“How long you been here, Cornelius?”
“A few weeks now. I think. I really don’t know anymore.”
“Do you have family?”
Cornelius was already slightly annoyed at the questions the man was asking. The last question, in particular, solicited an emotional response. Cornelius covered his face with his hands and pulled his knees up to support his elbows as he wept.
Byron had struck a nerve. He looked to his left and saw his wife and two daughters sitting there by his side. He knew that Cornelius had lost his loved ones, and he felt horrible for snooping. He didn’t know what to say, so he said the first thing that came to his mind. “When the Enclave first came through my area, I thought about resisting them. I knew that if I did, my decision to do so would cost me my life and probably their lives, too. I don’t know what you’ve lost, but if you want to talk, I’m here to listen.”
Cornelius was used to doing the listening. Byron was offering him something greater than he could repay: an ear. He sniffed his runny nose and wiped his eyes on his shoulder. His hands were no longer covering his face when he turned his face upward with his head leaning against the wall of the barn. There was a secret he wanted to tell Byron, but he knew he couldn’t trust him enough to say it. So he kept that to himself and began to share what he could.
“I used to live in a little community east of here. It was me and my wife; she was four months pregnant when the Pulse happened. I was at work, like many Americans, and panicked. I spent so much time trying to find out what was going on that I neglected my greatest priority –”
“Your wife?”
Cornelius nodded his head. “If I had left for home sooner –”
“It’s okay. If you can’t talk, that’s fine.”
Cornelius let out a large exhale. “I’m sorry.”
“There’s no reason to be sorry, Cornelius.”
“I worked an hour from home,” he added with a look at Byron. “An hour by car. It took me a day to get to her. When I did, she wasn’t there. I waited so long. The community banded together and tried to make something of what was left. The politicians were a bunch of left-wing idealists, so the first time a man was shot for stealing, they confiscated our firearms. Ten more people died during that squabble. About a year and a half after that, rumors of an omen began to circulate. Nobody believed the stories – a mass of migrating crows and boogeymen that lived in their shadows.”
“I heard those stories, too, more recently though. I remember seeing the crows for days on end. Curiosity got me. That’s when we were captured.”
Cornelius looked at Byron and wondered why he hadn’t noticed that there were no kids and very few wives. He wanted to say something, but fear of what might come gripped his heart thinking about it. Cornelius felt that he might be worth something to Denver now, but anything could change. He wasn’t about to do something stupid that might tip the balance.
“How were you captured?” Byron asked when he saw Cornelius was struggling with his emotions again.
“I remember attending a town hall meeting with the mayor and other leaders of the community about the rumors of the Omen. We didn’t know the group as the Enclave at that point; all we knew were that those birds kept getting closer and closer until the shooting started. It didn’t last long. There were only a few armed men. The rest of us ran and hid. I went to the church and hid in the pulpit.” Cornelius realized he’d already said too much. His secret was out, so he finished his story. “That’s when they found me. They said Denver had killed his last preacher and they needed a new one. I’ve been playing the part ever since.”
Byron realized his storyteller was exposing himself to danger for even speaking the words openly. He looked about to see that no one was eavesdropping. The coast was clear.
“Your secret’s safe with me, preacher man.”
Cornelius looked up at Byron again. “Byron?”
“Yeah?”
He wanted to warn him about his family’s safety, but he was afraid for his own. “Have a good night,” he said, supplanting his original thought.
“Good night, preacher.”
Cornelius rolled over and closed his eyes. Byron could tell he was dealing with more than he was letting on. He assumed Cornelius was dealing with Stockholm syndrome. He was right. Cornelius was staying loyal to Denver out of fear.
It wasn’t yet dark, but Cornelius’s eyes were closed, and his mind was adrift with the knowledge that Byron’s family probably wouldn’t survive the Cleanse.
Mitchell Homestead
Tonya and Carissa sat on the living room couch and watched Andy play with Jimmie’s childhood toys in the quickly dimming front room. Carissa had barely said a word since Darrick had stepped off to look for her husband. The silence was awkward and made Andy’s playtime seem almost deafening. Hoping to break the ice, Tonya asked Carissa a question. “So how did you and Jimmie meet?”
