The Last War Series Box Set [Books 1-7]

by Schow, Ryan

  “And?”

  “It makes me think you’re a lost cause.”

  Something stiff and unrelenting in him unconsciously softens. I must’ve broken a nerve.

  “My father used to say that,” he said under his breath, not angry, or hostile, but like I dragged him back to a place where he was smaller, insecure and completely vulnerable.

  “I’m sorry,” I hear myself saying, even though I’m not.

  Looking at how big and brooding he is, wholly unconcerned with the size and might of his demons, I wish I could retract my apology. Alpha males are slow to apologize; betas do so willingly, sometimes against their will. But in this day and age, my thinking is, if you’re a beta without alpha aspirations and alpha behaviors, then your chances for survival begin decreasing by the day in massive increments.

  This has me asking the question I have not wanted to ask because I do not know the answer: do I have what it takes to survive on my own? Could I find out? Just leave the group and head home on my own? If I didn’t have to stop in Sacramento for Bailey, if I didn’t have to find a car for our two tagalongs, what kind of time could I make? It all starts by leaving Marcus and Bailey behind. But mostly Marcus. He is my safety net, which I hate admitting.

  That questions continue: can I shoot a gun? Yes. But can I shoot someone point blank if they get in my way? Probably not. In that sense, Bailey and I are alike: we’re both going to be mentally crippled in this new world. Or maybe we’re the smart ones. The decent ones. The point is, we need Marcus, and this makes me the beta male, which—as I said—is a really crappy thing to have to admit to yourself.

  “You going to stand there all day or are you going to help?” Marcus asks, startling me back to the moment. “This isn’t all about you, you know.”

  “I know that.”

  Shaking his head, he says, “What are we going to do about getting an old car?”

  “You asking me because you don’t know or are you asking because you know and want to see if I know.”

  “Look at you, figuring it all out,” he says.

  When we’re all packed up, Marcus heads back in the garage, goes through a tool box, then comes out with a flathead screwdriver, a Phillips head, wire strippers and a small hammer.

  “What’s that for?” Abigail asks.

  “We need to find us a car that isn’t ruined.”

  “Yeah, but with those?” she says, pointing to the tools he’s got stuffed in each of his big, roughed up hands.

  “These are how I’m going to start the car without keys.”

  “Why don’t you use the keys?” Abigail asks.

  “This is just a precaution.”

  “What’s a precaution?” she asks.

  Shaking his head, Marcus just walks away leaving Amber to explain it. I hand Bailey the shotgun, tell her to use it on anyone who tries to come in either the front or the back door that doesn’t first identify themselves as us.

  “You remember what I said in the boat about guns?” she whispers. “About not being able to shoot someone?”

  “These are dangerous times, Bailey.”

  “Yeah, but…”

  “I’m not sure when we’ll be back, before sundown at the latest,” I call out over my shoulder.

  Then, taking a page out of Marcus’s book, I leave her there with the gun and the girls and no room to argue with me. Hopefully she’ll come to see she has to be the alpha female if she’s the one in charge of protecting the house and the girls. And somewhere along the way, she may have to do some things she’s not terribly comfortable with if she wants to live.

  Inside the Mack truck, the big diesel turns over, sputtering to life. Marcus gives it a minute to warm up, then he says, “Have you ever driven a truck like this before?”

  “No.”

  “Well, I’ll have to teach you. You a fast learner or just a pretty face?”

  “Save your sexual attraction for me for another time, Grizzly Adams. We’ve got more pressing things to do.”

  Nodding his head, he jams the truck in gear, the gears whining and grinding at first, really making him fight them before they slide in place.

  “Yeah, you’re going to be an amazing teacher,” I say knowing this will rile him just enough.

  “Shut up, Nick.”

  It takes us the morning and the better part of the day to find an old car that works. We find it in a used car lot under a ton of dust. It’s a lime green and white Chevy El Camino with rusty hinges and tires that are practically bald.

