by Max Lockwood
Clara had a hunting rifle and took several people down, alternating between ducking out of range and shooting. Too many of them had been squeezing in the cars, so even with three of them down, there were still plenty of targets for her to aim at. She didn’t see the bastards from before, but she didn’t have a problem picturing everyone she shot down with their respective faces. Adrenaline coursed through her veins, amping up her excitement, and Clara felt her lips curve into a vicious smile.
Clara wondered what the others were doing, but couldn’t see them in the chaos.
Then Clara realized she’d run out of bullets and ran out, brandishing a knife. She joined Audrey, stabbing wildly at her assailants. They battled back to back, protecting one another. But Clara couldn’t doubt the exhilaration thrumming through her, and when she got a look at Audrey, she could tell the other woman felt the same thrill. She thought idly if she should feel remorseful, that she didn’t feel bad that she was killing people, but the thought washed away as the other woman shot someone with a gun aimed at Clara.
She did think about the others, though. Clara wondered if Tessa and Jackson were safe, and how the little boy was. Worst case scenario was that he lost it, like Tessa had. Clara knew it could happen quietly, and he would just shut himself down. If that happened, how would they help him, then? Clara wasn’t good at dealing with trauma, considering her way of doing it was running away from the problem, and Tessa was returning to her delusions. There hadn’t been talk of visions again, but Clara had a feeling it hadn’t died quite yet. There was hope that Jackson would be the one to get rid of it, because Tessa acted so normal the more time she spent with him, and Clara didn’t want to lose that, either.
Besides, it would probably break her and her sister both if they lost someone else they cared about.
But then something caught her attention, out the corner of her eye, and when she turned to look, she was shocked to see someone heading into the house. No one else had seen, because they were alone.
Her reaction was instantaneous.
Clara chased after them to make sure they wouldn’t hurt Jackson and Tessa, or any of the other kids still inside. But the two of them were the ones she really worried about. She wasn’t sure if Jackson would stay quiet through the ruckus outside, and the bastard was likely to hear them and rush right for them. They were losing, but they had no intention of backing away, and were focused entirely on causing damage to Clara’s group.
Her prediction proved true. She arrived just as the man was entering the bedroom where they were hiding. Ice filled her heart as she forced her body faster. Clara let out a cry and stabbed the man in the back.
He roared, very loudly, and Clara could hear Jackson screaming and Tessa’s shaky voice trying to calm him down. She pulled the knife out of the man’s back and brought it back down in another stab, feeling the resistance as the knife cut through and his scream suddenly garbled. Clara watched him as he fell to the floor.
Jackson was curled in Tessa’s lap. She was astonished, eyes wide and moving from the body lying on the floor to Clara, standing above them and panting.
“You saved us,” Tessa said breathily, her voice blank.
She figured the relief hadn’t set in yet. She probably thought they would die when the door opened and someone she didn’t know and holding a weapon walked in, especially after all the noise outside. She was probably still in shock. But Clara, once she saw they were safe, completely broke down.
Clara began to cry, stumbling over to them and falling to her knees before she could touch them, in case Jackson was still scared. She wanted to tell them how glad she was that they were both safe, but the sobs racking through her chest wouldn’t allow for words.
“Oh, Clara,” Tessa murmured, her voice emotional. “I’m sorry for how I acted. And I forgive you for your previous mishap. Just get over here.”
She shifted Jackson to her side and reached for Clara, pulling her into a fierce hug.
“Thank you, Clara, so much. This isn’t the first time you’ve saved me, I know, and I promise I’m going to start being grateful.”
But Clara pulled back, shaking her head, and getting a hold of herself enough to speak. “You don’t have to do that. You’re my sister, of course I’d save you.”
Tessa turned to Jackson, who still looked a little shell-shocked. “You see?” she said persuasively. “Didn’t I tell you my sister is a good person? Look, the bad man over there had a gun, but Clara saved us. Isn’t she good?”
Clara sniffled, nodding with a shaky smile. “I was only trying to protect you, I promise. The bad guys are all gone now.”
He surprised her with a hug and she sniffled, holding him close as the gunfire ceased.
Chapter Twenty-Six
She wanted to stay with them, but with the fight over, Clara had to go and oversee the damages.
Since everybody had been looking to her as their leader, it was kind of her responsibility. She did make sure the other two were safe first, and that they would be okay. Tessa had even insisted on the point.
“We’ll be all right. Just go check on everyone else.”
She’d been reluctant to pull away from Jackson when he was willingly touching her, after he’d shied away from her before. But she was genuinely worried for everyone else, so she handed Jackson over to her sister and left.
Clara went out into the yard and found carnage.
There were bodies all over, most of them visibly bleeding. They could have just been unconscious, but Clara knew that they were dead. There were a couple of people walking around that she recognized from her side, and when she looked around, she noticed Felicia. She was walking over to her when she got another shock.
Felicia had been shot in the arm, and Clara panicked, rushing over to her and trying to remember what to do with bullet wounds. Blood trickled down her arm, and the wound looked horrible.
