by Bell, Justin
“You armed?” she asked the Sheriff and he nodded, reaching into his holster and removing a Glock 17 nine-millimeter pistol.
“Who are those bozos?” Greer asked, looking at her sideways through narrow eyes. “Why they shooting at you?”
“Long story,” Rhonda replied. “My family has known the Cavendish’s since before I was born, I stop by the family home twenty years later, they’re shooting at me.”
Greer hesitated for another moment. “Those the Cavendish boys?” he asked. “Why’d they start shooting?”
“I don’t know, Sheriff, you want to ask them?”
As if on cue, another two gun shots rang out from the car, bullets careening off the metal tailgate. Rhonda and Greer ducked.
“Point taken,” Greer said. “Seventeen rounds in the mag. Never been discharged except at the range.” He held the weapon silently for a long second before nodding at her. “You understand that I wouldn’t normally condone this kind of thing.” He trailed off as he said this, as if sad that the weapon was now about to be used for its intended purpose.
Thumbing off the safety, Rhonda grasped the weapon in two hands and bore down on the last car. She fired twice, but the car suddenly accelerated, charging forward, sending the bullets skidding harmlessly across the metal roof. The broad nose of the car slammed hard into the rear of the truck, sending it jumping left, and Rhonda tumbled inside the bed as well, barely holding on to the pistol.
“What’s going on, Rhonda?” Phil asked from the cab as he hauled the wheel to the right to correct their course, then swapped accelerator for clutch to downshift and lurched the truck forward.
“Kids, keep your heads down!” Phil shouted as weapons fired from the car and smacked off the roof of the cab. Rhonda remained flattened in the bed of the truck until those last two shots whipped overhead, then pushed herself up with her left hand and swung the pistol around, firing three swift times. Two more shots immediately responded, sending her scrambling down again.
“It’s Bruce Cavendish!” she screamed, loud enough for both Phil and Sheriff Greer to hear.
“Those Cavendish boys are nothing but trouble,” the Sheriff growled.
The truck darted right and the front tire clipped the sidewalk, sending it hopping the curb and rolling unevenly along the grass and paved surface next to the houses bordering the main drag. Close behind the old sedan bumped up the sidewalk, more gunshots barking. Rhonda pushed up again and could see arms sticking out of the windows, pistols clutched in each hand, firing wildly towards them. She dropped down immediately without even having a chance to fire as the truck surged back left, down off the sidewalk, the sedan matching it move for move.
Rhonda hopped up and fired again, unloading three shots into the windshield like she had with the first car. Three small holes broke through the glass of the front window of the car, but the windshield didn’t shatter or star, it stayed intact and she could see the angry face of Bruce Cavendish in the passenger’s seat.
He leaned out the window. “No matter what this ain’t gonna end well for you, Fraser! You’re running out of room to run!”
Phil shifted and accelerated, drawing the old Chevy away from the car. Rhonda fired back, but again struck nothing of importance.
“Phil, can this go any faster?”
“I’m giving it all she’s got cap’n!” Phil shouted from the driver’s seat.
“I’m glad you think this is so dang funny!” Rhonda barked back but felt a swell of uncontrolled, insane laughter burst in her lungs. Greer looked over towards her.
“I know you’re an expert shooter and everything, but you wanna toss that thing my way? Got an idea.”
Rhonda looked curiously at him but slid the weapon across the floor of the truck bed.
“Grab the SIG,” Greer said, nodding towards the rifle. “Mind being a decoy?”
If she was honest, she would have told him that yeah, actually she wasn’t crazy about being a decoy and in spite of this whole world falling apart around them, she’d kind of like to live to see her kids grow up, get married, and make her a grandmother. But sure, why not. Be a decoy for some redneck in an old sedan. Why the heck not?
“Tell me when,” she said, holding the rifle.
Greer eased himself back up to a seated position, wincing in pain as he moved. Rhonda noticed the stain on his shirt was looking a little darker and a little larger.
