Cost of Survival

by Bonnie R. Paulson

  Pressing her lips together, Mom cast a fleeting look over her shoulder and then back to me. “No, I’m sorry. I know you’re tired and ready to stop for the night, but we need to keep going. We’re supposed to be at the checkpoint in two days. At this rate, we might not make it in a week.” She slowly caught her breath as she focused on inhaling through her nose and exhaling through rounded lips.

  Her priorities had shifted from working and crafts to center around the checkpoint, the camp, the group, the preparations, etc. Nothing ever came before preparing for the impending war. Even her prayer circle had its own time and place. Mom only went to church if she determined the situation was safe. Too many people trying to topple Christ, she said.

  I didn’t know anything about that. All I knew was that most of the kids at school had left to be homeschooled and the ones who continued attending were too scared to ask their parents if the world was crashing while we sat unprotected at our desks.

  In my case, I guess I should’ve asked about being unprotected in the bathroom. Oh, crap What if I had actually been using the toilet when the bombs had started? A shiver trickled through me, standing my arm hair on end.

  “Kelly, are you listening to me?” Mom snapped her fingers in front of my eyes. Her nails were cut short and she’d been picking at her cuticles.

  I blinked. “Yes, I am. What are we going to do?”

  “We’re going to go over the rules again while we take another second to catch our breath. After, we’ll find a place to make camp. We can go down early, so we can get an early start.” She lifted three fingers. “Name—”

  Cutting her off, I covered her hand with mine. How did I make her understand I wasn’t a toddler? “I know the rules, Mom. You don’t have to keep reciting them to me.”

  “Then let’s hear them. In the proper order, Kelly.” She arched her eyebrows and waited, not lowering her hand.

  The proper order. Always the order. If she didn’t stop issuing demands, I would consider changing the order, just to set her on edge. Okay, it was a weak threat, but I was too tired and irritated to play her games. Yes, thankfully, she had been prepared for the chaos, but part of me worried maybe everything had happened because of people like Mom who had worried it into happening.

  Oh, wow, I better play along before my fatigue had me convinced Mom was the one behind the entire world falling apart.

  Clenching my teeth, I inhaled through my nose. To give her the benefit of the doubt, I could believe she didn’t know how irritating the repetition was. She might not know her rules didn’t fit with what I was trying to do with my life. But the resolve in her set jaw and tightening of her cheeks indicated none of that mattered.

  I glanced at her hand, the fingers waiting for me with more patience than her expression. Fighting the urge to roll my eyes, I muttered. “Pray. Trust no one. Stay alive.” While staying alive fit in with my plans, I couldn’t guarantee that I wouldn’t trust people, and praying just wasn’t me.

  Her faith hadn’t passed to me like her brunette hair and blue eyes had. Faith had skipped me as surely as Bodey, the captain of the math team – yep, homeschooled, too – had passed me by. Over and over. Like I didn’t exist. Since he’d graduated my opportunities had become more scarce to try for his attention. Even though we knew each other and often said hi, he wouldn’t think about me right then... not at the end of the world.

  Didn’t matter now. He was probably dead. Like everyone else.

  She inclined her head, finally dropping her hand. “Good. Let’s get to the forest, break to the north of Rathdrum, and stop. We should be out of the immediate crowds and a closer to the checkpoint.”

  What crowds? I nodded. Even frustrated I wouldn’t abandon her. No way would I leave Mom, not when we only had each other. Where would I go? Running away wasn’t my style, especially at the beginning of a war predicted by historians as the war to obliterate the human species. People interested in history could be so vague.

  Plus, she was all I had. I couldn’t forget that.

  And I loved her. My mom.

