“What’s your problem with Kara?” Darrick asked.
“I saw how she looked at you. She was moving in on you. You’re my husband, not hers. You treated her a little better than you treated me, and that didn’t sit well with me.” Tonya no sooner said that statement than she fell off the chair and onto the floor. “Argh,” she cried out. Darrick and Carissa ran to her.
“What’s going on, Tonya?” Carissa asked.
“She’s been unmedicated for too long. She’s in pain. I think it’s spreading.”
“What’s spreading?”
“Jimmie didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“Tonya has ovarian cancer. It should be in its advanced stages by now, and there’s nothing we can do about it.”
Overwhelmed by the news, Carissa stood up and backed away from them both.
Darrick saw her response. “Don’t worry, it’s not contagious.”
“No, I know it’s not. It’s not that – it’s just… it’s just so much to take in. First James gets sick, then Jimmie dies, now this. There’s just so much going on. It’s overwhelming.”
“Don’t count me out yet,” Tonya said, trying to get to her feet.
Darrick assisted her and came to a realization that they were going to need a car. “Okay,” Darrick said, seemingly changing the subject.
Carissa and Tonya looked at Darrick. “Okay what?” they said almost simultaneously.
“I’ll look at the car right away. I’m sorry, Tonya. I’ve been red with anger, and I’ve forgotten what matters. Dad’s old and feeble; you’re getting sicker every day. If something does happen and we have to flee on foot – there’s just no way we can make haste with those factors working against us.”
“It’s always nice to know you’re a burden,” Tonya said with a sarcastic tone.
“It’s not that.”
“I know,” she said, touching him on the arm. “I’m just glad you’ve come to your senses.”
Darrick looked at Carissa. “How long has the car been sitting there, and what do you know about its condition?”
“It died right there in front of the house.”
“The Pulse killed it?”
“No. It’s one of the models that can survive an EMP. It just ran out of gas.”
“How long ago?”
“Several weeks after the Pulse, maybe. I don’t really remember.”
Darrick gave it some thought. “Can you take care of Tonya while I go look at the car, then?”
“I don’t need caring for. I’m fine,” Tonya said to him.
“Suit yourself. I’m going outside.”
Darrick shoveled what was left of his eggs down his throat. “Who woulda thought a woodburning stove could cook so good?” he said on the way out the door.
Carissa looked at Tonya and said, “There’s some unresolved issues between us.”
“Like what?” Tonya asked, offended by the remark.
“I was hoping you would tell me why you’ve been shooting me so many dirty looks.”
Tonya sighed. “I’m so sick of playing the antagonist in this story. I’m just going through a lot. That’s it. I might be a little emotional. There’s a lot of changes going on in this body that I can’t control.”
“I forgive you,” Carissa said, smiling at Tonya.
Tonya returned the smile.
***
Darrick used a machete to hack away a large portion of the overgrowth that was hiding the car. The hood was popped and he sat there staring under the hood and thinking out loud. “She’s been sitting here for about two years, so the carburetor will probably be nasty. The gas can may be full of condensation, and the starter is likely going to be a problem.” He pulled the dipstick out and discovered that there was almost no oil in the car. As he thought about that, he figured the cylinders would also most likely be dry, which could cause a problem even if he was able to get it started. Impossible, he thought. There’s no way this thing’s gonna run. I can probably get some gas from Dad’s old tractor, but it’ll be bad from sitting so long. I don’t see this working out.
***
Several yards away, nestled invisibly within the foliage of the Mitchells’ environment, Kara sat with a sniper rifle in hand. She was pointing it at the Mitchells’ property, surveying the area. Looking through her scope, she saw Darrick hunkered down in the engine of the old Torino. He was in her crosshairs, but her finger was not on the trigger. Darrick wasn’t the target. She scanned from right to left back over to the house and looked through the windows of the house. This would have been an impossible task without the high-powered scope, but with this rare item, she was able to see movement in the kitchen area. It was Tonya. Kara placed her finger on the trigger and snugly secured the butt of the rifle against her shoulder. This is it, she thought. Relax. This is what needs to be done. She’s a bad person. Evil, really. I can do this.