  Marcus breaks the lock, gets inside the car, searches for keys. There are none. He jams the flathead screwdriver into the ignition, gives it a few taps with the hammer, then tries to turn it.

  “That usually work?”

  “Sometimes. Just not this time.”

  Using the Phillips head screwdriver, he unscrews the steering column, jimmies the flathead screwdriver into the separate panels and forces them apart, exposing a bed of wires and the ignition cylinder.

  “You know how to do this?” I ask.

  “Wire strippers,” he says holding his hand out. I hand him the strippers. “You have to identify the starter wires and the power.”

  “How do you know which is what?”

  Already I can see the sweat beading on his forehead. Leaning forward, trying to get a look at the wires leading into the ignition cylinder, he grimaces and grunts and starts to get a little rough. He keeps pushing the lower panel out of the way and it keeps returning to its same irritating position.

  “Why are you so mad all the time?” I ask.

  It might not be the right time to ask Marcus about his feelings. Then again, when people are in a good mood and you ask them how they feel, or what’s wrong, you get the typical “nothing’s wrong” or “I’m fine” response. But ask someone how they feel when they’re about to totally come unhinged and the truth can travel like a fist at the speed of light.

  “I’m not mad,” he says, now ripping at the lower panel.

  Looking like he’s got about forty-six curses on deck but not uttering a single one of them, this train is about to come off the tracks. He’s damp under the armpits, same as me, but now he’s scooting down the dried leather seat and positioning himself for violence. Reeling back, he starts kicking at the panel until it breaks loose. The energy coming off this guy feels like a tidal wave bearing down on you. You know bad things are coming and you want to run while you can. But I don’t run because I’m not a coward.

  “You’re not mad and the world is fine,” I say. “Sure thing, bro.”

  He clips the red wires, strips them to the copper wire, then twists them together. The dash lights inside the car come on. He turns on the radio, tests it, then shuts it off. Stripping another wire, he pulls it away from the others (maybe because it’s hot and will shock all the piss and vinegar out of him, or maybe not—what do I know?), then digs uncomfortably in his jeans pocket and pulls out a Band-Aid.

  “Cut yourself?”

  “You’re like a twelve-year old.”

  “You have the emotional equivalent of a dried turd and you have the nerve to tell me, I’m like a twelve-year old? That’s rich.”

  He touches the hot wire to the twisted and exposed power wires and the engine turns over, slowly, laboriously. He taps the gas pedal as plumes of old smelling smoke cloud up the air around the El Camino’s open bed.

  When it finally catches, Marcus gives a bit more gas to get the engine going. When it can sit comfortably at an idle, he gets out and says, “I’m pissed off because you people don’t have a clue as to what we’re in for, so you do stupid things and say stupid things.” He’s in my face now, standing a few inches over me, looking like he’d like to devour my soul. “And then I have to listen to you clowns humping and talking and I have these damn nightmares, and then Amber. Oh, Amber!”

  “What about her?” I ask.

  “She does NOT need to be coming with us!”

  “You invited her,” I say, bristling. “You practica
lly shoved a gun in her hand and told her should couldn’t defend herself.”

  “That’s not the point!”

  “Then what is the point, Marcus? Because I get this situation sucks on a long term scale, and you’re not the only one who’s affected by it. Yet we all manage to not be brooding little girls all the time acting like we’ve got sand in our collective vaginas. But you, the big tough bearded bitch wants to—”

  First I’m really getting going, then the next thing I know, I’m getting shoved into the dirt with two bear sized paws. Yeah, I knew it was coming. Maybe I wanted it to come.

  “You don’t get it!” he screams.

  Getting to my feet, I say, “You touch me again—”

  “And what?” he roars.

  “And I cut you in your sleep,” I hiss.

  “I like her, Nick,” he says, eyes trembling in their sockets. “Don’t you get that?”

  “She chose me, I didn’t choose her,” I say, refusing to dust myself off and standing close enough to him that if he hits me, my face is going to wrap nicely around that softball sized fist of his.

  “Not Bailey, you damn fool.”

  “Corrine?”

