I was unable to move, trying to catch my breath. I barely did when he grabbed me, yanked me from the car and threw me to the ground.
The hard fall sent a searing pain through my torso as I landed. He sailed his foot into my side, the force behind it rolled me onto my back.
He stood above me, from the angle he looked towering. Just as he lunged, he froze. The tip of an arrow emerged from the base of his throat, extended about two inches, and he dropped to his knees, before falling face first at my feet.
I inched up some from the ground and I saw West standing there holding the crossbow.
He dropped the bow to the ground and hurried to my side.
“Hey. I’m sorry.” West reached for me.
I panted to catch my breath. Overwrought with emotions over what had just transpired, I didn’t know how to react, whether to cry or scream in gratefulness. I sifted through everything I was feeling, then plopped back down to the ground.
33 – UNDER THE PAINTED SKY
“So much for the efforts of chivalry.” West kicked the flat rear driver’s side tire, it had an arrow protruding from it.
I sat on the ground my back against the car. It felt good to lean against a firm surface. It was hard to talk, my throat felt clogged and breathing was difficult. Each breath was sharp and painful. West had rewrapped my chest and that helped. “I take it … no spare?”
“No.” He stepped away from the tires, exposing Baseball Cap Man who lay on the ground, face down, arms spread, a pool of blood surrounding his upper body.
West crouched down before me, turned my focus away from the body to him. “Hey.”
My eyes drifted back to the body. “Tell me the truth, you’re really some sort of trained killer.”
West chuckled. “Don’t be too impressed. I was getting my ass kicked until the one went for you. Then it was a fair fight.”
I looked at his face and saw the evidence of his battle. His nose was swollen, as was his top lip. A huge bruise had already begun to form around his eye.
“The car is a bust. You can’t walk. I’m going to go into Louisa. It’s not that far. I think there are a bunch of houses on the way. I’ll try to get us a car. There have to be cars that weren’t running, right? It’s going to be dark soon, I need to get moving.”
“Should I wait in the car?”
“No, it’s too hot. You’ll get that forgotten baby syndrome.” He slid his hand behind my back and braced my arm. “Ready to stand?”
I nodded.
After a count of three, I stood with his help. It was painful.
“There’s a tree over there. Let’s put you under it.”
“Like Jim,” I said.
“Who is Jim?”
“From The Walking Dead show. First season, they put a guy named Jim under a tree to die.”
“That makes no sense to me but …. you aren’t going to die.” West said.
“Don’t put me under a tree.”
“It’s cooler.”
“I have a fever. I’m shivering. Everything is cold.”
“Okay. You can sit in the car, but the doors all stay open.”
“Agreed.”
West opened the driver’s side door. He moved the seat back to make room and helped me inside. He reclined the seat and handed me a bottle of water.
“I’ll be back,” he said. “Then we head out.”
“Do you think they were lying? Do you think they really did see them at the campsite?”
“Yeah, I do,” West said. “He knew Walt’s name. We have to go by there. We check it out anyhow, then head to Fredericksburg. You need to go to the med camp there. We have time. We have a little more than thirteen hours. Enough time to get to the campsite and then out of range.”
“Did you look at the map? Do you know where this camp is?”
“I do.” He looked away for a second. “It’s across the lake from North Anna.”
I whimpered out, “Oh my God. If North Anna … It’s not just radiation, if it goes …”
“No. We have time. He clasped my hand. “I’ll be right back and be as fast as I can.” He stepped back.
I didn’t release his hand. “West. Thank you.”
He forced a closed mouth smile. I released his hand and he walked away.
I was alone, but I wasn’t afraid. I was too sick and sore for that. My lips were dry, and I brought the water to my mouth, taking a sip. It was a bad angle to drink, and I choked a little on it. I kept thinking how the IV had kept me hydrated and the medicine in it helped. I felt the effects of not having it. While there was another bag, the only cannula we had was in the hand of my assailant and I wasn’t putting that back in my body.
Maybe not in the way it was intended, but that IV saved my life.
My body shivered, but the sun felt good as it beat through the windshield. Even though the clock was ticking, I was confident we would get there. I just had to wait until West returned, I closed my eyes and rested.
<><><><>
I dreamt.
It had been the first time since the event that I truly dreamt, and I wish I hadn’t.
It was horrible.
I was back on the highway, the day after leaving Gridlock. Wandering through the sea of cars, looking inside, at each face. But instead of strangers annihilated by the freak of nature, they were people I knew.
Co-workers, the cashier at the gas station, the woman who worked at the donut store … Ken, Molly. Every nameless face was suddenly no longer nameless. They were people I spoke to, cared about … loved. Maybe the dream was my subconscious way of saying that even if I didn’t know the strangers in the car, someone out there did. Someone out there loved them.
I couldn’t find Michael. I was consumed with that same panicked worry I so often had when he didn’t answer my call or text. Then I spotted him. His lifeless body was pinned between his motorcycle and the guardrail.
I walked over to him.
He opened his eyes.
“Mom.”
