The Next World (Book 1): Existence

by Olah, Jeff

  “Uh …”

  “I’m up here, bedroom.”

  “We should probably get going, move out before they come back.”

  Natalie appeared at the top of the stairs a moment later, jeans, sweatshirt, sneakers, and a large blue and red duffle bag slung over her shoulder. Before acknowledging Owen, she turned toward the kitchen, grabbed her cell phone from the counter and said, “Ava, Noah, it’s time to go.”

  Again surprised at the change in his wife, Owen met her near the front door and looked out toward the Hummer. “You and the kids wait here. When I come back, we’ll all go out together. Not that it’ll matter, but lock the door and—”

  The entry light blinked out, and then back on twice. “I guess we don’t worry about that, doesn’t seem like they’ll be on much longer anyway.”

  Natalie pulled the bag up high on her shoulder as Ava and Noah ran out from the kitchen empty-handed. “Dad,” Noah said, “why does that keep happening?”

  As he started to respond, not only did the overhead light again blink out, but now the rest of the home as well as the street fell into absolute darkness.

  “Stay here with your mom, I’ll be right back.”

  Taking Natalie’s bag, Owen jogged to the rear of the Hummer, laid it inside, and moved quickly to the driveway.

  Chuck had walked to the far sidewalk and was now on his way back, had a purpose in his step. “Owen, I think it’s time.”

  “We’re ready, just need to load—”

  “No, I think you need to get in and go, right now. We’ve got company. Maybe sixty seconds, maybe thirty.”

  Owen looked back over Chuck’s shoulder. “Where?”

  “No time, just get in and meet me outside the gates. I’m parked in the street.”

  Owen looked back toward the Hummer, then to the house. “Just come with us, we’ll drive you out.”

  Chuck turned toward his brother’s home and paused. Two distinct male voices came from the busted down front door. He let out a heavy breath, clenched his jaw, and shook his head. “Okay, but I’m coming back at some point. My brother would do the same for me.”

  “Looters?”

  “Scum of the earth.”

  “You’re right,” Owen said, “we should go.”

  Crossing the front lawn, Owen met his wife’s eyes and motioned toward the Hummer, mouthed let’s go. He waited as she locked the front door, crammed one last bag into the cargo area, and then followed his children into the modified third-row seats.

  With everyone buckled in, Owen climbed in behind the wheel and quickly scanned the faces of his family and his new friend. He set the Glock in the cup holder near the center of the dash, turned over the engine, and kept his voice low as Chuck settled into the passenger seat.

  “Maybe you stay with us till we get to Cecil’s, come back in the morning for your car?”

  Chuck glanced into his mirror as the Hummer bounced off the sidewalk and into the street. He pulled his own pistol from his lap and set it in the second cup holder alongside Owen’s. “Got more of these in my trunk.” And peering over his left shoulder, back toward his brother’s house, he said, “I have a feeling we’re going to need them.”

  “I agree,” Owen said. “We’ll make a quick stop, but you’re welcome to ride over with us, might be a good idea. One vehicle, less of a target.”

  Chuck nodded. “You give me ten seconds to unload what I got in my trunk and we’ll—”

  Four shots came from behind and a second later, another eight. Owen flinched, almost drove the Hummer into a community mailbox along the left sidewalk, and then overcorrecting sideswiped a burgundy Dodge Durango.

  More gunfire, now what appeared to be coming from a semi-automatic weapon. It started and stopped three times. Owen drove through a driveway at the left side of the street, onto a front lawn, and then back into the street between two parked vehicles.

  “Everyone down on the floor.”

  They hadn’t yet taken any direct hits, although the muted groans coming from the rear seat told him that not everyone had escaped unharmed. Owen turned to the back, looked from Noah to Ava and then to his wife as she unbuckled herself.

  “Nat?”

  A line of blood ran from her left temple and fell to the floor, looked like black ink in the darkened interior. She hunched forward, holding her face in her hand, and turned away from her children.

