The Long Roll Home

by Anderson, Diana E.

  While Cassie and Benjie were talking, Petra walked over to Benjy and sat down next to him with her tail wagging. “The dog’s name is Petra, and I think she likes you!”

  Benjy looked startled, and then timidly put out his hand for Petra to sniff. After a minute or so, he patted Petra on the head. Petra, of course, reveled in any attention, especially from someone new, and she began to push her head into Benjy’s hand to get him to pet her more.

  “Is it okay for us to come closer?” Cassie called.

  “Okay, I guess, but I can’t stop. I have to find my mother.” As Cassie and Andy got closer, they heard a child’s blood-curdling scream in the distance. Benjy stiffened, and with a terrified look said, “That’s my sister screaming. I have to go help her!”

  Cassie looked at Andy and turned back to Benjy. “Let us help you. Where is your sister?”

  Benjy explained about his car stopping and his mother leaving the kids alone while she went for help.

  “It’s not too far, just back up the road a little bit. Come on, we have to save her.” Benjy began running back in the direction of his sisters screams.

  “Andy, go with him. I’ll follow with the cart.” Andy took off running behind Benjy, followed by Petra, while Cassie climbed off the cart and turned it around. Within a few minutes, Andy saw a vehicle with an unkempt man standing in front of it. As he got closer, he saw a young girl in just her Wonder Woman underwear being held to the hood of the car.

  Chapter 12

  Les looked up and saw Andy and Benjy running towards him. He picked up the knife and held it to Lizzie’s throat again.

  “Get away from my sister. Leave her alone!” Benjy screamed.

  “Back off kid. You too, buddy,” he said, looking at Andy. Petra snarled at Les and began moving closer.

  “Call off the dog or I kill the kid.”

  “Petra, down, girl,” Andy yelled. Petra stopped advancing but sat staring at Les and growling. Suddenly, Les’ eyes lit up in recognition. “You’re the kid I saw in the restaurant with the rifle. Hand it over and I’ll let the girl go.”

  Andy looked at Les and shook his head. “First of all, I’m not going to give you my rifle. Second, you are going to toss that knife on the ground and step away from the girl.”

  Les started laughing. “You think you’re pretty tough, don’t you?” He pushed on the knife, causing Lizzie to scream again. A small trickle of blood began to drip down her neck where the blade of the knife nicked her.

  “Give me the rifle, or my hand might slip and slit her throat.” Lizzie’s screams tapered off to sobs as Benjy looked helplessly from Lizzie to Andy. Benjy was vibrating with his need to help his little sister.

  “Andy, do something, help her,” he cried. As Andy turned back towards Les, he saw a red dot appear on Les’ forehead. He grabbed Benjy and turned him around just in time for a hole to appear in Les’ head where the dot had been. Les looked surprised for a second, and then slowly fell to the ground. Lizzie, her eyes wide with horror, began crying hysterically. Benjy pulled away from Andy and went to his sister. Andy turned around and saw Cassie slowly lowering her rifle. With tears streaming down her face, she ran to Andy. He put his arms around her while she wept. After a minute or so, she pulled back and looked up at Andy. “I really didn’t want to have to kill him, but I was afraid for the little girl. I can’t stand by and watch vermin like him abusing children.”

  “You did the right thing, Cassie. Come on, let’s check on the little girl.”

  The turned towards the kids, and saw Lizzie, surrounded by her brothers and wrapped in a blanket.

  “Are you okay, honey?” She squatted down in front of the crying, shaking child.

  Lizzie looked at Cassie, tears still pouring down her cheeks. “You killed him,” she said. Suddenly, she ran at Cassie, wrapping her arms around her and nearly knocking her over. “You killed him and saved me. Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you.”

  Cassie hugged the little girl back. “Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”

  “Just a little when he grabbed me. But he scared me a lot.”

  Cassie reached in her pocket and pulled out a tissue. “Let’s wipe that blood off your neck and see if we need to do anything.” She dampened the tissue with water from her canteen and wiped Lizzie’s neck. Her neck had only a very tiny scratch but was continuing to bleed. Cassie reached into her pack and pulled out the first aid kit. “Let’s put some triple antibiotic and a band aid on this little scratch, okay?” Lizzie smiled up at Cassie and nodded.

