Cascade box set 2, p.21
Cascade Box Set 2, page 21
“It sounds like him,” said Zach smiling at Abbey who was doing the same back to him.
“He’s not in the best of health, but we have him here at the Core. He knew the top people in the gang, we showed him the bodies we found and he confirmed one of them was Troy Carlson. Over.”
“So the Hell Fire gang is no more? Over.”
“I would say so yes. It was a slaughter at the river. Maybe a few dozen survived that. Over.”
“I hope you give Bower a medal or something. Over.”
“Ha, I will, and the Cascaders they found. He said they didn’t need much convincing to turn against the gang. Over.”
“I’ll be back in tomorrow. I got to get this place cleared up, and then tomorrow we start rebuilding the camp. Over.”
“Get some rest Zach, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Zach lowered his arm and looked out over the lake at the smoldering buildings in the distance. He then turned back towards the house. Abbey was teasing Mo with some biscuits while the large wolf creature was chewing on some wooden boards.
Zach smiled.
The next few hours were spent piecing together bits of furniture, with tape and nails, and cleaning up. Eventually way into the small hours, they both collapsed into their bed.
Zach fell straight to sleep, but Abbey lay looking at the room around her. After a few hours of not sleeping, she gently shook Zach, waking him.
“What is it? Everything okay?” he said trying to wake up.
“There’s nothing wrong. But we have to talk…”
*****
Zach and Abbey stood next to a black pickup in the parking lot of the Core. The sun warmed their backs and the puddles from the day before were just about all gone. All around rubbish and pieces of people’s lives lay scattered and forgotten.
In front of them stood a row of people, all proud and tearful.
They both walked up to the first, General Trow.
Zach smiled as her lip quivered and she pulled him in for a hug. “You be safe now. And once you have done what you need to do, get back here, the camp is going to need you!” she then hugged Abbey.
Zach nodded. “You have my word General,” they then moved onto the next person, Bass who didn’t have his walking stick but had gained an eye patch. They both hugged him.
“Keep protecting those walls!” said Zach.
Bass smiled. “I will, sir.”
A frail but happy old man looked at Abbey. She hugged him tight, it was the last of many she had given him over the past few hours.
“Easy girl,” said Ray. “I still got some mending to do!”
She let go. “And see that you do!”
“And you see you get yourself back here when you’re done exploring Boston.”
She smiled and nodded. “Oh, I got something for you.”
Ray looked bemused.
She handed him a small notebook. “This is yours.”
He took it and swallowed, not being sure what to say.
Zach shook his hand and smiled. “Good to have you back, Ray.”
“Take care of my girl!”
Zach smiled. “Always.”
They then moved on to Sam and Isaiah, who hugged them both.
“Don’t let any fools mess with you!” said Isaiah.
Abbey and Zach laughed.
“What he said,” said Sam.
“Make sure you get that bar of yours back up and running, the camp needs places like that.”
“We have already started the clean up,” said Sam.
They then moved onto Michael who was looking down. He moved forward quickly and hugged them both. “Make sure you return, okay?”
“We will,” said Abbey.
Lastly they came to Fiona. Abbey briefly hugged her, with tears running down her cheeks.
Zach moved forward and held Fiona tight, then let go. “It has been a long journey,” he said.
Fiona smiled, while wiping away a tear from her cheek. “You can say that,” she then looked at both of them directly. “Stay safe. Don’t take any risks. We won, remember?”
They nodded then turned and got into the pickup. After a brief farewell wave they were moving along the still clogged roads, and back to their house by the lake. They picked up their two E.L.F’s, and then drove out of the camp.
Zach looked in the rear mirror as the silver walls of the camp shrunk in the distance. He nodded, then reached across and held Abbey’s hand.
The End.
BOOK
CHAPTER ONE
Zach’s second hand slipped from the rust covered floor beam, as he dangled from the fifth floor Dallas Imperial Hospital building. He looked down at the remains of cars and broken sidewalk slabs of the parking lot, two hundred feet below. Abbey was waving.
What Abbey? I can’t see what you’re trying to tell me!
The sun made the metal of what he was holding onto almost too hot to touch, and he could feel sweat building up on the inside of his hand. If he lost his grip it was a long way down.
Shifting his weight he began to swing his body, while reaching with his left hand.
“…Go!”
“What?!” He shouted in reply to the almost inaudible shouts from below.
He heaved once more, swinging back and forth. Almost got it.
On the second attempt his fingertips just got enough purchase and he went to lift himself up when there was a creaking noise which seemed to reverberate through the entire building.
Uh?
The beam dropped a few inches, and then the entire side that connected to the floor came away from the rest of the building and the world around him started to swirl and loom large.
As the ground approached he closed his eyes, waiting for the impact, but it never came. He looked up, Mo had a tight grip around his wrist and the both of them hovered while masonry and steel beams crashed to the ground below, causing a plume of dust to rise up.
