This Shattered Land - 02 (45 page)

Gabe
shot me a look, and I realized that I’d spoken without thinking. “Anyway,” I
said, before he could ask anything, “it’s nothing to worry about. I’m not gonna
lie and say I’m a hundred percent, but I’m healed enough to do what’s needed of
me. If I feel like I’m pushing myself too hard, I’ll speak up.”

“You
might want to tell Allison that.”

I
nodded. “I will.”

*****

The
next day, after Allison left for work and Gabe went to the Mayor’s office for a
meeting, Steve stopped by for a visit to see how I was doing. He had been so
busy over the last few weeks trying to track down the Legion’s headquarters
that we hadn’t had a chance to catch up.

“So
what happened to the compound after I left?” I asked him, a little fearful of
the answer.

“I
went with Lieutenant Jonas and his men and helped them on their recon for a
couple of weeks. By the time we got back, quite a few people had already left.
Most of them told Bill they were going to Colorado.”

“Any
word on whether they made it or not?”

“We
get radio messages from Central Command in Cheyenne Mountain every couple of
weeks. Lists of names, dates of birth, places of origin. People trying to reconnect
with friends and loved ones, trying to find out who survived. I know that Stan,
Cody, Jessica Robinson, and her husband Earl all made it. Reports on the others
are spotty. Some got there, others...” He let the comment hang for a moment. “Time
will tell.”

As
happy as I was for the people who made it, doubt over what might have happened
to the ones who didn’t was a heavy tightness in my chest. I lived among those
people for a little over three months, talking to them, eating with them, even
fighting for them. It pained me to think that they had endured so much,
survived so much, only to meet a painful end somewhere out there in the
treacherous wastes. But that was the way of things in this shattered land we
now lived in.

“What
about Ethan and Andrea? They doing okay?”

Steve
smiled. “Andrea took a management job at the hospital, and Ethan had worked his
way up to sergeant last time I saw him. Justin wound up enlisting when he
couldn’t find any work in Bragg other than sweating it out on a farm crew. They
all share a house together, with Emily watching the kids while the others are
at work. She’s a great mom.”

I
nodded, wondering what their kids were like. Especially little Aiden. He was
barely over a year old the last time I saw him, but nearly two years had gone
by and he was probably running around and tearing up the place.

The
morning silence hovered still and heavy while I worked up the courage to ask
the question that had been haunting me since the day I left the compound.

“How’s
Stacy?”

Steve
looked over at me, not quite suppressing a knowing smirk. “She took it pretty
hard when you left.”

I
nodded silently. A cold ball of guilt rolled up in my stomach.

“She
didn’t talk much for a while.” Steve continued. “I think she might have loved
you.”

“I
think I might have loved her too.” I said.

Steve
took a sip of his tea and sat back, his chair creaking under his weight. “Well
don’t spend too much time mooning over her. Wasn’t a month after we got to
Bragg that she started shacking up with Noah Salinger.”

 That
didn’t surprise me. There was something growing between them even before I
left.

“I’m
glad to hear that. Noah is a nice guy.”

As
the morning wore on, our conversation turned to the subject of training Gabe’s
recruits. I’m not sure why we thought of them as
his
recruits, it just
seemed to fit. Steve promised to offer what help he could, but spying on the
Legion was a full-time gig for him. He wasn’t sure how much time he could
spare. I let him know that anything he could do would be greatly appreciated,
and shook his hand when he left to make a ten o’clock meeting with Sheriff
Elliott.

Gabe
got home late that afternoon, and we went for a walk outside the wall. My
rifle’s weight was cumbersome after so many days of not wearing it. The sling
chafed at my neck, and my web gear felt heavy around my hips. We stopped at the
northern end of town beneath a memorial cross that some of the townsfolk had
erected with hollow steel poles scavenged from the surrounding ruins. The
towering crucifix stood in a thick concrete anchor dug several feet into the
ground. A large carved stone, flat and slate-grey like a tombstone, gave voice
to the town’s memorial.

This
memorial stands as a tribute to the victims of the Great Outbreak, both living
and dead. So long as the memories of your lives remain with us, and the light
of hope shines forth from the hearts of those who survived, you will never be
forgotten.

-
 The Congregation of Hollow Rock Church

“Pretty
words.” Gabe muttered. “I’m surprised there’s anyone left alive who still
believes in all that bible stuff.”

I
stepped up onto the short raised platform around the base of the crucifix and
leaned a shoulder against it, stuffing my hands in my pockets. Even this far
into June, it still got cool enough at night to wear a jacket and a knit cap to
fend off the chill.

“I’m
with you on that one. Hard to believe there’s a loving God out there with the
world gone to shit.”

The
sun was beginning to disappear behind the hills in the distance. Swirls of
yellow, orange, and crimson descended down toward the horizon in a dazzling,
fractured haze. The brilliant colors would have been beautiful except that they
were caused by the floating ashes of a dying civilization. And it
was
a
dying civilization. I, and all the people like me who could remember what the
world was like before the Outbreak, would not be around forever. Eventually we
would pass on, and the generations that followed behind would be left to stare
in puzzlement at the ruins of all that humanity had ever accomplished. I could
almost see them, gaping at the sight of a collapsing skyscraper, or scratching
their heads at the mystery of a billboard on some lonely, forgotten highway,
the advertisements empty of any meaning they once held. 

 Gabe
stepped a boot onto the platform and braced his weight against his thigh with
one brawny arm.

“Got
a lot of work ahead of us.” He said.

“That
we do.”

He
looked over at me, the lines in his weathered face standing out in stark relief.
“Think we’ll get out of this one alive?”

I
smiled and shrugged. “Nobody gets out of this world alive, Gabe. What matters
is what we do with the time we still have. You know that.”

A
ghost of a smile brightened his eyes for just a moment before he turned way. We
stood in companionable silence under the amber sky, staring at the last fading
light of another day.

I
wondered how many more I would get to see.