by JJ Holden
Clark nodded and took his first steps towards the back of the store. They reached the door to the stock room in less than a minute. Clark opened the door and whispered to the group, “Let’s go.” He pointed to the bay door. “We need to get out of here before they come looking for their buddy.”
He heard rustling in the darkness and in a few seconds, saw Charles emerge.
“Did they find another way into the store?” Charles asked.
“Yeah,” Clark said.
“And?”
Rebecca smiled. “I took care of him.”
* * *
Ten minutes of searching revealed many useful supplies. Clark found a backpack in one of the isles and began filling it with items he found along the way. The most urgent were first aid supplies for Tyler’s wound. They also found a striker along with several packages of flint, a flashlight and several packages of batteries, a hunting knife in a leather sheath, and several earth tone ponchos were found in the sporting goods section. They also found a compound bow and a few packages of arrows. Clark knew most people would overlook such items, as guns, ammunition, food, and water were of the greatest concern. They checked the front of the store but all of the candy displays were picked clean. No other food could be found.
Clark stepped to the front of the store and looked out through the glass. The parking lot was still empty, though he knew they couldn’t wait around too long. Whoever was standing guard at the other side of the store was likely to check things out soon enough.
“Wait,” Rebecca said. “I should work on Tyler’s wound before we leave.”
“There’s no time,” Clark said. “We need to get to the woods. It will be dark soon.”
Rebecca gave a hesitant look. “Fine,” she said. “But once we get to the woods…”
Clark walked towards the broken store window at the front of the building. He stepped through a gaping hole in the glass and turned around. “Careful,” he said.
Clark surveyed the parking lot. Nobody was in sight. One at a time, they stepped through with Clark leading the way.
Clark continued to check all around them as they walked. Rebecca walked behind him, helping Tyler along. Charles and Thomas followed behind Rebecca, and kept an eye out behind them, in case any Imperials attempted to launch a surprise attack.
In less than five minutes, they found the entrance to a wooded trail. They walked up a steep incline to return to the relative safety of the forest. The sun had nearly set by the time they walked a half mile off the trail to clear a place to camp for the night. Before complete darkness overtook them, Clark and Rebecca worked on Tyler’s wound. They found that the bullet had not penetrated his leg, but merely grazed him. Rebecca dressed the wound to the best of her ability with the aid of the flashlight.
Darkness set in quickly and summoned the creatures of the night. Insects chirped their rhythmic tune, echoing back and forth before joining in a chorus of a thousand noises clustered as one.
“I’ll stand guard first,” Charles said to Clark. “You need your rest.”
“Thanks,” Clark said, turning off the flashlight and laying on the cold ground. He drifted off into unconsciousness quickly.
After a night of dreamless sleep, Clark opened his eyes and stared groggily into the forest. The sun was in the midst of rising above the horizon, and the forest was growing brighter by the second.
As his vision cleared, he heard Charles’ voice: “By train?”
Clark lay still as he heard Rebecca’s reply. “Yeah. I remember standing on that railroad depot platform with my mother and brother. We were told to arrive at the depot in Oswego to be transported to see my father, who we were told was arrested in Pennsylvania. When we asked why we couldn’t drive, they said that most of the roads were closed because of the risk of roadside bombs being set by terrorists. All airports were closed as well. The only way would be by rail. Looking back, we were so naïve, but we were told this by local police officers. We believed them because growing up, were we always told to be respectful and listen to authority figures.”
There was a slight break in her speech as she sobbed lightly. Then she continued in a softer tone. “I saw a lot of my neighbors there before the train rolled in. When it finally came, their look of disbelief matched ours as the endless train passed through. We saw the cattle cars stuffed with people pass by us until the train stopped, and we saw a few empty cars in front of us. Word had gotten to us that the station was circled by troops; otherwise, we would have left to find another way to see my father. We were stuck, at the hands of the soldiers who pushed us onto the empty cattle cars. It was like a scene out of a nightmare as we were squeezed in. Children and babies cried as men and women shouted. It was of no use. They closed the doors and locked us inside. We were trapped, nearly one hundred of us in that sweltering car.”
Clark sat up and looked at Rebecca as the tears poured down her face. She looked at him and then back at Charles.
“Go on,” Charles said.
