S. Davis - 900 Miles

Standing taller than I’d ever seen, and pushing his chest out like a peacock displaying its feathers, Rodgers met our gaze and spoke. “I’m going to need you to stop talking with your friends from Avalon. Turn the channel to that radio… now! ”

“What is this?” Jarvis asked, clearly as stunned as I was.

The Hulk was standing tall now, and rubbing the blood from his nose off his face. Kyle was still piloting the helicopter, but not exactly keeping his eyes on the sky. We were all dumbfounded.

“No. What the fuck, Rodgers? You’re not the mole…” Kyle said in immediate disbelief. “Ahh shit. Yes, you are. You’re just crazy enough to do it.” He bellowed in frustration slamming his fist into the ceiling above.

The reality of the situation had set in for Kyle.

Ignoring the question, Rodgers barked at me to change the channel of the radio to 124.050 MHz. Still stunned, it took the gun being pointed at my face before I reached down and hit the buttons, repeating the channel out loud. The last thing I heard before pulling the headset from my head was Mia yelling at Kyle in the background. I could only hope that they would be smart enough to tune in.

With another headset over his ears, Rodgers looked over at the Hulk. Following his gaze, I noticed that the big bastard actually had my hammer held in his meaty paw, which I was none too thrilled about.

“Gordon, I’ve got them. We’re on our way back. Over.”

My heart dropped into the seat. The bastard. We’d been together for months. He was one of us… how the hell did he pull this off? So many things were firing in my mind. In that instant, I was connecting many of the dots. It was all starting to make sense.

Was it possible that he started the fire in the Med Center? After all, he’d picked the location we’d be heading to for the meds. The timing couldn’t possibly have been a coincidence. For a moment, I wondered what else he’d done that I didn’t know about. Could he have been the one feeding Gordon info from inside the walls of Avalon? My mind was racing at all the questions. However, amongst it all, I knew one thing with absolute conviction. If he was the reason, my son was just hours from death, then I’d be making damn sure that the other side of that ledger would be settled for good.

“Hello, friends, miss me?” I heard Gordon’s voice boom through the speaker.

I wanted to disappear into the cockpit seat.

“Well done, Rodgers. I was wondering when you’d call. I trust you’re doing well. Can’t wait to get my best, and most trusted friend back here into the mix.”

In the world of prostitution, there are pimps and there are hookers. The pimp usually “watches” after a number of hookers. That is his job. The pimp, usually, has his favorite hooker. She’s been there the longest and has the highest status. This woman is referred to as his “bottom bitch.”

I had the sudden realization that one of our most trusted friends had just turned out to be the “bottom bitch” to the Antichrist.

“Well, men, I’ll look forward to seeing the lot of you upon your return. Good ol’ Rodgers there will be sure to explain how he infiltrated your camp, befriended you, and lured you out into the open when we signaled him yesterday.”

Patience wins wars. It ran through my head.

“I was afraid you didn’t get the message sent by the Jeep, Rodgers. Unneeded worry, I can see. I almost pulled you from our captors when we had all of you tied up, but something told me that keeping you as one of them would pay off.”

“You were right, Gordon. You should see the looks on their faces. This was worth it.”

“I can’t wait to see it, Rodgers. We’ll catch up shortly. Over and out.”

Glancing at Kyle, I noticed he had turned beet-red from the neck up, the anger stewing in his bloodshot eyes. Kyle wasn’t one to sit on his hands when his temper was flaring. Deep in my gut, I felt certain about one thing. There was no way in hell that we were heading back to see Gordon.

My knuckles turned white.

“Turn us around, Kyle,” Rodgers said, pointing the gun at Kyle’s head.

“What are you going to do? Shoot me?” Kyle challenged in a very low, murderous tone.

“I just might. There’s a shit-ton you don’t know about me. Now turn this fucking bird around.”

“No, go ahead and shoot me,” Kyle replied. I think he was bluffing, but I’ll never know.

“It’s not you I’m going to shoot. It’s your good buddy, John here that gets the first bullet.”

Not the best news I had heard all day…

Kyle’s eyes locked on to mine. He was stuck, and I certainly wasn’t going to scream, pull the trigger.

“You’re outta time, Kyle. Turn us around now , or your butt buddy bestie here isn’t gonna last another minute!”

Kyle’s knuckles turned white against the yoke. Jarvis started to speak, but Rodgersstopped him. “I don’t want to hear from you, old man.”

Flinching, I heard the firearm cock into place, something deep down I knew just to be for dramatic effect. It was working like a charm. My breathing stopped, and I waited for the bullet. For a moment, I found myself wondering which would come first: hearing the gunfire or feeling the bullet pierce my body.

In my mind, I could practically hear the second hand of Kyle’s wristwatch tick slowly around the dial before what was left of the fading sun piercing through the portholes abruptly began to shift around the cabin. As Kyle turned the helicopter the full one hundred and eighty degrees back toward Gordon’s base, I felt the air slowly begin to enter my lungs. However, I found myself unable to ease the iron grip around the seat cushion that I’d unwittingly clasped below.

“That’s a good boy, Kyle. I like the obedience. Now I get to bark out the orders.”

Kyle didn’t respond until he had us completely pointed back toward the direction from which we’d come. “Why, Rodgers? Why the hell would you work with that madman?”

“Why?” Rodgers paused for a moment, looking up ever so slightly at the roof of the helicopter as if trying to compose himself. “Don’t get me wrong. I know we’ve been through some shit. I’ll even admit that there were a few days here and there where I actually thought I might be playing for the wrong team.” He spoke with a distant look in his eyes. Almost as if he felt some semblance of remorse for what he was now doing.

“It isn’t too late, Rodgers. We can still put this behind us and head back to Avalon together. We can survive against Gordon,” Jarvis replied, slightly holding up his hands.

“That’s funny coming from you, Jarvis. You think you’re the good guys,” Rodgers said with a laugh.

“Well, what have we done, Rodgers? What have we done that makes us so evil?”

“What have you done? Well, let’s add it up. First, you stole Avalon from a man that trusted you like a brother. If that wasn’t enough, you did it before my men and I had a chance to make it there. That’s right, I had a small force of ex-military friends and family that I was responsible for. We’d all made plans to meet up with Gordon as part of his utopia. We would have been there to protect it from people like you. It should have been our home. The home of my friends. My brothers. My family.”

He stopped speaking for a moment, glaring at Jarvis with that all-to-familiar crazed look in his eyes.

“We were a hundred miles away, pushing through hordes of the dead… all with the hope of finding refuge in our sanctuary. Instead, we were met with the nightmare of living off the land. There were over one hundred and fifty of us. Less than half were still alive by the time we finally emerged from the madness of those first months. Soaked in blood, and wrung out by Death… we’d been broken down to nothing by the time we met up with Gordon.”