Inhuman - Book 1 Page 18

  I slowly nodded. Every time I glanced down at Nina I couldn’t help but think of Sophia, and what she would have looked like at that age. But as sad as it made me, I was really happy to know I helped them.

  Olivia said, “Not to sound ungrateful or anything, but I still don’t understand why you’re helping us or where we’re going?”

  I nervously cleared my throat. “That’s because I don’t really know.”

  Her tone revealed her skeptical state of mind. “So then what we are going to do? We can’t just stay out in the woods and it’s not safe to go to another town.”

  I could tell she was worried and becoming increasingly upset as she did her best to express the concern in her voice without being loud enough to wake Nina.

  This wasn’t at all what I planned… “I have a camp a few hours into the National forest. It’s a two day walk – it’s where I came from.”

  Her look of concern and confusion only heightened. “You live in the woods?”

  I could tell she thought I meant for years or something strange like that. I had to snap out of it and really talk to her… If I were in her position I’d be demanding answers too.

  “No, no. I’ve only been living there for a few weeks. But I have a shelter that I could easily expand and there’s a lake a few minutes away. I also have enough dried out deer meat to last weeks if need be, but the fishing is good so it’s not a problem.”

  She looked straight ahead for a while – both hands still clutching the steering wheel. I periodically heard the friction of the rubber on her skin as she would tighten her grip. “Was your town like ours? I assume that’s why you left, right?”

  “Not quite as bad, but yeah. And my little visit to yours confirmed my idea that the only safe place is somewhere far away from other people. Regardless, I was thinking about going back to get all my stuff and heading to Sacramento. I wanna find out what’s going on.”

  She turned to me, clearly showcasing her instant dislike for the idea. “You know it could be even more dangerous there. There are literally hundreds of thousands more people in that one area than Humboldt and Trinity combined.”

  I sighed and got out of the truck. “Well, for now I’m heading back to my camp. Like I said – I have plenty of food and can easily catch more. And there’s no one around for over twenty miles, so you’d both be perfectly safe… Well safer than you’d be in any town.”

  She suspiciously looked me up and down as she considered my offer – an offer I couldn’t believe I was making.

  I probably look like a crazy person… Ragged clothes, overgrown beard, wild hair – as filthy as can be. I’d gotten used to smelling myself so I didn’t notice it anymore, but I knew it was there and that it was a little on the strong side.

  Probably smell like an old bait bucket…

  “Just tell me. Why are you doing all this for us?”

  I really didn’t want to talk about it, but I understood why she wanted to know. They’d just been kidnapped, tortured and raped for weeks, only to have their supposed “savior”, a complete stranger, try to lead them to the middle of the woods.

  I’d be well beyond suspicious.

  I turned around, leaned up against the truck and put my hands in my pockets as I gazed at the night sky and tried to remember some of the constellations. “You… You two remind me of my wife and daughter.”

  I already knew what question was coming next.

  She hesitantly asked, “Something happened to them?”

  Even though a decent amount of time had passed, trying to answer her was just as difficult and painful as it was the day I was strapped to that bed and being questioned by Auron...

  By the time I’d finished telling the short and mainly non-descriptive version of my story, anyone would have been able to tell that I was fighting not to break down emotionally.

  It’s over.

  You’re done.

  Breathe.

  Relax.

  Olivia walked around to the other side of the truck by me and put her hand on my back. “I’m sorry that happened to you and, coming from a perfect stranger, it wasn’t your fault… What you just did proves you’re a good man. No matter what you might think.”

  I looked over at her and nodded – forcing out a half-smile… She must have been able to tell how I felt by the way I told the story. Suppose I did make it kind of obvious.

  I appreciated what she said and in some ways she was right. But no matter what anyone said – in other ways, it was absolutely my fault.

  She got all her answers, just like I got mine when we first met. I’m done talking about it.

  “It’s freezing, and we can’t make a fire until we get far away from this road, so I’m leaving – you can either follow me or go your own way. I have enough food for us to all make it to my camp. It’s up to you.”

  She walked over to the door and stared in at Nina. Rightfully so, she was still leery to trust me. “You risked your life for us… We’ll go with you.” She faintly smiled in a comical manner. “It’s not like we have a better choice.”

  As I looked over their frail bodies, it reminded me of how hungry they must have been, so I took out my stash of dried deer meat from my inner coat pocket. “Here, both of you are going to need the energy.” Because of Nina “It’ll probably take three days. Like I said, I’m still healing from a bullet to the shoulder and my knee is totally fucked.”

  Olivia gladly took it and woke up Nina. The moment she opened her eyes, she looked past Olivia and saw me. She immediately became frightened, grabbed onto Olivia and buried her face in her chest.

  “It’s alright, he’s the man who saved us. The one who carried you to safety, Nina… His name is Chris.”

  When she peered out at me, I put on a friendly face and playfully waved to her. She looked to be about twelve – at the oldest. And just like her sister, I could tell by looking at her that something horrible happened. It was mainly the eyes – the empty gaze… almost like they were dead.