“Town limits coming up!” shouted Phil from the cab. “I’d like to get us some space!”
Greer nodded. “Go for it.”
Rhonda pushed herself up into a half-crouch, lifting the rifle. In the car, Bruce Cavendish leaned out of the window, two hands clutching his pistol and drew it around towards her. Greer shouted in pain, but pressed himself up, aimed, and fired the last three shots in the magazine.
The first two went wide left, but the third punched into Cavendish’s right arm, tearing fabric and sending a thin gout of dark red into the darkness. Cavendish screamed and lunged left back into the car, slamming into the driver. In the window Rhonda could see the man behind the wheel desperately trying to maintain control, but the car pitched right, then he overcompensated and it jerked left. It hurtled forward, thumping over the sidewalk, bouncing over grass, and heading straight for the small, one pump gas station with the single circular “Gulf” sign spinning lazily on a pole.
The car struck the pump and left its wheels, tipping and rolling as it smashed into plastic and metal, tearing the face off the pump and barreling through the narrow post holding up the roof over the pump. With a twisting, metal snap, the pole smashed and the roof toppled over on top of the car, then the pump detonated with a low whoomp, a bright orange light swallowing all that Rhonda could see.
Easing left around the corner, the old 1960s Chevy, the one that Rhonda had never seen off its blocks until today, accelerated and carried them off into the darkness.
Chapter 6
In the pale light of the moon, Phil could see the shrouded shapes of cars, trucks, and sports utility vehicles on the highway, sitting still, bumper to bumper, clogging all lanes of traffic heading towards Denver. He’d never been happier to live in the suburbs, a tiny town four towns away from the major metropolitan area with relatively unremarkable back roads winding through the scant scattering trees.
“You doing okay, Winnie?” he asked, looking at his daughter sitting in the passenger seat, her knees bent and arms wrapped around her legs.
“I’m all right, dad,” she said quietly. “Tired, but I don’t want to sleep. I just want to get home.” Her eyes drifted towards the highway, running along a steep embankment, and they could both hear the occasional blat of horns from the end-to-end stacks of cars.
“Why is everyone heading towards Denver?” Max asked, leaning up from the back seat.
“Is everything all right?” Brad asked.
“I don’t know,” Phil replied, looking back out the rear window of the cab where Rhonda and Greer were huddled. He could see Rhonda working with Greer with the first aid kit she’d pulled out of her parents’ basement. They had been talking quietly in the bed of the truck, but Phil was focused on driving. They’d left Brisbee two hours ago and were approaching home, and he couldn’t remember a time that he wanted to be there more than he did right now. But even as he thought this, his eyes darted to the road to his left and he wondered if they’d even be able to stay.
“Do you think Lydia’s okay?” Winnie asked.
“I honestly don’t know,” Phil replied, his voice choking. “I think we all hope so. We all hope, but none of us really know for sure.”
Winnie rolled down the window and closed her eyes. Even here, in relative wilderness, the air was bitter with the smell of burning—of stale fires belching out into the air, clinging to the trees and crawling over their skin. It made her itch, but she needed the fresh air. She’d been cooped up too long.
“Dad, is the bad stuff in the air?” Max asked, his eyes shifting to the opened window.
> “No, buddy, it’s okay. Let Winnie do her thing.”
What he thought but did not say was that if the bad stuff was in the air, it didn’t matter if the window was up or down, they’d be dead regardless.
“Brad, you’re going to spend the night with us, okay?” Phil asked, turning towards his son’s friend. Brad kept his lips firm and nodded. “We’ll call your mom and dad as soon as we get home and keep trying till we get through. We should still have a landline phone in the basement.”
“Thanks, Mr. Fraser,” Brad said. “Thanks for everything you guys did today.”
Phil’s mouth narrowed and he nodded. Brad hadn’t come out and said it, but he’d basically thanked them for protecting him from would-be killers and for shooting said people dead. Phil wondered how that would play out in the DeAngelo household when he got home.
