by Angela White
8
By midnight, communication lines were down across the country. No internet, no phones, no cable - and unchecked rioting across the nation. With their lives suddenly blown away, the stunned survivors had no idea what to do. Few thought to help each other.
Split between broken states that had only small areas capable of sustaining life, most people began trying to get out of the cities. Searching for safety, and unaware that it no longer existed, millions more were lost in the aftermath. At dawn, the American people were confident, arrogant about their future. By dusk, the dream was crushed, faith not only shaken, but mortally wounded.
Less than a week after the War, the death toll stood at 250 million in the United States alone. Twenty million of those who survived were seriously injured or blinded and another seven million had the radiation sickness. Most of those didn’t live to see the new year.
The numbers were staggering, inconceivable, and yet, real. The world’s worst fears had been proven true. The horribly high cost of freedom was settled in the blood of the innocent, as debts like these, in the end, always are. The people should have been prepared, ready, and instead, the governments expected to protect, hurt their citizens as much as the actual bombs. The Draft took tens of thousands of desperately needed doctors, scientists, nurses and engineers, and they stripped farms and factories alike of their crops and livestock, leaving their owners bodies rotting where they fell. They took it all.
Some people fled before the President’s broadcast began airing, tipped off by determined sources as the governments began locking it down. A few of those quick-thinking souls survived, but flight was not an option for most. There were loved ones and supplies to be gathered first, and by then, the roads crammed with traffic and accidents were impassable, forcing people to either wait in their cars for the convoys of draft trucks, or set out on foot to find somewhere to hide.
Those were the ones who fled too late, and were caught out in the open with all those who had already been on the road for the holiday. The rest hunkered down where they were and hoped their town wasn't a direct target, or close to one.
Only two of every nine Americans survived the end of the world. This is our story…
Chapter Two
January 1st, 2013
Outside Bonneville, Wyoming
1
“There’s a storm coming.” Samantha’s tone was low. She hadn’t forgotten who she was talking to.
Her captor’s hard voice lashed out in the cold, Wyoming wind. “Tell us something we don’t know. It’s rained every day since you geniuses blew us up!”
Flinching, Samantha ducked her head, dirty blonde curls hiding a pale, bruised face full of loathing. Instead of arguing, she poked at their reluctant fire with her once expensive shoe, watching the creepy darkness of the highway overpass around them. The clinking echo of the heavy chain around her ankle made her quit before Melvin could tell her to. Now was a bad time to draw attention.
Samantha had never hated anyone as much as she did the two drunken men sprawled carelessly in lawn chairs just behind her. Warm in their paint-stained overalls and long johns, she shivered miserably in the same torn, reeking office clothes she’d been taken in. She wanted to be alone inside their rusty van, out of the icy wind, and searching for something she could use as a weapon, but the two males liked to wait until she was nearing frostbite before climbing in behind her to take what they wanted.
The wind blew harder, bringing sounds of dogs yapping incessantly in hunger; thin, distant screams; loud bangs they couldn’t identify. Sam tried to huddle into a ball that would keep it all out, the thought of sex while there were bodies rotting in cars and on the hard cement all around them, making her stomach lurch.
It was supposed to be Henry’s night - the Cruz Painting Company brothers sharing her - but Melvin, the elder, was making shot after shot of Wild Turkey disappear. When he got like this, both Samantha and Henry gave him what he wanted to keep him from getting bent out shape. Melvin was mean and bitter when he was sober, but he was a violent drunk. Instant Dick, she thought, eyeing the vague shapes of farmhouses and fields at the other end of the windy overpass: just add alcohol.
Blackness surrounded them in every direction, not a speck of light except for their tiny fire, and Samantha tried not to think about the horrors she couldn’t identify through the dark, gently touching her swollen lip. The two she could see were enough.
“Where we gonna go, Mel? It’s all trashed.”
Melvin took another long swig from the dirty brown bottle, digging at the filthy crotch under his large stomach.
“Nah, man. Not south. We’ll stock up and go to Mexico. Take over like the A-Team.”
“Don’t hafta go on no boat, do we?”
“Prob'ly.” Melvin’s voice was distracted, bloodshot brown eyes on the pale leg showing from beneath their whore’s grimy skirt. The sight of his own thumbprint on her calf made him stir as he remembered how she'd gotten it.
“Ain’t goin' on no boat,” Henry whined, blowing out a hard belch.
Melvin gestured toward Sam, mean smile showing yellow, broken teeth. He threw small a rock at her, hard, and both men laughed when she cried out in pain.
Knowing the overweight alcoholics were hoping she’d fight back, Samantha let their laughter wash over her as she listened to the terribly angry earth around them, resisting the urge to dig at her dirty hair or rub her stinging hip.
The two abusive pigs keeping her captive and passing her like... like a bottle, assumed she meant a thunderstorm, but it seemed like snow to her - maybe even a Blue Norther - and about the weather, Samantha was hardly ever wrong. Her predictions had earned her the pass to safety…had given her this hell instead, but she didn’t consider trying to tell them again. The long-haired, 30-something painters liked to pinch and slap as punishments, and she was already covered in bruises. Keeping her mouth shut was a hard lesson to learn.
