by Dave Bowman
21
Jack looked inside the bedroom. Naomi and Brent were standing against the wall. They stared at him with terror-stricken eyes.
“Is he dead?” Brent asked.
Jack glanced once more at the figure lying on the floor, bleeding out into the darkness.
He reached down and moved the guy’s hooded sweatshirt out of the way to reach the pulse point on his throat. There was nothing.
“Yeah. He’s dead.”
Jack tucked his own gun into his waistband. He held the other pistol in his hand.
“I – I didn’t know what to do,” Brent stammered. “We didn’t have any weapons. We were trapped in here. And that guy wasn’t moving out of the way. It – it looked like he just wanted to shoot us no matter what.”
He spoke in a panic, quickly. He adjusted the glasses on his face with both hands. Even in the near darkness, Jack could see his hands trembling.
“It’s okay,” Jack said. “There was nothing you could have done.”
Naomi stood silently, staring with an open mouth at the dead man on the floor.
“We’ve got to move his body,” Jack said. “After two days with his corpse here in the hallway, the stench would be unbearable.”
Brent nodded. “I – I can help you move him. But… We’re not taking him outside, are we?”
“No, it’s too risky going outside right now,” Jack answered. “But we can at least drag him to the other bedroom. Hopefully the smell won’t reach us in here.”
Brent stepped forward with hesitation toward the body. Jack grabbed the guy from his shoulders. Brent took hold of his feet.
Together, they dragged the body into the far corner of the second bedroom. The corpse left a trail of blood in the hallway. Jack and Brent let go of the body, and it hit the floor with a dull thud.
They returned quickly to the room where Naomi waited, still with a dazed look on her face.
Jack closed the door and stuffed a rag in the crack at the bottom. He looked around the dark, stuffy room.
This tight, enclosed space would have to be their home for the next forty-eight hours.
Jack’s hands felt wet. He looked down at them, and could just make out the blood from the person he had just shot.
Jack sat down against the wall. Naomi and Brent did the same. No one spoke.
Even in the darkness, Jack had seen how young the guy was. He had been barely an adult, probably. And now his life was over.
It was the first life Jack had ever taken. The first time he had fired a weapon at someone.
He exhaled slowly, trying to calm down his racing pulse. His stomach swirled, nauseous and tight. He fought back the urge to vomit. His ears still rang from the deafening noise of a pistol being fired in an enclosed space.
“I never shot anyone before.”
Jack heard the words being spoken by a strange voice. A moment passed before he realized it had been his own.
He shook his head. There was some kind of disconnect.
Was he going crazy?
Get it together, Hawthorne.
“He would have shot us,” Naomi finally said, breaking the heavy silence. “We would have been dead if you hadn’t killed him first.”
Brent nodded from his corner. “That guy was strung out on something. He was going to shoot.”
“You did the right thing, Jack,” Naomi said.
Jack knew they were right, of course. There had been no choice. Jack wasn’t about to let someone murder his friends. He had to take that guy down.
But somehow, that didn’t change the sick feeling taking Jack over. It didn’t erase the image of that guy being shot in the head.
It didn’t stop the phrase repeating itself over and over in Jack’s mind like a broken record.
I killed someone.
Sure, it was justified. Jack had had to kill the guy to defend Naomi, Brent, and himself. But somehow, it didn’t feel like a victory to have a dead guy in the other room.
Jack’s head swirled with doubt. Maybe he could have avoided shooting him. What if he had done something differently?
But deep down, Jack knew his actions had been necessary. There had been no other option.
He would just have to live with this.
Maybe with time, it would get easier. But tonight, it weighed heavily on him. And he knew that even though he couldn’t have avoided pulling that trigger, he would carry around the guilt forever.
His mouth was dry. Parched. He realized it all of a sudden.
“Do we have any soda?” he asked.
“Sure,” Naomi said. She dug around in one of the bags, and handed Jack a can of cola.
Jack set the guy’s pistol down on the floor and took the lukewarm can. He gulped the fizzy liquid down, the carbonation helping to settle his stomach.
Jack leaned his head against the wall. Outside, he figured the fallout had begun in full force. Anyone not in a protected shelter would be exposing themselves to harmful, and likely deadly, radiation.
How had everything changed so quickly? The world had become unrecognizable in a matter of hours.
That morning, he had been worried about meetings and presentations at work. Now, those concerns seemed laughable. Utterly irrelevant.
After the attacks, everything had changed. Before, they could rely on a mostly well-tuned system of agriculture, manufacturing, distribution, and transportation. It hadn’t been perfect, but it had kept most people alive. Everyone had come to rely on it.
Now, none of that could be taken for granted. Everyone would have to find what they needed. And Jack knew that competition for food, water, and shelter in this new world would lead to more and more violence.
How long would it be before infrastructure was rebuilt? Before everything was up and running again? Before society was restored?
The EMP hadn’t just disabled electronics. It had destroyed them. The electrical system had been fried.
