by Eric Vall
“Let’s get out of here,” I said.
“Do you want to take a closer look in there?” she asked as she pointed to the room behind me.
“Not really,” I said. “Seeing one needle is enough to make me stay away. Even if we did find something else, I am not sure it would be worth the risk.”
“Good point,” she said. “Now the only thing that stands between us and the real world is one last trip through that horror show of a cabin up there.”
“It really does feel like we entered a different world doesn’t it?” I asked as I started to pick my way through the basement towards the stairs.
“Let’s not visit this one again anytime soon,” Anna joked as we moved up the creaking soft wood stairs.
The dead flies crunched uncomfortably under foot as we went up the stairs, and for a brief moment I was almost glad to be back on the first floor.
“Well, on the plus side, my sense of smell seems to have been deadened by the chemicals downstairs,” Anna said as we stepped, once more, into the kitchen.
I chuckled and stepped over the pit, but stopped suddenly.
“Anna, did you leave the front door open?” I whispered.
“No, I pulled it closed behind me,” she replied quietly.
The front door was wide open and there was a bag sitting next to it that was not there before. The head of a rabbit stuck out the top, and fresh red blood dripped onto the floor.
“Shi--”
My words were cut off by the boom of a shotgun, and the air was suddenly filled with bits of wooden shrapnel as a hole was blasted into the wall beside me, and wooden slivers embedded themselves into my face, shoulders, and chest.
I winced at the stinging pain and dropped completely as I heard giggling come from the other side of the wall, and a moment later bits of shredded cans and garbage rained down around me as a second shotgun blast tore into the kitchen.
“Willy knew they’d send someone after him!” a shrill voice screamed out.
I heard the familiar sound of a break action shotgun being opened and looked to the wide eyed redhead pressed onto the ground just beyond the pit.
“What do we do?” she mouthed.
“Run,” I yelled as I pushed myself to my feet and booked it towards the door. The duffle bag smacked into me as I ran, and I looked back to see a haggard, greasy black haired man sitting in the bathroom reloading a double-barreled shotgun. He had on some ripped dirty blue jeans, a yellow stained wife beater, and a wide brimmed floppy hat.
Anna followed me closely, ran through the front room, and sprinted out the front door as this dirty man grinned.
His mouth was full of teeth rotting from the gums down, and he leveled the shotgun towards the door as I followed my companion’s lead and dove outside.
The man cackled and fired both barrels exploding part of his entryway, but missed both me and Anna.
“Get to the trees!” I shouted as I pointed forward.
“Slippery little people aren't ya?” the meth head asked as he cracked open his gun and started to load in two more shells.
“We aren’t here for you,” I yelled out as I ran into the forest and took cover behind a large blighted tree. I tossed the bag of guns onto the ground so I had full mobility, but held my position for the moment.
“That’s what the last feds said, but I knew the truth,” the man screamed as he stepped into the doorway. “This is my home, and I will defend it. Ruby Ridge!” He shook his shotgun over his head and let out a defiant warcry.
“We aren’t feds, man,” Anna called out from behind the relative safety of her own large tree. “The USA is gone, we got hit by an EMP.”
“Your lies won’t work here temptress,” the man said. “I know one of those brainwashed students from down the hill when I sees em. Ol’ Willy watched that school for a long time.” He giggled and licked his lips in a creepy but suggestive way. “Shouldn’t have let my manly needs get in the way of what needed to be done. No matter, once I am done with you two I’ll go burn that place down like I shoulda done years ago.”
While he talked, I pulled my pistol from its holster. There was no way I was trying to run away from a crazy man who made a credible threat to the school where we lived.
“Keep him talking,” I whispered to Anna. “I’m going to line up a shot,”
“That school is abandoned Willy,” Anna said as she nodded to me. “Like I said, there was an EMP, so no one wanted to stick around.”
“Don’t lie to me!” the meth head screamed as he leveled his weapon in our direction. “I don’t have much teeth but I still got eyes, and I saw them pretty girls there ‘bout a week ago. If they didn’t have that old man with ‘em I would have liberated them from the government machine and brought them here to be my wives.”
I peeked around the side of the tree and saw that the man was focused on Anna’s location, so I leaned slowly out and extended my gun.
“Well, maybe I can be your wife now?” Anna sang out like a siren.
“Wait, really?” the grime covered man gasped as he lowered his gun slightly.
It was in that moment that he noticed me, but it was too late. There was a sharp crack from my pistol, and the druggy’s head snapped back as he took a bullet between the eyes. A wet mass of hair, blood, and brain painted part of the cabin as the shotgun dropped from his hands, and he slammed onto the ground with a thud.
I emerged from behind the tree and approached him with my gun ready. While he should be dead, I had seen strange things when dealing with people on drugs, but as I got closer, I could tell this guy wouldn’t be going anywhere.
I holstered my gun and knelt over the derelict man before I picked up his dropped weapon.
“Is it done?” Anna asked without revealing herself.