But then Felicia chuckled when she noticed Clara’s expression, only laughing harder at her probably comical look of surprise, but it cut off and she hissed a breath through her teeth.”
“Tell me what to do for you,” she said, frantic.
But Felicia just waved her away. “I’m fine, Clara.”
“You have a gaping bullet wound in your arm! That is not the definition of fine.”
“You shouldn’t worry,” Felicia insisted. “I’m a nurse, remember? I’ll have myself better in no time at all, just relax.”
Well, that was true. When Clara allowed herself to relax, marginally, she noticed that Felicia was already in the process of patching up her arm, and she didn’t seem to be having trouble with it.
Actually, come to think of it, with their nurse out of commission it was everyone else she’d have to worry about if someone else was injured. Felicia wasn’t the only one that could help, but she was the most skilled, by far. But no one else back here seemed to be as badly injured as Felicia was, and Clara let herself relax a little. She wanted to go and check on everybody else, look for Cooper and make sure he was okay, but she was not anxious to leave Felicia alone in her state.
Audrey returned to Clara, covered in blood. She frowned at the other woman, before looking down at herself, and felt her eyes widen. There was blood all over her clothes, too, and her hands, and she wondered how she couldn’t have noticed before. She must have left both Tessa and Jackson bloody… and it was a wonder he hadn’t hidden from her when he saw her in that state.
“Hey, Clara,” Audrey called out, panicked. “Do you know where my father is?”
Cooper had come up behind her, and Clara met his eyes with a shared look of relief, before his eyes fell to Audrey and they grew grim.
“Just keep calm—he can’t have gone far.”
But Clara frowned, feeling a little worried herself. Clara wouldn’t have seen anything wrong with him sitting out the fight himself, but he’d insisted on joining, because his daughter would be.
Audrey was opening her mouth to talk back to Cooper, when they heard a dist
ressed cry in the distance.
There was ice in Clara’s chest again, where her heart should have been, and they ran toward the sound of the cry. She had a bad feeling, her instincts kicking in, and she was prepared for the sight that met them, but that didn’t make it any less devastating.
Jack, Audrey’s father, the nice man that had taken strangers into his home because they were tired and hungry, was lying on the ground, blood spreading from a point where a bullet had hit in his chest.
“Dad!” Audrey cried out, running to him and dropping to her knees beside him, then cradling his head in her lap, not minding the blood all over her clothes and hands. “Do we have a doctor in the group!” she called out to Clara, who had slowed to stay behind with Cooper to give her some privacy with her father.
“Come on, Audrey,” Jack told her quietly. “You know better—I won’t survive.”
Audrey made a whimpering sound, but she didn’t try to call for a doctor again, and Clara watched as the last of her strength from the battle died. She completely broke down and sobbed over her father’s body, and Clara’s heart went out to her.
It couldn’t be easy to watch a parent die in front of you like this. Especially for her, after they’d been estranged for so long, though she’d spent time with mostly just him since she arrived at the farm so they could catch up. They just didn’t get enough time. But Clara could see, behind Jack’s expression, the relief that his daughter was safe, his hands weakly clutching one of hers, even as Clara saw them shake.
Audrey was distraught, but Clara thought Jack looked almost peaceful.
“Come on, now. Enough crying. I’m happy that you came home and I got to see you one last time.”
Her strength showed again. Plenty of people in her position wouldn’t react well, not to say that she wasn’t taking it hard. But Clara remembered her and Tessa being in a similar position, when their grandmother died, and they had both been there to see it all happen.
Tessa had clutched onto Viola’s hand, and Clara thought she was caught in denial. Clara understood, though, she just didn’t want to, her mind all but blocking it all in her head. She tried to be supportive for her sister, knowing the grief she was going through, while not allowing herself to feel it. It wasn’t until their neighbors came near them, probably trying to help, and Tessa shouted at them to step back and give them a chance to grieve, that Clara realized Tessa wasn’t in denial, or deluding herself.
She knew their grandmother was dead. And Clara had broken down with her.
But Audrey just clenched her dad’s hands, and smiled at him through her tears, even as her shoulders still shook.
“I’m glad I came back, too, dad,” she said quietly, and went on to reminisce about their memories on the farm.
“Hold on to those thoughts,” Jack told her as his eyes fluttered closed, then Clara noticed when his body went limp and he passed away.
Audrey’s cries were renewed, and Clara went to her, pulling her into a hug and comforting her as she cried.
Tessa must have heard the commotion and known something was wrong, because she suddenly appeared. Clara pulled away so Audrey could see it, too, as Tessa said a prayer for Jack, and for the first time in a long time, Clara joined in. Audrey took and clutched tightly at her hands, and she only squeezed back, hearing sounds from around them as the others came to join them.
Then they stood in solemn silence, commemorating the dead.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Clara and Cooper helped Audrey bury her father. They’d both been through this not that long ago with Viola.
