by Lucin, David
Both of Jenn’s legs had turned to brick, and her calves ached. Not even the hike in Prescott all those years ago took this long. She imagined the couch in the cabin. Hopefully it was soft and deep—the type she could sink into. Ice would be good, too, for her feet, and a hot shower to wash the smoke out of her hair. If she didn’t wash it soon, it’d smell for weeks. What would they have to eat in there? Fruit? Real meat? At this point, she’d settle for some more soy bacon and potatoes. Sam’s stepfather had money, so he might have wine. After a couple of glasses—white, preferably, but Jenn wouldn’t discriminate—and a healthy buzz, she’d throw on a housecoat and fall asleep beside Sam.
A driveway snaked away from the cul-de-sac and up a gentle slope. Tall pines lined both sides. At the end stood a proper house, not a cabin. At a full two stories, it had a detached garage with an SUV parked in front. A peaked roof topped the house’s long windows, and wide stairs led to double front doors.
They both hung open.
Instinct told Jenn to run, down the driveway and away from this place, but her hand lifted her shirt and found the handle of Gary’s gun.
Sam looked as if he was preparing to steal home. If he ran inside, Jenn would run with him, but she thought about what Tara and Derek had said.
Squatters.
She put an arm across Sam’s chest. “Wait.” Careful to keep her finger away from the trigger, she eased the pistol from its holster and reminded herself there was still a round in the chamber.
Gun up, she crept forward. No movement at the door. None in the windows, either. She breathed loudly. So did Sam. To her ears, the tap of their shoes on the driveway sounded like thunder. Someone could probably hear it from inside. They might have already seen them and could be hiding, ready to jump her and Sam from a corner or dark room.
She planted a foot on the first step leading to the front doors. Sam stayed two steps behind her. On the porch, she paused, then peered down the gun’s sights and into the house.
Black.
Willing her eyes to see in the darkness, she blinked twice. Outside, the red moon lit the smoky sky on fire, but little of that light made its way inside. The flashlight would help, but that might give them away.
Blindly, she stepped through the doorway. She felt something approach on her right and spun around.
Nothing. More black.
She swung left.
Still nothing.
With a slow, deliberate exhale, she lowered herself to a knee and gave her eyes a moment to adjust. Sam sidled up behind her and laid a comforting hand between her shoulders.
Soon, the shape of a hallway came into view, but Jenn could make out only basic shapes. It didn’t matter if someone in here could see her; without more light, she’d never see them. She pulled her flashlight from her pocket and switched it on, illuminating hardwood floors and walls adorned with framed paintings of landscapes. Jenn inched forward, the gun in one hand and the flashlight in the other.
They passed an open door on her right. The white of her light lit up a toilet and sink. All clear. In the living room, couch cushions lay on the hardwood floor. The rectangle coffee table was overturned. A bracket on the wall marked the spot where a TV once lived.
The kitchen came next. Flies buzzed around the central island. One landed on Jenn’s hand. It tickled but she didn’t dare brush it away. Cupboard doors hung open. Beneath her shoes, shards of broken dishes crunched. The fridge was open, too, and the air tasted sour, conjuring the image of the dead woman in the woods. She searched for a body but found only shattered dishware and a spilled tub of flour.
Sam tapped her arm and gestured to the stairs, and she led them up.
Upstairs, the carpet muffled the sound of their shoes. Nicole’s room came first. Her dresser lay on its side, the contents emptied onto the middle of the floor. Jenn stepped over a cracked picture frame. The bed was unkempt. A jewelry box was on the sheets. Earrings, bracelets, and necklaces spilled out.
But no blood and no bodies.
The master bedroom looked much the same. Like in the living room, brackets hung on the wall in place of a TV. In the en-suite bathroom, a toothbrush, a tube of toothpaste, and a hairbrush lay on the vanity. The medicine cabinet above the sink was open. Inside, bottles of pills rested on their sides.
Again, no blood. No bodies, either.
After they checked a third bedroom, another bathroom, and a loft with two couches and a desk, Jenn lowered the gun. The flashlight, aimed at the floor, illuminated Sam from below. “No one’s here,” he said, his voice still quiet.
