#Inktober2019 - Day 01, 'Mindless'

As originally posted at https://archiveofourown.org/works/20854958/chapters/49573574

Apathy is the real enemy.

Some people, of course, would say it’s the monsters. After all, they’re the reason our land and homes were smothered beneath an endless cloud of poisoned fog. They’re the reason our dwindling group of survivors don’t sleep even when they’re not on watch. They’re the reason why every year we have to strip down the rotting shelters for parts and retreat a little higher into the mountains.

So, sure, the monsters might be the ones who’re killing us.

But they’re not the reason we’re dying out.

I shiver beneath a thin, mouldering blanket as I roll over, ears straining to pick out any suspicious noise above the patter of rain on the tent’s canvas. The creaking boughs of dead trees, the whispering of the wind against the door flap, the crackling embers of a camp fire - all mundane sounds which could obscure something far more dangerous. At least the rain isn’t glowing. It only happened once, but it only needed to. Seeing what it did to those it touched was all the prompting I needed to stow a pistol beneath my bed and decide which temple to put the single bullet through if it happened again.

No, for all the threat of the beasts and the mist, the reason we’re dying out now is the same reason we were dying out four years ago: apathy. There were sixty of us back then, a dozen hardened preppers plus an assortment of those family and friends who seemed like they could contribute useful skills. You wouldn’t expect apathy from preppers, of course, and it didn’t start that way. We finished the bunker months before teotwawki, and I was damned proud of it - power, water, storage, sewerage and enough food to live inside for half a decade with proper rationing, and all the guns, knives, and medicine we’d need to protect ourselves once we came back out. Between walls wrought from an inch and a half of the finest American steel and the best CBRN shielding money could buy, the bunker was impregnable.

The mist didn’t care.

I think I knew, even at the time, that those of us who were retreated to higher ground were making a mistake. Flooded out of the bunker with the fog creeping ever further inland, pulling back above its tide made sense. Staying where we were wasn’t an option; getting above it was an easy decision. We discussed where we should go to make sure we had access to fresh water and good sightlines, which routes would give us the best opportunities to scavenge replacement supplies, even who would be most expendable, once the hard decisions needed to be made. In our apathy, we asked the easy questions, not asking the difficult one - the most important of all.

What if it doesn’t stop rising?

Most of us made the lazy choice. To retreat higher: to try and wait out the end of days. A mindless, reckless decision, the same instinctive reaction as snatching a hand back from flames rather than the meticulous planning and foresight we were used to.

And so, we climbed. Forty feet at first, circling our vehicles and stripping a derelict ranger post for parts. When the mist reached that, we retreated again, another twenty feet to an old campground, and again, and again. By the time the poison tide finally halted, we were a thousand feet above the ground, trapped on an island peak in a sea of sickly clouds and bloody claws.

In the years since we encamped on this mountain, we’ve made some improvements. A haphazard barricade of rotten wood and rusting metal panels, what little we could scavenge during those weeks and months where the mist recedes heaped together to block the road and moved higher as necessary. A barricade to keep us safe, that was the idea. In reality, it just marks the furthest boundary of the prison we’ve built for ourselves.

We’ve gotten pretty good at fighting the freaks off, so that they don’t often bother us anymore - just enough to keep us alert and anxious, in a permanent state of exhaustion from lack of sleep. Those few that scuttle out from under the shadows feel like little more than scouts or reminders, just enough to probe our defences and check that we’re still fighting back. But while it’s been years since they were a threat, we can’t fight the mist that continues to creep toward us, with no option save to keep retreating ever upward. There’s no plan here, no goal except survival, clinging to whatever scraps of land remain above the taint.

The simple truth is plain to see. We can pull back whenever the fog draws too close, heading a little higher each time. But we’re already long past the halfway point of the peak, and all too soon, we’re going to run out of places to climb to.

We just need to hold on. It’ll stop eventually.

The words ring in my ears as I roll over and sigh. It’s an argument we’ve had so many times now that I don’t know why I still bother trying to persuade the others, and yet it’s all I can do. They’re a stubborn lot, too fearful, too apathetic, too unwilling to face the fact that all we’re doing is running down the clock toward defeat.

I know for a fact that there are others out there - not a month ago, we picked up a broken transmission on the short-wave radio, someone talking about needing to get back to Phoenix. I wish the poor bastard the best of luck; Arizona is on the far side of the country from here in the Appalachians, and I can’t imagine how bad the mist must be across the great plains.

There are times where I’m tempted to just pick up my rifle and start walking the next times the fog recedes. Sooner or later, we’re going to have to come down from this mountain; I’d far rather try it before we’re breathing in death the whole way down.

I roll over and sigh again, wrapping the threadbare blanket more tightly around myself. No, I can’t do it alone, and in any case, I’m the last prepper here, the only person who can really keep things running. I can’t just abandon the others, no matter how much I need to track down Sam. She’s not dead, I know that much.

I just don’t know if she’s still Sam.

I close my eyes, pretending her whispers are just the wind for what must be the hundredth night in a row. We can’t stay here, but we can’t just go blundering away into the fog hoping for the best, either. We need a plan.