  “She’s practically a child!”

  “Oh, thank God you said that man, because my daughter’s the same age, and that would just be creepy.”

  “Amber. Amber!”

  “So what? You like her? She’s cute and her kid’s cute. I really don’t understand the problem.”

  Turning away, picking up the tools like he’s lining up tantrum number two, he says, “You never met my old man.”

  “Honestly, the way you are, I’m glad I didn’t.”

  “We aren’t good people, Nick. Not like you. And we can’t seem to relax about anything.”

  “Maybe you don’t have a reason to relax,” I say, finally brushing the dirt off my backside.

  “There are a lot of good people who died in that conference center. A lot more in that hotel. Hell, Quentin was a better person than me, even if he was a freaking nerd.”

  “You think you should have died?”

  He spins around and says, “The world would be a whole let better place if I’d died!”

  “Is that what Corrine would say?”

  “That’s different. If you saw what I saw at that motel, you couldn’t do what I did. But that’s because you aren’t broken inside. I am. Don’t you get that? I’m broken inside. That’s the only reason I can do the things I do.”

  “My wife left me for some uptight douchebag with a new Tesla and a mouth that could charm the cold off a block of ice and you tell me I’m not broken? She told my daughter she didn’t love me anymore because she loved someone else. She said this at the kitchen table. Right in front of me. Like being stuck with the knife wasn’t already the most painful thing I’d ever experienced, she just wanted to twist it in a bit deeper. So I may not know your kind of broken, but I’ve got things wrong with me, too.”

  “Seems like you’re getting it worked out with Bailey.”

  I think about this for a second, and even though it’s a cheap jab, the guy is actually right. “You know, I think maybe you’re on to something. But it’s not about the sex.”

  “Of course, not.”

  “You say that sarcastically, but what you don’t realize is the sex is what comes after the letting go. So whatever it is that’s making you mad that you like Amber, maybe you should let it go.”

  “Tell that to my mother.”

  “I’m sure I’ll never get the chance.”

  “Of course you won’t. Did you forget she’s dead? My father killed her. One cruel, abusive word at a time. He killed her with his brooding, his impatience for life, his inability to love her the way she needed it.”

  “And you’re afraid you’re going to be just like him?”

  “I’m not afraid,” he says. “I’m certain.”

  “So you like Amber, but you know you can’t do that to her. And you invited her along because you can protect her, but now you have to see her all the time and it only highlights your emotional…inadequacies.”

  “What are you, a shrink?”

  “I spent a lot of time with them.”

  He stood in one place for a second, holding all the tools, chewing on his molars. “We need gas.”

  “Wanna have tacos tonight?”

  “What does that have to…oh, yeah. Gas. Anyone tell you your comedic timing is junk?”

  “Only by testosterone fueled lumberjacks and bitter ex-wives. On the flipside, though, at least I have a sense of humor.”

  “We need gas. For the vehicles. And we need…pick up that Band-Aid, will you?” he says, pointing to where the wrapped Band-Aid he pulled from his pocket is sitting in the dirt.

  “What’s this for again?”

  He saunters over, snatches it from me, not as aggressively as he might have had he not gotten to the heart of whatever issue was haunting him for the moment. At the car, he peeled the packaging away, then wrapped the bandage around an exposed wire.

  “Didn’t have any electrical tape, or Duct tape.”

  “You hotwired a car with a Band-Aid?” I ask, laughing a bit to myself, even though my chest still hurts where he shoved me.

  “Would you really cut me in my sleep?”

  “I’d cut that stupid beard right off your face,” I say. And now he’s huffing out what might have been construed in the armed services crowd as a chuckle.

  “Gas.”

  “Got it,” I say.

  He points to the El Camino because he knows I can’t drive that old ass Mack truck. I go to the dusty beater like a child being sent to his room by an angry parent.

  In the car, I follow him through the streets until we come to a gas station that’s been looted. In the back is an old gas can with a swish of gasoline in the bottom. Marcus pours the old gas out then finds some rubber tubing and a funnel, which he wipes clean with his shirt. With no more use of the gas station, he says, “Get your sucking skills ready because without power, there’s only one way to get gas.”

