Silo

Chapter 4

Gripping the ladder, I pulled myself towards the surface and away from the putrid air that hung in the air. I clenched my jaw, focusing on the hazy beams of light ahead, and willed myself to stay quiet, to protect my group with complete silence until we were safe.  

My mind cleared the instant I hit fresh air and I began to question why I ever agreed to leave all that food behind. There was stuff down there we needed-basic medical supplies and water-yet I left them all sitting there with that shell of a girl. At what point was my stupid moral code going to get us all killed? 

I turned a full circle, searching for any sign of the people who lived down in that pit. Evan's lantern nicked my foot, and I reached down to pull him from the hole. Keith surfaced last, his steely gray eyes locked on me as he loaded two small jugs of water and a bag of dried granola onto the sled.  

"You're crazy, Jake. Whoever lives down there has been stealing from us for months. This was our chance to take back what's ours."  

Part of me knew he was right. Hell, I'd seen my own varsity jacket sitting there on top of a pile of clothes they'd no doubt lifted from someone else. Not to mention the stores of dried food and personal items-toothpaste, razors, and toilet paper all now considered luxury items to us.  

"She didn't take anything from us, Keith," I said, grimacing as the unwanted image of her tiny, damaged frame snaked its way through my mind. We couldn't clean them out; I refused to punish her for the sins of whoever was keeping her there.  

Evan removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes in angry circles. He'd seen it too- the hollow expression, the vacant look in her eyes. She was in the bowels of hell, and we'd left her there to rot. I shook off the thought, reminding myself that she was terrified of us. Of me. I offered her free passage, and she'd refused. I was seventeen and could barely take care of myself, never mind Evan and Keith. What more could I be expected to do? 

The sun was already dipping in the sky. If we screwed around here much longer, then we wouldn't have a prayer of making it back to our silo before nightfall. "We gotta move." I slung my rifle over my shoulder, biting back the pain in my foot as I pulled the drag sled to life. "I don't want to be stuck out here after dark."  

We'd walked less than a half-mile and I already had to tell Keith to shut up twice, his incessant mumblings about the supplies pissing me off. 

"I don't give a shit about what happens to that girl," Keith said, talking to nobody in particular. "She probably took that glove off Tyler's dead body herself. Wouldn't be surprised if she had my dad's pocket watch and Coach's leather jacket, too. But no, can't take anything that she might need. Wouldn't want her to go without food or water." 

I tightened my hand around the stock of my gun, willing myself to calm down. "Are you done yet? Because I've had just about enough of your mouth." 

"Nope, just getting started here, Jake." 

"Really? Because you're beginning to piss me off!"  

I rubbed the knuckles on my left hand, massaging the bruised area that had made contact with Keith's jaw last week. He'd gotten in two good swings before he hit the floor, left me with a broken nose that bled for over an hour. That fight had been over which team was best in the National League, as if there was even a National League left to argue about. Even as I cradled my swelling hand that night I'd felt better, relieved. We both knew our fighting had nothing to do with baseball; we were both just looking for a willing partner to vent our anger on.  

"Ahh, poor Jakey, wouldn't want to make you mad," Keith mocked, and I snapped, yanked him and the drag sled to a stop and drew my fist back. 

"Both of you shut up," Evan ground out as he held up a hand and lowered his body beneath the line of dead shrubs. A hint of green flashing in a palette of decaying browns caught my eye. It was the jacket of the man Keith had dropped this morning, still lying face up in the dirt.  

Inching closer, I saw his ragged sleeve and exposed forearm was nothing but a mess of bloody welts. A hiss of air drew my attention skyward and there it was...the circling of a turkey vulture waiting for the living to depart so he could finish up his free meal.  

Keith pulled a pair of tarnished binoculars from his pack and swept the area for looters. With a nod, he slung his shiny new crossbow over his shoulder and trudged through the foliage towards the body. 

The vulture held his circling pattern, its giant wings overshadowing the frail, bony body on the ground. I watched it, wondering if that was one of the last birds I would see in my lifetime. In the past six months, we'd only seen a handful, mostly the wispy bodies of dead barn swallows that could no longer fend for themselves. The day the storm hit, every bird fell from the sky, littering the ground in heaps of colorful feathers before slowly decomposing down to cartilage and bone. I thought that sight was horrid until I saw my first dead body. Pretty soon, the thought of a thousand decaying birds seemed mild compared to the stench of the rot that covered the earth that summer. 

I motioned to the vulture above, warning Keith that we weren't the only ones looking to pick over the dead. Get hungry enough and those things would attack, swoop down and take a slice of your flesh for food. 

Pulling an empty bag from the sled, Evan circled the body. "He's dead Jake."  

"I know," I said, remembering my promise. We didn't take from the living, but the dead...well, they were fair game. "Fine, but make it quick. We need to be home by sunset." 

Keith prodded the man with a stick, one last effort to ensure he was in fact gone. Satisfied with the lack of life, Keith jabbed at the dead man's ankle, twisting it to display the sole of his boot, the number twelve stamped deep into the rubber. "Your size, right?" 

"Yup, mine and Evan's," I said, quickly sizing up Evan's feet. If I remembered correctly, he scored a new pair of boots last month, which meant these were mine. 

A flicker of hope ignited in me as I set my rifle down on a nearby stump and pried the boots from the man's feet. His socks were black, and I reeled, nearly vomited as the stench of infection hit me. Whatever festered beneath those socks was bad, bad enough to make my puny blister look like a beauty mark. But, I needed those boots.  

I pried them off with a stick and put them on the drag sled, making sure they were a safe distance from anything we might consume. I'd boil some water when we got home and let them soak overnight before I put them on. Hopefully by morning, whatever was living in them would be as dead as the man wearing them.  

Keith and Evan worked through the man's pockets, pulling out an ancient switchblade, some line, and a few rusty fishing hooks. Evan jerked the man's belt from its loops, rolling it into a thick coil of leather that he tucked safely into his pack.  

"Another belt, huh?" That kid must've had thirty lined up in his room. Where I went for food, and Keith went for weapons, Evan always took the rope and the belts. Something about the strength of the leather and the usefulness of lashings. 

"You know it," Evan said, smiling for the first time in nearly a week. "This belt may very well save your life one day." 

"No doubt," I laughed as I slid to the ground next to him and took the piece of dried fruit he offered me from his pack. As far as I was concerned, this geeky, neighborhood friend of mine was the sole reason any of us were alive. If it hadn't been for his methodical brain and asinine Boy Scout skills, then we all would've been dead months ago. 

Evan turned the man over, the only dignity we could afford him under the circumstances. That's when I noticed it-the thick bulge in the back of his tattered jeans. A pocket we'd overlooked. I worked it open with my stick, the faded leather of a wallet showing through. Gripping the edge with my fingertips, I slid it free and shook loose the layer of filth coating it. The crack of worn leather brought Evan to my side as I stared down at the smiling faces of the dead man's family. A mom and a dad, two kids, and a dog. Not unlike my family, not unlike Evan's.