  While Cassie was patching up Lizzie, the two boys were talking to Andy.

  Timmy asked, “Who are you and why are you carrying that rifle? How did you know we needed help?”

  “We were talking to your brother and heard the little girl scream. Benjy said it was his sister, and took off, so we followed him. It’s a good thing, too, because I think that man might have hurt all of you really bad,” Andy explained. My name is Andy, the lady with me is Cassie, and the puppy is Petra.”

  Lizzie, now sporting a small band aid on her neck, turned to Andy, smiling. “My name is Elizabeth Marie, but my family calls me Lizzie. That is my brother Timmy, well, Timothy really, but we call him Timmy, and you know Benjy. Do you know anything about cars? Can you figure out why our car stopped working?”

  “I’m afraid I do know what happened to your car, kids,” Cassie answered with a sad smile. “Andy, can you pull the cart over so I can sit down? That running about wiped me out.”

  Andy grabbed the cart and pushed it over to the side of the road. “Come on over here and sit down so I can tell you what happened and so we can figure out what to do.” Cassie, Petra, and the three kids walked over to the cart as Cassie gratefully sat down. The kids sat down on the side of the road around her, with Lizzie, still wrapped in her blanket, leaning onto Petra.

  “First off, let me explain what we saw. Andy and I were at the airport when all of a sudden, all of the power went out, planes started crashing, and my electric wheelchair caught on fire. Andy rescued me from the chair, and we went out of the building to my van. Unfortunately, my van was toast, just like your car. We got this cart thing from the airport, put all of our stuff on it, and we’re headed up to my ranch where we should be pretty safe.”

  Benjy looked thoughtful. “You sure seem to have a lot of stuff for just being at the airport.”

  Cassie laughed. “Yes, we do. There are two reasons for that. Andy was just coming home from being in the Army, so he had a lot of gear and stuff with him. I happen to be something called a prepper, so I had a lot of stuff in my van. Together, we have enough stuff to get us home.”

  Benjy smiled. “Mom’s boyfriend is a prepper. He’s been teaching us how to be prepared for emergencies.”

  Cassie asked, “So where is he? How come he’s not here with you all?”

  Timmy answered, “Jack had to work. He’s a trucker and had to drive down to San Diego. Mom was taking us to the airport to fly to Vermont to stay with our dad for Thanksgiving. But I don’t understand. Why did all of the cars stop working?”

  “Let me try to explain what happened. Have you ever heard of something called an EMP?”

  Benjy nodded. “I read something about that on the internet. It means something happens to burn up all of the computer parts in things like cars and televisions and other electric things, right?”

  Cassie smiled and nodded. “Yes, that is exactly right. Somebody, we don’t know who, must have set off a nuclear bomb way up in the atmosphere, and when the bomb exploded, it sent a pulse of energy to Earth that burned up almost everything that runs on electricity.”

  “Is that why Mommy’s cell phone stopped working?” asked Lizzie.

  “I’m sure it is. Our cell phones stopped working, too,” Andy answered.

  Timmy looked skeptical. “OK, so if it broke little stuff like cell phones, how come our flashlights still work?”

  “That is a great question!” Cassie said. “Not all flashlights will work, but I
’ll bet yours were turned off when it happened, right?” Timmy nodded. “Flashlights don’t have all the computer parts and wires and stuff that cars and cell phones do, so that’s probably why they are okay.”

  “If a bomb exploded, how come we didn’t see it or hear it? Is stuff going to fall on us?” Lizzie looked frightened again, and Cassie quickly reached out to put her hand on the girl’s shoulder. “It was way far away, like a couple of hundred miles, so the bomb won’t hurt us. We just have to deal with the mess the bomb left.”

  Suddenly, Benjy stood up. “OK, it’s good that we know all that, but I have to go find Mom.”