  We fell into step again, me behind, like a practiced funeral march.

  ~~~

  Left, right, left, right, left, right. Oh, for the love, I almost fell over on that one. I shook my head to wake up. We had been walking for quite a while. An hour or two?

  The darkness of night had fallen to mask the majority of the scenery around us. There was no light anywhere – except in the sky.

  “I’ve never seen so many stars.” My mom’s whisper reached me as I walked forward, coming abreast of her.

  Glancing upward, even in my fatigue I couldn’t deny the simple beauty laid out over me like the thickest of blankets with no end in sight. “Yeah, me neither.”

  “Do you know God intended for His children to outnumber the stars?” Mom didn’t slow her steps, but spoke into the black void around us, with her head tilted back to view the skies.

  I didn’t answer. Everything she said would turn back to her beliefs. When Dad and Braden hadn’t come back home, I had looked away from the faith she held so close. What guiding hand would take a father and son who hadn’t done anything? During school at the time, I think we had been studying something from the Naturalist’s Handbook. The theories in those pages had been easier to grasp than the one which stated I “was loved and redeemed but my family didn’t get to stay.”

  Nothing seemed fair since.

  Changing the subject, I pointed at the houses in the distance – their rooftops stark against the well-lit night sky. “Looks like the electricity is out everywhere. Do you think anybody wasn’t affected?”

  “If not, it wouldn’t be for long. We’re too close to the Fairchild Air Force Base. Of course, our area would take the brunt of the attack. If we head too far east, we’ll run into the missile fields of Montana and the Navy bases of Athol and Sandpoint. Straight north of Post Falls? We’re looking at a richer option – one filled with others who think like us as well as a small community for the safer-group co-op – just north of here.” She didn’t even hunch over as she walked with the weight of her bag on her shoulders.

  “Can we use our flashlights?” My logic made sense. With no one around to see the light, we didn’t have anything to be in danger of. We could walk with a faster pace if we didn’t need to squint at anything we weren’t ready for. “Nobody’s out here.”

  “No, using them just wouldn’t be smart. Noises are already stupid, but add in lights? We might as well hold up a neon sign to our location. People are out there. Trust me.” She veered off the sidewalk and walked through someone’s yard.

  Suddenly we left the illusion of a safe fenced-in-mentality of a neighborhood and entered the forest. Hopefully, we would lose ourselves in the dark twists and turns as we located somewhere to camp.

  I refused to argue. We’d left the monotony of the sidewalks and landed on a smoothly packed gravel drive. At least the crunch of my footsteps created enough distraction I didn’t fall asleep with the cadence.

  Another thirty minutes or so passed in silence.

  Mom stopped abruptly and I slammed into her back. “Oh, sorry.”

  “Shh.” She shook her head and grabbed my arm. Pointing off the drive, she muttered. “We’ll make camp in there. Remember the rules, Kelly, and you’ll be fine.” She leaned over and squeezed me. I’m not sure what she was getting at with the pseudo-comfort, but her reassurances were there and I’m not too proud to admit it worked.

  Chapter 4

  The direction Mom pointed took us over a roughed-in trail with low hanging branches. Walking another five minutes at a sketchy pace I hesitated to actually call a walk, we stopped in a clearing about ten feet wide – just enough to let the starlight in.

  We set up our sleeping rolls at the base of a tree whose shadow suggested it was gnarled and twisted, entwined with another trunk. Soft deadfall from the previous autumn and winter muffled our movements as we shuffled around our temporary site.

  Spring in the nort
hwest is notorious for warm days and chilly nights. The temperature had dropped with the setting of the sun hours before and I shivered in my multiple layers.

  Mom reached into my backpack’s extra side pocket – the thing had a ton of those – and pulled out a balaclava which she tossed at me. “Pull this on. You’ll be warmer sleeping in it.”

  I pulled the full-headed hat over my tight bun. The mask part covered my mouth and nose. Fleece always gave an illusion of instant warmth. I didn’t want to focus on the warm memories of Braden and I laughing at the name the first time we’d heard it. Balaclava sounded like baklava the amazing Turkish pastry Dad loved so much. Braden had tried licking my head the entire day I’d had that stupid hat on, he kept saying how yummy my head looked.

  Little Braden. Loved that kid.

  Missed that kid.

  Tears pricked at my eyes and my mouth dried up. Braden would be twelve, if he were still alive. Five years younger than me. He would nudge me as we ate something Mom gave us and giggling. Braden always giggled.

  Dad would turn to us and lift his eyebrow, while holding Mom’s hand. He always touched her, hand-holding or twirling a piece of her hair, or brushing his fingers over her shoulder. Dad had loved Mom even without telling her.

  Breaking through my reverie, Mom’s abrupt movements didn’t rough up the silence of the hour. “Don’t unpack too much. We’re only sleeping here, and not for long. Not even the full night, okay?” Her voice barely carried to me as she hunkered down on the ground in a half-squat with her sleeping bag wrapped around her shoulders and back.

  She dug into one of her bag’s pockets, tossing me a dense protein bar, a banana, and another sandwich. “Eat that. They’ll stick with you a while longer than a normal candy bar.”

  I didn’t question her logic as I tore open the plastic wrapper and bit off a chunk. The rustling of the cellophane startled me with its loudness, but didn’t stop me. Mom could have given me a plate of weeds and rocks and I could have eaten it without argument. “Thanks, Mom.” I mumbled around the thick grainy snack.

  Braden had hated those stupid bars.

  She folded her hands and closed her eyes, bowing her head.

  Lately, I ignored prayers at dinner and at bedtime. My mom, she never forgot. I shifted uncomfortably on the leaves beneath my butt and chewed slower until she lifted her head and took her first bite. Like, if I paused or something it would be enough reverence for whomever she spoke to.

  She swallowed, the movement barely recognizable in the dark. “Don’t drink too much water, you don’t want to need to use the bathroom out here this late at night.” I know survival was the name of the game, but she could’ve relaxed a bit, at least try not to sound like a demanding drill sergeant all the time.

  We finished eating in silence. She held out her hand and I passed her my garbage before sipping – only sipping – from my water bottle. Pushing our backpacks against the tree, she motioned for me to turn around. I spun on my rear and we lay down, back to back.

  Security from having my mom so close to me stabilized my nerves. My breathing deepened. With a soft breeze tickling the leaves and needles overhead, I drifted easily into a solid sleep.

