46 Hours To Home

by Pat Riot

  “Rachel, have you seen anyone except him?” he asked, whispering.

  “No,” she whispered back while shaking her head no.

  “Okay, when he gets into the car we are both going to move together, quick as possible. Once we move we are going to keep moving. Let’s get outta his line of site in case he hops out and looks this way. Ready?” This time she nodded, still wearing the look of determination on her face.

  They watched as the thief smashed the passenger window, reached inside and unlocked the door, then pulled it open and got inside. As soon as he was starting to get into the car Rob tapped Rachel on the shoulder and took off running down the sidewalk with Rachel right behind him.

  They reached the intersection of Delphinium and Indian Street and could now see the school that was their destination. They took a good look up and down Indian before making their way across. Once across they jogged into the parking lot of Badger Springs Middle School and up to the main entrance. The school was fenced all the way around but near the main entrance they found a short stucco wall with a small rod iron fence on top of it. The wall made getting over easy, so they tossed their bags over then scrambled over themselves.

  Once onto the school grounds Rob told Rachel, “Start making your way towards the back of the school and take a quick look around. I’m going to wait here a minute and make sure no one is following us. I wasn’t able to watch our back really well while we were running over here. I don’t think that guy smashing car windows saw us but better safe than sorry,” I also need to catch my breath, he didn’t add. I really should have done more cardio. “Just don’t go to where we can’t see or hear each other.”

  “Okay,” Rachel replied before making her way into the school.

  Rob waited about three minutes and was happy to see the area they just came from was still and quiet. By this time Rachel was walking back to him, “I checked just past this building. It leads into a center courtyard of some sort. I took a good look there and I didn’t hear or see anyone.”

  “Good work, lets head that way.” They walked together through the buildings. “Keep your eye open for broken windows or doors that have been forced open. There’s been a group of dummies breaking into schools in Moreno Valley for the past month or so and they haven’t been caught. It would suck to run into them right now.” They walked into the courtyard and Rob changed his mind. “Instead of continuing let’s take advantage of the privacy we have here. The buildings block anyone from seeing us from outside the school and we should be able to hear someone walking up before they seen us. We can take a short break.”

  “That sounds good to me,” Rachel replied as she put her messenger bag onto an outdoor table normally used by the students of the school. “I really need to pee again. This is way too much excitement for me.”

  After looking around Rob could only see one option to relieve themselves without leaving the courtyard. Unfortunately it had no cover. “See that small section of dirt in the corner of that building?” Rachel nodded as Rob pointed. “Use that to go and I’ll stand watch.”

  “Okay, just no looking,” Rachel said with a chuckle.

  “Wouldn’t think of it, cross my heart hope to die, or pinky promise, or whatever the kids are saying nowadays,” he said with amusement in his voice.

  After Rachel did her business, she stood watch for Rob while he did the same. Then they sat at the table and drank some water and ate a protein bar each. “What do you think you’ll do afterwards?” Rachel asked, curiosity in her voice.

  “Well after this I’m going to get you home, then go home myself,” not realizing she was referencing the long term.

  “No, I mean after after. Like once everything calms down, a year or five years from now,” she explained.

  “Ah,” Rob said, finally grasping what she was asking. He thought for a minute before answering. “You know, I’ve never really thought about that. Anytime I thought about an end of the world scenario or major disaster and what I would do in response, my focus was always on the initial surviving. Surviving the first night, then the first week, and the first few months. I’ve never thought long term.” Rob fell silent again as he pondered the question.

  Finally, he continued, “Of course, my main priority is making sure my family lives through the initial chaos that the EMP is going to cause. Then to make sure they live long term in what I’m sure will be a new normal. I really do think the power is going to be off for a very long time, and by the time things are calmed down enough to start repairing the damage I’m not sure if there will be anyone left alive to actually do the repairs. That’s a deep question, and I guess my answer right now is, other than surviving, I don’t really know. What about you?”

  “I’m in the same boat as you. Or maybe a worse boat. I’ve never even planned for a disaster like an earthquake, let alone the end of the world. I have no clue.” They both fell into a silence as they contemplated the long term outlook for both of their families.

  After another five minutes it was time to go. They shouldered their bags and started walking, continuing north through the courtyard then making a right turn next to what looked like a large enclosure with several dumpsters inside. On the left was a large open asphalt area with several basketball courts separated from the area they were currently in by a short fence. They walked to the end of the fence where there was an opening next to a building, went through the opening, made a right to continue east through the school grounds, and came to a sudden stop.

  Rob and Rachel had almost walked directly into three people. A Hispanic guy with numerous tattoos on his arms, neck, and shaved head which Rob was almost certain were mostly prison tattoos wearing a green shirt with an eagle on it and blue jeans carrying a crowbar. Another Hispanic guy wearing a black hoodie and black skinny jeans carrying a bat. The third was a black guy wearing a red hoodie and blue jeans also carrying a bat. All three were around five feet ten inches with average builds, but what mostly concerned Rob were the weapons they were carrying. Well at least I’m a little better armed. Nothing like bringing a stick to a gunfight. Unless one of them has a gun that I can’t see of course, Rob thought.

