"What are we doing?" she asked, working her way through the stinking, clinging mud.
Reese grabbed one of the pine saplings and leaned back, letting his weight pull the trunk. "Push toward me from the other side—let's see if we can pull this thing out of the ground."
When Jo added her weight to it, the roots—buried in saturated mud and soil—gave way. They struggled a little more with the second tree, but after a few minutes, had a pair of stout poles complete with root balls, laying in the mud next to Ben.
"I don't think I need new crutches," Ben said, shaking his head.
"Those aren’t crutches, you big galoot,” Jo quipped. She removed the sweat stained backpack from her shoulders and dug around inside for a moment. "What's the best way to get an injured person out of a dangerous situation when you can't carry them? I'll tell you how,” she said. “It's with a travois.” She pulled out a bundle of rope in triumph. "You're a crafty one, Reese." She tossed him the rope,
“I may have been a Boy Scout back in the day," Reese said, snatching the bundle of rope from the air. He knelt in the mud and lashed the two poles together, “Might also be a little rusty at this…”
"Here, if we weave some smaller sticks through there, it might give a little support…” Jo said, crouching next to Ben and adding a bundle of smaller sticks to the work in progress.
A few moments later, they had Ben lie on the backing of rope and sticks between the two saplings. "It's not the most comfortable thing I've ever sat on," Ben muttered, adjusting his position and wiping mud off his arms. "And it's probably the most embarrassing thing I've ever had to do…”
"Are you kidding me right now?” Reese said, standing. “You're going to complain?"
"Oh no, I'm not complaining. Embarrassed…eternally grateful…and ashamed? You bet—not complaining, though.“
“Alright," Jo said, wiping her hands. "Let's get this dog and pony show on the road. I don’t know about you boys, but I don't intend to be sleeping out in the mud tonight."
Reese picked up the end of the travois where the two poles intersected. "Okay, on three, let’s get moving."
Jo nodded.
"One, two, three." Reese and Jo lifted the travois until he could take the weight unassisted. He leaned forward and forced his legs to move, dragging the cradle forward through the sucking mud.
"Mush!” Ben shouted gleefully.
"This guy…” Reese grunted, shaking his head.
Jo picked her way through the mud field, ranging out ahead of them, using a long stick she'd found to maintain balance. Reese followed twenty yards behind, dragging Ben in the makeshift litter. Their rate of progress slowed even further than before, but Ben was able to finally rest his injured leg.
By the time they found a city limits sign on the edge of Ellsworth, Reese had long since given up looking at their surroundings as they walked. There were too many bodies, too much destruction, and too much sorrow for him to process. Instead he focused on one squelching step after another: pull free of the mud, slop a sodden shoe down one more step, repeat, and move a little further down the road. More than once, he lowered his guard and his eyes drifted to the side of the road. The further inland they moved, the more people they spotted in small clumps, gathered by the remains of structures. Some cried over bodies, others moved in a trance, not seeing anything as they stumbled around the wreckage of their lives.
Only once did someone approached them, running—comically slow as the mud stripped off one boot. The man approached them, begging for help. Reese informed him that they were seeking help for themselves, but instead of an angry response, the wretched survivor dropped to his knees in the mud and wept.
Jo gave the poor man half a bottle of water—her last reserves—and the last snack bar she’d brought from the ranger station, and they moved on. Every step brought them closer to the perceived salvation of Ellsworth.
The sun crept closer to the horizon with each slogging, painful mile they passed, but by the time they found a cluster of buildings on the outskirts of Ellsworth, the debris and mud from the tsunami finally started to lessen. Reese could hardly believe it as their pace quickened, less hindered by ankle-deep mud than the shin deep muck they'd been traveling through. Jo moved on ahead, easily outpacing Reese with the travois, until she disappeared from sight.