  “I liked the idea of getting gas from tacos so much better,” I mumble.

  “What?” he says, climbing in the truck.

  “Nothing,” I call out as I get into the rust bucket that smells like worn leather, neglect and sadly, rodent urine.

  Up ahead, where we ran into a lot of traffic on the way in, Marcus pulls the truck over, kills the engine. I pull up behind him, leave the car running.

  “Just pull apart the power wires.”

  I grab the power wires, separate them and the car dies. Outside, Marcus goes from car to car pressing his body weight against them, giving them a man-sized rocking. He does this to two cars, listening for swishing gas, and then he finds one he likes. He goes to pull the fuel door open, but it’s locked from the inside. Breaking the glass with the butt end of his pistol, he reaches in, opens the door, pulls the floor-mounted lever. The lid pops open and he unscrews the cap.

  “I’m sure you did this a lot in college,” I say, handing him the hose. “Just pretend it’s a dude and I’ll hold the funnel in place.”

  Marcus doesn’t say a word as he feeds the rubber hose into the gas tank. He gives it a hard sucking to get the gasoline up the tube and I say, “That’s right, just like when you were eighteen.”

  The gas hits the end of the tube and by proxy, Marcus’s mouth. He turns and spits the excess gasoline on me while jockeying the tube into the funnel.

  “Keep pushing me like this and you aren’t going to make it back to San Francisco.”

  “Buck and Marcus, sitting in a tree, ess you see kay eye en gee, one says love, the other says marriage—”

  I kind of expect to drag another tantrum loose, but I don’t expect him to start laughing the way he does. It’s a side I never thought I’d see. His face actually looks pleasant for a second, like he isn’t about to murder a bird for chirping, or me for trying to be his friend.

  “Most times your timing is bad, but som
etimes, man…that was funny.”

  We go through most of the cars, getting as much gas as we can. It takes longer than expected, but we eventually fill up the El Camino and manage to pick up a few extra things along the way, things we’d taken from the abandoned cars.

  An older lady stops us on the road, taking us both by surprise. She just walks out in front of the big rig and puts up her hand. Marcus locks the brakes, the tires smoking. He almost runs her over, which has me standing on the brakes and tightening up in anticipation of the worst. This crazy lady has that look on her face that says if she got ran over, it would be no big deal.

  “Where’s my Ted?” she screams.

  Marcus gets out of the truck with his weapon, but stands near the door. It could have been a trap. One person distracts you, the other gets the jump on you.

  That’s how you have to think, I tell myself.

  That’s what I’d do.

  In the end, the lady had to accept that we didn’t take Ted. We told her over and over again that if someone goes missing chances are pretty good they’re gone. Either swept up in the destruction, or refusing to come home. That makes me think of everything else that’s gone missing in this world. It makes me think of everything we’ve taken.

  We stole a yacht, a house, a big rig. We took food and clothing and weapons. I took a girl, Bailey, even though I didn’t mean to, even though I had no idea I was actually stealing her from someone else at the time.

  It’s survival of the fittest, even if you have to take other people’s loved ones to survive. None of these things we stole were ours a week ago, two days ago, ten minutes ago. But survival involves creativity and I’ve always considered myself inventive.

  That’s why Marcus and I went car to car, stripping each one of its low hanging fruit: dozens of gallons of gas, a map of California, a jacket (XL) and a pair of men’s shoes (size 10), not even scuffed. For Marcus, it was just a pocket knife and a yoga mat, both of which I’m sure we’ll use, both of which won’t crush the former owner’s soul for having disappeared.

  For sheer entertainment value, Marcus also became the proud new keeper of the last issue of Men’s Fitness the world would ever produce. To a Neanderthal like him, I’d bet dollars to donuts that for him this qualifies as both fine art and literature. Plus he got a beard comb, which I personally think sucks because I’d rather he found a razor instead.