted. He didn’t think now was a good time to lower their defenses, no ammo or not.
“What?” he whispered to his wife.
“We vote.”
“On?”
“Whether we let them in or not. Hear them out, at least,” Jane said.
Grease was grinning. “I know we don’t know this guy, but damn, does a place with food, shelter, and other people besides you jackasses sound great.”
Logan had to admit that was true, save for the last part.
“All for letting them in?” Jane asked.
All hands went up except for Brad’s and Logan’s.
“Mr. Harper—Logan, it’s, uh, getting pretty cold out here,” Irving said.
“Spooky, too,” his nephew chimed in.
“Fair is fair,” Jane said to Logan. “A vote is a vote.”
Brad shook his head. After the debacle in Cleveland, trying to help and getting burned, Logan thought it would be a long time before he, Brad, or even Jane and Grease trusted a stranger again.
Then, as if reading Logan’s mind, Jane said, “I don’t trust them. Not yet. But what do we have to lose?”
“Our lives,” Logan said softly.
But had he lost that much faith in the human race? He liked to think he hadn’t, not yet. The truth was that everyone was different. These people didn’t need anything of Logan’s and the others’. It wasn’t like they had much of anything anyway.
He sighed and turned toward the door again. Raising his voice, he said, “If we allow you in, you will be weaponless, understood?”
“Loud and clear, Logan,” Irving said.
The sound of their weapons clattering against the concrete echoed inside the restaurant. Then Logan and Jane moved the barricade, which was an old-time jukebox that would probably never play again.
Looking at Brad and waving Tyler forward, Logan said, “Don’t take your aim off of them.” Then quieter: “We have to sell it.”
Jane gave Grease the rifle. Logan wouldn’t let her in the line of fire—if things went that way. He guided her toward the brick wall, where she would be given at least some cover. She didn’t resist like she usually would. Perhaps the run-in with Millard and his now-dead bandits had made her more cautious.
Logan opened the door.
Irving and Blake both held their hands up above their heads. The sight of the few weapons trained on them seemed not to faze either the older man or his nephew; they must’ve gotten this a lot. Logan bent down, never taking his eyes off the men, and picked up their rifles. They were good weapons: military-grade, just like the vehicle they had arrived in. Logan passed the rifles to Jane, and she held them both by their straps. A few months ago, she would’ve recoiled at the sight of them. Now she didn’t seem to care.
Fleetingly, Logan thought, Things have changed.
“We each have a sidearm on our hips,” Irving said, motioning his head to the right. “Figured it was best if we didn’t make any sudden moves.”
“Figured right,” Logan said.
Nodding to Brad and stepping forward, the strangers took the pistols off of their belts. Also on these belts were flashlights, walkie-talkies, and handcuffs. They had either been policemen before the end of the world, or they had taken these belts off of a couple of dead cops. Logan guessed the latter was more apt to be correct. Unfortunately.
“We aren’t dangerous,” Blake said. “Just cautious.”
“Same here,” Logan said. He stepped out of the doorway and motioned the two men into the restaurant. When they were in, Logan patted each of them down. He found no other weapons, not so much as a blade or even a pair of fingernail clippers.
“Probably buy him a drink first,” Grease said and chuckled.
No one else laughed, though Logan would think about this quip later and find it quite funny.
“Go sit down over there,” Logan said, pointing to the bar. “And please keep your hands on the countertop, palms down.”
Irving nodded, and they went.
“You know, I was just kidding about getting them drinks,” Grease said. “There’s no more whiskey, anyway.”
Again, no one laughed. The tension in the room was palpable. Logan grabbed the stool on the end and brought it around the other side of the bar. He sat down. Looking into the strangers’ eyes, he saw no malice or deceit there—at least, he didn’t think so. In this day and age, that didn’t mean much.
“So you’re Irving and he’s Blake.” Logan reached his hand out, and Irving took it.
After they shook, he put his hands back on the bar, where Logan could see them. Uncle Tommy had told Logan that you could tell a lot about a man by the firmness of his handshake, and Irving’s was strong. Blake’s wasn’t. The kid seemed timid.
“And you’re Logan Harper, but I don’t know who all these other wonderful people are,” Irving said.
Everyone introduced themselves, then everyone shook hands—even Brad, which Logan thought was surprising, given his lack of trust. Still, Brad didn’t holster his weapon like Logan and Jane had done; back in the waistband for Logan, and the rifle leaned up against a booth near the fireplace for Jane.
“Tell me about your compound,” Logan said.
Irving looked to Blake, who raised his eyebrows. “Go ahead, son,” Irving said.
Timid still, Blake said, “Well, it’s a little place downtown.”
“How many people?” Logan asked.
Blake knitted his forehead. “I’d say about thirty, give or take a few.”