  “Hold up a minute, Benjy.” Andy stood up as he spoke. “I’d like to make a suggestion. Your car is never going to work again because of the EMP, so even if you found your Mom and brought her back here, what would you do? The cities are not safe, and the roads aren’t either, especially after what Lizzie just went through. We are headed to Cassie’s ranch. It is a big place, lots of room there, with cows and horses and other animals. Cassie’s sister and her husband and kids live there, along with a bunch of other people. Why don’t we pack up everything from your car, and we’ll all go together to look for your Mom. When we find her, we can all go together to the ranch, unless your Mom wants you to go somewhere else. What do you think about that?”

  “Where is your ranch?” asked Timmy.

  Cassie answered, “About 18 miles outside of Newcastle, way out in the middle of nowhere.”

  “I know where Newcastle is,” Benjy said. “We went there to the museum for a school trip last year.” Almost as an afterthought, he added that they lived about seventy miles north of Newcastle.

  Benjy stood, looking thoughtful, while his two siblings watched him. He turned and looked at Andy very seriously. “We need to talk about this for a minute.” He turned around to face his siblings and the three kids whispered among themselves. Finally, he faced Andy and Cassie. “We accept your offer, as long as you promise we all stay together and when we find Mom, we kids will go where she wants to go.”

  “That sounds very reasonable. Let’s go get your stuff and see if we can fit it all on the cart,” said a relieved Andy. He was worried that the kids would want to continue to stay at the car. He felt this was a much better solution for everyone, as he could not stand the thought of these kids being put at further risk.

  It took about 30 minutes to pull everything out of the car and sort it out. Each of the kids had a backpack and a wheeled suitcase. In addition, there were still quite a few unopened boxes of protein bars, bags of jerky, pudding cups and other canned foods. The kids were down to their last case of water, but Andy could see they started out with three cases.

  He shook his head, thinking what a miracle it was that the kids had food and drink for their extended stay in the car. He couldn’t resist asking Benjy, “Why did you guys have so much food in the car if you were just going to the airport?”

  “We told you Jack was a prepper. He made sure we always had at least a week’s worth of food and water in the car whenever we went anywhere. He also made sure we had things like blankets and gloves and stuff. Mom used to laugh at him sometimes, but he used to say better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it!”

  Cassie grinned. “Sounds to me like Jack is a man after my own heart! He probably saved your lives by putting that stuff in the car!”

  The kids and Andy looked at Cassie strangely when she dumped out the garbage bag and started picking out spoons and empty pudding cups. She looked up to see their puzzled expressions.

  “What? I didn’t pack my china and silverware, so we’re going to wash these and reuse them. It’s better than eating off the floor, right? We need to be really careful about things we throw away. If we can reuse it for something, then we need to hang onto it.”

  Finally, all of the kids’ supplies were piled up on the road. Cassie went through the car again and added the toolbox from the trunk, the kids’ Mother’s purse, and even the floor mat from the back of the SUV. She explained the mat would be good to put down on dirt or concrete under blankets or sleeping bags for the kids to sleep on. Andy and Benjy pulled everything off the cart and set up the wheelchair for Timmy to sit down. Then, they reorganized the huge pile of stuff. All of the food and drink was put into Andy’s trunk. Suitcases were repacked to consolidate items, leaving one suitcase empty. They filled this suitcase with odds and ends from the car including the purse, some first aid supplies that they found in the glove box, and a few other small items. Lizzie exchanged her blanket for warm pants and a sweatshirt, and all the kids had warm winter coats, hats and gloves. Because they were headed for Vermont, they also had boots and other heavy outdoor wear that got packed onto the cart.

  After re-arranging the cart several times and lashing everything down, the group started walking. Cassie was perched on the cart and Benjy pushed Timmy in the wheelchair. Lizzie walked alongside the cart, talking to Cassie as she walked. After an hour or so of walking, they stopped to check the map.

  Cassie pointed to one of the trails.

  “This is where we would have gotten off this road to get back onto the trails. Since we are looking for your Mom, though, we can keep going straight on the road we’re on. When we find her, we can either come back here, or else we can use this trail here,” she said, pointing at the second trail. “I don’t want to go too much further than that, though, because it will get us too close to the next town. If we haven’t found your Mom by the time we get to the second trail, we’ll have to come up with a different plan.”