The nuclear bombs had further destroyed cities, roads, and structures. How many cities had been bombed? If this had happened in all the large cities in the United States, which Jack suspected it had, the effect would be disastrous.
Millions of people had been killed instantly.
It could take years to rebuild everything.
The cities would be devastated. Law enforcement would be unable to keep the peace. The justice system would be all but nonexistent.
Now, people’s own morals would dictate how they acted. No laws would keep them in line.
And judging from what Jack had seen that day, he didn’t have a lot of hope for people’s morals.
He again thought of Annie. He twisted his face in agony as he imagined countless scenarios. Annie hurt, Annie alone, Annie afraid for her life.
How he longed to be back at home with her safe at his side. He could almost smell the scent of her curly hair, see the curve of her smile, and hear her lilting laugh.
She was everything to him. He couldn’t bear the thought of her in pain or in danger.
Guilt tormented him. If only he had listened to her. If only he had stayed in Texas.
He had failed Annie. Failed to keep her safe.
He clenched his fists until the muscles trembled.
Somehow, he would make it up to her. If only she could hang on until he got there. If only she could find a way to survive, to use that primal instinct he knew she had.
She would make it. She was strong. And he would find his way back to her. Come hell or high water, he, Brent and Naomi would make it to Texas.
To stay alive in this new world, Jack knew he would have to face more situations like the one in the hallway.
There would be many more tough decisions.
But Jack would do what it took. He would protect himself and the ones he cared about. And having gone through everything they had together, he did care for Brent and Naomi. They were a team, the three of them.
And somehow, he would travel halfway across the country to get home to his wife.
&nb
sp; Brent and Naomi settled into their places, and their breathing soon became regular and deep. Despite the bad conditions of the gutted house, the exhaustion of the day lulled them into sleep.
Sometime later, a noise startled Jack. He must have dozed off, too, he realized as his eyes flew open.
It took him just a moment to wake and shift into high alert.
He blinked.
A gun was pointing at his face.
Above him, a man with a long gray beard looked down at him.
The man smiled, revealing a missing front tooth.
22
Annie lay on the floor of the dark room where she had fallen. Her heart pounded as she waited, listening.
“I’ll deal with you later!” Dan shouted from the hallway.
Then, Annie heard his footsteps slowly moving down the hallway. Toward Charlotte.
“Please, no,” Charlotte begged, her voice breaking.
“Dear, sweet Charlotte,” Dan’s voice answered.
Annie listened as he moved farther away, outside the room.
Suddenly, there were sounds of a struggle.
Charlotte fought against the monster Dan had now revealed himself to be. Annie cringed as her friend cried out, kicking and hitting against her attacker.
Finally, Annie heard Dan lead Charlotte down the hallway. She heard the sound of a distant door opening, then slamming shut.
Then, the sound of footsteps receding and disappearing deeper into the house.
Tears sprang to her eyes. How could this have happened? How could she and Charlotte be trapped in the house of a psychopath?
She could see almost nothing in the room now. But when Dan had opened the door to throw her inside, the light from his candle had lit up the room momentarily.
She had only gotten a glimpse of the space she was now locked inside. But she had seen something in the corner that had terrified her.
Some kind of machine.
It must’ve been something from the pamphlet she had seen in the library. There was a pulley and cords. It was some kind of torture device that Dan had built.
And he was now planning to use it on Annie.
She pushed herself up to sit on the wooden floor, but she was too afraid to move beyond the small space she occupied. She was terrified to know what else was in the room with her.
Charlotte’s words haunted her.
I told you this was a bad idea.
Annie should have known better than to lead them on a poorly thought-out plan. She should have known the garage door would be locked.
Annie chided herself for her mistake.
If only we had stayed in the library. Then we could have attacked him when he was least expecting it. Hit him over the head with a lamp. We could have gotten the keys and escaped.
But when she had seen the pamphlet in the library, terror had overtaken her. She could think of nothing else but escaping, immediately.
The fear of what Dan might do to them had driven her to act too soon.
And now, everything had fallen apart. She and Charlotte would likely be murdered.
She hoped that, at the very least, Charlotte was alone at that moment – and not still with Dan. From what Annie had heard, it sounded like Dan had left Charlotte alone in her own room. The footsteps sounded like he had left for a different part of the house.
Maybe he wants to get some more sleep before he starts torturing us.
Annie cringed, covering her face with her hands.
She had failed to keep herself and her best friend safe.
The day before, when the attacks had happened, Annie had been proud of herself. She had done so well, despite the horrible conditions they had faced.
She had gotten Charlotte out of the restaurant early, and Annie had led them out of downtown on foot.
When it seemed all but impossible, Annie had swum across a raging river with Charlotte in tow.
She had fought crowds and mobs to get Charlotte her life-saving medicine.
And she had kept them safe during the detonation of a nuclear bomb.
They had been doing pretty well for themselves until Dan appeared.
