by Lynn Lamb
“Take a right here,” I directed and he followed. After about fifteen minutes we came to a street where houses still stood. Some even had smoke coming from their chimneys.
“Stop right here,” I told him. I jumped out of the truck when I saw what I was looking for.
“Holly,” I screamed as I ran to a small cottage. “Hooolllly!”
The barrel of a gun stuck out the window. “Who’s there?” a female voice answered.
“Holly, it’s me. Laura. Penny’s best friend,” I said.
The barrel began to withdraw quickly from the window, and the front door opened.
Holly and I ran into each other’s arms. We embraced while we both cried and laughed.
“Adam, send for the others. Tell them how to get here,” I yelled.
“And then get your ass in here,” yelled Holly. “Whoever the hell you are.”
“What were the chances of you finding me?” Holly said after reintroducing me to her boyfriend, Colton.
“Exactly a bazillion to one.”
Adam came to the door, and I beckoned him in. I took the walkie from him and told the others to come inside after they secured the trucks.
“What the hell?” said Holly. “Who are all of these people with trucks?”
“This is my nephew; Bri’s boyfriend, Adam,” I told her. She got up and embraced him.
“You are family to me, Adam,” she said. “My sister Penny and I grew up with Laura. She was at my house as much as she was at her own.”
At that, I cried happily. With tears, I asked, “Have you had any news of them, Holly?” She knew I meant her whole family.
“Not since the cell phones died,” Holly said. “They were all fine until then. We had a plan. Penny, Tuck, and the kids made it to Truckee from Riverton, Utah. The plan was to leave Truckee and pick up Mom and Dad in Sacramento. From there, they were supposed to come here as soon as they could. They never made it.”
“They aren’t dead,” I shocked myself when I said it. “I know they aren’t. It’s just bad out there. They are on their way.”
Holly nodded sadly. “I am so glad you are here. Where have you been?” she asked.
“We are still living in our old neighborhood. We have a community there now,” I told her.
“No, fucking way. You mean you live in Monte Vista Village?” she said in total disbelief, like I had just told her that the Easter Bunny was real.
“You’ve heard of it?” I asked.
“Laura created the Village. She’s the leader,” Adam announced proudly.
Holly couldn’t talk with her jaw open so wide. She put her hand over her mouth.
“Heard of it? It’s legendary here,” said Colton.
I looked at Adam for confirmation. He simply nodded.
We talked late into the evening, as we shared the food we had brought with us.
Adam and the others took up lodging several houses down, while I stayed with my old friend.
“Come back to the Village with me,” I begged the couple.
“We have to be here, in case they make it,” Holly said. She hadn’t given up hope, either.
“Spray paint directions to the Village on the walls,” I told her. “We take care of each other there. You will be as safe as you possibly can be these days.”
Holly and Colton looked at each other for a long time. She turned back to me and said, “Okay, if we won’t be any trouble.”
I laughed, “Are you kidding? Start getting ready. We have three days here. We can get some of your stuff in one of the trucks. We are going to South Carmel, beachside, to see what we can collect. We are looking for solar panels this trip. We will come to get you on the way back.”
~~~
We left the next day to find one of the safe houses that the Out-bounders usually use.
An hour later, we were there, and we took one truck and the car they had parked in the garage to check homes that were still standing. There were much fewer of those now.
We found three houses with solar panels on them, but only one had panels with most of their cells intact. It seems that if even one cell is dead, the entire panel doesn’t work, like Christmas lights.
Adam and I left the team to dismantle the solar panels from the roofs and drove down to the beach for our first gun lesson.
~~~
The Carmel Beach front looked so different. I spent hours as a teen at bonfire parties on its shores. Instead of the beautiful stone steps that once opened onto the pristine, white sands, there was a hillside of sand littered with everything that the ocean, in its sickness, had coughed up. Kelp entwined with trash and dead sea-animals created a smell that was an assault to the senses.
“You never got to see this beach before the war, did you?” I asked Adam. He shook his head. “It was nothing less than magnificent. Bri and Ammie grew up on this beach. Bri took her first steps here, in the sand of all places. Ammie accidentally swallowed a mouthful of sea water when she was a baby, and the look on her face was priceless. I’ll never forget it. Through the years, hundreds of thousands of people grew up playing in those waves.”
Suddenly, I was angry. No, I was more than angry. I didn’t know this feeling. I screamed something guttural, something primal, into the face of the cold ocean wind, “WHY?” A thick wave slapped the snowy, sandy shore in an angry response.
It took me a while to pull myself back together. Adam waited, patiently.
When I was ready, I picked up the gun in disgust. Adam gave me instructions on how to take the safety off and how to fire. I hated it; every single minute of it. From the feeling of the cold metal in my hand, to the recoil after pulling the trigger, to the ear piercing sound of the shot; it was all wrong; unnatural.
We spent about an hour there until I said, “I’m freezing.”
~~~
We returned to our safe house and started a fire. The five of us came together for a meal, and then I left them to stay and talk as I went to one of the rooms with a lantern.
