Escaping Darkness (Book 4): The Fallout

by Richards, E. S.

  “Houston, here we come,” Mia spoke as she sat behind the wheel, not even bothering to ask Jorge which one of them should drive. Marcus had reminded her that morning that he also had a license, but while the terrain was dodgy, Mia preferred to be behind the wheel herself. She’d let the young man drive if the road cleared up a bit. For now she was more than happy to maintain control.

  The problem on the drive didn’t result from the car itself in the end, more the sights that they passed by. Before long, Mia was driving through a small town, the once-populous area reduced to nothing. Black and gray covered everything, in some places hardening like stone, yet rolling around like dust and getting caught in the wind in others. Nothing looked like it would be safe to touch, the volcanic ash coating every surface. It was a thick carpet, compacting as it gripped the land, molding itself around everything.

  Everything. Mia calculated that this was the closest she had been to Yellowstone since originally fleeing with Jorge, and she could tell. The streets were lined with cars that had stopped working, the falling ash making its way into their engines and halting the electronics. They were lucky the car they had found was far enough away from the fallout. Mia doubted whether many vehicles would still work if she tried them now. That wasn’t the worst of it, though—not even close.

  While cars lined the road, so did bodies. People were frozen in place like statues, their figures buried underneath the carpet of ash which would have suffocated them almost instantly. The heat of the falling ash would’ve burned people’s skin too, causing them to collapse to the ground even if they were still able to breathe. It was a horrible way to die; an unavoidable way. Mia could picture all these people trying to run to safety as the sky fell down on them from above, unaware that there was no escape from it.

  The car was silent as they drove through, no one daring to speak as they acknowledged what could’ve been them. They were all aware that just one wrong turn or different decision could’ve put them in that position, at the mercy of the eruption with nowhere to run to. They were the lucky ones—it might not feel like it, but as they passed the graveyard of statues, each one of them knew it to be true.

  Chapter 8

  As the doors slammed shut behind him, Chase tugged the makeshift breathing mask from his face and inhaled a deep breath of air. Even though he’d had the cloth covering his mouth and nose, he hadn’t trusted it during the walk outside the theater, breathing in shallow gasps and limiting his lungs as best he could. The city was nothing like he had ever seen before, the air dark and wispy, curling around every corner like it had a mind of its own. It scared him, making things seem like they really were nearing the end of existence.

  “Line up!” Magic shouted at the boys, waited for them all to gather their wits and fall into a single line. “And shut up!”

  Chase did as he was told, his eyes sweeping over the small theater in front of him. The Authority had done an incredible job of building a makeshift quarantine zone around each of the buildings themselves, meaning the boys were inside and under a roof again, but not yet technically inside what needed fixing. That part was obvious though. An extension of the building—that looked to have been built more recently than the rest of it—had collapsed. There was already a group of people—no girls—milling around near the point of interest itself, Chase straining his eyes to see if his sister was among them.

  “As you can see,” Magic started to address the boys, briefing them for how their afternoon would continue. “We have a collapsed piece of infrastructure over here. The teams before you have already cleared the building of anything valuable, so now it’s time to rebuild. You will each be assigned a role from the staff members on site. Do as you are instructed and you will learn valuable life lessons here today. Mess around and you’ll have me to answer to.”

  No one needed to be told twice, a few of the boys gulping loudly in response to the threat. Chase barely heard it though, his eyes focused on the girls in the distance. Each of them wore a bright orange vest and a hard hat, a collection of which Chase remembered seeing at the building site that he and Riley had been abducted from. He still hadn’t forgotten about that, a firm hatred for Connor, Nate, and Mindy solidified in his being. They had traded him and his sister away like they were nothing, the value of their lives barely even considered as they were handed off to the Authority. Chase knew they weren’t a priority for him, but if he ever saw any of them again, he would make sure they remembered what they had done.

  “They could be here, dude,” Joel hissed in Chase’s ear, the boy growing equally as excited as Chase as he gazed at the girls in the distance. “I can’t believe it.”

  Chase winked at his friend, hopeful that they were going to find both Riley and Hazel. It was the most upbeat he’d felt since first being dumped in the pit and he was determined to channel the positivity. As soon as Magic dismissed them, Chase and Joel sped to the front of their group, tearing towards the construction site and quickly falling into line again in front of the members of the Authority they now reported to. Chase didn’t recognize any of them, though that didn’t matter. They weren’t who he was focusing on, his eyes scanning each girl in an orange vest and searching for his sister’s familiar face.

  Riley. She stood out from the group like a sore thumb to Chase, her young face searching the line of boys in a similar manner to Chase. They locked eyes in an instant, both freezing as they saw the other. Chase felt like he’d had the wind knocked out of him. His legs turned to jelly and he grabbed on to Joel’s arm for support, his friend realizing immediately what had happened.