Everything around them was still wet—as if floodwaters had only recently receded a few hours earlier—but the high watermark stains on the sides of buildings only appeared about a foot above the ground. However, any hope Reese had of finding streetlights and welcoming, lit buildings in Ellsworth were dashed as the sun fully set and darkness swabbed the town.
"They lost power this far inland?" Reese gasped as they finally broke free of the mud field and dragged the litter across damp, but clear asphalt.
"I guess so," Ben replied. “Okay, man, let me out—I can handle walking on this. Seriously,” Ben pleaded from the travois.
"Don't gotta tell me twice," Reese said, dropping his burden to the ground.
Ben clambered from the litter and retrieved his spindly crutch, then winced as he put weight on his injured leg. "Thanks, bro. I'd still be back there in the mud if you hadn’t—”
Reese waved off his gratitude while trying to stretch his back. "Don't worry about it."
Jo found them a moment later, a broad smile plastered on her face. She walked up with a spring in her step, her stick thumping on the asphalt. "Well boys, I got good news, and I got bad news. Whaddya want first?" She waited, glancing from Ben to Reese.
Reese sighed. “Let’s have the bad news.”
Jo stuck her tongue out at him. “Party pooper. Alright, it’s pretty obvious—there’s no power here,” she said, raising both hands to encompass the buildings lining the deserted street.
“And the good news?” asked Ben in a tired voice.
“We ain’t the only people left on earth after all. Looks like a good chunk of town—the ones that stayed behind, that is—are all gathered over yonder.”
In the gathering gloom, Reese could hardly see where she pointed, but he could see a faint glow emanating in the distance, behind the row of small shops that lined the street. “Is that light?” he asked.
“Ahyup,” Jo replied, rocking on her heels. “Looks like the locals got some gennys runnin’ over at the Walmart. I’d say it’s the only game in town right about now.”
“I don’t know about you guys,” Reese breathed, “but I’m about at the end of my rope.”
“Right there with ya,” Jo replied. She clapped Reese on the back. “What say we go check it out?”
“Think they have any bottled water and toilet paper?” asked Ben as the group limped down the road.
It took longer than Reese liked, stumbling around on dark, unfamiliar streets, but they finally rounded one last building and came within sight of the Walmart. Immediately, Reese’s rising spirits crashed to earth and burst into flames.
The store itself was in a state of partial collapse. Most of the front windows by the double set of automatic doors had been smashed. The doors themselves had been covered in haphazard chunks of graffiti smeared plywood. A semi-circle of cop cars, lights flashing, stood as silent sentinels in front of the building. Outside the barrier, maybe half a dozen uniformed cops held a sizable crowd at bay.
They stood at the far end of the parking lot and watched the writhing mass of people. There were arc lights set up at strategic points behind the cop cars. Reese could see the situation was almost completely out of hand. An object sailed through the air over the crowd toward the store, glinting in the harsh glare of the lights. It shattered into a thousand sparkling teardrops on the hood of the closest squad car.
“You guys see that? Someone’s throwing bottles at the cops…” muttered Reese.
“You know what? I’m actually all stocked up—I don’t need to make a run to the store after all,” Ben added.
“We should at least see if anyone has any information…” Reese suggested.<
br />
“I doubt if any of these clodhoppers knows much about the outside world. Look at this place,” Jo groused, kicking at an empty 2-liter bottle of Coke on the ground. “Looks like the day after a CCR concert.”
“A who concert?” Ben asked.
“Hush,” Jo said, waving off Ben’s question.
Someone up by the police barricade shouted indistinctly, and the crowd surged forward, then retreated when the police closed ranks.
“Whatever we do, we should do it soon—I’m thinking this situation is reaching critical mass,” Jo observed. “Like, pretty quick.”
Reese took a step, then another, ignoring the screaming muscles in his legs and back. Watching the crowd would not help him recover from the day’s activities, nor would it get him any closer to home. He had to act, he had to do something…before he fell over and passed out.
