by N A Broadley
A bright moon cast shadows on the newly fallen snow, giving the night an almost magical glow. With each car they came to upon the road, they stopped and ransacked it for supplies. In one of the cars, she’d found a can of Alpo dog food. Its bright red label with the image of a dog on the front made Beth laugh. Memories of better times flitted quickly across her mind, and her breath caught in the back of her throat as a longing brought tears to her eyes. Alpo, the normalization of a society that once was. Grabbing the can, she shoved it in her pack. Jessie would have a feast later in the morning when they set up camp.
As she put one foot in front of the other, she glanced every so often to the young girl behind her. She was pretty, long dark, auburn hair, glass blue eyes. What was her story? Her name? Was the muteness an after effect of the trauma she’d experienced with the two men? Or had she been born mute? So many questions.
The girl was tough; she’d give her that. They’d traveled miles through the snow and cold and yet not one whimper from her. Her own feet were cold and wet, and she could only imagine how the girl's feet felt. She had only sneakers on, and those were tattered rags at best.
Beth had checked several dead people in the stranded cars, but no one was wearing boots that would fit the girl. She prayed they would find one that wore a size six soon. Yeah, pulling boots off of a dead person was not her idea of a good time, but necessity was a necessity. The girl would not be able to trek up over the terrain of the AT in sneakers. Her feet would resemble ground meat after only a day or two of wet, icy hiking, which would only slow them down. Boots were a high priority on her list of things to scavenge.
As the first light of dawn filtered through the darkness, Beth struggled with fatigue. Her mind was foggy, and her thoughts jumbled. Her eyelids felt like weights were pulling them down. She was cold, hungry, and tired. All she wanted was a good solid few hours of sleep snuggled deep down into her sleeping bag where the warmth would chase away the chill that wracked her body. Although hungry, food would wait until she woke.
She stumbled as she veered off the road and came down hard on one knee. Swearing, she picked herself up and fought back the tears as she climbed over the guard rail. Trudging through the snow, she cut a path into the thick woods. The girl and Jessie followed slowly behind her as she struggled to bushwhack her way through heavy brush. Leading them deep into the woods, she secured a sheltered spot to set up camp beneath a grove of Pine trees. The air was still and fragrant with the sharp scent of pine. Turning to the girl, she smiled tiredly. Exhaustion was etched deep into her face, and the silence broken by the sound of her sigh as she threw her pack onto the ground with a thud.
“Okay Baby Girl, time for some rest.”
Silently the young girl helped her quickly set up the two-person tent. Beth watched her as she quickly and efficiently worked as if she’d done this very thing many, many times. Someone had taught her well.
“I think you’ve camped a lot during your life, eh?”
The young girl cast her a glance and nodded. Her eyes, that glassy light blue, drew Beth in and what she saw in them was pain, sadness, and despair.
“I think you’ve probably been through a lot. More than what I can imagine.”
Again the young girl nodded. Then turning her back, she crawled into the tent and laid on the cold floor, hugging her jacket tightly around herself. Beth crawled in behind her.
“No, you will be warm,” she said as she laid out her sleeping bag and motioned for the girl to crawl into it. There was plenty of room for both of them, and the shared body heat would keep them both comfortable. The girl looked at her cautiously.
“Don’t worry. We’ll be safe,” she said as she held up her handgun and waved it carelessly in the air. The girl nodded and quickly crawled into the sleeping bag. Beth heard a soft sigh escape her lips as she snuggled down and closed her eyes. She guessed it was probably the first warm, safe sleep this girl had seen in quite some time.
∞
Sarah stared into the gray light long after the woman Beth, had fallen asleep beside her. It was confusing. Why had Beth risked her own life to help her? No one had ever done that for her before. Not her father, not her mother, no one. A shiver ran through her as she thought of the two men who had taken possession of her. Hatred seethed in her throat, burning as she swallowed it down, and she tensed as memories of the first few nights with them flooded her mind. Tears burned at the back of her eyes as she clamped her teeth down on her lower lip to stifle the sobs that threatened to turn into silent screams. Shame cowered her. What they had done, what they had made her do….
