The Grey Ones

The fire burns brightly at our feet, warming our toes with the large flames. Most everyone is talking while they eat their catch from the river. Allie had found some wood earlier she said would be perfect for arrows, so she and Ty are walking around next to the water. Their eyes search for rocks to use as arrowheads. Allie picks up a U shaped piece of drift wood and exclaims, “This will be your bow!”

  “So where are you guys from? And where are you guys headed?” The sound of Steven’s deep voice cuts through the silence. I look to the right of me, past Travis, where Steven sits. He and some of his family members have flipped over the row boat and are using it as a seat.

  “From Hood River. We are on our way to Portland.” Travis says promptly while poking the burning wood with a rod. Before Steven and his family began roasting their fish, he had some of the guys grab more wood for the dying fire.

  “Why Portland?” He asks curiously.

  “We heard that there’s a group called the Guerrillas-”

  Steven cuts off Travis, “We’ve heard of the Guerrillas.” He shakes his head and looks around at his family, most of which are shaking their heads too.

  “What?” I ask abruptly.

  He stares at me with a serious expression. “How do you know they aren’t just looters? Or worse, helping the Grey Ones?”

  “There are people helping them?” That was never something that even crossed my mind. There could be people out there benefiting themselves by helping the Grey Ones.

  “I know there are. And people have been going missing, like my wife.” He shifts his stare to the ground before continuing, “We trust few. People I’ve known my whole life have tried to steal from us since they came. We think there may be more going on than we all realize.” His family sound like conspiracy theorists when they all begin to say things like ‘It’s the government’ and ‘It’s China’. I roll my eyes and glance over at Travis, who is doing the same thing. He hates conspiracies and says most people who believe them are crazy.

  Travis changes the subject. Bringing the questions back to them, he asks, “So how have you guys managed to keep so many of you alive?”

  “We’ve lived in this area for the last twenty years. We know it like the back of our hands.” Steven replies before ripping another bite off the cooked bass.

  “What about you?” Another man’s voice speaks up from across the flames. He looks like a younger version of Steven, just with a shorter beard and piercing blue eyes. His arms are covered in sleeves and his ears are stretched to the size of a golf ball. He’s muscular, not as muscular as Travis, but he’s in good shape. I slip the dagger out of my pocket and begin to twist and spin it with my fingers.

  “We have a way of doing things that has proven to work for us. We spend our daylight outside hunting, moving locations, sharpening up our skills, things like that.” Travis’s deep voice is loud and confident.

  “What’re your skills? Maybe we could all team up and take these things down together.” The tattooed guy says enthusiastically.

  “I have military training. I’ve been a marine for the last 6 years. Isabelle here,” Travis points back at me using his thumb. I stop twisting the dagger in my fingers and wave with a half smile. “She’s good with daggers and hand to hand combat. She’s good with guns too but…”.

  “But I prefer to be silent and deadly.” I say throwing the dagger across the fire, it stabs into the tree next to the curious man.

  “Well,” the red handle disappears in his hand when he rips the blade out of the dark wood, “We may not have any military training but we have some skills ourselves.” He throws the dagger to the side. The blade gleams in the tiny bit of sunlight peeking through the grey clouds above. It flips through air until it stabs into the trunk of a tree about ten feet away.

  “Show off.” Lilly says with a smirk. Allie laughs so hard that she snorts at the end causing an eruption of laughter around the fire.

  When everyone stops laughing, Lilly turns to me and says, “Jace is right though, we do have a lot of skills and could definitely help each other out.”

  She shifts her eyes back down as she returns to knitting together a pair of gloves. Her hands move quickly while she knits row after row with black yarn. By the way she moves so quickly, I can tell that she has been doing this a long time. I wonder if she makes any of their clothes.

  “I thought you guys don’t trust the Guerrillas?” I question, confused by their sudden interest in joining us.

  “We don’t,” She says quickly, “But we like you guys and I think it’s time we fight back.”

  We could benefit from having more people, especially skilled people like them. But I don’t know how much I trust them. They are completely against finding the Guerrillas, so why help people they don’t know find people they don’t trust? When Travis and I exchange glances I can tell he is thinking the same thing.

  “If you guys don’t want our help then okay. I just don’t know if you guys will make it to Portland with only the two of you to protect all four of you.” Jace says. His eyes shift over to Billy, showing his obvious doubt in him.

  Travis laughs and looks at the ground. He chews on the inside of his lip and silently for almost five seconds. When he looks up again, he says, “We leave at dawn.”