Cost of Survival

by Bonnie R. Paulson

  Mom reached forward and wrapped her arms around Jeanine. The tight hold calmed the woman and Mom rocked her for a minute, maybe two. After Jeanine calmed down, Mom pulled back and met her gaze. “If we go, you’re going with us. Do you think any of the other women would want to go?”

  “You would want me to go with you?” Hope sparked behind the despair in Jeanine’s eyes and the deep lines around her mouth and lining her forehead smoothed as she watched us for a trick or a lie.

  “Of course. If we’re getting out, you are, too.” Mom stood, offering her hand to Jeanine and pulling her upright. “We need a plan. Other than meal times, what kind of a schedule are we looking at?”

  “We haven’t been here long enough for one to be implemented. Charlie kept the meal schedule because he didn’t want to have so many people eating together. Mostly the perimeter watch is where the change is. He doesn’t have everyone watching, only certain guys and they aren’t from our original group. Our last chance will be by tomorrow morning. The perimeter is getting sealed so that the only things going in or out are by the front gate and with his permission.” Her lip curved wistfully. “If only our plans would’ve worked out. We had some great things going, you know?”

  “Still do, don’t give up. We need to get out of here. Finding something else won’t be hard.” Mom slung her arm over my shoulder and pinned me to her side. Drawing Jeanine closer with a tug on her wrist, Mom lowered her voice. “Get your stuff together and we’ll meet you tonight behind this building. When Kelly and I walked earlier, I noticed a small man-gate in the fence.”

  “I didn’t see that, really?” How had I missed it? Oh, maybe that was when I had focused so hard on trying to convince Mom to leave. She’d been more aware of her surroundings than I assumed.

  Jeanine pushed at the hair slipping from her rubber band and falling around her face. “Yeah, but it’s guarded.”

  “We’ll get around the guard. I’m not worried. Meet us right at dark and if you’re there before us, wait outside the fence in the forest. We’ll find each other.” She met each of our gazes. “Don’t wait inside, do you hear me? Just get out. Things are safer outside than in.”

  The camp had finally hit the horror point of being worse than the end of the world. How was Mom handling the breakdown of her plans?

  The only way she knew how – make new ones.

  Chapter 12

  We skipped breakfast.

  Returning to the hallway for our things, I couldn’t help but try to look in the office for the dead guy again. But the door was shut tight. Snooping around the place hadn’t been mentioned in our plans anyway. I needed to keep my focus. Not deviate.

  Shaking off the death of a man I’d never met, I followed Mom down the hall.

  My stomach growled, returning me to my previous thoughts. Back at the door to the pit we called our room for the time being, I shook my head and muttered, mostly to myself. “I can’t believe we missed breakfast. Aren’t you hungry?”

  Mom pushed open the door and stopped abruptly. I smacked into her back. No, I wasn’t paying attention because I had missed breakfast! “We have better food in our bags, Kelly.” Which was probably true, if they only served oatmeal in the dining area. Not that they were allowing women to eat. I remembered where we would be eating and the prospect dimmed my hunger.

  Craning my neck to see around her and why we stopped, I stared at the full visual of the mattress leaning against the wall, the one blanket strewn about the floor and mingling with the contents of our bags all over. We entered gingerly, closing the door behind us.

  Clothes mingled with mashed in sandwiches flung from their baggies. Our MREs and other snack items seeped from split seams of their packages. I stood in the middle of the massacre and stared with my jaw thrust to the side.

  Stepping over our things, Mom crossed to the closet and turned to look inside. Reaching up, she pulled the handgun from its hiding spot. Looking around, she took in the mess.

  Resolve pressed her lips into a thin line. She motioned me closer, speaking so quietly like she breathed the words. “They don’t trust us and they want us to know it. Let’s get this cleaned up and get everything repacked. We don’t have a lot of time.” She patted my back and ducked down, already moving past the fact someone had dug through our things, throwing them all over the place.

  How did she get over the invaded feeling? But as I lowered myself to the ground and crawled over our things, the truth hit me. She probably hadn’t recovered from Charlie’s invasion the night before. The looting of our room paled when compared to that event.

