900 Miles (Book 2): 900 Minutes Page 25

  One foot after another, the blame grew. I blamed a homogenized planet, teaching us to stop thinking for ourselves, allowing us to follow celebrities and the false famous. I blamed the stupid as well as the intelligent. I blamed the wicked and the righteous.

  With all that blame stewing inside, all I could think of was that this was our new world. Our new reality…it was kill or be killed. It wasn’t my fault that this was the way things were now. I hadn’t created this. Gordon’s men were the monsters, and we needed to make sure they never came back. I blamed them for following a maniac, for allowing themselves to be turned into pawns.

  It would all justify my actions.

  As I marched down the hall, with Richards and three other men in tow, I knew there was nothing stopping this lust for revenge. We’d fallen too far.

  I could feel it. I was falling too far.

  Reaching the first body, I fell to my knees and grabbed Gordon’s man by his hair. I’d be killing him in cold blood, while he was asleep, and in my very core I knew it was the right thing.

  Raising my hammer in the air, flexing every muscle in my body, I prepared to finish it, when my eyes fell on the shoes. Those fucking Nike Pegasus shoes with the florescent green stripes running down the sides. The boy had told me that they were supposed to help him fly.

  Letting Aidan’s hair slip from my fist, I felt like I’d been smacked in the skull as I heard his body hit the ground with a thump. Paralyzed in thought, I left my hammer sitting up in the air waiting for me to do something with it.

  He was just a boy. A child who didn’t know who he was fighting or why. How many others passed out in these halls were exactly the same? Could I really blame them? Did they deserve to die in the name of Gordon Green? Were they really the true monsters? Or were they just a byproduct of the same hell we’d all been through?

  With my mind spinning, I found myself screaming something out loud. At first, it didn't register as the other men were prepping for their kills. Then I actually heard myself yelling at the top of my lungs,“STOP!”

  Not listening, their lust for revenge was running too high.

  Looking back down the hallway, I could see Claire covering Olivia's eyes. She was whispering something that sounded like a lullaby into her ears, as my shouts rang through the halls.

  “I SAID STOP!”

  Looking up from his prey, I heard Richards scream out in a fury,“We need to destroy these monsters!”as a light reflected off the blade he was getting ready to bring down.

  “There will be no more death today,”I said, staring down the base of my hammer at Richards’s head. My mind was resolute. Nothing was clearer to me. I wouldn’t allow myself to focus all that blame on these men.

  I wouldn’t allow myself to fall that far. I knew I’d never come back. A pause filled the hall. Richards stood there, still with his blade held high.

  “We’ve won. We’ve beaten them,”I said in a near whisper. Lowering my hammer, I glanced to Aidan’s passed-out body, and then looked back up to Richards.“Nobody else needs to die today.”

  As he looked at the three men surrounding him, I could tell that Richards was making a decision. The one that would blow with the wind. The politician in him would have to decide which the right move was to get him to the top. With Jarvis down, he was next in line. Which was the move that the people would want to see?

  Which way would he land?

  Slowly lowering his knife to his side, he looked again at the men standing next to him and said,“Let’s get this filth locked up in the prison.”

  A momentary pause from his counterparts had him screaming,“Now! You heard me, get them locked up before they wake up. John is right. We’ve already won.”

  With that, his shoulders slumped as he looked down to the boy at my feet. I could see it in his eyes, if only for a moment. He realized what we were about to become.

  Bringing his red-rimmed eyes back up to meet mine, he stopped and peered into my face, examining what felt like my soul. I think he was trying to figure me out. I’d shown him something he hadn’t expected. Keeping eye contact, I said,“We did the right thing here. You did the right thing,”before I slowly began to spin on one foot to turn back to the cafeteria.

  As I stepped, one foot after another, down the hall, I heard Richards finally reply,“I hope you’re right, John. I hope you’re right.”He hit the microphone on his shoulders and started barking out the same orders to imprison the rest of the sleeping soldiers that laid across our floors.

