by E A Lake
Everyone got their boots on and we lowered the light in the cabin to a single lamp. Watching a guard saunter past the back end of the place, I began my count to await the next one.
“Okay,” I whispered to my group. “When the next guard goes by and disappears behind Cabin One, we sneak out into the porch. Got it?”
“How long before that happens?” Morgan asked quietly.
“About 10 min—” my reply was cut off by a shout from out front.
“Shaklin’s coming,” one of the women’s guards called out in a high tone. “No need to get all dressed up. He just wants a minute of your time to talk.”
Open-mouthed, I stared at Morgan. She winced and shook her head. “I told you this could happen.”
She had. But it was not in the plans.
I peeked through a slit in the front curtain as lantern and torches illuminated the front yard. The women stood in a semi-circle as Shaklin approached solo, no wife in tow.
“Thank you all for coming out tonight,” he said as he stepped into the center of the group. “I promise to be brief so you can all get back to what you were doing. I just wanted to clear something up.”
He seemed a little nervous. Maybe nervous wasn’t the right word. His head was lowered more than raised. Each time he looked up, he blew a small breath between pursed lips and his eyes darted about the group.
“I’m sorry about earlier today,” he continued, removing his dark cowboy hat, spinning it in his hands, eyes cast downward again. “I think I over-reacted a little bit earlier, withholding your meat and all. And I didn’t really mean what I said about next week.”
He slowly approached Morgan and I felt my stomach tighten.
“You got what you had coming to you, Morgan,” he said quietly. “But if you need a day or two to recover, I won’t hold it against you. There’ll be meat next Sunday; I promise that.”
I waited for Morgan’s reply, hoping she’d be able to hold her spiteful tongue. I never knew what might come out of her lips.
“Thank you, Mr. Shaklin,” she replied firmly. “I appreciate that, but I’ll be at work first thing tomorrow morning. You can count on that.”
I let out a long breath that I didn’t realize I’d been holding inside. For once, her words made Shaklin smile.
“That’s my girl,” he said, patting the top of her head as though she were a puppy. “I’m glad we cleared that up. Okay,” he stepped back. “Go back to your nights and I’ll see most of you in the morning.”
He watched as they left and returned to their cabins. That’s when another issue reared its head and bit me in the ass. For some reason, Charolette returned to Cabin Three instead of ours.
CHAPTER SEVENTY
“Where the hell is Charolette?” I ranted as Sasha closed the front door. “Gonna be kind of hard to make an escape if we have to wait on her.”
Liv of all people assumed a miffed expression. “She couldn’t very well come back with us. That would have made Shaklin suspicious.”
Maybe. Maybe not. But it was something we didn’t need at that moment. We already had two wrinkles I hadn’t accounted for. We didn’t need a third in taking a chance of sneaking Charolette over again.
“I’ll make like I’m going to the outhouse in a little bit,” Liv continued. Where her spine had come from I wasn’t sure, but it was welcomed. “I’ll see if I can get her attention and we’ll get something figured out.”
Okay, that made sense. It was a setback, not a total defeat.
“I’m gonna have to start retiming the guards,” I said, going to the back window. “Someone grab the gallon of lamp oil so we have it ready.”
Sasha trotted to the kitchen and dug in the cupboard under the sink. When she held the clear container up, I smiled, but only for a second.
Most of the kerosene that had been provided for the lamps was red or a light crimson. The contents of the container in Sasha’s hand looked pale brown to me.
“Does lamp oil go bad or change colors?” I asked, leaving my post and taking the container from Sasha. I opened the lid and sniffed the contents. “This doesn’t smell right. Liv, come tell me what this is.”
When Liv took the container from me, she grinned and pointed at the black lettering. “Lamp oil,” she stated as though I were a four-year-old.
“Sniff it,” I insisted.
She did as requested and immediately went back to the cupboard. “That’s vegetable oil. Where’s the lamp oil?”
Oh good God. Of all the rotten luck.
“How much oil do we have in the lamps now?” I asked, doing a quick scan of the room. There were three lamps and a spare, but that one was empty.
“Not enough to cause much of a fire,” Morgan replied, joining Sasha, Liv and me.
“I have an idea,” Sara said. She’d been so quiet, I’d almost forgotten she was in the room. “Let’s make a pile of our work clothes and use whatever oil we have on them. Given how dry this wood is, that should be enough to get it going.”
Good, we had a solution. However, there were still two problems. Charolette was in the wrong cabin and I needed to get the guards figured out again.
“You go outside and see if you can give Charolette the high sign,” I said, pointing at Liv. “I’ll get the guards timed out and then we’ll go.”
I felt a hand take mine and turned to find Sara beside me, nodding slowly as she stared into my eyes.
“It’s going to be okay,” she said confidently. “This is going to work.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
Liv went to the outhouse and came back with Charolette by her side. Finally, things were back on track.
“I went out through the hole in the floor,” Charolette said, slipping on a dark pair of sweatpants. “Then I waited for someone and when I saw Liv come outside, I snuck over.”
