G Hopf - The End

Gordon, Samantha, Nelson and Nelson’s parents who had arrived while Gordon had been out had been packing the truck and trailer since the night before. Wishing they could have more privacy was impossible. Under the watchful eye of every neighbor they loaded box after box of supplies, food, water, medicines and gear. The next morning they would finally leave Rancho Valentino and head east to get as far away from major urban centers as possible. Knowing they could encounter “road agents” or bandits, they planned on traveling during the day.

They couldn’t pack quick enough, neighbors kept walking by and looking. The word had spread quickly that they were leaving with Jimmy, Simone and four other families, the Pomeroy’s, Thompson’s, Behrens’ and Jerrod’s wife and child. Gordon was also happy to have the two Marines, Sgt. Holloway and Lance Corporal Fowler, join their group. They had provided a lot of good information and had managed to secure two operational Jeeps with trailers. Holloway also had a wife and little girl. One family notably missing was Eric’s. They all had tried to convince her to come but she was staying, she believed Eric would return. The prospect of Eric returning was slim, as it had been a long time since his disappearance.

James, the elderly neighbor who lived a couple doors down, kept watching them. Others would walk by, whisper to each other and point. Gordon didn’t like it and made his displeasure known by asking them rhetorically, “What are you looking at?”

Gordon was back inside the house loading a box of canned food when the door opened and Nelson rushed in.

“Gordon, come outside quick!”

Stopping what he was doing he followed Nelson out into the garage, there he ran into a sweating and exhausted Jimmy.

“Jimmy, you okay? What’s up?” Gordon asked concerned.

He put his finger up to indicate he needed a second to catch his breath then managed to say, “Eric’s back.”

“What?”

“Damn, I thought losing a few pounds would make running easier. Yeah, he’s back. Speaking of losing a few pounds, he lost some weight and he’s tortured but he’s home.”

“Nelson, sorry to leave you with this but I want to go see Eric.”

“No problem, you go. I got this.” Nelson said looking around at all the boxes in the garage.

Gordon started running toward Eric’s house. His injuries prevented him from keeping a good pace and a heavy feeling started to creep up on him. Not wanting to overdo it, he slowed down to a quick walk. He thought back to the day of the attack, he had been out for a run that day. That was the last day the neighborhood looked manicured. Most of the houses now looked like something out of an impoverished third-world country; the hanging tarps and clothes, the strong smell of feces, the dead plants and grass, cars covered in a thick layer of dust. The clean and manicured feel of the community was gone. It had turned from a cute, beautiful family neighborhood to an unkempt, worn survival camp. Houses were no longer “homes,” they were shelters.

Gordon arrived at Eric’s house and banged on the door for what seemed like minutes. Melissa finally answered and didn’t look happy to see him.

“Gordon, hi.”

“Hi, Melissa; I just heard. Can I come in and see him?”

She didn’t answer right away; she turned around and looked back into her house. Gordon could hear Eric say something but he couldn’t make it out.

“Yes, come on in. He’s in the kitchen.”

Gordon walked directly back to the kitchen. First seeing Eric was shocking. He had lost a lot of weight and his face and arms were covered in a mix of fresh and older wounds.

“Eric, I can’t say how good it is to see you. I have to say when I woke up and heard you hadn’t made it back, I feared the worst,” Gordon said.

“It’s good to see you, too. I feared the worst, too,” Eric said slowly.

“Listen, I don’t want to put pressure on you but I have to. We have to leave tomorrow. Everything has gone to shit here. It’s too much to explain now, but we want you to go with us.”

“Okay, we can do that,” he said, looking at Gordon with his sunken eyes.

“You can ride with us, we have a camper trailer. I need you to pack up everything that is useful. We’re never coming back.”

“Okay.”

“Gordon, can we wait a day or two? He needs to rest and get back on his feet, look at him,” Melissa said, concerned for her husband. She walked over to Eric and put her arm around him.

“Melissa, we don’t have time, we—,” Gordon was saying when Eric interrupted him.

“Mel he’s right, we have to leave. Gordon I have some bad news. It’s a big problem. The guys who attacked us, well they captured me. I managed to escape a few days ago but had to live in the shadows to make it home,” Eric paused to take a drink of water and a breath. “Gordon, they know about our community and plan on coming here for our resources soon. I overheard someone when I was there. I think he’s their leader, his name Pablo. They weren’t happy about that day. They lost a lot of people.”

“How do they know where we are?” Gordon asked.

Eric looked at Gordon again with those dark sunken eyes.

“You don’t have to say anything, really don’t worry about it,” Gordon said, anticipating Eric’s answer.

“It wasn’t me Gordon, it was Dan. I overheard them talking about capturing Dan weeks ago. He apparently spilled the beans and promised to take them to us because we had stockpiled tons of food and water.”

“So that son of a bitch led us into an ambush. He wanted us out of the way to make way for them,” Gordon grew angry.

“Gordon, you’re right; we need to leave as fast as we can,” Eric said as he reached over and grabbed Gordon’s arm. “We have to go, they’re coming and they have an army of people.”

“Melissa, please start packing all food, water, medicines, batteries, gear, equipment etcetera that we will need,” Gordon said in a commanding voice to Melissa. He then looked at Eric and said, “I’m taking everyone to Idaho, we have a place there, we can live off the land and start over.”

Eric just nodded.

“We leave at 7 a.m. tomorrow. If you need any help packing, let me know. We’ll be over in a few hours to pick up your stuff.”

“Okay Gordon, we’ll be ready,” Melissa said.

Gordon’s day would be full of surprises. When he turned the corner onto his street he saw that the small crowd of people outside gawking had grown into a large unruly crowd. Nelson was standing his ground with a shotgun trained on them. As he got closer, he saw Dan and Mindy at the front of the crowd.

Gordon reached the crowd and pushed his way through till he reached Dan, who was yelling at Nelson. Grabbing Dan’s shoulder he pivoted him and struck him in the face. For Gordon, the look on Dan’s face was priceless. Dan fell to the ground with Gordon following by jumping on him. Gasps came from the crowd as they backed away from the two men fighting. Seeing what had happened, Mindy started yelling. Gordon heard her, but chose to ignore her. He gave all of his attention and rage to Dan. After a series of punches Gordon saw blood. This encouraged him to hit more. Feeling his own wounds reminded him that Dan was the cause. The street justice he was serving to Dan made his pain worth it. Finally, a few in the crowd took action and grabbed Gordon. Resisting vigorously he kept swinging but eventually his resistance was not enough. It took four men to pull Gordon off of Dan, who lay on the sidewalk covered in his own blood. Gordon took pleasure knowing he had broken Dan’s nose, which lay flat against his face.

“You son of a bitch!” Dan said, shaking his head back and forth.