Raging Storm

by Vannetta Chapman

  Max once again pulled her back from the edge, but then they both realized that whoever was approaching wasn’t paying any attention to the top of the bridge. Probably they couldn’t see the two of them from the ground, even if they were looking straight up.

  She heard the sound of slamming doors, and then Patrick’s Mustang followed by Max’s Dodge made a hard left and sped north, back the way they had come.

  Max snatched up his rifle again, and she thought he would take a shot, attempt to disable the vehicles that were gaining on their friends.

  “Too far,” he mumbled, continuing to stare through the rifle’s scope.

  “What happened? Did they get away? Are they all right?”

  He shrugged, dropped the rifle, and wiped the sweat from his eyes. Raising it again, he attempted once more to see. Finally he admitted, “I don’t know. Patrick and Bianca were driving. They had a good lead. I think they’re going to be all right.”

  Shelby suddenly realized there was no place to hide, no place at all to take cover unless you counted the abandoned cars, and they’d be sitting ducks there.

  “We have to get off here,” Max said, mirroring her thoughts. “They might come back. They might have seen Patrick looking up at us.”

  They jogged back to the bottom of the ramp. Fear and uncertainty collided with the physical exertion and heat. Shelby wiped continuously at the sweat pouring into her eyes. Her shirt was drenched, and she hadn’t cinched the waist buckle on the backpack, so it swung left and right, left and right, chafing against her back. But she didn’t slow, and she didn’t lose her grip on the handgun. It would do little good against a maniac intent on running them over, but she’d at least go down shooting.

  That was the mantra that ran through her mind.

  Go down shooting.

  How had her life become this?

  How had any sense of normalcy slipped away so quickly and completely?

  When they reached the bottom of the ramp, Max pulled her into the shade of one of the support pillars.

  “Drink. I don’t need you passing out.” They both downed half a bottle, then stuck them back in their packs.

  “We go that way,” he said, indicating the feeder road that passed Lakeline Mall. “We stick to the shadows, move quickly, and stop for nothing. Got it?”

  She nodded her understanding, still trying to catch her breath. And then they were again running, her ears filled with the sound of their hiking boots against the concrete and her heart filled with fear.

  ELEVEN

  Shelby nearly collapsed against the side of the building—Babies “R” Us. Actually, the R was backwards. Her mind fixated on that, wondering who had come up with the marketing plan, while she pulled in giant gulps of air and held her hand against her side.

  “Still get that stitch when you run?”

  “I try not to run.”

  “Yeah.” Max slid down the wall beside her until he was sitting on the pavement, groaning as he did.

  “Feeling old, Max?”

  “Old and out of shape. Wishing I’d made the time to work out more. So many regrets.”

  He was joking again, but Shelby heard the seriousness behind his last three words.

  “Regrets are useless now.”

  “This has been hard for you, Shelby. Harder even than for the rest of us.”

  Tears pricked her eyes, but she blinked them away. She felt so raw, so vulnerable all the time, but she wasn’t ready to share that. It would only bring the pain to the surface. So instead of admitting he was on target, she changed the subject.

  “How far are we walking? To the barn?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “Do you think those guys in the SUV will come back?”

  “They probably have a place to hole up—a base, but they approached from the east, so it’s not here.”

  “Then we’re safe.”

  “We might be safe from them. I don’t know…” He lowered his voice. “We can’t know what we have to pass through between here and there. We move quietly, cautiously, and as quickly as we can.”

  “That’s a lot of adverbs.”

  “Ever the writer. Glad the flare didn’t change that.”

  He helped her to her feet, and when his hand touched hers she fought the urge to throw herself into his arms. She wasn’t a damsel in distress. She was a mom on a mission. She pulled back her hand and stepped away.

  “You good?”

  “Yeah.”

  The first two sections of the shopping center were deserted. Max stopped before reaching the end of each building, listened, poked his head around the corner, and looked left then right. He would give her the signal to wait, and then he’d cross. Once he was sure it was clear, he’d motion for her. It was a slow, laborious process, and Shelby was beginning to think that his paranoia was uncalled for. Who would be living in these burned-out buildings? The smell alone was atrocious, and then there were the rats that scurried away from the sound of their footsteps.

  It was as they’d begun making their way down the third building—a string of shoe stores, dress shops, and children’s apparel boutiques—that they first heard people. Max snatched her hand and pulled her into the darkness of a Shoe Warehouse. They stood frozen, their backs against the charred remnants of the inside wall, as a group of people passed.

  “I’m telling you, the Guard is widening their perimeter.”

  A man coughed, stopped, and then Shelby heard the flick of a lighter followed by the smell of cigarette smoke.

  “They’re pushing out the fences, block by block.”

  “And clearing the highways.”

  “Yeah, maybe so.”

  Shelby realized with a start that the man speaking was standing on the other side of the charred wall—no more than five feet from where she and Max hid.

  No one spoke for a minute, then two.

  “It’s going to be a long time before they get here,” he said. “Maybe months.”

  “And then what?” a woman asked.

  “We’ll be gone by then. But in the meantime, there’s still stuff to lift.”