  “I’m fine, just bumped my head.”

  As they approached the corner, the Hummer took three direct hits to the left side, the last blowing apart the rear driver’s side window, only inches from Natalie’s shoulder. She screamed, then tried to hold it back, looked up to Owen through wide eyes and coughed out the words.

  “Owen … I think I was hit.”

  18

  There was no time to think, no reason to do anything but drive, get his family somewhere else, anywhere else. Exiting the development and cutting a wide right, Owen punched the gas. He watched the mirror as Natalie cradled her left arm leaning into the door, his children now on the floor, quiet and frozen.

  “Sweetheart, you’re gonna be fine. I’m pulling over.”

  Finally turning to Chuck, Owen attempted to push away the dark thoughts, tried to control his breathing. “Where?”

  “Quarter mile, left side, black Mustang. I won’t need more than ten seconds.”

  Owen lifted the Glock from the cup holder, watched as Chuck did the same. “You also watch for me.” He lowered his voice. “I need to—”

  The sudden drop off of gunfire in the distance caused Owen to pause. Had those with the semi-automatic weapons given up, or were they now loading into their vehicles and coming after him and his family? No real way to know.

  Chuck gave a quick nod, then pointed toward the left side of the street. “Right there, pull alongside, I’ll go around back.”

  Pulling to a stop next to the Ford Mustang, Owen left the engine running and slipped out through the driver’s door. He hurried back to the busted-out rear window as Chuck disappeared around the back of the Hummer.

  As Natalie sat resting against the doorframe, Owen decided it better to simply leave her where she was, no use complicating matters. Reaching in, he pulled his sleeve down over his hand and removed the broken glass. Ava and Noah now starting to get back to their seats, they watched but didn’t speak.

  “Where is it?”

  Her face a lighter shade then only a minute before, Natalie attempted to force a smile, although the pain had other ideas. “I’m okay Owen,” she breathed deep. “It’s just a—”

  He reached in, held her hand. “Your shoulder?”

  Natalie bit into her lip and nodded.

  “Can you slide up, let me get a look at it?”

  “You sure?” She smiled wide this time. “I don’t want to have to pick you up off the ground. Right now, I wouldn’t have much luck.”

  Now there were engines racing, somewhere back near the front gates of their community. “Let’s go.” Owen helped her slide up in her seat, felt an instant wave of nausea as he found the wound. Left shoulder, dead center, an inch-wide depression. The round had ripped through Natalie’s sweatshirt and peeled back the skin near enough to expose the raw muscle tissue below. The wound oozed blood, but had already begun to coagulate around the edges.

  Natalie looked up. “So?”

  Owen leaned to the side, looked to Ava. “We got Ibuprofen?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Can you get four of them and a bottle of water for your mom?”

  Ava slipped past her brother, and climbed into the back as Chuck placed a green duffle bag at the rear of the Hummer.

  Back to Natalie, he brought his face to hers, kissed her softly, and looked at the cut near her forehead. Then only to her said, “How’s the pain, one to ten?”

  “Twelve?”

  “Nat, I’m sorry.”

  She shook her head, eyes starting to well. She took the small pills and the water from Ava, swallowed them quickly.

&
nbsp; “Your shoulder’s going to be pretty painful for a while, but I don’t think there’s any permanent damage. We need to get it cleaned up, but right now I think we need to be somewhere else.”

  “My head?”

  “Just a scratch.”

  She held a sarcastic grin. “Will it scar?”

  “You won’t even notice it an hour from now, I promise.”

  She slowly nodded and then kissed him back. “Let’s—”

  Headlights flooded out into the street, ricocheted off the destroyed entry gates, lit up the area for at least a hundred yards. Owen slipped out of his jacket, handed it to Natalie. “Stay belted but keep your head down, rest it on this.”

  Chuck was already sliding into the passenger seat when Owen climbed back in and shifted into drive. They pulled away from the side of the road, staying just out of reach of the artificial illumination.

  “Owen?”