“Where are they?” Jenn asked. “Your parents. Think they were in town when it happened and they stayed there to hide?”
“I doubt it. My mom’s not a morning person. The EMP went off early. She was probably in bed.”
“So where the hell’d they go?”
“No idea. The car’s here, and nothing’s really walking distance.”
The car. “Do they usually park in the garage?” Jenn asked.
“Yeah, I guess so. Never thought too much about it. Why?”
“It’s parked out front.”
Sam’s mouth fell open. He made for the stairs, and Jenn followed. She recalled Gary’s gun safety rules and kept it aimed away from him. The light of the flashlight bounced from a picture hanging on the wall to a rug on the main floor. They went outside, where Sam darted left, toward the garage, and waited for Jenn at the side door. When she came up beside him, she switched off her light and he tested the knob.
He hung his head. Locked.
Gun aimed at the door, Jenn nodded to Sam, who knocked twice.
No answer.
Sam knocked again.
Still no answer.
Junkies or squatters wouldn’t be in there, would they? They had a whole house. No way they’d hide out in the garage. If anyone was in there, it would be Sam’s family. It had to be. “Call to them,” Jenn said.
“Nicole!” Sam yelled. The voice carried in the silence. Jenn cringed and tightened her grip on the gun. It felt heavier every second. “Mom! Kevin!”
A breath later, the door eased open, revealing a young woman dressed in striped pajamas. “Sam?” The word came out quiet and lacked inflection, like the speaker was only half alive.
Sam wrapped his arms around her and pulled her tight.
“Hey, sis,” he said.
17
“It’s not safe out here!” Nicole said. She tore herself away from Sam, took his wrist, and pulled him inside the garage.
Her hand on the door, ready to close it, she caught sight of Jenn and stopped. Her blonde hair was tied up in a loose bun, and her upturned nose and wide mouth looked like Sam’s. Wrinkled and baggy, the pajamas hung off her shoulders and hips, but her face was lean and athletic. She was taller than Jenn expected—almost as tall as Sam.
“Jenn?” Nicole asked. Her eyes wandered to the gun. “Come inside. Now!” She reached for Jenn’s arm and yanked her through the door. It slammed shut behind them. The click of a lock followed.
The reek of urine and feces struck Jenn like a wall. To keep from retching, she covered her mouth with her free hand and held her breath. Her stomach still lurched, though, and she gagged, tasting the spaghetti she ate for breakfast.
A bright light lit up the far end of the garage. Then it flashed into her eyes and turned everything white. Stars clouded her vision when she glanced away.
“Sam?” a deep voice said.
“Hey, Kevin.”
“What . . . How . . .” Kevin stumbled.
With a hard blink, Jenn looked toward the light. A halo of white illuminated two people. Both sat on the floor and leaned against the wall of the garage. Flashlight in hand, Kevin pushed up his glasses. Stubble covered his puffy cheeks and double chin. Beside him sat a thin woman with short hair. Sam’s mother, Barbara. Her nose was longer and pointier than Sam’s or Nicole’s. Her mouth was smaller, too, but the lips were thicker, as if she’d received injections. The skin on her chin and forehead was smooth
and lacked wrinkles. She seemed sixty and twenty-five all at once.
Barbara lifted her head and narrowed her eyes at Sam. “What are you doing here?”
Jenn almost laughed out loud. Had she heard that right? Did Barbara really ask why her son had come to find her during the worst disaster in American history? What else would he have done? She was his family, whether he was close with her or not. Hell, he sacrificed his car to get here, not to mention risked himself when running to help Tara and Derek. What would Jenn’s parents have given to see their daughter one more time? They would have greeted her with hugs and embarrassing kisses, not accusations.
Her grip around the gun tightened. In a flash, she imagined turning it on Barbara, if only for the satisfaction of seeing her squirm and scream, but she quickly buried the idea; Gary would not have approved.
She secured the Glock in its holster.
“Is that a gun?” Barbara asked. “Why does she have a gun?”
Silhouetted by Kevin’s flashlight, Sam held his hands out to his side and crouched in front of Barbara. “Mom, this is Jenn.”