I needed time to be alone and think about the past months and days. The beach was the final sight I needed to understand that humankind could be so stupid as to destroy the raw beauty that only nature could provide. What happened to us?
The home we were staying in must have been beautiful at one time. Now, in the dim lantern light, there were only the sharp and jagged shadows of broken furniture. Nature was reclaiming its land, as sand shrouded the floors. In a cupboard, I found relatively clean bedding, and went about the task of changing linens. I placed my unloved gun under the bed so that I wouldn’t shoot myself in my sleep.
The laughter from down the long hallway was muted by the enormity of the house. It was nearly drowned out by the violent waves slapping against the not so distant shores, as if to scream its anger, as I had this afternoon. In the distance, I heard what sounded like gun shots and screams; just another reminder of the indecency of humankind.
Not used to having a bed to myself I slept badly. The room was so cold, even with my small, battery powered space heater right next to me. The sound of a tree branch scratching the window sent shivers down my spine. I got up to look out and see if I could push the branch back from the window sill when I saw a movement out of the periphery of my eye.
Before I could make sense of it, a large, dark figure pushed through the window and tackled me to the ground. I yelled out, but the man on top of me covered my mouth with his filthy hand. My heart beat so hard as I struggled that I thought that it was going to explode.
And in that moment, I knew what I had to do; something I had sworn I would never do. I reached under the bed and felt for the gun. Somehow I found it and grabbed it. It felt like ice in my hands.
I cannot recall pulling the trigger, but I remember the feel of a warm, thick liquid running down my face. After that, things moved slowly. I struggled to roll my victim’s large frame off of my body, but I couldn’t. The copper smell of blood filled my nostrils.
And then things started to speed back up
. Adam, Marla, Sampson and Levi ran into the room, shouting. Sampson grabbed the body that had stilled forever on top of mine and rolled it off of me with a frustrated anger.
Marla held me as I sat paralyzed at the sight of what I had done. She and Adam lifted me from the ground and pulled me from the room. I sat on the couch in front of the fire that was being stoked by someone, I can’t remember by whom.
Marla brought me a snifter of some alcohol that felt warm and stung my throat as it went down. I didn’t care, I just wanted the drink to take me away from here and bring me back to a place where I wasn’t a killer. I grabbed the bottle and took a long drink straight from its mouth.
~~~
In the morning, we went to Holly’s house, cutting our journey short.
While the team and Colton packed the trucks with their belongings, I sat with Holly.
Adam filled Holly in on what happened at the safe house. I said very little, but I was polite. I felt coldness in my heart that I longed to have go away. The team had only collected one truck’s worth of solar paneling, and that fact just compounded the guilt from last night.
All I wanted was to be in my husband’s warm and safe arms, while he rocked me and sang a quiet African lullaby.
~~~
I closed my eyes as we began our day-long journey home.
I heard something that was attempting to pull me towards it. I fought to remain in my unconscious state; the only place where I could feel peace. My mind gave my body a kick of awareness as I opened my eyes. When had it gotten dark? I had slept the entire ride home.
“Laura,” yelled Adam’s voice from the walkie that Holly was now handing me.
I looked out into the dense forest before I spoke. “What?”
“Look out of the window to the left,” said Adam with concern.
I saw the smoke from the Village fireplaces curling out from above the tree tops. We are almost home, I thought. But something drew my attention closer. There was a column of flames reaching out to lick one of the dark clouds above it.
“Oh my God,” I yelled at the walkie, barely knowing if my finger was holding the “talk” button or not. “Go faster.”
“We can’t. We have the solar panels in back. If we go any faster, they will smash to smithereens,” warned Sampson.
“Fall behind our truck, then,” I told him.
I saw them slow off to the right. I was riding with Colton and Holly and their belongings. As we passed, I looked at Sampson through the window. “Don’t let anything happen to those panels,” I told him. I saw him nod as we gained on his truck and passed it slowly.
The weight of Holly’s belongings was too heavy for the truck to move any faster. I had the urge to get out and run towards the Village, but the snow was too deep above the forest floor. My feet would be blocks of ice before I ever made it.
When we finally got to the paved road, I saw something almost as astonishing and as dreaded as flames; Adam and Levi’s truck was floating in the flooded road ahead. It began to turn so that I could see Adam’s wide eyes as he tried to open his door to escape.
“STOP,” I yelled, just in time for Colton to break before diving into the flooded road, too.
As Adam and Levi kicked open their doors, I jumped out of my seat and into the snow outside. I started to wade into the frigid waters.
Adam began to make his way toward me when I saw that the flooding ended about three yards ahead of him.
“No,” I screamed to them pointing towards where the flood ended. “Go, to the Village. I’ll catch up.”
My feet hardly knew what to do. I dragged my legs heavily through the moat that had collected, but the truck that Adam had abandoned started to spin its way towards me. I found an island block on the road, and made my way to it. I could run some from there, but it was frozen, and I slipped and landed hard on my knees.
I took a quick inventory of the damage. Blood was already seeping through my wet, frozen jeans.
“Laura, slow down. Are you all right?” yelled Holly’s voice from somewhere behind me.