Carissa stood up and walked over to the window. For a second, Tonya thought she was ignoring her. Instead, she peeled the curtain back and said, “You see that car over there in the corner of the yard?”
Tonya stood up and walked to the window. “Yeah?”
“That’s a 1974 Torino. It belonged to my daddy’s daddy.” Carissa’s mind was now on her dad, and Tonya could tell her distraction was working. “Would you believe that I was driving down that road when it ran out of gas right in front of this house?”
“No kidding? How’d it run after the Pulse?”
“I don’t know. Jimmie said that some of the older cars that were made before computer chips could withstand an EMP. I think it has something to do with a lack of sensitive electrical systems. Basically, there’s not too much in it that an EMP can damage.”
“So why aren’t you driving it around now?”
“And risk getting carjacked? No, thank you! I’ll let the weeds grow up around it. It’s empty anyway. We haven’t had gasoline around here in some time. Jimmie worries that if we overreach for resources that we absolutely don’t need, we can become dependent upon it and risk detection.”
“Jimmie sounds like a nervous Nelly.”
“Maybe, but he’s kept us alive this long. I needed someone like him in my life. Not just to keep me safe, but to make me feel safe. I lost that when my daddy died.”
“I’m sorry. When did he pass?”
“The Pulse killed him. He was sick anyway. He had the cancer and he was on a vent. Could barely breathe on his own. The health care system failed him. I was there when it happened.”
Tonya watched as Carissa’s eyes welled with tears. She’d taken her from one stressor to another. She felt like she couldn’t win for trying.
“He suffocated to death. He was squeezing my hand and –”
Carissa started to choke up. Tonya moved in closer and pulled her in for a hug. “I’m sorry you had to endure that.”
Carissa sobbed on Tonya’s shoulder. “If something has happened to Jimmie…”
“Nothing’s happened to Jimmie. You just get that out of your head. Darrick went out to find him. If there’s one thing Darrick does good, it’s find people.”
“How do you get good at finding people?” Carissa asked, pulling away from Tonya’s hug and wiping her nose.
“He doesn’t talk about it too much. He won’t admit it, but I think he has some issues that he brought back from the war. He called it a QRF.”
“What’s that?”
“I don’t have a clue. It had something to do with getting in fast and getting out fast. Like I said, he doesn’t talk much about it.”
“I hope you’re right. I hope he can find Jimmie.”
“You have my word. My Darrick will find Jimmie.”
There was a knock at the back.
Carissa and Tonya stood motionless and looked at each other. “I didn’t hear it. Was that the secret knock?” Carissa asked. They’d securely fastened the house when they came back in.
“Open up. It’s me,” they heard Darric
k say.
Both of the women ran excitedly to the back door. They reached it at the same time and laughed as their hands fumbled over the deadbolt. Laughter turned into silence when the door was open.
“Where’s Jimmie?” Carissa asked.
“I thought he came back,” Darrick answered. “He’s not at the Berts’.”
“No, he didn’t come back,” Carissa said, her voiced raised. She looked at Tonya. “He’s good at finding people, huh?”
Tonya felt bad. She had so much trust in Darrick’s capabilities and was surprised when he didn’t come back with his brother. She was left speechless.
Carissa stood there for a moment, pondering her next move. Obviously frustrated at both Darrick and Tonya for getting her hopes up, she said, “Fine, I’ll go find him myself,” charging past Darrick and Kara.
Tonya saw Darrick’s company. “Who’s the chick?”
Darrick ignored Tonya’s question, choosing to focus on Carissa’s rash move toward the Berts’ homestead. “Where do you think you’re going?” he called out to her. She was well on her way. Darrick ran after her, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her around.
“I’m going to do what you couldn’t,” she shot back.
“It’s not safe out there. You’ll be killed.”
“If I die, it’ll be trying to find my husband!”
