Generation Dead - 07 (8 page)

Lane Tucker held out his hand.  “I may do that, son.  I just may do that.”  He motioned to his men and the three started back towards the town.

“Tucker!”
Jake called.

Lane turned back. “What is it?”

“Should I have killed Casey?”

Lane thought about it for a moment.  “
Yes,
”
he
said as he walked away
.

Jake nodded and we got back into our canoe, pushing off and heading down the canal towards home.

Chapter 13

We were quiet for a long time, passing under the bridges that led to the other side of the river. 

Finally Jake spoke.  “If I don’t see the capital again for a while, I won’t be too sorry.”

“I would agree with
that,
” I said, angling the canoe to hit the swifter currents of the shallows.

Julia spent the next few minutes relating to Jake what had transpired after the delivery of the goods.  Jake listened quietly, and looked back once to nod after hearing my part in it.

“Place needs some changing.  Don’t know what, though, outside of a good fire.” Jake paddled a bit more, speeding us towards the spillway and the generating station.

“Yup.”
  I matched his strokes and together we moved towards home.  We wouldn’t get there until morning, home being over sixty five miles by water away, but we’d make good time and spend the night at one of our stopping places. 
It  didn’t
matter too much where we were, no one was waiting for us at home anyway.

We paddled and drifted until the sun began
its
descent, and we found ourselves at Goose Lake Prairie Preserve.  I moved us across
Heidecke
Lake and headed for the docks.

“Good call,
Aaron,
” Jake called out. “My arms were getting tired.”

“Me,
too,
” Julia said.

“What?” I yelped.  “You haven’t done anything but keep our packs warm and stick your fingers in the water!”  I directed this at Julia.

“Someone had to do it.  It’s a tough job.” Julia tried to say this with a straight face, but failed miserably.

I slapped the water with my paddle and managed to slice a bit of water over the side of the canoe.  My aim was of and I hit Jake in the head.

“Hey!” Jake yelled while Julia giggled.

“Sorry!” I called, trying to correct the boat as it started to swing in the current.  The docks were actually behind a couple of breakers, and getting into the harbor without a motor was tricky.

Jake growled and slapped the water with his own paddle, sending a decent wave up and behind him.

It would have been very effective had Julia not been in the way.  As it was, she took the brunt of the wave in her face, leaving her sputtering and cursing.  I laughed, and she would have gone for water to hit me with if I hadn’t threatened to tip the damn canoe over and drown the both of them.

We slipped into the harbor laughing, and it was good to get the tension out of ourselves. 
Leport
had left a bad taste in our mouths, and we needed to release it somehow.

Docking the canoe, we tied it off and walked over to the grassy area which used to be a picnic area, by the looks of things.  The grass was about knee high, but we could still see the old tables, and the pavilion was still standing, although the roof was starting to slew to one side.

I walked around in a small area, checking for rocks, before I put up my little
one-man
tent.  Jake and Julia did the same, and as the sun started to set, we talked about the trip and
about
what we were going to do next.

“Ever think about doing something else?”  Jake asked.

“Like what?”  I replied.  “We weren’t raised for much else.”

“
Maybe,
” Jake said. “Maybe we
were
raised for something else, we just haven’t figured out what it is.”

I looked at Jake
as if
he was nuts.  “We were brought up to be able to do one thing: survive.  We trained to fight both zombies and men, and all of our skills have brought us one source of income: going where no one else wants to go.”  I stood up and looked out over the river.  “Face
it,
Jake,
it’s all we were supposed to do.”

“Not good
enough,
little brother.  I keep thinking there’s a purpose behind this, behind everything that’s happened.  I can’t explain it, but I’m trying to figure out what it is.”  Jake seemed
as if
he was about to say something else, but he stopped himself.

“What does your gut say, Jake?” Julia asked, interrupting the silence. 

Jake looked at her.  “It says we were meant to do more than just be garbage collectors.” Over our protests, he said loudly, “Let’s be real.  We go and risk our necks for crap that other people haven’t got the guts to go get.  When does it end?  When do we reach the point where everything anyone has ever wanted is going to be collected?”  Jake looked out over the water to the West.  “I just have been feeling lately that there’s something more we’re supposed to be doing.”

“Well, big brother, when you figure it out, you let me know.  For now, we’re
collectors,
”  I
said, stretching out and watching the stars slowly blink into existence in the purpling sky.

“Something to think about,
Aaron,
” Jake said.

“Now what?”

“Why are we saving our money?  What’s the point?”

“What do you mean?”  I had to admit I hadn’t been expecting this line from Jake.

“We’ve got a lot of money from our collecting.  Why?  We don’t need food or shelter.  We’re able to go into the grey zones and get whatever we need.  Why the money?  What’s our end game with it?”  Jake sounded like he had been giving this a lot more than just a cursory thought or two.

“Go to sleep.”

“Just wondering, little brother.”

I closed my eyes, but
Jake’s
words had struck a chord.  What
were
we getting paid for?

Chapter 14

We packed up early in the morning and got underway while the river and the surrounding countryside
were
still asleep.  The sun hadn’t come up yet, but the grey dawn was turning blue and the sun was very close behind. 