They were making their way towards me, Colton in the lead. “Stay right there,” he shouted over the now whipping wind.
Wind, my mind clasped on the word. Wind will only fan the flames more.
My Village! I ran against Holly’s screamed admonishments.
I slipped back into the flood waters twice before I made it to the snow bank ahead. My feet kept disappearing deep into the snow as I made my way up it. When I crested the bank, I saw Adam and Levi running towards the Village. I lost my balance and slid down the other side on my butt.
I felt a hand beneath my arm, and then one on my other side. Holly and Colton helped me to my feet. In my panic, I began to head through the snow again, but they didn’t let go of me.
~~~
I could see a column of flames above our protective Village wall. And seconds later, I could hear the screams.
Some of the screams were organized, but others were frantic. The faster I attempted to run, the longer away it looked. It was like that scene in Poltergeist when the mother is running towards her children who are being consumed by the ghosts in the closet, and the hallway just gets longer the harder she runs.
Levi and Adam were already through the gate when I saw a tall, dark figure running towards me, calling my name.
I broke loose from my friends and ran towards my husband. He grabbed my cold, tired and bleeding body up and held it close to him. Then, we ran through the gates, with Sampson and Marla close behind now.
The bakery was consumed by flames, as was the MV Market. The fire had made its way behind these structures, and was beginning to devour its next victims, the Town Houses.
I tore the walkie from Mark’s hand. “Is everyone out of the Town Houses and accounted for?” I asked as loudly as my frozen vocal cords would allow.
“Everyone is out of the Town Houses, Aunt Laurie,” said Bri’s voice through the walkie. “And Adam’s with me, now. We are in front of the apartments.”
“You all need to get out of these wet clothes before you die of hyperthermia,” said Malcom from behind me.
“Go over to the Ballroom. There are clothes in there,” he commanded us.
I wanted to stay and help, but I saw that there was already a fire line of people starting at the water reserves behind the Ballroom going towards the Townhouses.
We slipped by, and ran into the room that was filled with frantic people trying to figure out what to do next. I herded up the Out-bounders and my friends and moved them inside to where I knew we kept the clothes. We all grabbed something to change into and towels and went into the old Ballroom’s dressing rooms.
Mark helped me peel off my wet pants, top and sweater, and wrapped me in a towel. He began to rub, bringing the circulation back into my body. He started on my hair, but I pushed him away as I dressed and ran out of the building towards the fire.
Bri ran to my side and pulled me into a tight hug. As tough as the army had made her, she needed reassurance right now.
“It’s going to be okay,” I said, kissing her on the head. “Is everyone in the Village accounted for?”
“I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head as if she were a failure.
“I need you to start on that now,” I told her gently, trying not to push her over the edge.
She took off, nodding her head in response to my request.
“Where is Jackson?” I asked Mark.
“I don’t know. I heard him on the walkie earlier, but it has been a while since then,” he said.
“Laura to Jackson, over,” I heard myself saying as I made my way further up the hill. I wanted to establish the Town Hall as a base, but I was too late.
~~~
Flames were beginning to take hold of the building and people were running wildly through the Town Square without purpose.
“Everyone in the Square, come to the medical tents,” I said into a walkie. The Villager’s heads turned around desperately looking
for their leader. I stood on top of the hood of the jeep that we had been using as an ambulance.
I spoke into the walkie, knowing that I would never be heard over the total chaos without some kind of amplification.
“Everyone needs to go down to the water reserves,” I began. All of the walkies went off at once, creating a microphone effect. “Make yourself useful.”
And then I felt it. Wet snowflakes began to drift down on the crowd before me and people looked up in amazement.
“Okay, we have a new plan now. I need everyone to go to the Ballroom, it is safe there still. Someone will be in to give you further instructions. Until then, begin to take roll call of as many Villagers as you can. Has anyone seen Lizzie?”
Heads turned to one another, but no one answered.
“Go,” I ordered them as I jumped down from the car.
“Look,” said Ammie, as she came to my side. She pointed to one of the homes that was immersed in flames. It was Lizzie’s house.
My brain stopped working, and seconds felt like days. I screamed at myself to get it under control.
“Go down to the Ballroom,” I told Ammie. Annie came to her side with Jacob and Bailey, and they all took off in that direction.
I stood in the snow and mourned Lizzie and her family, knowing that they were gone. She was my right hand, my organizer, and my friend. How many more would I lose before this night was over? I asked myself as frozen tears stuck in my eyes, painfully.
Jackson! Where is he?
“Laura,” said Mark’s voice over the walkie. Where had he gone to?
“I have Jackson. Come to the old Gianluca’s place,” he said. Something in his voice warned me that it was not good.
I ran up the hill to the house with the light of only one lantern in the window. Mark rushed to the door.
“I saw him just outside of the Town Hall while you were talking to the crowd. He was slumped over, and so I carried him here,” he said.
I slid past him to the figure lying on the floor. Jackson looked up at me, feebly. It felt strange seeing him so weak.
His face was covered in soot from the fire. He must have gone into the Town Hall after it had caught fire. What could have been so important?