The angry shouting and demands for food, water, and answers increased and set Reese’s teeth on edge. The people he gently tried to move through were hungry, thirsty, and scared. It was a dangerous combination that made the back of his neck prickle. By the time he reached the front of the crowd, he was forced to shove people out of his way—it was like being in a well behaved mosh pit. Every step he took, he also took an elbow to the ribs or some other part of a body collided with him. He clenched his jaw and shouldered forward, unable to see whether Jo or Ben had followed.
It didn’t matter. He wanted answers, and he’d report back whatever he discovered. “Excuse me,” he said, trying to keep the young man next to him from throwing an arm to his face.
“It ain’t right!” the man yelled, ignoring Reese and focusing on the cops. “Let us in!”
“Yeah! Let us in!” another voice shouted a split second before the crowd took up the chant. The noise echoed across the parking lot, reverberating against the storefront.
Reese felt the crowd pulse and move in rhythm with the words, taunts, and shouts. Then someone placed their hands on his back, and shoved. He tumbled past the edge of the crowd into no-man’s-land and ended up on his hands and knees near one of the squad cars.
He knew the police officers were about out of patience when he looked up and found the business end of a semi-automatic pistol pointed at his face. The cop holding the weapon yelled in a commanding voice: “Freeze!”
That one word silenced the crowd. There was a three second vacuum between the last chant and group realization that a cop had pulled his sidearm free. The rest of the cops drew their weapons and aimed out into the crowd. A woman screamed, and before Reese could even think to raise his hands, the rear section of the crowd streamed away, running for shelter.
“Uh, hi,” Reese said, slowly raising his hands and maintaining eye contact with the cop currently aiming at his head. “I don’t mean to bother you, officer, but is there any chance we can go shopping?”
The cop just scowled at him.
Shadows danced across the parking lot, revealing the angry mob had dwindled to a concerned crowd. And even that group was shrinking fast, coming closer to a simple, confused knot.
Another officer pounded over, his sidearm conspicuously still in its holster. “Glivens, what the—what’s going on over here? Where’d the crowd go?”
The man holding the gun on Reese—Officer Glivens—shrugged, then pointed at Reese. “This guy shows up and everyone leaves.”
The second officer sighed and hooked his thumbs under his utility belt. “Well, what’s your story, stranger?”
“My friends and I left Mount Desert Island this morning—we’re trying to get home…”
“I’ll say—aren’t we all?” asked the second officer in a nasally New England twang. “Where you from? Willing to bet it’s not anywhere nearabouts.”
“Charleston, officer—South Carolina. We just want to go home.” Reese looked at Glivens. “Can I lower my hands?”
“I suppose that’s the least we can do for you, on account that you just up and dispersed the crowd we’ve been trying to wrangle for the last three hours,” said the second cop. He reached down a strong hand and hauled Reese to his feet. “Name’s Foster. Cal Foster. I think I’m the one in charge of this circus.”
Reese shook hands with Cal and glanced around. “I’m sorry, but my friends and I are exhausted. I’d love to—can you tell me if there’s anywhere we can rest for the night?”
Foster looked around. “It’s a big parking lot.”
Chapter 18
Lavelle Homestead
Northwest of Charleston, South Carolina
Cami sighed and leaned back in her Adirondack chair, propping her feet up on the weathered leg rest. She took a sip of lukewarm water and closed her eyes, hoping the rhythmic sound of cicadas and crickets, interspersed with the odd owl, would lull her to sleep.
Behind her, out on the main road, another car raced down the street, headlights briefly illuminating trees as they rounded the corner and disappeared toward the neighborhood exit.
It was the fourth one this hour. She glanced at her watch, hitting the dial to illuminate the little screen. Almost 11 o'clock at night. The number of neighbors who raced out of the neighborhood had dropped since the afternoon, but she was still surprised that so many people left so late at night. She took another drink from her water and adjusted her hips, waiting for sleep to take her.
“Where do they think they’re going?” she whispered to herself.
