by A N Sandra
“You’ve already been playing your guitar, man,” Caleb grinned. He gestured to where the guitar was leaning against the amp, which was still plugged in.
“It was necessary,” Joshua told him. Looking toward the amp he realized he hadn’t turned it off and it was humming slightly. He stepped over and flipped the switch.
Caleb had owned an acoustic guitar when Joshua was small, and emulating Caleb had been the whole reason Joshua had become interested in playing. When Caleb went to school every morning, as soon as Danica was busy with Twilight, Joshua had dug Caleb’s guitar out of the case and tried his best to situate the guitar across his lap the same way Caleb did, and he had strummed it vigorously. Instead of getting angry when he caught Joshua at it, Caleb had been flattered and given Joshua his first lessons.
“I need to start playing again myself,” Caleb said. “We’ll have to jam before long.”
“Sure, Man,” Joshua answered. No way. “Whenever.”
Danica came out of the bathroom in fresh clothes and her blonde hair was smooth even if she still had an unsettled air from the recent battle of the bands.
“You look great, Mom,” Caleb told her. “Let’s go eat.”
Joshua was glad to leave the apartment. Simply having Caleb there had made it positively stuffy. As they walked down the stairs, Emilio, who was sitting on a blue lawn chair by his front door, waved goodbye.
Caleb always chose Mexican food when he went out to eat, and Danica and Joshua didn’t care where they ate, so they ordered tacos from Las Linda Cantina and sat on the misted patio drinking icy Juaritos sodas.
“Have you got a lot of gigs lined up for Back Pasture?” Caleb wanted to know while they waited for their food. Danica was in the bathroom again and it was time for the brother talk.
“I cancelled them all after Dad died,” Joshua said carefully. There was so much that he wanted to say, but Susan was shrewd and would piece together everything Joshua told Caleb. “I need a break, and BJ doesn’t want to play right now either, since he doesn’t know where Brock is.”
“Brock will turn up,” Caleb said confidently. “It isn’t like the old days where he could just hang out on the streets. Someone will get tired of taking care of him and turn him in.”
Joshua knew exactly where Brock was, and so did BJ, so he wasn’t worried, but he pretended to be thoughtfully concerned. Susan was sure that Bud and his sons and nephews had stolen Brock out of the Hollister facility he was in, and Joshua himself had broken into the heart of the place with his father and brother Michael, so Susan wasn’t wrong. The facility had been a level of hell that Joshua couldn’t have adequately described no matter how long he took or how hard he tried.
“When you start to feel like getting your life back together, I can help you get a job,” Caleb said.
“I don’t want to change tires—” Joshua started to say, then stopped. He knew Caleb wouldn’t have chosen to change tires either, he only did it to provide luxuries for Susan, but he didn’t want to be insulting.
“No!” Caleb laughed. When he laughed it was easy to remember how fun he had been once. “I wouldn’t try to get you a job at Fat Teddy’s. I’m only there until January. I’m going to start working for the construction company that’s putting in the new developments. I meant that you should join the Global Forces! You’re perfect!”
“I’ll think about it,” Joshua said, knowing he would never entertain the idea for a second. Joining Global Forces wasn’t an option for him even if Susan sat on him with a pen to get him to sign up. Before Joshua had seen the human wreckage that the Hollisters were storing in the Hollister NorCal Medical Intake Center, working for a global army would have held no appeal for him. Joshua was a musician, an easy-going leader when it suited him, a follower when someone worth following turned up. The last person Joshua had known who was worth following had been his father Bud, and until someone of that caliber came along Joshua wasn’t reporting to anyone.
“Good.” Caleb looked pleased.
Are you a moron? Joshua wanted to ask, but he didn’t say anything. Chips and pico de gallo were on the table and Joshua focused on them instead of wondering what had happened to Caleb. There was no woman on earth who would ever twist him up like Caleb had been twisted by Susan.
“What are you all doing for Thanksgiving?” Caleb wanted to know when Danica sat back down at the table. “Susan and I would love to have you over.”