Possession. An ugly word. It seemed she had always belonged to someone else. Never to herself. Those two men her father had so easily handed her over to? Her father had done a lot of bad things, horrible things to her in the past years but she’d never thought he’d do that. Sell her like a used toy for someone else to play with.
She hugged her arms around her stomach and sobbed silently. It had always been easy to distance herself from the physical pain, but she’d never been able to get away from the pain that was buried deep in her heart. She felt a light touch as the woman, Beth, stroked her hair.
“It’s okay baby; it’s okay,” she heard as Beth whispered to her. Sighing sadly, she wiggled deeper into the sleeping bag and closed her eyes.
Chapter Three:
Beth woke to the sound of birds, the heavy scent of pine and the soft breathing of the girl buried deep in the sleeping bag beside her. Bright sunshine beat down on the tent, giving it a greenhouse effect.
Disoriented and trying not to wake the girl, she quietly crept out of the warmth of the sleeping bag and goosebumps rose on her bare arms from the chilly morning air as she made her way out of the tent.
She stretched the kinks out of her body and looked around. The sun’s angle in the sky told her it was morning. They’d slept through yesterday and last night. Jessie, who had silently followed her out of the tent, stood beside her, panting lightly.
“Well, girl,” she murmured as she swept a hand along the soft fur of her shoulders. Hunger growled noisily in her stomach as she went a bit off into the woods to pee. Her urine, she noticed, was a dark tea colored stream and strong smelling, enough so that it almost made her gag. She hadn’t been hydrating enough. Today she would force a couple of big bottles of water into herself. Dehydration could and would lay a person low fast.
As she walked back to camp, she gathered an armful of branches. She’d played with the idea of having a campfire. On the one hand, with a good campfire, she could boil snow for water to bathe in, which she sorely needed. She could hardly stand the pungent sweaty smell of herself, and she could use the fire to cook a good meal on, which both she and Sarah needed. It would also chase away the chill of the spring air while they waited for nightfall.
On the other hand, it could be a dangerous idea. Smoke from the fire would drift and alert anyone in the area to her whereabouts.
Was it worth the potential danger it might bring? She went back and forth, trying to decide and decided yes, it was a chance worth taking.
She dug through the snow to the ground beneath and laid dried twigs over her fire starter material. Memories of Mitch laughing at her as he watched her construct materials for making a fire jolted her with heartache. She missed him. She missed her daughter. And she missed her life before the event. So much so that she wondered if death wouldn’t have been better.
After both Mitch and her daughter Sarah had died, she’d contemplated suicide. She’d put her gun to her head, but at the last minute, she found she wasn’t courageous enough to pull the trigger.
As she remembered that dark day, she shuddered. How close she had come to death with the cold barrel of that gun pressed firmly against her temple. With death, she would’ve felt nothing. She wouldn’t have felt the fear, the loneliness, or the hopelessness that shadowed her like a heavy blanket. Shaking her head, she pulled herself out of the gloominess that made her want to sit and cry. Cryin
g never did anyone any good. She instead focused her energy on getting the fire started.
As she remembered how she had made the fire starters, it brought a sad smile to her lips. She hadn’t had any experience. Just what she’d learned from the authors. Cotton balls, Vaseline, nail polish remover, and cardboard egg carton crates. With scissors, she had cut the egg carton crates into little individual nests, then covered the cotton balls with Vaseline and a splash of nail polish remover. These she stuffed into a ziplock baggie. One little nest would start a good fire. She had made a few dozen of these to fill one pocket of her backpack.
She filled the pan with snow and set it on one corner of the fire pit, where it would melt and warm. In another small pot, she poured bottled water for coffee and set it off to the opposite side of the fire. A bath and a cup of coffee would make her feel new again. She smiled as she looked up to see Baby Girl move up beside her.