“Yeah, he’s dead,” I said.
The redhead stepped back into the clearing and rushed to my side. She composed herself and calmed her ragged breathing.
“You alright?” I asked.
“Yeah, he didn’t hit me, but I learned today that I really don’t like being shot at,” she said.
“No one does,” I said as I added the shotgun to our haul. “At least we are officially done here.” I wiped away the blood that trickled down my face from the splinters and headed back into the woods.
“Do we really just leave now?” Anna asked. “It doesn’t feel like the sort of place that we should leave standing.”
“It would be dangerous to try to level the place ourselves with the equipment we have,” I explained. “Plus, with this piece of shit dead the place might go up on its own. The process of cooking meth is very particular and without intervention could lead to catastrophic results.”
“Shit,” Anna muttered as she glanced behind her. She shuddered and pressed a little closer to me. “Well, I guess I’m glad that it will all work itself out.”
“Saves us the trouble,” I agreed with a nod.
“So where do we go from here?” she asked
“For now let's just worry about getting away from that drug den,” I said as I picked up our bag of newly acquired weapons.
We walked until the thin forest around us returned to the lush green of spring growth, and then I stopped to pull out the map. There was another plot east of our location, but it would probably take us three or four hours to get there.
“Alright, I want your opinion,” I said as I looked over at Anna. “We could head towards this next spot and stop in a couple hours when the sun started to go down to make camp, or we could push on through and get to this second location.”
“Do we know what this other place is?” Anna asked.
“No, but it can’t be any worse than that cabin,” I replied.
“True, and if there is something there, it means we don’t have to sleep in the woods,” the redhead said.
“That was sorta what I was thinking too,” I said. “So do we push on then?”
“Yeah, I think so,” Anna said with a nod.
; I charted a quick course on the map based of the plot that the cabin had been sitting on, oriented myself with my compass, and started out.
“Hey, you’re okay, right?” Anna asked as we hiked along. “I just sorta realized that I was so eager to get away from that place that I forgot to ask.”
“No worries,” I said as I gave her a small smile. “I’m good. We took out the bad guy and got the guns.”
“And you didn’t get hurt, right?” She asked.
“I got some splinters from when he blew a hole in the wall, and my hearing is still a little off, but besides that I am good,” I assured her.
“Good, overall I think that went well, but I would rather not do it again.
“Agreed, let’s leave that in the past,” I said. “We are done with that place and don’t need to worry about it anymore.”
“You’re right,” Anna said as she looked to the path ahead. “At least we can’t go back and say that this trip was boring.” She looked over at me and grinned.
I laughed and shook my head, but she was right. So far this trip had been anything but boring, but I hoped that the second plot would not be quite as exciting as the first.
Chapter 10
Our journey took us down the hill and back into heavy forest. We crossed a rapidly flowing stream and pushed our way through a dense thicket of thorns before our path once again led us uphill. However, this was no surprise as the plot seemed to be at the top of one of the higher small mountains in the area. By this point we were both breathing a little heavily, and my legs ached from the almost constant uphill climb.
“Well, if nothing else we should get a great view of the area from the top of this mountain,” Anna said as she trudged along.
“That would almost be worth the whole trip,” I said. “A good view of the area can give us a lot of data and help us more accurately navigate with our maps.”
“I was just thinking that it would be pretty,” Anna said with a shrug. “But what you said makes sense too.”
“It will certainly be beautiful,” I replied. “Should also be a good place to look at the stars. Sometimes I still get a little awestruck when I look up and see how many of them there are.”
“I can’t imagine you being awestruck by anything,” Anna said.
“Hey, even tough guys can't get enough of the marvels of nature and the world,” I said.
“I guess so,” Anna admitted. “You just seem like the guy who has seen it all and is not easily impressed.”
“Now you’re making me sound old,” I said with a grin.
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it,” she scoffed.
“I know,” I said with a chuckle. “But you’re not entirely wrong. I just happen to find nature fairly impressive. It’s hard to spend a year living in it and not find yourself at least somewhat enamored with the wild.”
“I never really thought about that,” Anna said. “I guess it makes sense though. I mean I have a greater respect and understanding of nature since starting to spend extra time in it. It’s sorta funny, for all the time I spent outside very little of that time was actually spent enjoying the world around me. I was always just so focused on that next game or competition.”
“Do you miss it?” I asked
“Sometimes I do, yeah,” the redhead said with a nod. “It was my life for a very long time.”
“You have all done an impressive job adjusting to our new life,” I commented.
“Thanks, but I think it has been harder for us than you know,” Anna admitted. “You should have seen us in those first few weeks. We were sure that this thing was all temporary and that someone would swoop in and save us. I guess someone did though, just not in the way we thought.” The beautiful redhead looked over and me and smiled warmly.
“Don’t give me all the credit here,” I said. “You guys have done just has much work as I have.”
“Yeah, but we didn’t have much direction until you came along,” Anna rebutted. “Even Rolly, for all his experience, didn’t have the skills to save us from our situation.”