Get away. Try again! her heart demanded and the wind suddenly blew harder through the Wyoming basin as if to reinforce the thought. Sam shivered, mind racing. The wounds and marks from her first attempt had mostly healed, but the damage to herself self-respect never would. Not that she had time for something as trivial as that. Only survival mattered now.
The trio tensed at a close, loud bang echoing from the west, but when a second shot didn’t come, the men went back to their bottle, and their slave went back to her desperate plans. She was a fighter. She just needed to stack the battle.
Closing her eyes, Samantha inhaled deeply. There would definitely be snow to start the New Year, and just before morning, too. Could it help her? Maybe, if she manipulated things a little. Right now, the two men were drinking heavily. Set to stay up late and wake up even later, what would they do upon rising to a foot of snow on the ground?
She frowned. They would take the way they had already cleared to get this far and return to the other end of the overpass - to the deserted farmhouse they’d stayed in last night. They would hole up and wait out the weather, even though they were only an hour from moving the last of the abandoned vehicles out of their way, and then they’d be free of the Bonneville City limits. It was an ugly place full of the dead and the wails of those who would soon follow.
The thought of being snowed-in with these horny, alcoholic idiots filled her gut with hot fire, mind working the problem as her stomach burned. She had always been a plan-ahead person, but who the hell could have prepared for this? What she needed was for the heartless drunks to sleep now and get up ready to go on before the snow got bad. It would put them all out in it together and might give her an opportunity to escape.
You know how, don’t you? She shuddered, drawing in a deep breath. Yes, she did, but she didn’t want to, couldn’t stand even the thought of being the one who started it, let alone having to participate or pretend she was willing. What she really needed was a weapon. It would be easier to kill them. She was aching to think of possible help at the Essex compound being so c
lose and yet so far away, but she would do what she had …
Pop-Pop-Pop!
The sound of engines and tires squealing followed the loud gunshots, echoing from the total darkness to the South. Close by. Coming their way?
“Shit! They’re back!”
“Henry, get that fire out!”
Samantha was already climbing into the van as fast as the loudly clinking chain around her ankle would allow, as eager for the tepid warmth, as for the hiding place. She slid onto the far corner of the bed in the back, heart beating furiously, and was plunged into darkness as the two men got in behind her. She didn’t struggle when Melvin pulled her roughly between them.
The males cleared tiny circles on the dirty back windows and even though Samantha kept her head down, sure she’d be shoved back if she tried to look, she found she could easily imagine the loud group that was now within at least half a mile of the overpass where they were hiding.
There would be only headlights at first, and gunshots, and then they’d see dirty, muddy, rusted-out jeeps and trucks with gun racks that held automatic weapons. There would be cruel shouts and mean gestures; scared, abused women cowering in trunks and on floorboards, their futures grim - short. And all of it surrounded with dangerous, reckless driving, shooting at anything that caught their eye…complete disregard for all the death that had happened.
Danger filled the air as the noises got louder and the barely-breathing trio in the van remained still and silent. Slugs began to slam into the overpass as the group got closer. First the cars around them, and then the van, making Sam bite her wrist to keep from screaming. The gang went by very slowly it seemed to her, headlights glaring off the dirty windows, and none of them moved.
They were all glad when the men avoided the jammed-up overpass from Interstate 26, traveling below it instead. They seemed to be heading directly into to Bonneville, where desperate voices on the van’s CB had been calling for help for the last few days - for American assistance.
What they had called for and what they were going to receive, Sam thought, trying to ignore the hands now roaming her sore body from both sides, were as opposite as they could be.
As the last of the engine noises faded, the van began to rock. Gently at first, it soon became violent and a scream echoed. Full of pain, the sound was cut off suddenly, and a light, freezing rain began to fall over the broken land.
2
A short,
Long! So long!
hour later, the brothers were passed out in the back and Samantha was in the front passenger seat, as far away from them as the rawhide leash around her neck would allow. Full of cold depression, she longed for even a cup of Charbucks6 coffee as she shivered and hurt. She wiped away a single tear at the thought of where she’d been at this time two weeks ago - at the back table with a paper cup, the car and driver idling in front. What a difference from this hell.
She had been with the abusive brothers for ten days now, had turned 28 in captivity, and for Samantha, who knew where two government compounds were, it had been beyond awful. She’d begged them repeatedly to take her to a bunker so that someone could look her name up and let her in. She had even promised to get them passes. A lie, of course - she’d hoped to get the evil men shot - but it hadn’t mattered. They did not intend to give up the slave that had literally dropped from the sky into their laps.
Samantha shivered at the thought of that first night. It had been life-changing and no one had helped her. Not the convoys full of Draftee’s and soldiers as they rolled by, loaded down, and certainly not the terrified citizens that were fleeing ahead of them. She’d watched unarmed men get shot in the back, women being beaten - her dreams were full of the haunting cries of the others who were now in the same situation as her.