  Looking back down to my hand, the one with the bent wedding ring, I stepped through the hatch.

  Forgiveness was nearly impossible to grant myself for letting Jenn die. Ultimately, I couldn’t blame anybody but myself. So many errors leading up to her death, all of which were my own. Somehow, putting it all on the line for Tyler, and making sure that I was ready to trade everything for him, provided the tiniest bit of solace. We had all changed. We all had to adapt to this new world.

  My biggest adaptation was for me to learn to forgive. If I didn’t change, didn’t let go of the past, I’d be swallowed up by this world. I’d be consumed and spit out just like so many others before me.

  Forgiving myself is something I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to do. However, sometimes things just are. Sometimes, you can’t place blame. I had to allow myself to trust that I did what I could to make it things right. Trust that I did what was necessary to protect those I loved.

  Hearing Claire continue to sing small lullabies lightly under her breath as I entered the room, I set my sights on Deanna and Tyler who were just three shorts steps away.

  Letting the fire breath out of my lungs, and pushing the tiny dark spot to the back of my mind, I placed my hands under his arms as I lifted him from Deanna, and held him up to see his face.

  I couldn’t help but think it. Think back to my wife. He looked so much like her. The same tiny movements, the same slightly slanted smile. I'll always look back at that moment in time and feel like everything I had done in my life led up to saving my son.

  Isn't that what being a father is all about? The truest test of any man is his ability to protect his family. I'd failed once. It wasn't something I was going to ever allow myself to do again.

  Chapter 33

  They severed the disease like a festering wound.

  With my knees up, feet flat on the ground, I sat in the corner of the room with Tyler in my lap. Nearly asleep, the nebulizer mask lay over his face as the tiny machine spun in the background. Pushing the medicine into his lungs, I hoped that it would help protect him from any lingering smoke or gas still in the bunker.

  Nobody spoke, but we all had things to say as we waited in the cafeteria for our troops to clear out the hallways of Avalon. Led by Deanna, most of the people were breaking into an airtight bag of dried beef jerky across the room. Olivia stood there in eager anticipation as the bag ripped open, letting the familiar smell of salted beef radiate into the air.

  Not wanting to let her baby leave her sight, Claire hovered nearby like a bear protecting its cub. Realizing we were all doing a bit of hovering, I stroked my hand over Tyler’s cheek. I could see Olivia with a mouthful of jerky. The child had seen so much, yet she stood there with a smile across her face, thinking more about her stomach than all the death just feet outside the hatch to the hallway.

  The resilience of youth is amazing.

  Finding myself deep in thought, I hoped that Olivia wouldn’t fall numb to the world we lived in, steering her too far away from what it meant to be human. Those of us who were adults, by the time this shit storm hit, had a sense for what the word civilized really meant. Well, the few of us who fought to maintain it anyway, that is. We carried it with us as our legacy from a world that would be long forgotten by the time a child like Olivia grew up. Glancing down at Tyler, whose eyes were squeezed shut, I knew I needed to make sure he’d never forget where we all came from. I wouldn’t let him grow up to be the monster that I had nearly become.

 
; I wouldn’t let him lose his humanity.

  Squelching to life, the mic on my shoulder tore me from my thoughts, making me jerk upright, nearly waking Tyler from the restful sleep he was enjoying on my lap.

  "John, you alright?”I heard Kyle ask through the speaker.

  "Don't know if I'll ever be alright, but I'm sitting here with my son and we're alive.”

  Before responding, there was a short silence, as if Kyle was busy on the other end.

  “I’m grabbing a few men to head into the Greenbriar. We’ve got to make sure the hotel is clear.”

  He didn’t ask, but I knew what he needed, and I couldn’t let him down.

  “I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  “Good. Don’t forget to bring my watch.”

  “Sorry man, I’ve grown kinda attached to it at this point. Not sure I can part with it.”

  “Right…we’ll see about that. Anyway, God is on his way. He’ll be stopping by to grab you. No need to be walking the halls alone at this point. Still a lot of unknowns lurking around the corners.”

