“He grabbed my arm and threw me on the bed. Before he could do anything to me my mom stepped in. She took her clothes off and let him…”
“Rape her,” Kalen said.
It was the first time those words left Kalen’s mouth. The man who had tried to rape her shared the same face in her mind as the man who raped Mary’s mom. They were the same person. She never asked what her grandfather did to that man in the woods, but she had imagined a few scenarios. The satisfaction of revenge on her assailant by her hands could no longer come to fruition, but maybe she could do something about the man who hurt Mary’s mom.
“He’s still alive?” Kalen asked.
“I think so. I mean I don’t know what happened afterwards. I just grabbed my sisters and we ran. We hid in the fields for almost two days.”
Kalen’s grip on the water bottle tightened, causing the plastic to crack and crumple from the pressure.
“How many?” Kalen asked.
“How many?” Mary repeated.
“How many gang members were there?”
“I’m not sure. I only saw around ten, but there could be more, that’s why we have to get out of here. We need to get in that Jeep and drive as far away from this place as fast as we can.”
“And go where?”
“Some place safe.”
“There isn’t any place safe anymore.”
“We can’t just stay here forever.”
“No, but we’ll stay here for as long as we can and do what we need to do to make this place safe.”
“What are you talking about? Those people out number us. They have guns. They don’t care who they kill. They don’t care who they hurt. They’re animals.”
“Then we’ll hunt them down and kill them like animals.”
8
Day 10 (Mike’s Journey)
The “Welcome to Ohio” sign dripped with water from the storm that blew through earlier. Once Mike saw that sign he knew they were at the halfway mark. The caravan of people behind him was spaced out along the highway, huddled in their own separate groups.
The To family walked directly behind Mike. Fay, Nelson, and Sean were to his left. Tom and Clarence brought up the rear.
They hadn’t run into another person for almost three hours, and Mike was glad. The people they ran into were interested in either one of two things: following them or hurting them. So far they’d been lucky enough to avoid the latter, but Mike knew it was only a matter of time. If they ran into a group large enough with the guns and manpower to take them they’d be in trouble.
Everyone, but Mike, seemed to think that the road was safer than staying at the airport, but they hadn’t experienced true desperation yet. They hadn’t felt it put its hands around their necks, trying to squeeze the life out of them, draining their energy and resources until there was nothing left.
Mike feared that the people he was helping now would soon turn out to be his enemies. He desperately wanted to believe that the people walking behind him were good, decent people, but he also knew what a man could do when he was hungry enough. And what happened to the man who was foolish enough to feed him.
Jung walked up beside Mike, carrying his daughter, Claire, on his back, her head resting there, her thick black hair clinging to her forehead from the sweat collecting on her face.
“How far along are we?” Jung asked.
“We’re halfway. If we keep up this pace we should be there in less than forty-eight hours.”
“That’s great news.”
Mike glanced down at Jung’s belt. He held no knives, pistols, or weapons of any kind.
“Jung, you should carry the extra pistol. If something happens or if we get separated you’ll need to protect your family.”
“I am protecting my family, Mike. Men fool themselves into thinking that the justification of violence for protection safeguards them from it. All it does is paint a target on your back signaling those who share your views that you will have to face each other and fight until one of you dies.”
“You think that because I carry a gun that it invites, rather than deters, danger?”
“No. It’s the mentality of how you carry the gun and why you have it. If someone came out of those bushes with a knife in his hand and saw that you had a gun, he’d know the only way to get what he wants is to kill you. If he doesn’t kill you, then you’d kill him. If a man pops out of those bushes and pulls a gun on me and I have nothing to counter him he’ll be less likely to pull the trigger.”
“Only if you give him what he wants.”
“What I want is my life and the lives of my family to be safe. That’s what I want. I want to be able to ensure that my family has the chance to survive and go on.”
“Well, your family won’t survive for very long without the supplies those people with guns take from you. You can only go three days without water and a week without food. If what you have on your back is it, then that is your life. You keep that, then you’ll have a chance at survival. You don’t get to keep it, well, then you’re better off having the robber shoot you then and there.”
“Don’t lose your faith in people, Mike.”
“I haven’t lost my faith in people. I’ve just lost caring about them.”
The thunder from the storm clouds in front of them rumbled through the sky. The storm was moving away, but in the same direction they were heading.
Sean and Jung Jr. splashed in the puddles left in the road when the storm passed through earlier. Claire frowned, but Jung and Nelson both gave their boys a good-natured smile. With all of the things that were going on in the world, seeing their boys laugh and act like kids was worth the cost of their shoes and clothes getting muddy.
Sean kept pretending that there was something in one of the larger puddles, trying to pull him in. Fay kept egging him on with her laughter.
“Your boy’s quite the comedian,” she said, looking at Nelson.
“His mother’s the funny one. I’ve been told I have the sense of humor of paint thinner.”
“Well, depending on how much paint thinner you sniff you could have one hell of a time.”
Fay held the other rifle in her hands that Mike and Clarence grabbed from the weapons cache at the airport. She kept the barrel leaned up against her shoulder as she walked.
