“Are there any people around here?” Jared asked, his face a mask of seriousness.
“There are people,” Alisi answered, shaking her head. “There are only bad people left. Men who come at night to take from others.” Again, she wagged her head disapprovingly.
Alisi cocked her head and studied Jared. “You are a good man. I see kindness in your eyes. You do not take from the weak. This woman is with you by choice. This tells me you, Jared, can be trusted.”
Jared shifted uncomfortably.
“There are other men like him.” Stephani spoke up, causing everyone to stare at the woman who until now had been mostly mute. “He and the men he is with are good people,” she repeated before falling silent again.
Jared nodded his head. “There’s enough bad in the world. I don’t feel a need to add to that,” he explained softly. “I had a friend who recently died, who showed compassion even to those who didn’t always deserve it, and I am just honoring his approach to a broken society.”
Both Alisi and Atamai slowly pumped their chins in silent approval. They had seen a great many hardships before and after the event, so this little white man with his boyish honesty was quite refreshing. Atamai and Alisi came to the States to seek a better life, which they found for the most part. After the solar flare, they gathered their family and mostly reverted back to their old Tongan way of life. It was simple, revolving around only the basic necessities of life, food and family.
Chapter 32
The Tongan family members were forced by the condition of the world to add a third necessity, security. It interfered with everything else, but had become absolutely essential to their survival. Alisi grew up in a culture that adapted over generations to live off the land, leaving only the smallest of footprint on the land. The house she’d grown up in was built by her grandfather, using materials gathered from the land their family owned. After the event, Alisi was terrified at first, but quickly realized she only needed to let go of the life she’d started in America and return to the life she’d grown up in.
No one spoke for a solid ten minutes after Alisi told her story. Stephani looked worriedly at Jared after five minutes of silence; he remained placid. Bart had taught him long periods lacking conversation were not a bad thing. Many people actually enjoyed others’ company without all the chatter. Jared smiled inwardly at the thought of Bart looking down from the heavens on him sitting wordlessly with these people. He hoped the old man’s spirit was proud of him now.
Jared took a peek at his watch and saw it was 2212 hours. They must get going if he wanted to reach Essie’s house, get the box, stuffed animal, and get back to Solar Green before morning. He wondered what John would do when they weren’t back by midnight. Fear swelled in his chest at the thought of not making it back till later the following day and finding the building empty.
Jared knew John would not jeopardize the entire group waiting for Jared, with no way of knowing whether Jared and Stephani were dead or not. Jared did not want to walk back to the ranch house alone. It was bad enough moving through hostile areas with the entire party, let alone trying it with just Stephani to rely on for assistance should they be set upon by hostiles.
Jared finally broke the silence. “Is there anything we can help you with before we leave? I have a water-purification pump; we have some freeze-dried food—”
Alisi waved him off. “We have everything we need. You keep what you have, and if our paths ever cross and one of my family needs food or water, do what we did for you.” She smiled as she rocked back and forth in her seat, which was not a rocking chair.
“Fair enough,” Jared said, getting to his feet and grabbing his pack off the ground.
He thought about telling them about the solar thing and even where to find them, but hesitated. They seemed nice enough, but what if times got so bad it came down to him or them? Would these Tongans come to the ranch house and cause trouble in the name of their own survival? Jared struggled with the answer to that question. How could he know what someone would do in order to preserve the welfare of their family? Jared didn’t have family other than his parents, who were roughly three thousand miles away in Florida, if they were even still alive.
He had taken human life in the name of preserving his own life along with the safety of his friends after the event took place. Before the event, Jared hadn’t involved himself in hunting or fishing much less anything closely resembling any sort of conflict with another human. So whether or not these people would act in their own interest in a time of crisis was unknown to him.
There was part of Jared that would not have been surprised if, when he and Stephani went to leave, they were stopped and relieved of their belongings. He shook the thought from his head for two reasons. The first was he didn’t want to be disappointed in humanity, which, if Alisi turned on him and Stephani, would be devastatingly disheartening. Secondly, he couldn’t afford to let anything bad befall Stephani, especially after he’d willingly led them into their current situation. It would show a gross lack of judgment on his part and likely spell the end for them both.
As he and Stephani donned their packs and picked up the rifles, no one from the group of Tongans seemed to care. The three guards in the back looked over their shoulder at the two briefly before turning away. Atamai got to his feet and wordlessly led the two guests to the front of the house and opened the gate, where a younger man stood post in the same spot Jared had first seen Atamai. Stephani hung close to Jared, fearing the same thing Jared himself recently considered. Would these people let them in their home, feed them, and then just allow them to walk off without some sort of reciprocation?
Atamai smiled and clapped his giant hand across Jared’s back. “Stay off the big roads, friend. Move through the neighborhoods. You can hear people better. They will be going through homes, looking for food, making noise. On the big roads they hide and wait—big trouble for you on the big roads.”