  ~~~

  I rubbed my nose, blinking into the blacker night – blacker? How was that even possible? But my breath rebounded into my face. The balaclava had slipped up over my face, covering my eyes as well.

  A small tug pulled the hood back into position. The night had deepened. Stars blinked brighter like I could reach up and push them around. What had wakened me?

  Thud. Angry male voices carried on the muted night air.

  A person cried out. Like a woman. Like —

  I reached out behind me, sitting up, grasping for Mom in the tousled pile of sleeping bag and needles.

  My hand only crinkled the empty blanket. Turning fully around, I slapped the blanket in case she had fallen asleep and I hadn’t woken her up. The blanket sank beneath my hits and I encountered nothing but sleeping bag.

  Unable to fully comprehend what was happening, I gripped the edges of her bag and shoved it fully into the top of her pack. Once I loaded it all the way, I zipped the pocket closed and did the same with my bag and pack.

  Seconds. I didn’t have more than seconds. In all the practices Mom had me run through, she hammered the importance of time into my head.

  I didn’t dare speak or make a sound. She had taught me on our camping trips that in survival situations, more times than not, men sought a way to hurt women and women would find a way to survive – even if that meant stealing or killing.

  Her knowledge had never seemed more real than in that dark moment on the ground. Mom had purchased bags we could strap onto each other in case either of us needed to carry more than one bag. Connecting them, I reached into the hidden pocket on the back of Mom’s bag and pulled out her .9 mm Glock. The gun’s commanding size weighed down my wrists.

  Firing the thing had become second nature to both my mom and me. Multiple weekends camping and shooting in the woods would do that to a girl and her mom. Especially after Dad and Braden hadn’t returned from their trip.

  I drew the double-pack on my back, tucking my chin at the excess weight.

  Hide. I had to hide.

  Large bushes lined the west part of the clearing Mom had brought us to. I bear-crawled to the low hanging branches and tucked in underneath. Bugs and spiders and all kinds of creepy things most likely called that place home, but I bit my inner cheek and stared out into the night.

  Gripping the handle of the gun, I held the weapon on the ground by my face. Cold metal reminded me I couldn’t cry or make a sound. I had a dang gun beside my cheek!

