by Bowman, Dave
Then, he understood what had happened.
The guard had shot Quinn, whose body had fallen on Brent's legs. Brent moved to push Quinn off him, but a force to his side came out of nowhere. Pain seared through his body.
Brent looked up to see the guard lifting the butt of his rifle in the air.
"No one gets out of here!" the guard roared. "There's no escape!"
The rifle slammed into Brent's side again, sending fiery currents through his body. He screamed in agony.
The guard stood over him a moment, watching him. Finally, he gave Brent a push with his steel-toed boot.
"That'll teach you to try to escape," he said. He walked out of the room, leaving Brent lying on the floor.
Brent groaned. Quinn was still lying on top of his legs, pinning Brent in place.
Brent lifted his head up to get a look at the guy. He shook his legs a little, seeing if Quinn responded to the movement.
He was dead.
Suddenly disgusted by the dead body lying on top of him, Brent struggled to be free of the weight. He pushed the body off him, then squirmed away from him on the floor.
Brent was covered in Quinn's blood.
Brent felt a wave of nausea. He was overcome with an urge to escape from the room, to breathe fresh air.
He looked over at the door. Surprisingly, the guard had left it open. Was this a test? Were they waiting to see if Brent tried to escape?
But a moment later, the guard was back. And this time, he had company. Another man, this one with a shotgun, stood at his back.
"On your feet, 155."
Brent struggled to push himself up. It was hard enough with his hands cuffed behind his back. But now, after the beating he had endured, the pain made it difficult to move. The guards laughed openly as Brent struggled and fumbled.
The guard with the shotgun gave Brent a push out the doorway. "There's been a change of plans. Your new home is the fourth floor."
"But I wasn't trying to escape!" Brent protested. "I was trying to stop the other guy from running out."
The guard brought the butt of his rifle up again. This time, it struck Brent's jaw.
Brent stumbled backward, suddenly dizzy.
He ran his tongue over his teeth. They were all still there. The guard hadn't hit him hard enough to break anything. Brent guessed that meant he was lucky.
"I don't like the sound of your voice, 155," the guard said. He grabbed hold of Brent's collar and tightened it around Brent's neck. "Keep that big mouth of yours shut, understand?"
He let go of Brent's shirt and gave him a push backward.
And that was how Brent got reassigned to the fourth floor.
They had led him up there, locking him in for solitary confinement. And he had only been let out the following day, when it was time for him to work. Yesterday, the work had been digging a latrine – a long ditch. But today they weren’t digging a ditch. The prisoners were scattered around the empty lot. They were digging a massive hole.
Brent dug at his patch of earth slowly but steadily. Yesterday, he had learned that when he stopped to rest, he would get hit. His body still ached from the beating two days ago. He didn’t want to be hit again. If he could keep an even, steady pace, he could last until the short water break they gave them every hour, then the lunch break around noon, when unarmed men would bring them trays of that same gray stew.
He was trapped in a nightmarish reality. And there didn’t seem to be any way to escape. At least not yet. Brent kept his head down and did the labor they assigned him, but he waited for the moment he’d have a chance to break free. He didn’t know when it would come, or how – he was under lock and key, or under the close watch of an armed man, at all times. But he had to keep hope that the chance to escape would come at some point.
If he were to ever lose that hope, he’d just let them shoot him.
And some of the guys – either willingly or not – chose that route. Especially on the first day, Brent had heard several confrontations between prisoners and guards. It always ended with the prisoner being shot dead. Brent suspected that Quinn knew he’d be killed, but chose to go die, anyway. The men who remained knew they’d have to cooperate if they wanted to live.
Brent would have to be alert for any opening, any chance to get out of there. Then he’d have to find Naomi and Jack. As he dug at the rocky earth, that seemed about as likely as going to the moon.
“That’s deep enough,” Spider grunted. “Start widening it out now.”
Brent nodded, then paused just for a second to wipe the sweat from his brow. There was something going on at the far side of the lot. A crew of young guys on bikes had arrived, and some of the older prisoners were unloading their cargo from the bike trailers. Brent squinted in the sun, trying to make sense of the scene. Then, he recoiled in disgust when he realized what the cargo was.
They were unloading dead bodies.
“This ain’t break time, 155!” Spider barked. “Get back to digging.”
Brent realized with a jolt he had stopped working for too long. The sight of the bodies had shocked him, and he had stood there motionless. Before Spider decided to hit him, Brent got to work with the shovel again.
They were burying the prisoners these guards – these monsters – had shot.
Brent was helping to dig a mass grave.
I have to find a way out of here, he thought as he tossed another shovelful of dirt out of the hole.
I have to get out of here or someone’s going to be dumping my body here in a few days.
4
Northeastern Tennessee - Sunday, 10:48 a.m.
The sound of pots clanging to the floor woke Brody Walsh with a start.
Brody opened his eyes to see his mother in the kitchen. She looked over at him guiltily.
Brody shuffled on the couch. The flu-like ache in his limbs reminded him of the events of the past few days all at once.
"Sorry, Brody," she said, picking up a saucepan from the floor. "That was an accident. I was trying to be quiet."