“Thanks,” Jared mumbled softly. His belly was as full as it had been in a long while, and he was feeling a little melancholy as he turned and led Stephani up the street. He looked back once, but Atamai was gone. Based on his memory from the days of scavenging the area for Bart, Jared made his way slowly towards the house he’d found Essie in. As they drew closer, he felt a sense of dread come over him. He wondered what condition Essie’s dad would be in after lying dead on the foyer floor for nearly two and a half months.
They walked for two more hours before turning on the street Essie’s former home was on. Jared stopped and stared at the front of the house the gang members had dragged Essie’s mom to before murdering the poor woman and leaving her body in the bathtub. He felt Stephani’s hand on his shoulder and realized he was breathing loudly through his nostrils, which were flared in anger and anxiety just thinking about the traumatic experience.
“What’s wrong?” she asked through quavering lips.
Jared blew out through his mouth and licked his dry lips. “So much fucking bad shit, Steph, so much—Essie—her parents were, ah—these fucking guys next door killed her parents.” He opened his mouth wide, stretching his jaw, trying to alleviate the tension he felt being back at the place he’d first taken a human life. “I slaughtered them,” he rasped, his mouth feeling as dry as most of the lawns were these days.
“What?” Stephani probed, her tone seasoned with worry.
Jared turned to the woman. “You think I’m this nice guy, well, let me show you what I’m capable of.” He turned and marched towards the house next to Essie’s home, the house he’d gone to with murder on his mind after seeing what they’d done to the little girl’s parents. “Come on, I’ll show you what we all have to be capable of now that everything has changed.”
Reluctantly, Stephani followed Jared up to the front porch, watching as he opened the front door and stepped inside. Stephani was about to follow when Jared came staggering back out, gagging and pulling his shirt over his face. The putrid stench of rotting human flesh slammed into Stepha
ni’s sense of smell as Jared stumbled past her, nearly causing Stephani to vomit. Both of them fled to the street in an effort to escape the smell that hung so heavily in the air, Stephani could taste it.
Jared’s intention had been to show Stephani the bodies of the dead gang members. He wanted her to know that for a few hours on that day seemingly so long ago, he became a monster and destroyed every single human being inside that house, but when the smell accosted his nostrils, all he could think to do was get out.
For the brief moment he was in the living room, he saw the bodies in such an advanced state of decomposition, Stephani would have learned nothing of what he’d done by seeing them. Jared gathered himself and faced the now scared woman. He’d scared her, and now he felt ashamed of what he’d just tried to do. Jared realized it wasn’t for her sake, but more for his own sake that he’d felt compelled to show the woman what he was capable of doing. It was an immature thing to do, and he regretted it wholeheartedly. Hard lessons didn’t always need to be taught in the worst possible way.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize they would smell like that. Also, you don’t need to see a bunch of dead guys to know what times we’re living in.” Jared breathed, a grim smile appearing at the corners of his mouth, which seemed to relax Stephani marginally. “The day is going to come though, where you will have to do something like what I had to do back inside that house, and I just want you to know it won’t define who you are going forward. It doesn’t make you a bad person when someone forces you to make a decision like that. You may feel like a bad person, but you’re not,” he finished, his voice weakening as the tension began leaving his body.
“I didn’t shoot back when Dwight got—”
Jared held up a hand. “Don’t,” he said. “Don’t do that to yourself. You didn’t kill him, and you’ve never lived a life or had any experience with anything even loosely resembling what went on back there.” Jared jerked his head at Essie’s former home. “Let’s go make a little girl very happy.” Jared turned and started towards the house.
“I’ll shoot next time,” Stephani asserted.
Jared looked over his shoulder without breaking stride. “I know you will.”
Jared led Stephani around the side of the house in order to enter from the rear and avoid what he knew lay near the front door. Essie’s father was in a similar state as the boys next door, making the search for the girl’s belongings less than enjoyable. Jared took a single look at the downed man’s remains, then turned and took the stairs two at a time. Jared easily found Essie’s bedroom, stopping in the doorway, a flood of emotions washing over him as he took in all the little girl’s belongings from before the solar flare. The room was painted a soft pink with a white waist-high chair rail around the perimeter. Her bed was small and covered with a Princess Jasmine comforter. Her dresser was white; the top was covered in hair bows, brushes, small dolls and the pony box. Jared secured the box in his pack and began looking for the lovey.
Stephani stood in the doorway, watching Jared, a look of wonderment on her face. Not five minutes before, Jared had behaved like a crazed madman, trying to show her the men he’d vanquished in battle, but now, Stephani watched him collecting hair ties and some sort of teddy bear for a seven-year-old girl.
Jared found the bear on Essie’s bed next to her pillow. He lashed the bear to the outside of his overstuffed pack and gave the room one last scan. His heart ached as he again took in all the pink unicorns, dolls and myriad other little-girl accoutrements Essie possessed before everything came apart at the seams. Jared thought about searching for a photo album, but with no place to carry it, he turned and left, following Stephani down the staircase and turning left to exit the rear of the house the way he’d come in the day he found Essie.