  Could she forgive those trespasses against her? Or had Charlie taken her ability to practice her faith when he stole her Bible?

  ~~~

  Our bags fully packed, the gun returned to its rightful pocket, Mom and I slouched on the edge of the bed.

  A scratch on the back of her hand caught my eye. “Where’d you get that from?” The red line wasn’t even deep enough to bleed, but I needed to talk. To hear the comfort of her voice. We’d been quiet for almost an hour while we worked.

  She inspected the minor wound. “Hmm. I’m not sure.” We didn’t talk about the round circular bruises on her mid-forearm. As time passed more of Charlie’s marks became visible, cementing the need to escape.

  I entwined my fingers in my lap, studying them. No matter how long we lived, I would never be able to repay Mom for her sacrifices. She hadn’t been protecting my virginity, but more saving me from being brutally raped and beaten. Hers and Jeanine’s injuries proved so much worse than sex happened at the end.

  “Do you think we’re going to be okay?” Where had the tremor in my voice come from? I mastered the art of sounding like a scared twelve-year-old and I hadn’t even been trying.

  Mom shrugged, sliding to the ground and turning to face the bed. She folded her hands and bowed her head. “Let’s pray. Whether we’re okay or not, won’t matter because we’ll put our fate in His hands.” She tucked her chin to her chest, not waiting for me to join her.

  I stared at her, my lips partly open. I couldn’t pray with her. I didn’t want to. What would I pray about? I didn’t have any gratitude for our position. I still hadn’t made up my mind about the positive aspects of being alive considering everything we’ve gone through.

  Mom prayed so easily. I envied her the ease to do something with assuredness.

  Her prayer turned to a vigil.

  Careful not to disturb her, I reached for the small pile of food left after the jerks had torn apart our supply. They hadn’t even had the decency to eat the food, blatantly wasting resources in a time when stores weren’t an option anymore.

  Too much emptiness inside me needed filling. I couldn’t wait. Before I knew what happened, a sandwich and a protein bar had disappeared. An aching sensation in my stomach was all I had left. But the emptiness hadn’t diminished.

  I gagged down the final bite of the bar. The thick protein bars weren’t my favorite, but they landed like concrete in a never ending hole inside me. Eyeing the pile for more, I scratched at my stomach.

  Mom lifted her head. I withdrew from the food, certain she would reprimand me for eating all our rations. But she didn’t. She stood and moved to the door separating the bedrooms. Pushing her head to the panel, she listened for a moment.

  Turning toward me, she crossed the short distance with a couple of long strides and bent down to whisper in my ear. “I need to get my Bible and the gun before we go.”

  Not “she wanted to,” but “she needed to.” Significant difference and one I wouldn’t push aside. I nodded, eyes wide. “What can I do?” Who would I need to shoot?

  Mom pulled back, pausing to search my face. “Really? You’re not going to fight me?” Her bruises shamed me, but I forced myself to see them – see them for what they were.

  Drawing my eyebrows together, I shook my head. “We don’t have anything left to do before we go and you said need. If you need them, let’s get them.” Why the philosophy behi
nd my agreement brought tears to her eyes, I’ll never know. But there they were. I shifted to put my hands under my thighs.

  “I’m not sure if Jeanine is getting ready or not. I’m not even sure if she’s going to come with us, but we need all the fire power we can get, or I would leave the gun.” She sat down beside me and looked at the floor. “If Braden and Dad’s pictures weren’t in the Bible, I might be fine leaving it, but since we need to get the gun anyway...”

  Throwing my arm around her shoulders, I rested my chin on her arm. “So let’s get the Bible, too. How do we do it?” I was willing but she had to come up with the plan.

  She didn’t need me to fight her. What she needed included me working with her so she didn’t feel so alone.

  I understood alone.

  And I didn’t like it.

  ~~~

  Mom nudged my shoulder. She didn’t whisper exactly, but in the quiet of the room, she could have and it would’ve been easy to hear. “Kelly, time to wake up. We need to go.”

