by Schow, Ryan
Jagger hopped out of bed, careful not to wake the girl because she needed sleep. He grabbed the gun, stood sentry at the door expecting trouble.
He started to smell the smoke, the cooking of spoiled meat, the rotting smell just beneath it. It was seeping into the windows. He went to the window, looked down below. Through the haze of black smoke, and saw a Humvee arriving.
Next thing he knew, gunfire opened up below. The girl stirred, opened her eyes. She saw him looking at her and stilled. Her eyes found his gun and then the window.
The crackle of gunfire stopped.
A few minutes later, Jagger watched the men pile out of the building. They stripped the National Guardsmen of their weapons and uniforms, then confiscated the truck and left the nearly naked men in the street like tossed trash.
He couldn’t take his eyes off the bodies below. Not the ones immersed in flames, but the bodies of the men who had just died.
He glanced back at the girl. She said nothing. I don’t even know your name, he thought as he looked her over.
Finally he said, “I have two boys. They’re a little older than you. You’ll like them.”
She looked away, then smiled and looked back. For the first time since he found her, he thought he saw some light in those eyes of hers.
They left the room they were staying in because the stink of smoked flesh was seeping into the room they occupied.
“We can’t stay here,” Jagger had said. She nodded. “It stinks, right?”
She just looked at him, said nothing, then she looked down.
They switched floors and sides, found a bedroom that seemed inhabitable, if only for a night. They looked around the small apartment. There was a full sized mattress and a couch. Both smelled clean. Like maybe someone had either just moved in when the war started or was getting ready to move out. Probably the former. He dragged the mattress into the living room, which wasn’t large but had a large glass window with a view.
“I’ll take the couch?” he said.
She looked away, out the window. They slept through the day, woke near sunset and ate a can of chili, a small baggie of chip crumbs and drank two warm sodas. The girl took a blanket off the bed and crawled up on the couch to settle in for the night.
“So that’s how it’s going to be?” Jagger asked with a grin.
She didn’t move. Didn’t even act like she heard him. Looking at the back of her head and body, she was curled on the couch facing away from him, not saying a word. There was something so small and sweet about her, something so pure yet so broken. He couldn’t even begin to imagine what was going on in that little sandy blonde head of hers. She did, however, have the capacity to understand he needed the bed more than her, and somehow this left him feeling content.
“Thank you,” he said, not expecting a response as he crawled into bed.
The next day they got an early start. It was frighteningly cold, as usual, but they’d picked up warmer clothes along the way, clothes they could shed in layers throughout the day as the chill burned off. In the mornings, over their clothes, they wore their blankets like ponchos. The girl draped hers over her head. Jagger did not. He couldn’t limit his hearing for the sake of keeping his ears warm.
They burned the better part of the morning and half the afternoon getting down one side of California Street and up the other side. Devastation was spread out everywhere. At times the street was blocked, but sometimes they could inch through here and there, and maybe navigate their way over small landslides of rubble.
By and large, there were no apartment towers, only rows of two and three story buildings. And California was a wide street. The problem with that was at the time of the first attack, it looked like traffic was heavy. That meant a congestion of cars. Because of this, most of the time they had to walk their bikes and wagons. When they could ride, however, they usually didn’t because they’d just have to get off again because it was that bad.
By the time they reached California and Presidio, they felt like they’d been walking uphill for like ten hours.
Turning on Presidio, seeing more hills directly ahead, he said, “You ready for lunch?”
She let her bike drop in a clatter on the sidewalk, plopped down on her little butt then laid all the way down on her back and said nothing.
He laughed then did the same.
They laid like that until some guys came walking by. They looked at the two of them, their wagons with food and a few bottles of water and started toward them. Jagger sat up and showed them his gun. They changed direction immediately. He laid back down, enjoying the silence and the cool breeze washing over their overheated bodies.
“Water?” he asked.
She didn’t even move but to shoot out her hand. He laughed again. When he handed her the bottle, she sat up smiling, then drank deeply.
Jagger studied her dirty face and her unkempt hair, hair that was in dire need of a washing. He thought of using the water to wash her face, but he imagined he wasn’t much of a sight right now either.
Jagger was always a good looking man, and being military, he’d taken care of his appearance. But now he was wearing clothes with blood and dirt on them. His hair had grown out, his beard—which was non-existent for years—was now full and no longer itching. He was lean, though. Too lean. Where before he worked out regularly, now he was constantly walking, riding, scavenging, and he wasn’t eating much so he’d grown skinny. Far too skinny for his own liking.
What would Lenna think when she saw him? God, he missed her so much. He missed the boys, their lives together, everything. Looking up Presidio, knowing home was but a dozen blocks away, he could not stop the unwanted mixture of both hope and dread.
Climbing to his feet, he said, “You ready?”
She picked up her bike, took a deep breath, then blew it out and looked at him. Her hair was a mess and she was all skin and bones. But she was ready. He smiled and nodded his head and then said, “I’m so proud of you.”