“It was so crowded that everyone stood, pressed against one another. A few of the elderly were able to sit on the ground beneath them, but there wasn’t enough room that they could lay down. There was a hole in the floor near the corner in which we stood. At first we didn’t realize its purpose, but after about two hours, it became apparent that it gave us the only means to relieve ourselves in a somewhat sanitary way. Some people couldn’t make it to the hole in time. After four hours, the smell was unbearable. But there we were, still unsure of when the trip would be over. Unsure of where we would eventually arrive. As we rode into the night, the atmosphere in the car grew worse and worse. Fighting broke out as the occupants all vied for every square inch they could. All sense of community amongst the neighbors in the car slowly deteriorated over the night until chaos broke out in the sea of doctors, accountants, teachers, businessmen, children, the elderly, and so forth…”
“My God,” Charles said, his face displaying pure dread as the story unfolded.
Rebecca continued as the sun moved farther away from the horizon, illuminating their camping spot. “A doctor and his wife, who I believe was a nurse, finally were able to calm mostly everyone down. They helped the sick and weak, though there was little light for them to work by, even in the middle of the day. The guards at the next station didn’t give us any food or water. They ignored our cries as the train rolled out and we continued on. Many people moaned from hunger and thirst and horrible ailments. On the third day, in the middle of the afternoon, we stopped at another station. A guard came to our car and told us he would bring three buckets of water if we surrendered all of our wallets, watches, and jewelry. Little persuasion was needed for everyone to empty their pockets and strip their weak bodies of any jewels and valuables. The water was passed around, but for nearly one hundred souls, three buckets didn’t allow for more than a couple sips per person. That was the first and last of the water we had access to. That night, there were many people tormented by illnesses. Several people were vomiting into the hole in the corner. A few had diarrhea. Some were delirious with fevers. By the fourth day, we had our first death: an old man suffered a heart attack. At the next station, we tried to tell the guards about the corpse, but they ignored us. As we continued on, the bodies piled up and the smell…oh my God, the smell was worse than before. Then…” Rebecca began to shake as she continued with a broken voice. “…then on the fourth day, my mother passed out. She had complained of a headache and fever the previous day, but there was nothing we could do to help her. The car was sweltering and we couldn’t wake her. The doctor eventually came to her aid, but it was too late…”
Clark saw Rebecca’s face now. Tears dripped down her cheeks and passed by her parched lips.
“I’m so sorry,” Clark said.
Rebecca lowered her head and stared at the ground. “After five days, the living were literally sleeping on top of each other to avoid being near the growing number of corpses. At the end of that day, we finally made it to our destination…”
Rebecca turned and looked at Thomas, who rubbed his eyes as he sat up. “Wake up, Tyler,” he said.
Charles looked at Tyler, who lay in the fetal position on the ground. “How’s your leg?”
Tyler rolled over and looked at the old man. “Hurts a lot.”
Clark helped Tyler up and they gathered their supplies. He thought of Rebecca’s story and knew that what she experienced was being relived by countless others across the country every day. He knew they had to move on and find the rebel stronghold in the south. That was their only hope to one day live in a world free from the evil that now ruled supreme.
Clark shook his head to dispel the horrible thoughts from his mind and instead focused on the survivors around him. He reached into his pocket and grabbed two food bars. He handed one to each of the boys.
“Should I split mine with you?” Thomas asked.
“No,” Clark said, pulling three more bars from his pocket. “It’s all yours.”
Back onto the barely visible trail, Clark kept an eye out for any movement in the woods. Fortunately, nobody was nearby. He was glad to be able to walk in nature undisturbed by the horrors of everything going on in the world, though he knew this bliss was only temporary, and so he continued to scan his surroundings. They found the main trail and walked further south as the sun worked its way up into the sky. After an hour of walking through the thick brush, Clark spotted a fork in the trail and saw a wooden sign with carved text and an arrow pointing to the right.
“Thank God,” Charles said.
Clark smiled when he read the sign: Appalachian Trail. His smile quickly faded as he heard the whistle of a nearby train, likely filled to the brim with innocent people who would soon perish at the hands of the Imperials. He hastened his step as they started on the trail that would lead them nearly eight hundred miles south on their journey to find the hidden rebel base in Georgia. Though it was unlikely he could save those en route to the concentration camps, he knew there was a chance to save millions of others from a similar fate.
# # #
About the author:
JJ Holden lives in a small cabin in the middle of nowhere. He spends his days studying the past, enjoying the present, and pondering the future.
Contact JJ Holden at [email protected]
For more information on this series, go to jjholdenbooks.blogspot.com
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Thank you for reading Life After - Episode 4. You’ve already made your way to the top of my Favorite People list, along with George, Paul, John, Ringo, Dean Koontz, Kurt Vonnegut, Stephen King, and Stephen Colbert.
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