“An interesting development. Though the 15th generation of the HBRS trials have propelled our research into a new frontier, subjects are still incapable of producing ATP, or reconnecting synapses on their own. Perhaps both could be gained from an external source?”
–Dr Ava Sherman. Manchester, New Hampshire, 6 Months Before.
----------------------------------------
“It’s good to see you, Nelly.”
“Wish I could say the same,” she said between stuttered frames. “We can’t get video here.”
Liam sighed. “Well, I can see you, so I suppose that’ll have to do for now, yeah? I’ll be sure to let Carlos know later that his feed is trash.”
“How’s Zambia?”
“You’d love it. Lots of history, lots of culture. Our local contact is from the Bemba tribe. He’s been teaching me a lot of material to use for the show. We’ll have to visit here again some time.”
She smiled. “I’d like that. It just feels like th–”
The feed died.
Liam groaned and gave the laptop a smack. “Come on, you bloody wanker. Bring her back!” He whacked it again.
One condition. That’s all I’d asked. Was that so hard? Liam hadn’t agreed to fly internationally until the producers had promised that he’d be able to speak to his family both directly before and after the show was filmed. This was the first real episode of Survive In Wild after the pilot had knocked its ratings expectations out of the park, and they could afford to bring him out here. Leave it to television producers to give him assurances when they lacked the right.
“–ear me?” Nelly suddenly said, and the screen jumped back into focus.
Liam grinned. “Hah! Yes, I’m here, Nelly! Can you hear me?”
“Yes, Liam. I can hear you.”
“I’m sorry, love, but I missed a good chunk of that.”
She sighed. “When are you coming home?”
“Just five days to complete the episode, and then the flight back. Less than a week.”
“I don’t just mean this episode, honey. How many more of these are they going to make you do?”
Liam grimaced. “It’s a bit tough to say.”
Her eyes narrowed on the screen, and for a moment, he swore she had made eye contact, even with her own service down. “You’re lying, Liam. How many episodes are they going to make you do?”
He paused. The truth was going to hurt, and he’d done well to shield her from it until now, but there was no way to keep the charade going anymore.
“Nineteen episodes total,” he said. “Spread over the next eight months. Won’t be home for more than a few days at a time.”
She frowned. “Liam…”
He leaned in. “It’s not all bad news, yeah? If this thing takes off like they’re saying, we’re going to be looking at real money. The kind that’ll let me retire at thirty.”
“Lilith needs you now. She needs to see her father.”
“Well I can’t do anything for her on thirty grand a year, now can I!?”
Nelly opened her mouth to speak, but the words grew jumbled, and the screen locked again.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Liam roared before giving the laptop a shake.
Why couldn’t Nelly just throw him a bone on this one? If anything, he’d be able to see her more often now, what with no longer needing to hitchhike into the middle of nowhere to get that perfect panoramic shot. It wasn’t on him that they were forced into the complexities of civilization. If only Liam had had his way, they’d still be perfectly happy in Alaska!
The worst part was the expression on Nelly’s face, locked on the screen where it had cut out. Her blue eyes were soft and sad, and the light had been extinguished. It wasn’t the sorrow that bothered him half as much as the resignation, as though she didn’t believe a word he said. Liam was only trying his bloody best!
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“–to go,” Nelly said, her face still locked in place.
“I’m here, I’m here!” Liam shouted.
She paused. “I can hear you.”
“Look, Nelly. I’m sorry that this is a bit shit. I’m sorry that I can’t be there right now. I’m sorry that this is going to take more time than I thought. I promise to do everything in my power to make it up to you both.”
The video feed snapped back to the present, and Nelly looked more defeated than angry. “Okay. You do you.”
He tapped his hands on the keyboard’s rim, feeling the tension brewing thousands of miles away. “We’re still good, right?”
Again, she looked directly into the screen. “We are if you’ll just be honest. Tell me that you aren’t doing this because you’d rather be out there than here.”
There it was. The truth evoked. Liam paused, with no words to share out loud. I’d rather you be here with me.
He gave the screen a shake. “Gah! You’re cutting out again, Nelly. Bugger this. We’ll try again later.” He disconnected the call.
Liam didn’t want to go back to California. He hated the city. He hated the noise. He hated the smell of asphalt and gasoline and smog. This was where he belonged, out in the wilds surviving against all it had to offer.
