Ravaged Land - A Post-Apocalyptic Novel (26 page)

“If this weather keeps up, we are going to need jackets!” Sienna said with a bright smile. “Isn’t that funny?”

I smiled at her, it was kind of funny until I let my mind wander back to the shelter and what happened when it got too cold. What we had seen through those cameras gave a whole new meaning to what a blizzard was. We wouldn’t survive a blizzard like that in our SUV up here in Alaska.

“Let’s find that checkpoint thing,” Dean said as he hopped in the passenger seat.

And just like that, we were off, flying down the road as Owen drove at whatever speed he felt like.

Chapter twenty-one.

There were several signs posted along the way indicating how many more miles left until we reached the checkpoint. The signs were neatly hand-painted on wooden slabs nailed to wooden posts, nothing fancy. My nerves caused my muscles to tighten as we got closer and closer. I felt both excited and uneasy at the same time. My gut was giving me mixed signals, get there fast, turn around, hurry up and get help already, beware. I wasn’t comfortable simply committing to being part of the HOME without knowing anything about it. It could be some sort of scam for all I knew, and that’s what made me worry even more. Then again we didn’t really have any other options. Ryan needed help and fast.

When we pulled up to the checkpoint there was another car stopped ahead of us. There were two guards posted outside, a large man with an even larger gun near the driver side of the car, and a second average sized man with a similar gun who stood near the passenger side of the car wearing dark sunglasses. He didn’t seem to pay much attention to the car, perhaps it was just the sunglasses hiding his eyes that gave the illusion of not caring. He seemed to be more interested in scanning the horizon, so much so that I turned to see if I could find what he was searching for.

“Here we are,” Owen announced, and Dean woke up in an instant. There was no in-between, it was either awake or asleep. He instinctively reached for his gun, but stopped himself when he realized we weren’t in danger. It was just a natural reflex, well, natural to him now.

The big guy with the gun was doing all the talking to the car ahead of us. I couldn’t hear what he was saying to the small black vehicle with Florida license plates. Of course that didn’t mean they were from Florida but if they had been, that would have been quite the drive. I wonder how hot it had gotten in Florida. He pointed them towards a road that forked off in two directions, left or right. The right road turned behind a building, and I guessed that was the way they had directed them to go. But they didn’t. They turned left and floored it heading back down the road away from the checkpoint.

“What the heck?” Dean said looking confused.

The second gunman raised his gun slowly and took aim at the fleeing car. It seemed as though he was going to take a shot at the car until the big guy said something to him and he lowered his gun. The car sped off back into the desolate world choosing that world over the HOME.

The big guy quickly said something into his handheld two-way radio and pointed his thick fingers at us and then curled two of them indicating us to pull forward.

After seeing the other car speed off, I think Owen was a little more apprehensive about pulling forward. I felt my stomach twist. The only thing that made us pull ahead was the possibility that Ryan could get help. He eased the car forward and rolled down the window.

“Hello,” the guard said cheerfully while his face remained straight. “How are you folks today?”

Owen shrugged, “Uh, OK?”

“Could I get your names please?” he asked poised to write.

“I’m Owen. That’s Ryan, Sienna and Ros,” Owen said gesturing towards us as he said our names.

“I take it you aren’t familiar with HOME? You’re first timers. No problem. We just need to ask you a few basic questions and you’ll be on your way in no time,” the guard said looking around. The name sewn on his shirt, whether it was his or not, was Duncan, the other guard was Merlose. “First I need to know where you are coming from.”

“North Dakota,” Owen answered quickly like he was being quizzed and fastest answers got the most points.

“Long drive,” he cleared his throat before the next question, “How did you hear about HOME?”

“We saw a sign posted in a gas station, decided to check it out,” Owen said. In my head I was thinking he should say as little as possible, keep his answers short and sweet but I had no way to transmit that message to him, although I tried to telepathically.