“How are the guards looking?” Morgan asked as I went back to my post.
“One went by a few minutes ago,” I replied. “When the next one goes by, we sneak out. We’ll wait by the back edge of Charolette’s cabin to make sure he’s really gone and then we’ll make a quick walk for it. No running; I don’t want anyone tripping in the cut corn. We can’t afford to make any racket.”
They all agreed either with a nod or “yeah”. Now we just needed for the second guard to get past.
What seemed to be a long wait ensued, though I doubt it was more than five minutes. When the second guard made his lap between the cabins and the poorly lit, open field, the torches were doing an awful job of providing any light. I signaled for Sasha to pour the lamp oil on the pile of clothes and light it.
A gentle orange flame began and slowly spread throughout the clothing. When I was sure the guard had disappeared to the left, I had Liv inch the door open and the six of us made our way outside into the still night air.
It was cooler than I’d expected. Maybe it was because of the closeness in the cabin caused by six anxious people. Or perhaps it was caused by my own reaction to the fight-or-flight situation.
Carefully, we made our way off the porch and moved to the back edge of Cabin Three. So far, so good. Peering into the dark night, I saw nothing. Listening closely, I could make out talking from the front of the cabins, just where the guards belonged.
“Okay,” I whispered. “One by one, we make our way into the field. When you get four or five rows into the standing corn, kneel and wait until all of us are there. Got it?”
“Liv goes first, then Sasha, Sara, me, and then Charolette,” Morgan replied softly. “You bring up the rear, Quinn.” She dug in her jacket pocket, pulling something out and handing it to me. “Here, we may need this.”
Why I assumed it was a knife I’ll never know. But when the cool steel hit my palm, I knew it was something else without even looking.
“I thought you said you didn’t have a gun?” I said to her flatly. “Isn’t that what you said?”
She patted my knee, giving me a closed-mouth, thin grin. “You had a gun. We never did.”
She looked away and shook her head. “Last one, I promise.” Somehow, I doubted her.
Scooting forward on my knees, I peered around the corner of Cabin Three. From what I could see and hear, we were ready to go.
“Liv,” I whispered. “On your feet and get going. Remember, don’t run, walk as—”
A hand slid over my mouth; Sasha’s hand. She pointed to our right.
Shit! A guard was making another round. Ten minutes couldn’t have passed. What the hell was he doing back so soon?
I glanced at the group and signaled for everyone to get down. From the grass, we watched him stop directly behind us and I heard his zipper. What a great time to relieve himself.
I nervously eyed the back of cabin two, hoping none of the flames were visible yet. After a long, tense stare-down, I noticed they weren’t.
After taking the longest piss in recorded human history, the guard zipped himself back up and continued his rounds. Slowly, I watched him disappear from sight.
Easing into an upright position, I signaled Liv to get going. She made it about two feet into the corn before I told Sasha to follow. She had taken maybe two steps when a shrill voice rang through the otherwise calm air.
“Fire!” someone shouted. “Cabin Two is on fire! Go get the crew. Go get Shaklin. Hurry!”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO
I watched Liv dash into the corn and disappear. Sasha, unfortunately, froze in her place.
“Get down!” I whisper-shouted. “Get down on your belly, Sasha.” Thankfully, she heard me and did just that.
“Get around the backside of the cabin,” I said to the rest. As they scurried into a better hiding spot, I watched the guards, all of them, congregate in the yard in front of the cabins. No, wait; I only counted five. Where was the sixth?
“Shit, one of the guards is missing,” I said as Morgan came to my side. “Where the hell is he? We can’t move until he’s accounted for.”
“Two are missing,” Morgan pointed out. “There’s only four there.” Damn it; she was right. “One probably went to get help. Maybe even two did.”
I huffed and checked the rest of my team. Charolette and Sara were plastered against the back of the cabin, holding hands. I had my night eyes finally and by the dim glow of the torches, I could tell they were terrified. I couldn’t say I felt much better.
We were spread out and that was the worst-case scenario. We all needed to be in one spot, preferably in the standing corn. But only Liv was there. Though I couldn’t see her, I assumed Sasha was tight to the ground still, maybe 20 feet away. That placed her about 20 more feet from freedom.
“There’s the fifth,” Morgan whispered, drawing my attention back to the men. The problem was that they were too close for us to run for it. Two of them were actually standing in the opening between cabins two and three, some 30 feet from our hiding spot. We needed a diversion.
“Get in there and save the women!” someone shouted. One of the two leapt onto the porch but was back in sight in an instant.
“The flames are shooting out of the door,” he replied loudly. “I can’t get close, much less inside.”
Four more men came running into the scene. It was getting hard to keep track of all of them. Another two sprinted to the scene, one with an open shirt and no pants. We were about to have lots of company, which is the exact opposite of what we needed.
I turned back to Morgan. “Send Sara now, but straight back from the middle of this cabin. Have her tell Sasha to get up and make a run for it. Do it now!”
Sara dashed away on Morgan’s command and I watched as Sasha rose and made her run to the hiding place. However, Sara entered the field a good 10 yards right of where the other two had. Hopefully, they’d find one another in the uncut maze.
