by Wade Ebeling
Troy just stood there, watching him walk away. On some level, he understood why Allen wanted to get Lynn and her kids alone, but another part of him refused to accept what was about to happen. Troy scurried after Allen, who had just reached the front doors and shot him a “come-on” motion with his head. Troy hand’s suddenly felt itchy and clammy. He wiped them on his jeans as he joined pace with Allen.
Troy was thinking that Allen sure acted like he knew what was best for everyone, and Troy could not even pretend to say the same thing. He would follow this man, for now, anyway.
Allen found all three of the men sleeping in the chapel. A closet off to the side contained all of the old floor pads from when it was a gymnasium. Heavy wooden pews had been moved away to put the pads flat out on the ground as makeshift beds. Each of the brothers and Jason lay upon one of the ripped, blue foam cushions. Allen shoved at them with his foot, telling them to meet him in a few minutes outside the building, near the door to the kitchen. As Troy and Allen walked down the hallway in search of Lynn, both of them became nervous about the amount of people starting to stir and mill about. Too many eyes would make this even harder, maybe even impossible.
Lynn and her children were found in one of the smaller classrooms. Allen told Lynn, who had already started complaining about having been woken up, that he needed to talk to her immediately and shut the door. They waited outside the room to give the girls time to get up and get dressed in private. A few minutes later, Lynn opened the door looking quite annoyed, asking with suspicious eyes, “What do you want?”
Troy shot Allen a look of panic. Allen smiled despite his suddenly morose face. “Sorry to bother you, Lynn. Don’t want to be a burden, but I wanted to offer you and your kids something…” Giving her a second to see the downtrodden posture he had adopted, he almost pleaded as he said, “I want you to move your family over to my old house. Over with Danny, ya know? I know you guys probably don’t feel all that comfortable here, and, this way, Danny will have some company, and someone to look after him.” He shot a glance at the kids standing over Lynn’s shoulder, dropping his head as if he were awaiting the coming negative response.
“Um, what can I say, Allen? I just…” She was trying to let him down easy, he was almost there.
“It’s right over there,” Allen said over her, hooking his thumb over his shoulder. “You guys will be perfectly safe. Troy will be doing roving patrols soon and I’ll make sure that he checks on you guys. You should all be fine. I would…really appreciate it. I know you guys don’t understand about him…Danny, that is…but I just can’t be around him right now…I don’t really know why myself. I…I just know that he liked playing with your kids. The house has new solar panels on it, not that they work with all the ash, and I will go find the parts to convert the water heater over to propane for you. Think about it. I will make sure that you and your kids will have some power, and hot water. Not to mention, you’ll have a lot more privacy over there than you would living around here…”
“I don’t know, Allen. You sure we will be safe? Where are you going to stay?” Lynn said, still looking suspiciously at him.
“I might drop by every now and then. But I…I don’t think I can stay there. At least not for right now anyways,” Allen sighed, trying to make Lynn feel sorry for him. He hoped that this would get her to drop her guard even further. “If I eventually want to…stay…there, I mean…you could always go somewhere else. I don’t know.”
“What about food? Are we going to have to come back here every time my kids get hungry?” Lynn asked, with a kind of resignation in her voice.
Allen knew that he had her. He smiled, more about completing his rouse than to comfort her. “No, no. In fact, I am going to have Jason bring over some food and water right now. We can set you guys all up with your own grill and cooler, I’ll even get you a way to collect water. That reminds me, Troy. We need to go raid the water filter store up on Fifteen Mile…need to get all the filters we can,” Allen said, intentionally changing the subject. “I’m sorry, Lynn. I have a lot to do today. How about you guys get a few things together, and then I will take you over in your car. If you like it, you can come back for the rest of your stuff later. I will make sure you get anything else that you think you might need, too. Just tell Troy or me, okay? Can I ask you to hurry? I have to get going soon, and I want to make sure he is not alone. Can you meet me out in the parking lot in say…ten minutes?” Allen asked, as if he was more interested in other things now; completing his trap.