“Thirty-three, to be exact,” Irving said. “I can name everyone. Can tell you their ages and where they’re from, too. Most came from Akron and the Falls, but we got some stragglers, too. Jade is from Erie, Pennsylvania. She was visiting her grandma in Tallmadge when shit hit the fan, for lack of a better term. Then there’s Sunjad. He was a foreign exchange student from somewhere over in the Middle East. Nice kid.”
Blake cut him off before he actually started rattling off all the residents of their place. Judging by the deep breath Irving had taken, he was planning on it, too.
“Military set up a quarantine spot right after the void broke open,” Blake said. “But they got overrun
like everywhere else. We built it up pretty good. There was enough left behind to help us, and by this time, most of the monsters had moved on. ‘Course, there was stragglers there, too. Nasty ones. But the military left behind weapons…a lot of weapons.”
“Picked Northeast Ohio clean,” Irving said, shaking his head.
“What about the bombs?” Tyler asked. “They didn’t affect you? Stone Park’s not that far from Cuyahoga Falls, is it? When I came from D.C., I looked at a hotel in the downtown area.”
Irving nodded. “The Sheraton, probably. Our unofficial living quarters.”
Tyler said, “Yeah, that’s the one.”
“Bombs didn’t do too much damage,” Irving answered. “Near the town line, there was an earthquake, and now there’s a big hole in the road, but at our place, the worst that happened was a few broken windows from the air-blast.” He looked at Logan’s arms, at his burns. “Where did you guys come from? Pretty close to the explosion?”
“Just outside of Lakewood. Few miles away from Cleveland,” Brad answered.
“Yeah,” Logan added. “We got hit pretty hard. That’s why we’re on the road.”
“Plenty of refugees,” Irving said.
“Where else got hit? Do you know?” May asked. She sounded scared again.
Irving cleared his throat and stole a glance at his nephew. “Well, young lady, I’m afraid most of the country got hit. All the big cities, and I’d bet good money they doubled down on void sites, at least going off of what happened to Stone Park. I can’t confirm this one hundred percent…but, yeah.”
It was unreal that Logan’s hometown had been blasted off the map. He wasn’t sure if he could ever get used to that fact.
Tyler mumbled his agreement. With his past experience working so close to the void in Stone Park, Logan knew how he felt. ‘The Anomalies,’ he called them.
May moaned, hanging her head. Tyler put a reassuring arm around her shoulders while Jane rubbed her back, whispering soothing words to her that no one else could hear.
“Yeah, I know. We’ve been dealt a crap hand, that’s for sure,” Irving said.
“That’s an understatement,” Grease muttered.
Irving sighed. “But we’re trying. We got some good minds at the place in the Falls, people who want to rebuild our civilization. The bigger we get, the better. Safety in numbers.”
“And since the bombs fell, we haven’t seen as many monsters, the ones that rooted around here,” Blake said. “Most of them, we hope, were vaporized.”
“There’s the radioactivity, too,” Irving added. “It’ll get them later on, just like it’ll get us.”
“I hope it leaves us alone,” Logan said, but of course Irving was right.
“Nope, not at all. But that’s the way it is,” Irving said. “Now, did I pass your test or whatever this is? Are you willing to come back to the Falls with us?”
Logan looked around at the others. No one seemed like they were going to speak, so he did. What was on his mind were the countless post-apocalyptic movies he’d seen. In them, things always went south when the main character found a settlement. People ended up being cannibals or having some kind of dark secret. Then, of course, there was the personal experience Logan carried from the hunters’ trip to Cleveland, the fake cry for help from those monster worshippers.
Naturally, Logan felt like it was important to avoid those situations by any means possible. He wasn’t a pessimist, not completely, not yet; he was a realist. And there was a real chance that Irving and his nephew were a part of some cannibalistic group or worse in Cuyahoga Falls. But there was also a chance they weren’t and that they were telling the truth. Logan had grown up in Northeast Ohio; he’d been here his whole life. The weather sometimes sucked, the sports teams were usually lacking, but the people—most of them anyway—were great. Kind, polite, generous. Maybe it made sense to give these strangers the benefit of the doubt. It had worked at Ironlock, hadn’t it?
“Are you guys cannibals?” he asked. “Have a dark secret?”
Might as well be up front about that.
“Yeah,” Grease added. “You ain’t monster worshippers?”
For a long time, the two strangers remained quiet and still. Then they burst out in raucous laughter.
“Monster worshippers?” Irving guffawed, tears squirting from his eyes. “What kind of crap is that?”
Blake was shaking his head, his face beet red, wheezing. He couldn’t even make comprehensible words.
Logan smirked toward Jane, who just shrugged.
“You’d be surprised,” Grease said.
“No, son. I assure you we aren’t monster worshippers or cannibals. Nothing like that,” Irving said, finally regaining control of himself. “We aren’t murderers, either. Not unless we have to be…and even then, it technically isn’t murder if you’re defending yourself.”