So we can hang out at your fabulous house in Red Bluff for a few hours instead of our crappy digs in Sac?
“That’s really nice, son,” Danica reached out and patted Caleb’s hand. Joshua knew Danica would never spend a holiday with Susan, but there was no point in being ugly about it.
Watching his mother and brother chatting, Joshua was surprised to find that he felt nothing toward his brother. All the genetics that bound the two of them remained, but the goodwill that had taken a lifetime to build up was gone. Caleb had chosen Susan over all of them. Their father was dead because of Susan, even if Caleb didn’t want to expand his mind to that possibility.
“Enjoy!” a slender blonde waitress set down plates of tacos and winked at Joshua. She was perfect. Older than eighteen but younger than twenty-three, her figure was trim but not too trim, her makeup was tastefully done, and she managed to wear her work uniform with a certain sense of style. She was pretty, and aware of it, but not too stuck up to wink. Three weeks ago, she would have been a prime target.
So many things had happened in the last few weeks that had forced Joshua to grow up. His first bite of taco stuck in his mouth as he suddenly realized he wanted a woman to be with the way his mother had been with his father. He didn’t want the waitress’s number. He wanted to marry a beautiful woman wearing a white dress and carry her over the threshold of a cozy first home. He wanted to eat breakfast with children in highchairs smashing cereal with tiny fists and laughing. He wanted to take sons fishing and daughters to church on Sunday in crisp dresses. And it wasn’t going to happen. The world was ending and the things he hadn’t been smart enough to look forward to when they had been possible were now impossible.
“So, when are you and Susan going to start a family?” Joshua asked Caleb before he could stop himself.
Caleb was shocked at the question and Danica twitched. Joshua knew Danica prayed that Caleb would leave Susan before the two of them brought offspring into the world. But suddenly, the idea of his own family was so magnetic that Joshua wanted to know if Caleb felt the same way.
“We haven’t even discussed it,” Caleb finally said. “Susan’s job is really important to her. Urban Relocation is a very important societal movement. We have to put that first.”
“Hmm,” Joshua said. Hopefully Susan would never procreate. Even the Henderson genes couldn’t improve Susan’s own genetic cesspool. “I suppose you have important things to do.”
Caleb was on his way back to Red Bluff, but Danica and Joshua still waited until after midnight to leave the horrible apartment. They both tried to nap while waiting, but after years of country living the sounds of the apartment complex made it impossible to fall asleep. The sounds of the neighbors’ televisions, cars coming and going from the parking lot, and a crying baby in the distance all kept their awareness tightly strung. Finally, the time just felt right. Joshua and Danica slipped out the apartment door. Danica was carrying the huge basket of garden produce, which she couldn’t bear to waste, down the stairs to the Toyota truck BJ had left for them earlier. The Firebird and Danica’s minivan stayed in their spots. Danica would come move the vehicles every few days. She would also come into the apartment and answer texts on the phones that they had left on the kitchen counter. It might be months before anyone realized they were not actually living in the apartment. Joshua hoped so, anyway.
“You have everything you need?” Joshua asked Danica, more as a precaution than anything else. With six kids every car trip everywhere involved a checklist of things that should be in the car. Today was easier. Water
bottle, wallet, toiletries, snacks. Check.
“Yeah,” Danica told him. She absently caressed a large bell pepper in the basket on her lap. “Here we go.”
Joshua turned on the stereo. Clint Black helped ease their minds as they left the apartment complex and pulled onto I-5, ripping alongside big rigs with the other night travelers at eighty-five miles an hour. Danica looked straight ahead with her head back against the seat. There was no chit chat, but no tension either, just a sense of purpose as they moved ahead.
The sign for Redding reminded Joshua of the intake center he and his brother and cousins had rescued Brock from. As the misery of the intake center flashed through his mind for a microsecond, Joshua battled the impulse to drive straight there, crash through the gate, and rescue the people held inside. Then he turned the Toyota the other direction, onto Highway 44, toward the mountains, to find his sister and cousins. At last, the turnoff onto an unmarked gravel logging road led to another road with red soil and deep ruts.