  The only thing keeping me from chasing after Mom was her orders to not look for her, if anything happened. But oh, my gosh, I couldn’t... what if? Too many variables – too many to contemplate and NOT chase after her. Find her. But she’d ordered me to never chase after her because it could be endangering to both of us.

  I didn’t want her in more danger.

  Mom had to make it back. What was happening to her? For the first time in a long while, I closed my eyes and whispered to anyone who might be listening. “Please, bring her back. Please.”

  ~~~

  The snapping of a twig off to my right woke me from what had to be the worst night of sleep I’d ever had. Rubbing my eyes, I winced at the sensation of sand under my eyelids from exhaustion.

  Dawn crept in, pinks and oranges mixing softly with whites and creams. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t hear my mom the rest of the night.

  I shifted my head from the side of the gun I had ended up using as a makeshift pillow.

  Where had Mom gone? Why wasn’t she by me and why hadn’t the men gotten me too?

  Another sound, like the scuffing of a heavy boot on rocks drew my attention to the right of my hiding place. I crept backward a few more inches. The bush might not be large enough to cover me. What if my feet hung out the other side?

  My fingers hurt from holding the firearm so long. I switched to the other hand, my fingers tight and crooked, almost numb.

  A cough and more dragging and footfalls held my stare like a crash site. I couldn’t look away from the approximate spot the noise came from.

  Something crawled along the back of my hand. I swallowed my shriek and brushed it off without passing out. Bugs. I hated bugs. Oh, man, how I hated them. A shiver skimmed down my neck. Yes, a shiver, a shiver, a shiver. Please not another bug. Please. Oh, please.

  Braden used to throw fake ones over the curtains while I stood in the shower. Wow, that was just two years ago. A wave of sadness engulfed me as I struggled to stay calm.

  Then, as if magically conjured, two men appeared on the edge of the clearing. Between them they dragged what I could only assume was Mom. My mom. And she wasn’t conscious. Her head bobbed with each step and they dragged her over the uneven ground. Each had a hold of an arm.

  I bit my lip, intent on them not seeing me, like my own
will determined what people saw or didn’t see. Was she still alive?

  The man closest to me stopped short and kicked at the ground. “Are you sure she came from this way?” His deep low tones could’ve been on a radio.

  “Look, man, I know what I saw. She can’t be alone. If she is? She won’t be without supplies. She’s gotta be worth something, either way.” The second man tugged on Mom’s arm like a tow-strap. “Come on. She’s not light.”

  I held my breath as they passed five feet from me. From my angle, Mom’s discolored face tore through me. His last line – she’s not light – filled me with rage. Like my mom was a bag or animal or something. She could be annoying, but she wasn’t heavy for crying out loud. She was my mom!

  Clenching the butt of the gun until my knuckles cracked, I closed my eyes when they left my view. What was I going to do? I couldn’t leave her with them. She needed me. Was I going to sit there and wait for more bugs to crawl on me?

  One, two, three... I found the pace of my pulse and counted... eight, nine, ten. A trick I learned running. Find my pulse or my footsteps and keep time. Let the numbers do their thing. Thirty-nine, forty, forty-one.

  When I reached one-hundred, I Army-crawled from beneath the bushes and leaves. Standing, I brushed at every inch of my head, back, chest, legs, and arms I could reach. Everything got a shake down. Nothing was going to harbor any bugs. I’d read about ticks and other things. I shuddered, pulling my shoulders back and thrusting my chin forward.

  The balaclava had helped me keep the majority of them out of my hair. For a while anyway, that thing wasn’t coming off.

  With a jostle to position the packs higher on my back, I headed off in the direction the men had disappeared. Gripping the gun, I couldn’t help the small tic of my pointer finger tapping the trigger guard. Muzzle down, I wouldn’t hit anything important, but the movement made me confident since I had a gun so handy.

  Oh, but even if I was really great – like the greatest shot ever – I would still only hit like twenty-five percent of my targets. Even at the gun range, I only ever hit five percent. Five percent! I didn’t stand a chance. Especially if the men moved.