“At least it’s all under control now,” I said with a smile. “We’re doing really well despite all the troubles we have faced so far.”
“Yeah, we really are,” Anna said. Then she took a deep breath and let out a happy sigh.
As we continued to climb higher, the trees thinned out, and the sun sank lower in the sky. The grade got steeper, and we found the last chunk of our trip required a little easy climbing as we picked our way up the rocky mountainside.
“I think I know this mountain,” Anna huffed as she pulled herself forward.
“Oh yeah?” I responded after I sucked in a lungful of thin air.
“If this is the mountain I am thinking of there is a ski slope on the other side,” she said.
It made sense. There were hardly any trees up this high and things were starting to get chilly enough that there could be snow.
“I should have brought a jacket,” Anna said.
“We’ll be fine,” I replied. “Even if there is no building I can make a small shelter and build us a nice warm fire.”
“Yeah, but I am cold now,” she said in a mock whine.
“Better climb faster then,” I recommended with a grin.
She laughed, shook her head, and continued to pull herself towards the summit.
It was dark by the time we reached the top, but what we found made the whole trip worth it.
A large ski lodge sat on a nice flat chunk of land, with a metal shed built half into the mountain set out behind it. The roof of the single story lodge was lined with solar panels, and there were several large windows around the exterior that would give anyone inside a great view of the surrounding area. The whole building was made up of the clean lines and sharp angles of modern design, but it was accented by the more traditional stonework, and thick logs that made up traditional ski cabins. A set of large, solid wood, double doors sat under an awning held up my two large stone covered pillars.
This top was high enough to overlook the entirety of the surrounding area nicely, and there was indeed a snow covered slope on the opposite side of the mountain. Off in the distance we could make out the small clearing of our campus. However, that was far from the most interesting sight, as several columns of black smoke rose from various places off in the distance.
“That doesn’t look good,” Anna said with a frown as she surveyed the forested region with me. “I think the smoke is coming from Greenville, Meyers, and Geary. They are some of the smaller towns dotted around out past Lanceton.”
“Yeah, that’s probably bad,” I admitted. “Last time we saw smoke like this was after the bikers torched the Lanceton police station.”
“I had a feeling it might be those biker guys,” Anna groaned. “They seem to love messing shit up.”
“They seem to be getting more destructive too,” I noted. “They might be angry after we killed their guys.”
“Or maybe we are not the only people to poke at those assholes,” Anna suggested. “They could be retaliating.”
“This is just another good reason for us to stay hidden,” I said.
“Yeah, I would rather our home not be set on fire,” Anna agreed before she sighed. She turned to me, her arms crossed over her chest. “Are we going to do something about them? I mean, you took the time to take out that meth head just in the off chance he got high and stumbled into our area so why leave the bikers?”
“That was just one guy,” I explained. “He was a little easier to take care of than a whole gang of bikers. Trust me, I would love to ensure that they never troubled us again but I can’t just ride into their territory and pick a fight. At least not until I know more about their setup and numbers.”
“What if we went as a group?” Anna asked.
“Absolutely not,” I said while I shook my head. “If they came to us, I would expect you to fight, but there is no way I am taking you girls into hostile territory like that.”
&nb
sp; “We’re not helpless,” Anna exclaimed.
“Yes but you’re not warriors and you’re not ready for a real battle,” I said. “You will be, but you just aren't yet.”
“You’re right, sorry,” Anna said with a small sigh. She shivered and looked towards the lodge behind us. “I just know things would be safer if those fucking bikers weren’t around.”
“Hey,” I said quietly as I put a hand on her shoulder. “Your instincts are good, but I don’t want to put you guys into that situation before you are ready.”
“I get it,” Anna said. “I understand that you are just trying to keep us safe. I’ve always been the type to get a little overeager. It is good that you are here to rein me in when I do.”
“That’s what I'm here for,” I said. “Now come on, let’s get inside before it gets any colder or darker.”
“Yes please,” the redhead said as she rubbed her arms for warmth.
We jogged over to the front door and were pleasantly surprised to find it unlocked.
Anna whistled as we stepped inside and got our first look of the plush interior.
“Yeah, holy shit,” I muttered.
The whole place looked like something out of a modern design magazine. There were lots of straight clean lines, black and white contrast, and windows to let in light. There was a large living room area in front of us furnished with a large black leather couch, and matching, black leather reclining chair. They were positioned around a now pointless sixty inch flat screen TV set above a stone fireplace. A small rolling bar sat next to the couch with a decanter of some amber liquid inside.
“This is swanky,” Anna said.
“Yeah, whoever owned this place had money,” I said.
“Oh shit, I think I might actually know whose place this is,” Anna said suddenly. “There was some young corporate guy who passed through town last winter. He was that typical blond douche with a hedge fund.”
“Well he was clearly not lying about his money,” I said.
“That’s for sure,” Anna agreed with a nod. “He invited a few of us college girls up to his ski lodge, but none of us took him up on it.”