That one call of my name felt like it was outside my ears, loud enough to wake me, and I opened my eyes.
Silence.
No one was there. For a moment, in my deepest wishful thinking, I hoped that Michael found me, was standing outside the car calling my name.
But it was a dream, and I wished I could shake the overwhelming feeling of defeat and grief the dream brought.
I had to remind myself, I didn’t find them dead, they were alive out there … I hoped.
Then I realized it was dark. West hadn’t returned. Immediately I worried. Not because I was alone, but rather I feared something happened to him. I could hear the ticking of the wind up clock in the car, but I couldn’t see it anywhere.
I couldn’t stay in the car. I had to move forward, find West.
My head felt like I had the world’s worst hangover and my body had been hit by a truck, all while I carried an extra twenty pounds around my chest.
I swung my legs out of the car.
The moment my feet sat firmly on the asphalt and I tried to stand, daggers of pain shot from my hips to my chest. I grabbed onto the door to aid me in standing. I just had to move, work my muscles and I’d be fine. Using the car as a crutch, I moved forward. The smell outside the car was unbearable. The pungent smell of death filled the air from the fresh bodies and the old ones still remaining in the cars. Just as I arrived at the hood of the car, wondering how I would move forward without holding on, I saw the headlights approaching.
They grew closer and the tires rolled over the loose gravel as the car came to a stop.
I shielded my eyes, blinded by the headlights and I heard the car door open.
“Audrey, what the hell are you doing?” West asked. “I told you I would be back.”
He did and he was.
<><><><>
“Sorry I took so long,” West said as he drove. “I checked every house, it became hard looking for keys, and the process was taking forever. Please drink your water.”
“Finally, I found a dealership in Louisa. There’s enough gas to get us to Fredericksburg.”
“How are you?” I asked.
“Sore as hell. But I’ll be fine. You?”
“Sore as hell. I feel better, though.”
“Do you?”
“Yeah. Tired. A part of this feels like a dream. Like I’m hallucinating.”
“You may be. Neither of us has really slept in two days.”
“Don’t be so sure. I had a hell of a dream. Which means I slept. I can drive.”
West laughed at that.
He narrated the short trip to Louisa. “That’s the house where I grabbed the power drink,” or “That house had a kick ass SUV, I couldn’t find the keys” and “I could smell the bodies outside the bed and breakfast so I didn’t go in.”
Louisa was a short, one main road, town where American flags hung on the lampposts lining the street. When we passed the car dealership, West slowed down to show me. I saw where he busted the front window.
It was also the point when he told me, “Fifteen miles. That’s all. Fifteen miles.”
Fifteen miles to the campsite, forty until Fredericksburg and twenty until we cleared the ten mile radius danger zone. We were in it, officially in it, the moment we drove through Louisa.
I reflected back to the days when I’d take road trips, sixty miles always took sixty minutes. I thought that was about to the campsite and then Fredericksburg.
I wouldn’t take long to get to the camp, to search and hopefully find my family, then go onward. Our window of safety was vast due to the minimal amount of travel we had.
We both were positive that the people of Waynesboro were at the campground. The two men had the truck and knew the Mayor’s name. I could see Walt giving them the truck, he was a good man like that. “Go home,” he probably told them. “Find your family. We aren’t going anywhere.”
Whether Walt liked it or not, once we got there we were moving them.
Quickly too.
If by some chance Michael wasn’t there, then after I was well, I would begin my search for him. Maybe even ask West if he wanted to join me. He said he needed the purpose.
The optimistic mood and fantasy of reunion was brief and ended four miles outside of Louisa as we passed the Thomas Jefferson Elementary school.
The nighttime sky lit up and the car illuminated with a daylight brightness. The radio crackled and hissed, but unlike before it was weird and pulsing.
“Shit.” West hit the brakes and shut off the car.
“Too soon,” I said. “It’s too soon.”
“Maybe it’s just a longer warning.” West peered closer to the windshield, then grabbed the door handle.
Snap!
I heard it.
The snap of static electricity.
He pulled back his hand quickly and looked at me.
“Did you just get shocked?”
“Yeah. Did you see that?” he asked.
“No.”
Slowly he brought his hand to the door handle again, an inch from it, the tiniest lightning bolt generated from the metal of the handle to his finger with another snap.
He jolted his hand away.
“The Faraday suit and gloves. Where are they?” I asked.
“Back at the other car.” He winced. “Sorry.”
I couldn’t help but scoff a laugh. It figured, all that trouble we went to get them, the brilliancy of the idea and we didn’t even have them when we needed them.
“We need to get out of here,” he said.
“It’s been five seconds. Maybe it’s over.”
Again, he reached for the handle and was shocked. “Nope.”
“You need an insulator. Something to pad between you and the metal so you can …” I looked down to my bandaged hand.
“What?” West asked.
I wasn’t worried about the pain, my fingers had long stopped hurting and the only pain I had was a constant dull ache in my palm. I brought my bandaged hand down to the handle, and even though my fingers wouldn’t grip it, I was able to wedge it in there and pull enough to open the door. Any pain I thought was gone, reappeared with the pressure of opening that door. I cringed, took a second, and then swung out my legs.