Myra walked over and stopped in front of his place on the couch. "I wanted you to sleep as long as you could. But I needed to do something with that chicken soup I started last night. Don’t want it to go bad." She turned and looked out the window in the living room. "It's got to be at least 10:00 or 11:00 in the morning by now."
"It's okay, Mom," Brody said as he stiffly pushed himself up to sit on the couch. "Is Katie still asleep?"
"Last I checked she was," Myra said. "How are you feeling?"
Brody yawned and looked himself over. "Still feel like death warmed over, but not quite as bad as yesterday, surprisingly. That long sleep must have done me some good."
Myra sat down beside him and put her arm around his shoulders, drawing him close. "I'm just so worried about you! I wish… I wish there was something I could do." She shook her said head sadly. "Radiation poisoning! I just can't believe this is happening!"
Brody sighed. "Yeah, if only I had stayed home. I should have never gone out looking for Kevin. I should've stayed with Katie. Then I wouldn't have gotten sick!"
Myra looked at him. "But it was a good thing to do, all the same. You were just looking out for that little boy. That's how I raised you kids – to care for people."
Brody scoffed. "And look where it got me."
He had already told her everything the night before – how he had searched for the neglected little boy, and how he had been delayed getting home after the nuclear bomb. And the strange symptoms that had showed up the next morning after the radiation exposure.
His words had been hard for Myra to hear. Just like his daughter Katie, Brody’s mother had kept insisting that Brody was wrong – maybe he only had the flu. But eventually, his mom had come to understand that it wasn’t the flu. She had believed him, but she still searched for some kind of solution. Or some kind of alternate reality in which her son wasn’t deathly ill.
Myra clenched her hands in frustration. "But there's got to
be something we can do! Some kind of remedy. We could induce vomiting – or you could take some charcoal tablets. That's what they do for poisoning sometimes."
Brody shook his head. "It won't work. Those things are for poisons taken by mouth. This radioactive stuff – I guess it gets to you through your skin. And I already washed off the first day as best I could. The damage has already been done. The fallout – the radiation – whatever it is . . . It’s probably made its way to my organs by now.”
Myra twisted her hands in worry. “Oh, dear. I – I’m so sorry, Brody.” She looked at her son with tears in her eyes. “This can’t be happening! I can’t lose you. I can’t lose my son!”
Brody took her hands in his. “I’m sorry, Mom. It’s not fair. None of this is.”
The two sat there without speaking for a while. Myra wept quietly, and Brody tried to comfort her. But what could he do? He was slowly being poisoned. And to make matters worse, there was still no sign of Henry.
A movement in the room made them look up. Katie was standing before them, her face twisted in a frown.
“What’s going on, Dad?” Katie asked.
Myra looked at Brody, then wiped her tears.
"Come sit down, Katie," Brody said, patting the couch beside him. "Your grandmother and I were just talking."
Katie crossed her arms over her chest defiantly. "Why are you doing this, Dad?"
Myra was confused. "Katie, what do you mean?"
"You're still going on about how sick you are?" Katie asked, glaring at her father. "Why do you want to upset Grandma so much?"
"Katie, I'm just telling her about the radiation exposure. You know how sick I've been –"
"With the flu!" Katie said, raising her voice. "It's just the flu, Dad! You know it is."
"Katie, I don't think this is the flu," Myra began. “I think this is serious.”
"Grandma, he's just doing this for attention!" Katie insisted. "Just like he says I do stuff for attention. He just caught some bug! He's going to be better in a couple of days!"
Brody reached his arm out toward his daughter, trying to take her hand. But the teenager turned away. In a blur, she began to run up the stairs.
"Katie!" Myra exclaimed, shocked by her granddaughter's behavior.
Katie stormed away. The sound of her bedroom door being slammed made Myra jump.
Myra started to stand up. "I'll go talk to her."
Brody shook his head. "No, just let her go. She needs to cool off."
Myra looked at him, bewildered. "What was that all about?"
"Have you forgotten what it's like to raise teenagers?" Brody asked with a tired smile.
"But why did she say you’re not really sick?" Myra asked.
"She doesn't want to believe she could lose her father," Brody said, slumping back into the couch. "This is how she's dealing with that possibility. Denying it. Turning her anger about the situation into anger at me."
Myra thought about that. "I guess so. But still, that's no way to talk to you!"
"No, it's not. I'll try to talk to her later. But for now, she needs to be on her own."
Myra nodded, then swallowed. "Do you think she’ll still help me search for Henry?" She almost whispered her husband's name.
"Of course," Brody said. "She’ll be back down here in a few minutes anyway. She doesn't have any food up there, after all. And I'm sure she'll want to help you search for her grandpa."
Myra turned her head away so Brody wouldn't see the tears forming in her eyes once again. "Okay, I'd appreciate that. And we can cover a lot more ground on the bicycles." Her voice started to shake, and she stopped talking. She pushed herself to her feet and started to move toward the kitchen again.
"Mom?"
She turned back to look at him.
"Everything's going to be okay," Brody said. "You're going to find Dad. He's out there somewhere. I know it. And Heather, and Annie. You'll see them all again."