Mo squawked and soon the both of them were flying over the parking lot and then downwards until Zach was within a few feet of the concrete ground. The half bird half monkey let go and Zach landed on the ground with a small hop.
“Yes!” screamed Abbey, while throwing her arms in the air, then winced a little and held her wrist.
Zach looked around, not being sure of what just happened. “You got him well trained.”
Abbey ran and hugged Zach, then pulled back. “I wanted you to let go, did you not hear me?”
“I was hanging five floors up, even if I did hear you, I wasn’t going to be taking that advice too seriously!”
She smiled. “I just communicated to Mo that you were in danger, and he kind of knew what to do.”
Another squawk came from Mo causing Abbey to look at the buildings that lined the streets around them. “There are more E.L.F’s here, we should get going.”
They both ran back towards the pickup truck, parked alongside others that were crumpled with large slices through their steel and aluminum bodies.
Zach put his fingers into his mouth and whistled, then looked around him. Where the hell is he?
Abbey looked at Zach concerned. “You don’t think he was in the building when it collapsed do you?”
Zach nodded and went to whistle again when there was a thudding noise from the street behind them. They both looked around to see the large wolf creature bounding towards them on its hind legs.
As the large brown fur covered creature climbed into the back of the pickup, Zach went to climb into the driver’s seat but then stopped.
“What is it?” said Abbey from the passenger’s side.
Zach kneeled and touched the dust covered concrete.
Pains then shot through Abbey’s head, making her hold her temple. “We should go Zach, I’m feeling a lot of something coming towards us, it’s a little overwhelming.”
Zach again went to climb into the truck as the ground around them visibly started to shake. He jumped into the seat, turned the key to the ignition and pulled away, out onto the street.
As they drove past office buildings and parking lots a low drumming noise permeated the air around them. Zach increased their speed as the road stretched out ahead.
Glancing in the rear mirror he saw sections of four and five-story buildings start to collapse like the one he was clinging onto. The pickup shuddered in response even being far from them.
Abbey looked back, while grimacing. “There are hundreds…no, thousands of E.L.F’s behind and around us, I’m trying to reach out to them but it’s like trying to grab hold of an eel, every time I feel I have established contact with one of them, I lose the connection,” she grabbed the side of her head again. “There are too many Zach, I can’t control them.”
He reached across and briefly squeezed her arm. “It’s okay, we will be out of Dallas soon. Try and concentrate on the map, find us a route out.”
The drumming was now so loud he was having to shout his words to Abbey just a few feet from him. A huge crashing noise made him look once again in the rear mirror. A large four-story building was falling into a cloud of dust, while a wall of black moving spots shot upwards in the opposite direction.
“Abbey! We need a route now!”
She held the map up in front of her, resting it on the dashboard. “Right, take the next right!”
The pickup skidded around the corner, while the wolf creature clung on best he could in the rear.
The sound of masonry and steel beams hitting the ground came from buildings large and small all around them as Zach pressed down on the gas pedal.
Out of the corner of his eye he could see the mass of black rising up, emerging from craters and holes in the ruins around them like gushing oil.
Abbey looked back. “They’re joining up—”
Zach swerved around an abandoned semi-truck, skipping over the sidewalk and back onto the road.
“Right again!” She shouted.
Zach threw the pickup into the bend, causing it to tip momentarily onto three wheels.
“We need to get onto highway thirty, that will take us out of the city.”
Churches with missing spires and grand looking buildings with broken pillars flashed past, while street poles and signs violently shook.
“At the end of this road take a left, then right onto the highway.” Abbey tried looking back from where they had come, but trees and buildings blocked the view. She closed her eyes. “I think they have stopped coming after us.”
Zach drove the pickup into a small road near the highway, then took a sharp right up an incline and eventually bounced onto the highway which was full of vehicles, scattered and smashed.
As they weaved in and out of the crushed metal boxes, Abbey looked back to the skyscrapers at the center of Dallas. A swirl of black, like a fog with a mind of its own circled the still gleaming buildings of the downtown area.
She watched as more buildings collapsed, and the mass of creatures descended downwards out of sight. Sighing, she looked back towards the direction they were moving in. “Remind me not to want to check out a major city again.”
Zach briefly looked at her.
“Well, apart from Boston.”
CHAPTER TWO
The sun was setting as they drove along the highway, north of the town of Gladtow, which was on the northeast tip of Texas.
Large flat-roofed buildings loomed on both sides of the road.
“There’s a 'Hardware holdings' over there,” said Abbey pointing to one of them. “Might be a place to hold up for the night and find some supplies.”
As they pulled off the highway towards the large store, destroyed barracks and the remains of Humvees could be seen scattered across a beige concrete area some miles off on the opposite side of the highway.
“That was an Army depot back in my day. Looks like it still is, or was,” said Zach. “Might the be worth checking out as well. You sensing anything around here?”
She shook her head. “Just the slightest of sensations, many miles off, nothing close to us.”