  After a quick break, the group took off again. The road was clear, but the temperature was dropping. Cassie was beginning to get a little worried, as they were within a couple of miles of the second trail and still had not seen the kids’ Mom. As they came around another of the road’s many curves, Benjy suddenly cried out.

  “That looks like Mom!” He started to run, but Andy grabbed his shoulder.

  “Wait a minute Benjy. I don’t see anyone. Where do you think you see your Mom?”

  “Over there on the side of the road. Laying down on the ground – it looks like she is taking a nap or something.”

  Andy exchanged solemn looks with Cassie.

  “Let me go up there first, just to be sure its not a trap or something. If its your mom, I’ll wave at you and you can come up.” Benjy looked at Andy and let out his breath.

  “OK, but don’t take too long.” Benjy answered.

  Andy smiled at the boy and ran ahead. Cassie put her arms around the children while they waited for Andy to reach the person in the road.

  As Andy approached the person, he saw it was a woman. She had been badly beaten, and her clothing was torn to shreds. He saw she was barely breathing, so he gently turned her to her side while trying to arrange her clothes to try to preserve the woman’s modesty. The woman opened her eyes and tried to focus on Andy, mumbling something Andy could not understand. He asked her if her name was Clarice, and she nodded.

  “Water, please” she gasped. Andy pulled out his canteen and held it to Clarice’s dry lips. She took a sip and coughed. “Thank you. My kids, have you seen my kids?”

  “Yes, your kids are with my friend. They are fine. What happened to you?”

  “They beat me and…. assaulted me.... men…. stole my coat…” She stopped talking and closed her eyes. Andy looked her over and saw she had a large bloody spot on her lower back, as well as blood down her legs. Her arms and legs were covered with bruises, her eye was black and she had scratches on her face. As he was assessing her injuries, she opened her eyes again.

  “I need to see….my kids” she panted.

  Andy turned and waved to Cassie. As soon as he did, the group started moving towards Andy and Clarice. Cassie was having a hard time pushing the cart and keeping up with the kids. Finally, they were close enough to see their mother was badly hurt. Lizzie started crying, and Benjy pushed past Andy to get to Clarice’s side.

  “Mom, what h
appened to you? You’re hurt. Who did this?” Benjy was struggling to be brave but seeing his mother in such bad shape was more than he could handle, and his eyes filled with tears. Timmy and Lizzie moved closer to Benjy, and both were crying.

  Clarice struggled to see her children.

  “Are you kids…. okay?” They nodded.

  “A man tried to hurt me, but Cassie saved me,” Lizzie explained.

  “Are these folks nice to you?”

  Benjy nodded. “They really are. Lizzie isn’t kidding. Cassie saved her from a bad man that was trying to hurt her. What happened to you?”

  Clarice took a painful breath. “There is a bunch of evil people in the next town that are going around hurting people. I asked for help and they hurt me.” Clarice’s eyes drooped closed.

  “Mommy?” shouted Lizzie. “Mommy, wake up!” she cried.

  Cassie stepped over to Clarice and covered her with a metallic emergency blanket. Clarice’s eyes opened and she gave Cassie a weak smile and thanked her.

  “Listen to me, kids. I don’t have a lot of time.” Her voice faltered, then seemed to strengthen. “I want you to stay with these good people and let them take care of you.”

  “But Mom,” began Timmy.

  “No, listen. Those men hurt me really bad. They beat me up and shot me in my back. I can’t walk, and I’ve lost a lot of blood. I want you to stay with Cassie and Andy so you can be safe. The whole world is different now. I can’t take care of you, but they can help you grow up to be good people.”

  Cassie and Andy both had tears pouring down their faces, listening to Clarice talking to her kids. The three kids were also crying, trying to understand what Clarice was telling them.

  Clarice took another shaky breath. “Kids, you know I love you more than anything. I would never choose to leave you, but I don’t have a choice. Your grandma and grandpa are waiting for me…….”

  “But mom, grandma and grandpa are in heaven,” cried Lizzie.

  “Yes, and that is where I will be in a few minutes, but I will be watching over you from heaven.”