Myra nodded, the tears rolling down her cheeks. She patted her son's hand. "You're right, Brody. Everything's going to be okay."
She gave his hand a squeeze, then returned to the kitchen. She wanted to lose herself in banal tasks. She wanted to focus on something she could actually accomplish. Everything else in her life seem to be spinning out of control.
5
Southwestern Virginia - Sunday 1:03 a.m.
Heather Walsh had been riding for hours, since the early morning when she had left the cornfield in a frenzy. She was already exhausted, but she had many more miles to cover before reaching her parents’ house in Northeastern Tennessee.
The more she rode, the more she was filled with dread. She saw destruction everywhere – homes and businesses vandalized and looted, vehicles stripped and smashed. She had already seen two dead bodies on the edge of a larger town today. They had been stabbed, and they lay in a pool of blood. Her stomach turned as she recalled the gory sight.
She didn’t have enough food or water, and her hunger and thirst were catching up to her. She thought constantly about a cool bottle of water. And the exertion of riding the bike made her more ravenous than ever. Even with careful rationing of her supplies, she only had a little water and some dried fruit remaining.
She was coming upon another small town. It looked fairly quiet as she rode the highway downhill past deserted gas stations and houses.
Heather had mostly avoided stopping in populated areas. Ever since the EMP and the nuclear attacks, her faith in humanity had been at an all-time low. This was not a time she wanted to be dealing with strangers.
But her stomach was painfully empty, and her mouth was parched. There could easily be a delay in getting to her parents' house. And if she arrived any later than expected, dehydration would become more and more likely.
She came to a gas station. A few abandoned cars were scattered around the parking lot, and the station had been broken into. The glass door was shattered. But there was no one around. It looked like it had been empty for a while. The nearest building was a house in the lot directly behind the gas station. The house looked empty as well.
She steered her bike into the parking lot of the gas station. Maybe she could find some food left behind from the looters. If she was quick, she could get in and out without seeing anyone.
Heather coasted toward the front door of the store, then applied her brakes, skidding to a stop. She looked inside the store. It was destroyed, but empty of people. Turning back toward the street, she took one last look around the sleepy little town.
No one in sight.
Hopping off her bike, she leaned it against the front wall of the store and stepped inside.
The shelves had been cleared of merchandise. The doors to the refrigerated section had been torn off their hinges, and those shelves were empty as well. Heather's heart sank. With a lump in her throat, she walked up and down the aisles of the store, searching for any forgotten items.
Then, something caught her eye. A small cabinet underneath the coffee station, tucked in the corner near an end cap. The cabinet door was closed. Maybe the looters had overlooked it.
She opened the little cabinet door to find a small supply of juice boxes. It had apparently been an overflow area, and to Heather's luck, no one had seen it before her. She quickly grabbed the juice boxes, stuffing most of them in her backpack.
She had planned to take whatever she could find and leave, but her physical needs overcame her. She began to frantically tear open one of the juice boxes and guzzle its contents. The sweet liquid revived her almost instantly, and she moved on to a second and third box.
With the cabinet cleared out, she turned to leave. But near the front door, the corner of a bright blue wrapper caught her eye. Peering underneath the newspaper display, she spotted a small bag of cookies that had fallen into a little nook. Reaching into the tight space, she grabbed the package and pulled it out.
All her willpower flew out the window, and she wasn't able to save the cookies for later. She tore into the package
and began shoveling the food into her mouth, eating it greedily.
Heather had been in the store several minutes now, and she was getting nervous about being in one place for too long. What if someone down the road noticed her bike and decided to come check it out?
Still dumping cookie crumbs into her mouth, she headed toward the door.
With her mouth still full and her spirits lifted a bit, she grabbed the bike's handlebars and swung her leg over the frame.
Just as she was about to push off and ride away, the sound of a child screaming pierced the air.
Heather felt her chest contract as she listened to the blood-curdling scream echo through the valley.
The scream had come from nearby, probably from the house behind the gas station. Heather felt the urge to get on the bike and ride away, but she heard the voice again.
"No! No! Help! Somebody help me!"
Heather felt the tightening move from her chest up to her throat. There was a little girl back there. And she needed help.
With shaking hands, Heather withdrew the knife she kept in her backpack. She set the pack down beside the bike, then began to walk toward the edge of the building.
What are you doing? Get out of here! Go!
A big part of her wanted to leave, and chided her for thinking she could help. But she couldn't just let a child get hurt.
Heather silently inched toward the edge of the wall, then looked around the corner of the building, toward the house behind the station.
In the front yard of the rundown wooden home, a large man was wrestling with a little girl of about eight or nine. She tried to run away from him, but he grabbed her as she squirmed, trying to wrest free of his reach. It was clear the two weren't related – they looked nothing alike. And even if he was some relation to the girl, the child was obviously terrified.
The girl slapped at him, her eyes wide with horror. Again, she screamed out for help.
"Leave me alone, leave me alone! Help, please!"
For just a moment, Heather hesitated. What could she do to help? The man was much larger than Heather. There was no way she could overpower him.
