The Apocalyptic Nurse (Book 1): Plagued Road Home

by Bell, A. E.

  It wasn’t long before Trevor seemed to lose interest in watching them fish. He told Creed, “I am gonna go back and find Tracy.”

  Creed waved and said, “Maybe I will see you again before we take off in a few hours.”

  The young man muttered, “I’m sure you will.”

  It didn’t take long for the trio of kids to catch enough fish for breakfast. Creed gathered the kids and the fish to head back to camp. When he arrived Tracy and Evie were talking to each other. He glanced around, “Where is Trevor?”

  Tracy quietly answered, “We thought he was you.”

  Creed had a look of concern on his face and replied, “He left and said he was coming back to see about you.”

  She started freaking out, “Do you think something has happened to him? Oh my God, what if he left me here? Do you think those people found us? Do you think one of those biters attacked him?”

  Evie tried to calm her, “I’m sure that he is fine. He probably just went back to your vehicle or something.” It appeared to reassure the young lady.

  Tracy’s voice was shaky, “Creed, do you think you could go with me to our vehicle and see if we can find him. I don’t wanna go alone.”

  Creed agreed to go with her, but Evie was not particularly happy with it. Her gut had been telling her that something was off ever since these people arrived. She hadn’t decided her opinion of Tracy, but she knew what Trevor was. He was a predator through and through. He had that need to feel superior even though he wasn’t even superior to Cinnamon.

  Evie got out her cast iron skillet so that they could fry up fish over the fire. The girls were tasked with putting away the fishing poles and gear. Evie sent Ollie to get the grate to put over the fire. She started getting plates and silverware out.

  By the time, she finished with all of that, she figured that Creed should be back, but he was nowhere to be seen. She told the kids to get inside the RV, she put Sylvie in charge and told Cinnamon to get inside with the kids. He jumped up and laid right down in front of Cassie. He placed his head in her lap. Evie said, “Make sure that the door stays locked. Do not under any circumstances let anyone other than me and your dad in there, even if it’s Tracy or Trevor. NO ONE.”

  Her warning made them scared, but Sylvie stepped up. She did what she had to do to calm the younger kids, “We are fine. I’m not going to let anybody hurt us and mom’s not gonna let anybody hurt our family either. It’s probably just a misunderstanding. You know that mom is always a little uptight. It’s probably nothing.”

  Evie made her way out of their campsite and then went through the trees that separated their site from the next. She tried to hurry but was very careful to be aware of her surroundings. Her years of military service and more importantly the time she had spent in the woods of Kentucky hunting and tracking deer made her somewhat an expert at remaining undetected. She got to the edge of the campsite and could easily see Trevor and Tracy’s campsite. The only thing she saw was a red, older model, dodge truck, with a black camper top on the back of it. There was absolutely no movement around the campsite though. She changed her position, so she could remain in the trees most of the way down to the truck without being noticed. She edged her way to the back of the truck. She peeked inside the camper window and saw random stuff thrown in the back, CB radios, food, clothes, ten or more purses, several backpacks. Normal people would not pack their purse collection when they were running for their lives. Not to mention, what would a couple with no children need with little kid backpacks.

  Evie whispers to herself, “Where the fuck did they take Creed? These fuckers must be robbing people.” She heard voices in the distance. She did her best to follow the sound and saw footprints in the snow headed off in the opposite direction of the truck. It looked as though they might be circling back towards the RV filled with her kids. “Oh fuck no, these God damned pieces of shit aren’t taking shit from this family.” She follows the trail, and could distinctly see two sets of footprints. One was clearly that of a man, the other was smaller, and she assumed it was Tracy’s. In between each set of footprints was drag marks, as bad as it killed her it appeared that they might be dragging Creed along. She said a silent prayer that he was not injured or worse yet dead. She remained steady in her plan to stalk her prey, just as she had done so many times before. This time her prey just happened to be human.