“Good morning. We’ll have coffee soon.”
Baby Girl nodded and sat on a log that Beth had dragged over. Beth watched her as she peeled off her socks. She gasped in shock as she saw the deep, opened raw blisters on her feet.
“Dang Baby Girl! That is not good! Why didn’t you tell me?”
Baby Girl grimaced, and Beth shook her head.
“Okay, well this changes things a bit. The first order of business is to take care of those wounds.”
She pulled a baggie from her backpack and opened it to various smaller baggies containing dried herbs. The bath she had in mind was out of the question now. She would use the water she had planned for that to make an herbal wash for Baby Girl’s feet.
Digging through various bags, she pulled out the herbs she would need. Calendula, Comfrey Leaf, and St. Johns’ Wort were great for healing and soothing. She threw a measure of each herb into the pot of water and let it simmer. Soon the air was filled with a pungent and sweet odor as the herbs simmered in the pot.
While waiting on the tea wash, she dug into another pocket of her pack and pulled out a tin of wound heal salve. She spent the next ten minutes cleaning each blister and then slathering on the salve. She produced an extra pair of wool socks she’d packed in her backpack and handed them to the girl.
“Here, these are dry and clean. You can put these clean ones on and throw those rags away,” she said, speaking of the tattered and ripped socks the girl had been wearing.
To help with taking the girl’s mind off of the pain, she reached into her backpack and pulled out an iPod. Although the world had gone to shit, at least that still worked. And Mitch had bought her a solar charger long before the world or she should say, her world, imploded.
Music might make this process a bit easier though she doubted the young girl would like her choice of music. She had a playlist that included, One Tin Soldier by Tim Selbe, Sad Eyes by Robert John, Mr. Bojangles by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band among hundreds of other songs she had loaded. Music. The one sanity in an insane world.
Turning it on, she helped Sarah place the earbuds in her ears and watched as her eyes lit up with joy. The first expression of emotion she’d seen in the two days with this girl, and it warmed her heart.
Quickly and expertly, she tended to Sarah’s wounds, bloody, puss-filled blisters that had broken open. The rubbing of her shoes turned each blister into what looked like raw hamburger, how this girl had walked all these miles with feet that looked like that amazed Beth. Not one whimper of pain, not one stumble. It gave her a good indication of how tough Sarah was.
“I wish I knew your name,” she murmured as she finished up and rinsed her hands with a bit of warm water. To her surprise, Baby Girl smiled tentatively back at her and grabbed a twig from the ground. She then began to write her name in the snow.
“Sarah.”
Beth felt a punch to her heart that took her breath away. She fell back and looked up at the girl with tears forming in the back of her eyes.
“That was my daughter’s name,” she whispered.
A soft, throaty growl from Jessie alerted her to the danger. Looking up, she stared into the faces of three men. So intent in her work, she hadn’t heard them enter the camp. Reaching for the gun on her hip, one of the men shook his head and grimaced.
“Uh-uh Miss, don’t do that.”
She moved her hand slowly to her side as fear rose up in her throat like a bitter acid. Her shoulders tensed, and she backed toward Sarah, shielding her with her own body.
“We don’t have anything Mister. Just leave us be.”
The three men stood quietly. The one who had spoken looked sideways at the other two. His green eyes were sending a silent message. With a nod, he looked at the dog.
“Will that beast attack?”
Beth shook her head and reached out a shaking hand to calm Jessie, who had placed herself between Beth and the men.
“No.”
“Good, we are not here to harm you. We happen to be traveling the same path as you. We smelled the campfire smoke and came to see what was going on.” The man said as he stepped closer and held out a hand. Beth could feel Jessie’s muscles along her back tighten and tense, and she grabbed at the fur along her neck, ignoring the man’s outstretched hand.
