Yonder

Chapter Five

            The temperature began to rise over the next few days and Echo and Felix didn’t save their coats from last winter. Felix didn’t mention it. He didn’t want to bother Echo; he could tell she was getting worried.

            The two did not see another human soul until seven days had gone by, when they were in some strange town in what Felix discovered to be ‘Pennsylvania’.

            While walking through an open field with tall grass and teeming with cattails and random puddles, Echo suddenly jumped onto Felix, taking him to the ground. Felix almost asked why until he heard the sound of not one but several guns cocking.

            “Don’t move,” Echo whispered, barely making herself heard. She quickly shook off her hunting bow and got in a crawling position. Holding the arrow to the side, she squinted through the tall grass. “When you hear him yell,” Echo continued to whisper to Felix, “get up and start shooting behind me.”

            “Okay, but what are you-?”

            Felix cocked his own gun but before he could finish his sentence, Echo had fired her arrow, and something screamed out, swearing up and down. Felix did not even register what he was doing, but he jumped up dodging randomly, shooting at two figures many yards away from him. He pulled Echo’s knife out of her pocket as she was crawling towards the fallen scream. Tucking and rolling towards the two other men who were wildly shooting.

            Apparently they couldn’t keep an eye on him because Felix shot one of them in the foot and took out the other one by nearly breaking his leg.

            “STOP!” Another shout finally rang out, but this time it was Echo’s. Felix turned around, confused. She had her arm wrapped around the man she had shot.

            Felix kept his gun raised and pointed it at the man. “Get away from her!”

            Echo put her hands up and smiled. She almost always smiled and it drove Felix crazy. “Felix, they’re fine!!”

            Felix frowned, looking perplexed, but he didn’t lower his weapon. “Who are they?!” He whirled back around to see if the other two men had gotten up; they were in the fetal position, moaning.

            Echo didn’t have to respond; she locked her gaze on Felix’s gun. After almost a minute, he huffed and reluctantly stuffed the gun back in his jeans.

            “Felix,” She began, warily taking steps towards the child. “I’d like you to meet Daniel.”

            Felix frowned. He suspected they knew each other, but it didn’t change the fact he wanted a bullet in the stranger's head.

            The man named Daniel waved with a smile on his face, but his two buddies were hobbling away, with wounds in their lower limbs.

            With no other introduction, Felix and Daniel were forced to shake hands and Felix followed the mysterious man.

            After twenty minutes of clinging to the sides of steep hills Echo and Felix finally got to the glorified bunker. Felix scoffed in as he trudged through the rusty titanium door under the little hill. Once the two entered Felix couldn’t believe his eyes and he turned to Echo, seeing that she couldn’t either.

            “Dan, this is incredible…” she muttered under her breath.

            The guy chuckled, wiping sweat from his heavy brow. “Yeah,” he shrugged. “It’s not that great. There’s a whole other floor under us but we just use that as, like, a fridge.”

            “There’s food?” Felix couldn’t help but ask. He hadn’t had an actual meal in... ever.

            Daniel smiled at Echo then to the boy. “You hungry?”

            Felix found himself nodding like a little child, begging for a toy.

            Daniel waved over an older woman who emerged from a shadowy corner. “You want some nice goose, kiddo?” The woman smiled, her salt and pepper hair glistening in the flickering fluorescent lighting.

            Felix glanced at Echo. She laughed. Felix had no idea what goose was. He’d heard of it, but he didn’t know if he liked it or not.

            “Yes,” Echo replied for him. “He’d love some.”

            The old woman clapped her hands together and began walking towards a stairway at the end of the hall. Felix followed and the two descended down the stairs into the chilly part of the bunker. His favorite part: where the food was.