It had taken days to stop herself from calling out to those around them for help, before she realized that even the police with all their expensive gear and years of training hadn’t stood, hadn’t even been able to save themselves. The uniformed dead outnumbered the civilians in most of the places she'd been dragged through. They’d lost everything. It was all gone and she was stuck out in the middle of it with men who knew she had been one of the chosen few valued by the government, and tormented her for it.
When the War came, Sam had been mostly alone but content. Her needs were met by her butler and servants, and then by the agency staff after she’d taken over her parents’ work when they were killed trying to measure an Atlantic storm during the height of hurricane season. A year into that wild ride, she had predicted the Supercell in Nebraska during the DNC - had maybe even saved President Milton’s miserable life - and that was how she’d ended up here.
Samantha was used to having her needs met, but thankfully she was also very strong, able to face her terror and still react. It made her a formidable opponent that she didn’t really fear death, only the pain, and becoming a Storm Tracker like her parents had been as natural as breathing. She had guts and she would have to use them now.
The aching woman lit one of her “reward” cigarettes and watched the darkness through the dirty window. The rain splatters were turning to light gray sleet, covering the dead world around them, and she ignored her pains, calculating. The next eighteen hours would be hard, but if she was careful, if she picked just the right moment, this time tomorrow she would be free.
3
Samantha wasn’t sure if it was the icy cold or the bands of pain low in her stomach that woke her to day eleven of captivity, but she came fully alert all at once, mind immediately returning to the plan she had fallen asleep working on.
She had decided she wouldn’t head to the Essex7 compound. On the chopper, the soldier had told them it was being evacuated. That was also the direction that most of the radiation victims she had seen since the War, were coming from. Plus, the brothers knew to follow her there. She couldn't take the chance that they would hunt her down, capture her again. If they did, she’d get no further opportunities to run. This was her last try, and she took another long minute, preparing herself to follow through, no matter how ugly it got.
Stomach shifting uncomfortably, Samantha stretched her arm over and started the van’s engine. As she flipped on the heater, she told herself at least she wouldn’t have a baby. She’d had a shot the day before the War, and it was good for three months.
“What...uh? What’re you doing?" a groggy Melvin questioned, elbowing Henry.
Samantha struggled to breathe normally as the wipers cleared a vision into a wintery hell, surprised the weather had muffled so much of the sound. They had slept through it, she thought sickly, and hoped the gang had moved on in the night. Bonneville was in flames, the smoke was the only thing she saw moving, and it firmed her decision. Today had to be the day. She wasn’t going in there. Anyone who ventured into that war-zone wouldn't come back out on the other side.
“I think that city is on fire."
She didn’t bother telling them it was snowing.
It got Melvin up as she’d known it would, and he woke Henry. While she was glad something had happened to get them moving, her heart worried that her freedom might come at the cost of innocent lives. Had she made it happen with her hurting wishes? Was she responsible?
Her grieving mind said she knew better. They had hidden from those men before, seen the smoke and fires from the direction they went. The group was attacking towns, trying to what? Eliminate the survivors? She nodded. That fit, and her American heart cried in protest at the loss of people she hadn’t even known. Someone had to do something, had to fight back, she thought, never considering that she might end up being one of those heroes.
Sam listened to them talk about going back with fear in her heart, lazy Henry all for it. When they stepped out to look around, she gently searched the front for anything she could use as a weapon if they did decide to wait in the farmhouse. This was the first time they had left her alone inside the van and she was very quiet.
“No way she’s still there, man. Look at a
ll those flames.”
Melvin shook his head, eyeing the storm clouds that were currently raining black, ashy flakes over them.
“Gail'll be there. I told her to stay.”
“I don’t know, man.” Henry was looking at the roof of the farmhouse they could just barely see. It wasn’t his girlfriend, and he clearly didn’t want to go where there was such obvious danger.
“I do. We’ll make it by dark. We just gotta get started moving shit again.”
“It’s an overpass, Mel. No stores if the storm gets bad.”
Melvin waved a dirty hand. “These cars’re the grocery now - and we’re not stuck anywhere. The van’ll go through any storm, even a Norther.”
“Yeah, I guess.” There was deep reluctance in Henry’s voice, mostly because of the rotting corpses in so many of the cars.
Melvin's laughter was mean. “The bitch’ll look for supplies while we’re shovin' that bus over. We’ll just chain her to the bumper like usual.”
Samantha’s gut clenched with nervous anger and hope. Maybe she would find a real weapon while searching those cars.
“Turn off that engine! Get out here, Slut! Time to earn your keep."
Samantha was careful to put heavy loathing into her voice. “In the snow?"
She could hear them snickering as she pulled the keys from the ignition with trembling hands, and she stuffed them up under the dash. Hopefully the jumble of wires would hide the keys long enough to buy her a head start if fate gave her the chance to run…although she wasn’t sure she would. There was too much hate to just scurry away now.
“Yes, in the snow! Come on!”
Melvin opened the side door, and Sam quickly began pulling on her flats.
“Get out here.”
He was leaning inside now, and she tried to control her voice and pounding heart. This was it. “I’m in a skirt. I’ll freeze.”