Kara’s finger began to apply pressure to the trigger. What am I doing? Disappointed in herself, whether for lack of courage or lack of internal tumult, she pulled the rifle away from her shoulder and abandoned her mission.
***
Darrick was so frustrated that the task at hand was an impossibility without the necessary resources that he slammed the car’s hood down. With the giant blind spot out of the way, he was startled to see Kara standing there near the back of the car with a sniper rifle in hand.
“Kara! Where have you been?”
“Shhh,” she said, running around to the front of the car and grabbing him by the arm. She led him to the side of the car that faced away from the house, and knelt down, pulling Darrick down with her.
“You wanna tell me what’s going on?” he insisted.
“Where should I start?” she said, looking to the clouds. “Oh yeah, your wife left me to die.”
“Left you to die?” Darrick asked, confounded at the statement. “Start at the beginning. That’s a bold accusation.”
Kara thought about all the ways she could address the situation. She knew so much about Marcus and Tonya and their relationship. What she didn’t want to do was to cause Darrick any heartache.
“What do you know about Marcus?”
“Marcus and I were in the Marines together. I already know he was here.”
“You do?”
“Yeah. He’s in the area, Tonya tried to keep it from me, but Carissa spilled the beans.”
Kara was surprised that Darrick already knew. He could read her body language as she turned her head downward and looked at the ground.
“You seem disappointed that I know,” he said.
“Not disappointed, just shocked. Did she tell you that while you were recouping, she and I went to the Omen camp and saved Marcus from certain death?”
“She told me that she went to the Omen camp, but refused to tell me why she went. She said she was separated from you, and she wasn’t sure where you went. She was being very secretive about most of the events of that night. What do you know?”
“She knew exactly where I was. She watched through a window as I was being assaulted and bound with my own rope by some smelly scumbag. She shushed me then vanished.”
“I’m sure there’s some explanation.”
“Darrick, she saw that I was overpowered, and she left me to die.”
Darrick was shocked by the news that Tonya would neglect to help Kara in a life-threatening situation. Kara saw that her story was affecting him. She was conflicted in her heart about how to proceed. She had an interest in Darrick, but he was married – married to a negligent cowardly woman who had left her to die.
She doesn’t deserve his protection. If she left me to die, what will she do to him or Andy?
It was her thought about Andy that sparked a fire in her mind to tell him about Marcus and Tonya’s moment the day Darrick walked back into her life.
“Darrick, there’s more,” she said.
He looked at her with sad eyes, hoping she didn’t have some devastating new info
rmation. He could tell that she was being sincere, and the story she shared about being assaulted and left for dead was believable, just disheartening.
Kara looked into his eyes and knew that what she was about to tell him would destroy his world. The message was on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn’t spit it out.
“What is it?” he asked.
She just looked back into his eyes and said, “The Omen is two or three hundred strong. I think we need to cut our losses and vacate the property.”
“You sound like Carissa,” he answered. “I’m not necessarily proud of being my father’s son, but this is my property now. Mine! I’ll defend it with my life. It’s why I joined the Marines – to defend the things that matter most. To live free and die hard.”
“Freedom is an illusion. Even when we had a working government, which we haven’t heard from for two years now, we were taxed into oblivion. Nothing’s free.”
“I’m free! And there’s no one going to tell me I can’t live here and do what I want on my land.”
“None of us will be left alive to live on this land; that’s what I’m trying to tell you.”
Darrick was becoming frustrated with the argument. The car couldn’t be fixed; his dad was too slow to make a trip anywhere; his wife was slowly dying; there just wasn’t a plausible answer that ended with the group making it away as a whole. “Where will we go? How will we live?”