  Riley tried to act natural but the sight of her brother made her feel weak as well. She watched him lean against another boy and felt glad that he had found someone he could connect with while they were kept prisoner. Relief flooded through her body like a dam breaking, all her worries suddenly seeming so much more insignificant than they had earlier that morning. Chase was alive. It was the most incredible piece of news she had ever received. She might not have even spoken to him yet—just seeing her brother was enough. She smiled, making sure her brother saw it before returning to her work. They were in the same place now. She didn’t need to stand and stare at Chase; he would find a way to speak to her. And if he didn’t, she would.

  “I’m guessing that’s her,” Joel chuckled, helping Chase stand on his own two feet again as they both watched Riley smile and walk away, a shovel gripped tightly in her small hands.

  “Uh huh,” Chase nodded, still slightly in awe of finally seeing his sister again. He hadn’t expected it to affect him this much; a sudden flood of emotions overwhelmed him and reminded him how much he missed his family. He took a deep breath and told himself to pull it together. He still had to be strong. Finding his sister was only the beginning; there was still the bigger task of finding a way to get them out of the pit and back to their grandparents. But it was a start. Riley was alive and for the first time in six days, Chase felt happy. He felt like there was real hope again.

  “Well, keep it together for a bit longer, dude,” Joel pushed Chase lightly in the back as he spoke, getting his friend to move along with the line. Chase had completely missed the order the Authority had just given them, so he just followed the procession as it filed off to gather equipment. “We’ll find a way to talk to her soon enough.”

  Snapping back to reality, Chase nodded. “Yeah, thanks, man,” he replied, suddenly feeling guilty that they hadn’t found Hazel yet. “Do you think your sister is here too?”

  “It’d make sense,” Joel replied, trying to keep the excitement from his voice. “She’s pretty much the same age.”

  “I’m sure she will be,” Chase reassured his friend as he was handed a reflective vest and a hard hat. “We got this.”

  Both boys looked at one another, sharing an expression that said they would have each other’s backs through whatever was about to happen. It was strange, considering how little time they had known one another, but Chase thought of Joel like a brother
already. They were both facing the most difficult situation of their lives and somehow, they understood each other completely. It was such a comforting feeling to know they weren’t alone, and they both knew they had found a friend for life.

  Chase remained focused on that feeling as a couple of men from the Authority explained what the boys were going to be working on. As it happened, before they could start to rebuild the structure, they had to tear it down a bit further first. A stoic man explained how they couldn’t affix the new foundation or support beams to those which had already broken, because the weight wouldn’t be evenly spread. So before they could start to save the building, they had to tear it down. Everything he was told stuck in Chase’s head, the young man constantly thinking about how things could apply to the farmhouse. When he finally made it home, he wanted to have the knowledge and the skill set to save his grandparents and restore the farmhouse to its former glory.

  “This isn’t that bad,” Leo grinned at Chase fifteen minutes later, the two boys strapped into harnesses as they half rappelled off the roof of the building, hanging in mid-air as they wrestled with support beams that poked out of the structure.

  “Yeah,” Chase replied absentmindedly, it was obvious he wasn’t enjoying the task half as much as Leo was. He would’ve much preferred to be on the ground where he could have interacted with Riley. The Authority was pretty strict about keeping the boys and girls away from each other the majority of the time—now was perhaps the only opportunity he would have and Chase didn’t want to blow it.

  Down below, Riley peered around the side of the building, just able to see her brother’s feet dangling above her. She too was irritated that he hadn’t been assigned a job on the ground level, desperate to speak to him to find out if he was any closer to finding a way out. She knew this might be her only chance to speak to him and share information so more than anything they needed to make it count.

  “Hey, Riley?”

  Spinning around, Riley came face-to-face with the boy her brother had been with earlier. Now that she was closer to him, there was something that looked familiar about him, though she couldn’t quite place what. She racked her brain to try and determine whether she knew him from the outside—that potentially the reason why he and Chase were so close—but she couldn’t think of anything.

  “Hey,” she replied. “You’re Chase’s friend. Right?”

  “Yeah,” Joel smiled, “Joel. How are you doing?”

  “I’m okay,” Riley nodded, still examining Joel’s face and trying to determine where she knew him from. He looked so familiar; there had to be some connection from the outside. “How’s Chase?”

  “Yeah, he’s fine, as you’d expect really. We’re no closer to an escape plan though, unfortunately.”

  Riley’s face fell. She had been relying on Chase finding them a way out, but it sounded like he had struggled as much as she had. “Me neither,” she sighed. “I guess we’re stuck here.”

  “We’ll find a way out,” Joel replied, saddened by how upset his statement had made her. He imagined his sister feeling the same way, their situations so incredibly similar. “Hey,” he continued, thoughts of his sister occupying his head. “You didn’t happen to meet a girl called Hazel, did you? She’s my sister and…”

  “Hazel?” Riley interrupted, everything suddenly falling into place in terms of why she recognized Joel. She hadn’t met him before, but she had met his sister. Every morning for the past week, in fact. “No way,” she breathed, realizing how crazy it seemed that while she had formed a friendship with Hazel, elsewhere her brother was doing the same with Hazel’s sibling.