Jared purposefully averted his eyes from the front of the house, where he knew Essie’s father’s rotting corpse still lay. Once he was out in the clear crisp night air, he felt better. He’d done what he came to do.
“Do you know when her birthday is?” Stephani queried.
Jared stopped dead, whirling around and giving Stephani a quizzical look that told her Jared not only had no idea when Essie’s birthday was, but the event almost certainly never crossed his mind.
“October fourth, she turned eight. It was on the calendar hanging on the side of their fridge.” Stephani smiled.
Jared stared at Stephani wordlessly as he ran a hand through his beard. Another reason why kids needed women around. He would never once have thought of asking Essie when her birthday was much less taken the time to seek out information regarding the date. “Guess we should have picked up some cake mix back there,” Jared said in a futile effort not to feel like a heel.
Stephani held her warm smile. “I think you got everything she would ever want for her birthday in that pack of yours.”
Jared glanced up the side of the house toward the street, then nodded his head. “I suppose so.”
Jared estimated he and Stephani had a three-hour walk back to Solar Green if they were lucky and nothing caused them to divert or hunker in place. The two made their way through neighborhood streets, keeping to the shadows and shrubs as much as possible. They made their way quietly through a mostly dead city towards the longed-for security of Solar Green, where they would both rest easier in the company of friends. With less than a mile to go, Jared heard a faint clang of metal on metal to their rear. Instinctually he crouched and moved toward some bushes, his mind racing as he maneuvered quickly into the cover of a large hedge.
Stephani followed, not hesitating as Jared dug out his binoculars. He strained to see into the blackness farther up the street, but could decern nothing. He’d considered bringing the night-vision goggles, but with space in his pack at a premium and his mistaken thought that they would be back before dark, he’d left them behind. His chest began to tighten at the thought of someone getting the drop on Stephani and him. If someone was hiding now, it meant they had seen him and Stephani move to the bush after the clang alerted them. Whoever was out there would be more careful now, which would make them more dangerous.
Then a thought struck him. What if there were more than one person working as a team to maneuver on him like the men who’d killed Dwight. Jared had always been accompanied by either Bart or John in situations like this, but now he was not only without either man, but he had Stephani to think of. Jared swung the optic around, searching the street in the direction they’d come from. Again, he saw nothing but a dead neighborhood.
Maybe it had been an animal, Jared thought. Some wild or formerly domesticated animal knocking around inside some house, looking for food or hunting rats. Jared pushed this thought from his mind, not wanting to become complacent. If it was an animal, he would still operate as if he and Stephani were in trouble. If he was wrong, no harm would come, but if he was right about there being a legitimate threat, the two would stand a far better chance at survival if they took action and did it now.
Chapter 33
John once told Jared as the two sat on the OP back at the ranch house that small-unit operations were the most dangerous. Jared considered his predicament a small man and woman operation. He wielded very little firepower and didn’t carry much ammunition, which didn’t bode well should he and Stephani get themselves into a long-drawn-out gunfight.
John had explained that when he was involved in these types of operations, he and his men would hide and avoid contact at all costs. John also added that if they ever were contacted, he and his men would fight with the ferocity of a Bengal tiger.
John further explained that violence of action would create space and time in a situation like the one Jared was starting to feel he was about to experience. Jared decided he would run, hide, and if he and Stephani were contacted, he would be wildly violent in his actions against whoever was out there.
“Someone is out there, and they know we heard them,” Jared whispered close to Stephani’s ear.
She nodded; her eyes were dilated after the a
drenaline dump she’d received upon hearing the clank.
“We’re going to move through the yards now, get off the street, but it’s going to be harder and make more noise. Try to be as quiet as you can, but—” Jared twitched his shoulders “—we have to climb some fences.” Jared knew traversing through yards would be noisier than hoofing it down the sidewalk, but it would serve two purposes. The first would be to place obstacles between himself and whoever was slinking around behind them. The second thing was if they were actually being followed, their pursuer would make noise as well. Jared would feel better knowing for sure he was being stalked than being left to wonder what lurked out in the night.
Jared stowed the optics in his pack and felt a shiver not consistent with the ambient outside temperature. Jared led Stephani down the side yard of the residence they’d stopped in front of in order to scan their surroundings. When Jared reached the fence line in the backyard, he swung the rifle to his back and leaped at the barrier, catching the top of the fence with both hands and using his momentum to heave himself to the barrier’s top.
Once atop the wood fence, Jared peered down into the darkness as Stephani struggled to get her rifle to a position that would allow her to negotiate the obstacle.
“Push it to your back,” Jared hissed into the darkness as he nervously glanced at the corner of the house, half expecting some shadowy figure to appear out of the darkness.
Sitting astride a wooden fence was not a position Jared preferred to fight from. If someone with hostile intentions made contact while he sat astride his elevated wooden stead, Jared would have one of two choices. He could drop onto the opposite side of the fence and make a run for it with an every man and woman for themselves attitude, or he could drop back into the yard with their assailant and fight.
The Jared Chronicles | Book 2 | Tears of Chaos Page 25