  When she smiled back at me and waved, I was relieved. Just the fact that she could smile after all that told me she was a strong little girl. I said, “I have some food. It’s not very good, but it’s good for you. It’ll make you feel strong again.”

  She shyly nodded and Olivia handed her a few pieces… I have to wait until tomorrow, otherwise we’ll run out.

  Olivia looked at me as she chewed on the horrible example of jerky I managed to come up with. “What about you?”

  “I had some right before I found you, so I’m good to go whenever you’re ready. The sooner the better. They might have another vehicle we didn’t see.”

  …

  As soon as we approached the woods, Nina pulled back on Olivia’s hand and shook her head. She still wouldn’t talk but she was obviously scared of entering the pitch black forest.

  I certainly couldn’t blame her… Most adults would be scared under normal circumstances.

  Olivia leaned down. “This is what we have to do – to make sure men like that never find us again. To be safe. Do you understand me? I promise nothing will happen as long as we’re with you.”

  You shouldn’t promise things like that.

  Nina moved closer, gulped and fiercely held on to Olivia’s arm as we continued on. Even though her expression and body language presented fear, her eyes still seemed to be lacking any emotion – like she was just numb…

  I expected so many things. I knew that I could have died, that I’d probably have to kill and that I could have found all my answers – or none. But I never would have guessed that I wouldn’t be returning alone.

  Some people might have been happy to have company in such a situation – a (seemingly) trustworthy person to watch their back. I wasn’t. So many fears and worries were rushing back – along with all of my failures.

  You couldn’t protect your own wife and child… What makes you think you can protect them?

  “For now, we’re just going to walk straight in for at about half an hour.
I’ll worry about figuring out where we are tomorrow.”

  Olivia didn’t care for that idea. “Half an hour? We can barely see anything.”

  Being in the trees turned them into nothing more than darkened figures, so I could only assume Nina was even more upset by it. But I wasn’t willing to compromise. “We have to get far enough in to where people can’t see our fire from the road.”

  “But it’s the middle of the night.”

  “You really wanna risk it? I’ve already seen groups of assholes traveling around looking for people to rob.”

  She was quick to answer, “No, you’re right” after giving what I said a little thought.

  What have I gotten myself into?

  Day 70

  By the time we made it to the bottom of the large hill where I first laid eyes on the forest, it was 10:37am. It had taken almost a day longer for us to get back than it did for me to get there – even after using that truck to get through the first ten or fifteen miles.

  It couldn’t be helped, Nina was just a little girl and we couldn’t force her to walk all day. They were both weak from being locked in a room without much food for weeks and I wasn’t in the best shape either. For that reason, I had no problem with stopping every few hours.

  Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough food left to give myself any the day before, but it was fine because we were so close.

  Just a little while longer. It’s waiting for me in the bag.

  I glided to a stop and said, “Okay, this is it. Now we just have to walk in for a few hours, so let’s rest about twenty before we do. There’s more jerky waiting, and I’ll catch a fish for dinner. I know this stuff is horrible.” Then I looked at Nina and apologetically smiled.

  She just stayed close to Olivia and barely even changed her expression.

  “So you built some type of shelter?” Olivia asked.

  “Yeah, but it’s small so you and Nina can use it for now. But you’re going to help me start building another one for the two of you tomorrow.” I thought of my shoulder. “Well, maybe in a few days. We all need rest.”

  She sat down – Nina closely followed and leaned up against her. “You still thinking about heading to Sacramento?”

  “Maybe in a few weeks or something – probably longer. I really need to let my shoulder heal this time, and I’ll have to go hunting again soon since I’m sharing with you two.” I shook my head angrily. “Probably had the time to run in and grab everything in that little store before we left. Shit.”

  “Yeah, well, you weren’t exactly in the best frame of mind. I could tell you were in a lot of pain too… Another reason for me to thank you again.”

  “You’ll change your mind after a few weeks of jerky and unseasoned fish. Trust me.”

  Olivia almost laughed – she probably just wasn’t able. Instead, she sighed and began taking in everything around us. “It’s all so beautiful.”

  “When I got here” I pointed up to the top of the large hill “I saw it from all the way up there for the first time. It was pretty amazing.”

  “I bet.”

  “Yeah.” I shrugged. “If we weren’t all so exhausted I’d say you should walk up about twenty or thirty feet and see the view. Mountains, lakes, rivers – has it all.”

  Her face mildly brightened and she turned to Nina. “You wanna go up there and look over the whole forest? It’ll be so beautiful.”

  Nina gave a dulled smile, and I was able to watch as a hint of excitement barely broke through her despondent expression. But I still couldn’t look at her for too long without thinking of Sophia, so my eyes purposely wandered away.

  Olivia said, “Don’t worry, Chris, you stay here and rest. There’s no one around, right?”

  “I hope not. That’s the whole point. Just make sure to look around.”

  I could see that Olivia was trying her hardest to make Nina happy – to act like nothing was wrong… I guess all you can really do after something like that is try to forget it ever happened and move on.

