by Ellis, Tara
Ethan forgot about his stinging face and saw that there were four more men and a woman gathered behind the one with the crowbar. They were all filthy, their clothes torn, singed, and covered in both dirt and blood. One man held a large knife, another what looked like part of an iron fence. The woman clutched a bat, her eyes wild and her face so distorted with feral rage that Ethan couldn’t guess her age. He took it all in, and was reminded of a scene from a horrible knock-off of Blade Runner. That he was so close to laughing about it scared him. It wasn’t funny. Nothing about what he’d seen in the city over the past day was funny.
The horses were the main reason they’d been forced to hide. While there were others on horseback in the city, they were a growing commodity and people were already willing to kill for a Snickers bar, let alone transportation.
Six days since the flash. Ethan had no way of knowing how the majority of the bodies in the streets got there, although some were obviously from violence. The others? He figured they died from either dehydration from lack of water, or other illnesses due to the conditions. Fires were still burning, and even the smoke that settled among the buildings couldn’t camouflage the stench of death mingled with raw sewage and garbage.
Thanks to his fascination with survival stories, Ethan knew that without fluids, you could die in as little as three days, especially with the heat they’d been having. From what they’d heard, looting broke out the first night and then once it became clear help wasn’t moving in or the power being restored, survivors turned to pillaging and fleeing with as much as they could carry.
As they’d approached the city early the previous day, they encountered dozens of people wandering aimlessly on the interstate. Some cautioned them to go around Pocatello, that it wasn’t safe, but most were beyond the ability to speak or to care about anyone else. There were random camps and some groups staked out to the west of the interstate, where there was a small river, but it seemed that most of the people capable of surviving had moved on during the first few days following the event. All that was left at that point were the dying and those who preyed on the dying.
Billy slowly unclipped the chest strap on his backpack and then started to shrug his left arm out. As the pack was falling, he used his right hand to pull the gun from his waistband and bring it around. A look of shock wasn’t even fully registered on their assailant’s face before it was obliterated by a bullet. The sharp report echoed off the concrete buildings around them as the body crumpled to the ground and Billy pointed the gun at the next man closest to them.
Bullets were another commodity and the only reason they’d made it that far without losing their horses and gear. While Decker managed to find the auto shop and equipment necessary to remove the cuffs that had driven him into the city against all reason, ammunition had disappeared as fast as water. Those who were armed in the beginning had already used up their bullets, reducing the majority of the weapons to nothing more than blunt objects.
“Stop!” the man pled. He dropped his iron rod and took a step back. “We’ll just—”
Another shot exploded in unison with a blossom of dark crimson on the man’s chest. He was wearing a white T-shirt and he stumbled backwards and looked down at the spreading stain with as much shock as Ethan felt. He fell to his knees.
Billy swung the gun to the next person but the rest of them were already running. “That’s right!” he yelled, his voice cracking. “You just keep running!”
Ethan stared at the gun, but not out of fear. If he was right, Billy had just used the last bullet.
“What’s going on out here?” Decker came running from the entrance at their backs. “I sent you to check on things, not announce our position to the whole freaking city.”
Billy turned away from the fresh carnage he’d added to the macabre mosaic. “Hey, uh…Decker. Man, I think it’s clear now.” Billy fidgeted with the handle of the gun, likely hoping Decker hadn’t counted the shots. Ethan was amazed the moron hadn’t shot himself. If he could only get so lucky.
The sun was beginning to shine in between the buildings and the second man fell over into a patch of light. Decker stared at him first, then made a disgusted sound when he saw the face of the original attacker.
“They knew we had the horses,” Billy attempted to explain. “Said they were waitin’ for us, Decker.”
Ethan eyed the door and took a couple of steps in its direction. The horses were up on the level above them. Could he make it to them in time to get away while the two men were busy arguing?
