by Bowman, Dave
Annie began to move backward at a brisk pace, leading the horse up and over the hill while the car rolled slowly behind. Just when the horse pulled the Porsche up to the road, Annie stopped her.
“Good girl!” she cooed to the horse, stroking its nose.
Charlotte made her way up to the road and stood looking at the Porsche, shaking her head.
Annie looked at her with raised eyebrows.
Charlotte threw her hands up. “You’re right, you’re right! I should know better than to doubt you, Mrs. Hawthorne!”
Annie smiled. “That’s better. Now, I need you to put the car back in gear so it doesn’t roll away. And put the emergency brake on.”
Charlotte reached inside the car as Annie removed the ropes from the bumper and the horse’s harness.
“Who’s a good girl?” Annie said in a singsong voice as she ran her hand down the horse’s back.
Charlotte walked around to the passenger’s side of the Porsche and opened the door. “Yes, she’s a very good horse. Now, can we get out of here?”
Annie frowned. “But what about her? Shouldn’t I get her back to her home?”
Charlotte scoffed. "Didn't you say there was a lunatic down there? And that he was chasing you?"
Annie turned and looked down the road in the direction of the house. "Yeah, I know it's not safe to go back down there. But I can't just leave this horse loose here."
"Do you really think a strung-out junkie is going to take good care of her?" Charlotte asked, leaning against the car.
"That's a very good point," Annie said. "And I think he killed the owner of the house – and the owner of this horse. I saw a dead man in the living room of the house. Then this younger guy ran out and attacked me…"
"He attacked you?" Charlotte asked, her eyes big. "And you're standing here talking to me instead of driving off? He could show up here with a weapon at any moment!"
Annie bit her lip. "You're right. I know you're right. But I just can't let this horse go. How will it survive alone out here?" She looked in the horse's big, dark eyes. "I wish we could take her with us."
"Maybe Jack could come back for the horse if he makes it to Loretta," Charlotte said. "When he makes it to Loretta, I mean."
Annie glanced at her friend.
"Shoot, I'm sorry, Annie," Charlotte said, cringing at her mistake."I didn't mean anything by that, Annie. Really. Of course Jack is going to make it to Loretta. I'm sorry, it was a stupid mistake. I –"
Annie waved away her concern. "It's okay. I know you didn't mean anything by it."
But Annie knew Charlotte's slip of the tongue was probably closer to the truth. She had been denying it to herself the whole time, but deep down she knew it was true. As horrific as it might be to her, the chances were slim that Jack had survived a nuclear attack on Los Angeles.
After all, he had been downtown when their phone connection had been lost. Downtown Austin had been destroyed by a bomb, and Annie had been lucky to survive it. If downtown LA had been destroyed as well, what were the chances that Jack had gotten out in time?
The thought tore her apart, but she knew she would have to prepare herself for the possibility that she might never see her husband again.
And what about her family? All of their phones had been dead when she had tried to call them early Wednesday afternoon. Maybe the southeastern states had been obliterated, too. And Heather lived so close to Washington, DC. The attacks were probably the worst around the nation’s capital.
Jack, Heather, Brody, Katie, Annie's parents… Maybe they were all gone.
Maybe Annie had lost everyone.
"Annie? Are you okay?" Charlotte asked. "You look like you saw a ghost."
Annie blinked a few times, then refocused on the horse. "I'm fine." She began to remove the harness.
"What I said was stupid," Charlotte said. "If anyone can survive this whole thing, it's Jack. I'm sure he's on his way home right now. He's just been delayed because… Well, because of everything. I guess you were right about what you were saying yesterday. It wasn't just Austin that was hit. It must've been the whole country. That’s pretty clear now. But Jack got out of LA alive. I know he did."
"Yeah, I know," Annie said mildly. She swallowed the lump forming in her throat.
She patted the horse a few times. "Go back home," she whispered, looking into the horse's eyes. "If I can come back for you, I will."
Stepping aside, Annie gave the horse a final pat. She clucked her tongue. "Go home!"
The horse took off toward the house, as if it understood everything Annie had said.
Annie returned to the car and turned the key in the ignition. It started easily.
The two women drove off quickly in the Porsche. They soon passed the horse as it galloped to the west. Annie took one last look at the mare before they disappeared over the next hill.
She picked up speed. Her heart quickened as she drove. There was still one more challenge before they could get out of there.
Her palms grew sweaty as her hands clenched the steering wheel.
They were getting closer to the house where she had been attacked by a madman. She could still remember the sensation of being slammed against the ground.
Just one more hill, and they would come into view of that wooden house – and whatever was waiting for her nearby.
16
Suddenly, Heather came to a stop, skidding her feet on the ground to halt the bicycle. Frantically, she looked around.
Did she even know where she was?
She looked down at her feet. They were standing on a gravel road.
But when had she left the pavement?
She swallowed, fighting back another wave of nausea and fear. Somehow in her confusion and disorientation, she had taken a wrong turn.