  When had I fallen asleep? I picked my head up from my arms braced on my knees. I didn’t remember sliding to the ground to sit. The last few hours blurred in my mind, melding together to create a confusing mish mash of realities.

  We’d seen more than our share of horror movies and what happens when people split up. Self-quarantined in the room, Mom and I hadn’t even gone to the bathroom except to use the toilet – which didn’t work – in the adjoining bathroom.

  But now it was time to put our plan into action and hope for the best. Or in Mom’s case, hope your prayers did something.

  I grimaced and pushed myself to stand. “How long did I sleep?” The afternoon light had dimmed. I blinked in the darkening room.

  “About an hour.” Mom rolled her head to one side and the other.

  “Did you sleep?” I pulled my shoulders back to stretch them, tight from sleeping in a sitting position.

  “No. I’ve been praying.” Matter-of-factly, she didn’t show any embarrassment. Why should she? I knew her beliefs, her faith. We planned to risk our lives for a book about her faith for crying out loud.

  Of course, I grasped its importance. Even a hardcore atheist would understand – which I wasn’t. I just didn’t know that I could’ve prayed for an hour. Or a minute.

  I nodded. What would I say? Sounds uncomfortable? Mom did most things old school and prayed as much as possible on her knees. I can’t imagine she would shift to sitting or anything less than kneeling for even an hour straight of monologue with the Almighty.

  For some reason, we hadn’t discussed the reasons behind the co-op morphing into some kind of trafficking operation after only a couple of days. Or that they wanted to sell me pretty quick. “Why do you think Charlie is willing to get rid of me after he promised you he’d protect us?” I tugged my hair back into a manageable ponytail, off my neck and face. Plus, didn’t he consider Mom paid up or anything after the night before?

  Mom shrugged, twisting her own hair into a bun and drawing on her pack. “Do you think he’s the type of guy to keep his word? I only agreed because I needed to buy us some time. But I was thinking more like months or weeks instead of hours.” She offered me a small smile. “I’m sorry things didn’t work out here. I really hoped they would.”

  “You’re okay, Mom. I’m sorry it didn’t work out here.” For so many reasons I felt bad about the camp’s failure. She invested a lot of her personal time and money toward the future the group had advertised. Because she hadn’t planned on a power coup didn’t mean her intentions sucked. Pulling on my pack, I welcomed the sturdy weight against my lower back and the tug on my shoulders. Something secure in the solidness of a plan.

  She sighed. “You’re disappointed.”

  “No, I’m not. At least not in you. In the group, yes, but you couldn’t help the craziness.” I arched my eyebrow. “Can you imagine if you had the kind of power to control all this? You could go and solve this entire crapshoot and we’d be able to go home.” The longing for home reared its ugly head and engulfed me, bringing tears to my eyes.

  Mom reached for me, drawing me close. “It’s okay. I know this isn’t ideal. None of this is even fun, but we’re getting out. We’ll survive. Remember the rules.”

  “Is that our mantra? ‘Cause I think we could come up with something better.” Anything would be better than Stay alive, trust no one, and pray. “Like, pee in someone else’s yard, or something?”

  Her laugh burst from her in a shocked gasp. “Kelly, you’re so weird.” But her smile softened the angry edges of the bruises on her face and the seemingly permanent sadness in the tilt of her lips.

  I grinned back. We hadn’t laughed together in so long. Usually our memories tied together in Dad and Braden. Their loss was just... sad. If we weren’t reminiscing, we talked about survival. How to survive. What to do when. When and where and why and who. Everything was about surviving, like we forgot how to live.

  Our gazes met and held. For a moment we basked in each other’s company. As many problems as we had I wouldn’t choose anyone else to go with me to the end of the world.

  A scratching sounded at the doorway. Sitting benignly on the floor, like a small white rug, a scrap of paper had been shoved under the door. Mom claimed it, opening the folded piece to read its message.

  The blood drained from her face. Her pallor more noticeable against the backdrop of her mahogany colored hair. She faced the window, the light beginning to dim.

