by AJ Powers
Besides some books and dry erase markers, the different youth group rooms Aaran searched were empty. He then made his way over to the secretary’s office and opened the door. It had been years since he’d last walked into a church, and he had never seen the inside of the secretary’s office before—he wasn’t entirely sure if he’d known such a role existed before now. However, the room looked exactly how he would have imagined it: office furniture manufactured over the course of multiple eras, light-colored metal filing cabinets up against the wall, a fake potted plant stashed away in the corner, and a copy machine that looked to be older than Aaran and twice his weight. Then, of course, there were the obligatory motivational posters displaying breathtaking photos from around the globe with Bible verses printed at the bottom.
Along the side of one of the bookshelves were dozens of photos of various people, from infants to the elderly, posing with the same old lady sporting a haircut straight out of the eighties. It was clear that the woman in the picture was the secretary and that she’d been a well-liked person.
A small stack of papers sat on the desk next to the ancient computer keyboard that still relied on wired technology. A blue Post-It note was stuck to the cover sheet:
Wanda, would love to hear your thoughts on this. I’ve been working on it for quite some time now, and I feel it’s more appropriate than ever.
- Mike
Aaran’s eyes panned down the sheet of the paper to the big, bold text printed across the middle:
Don’t be a slave to technology.
While the prophetic warning could be a depressing foresight, Aaran opted to see humor in it, and a quiet chuckle escaped his lips.
“What’s so funny?” Hadas asked when she walked into the room.
Aaran pointed to the printed sermon.
She leaned across the dusty desktop and read the title. Letting out a sharp, grunting laugh, she said, “Yeah…A day late and a dollar short, preacher man.” She then looked over at Aaran, “Find anything?”
“Nope. You?”
Hadas shook her head. “Nothing worth taking. I think we’re wasting time here. Let’s get going.”
They walked out of the secretary’s office and headed back out to the sanctuary through the same door they’d first come in. As expected, the locked door to the sanctuary was now on the floor, splinters of wood littered across the green carpet. They carefully walked across the door and out into the sanctuary.
A gust of frigid air channeled in through the wide-open double doors at the back of the room, creating an ominous howl as it rushed past the pews. The artic breeze smacked Aaran and Hadas in their faces. The rays of dawn beamed in between the blinds, bathing the sanctuary in a fiery orange glow—it was eerily similar to the burning workshop a few nights ago.
Hadas stopped just before the double doors, signaling for Aaran to halt. She listened carefully for any trace of sound before signaling the all-clear. “Good to go,” she said before stepping outside.
“Good grief, how long were we down there?” Aaran asked as he battled through a series of shivers.
“I guess winter’s hitting a bit early this year,” she replied as she zipped her jacket up as high as it would go.
They stood in front of the church for a moment, both waiting for the other to ask the same question. Finally, Aaran broke the silence. “Where to?”
Hadas shifted her weight and adjusted the straps on her backpack to balance the bulk out a little better. “Well, didn’t you say you had family or something up in Hamilton?”
“A couple of family friends lived up that way, yeah.” Aaran paused for a moment as he clenched his way through another chilling breeze sweeping across the lawn. Despite the numerous boxes of donated clothes, the basement had offered nothing warmer in Aaran’s size. He would need to add a new coat to his shopping list, right below a new pair of shoes. “But I’m not too optimistic we’ll find anyone there…At least, not alive.” A despondent expression crept across his face.
With no better solutions to offer, Hadas nodded and said, “All right, then. Hamilton, it is.”
****
The day of travel went smoother than either of them had realistically expected. Not only did the temperatures climb throughout the day, but they didn’t come across a single Sentinel or Webber on the road. The quiet day of travel, after the hellacious past week, was truly an answered prayer.
The sun was edging towards the horizon—they had about thirty minutes left of light. “We need to find a place to set up camp soon,” Hadas said while she looked around for prospective locations.
“Agreed.”
