9.0 - Sanctum (25 page)

It was weird—exceptionally so—sitting down at a picnic table, one of three, lined up on the grass under the trees between the lodge and one of the canals, which seemed much more like a mountain creek with cold, clear water burbling by.  We were having a celebration feast.  The Balmorhea group had been smoking a javelina—a crazy-ass-mean wild pig with big tusks—since the night before.  With plenty of mesquite around and plenty of javelinas, smoked wild pork was a dietary staple.  We new arrivals provided canned corn and rice from our trip to the warehouse grocery in San Angelo, as well as a variety of canned sodas and beer for everyone to choose.  For dessert, we had peanut M&M's, of which somebody had loaded thirty pounds into one of the pickups.

Everybody was happy.  Murphy was back to his usual self now that he’d reunited with his sister.  And that made me happy.  For all that I’d dragged him through, I was afraid I’d ruined him.

When darkness fell, we moved the party inside, though all through the feast and then afterwards, at least two people stood watch on a tower they'd constructed at the center of the courtyard.  It provided a view of the barren plain in all directions.  The watch was always up there, never any exceptions.  Everyone took a shift.  Safe time in Balmorhea hadn’t made my friends complacent.

All eleven who’d gotten into one of the Humvees or the pickup that night on the shore of Lake Travis made it out to Balmorhea.  The trip hadn’t been easy.  They’d had some hiccups along the way, but nothing that stopped them.  What was better, not one of them had been killed since arriving.  Now with the addition of my new companions, we were eighteen strong.

Lonely little Balmorhea, so far from everything, had indeed been a good destination.

When the first group arrived in Balmorhea, there'd been fifty or so Whites in town or nearby.  Dalhover organized a hunt and the eleven efficiently exterminated them all.  Over the following few months, they'd gone to work setting up their new home in the cabins out at the remote state park.  In town, they collected and burned all the bodies, so as not to draw in scavengers of the two-legged and four-legged varieties.  They systematically searched every house and business for all food, drugs, and weapons they could find.  They stored some at the ranger's residence on the state park property.  They stored the overflow in the high school.

And what might be the best part, they’d contacted a group of survivors in Saragosa, a tiny agricultural community a few miles north of Highway 10, not ten minutes away by car.  The survivors—seven of them—were mostly from the area.  They were farmers or ranchers before the virus came and killed damn near everybody.  That group of survivors was willing to give all the guidance our group needed for farming the local fields once spring came.

After spending my first night in Balmorhea with Steph, we got up before the sunrise and hiked out from the lodge heading southwest.  We crossed the canals and walked along a flat path for half a mile before we started up a winding path on the side of a tall hill.  The sky turned from black to a light, pre-dawn gray as we neared the top and I saw the desert plain stretch north and east.  To the west, mountains ten or twelve miles away blocked my view in that direction.

The peak we were hiking to was the top of a bald hill three hundred feet up from the flat ground below.  It was the first small peak in a ridge of mountains in the Davis range that grew taller and spread wider to the south and west.  It was where the day-watch guards came, a pair every day.  The group of eleven kept four people on watch full-time through all the daylight hours, two on the hill, two on the watchtower in the courtyard, and then two more on the tower at night.  It was a big investment in man-hours, but security couldn’t be compromised.  All of us were alive because we’d learned that lesson the hard way and had been lucky enough to live.  Nobody wanted to pay that tuition again.

We reached the top of the hill as the sun was just peaking over the horizon and the landscape was turning from black shadow to gray and tan.  Steph pointed north and east.  Catching her breath, she said, "You can see twenty miles from here."

Pointing south and then west toward the mountains, she said, "We can see the mountains, obviously, but we can't see what's on the other side.  We can't see all the canyons and draws.  If Whites come from that direction, we might not have much time to react.”  She pointed west.  "The nearest town with more than a couple thousand residents in that direction is El Paso, two hundred miles away.  All desert.”  She turned south and we both looked at the mountains cast in stark shadows by the rising sun.  "Presidio is a hundred miles that way with maybe four or five thousand residents before the virus.  Past that is the Rio Grande."

“We’re remote,” I agreed.

I followed her over to an old pickup with a camper shell that had been driven up the dirt road to the top of the hill and left there.  She opened the camper door and folded down the tailgate, setting her backpack on the gate once it was open. 

