Rachel and Lopez Take a Trip across the Lake (Patreon)

Rachel left her tent in the Junkyard’s parking lot just as the moon hit the high point of the night sky. She had been told by Jamie not to follow the three River Dogs back to their base, but he said nothing of scouting their base after they left. She wasn’t entirely sure where they came from, but she knew enough about them to have an educated guess. In her line of work, educated guesses often lead to successful missions.

Most of the group slept in their quarters and only three took watch duty at this hour: Lopez, Brody, and Gina. Brody and Gina worked hard all day, the young Milford helping with repairing the main fence and Ginabuilding with a Crow’s Nest for the front gate. Neither would be too sharp on watch. She would have recommended to Jamie that he sit the pair out tonight in exchange for a solid night’s sleep. However, she felt the Junkyard’s defenses would repel intruders, and she could easily slip past a sleepy Brody and Gina.

That left Lopez. He took more breaks than any other survivor. He ate more than any other survivor. Somehow he kept a thermos of coffee with him all day. He was single-handedly the night watch and seemed to relish the duty. She would have to slip by him with greater care and planning.

Her opportunity came not long after she left her tent. Lopez stepped away from his post at the front gate, slipped outside, and wandered into the woods. Maybe he was taking a smoke break or maybe he sought privacy to relieve himself. She didn’t care as long as he wasn’t in position to watch her leave.

She followed him from behind, taking careful steps to avoid alerting him with broken twigs or crinkled leaves. Like a moose traipsing through the forest, Lopez shoved aside tree branches and plodded over blankets of grass with no care for remaining silent. Rachel could have easily slipped past him and moved towards the lake, but she grew curious as he took a sharp turn around a grove of trees. She crouched and moved with a silent walk she had learned in her days of training. Moving through the forest was never easy, especially one as overgrown as these Colorado woods. At the edge of the grove, she brought her body tall and hid in the wide cover of the trunk of a spruce cherry.

She listened but heard nothing. No heavy footsteps. No yawns or deep breaths. No peeing. She slipped around the tree trunk and scanned a sliver of the forest. No one. Where the hell was he?

“Whatcha doing, Rach?”

She spun towards the voice and saw Lopez standing a few feet away with his hands on his head. He arched his back and stretched while flashing a mischievous smile. Even in the moonlight she could see the defined muscles of his arms and the contours of his abs. He had the scruff of a few days not shaving, though his mustache came in a few days thicker. For a moment, she forgot his question. It had been a while since she had been with a man, and Christian Lopez was certainly her type. Unfortunately she was not his type. He made no attempts to hide his gazes at Dante and Jamie.

“Looking for you. I was getting ready to check out the lake. Interested?”

She was screaming at herself in her mind. What the hell are you doing? You wanted to take this trip alone, so why are you inviting him?

He eyed her with suspicion, but he never dropped that smile. “I don’t see you as a lady who likes skinny-dipping at night. What’s at the lake?”

“I don’t skinny-dip,” she said with an awkward laugh. What is wrong with you? Since she already screwed up her plans, she may as well bring him along. This would provide her and opportunity to assess his ability. Was he as capable as his confidence suggested? “You know those three survivors that Brody and Madison came across earlier today? When I went back to talk with them with Jamie and a few others, the three River Dogs mentioned they lived on the other side of Sapphire Lake. I want to go there and find their haven.”

Lopez looked impressed. He brought his arms across his chest with one hand to his chin. “I wouldn’t mind checking it out. You ready to go?” He didn’t wait for an answer but grabbed his carbine leaning against at a tree and walked west. She followed after him, and he moved with a quiet calmness to the natural path where the dirt had been beaten down by years of animals trudging through this land and eating away the underbrush. She remained close at his back but kept her eyes on both sides of the trail.

He tried to chat with her, but she shut him down. They needed to stay as quiet as possible. He kept asking questions or commenting on landmarks. He gossiped about Bailey and Brody’s not so secret love affair and the way Kevin hit on Madison. At one point he asked if she had eyes for any survivors, but she deflected him. Oddly enough, she enjoyed the company. Most of her conversations around the Junkyard were about defense or survivor training or plans for the future. She didn’t engage in frivolous talk, but walking with Lopez in the moonlight through the forest felt like a break from the drudgery. It almost felt like they were on a date.

Without a boat to take them across, Lopez and Rachel traveled to the southern portion of the lake where it was at its most narrow spot. Though part of her wanted to see Lopez strip down and swim across the lake, it would have taken way too long. These thoughts about Lopez were certainly worrying her. She needed to stop this foolishness and concentrate. They were headed into enemy territory. Though the River Dogs did not come off as a highly trained militia like the Silverthornes, they were wildcards. She knew little about them and that was sometimes more dangerous than a fleshed out enemy.

When they set foot on the western side of Sapphire Lake, Rachel spotted the River Dog’s base. A tall gray factory with a dry smokestack stood a few hundred meters from shore. They resumed their trek and double timed it, until they broke the tree line. The factory stood out as an eyesore, with broken windows and scorched walls and black and purple blotches that looked like bruises. She saw no one watching from the broken windows, no searchlights, nor gates. It was an abandoned vessel of society’s failure — a building erected in the forest and then left behind. At least the River Dogs made use of it.