Tessa didn’t want to be out there for the burial, and Clara explained to Audrey why. She understood that their wounds were far too fresh, and Clara’s sister got to stay inside with the children.
She would have sat it out as well, Audrey even offered, but Clara didn’t think it would be very respectful to Jack after the help he’d given them. She didn’t want to think what would have happened to them if they’d picked following the road instead of going through the forest and finding Jack’s house. Would they have met the people from Mawdsley, and would they have survived it? She wasn’t very confident that they would have as they had been, even armed, they were all hungry.
Jack deserved so much more than Clara just ignoring his funeral.
It took a while to clear up all the bodies, and they had tractors, so they’d attached the ruined cars with some rope and pulled them out of the way. The cars that were fine, they parked in a different place, in case they ever needed them.
When Cooper dug up the grave, Clara was right there with him. Audrey had offered to help, and Clara turned her down flat.
“Why don’t you just relax? You can stay and watch us, or go inside and do something, or even sleep. This can’t be easy for you.”
Her eyes were pleading when she turned them up to Clara. “But I can’t just not do anything, can’t you see that? My father is dead, I think digging his grave is the least I could do. Please, Clara.”
She understood what the other woman felt. Cooper had dug the grave for Viola on his own while Clara and Tessa comforted each other and dealt with the body. But this time, Felicia had been the one to handle the body, because Audrey couldn’t stand to. Audrey was the one to be comforted, she didn’t have anyone she needed to comfort, so Clara could imagine all her nervous energy was left with nowhere to go.
Clara finally relented. “Then let me continue until I get tired. Then I’ll let you do it for a while, until you get tired. And we’ll continue like that until we’re done. Are you all right with that?”
Audrey nodded, looking relieved.
It wasn’t much, but at least it was something they could do for her. It would take some time for life on the farm to settle down again, and Clara could only hope that the threat from Mawdsley was finally over.
It better be.
Clara was just so sick of the town and its people. If only they’d been waiting for Clara’s group when they went to surprise them with an attack, they would have been taken care of a long time ago.
Clara reflected on the fact that every time they had a run-in with the people of Mawdsley, there was a death of someone they loved and cared about.
“Well, not the first time. When me, Cooper, and Dante went to the town to see how they were holding up, they held us at gun point, took our supplies, and our bikes so we were forced to take a day trip back. The bastards even hit me. I was down for hours. It only went to hell from there, and now this.”
Her teeth and fists clenched, and Clara felt somewhat responsible, that that first meeting could lead to this. She felt somewhat responsible when she thought of it like that.
“At least dad died protecting the things he loved,” Audrey cut in, before Clara could descend into despair.
That’s right. Clara remembered when Viola died, she’d made the choice to take a bullet for Tessa before Clara even knew what was going on, and all she did was shoot their attacker. But Viola had been the one to save Tessa’s life that day. And while Clara wouldn’t choose who she’d rather die between the two of them and grieved for losing her grandmother, she was grateful to her for taking care of Tessa in the face of Clara’s incompetence. It had been Clara’s choice to take Tessa with her out on patrol, even though Tessa had asked in the hope of making herself useful.
“Your arrival stopped him from giving up on himself,” Audrey continued. “And I appreciate everything you’ve done.”
“I don’t think I’ve done anything really that deserving of gratitude. We owe your father our lives, after all. Think nothing of it.”
It took them hours just to dig the grave. It was next to a mound of dirt that Audrey told them was where her mother was buried. Then they lowered the body inside, and Dante and another of the men offered to cover the grave. Audrey insisted on putting in a few shovels full of dirt, enough that the sheet wrapped around her father’s body was entirely covered.
“So, what’s the next step?” Audrey asked as she
and Clara walked back up to the house.
“It’s up to you—the house is yours now, after all. My group can leave now if you want.”
It wasn’t ideal, but they had cars now, and she was sure Audrey would at least let them pick some food for the road. Clara didn’t think the betrayal from earlier could happen in this tighter group, but the wandering around with nowhere to go… not only was dangerous, but it was also stupid. She didn’t want to be moving aimlessly around, especially not when they had children with them.
“I want you to stay and help maintain the farm,” Audrey said before Clara could get lost in her thoughts. “I can’t protect it on my own either, and your group wouldn’t survive on the road.”
“Not for long,” Clara agreed wearily.
Audrey shot her a tired smile as they walked into the house and went into the kitchen. The whole house was empty, everyone else busy outside, and even the children had finally been let out to play, so it was blissfully silent.
“My goal is to try and make our lives as normal as possible,” Audrey said.
“We should toast to that,” Clara said, and Audrey poured them both a glass of wine.
They drank to normality, and to Jack.
About Max Lockwood
Max Lockwood writes suspenseful, post-apocalyptic thriller and dystopian fiction while living in New York.
Growing up with parents who were preppers and always planning for the worst, but hoping for the best, got him interested in writing in the first place. “What would happen if the world were to change?” is something he asked himself his whole life. Until one day he decided to put it down on paper.
His stories will have you reading on the edge of your seats…you have been warned!
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