“I wasn’t really paying attention,” she admits.
“Just keep going. This will have to take us somewhere, right?”
I’m studying the map, trying to get my bearings when the car rolls to a stop. I look up and see a metal barricade blocking one direction of the intersection. “Guess we’re not going that way,” I say.
This happens again. And again. Barricades blocking all of the roads leading east.
“Another one?” I ask when she pauses the car again. Just beyond the barricades, over the horizon, dark clouds bear down. No wonder the humidity is so thick. A major summer storm is brewing.
“I’m starting to feel like we’re in a maze,” Mom replies. “Does this even make sense on the map?”
“No…well, maybe a little, now that we’ve hit another one.” I get out a pencil and start to mark the detours, then connect the lines to one another. “It looks like a circle.”
“We’re going in a circle?”
“Yeah, I mean if there’s a pattern to this.” I move the pencil to the next intersection. “I think we’re close to where we started.”
I look at my mom and see that her confused expression matches my own feelings. I scan the area for movement. “Remember how that Eater I killed last night had that chain around its arm?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I saw another one after we left the house—tied to the mailbox.”
Her forehead creases. “Someone is tying them up?”
“Is there another explanation?”
“Maybe it is the military? Maybe they’re just looping us back toward an emergency shelter?” she suggests.
I review the map but do not see anything in the area large enough to act as a shelter. No schools or recreation buildings. We’re literally in the middle of nowhere. “I don’t think so,” I say. “Ugh, I hate to say it but with nightfall and that storm coming we’re going to have to go somewhere safe.”
She continues on but sure enough, we hit the next set of barricades as expected. Mom stops the car and we idle, staring at the road beyond. A crack of lightning zig-zags against the dark clouds ahead, but that is the least of my concerns. Who’s trying to keep us in this tight little circle? Or, I wonder, keep people on the other side in?
“I don’t like this,” she finally says.
I nod in agreement. “Let’s stop playing this game. If we follow this road here and keep going we should get out of this area for good. I’ll just have to get out and move the barricade.”
“And drive right into that storm in the process.”
I shrug. “We can handle a thunderstorm.”
Securing my hatchet to my pants I get out of the car and walk over to the metal barrier. The Honda hums comfortably breaking the oppressive silence. Bugs and gnats surround me—hungry. I swat them away but hear movement off the road. I stop, hand on my weapon and listen.
I don’t hear anything but the wind and the low hum of the bugs.
There’s nothing, I tell myself, approaching the barricade. I lift one end—it’s heavy but not impossible—and shift it to the side. It lands with a louder than intended clank against the asphalt. I tense and look around again.
It’s just me and the bugs, which sound a little louder. Mom rolls down the window and asks, “Should you put it back?”
“It’s probably best not to leave a trail.”
She pulls the car through and I move the barricade back. I’m sweating by the time I get back in the car. “God, the humidity is intense,” I say wiping off my face with my shirt. Again, I hear the buzzing sound and look out the window. “Do you hear that? The bugs?”
“I don’t think that’s a bug,” is all she says, her tired eyes glued to the rearview mirror. “They’re back.”
She takes off like a shot, pushing the Honda as fast as it will go. The trucks, both of them this time, bust through the barricade with zero hesitation. The corn and tobacco fields whip by and the sky turns an even darker shade of gray. Mom moves to turn on her lights. “Don’t.”
“I don’t know where to go, Alex,” she says.