“We do what we have to do to protect the ones we love, Bradley, right?”
“Right.”
They drove in silence for a few moments before Max spoke. “Dad?”
“Yeah, bud?”
“Do you think mom will teach me how to use a gun?”
Phil blew out a long, raspy sigh. “Let’s talk about that later, okay, Max? Now’s not a good time.”
“Did you see her?” Max asked. “She was kicking some serious butt.”
“Max, people died.”
“Lots of people died today, dad. A lot more probably will. You see that line of traffic up there?” he said, gesturing to the highway. “We need to be able to defend ourselves. All of us.”
Phil hated to admit it, but the kid did have a point. “None of us knows what tomorrow is going to bring. Let’s take this a day at a time, okay?” he said. “Do we have cell service yet?” Phil asked Winnie, who drove her hand down into her pants pocket and retrieved her phone. She powered it on and thumbed through it for a few moments, then shook her head.
“Nope. No signal bars at all.”
They drove on in silence, the Chevy’s headlights cutting twin tunnels through the dark.
***
“Is that too tight?” Rhonda asked, checking the bandage on Greer’s knife wound.
“No, ma’am, it’s good.”
“So, who stabbed you?”
“I don’t even remember. Everything was happening at once. At this point, it really doesn’t matter.”
“That seems odd coming from a man tasked with enforcing the law.”
Greer hiked up his eyebrows. “You think the law means anything now?”
Rhonda dropped back, sitting against the raised edge of the bed. She ran a hand over the wound on her thigh, peeling back the torn fabric of her jeans. The wound was a shallow gouge that had already stopped bleeding, and she touched her hand to it briefly, dulling the pain.
She’d lived the day with the idea that these attacks just hit California and other scattered West Coast locations. She’d been focusing on the safety of her daughter, but her mind never thought to wander about the rest of the nation. What did this mean for the United States as a whole? Was what Greer said true? She looked up towards the freeway and saw the seemingly endless lines of stuck traffic and could only imagine how emotions were raging within those metal and plastic prisons right now. Did any of those people realize that a nuclear cloud was drifting their way this very moment? That they were basically stuck in metal boxes and unable to move while death crawled slowly towards them, inch by inch, gaining on them with every second as they stood stacked up behind fellow citizens, just awaiting the poisonous gas?
How long until that realization drove them to mutiny? When would the uncontrolled fear of death, force an entire region to turn against civilization and do whatever they needed to survive? She didn’t think it would take long at all. Months? Weeks?
She thought the answer might be days. Precious days.
That was about all they had until the cloud would be on top of them, filtering slowly through the Rocky Mountains, settling on vegetation and killing animals first, then slinking along the surface, searching out human life next. They were almost already out of time.
She pulled her smartphone out of her back pocket and looked at the screen. The cell signal indicator sat there with the red “x” through it indicating no service. She’d always had service this close to home. Smoke and ash clung in the air, and she could smell the faint scent of burning. She wasn’t sure what was on fire, but something was, and she feared it was a smell that would become part of everyday life.
The truck eased around a left turn, and she realized they were approaching home. Houses emerged in the darkness, though they were little more than vague shadows themselves, no lights on inside and no signs of life anywhere. Most cars were gone from the driveways of those who didn’t have attached garages.
As they approached their home, she saw a faint glow coming from one of the downstairs windows, and for a brief moment, her heart leaped in her chest, the thought that someone might be home and might have left a light on. Had Lydia made it back? Was she there right now, just waiting for them?
Rhonda hoped against hope. She jumped up into a standing position, pressing her palms on the roof of the truck, looking, staring, and clinging to one last desperate fragment of hope that maybe, just maybe, her eldest daughter had made it home. There was clearly a light on in the living room now, a pale white glow, shining a faint pallor on the furniture she could see through the opened shade.
