Getting Home

29

Max woke up with a headache. His leg hurt and his entire body was sore from yesterday. He’d pushed it harder than he had in who knew how long. Maybe ever.

But he was alive. They were all alive. Except for Rob, who Max had barely met.

“You awake?” said Mandy, who lay beside him.

Max nodded.

“How’d you sleep?”

“Not good,” said Max.

He didn’t elaborate, but his dreams had been filled with nightmarish images of the carnage from yesterday.

“Me neither,” said Mandy.

Max closed his eyes again, remembering yesterday.

It had seemed more like a series of days than a single day. The reality was, he didn’t know how long it had all taken. His automatic watch, which had proven so durable on countless misadventures, had finally broken. The acrylic crystal hadn’t cracked, and there were no marks on the stainless steel case, but the watch had finally stopped ticking. No matter how much he shook it or wound it, the red seconds hand didn’t move.

The battle hadn’t felt like it had really ever ended. There’d been no final victory to celebrate. There’d been no decisive moment that they had all seen.

Sure, Rob, whose name Max had finally learned, had helped turn the tide of the rushing mob. But the battle had continued after that.

The battle had simply continued to wind down, further and further.

Max and the others had split up into groups of two. They’d wandered the battlefield, walking between the corpses and the injured. For those that weren’t yet completely dead, but lay bleeding out onto the dirt, Max and the others had shot them in the head. Usually point-blank range.

The images were still in Max’s head. He’d shot more than the others. Mandy could barely stomach it. She’d shot one woman in the head, whose arm had almost been torn off, and then she’d thrown up. Mandy had been able to keep it together in the battle, but then the horror of the whole thing had come crashing down on her like a tidal wave.

The adrenaline of the battle had gradually worn off and they’d all been left exhausted, with the task of finishing the mob off.

It didn’t seem like many of the mob had gotten away. When things had gotten bad, they’d started attacking each other.

Max remembered finding two men fighting each other. They’d been slashing at each other with axes, anger and rage on their faces. By the time Max had gotten to them, they were on the ground, both of them bleeding. They’d been lying on their backs, too injured to get back on their feet. They’d both been dying, bleeding rapidly out onto the dirt. But they’d still been slashing at each other, picking their arms up and letting them fall with the weight of the axe in their hand, hoping to strike one final blow.

It had been senseless. Senseless violence just for the sake of expressing frustration and anger.

Max had shot each in the head with his Glock. He’d done it calmly, his face impassive. He’d felt nothing when he’d done it. Nothing at all.

Now, the next day, he wasn’t sure what he felt. He was pretty sure it was still nothing. Except for the headache and the bodily pain.

They’d fallen asleep outside, and the ground was cold.

Max opened his eyes again and sat up.

Bodies were everywhere. It’d been all they could do to put the injured ones out of their misery.

Today was cleanup day, taking the bodies off somewhere else. Or else move camp. And they weren’t going to do that.

John and Dan were out there, walking together between the bodies. It looked like they were talking, but they were too far away to overhear.

Mandy sat up beside Max.

“What are you thinking about?” she said.

Her hair was a mess. It was tangled and a clump of it had been torn away. Her face was dirty and sweaty.

But to Max, she’d never looked better.

“I can’t believe we’re alive,” he said.

Mandy flashed him a little smile with just the corners of her mouth.

Max leaned towards her and she leaned in towards him.

Their lips touched and they held them there for a moment, not moving them.

“Max,” called out someone. “Max!”

Mandy pulled away from Max and pushed a strand of hair behind her ear.

Max looked up.

It was Dan, the kid who’d arrived yesterday, the one that he and Mandy had set out for.

He was walking towards Max with a serious expression on his face and his hand outstretched.

Max took it and Dan shook it vigorously.

“I know we met yesterday, but I just wanted to… introduce myself again.”

Max nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “Yesterday was intense. How you holding up?”

“Fine,” said Dan. He had an eagerness on his face that hadn’t been totally wiped out by yesterday, by the carnage, by the death of his friend.

“Sorry again about your friend,” said Max, referring to Rob. “He did a hell of a thing.”

Dan nodded. “The truth is, I barely knew him.”

Max didn’t say anything for a moment.

“We were trying to get to you,” he said. “Me and Mandy here. We almost made it.”

Dan nodded.

“Well,” said Dan. “I don’t want to bother you too much before your coffee. I’d better get back to work.”

“What are you up to?”

“John and I are talking about what to do with the bodies.”

“Not much to it,” said Max. “We’ve got to just drag them away.”

“Exactly. But I had an idea for a sort of sledge made out of wood. John’s going to help me with it. Should cut down on the labor involved.”