“Great. Word is getting out then. Perfect.” He made some quick notes and flipped through pages on his clipboard. It felt like a telemarketing phone call, like it was all perfectly scripted and they would have a stock answer for anything we might ask. All he’d have to do was scroll through his handy what-to-say-next guidebook.

“Next I have to ask, if you are carrying any weapons on yourself or in your vehicle?”

This is when Owen got really nervous and so did Merlose. “Yes,” Owen said short and sweet just as I had hoped. I saw Merlose’s fingers tighten on his beefy gun, he didn’t trust us, and I sure as hell didn’t trust either of them. My stomach twisted the other direction, I was afraid it was trying to tell me something. Maybe the same thing the driver of the other car’s stomach told them. I reminded myself that Ryan needed help, we’d have nothing for him if we left. At least here maybe there was a chance. Maybe it was a small chance but there was no chance at all if we drove off. We would have to watch him get even worse until what happened to Seth, happened to Ryan too.

“What exactly are you carrying? How many of each?” Duncan asked.

“Four guns,” Owen said while the guard wrote that down. I could tell he circled it a few times on the papers based on the movement of the pen. Owen had completely forgotten about the knives and the bows, hopefully that wouldn’t be a problem.

“What other types of goods do you have in your car? Food, water, clothing?”

Owen listed what he could think of, “Yeah, I don’t know, your basic necessities,” he said with a shrug.

“That’s fine, fine. We just need to make sure you declare your goods and don’t bring anything to HOME that could put it or any of the people here in any kind of danger.”

Off in the distance I could have sworn I heard a gunshot. If the others heard it they made no change in their expressions or body language. I glanced at Merlose and I could have sworn the corner of his mouth tilted upwards just a hair. Satisfied.

“Can we look around and inside your car please?” Duncan said, “Don’t get out, but please slowly open your doors, this is for our safety as well as yours.”

Our safety? How so? If anything, this exposed us even more and made us less safe! But I kept thinking of how close to getting help for Ryan we were and that I needed to keep my mouth shut no matter how hard it was. No matter how much I wanted to tell Owen to zoom away just like the other car did.

Duncan looked in by Owen first then behind him on Sienna’s side. He used a flashlight even though it was daytime to check her over and the area around the seat before he spotted Ryan in the back. Merlose had done the same first with Dean then by me and noticed Ryan at the same time Duncan had. I saw the two look at each other before they continued and viewed the back of the SUV. They closed the back hatch and Merlose whispered something to Duncan before they came back to the front of the car, closing our doors on the way. I wasn’t expecting it and jumped so hard I felt the whole SUV shake. Both Merlose and Duncan looked at me but I pretended not to notice.

“I think we have all the information we need, for now. I’ll forward this ahead. You’ll be driving to the decontamination center next, they’ll explain more. But basically it’s just a cleaning facility to make sure you don’t bring anything into HOME that could harm anyone.” Duncan skimmed over the papers making sure he’d filled out what he needed to. “Oh, just one more thing before I can let you go, what happened to him?”

“Dog bite,” Owen said.

“Oh, hmmm. OK, one second. Wait here.” Duncan went inside a little booth and took the radio off his belt. He started talking to someone, while Merlose waited for him to return standing next to Dean’s door. Merlose must have been able to hear what they had talked about. He tapped on Dean’s window and gestured for him to roll it down.

“Was anyone else attacked by this dog?” he said stressing dog as if the word disgusted him and I wondered if they had seen this sickness before.

“No, not anyone else with us anyway,” Dean said reminding himself of Seth, “I mean we are fine.”

Merlose shook his head back and forth to Duncan, and he set down the radio and came back to the driver side of the car. “All right, everything is set except for just one small detail.”

“Which is?” Owen asked with a raised eyebrow.