Whenever Jenn imagined meeting Sam’s family, they’d be at a nice restaurant. Kevin would sport a suit. Sam, too. Jenn would wear a dress. A new one, not the used one she bought from the thrift store for her high school graduation. She would order steak, medium rare, and sip expensive Californian wine. Barbara would laugh at Jenn’s jokes, and everyone would poke fun at Sam while he ran his hand up her thigh under the table.
Instead, she stood in this dark garage, carrying a gun, inhaling the reek of excrement, and trying not to vomit.
“Tell her to give that gun to Kevin,” Barbara said. Her voice projected in the enclosed space, but the syllables came out shaky. “She shouldn’t have it.”
Sam exhaled audibly. “Stop talking to her like she can’t hear you.”
“Fine.” Barbara looked to Jenn, an exaggerated movement that involved her entire torso. “Jenn, it’s nice to meet you—finally—but would you please give that gun to Kevin so he can put it away?”
A bead of sweat rolled down Jenn’s cheek. What the hell was she supposed to say to that? She knew Barbara was abrasive; Sam had told her as much. But asking Jenn to hand over the gun? If not for her, Sam might not have made it here. The men on the highway might have killed him and dumped him in the woods with that poor woman. What right did Barbara have to assume Jenn couldn’t safely handle a weapon?
Her gut insisted that she tell Barbara off. When she began to speak, to hopefully say no and leave it at that, Nicole cut in. “It’s okay, Mom. She’s being safe and knows what she’s doing.” She stepped in front of Jenn. Her lips were chapped, and white gobs clung to the corners of her mouth. Then she wrapped her arms around Jenn. “I’m so happy to meet you.”
Jenn, her head buried in Nicole’s sweaty neckline, hesitated for a moment, then returned the hug. A strong whiff of body odor assaulted her nostrils. “Nice to meet you, too,” she said into Nicole’s pajama top.
Barbara uttered something incoherent, but Sam interrupted. “Why are you in the garage?”
“The fallout from the bombs.” Nicole let Jenn go. “Haven’t you listened to the radio?”
“We heard it,” Sam said. “On our way here. But there’s no fallout.”
Barbara snorted. The sound reminded Jenn of her boyfriend. “How do you know?” she asked dismissively.
“We’ve been out in it,” Jenn said. “And Gary, my billet, said it’s safe. I believe him.”
“But the radio—”
“Mom,” Sam said. “There isn’t any radiation.”
Barbara crossed her arms and pouted like a child.
Sam snapped his fingers. “Wait. Radio? How’d you get radio?”
“Kevin’s car,” Nicole said. “Our phones died and the power went off, so we tried it. The AM worked.”
“Your car works?” Jenn blurted.
“Yeah. Why wouldn’t it?”
“The keys,” Sam said, his voice frantic. “Where are they?”
Barbara huffed. “Why do you need our car? What’s wrong with yours? Are you leaving me again?”
The words stung and made Jenn wince. Was this how Barbara always spoke to her son? No wonder he moved away to Flagstaff and refused to visit home.
Nicole held out the keys. “Here.”
Sam plucked them from Nicole’s fingers and raced for the door. Jenn and Nicole followed as Barbara protested with another snort and a dramatic shake of her head.
In front of the garage, the lights of the SUV, a newish, freshly washed BMW with flawless paint, flashed once, and the locks clicked open. Sam sat in the driver’s seat.
“What’s going on?” Nicole asked, sounding impatient now. “Sam, where’s your car? How’d you guys get here?”
He pressed his thumb to the ignition. The vehicle buzzed to life as the instrument panel lit up in a Christmas-tree collage of greens and reds. Light from the touchscreen on the dashboard bathed the interior and Sam’s face in shades of blue. “—water for flushing toilets or bathing,” the emergency broadcast blared from the speakers, “only for drinking and cooking. Ration food supplies, and consume all peri—” Sam muted the volume.
“How much charge?” Jenn asked.
Sam shut off the engine and threw his head against the headrest. “Just under one percent,” he said. “Enough to get us to the other side of town. That’s it.”