“What happened?” Fay asked.
“To what?” Nelson said.
“Your wife.”
“She’s a Vice President for an engineering company in Pittsburgh. She was in the city when everything stopped working. We stayed at the house for almost a week, waiting for her to come home, but after what happened in our neighborhood, we left with Mike.”
“What happened to your neighborhood?”
“The same thing that happens to people who give up.”
“Which is?”
“We forget how to be human.”
“Maybe it’s just how we really are.”
“You really think that? You think that we’re such a depraved species that at the first sign of trouble we all turn on each other like animals?”
“Nelson, we’ve both seen what people can do when they’re desperate. They don’t have any rules. They don’t have any principles. They just go by what they need at the moment. With everything that’s happened people aren’t planning for the future, they’re not showing restraint. They’re only worried about what they’re going to get for their next meal, and they don’t care how they get it.”
“I don’t think so. I think we can still get out of this. ”
Fay raised her arm, her gesture encompassing the scene around them: the scattered abandoned cars with their windows smashed, the rising of fires in the distance sent smoke into the sky.
“Look around, Nelson.”
“I am.”
Fay noticed that Nelson wasn’t looking at her when he said that. His eyes were focused on Mike, up ahead.
Fay remembered her conversation with Mike the night before they left the airport. She wanted to believe w
hat Nelson was saying was true. She wanted to believe that Mike could get them out of harm’s way and keep them safe. She wasn’t sure what was more frightening though: the fact that she was actually able to believe it, or that she was resisting it so much.
With the sun fading in the sky Mike decided to call it a day. The sighs of relief immediately followed.
A forest ran parallel along the highway. Mike picked out a spot on the tree line where they’d be concealed from view by anyone on the road, but still close enough to jump back on it quickly if they needed to get out in a hurry.
Just as in the airport the group set up shifts to keep watch. Tom had the first shift and posted up against a tree with the rifle across his lap.
“Just don’t shoot me in my sleep,” Clarence said, as he lay down on his sleeping bag.
“’White business man shoots black male in the woods’. That sounds like a CNN headline if I’ve ever heard one.”
“Good thing I’m more of an NPR man,” Clarence said.
The group settled in for the night and Tom drummed the rifle in his lap lightly. He’d never really fired a gun before, except on a business trip to Kentucky once. The clients there had been hunting fanatics and insisted on taking him out. He didn’t kill anything, but he did show a few trees a thing or two.
Tom absentmindedly checked his watch. He’d kept doing that since the first day when everything turned off. He always checked his watch. He was always in a hurry to go to a meeting, have lunch with a new client, look over his emails, check his voicemails, or review the earnings report that had just come out.
Clarence had asked him the day before why he hadn’t thrown the watch away once he realized it wasn’t working. After the explanation of informing everyone that it was an Omega failed to justify his reason of not throwing it out, he simply turned to the one reason that made the most sense to him.
It represented what his life had been, and God willing, would be again. The craftsmanship of the watch, the efficiency, the quality of detail that set it apart from its peers, his whole life he’d strived to be the man who earned that watch and he had worn it every day for the past three years since he bought it as a symbol of what he had achieved.
The clouds drifted in the sky above, obscuring the stars from view. The leaves in the trees rustled from a breeze drifting past. Tom adjusted his back against the trunk of the oak where he had propped himself.
After the first hour he got up to stretch. His back popped from being crouched on the ground for so long. He walked away from the group deeper into the woods to go to the bathroom, rifle in hand.
He found a spot behind a tree and unzipped his pants. Afterward, as he turned back to rejoin the group, he heard a twig snap.
Tom froze. The gun stayed at his side. The only things he allowed to move were his eyes. He slowly turned his neck and then allowed his body to turn with it.
He brought the rifle up to his shoulder. He rocked it awkwardly in his arms. His footsteps were clumsy, stepping on branches and making more noise than whatever had caused the sound from earlier.
Tom squinted into the darkness, looking for the source of the noise. The lack of light from the moon and stars made it harder to see through the trees in the forest. He kept the rifle pointed outwards trying to scan the area and find whatever was out there.
After a few more minutes of not hearing anything but the sound of his breathing and a few owls, he turned around and headed back over to the rest of the group. He stepped over a fallen tree limb and when his foot came down on the other side he slipped and smacked hard against the ground.
“Goddammit,” Tom said spreading his hands into the dirt steadying himself to get up. Then a scent hit his nose. It smelled rotten.
He fumbled around looking for the rifle he dropped and pulled out one of the glow sticks he had in his pocket. He snapped it in half triggering the phosphorescent light.
The green light spread across the ground and Tom moved the stick in large sweeping motions. He knelt down next to the limb where he had slipped. He shone the light on to the ground where he saw bits and pieces of guts that he stepped in.
“Christ,” he said.
Tom kept scanning the ground, looking for the rifle. He wandered around, combing the forest floor on his hands and knees until he felt his hand fall on something stiff, yet organic. The smell was stronger here and when he turned around he saw the lifeless eyes of a corpse staring back at him.
