by Bowman, Dave
Finally, Annie reappeared and returned to the car. She didn't say anything, but Charlotte could see the worry on her face.
"What is it?"
"She's not here," Annie said as she started the Porsche. "I let myself in with a key she keeps hidden in the backyard. It looks like she hasn't been around for a couple of days."
"Maybe she's staying with family now," Charlotte said. She was relieved when Annie started to back the car out of the driveway. Charlotte was anxious to get to Jack's house. She hoped that they could feel at least a little safer there.
Annie shook her head. "She doesn't have any family left."
"Friends in town?" Charlotte suggested. "Maybe they didn't want an elderly woman living on her own after the attacks."
"Maybe, though Edith didn't have a lot of close friends in this town. She moved here kind of late in life. That's why Jack and I always checked on her. But you're right – she could be staying with someone nearby," Annie said with an uneasy edge to her voice, despite her words of agreement.
"Yeah, or she’s just visiting someone in town for the day," Charlotte said dismissively. "I'm sure she's fine."
Annie nodded. "Yeah, you're right. She probably just wanted some company.”
She bit her lip as she pulled the Porsche onto the highway and drove on toward the center of town.
“You’re still worried,” Charlotte observed.
“I don’t know, Edith’s empty house just doesn’t sit right with me,” Annie said. “It feels like something is wrong.”
Charlotte raised her eyebrows in an exaggerated way. “You think someone murdered her?” she asked in a mock panic.
Annie rolled her eyes. “I know it sounds silly. But Edith’s always at home when we come through here. It’s just weird.”
Charlotte shook her head. “You worry way too much, Annie.”
Annie didn’t answer. The sensation that something was wrong nagged at her, but she continued on as they began to enter the center of town.
“So this is Loretta proper?" Charlotte asked.
Annie nodded. "This is it. Population 685."
Charlotte whistled. "That is tiny!"
The highway ran through the center of the tidy, quiet little town. A couple dozen houses stood on the main road, with several more on the blocks running north and south of town.
"Is this all?" Charlotte asked incredulously as they reached the middle of the settlement.
"This is pretty much it," Annie said. "Isn't it great?"
"If you say so," Charlotte muttered. She was beginning to miss Austin. Old Austin – before the attacks.
Charlotte watched as they passed a tiny community center, a little restaurant, and a well-maintained church. All the civic buildings were closed up. There wasn't a light on in the town, nor the sound of a motor running. Clearly, the EMP had hit here, too.
Charlotte glanced at Annie, who was chewing on her lip again. “Now what’s wrong?”
“No one’s outside,” Annie said, glancing up and down the streets. “Usually you see at least a few people outside, working in their gardens or whatever. And with the EMP, you’d think there’d be more people outside. It’s not like they’re all indoors watching TV.”
Charlotte shrugged. “They’re probably freaked out and want to stay indoors. Especially when some out-of-towners in a fancy sports car roll into town.”
“Yeah, that’s true,” Annie said distractedly. She looked up and down all the side streets as they traversed the little town. Not a soul was out on the street, or standing in a yard or on a porch.
She shivered, suddenly feeling a chill run down her spine.
Why was the town of Loretta empty? It felt like a ghost town.
And the fact that Edith wasn’t at home made Annie even more on edge.
Something felt wrong. Annie didn’t know what it was, but fear began to take her over. As she floored the gas pedal and left the empty town behind, one thought repeated over and over in her mind.
What if something’s wrong at the Hawthorne house?
23
"Brody?"
Heather stood in the doorway of the bedroom, watching her brother.
He lay in bed motionless, his eyes closed. His skin had an ashen pallor. Seeing her brother like that struck fear in Heather's heart.
What had happened to Brody?
Finally, his eyes slowly opened. It took him a long time to focus on Heather. She slowly walked inside the room and stood at his bedside.
"Heather, is that you?" he asked in a weak voice.
Heather swallowed. "Yes, it's me. Brody, what happened to you?"
He blinked a few times. His eyes moved from Heather to the doorway.
"Oh, dear God," Myra gasped.
Heather spun around to see her mother standing in the door. Katie appeared behind her a moment later, her face filling with shock and surprise.
"What happened to him?" Heather demanded.
Myra entered the room, staring at her son. She opened her mouth several times as if to speak, but her voice eluded her.
Anger and frustration welled up inside Heather’s chest. "What's going on here?" she asked, looking back at Brody.
"The bomb," Brody muttered.
Heather looked helplessly from Brody to her mother, then back to Katie, who stood with her mouth open in the doorway.
"He was supposed to be getting better," Katie said angrily.
Myra wiped tears from her face as she took Brody's hand.
"He's so cold," Myra said. She pulled the covers up under his chin.
Brody waved her away. "It's radiation exposure," he told Heather. "I was too close . . . to Ground Zero when the bomb went off."
"What?" Heather asked incredulously, staring at him.
"He was downtown in Johnson City," Myra said sadly. "He was sick when he got here two days ago, but he was doing so much better yesterday. He thought it might have just been the flu. We thought he was going to get better," she with a shaking voice, looking back at Katie.
Katie stood in place as she stared at her father. She was stricken.
