With no better plan, Ethan stood up and walked in the dry creek so the cliff would hide him as he traveled. He tried to walk quietly, but the loose rocks piled along the dry bank shifted under his feet. There were a few trees, tall broad-toothed maples, that cast some shade for him as he walked under the bright sun.

  He came upon a dirt road, which crossed the creek and went up a tall hill to his right. Following the road took him farther from the wildlife park, bodies, and raiders. After walking up the hill a little way, he looked over his right shoulder and back at the burning farmhouse. A pillar of white smoke rose high into the sky as the flames fully engulfed the house. There were no signs of raiders. There were no sounds of a fire truck on its way.

  He picked up a stick that felt sturdy enough to support his weight as the road became steeper up the hill. For the first time, he felt thirsty. His throat was dry and his clothes stuck to the sweat on his body from running.

  Running, he thought, not fighting. Not helping.

  So far, he didn’t help his father, his sister, not even the woman in the Dallas Cowboys T-shirt. He probably got that old couple killed by leading the raiders there. But maybe the raiders would have come anyway.

  Just come home, sweetie.

  The last words his mother spoke to him. At least he could do that. She often needed his help. She said that she should have married a man like him instead of his father. She especially needed help when she was feeling stressed or depressed. She drank the most then. Emily didn’t help. Emily wasn’t going to put anyone ahead of what she wanted in life.

  He could walk the distance, maybe. He reflected on his Boy Scout lessons and did some calculations.

  “The average person can walk up to sixteen miles per day,” he said out loud between heavy breaths while walking up the steep road. “San Antonio is sixty miles from Austin? Yeah, something like that. Four days.”

  He stopped as he reached the top of the hill and looked over the other side. Houses, barns, and sheds dotted the landscape between tilled fields and hill country. He could see the highway, and though it was too far to see any details, he saw cars and trucks piled up along the road and several plumes of black smoke rising from them.

  “Yeah. I can do four days. I did more than that at Philmont, and they had mountains.”

  Ethan tried to ignore the voice in his head reminding him that, at the Scout Ranch, he also had a backpack full of food, water, a tent, and a team of scouts and scoutmasters to help him if he got into trouble.

  While pausing to catch his breath before beginning his descent, he heard the sound of a helicopter. He looked around to see where it was, eventually noticing it over the wildlife park. Shielding his eyes from the sun so he could see it better, Ethan saw that it was a military helicopter like many of the ones he had seen flying over his father’s house in San Antonio.

  The helicopter circled past the white smoke of the burning house and glided over the hill. There was a flash of blue light like lightning but not lightning. It shot up from the ground behind the hill and hit the helicopter, causing it to shudder. The rotors slowed, and the helicopter tumbled over on its side until it crashed to the ground on the other side of the hill.

  Ethan felt his hopes crash with the helicopter as he watched the black smoke rose. He wondered what could have created the blue flash that seemed to turn off the helicopter’s engines. Considering the events of the day, that wasn’t the strangest thing he had seen. But it did tell him that the raiders aren’t just crazy people living in caves. With woolly rhinos, he reminded himself.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  He turned from the path behind and towards the road ahead. He walked down the other side of the hill and was happy to see that the way down was much easier. He could see a house at the bottom and across a field. He hoped to reach it before nightfall. Part of him hoped there was someone there and part of him hoped it was abandoned. He wasn’t sure which would be worse.

  As he walked down the steep dirt road, which wound back and forth down the hillside, he noticed the world seemed to go on as if nothing had happened. The sun still shone down, creating a warm spring day, which Ethan knew would lead to a cold night.

  A gray lizard skittered away to hide under a dead branch as Ethan walked by. A cardinal chirped loudly in the shade of a juniper bush. Mockingbirds fussed at each other over some imaginary territorial line.

  On most days, Ethan would have considered this a nice day for a hike. But today, his father was dead, his sister changed, and his mother was alone.

  Just come home, sweetie.

  He wasn’t on a simple hike. He had a mission to get home. But first, he had to survive the walk to get there.

  As he reached the bottom of the hill, he came to a crossroad. Trees and bushes blocked his sight, and he wasn’t sure which way he should go. If he had a compass, then he would have shot an azimuth to the house from the top of the hill and been able to walk there directly. But now, he had to guess after winding one way and the other down the hill.

  Seeing a gate in the distance to his right. “Well, gates usually mean keep out. And that usually means private property.”

  He looked back in the other direction and saw a plume of black smoke through the trees. “Probably not a good idea.”

  Turning away from the smoke, Ethan walked down the road towards the gate. Gnarled mesquite trees shaded the road. Between the tree trunks, and the thorny bushes that grew around them, he could see an open field.

  Reaching the gate, he was able to get a better look. The field was completely open and tilled. Lying out in the field were more bodies, about a dozen or so. Most of them laid face down in the soil, their clothes stood out against the brown soil. Men, women, and children were trampled into the dirt.

  Ethan imagined people running from the highway only to be caught by raiders on horseback. He wondered what a woolly rhinoceros does to a human being.

  Though he could see the gray roof of a house over oak trees across the field, Ethan decided crossing the field wasn’t worth the risk. He would be too visible, and who knew if those raiders were coming back.

  He could follow the barbed wire fence that circled the field, he decided. Brush and trees grew along the fence, and he could hide if someone came. He hoped he could get to the house before the sunset.

  He hefted his improvised walking stick and wished he had something better than an old juniper branch for a weapon. Ethan followed the barbed wire away from the gate and away from the highway. With the fence to guide him, he wouldn’t get turned around this time.

  Further from the road, traveling was slower. He tried to avoid small patches of prickly pear cactus and was successful most of the time. Agarita thorns jabbed into his thighs through his blue jeans. His arms were scraped but not cut.

  The barbed wire fence led to a small creek, and Ethan was relieved when he found water. He stopped himself from taking a drink, remembering Jacob drinking water from a pond on a dare and how he spent the rest of the camping trip throwing up.

  The scoutmaster had to carry him out so his mother could take him home. Ethan’s mother wasn’t going to come and save him if he got sick.

  He walked in the safety of the creek bed, though he was careful to avoid getting his feet wet. He felt safer traveling in the depression of the creek, and the tall live oak trees, which grew along the banks of the creek, hid him from sight. Birds were more plentiful here, but so were the mosquitoes. Spring was bringing out all sorts of creatures in Central Texas.

  He kept an eye on the barbed wire fence, which was his guide to the house. He hoped he could walk in the creek the whole way and sneak closer to the house to see if it was empty. He stepped across the small trickle of water and froze when he saw a raider just ahead of him.