After another ten minutes of walking, the glint of the setting sun off an old TV antenna caught Aaran’s eye. The outdated device was attached to a rusted-out doublewide below. “Over there,” Aaran said, pointing to a small trailer park off the side of the road.
Hadas scrutinized the site through squinted eyes, looking at each of the trailers she could see from the road. “Yeah, might be good. At least worth checking out.”
Rather than slogging down the slick grass embankment off the side of the road, they walked a few hundred feet further and turned onto the smaller road leading to their destination. Hadas pointed out the motel across the street from the trailer park, but Aaran insisted that the trailer park would be the safer of the two options. Hadas, indifferent to either place, shrugged and followed his lead.
Aaran chuckled at the rusty sign embossed with the trailer park’s logo:
Gold Star Mobile Home Park
“I don’t know if I would consider this a gold star,” Aaran commented, “maybe a silver star, possibly even bronze.” He laughed at his joke, hoping to summon a similar response from Hadas. It didn’t work.
“Vomit green star seems more appropriate,” she said as she looked around, doing little to disguise the disgust in her expression.
“Eh, they’re not all bad. My uncle used to live in a place rougher-looking than this just south of Reno, and his trailer was actually pretty nice. Some people took better care of these things than most folks did with their quarter-million-dollar houses.”
“Yeah, well…” Hadas trailed off as she glanced at a few of the more dilapidated trailers off to her side, “I’m not thinking any of those people lived here.”
She had a point.
“Well, look on the bright side. You can rest easy knowing that the microwave won’t be tattling to thousands of Sentinels while we sleep tonight.”
“Touché,” Hadas conceded.
They picked a trailer toward the center of the lot and approached the door. Aaran traded out his Scorpion for his Glock and reached for the door handle while Hadas readied her rifle. He opened the screen door and an ear-shredding squeal screamed out from the hinges.
Hadas gave him a look that screamed, “Way to go, dumbass.”
“And I suppose the hinges wouldn’t have made a peep if you had been the one to open the door?” Aaran replied to her unspoken criticism.
After a quick eyeroll and a suppressed smile, Hadas nodded her head as she pushed her rifle stock into her shoulder. “Just open the door.”
Aaran twisted the handle and gave it a shove. The door swung open and he leaned out of the way so Hadas could squeeze past to walk inside. As soon as she was inside, Aaran stepped in, and the two quickly cleared the small mobile home.
Neither the deadbolt nor the handle locked, but the squeaky screen door and a homemade latch at the top of the door would at least keep anyone from sneaking in while they slept. And for good measure, Hadas wedged a tilted chair up against the handle.
The décor inside was about what they had both expected: empty beer cans, pizza boxes and a stack of past-due bills. The only piece of furniture—an orange and yellow checkered recliner from several eras back—faced a twenty-seven-inch tube TV that easily weighed more than Hadas and probably even Aaran. There were no family photos hanging on the wall, not a single memento that seemed to have any sentimental value. The dishes in the si
nk were piled up a good two feet above the counter, and garbage was spilling over the side of a container that was normally designed for the street curb. The air was stale and warmer than Aaran had expected.
“Blech!” Hadas said and wrinkled her nose. “This place just screams, ‘creepy single dude’.”
“That’s mighty presumptuous of you,” Aaran fired back.
Hadas picked up a magazine off the counter and held it up, revealing a scantily-dressed woman on the cover. “Proof enough for ya?”
Hadas had that smug, know-it-all smirk on her face, but Aaran merely shrugged his shoulders. “You never know.”
Suddenly disgusted by the lonely man’s love life in her hand, Hadas dropped the publication to the floor. She waved her hands like the magazine had singed her fingertips while howling, “Gross!”
The sight had Aaran in tears from laughter. Hadas, unable or unwilling to find the humor in the situation, replied with a one-finger salute. It did little to quell his amusement. “I’ll keep my eye out for some hand sanitizer, if you want.”
