Transcending the Legacy (11 page)

All the other guardians start yelling and screaming at the driver just as the first wave of
Dwellers rams into the truck, setting the truck off kilter before rocking back to the ground.

The second wave is fast approaching as the truck lurches forward, accelerating and pulling away from the rapid mass of hunters.
One of the male Dwellers hits the side of the truck, then falls to the ground. Rolling into the fall, it jumps right up and attempts to attack again, but we are breaking away from them now. They get smaller and smaller, but keep running.

With all of us on edge, we are startled when the truck decreases speed again.
Our bodies shift around in the cab as the truck turns to the left. We are jostled again when the ground below us changes to gravel and rocky earth from concrete road. The trees become thick and tightly woven around the truck as we move on.

I think nothing of it until Daniel makes a comment, “This is not the route.”

“What?” I ask urgently.

Daniel ignores my
question, as he pounds on the front panel of the truck. “Hey! This isn’t the route! Stop!”

No response.

Swiftly, the truck thrusts forward once more before coming to a stop.

With the engine still running, I hear one door opens, then the other, but nothing else. No doors being slammed shut. No voices yelling over the engine.
We all glance at each other before we simultaneously undo our safety belts.

Xander is the first to walk to the back of the truck.
“We should get out,” he says.

Just as Xander reaches for the door, Nate lunges at him taking hold of his hand and bellows,
“No, don’t!”

Monica walks toward the back of the truck.
Nate and Xander step to the side as Monica peers through the windows on the rear doors. “Briggs’ should have been right behind us,” she says reaching around and under her jacket to pull out her handgun.

Sam speaks up, “One gun isn’t going to do anything.
We need more ammunition if we are going to hold anything that may attack us out there. ”

Monica hands the gun she has to Xander then stalks away from the doors,
pulls a duffle bag out from under her seat, and fans it open. Keeping her eyes trained on Sam, she says, “We have more than one gun.”

Systematically she puts a clip in one of the handguns she lifts from the bag. She flips the safety and tosses it to Nate.
Unprepared for the toss, he juggles it before clasping it with two hands. Monica moves on, assembling another clip and gun, then passing it to another guardian. “We don’t have enough for all of us,” she says.

Nate calls out, “Um, I’ll pass.” He looks at Xander uneasily and hands the gun to him.
Xander passes the gun to Nick.

Why would Nate pass up the defense of a gun?

Nick holds it in his hand. “Nate, man, you are a better shot than I am.”

Nate doesn’t answer him. He just clenches and releases his hands anxiously.

Why is he anxious?

Nate looks at me, then down at his own flexed hands realizing I have seen his anxious act.

“What is wrong
, Nate?” The question comes out louder than I expected.

Obviously not expecting my question, Nate stumbles over his words, “Oh, um.” He wrings his hands together, then glances at Xander as he tucks
his hands in his pockets. “My hands are just a little shaky that’s all.”

Sam cocks his gun to chamber the first bullet, drawing the entire trucks attention to him. “You sure that’s it
, Nate?” he questions.

Defensively, I ask Sam curtly,
“What is that supposed to mean?”

Sam shakes his head and raises his hands in surrender, “Just concerned
, Jesca, that is all.”

Monica continues pairing guns with ammunition clips and passes them out
while the rest of the guardians watch and wait for a weapon oblivious to the exchange between Sam and I.

I look back at Xander and Nate. The way they are scrutinizing each other silently, I know they are keeping something from us and it burns me up.
I move in closer to them, pull one of Nate’s hand from his pocket, and hold it between mine. Clammy and shaking, I hold it tighter and ask, “Why are you trembling?”

Before he can answer, Xander w
edges himself between Nate and me, giving Nate the opportunity to pull his hand away from mine and tucks it back into his pant pocket. “Jes, he is fine. He is just tired. Leave it alone,” Xander says condescendingly.

Stunned and aggravated by the way he is talking to me,
I challenge him, “I wasn’t asking you, Xander. But, now that you have butted in maybe you can tell me why he is trembling and you are covering for him?”

He says nothing.
Figures. Now he shuts up. Brilliant. Agh! I could strangle him!

I
look around Xander at Nate, refusing to have him get away with not telling me what is wrong. Xander steps closer to me, blocking my advance. I jab my index finger into Xander’s chest as I say, “If I leave this alone and something happens...”

Xander meets my challen
ge and hisses through his teeth, “Nothing will happen.”

The others are readying their guns, ignoring our low-toned conversation, until my temper gets the better of me and I raise my voice, “You...”

I feel
everyone look at me curiously, then continue loading their weapons. I breath in before I whisper, “You are not protecting me by keeping me in the dark.”

Oblivious to Xander, Nate’s, and my exchange, Sebastian tries to stay positive, “We may not need the gu
ns. Maybe they needed to...relieve themselves.”

Jake is
rummaging through another duffle bag with Monica when he looks up and says, “You mean take a whiz? Nah, they would have radioed Briggs. Plus, Briggs would have been behind us still.”

Nate looks beyond me guardedly before he looks down at me and whispers,
“Jes, please just let it go.”

I feel Xander shift from one foot to the other apprehensively under the weight of my interrogation. “Satisfied?” he asks arrogantly. He then turns to face Nate squarely, “Just stay close to me,
alright?”

I can’t
believe the way Xander is acting, all high and mighty. Everything got weird between them after they left that room in Briggs’ compound. Xander and Nate are both looking over my head preoccupied with something behind me. I follow their gaze and it leads straight to Sam.
Is he in on this too?

