“Right there!” I bellowed.
Before anybody could react, I saw the silhouette of a man sit up through the furs and point something directly at me. Lifting my hands to stop what I thought were bullets, I was immediately blinded as a series of flashing lights filled the room. Dropping to my knees, completely disoriented, I heard movement and footsteps as Kyle screamed out.
A knee rammed the side of my head as someone bolted by, knocking me to the ground. Pulling my face into my knees, I tried to shield myself from the struggle.
With bright spots covering my vision, the only one of my five senses that seemed to work was sound. A number of footsteps circled around the room, with at least two men grunting loudly, before I heard a large crash which let out an audible crack that shook the very core of the trees that the fortress was built upon.
Then there was silence.
Realizing I had my eyes closed, I lifted my head and opened them to find the room once again filled with darkness. Still seeing flashes in my vision, I heard Jarvis say, “I’ve got it,” as he yanked down the blanket covering a not-so-square window in the far side of the room.
As I stood up, I could see Kyle standing over a man lying on the ground with a nice-sized gash in his forehead. The man was out, but that didn’t stop Kyle from keeping the wrought iron post pointed toward him with one hand, while wiping his own eyes with the other.
Glancing around the room, I saw that Aidan was now standing at the window, looking out into the forest, pulling deep breaths of air into his lungs. He looked to be hyperventilating as he stretched to push his head into the open air.
“That’s it, boys!” I heard Jarvis let out as he limped over to a large radio sitting on a table across from the window. Stopping at its base, he reached down and lifted his hand. Three sets of keys dangled from his fingers, as he turned back around and faced the radio.
Looking toward the old man on the floor, I shook my head, rubbed both eyes with my hands, then asked,
“What the hellcaused that light pulse?” My finger bounced wildly toward a device that was hanging from the fingers of the guy’s hand.
Kyle, whose eyes were red, reached down, yanking the device out of the clutches of the man on the ground. Lifting it to his face, he said, “It’s an LED weapon light… made to blind and disorient your enemy in the dark.”
“Well, it did the trick. Christ, man, that thing nearly made me vomit.” I heard Aidan say from the window, still taking in deep breaths.
“This has got to be what they used at the tree. Probably had a bunch of them wired up in that box at the end of the pole,” Kyle said, rubbing his eyes one last time.
Smirking ever so slightly at me, he stuck the device in his pocket and looked back down at the man, who had shifted to his side.
“He’s waking up,” Kyle said, crouching down with his weapon raised.
Looking down at the man’s leathery face, I could see a small streak of blood running down his chin from the blow that Kyle had delivered. He had a full mane of wiry gray hair slicked back behind his ears, and a look in his eyes that screamed anger. Like the rest of his friends, who we knew would be back soon, he was covered in mostly animal skins and wore an orange blood-covered strip of cloth around his right arm.
Looking around the room, trying to orient himself, his eyes landed on Jarvis, who was standing over the radio flipping switches and blowing into the radio speaker.
The maddening smile that grew across the old man’s face was enough to run a chill through my body. Staring directly at me, with that wide grin full of tar-stained teeth, he belted out a pain-filled laugh while opening his mouth wide as if trying to move his jaw back into place.
“My comrades will be back any moment. You have to know you’re all gonna die. The Lord Almighty will see to that.”
“Nobody’s gonna die, old man, and just for the record, I’m not sure the Lord is on your side just because you have a statue of Jesus Christ downstairs,” Kyle replied.
Shaking his head, now looking up at Kyle, he smiled. “We’ll see.”
“Just stay calm, and stay down. We’ll be gone before you know it,” Kyle spoke sternly, still waving his weapon in the air.
Shifting his head, the old man looked at Jarvis.
“They won’t respond. Those bastards are done responding to anybody. You should know that by now.” He wheezed, slightly chuckling then gave a heavy cough. “They’ve abandoned us.”
Kyle raised a brow to me. I simply shrugged my shoulders. Neither of us had any clue what this nut bag was talking about.
Not acknowledging him, I heard Jarvis speak into the radio, trying Avalon’s distress channels. “King’s Landing, King’s Landing, this is Iron Eagle… Over.”
Kyle looked down at the man with some disdain and said, “Don’t worry. We’ll get through to our friends.”
“It’s not your friends I’m talking about,” he said, then paused. “You don’t know…?” The old man sneered, laughing from his belly now.
“Ok, I’ll bite. Know what? Who won’t respond? Who’s abandoned us?” Kyle asked with a growing scowl across his face.
“They built a wall. Nobody comes in, nobody goes out.”
“Comes in where? Drop the riddles, old man, or I’ll give you a matching crack across the other side of your head.” Kyle was losing his patience.
I could still hear Jarvis in the background “King’s Landing…” No response.
“They left us here to rot, severed from the rest of the country like a festering wound. There is no help coming. We’re alone now. You’re alone now.”
“Who?” I demanded. Now my patience was starting to dwindle.
“New America, of course.”
Letting it hang there in the air while Kyle and I looked at each other, the old man finally said, “Ahhh, I can see it in your faces. You know what I’m talking about. That’s right. New America—those bastards stopped broadcasting. You know it as well as me.”
Coughing again and wiping his cheek across his shoulder, which added a fresh streak of blood along his orange stripe, he smiled.
“They boxed us out, built a wall using the natural barriers of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. Whole Eastern seaboard is the infected area. We’re lost to them. They shoot anything that comes near their borders. People, aircraft, boats. They’re containing the disease.”
“Bullshit!” Kyle belted out.
Radio static crackled in the background.
Looking Kyle directly in the eyes, the old timer replied in a low voice, “You bastards didn’t think the whole world had been overrun, did you?”
Kyle looked out the window with a stunned look on his face.
Continuing, the old man smiled again, “I don’t care. Don’t believe me. You’re alone until my friends come back. They’ll make good company for you. Don’t worry.”
I heard Jarvis set down the radio with a hard, frustrated clank. Looking down at the ground, he stood there with his shoulders drooped as we all listened to the crinkling static ringing from the small round speaker on the table in front of him.
Snapping his gaze from the window, Kyle asked, “How the hell do you know? Seems to me a resourceful bunch of guys with that knowledge would have figured out a way past a wall. It can’t possibly cover the whole country.”
The old man shifted, moving his arm down toward his belt, causing Kyle to shift forward and place the nasty end of his wrought iron spear under the man’s neck, applying just enough pressure to lift his head up.
“Easy big guy. If I was armed, I would have killed you sons of bitches the second you walked up those stairs.” The old man chuckled with his eyes wide, looking up the spear at Kyle.