The truck slowed as it approached the driveway, but Rhonda couldn’t wait. She leaped from the bed of the truck, hitting the ground in a low, painful stumble, her thigh barking where the bullet wound was.
“Rhonda!” shouted Phil, seeing her clamor to her feet and dash down the sidewalk next to the truck, running at an odd, shambling gait towards their house. Phil had seen the light, too, but the same hope hadn’t registered with him.
“Lydia!” Rhonda shouted as she approached, running across the driveway to the short set of stairs at the front door. “Lydia!” She stumbled up the steps, but the front door was still locked. Fumbling in her pocket, she withdrew her set of keys that had been in there all day and freed up the front door key. “Oh, my Lydia.”
She crammed the key into the lock and it took a few tries for her to get it meshed right, but she finally cranked it left as the truck pulled in to the driveway behind her and doors started opening.
Her mother’s instinct took over and she drew back, slamming her shoulder into the unlocked door to spring it open, and she barreled her way into the living room, which was the first room that greeted any visitor who came by.
“Lydia!” she shouted as she ran into the room, her eyes glancing around, looking at the empty couch, the bar separating living room from kitchen, then the dining room. A small chandelier hung low over the dining room table, and it was on, shining a blanket of pale light around the room, and was certainly the light that she had seen from the road.
Rhonda charged over that direction, but only saw the table and chairs and saw no sign of anyone inside.
“Upstairs, she’s upstairs,” she said to herself, breaking left and heading for the carpeted stairs.
“Rhonda?” Phil asked as he came inside. He saw the chandelier on as well but made no rush to check the other rooms.
“Lydia?” He could hear the screaming voice from upstairs, the desperation in Rhonda’s cries, her hopeful, mournful cries of a mother searching for her missing daughter.
“Rhonda!” Phil called up the stairs. “She’s not here!”
Rhonda appeared at the top of the stairs, scowling down at him, her face scantly illuminated by the bath of light from the single chandelier.
“But the light,” she stammered. “She left the light on!”
“No, Rhonda,” Phil replied. “We did. We left the light on like we always do.”
“But…but all the other lights are off,” she replied, taking an unsteady step down the stairs.
“Remember when we had that week long power outage three years ago? Max was going crazy b
ecause he had nothing to do. Ended up playing frisbee with the dinner plates?”
Rhonda took the last few steps in a painful limp, the realization of her leg injury now setting in. She nodded slowly.
“We bought that backup generator. We didn’t put all the lights on it, but we put the dining room light and some kitchen outlets on it. Emergency outlets only. It’s a generator, honey. I don’t know how much longer it will run, but it’s running now, must still have some gas left.”
She dropped her head. “Generator.”
“Yes, honey,” Phil replied, stepping towards her, hugging her and helping her down the rest of the stairs. The totality of the events from the day seemed to finally be hitting her, and her shoulders visibly shrunk as she walked, her knees buckling slightly as they rounded the stairs back towards the living room. Phil helped her across the threshold and let her sit on the couch, her body sinking into it as if suddenly losing all of its bones. Her bravado, courage, and fearlessness had sapped the strength from her, making her feel exhausted and delirious. The thought of her oldest daughter possibly being home had taken her last bit of strength and the disappointment was just one more straw on her back.
Max and Bradley walked in next, eyes roaming, looking as if they were on a planet that was very similar to their own, yet just different enough to be considered alien.
“What’s wrong with mom?” Max asked.
“She just needs to rest,” Phil replied.
Winnie came in next and Clancy Greer limped up the stairs after her, walking gingerly and keeping a hand pressed against his wound, if only by habit.
“I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced,” Phil said, stepping over towards him. Greer extended his left hand, Phil put his hand out and they shook.
“Clancy Greer,” the Brisbee sheriff said quietly.
“Phil Fraser,” Phillip replied. “We’ve got plenty of beds, you can make yourself at home.”
Greer looked at him with an odd, expectant expression. “Home? Certainly we’re not staying?”