I took mine off with some reluctance.  It wasn’t heavy.  I was used to the weight of it on my back so much that I felt naked without it.  In fact, I felt a little less secure when it wasn’t on me.  Taking it off meant I’d have to waste extra seconds in putting it back on when it came time to run.

Steph reached in, pulled out a folding lawn chair, and handed it to me before taking one out for herself.  She next handed me a flimsy cardboard box nearly four feet long.  It contained a telescope.  She pointed to a spot a dozen yards away just where the peak of the hill started to drop away on the slope.  “Set it up over there.”  She reached into the pickup and grabbed a pair of mismatched cases for binoculars.

I walked over to the spot she directed me to, saying, “You’ve got everything up here.”  It was a nothing comment but it was a compliment too.

“If you see something far away,” said Steph, as she walked over beside me, “even with the binoculars, it’s sometimes hard to tell whether it’s an antelope or a White.  With the telescope, we can see all twenty miles toward the horizon and make out everything.” 

“Everything?” I asked.

"Cars coming up the highway,” she unfolded her chair and set it up, "Whites, cattle, and javelinas like the one Sergeant Dalhover shot.  I think that's what he does when he's on watch.  He looks for herds of javelinas so when he goes out to hunt, he knows where to find them."

“Not a bad idea.”  I unfolded my chair and faced it toward the rising sun.  Neither of us sat down.  “How does he do…with the javelinas?”

Steph worked on setting up the telescope’s tripod.  “We get fresh meat at most meals.  You’d be surprised how much game is out here.”

I looked across the landscape.  “I would.”

She laughed.  “All of us were.”  She pointed at the rows of trees in groves north of us along the highway.  “You were right about those.”

“The pecan trees?” I asked.

“Do you remember?” she asked, as she mounted the telescope on the tripod.

“You need help with that?”

She smiled at me and for a moment, the scars were invisible.  “Best time to ask.”  She clicked something in place and pulled her hands away.  “Done.”  She seated herself in her chair and I sat down in the other chair beside her.

“We were on the river,” said Steph, “in that riverboat thing when you told us about this place.  Fresh water.  Pecan trees.  Antelope.  You said it was remote and safe.”

I smiled as I recalled that night, trying not to linger too long on the faces of those who’d died.  “And ugly.”

“Yes.”  Steph drew a deep breath.  “But pretty in its way.  And fresh air.  It’s everything you promised.”  She pointed down at the state park cabins where everyone else was either sleeping late or getting up to do whatever they did out here with their days.  “All those people down there would probably be dead if you hadn’t told us to come here.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that.  I had mixed feelings of guilt over all those who’d died along the way, all those I’d had a part in killing, and for what, to save a couple dozen?

“You’re beating yourself up again,” said Steph as she turned to face me.

I shook my head.  “Probably the same shit everybody goes through when they finally get a minute to stop running and shooting and scavenging for their next meal—they stop, take a deep breath, and reflect.”

“That’s exactly right,” said Steph.  She opened up her binocular case and took them out.  “Get yours out, too.  We need to see if anything snuck up on us during the night.”

“Does that happen?” I asked, knowing it was a stupid question, but it came out anyway. 

“Sometimes cars on the highway.  Sometimes bands of Whites.  Never those hordes like we saw in Austin.  I think the biggest bunch was maybe thirty or so—weak, nearly dead from thirst and starvation.”

“What about the cars?” I asked.  “Survivors?”

“I suppose.”  She traced her finger along the path of the highway across the desert.  “East to west.  Sometimes west to east.  People looking for something.”

“Do they stop?”

“Some stop in Balmorhea.  They scrounge for fuel or food like everybody everywhere, I guess.  But nobody comes down to the state park.  A lot of them see the pecan trees by the highway and get out to search for what they can find.  We don’t bother them.  Best not to, I think.”

“Not looking for any more people?” I asked.

“Playing it safe.”  Steph looked at me.  “Another lesson.  Maybe we learned it together.  Maybe we learned it from you and Murphy.  It’s hard to trust people these days.  Right now, we’re being cautious, taking care of our own.”

“What does that mean for us?” I asked.  “Me, Murphy, Grace, Fritz, and the others?”

Steph laughed and let her binoculars hang from the strap around her neck.  She reached out and took my hands.  “You and Murphy are family.  We’re
all
family down there.  We’re what we have now.  Each other.  If you think your friends are good people, that’s good enough for us.”

“You’ve talked about it already?”