I consider approaching Sam, getting him to talk would be much easier than Nate and Xander at this point.

Suddenly, Jake calls out to me. “Heads up, Jes.”

I look up in time to see a semi-automatic rifle being launched
my way. I catch it with both hands. The weight of the metal in my hands sparks both adrenaline and panic all at once. I hadn’t held a gun since the Aoikigahara Forest. God, it seemed so long ago now. I release the safety and cock the gun releasing a bullet into the chamber like it is second nature to me. I close my eyes and think. Whatever is happening with Xander and Nate, they have decided to keep me out of it. I’m not going to get anything out of either them right now. I just need to let it lie and watch them closely. Whatever is going on between them will reveal itself.

I open my eyes and clear my throat.
“Briggs’ will notice that we are not en route and they will look for us.”

Daniel speaks peering steadily out the window, “She’s right. He will track back.”

Siobhan holds her assault rifle next to her flexed bicep with both hands on it and ready. “Maybe, maybe not. Can’t take a chance.”

Ezra smoothly moves toward me, lea
ns in and asks in a hushed tone, “What was that?”

I bite my bottom lip and inhale a deep breath.
I consider telling him what I think may be happening, but my heart clinches and my lips freeze. I can’t tell him that I think there is a chance that something has gotten to Nate. He would do something rash, I know it. I shake my head. “Nothing.”

I feel Ezra eyeing me. “Sure?”

I pretend that I am watching Monica and Jake pass out the guns. “Yeah.”

He sees through me, I know it.

He slowly moves away from me toward Monica and Jake.

Monica hands a gun to Ezra, then tosses one to Siobhan.
“That’s it.”

She rises and stalks to the rear doors, then looks back at us wearily for a brief moment.
She turns back to the doors and pulls the latch up, releasing the doors. The smell of the damp woodland drifts into the cab as we file out behind Monica. Ezra is behind me while Nate and Xander are right in front of me. Small, misting droplets of rain lay pin-pricks on my arms and face. I hear the sound of an engine before seeing Briggs’ truck coming up the narrow dirt road we just drove on.

We all step away from the dirt road and our truck as Briggs’ pulls up behind us.
The front and rear doors are opening before the truck stops and Briggs and his men pour from the front and back of the truck. Their weapons put our little handguns to shame, donning massive assault rifles and magazines of ammunition. Briggs rounds the front of our truck hurriedly, then comes back toward us bellowing, “Where are my men?”

Nick walks around the front of the truck, while Jake looks inside.
Jake steps away from the truck and readies himself again. “No sign of struggle. They just walked away.”

Briggs whistles once and his men and him fan out around us, focused scanning the overgrowth around us. “They didn’t just walk away,” says Briggs.

Our team does the same, branching out from the trucks and into the brush. It is eerily silent.
I make note aloud, “There are no animals.”

Daniel comes up next to me. “Sought shelter, just like us. Well, smarter than us actually. The strongest of the species sought shelter long before we did.
Animals are the first to sense changes. However, they would never survive the changes that were coming.”

The abnormality of being in the forest and not hearing the chirp of birds, the scuffle of a rodent
running in the overgrowth, not even the sound of buzzing bees or clicking crickets is outlandish. This change to our world has silenced these woods. Is this how it will be everywhere forever?

Elisha chimes in, “Is there a chance that the strongest of the species has mutated, a
dapted to survive this climate even without implantation?”

“It is possible that the strongest have mutated, adapted, to survive the changes, but I have not witnessed any proof,” says Daniel.

Elisha chimes in, “You haven’t seen any wild life for a year?”

Daniel is eyeing something in the distance. He answers absently, “No, I haven’t.”

I track his fixed wonder to an opening in the woods revealing a range of foothills.

“Appalachian Mountains?” asks Sebastian.

Out of nowhere, a breeze kicks up from deep in the forest. The light mist hovering in the air, stagnate against the scenery, visibly shifts. I turn my face into the breeze and sense the slightest quiver in my core. The Dwellers! I panic, scanning the woods aimlessly.
Get control, Jes.
I breathe in and out deeply before speaking.

“Ezra? About that thing we discussed earlier…”

Before I finish speaking, Ezra, Nate, and Xander are huddled on all sides of me, guarding me with their eyes on the woods. A spasm wretches my body bending in half and taking my breath suddenly. Nate’s hands takes hold of my arms keeping me from collapsing to the ground. As quickly as the spasm strikes, it begins to fade. The quaking of the vibration in my core remains though.

Ezra’
s voice thunders, “Get her back to the truck.”

I shiver through the radiating tremors as the wretchedness takes rise again in my stomach. “No, you need my help,” I grunt.

Xander’s eyes narrow and he gnarls, “We need you alive.” Xander looks over at Nate watchfully and asks, “Do you have her?”

Nate stutters nervously, “Uh, yeah. I have her. I will take her.”

Nate’s awkward stutter is as disconcerting to Xander as it is to me. Xander shakes his head and growls urgently, “I will take her!”

Before Xander can snatch me from Nate, he
raises his voice, “No, Xander, I have her!”

They are fighting over who is going to guard me? I yell at them both,
“I can take care of myself!”

Ezra snarls pressingly, “Will one of you get her back to the truck, now!”

Nate starts to pull me back toward the truck when I hear the crackling of branches being stomped underfoot echoing in the woods. I breathe through the sensation of heaving and concentrate on tracking the direction of the sound.

Nate tries to pull me by the arm, “Jes, get in the truck.”

I yank my arm out of his hand. “I can’t, you know me, Nate. I have to help!”

He growls, “Damn it
, Jes!”