“Nice,” she said, her brow furrowed, and her lips pursed. Her sarcasm made it clear that she wasn’t complimenting Aaran’s chivalry. Then she chortled as the corners of her lips curled into a smile that danced in her eyes. Her laugh was contagious.
When the moment faded, Aaran suggested they do a quick search of the trailer home for anything useful before settling in for the night. Hadas agreed, walking over to the living room. Aaran made his way back to the bedroom.
“Wow, dude, seriously?” Aaran said under his breath when he saw several cheap door mirrors screwed to the ceiling above the bed. Hadas was right, this dude was a creeper. Trying not to think about what may or may not have occurred in the room over the years, Aaran searched around while avoiding direct contact with questionable objects. He put on a pair of thick, winter gloves and clumsily rifled through the small dresser on the wall in front of the bed. Much to his surprise, all that was inside was laundry—clean laundry at that.
With nothing to show for his hunt, Aaran moved to the last unsearched area of the room—the bed. He begrudgingly got on the floor and clicked on his flashlight, but it was mostly trash and dirty clothes underneath. “This dude is useless,” he ranted. Aaran had been through a lot of houses—some even more rundown than this—but never once had he walked out without finding something worth taking, or at least worth consuming.
Getting up to his knees, Aaran lifted the queen-sized mattress from the box springs, revealing a small, dark object a foot or so from the edge. Well, that’s more like it, he thought as he wrapped his fingers around the short-barrel revolver that had been sandwiched between the mattress and box springs. He popped the cylinder open and looked at the cartridges.
“It looks like at least one of us found something useful,” Hadas said as she walked into the room. “Thirty-eight?”
“Three-fifty-seven,” Aaran said, continuing to examine the gun.
“Sweet. You find any ammo?”
Aaran’s words were lost in his throat when he looked up to respond. Hadas had taken her coat off and was sporting a figure-fitting shirt that accentuated her previously hidden curves. Her body was distracting, and Aaran couldn’t seem to remember what he had been saying.
Hadas cleared her throat. Loudly.
“Huh? Sorry. What did you say?” Aaran asked, his reddened cheeks easily visible in the fading light coming through the windows.
Hadas rolled her eyes. “Ammo?” she said, overly enunciating the word.
“Oh, uhm, no, not here. But I did find a box of hollow points a few days ago, actually.”
Without responding, Hadas turned and left the room. A moment later, she returned with a box of trash bags. “How shocking; the box wasn’t open,” she said with a hefty dose of sarcasm in her voice.
“Awesome! I didn’t know the room came with a maid.”
Aaran received another one-finger salute.
Hadas ripped the first bag from the box and laid it down on the bed. She did this several times until her half of the bed—the half furthest from the door—was obscured by layers of black Polyethylene, creating a thin barrier of separation from God knows what on the sheets and mattress beneath. She tossed the box over to Aaran. “Knock yourself out.”
Aaran wasted no time following suit, covering his half with the heavy-duty trash bags. Once he’d finished, he settled onto the bed, the plastic bags pinching and pulling under his weight. After sleeping on a pile of scratchy blankets that’d smelled of mothballs, mildew, and oddly enough, garlic for three nights, Aaran didn’t find the arrangement half bad.
Hadas, on the other hand, was having the opposite experience. She was already feeling hot, and the trash bags clung to her clammy skin, exacerbating the problem. If she hadn’t felt so drained from the day’s journey, she and Aaran would have already been clearing another trailer for the night. Anything would have been better, but she lacked energy enough to even complain.
Aaran was almost asleep when Hadas spoke.
“Word to the wise, there are no less than three things on my body that could kill you in under a second. Try and get handsy with me in the middle of the night, and, well…” she turned to look at him, a sarcastic, lighthearted grin on her face. “Well, you’re a smart kid, Aaran. I think you can figure out where that story goes.”
Stop calling me kid, he screamed inside his head. Aaran suppressed his annoyance with her use of the word and returned a sardonic smile of his own. “No problem. You’re not exactly my type anyway.”