“We’re almost there, Mom,” Joshua told Danica, who just nodded and looked into the dark trees.
There were no lights on in the cabin when Joshua pulled the Toyota up to the front door, but he knew that everyone must have heard them coming. Bert and Ernie, Ben’s falcons, were perched on the closest tree to the cabin, keeping a careful watch.
“Mom!” Twilight flew out the door and almost knocked Danica over with the force of her embrace.
Mother and daughter held each other and cried. There had been no funeral for Bud. He had defied Susan, head of Urban Relocation for the North State, and having a funeral would have tempted people to come and honor him. Too late, the Henderson family had learned how powerful the Hollister family’s minions really were. Bud had been cremated and his ashes were scattered along his favorite stretch of Hat Creek. What happened to him had been spoken about in whispered half-truths throughout Blythe and the people still remaining in the valley who were not relocated.
“We’re going to be fine,” Joshua announced in a firm tone of voice that rang through the forest. “We’re fine now.”
The Airstream had belonged to Danica’s grandfather, who, like Danica’s own father, turned out not to be good at taking vacations. Parked in Janice and Duane’s barn for more than forty years, it was a time capsule. Duane had owned a bakery for many years but found himself unable to retire and watch television. He had purchased a fish farm and never taken the Airstream out of the barn once as he worked at his second career. BJ had delivered the Airstream to the cabin earlier in the week.
“It would be so cool to restore this and make it retro!” Twilight commented.
“It’s retro now, without being restored,” Brock told her solemnly, looking at the harvest gold appliances and the avocado colored upholstery.
Everyone else smiled. Joshua thumped Brock on the back. Bert and Ernie, Ben’s pet falcons, swooped over the Airstream and landed on the roof. Joshua and Ben lugged propane tanks up to begin to get it ready to go.
“Where are you taking the trailer?” Brock asked.
“Chico,” Danica told him. “I’ll be by Rachel and Jael so we can spend time together.”
“Chico State has a good library,” Brock commented.
“I miss Dad, so much,” Twilight told Danica as the two of them put together tuna salad sandwiches for lunch. “I keep thinking everything isn’t real. That I’m going to school tomorrow, that everything’s going to be the way I thought it was supposed to be.”
“I wish it was,” Danica said softly. “But I’m not going to dwell on it, and I don’t think you are either. We’re survivors. We’re winners. You won’t be valedictorian, because no one will. You’ll be alive next year, God willing, and that’s going to be winning in the new world.”
“I want to try to save this world.” Twilight sighed. Her business, her academic success, her softball skills already didn’t matter, but it was bitter to let go of the idea of them.
“If Christina Harris can’t do it, it probably can’t be done.” Danica sighed back, in resignation. “But we’re going to do what we can.”
When the Airstream was ready to be used the family loaded it up and Joshua walked around securing everything before climbing into the driver’s seat of the Tundra.
“Drive safe,” Joshua warned Danica. “This trailer is going to need a lot of room on the road.”
“I drove a minivan with six kids trying to kill each other in the back over icy roads and all of you made it.” Danica grinned wryly. “I think I’ll be okay. I just want to be by my girls.”
That was part of the plan. Danica needed to win their trust so that they would take their vaccinations against the coming plague and come to the country to be safe. Joshua had the harder part of the plan. He needed to make sure that the group of survivors Natalie had suggested the family join was a decent group of people. How weird could a bunch of preppers in the desert be? Natalie had been great, but weird herself with her crazy hair clashing with her intelligence as a research doctor. Unfortunately, Joshua had an idea that people Natalie thought were great might be pretty weird.
“I hate how much I’m going to miss you.” Twilight bit her lip. She hadn’t been wearing makeup since staying in the cabin with Brock and Ben, and she looked younger than fifteen. “I miss you all every day already.”
“Ben and I are here,” Brock told her. “Being with us is great! We never bother you. You have Kaitlyn to be a woman with!”
"It's a good thing Joshua rescued her when he rescued you, but we are a little crowded here," Twilight replied.