"What is this?" Heather asked. She grabbed something off the nightstand and held it in her palm, staring at a small, blackened object.
"It's a tooth!" Myra exclaimed.
Heather stared at the tooth in disbelief. "Why is it black?"
Myra shook her head sadly. "It must be from the radiation. It’s poisoning him from the inside."
Brody took a breath. "It fell out sometime this morning."
He opened his mouth and pulled his lips back to show his teeth.
Heather looked closely. Several of his teeth were turning various shades of gray and black. She recoiled in terror and disgust and returned the tooth to the nightstand.
She ran a hand through her hair nervously and took a few steps back.
"How can this be happening?" she asked.
No one answered. Myra stood in place, looking at Brody.
Heather began to pace back and forth across the room.
"What do we do?" she asked frantically.
"I don't know," Myra answered. Her face twisted in anguish.
"There's got to be something we can do!" Heather snapped. The powerlessness and frustration of the situation were beginning to overwhelm her.
"Katie?" Brody asked. "Where's Katie?"
Heather and Myra turned toward the door. Katie was gone.
Myra sniffed and wiped her tears. "I'll go look for her."
Myra left the room. Heather could hear her calling Katie's name as she walked down the steps.
Heather returned to Brody's side and took a deep breath. "What can I do, Brody? Isn't there anything I can do to help?"
Brody shook his head. "I'm sorry you have to see this," he said slowly. "Nothing can be done."
Heather swallowed the lump in her throat and looked around the room. "What about Dad? Where is he? No one's telling me anything!"
Brody closed his eyes. "He's missing. Been gone four day
s. His truck is abandoned on a dirt road a few miles from here."
Heather's face distorted in pain. Her world was falling apart right before her eyes.
They were quiet, listening to their mother moving through the rooms downstairs calling for Katie. The screen door opened and shut, and Myra’s calls grew faint as she walked down the porch steps and into the front yard.
Katie had run off somewhere, but that fact barely registered in Heather’s mind. Her brother was gravely ill, and her father was out there somewhere. Missing!
Heather took a step away. "I've got to go look for him! Why is no one looking for him? This is crazy. I – I don't understand what's going on around here!"
"We looked, Heather," Brody said hoarsely. "We all have. You should keep looking for him, but –"
Heather spun around toward the door and began to charge out of the room, too impatient to listen to what Brody had to say. She had to take action now!
“Wait,” Brody requested.
Heather looked back at him, almost cringing from the sight of her brother in such a weakened state.
“What is it?” she asked, blinking back tears.
“Don’t go. Stay here with me,” he said. “Please.”
Heather unclenched her fists and let go of the doorknob. She took a deep breath, then slowly dragged a chair over to the side of his bed. She put aside her frantic need to search for her father, to go tearing through the woods on a wild quest to find him, going out of her mind with worry and frenzied panic. She exhaled deeply and sat beside her brother, taking his cold hand in her own.
“I’m here,” she said.
24
"Hey, are you all right?" Brent asked while keeping pace with Jack as they ran through the alley. Brent was out of breath and spoke between gasps of air.
Jack was getting dizzy, but he pushed himself on. “That shed up there,” he said, indicating a small storage shed in the alley. They had crossed the street and were entering the next block.
Brent turned the handle on the shed door and ducked inside. Some light streamed in a tiny window on one wall, and he looked around. It was empty.
“All clear,” he said and watched as Jack followed him inside, limping on both legs now.
Jack’s pants leg was saturated with blood. He fought the dizziness threatening to take him over, and looked around the shed for anything he could use to stop the bleeding. Brent helped him look, too, but finally Jack gave up and took his shirt off. He applied pressure to the wound, causing his eyes to smart from the pain.
The shed was filled with assorted junk – old lawn mowers, broken-down electronics, and furniture in ill repair. Jack picked out a chair from the corner jumble and sat down.
Brent saw the blood flowing from Jack’s leg and gasped.
“Man, he got you good,” Brent said, seeing how badly Jack had been stabbed.
Behind him, Brent dug through the piles of junk. "I doubt I'm going to find a first aid kit in here," he said. "But it would sure be a stroke of luck if I could."
Brent looked down at Jack, who was breathing in short gasps.
"Here, put your feet up," Brent said as he dragged a table across the floor and helped Jack elevate his legs. "Isn't that what you're supposed to do if you're in shock?"
Jack didn't answer, but he put his feet up. Brent took the shirt from him and began to apply pressure to the wound. His eyes moved over the walls, landing on a stack of boxes nearby.
"If I could just find some alcohol swabs. A bottle of peroxide. Something." He spoke under his breath, more to himself than to Jack.
"And we're going to need some bandages, too," Brent continued. Jack's silence was making him nervous, and he was eager to fill the empty room with his words. "You probably need stitches. I wish my mom was here. She'd know what to do. She's a nurse."
Jack tipped his head back and closed his eyes.
"You don't look so good, Jack."
Jack opened his eyes again and gazed in Brent's direction clumsily, as if his vision were fading. "I'm better than I look," he said, slurring the words.