“Alright, sounds like a plan, Allen. Give me a couple of minutes to get them ready. Is that alright?” Lynn asked, stepping forward to lay her hand gently on Allen’s shoulder. She looked at him full in the face; Allen could not return the look. “I’m so sorry, Allen. Maggie was a really nice person…”
Allen felt his anger start to rise at the mention of his dead wife’s name. He needed to leave before ruining his own work. “Thanks,” was all he could mutter. Tears had formed in his eyes when he finally looked up at Lynn. She, of course, misinterpreted them. Allen nodded woefully at her before walking back down the hall, her hand dropping sullenly away from his shoulder.
Allen and Troy walked back through the chapel. Seeing that Jason, Derek, and John were no longer inside, they headed straight out the back door to meet up with them. Outside, the three men stood around in the parking lot, yawning and smoking, awaiting Allen’s arrival.
Allen wasted no time once he had approached them. “Jason, you need to do me a favor. Go get a little food and water and take it over to Danny for me,” Allen said quickly.
“What do you want me to take over for him? I mean…” Jason answered, as he exhaled cigarette smoke.
“Don’t ask, just go. They are cooking breakfast in the kitchen right now. Get some of that and a few things from the food room. If anyone says anything, tell them I told you to, okay?” Allen asked firmly and beseechingly at the same time.
“Alright, brother man. No problem. I’ll get it done,” Jason said meekly, nodding his goodbye to the rest of the men standing on the warming asphalt. The brothers had listened to the exchange in silence, and they nodded back before he turned to go inside the church.
“Derek and John, I want you to make sure your guns are loaded and ready to go. Go grab some breakfast, quickly. Take it to go, you hear me? Head back here and get into your truck. Follow me out when I leave with Lynn and her kids. I’ll explain after we leave. Don’t have time right now. Jus’ need you guys to listen and do what I ask. C’mon, hurry up. Don’t say anything to Lynn, or me, or anyone else for that matter. Just follow us out. What are you waiting for?” Allen implored, making backhanded “go away” motions with his hands.
“Whatever,” John replied under his breath. Derek gave his brother a hard stare, as they headed towards the kitchen door.
“I’m sorry, Troy. I wasn’t thinking right this morning. I think I promised you their truck today, but you are just going to have to make do with just mine and a few cars,” Allen said dispassionately, looking out into the field behind the church.
“I don’t care about that, Allen. What the hell are you planning on doing?” Troy asked, almost begging to know what was about to happen.
“Fuck it…You know where that giant BULKCO warehouse is? You’ve seen it. Over on Fort Gratiot? I think they supply the whole state from there. Anyway, John’s boss told him that he would let the two brothers in if they brought girls back. You know, buy their way in? Well, I’m hoping he will trade food for them instead,” Allen explained, as he turned to face Troy.
“Jeez, I don’t know, Allen. That is pretty fucked up,” Troy stated the obvious.
“You don’t have to like it, Troy. But if you don’t want to see the rest of these people die…that’s what’s going to happen. Trust me, I know it sucks. But that’s it…Nothing else to say about it really,” Allen said morosely, adding for effect, “I don’t want to be the one to do it, but it has to be done.”
“What about
Bobby?” Troy asked quietly, looking over his shoulder.
“Huh? Who’s Bobby?” Allen asked back, thinking it must be someone that he had been introduced to the night before.
Troy looked at Allen and furrowed his brow. “Bobby Donner. You know, Lynn Donner’s son,” he said slowly and pensively. “What are you going to do about him? Kill him? Or, trade him, too?”
“I guess I haven’t thought about it. Just assumed they would take him, too. Hell, might even sweeten the deal. I know he can’t come back here. If he sees what happened to his family…Everyone will know. That won’t do…” Allen said, vocalizing his thought process.
“I’ll take him,” Troy said flatly.