Decker turned then and stared at Ethan while gesturing to Billy. “Come on. Let’s go now before everyone’s awake. We should make it to Charlie’s place by tonight. It’s just south of Virginia, about forty miles from here according to the map.”
His fleeting chance at escape gone, Ethan did as he was told and followed the convicts into the dark recesses of the garage. As he walked, Ethan worked on another plan. Now that they were free of the cuffs and almost to their destination, he wasn’t sure why they were even keeping him with them…or alive. He needed to get away.
Decker had been riding Tango, forcing Ethan onto the third mare and the only horse without a saddle. He could still easily outride both of the convicts and now that he thought they were out of bullets, it might be worth taking the chance. It meant leaving Tango behind, which was another reason he’d hesitated before. Ideally, Ethan had hoped to catch Billy falling asleep while on watch over the past three nights, and then make off with the horses. However, unlike the movies, nothing was playing out the way he’d imagined it. Billy proved to be good at staying up all night, while Ethan ended up falling asleep, exhausted from the constant stress and pain. He’d come to understand why they continued to hit him the way they did. It was never enough to incapacitate him, but it wore him down and made him cower from the next expected blow, no matter how hard he tried to resist it.
“What are you waiting for?” Decker barked.
Ethan jumped. Billy and Decker were already on their horses, staring at him. Half-expecting to get a bullet in him, if there were any left, Ethan scurried in the semi-darkness of the open parking area, collecting their gear. Thanks to his newly discovered talent for pillaging vacant houses, they’d acquired a decent-sized hoard of useful things during their trek south. Silently, he tied it all down on his horse before hauling himself up onto her back.
As they made their way down the exit ramp from the garage and out onto the street, Ethan took his expected spot, in between the two convicts. They both had their guns drawn and made a point of showing them to anyone that was out in the open. Ethan did his best to ignore the burning car they passed, with both the old and fresh corpses near it. The sounds of sobbing and cries for help echoed around the concrete buildings, mixing together. It was underscored by moans that escalated to screams, and Ethan chose not to think what was causing it. Random gunfire still rang out sporadically in the distance, urging them to move forward as quickly as possible. It was a world gone mad.
They only had a few blocks to go before reaching an onramp to Interstate 15 and Ethan breathed a sigh of relief when they reached it. He’d been taking shallow breaths the whole way to avoid gagging on the disgusting odors so he was feeling light headed. Decker was likely doing the same, because he kicked at Tango until the horse broke into a gallop down the blacktop. Ethan and Billy followed, leaving the city behind them.
Ethan took a moment to appreciate the feeling of freedom the movement gave him, and the fresher air they were running toward. As he watched Decker handle Tango, the brief respite from his anxiety came to a quick end. The men had learned enough in the past three days about horses and how to ride to make do without his help. Ethan knew he was out of time. Once they reached this Charlie guy’s place, he was as good as dead.
Chapter 12
STEVIE
Northwestern Washington State
“Come on, Slayer!” Stevie patted his thigh and then rolled his eyes when the black lab sat staring solemnly at
him. The blue tag on his collar read “Snoopy”, but Stevie thought it was a dumb name and had been trying to change it to something similar…just much, much cooler. “Fine. Snoopy. Come here, Snoopy!” Snoopy barked once and then leaped forward, running past the boy and into the field beyond.
Twelve-year-old Steven Estop broke out into rare laughter at the young dog’s antics as he rolled in the tall grass. He’d rescued the dog two days before, and now he honestly couldn’t imagine life without him anymore. Stevie frowned at the memory. He didn’t like to think about “those” days. The darkest ones after “it” happened.
Stevie turned and looked back at his small, postcard-perfect house. It sat on three acres at the end of a dirt road. His mom worked hard to be able to afford it, which was why he’d been home alone six days ago. Stevie had talked his mom into letting him stay home by himself that summer while she worked. His birthday was in September so he was practically a teenager, and he sure didn’t need a sitter. His stomach cramped at the thought and his breathing quickened.