“We’re racing against the clock. How many men have come here and not returned? It’s only a matter of time before they find us. They may already know we’re here, and if that’s the case, we’re all sitting ducks.”
Darrick turned to face the east. He knew the Omen was just a few miles away, and everything he knew about them was bad. He tried to rationalize in his mind, but deep down he knew that his promises to bury them all on his land were empty and idle threats. His other idea, to take the fight to them, seemed more viable, but equally ridiculous. At least it would buy time for him and his family to vacate the property and make it out safely.
“Kara, you said you were attacked by a man. Was he one of them?”
“I don’t know. I think so. Why?”
“Because they seem to be either paired or in groups of three. That begs the question, where’s the second or even third man?”
Darrick made up his mind. “Kara, you’re stronger than both Carissa and Tonya. You need to lead them to safety, and you need to do it as soon as possible.”
“Uh, I don’t think your wifey is gonna buy into that deal.”
“I’m not going anywhere with her,” Tonya said. She was eavesdropping from the front yard and had heard the butt end of their conversation. She walked out from behind the corner of the house to reveal herself. Kara and Darrick had been so preoccupied with their discussion that they’d let their guard down and weren’t paying attention to their environment. Even Carissa was listening from the window of the front room.
“Is that why you left me to die back at that old shack?” Kara shouted, stepping out from behind the car.
“You’re not welcome here,” Tonya answered.
“That’s not for you to decide. Darrick is the man of the house, last I saw.”
Tonya was done. She stormed toward Kara with her fists tightly clinched and decided that she was going to beat her to death. Darrick jumped between them and faced off against Tonya.
“Are you taking her side?” Tonya asked.
“That depends. Did you leave her alone to die?”
Tonya didn’t answer, but her body language gave away everything. Darrick could read her like an open book. Catching on to her deception, he asked again, “If you knew she was being attacked, why did you leave her alone?”
“I was scared,” she answered. Her true answer was still a secret that only she knew. She wanted Kara dead for more than one reason. At the time, Kara was the only other person who knew of Marcus’s and her relationship. That was later revealed to Darrick, but the other issue was that she knew Andy was conceived on the night of her encounter with both Marcus and Darrick, a clandestine moment in time that she wanted to die with Kara.
Kara was good at detecting deception. The next thing she said blurted out of her mouth without any more forethought or control. “She wanted me dead because of Andy.”
Tonya’s face turned pink. Darrick heard the words and saw Tonya’s reaction. “What do you mean, because of Andy?” he asked.
“Marcus was with Tonya the night you came back,” Kara announced. “Tonya knew that I knew and wanted me to die so that you’d never find out the truth.”
“Tonya?” Darrick said, looking to her for an answer.
The only answer she gave him was a cold shoulder. He returned it in kind by walking away toward the house.
“Where are you going?” Kara asked.
“Away,” he answered sharply. “And I hope that by morning, you guys have your drama resolved,” he said as he went.
“Darrick, wait,” Tonya shouted.
Darrick stopped in his tracks and turned around.
“I thought you were dead.”
There was nothing left for Darrick to argue. She’d moved on with his best friend because he wasn’t there for her. Marcus was. What was she to do?
“I know,” he answered, giving her a hint of hope for forgiveness. “I have some thinking to do.” Darrick ran off toward the glade. Tonya and Kara were left standing there alone in awkward silence.
Enclave Camp
“Rev,” one of Rueben’s guards shouted.
The shout startled Cornelius. “Yes?”
“Ten-Stitches would like to speak with you.”
“Okay. Where is he?”
“He’s waiting for you by the well.”
The area Rueben was calling him to was an older section of property that hadn’t been used in years. From the way the place was set up, it appeared that the ranch house was not actually the original location of the house. The owners had left the old foundation intact but demolished the old house. When the new ranch home had been built, a new foundation was poured to meet the specific requirements for the upgrades.