  “Not much. We’ve pretty much emptied out this area. And who is going to buy it anyway?”

  “We don’t sell it. We trade it—for what we need. And if anyone tries to stop us? We do what we did to that security guard. We kill them.”

  This man, who must have been the leader of the trio, dropped his cigarette to the pavement and ground it out with his boot. It struck Shelby as ironic that he would bother to do so. It seemed to her that everything that could burn had burned.

  They continued to talk as they walked away, oblivious to the fact that anyone else was there. Shelby started out, but Max pulled her back. “Not yet,” he whispered.

  The words were barely out of his mouth when they again heard the sound of steps.

  “Better get the lead out.”

  “I’m hurrying, man.”

  “Just saying. Spike cut the last guy who was too slow.”

  When the pair had passed, Shelby didn’t move immediately. She waited. Max checked his watch a couple of times, and finally they continued in the opposite direction of the group. They didn’t speak of it until the rain had started to fall, drenching everything within the first few moments. Thunder crashed so close that it felt as if the ground shook. She was aware of lightning striking to the west, but she didn’t bother to look up. Head down, shoulders hunched, they continued to make their way north.

  When they had to lean forward into the wind to make any progress, Max waved toward a small building on the south side of yet another strip mall they were trudging through.

  There wasn’t a lot left of the front of the building, and absolutely nothing of value inside, but the back of the room still had an intact roof and provided cover from the worst of the storm.

  “Sheltering in a coffee hut? Cruel and unusual punishment.” She pulled her shirt away from her body, wringing the front.

  Max had sat down and removed hi
s shoes. She wasn’t too surprised to see him pulling dry socks from his pack.

  “Cruel, huh? What would you like? A latte? Maybe a cappuccino?”

  “I can smell it, you know. Underneath the top layer of wetness and then the bottom layer of charred lumber—coffee beans.” She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply.

  “It’s the small things,” Max agreed. “I repeatedly reach for my phone to check the weather app—even after three weeks.”

  “Old habits—”

  “Die hard.”

  They grinned at one another, and then Max cleared his throat and said, “Better put on some dry clothes.” He stood, padded toward the opposite side of the room, and waited at the very edge of their shelter, his back politely turned toward her.

  She’d given him the all clear, and they were pulling out food when her thoughts drifted back to the first group that had passed them.

  “Spike.” Shelby unwrapped a granola bar and frowned at it. “What kind of person names their kid Spike? You might as well fill out his prison papers while you’re working on his birth certificate.”

  Max finished a protein bar and washed it down with the last of his water. He stood and walked to where the rain was pouring through the holes in the roof. The place had burned at one point, but it hadn’t consumed the entire structure. He set both of his bottles and the one she’d finished under the hole, waited to be sure they wouldn’t topple over, and then he moved back beside her. He sat close enough that their shoulders were touching. Normally, Shelby would pull away, but not this afternoon.

  “Not his legal name, I’m sure.” When she didn’t answer, he added, “I saw a lot of that in the courtroom. It was as if people needed to reinvent themselves to justify what they did—Speedy, Arson, Blaze, and the most popular—Harley.”

  “Blaze? Seriously?”

  “Yes, though that was an interesting case. Blaze was afraid of fire, but he had no problem knocking over post offices.”

  “Post offices?”

  “He’d serve time, get out, and go straight to a post office. It was a compulsion of sorts.”

  Shelby leaned her head back against the wall. “I didn’t realize you dealt with such cases.”

  “It wasn’t the majority of my business, but now and then a parent would come to me trying to prevent their child from serving jail time.”

  “I can’t even conceive such a life.”

  “Yeah. But we couldn’t have imagined this one either.”

  She didn’t have an answer for that. It wasn’t lost on her that were it not for her, were it not for how much Max and Bianca and Patrick cared for her and Carter, her friends would be in their homes tonight—dry and safe.

  “Try to get some rest. We’ll leave as soon as the storm passes through.”

  “What if it doesn’t? What if it’s one of those rain-for-days monsoons?”

  “This thing has turned you into quite the doomsayer.” Max nudged her shoulder with his before he stood and picked up his rifle. “We’ll give it two hours, and then we go whether the rain has stopped or not.”

  But she’d seen too much, experienced too wide a range of emotions in the previous twelve hours. Sleep felt a long way off. So instead, she pulled out her notebook, opened to a new page, and stared at it.

  Max turned and stared at her quizzically. “Writer’s block?” he asked.

  She laughed, but it was a small, bleak sound, and it died quickly. “I have no idea how to describe this.”

  He walked back over, sat beside her, and pulled the notebook from her hands. Slowly and methodically he began to sketch the scene in front of them—the burned-out building, the storm, the darkness beyond. She had forgotten how much Max had liked to draw. He’d given up all of that when he went away to college, or so she’d thought.

  Somehow the sound of the pen whispering quietly across the pages calmed her nerves and lulled her into an exhausted sleep.

  TWELVE

  Max watched Shelby sleep and listened to the storm as it moved off to the east. He didn’t want to wake her, couldn’t begin to imagine how she was dealing with her fear and anxiety. He understood Carter would not survive if they didn’t find the insulin.