“This is hard.” Danica frowned. “Our whole family should be together after Dad died, and we haven’t all been in the same room since then. I hate to leave you. I’ll come as often as I can. I don’t know how much of an eye Susan is going to be keeping on me.”
“She shouldn’t be mad that you want to be by Jael and Rachel,” Twilight pouted. “But she will be.”
“She will be,” Danica agreed. Susan would be livid to think of the Hendersons drawing comfort from each other in the face of adversity. “Susan has a big job with a lot of responsibilities, and she should have other things to do than watch that horrible apartment twenty-four seven.”
“But if she doesn’t watch the apartment all the time you might be happy at some point,” Twilight said. “I love you, Mom.”
Danica hugged Twilight and Joshua felt a little wistful. The recent loss of his father and the revelation that he wanted a family of his own had made him sentimental. He remembered different times he should have hugged his mother and didn’t. Homecoming his sophomore year when Blythe had beaten Chester for the section basketball championship, and Joshua, the youngest varsity player on the team, had run off to score with Tina Barnes after running up to his parents and saying goodbye. The night the Blythe team had beaten East Nicolaus for the section championship, and he had left to score with Bambi Morton, he had hugged his mother carelessly and told her he loved her, but he hadn’t looked back. The night he graduated high school and he had run off to score with Meghan Jones, he’d barely spoken to his parents. Now his father was gone, and those girls were long gone, and Joshua was embarrassed at his lack of gratitude for the family he’d had.
“I love you, Mom,” Joshua said as he squeezed his mother before leaving. “There’s no better mom in the whole world.”
“Be careful, son,” Danica told him.
“I will,” Joshua promised, even though it was a little late for being careful. Whatever happened now, the damage was done. Being careful was for chumps. Joshua had never been a chump. He hugged his cousins and his sister and even Ben and left them all to drive into the desert to see if their family should join the group Natalie had told his father about. He felt like John the Baptist, heading to the wilderness like a crazy man because so few people could see the future.
Joshua made up his mind that he would do better for his family than he ever had. He would determine if the new group he was going to meet was the place f
or his family to be, and if it was, he would bring them there. If it wasn’t, he would find a way to take care of them through the coming trouble by himself. Rachel and Jael wouldn’t want to believe trouble was coming, but they would eventually listen to Danica if they wouldn’t listen to him. He kicked himself for not taking pictures of the mental health intake center when he was there rescuing Kaitlyn and Brock. He should have gotten proof.
“The smell was the real proof,” Joshua said to himself. No one could imagine the smell. It didn’t take much to remember it. The stench of human waste and misery. Why hadn’t they thought to bottle the smell while they were there? Brock and Kaitlyn had smelled of it and Joshua had hurried to wash his clothes as soon as he could.
Driving down I-5, Joshua tried to listen to the radio to avoid too much more thinking. The radio made him sentimental too. Once he had wanted to be Blake Shelton. He thought he would be more than a country star; he would be a celebrity, with a beautiful trophy wife. Maybe even two or three of them before he chose one to have children with. Danica wouldn’t have approved, but everyone makes allowances for celebrities. In those dreams he got his parents tickets to his concerts when he was in Sacramento or Reno (although he wouldn’t play Reno too often, Vegas was more his style), and they would be proud of him.
Joshua thought of his guitar, left in the crappy apartment in Sac now. It was tempting to swing by and pick it up, but that wouldn’t work, and he knew it. The guitar was important for Caleb or Susan to see if they stopped by. They would never know that the night at the intake center had brought the whole rest of his life into sharp focus. Joshua knew his future was not music, but survival. He would survive. He wouldn’t let the people who hurt Brock like that win. No way.
The night faded, and at just the right moment Joshua knew when to stop and get a motel room. He paid cash and used a fake name; a practice no one was supposed to be able to do but slipping the tired clerk a twenty-dollar bill was all it took. The poor woman looked like she needed more than twenty dollars, and Joshua had been prepared to offer more, but she had taken it with the sort of defeat that made him want to pat her head as if she were a puppy.