  The way Chuck said his name, he figured there would be a question coming that he wasn’t prepared to answer. Owen thought it better to redirect. “Can you see them?”

  Chuck turned in his seat, put down his window, and looked back over his right shoulder. “Uh, yep. They stopped at the gates, looks like they’re trying to figure out which way we went.”

  Owen pushed the Hummer to seventy-five, checked his mirrors. “Good, maybe the rain is helping out. If they—”

  Chuck pushed himself back into the passenger seat. He reached below the dash, in between his legs, pulled back a Mossberg 500 pump-action shotgun. “They turned out, looks like they may have spotted us.”

  His hands gripped tight to the wheel, Owen again stared into the rearview mirror. He looked from his wife, to his daughter, and finally rested on the face of his nine-year-old son.

  It had been nearly four years since he’d convinced Natalie to purchase the Hummer H1. She didn’t initially like his plan, but quickly came around. It began with a completely innocent conversation he’d had with Noah after picking him up on the first day of school.

  Noah had asked why they hadn’t taken a vacation. The teacher asked us to write down what we did over the summer and I didn’t know what to write. I asked the girl next to me and she said to talk about my family vacation.

  Owen had worked nearly every day that summer. He figured that if Ava was home, she and her brother could keep each other busy. They hadn’t originally voiced any complaints, or not so loud that he noticed, and with the real estate market being what it was, he decided that he needed to strike while the iron was hot.

  With eight new listings and five closed escrows, Owen had banked a solid mid-six figures, his best ninety days since entering the market over fifteen years before. Natalie couldn’t have been more supportive of all the nights and long weekends; however, he should have noticed the disappointment in his children. It was there—he just wasn’t around enough to see what was right in front of him.

  He made an attempt at explaining why he needed to spend so much time away from Noah and his sister, but couldn’t find the right words. Everything sounded contrived, like he’d been reading someone else’s words.

  Noah had said that he understood, although Owen knew better. He vowed to make it right, to become the kind of family who took advantage of their blessings instead of running them into the ground.

  That afternoon, he somehow convinced his wife that owning the massive beast of a vehicle would transform them, make them the kind of people who were comfortable in the great outdoors, lead to summer camping trips, frequent beach outings, plenty of room for all of their gear and more. It would be their weekend getaway vehicle, finally never having to worry about sand on the floorboards or wet bathing suits on the interior.

  But that was too long ago. In the four years since purchasing the oversized military grade vehicle, they had yet to use it for anything but the occasional run to the grocery store and a few late-night trips to the gym. It looked nice and garnered plenty of compliments, but it never truly lived up to its potential.

  Now, staring into his rearview mirror, Owen silently prayed that the dark-colored vehicle’s size wouldn’t prove to be its own undoing. Turning to Chuck he said, “They’re going to catch us, aren’t they?”

  19

  Owen looked out ahead, his hands tight around the steering wheel. Darkened structures, abandoned vehicles parked at odd angles to the sidewalk, and a handful of what the media had labeled as Feeders roaming the streets. He turned to his wife and his children, regarded them with a quick nod, a forced smile, and then back to Chuck.

  “So?”

  The man he’d only met a few hours before stared out through the passenger window. “They’re still back there, looks like they’ve slowed down a tad.”

  “They know we’re here?”

  “I think so, but with this rain anything is possible.”

  “We can’t outrun them, not in this thing.”

  As Owen drove wide around a wrecked Honda Odyssey, flames spitting from under the hood, Chuck counted quietly under his breath. When he got to nine he paused and turned back to Owen. “Maybe we should go left at the next street, come up to Cecil’s from the south. See if they follow.”

  Owen looked at the shotgun sitting in Chuck’s lap, a spike of adrenaline shooting straight through to his heart. It was real now. It was here and he was living in it. With his wife, his children, his new friend. There wasn’t time for the anxiety, the fear, the voices. He would have to do this on his own. Make a decision and then live with whatever came after.