Kara was listening to the argument. Tonya was looking at Kara. She was studying her and couldn’t help but recognize her bruises. She wasn’t so much concerned about them as she was what she felt might be her competition. Darrick had never given his wife a reason to doubt his fidelity, but the stranger was an attractive woman.
Kara’s attention was turned to the argument between Darrick and Carissa. Muffled sounds were all that Tonya was hearing when Kara suddenly blurted out, “I know where Jimmie is.”
Darrick and Carissa were so heated that they didn’t hear the comment. Tonya heard the first time.
Kara raised her voice over the dispute. “I know where Jimmie is,” she repeated.
Darrick stood still and in a state of confusion as Carissa left her brother-in-law to confront the stranger.
“Do I know you from somewhere?” Carissa asked.
“My partner and I passed through here a couple of weeks ago. Your Jimmie gave us some food. I know where he’s at.”
Darrick heard the comment. “What do you mean you know where he’s at? Why did you follow me all the way home if –” Darrick immediately assumed the worst-case scenario. He grabbed the woman and overpowered her to the ground.
“What are you doing?” Carissa shouted. “She knows where Jimmie is.”
“She doesn’t know where Jimmie is. She just wanted to see where the homestead is, and now she wants to lead us away. Think about it.”
Darrick was struggling with Kara when she said, “You’re the one who invited me here. I don’t want anything from you.”
Darrick looked up at Tonya, who was still standing near the kitchen door. “Fetch me some rope.”
Tonya ran into the house.
“Let me go,” Kara cried out. Her mind began to flash back to her recent past. Memories of rape and segregation darkened her mind. Through the darkness she heard Carissa’s voice. “Darrick, she said she knows where Jimmie is.”
“She’s lying, Carissa!”
“I can show you,” Kara pleaded.
“You can tell me,” Darrick said.
Kara became nervously quiet.
“What if she’s telling the truth, Darrick?”
“It’s too much of a risk.”
“Carissa, right?” Kara asked.
“Yeah?”
“I know where Jimmie is, but –”
“But what?”
“I’m telling you this now because it’s too dangerous to go back.”
Tonya came running out of the house with some rope and handed it to Darrick. She was all too happy to see that Darrick wasn’t enthralled with the woman’s good looks. Darrick began tying the woman’s wrists behind her back.
“Please don’t,” she cried.
Carissa, taken aback by her words of knowledge of Jimmie’s whereabouts and her cries, lunged toward Darrick and knocked him over. Kara stood up and went to work shaking off the rope that hadn’t been knotted yet. Carissa jumped between Kara and Darrick while he was standing back up. He was content seeing that Kara wasn’t running away. That bought him some time to confront them both.
“If she’s lying, we could all be in serious jeopardy,” he said, arm raised and finger pointing.
Elder Mitchell came barging out the back door. “What’s all the ruckus?”
The old man stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Kara. “Tina?”
Darrick rolled his eyes and dropped his arm. Tina was Darrick and Jimmie’s mother. She had been deceased for some time. “Not now, Dad,” Darrick said.
Kara knew by Darrick’s earlier description that the old man had Alzheimer’s disease.
Darrick passed in front of Carissa to assist with his father. When he did, Kara left her safety behind Carissa and ran up next to him and whispered, “The woods.”
Darrick didn’t catch her drift. “The woods? What are you talking about?”
Kara was too nervous to clarify any further. It was obvious she was keeping a secret, a secret that became suddenly clear to Darrick as he thought about her two-word clue.
“Oh God,” he said, realizing what she meant. It was the cue words and the sad look in her teary eyes that gave it away. Kara knew Darrick was a good man. She had no ill-intended plot, as Darrick had wrongfully suspected. She was just a woman too afraid to tell the truth for fear of causing pain to people she barely knew.
Carissa was confused. She heard Darrick question the stranger’s whisper, but didn’t manage to put it together the way Darrick had. Perhaps out of a lack of intuition, or maybe a lack of willingness to accept another tragedy into her life. “What’s going on?” Carissa asked, her eyes now filling with tears.