Brent didn't quite believe him, but he decided to use Jack's desire to cling to consciousness to his own benefit. "Okay, then, you hold this shirt against the wound while I look for a first aid kit," Brent said.
He watched while Jack pressed hard against the wound on his leg. He frowned and concentrated on his effort. Satisfied that Jack could manage the task, Brent set to digging through the boxes.
"There's so much crap in here, maybe we'll get lucky," he muttered under his breath. The first box was stuffed with outdated electronics – answering machines, beepers and pagers, a Walkman or two. "It's like a museum in here. Every obsolete electronic device known to man."
He moved on to the next box, which held a record player. Tossing it aside, he tore into the third, glancing over at Jack. He was hunched over his leg, his elbows bent as he strained.
"How's the leg doing?" Brent asked.
"Just fine," Jack mumbled.
The next couple of boxes were packed with more useless items. Brent kicked at the boxes in frustration. He ran a hand through his hair and crossed toward the door.
"I think I saw a shed in the next yard over," Brent said. "I'll be back in less than five minutes."
Jack mumbled something in agreement and watched as Brent grabbed his rifle and slipped quietly out the door.
Jack looked down at the gaping hole in his thigh. He was losing too much blood. How had he gotten himself into this mess? He should be home by now. Home with Annie.
A few minutes later, Brent bustled in the door again. He knelt at Jack's side and prepared his supplies – a small bottle of vodka and some kind of bags stuffed full of assorted odds and ends. When he began to pull out sewing supplies, he looked up at Jack. Then he quickly looked away.
"This is the best I could find," Brent offered. "It's not going to be fun. But at least you're not going to die."
When Brent began to thread a sewing needle, Jack's stomach twisted in dread. He looked away. He wished he had lost consciousness already.
Jack opened his eyes and blinked confusedly. The light filtering through the tiny window was much dimmer than before.
Had he fallen asleep?
He looked down at his leg. It was throbbing with pain, but a white shirt was wrapped around the wound. It had stopped bleeding.
"Did you finally wake up?"
Jack twisted around to see Brent, who was leaned against the wall in the corner. Brent looked exhausted, with dark circles under his eyes and his hair all disheveled.
"How long was I out?" Jack asked groggily.
"Couple of hours," Brent said. "It's getting dark. Must be around 6:00 or 7:00 p.m."
Jack looked down at the jacket draped around his shoulders.
"I found some clothes in the shed next door," Brent said. "Keeping the patient warm is important when treating shock. At least, I think that's what I heard one time."
"Did you sew me up?"
Brent nodded. "And I did a damned fine job of it, too. I think when this is all over, I have a bright future in medicine waiting for me."
Jack shifted in his seat, grimacing from the pain. He seemed to have injuries all over now. "Thanks for that, Brent. I appreciate you watching my back like that."
Brent shrugged. "You've only done it for me a half-dozen times."
"Well, you’ve come a long way from where you were at in LA,” Jack said. He glanced at the window. “Has anyone passed through the alley?"
"Not a soul. We're lucky no one heard us back there when the guard stabbed you."
Jack shook his head. "I don't think he was a guard."
"Why not?"
"Didn't you see the way he was cowering there, hiding out of sight? Guards around here aren't like that."
Brent nodded, thinking. "You've got a point. And I guess he would have had a rifle if he'd been a guard, too."
"Exactly. He was probably hiding out there for who knows how long. He was hung
ry and scared. He probably thought we were guards."
Brent chuckled. "I guess our impersonations of the guards were a little too good."
Jack looked down at the shirt tied around his leg. "I guess so."
He looked out the window at the fading light of the afternoon and sighed. "The day's almost over and we still haven't found Naomi," he said, not bothering to hide the defeat in his voice.
He couldn’t help feeling a little defeated, or at least frustrated. This rescue mission was supposed to have been over by now. He had underestimated the enormity of the gang’s operation – both the size of their territory and the number of guards and weapons they had on their side. Once again, he was amazed at how much Oscar’s gang had accomplished in just a few days. And the gang had even continued without its leader! Apparently, when one leader had been killed, another sprung up in its place, ready to rule.
"They've got way more prisoners than I ever dreamed," Brent said. “They killed a ton of people to take over this town, then enslaved the rest.”
“There’s just no end to man’s depravity,” Jack muttered.
“What did you say?” Brent asked.
Jack looked up. “I was just thinking how depraved and sick you’d have to be to do all this, to organize all this. You’re right – it’s slavery what they’re doing. And they found so many people to go along with it, to back them up.”
Brent nodded. “You should have seen the way they treated us in those dorms. They shot anyone who tried to escape. Beat us if we didn’t work fast enough. We were expendable. Barely human. If they killed us, there were plenty more willing to do the work – people who’d do anything to stay alive.” He looked at the bruises on Jack’s face and shoulder. “Looks like you took some hits in C Block before you got out of there.”
“You could say that,” Jack agreed.
“How’d you get out of there, anyway? That must’ve been hell. Isn't C Block like their high-security prison?
“It was mostly luck. Some strategy, too, but luck had a lot to do with it."
"What was your strategy?"
"Just take one of them down at a time. And start running away as soon as they’re down."