Zap!
The tiny prickly shocks reached out and snapped at me as I crossed the doorframe. Outside I felt renewed slightly and I shook off the pins and needle charges that moved through my body.
“Come on,” I told West.
He took off his shirt and used that to open the door. I could hear the same thing happen to him, the snaps of electric current hitting him as he made his escape.
I watched as he put his shirt back on and then I looked up.
It wasn’t daylight, but it was bright.
The sky swirled with an abundance of bright colors, streaking across the night sky. Blue, green and purple. Like mixing food coloring into cake batter, swirling … bursting. It was absolutely beautiful, but I also knew it was dangerous.
We stood ten feet in front of the car. West turned from left to right.
“Jesus, Audrey, do you feel that?” He rubbed his arms. “Do you feel it?”
The electricity was thick in the air. My ears began a dull ringing as I felt not only the hair on my arms stand on end, but my head began to tingle.
I reached up. My hair was literally standing on end I could feel the static. Just like the days when I would take off a knit cap in the winter. I ran my hand over to push it down, and it crackled.
It built, I could see it and feel it. The swirls in the sky moved quicker and grew brighter. Suddenly, it became clear that the deserted two lane road wasn’t safe. It was lined with telephone poles connected with power lines, and those lines lit up. Tiny blue surges of powers shot around like a fast growing vine.
West took hold of my arm and hurried me from the road to the open field, part of a yard to a home set back from the road in the distance.
The electricity grew in the air, it was thick, it didn’t hurt, but I could feel it moving every fiber of my body, stronger, faster. My ears rang louder as sparks of light from the power lines shot out and the night sky lit up with a breathtaking brightness that grew until it blasted down with such strength the jolt knocked us both from our feet and down into the grass of the field.
Instantly it was quiet.
Still.
Only for a moment.
I thought it was round two when the sky lit up again. This time, it wasn’t the whole sky, it came from the horizon on the east. It brightened and lit up. As I stumbled to stand, I felt the vibration of the ground.
“West?” I called his name
A second or two later.
Boom.
It was in the distance, far enough away that it echoed and I knew … I just knew.
“No.”
Suddenly I wasn’t in crushing pain, I wasn’t breathless, I was me, before I was physically hurt. I couldn’t think of anything at that moment but my family. Motivated by my fears and thoughts, I ran to the street
“Audrey!” West called me. “We have to go. Now. We have to go!”
What was wrong with his voice? It sounded weird, tinny, reverberated, with whoosh of electronics mixing with the constant high pitch ring in my ears.
“No.” I stood in the road.
How big was it? It had to be huge for me to see it from where I stood.
The sky glowed around the huge single blue flame that shot high into the air. It went from blue, to white to orange in a matter of seconds, mixing with smoke, reminding me of the old steel mill pictures I would see in schoolbooks when I was a child.
It pulsed, and with every beat of the flame, the sky took on a strobe effect.
“No!” I screamed out. “No!”
Breaking down, I fell to the concrete, screaming out as I sobbed.
I was so close, so close.
So we
re they.
I didn’t need to be a scientist, or a MIT graduate to know. If my family was indeed at that campground, then my search was over.
The power of the geomagnetic storm was too great … North Anna had exploded.
34 – ROAD WARRIOR
My will was gone. Everything I had in me poured from my soul and onto the hard surface of that road. All my fight dissipated and anything I had left to battle the physical demons of my body … left. I was depleted. My injuries and illness invaded and conquered. I was done.
West had to drag me to the car, I fought him, but that took the last of my strength.
He buckled me in and we hauled ass.
“You don’t know, Audrey,” he said. “You don’t know.”
At least that was what I thought he said. I had lost all ability to hear correctly, nothing sounded right.
“They could have gotten out. We go around and head back when you’re better. I promise.” He grabbed my hand. “Hold on.”
I wasn’t aware of much, but I knew he drove fast. He wanted to get us out of that ten mile radius. My head bounced from left to right with each swerve he made, I faded in and out.
“We’re through Louisa, we’re out of the ten miles,” he announced.
I tried to look at him, a gloss had taken over my vision, he seemed to be clouded, underwater.
“Not far to Adam. Not far at all. Hang on.”
Then the car slowed down. I heard a sputtering and then nothing.
“Shit!” he banged the steering wheel over and over. “The gauge was wrong. Son of a bitch.”
“Leave me.”
“Right.” He opened his car door and a few seconds later, he opened mine.
“I can’t.”
“Yes, yes, you can. We need to move. The doc isn’t that far. Come on. If you don’t move, I stay here.”
I nodded my head in defeat and accepted his help out of the car.
I may have failed in finding my family, but I wasn’t going to fail West. I believed him when he said he’d stay behind. He wasn’t going to leave me.
Once out of the car, he shouldered a bag he grabbed from the car, then supported me by the waist and we began our walking journey.
Above the Hush Page 15