  But they would find it.

  He’d run all of their options through his mind as he’d waited out the storm. Basically, they didn’t have any. They had to move forward, into Austin. They had to find the medication that Carter and the citizens of Abney needed. Surely, God would help them do that. He’d never been one to think of God as a genie—say the right words, invoke the name of Christ, and anything could be yours. That sort of theology had always rankled him.

  But neither could he accept that God wanted them all to die. His day to leave behind this mortal clay would come—as would everyone’s, but it wasn’t today.

  He shook Shelby’s shoulders. She jerked awake, wide-eyed and ready to run.

  “It’s all right.” He waited until she nodded and accepted the bottle of rainwater he offered her. After she’d drunk from it, he said, “The storm’s moved out. We can go.”

  She gathered up her supplies and stuffed them in the backpack, including the notebook, but paused to stare at the two sketches he’d drawn. The first was of the coffee shop they sheltered in. The second was of her standing on top of the flyover bridge, shoulders back, gaze steady, determination in her features. It might not have been exactly how she had looked, but it was how he saw her.

  “This looks like Joan of Arc,” she said, tapping the page.

  “It’s you!”

  “Hardly.”

  “It is. See the hair flying around her face?”

  She glanced up at him. “This person you drew is brave. I jump when someone says boo.”

  Max shrugged and pulled his own pack onto his shoulders. Shelby Sparks was the bravest woman he knew, but there was no use trying to tell her that. As far as the drawing, he didn’t think it was particularly good, but it had been a relief to do something, to create something, to stop, even for a moment, simply reacting. It had actually filled him with energy, which was a little surprising.

  They stepped out into a day that was fading to night. Looking west, streaks from the setting sun colored the sky orange, purple, even a deep blue.

  Shelby clutched his arm and pointed east. “That has to mean something, right?”

  He hoped so. The rainbow hung perfectly arched over the eastern scene of destruction—large apartment complexes built nearly on top of each other. Most looked deserted. Some had been burned and looted. It was obvious from the debris slung across the parking areas that no one was living there any longer.

  The rainbow seemed to defy the devastation.

  God’s blessing? Maybe.

  They’d made it to the end of yet another shopping center strip, when he nearly tripped over a man who appeared to be sleeping on the sidewalk, just under the roof’s overhang.

  “Give a brother a hand? Or maybe you have something to sip that would keep me warm?”

  Shelby looked as if she might answer him, but Max shook his head and pulled her along.

  The man called after them. “Don’t be like that. Uncle Charlie wouldn’t hurt you none.”

  He increased his pace until Shelby was practically running to catch up.

  “You worried about that guy?”

  “I worry about every guy.”

  “How much farther do we have to go?”

  “Maybe four miles.”

  “I need to use the bathroom.”

  He stopped, glanced around them, and finally pointed toward a Dumpster.

  “Behind there?”

  “See anyplace better?”

  “No. Unfortunately, I don’t.”

  She scuttled off to the far side of the Dumpster. Max stood waiting, trying to be patient, when he heard the sound of voices. They weren’t close, but the fact that they weren’t bothering to whisper worried him. More of Spike’s goons, if he had to guess.

  He hurried toward Shelby, deciding it would be
better to embarrass her than for them to get caught by hoodlums, and pulled up short when he heard a voice on the other side of the Dumpster.

  “What’s a little thing like you doing out here all alone?” The voice was male, gravelly, and to Max’s ears the person sounded strung out.

  “Why do you think I’m alone?”

  “Because no one’s with you. Now how about you toss that backpack over here and let me see what’s in it.”

  Max soundlessly set his backpack on the ground and pulled out his semiautomatic. Then he heard the voices from the far side of the block, not any closer, but not going away. He let go of the gun and reached for the lug wrench.

  Closing his eyes, he tried to picture where the man would be positioned in relation to Shelby. There was no way to know.

  He could hear that the man had unzipped the backpack and was rifling through her things.

  “Nice little gun, missy. Too bad you weren’t carrying it in your pocket. Might have saved your life.”

  Max stepped around the Dumpster. Shelby was facing him. The man standing in front of her, with his back to Max, was raising the gun. Shelby’s mouth formed an O, but she didn’t say a word, and Max didn’t hesitate. He swung the wrench as if he were holding a bat and hoping for a home run. The man collapsed in a heap.

  “Are you okay?”

  But Shelby was already on the ground, throwing everything back into her pack. Her hands were shaking, but that didn’t slow her down. Max retrieved his pack and stuffed the lug wrench into it.

  Shelby glanced back toward the voices and then nodded in the direction they’d been headed. They jogged for the next fifteen minutes, putting space and time and destruction between the hoodlums and themselves.

  The sky grew dark with no moon at all, but their eyes adjusted. Stars shimmered in the west. The storm continued to rumble to their east. At first they kept to the grassy shoulder of the service road, being as inconspicuous as possible. But as they put more distance between them and the SH 45 interchange, Max led the way up onto the shoulder of Highway 183.

  “Should be able to make better time now.”

  “Did you kill that man?”