by Harley Tate
Brave. Daring. Maybe even reckless. She’d have faced more fear. Been more prepared for the end of the world.
Tucker called out from inside the store. “It’s all right. Looks like they’re all dead.”
Madison exhaled a shaky breath and turned to Peyton. “You or me? Who’s standing guard outside?”
Peyton glanced at the empty street and back at Madison. “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll stay out here. The smell of blood always makes me nauseous.”
She nodded and ducked into the store, sidestepping the giant piles of broken glass. Telling Peyton he might have to get over that problem wouldn’t help right now, but it was true. They’d all have to grow up, and quick.
Blinking in an attempt to adjust to the dim light in the store, Madison took stock. The gunfight had taken place in the middle, leaving the side aisles untouched. They looked like any other convenience store in any other town.
A drinks station with coffee and soda and frozen slushes. A microwave and a spot for rolling hotdogs and hanging pretzels. An entire wall of beer going bad in refrigerators that might never turn on again.
The only thing different was this one had blood and glass and two dead bodies. Madison swallowed. The first robber lay face down, a pool of blood hugging his chest. It had this sheen to it already, like milk with a skin. If she touched it, it would probably be tacky.
Madison tried not to think about the reality of the moment. A dead man right in front of her. She eased around his body, thankful she couldn’t see his face. She wasn’t as lucky the second time.
The other thief sat slumped over by the candy bar shelf, one hand in his lap like he’d died clutching his gut. The gunshot had torn through him, ripping his middle open as it sent him to the floor.
She glanced up. “Have you found a shotgun? That’s the only thing that could make these wounds.”
Tucker popped up from the chips aisle, his mouth puffed up like a chipmunk. “Swrrwy… Gwt dswrctwd.”
“You’re stuffing your face?” Brianna emerged from behind the counter. “We’re standing in a store that just got robbed and you’re stuffing your face with what?”
Tucker held up the bag and shrugged.
Jalapeño Doritos.
Brianna groaned. “That better not be the last bag.” She turned to Madison and held up a shotgun with one hand and a box of shells with the other. “Guy had some serious buckshot back here. No wonder those two look like hamburger.”
A wave of nausea rose up Madison’s throat, but she pushed it down. No time to get sick. Everyone dealt with death in a different way. Brianna joked it off, Tucker stuffed his face, Peyton stayed outside. Madison could stand there, staring at the dead man beside her all day, thinking about life and death and what it all meant, but it wouldn’t get her anything except possibly the same fate.
“Hey. Are you all right?”
Madison glanced up at Brianna and nodded. “Yeah. I just need to get out of my own head.”
“Do that and grab whatever we might need, okay?”
Madison nodded. “Where’s the owner?”
Brianna shrugged. “Beats me. Maybe he ran out the back.” She glanced around at the floor. “I’m looking for another gun. From all the shots we heard, there has to be a handgun around here somewhere.” Brianna scowled at Tucker. “And you. Worthless excuse for a boyfriend. Get some shopping bags and fill them with whatever you can. Food, batteries, flashlights. Motor oil if they have it.”
Tucker shoved the last chip in his mouth and nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
Madison rolled her eyes. Tucker might have risked his life for a bag of Doritos and a box of Slim Jim’s, but Madison risked her life for one thing: a map.
While the other two searched and collected, Madison scanned the store, looking for the familiar little carousel. Bingo! It was tucked in the back, wedged between the ATM machine and the bathrooms.
She rushed up to it, spinning the sections around as she plucked every map they could possibly need off the tines. Madison clutched them all in her hands and said a silent thank you to whomever might be listening. They could make it home. In a few hours, she’d see her mom, hopefully her dad, and they could relax.
Sleep.
She eyed the cookies behind her. Eat some junk. Madison grabbed a bag of Oreos and headed toward the door. Brianna stood one aisle over, staring down at the floor. Madison made her way to her.