Or had it been several wrong turns? Would she be able to find her way back to the highway at all?
She looked down at her shaking hands. They were covered in blood. His blood. And her arms and torso were soaked as well.
She turned her bike around and set out riding back the way she had come. Maybe she'd be able to retrace her steps.
A ways down the gravel road, she saw a sign for a National Forest campground. "Little Creek Campground," the sign read.
Feeling nauseous and disgusted from his blood on her body, she longed to wash the blood off herself. She turned down the road, hoping the creek would be flowing with water clean enough to rinse off.
Heather coasted into the campground and rode past the self-pay kiosk. A map on the information placard caught her eye, and she studied it, hoping to see a map of the general area. But she was out of luck – the map only detailed the tiny campground.
She rode past the campsites designated for tent camping. The campground was totally empty, which was at once eerie and comforting. She didn't want to see people, but the isolation was a little frightening. Had the EMP hit on a weekend, she figured, the campground would have been full of abandoned cars.
The sound of a bubbling creek beckoned her from the edge of the campground. Leaving her bike at the edge of the road, she approached the creek. Pines, firs, and spruce lined the sides of the little waterway. The tannins from the conifers' shed needles colored the transparent water a rich brown. It looked clean enough, so Heather began to wash herself in the freezing mountain water.
She removed her shirt and was about to wash the garment in the water, but she stopped herself.
Where was her backpack?
She cringed. It was gone. She must have left it behind in the town. In her confusion and panic, she hadn't even noticed it wasn't on her back.
Grumbling over her carelessness, she washed her skin as best she could, then put the soiled shirt back on. Her only other change of clothes was in her backpack, back in that small town. She didn’t want to spend the night in a shirt splattered with blood, but it was better than a sopping wet shirt from the creek water.
Even if she knew how to get back there to the town, she would
n't dare return to the scene of that terrible encounter.
And even worse – Heather had no food or drink with her.
She had at least consumed some juice and cookies back at the store, but the extras she had packed, along with her meager supply of dried fruit, were back in the town, still in her backpack.
Heather stood up and looked around. Somehow, she had managed to lose track not only of her whereabouts, but also of the time of day. The sun dipped low in the sky toward the horizon. It would be dark within minutes. There wasn't enough time to try to retrace her steps and return to the highway.
She would have to spend the night in the campground.
"No blankets, no clean clothes, no food, no drinking water," she said aloud, breaking the chatter of the birds flitting over the creek on their late afternoon tasks before night set in.
"You really screwed up," she said to herself. "And now you're talking to yourself."
I've probably lost my mind, she said, silently this time. Somehow, the thought of a mental breakdown was too real, too terrifying to utter aloud.
Grabbing her bike, she made her way uphill from the creek. She chose a campsite tucked away in the corner of the campground. She curled up in a cleared area underneath some white pines.
As the light faded, she closed her eyes. She wanted to sleep until first light, but she knew that was wishful thinking. The temperature was already dropping, and she knew it would be a chilly night without anything to ward off the cold.
I've got to find the highway again first thing in the morning.
Her stomach growled. Her thirst was so intense that she was tempted to go drink from the stream. But she knew a case of Giardia wouldn't help her situation.
She didn't open her eyes as darkness fell on the area, but she didn't fall asleep, either. Rustling noises in the bushes and forest nearby kept her on alert.
It's just animals. Go to sleep already.
But every time she dozed off, a noise from the forest startled her awake. And with each hour, she grew hungrier and weaker. As the night wore on, she began to shiver.
At some point, finding her way back to the highway in the morning no longer seemed to be her biggest challenge. She began to wonder if she was going to survive the night.
17
Paul Hawthorne stood on a bridge overlooking a reservoir.
The water was neon green from an algae overgrowth. Fish floated belly up on the surface. The air was thick with a putrid odor.
He kept walking.
Soon, he came upon a large complex for a chemical manufacturing company. Several large buildings were clustered behind a tall fence. The bad smell was stronger here.
He picked up his speed, anxious to leave the area. With the EMP having destroyed the electrical grid, he imagined the electric security measures of the chemical plant had failed. The toxic waste products had leaked into the reservoir.
He thought of the environmentalists who had always been causing trouble for the logging company he worked for. Tree huggers were always complaining about the trees his company harvested. They never seemed to listen to the company's statements about sustainable harvesting and their efforts to replant fast-growing tree species on the lands they held. One young guy had even chained himself to the highest branches of a tree on company grounds once, in protest of the logging company's operation.
Paul shook his head as he remembered it all.
The environmental groups had been wrong about Paul's employers. But maybe some of the critics had had a point about the operation of the chemical plants. At the very least, Paul figured the manufacturing company should have been more prepared for an electromagnetic pulse that would destroy the nation's power grid.
But then, everyone should have been more prepared.
And in the end, Paul thought, what did it matter? After all, he had lost his family. He had lost the only thing that mattered to him. And so many others, probably all over the country, had lost their lives or loved ones.
