Surviving Chaos

23

John hadn’t yet been able to shake that feeling. The feeling that something had changed inside him. He couldn’t shake the images of Tom’s distorted body, bleeding. He couldn’t get rid of the memory. He felt hollow. Different. Not in a good way.

“I can’t keep carrying this,” said John, gesturing to Dale’s pack. “Not if we want to get out of here fast.”

“Let me help you,” said Cynthia, starting to open the pack, pulling gear and food out and throwing it down on the ground. “We’ll divide it up as best we can.”

“We’re going to have to leave a lot behind,” said John. “Our packs are already mostly full.”

“It’s not a bad problem to have,” said Cynthia. “I’d rather have too much gear than too little.”

“Same,” said John.

He was still feeling shaken from what he’d had to do. Somehow, killing Tom like that had been harder for him than the others he’d killed. He doubted he’d ever forget Tom’s screams, or the look on his face when he’d said, “Please.”

“Maybe we don’t need these,” said Cynthia, gesturing to some of the contents of her own pack. She pointed to what were essentially very thin pads, used as mattresses. “These are just a luxury, right? I can’t believe we’ve been carrying these around. I can sleep on the ground, no matter how rough.”

“It’s getting colder,” said John. “And these might just keep us from freezing to death in the winter.”

“That’s if we’re staying here for the winter,” said Cynthia. “What if we end up heading south? It’ll be easier to survive, just like we’d talked about.”

“Nothing’s certain,” said John. “Look how much trouble we’ve had so far, just covering short distances. It’s likely we wouldn’t be able to get very far south before the winter. Who knows what we’ll come up against. Plus, it’s a hell of a walk just as it is.”

Cynthia nodded. “Good point.”

In the end, they had to leave a ton behind. They kept most of the food, and they had to leave a lot of guns behind. They opted for ammunition over carrying the extra guns taken from the dead men who’d been torturing Tom.

“Hey,” said Cynthia, her voice sounding strange. “Where’s Kiki?”

“Kiki?”

Then it hit John. He hadn’t seen Kiki since…

He didn’t know when. Before the whole thing with Tom being tortured.

“Shit,” muttered John, looking around.

“Kiki!” called out Cynthia.

John called out too, but there was no Kiki. She didn’t come running along. She didn’t bark, the way Dale had trained her to do when she was called.

Cynthia gave a loud whistle, using both her hands.

But still no Kiki.

“You think she got scared off? By the violence? The shooting?”

John shook his head. “She isn’t a normal dog. Remember, she’s Dale’s dog. The fearless Dale…”

“And look where it got him.”

“My point exactly.”

“What do you think happened to Kiki then, if she wasn’t scared?”

“She showed she was loyal to us after Dale’s death. If she could have helped, she would have.”

“Something must have happened to her before Tom ran to the building.”

John thought for a moment. “Whatever happened,” he said, “it doesn’t bode well for us.”

“For us? What about Kiki? Aren’t you worried about her?”

“She’s a dog,” said John. “Yeah, it’d be a shame if something happened to her… but frankly I’m much more worried about us. The people from the compound are already hunting us. Once they see what we did to those four guys… Well, we’re going to be in a hell of a lot more trouble than we were.”

“How will they know it was us?”

“It’s a pretty safe assumption.”

John had his gun out, and he kept his eyes moving, scanning the forest around them constantly for any signs of movement.

“What I’m worried about,” said John, speaking quietly, “is that Kiki’s disappearance means we’re much closer to trouble than we’d thought.”

“You keep watch. I’ll get this last stuff packed into the bags.”

Many of their belongings were still scattered on the ground. The bags were both still open. They weren’t in any position to leave just yet.

John could hear Cynthia at work.

“Hurry up,” he said, still scanning the forest. He was crouched down to make himself less of a target, and to give himself more stability if he needed to fire. His instincts had him going right for his handgun, which was what he held now. But he knew that it wasn’t the ideal weapon for such a situation. Without taking his eyes off the forest, he unslung his rifle from his back and got that into his hands instead, settling the handgun back into its holster.

The rifle didn’t feel quite right in his hands. He and Cynthia had spent most of their target practice with handguns. He wasn’t yet comfortable with anything bigger than a handgun. But he hoped that the gun’s longer range would make up for his own inexperience, and still provide an advantage over the handgun.

“OK,” said Cynthia. “I got it. I wasn’t sure about packing the…”

“Forget it,” said John. “We’ve got to move. No more time to worry about what we’re taking.”

“Do you see anything?”

“No, but that’s part of what makes me worried. Come on, let’s go.”

They shouldered their packs quickly. John didn’t even know what was in his.

“Keep your rifle out,” said John, as they set off.

They moved swiftly through the woods, away from the squat little building in which Tom lay, along with the four other dead bodies.

Kiki was nowhere in sight.