  The voices were getting closer, and she could hear Trevor yelling at Creed, “Mother fucker, I don’t care if you walk or we have to drag you we are taking you to your campsite so that cunt wife of yours will open the door. Who the fuck does she think she is, talking down to me? What kind of real man lets his wife talk to another man that way, much less point a gun in my face? I want you to know that by the time this is done, that bitch wife of yours will be dead. I will have my way with her and then I’m going to put a bullet right between that cunts eyes. Then, I am going to kill that damned dog and take your fuckin kids. I’m sure along the way I can find someone to buy those fuckin brats. How’s that feel knowing that I’m gonna fuck your wife, kill her, and take your kids?” He started laughing most sadistically. The entire time she heard Creed moaning, unable to speak for some reason.

  Evie’s focus remained steady, she followed the trail in the snow and the sound of Trevor’s ranting. She got close enough that she could see them. Creed was down on the ground, and Tracy was kicking him. Trevor was bent over boasting about what he was going to do with Evie she muttered, “You piece of shit, you ain’t gonna do shit.” She took aim and shot, at the exact moment she pulled the trigger he shifted positions, and it hit his shoulder instead of his heart. He took off running. Tracy started pleading with Creed, “Please don’t let her hurt me, please I’ll just leave.” Evie made her position known, she started walking towards them, Tracy aimed her pistol at Creed and yelled, “I swear if you don’t put your gun down, I will kill him. Put it down and stay where you are, or I will put a bullet in his head.”

  Evie yelled out, “Calm down. I’ll put my gun down, but you have to put yours down too.”

  Tracy replied, “I’m not gonna put my gun down. You are out of options here. Fuckin put it down.”

  Evie muttered, “Fuck you, bitch.” She pulled the trigger and shot Tracy in the head. Tracy’s body went limp and fell into a small pile on the ground. Evie ran up to check on a badly beaten Creed. He had a huge gash on his head, luckily it appeared as if the blood had clotted. She quickly started loosening the ropes that the couple had used to restrain his hands, and he removed the grey duct tape from his mouth. She asked him, “Are you okay? I was scared to death.”

  Creed moaned, “Yeah, I will be okay. We need to get the hell away from here.”

  Evie responded without hesitation, “We can’t leave yet. He’s still out there and probably headed towards the RV right now. You need to go up through there and go to the RV to protect the kids. Here’s my sidearm. I’m going to try and catch up with him. I wounded him so he shouldn’t be too hard to track. Hopefully, it slowed him down too.”

  Creed slowly started through the trees towards his kids. He was hurting very badly, but he didn’t let that stop him. Evie started following the footprints and the occasional drop of red blood in the snow. It was clear he was going to the RV. Her adrenaline was pumping, all she knew was that she needed to get to him before he got to them. Her heart was racing, and she started to take long deep breaths to steady herself. She finally caught up with him. He was within ten feet of the RV. She yelled out to him, “You can stop now, you can put that gun down, you can walk away from all of this. Just leave right now.”

  Trevor spoke to her with such disgust, “There’s no way I’m going to let some stuck up bitch beat me. I will kill that pathetic husband of yours and take those kids. Who knows, I might even fuck your corpse bitch.”

  Evie didn’t speak a word, she propped her shoulder up against a tree, took a breath in and then as she slowly exhaled she steadily pulled the trigger. Her aim was true this time. Trevor fell
to the ground. Evie waited a couple of minutes to see if he was going to move. She cautiously approached him. The gun had fallen near him, so she kept an eye on his hand and the gun. When she finally got up to him, she kicked him hard, and said: “I guess you won’t get a piece of my amazing ass, fucker.” The ground was covered in a blanket of blood-stained snow.

  Creed saw someone coming through the trees. He knew the person was too short to be Trevor. He yelled, “Evie, is that you?”

  Evie answered, “Of course it’s me. You better not shoot my ass either.” She was running towards him and threw her arms around his neck. “Damn it, Creed. How the hell did you let them get the jump on you? They almost killed you. If I wasn’t so damned paranoid all the time, that idiot chauvinistic fucker would be raping me right now. I can’t lose you. This is the second time that I thought you might be dead. Don’t make it a third.”

  Creed was irritated, “Please quit squeezing me so tight, my entire body feels like I was run over by a truck. I went down to the truck to find him. The next thing I know I feel a sharp pain in the back of my head. I never saw it coming, it was lights out. When I came to, they had my hands tied. Maybe for now on you should keep your opinions to yourself. The only reason he was coming after any of us was to get to you. You had pissed him off so bad he went nuts.”

