"I can still hear them back there," Dad said. It was faint, but Kern could also hear the growing chorus of the dead. Whether they were headed their way or not, neither of them could tell. Kern took Dad's water bottle when he passed it to him and took a few swallows. Looking at Jacob, he tool a couple of more swallows leaving just enough for a small drink. He then handed this to Jacob, who drank ravenously. It wasn't that Kern was being selfish. Jacob might be sick, and it wouldn't be good for both him and Dad to get sick as well. After Jacob was finished, he tossed the bottle to the side. They had enough bottles and never ran dry as long as their was rain. Besides, bottles of water were easy to come by. They had to be washed out and then disinfected and washed again, but it was better than getting sick.
"Why did you do that?" Kern asked as Dad picked up Jacob again and began walking up the slope. Jacob was looking back at Kern over Dad's shoulder, his eyes wide in terror. "You could have gotten yourself killed, or both of us. Now we're being followed."
"Jacob could have also been killed," Dad said sternly. "If not for us he would have been."
Kern bit the side of his mouth and tasted blood. He wanted to say so much more, but he knew it would be best to drop it. If he pushed Dad too far when he was as sure about something as he was saving Jacob, Kern would have to face his wrath. Given the circumstances, Kern weighed his options. What was done was done, and those two options were to keep his mouth shut or argue. Since they were being tracked, it might mean a smack in the face. Dad hadn't ever done it before, but Kern didn't want to push his luck.
Kern shook his head and began stalking up the slope.
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"There you go," Dad said as he secured the tape around a better, but still primitive, splint. Dad had also cleaned the wound with a couple of alcohol wipes and rebandaged it with antibacterial ointment. It had been an ordeal, with Jacob having to bite down on a stick to keep from screaming. Kern was sitting beside the rock at the entrance of the small enclosure they had found, ringed in by trees and bushes. Dad didn't like it. There was only one way in or out unless they tore through the thorn bushes, but at least it would keep them out of sight.
Dad looked down at the dinner that Kern had scraped up for them and laid out unceremoniously on pieces of tin foil. Each of them got a piece of old, hard beef jerky, some canned peas, and two stale peanut butter sandwich crackers. A cold meal tonight, though Dad had some cooked fish and squirrel meat in his pack. The meat was always better heated up, and they couldn't risk a fire. Jacob stared at it timidly, then devoured the food so quick that Dad worried he would get sick to his stomach.
"Where are you from," Jacob asked, uttering each word deliberately.
"East," Dad said. "Close to Athens. You?"
"Around here," Jacob said. He was finally relaxing, the sound of his own words soothing his fear. With the adrenaline gone, Dad could see the exhaustion in the boy's face. Three days on the run, and sleep had probably eluded him. After he swallowed the last of his food, Dad passed him a bottle of water. Jacob poured it in his mouth carefully, then passed it back to Dad, who did the same.
"I was with my brother, John, and our friend Derek. We went out to gather some food, like mushrooms. We really went out just to move around some. We lost track of time, and it was getting late, so we were headed back home when the freaks jumped us. One of them was a fast one, and it took John down." Jacob's eye's were looking past Dad, fixed somewhere no one else could see as he tried to stoically tell his story. "Derek pulled me away from them and we both ran. We thought we had lost them, then two of the fast ones caught him. Before he fell, he shoved me into a bush, and I laid there, then crawled away and ran."
"I'm sorry to hear that happened to you," Dad said. "We've seen some things, too. It's been a long road from where we started to here. What about the rest of your family?"
"I can't tell you," Jacob said, drawing back into his shell again.
"Why can't you tell me?"
"Because I'm not supposed to."
"Well, how am I supposed to get you home if you don't tell me where your family is?" Jacob stared off into the distance. "Okay, your leg is hurt, and I can't leave you here by yourself, unless you just want me to. So you either go with us or... wait a minute... how about if I show you a map of the area and you pick out a spot that you want me to drop you off at?"
"Well, I guess that might be alright."
"Good," Dad said, then took the wrinkled map they had found in a gas station out of his pack and unfolded it. Jacob leaned over, then moved to sit beside Dad. It took him a minute to get his bearings, but his eyes lit up. He must have spotted a familiar place.
"Here," Jacob said, pointing at the small incorporated area of Kings Mill. Dad studied it for a bit, and figured that they must be a good day's walk from there, at least. Two since he had to carry Jacob
"Not a problem, Jacob. I think we can get there in a day or two. We will take you there, then we will go our own way." Kern squirmed restlessly by the rock.
"What if it's a trap? There could be people there."
"Do you see any alternative?" Dad said.
"Yea. Instead of coming in down the road and dropping him off, I say we get him close and let him make his own way there."
"That could be suicide," Dad said roughly, keeping his voice down. "There's no telling how many of those things are there, and with that leg he couldn't even get away from one!"
"It could be suicide us taking him there, Dad." He hesitated before saying Dad. Aaron was a new one. "So a group of people see us walking in with a kid from their group, limping with a bad leg, and us carrying weapons. What's the first thing you think they're going to think?"