As they walked, Cynthia started making a sound. At first, John didn’t know what it was.

“Are you OK?” he said, worrying that something was wrong with her medically.

“I’m fine,” said Cynthia, sniffling.

That was when John recognized it. She was crying. Not sobbing. Just crying quietly as she walked.

“What is it?”

“Kiki,” said Cynthia, the word coming out all muffled.

John didn’t say anything. Kiki had been a good companion, sure, and it was sad to think that she’d been shot, or perhaps stabbed to death.

But as far as John was concerned, there were more important things at stake. Like their own lives. They couldn’t go looking for a dog. They couldn’t risk their lives for an animal.

Many people felt more strongly about the plight of animals than the plight of other humans. At least, it’d been like that before the EMP. Maybe that was what was going on with Cynthia.

Or maybe it was more that the disappearance of Kiki had opened the floodgates. So much had happened to Cynthia, and she’d kept it locked away for so long… It was only natural.

Well, as long as she kept walking, everything would be fine.

“Just keep your eyes open,” said John. “Keep alert.”

He turned around to make sure she was behind him. They walked single file, rapidly through the woods.

John had no doubt that someone was out there. And that they were a threat.

And he also had no doubt that he’d put up a hell of a fight.

There’d been so many threats, so many near-misses, that it was only a matter of time before he and Cynthia met their end.

They were dead men walking, as the expression went.

But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t fight tooth and nail to stay alive as long as he could. If there was just the slightest chance that they could live through this all, then he’d do everything in his power to get there, to get to the end. Wherever that was.

They’d been on the move for ten minutes, and they hadn’t seen anyone, or heard anything. Suddenly, a thought popped into his head.

“Cynthia,” said John, speaking quietly, knowing that his voice had the potential to travel far in the woods. “You brought the radio, right?”

“The radio?” said Cynthia, sniffling.

He turned to her, stopping in his tracks. She was wiping away some tears.

“The radio,” said John impatiently. “Dale’s radio. Remember?”

Cynthia nodded. “I remember. I left it behind.”

“You did what?”

“I left it there. I was about to ask you, but you said we had to get a move on it. It was so heavy. And big. You said we had to leave things behind.”

For the first time, John felt angry at Cynthia.

He knew it wasn’t her fault. In fact, the radio wasn’t crucial to their immediate survival.

But it might be essential for surviving in the long term.

Maybe John wasn’t admitting it to himself, but the radio represented something more than just survival.

The radio was the only link he had with his brother Max. The radio was the only way to find him.

Of course, it was a long shot. Impossibly long. As far as John knew, Max didn’t have a radio. He’d used the radio at the compound, and there was no reason to think he had one of his own.

Even if he did, the odds were very low that they’d somehow find each other on at the same time.

But were they really that low?

All it’d take was the two of them spending a few hours at night at the same time, surfing the channels looking for someone to contact.

They’d gone years essentially estranged. But that was before the EMP. That was when family hadn’t mattered as much as it mattered now.

John needed some connection. Not to his past. But to his future. And to someone with his own blood.

Cynthia seemed to know he was angry. “I’m sorry, John. I thought I was making the right decision.”

John nodded. “It’s not your fault,” he said. “But we need that radio. I’m going back.”

“Are you crazy?”

“Maybe,” said John, his gaze shifting to the direction from which they’d come, where the unknown awaited them.

“I thought we were trying to get out of here as fast as possible. Kiki’s disappearance doesn’t bode well for us.”

“No,” said John. “No, it doesn’t. But we need that radio.”

“Just keep in mind,” said Cynthia, “that if you go back, I’m going back with you.”

John paused for a moment. Maybe it was the wrong decision, but he said, “Come on, we’re heading back.”

They turned around, and walked in swift silence.

Walking quickly felt good. For now. It kept the chill at bay. But soon enough, with those packs, they’d be exhausted once again.

A sound came at them. A high-pitched whirring. Unmistakably an engine.

It was still somewhat distant.

“What’s that?” said Cynthia, stopped dead in her tracks. Her head scanned the woods around them. Her finger was on the trigger of her gun.

“I don’t know.”

“Sounds like an engine. Is it a car?”

“It’s too high-pitched.”

John didn’t have any idea what it was. There’d been so much to deal with already today, his brain didn’t seem to be working properly. It was a normal effect of being overwhelmed. There was only so much the brain could process.

“A motorcycle?” said Cynthia.

Then it hit John. She was right. Partially.

“A dirt bike,” said John. “Quiet, we’ve got to listen.”

They fell silent. The sound was only getting louder. Only getting closer.

In the silence of the woods, John found that there were actually two or more sounds that were blending together. It was hard to distinguish between them, but he was fairly sure there was more than one dirt bike.

The sound was only getting louder.

“We’ve got to hide,” said John, tugging Cynthia’s arm, pulling her towards a denser cluster of trees.