  “What?” Joel asked anxiously, his tensions rising as Riley didn’t answer his question. They were already both in a risky position having their conversation; Joel didn’t want to leave without getting an answer. “Do you know her?”

  “Yeah, I know her,” Riley smiled. “She’s fine. She’s good actually. She’s a friend of mine. She should be around here somewhere.”

  Joel felt a zap of adrenaline shoot through him at Riley’s words, his eyes darting from side to side as he started looking for his sister more seriously. “Really? Where?”

  “I’m not sure,” Riley shrugged. “She came in with me though.”

  “Aw man,” Joel continued to search the crowds of girls, desperately trying to find his sister. As Riley watched him, she almost laughed at how ironic their situation was. The four of them were all trying to find their siblings and now that they were so close, they seemed to just bump into the wrong people. She knew Chase was alive and healthy though—that was the most important thing to Riley. Now that she had that reassurance, she could start thinking more seriously about how they were all going to escape.

  “Hang on,” she spoke to Joel, her thoughts catching up with her. “Are you trying to get out as well then? Hazel told me that she and her brother want to get back to your mom. In the city?”

  “Yeah,” Joel nodded, realizing, like Riley was, that while they were talking to each other they needed to make the most of it. It might not be the conversation they had wanted, but it was as close as they were going to get. Joel would pass everything back to Chase, just like Riley planned to with Hazel. Now that they all knew their group was a foursome rather than two separate pairs of siblings, it made both Riley and Joel feel more confident that they could actually find a way out of the pit for good.

  “So you’ve not found anything either?” Joel asked, shuffling closer to Riley to try and avoid the gaze of the watching Authority members. “No sort of way out of here?”

  “Nope,” Riley dropped her gaze, no longer meeting Joel’s. “We’re watched constantly. I don’t know when there’d be a chance to escape. Maybe at night, I guess?”

  “Aren’t you locked in your cells?”

  “Cells?” Riley snapped her head back up to look at Joel. “What do you mean?”

  Listening carefully, Riley felt her blood boil as Joel told her in detail how the boys were kept. She had thought she had it bad, but it sounded like her theater was a vacation resort compared to where the boys were being kept. She couldn’t believe it. She hated thinking of her brother being locked away behind bars like a common criminal. Chase was such a sweet boy; he didn’t deserve to be treated like that—none of them did.

  As her conversation with Joel continued and they learned more about each other’s lives in the pit, there was one thing that became solidified in Riley’s head. They had to find a way out. They couldn’t stay under the Authority’s control for much longer. Time was running out and as the situation out in the city continued to deteriorate day by day, it only made their need to get home more paramount. Together, Riley, Chase, Joel, and Hazel would find a way out. They had to.

  Chapter 9

  Closing the passenger side door of the car where his daughter sat, Patrick turned and looked back at his friend’s house. Vern and Tracy were dead. Tanner as a town was dying. There was nothing left for them there now. Finally, it was time to leave.

  The last couple of days had been incredibly difficult on everyone. Of the original residents of Tanner, only a small handful remained, Doctor Reeves among them. Vern had been the first to die, Patrick’s dear friend struggling to get out of bed the morning after the night they had spent in the doctor’s makeshift garden bar. Patrick still felt incredibly guilty about that night, remembering how he had failed to comfort Vern when he had reached out for support. It was likely something that would haunt him for many days to come, yet another person that he had been unable to save.

  Tracy had lost all her fight after him. Patrick couldn’t blame her. She had watched her husband die, knowing it was a fate that would befall her sooner or later. He wasn’t surprised her body had willed it to be sooner. Tracy had died peacefully in her sleep at least, instead of keeled over and gasping for breath like her husband.

  Patrick winced at the memory of it, a shiver running down his spine. So many others had gone the same way as Vern. They didn’t deserve i
t, their deaths much slower and likely more painful than anyone else’s had been. The worst part of it was they were all unable to ask for help. Unable to even cry. When the end finally came for them, they couldn’t say their goodbyes or tell the people around them that they were loved. There was only silence. A vast emptiness that only grew as the death toll of Tanner continued to increase each day.

  The place really was a ghost town now. The weather had turned from bad to worse, a snowstorm blowing through the trees and drenching the small town in a carpet of gray. It wasn’t even white like snow should be, already polluted by the toxic ash before it hit the ground. Even Allie was unable to enjoy it. There was no tobogganing or snowmen to build, no chasing each other through the streets throwing snowballs. The residents of Tanner merely watched the snow fall from the windows, knowing it signified that the end was near.

  “Patrick!” Deb’s voice caught on the wind, carrying over to Patrick just before he climbed into the car himself. “Wait!”

  “Deb,” Patrick replied, his voice somewhat muffled through the cut pieces of fabric he wore over his mouth in an attempt to filter the poisonous air and stop the ash from shredding his lungs like it had to the original residents of Tanner. “What is it? You shouldn’t be outside in this.”

  Snow flew through the air on the wind, creating a haze that was difficult to see through. Still Deb ran through it toward the car, a small object clutched in her hand. “Here,” she said, handing it over to Patrick. “For Allie.”