The thug she’d passed by before still sat in the same place, hand in his lap, Twix and Snickers cascading like a frozen waterfall down his shoulders. “What is it?”
Brianna held up a blood-covered handgun. Large, with what appeared to be metal insets and scrollwork, the gun had to cost a small fortune. “He made a point of carrying a show piece.” Brianna shook her head. “Lot of good it did him.”
“Maybe that’s all it was. He might not have even known how to shoot it.”
Brianna nodded. “You’re probably right.” She ejected the magazine and checked the chamber with a snort. “He didn’t even have a round in the chamber.” Brianna shook her head. “We’re barely two days into this thing, whatever it is, and these idiots get themselves shot.”
“Your point?”
“How many more are going to be just like them? How many people are going to totally lose their minds and get themselves killed?”
“More than we can count.” Madison reached out and rubbed Brianna’s shoulder. “Come on, we should go.”
Brianna nodded. “Thanks for coming with me.”
Madison smiled. “Thanks for driving.”
“Dude. They’ve got Ho Hos!”
Both girls rolled their eyes and laughed. Leave it to Tucker to break the tension. They might be standing over a dead body holding guns and priceless maps, but Tucker still cracked them up.
“Let’s go, Ho Ho man. We’re done.”
“Aw, come on. There’s so much stuff here…”
“Now, Tucker.”
“Fine.” He emerged from the aisle, arms laden with a million bags, each one stuffed to the brim with cookies and chips and sodas. “I can’t carry any more anyway.”
Madison laughed to herself and followed Brianna and Tucker out of the store. The sunlight almost blinded her. “Hold on! We need one more thing.” She rushed back in and grabbed the first four sunglasses on the rack by the door.
“Eye protection.” She handed them out as all four college friends walked toward the Jeep.
Peyton popped on a reflective pair of aviators. “How do I look?”
“Very Judgment Day.”
He grinned. “How was the store?”
“Be glad you missed it.”
He nodded as they stopped outside the car. Tucker piled his bags into the already overloaded back while Peyton and Madison climbed in the back seat.
Once they all made it inside, Brianna turned on the engine. “All right. Where to now?”
Madison grinned as she unfolded a map of the greater Sacramento area. “Home. Now we’re going home.”
Brianna backed out of the space and eased up to the street. “Which way?”
“Just a second.” Madison found their location on the map and her parents’ house. They were still over twenty miles away. They’d have never made it home by dark without a map. She exhaled with relief and gratitude. Sometimes the worst situations turned out to be the best.
She pointed out the window. “Take a left at the light.”
Brianna pulled out onto the street. In an hour, they’d be home. Madison hoped she’d find everything she needed, including her parents, safe and sound.
Chapter Nineteen
TRACY
Sacramento, CA
10:30 a.m.
“I take it you didn’t leave it like this.”
Wanda shook her head, tears welling in her eyes as she surveyed the destruction. “No.”
A coffee table stood on its side in the living room; magazines that once perched on top now littered the floor. Drawers from a corner desk lay a
bout like lazy cats on the rug in front of the window, catching the morning sun. Every single kitchen cabinet door hung open, shelves mucked about and contents ransacked.
It looked like a scene from a movie, the one right before the bad guy rushed out from the bedroom and did the homeowner in. Tracy crept down the hall. Please have no one be here. Please.
She nudged open a door with her hiking boot. Bathroom, empty. On down the hall she went. Checking in every closet before the last door. With a deep breath, she turned the handle and pushed it open. Thank God.
Wanda’s bedroom sat empty and relatively undisturbed. Whomever tossed the place either ran out of time or figured she didn’t have anything worth stealing in there. With a bed covered in a pink fluffy comforter and a wall of bookcases stuffed to the gills with books, Tracy was surprised.
Guess the thief wasn’t a reader.