  Evie snapped, “The fuck it was. The story about the people robbing other people on the interstate. That was them. They were robbing people. You wait until you see everything in their truck. He had this planned all along. Granted, I probably did not help his anger level any, but I will not ever keep my opinion to myself if I don’t want to. Remember that’s one of the qualities that you fell in love with.”

  Creed was a little less irritated with Evie, “I’m not going down there to that truck. We need to get the fuck out of here.”

  Evie instructed “Umm, yes, we are going down there. They have all kinds of stuff. We can go through it and take what we need. We also need to find a way to siphon the gas out of their vehicle and put it in ours. We will leave whatever we don’t need for whoever wants it. But right now, I have to get my bag to fix you up.”

  Evie went inside and tried to calm the kids. She said, “I need to help your dad. You all can come out now. It’s safe now.”

  They all came rushing out the door. Sylvie burst into tears, “Daddy, are you okay? What happened to you? Momma, what can I do to help you?”

  Evie said, “I can handle daddy, can you keep an eye on the Ollie and Cassie? Make sure they don’t run off, okay, baby?” Sylvie nodded and walked over by the younger kids. Evie went to work on Creed’s head. There was a large amount of coagulated blood. She couldn’t find the wound itself. She tried to clean it as gently as she could, but she had to find the actual injury. After a few minutes of rinsing and gently scrubbing the area, she finally found it. It was about an inch long and need to be sewn up. Luckily, Evie had learned how to suture during her time as an Army medic. She found her suture kit inside her bag and went to work on his head. “Creed, I don’t have any lidocaine, so this might hurt a little.”

  Creed joked, “Do you think it’s going to hurt worse than getting your head banged by the butt of a pistol or being kicked repeatedly by two inbred mother fuckers?”

  Evie sarcastically replied, “I could try my hardest to make it hurt worse if you want. You know it has been years since I did this, so I am out of practice. You better be happy that I bought that damned suture kit and the sutures last year on the internet.”

  She started her stitch work. Creed occasionally would let out a little “ouch” from time to time, but for the most part, he took it better than she thought he would. After she finished, she rinsed it again and said, “There you go. All done. It’s not my best stitch work, but I would say it’s pretty good considering it’s been over 15 years since I’ve done it on a real person.”

  They started to make their plans for what to do next. Creed suggested, “I think we need to pack up our stuff, then if we have time we can go see if they have any stuff we can use. Should we bury their bodies?”

  Evie said, “Hell no, we are not burying their bodies. The coyotes can eat those evil assholes, but we do need to get their guns. I didn’t pick them up when all of that was going on. You can never have too many guns, right?”

  Creed was worried about the way his wife was handling all of this. He asked her, “Are you alright? Do you need to talk about all of this?”

  Evie rolled her eyes, “Nope. I’m good. I don’t wanna think about it right now. I will think about it later. I will deal with it later, but I do not regret for one minute that I’ve had to take lives. It is what it is.”

  He knew if he continued to pursue this conversation she was going to get irritated. Creed relented, “Okay, honey. Just know if you need me, I’m here. I’m always gonna be here for you.”

  Evie knew that he was sincere. She said, “Babe, I know that you always have my back. Now let’s get started with this shit so we can leave.” She called for the kids, “Kids come here a minute.” They all ran to her. She told them, “I need all of you to help dad start packing up. I’ll be back in just a minute.”

  The kids seemed to be worried. Cassie said, “Ma’am, are you sure that we will be okay? I’m scared.”

  Evie leaned down and smiled, “Sweetie, I can’t promise we will be okay, but I can promise that we will always do whatever we can to protect you all. And Cassie, you can call me Evie. I know I’m not your mom, but you are one of our kids now. If there ever comes a time you want to call me Mom you can. I want you to do whatever makes you comfortable. Just stay close together, Ollie and Sylvie will watch out for you.”