She looked down, suddenly nervous, and then she looked up the street to where they were going and started up the hill. He picked up his bike and started after her.
They trudged up three long blocks passing Sacramento Street and Clay. At the top of the hill they hit Washington. A few blocks later he saw his street. His excitement soared. For the most part, the homes were still in tact. Then he saw the smoked cars in front of what would be his house and everything changed. When he saw his house, his stomach dropped and he felt a hard snap of vertigo. His nightmares were officially coming true.
The girl looked back, saw the panicked look in his eyes, saw how he looked like he was falling apart. If he started walking on his own, he didn’t realize it. When he was within half a block of the house his eyes flooded and everything bright and hopeful in his heart turned black.
His house looked like it was the casualty of a car bomb.
There were exploded pieces of a body on the street near an SUV and a Maxima, both shells of their former selves. Across the way, in some other wreckage from some other mess, was a corpse of a boy laid out sideways. He thought of Hagan, and Ballard. Hurrying over, he slowed and relaxed when he realized it was someone else. Neither of his boys.
But the house…
The girl just stood there in the middle of the street watching this, not knowing what to do, or how to act. He was talking to himself now. Mumbling incoherently. He didn’t want to go inside the house, but he had to. He had to! It was collapsed, not entirely pancaked on itself, but close enough that maybe, possibly…
Dropping all his gear on what would have been the front yard, he headed inside the devastated home and the first thing he saw was the note.
Oh thank GOD!
“They left a note,” he said giddy, holding it up and heading back outside to where the girl was standing. “They left a note!”
She didn’t move. She merely stared at him.
To her that meant more walking. To him he was okay with it because he pretty much knew where t
hey were heading. It was only a few miles from there. That meant a day, two tops depending on the walk over and how much light they had left. Then again, he could travel at night. There were no more drones, and since there were no heaters inside the homes, what would it matter if they were cold outside or cold inside? He needed to see his wife and kids.
“Time to go to college,” he said.
They got on their bikes and rode back to Presidio, then dropped down and cruised the streets where they could. By the time they hit the hellish mess that was the Public Storage building, it was dark. They stopped for a moment at the blown out smithereens of a Target building. She stayed awake while Jagger took a brief cat nap. By the time they got to Masonic it was pitch black outside.
Hayes is around here somewhere, he thought.
They passed McAllister Street, kept going. They passed Fulton and Grove next, and then he saw it: Hayes Street. He saw the college, went up the steps, tried the door.
It was locked.
“There must be another way around,” he said, fighting not to get dejected, but operating off of such little energy. “Let’s leave the bikes and wagons.”
She did as she was told. They walked around the corner, saw two men with guns.
Jagger pulled her close, slid her behind him using his body as cover. He thought about the gun stuffed under his shirt but didn’t go for it. No reason to alarm the men, even though they scared the crap out of him.
The two strangers stopped in the middle of the street. They were all facing each other, each waiting for the other to move first. For Jagger, there was no use turning around and taking two in the back, but if he drew now, he’d eventually put the girl in the crossfire. The thing was, you just never knew who was who on a night like this in a world like this.
The older of the two men cleared his throat and said, “It’s not safe to be out here, friend.”
“It’s not safe to be anywhere,” he replied.
And it wasn’t.
Chapter Eighty-One
Rider and Stanton head down Ashbury toward the house where the boys and Atlanta were stashed. They encountered two shadows, a man and a child. The man shoved the child behind his back and waited in the darkness in perfect silence.
Rider said, “It’s not safe to be out here, friend.”
“It’s not safe to be anywhere.”
“You okay?” Stanton asked.
“I guess,” he replied. “But not really.”
Rider turned his flashlight on them; they both winced and turned away.
“The girl doesn’t look so good,” Rider said. She was a cute little thing, but too skinny, her hair dirty, her face smudged with the wear of a few long weeks.
“She’s worse off than me, but probably just as tough.”
“You walk like a soldier,” Rider said.
“I was going to say the same to you.”
“What branch?”
“Marines, you?”
“Spent time with the company,” Rider said. “You a good man?”
“You’re the spook, so you tell me.”
“That girl yours?”
“No.”
Rider seemed to think about this, then: “That’s reassurance enough for me.”
The four of them met in the street. Rider extended a hand, which the man shook. “I’m Rider and this is Stanton.” Stanton and the man shook hands, then Rider said, “What’s your name, miss?”
The girl looked up, sort of scared of him, maybe because of his croaking voice, or perhaps because he and Stanton were both armed and practically dripping with the blood of a brutal attack. Fortunately the near moonlight wasn’t bright enough to show her the colors of the carnage they wore, but their presence had her pulling herself into the man next to her.
“She’s shy,” the stranger said. “You guys okay? I know that smell.”
“The gangs around here, they’re trying to assert themselves over folks who are just doing their best to survive and protect their families.”
“How many?” he asked. As in how many did they kill.
Rider looked at Stanton, to which Stanton said, “Thirteen, maybe fourteen.”