Dad already knew what Kern was thinking, and he was a little embarrassed that he had been so quick to offer that course of action.
"Shoot first, ask questions later." Kern said, popping a cracker into his mouth and washing it down with some water.
Dad laced his fingers together and closed his eyes. Kern was making a lot of sense, and he probably would have come to the same conclusion himself sooner or later. Could he drop the boy, knowing if any trouble should arise that he couldn't get away? Should he protect himself and his own son, even if the threat is a possibility and not a certainty? Dad knew this question, and it's decision, would bother him all the way to Kings Mill and maybe beyond.
It was a decision made quickly because of the stakes, and if things went wrong, Dad didn't know if he could forgive himself. In this world, there was very little time for brooding or deep thought. Regardless of what some people in the old world thought, thinking took a certain amount of a man's energy, and any kind of hard concentration doubled that. Stress on top of it? Exponentially worse. So he made his decision and returned to that calm place, just above the torrents in his mind. Smiling, he looked up a Jacob.
"What do you like to do for fun?"
The night passed without event. They were on high ground, and had moved along at a brisk pace since taking the ridge. Of course, that didn't mean that they were safe. There could be another mob, or even a horde, just around the corner. Still, it wasn't common for them to group together in places like those, up on a ridge. Jacob slept soundly, his snoring just loud enough to be a nuisance. Kern and Dad both sat stoically for a long time after Jacob had fallen asleep. Their silence wasn't one of anger, but one of awkwardness. Was their anything else to say after their discourse after supper? Could they say anything else without going back to it?
Eventually, Kern fell asleep. Dad didn't have to look at him to know. The slow, rhythmic sound of his breathing was enough. After a while, Dad had to struggle to stay awake. Getting up and walking around, when it was pitch black under the trees, was a bad idea. The infected weren't so much the problem as other humans. Gunshots, to other people, could mean a free payday. Food. Ammunition. Supplies.
Kern awoke before the sun's rays broke the horizon, when the world was still bathed in that soft blue that soothed the soul. They didn't have to s
ay anything, it had become such a routine. Kern nodded and went about checking the perimeter. There wouldn't be much to pack this morning at all, as they hadn't pulled out any bedding, and Dad had already bundled up the aluminum foil and buried it a short ways off. Dad nodded to him and laid back against the tree, and dozed.
When he finally awoke, the sun was up. It was somewhere between morning and noon. Jacob was sitting next to him, sipping on a water bottle. The water was orange, and Dad had to appreciate the fact that Kern had let him have one of their powdered drink packs, which they now called calorie packs. Maybe Kern was changing for the better. The incident with Julie back at the house had taxed his mind more than Dad could have imagined.
Kern walked over to him and handed him some crackers and fish meat, with some fresh blackberries and greens.
"I heated it up with the grill lighter," Kern said. "We have enough foil, and I was worried the fish would go bad if we waited. I found the other stuff."
"Thanks, son," Dad said, and nodded toward him. Kern pressed a purple colored bottle of water into his hands.
"Jacob's going to need it when he gets to town. I think you're going to need it before we get there."
Kern's voice was dry and void of all emotion. The night before, he had told Kern what the plan would be. He didn't know if it bothered Kern or not, and that bothered him.
"Mr. Aaron?" Jacob asked. Dad looked at him. "I think we can make it there by tomorrow morning if we start pretty soon."
"Why do you think that?"
"Because I've make this walk before. We're on Idler Ridge. To get to Kings Mill, a lot of it is down hill, toward the valley. If we keep to the park path, we can get there."
Dad didn't have a topography map, he had a cheap knock-off of the old Rand McNally maps. When the digital world took full hold, maps went by the wayside. A few reputable chains still carried a precious few copies of Rand McNally maps, but they were few and far in between. Those other few tobacco and beer stores that had maps, the ones that would try to make a quick buck with every kind of cheap trinket or device, had the cheap ones. Towns and roads divided into counties of various shades of green and brown.
Already in his head, Dad was going over the probability of a trap being set. Jacob had been attacked and those events couldn't have possibly been planned. A broken leg? An attacked of the infected? But what if there was a certain place that highwaymen could ambush the unsuspecting? Maybe that was the best place Jacob could take them. A place he could be safe and also give those who cared for him a quick mark.
Jacob wasn't like that, though. At least, Dad didn't think he was. He seemed like a good kid, and if he was planning on taking them somewhere, he should have started the night before. It also helped his case that they had fled away from their destination, but of course that couldn't have been helped. Jacob also didn't seem like type who had been beaten or subjected to any scenes of human cruelty. He was reserved, yes, but he wasn't the kind who retreated from an outstretched hand. In the end, Dad had made his decision. Whether the outcome was good or bad, he couldn't shy away from it now.
"I think that's a fine idea," Dad said. "What are you going to do when you get home?"
"I cant talk about that."
"I understand. You don't have to tell me. I was just wondering if you were going to do something fun or not."
"I don't know now. With my brother gone, I can't really think of anything. He used to play with me, and take me out in the woods. Maybe I can sleep when I get home, and eat. I hope that's about it." There were tears in his eyes.
