Mason

It wasn't salvation guaranteed.

But it was human infrastructure, and that meant we were not completely trapped in green silence anymore.

We stepped onto the gravel and stopped, panting, rain dripping off our faces.

We looked left and right, no cars in sight.

But the road existed, and that mattered.

Mason laughed once, a short, ugly sound that was half relief and half disbelief.

Then he shook his head and said, "'We walk this until we hit someone.'"

We started down the road.

The strange thing was that as soon as we stepped onto it, the forest felt different.

It felt harder for someone to hide right beside you without being seen.

We walked fast, packs heavy, gravel crunching.

After a mile, we saw tire tracks, recent ones, pressed into wet dirt, fresh.

That meant someone had been here not long ago.

Then we saw something that made my stomach drop again.

On the side of the road, nailed to a tree, was a small strip of nylon cloth.

The same kind of cloth Mason's pack strap had been made of.

Below it, carved into the bark, was that same intersecting line symbol.

Mason stopped and stared.

He's on the road, he said.

I looked around, scanning the trees.