by Holly Hook
And antibiotics.
No one had raided the drugs behind the counter. I jumped over the locked gate and the sign saying it was illegal to enter. I sifted through peoples’ unfulfilled prescriptions and struggled to remember the names of the antibiotics I’d been given when the dentist pulled my wisdom teeth last year. Amoxicillin. I pulled a huge bottle of it off the back shelf and thought of Gina lying there, groaning in pain.
On the way out, I grabbed a case of bottled water. We were going to need that, too. I rushed outside, leaving the others to rummage through the food that wasn’t spoiled. I could so go for a burger right now, but I had the feeling ground beef wasn’t going to be available for a long time. Even a beef stick would work. My body screamed for protein with its shakes and the headache that was forming between my ears.
I headed out into the night. Gina was lying in the bed of the truck, her foot elevated above her head. Tony and Mina sat next to her. I tried not to shine the flashlight in her face, which was closed in pain. There was more blood. I could smell it. Even when Mom was going through her hell, I never had to smell blood. Horrible, sterile hospital smells, yes. But not blood.
“I’ve got stuff that might help,” I said, pulling the aspirin out of the bag. I should have grabbed better painkillers. “Take this. Then we need to bandage your foot. No. Let’s bandage your foot first. Then you can take the aspirin.”
“I’m dizzy,” Gina said. “Oh, God. I feel so horrible. I just want to pass out.”
My heart started racing. Gina was suffering. The feeling of helplessness washed over me. I was at Mom’s bedside all over again, watching her get thinner and thinner as the cancer took its toll, unable to do anything except hold her hand while she grimaced in pain. I wanted to jump out of the back of the truck and let Tony and Mina handle the rest. I couldn’t even hear what they were saying.
No. I could do something about this. Being shot in the foot wasn’t a death sentence.
I swallowed and took a breath. “Gina, we need to take off your shoe. Then I’m going to pour some stuff on your wound. It’s gonna hurt. I won’t lie.”
Tony grabbed her leg and moved it off the edge of the truck bed. He held it up and Mina recoiled.
I was the one who had to do this.
I untied her laces, which were slippery with blood. I should have grabbed gloves, but there was no time for that. Those guys could find us any minute. Gina groaned again.
Her foot was a mess.
I couldn’t even tell where the bullet hole was, her foot was so bloody. Tony muttered something and I scrambled for the bandages. No, the rubbing alcohol. I grabbed that and pulled off her sock, which was soaked. I threw it over the edge of the truck bed. Inside the store, the others searched around with flashlights they must have found at the motel.
I didn’t warn Gina about the alcohol. I just poured. She screamed and Tony shushed her. “Quiet,” he said.
“It burns,” she managed through clenched teeth.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” I said. “The worst is over.” The alcohol had washed the blood away and I saw the hole, right in the middle of her foot. More blood dribbled out. Faintness washed over me and I grabbed onto the side of the truck bed. Tony slumped too, letting her leg fall onto his lap.
I caught my breath. “We’re going to wrap you now,” I said, fishing for the ace bandages. “This won’t be the worst part.”
It wasn’t, but blood soaked through the wrap and I had to get it tight, almost to the point where Gina’s toes looked swollen, to get the bleeding to stop. She couldn’t afford to lose any more blood. “Here,” I said, opening a bottle of water for her and getting out some aspirin. I hoped I was doing the right thing. “Take these. It might calm down the pain a bit.”
“Thanks,” she said, taking the bottled water in a shaky hand. “This is worse than the time I donated blood this year. I forgot to eat a big breakfast, and—“
The sound of a motor filled the air. It was distant, but not distant enough. The remaining men were still in town, wanting revenge. Tires squealed and the motor got louder, then softer. They must not know where the grocery store was but they were looking. They must have known we were stocking up somewhere. It was only a matter of time before they found us.
I left Gina, bolted back into the store, and shouted for the others to get out. My mind went back into blind panic. Those men might, no, would torture us all before killing us. A million horrible possibilities raced through my mind.
“Alana!” I yelled. “Get out!”
The motor got louder, then quieter again. Tires screeched once more. They’d be armed better this time. Maybe they had even raided the police station like David and the gang had before we got to Marlon. It was what I’d do if I were a group of bloodthirsty looters.
Alana ran out from one of the many junk food aisles, plastic bag loaded with boxes. Jerome followed along with Christina and Jasmine. They’d been hanging together. That was all of us.
Tony had already started the truck by time we got back outside. I hopped into mine and started the ignition while Alana got in beside me, dropping the bag of stuff between her feet. Food boxes toppled everywhere as the headlights of our three trucks burst to life. I scrambled and turned mine off. The sound of the motor was gone now, but only because it was masked by this. The men still had two functioning trucks and even on rims, they could go.
Tony pulled up beside me. “Behind the store,” he said. “There has to be a back alley.”
“Go,” Jerome yelled, pounding on the side of the truck bed as if it were a horse. Christina and Jasmine sat inside that truck. Jerome didn't have any shelter.
And then I noticed it.
Headlights.
