Authors: A.R. Wise
I shrugged. "I don't know. We were told that we were being trained for life on the Surface, but nothing that they told us was true."
Hero pointed at the dash and said, "Pull on that knob a bunch of times." Then he started to laugh uproariously.
"What's so funny?" asked Hailey.
"Nothing, nothing, that just sounded all sorts of wrong." He leaned forward and pointed to a black knob that was near the steering wheel. "Grab that knob and just pull it and push it back in a bunch of times. It'll make the lights on the front of the truck turn on and off. I want to let Annie know we're coming. If she sees this truck, she's liable to shoot us before we get to her, especially with you sitting on my lap. She might not know it's me. And trust me, we don't want Annie taking shots at us. That girl doesn't make a habit of missing."
Hailey did as he asked. H
e leaned to the side and rolled down the window on his door. He waved his left hand out as we drove down the road. There was another vehicle further ahead, parked on the side of the road, but we were slowing down far ahead of it. The truck came to a halt with a groan as Hero yelled out his window. "It's me. I brought some new friends."
I looked out to the left, toward the area that he was yelling, and saw no sign of anyone. The land was flat and nearly featureless except for the occasional lonely tree and the white-capped mountains in the distance. I was about to ask who he was talking to when I saw movement in some vegetation nearby. Suddenly, as if my eyes had been playing tricks on me, I saw a person stand up from the weeds.
At first it looked as if one of the bushes was moving, but then I realized that her clothing was covered in vegetation so that when she laid down she was nearly impossible to see. The girl carried a massive weapon that looked like the rifle Hero had taken from the guard, but with a much longer barrel. The end of the barrel had a bipod mount that she folded down as she hefted the gun and headed our way.
She was wearing a hat that looked as if it were sprouting plants and her face was painted with green and brown splotches that hid her skin color. The only feature I could get a good sense of was her brilliant green eyes.
"You've got to be kidding me." She started to laugh as she came closer.
Hero opened the door and helped Hailey down first. Then he stepped out and I slid over to get out as well. "What can I say? Chicks dig me."
Annie looked at us and shook her head. "Where did you go, the hot white girl factory?"
Hero nodded and laughed as he said, "Yeah, pretty much."
Annie pulled her hood back, releasing flowing red hair, and then reached her hand out to us. "I'm Annie."
"You're one of us?" Hailey took her hand excitedly.
"What?" Annie withdrew her hand in confusion.
"Did you come from the Facility?" I asked.
She shook her head and glanced at Hero as if hoping he might be able to explain. "No. What's the Facility?"
Hero pointed back toward DIA. "That's what they call the airport. They've been living down there all their lives. I don't know what they're doing in there, but it's some creepy shit. Not only are they farming chicks, they're also filling trucks up with corpses. This truck is overflowing with Poppers." We could still hear the corpses shifting in the box behind us.
Annie set the butt of her gun on the ground and used it to lean on as she chuckled and shook her head. "Levon, you're the only person in the world that could walk into a military complex that is breeding zombies and walk out with two white girls on your arm."
"A pimp's a pimp, baby. No helping that."
"I wonder what Jill's going to think about that," said Annie with a wink.
Hero became suddenly serious. "Don't play me like that, Annie. That's not even right. I didn't do anything wrong."
"Okay, then Jill shouldn't mind that you had a girl on your lap." Annie was enjoying Hero's discomfort.
"You know that's not fair. The girl didn't want to sit in the bloodstain. Do you want to watch me get beat down or something? I thought we were friends, girl."
"I'm fucking with you," said Annie as she walked down the road, away from the truck. "Let's get going before the sun goes down. We need to get back to Vineyard before it gets too dark."
"What about your sister and Stitch?" asked Hero.
"We wouldn't be able to get back there before dark. They'll be fine for the night. The Poppers aren't going to be able to get out of Hanger."
I stood beside Hailey as Hero and Annie talked. I put my hand in hers and she was surprised at my approach. She pulled away before she saw it was me, then she relaxed and smiled as she clasped my hand.
We walked to their vehicle and Annie asked us questions about the Facility. We did our best to answer, but she was intent on knowing what we were there for and how we were being used by the military. Neither of us could answer her, and she was flabbergasted by our ignorance. I apologized to her, but she seemed more curious than perturbed by us. She unzipped her suit and pulled it off to reveal her svelte form. Beneath the camouflage suit she wore a pair of tight shorts and a tank top that was soaked in sweat.
I had a thousand more questions for them about the Surface, and
when we got into the jeep I asked about the hundreds of birds in the air. Hailey and I sat in the back while Annie drove and Hero sat beside her. I wanted to continue talking, but when we started to drive the wind drowned me out. It whipped my hair about and stung my eyes if I didn't squint. Hailey's hair was longer than mine and flowed out behind us as the vehicle sped along. I glanced at her and saw that she was gloriously happy. She smiled at me as her hair obstructed her face and then she put her arms in the air and screamed out in joy. I enjoyed seeing her like this, and honestly couldn't recall ever seeing anyone happier than she was at that moment.
She turned to look at me again with a wide smile and then wrapped her arms around me. Her cheek pressed against mine, with her mouth beside my ear, so that I could hear when she said, "We made it! I love this so much. It's so beautiful out here."
I held her and said, "Your hair looks so pretty in the sunlight. You're gorgeous."
"I can't wait to be naked with you again," she said and then started kissing my neck.
I saw Annie watching us from the rearview mirror and she punched Hero in the leg before pointing back at us. Hero glanced at us and then back at Annie. He held his hands up, shrugged, and said something that I couldn't hear. The two of them were laughing and I decided to close my eyes and focus on Hailey. It felt tremendous to hold her in the open air, on the Surface.