If only we had never gotten in that car. If only I had listened to my gut.
She never should have trusted Dan. Never should have let her guard down around the guy.
Maybe they would have found shelter somewhere else if Dan’s Porsche hadn’t pulled up. Or maybe they would have died from the fallout if they hadn’t taken shelter with him.
But Annie would have preferred to die on the streets from the radioactive fallout than to die like this, at the hands of a murderer.
She would never see her husband again. She’d never share in doing the things they loved together. No more Sunday brunches, weekend adventures, or hiking trips with the man she loved.
But it was the little things that tugged at her heart the most. His smile, his strong hands holding hers. She’d never share a laugh with him or wake up to see his face again.
Jack would return to Texas and look for her. Their home would be empty. He’d look for her at the house in the country, too. And she wouldn’t be there.
There would be no trace of her. Jack would never know how she or Charlotte died.
Annie was sobbing now. The tears flowed down her face, wetting her shirt. Her shoulders shook as she wept.
Everything was lost.
She let herself sink fully into despair. She deserved it. She had tried so hard just to survive, just to get herself and her best friend home. She made one mistake, and now it was all over.
She didn’t know how much time she spent crying. She simply sat in the dark, awaiting her fate.
She could see nothing, hear nothing. Somehow, she felt suspended in time and place. She lay back down on the floor and closed her eyes.
She had been in this place before.
Not in that exact spot, of course. But rather, her mind had been in that space before.
In agony, in utter despair. Waiting for him to return to brutalize her. Helpless, hopeless.
She remembered all the times she had waited like this for Chip. Her ex-husband.
It had been so long ago, she had almost forgotten. In fact, she had tried to forget.
It had been a dark chapter in her life. One she tried not to think of. Besides her family, only Jack and Charlotte knew the details.
She had always loved her family. And though she loved the small town she had grown up in, she dreamed of bigger things as a girl.
Her senior year of high school, she met Chip. He was a few years older, just in town for a few months on a work project with the State Department of Transportation.
He treated her nice, better than all the other guys she knew. They had fun together, and she fell for him hard.
He promised her a new life in the city. He told her stories of his life in Nashville: the music, the stars, the nights out. And with Chip by her side, it sounded all the more glamorous. How could she say no?
They got married the summer after her graduation. She said goodbye to everything she had known, and moved with him to Nashville. She got a job as a waitress. It felt like life was finally beginning, and she couldn’t have been happier.
It wasn’t long before Chip’s true colors began to show.
He was insanely jealous. Especially when he was drunk. When Annie’s male coworker called her at home looking to swap shifts, Chip lost it. Annie ended up with a black eye and bruises on her arms.
She was shocked. As soon as Chip stormed out after hitting her, she packed up her things and was just about to call her dad to come get her.
But Chip came back home and got on his knees, begging forgiveness. He had just been under so much stress at work. He loved her. He would never do it again, he promised.
He seemed so genuinely torn up about it, so ashamed of his behavior, that Annie gave him another chance.
Over the next few months, there would be many more chances.
But finally, Annie had left him. She
had decided that she’d had enough.
The memories were hazy. In her exhaustion, Annie struggled to recall it all. It had been fourteen years ago, and Annie had spent those years trying to forget.
But there on the floor of the pitch-black room in Dan’s house, she tried to remember the last encounter with Chip.
When she’d finally left him.
Somehow, it was important to her in this moment.
She’d come home late from work that night. There had been a big birthday party at the Hibachi grill she worked at, and there was a lot of cleaning up to do. So when Annie arrived home an hour later than usual, she was already braced for his temper.
But instead of hitting her that time, he threw her in a closet.
Yes, of course . . . he had locked her up. How had she forgotten? It all came flooding back to her now.
He’d dragged her into a closet and locked her in there. Then he’d left. She’d spent hours there in the dark, tight space, waiting in terror for him to return. He had trapped her, she was sure, to terrorize her, to control her.
It had been so tight, so claustrophobic in that little closet. She had worried about running out of air, especially when she started to hyperventilate from the panic she felt waiting for Chip. Which gave her an idea.
What if he came home to find her dead?
She decided to try it. She had nothing to lose.
Finally, he opened the front door to the house and stumbled in. He knocked over the beer bottles on the coffee table. She knew he was even drunker than before.
While he’d been gone, she had been practicing lengthening her breathing. Just before he stumbled over to the closet and unlocked the door, she took a breath and held it.
She lay there motionless while he gazed at her.
“Annie?” he asked.
She could hear the fear in his voice. He thought she was dead. He was afraid he’d killed his wife.
He bent down to get a closer look. He reached out to feel her pulse on her throat.
And that was when she kicked him in the groin.
He fell backward, reeling from the pain. She leapt to her feet and ran out the front door. She ran all the way to a gas station, where she called her parents to come pick her up.
The next time she saw Chip was to sign the divorce papers. Her parents and brother were with her. With a few signatures, she was free of her first husband.