“Of course,” she said.  “Not formally, but we all talk.  Like you said on more than one conceited occasion, half those people down there—maybe all of them—owe you and Murphy their lives.  You’re with us.”

With us? Family?

It had the too-good-to-be-true sound to it. 

“What? “Steph asked, suddenly hurt showing on her face.  “You don’t seem—I don’t know—happy about that.  Why?”

“Always direct, aren’t you?”

“Of course.”  She was hard again, all business, her guard was up.  She let go of my hands and put the binoculars back to her eyes.  “You didn’t answer my question.”  She gulped and asked, “Are you staying?”

"I…”  I wanted to say yes, of course.  I was next to a gorgeous redhead who I'd told Murphy I loved.  My only friends in the world were down there in those cabins.  But I was still a White.  And there were more than a dozen people down there who weren't.  "When people get together, when there are a bunch of normals, I'm a White.  Murphy's a White.  Grace and Jazz are, too.  It never works out."

“What are you telling me?” Steph kept the binoculars to her eyes, but I saw a tear on her cheek, heard her sniffle.

I reached up and pulled her binoculars down.  She blinked and turned her face away as she started to cry in earnest.  Never being one to figure out the best thing to do in these situations, I awkwardly reached my arms around her and pulled her to me and took a risk that didn’t seem as huge a deal as it would have been a year before.  “I love you.  I’ve thought about you every day since I left you on the beach.”

Steph turned her wet face up to mine and kissed me, then pulled me into a tight, tight hug.  “But?”

“I want to stay but I’m afraid.”

We were doing a shitty job keeping watch.  Steph was more diligent than me, taking time every few minutes to scan the horizon, but mostly we held each other and kissed, not talking much, just taking the rare opportunity to feel the comfort of being in another’s arms.

Finally, she pushed me away and told me to sit.  She wiped her face and took another look across the horizon.  She pointed to my binoculars and then pointed west.  "Take those and scan the mountains over there.  Then look at the mountains behind us."

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Tell me what you’re afraid of? Surely, it’s not the infected.  I’ve seen what you do with them.”

I chuckled and felt awful for it.  Do all murderers do that? "I'm good at killing Whites."

“Are you afraid I won’t love you back?”

"It would be reassuring if you said it."

“I love you.”

“Are you sure?” I asked.  She was looking in the other direction through a pair of binoculars.

“Don’t be a dumbass, Zed.”

I laughed.  “Now you sound like Murphy.”

“Maybe he knows how to talk to you in a language you’ll understand,” she told me.  “I’ve loved you a lot longer than you’ve loved me.  I never said anything because I didn’t want to get hurt.”

“I wasn’t exactly playing the field,” I said, as I scanned across the smooth brown ridges.  “Did you think I was interested in other girls?”

“I thought you were going to get yourself killed.”

“Yeah.  I suppose that’s a real risk these days.”

Steph lowered her binoculars and turned to look at the mountains as well.  “Anything that way?”

“Nothing I can see.”  I lowered my binoculars.

“I think we have a chance here,” she said.

“All of us?” I asked.  “Or you and me?”

“Both.  And don’t give me that crap about thinking you’ll get rejected by the group.”  She patted the pistol in the holster on her hip.  “If anybody gives you any shit, I’ll shoot ‘em.”

I laughed.

"I'm serious.”  She did smile, though.

“Fine.”

“Fine doesn’t sound definitive.  What else are you afraid of?”

That was a harder question to answer.  I thought about it for a second before I said, “Fucked-up family.  Fucked-up mother.  I’ve never been good at managing my relationships.  No positive role models.  Know what I mean?”

“That’s what on-the-job training is for,” said Steph.  “I can cut you some slack.  But you have to talk to me.  You have to, or it won’t work.  Can you do that?”

What she was asking for was going to be a harder for me than she thought it would be, but I said, “Okay.  I can do it.”

“If you don’t,” she patted her pistol again, “I’ll shoot you, too.”

I laughed.  “So it is true love.”

She wrapped me in another hug and kissed me.  “We can make this work.  You and me.  All of us.  We can live here for the rest of our lives if we want.  We really can.”

“I hate deserts.”  I smiled to let her know it wasn’t a deal killer for me.

She patted my flat belly.  “Get used to eating real food again, and doing it every day.  Get used to taking a bath, even if the water in that damn spring is cold as hell.  Get used to feeling safe.  Get used to being with me and this place won’t seem so bad.”

“I think I could get used to it.  I really do.”