* * *
Barbara held onto Kevin’s arm, allegedly for balance, since she complained of being light-headed as soon as she could smell the smoke outside the garage. Her free hand rested on her forehead as Kevin’s flashlight shone on a heap of shattered plates in the kitchen.
“What on Earth happened in here?” she complained.
“Someone must have broken in,” Sam said. “You didn’t hear anything?”
Barbara gasped. “How would we hear anything?” The inflection made the question rhetorical.
Kevin eased his wife onto a seat at the island. “Well, we did hear someone fiddling with the doorknob to the—”
“I told you I didn’t hear anything!” Barbara buried her face in both hands. “Do you know how long it will take me to clean this up? And I know I won’t have any help. I never do.”
No one answered. Seated across from Barbara, Nicole squirmed like her skin fit too tightly. Sam dug through a drawer next to the dishwasher, then pulled out a barbecue lighter, which he used to ignite a candle in the center of the island.
An orange glow warmed the kitchen and cast long shadows on the walls and cupboards. The air smelled of lavender and fruit now. It made Jenn’s stomach rumble and reminded her that she was hungry. Her eyes still burned and her throat still itched, but at least the oppressive stink of the smoke had faded. The sting of urine and feces clung to her sinuses, though, despite the scented candles.
She sat on a stool next to Nicole. Sam, his elbows on the marble countertop, leaned at the far end. Kevin rubbed Barbara’s arms as Nicole watched the flame of the candle dance.
“Okay,” Sam said. “From the start. What happened?”
Nicole laid her hands in her lap. She’d let her hair down since leaving the garage, and it hung around her shoulders. With a long exhale, she brushed a strand away from her eyes. “The lights went out for no reason. I was streaming a movie on my phone, and it just cut out. Me and Kevin tried the TV but it didn’t work. I figured it was a blackout or power outage or something, so we waited. After a while, we tried everything again, but it still wouldn’t turn on. Kevin wanted to drive over to his friend Eric’s place. That’s when we heard the radio. It said to stay inside because there was fallout.”
She paused to take a sip of water. “But we were scared about the windows, you know? Like, we thought they could break or the radiation could go through them. So Kevin woke up Mom and I backed the car out of the garage. We did what the radio said and grabbed food and water and stayed inside. Sam, were they wrong? Why would they say there was fallout if there wasn�
��t? It doesn’t make sense.” She shivered and hugged herself.
Jenn popped off the chair and fetched a blanket from the couch. “Here,” she said and handed it to Nicole.
Nicole wrapped it around her shoulders and smiled warmly. “Thanks, Jenn.”
Barbara shot them both a glare. What did she want? Did she expect Jenn to find her a blanket, too? Or was she mad that Jenn hadn’t already offered her one?
“We had to pee in a bucket,” Nicole said. “And we had to—well, we did what the radio said. No using water to flush toilets. Not that we had a toilet in there. We didn’t drink much, either. Just enough. We were so thirsty.”
The taps. Jenn shot up from her seat. Sam saw it and tried the sink, but nothing came out.
Nicole pulled the blanket tighter. “What’s wrong?”
“The water’s out,” Jenn said.
“Out?” Nicole echoed. “What do you mean? Out where?”
“Everywhere,” Sam said. “Without power, there’s no way to refill the water towers. Once they run out, that’s it.”
Barbara groaned. “Well what are we supposed to do, then? Who’s going to help us get more water?”
“Help you?” Jenn heard herself say.
Barbara’s unnatural lips quivered. “Yes, help. They can’t expect us to get by without water.”
“Mom,” Nicole started, her voice soft but firm. “Listen to Sam.”
“Don’t talk to me like that,” Barbara barked. Kevin stepped away from her but didn’t speak. Nicole’s expression remained unchanged as Barbara continued to berate her. “I’m your mother. Just because you decided to leave me like your brother doesn’t mean—”
“Stop!” Sam shouted.
Barbara made a derisive sound with her nose and threw her arms in the air with all the grace of a bad actress.
Sam planted his palms on the island and sucked in a deep breath.
Barbara muttered before speaking again. “You still haven’t told me what happened to your car.”
Sam rubbed his temples. “It was stolen.”
“Stolen!”
“We were carjacked,” Sam added. “On the highway. We ran away.”