We passed
Ottawa
and Morris, and there was a bit of urgency in our strokes as we got closer to home.  Julia was more anxious than normal, and we would be happy to walk familiar paths once again.

Around mid-morning, we pulled into the dock.  Our big motorboats looked at us in askance, wondering when we would take them out for a stretch.  Across the river, at Eagle Island, the livestock wandered to the river’s edge for their morning drink.  I
looked
up towards Eagle Point, but as usual, no one was there.  It would have been nice to
see
a couple of tall figures standing there, but as I had come to expect, that
probably
wasn’t going to happen.

After tying up our canoe, we walked in silence up the hill and across the lawn.  It hadn’t been cut in several days, and was starting to get a little fuzzy.  I could see Jake scowling at it and I knew he would be out cutting it as soon as he could.  I never figured out why Jake did that, it was something he picked up a couple of years ago.  I guess it kept him busy.

We passed the
guesthouse
, which once upon a time was the Visitor Center to the park we lived in.  I don’t know why we had a guest house, since we lived in a lodge that had hundreds of rooms, but we needed it for something.

Climbing up the stairs, we went from forest floor to forest canopy.  The landscape spread out before us, and as always, I was struck by the beauty and solitude of the place we called home.  The river, the forest, the rock formations, the canyons, and the trails, all made this a fantastic place to live.  The only thing missing was differentiated company, but we got enough of that on our travels to the various towns and cities.

Once inside, we dropped our gear in the storeroom and went our separate ways.  The first thing on my list was a shower, and I didn’t doubt it was first on the list for Julia and Jake.  I went up to my suite of rooms, noting the still closed door across the hall.  One of these days, Jake and I will open it, but it still hurt a lot.

A
n
hour later, I was in the main lounge area by the fireplace, burning off any excess zombie glop from my weapons and sharpening their already razor-sharp edges.  My sword took the longest, mostly because it was over thirty inches of cutting edge.

Julia came in, rubbing her hair with a towel and wearing clean clothes. 

“You busy?”  She asked.

“Not
really,
” I said, running an oily rag over my blade and sheathing it.  “What’s up?”

“Nothing, I was just going to go visit mom, and wanted to know if you wanted to come with.

I thought for a second.  “Yeah, maybe that might be what I need.”

“Come on.”  Julia took my hand and together we headed out of the lodge and down the stairwell.  We crossed the main area, and I smiled when I saw Jake working the lawn mower, clearing out the tall grass, and keeping the place looking
like it always had, even back in the day when the place was a spot for tourists.  Never could figure out why he
did that, and he wasn’t telling
.

We climbed the main steps of the chimney rock formation that rose out of the riverside and stood like a sentinel over the Illinois River.  At the top, we looked out for a moment at the big bend in the river, easily being able to discern the town of
Ottawa
.  Over to the west and north, Utica could be seen, although there wasn’t much left.  The years had not been kind, and two out of every three buildings were caved in and covered in brush.  In the river was a small dam, and through
it,
a small generating station provided us with power. 

Julia tugged at my hand.

“Come on.  We didn’t come up here to see the sights.”

I allowed myself to be led, and each step brought back a lot of memories and a lot of feelings.  We followed a small trail to the center of the pillar, crossing ancient stones put there by the French
Army
a long time ago.  There had been a fort once on top of this rock, and a hotel, if the information from the Visitor Center was to be believed.  But the top of this rock served another purpose, now.

We stepped into the small clearing and approached the two graves that had been dug there.  Simple wooden crosses marked the
gravesites
, and Julia approached the one on the right.  The marker simply said
Rebecca
.
  I went and stood by the marker on the left.  This one simply
said,
Sarah.

The graves were about fifteen feet apart, and allowed for Julia and
me
to have some private time with our respective mothers.

“Hi,
Mom,
” I said, sitting down on the warm grass. “I’m back.”

We spent the better part of an hour, just sitting quietly and talking softly to our mothers.  Julia occasionally ran her hands through the grass on the grave, sometimes holding the grass, as if she was holding her mother’s hand again.

I talked of the things we had done, and mentioned how Jake was acting funny.  I didn’t talk about my father at all, that was a subject I tended to avoid when he wasn’t here with me.  It was awkward, anyway. 

As the sun went higher, Julia finally kissed her hand and placed it on the name on the marker.  That was her signal it was time for goodbyes, and I said my own, standing quickly.  It had been two years since our mothers had passed away.  Two years since our fathers silently dug these graves. 
Two years since we had last seen our fathers.
  One morning we woke up to find our dads’ weapons gone, their truck missing, and a note on the table that just said:

This place isn’t home right now. 

We have things to do. 

Don’t follow
.

Jake went
a little nuts
for a while, being angry all the time and blaming our dads for all the ills of the world. 
However,
as the days passed and the hurts started to heal, Jake began to get over it.  He seemed his normal self for a while, but for the past month,
he had
been acting a little funny, and our conversation last night proved he had something in his head.

We didn’t speak all the way back to the main stairwell.  We just held hands, and that was nice enough for me.  At the top of the stairs, we saw Jake waiting for us on
the patio.  He had a slip of paper in his hand and I knew what it was before he even spoke.