Soft footsteps inside the house and the creak of the screen door broke the cadence of the insect symphony. Cami rolled her head to the side. "Can't sleep, honey?"
Amber shut the screen door behind her and padded on bare feet to the matching Adirondack chair just left of Cami. The fabric of her T-shirt and shorts whispered against the wood as she settled in the chair. "Every time one of those cars drives by, the headlights light up my room and it wakes me up. You?"
Cami stared at the darkened ceiling of their screened-in porch. As far as safety was concerned, the thin mesh screens wouldn't stop anyone from busting through, but it was enough to keep the biting insects out, and it let Cami enjoy the cool night air in relative peace. "About an hour ago, just as I was about to fall asleep, I imagined somebody breaking through the screen on the window in my room. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.
Amber was quiet for a long moment. "Thanks for that. Now I'm wide awake."
Cami snorted. "You asked."
"Even with the windows open, it's getting kinda stuffy in there," Amber said, moving her arm to indicate the interior of the house.
"I don't know how Mitchell can sleep on the couch in the living room like that.”
It was Amber's turn to snort. "He was snoring when I walked by just a minute ago.” She stayed quiet for a long moment. "If you're worried about people breaking in through the screens, why don't we put the hurricane shutters up?" Amber asked. “No one could get through those sheets of plywood. Well, at least not easily.“
"I thought about it." Cami took a pull from the water bottle. "Problem is, I haven't seen anybody else do it, and if we make this place look like Fort Knox, people will think we have something worth defending. That would make us a target.“
"Now you're starting to sound like Mr. Price," Amber joked.
"Every hour that goes by, and I see more crazy stuff happening—just in our neighborhood—and I'm thinking he's got the right idea."
Amber sighed. "Well, I gotta give him credit—we were able to collect a couple gallons of water today by putting all those buckets out when the storm hit."
"Might not be much,” Cami agreed, “but we didn't have very many containers out. We’ll be ready next time," Cami said. "I bet he's got a whole cistern buried out in his yard somewhere."
They sat in companionable silence for a moment, listening to the night sounds, insects serenading one another, and predators moving through the woods, calling on the wind. "I don't know if it's because the power’s out or I'm just getting older, but suddenly those woods out there seem a lot more comforting than
spooky."
Cami smiled. "Probably a combination of both, sweetie. When you realize that there are a lot more things in the world to worry about than bogeymen and shadows in the night, the woods seem like a pretty safe place. Even with grizzlies roaming around."
"Well," Amber said, scoffing, "I'm not exactly worried about grizzlies—that’s only when you’re in Alaska, mom. But now that you mention people breaking in through the screens, you realize there's nothing between us and the outside right now but the screens in this porch, right?"
"Oh, there's nobody out there," Cami said, exhaling. “Could be black bears, I suppose…but no people.”
"How do you know that? You and dad have some night vision goggles you didn't tell me about?"
Cami laughed softly, surprising herself by the sound of her voice echoing through the yard. "You hear all the crickets and cicadas out there?"
"And the frogs, and owls—yeah,” Amber said, “so?"
"Trust me, if somebody was out there sneaking around, we wouldn't hear any of that."
"You’d bet your life on that?"
Cami reached out to her right and picked up the Glock sitting on the tray table next to her chair. "Not exactly—I have this, and my experience to back me up. If something is moving around out there, the insects and animals nearby are like an early warning system, if you know how to listen."
"Really?" asked Amber, her voice dubious.
"It’s saved my life a couple times when bears got a little too curious about our campsite out on Alaskan hunts."
Amber was silent for a long moment and they sat listening to the night again. "Mom, do you ever think…”
Amber fell silent as a sharp crack ripped through the night air, silencing all the animals and insects in the surrounding woods. Cami snatched her firearm from the tray table and sat up, cocking her head and listening, trying to determine the direction of the gunshot.
"Was that…?” Amber began in a voice far too loud for the situation.
Broken Tide | Book 1 | Overfall Page 19