“Just the two of you?” he asked, impressed.
Both men nodded, not having to say any more. Then a front door opened and Atlanta popped her head out. “Rider?”
“Grab the boys, Atlanta. It’s safe.”
She shut the door, then turned back to the man. The moon was going behind the clouds again, taking away some of the light.
“Where you from?” Stanton asked.
“Here,” the man replied. “But I’ve been traveling a bit. Returning from San Diego. Found this one in Sacramento.” He put his arm around the girl protectively, fatherly. “You got kids?”
Rider said “No” at the same time that Stanton said “Yes.”
“Two,” Stanton said. “You?”
“Two boys, although, I don’t…I’m not sure…” he said. He seemed exhausted, too tired to know how to finish that sentence without losing himself to the same fears Stanton possessed since the very beginning.
Just then the three kids emerged from the house and joined them in the street. They were all shadows together, the three smallest shadows being sleepy and slow, ready for a real bed, a real place to call home again, a real community where they could be safe.
“Never got your name,” Rider said to the man.
“Jagger,” he said. “Jagger Justus.”
“Dad?” one of the boys said, breathless with emotion.
Everything suddenly went so still the perfect silence seemed to bear a silky, measurable weight.
“Hagan? Ballard?”
The two boys rushed through the darkness and grabbed on to the man in a fierce hug. The joy of the most unexpected reunion ever began eliciting tearful sobs from both the man and his boys. Rex and Stanton stood there, trading baffled looks, the kind of looks that said, “What in the hell are the odds of this?”
Standing up, his boys latched to him like children despite their ages and the growing up they had to do to survive this war. Jagger turned to the little girl who stepped back from the boys and said, “These are my two boys, Hagan and Ballard.”
Both boys said hello to the girl, and for a long moment, no one said anything, not even the girl. Then in the smallest voice ever, she said, “Hello.”
“What’s your name?” Ballard said.
“Elizabeth.”
Everyone introduced themselves to Elizabeth and the girl seemed to relax. Atlanta, however, seemed to attach to her most.
She said, “You have pretty hair. I can wash it when we get to the college.”
“Your mom?” Jagger asked, speaking in fragments only because it was clear he was too hopeful for good news and too fearful of bad news that he couldn’t quite string the words together.
“She’s okay,” Ballard said.
“She’s at the college, which is where we’re headed,” Hagan said. Then to Rider: “Is there room for two more?”
Just as he was saying there most definitely was, they heard the sound. It was the sound of Detroit muscle struggling for every foot of covered ground. One dim headlight rounded the corner on Ashbury and headed their way.
Jagger and the girl tensed, but Hagan said, “They’re with us. I think.”
The Olds was absolutely beat to hell. The thing looked like it survived a wrecking yard, with its smashed up hood, no windshield, crunched exterior and smoking engine.
Just then everyone saw how damn bloody Rider and Stanton were, but they said nothing. Indigo simply pulled up next to the pack and said, “You okay?”
“Ran into some trouble,” Rider said.
“Us too.”
“Did you handle it?” Stanton asked.
“Yeah.”
“What happened?”
“We decided it was best to stay together,” Rex said from inside the car.
“Did you decide that all on your own?” Rider probed.
“N
ot really,” Indigo said.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning the Horde burned the house down. Almost burned us, too.”
“And…?”
“Let’s just say my obsession with revenge has come to a fruitful conclusion,” Indigo replied.
“What now?” Stanton asked, more to his brother-in-law than to Indigo.
Rex said, “Beans and wieners, clean water, a warm bed and some good company.”
Everyone laughed, then they all headed back to the college where Rider introduced them to the security staff before ushering them inside.
“I’ll get you guys some rooms and a place to clean up,” Rider said.
Atlanta said, “Elizabeth can stay with me.” Elizabeth looked up at Jagger, almost scared, but with the question in her eye.
“You okay with that?” he asked.
She smiled the slightest bit and so Jagger nodded and said, “It’s okay by me then.”
Rider introduced them to several more people, women with kind faces and eyes that were tired but alert and eager to help.
Everyone got set up with rooms, then Jagger asked Rider, “Do you know Lenna? My wife?”
“I do,” he said. “Pulled her out of the house along with your boys.”
“You did that?”
Rider gave him a sideways grin. He wasn’t big on taking credit for things. Just doing them was enough. With all the difficult things he’d done in his life, all the horrible things he’d done in the name of covert operations, and war, he felt he was finally starting to balance the equation of his life. Perhaps one day the positive would outweigh the negative and he’d have a way into the better echelons of the afterlife.
“I can’t thank you enough.”
“She’ll be wanting to see you,” he said. “Let me take you to her.”
Jagger looked back to where the boys were with Atlanta and Elizabeth. They were turning one of the classrooms into a bedroom for the four of them. The classroom was lit by candles brought to them by ladies who were once mothers, wives and grandmothers, but had since been widowed and left childless by the war.
