“This is our only option,” I finally whispered through my teeth. “There’s a chance that Mia and Richards heard the broadcast. There’s a chance that they could be heading our way right now!”
“Yeah, but there’s a chance that we’ll get killed or worse by heading up into that tree of horrors,” Aidan countered.
“You have a better idea?” Kyle asked, looking directly at Aidan, who shrugged his shoulders as his Adams apple moved up and down in his throat.
Looking around our small group, I took a deep breath and said, “I’m not sure about this Ewok village shit, but getting a hold of a radio is the only option.”
“Ewok village?” Jarvis questioned while looking at me with his head tipped sideways.
Dropping my shoulders, signaling him not to worry about it, I saw a small grin grow across Kyle’s face.
Jarvis moved on from the comment and continued. “It’s not just the radio we’re after, boys. Take a look over there.” He pointed toward the end of the second zip-line, which was nearly invisible through the brush on the other side of the fortress. Below the receiving end, there were two more vehicles resting under a couple of camouflage tarps.
“Avalon has its own problems to be thinking about right now. Sorry to say, John, but I hope they’re not worried about us. We’re going to need to find our own way home.”
Thinking about it for a moment, I placed my hands on the ground in front of me, and forced myself to agree that either way, we needed to get a hold of the keys for those trucks.
If there wasn’t a helicopter on the way, more than anything, we needed transportation if we were going to survive. One of those trucks could mean the difference between life and death for us out here, tipping the odds in our favor, something that we desperately needed.
With a few lucky breaks and some clear roads, if we really pushed it, we might actually have enough time to get back.
No, we would have time to get back. We’d find a way.
For the briefest of moments, as my eyes landed on the cars across from us, I found myself thinking about the fact that we were talking about stealing from these people. People who hadn’t done anything to us. People who were enemies of Gordon. With my mind spinning at the options, I lifted one hand to my knee and lowered my head.
Right there and then, I realized I was willing to do whatever it took. Getting back to my son was all that mattered, no matter the cost.
Despite the wishful thinking that the place would be empty, we knew there was a good chance that any number of things could go wrong. However, in the end, the risk was worth the reward. Even Aidan finally came around at the prospect of getting transportation.
Looking back at that moment in time, I was already losing it. Maybe it was already gone. Those of us who have survived have all lost a little humanity.
After a minute or two of discussing whether or not to split up, leaving someone behind as a lookout, we ultimately decided to stick together. Too many Zs in the area. Too easy to get caught outnumbered on your own. Besides, Jarvis was hurt, Aidan was a flight risk, and Kyle and I knew better than to leave each other’s side. We’d been fighting these things together for too long. You can’t replace that kind of trust.
As I stepped over the first Z that was passed out under the tree, my first thought was that it was dead. However, it was almost immediately clear that it, along with the other ones lying there, were rhythmically pulsating ever so slightly. We didn’t know when they’d get up or if they ever would.
Gripping my hammer tightly, I stepped quietly toward the tree where we quickly found the rope ladder. Looking up, I couldn’t quite see where it led to through the thick branches.
Gripping the brittle rope holding the wooden planks of the ladder together, I was reminded of the night before as the acid flowed through my worn muscles. Each step up felt like a mini-nightmare of pain. However, by the time my head hit the leaves in the oversized canopy concealing the platform where the zip-line ended, my curiosity took over, leaving me to feel almost nothing but intrigue.
We must have been twenty feet up before I nearly knocked my skull into the well-hidden wooden platform that wrapped around the tree. It was square in shape and big enough to hold maybe fifteen full-sized men without any issues.
To my left, a ten-foot ladder led up to another square wooden platform, which had yet another line shooting out from it leading back to the fortress.
Once we climbed the wooden ladder up to the second platform, I looked over the edge. Taking a gulp, I stepped back, trying to shake the lightheadedness as I realized I couldn’t see past the canopy below. Holding my hand against the tree to steady myself, I wondered how tall it actually was. We were at least thirty feet up, and this tree seemed nearly as thick here as it was at the base on the ground. There was no way I could see the top as I looked up. Too many branches and leaves.
A wooden box on the platform held a bunch of harnesses that we’d have to wrap around our bodies to slide across the line. Reaching in and grabbing one, I stepped into it and pulled it up over my legs, with the straps between my legs feeling pretty snug. Too snug for me not to be worried about crushing my ball sack the second I put any weight on it.
Kyle wound up helping Jarvis due to his hurt leg, but aside from that, we were all harnessed up in a matter of minutes.
Glancing toward Kyle, to the ground, and then toward where the zip-line led, I could feel my hands starting to shake. It wasn’t fear of falling, or of sailing along the zip-line. Hell, I’d done this before. I was afraid of what we’d find on the other end of the line.
“You want me to go first?” Kyle asked.
Trying to take a gulp of air, but realizing I couldn’t because my mouth was sandpaper dry, I responded with a whisper. “I should go. You need to stay back with Jarvis. I’ll signal if there’s something wrong on the other end.”
Kyle took half a step back as I slid a leather glove over my right hand, which I would use to help me regulate my speed. Stepping up to the line, I snapped the metal slider, attached to my harness, over the top of the zip-line. It fell in place with a click, and I looked back toward the three men watching with eager anticipation from the perch.
“Don’t use the glove until you get to the end. You don’t want to get stuck in the middle of the line. It’s a bitch to pull yourself out,” Kyle whispered.
Nodding, as if to say thanks for the advice, I turned toward the line, placed the glove on the metal to steady myself and lifted my legs.
At first, I found myself twisting a bit to the side, but it was fairly easy to gyrate to the center. That slight metal on metal zipper-on-a-pair-of-blue-jeans sound hummed as I moved along.
I could feel the breeze flowing around my clothing as I approached the denser forest. Holding my breath and closing my eyes as a branch slapped across my chest, I emerged on the other side wide-eyed.
I would have rubbed my eyes if I hadn’t been holding my hands out to steady myself. To my surprise, the line led to a tree with a similar platform, but that wasn’t the amazing part. My destination tree had a wooden bridge that led directly into the fortress, which stood at least two stories high. My stomach contracted as I realized it was much larger than what we could see from the forest floor.
Making the mistake of glancing down through an open section of the branches, I could see the Zs piling on top of each other below. They were all over the goddamn place, reaching up in the hopes that some morsel of meat would fall into their deadly grips.
Shooting my gaze up just before hitting the tree, I pulled the leather glove down hard on the line. For a second, I thought I smelled something burning, but that sensation was quickly replaced by fear as I realized I wasn’t stopping fast enough.