“SHIT!” he screamed.
Tom jumped up and took off running, dropping the light. He tore through the camp waking everyone up.
Mike jolted from his sleeping bag and had his pistol out, scanning the depths of the forest that Tom just ran from. The rest of the camp awoke, rubbing their eyes.
“What happened?” Mike asked.
Tom doubled over with his hands on his knees, gasping for breath. He kept pointing in the forest repeatedly.
“Saw… Body… In… There,” Tom spit out.
Mike kept his weapon pointed into the trees.
“How many?” Mike asked.
“Just one,” Tom said.
“Where’s your rifle?” Clarence asked.
Tom threw his hands up in the air. Mike frowned.
“Nelson, Clarence, come with me. Tom you lead us. We need to find that rifle,” Mike said.
Tom led the other three back the best way he could remember. The green glow stick he had dropped made it a little easier to pinpoint where to start looking. Clarence picked up the glow stick and held it out to see if he could get a better look at the surroundings.
“The body was over there I think,” Tom said.
Mike stepped over the guts by the tree limb. It didn’t take him long to spot the boulder-size mass next to the tree. When he saw the body he tucked the pistol back into his waistband.
“Clarence, toss me that light,” Mike said.
The corpse was completely mangled. Animals had ripped the stomach open, most likely, but what caused Mike to grimace was what had happened to the man below his waist.
The body didn’t have any pants on and had been castrated. Nelson and Clarence timidly came over, covering their mouths with their shirts trying to shield themselves from the smell.
“Oh my god,” Nelson said.
“Who would do that to someone?” Clarence asked.
“The question is what did he do, to make someone do that to him?” Mike asked.
Day 10 (The Bikers)
Half the crew was outside the motel. After Garrett’s Wake most people slept where they fell. Jake, at least, had made it into his room.
Open pill bottles littered the floor. Cigarette butts overflowed out of an ashtray. Jake lay passed out on the bed, still wearing all of his clothes. A pistol was on the pillow next to him.
He moaned when he woke up. He cracked his neck as he stood up. The room was hot, musty, and filthy. He flung the door open to let some air in and stumbled over to the mirror above the kitchen sink.
Jake rubbed his hands across the growing stubble on his chin. His eyes were bloodshot red. He picked up some of the pills lying on the floor and washed it down with a swig of beer from a bottle left unfinished.
He sat on the carpet, leaning his head back against the bed, taking sips of beer. His long hair, dirty and matted, stuck to his face. He ran his hands through it a few times trying to tame it, but was unsuccessful.
His mind was still gone from the night before. He hoped the oxy he just took would cause the jackhammer in his brain to shut off, at least for a few minutes. He waited for the drugs to take over so he could go to sleep.
Jake looked at the room. The sheets were torn off the other bed. Dirt, pill bottles, beer cans, and half-smoked cigarettes lined the floor. He dug into his pocket and pulled a pack of smokes out.
When he flipped the lid of the pack open he saw that he only had two left. He pulled one out, flicked the lighter and lit the tip. The first drag was always the best. He let the smoke and heat fill his lungs, then rele
ased it in one long exhale.
“Like a fucking dragon,” Jake said.
Once the nicotine and oxy started to fill his bloodstream the headache subsided. He tucked the cigarette into the side of his mouth and stepped outside.
Whatever food they were able to salvage from the grocery they’d piled up in the main lobby behind the front desk. There were boxes of food packed with canned goods. He grabbed a hostess cake and ripped the bag open. He stuffed the pie into his mouth and in two bites it was gone.
He ripped a Gatorade out of its plastic ring older and chugged half the bottle. The yellow liquid dribbled down his chin. He gave a few throaty coughs and then headed back out to the courtyard where most of his crew was still passed out.
Jake saw Frankie sprawled out on the edge of the fountain in the middle of the courtyard. Jake kicked Frankie’s boot. Frankie didn’t move. Jake sent his toe harder in the side of Frankie’s leg, shaking his whole body.
“Wake up, asshole,” Jake said.
Frankie moaned. He jerked his head up. He squinted his eyes open and put his hand up to shield them from the sun.
“What?” Frankie asked.
“Where’s the girl?”
It took Frankie a minute to process what Jake had told him. Jake kicked him again, impatiently.
“I don’t know, man. I think she’s still in my room,” Frankie said.
“Wake up the rest of the boys and have them meet us in your room then.”
Jake and his boys killed everyone in town they could find. The only souls that got away from them, were the three girls that Frankie let escape. Jake had thought about who could have killed Garrett and he still wanted justice. He would find the people that murdered his brother and make them pay.
He didn’t think the girls had any weapons on them to kill Garrett with, and Jake had also considered that it could have been a drifter passing through, but he wanted to narrow the field of who to hunt down, and he had a good idea to determine if it was the girls who did it.
Jake allowed his boys to keep the mother around. It was a good… stress-reliever for them. They needed to let off some steam from time to time and she reluctantly provided the services to do so.
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