  “Well, what do we have here?” the Hispanic guy with green shirt and crowbar said. “Looks like these two love birds are trespassing on school grounds.”

  “Look guys,” Rob said. “We’re just passing through. How about you just let us through, then you can go back to whatever it was you were doing before we showed up, and no one will get hurt tonight.” He knew anything short of being tough towards them would just make them think he was weak and easy prey.

  “I think he just threatened us guys. Looks like they gots some good stuff too,” the black guy with the red hoodie said, looking sideways at his friends. He then looked directly at Rachel, “Drop your bag honey, I’ll make this painless for you.”

  As all three started to move closer Rob had his gun out and pointed at the head of the closest one, which turned out to be the Hispanic guy wearing the black skinny jeans with the bat, in less than a second. This caused all three to stop dead in their tracks.

  “Like I was saying, just let us pass through and none of you will get hurt,” Rob said. “Now, drop your sticks and turn around. I’m not screwin’ around with you guys.”

  “You ain’t gonna shoot no one dude,” green shirt with the crowbar said. “Bet you the gun ain’t even loaded.”

  Rob moved the gun so that it was pointed at green shirt with the crowbars’ head, “You die first.” No one moved or spoke for about twenty seconds. “What’s it going to be?" Rob asked staring green shirt in the eyes. “Either we walk away, and you guys go about your business, or we walk away after you all die. Either way, we walk away.” The first to drop his bat was red hoodie, followed closely by black hoodie. Green shirt had fury in his eyes and was shaking with anger, but after a few more seconds he dropped the crowbar. If any of them try anything it’ll be him. He’s pissed, Rob thought. “Now turn around, face the building and get on your k
nees. Count slowly to one hundred before you get up. If you follow us I promise it will end badly for you.”

  “Man fuck you, homie,” green shirt said. “You ain’t doin’ shit. Soon as you gone we gonna catch up to you and make you watch while we fuck yo girl. Then we gonna kill you nice and slow.”

  “You aren’t fucking anyone. You touch me, and you’ll regret it,” Rachel said quietly, with a hardness in her voice. Rob was surprised, but knew she meant every word.

  “Screw you bitch,” Green shirt continued, now looking Rachel up and down with a lascivious look on his face. “I’m gonna do stuff to you that you wouldn’t never think of. And it’s gonna hurt. You’re gonna-.”

  Rob didn’t let him finish. He pointed the gun at green shirt’s stomach and pulled the trigger. He didn’t bother to aim, knowing that taking the time to line up the sights and obtain a proper sight picture was a waste of time. From three feet away all he needed to do was point the gun and pull the trigger and he was all but guaranteed to hit his target. Once he pulled the trigger Rob immediately moved his gun to cover the other two in case they decided to rush him. Green shirt immediately stopped talking, covered his stomach, and had a puzzled look on his face. It took him a few seconds to realize he had been shot, then he stumbled back a few steps until his back hit the wall of the building and he slid down into a sitting position.

  “The fuck, man!” screamed red hoodie while black hoodie got down on his knees trying to render aid to his cohort.

  Rob raised his voice, “All of you shut the hell up! I told you I wasn’t screwing around. I swear to you, if you follow us you’re gonna go out like your friend. Do you understand me?”

  “Yeah man, just get the fuck outta here!” black hoodie screamed.

  Rob started backing up with Rachel right next to him. He could see she looked terrified. “Keep moving,” he said in a loud whisper.

  Rob walked quickly backwards until they hit the field just east of the basketball courts, then they turned and ran. Once they reached the fence that separated the two schools’ fields they quickly scaled it, not bothering to take off their bags as the fence was chain link and only four feet high, and continued to run, with Rob continuously checking behind them to make sure the two uninjured criminals weren’t following.

  They reached the fence that divided the elementary school property from the open field next to it, another four feet high chain link fence, and quickly jumped it as well, then ran flat out in a northeast direction across the field. They reached the corner of the intersection of Perris Boulevard and Cactus and paused. “Check the streets all four directions, let me know if you see anything,” Rob said as he studied the field and school behind them for movement. After twenty seconds neither saw anything that caused them concern, so they crossed Perris at a run and continued east on Cactus.

  They continued to run flat out, only stopping briefly at side streets to check for movement, until they reached Kitching Street. At this point Rob stopped. “Hold up, lets catch our breath,” he said between deep breaths. Stopping here wasn’t the best idea due to still being in the middle of heavily populated areas, but he needed to catch his breath and check their rear to make sure they weren’t being followed.

  “There is a park up ahead, one more block on the right, we can rest there,” Rachel suggested. She was barely breathing hard whereas Rob was huffing and puffing.

  “You a runner or something?” He asked her.

  “Not much anymore, but I ran track in high school, and still try to run a few miles at least once a week.”

  “No wonder I can’t keep up with you, I’m racing a friggin’ track star.” Rob said as he made one more quick check behind, then in both directions on Kitching. “Okay, let’s go. Keep an eye out as we move. We’ll rest at the park.”

  They crossed Kitching and moved at a much slower, but still quick pace down Cactus. They were both eager to get out of the residential area. They reached Woodland Park on the right and found a small stand of young oak trees towards the south end of the park. “Let’s rest here. Five minutes, then we go. We only have a couple blocks until we reach the open fields.”