  Easier said than done, I’m sure.

  They both ran up as though they weren’t exhausted at all. When they made it high enough, Olivia called out, “I’ve never seen anything like this in person!”

  Her voice was so elevated and full of (what I easily identified as false) excitement that it sounded like she was on a loudspeaker. I quickly put my finger to my lips and widened my eyes.

  She covered her mouth and started laughing. It wasn’t really funny, but I didn’t want to ruin the moment by giving her a hard time. For her to laugh and smile seemed worth the slight risk of someone actually hearing it.

  I only wished Nina had too…

  Once they got back down, I returned everything to a more serious setting. “Try and relax for a while, we have at least two hours of walking. And then we have to collect wood and a good amount of dried leaves to make a fire.”

  She nodded, they sat back down and we all spent a little time in complete silence, enjoying our surroundings and not having to worry about anything horrible happening. Well, they did. My thoughts were of a dark future – one where I had to watch them die because I fucked up again.

  Day 73

  The nights were brutal. I would have squeezed into that shelter on first one if there had been enough room. So for the next few days, I ignored my shoulder and put a rush on building an identical a-frame hut for Olivia and Nina using the nearest suitable tree. The last thing I needed was to get sick.

  We took turns cutting down trees and stripping saplings for rope, meanwhile Nina helped by gathering up sticks and dried leaves to keep the fire going. I didn’t want to ask too much of her. She still hadn’t said a word, and spent most of her time staring into the fire or off into the distance while Olivia and I worked.

  When given the opportunity, she seemed to really enjoy the lake and had fun playing around by the water but it didn’t last long. I could tell she was just deeply saddened and bored out of her mind. I felt bad but there was no way we could let her wander around or go exploring. There were still too many things that could happen to her...

  It was strange being stuck out in the woods with a woman and a child I barely knew… and extremely awkward at times… though we were busy and tired by the end of the day so everything was going fine. It was simply taking a while to get to know one another.

  All three of us had our reasons for not being very talkative. I felt the worst for Nina – not only because of her age and what happened to her, but because she didn’t have much to take her mind off it all like we did.

  ...

  The first shelter I built didn’t come out very well, but I learned from my mistakes and even picked up a few tricks. We were nearing completion and it was easy to see that it was coming out much better aesthetically. I’d also gone out the way to make it sturdier and planned on adding more leafy branches than I did on the original, hoping to make it even warmer.

  I was working on chopping down a tree, Olivia was nearby stripping saplings and Nina was sitting next to the fire, drawing something in the dirt with a stick and humming to herself… Just like Sophia used to do.

  Olivia stopped what she was doing and asked, “So are you still planning on going to Sacramento? I mean, after having some time to think… see how well things are going.” It came out of nowhere so, obviously, it had been on her mind.

  I wasn’t exactly in the mood. I knew what it was all about. She was too scared to come with me (thankfully) but she was also afraid of being alone in the forest. “I haven’t changed my mind. I want to know what’s going on.”

  “Well… Let’s say you do find out why the military has all the major roads blocked off. It doesn’t change anything… I guess what I’m asking is – what’s the point? You’re just putting yourself in more danger. If things were any different there we would have heard by now, don’t you think?”

  I’m not expecting things to be normal there… I want to know why my family is dead.

  Even though she was right
and it was pretty much a sure way to get killed, I had an answer to give. “Because I have to… for myself… And you don’t know – a big city like Sacramento might still have law and order, even food and some remnants of society.”

  “Or like I pointed out before, it could be worse because there are so many people.”

  I let the head of the axe fall to the ground and a bit of my anger (which really had nothing to do with her) slipped out when I asked, “What do you expect me - us to do? Stay in this forest forever? Yeah it might be nice for a little while, but that’s going to change very quickly. You’ll see.”

  Nina looked up from what she was doing so I lowered my voice. “You can’t raise a child in the woods. All it takes is to get sick, or to get hurt and develop an infection. The beauty of it all is just distracting you from what it really is – a dangerous place where even animals struggle to survive.” I took a step in her direction. “Another example of things that could easily kill us, by the way – animals. I know you’ve heard the wolves too.”

  She sighed and went back to stripping the sapling. “You’re right. It was just a thought. I’m scared… What if we can’t protect ourselves, Chris? There’re only two of us.”

  I suddenly felt like an asshole… I’m going about this all wrong. I need to be more positive, especially for Nina.

  “Look, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be so harsh. I’m scared too and I really don’t know what else to do. I just know we shouldn’t stay here if there’s even a chance at finding somewhere truly safe.”

  She wistfully nodded without looking up at me again.

  I said, “How about this” and sighed. “We’ll stay until you and Nina are ready to leave. Even if it takes a month... or two.”

  Olivia stopped and looked up at me – pleasantly surprised. “That sounds good.”

  I didn’t really want to wait a month to leave, but I knew she’d see the truth long before then. The wonder of our surroundings just had to fade, and then she’d see reality – especially when considering Nina’s welfare…