I was already changing gears by then. Tony gunned it towards the back of the store. My window was down. The headlights barreled down the street towards us, a pair of impossibly bright eyes in a world of pure darkness.
A man whooped.
And gunfire rang out.
Automatic gunfire.
The other two trucks were already fleeing towards the back of the store, leaving me and Alana behind. Metal pinged off metal and the shock from the bullets reverberated through the truck, making it shake. I gunned it after the others, dodging around the cars of death. Pinpricks flashed in the side of my vision. I crouched down as much as I could while Alana babbled to her mother, to her brother and probably everyone she had ever known. We were going to die like soldiers on a battlefield and no one was even left to mourn us.
But somehow, we made it to the back of the store and we were following Christina and Jasmine and Jerome, who crouched in the back of the truck with his hands over his head. He looked like a hostage. Tony and Mina and Gina were in the lead.
Tires crunched and squealed. The men weren’t giving up. I turned the headlights back on and Jerome jumped a bit. Every detail jumped out, came alive. My nerves picked up everything, down to the sensation of the truck seat to the acrid taste in my mouth. I could smell traces of Gina’s blood. I was more alive now than I had ever been. My body was gasping for one last taste of life before the bullet that would end everything.
More shots fired. Sparks shot off the grocery store walls, off the Dumpster. We rolled over something lying in the alley. I didn’t want to know what it was so I didn’t look. Alana curled up in a ball next to me. She had gone silent. She was retreating back to that place that was hard to get out of.
“We’re going to make it out of here,” I yelled, punching the gas as space opened up between me and the truck in front of us. The shots stopped. Whoever was shooting didn’t have good control. It might be the only reason the two of us were still alive.
And then we burst out of the long alley and onto a street.
This was the chance. Tony made a left and we followed. There was no traffic anymore. He got way ahead, engine roaring, and Gina kept her foot up on the edge of the truck bed. She was lying down, not caring about what was happening. She hadn’t even had time to finish
her water.
The rest of us followed, leaving the men, busted truck rims, and gunshots behind.
Chapter Eleven
Alana had stopped talking again.
She stayed curled into a ball for at least forty-five minutes while we rolled down the empty expressway, passing cars and dead passengers who had pulled off to the side of the road when the EMP hit and killed their engines. I had learned not to look at them, the way you had to desensitize yourself to road kill. Alana stared straight ahead. I wasn’t sure what she was even registering.
“Say something,” I said, checking my rearview mirror again to make sure no headlights were following. The men had tried, of course, to follow us, but without good working tires we had the advantage. I was glad we had thought to slash them.
The wind blew in through the windows and ruffled Alana’s hair. She made no effort to bat it away. Alana had gone right back into her private world. I knew that pain, like you wanted to retract from reality and not face it anymore.
“You have to say something,” I said. “I know that was close.” I was going to live—for now. My nerves had calmed and everything had dulled, but the experience would stick out for the rest of my life. And I didn’t know how long that was going to be.
“They can go to Hollywood,” Alana said. “The men, I mean.”
“I’m sure we have real bullet holes to show off on this truck, not the stickers that people put on their cars,” I said. “I’m just glad they didn’t get the gas tank. Maybe that was what they were aiming for.”
Alana crept back into the silent shadows again. I had to keep trying to fish her out.
“Look, I know what you feel like.”
She didn’t say anything. When my mother was going through her ordeal, I wouldn’t have, either. I would stare straight ahead while someone was talking to me. I’d know they were talking, but they were off in some other world that I didn’t want to drag them to. It was bad in the final days. I shut everyone out, even Dad. I shut my bedroom door and let him pace around the house in his own agony, which was something I regretted every day of my life.
If he was still alive, I’d tell him I was sorry.
We passed a dark rest area, which gave off the worst smell yet. It was packed with cars, some with doors left open. Travelers, stranded there when the EMP hit. When the radiation had hit, most people had scrambled to the bathrooms if they could. There were lumps gathered around the building.
“Don’t look at that,” I told Alana. Ahead, Tony and the others sped up to escape the sight.
She didn’t. Alana just kept peering right ahead, watching the red taillights. I made my mind go blank. It was better than the helpless feelings that were welling up inside of me. I was supposed to be the strong one, here to help her, but I was hurting just as much as she. My pain was duller. That was the only difference. Alana’s wounds were still fresh and bleeding, barely scabbed over.
* * * * *
We drove for what felt like forever.
At least I had gotten some sleep and had enough energy to keep going. Alana came out of her waking coma and handed me a bag of chips, which tasted better than anything I’d had in a while. I wasn’t sure what it was for sure, but it might have been the fact that I had just escaped a quick death. The chips were perfectly salty and I kept offering some to Alana, who managed to eat a couple. She then opened a can of Coke, which I sucked down and thoroughly enjoyed.
It didn’t hit me until we passed the first signs that told us Flagstaff was up ahead.
I had killed tonight.
I had killed up to two people or worse, injured them beyond repair. Here I was, enjoying junk food while two men were back there, dead or suffering.
I cursed and hit the brakes.
“Laney,” Alana said.