Of course, he was lying. Hadas was gorgeous, funny, and could hold her own. She was, in a sense, the stereotype of a Hollywood action heroine, but Aaran’s retaliatory comment had found its mark. The brief flinch of offense that flashed across her face confirmed it.
“Uh, well…Good!” she said self-consciously.
Aaran rolled over to his side to conceal the smug sneer on his face. “Goodnight, Hadas,” he said before turning off the lantern on a milkcrate next to the bed.
Several long seconds went by before Hadas replied, “Goodnight, kid.”
Damn it!
Chapter 13
A shrill screech ejected Aaran from his restful slumber. The words Five more minutes echoed around his head, but didn’t quite make it to his lips. He was exhausted, and his body begged for another few hours of sleep before getting back on the road. He was certain he wouldn’t be able to do another hike without…
A shockwave of panic rippled through Aaran’s body when his head finally processed what the sound had been. The screen door!
Aaran was already kicking his legs over the side of the bed by the time his first truly conscious thought had formulated. He pushed off the mattress with his hands, hopping to the ground as he reached for his carbine leaning up against the wall.
“Hadas! Someone’s here,” he hissed.
No response.
As he tucked the buttstock of the carbine into his shoulder, he repeated himself. “Hadas! Wake up and get your gun! Now!” Again, she was silent. Aaran turned around to an empty bed smothered in trash bag liners.
Aaran left the bedroom and walked down the short hallway leading to the galley kitchen. Though he was no longer holding his gun in an aggressive manner, he kept it ready to fire at a moment’s notice. He saw the chair had been pulled away from the front door and it stood wide open.
He waited quietly by the screen door, carefully listening for any hint as to what was going on, but all he heard was the tattered remains of an American flag flapping in the morning breeze…
Then, he heard Hadas gagging.
“Hadas!” Aaran shouted as he charged outside, nearly sending the creaky screen door off its hinges. He snapped his Scorpion in the direction of the struggle and took aim. As soon as he saw her, Aaran immediately lowered his gun and jumped off the porch. “Are you okay?” he asked as he jogged over to her.
Hadas was doubled over at the corner of the trailer, her hand planted on the aluminum
siding to keep from falling over. Her head hung low and she stared down at the mud and overgrowth at her feet. She gave a subtle nod. “Yeah, I’m o—” Her words were cut short with the ousting of her last meal.
Aaran rested his hand on her shoulder, gently rubbing her back while she attempted to spit the awful taste of bile out of her mouth. Though she’d never admit it, at least not to him, Hadas felt comforted by the small gesture.
Her face was pale, and her body was quivering. The chill of the morning breeze on her uncovered arms didn’t help her shivers. She took a deep breath in through her nose, then exhaled slowly through her mouth, unsuccessfully attempting to quell the next wave of vomit.
Aaran instinctively stepped back to get outside the splatter zone while still managing to comfort her. Between heaves, he grabbed her hair as best as he could and pulled it out of her face. After several, grueling seconds, the vomiting stopped, but the spitting continued. She grimaced when she straightened her back upright and took another deep breath before letting it out with a groan.
“So, I’ll ask again. Are you okay?”
Hadas leaned against the side of the mobile home and spit a few more times. “Yeah, I’m okay.”
“You said that last time—or at least, you tried. Are you sure this time?”
“Yeah, well, that second time was the difference maker,” she said, the shake in her body becoming more forceful.
“All right,” Aaran said as he put his arm around her waist, “you need to get back into bed and get some rest. I don’t think we’re going anywhere today.”
Aaran braced himself for resistance, but was surprised when she agreed. He supported her as she climbed into the filthy trailer and back into the bedroom. With Aaran practically lifting her weary body into bed, she immediately closed her eyes. Without saying anything, Aaran retrieved her coat from out in the living room and draped it over her body. A trace of a smile parted her lips when she reached around herself and snuggled into her make-shift blanket, her body still shuddering from an uncontrollable shiver.