  She headed down the path towards Trevor. She picked up his gun, put the safety on, and then she checked the magazine to see how many rounds were in it. She went a little further and retrieved Tracy’s pistol, again checking how many rounds and putting on the safety. She went back the way that she came. When she got to the campsite, the kids and Creed were finishing with cleaning and packing up. She said, “Well, their choice of handguns leaves a little to be desired, but they are 9mm, we can always use more ammo. I’ll put them with the other guns.”

  The family all got back inside the RV and headed down to the other campsite. When they got there, Creed and Evie got out and started looking through the back of the camper. There wasn’t much in there of any use. She started to go through all the purses. She found some prescription strength medicine. She also found a little money that she took just in case any stores along the way were still open. Evie found some bottles of water. She told Creed, “We can use all the water we can get.”

  He agreed, “Yeah, give them to me, and I will pack them.”

  She kept rummaging and found a bunch of clothes. She just tossed those aside. There were a few jars of peanut butter. She kept the ones that weren’t open and left the others. She couldn’t help but think it was hardly worth robbing and killing people for this little bit of stuff. She called out to Creed, “I don’t see anything else useful. Let’s get outta here before we get snowed in.”

  Once they were both inside, Oliver said, “Momma, we are hungry. We never did get to eat breakfast.”

  Evie said, “Ollie, I put the fish in a cooler, maybe when we find another place to stop we can cook them up. Maybe we can eat them for supper tonight. For now, eat a bowl of cereal or something.” All the kids let out moans and groans, but they did it anyway.

  Chapter 10

  Creed started messing with the radio. He was going through all the channels and then thought that it might be a good idea to try the am stations. It was still nothing, but occasional static. Then he turned the knob to 1150, there was just a message that kept repeating over and over again, “This is a message from the emergency broadcast system. This is not a test. Repeat this is not a test. Due to the high levels of infection in concentrated areas, please stay out of large cities, do not attempt to flee to other countries, FEMA camps have been set up at this time. This message
is from.” He turned the radio off. He sighed, “Isn’t that just wonderful? Hey honey, you wanna go to a FEMA camp?”

  Evie laughed, “Yea right, that’s what we will do. But, I do think when it’s supper time we need to find a place to build a fire and eat that fish that is in the cooler.”

  “I swear woman, I think you think this is a freakin road trip.”, Creed scoffed.

  Evie blasted back, “For the last time, I know it’s not a freakin road trip or a fuckin vacation, but we have to maintain as much normalcy for these kids as we can. We’re going to Kentucky, and I understand why. I want to get there as much as you do, but we don’t even know when we get there what we will be facing. Hell, for all we know somebody has burned down our cabin, or maybe somebody is living in it. I’m not saying we don’t go. I’m not saying we don’t stay vigilant when we stop, but for God’s sake, give them a decent meal. We’ve been traveling for three days now. The last thing we need is for their morale to go down. Do what you want, but I think we should find some place to stop later. We have a long time to decide. For now, you just lay back and rest, I have to wake you up ever so often to make sure you don’t have a concussion.”

  Creed let her know how he felt about that, “What’s the point of resting if you are gonna wake my ass up all the time?”

  “Would you rather die?”, Evie fired back. Creed didn’t bother saying a word. He just reclined his chair, laid his head back, and closed his eyes. As he was falling asleep, he could hear the kids playing I-spy.

  Evie put in her favorite Janis Joplin CD. She didn’t play it much when Creed was around because he hated it. She quietly sang along as “Me and Bobby McGee” came on. She let her mind take her back to her childhood when she used to listen to that song over and over with her best friend, Kristine. It was times like this that she let her mind slip back to a time in her past with such bittersweet memories. Evie had a tough life growing up. She spent years being abused by her step-father. The one time that she always felt refuge is when she would go and spend the night with Kristine. Kristine’s family seemed near perfect. They had a nice house, her parents were fun to be around, and most importantly she felt safe when she was there. There were no beatings, no yelling, and best of all there was not that feeling of impending doom that Evie felt every moment she was home. Evie lost contact with Kristine when they graduated high school. They drifted apart. Then one day, the phone rings, and it was a mutual friend telling Evie that Kristine had died from an overdose. If Evie had learned one thing, it was that tomorrow isn’t promised, and even the brightest lights could be snuffed out.