I hit the gas again. My stomach heaved, but I held everything down. It wasn’t like I had a choice. “I killed people,” I muttered.
“You had to. You know what those guys were planning to do to us. It was them or us.”
“I know that.” Logic told me I’d done the right thing, but my insides were screaming. It would never feel right and never should.
But at least Alana was talking again. I decided to keep going, to take her lead and use it to deal with the stress. My sketchbook was still sitting back on that school bus in the desert. I wouldn’t be drawing any more depressing pictures. Maybe that was a good thing. “What do you think will happen when we get to Oklahoma City?”
“I don’t know,” Alana said. “The army will be there and they’ll have guns. I’ve watched a lot of movies where the army wasn’t a good thing. Remember that one about the virus that turned people into rabid zombies? The army started shooting everyone, and well, it was bad.”
“That makes me feel better,” I said. “But there’s no virus. Just guys like those ones back in that town.” We were ten miles out from the city. The sign emerged from the darkness and vanished again. I wasn’t looking forward to this. “We’re kids. I don’t think they’re going to be intimidated by us. If they didn’t want us to reach the checkpoint, they wouldn’t have broadcasted that on the radio, right?”
“Right,” Alana said.
I almost said that Dad might think to look for me at the checkpoint. He had clung onto hope until the very end for Mom. Would be for me? He had been just as devastated from that as I had. He knew what it was like to have your hope crushed into broken glass that cut you over and over. Maybe he had already given up.
I got my mind off that. I couldn’t think for Dad. He must have survived the radiation if he was still in New York at the time. There was only a small chance he’d been on a plane when the EMP hit. The army might have power, generators or something. I could even try to call him from there.
The hope monster rose inside. Fine. I would let it bloom just for this little while. It was a welcome break from the gloom that had been my life for the past year. Those breaks came on occasion and I could laugh sometimes up until the pulse hit. This was my first calm from this new storm.
Ahead of us, Gina waved. She was sitting up against the truck’s back windows now.
“She’s feeling better,” Alana said. “You did great with her, Laney.”
I couldn’t remember telling Alana about that. “You were in the store at the time,” I said.
“You grabbed those medical supplies and you just went. I would have fainted from all that blood. Look at her foot."
The headlights were enough to show the dried blood that caked the bandage. Even from dozens of feet back, it was obvious.
“It wasn’t that bad,” I lied, changing lanes to go around a whole group of cars that were half-pulled off the road. There were more of them now.
The stench was returning. It was diluted, but coming from everywhere.
I rolled up my window, shutting out the clear night air. I didn’t even know what time it was.
And my good mood vanished. Dark buildings rose from the ground and vanished again. Silence ruled once more. Vehicles, including semis, were pulled over everywhere and a lot of the doors were open.
Look straight ahead, I told myself. It was yet another coping strategy.
You always found ways not to look the horrors in the eye.
Thankfully, most people had chosen to pull over to have their final, agony-filled moments. The middle of the expressway was clear. I rolled along the white dashed line as the dark buildings got closer and bigger on both sides. We were rolling into the city now. Somewhere, the orange glow of a fire burned. A gas tank had exploded or some brave arsonist had ventured into the stench and the decay. Smoke rose into the night, lit by the distant flames. It might even be a fire that had spread through the city on its own, started by someone who had been frying chicken wings when the radiation hit. Gas burners wouldn't have fallen victim to the EMP.
“This is creepy,” Alana said. “It’s worse than that Marlon town.”
I thought of what a terrifying painting it would make. Gina was going to hav
e some ideas as soon as she was feeling better if she even wanted to paint anymore. It wouldn’t be top priority for at least several years – if we even survived the hunger that was going to claim another two thirds of us.
“Alana,” I said. “When we find our folks, we need to get them back out here to the west side of the country. The eastern half is going to run out of food a lot faster than over here. Or better yet, we can go find an island. We can hijack a sailboat like they did in that movie where all the trucks came to life and started running people over.”
“What island?” she asked. It was obvious she’d been thinking about this from the tone of her voice. “My grandparents don’t travel well. My grandpa can’t sit in a car for more than an hour at a time before his back starts killing him.”
“We’ll find another map at the next town that isn’t this gross,” I said. “It won’t be too hard. I’m not staying on some cold island, though.”
“They might all get taken.”
“Then we can head into a forest.”
“They’re all burning,” Alana said.
“Some of them are,” I said. “Either way, we need to get a whole bunch of canned stuff and go somewhere there aren’t too many people. Staying in a city is going to be disaster. Then, we wait for the ozone layer to heal. I think scientists were saying it was just starting to heal from the damage done a few decades ago, so I think it can happen.”
“You paid attention better than I did in class,” Alana said.
“It helped me cope with…things. We’ll see what the best idea is once we get to our people.”
“You’re not as negative as you used to be.”
She was right. I wasn’t. I wouldn’t have been saying these things just days ago. But I had to be the leader now, or at least one of them. You had to have a plan. I was learning that.
The stalled cars on the sides of the road got more numerous and some had even stopped closer to the middle of the road. The EMP. People hadn’t had a choice but to die out here.