“What do you mean? Are you going to leave with him?” Allen posed. It came out more like a threat than a question.
“I guess not. But he’s been following me around…Kinda like my little helper, ya know? I mean…the rest of it is…what it is…She’s a total bitch, mind you. And his sisters aren’t nice…He’s just a little kid, though, man,” Troy groaned, looking for any hint of compassion left inside Allen.
“He can’t see what happens,” Allen said truthfully.
All of a sudden it came to him. A way to save the boy dawned within Allen. It would ensure that Troy stayed on his side, and, if he dared talk, he would be implicating himself along with Allen. If all went according to plan, none of the other group members would even know what had happened. To them, the rest of the Donner family would have tragically died, and they would probably just be thankful that the boy had survived.
“I got it, Troy. You go down to the end of the block and wait for me there. Hide someplace that you can see us coming and still get to us fast. We can tell everyone that Lynn wanted to be taken to some cousin’s house…or something like that. Then we will say that the boy was left behind until we knew it was safe to take him there. But Lynn wanted to take the girls, said she didn’t trust some of the guys in the group. That will piss some people off,” he laughed, amazed at how quickly the evil plan was forming.
“Will everyone believe that? What are we going to say happened to the others?”
Allen noted that Troy had said ‘we’ not ‘I’, and that he had not used the Donner’s names this time; both of these things were taken as good signs.
“Shit, they will believe whatever we tell ‘em. I can say that I took her and her daughters to the house and got into a gunfight with a bunch of people when we got out of the car. They had gone ahead to check out the house and we got cut off from one another. Hell, there was nothing I could do, barely made it out alive myself.” Launching into the narrative made Troy start bobbing his head up and down in agreement. “But dammit, they killed, or took, Lynn and her girls. It’s a shame really.” Troy’s eyes had glazed over, worrying Allen quite a bit. Trying to snap him out of his brain lock, he raised his voice when he said, “Quick, go down to the end of this road. When I get there, I will stop. You take the boy away and go convince him that…I don’t know…something. He can’t tell people that I took his mom and sisters away at gunpoint. I was just trying to protect them. Keep him away from people for a while. Can you do that?” Allen rattled off the new plan while Troy tried to digest it.
“I’ll try,” was all Troy could manage to say.
“Try hard. I don’t want everyone knowing what happened. If it comes down to just having to get rid of the boy too…I will. Go, before Lynn gets here and sees you,” Allen said, giving Troy the same shoo motions with his hands that he had given Derek and John a few moments before.
“That way?” Troy asked, pointing as he ran across the ash-drifts in the parking lot.
“Yeah, that way!” Allen called, willing him to hurry.
“Where is he going?” Derek asked, a mouthful of food making him hard to understand.
“Don’t worry about it. You guys will see soon enough. Get in your truck and follow me when I leave. We are going back to where you worked, John. We have to get going before people start coming out here,” Allen whispered, hoping the brothers would just listen to him.
“Dude, this is bullshit,” John said, just loud enough, but he still fell in behind a dour, silent Derek, who had already started walking towards his truck.
Not long after the doors shut on Derek’s truck, maybe only a minute, Lynn came out from the chapel, her kids in tow.
“There you are, Allen. Are you ready to go?” Lynn asked cheerily. Her daughters wore wide smiles behind their mother, and small sacks on their backs. Lynn had clearly sold the benefits of Allen’s lies to them with a grand effectiveness.
“Yeah, come on. Let’s take your car. I’ll drive you guys over,” Allen said calmly, with his heart pounding in his ears.
……..
Early that afternoon, Allen greeted the transplanted residents in the church by blowing the air horn on the tractor-trailer packed full of provisions. Questions of Lynn’s and her daughter’s fates, and of how Allen had miraculously “found” the full trailer tucked down a side street, all died away over the evening’s feast.