More people appeared in the space in front of the cabins and shouts began to fill the night air. I noticed some of the mob circle the far end of the inferno and worried they might stumble across us if they did a full circle. I let out a relieved sigh when they came back the same way they’d left.
“Okay,” I said, facing Morgan one last time. “You take Charolette and go the same way Sara just—”
I thundering voice cut me off. “What the hell is going on!” It was Shaklin, and beside him stood one of his wives, lit by the leaping flames of the fire consuming Cabin Two.
“Shit,” Morgan said, perhaps louder than I would have. “We got to get going, all of us. It’s Three. She’ll see right through our diversion.”
“Has anyone gone in there and checked for bodies yet?” Shaklin raged. “Have you checked the other cabins? Have you even counted who the hell is safe and who might be in there?”
He sounded like a man concerned for his staff, though I doubted that was his true intention. He was probably more worried about having to replace a cleaner, doctor and daycare provider.
“We need to go, Quinn,” Morgan insisted. “We need to go now!”
I glanced back one last time just as Wife Three stood in the opening, staring at the fire. When she pulled her hat off and threw it down, I froze in place.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
“They’re not in there!” Wife Three screamed, pointing at the inferno. “There’s no way they’re in there. Check the other cabins. Now!”
I knew her. I had no idea where from, but her voice, which I’d heard before, and now her face, were familiar to me.
“Let’s go, Quinn,” Morgan said between gritted teeth. But I was still lost, trying to recall how I knew that woman.
I couldn’t move. Shaking my head, I turned to Morgan. “I know that woman. I know her.”
“We have to go before they figure out we’re not in there,” Morgan begged. “Quinn, we have to get out of here.”
“No one extra in either Cabin One or Cabin Three,” a man reported to Wife Three, then Shaklin. “But Charolette’s missing, too.”
“Oh God,” Shaklin cried. “Not Charolette. She can’t burn up. We need her.”
Wife Three stormed over to Shaklin and poked his chest. “She’s not in there, Tony. None of them are in there. That damned Quinn must have gotten in there somehow. We need to start a search.”
I saw Shaklin shake his head as his eyes darted between his wife and the fire.
“It’s dark, Carla,” he replied loudly. “We don’t know if they’re in there or not. We need to figure that out before we run off looking for them.”
“You are so stupid!” Carla shrieked. That shot a bolt through my body. Something she said, or the way she said it — I’d heard that before.
“Quinn,” Morgan said. Pulling me away from the scene. “Let’s go. They’re pretty occupied right now. Let’s run.”
I rose and picked up Charolette in my arms. She felt light, though I doubted I could carry her more than a mile or two at a time. Following Morgan, I watched the back of her disappear into the corn and almost tripped over her where she’d stopped. I set Charolette down and turned back, peering through the dark corn.
The scene was almost like a dream. A cabin going up in flames, men milling about, unable to stop the raging fire. And in the center of it all stood Shaklin and Wife Three, arguing. Though I couldn’t hear their words clearly any longer, I knew neither was happy nor agreeing with the other.
“Okay, straight through the corn and we should hit the road,” Morgan ordered. “Just keep going across the rows and you’ll find it. Stay in sight of the person in front of you. If there’s a ditch, wait there until we’re all together again. Otherwise, just wait in the last row of corn.”
I heard some of them start off away from me. I was still trying to recall a memory, a stubborn one at that. When Morgan grabbed my arm, I startled.
“Time to go,” she said quietly. “We need to stay together.”
I looked at her, searching her face in the dim haze of orange and yellow for honesty. “
I know her. I know Wife Three. But I can’t remember where from.”
Morgan glanced away, shaking her head.
“Morgan,” I begged. “Please help me try and remember this. Where do you think I know her from?”
“We need to go,” she replied bitterly. “Your fun with Shaklin is just starting.”
I grabbed her by the shoulders so she couldn’t look away.
“Morgan, I know her. How do I know her?”
She tried to pull away, but I held firmly. I felt her shoulders slump and she raised her gaze to meet mine.
“You should know her,” she said flatly. “She was your wife, after all.”
#########
Book Two - Found
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
I hustled through the corn behind Morgan, my hand clutching hers, with Charolette leading the way, still hobbled by her injured foot. None of us said a word. We all seemed to be in shock.
A cornfield in the dark is a formidable foe. The stalks rose a good two to three feet above us and were spaced close enough that we had to push them aside to make progress. And the terrain of the field was much more uneven than I’d anticipated. The seven years of the apocalypse and nearly a month at Shaklin’s ranch were nothing compared to the darkness in the tall, cropped field.
Twice Charolette fell and we had to wait for her to get up, dust herself off and regain her orientation before we could continue.
Somewhere ahead of us — or even 20 feet to our left for all I knew — Sara, Sasha and Liv were experiencing the same issues. At least I figured they had to be, given our tough going. One time, we stopped and I could have sworn I heard them dead ahead of where we were. The next pause made me think they were a little ahead but just to our left.