She made her way back out to the main rooms and found Wanda crouched on the floor in the living room, holding two pieces of a figurine. Tears streaked her cheeks. “My mother gave this to me for my sixteenth birthday.” She snuffed back snot and held up the two pieces, fitting them together as best she could. A ballerina with a broken leg. “When I was young, I wanted to be a dancer.”
Tracy knelt beside her. “I’m sorry.” She rubbed the older woman’s back, trying to comfort her. Tracy didn’t know what to do. She needed to get home, quickly. Every minute she stayed with Wanda meant another minute her home sat unprotected.
What if Madison made it home and she wasn’t there? Or Walter showed up and feared the worst?
Part of her wanted to leave Wanda to fend for herself. But how could she leave her here in the midst of all this destruction?
Tracy stood up and walked over to the sliding door. It stood open about an inch without any kind of backstop. Anyone could hop the railing to Wanda’s patio and walk on in. Wanda couldn’t have been that reckless. Could she?
“Did you leave your sliding door open?”
Wanda wiped at an eye and sniffed back another wave of tears. “I always leave it open a crack. It lets the air in.”
Tracy closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. Lashing out in anger wasn’t her style, but even she could be driven to the breaking point. “You can’t just leave your doors and windows unlocked. Anyone could have just come on in and helped themselves.”
“But this is a gated community.”
“Not anymore.”
Wanda stood up, cradling the figurine in her hands. “We have a security guard who drives around on a golf cart. Everyone talks about how safe they feel here. I’ve never had to worry. I just don’t understand why a person would do this.”
Something inside Tracy snapped. She’d tried for the past twenty-four hours to treat Wanda with kid gloves, to ease her into the new reality they faced. But screw it. The woman needed to face reality, or best-case scenario, she’d be dead soon. Worst case, she’d bring Tracy along for the ride.
Tracy dropped her hand. “When are you going to wake up? The world has changed, Wanda. It’s not like it was before. It never will be.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Look around you! You think this is a one-time thing? Everyone has to fend for themselves. Protect themselves. There won’t be any aid. The government won’t be swooping in here with food and water and the power company.”
“Yes, they will. It might take a few days, but the power always comes back on.”
Tracy stalked up to Wanda, ready to shake some sense into her. “The grid can’t come back from a CME. The type of EMP it released fried the grid. We don’t have the means to bring it back. I explained all of this already.”
Wanda sniffed. “I thought you were being dramatic.”
Tracy palmed her hips and stayed silent, not trusting herself to speak. Anger and frustration filled her. Anger at the woman standing in front of her, the inability of her fellow citizens to prepare or even grasp something like this might happen, at her government for failing to appreciate the risks.
There were so many people she could direct all those pent-up emotions toward, but it wouldn’t do any good. She’d be shouting in a padded room. No one could help her now but herself.
Wanda set the broken ballerina on her fireplace mantel and wiped her palms down the front of her dress. “I’m sorry I haven’t been much help since you picked me up.”
Tracy exhaled and managed a nod.
“I guess I thought…” She paused and looked around her. “If I ignored everything you said, then it couldn’t be real. I’d get back here and it would be just like I left it. The power would be on, the water would be running, and I could go back to my life.” She tucked a flyaway bit of hair behind her ear. “Silly, huh?”
Tracy’s anger dissipated like helium out of a leaky balloon. “Infuriating, actually.”
Wanda cracked a smile. “I’m sorry, Tracy.”
“It’s okay.” Tracy ran her tongue across her lips before continuing. “Look, Wanda. I know this is all hard for you to accept.”
“I’m beginning to.”
“That’s good. But it takes more than that.”
“What are you saying?”
Tracy perched on the edge of the couch arm and motioned at the destruction all around them. “This is the world now. It’s only going to get worse.” She paused, trying to gauge Wanda’s reaction. “Are you going to do what it takes to survive or not?”
Wanda’s brows knit together. “Like what?”
“Learn skills, persevere when things get tough, not let setbacks do you in.”
“You mean like this?”