“She’ll be home soon. She’ll be home soon,” Stevie hummed the words so that it sounded like he was singing a song. It had become his mantra. He’d learned that word recently while watching a movie at his friend Jay’s and it seemed right. It was an R-rated movie, one his mom would have never let him watch, but Jay had Wi-Fi and a laptop.
Snoopy barked again and pulled Stevie out of his daze, which was something that was happening more lately. He didn’t know if it was because he wasn’t eating enough, or maybe he was just losing it. Probably both.
He wondered what Jay was doing. If he was alone, too. Probably not. Jay’s parents were still married, his mom didn’t work, and he had an older sister. Stevie had started to ride his bike to his friend’s house twice already, finding the farther he got away from his house, the greater his anxiety grew until he couldn’t breathe anymore and had to turn back. It was too far.
The two of them had moved to the little house out in the country the summer before. It was over a half-hour drive into town and nearly an hour to his mom’s job where she worked as a nurse. She claimed it was worth it. While it wasn’t a working farm, there was lots of space and not many neighbors. His mom said she felt safe there and that eventually, they would get chickens and a horse and he’d grow to love it.
She’d been right, and Stevie had grown to love the trails and crisp air and all the places he could ride his bike. At night, he could climb out his second-story bedroom window and lie on the porch roof to watch the stars. He’d done that the night before, only the northern lights were so bright he could hardly see the Milky Way.
Stevie frowned at the overgrown yard. The grass needed to be mowed, but nothing worked and he didn’t know what to do. His eyes suddenly filled with tears and he struggled with the unreasonable, overwhelming guilt he felt about letting the yard look bad. His mom would be disappointed when she came home and saw it.
Snoopy barked again.
Stevie sniffed and wiped at his cheek. It probably left a dirt streak, but that didn’t matter. Although he had changed his clothes a couple of times, there wasn’t any way to wash them, leaving him as dirty as the last time he went camping with Jay and his family. Stevie was afraid to waste any of the drinking water to even clean his face. Maybe he’d bike down to the creek that afternoon and go swimming with his clothes on.
Stevie knew not to drink the water from the creek. Not without boiling it first. His mom had told him that a bunch of times after they first moved in, and then Mr. and Mrs. Shipley said the same thing when he saw them the second day after “it”. They were gone now.
Stevie didn’t realize he’d started walking again and he looked up at the Shipleys’ house in surprise. He’d made it all the way to the other end of their street, to his second-nearest neighbor. Snoopy was waiting for him on the front porch, sitting patiently by the door.
“Good boy,” Stevie told the dog as he opened the unlocked entrance.
The first day, after “it” happened, Stevie had gone across the street to their closest neighbor. A man named Hector lived there but was always working and kept to himself. He was gone that day and hadn’t come back.
Stevie had gone back home then and decided to just wait for his mom to get home. He had no way of knowing then that anything more than the power had gone out. He didn’t have a cellphone and he thought the house phone didn’t work because of the outage. Their electricity went out a couple times the previous year due to weather and it wasn’t a big deal. The light was a big deal, though, and it scared him. When his mom didn’t come home from work that night, he knew something really, really bad had happened.
The next day, he went to the Shipleys’ and they’d fed him and let him stay there until it got dark. They were nice and wanted him to spend the night but he’d refused. He was convinced his mom would come home. He’d sat in the window of their front room the whole time watching for her. When it got dark so he couldn’t see anymore, he insisted on going home. What if she got there, couldn’t find him, and left?
Stevie entered the Shipleys’ kitchen now and wrinkled his nose. Even with the fridge closed, the smell of rotting food still filled the room. He quickly made his way into the walk-in pantry and began filling his backpack. He wasn’t stealing. After he refused to leave with the Shipleys to go to their kid’s farm a few days away, they said he could have whatever he wanted.