Cornelius was immediately frightened. Rueben had never requested to speak to him in a location so remote. The well was away from the immediate property and concealed behind the oldest barn on the property. It rested a few yards from the outhouse and served no other purpose than that of an antique toilet.
Instead of reporting immediately to Rueben, he went to locate the man who had identified himself as Byron. He seemed like a nice fellow and one whom he could trust information to. Besides, Byron had something to live for, and if this was going to be Cornelius’s last day on earth, he needed to clear his conscience first.
“Byron, do you have a minute?”
“Hey, what’s up?”
Cornelius saw Byron’s wife and daughters were still with him, and that gave him hope that he had time to act. “Listen, I don’t have much time, but there’s something you need to know.”
Byron could see that there was something serious going on. “What is it?”
“You have to get your wife and daughters away from here. Immediately.”
His wife and daughters were standing nearby, so they stood up and joined Byron to hear everything he had to say. “And why’s that?” he asked.
Cornelius was afraid to say what needed to be said. There was no easy way to say it, so he just said what first came to the forefront of his mind. “Look around, Byron. There’s no women or children because Rueben takes them and they’re never seen again.”
“Takes them? Takes them where?”
“To Denver, Rueben’s alter ego, his split personality. However you want to say it. Rueben is Denver, and if your wife and children can’t meet the rigorous demands of survival of the fittest, they’ll disappear too.” When Cornelius was done speaking his truth, he could see the terror in Byron’s wife’s and daughters’ eyes. “I’m sorry you had to hear that, but I’m afraid for my own life, and you should save
what you have left of yours.”
When he concluded his warning to Byron, he made haste to meet with Rueben over by the old well on the other side of the property.
“I was just about to give up on you, Rev,” Rueben said. He was leaning against an old wooden fence when Cornelius made his approach.
“I always come when you call for me.”
“Indeed. There’s been times I’ve questioned your loyalty, but I know in the end, you’ve done whatever was required of you. After all, Denver seems to have a lot of trust in you. Why do you think that is?”
“Because I’ve been a faithful member of the Enclave. I provide spiritual counseling and advice to Denver. He likes me because I’m steadfast.”
Rueben took his weight off the fence and started walking to where Cornelius was standing near the well. When Cornelius saw him coming, he nervously looked around and only saw two of Rueben’s three guards. He now had legitimate reasons to fear for his life. His eyes began darting around the horizon, expecting to be shot at any time.
“That look,” Rueben said when he was close enough to Cornelius to grab him.
“What look?”
“That look on your face. It’s the look that makes me nervous to be near you.” Rueben pulled his handkerchief up over his nose and mouth and then took a step back. “You’re poisonous,” he said with disgust in his voice.
“I’m not poisonous or contagious, Rueben, I assure you.”
Cornelius saw Rueben look past him. He turned to look at what Rueben was seeing. His third guard was standing there in the distance, nodding his head.
“What’s going on, Rev? I thought you said you were loyal, faithful, and steadfast?”
“I am.”
“Come. Walk wit me,” Rueben said, stepping out in front of Cornelius.
Cornelius followed a couple of steps behind Rueben, being cautious as he went. The two guards who were with Rueben were following closely behind them. Rueben led him toward the old oak tree on the other side of the ranch house. It was hundreds of years old and reached high into the sky. The lower branches had been trimmed off prior to the Pulse, giving it an extra-long trunk. When they turned the corner of the house, the old tree came into view. Cornelius was terrified by what he saw. Quite possibly the most sadistic and twisted scene of his life. Hanging by their necks, several feet off the ground, were Byron, his wife, and his two young daughters. Their feet were still kicking and their arms were flailing about as they spun from the hangman’s nooses. With each movement, the nooses tightened until they each stopped kicking and hung limp. Cornelius’s eyes were full of tears, and his mind was full of both sadness and rage.
After The Pulse (Book 1): Homestead Page 15