  “Okay,” Rachel agreed as they walked into the trees, took off their bags, and sat down, using the trees as cover. The benches and picnic tables in the park were too exposed to use, especially with the park being right in the middle of a neighborhood, surrounded on all sides by houses. Rachel immediately took out a water bottle and started drinking heavily from it.

  As Rob started rehydrating himself he noticed Rachel had a faraway look in her eyes. “You okay?” he asked her gently, knowing what she witnessed had to be traumatic for her.

  “Yeah… I just… I…,” she stuttered at first, then in a rush said, “I can’t believe that actually happened. I can’t believe you shot that guy. Why’d you shoot him?”

  Rob took a moment to gather his thoughts before speaking. “I didn’t want to shoot him, but I want to get home more. The way he threatened to follow us, the way he threatened to rape you then kill me, we couldn’t take the chance that they would actually try to do it. If they did try, there is no way of knowing if next time they would get the jump on us. If they did surprise us, then we would never make it home to our families. He brought it on himself and I’ll sleep like a baby knowing he didn’t turn us into victims and he won’t victimize anyone else in the future.”

  After a minute or so Rachel finally responded, “Yeah I guess you’re right. It’s just… as much as I think about it, as much as I believe you did the right thing to get us home, I never would have thought that not only would I see something like that happen but also be friends with the guy who did it.”

  “That’s totally understandable,” Rob replied. “Trust me, I didn’t want to do it. I don’t like what I did. What I do like is that we are both still alive. That you aren’t raped and left for dead. That I’m not dead after being tortured. That we are both living to fight another day. If I thought for a second that those dirt bags would have left us alone once we walked away I wouldn’t have done it. But the look in his eyes… you could tell he wasn’t going to give up. He would chase me all the way to Yucaipa if he had to. Did you notice the tattoos?” Rachel nodded, and Rob continued, “I’m pretty sure most of them were prison tats. He did some serious time at some point to have all that. And I’m not an expert, but I think he was a gang member based on a couple of them that I could see. With someone like that, respect is one of the most important things they hold onto. Especially in front of their fellow gangsters. They feel disrespected and it’s worth killing over and I couldn’t let that happen to us. If he felt disrespected in front of his friends, he would have to do something to us to maintain credibility.”

  Another moment of silence passed while Rachel battled with her own emotions. Finally, she spoke, sounding worn out, “I get it, and I’m grateful for what you did. I really am. This new world is just going to take some getting used to, that’s all.”

  “You just have to focus on your family. I keep saying the world is different now and I mean that. The only thing that matters is your own safety and the safety of your family. As much as I hate it, I’m sure there is going to be a lot more death before this is all said and done. And for what it’s worth, you did a great job. There was no doubt in my mind that he would regret touching you.”

  They both fell silent and Rob decided to replace the single round of ammo he expended during their confrontation with the hooligans at the school. First, Rob drew his gun and pulled one of the full magazines from the holder on his belt. Second, he dropped the magazine from the gun, replaced it with the full one, and holstered the gun. Next, he pulled the box of ammo out of his backpack, took a round out, inserted it into the magazine he had removed from the gun, and put the now full magazine into the magazine holder on his belt. After a few minutes Rob stood back up. “Let’s go, almost there.”

  As they walked through the park back towards Cactus they both stopped. They could hear screaming and yelling
and it sounded like it was coming from the northeast area of the park. Right in the area they were about to walk through. As Rob listened he thought it was at least two males and three females and it sounded like they were in a serious fight. He wasn’t sure as it was hard to make out what was being said but it sounded like one of the females was saying something about putting a knife down and one of the males was threatening to get a gun from a car. Another issue. Can’t we just catch a break? This is exhausting, Rob thought to himself.

  “Let’s go the other way. We can try to cut through the neighborhood and get back to Delphinium,” Rob said. They both turned and started walking quickly south through the park. They cut through to the southeast side of the park, passing playgrounds and a baseball diamond, before coming out onto White Wood Circle. Not being familiar with the area Rob only knew Delphinium was to the south but not which streets they needed to take to get there, so once again he deferred to Rachel’s more intimate knowledge of the area. “Which way?” he asked her.

  “To the right. I think we just need to follow it where it turns left then use the little side street about halfway down to come out to Delphinium.” Rob was happy to hear some of the determination and hardness was making its way back into her voice.

  “Okay, back through the houses then. Eyes and ears open. Let’s go.” They went south to where the street took a sudden ninety degree left turn and changed names from White Wood to Figwood Way. Jogging the whole way they passed a cul-de-sac then came out to Rosemary Avenue which they used to head south and reach Delphinium again. After they walked the one block south and checked both directions on Delphinium they turned east and jogged to Lasselle. The intersection of Lasselle and Delphinium was a T-intersection. The west side of Lasselle on both sides of Delphinium was residential with numerous tract home neighborhoods. The east side of Lasselle was a large field covering almost 400 acres. At some point in the past large sections were graded for future neighborhoods that were never built due to the 2008 economic depression that severely affected the housing industry.