After his pack was stuffed with Pop-Tarts, crackers, peanut butter, and chips, he went into the attached garage, where half a case of bottled water remained. He stood looking at it for a moment. While Steven may have been considered a child still by most adults, he was intelligent. He could easily estimate he had about five days of drinking water left. He’d need to start going through more houses soon.
The thought made Stevie’s stomach hurt again and he could hear his rapid breathing echoing off the cement floor. He tried to swallow, but his mouth was too dry. He didn’t like to think about going into other people’s houses. Bad things were waiting there.
The first time he tried was four days after “it”. He figured Hector wasn’t coming back, so what would he care if Stevie took a look around inside? The front door was locked, but the back slider wasn’t. As soon as he’d pushed it open, the stench hit him. Gagging, he’d looked down in horror at a dead cat, its eyes writhing with maggots. It must have died trying to get out through the glass door. Stevie didn’t know Hector even had a cat. He’d never seen one outside.
He’d run home when, after only a few minutes, feelings of guilt prompted him to get on his bike and begin a door-to-door search he’d named “Operation Rescue”. In the end, he only managed to reach ten houses after riding around all afternoon. Three of them were occupied, counting the Shipleys. In the vacant houses he did manage to rescue one other cat, and Snoopy. The last house… It was so much worse than Hector’s, and was the reason why Stevie never went beyond those ten.
He didn’t know who she was and it was hard to tell how old the woman had been when she died. Her front door had been unlocked and Stevie found her in the recliner, probably watching an afternoon soap when “it” happened. The Shipleys told him about how there was some sort of magnetic pulse thingy that made everything stop. Everything. When he told them about…her, they said she might have had something in her body that stopped working, like a pacemaker. Stevie’s grandma had one of those and he tried not to think about what that meant.
Snoopy sat at his feet and whined. Stevie reached out and absently pet the lab’s head. “Oh!” he gasped, looking down then at the dog. “Sorry, buddy. I didn’t forget. Promise.” Crossing over to a shelf on the other side of the garage, he took down a box of Milk-Bones. The Shipleys had a dog, too, but couldn’t carry all the dog stuff they had when they left. He tossed a bone to Snoopy and smiled as he watched the dog gobble it up like it was a totally normal day in a normal world.
A cloud moved over the sun outside, plunging the garage into a murky grayness as it only had one window. Spu
rred into motion, Stevie clutched the dog treats to his chest and rushed over to the water. Grabbing six bottles, he crammed them into the remaining pockets of his pack and then grunted with the effort of putting it on his back.
He didn’t like the dark.
His heart beat a quick cadence until he was outside, where he took several gulping breaths to calm it. Snoopy danced in a circle around him and Stevie tried to focus on the animal. It helped to block out everything else. The fact that he was mostly alone. That he was going to have to figure out how to use the barbeque to boil water soon, and remember how to tie a hook on to his pole. There were some fish in the creek and he was determined to catch one.
His mom would be so proud of him when she came home and saw him cooking fish for dinner. Stevie’s breathing slowed then and he thought about how she would hug him and tell him everything was going to be okay. He started back for his house, a boy with his dog just strolling through the tall grass, humming a song.
“She’ll be home soon. She’ll be home soon…soon, soon, soon.”
Chapter 13
CHLOE
Mercy, Montana
Chloe sat on the edge of the bed in Sandy Miller’s guestroom and stared at her hands for so long that her eyes stung when she finally blinked. “So much for sleeping all day,” she muttered. After a restless night of odd dreams, she’d finally dozed off, only to be awakened by Crissy kicking her in the back. Chloe glanced over at her friend, who was still sound asleep, and was thankful that at least one of them was getting a reprieve from their waking nightmare.
She was still struggling to come to terms with what Mrs. Miller had told them the night before. It was so much worse than any of them had fathomed. Now what? What were they going to do?
A soft knock at the door made Chloe jump, and she looked up to see their host poking her head in. “Did I wake you?”