The world that he knew was over.
Now, he could only cling to the hope of seeing his brother again.
Paul moved quickly as he entered the edge of a small city. He was still in the Piney Woods of East Texas. Knowing he had a long journey ahead of him, he was preparing himself for several more days of walking toward his family's old ranch house in Loretta.
Paul tried to avoid walking through the centers of the populated areas he passed through. He didn't like how everyone seemed to stare at him in the towns.
He was far from the only person traveling on foot. Every populated area had people walking or on bicycles, forced to leave their cars behind. But his appearance made Paul stand out. His coworkers hadn’t called him Paul Bunyan for nothing. At six feet seven inches, he towered over most people. And now, he looked like he had been in an epic bar fight. His clothes were shredded in several places, and he was covered in bruises and scrapes from wandering around in the woods aimlessly for a couple of days. He knew he must look insane and dangerous, and he didn't want to frighten people.
But he couldn't avoid everyone. As he got farther into the town, he got more and more strange looks.
He had been to this town before with Marie and the children. They had passed through it about a year before. What was supposed to be a fun day trip to Houston had quickly turned into a tense argument with his wife over money. They had been discussing whether to buy a new car, trying to keep their voices down where the kids couldn’t hear them over the radio blaring in the backseat of the minivan.
Marie insisted they needed to buy a new vehicle, one that was more up-to-date with safety measures for the kids. But Paul argued it was unnecessary and besides, they couldn't afford it.
The argument escalated until Brooklyn, their youngest, piped up.
"Mommy, don't you and Daddy love each other anymore?"
Their daughter's words stung. Both Paul and Marie assured the kids that they still loved each other, that it was just a disagreement. But Paul couldn't help feeling guilty. The conflict between him and his wife had intensified so much that the kids had started to worry.
Paul wished that he and Marie had stopped fighting that day, and the days after that. But they hadn't. The arguments continued, becoming more regular over the past year.
And Paul was ashamed to remember the times he had lost his temper and raised his voice at his own children. All the times he had been distant from them, annoyed at their antics. All the times he had wanted to be alone. He had taken out his frustration on his family.
Paul shook his head in sadness. How stupid he had been! If he had only known how quickly he would lose them, he would've never raised his voice at his wife or children. He would have relished every moment with them.
But there was nothing he could do to change the past. They were gone forever.
The sky darkened overhead from gathering clouds as he walked, matching Paul's mood.
He should have let Marie buy the damned car she wanted. He should have been better to her and the kids.
And most of all, he should have gotten them out of the house in time. He shouldn't have been working so far from home. They should never have bought a house so close to Dallas, a big city and a target for terrorism.
Paul had made so many mistakes.
He walked with his head down, avoiding the prying eyes of people on the street. He wanted to get out of this town fast, and return to the solitude of the open country.
A man's voice jostled him from his thoughts.
"Need a ride?"
Paul looked up and saw a guy in an old Jeep, the first running vehicle Paul had seen in days. The man had pulled over on the shoulder and was looking right at Paul, who had been so lost in his thoughts he hadn't even noticed.
"It's going to rain," the guy said. "Thought you could use a lift."
Paul shook his head. "No. I'm good."
The guy shrugged.
"Suit yourself," he said and took off again down the street.
Paul wa
tched him disappear over the next hill. He didn't know why a stranger would be generous to him. In any case, he didn't want the ride. He didn't want to make small talk or act interested in what someone had to say.
He didn't trust anyone, either. He doubted he ever would again.
Except for Jack. His brother was about the only person left in the world he could trust.
Their dad had passed away ten years ago. Their mother had always been so close to her husband, and she began a steep decline after she lost him. A couple years later, she had passed away too.
Paul's grandparents were long gone. Aside from a few distant relatives scattered in Oklahoma and Arkansas, Paul and Jack had no living relatives. They only had each other.
Paul hoped that Jack could bury the hatchet and forget their old disagreements. They, too, had said things to each other Paul now regretted. But Jack was still his brother, and the only person he had left.
It started to rain lightly, but Paul kept walking. The rain didn't bother him. He liked it, even. It was cold and miserable, but Paul felt he deserved it. He wanted to be punished.
After two or three miles past the city limits, Paul came to a cornfield. It was getting dark, and Paul decided to turn in for the evening. He figured he had at least three more days to walk. When the rain let up, he ate the meager supply of food he had found in an empty house on the edge of town. He had considered sleeping in the old shack since it seemed to have been abandoned. But he didn't want to be comfortable. As long as he was haunted by the memory of his family, he couldn't afford himself comfort or shelter.
He lay down under a pine tree and closed his eyes. So much had already been lost. Could he really count on Jack and Annie still being alive? As he drifted off to sleep, he was plagued by the feeling that his brother was already dead.
18
Jack ran inside the garage and flung open the door to the stairwell.
"Hurry!" he urged Brent onward, holding the door open for him.
Brent ran through the door and began climbing the steps with Jack on his heels.