  I didn’t want to part with Tyler, but I knew Kyle and the rest of the team needed the help. So, with a giant sigh, I squeezed Tyler one last time and slid him back into Deanna’s waiting arms anyway.

  “Hello, little man,”she said as she pulled him into her shoulder.

  “You mind watching him for a bit longer?”I asked as I glanced to the door.

  “Not one bit. You go make sure it’s safe out there. We’ll be alright here.”

  Smiling, I patted her on the shoulder.“I don’t know what we’d do without you, Deanna.”

  Returning the grin, she rubbed her hand through Tyler’s blond hair before saying,“On the contrary, John, I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  Moments later, I found myself walking through the halls of Avalon following God, who had that giant rifle slid over his shoulder, hanging around his back. With the lights nearly all restored, the remnants from the chaos littered the floors with rubble, weapons, and stains of blood. Watching our men dart around trying to clear the place up, I knew it wouldn’t be long before Avalon was clean. It would take a lot longer for the people to feel the same way.

  Glancing from the floors, I asked God,“Do we have Gordon yet?”

  Shaking his head, he replied,“No confirmation of his capture."

  In Greek mythology, when someone dies, two coins are often placed over the person’s eyes or in some cases in their mouth. The idea was that the person’s soul had to pass across a river that separated Earth and the Underworld. Evil people would go to what we today know as hell to be punished by being drowned in muddy waters for eternity. Mythology says that a ferryman named Charon would have to transport the soul across the river and that the coins were to pay his toll for the trip.

  While I wasn’t ready to kill his men, I was resolute in the fact that Gordon needed to be sent off down the river with the ferryman. As we walked down the halls, looking at all the destruction, it would have been my pleasure to place the coins over his eyes myself, and give Charon a high five while providing the ferry boat a good kick to send it on its way.

  Flushing the thought to the back of my mind, I decided to focus on the Greenbriar. The hotel was enormous, and with Gordon still missing, we had no idea if he or some of his men were still up there. It would have to be a room-by-room search. I guess it was fortunate that much of the place had burnt to the ground. It would give us a smaller area to cover, but that area was still filled with plenty of hiding spots.

  Approaching the door to the Great Hall, I couldn’t help but be reminded that this was where the revolt had started. As the Arena collapsed, this was the place where Jarvis decided to take it all away from Gordon.

  The hatch itself was lying on the floor near a hollow opening to the room. With a silver-metal singe marking where the hinges once were, it was clear that Gordon’s men had used some sort of explosive. Entering the Great Hall, an uneasy feeling tightened my chest, an anxiety that I’d often felt while doing no more than passing outside the place. The hall itself was enormous, with pillars from the ceiling the floor. Glancing to the concrete, even the Great Hall seemed to have been overrun with the Zs. Not yet cleared, bodies still sprawled all around, blood pooling up as we splashed through the death. I remember thinking that so many people had died in that room.

  It seemed to be made for horror.

  Across the cavernous room, where the hatch to enter the Greenbriar was located, I noticed Kyle giving out orders to the fourteen or so men gathered around. We’d be breaking up into two-man teams and doing a sweep of the various halls and rooms that still remained post-fire. With the comms now restored, we received reports that nothing had been seen in the Greenbriar. However, with the exterior hatch missing, we had to be sure nobody else would be sneaking in from that entrance.

  Reaching Kyle just as he finished speaking, we shook hands. Looking at his palm as I pulled mine away, he noticed his watch hanging from his fingers.

  “I decided to part with it after all,”I said casually.“Not really my color.”

  Smiling, he slid it over his wrist and replied,“Yeah, takes a real man to wear this bad boy.”

  Pulling the hammer from my belt, I shook my head with an amused grunt as we stepped through the hatch that led to the hotel. Kyle and I were responsible for the West Wing, an area filled with conference rooms, which ultimately led up to where we’d landed the chopper earlier.