But in doing so, he’d sacrificed the only other thing he truly loved. Nelly would never agree to leave with him. Not while Lilith still needed care. Liam loved his daughter, of course he did. But she was tethered to the very place he wanted to leave, and there was no feasible way to bring her with him. And with Nelly trapped behind too, what was a man to do, but try his best to live in both worlds?
He’d find a way to make this work.
* * *
There it was. The sign he’d been looking for. The resolution that Liam craved.
‘Ponderosa’ it read, ‘Pop 64 – Elev 7200.’ The place where his family had fled.
The green paint was faded and the metal rusted where it had collapsed into a nearby tree, but there was no denying the words. He peered down the street and could just make out the shape of buildings through the pines.
“Told you this was the right road,” Liam said. Thank goodness he’d talked them into taking this fork after they’d cleared Bakersfield.
Leah furrowed her brow. “Stay close.” She turned to the others. “Hand signals from here on out. We don’t know what we’re walking into.”
The group split off into the forest, using a thicket of pines to mask their approach, their rifles drawn. Liam would never understand how they managed to carry so many. Kurt seemed to have half a dozen in his rucksack at any given time, and that wasn’t counting the gear his allies had for themselves.
Liam wiped the sweat from his brow. Exhaustion had been hitting him harder the past few days. There was only so much to be done about it. He’d gone from a sparse diet of dehydrated fruit and fish to fresh berries and meat in less than a week, and his body hadn’t been above sea level in over a decade. Re-acclimating himself to this environment would always have taken its toll, even without also running for his life from a group of undead killers, or following the pace of his more athletic companions.
But now that Ponderosa sat in sight, his adrenaline pumped anew, extinguishing his fatigue. His family was so close. He could feel it.
They marched into the open. His chest tightened. A single building lay ahead, a mix of redwood log cabin and contiguous shopping plaza. A general store and coffee shop could be seen, but the last sign had collapsed into the building it rested on. The windows were boarded and spikes poked from the walls, but whatever defenses that had been laid were long since neglected.
Leah flashed some signals to Kurt and Mastermind. The two split up and approached the structure from each flank, guns at the ready. A few moments later, they gave the thumbs up.
“We’re clear,” Leah said, lowering her own rifle. “Buttercup, I want eyes on that roof.”
He tapped his fedora. “You got it, boss.”
“Could be they holed up further in town?” Liam suggested.
“Could be,” she said with a tone that suggested anything but that.
They closed into the buildings, with the rezzers leading the charge. The defenses were quick to dismantle, and the floors cleared, and it wasn’t long until Liam was allowed to enter with them.
He coughed back the miasma of rot as he entered the general store. The register was cracked and dusty, the contents of the shelves were buried under a layer of cobwebs, and the redwood floor creaked with each step. A swarm of mosquitoes burst into flight, revealing a dead possum curled in a corner. At least he’d identified the source of the smell.
The rezzers tore through the shelves, throwing old cans about.
Liam kicked one of the cans aside. “Last I checked, I’m the only one that can eat anything here. Well, except for our possum friend over there.”
“Too old,” Kurt said. “It’ll have lost all nutrition by now.”
“What could you possibly be looking for then?”
“The usual,” Buttercup said. “Weapons, ammo, batteries. Not everything is about filling your stomach, Liam. Sometimes, you’ve just gotta shoot some asshole in the face.”
He shrugged. “Fair enough, mate.”
“We’ll go door-to-door,” Leah decided. “From the look of things, these people did better than most. There’s no telling what they left behind.”
Liam grimaced. It was far from a foregone conclusion, but he knew that if he said that out loud, they’d only treat him with that same condescending look.
“Let’s move,” Leah said.
The group marched deeper into the town, though that was a generous term for the place. There wasn’t much in the name of infrastructure, as this community appeared to have been based on its camping economy. Vacation homes pocketed the streets, perverted over time by decay. Their designs blended between the quaint and the luxurious, with some cabins stretching over three stories tall, while others looked little better than Liam’s old hovel in Alaska. Almost all of the windows were boarded and doors reinforced, but no matter how far they went through, there seemed to be no signs of life.
Leah froze and held up her fist. The others quieted. For a moment, all seemed clear, but then groans rolled through the trees, coming their way.
“We’ve got hollows."