They drove across the deserted forecourt and pulled up outside the large glass entrance. Inside only darkness looked back at them.
Abbey got out and beckoned her ground based E.L.F towards her. “Come on Jai, we need to go inside there,” she briefly pointed towards the building. The large creature bounded from the back of the pickup and ran into the shadows, though the glassless doors. She then looked up and saw Mo circling high above.
Zach looked at her. “Ready?”
“Yeah, he’ll come down when he wants.”
Zach grabbed a large pack from the back, and pulled out a flashlight which he turned on. Abbey did the same, and they both raised their weapons. Stepping over broken shards they stepped through the doorframe and waved their lights around. Many of the shelves were empty, but some still contained boxes.
“Stay close to me,” said Zach as they walked past a checkout till.
The high shelves of the aisles looked down upon them as the sound of their boots echoed on the smooth floor. Towards the back of the store, at least four shelves had fallen on top of each other. As they moved their beams around, dark patches on the floor came into view.
“Let’s keep moving towards the back,” said Zach.
Soon they were near a door with a sign above that said ‘STAFF’. Zach slowly opened the door and waved his light down a small corridor with two doors. Walking steadily to the first, he pushed on it and it swung back. Inside was a room of around twenty feet square, with a few tables, chairs, kitchen area, food and drink dispensers. Surprisingly they looked fully stocked.
He looked back at Abbey. “Looks like we won the lottery. Get set up in here, I’ll check out the other door, and secure the one we came in from.
Abbey slowly walked into low ceilinged room, and leaned on one of the chairs. A light blue jacket was hanging over the back of it. The smooth material felt good between her fingers. She then walked over to the far wall, which was covered in pieces of paper, most announcing an event of some kind in the local area.
She put her own pack down on the table, then pulled out a knife and set about jamming it into the side of the drink dispenser to try to open the front of it up. After a few tries it came loose and she pulled the glass front back, and grabbed one of the bottles of water. As she was drinking it Zach reappeared.
“The other door is another way into the warehouse, there’s nothing there. I dragged in some bags of cement, together with some wooden planks and pushed them up against each of the doors, we should be safe in here.” He then took one of the chairs and pushed it up against the door behind him, with the back of it under the doors handle.
He walked over to the food dispensing machine and smiled. “Frozen Candy bars or Spicy beef chips?”
Abbey didn’t respond.
He turned. She was sitting on the chair looking off into the darkness of the rest of the room. “What is it?”
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For dragging you out here with me. We had just won, defeated those assholes, and now we’re back out here again, trying to survive.”
Zach kneeled next to her. “That’s what we do, that’s what we have always done, ever since we woke up and discovered the world wasn’t what it was from when we went into that hole in New Mexico. And anyway I’ve never been to Boston,” he smiled.
She smiled back to him, gently nodding.
CHAPTER THREE
Abbey sat up with a start. For a moment she thought she was back at the Core, then the previous day came flooding back to her. Zach was sitting on a chair with his back to her, a few yards away. He seemed to be studying their map with his flashlight.
She swept her hand through her thick hair and blinked a few times. A candle burned on a table nearby and filled the air with a slight scent of smoke.
“How’s the route looking for tomorrow?” She said, her throat feeling like there was gravel stuck in it.
He didn’t respond.
“You asleep?” she whispered. He remained motionless.
A feeling of discomfort pushed its way into her stomach, and she unzipped the sleeping bag and got to her feet. She then heard noises from beyond the walls around her. The sounds of exotic creatures, howls, grunts and screams of a kind she had come to recognize as E.L.F’s.
“Zach! I think—”
As her hand touched his shoulder, his head slowly fell to the side, along with his flashlight landing and then rolling across the floor. As she moved further around to his front, she refused to believe what she was seeing. His body was torn and shredded. She then realized she was standing in a pool of red.
No… no… no.
The incessant noise around her increased, and then the ground started to shake and the white boards on the walls and the items in the dispensing machines fall off their hooks. Nothing made sense as she ran to the door, not even bothering to grab her gun, but before she got to it, the walls and roof above her disintegrated revealing the landscape around the building. But this wasn’t the beige and subtle greens of spring in Texas, but a scene more akin to a tropical climate with an abundance of green trees and leaves. She could feel the sun above on her skin and the air smelled of oranges and the fragrance of flowers in full bloom.
She wanted Zach to see this, to witness what she knew was coming. She looked back but he was gone, along with any semblance of the room she had been sleeping in.
Around her life of all kinds scurried and flew between the high trees, and across the cloudless sky.
She went to take a step forward when she felt a hand on her shoulder, she went to turn—
“Abbey!” said Zach urgently, laying next to her in his own sleeping bag.
“Wh—What? Where am I?”
She sat up, and looked around the staff break room. One candle half way burned flickered in the corner.
She took a deep breath, then looked at Zach who looked concerned. “Sorry, I was dreaming.”