“Girl! It’s okay,” she murmured.
“The name is Jim, and this here is Elroy and Carver,” the man said softly then smiled. He appeared friendly but so did her neighbor when he had attacked her.
Beth nodded.
Where ya ladies headed?” Jim asked.
Beth took a step to the left blocking Sarah completely from the men.
“We’re headed south.”
The man, Jim, laughed softly.
“South? Ya girls got quite the walk ahead of you if you’re trying to outrun this cold.” Then turning to his friends, he motioned for them to check the tent.
“Nothing against you missy but I don’t want someone taking a bead on us from within.”
Beth grimaced. He and the other two would see that she and Sarah were alone. Would they decide to turn this friendly little encounter into something more dangerous?
“My husband and a few others are out hunting. They should be back anytime,” she stammered. Maybe if they thought there were others, they would think twice about staying very long.
“Mmmmm…I don’t think so but good try,” Jim replied. He’d scouted the woods before entering the camp. He knew, if anything, there were just the two women, the dog and perhaps someone else sleeping in the tent. He could see the nervousness in the woman’s face — the fear.
“As I said, I’m not here to hurt you. I am just checking things out. My boys and I will be on our way. We’ve got more important business to do but let me give you a word of advice,” he said tiredly.
“You need to keep a better eye on your surroundings. Some nasty people are crawling around in these woods. This time you were lucky. Next time you might not be. Just a warning, Miss,” he finished. Turning, he motioned for the other two to follow but then stopped and turned back to Beth.
“You don’t happen to have any antibiotics in your bag there, do you?”
Beth looked at him. She did. But she wasn’t about to tell him that.
“Is someone sick?” she asked.
Jim nodded, and a quick expression of worry flitted across his face.
“Yes, my wife Mia. She got a nasty cut on her leg a week or so ago. It’s infected, and I’m headed to town to see if I can find medicine.”
Beth nodded. She was torn between offering help or just minding her own business and letting these men go on their way while she and Sarah went on theirs. Sighing, she looked at Jim.
“How far away is your wife?”
“We’ve got a cabin about two miles from here, just down over the valley.”
She sighed in resolution; she couldn’t leave the sick woman any more than she could the young girl.
“I’ve got medicine and field training as an EMT. Let me see what I can do for her.”
Jim’s face sagged with relief, and he
gave Beth a nod.
“Thank you, Miss. Thank you.”
Chapter Four
A brief two-mile walk brought them to a blacktop two-lane road that led to a single-story house. Thick woods surrounded it at the end of the long dirt driveway. On the edge of the wood line were two campers. One blue and white, the other tan and white. Both had awnings that kept them shaded. In another time, this would have been a comforting scene. Something you’d expect to see for a Fourth of July gathering. Now, it was different. It had a desperate feel and look to it.
“Home,” Jim said then whistled.
One long burst of sound followed by one short. Beth assumed it was a call to those inside the house. She gazed around, and she saw what looked to be an outhouse toward the back. To the left side of the house, a camp circle with a fire pit in the middle for cooking. The windows of the house had been covered with boards, which helped protect them but also kept any natural light from entering. The scene that spread out before her made her sad. Hiding away, hunkering down, desperate families banding together. This was the new life they all faced?
There were three large water collection barrels lined up against the front porch and a wood pile on the other side. Lifting her eyes, she saw what she thought were platforms in several surrounding trees and shot a glance at Jim.
“Look out platforms,” he said, answering her question before she could ask. “We’ve run into a bit of trouble here and there over the past few months.”
Beth nodded. Trouble she understood. She’d had more than a bit of it herself.
“C’ mon, let’s go see how Mia’s doing.”
Following him up the rickety front steps to the house, she was surprised when two teenagers quickly opened the door. A pretty girl of about thirteen stepped out with a worried expression on her young face.
“Dad. Thank God you’re back. Mom’s been calling out for you since you left.”