  “What? What’s wrong?” Our situation crashed around us, banishing all humor from the room. We were back to survival.

  “Jeanine says we have to do it now. They’re coming for you at dark.” Shoving the note into her front pocket, Mom twisted the door handle to Charlie’s room. She didn’t knock. Nothing. “He’s locked it.” She checked the window again.

  The trees had turned to shadows against a darkening sky. A small amount of light kept everything from blending together, but not by much and not for long.

  “Let’s leave them.” Mom turned toward the hall, sadness and worry warring for room on her face.

  I grabbed her pack. “No. Mom, we need those. Come on.” I pushed around her, opening our door and turning toward Charlie’s room from the hall. Emboldened by the complex yet simplistic nature of our escape and the fact that I honestly didn’t think we were going to be stopped, I turned the handle to his door and shoved my shoulder against the light wood.

  My extra physical roughness wasn’t necessary. The panel swung open easily and I stumbled inside, my momentum thrown off by the unexpected give.

  Mom followed me inside, shutting the door behind us. She faced me, then glanced over my shoulder. Her eyes grew round and she spun me, grabbing the bottom panel of my backpack and yanking out the gun. The movement so fast, she had the gun out and aimed at Charlie before I even registered he had frozen in a half-standing, half-bending over position to pull on his pants.

  Opening and closing, my mouth waited for direction from me that wasn’t coming. I’m not completely sure where my confidence disappeared to, but if I found it, I would do something fearsome.

  Charlie’s smug grin pinched at the sides of his eyes, giving them a half-slanted appearance. He finished pulling up his pants and fastening them shut. Thank goodness. He tucked in the hem of his flannel and wiggled his eyebrow at Mom. “Are you bringing your daughter in for the fun tonight, Megan? I’m not gonna lie, I’ve been interested in you for a while now. Making this a mother-daughter event is very intriguing.”

  “Shut up. We’re here for our things.” Mom pushed me to the side, holding the gun steady at shoulder height. Got to hand it to her, she didn’t shake when she held the weapon aimed on a man.

  He nodded slightly toward her weapon. “I see you’re not as forthcoming as your faith would demand.”

  “You don’t know a thing about my faith or beliefs. Where’s my stuff?” Mom’s shoulders tightened more as she clenched the gun harder. “I have no problem shooting you, Charlie. After la
st night? Well, let’s just say I’m looking for anything to pull this trigger.”

  Something on Mom’s face must have testified to the truth because Charlie’s humor vanished and something resembling fear and anger darkened his expression. “Where do you think you’ll go? Huh? I run this place. You’re not leaving unless I say.” He stepped forward, his finger thrusting into the air between them.

  “Take one more step. Please.” Mom’s silky, challenging tone sent chills to my toes. I never pushed her so far she stopped yelling or stopped talking normally. Her low dulcet tone... oh, I couldn’t even imagine how much anger she tamped down.

  He glanced to the side and back at Mom, staring her down. Mom didn’t flinch. Charlie laughed, throwing his head back in so calculated a way, as if he tried holding our attention or changing our focus.

  Following where he had looked, I searched the corner. A dresser and a lamp stood together. The empty top of the dresser seemed out of place in a man’s bedroom. I crossed to the chest of drawers and pulled open the top.

  Charlie stopped laughing. “Hey, you can’t touch my things.”

  Mom’s voice sharpened behind me. “Shut up.”

  Digging through the contents, I gripped the edges of Mom’s Bible and waved the fluttering pages in the air. A small picture frame, silver and gold two-tone glinted in the corner under a leather-banded wristwatch. Jeanine sat in the photo with two boys about eight and twelve and a little girl around six. A handsome man draped his arm around her and the children and smiled with pride at the camera.

  I added the photo to my collection.

  The next drawer held our gun. Among other handguns and some extra ammo. “Mom, he has more ammunition in here.” We could take it all, but we’d have a hard time carrying it.

  “Good, grab out any that say .9 mm. We can take that with us.” She didn’t join me and I’m certain she wanted to, but she had to keep an eye on the bastard who wanted to trade me for toilet paper or whatever.