"I'm sure you will find something, and someone to have fun with."
With that, Dad stood up and walked off. Kern already had everything packed and the trash buried, but he couldn't bear to talk to Jacob any longer. Not only had he bumbled into a bad subject for Jacob to talk about, but he had trouble moving back into the realm of emotion when dealing with other people. Except when it came to Kern, that part of himself had grown numb a long time ago. In the first days, he wept for those left out on the streets. In the following weeks, he offered condolences to those they met who had lost family and friends, and that was just about everyone. It kept him up at night, that terrible surge of humanity, all broken. Finally, it all just faded. When some new survivor would tell him their tale, he would just nod and stare off into space, or say sorry to hear that.
Kern was sipping on an orange-colored water bottle himself. A mental note was made that they would need to boil some water the next time they came to a stream, even if it meant waiting until dusk to do so.
"Hey," Kern said. Dad replied the same. Kern looked at him with a smirk on his face. "I was thinking about something last night. I know we have been over this, but you never would tell my why you wouldn't say they are dead, but always infected. What's the reason? You can see them rotting away now. Do you still feel that way?"
Dad was taken aback by the suddenness of the question. In the beginning, there had been more than one heated argument over the subject. Of course, Dad had been skeptical at first. Even the fact that a gun shot couldn't bring one down hadn't changed his way of thinking. Eventually he just stopped thinking about it. Now, it only felt like a footnote in his memory. It took him a bit to gather his thoughts before he spoke.
"Well, it used to be hard for me to make sense of it to myself, and even harder for me to explain it. Nothing about it made sense. It just isn't scientific. How do their muscles work without oxygen or blood? How does the brain function? I thought that there must have been a logical explanation. That was part of what broke me, and probably almost everyone else. Without something to rationalize why everything was happening, it's hard to get some kind of parameter about your situation.
"If it wasn't anything that science could explain, then what else could it be? It must be something supernatural, or Biblical. Ghosts? Demons? God's judgement? These are things we have no understanding of, and haven't given any collective thought in a long time. It's the twenty-first century, the age of science and technology. Yet here we are, faced with something that defies both. I held on to the hope that someone might be able to explain it to us somehow, but I don't feel that way anymore.
"I still don't accept the fact that these are reanimated bodies, dead people. What else can it be? I don't know. I can't answer that question. They must be infected with something, or at least that's what I want to think." Kern nodded and took a sip of his drink, savoring it as he licked it off his lips.
"We all have to face reality, sometime, Dad. People just used to die, and that was it. Now, when they die, their body gets up. It rots, and it eats people. When those people get up, half-eaten, they go and rot and kill people. When you think of them as being infected, it's almost like you need to have some compassion for them. It makes them sound human. They aren't human. It's a survival thing."
"We have survived, Kern. We've survived a lot of things." Kern's mouth twisted, and he shook his head.
"It's not just with the dead, Dad," Kern said. "It's with everything. Like back at the house on Sycamore, with that girl. You wanted to have compassion on them, even after she bullied her way in and pulled a knife on us. They could have stolen all of our food, or maybe the woman had a gun of her own. They definitely let the dead know where we were. If I hadn't shot her, we might have ended up trapped in the house with them, and while we slept they could have killed us and took everything we had. It's the same this time.
"Jacob might seem all innocent, and he does, but he's scared. He also can't make it back home without us. So right now, everything looks nice and safe, and we will walk happily through the woods, stroll into that town, and we will get to meet his family and pet their dog and wave as we go off on our way. But what is the reality of it? Is there really a family waiting for him in that town? Or is it just another gang of thugs? Maybe it is his family, and his dad is their leader. Or maybe there isn't anyone at all, and he just wants us to get him there and then kill us and take all of our stuff?"
Dad look
ed at his son incredulously. So there it was, after all these months, out in the open. He had killed Julie not out of self defense, but because he would rather take care of what was his, giving up his humanity one action at a time. This shocked Dad, but didn't surprise him. Most of the people left in the world probably felt the same way. Were there still supermarkets, warehouses, or even just a town square left in the world? A place where people could barter for food or plead on the mercy of those who had it? Dad doubted it, and he figured that he might just be alone in the way he felt, trying to maintain some semblance of civility.
"So you think I should have left him there to die? Is that it?" Dad asked. Kern shrugged.
"We would have been better off, I think. We wouldn't just be walking blindly into a situation we might not want to be in, but he's eaten our food and depleted your energy just by you carrying him."
"Depleted my energy? Really?"
"Dad, you know as good as I do that everything is a resource. Not only the food, the water, and the supplies, but even our strength and sleep. Energy has to be replenished somehow, and that's with food. That's why I gave both of you some calorie packs, so you can replenish a little strength and maybe he won't be as much of a burden."
"And why did you get one?"
"Because I might need it to carry you." Dad shook his head, then put his hand on Kern's shoulder.
"I can't really blame you for the way you are thinking," Dad said, "but I think that it is the wrong way to think. What you say about resources is true. I can't deny that and I won't try to, but don't you think there isn't something more that we need to worry about? Like maybe a moral bank that we have to repay?"
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