After much prodding by John, and little argument in rebuttal from Allen, the Brown brothers decided to stay at the BULKCO warehouse. John soon realized that he had gotten out from under Allen’s thumb, only to be placed under his old boss’s fist. He did not have long to rue the ill-fated decision. Two weeks after Allen left with the food, grinding the gears of the unfamiliar truck as he went, The D.o.C. came rolling in. They took the distribution center over by force, in mere minutes. Allen never found out whether the brothers were killed in the ensuing firefight, or executed shortly after it.
People in the group actually seemed more upset about John and Derek’s absence than the Donner’s. In today’s world, to those who did not know their true value, two armed men looked far more indispensable than some teenage girls. Allen just told the group that the brothers had decided to attempt the trip to their parent’s cottage up north. The fact that they had not been allowed to take any of the group’s provisions helped soften the blow for some.
More than just the early morning visitors from the surrounding neighborhood came to stay at the church that night. Troy sat consoling a bereft Bobby Donner in the corner while the festivities went on around them. The party lasted late into the next day, solidifying the group into one cohesive unit.
Allen was celebrated as a hero, by almost everyone.
Chapter 17
Friday, June 4 - 2030
Daniel wiped away the more persistent strings of spittle from his mouth. He had been violently ill for three days now, and the pot containing his vomit was nearing full. This was quite an accomplishment, considering all he had ingested for several days were some sips of water. The orange bile that had just come up from the deepest depths of his stomach warned of his current dilemma. He needed more water, and he needed it soon. Death was not far away.
Rolling his pounding head back onto the sweat-soaked pillow brought spinning spots into his vision, even with his eyes closed. Groaning as he pulled himself into a fetal position, Daniel tried to go back to sleep. His body felt as if it were eating itself inside-out. Something primal told Daniel that, if he slept, he would never wake again.
As much as he loathed his father, Daniel still begged the emptiness for Allen’s return. He was well-versed to the long days alone, even growing to like them in a cheerless sort of way. Daniel could not remember the last time that he actually wished for his father’s return, but he was doing so now. If Daniel’s body could have mustered any moisture at all, he would have been crying.
It was mid-day and dark as the middle of the night. The ash outside pelted the windows with a sound reminiscent of sleeting rain. Daniel lay in the middle of the bare living room on a stained mattress, which sat right in front of the fireplace. A small stack of firewood was off to the side, his puke pot and the crap bucket, with baby wipes, were close at hand.
When his father brought him back to the house that he grew up in, it was as empty as Daniel felt that day
. The first few months, his father made regular visits; to the house more than to Daniel. Allen was much more interested in stashing whatever goods he had with him than he was to see his son. As far as Daniel was concerned, his father was only mildly happy to see him because he was expected to unload the truck.
On any given day, all manner of boxes, bins, and cans could be found awaiting him in the truck’s bed. The most painful deliveries were the mounds of split firewood. Daniel’s forearms had scabs and resurfacing splinters weeks later after carrying and stacking the three heaped firewood piles in the fall. It seemed an endless cycle to Daniel: Work, recuperate alone, work some more.
Some days were easy, maybe just some light boxes of water filters, or like the afternoon that Allen showed up with fifty boxes of “rags-in-a-box”. However, on most of the days when Allen chose to appear, it meant an excruciatingly long day of work for Daniel. A lot of what Allen brought home for him to unload was both heavy and awkward for a scrawny fourteen year-old to try lugging around. Everything from cases of bottled water and cans of food, to beds and storage shelves got transferred from the truck down into the basement. The large pieces of furniture were a new occurrence. Daniel had grown stronger and much taller over the past year, despite his poor diet, and Allen was using his son’s increased abilities very efficiently.
Daniel, now suffering from another bout of nausea, knew that assistance from his father would not come in time to save him. He would die, covered in his own filth and misery, if he did not act soon. His body seemed to react to this new found fortitude. It seemed to tell him that it was ready to move, to live. He no longer hoped for his father’s prompt return. In fact, he started to hope that Allen would never show up again.