  “Okay, but we’re gonna have to deal with them at some point.”

  Chuck nodded. “I have an idea.”

  Owen checked his speed as the next intersection came into view, maybe a hundred yards off. Again, he turned back to his family, spoke quietly as they stared up at him. “We’re gonna get through this, we’ll get somewhere safe and figure it out. I promise.”

  He was lying. Owen had already accepted the fact that they weren’t going to be able to outrun whoever was chasing them. Now he was simply trying to come to terms with what he was going to have to do next.

  He didn’t like pulling the trigger on the man in his driveway, but that thing, that Feeder, wasn’t really a man at all. It was something else, something other than human. Owen needed to believe that to be able to move on, but now it appeared that he may have to do something he wasn’t absolutely sure he was ready for.

  “Up here,” Owen motioned to Chuck. “I’ll take a left, then after that what are you thinking?”

  Chuck set the Mossberg against the door, again looked back into the mirror. He then sat forward, leaned into the dash, and struggled to get a good visual of the street ahead. “Okay, cut it tight and stay close to the center of the street. Once we get around the corner, get to the left-hand side as fast as you can.”

  “Okay?”

  “They won’t be expecting us to stop, and they really won’t be expecting us to be sitting on the left-hand side of the street.”

  “And what does that do? I mean you’re really asking me to pull over and stop? Just let them—”

  “You said it, they’re going to catch us at some point. We can either wait for that to happen or we can use the only thing we have at our disposal—the element of surprise. Take them out before they run up on us and do it first.”

  Owen started toward the center of the street, tracing a line through the heavy downpour. He glimpsed a small group of Feeders now stumbling off the sidewalk, figured he’d cut in behind them, have a direct path to the left-hand side of the street. Two birds, one stone.

  “I’m not sure about this.” Owen dipped his head to the right, kept his eyes on the road, his voice only slightly above a whisper. “Not sure I’m ready for what we’re gonna have to do here.”

  “Buddy, I don’t think we’re gonna have a choice. You have to understand that, and I mean like right now. We didn’t start this, but we are going to have to do something about …”

  As Chuck’s voice trailed off, Owen turned hi
s full attention back to the road ahead, quickly scanned the right-hand side of the street, and slammed his foot down onto the brake. The Hummer momentarily gripped the asphalt and then began to slide sideways toward a massive crowd of Feeders.

  There had to be at least a few hundred. They poured in from the alley along the right side of the street, more with each second that passed.

  Natalie unfolded in her seat, gripped her head, and winced. “OWEN?”

  His children were next, Ava and then Noah clinging to the seats, their voices coming as one. “DAD?”

  Owen switched his foot from the brake to the gas and steered toward the opposite curb. He pressed back into his seat, fought the urge to close his eyes, and tensed every muscle in his body, locking out his arms at the elbows.

  They slammed into the horde at an angle, the right rear of the Hummer striking the first few bodies and rocking sideways like one of those wooden roller coasters at the county fair. Natalie was tossed into the door and then back against the seat as she reached for her children, shouting something incomprehensible.

  Through the chaos, Chuck had somehow removed his belt and was now twisted to the right, reaching for the door. He fumbled with the lock as they finally came to a stop and the crowd descended on the passenger side of the Hummer. He looked through the windshield, then Owen’s window, and finally out through the rear. “Owen, we gotta get out.”

  Owen watched as the crowd fell upon the opposite side of the vehicle. They pushed in behind one another, their hands clawing at the door, striking the windows, their mouths bloodied and snapping at the air.

  In the second row, Ava had slid away from the door, kicking at the air and screaming, her voice finally breaking. She reached for her mother, although her wide eyes were staring through the front seats toward her father. “DAD, DAD!”

  The crowd now started around the front and rear of the Hummer, pinning them in on three sides, blocking any chance Owen had of throwing the Hummer into reverse and backing away. They piled in behind one another, three, four, and then five deep, slamming their bloodied and bruised arms into the hood without reason or regret.