“Agreed,” Logan said. He looked to the others. “Should we vote on this, too?” He let his gaze linger on Brad.
Brad met it for a second then looked away.
“No, I’m good,” Tyler said.
“Wait,” May said. “Do you have hot water?”
“A limited amount each day, but yes, little lady,” Irving said, nodding his head. Logan thought the man would’ve tipped an imaginary hat, if he felt comfortable enough moving his hands from the bar top. “For you six, you’ll get the welcome package.”
“And that is?” Jane arched an eyebrow and folded her arms over her chest—an obvious sign of mistrust.
“A hot meal, a cold drink, a hot shower, fresh clothes, and a soft bed,” Irving said.
“It ain’t that soft,” Blake said. He turned toward Logan. “But it’s better than a booth, I’d reckon.”
“I’m in,” May said.
“Aye,” Grease said.
“Aye,” Tyler and Jane echoed.
Logan was the last to say, “Aye.”
The only one who hadn’t spoken was Brad. All eyes were on him now.
“Aw, what the hell,” Brad said. “But we keep the guns until we get there.”
“Even though they aren’t loaded,” Grease mumbled and Brad shot him a horrible look. “What? No point in lying anymore.”
Irving gave a slight nod. “Don’t worry, friend, soon as we get in the truck y’all can load up. But if things start getting sticky, you’d better be ready to shoot.”
This time, Brad was the one who tipped an imaginary hat.
Most of the supplies, they left behind. All but the flashlights, the blankets, and the guns. They would’ve taken everything, had Irving not pointed out that they wouldn’t need that stuff anymore. It wasn’t like they had much in the first place, either.
With the guns in tow and the strangers—slowly unbecoming strangers—in the lead, they filed into the big, army Jeep. It was quite spacious; everyone fit with ease. Irving started the engine, and it rumbled loudly to life. Over the sound system came an old Patsy Cline song. Logan had heard it before, long ago, when his mother was still around.
“Not too far now,” Irving said. “Not far at all.”
He must’ve been able to see the nervousness in their eyes. Logan was thinking that if there were any monsters out there, they’d hear the loud engine.
As it happened, there weren’t, and soon the survivors of Ironlock and their possible-rescuers were on the road, weaving in and out of traffic pile-ups and, on more than one occasion, carcasses and skeletons stripped of most of their meat. Logan tried not to look out of the window, but it was hard.
He had been this way before. Being from Stone Park, one didn’t stay in town much. Besides the Monolith theater, a few restaurants, and a bowling alley, there wasn’t much to do in Stone Park at all.
Now Stone Park’s dead, he thought, and this thought hurt him to the very core. Everywhere he went, it seemed destruction followed him. Would the Falls be any different?
As if sensing his unease, Jane, sitting next to him, reached over and squeezed his hand, smiling. It
was a somber smile, but no less beautiful.
He smiled back, and then she laid her head on his shoulder as the vehicle trundled over the cracked roads.
16
The Falls
About thirty minutes later, they got off the highway. Before they turned right, into the city that was once known as Cuyahoga Falls and was now just ‘the Falls,’ Logan saw a tipped over train to the left. A score of mutilated cars lay in its wake, on the carved up road. A mound of concrete stretched nearly as high as the tipped train. The overpass just before the tracks had fallen; that was the cause of the mountain. Logan’s stomach lurched. Seeing destruction like this, he just couldn’t believe it.
The army truck turned right, leaving the grisly scene behind. To the left was a Sheraton Hotel, the big red S on the side of the building long since dimmed. Dead traffic lights stood overhead. A clock tower in the middle of the town square had stopped at 7:31. The sharp steeple of an old church rose in the distance to the left. All this, Logan could see over the fence.
It was a strong fence, with barbed wire at the top. Around it was bags of sand. This barrier stretched long, all the way to the southernmost edge of the Sheraton and well into the town square, where the bulk of the downtown buildings stood. Large lights had been erected inside the barrier. They would have cast a dim glow under normal circumstances, but these weren’t normal circumstances.
Logan thought how perfect such conditions would be for a vampire. He missed the sun. He missed the normality of the old world, despite how chaotic it could be at times.
“Welcome to the Falls, ladies and gents,” Irving said from the driver’s seat.
The country music over the radio stopped at the push of a button. Irving eased the rumbling truck to the gates in the middle of the road. He flashed the lights on and off twice. About fifteen seconds later, the gates began to open.
A man in army fatigues waved at the truck. Irving stuck his hand out and waved back.
Jane, still holding Logan’s hand, squeezed harder.
It had been over two weeks since the bombs were dropped, over two weeks since Ironlock had burned to the ground, and in that two weeks, Logan thought he’d never see another settlement again.
Decimated: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller (Taken World Book 3) Page 9