“Mm-hmm. But that’s just the start. If this is the new normal, we can’t depend on anyone for anything. No stores, no police, no trash pickup.” Tracy leaned in. “No hospitals, no gas stations, no electric company. Just us and our skills.”
Wanda wiped at her face, drying her tears and rubbing some color back in her cheeks. “Okay. I get it.”
“Good.” Tracy stood up. “Get dressed into something more practical. I’ll start collecting anything we can use.”
Wanda blinked. “What are you saying?”
Tracy didn’t hesitate. “I’m taking you back home. You can stay with me.”
The hug caught Tracy off guard. Wanda wrapped her thick arms around her, squeezing until Tracy almost squeaked. Her sweater muffled Wanda’s voice, but Tracy heard her anyway. “Thank you. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t seen me waiting for the bus.” Wanda gave her another squeeze before pulling back.
Tracy appreciated the gesture, but words didn’t mean as much as action. Not now, anyway. “Don’t thank me yet. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”
Wanda nodded. “I know. I’ll do my share.”
I hope so. Tracy flashed her a tight smile. “Is it okay if I start in the kitchen?”
“Of course. I’ll change and see what I can find in the bedroom. Anything you think we might need, please take it.”
“Will do.” Tracy waited until Wanda disappeared down the hall before turning around. She didn’t know if the woman could deliver on her promises, but it was a start. Offering whatever supplies she had on hand meant something, too. Her kitchen might not have much, but there had to be a few things they could use.
Tracy opened cabinets and peered past plates and cups. She yanked open drawers and rifled through silverware and baking supplies. Wanda didn’t have much in the way of end-of-the-world preparedness. A roll of duct tape shoved in the back of the junk drawer and a pack of AA batteries would come in handy. Tracy set them on the counter.
The flashlight and fire extinguisher under the sink, along with most of the cleaning supplies, could be useful. She added them to the pile before opening the cabinet above the sink. Vitamins and medicine. Tracy didn’t bother to read the labels, opting instead to scoop everything up in her arms and dump them in an empty recycling container she’d found under the sink.
She opened the next cabinet. The pantry. All the food
that wasn’t already rotten would come with them. Crackers and chips and cereal would only last so long, but food was food. She piled it all on top of the vitamins before reaching for the stool tucked in the corner.
Tracy stepped on top of it and almost let out a whoop when she saw what sat on the second shelf. An almost-full case of Slim Fast in cans. Dieting had never been her thing. Tracy preferred to sweat off her calories with a good run or a lifting session at her gym. But Slim Fast was intended as meal replacement. It could get them through hard times.
She tugged the partially wrapped case off the shelf and climbed down before setting it on the counter.
“I’ve never been very good at sticking to a diet. Those things taste like chalk.”
Tracy spun around and gawked. The woman standing in front of her barely looked like the Wanda she knew. Instead of a flowy skirt and loose hair, Wanda had changed into hiking gear: jeans, boots, and a T-shirt. With her graying hair in a braid she looked like a plump Jane Goodall, ready to set off for a trek through the misty mountains.
“Wow, Wanda, I didn’t think…”
She shrugged when Tracy ran out of words. “I took up hiking a few years ago. A bunch of us old gals get together once a month and do a day hike in the area.”
“Great.” Tracy motioned at the things she’d piled on the counter. “I’ve pulled just about everything out of the kitchen we can use.”
Wanda nodded. “I packed a bag of clothes and grabbed some wool blankets I had in the closet. There’s a suitcase full of toiletries by the bathroom door, too.”
Tracy marveled. An hour ago she’d never thought Wanda would be capable of getting anything together, let alone actually helping. Maybe the woman wasn’t a lost cause.
“And there’s this.” Wanda set her bag down and pulled out a zippered pouch. She opened it and held it out to Tracy.
A revolver sat inside, along with a handful of bullets. Tracy blinked. Wanda owned a gun?