Darrick studied the horizon, pacing back and forth with an intense fervor to take action. The sun was almost down, and it was too late to leave. He looked at Carissa, knowing each of them was going to have a long night.
Carissa looked at the stranger. “What did you whisper to him?”
Kara looked at Darrick, but all he said was, “We’ll bring Jimmie home in the morning.”
Carissa now understood the gravity of the stranger’s whisper. Her knees buckled beneath her and she fell to the ground. Darrick reached down and pulled her up for an embrace.
Tonya felt lost in the moment and took elder Mitchell by the hand and led him back into the house. She looked back over her shoulder to see that Kara was staying by Darrick’s side. Tonya wanted to, but something about the situation drove her away. She didn’t care to speak out or to share any feelings or thoughts that might have been on her mind. She just wanted to be somewhere else. A hint of jealousy was upon her. Watching her man caress another woman, even a woman in mourning, was affecting her judgment. It never had before. Why now? Maybe it was because of Kara. Or maybe it was because she was tired and feeling emotional. Whatever the reason, Tonya put old man Mitchell to bed. The whole time he was calling for his deceased wife, Tina, the woman Tonya knew to be Kara, the woman by Darrick’s side.
“Where is she?” elder Mitchell asked.
“She’s outside. Try to get some sleep.”
“Why’s she outside? I took care of the tractor thingy. She thinks she can fix it, but I’ve had my hands on that ol’ John Deere for years,” he said, holding them up. He was shocked to see how old looking his hands were. “What happened to my hands?”
“You’re getting old,” she answered. “Your hands aren’t what they used to be.”
“Old? I’ll show you old,” he said, trying to sit up. Tonya was able to hold him on the bed with just one hand. Elder Mitchell was shocked at his lack of strength. He was deeply confused, not knowing that he was a sick man. He relaxed backwards,
and his mind roamed for a second. He spoke two words that made Tonya believe he was having a moment of clarity.
“Where’s Jimmie?”
“Jimmie’s –” Tonya hesitated, not knowing what answer she might give. “Jimmie’s with Tina,” she answered thoughtfully.
“Good. I love that boy. I can’t believe he’s twelve years old already. I have to be strict on him because if I don’t, the world’ll chew him up and spit him out. I see it getting more dangerous all the time, and I worry about that.”
Tonya considered his words and finished tucking him in. “I know you love your wife and son. They’ll be in as soon as they get done trying to show you up with their handiwork on the tractor.”
Elder Mitchell looked upon the face of the pretty lady. The room was dark, and he tried to recognize her, but he couldn’t. “Who are you again?”
“I’m a nobody. Good night, James,” she said, kissing him on the forehead before leaving.
The next morning
August 14th
Darrick awakened with the mindset to go find Jimmie. It had been a long sleepless night. He had lain awake much of the night, staring into the darkness, contemplating the recovery of his brother’s body. It was also a sad night. No sooner than he gained control of his tears, he would think about Jimmie and would whisk away to their childhood, releasing a deluge of tears. The sniffles that followed kept Tonya up much of the night. She knew Darrick was mourning the loss of his brother, so she did little to interfere in the grieving process.
Darrick might have been sorrowful over the death of Jimmie, but one thing angered him above all: the manner in which he had been discarded, like human refuse. He was glad he’d killed those three men; however, in the back of his mind he knew a reckoning was to follow. Those men belonged to a group known only as the Omen, and he knew nothing about them. Darrick knew that he would have to keep his wits about him if he was to keep his family and homestead safe from discovery.
Before Darrick could leave, he first needed to confront Kara as to why she hadn’t told him his brother was dead. He needed some answers to the questions that made his mind roam all night long. Kara, Andy, Darrick, and Tonya all slept in the front room. Darrick took the chair and slept upright with a rifle in his lap. Kara and Tonya slept on the couch with their heads on opposing ends. Andy had a pallet on the floor.
After The Pulse (Book 1): Homestead Page 6