Hailey curled up into my embrace as we watched the sun set behind the mountains in the distance. The blue sky was replaced with a brilliant display of orange and red as the sun disappeared, and the white clouds that drifted on the horizon were swimming in colors I'd never even dreamt of. I glanced down at Hailey as she rested on my chest and marveled at how the sky had turned the same color as her hair.
She looked beautiful in the sunlight, and I cherished having her in my arms. The emotions that the Instructors told us we would share with men when we achieved Surface Status could only pale in comparison to what I felt for Hailey. I was excited to start a new life with her, and to experience everything the Surface had to offer for the first time with her at my side.
Annie picked up a thin disc from between h
er and Hero that she then put in a slot on the dashboard of the jeep. I watched curiously as the disc slid inside, as if pulled by a mechanism within, and then music started to play from a speaker beside us. It was loud at first, but Hero quickly reached out and turned a knob on the dash that brought the volume down.
Hailey and I were familiar with music, but not like what Annie played. This music was more abrasive, and the singing was harsher than I'd ever heard in
what was piped into the Facility. Hailey looked up at me with childlike enthusiasm at the sound and I smiled back down at her as we listened to music that we never knew existed.
I saw a herd of animals in the distance and I excitedly pointed at them for Hailey to see. We'd learned about several
types of animals while in the Facility, and I could recognize that this was a herd of cattle. It was mostly females and their calves, but I saw one older male among them. Several calves walked clumsily beside their mothers, and we watched as one suckled at his mother's teat.
Then we saw something else, dark and fast, sliding through the high brown grass. I tensed as another shape followed the first, zipping through the overgrowth beside the herd. One of the cattle stiffened and stomped as it caught sight of the predator. Suddenly, the entire herd began to run. They stampeded as a pack of dogs burst from the cover of weeds and descended upon their prey. There were more dogs than I'd realized and they tore across the earth in a mad frenzy to feed.
Hailey gasped and sat up to get a better view of the spectacle as one of the calves struggled to keep up with his mother. The dogs focused on the calf and moved in to cut it off from the herd. It staggered and tried to turn, but one of the dogs ran in and nipped at its heel, causing it to stumble. The other dogs circled as the calf spun and cried out in fear.
Then the pack lunged.
The mother tried to intervene, but was unable to stop the pack. She cried out in terror and fear, but had to flee to stay alive as her baby was murdered.
Hailey couldn't watch and turned back to me. She pushed her head into my chest and I held her as I watched the
scene unfold. The calf was hidden to me as the dogs ravaged it. All I could see was a squirming mass of dog hair that was slickened with fresh blood.
The Surface felt suddenly wicked.
I kissed Hailey's head and held her as I closed my eyes. I could feel her sobbing and wanted nothing more than to erase her pain. At first, I was surprised by her reaction to the sight of the calf being murdered. We'd spent the past hour watching far more horrific things than that happen. But the murder of the calf affected me as well, and I realized that it was the loss of innocence that we were lamenting. The people that had been murdered while we watched (the Instructor, the truck driver, and the guard) were adults and conscious of the possibility of violence.
The calf was innocent, and unaware of the horrible nature of the world. It was like us, and the realization made me hold Hailey tighter. The world had no love of the innocent, and we'd become suddenly aware of that. It was heartbreaking, and I was inexplicably scared for Hailey's safety.
It wasn't much longer before we reached our destination. We drove off the large road that we'd been on for most of the journey and onto a smaller road that wound through a series of destroyed buildings. The stark contrast between the beauty of our early drive and this introduction to the destruction that the apocalypse caused was a mirror to our emotions as we faced the stark realism of the Surface world. The people living in this new world were doing it despite the will of nature, as evidenced by the way plants seemed intent on wiping them out.
Trees and vines curled through the hollow buildings, pulling apart their structure and leaving them broken shells of what they'd once been. Animals skittered through the dark, and each new movement sent a shiver of fear through me. This was not the paradise we were promised.
Annie drove us through the town, and Hero turned off the music as we went. He kept his rifle ready as the sunlight faded and the sky turned dark.
"You smell that?" asked Hero. Now that we had slowed down I could hear the two of them in the front seat.
"Yes," said Annie. "They're smoking meat out on the hill."
"That's right. I forgot about that."
"What are they doing?" I asked as I caught the smell of smoke as well.
"The people in this town cook food out on that hill over there." Annie pointed off to a hill in the distance. "They set up smoking pits and fill them with meat to let it cook all night. Then, the next day, they can see if the smell has attracted any attention from a safe distance." She pointed off to the right, toward the middle of the dilapidated town that we were driving through. "Vineyard is out that way. They set up on top of the buildings to watch the hill, and if it's clear they go out to get the food and bring it back."
"Some of the best damn food you'll ever get these days. The folks in Vineyard know how to cook," said Hero.
"That's for sure," added Annie. "If we're lucky, they'll let us have some."
"What kind of meat?" asked Hailey.
"Beef, pork, and camels usually. Why?" asked Hero.
Hailey shook her head and crossed her arms over her stomach as if fighting illness. "I don't know if I can eat meat."
Hero turned to look at us. "Didn't they serve you meat in that place?"
"Yes, but I never really thought about where it came from," said Hailey.
"Don't worry," said Annie. "One taste and you'll get past that. Trust me."
"There's not enough good food around anymore," said Hero. "When you can get your hands on some, you eat it."
Annie stopped the car in a paved area that was filled with other vehicles. There was a ramp that led down to what looked like a lower level, also filled with vehicles.