“How are we getting in there?” Lopez asked and swung around his carbine to the ready.

She put her hand on the barrel and lowered the gun. “I highly doubt they will engage us, so let’s not get trigger-happy. Those large sliding doors are likely barred shut, but let’s walk the perimeter to find a point of weakness.”

“Hearing you talk all spy-like gets me excited,” he said.

She ignored the comment, pretending she didn’t hear it. The building blocked moonlight on the eastern side, creating an area of blackness which provided them cover. She led the way, and at one point, she felt Lopez’s hand on her back.

“I’ll keep touching you, so you know I’m here.”

She felt her body stiffen and forced it to relax. Stay in the game, girl.

The first two doors were locked, but on the northern side of the building, she noticed a fire escape which only went above the first story and ended in a broken platform. She pointed up, and her companion patted her shoulder. When she turned to face him, she laced her fingers together and crouched. He put his boot in her hands and held her shoulders with his stomach against her face. He smelled raw like a man, sweaty with a musk that reminded her of the men in her training corps. As she boosted him up, he reached high and grabbed the bottom bars. Not to make any noise, he hung there for a moment to let the platform shift with his weight. Once it settled, Rachel took a running leap and wrapped her arms around his legs. She reached higher to his shoulder and pulled herself up. Her legs gripped him like a snake, and she wiggled her hips over him. The movements distracted her and she imagined doing this to him in her tent later that night, how he’d live there handcuffed and she slithered over him like a snake. She shook her head and forced the image out of her mind. He grunted and groaned as she climbed him like a rope, and as her chest passed his face, he crinkled his nose.

“Your pocket tickled me,” he whispered.

When she reached the platform, she swung one leg over to straddle the top bar and then helped him to climb up the rest of the way.

“That was fun,” he said with that same Lopez smile.

She ignored the comment and turned to the wall. Time and rain had eroded the concrete, and sections were patched with brick. In this area, the mortar had worn away which provided footholds and handholds. Rachel climbed the short distance to a window above her. When she felt a ledge, she vaulted up and stood outside a broken window. Thick darkness consumed the room. As she heard Lopez scrambling up the wall, she took out a pair of night vision goggles — her only pair. Putting them on, they bathed their room in a green hue and allowed her to see an empty office.

“What’s the plan?” he whispered and crouched next to her.

“I’m going in to scout. If you see any movement out here, fire your rifle once in the air.”

“What if you get into trouble?”

She said nothing and climbed into the room. Her foot stepped onto the floor. It felt spongy and slick, and she spotted a slow trickle of water from the ceiling onto a puddle on her left. Crossing the room, she slipped through a half open door. More darkness. Creeping along the hallway, she saw inside the next few rooms. This floor held the same offices over and over again, all abandoned and ramshackle. In a few she saw a sleeping bag or a swath of blood on the floor now made dark green due to the night vision goggles. The whole place reminded her of a found footage horror movie. She’d call this one Search through Hell Factory.

When she reached the end of this hallway, she saw a set of double doors with a thin metal gate over the glass windows. She could see through the gate to a thick metal chain and padlock through the door handles on the inside. Twenty or so people filled the room, sleeping on cots, mats, and sleeping bags. Even in the false light of her goggles, she could make out few fine details, except for recognizing Amir, one of the River Dogs she had met earlier with Jamie. He slept on a blowup mattress with a hatchet in his hand. Nearby a small and thin man slept on a mattress propped on top of a metal desk. A motorized wheelchair sat beside him.

As she looked around the room, she saw piles of trash, dirty faces, a few portable grills, an oxygen tank, boxes and crates and duffel bags, and a CB radio on a nightstand by a barred window.

Someone stirred on the floor just past the double doors — a man with a thick gray and black beard. He lied next to a thin and wiry young man. She recognized them, Sam and Peter Makarov. They lived in the neighborhood back at Vince’s house. A few troublemakers and nothing more.

As she stared at Peter, Sam sat up. Rachel ducked and slipped on the floor, landing on her bottom. She scrambled backwards, turned, and bolted for the window. Lights went on behind her, and she ripped off her night vision goggles and sprinted to the last office on the right. She plunged into the dark room and only slowed to climb out the window.

“We have to go now,” she said and motioned for Lopez.

As he started down the side of the wall, he asked, “What happened?”

“I may have gotten spotted.”

They shimmied down the wall and hang jumped off the broken platform of the fire escape. As soon as they hit the weeds beside the factory, they bolted to the tree line. When they made it to cover, Rachel took out a pair of binoculars and looked back to see the response of the River Dogs. No one followed, no reaction force, no shining lights. Nothing. 

I guess I’m not surprised. What can I expect from broken people?

Panting, Lopez leaned his back against the tree. “Are we in danger? Should we go back and wake our group to get ready?”

Rachel shook her head. She felt like crying. “We have nothing to worry about. Those people are barely surviving. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but if we could spare the food I’d give it all to these River Dogs. Since we can’t afford it, and we have people like Jamie and Parker in our group, let’s not tell them about this.”

Lopez stood, moved in front of her, and embraced her in a hug. Rachel wrapped her arms around him, and now she let herself cry.