  Passing the same singed paintings and once valuable furniture, we cautiously scouted ahead through the halls. One of us would enter the room, followed by the other - both with our weapons drawn. Very tactical in nature. Kyle was a good teacher when it came to clearing out a building. He’d done it many times before.

  With nothing jumping out at us, aside from the smell of mold and mildew, we finally made it to the staircase leading up to the roof where the helicopter was.

  “The sun should nearly be coming up,”Kyle said, after glancing down to his wrist.

  “It’s going to be crazy to see what the Yard and the field look like.”

  “Yeah, I’m not looking forward to having to clear any of it,”Kyle replied as he kicked in the door to the staircase.

  Reaching the top, Kyle entered first, with me close on his heels. With our weapons drawn, we quickly ascertained that nothing was there aside from the helicopter, which still had the door drawn open from when we’d left it in a hurry when we returned earlier. I remember not closing it as I darted down to the bunker with the medication. I guess we’d all been eager to get down there.

  The sun was barely peeking through the tree limbs, its accusing rays pointing toward us, as if surprised to see the leftovers from the madness of humanity that it had missed the night before.

  Cautiously walking to the edge, we gazed over the side to see just about the entire field flowing with Zs. I cringed as I realized they were packed up nearly five Zs deep, pressing against our exterior hoping to get in. To my surprise, Mr. Gate was still holding his post in the armored bus. We waved down to him. He noticed us, and gave that good ol’thumbs up.

  “That’s a relief,”I said, as I waved back down.

  He’d held the gate shut. The Yard was still closed off from the outside world. I had to admire the guy. Sometimes you find what you’re good at, and you make sure you never leave its side. He was the protector of our Yard, the man who decided what came and went. He’d held his post. Most others wouldn’t have.

  “Check out Gordon’s base camp,”Kyle said, lifting his weapon toward the busted-down tents. There wasn’t a human still out there, and the whole of the area had been nearly flattened, as if a giant child playing army had a temper tantrum, throwing his arm across its toys.

  “Wonder if any of them escaped.”

  “Don't know. Don’t really care as long as they don’t come back,”Kyle said, almost distantly, as he started to turn around.

  “You think Gordon was out there? Watching the whole thing when it
was taken over?”

  “We can only hope.”

  Taking a few steps back toward the staircase, he added,“We should meet up with the others. They’ll need our help to clear the East Wing.”

  “Right.”I agreed, starting to step back, still keeping my eyes on the field for just a moment, as I thought about the fact that we were still alive. Deep down, I simply couldn’t believe we’d won.

  “I’d better close that sliding door,”Kyle said as he stepped to the right toward the chopper, while I continued to move to the stairs.

  I didn’t reply, my eyes fixed on the door to the staircase, as if I expected something or someone to come jumping through. With my weapon raised, I slowly approached the dark entrance with each foot cautiously inching past the other.

  Getting ready to call out to Kyle, to tell him that I had a shitty feeling in the back of my gut, I suddenly heard him scream out in surprise.

  “What the fu…?”the moment before the gunshot shattered the silence.

  Jumping out of my skin, I spun around with the hair on the back of my neck at full alert. With my heart thumping, I saw Kyle hit the ground in near slow motion. His body thudded down as I watched the firearm he’d been carrying slide across the rooftop.

  A faint wood on metal clicked two times before I saw the cane emerge from the shadows of the chopper followed by the barrel of the gun that was pointed in my direction.

  Gordon emerged from the darkness with a smile.

  “Not so fast. I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

  He could see me lifting my gun. I didn’t even know I was doing it.

  Looking at Kyle in a panic, I felt dizzy as I realized he wasn’t moving. No fucking way Gordon killed him. No way that bastard had killed my friend. Mind still spinning, I hardly heard Gordon talking in the background. Until he said,“I can’t believe it was so easy for this big bastard to fall.”

  Blood boiled as it raced through my veins. With my eyes falling directly on Gordon, I felt my body trembling, not with fear, but with one transfixed thought of hate. I needed to figure out how to call the ferryman.