“Good idea,” said Max. “See if you can find James around here. He might still be sleeping, but he can help you. We’ll join you soon.”

“How’s your friend?” said Mandy. “The woman in the car?”

“She’s OK,” said Dan. “Her ankle’s still hurting. She won’t be able to help much today.”

“I’m just glad she’s still alive.”

Off in the distance, John was calling out for Dan.

“Well, see you soon,” said Dan, turning and jogging off towards John.

“He’s got a lot of energy,” said Mandy, watching him run off.

“More than that,” said Max. “He’s got the right attitude.”

“How can you tell?”

“I can just tell.”

“Well,” said Mandy. “Let’s get some coffee. Seems like we have a lot of work to do.”

Max nodded, looking out again at all the bodies.

He stood up suddenly, brushing some of the dirt off his pants and shirt. His clothes were filthy and blood-stained.

He offered his hand to Mandy and he helped her to her feet.

Not far off, Georgia, James, Sadie, and Cynthia were getting ready for the day. They looked just as battered as Mandy and Max. But they were alive.

Georgia was giving orders to her kids, telling them to start getting breakfast ready. There was some food that Rob, Olivia, and Dan had brought down in the car with them. It would feed the group until they could hunt or trap some more deer.

Georgia saw Max looking off in their direction, and she gave him a nod before moving off to some chore or another. She liked to keep busy.

“Let’s take a walk,” said Max, looking Mandy in the eye.

“A walk? That doesn’t sound like you.”

“Not far,” said Max. “I just want to get away from this for a moment.”

“There’s work to be done,” said Mandy, gesturing out to the mounds of dead bodies that needed to be moved. “You’re always like Georgia, telling us to get to work. More work to do. More, more, more.” She smiled slightly at Max as she spoke, and he knew she was teasing him just a little.

Max tried to crack a smile but he couldn’t quite do it. Not with what had happened. Not with the bodies everywhere.

“They’re not going to miss us for a few minutes,” said Max. “Come on, just a short walk.”

“Really doesn’t sound like you,” muttered Mandy, but she followed him anyway.

They walked side by side away from the carnage, and Max began to feel better.

There was the whole day ahead of them. The whole day to move the bodies. It wasn’t like he was skirting his duties. After all, he usually worked harder and longer than anyone else.

“It’s crazy that Dan ended up here in the end,” said Mandy.

“Yeah,” said Max, speaking in an absent-minded kind of way. “I gave him the directions, though. So it’s not totally surprising. He’s a resourceful kid.”

“Seems like one,” said Mandy. “It’s too bad about his friend… But are you worried at all about having two more mouths to feed?”

Max shrugged. “More labor too,” he said. “It’ll be OK. It’ll work out.”

“What’s going on with you, Max? You seem different. What’s on your mind?”

Max paused and so did Mandy. They were standing in the middle of a small clearing where the wild grasses blew gently in the breeze. The sun was coming up and already starting to warm the air and the earth, if only slightly.

“Nothing,” said Max, turning again to look at Mandy. “It’s just that…”

“What?”

“After everything we’ve been through, I finally don’t feel anything at all. After yesterday, I mean.”

“You’re in a state of shock,” said Mandy. “It’s normal.”

“No, it’s not that.”

“Then what is it?”

“I’ve lost the sense that everything’s going to work out.”

“You’ve lost your sense of hope?”

“No,” said Max, speaking the words with a sense of finality. “I haven’t lost that at all. I don’t know what’s going to happen. None of us do.”

“You mean with the mob? That they could come back?”

“I think that must have been the last of the big groups in this area,” said Max. “The rest will have starved by now. I can’t imagine how they’d managed to stay alive up until yesterday as it was.”

“So what are you getting at?”

Mandy looked at him with an expression of slight annoyance, as if she really wanted him to spit it out once and for all.

But it wasn’t as if Max knew much more than she did. He didn’t have a crystal ball, and he didn’t know what the future held. He could make guesses and he could plan. But there was no certainty in anything.

“You think we’re going to make it?” said Mandy, breaking the silence of her own unanswered question.

“Yeah,” said Max. “I think we’re going to make it.”

And it was the truth.

The two of them fell into silence as they gazed off into the woods. Spring wasn’t far away, and the new season would transform the landscape.

“You ever think of having kids?” said Max, breaking the silence and looking over at Mandy.

Mandy blushed and smiled at him.

“We’ve got to start rebuilding the world somehow,” said Max.

“I guess that’s about as much romance as I’m going to get from you.”

“You never know,” said Max. “Spring’s on the way, after all.”

“Come on, let’s get some coffee and get to work. Or Georgia will have our heads.”

Max put his arm around Mandy’s back and they walked side by side back towards the camp.

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