“He can’t go to decontamination. He must be taken to the infirmary and seen by one of our experts. When he heals he’ll be released to HOME but for now we cannot risk the chance of him spreading anything to others at HOME. I hope you understand, it’s the rules there is no way around it,” Duncan said, and waved to two men inside the larger building behind him. They were dressed in white suits that covered them from head to toe.

“Wait!” I said. “I need to go with him!”

“I’m sorry ma’am but we cannot allow that. It would be risking your health.”

“I’ve been with him since it happened and I’m fine! I can’t….” My hands shook as panic started to set in.

“It’s just temporary, I assure you,” Duncan said with a fake smile. I’ve seen first-hand what this rabid dog disease is capable of doing to a person, so my hope in this infirmary being the answer to Ryan’s problem wasn’t very strong.

“I think this is probably the best place for him,” Owen said.

“He needs the help,” Dean chimed in.

I turned around trying to reach out to some part of Ryan that might still be able to hear me. “Ryan, I hope you hear me. They are going to take you, and make you better but they won’t let me come with you!” I said, hoping he’d suddenly be better and refuse to go, but he was too weak.

Ryan moved his lips and airily whispered, “I’ll be fine, I promise.” He used his last bit of strength to mouth, “I will find you. I love you.” It took everything I had not to break down and cry in front of him.

He was passed out before I could say it back, but that didn’t stop me, “I love you too!” The men were pulling him out of the car. I thought I heard one of the men say to the other something that sounded like ‘he’s almost gone’ but I wasn’t sure what I had heard. They were talking to each other through some communication device inside of their suits. “What did you say? What did you just say?” I asked and started to pull on his suit to get his attention. “What did you say to him?” I yelled. Merlose rose to attention quickly while the men in suits ignored me.

“Ma’am don’t touch him,” he said repositioning his gun into a slightly more threatening position. My thoughts went to my own gun, but that would just be stupid and potentially dangerous to us all. It was obvious these guys had plenty of weapons training, or were really good at making it appear that way. For all I knew they were in the military back when we had one. I had barely even used my gun other than to kill a rabid dog and to threaten a dumb biker. That wasn’t going to work with these guys and I couldn’t justify putting the others at risk.

The two men put Ryan on a bed and then wheeled him into the building, within seconds he was gone. He was no longer with me, I couldn’t see him, I couldn’t feel him. He was just gone. A hot tear rolled quickly down my cheek and dropped onto my pants leaving a large wet dot. Sienna put her arms around my neck and held me tight. I wasn’t certain but I think she was crying too.

“Great!” Duncan said, and I thought of nothing other than the fact that I wanted to spit on him. “Now if you folks are ready you can proceed to decontamination. Your friend will be joining you in no time,” he added for my sake. “Just take this road…” he said pointing to the one that led to the right, “…and follow it until you hit a large three story building. You can’t miss it,” he forced a smile.

“OK,” Owen said putting the car in drive.

“Oh and welcome HOME,” Duncan said with a sickening fake grin that made me hate him more than I already did. I was happy when Owen pulled away because a few more seconds there and I might have told both of those creeps what I really thought of them.

The road we took was dirt covered and curvy. I waited several minutes before I whispered to the others how I thought we’d made a big mistake. I told them I regretted leaving Ryan and putting him into the hands of complete strangers. We had no idea if they could even really help him. Were there even any real doctors at that place? Did they have other patients? Then we heard another gunshot, this one closer, sounding to me as if it had come from inside the building we’d just drove away from.

“RYAN!” I screamed as I clawed at my door to get out, “Oh my GOD! They killed him! They killed him!” My fingers weren’t working, I couldn’t figure out how to work the door.

Dean had managed to move to the middle row and with the help of Sienna they were trying to pull me away from the door before my crazed hands actually found the door handle. He pushed me into the backseat where Ryan had just been laying and held me down using most if not all of his body weight. The seat was still warm from Ryan’s body heat which added fuel to my outburst. “Settle down Ros,” Dean said pressing half of his body down on mine as I struggled to get away.