As it was, just a few people were up here. One of them Carl knew well, and she was tending to someone she once had given up for dead. The woman, Tara Rowe, was waiting for the man next to her to perk up. A male nurse was seated next to Michael and looking him over as Tara spoke to him. Carl first had witnessed the nurse, whose name was Rupert, face down Jason as he approached Michael, wondering if the injured man would react to the killer’s presence. Had Shyanne not shown up to draw Jason’s attention, Michael and Rupert might have ended up on the receiving end of Jason’s knife just as Palermo had.
“So, that’s how I rode a car off an overpass with no gas and practically no brakes and crashed into a chain-link fence and lived to tell about it.” Tara chuckled. “Proud of me?”
Carl watched the young man for any reaction. He faced Tara, but did not appear to be looking directly at her, although Tara was seated right in front of him. Carl recognized the look of a man who consciously was not focusing on a person. Right now Michael Wells seemed lost in his inner world.
But then Michael smiled. It wasn’t very big, but it was there. Tara had broken through.
“He does that,” Tara said. “He smiles every now and then when I tell him my wild stories.”
“Tara is getting through to him but this is pretty much what we get.” Rupert gestured to Michael. “Smiles, maybe a little turn of the head, but he has yet to say anything. I’m hoping the run-in with Jason and his men didn’t cause him to regress.”
Carl nodded. “I’m sure you’re doing the best you can.” Then he looked at Michael and nodded. “Hey,” Carl said to Michael. Michael didn’t respond, but Carl expected that. Carl had made a few efforts to communicate with Michael, but he never so much as twitched.
Tara rose from her seat. “Hey,” she said to Carl, “mind if I bend your ear over there?” She nodded her head toward a space by the wall a few paces away.
“Sure,” Carl replied.
Carl and Tara walked over and Tara started speaking, quietly but a little intensely. “God, it’s a little scary the way he’s like that. I don’t know anything about brain injuries or stuff, but it’s like he’s barely there. I used to be able to talk to him, to…” She linked the fingers of her hands together. “…to connect with him. Now it’s like there’s this wall inside his head that I can’t knock down.”
“You’ve never had any experience caretaking, have you?” Carl asked.
“No,” Tara said.
“It’s natural to be a little frustrated at first. But you’ll handle it better as time goes on,” Carl said. “It’s not supposed to be easy, believe me. I had a great aunt who ended up in a nursing home and we were tending to her for two years until she passed.”
“Yeah, but Michael, shouldn’t he get better in time?” Tara asked.
“He may never get all better,” Carl said. “But I do think he can improve. It’s just without our technology, we can’t scan his head, figure out how he’s been hurt, and see how he has been traumatized. All we can do is try helping his body heal, to the extent it can. Say, how is he walking? Can he move okay?”
“Yeah. If I take him by the hand, he’ll go anywhere with me. That’s just it. He seems to be aware, but he’s just not able to…” Tara gestured with her hands. “…put it out there.”
“He can’t express himself. I understand. But we still can work with that. Any hope is better than no hope.” Carl then took a quick look around the room. “Say, is Preston here?”
“I haven’t seen him at all today or yesterday,” Tara replied.
“Really?” Carl asked.
“Yeah, and I’m actually missing him a little. Scary, huh?” Tara asked.
“No kidding,” Carl replied. He had seen Preston yesterday, but only in passing. The man was out gathering food from a line of survivors who were gathering provisions inside Kelly’s Boutique. Carl approached, but Preston didn’t want to say much. So, apparently, his friends were spending a great deal of time apart as they handled the aftermath of recent events.
Carl crossed the threshold of Marianne’s. This store had attracted a lot of survivors, mostly because of its bedding section that included several display beds. Older men and women needed comfortable bedding to sleep or sit on, and a few of the families with kids also wanted the beds as well. In spite of the lack of air conditioning, the open passage of this floor made it a more pleasant area to rest than in the stifling upstairs of Kelly’s Boutique.
As soon as he stepped into the bedding section, he found it was much livelier than he expected.
“Aaaaaaaah!”
A young bundle of energy zipped past his legs, followed by five more lively pairs of legs. Carl recognized the first sprite that flew by. She was quick, and unlikely to be caught so easily by her pursuers.
Carl stuck around and watched. Shyanne Russel was darting past beds as she fled to stay one step ahead of the other children. Then, she made a quick left turn and ducked. Carl noticed her duck and roll under one of the beds. The other kids did not notice. They looked around, puzzled.
“Hey! Where’d she go?” asked a young boy.
Shyanne emerged on the other side of the bed. Then she ran screaming in the other direction, zipping past another bed before the other kids could hear or spot her. They turned and gave chase, but Shyanne had covered considerable ground.
Smart girl, Carl thought.
Shyanne raced to a bed on the farthest end of the bedding section. A large older man with a big belly was slumbering on it. She tapped his rising belly and called out, “Olly, olly, oxen free!”
The kids reached her, but by then they had slowed down. “Aw, she beat us again!”
Carl wandered over. “So, what’s the story? Tag?”
“Yeah, and Mister Cramer’s big belly is the safe zone!” a Hispanic boy piped up. “Tap him and you’re safe!”
“But what if Mister Cramer wakes up?” Carl asked.
Shyanne shook her head. “He never wakes up.”
“Ever!” added one of the boys.
Carl glanced around. Some of the beds were occupied by senior citizens or at least upper-middle-aged persons who were sound asleep. Carl first had encountered many of these people in the mall’s food court. They were asleep or in shock, likely caused by the sudden loss of power and the looting around them. At least with the ordeal of Jason Maltesta over, they could find a more comfortable place to rest and regain their strength.
Shyanne had been a big part of that. She had drawn Jason’s attention and led him away from the survivors so Carl and his companions could take out Jason’s force. It was risky, but Shyanne was up to the challenge. Carl hoped he never would put Shyanne into that kind of a position again, but this world might not be so kind to allow that.
This world already has taken her father away from her, Carl mused. The fact that she still was alive was, in it of itself, a miracle. The sight of her having fun with other children seemed unthinkable until two days ago.
Carl emerged from Marianne’s with his spirits lifted. But as he strolled down the mall corridor, the replay of Shyanne’s joy in his mind made him wonder. Should he take Shyanne with him when he left? It was startling that it should even be a question, but things quickly had changed in the past few days. Shyanne had found other kids to play with, and there were more than a few families inside this mall. Any one of them could take her in. If she accompanied Carl, he would be taking her away from her new playmates and this comfortable mall for a journey into the wilderness and possible peril. In fact, he had taken for granted that his friends would accompany him on his journey.
Then a thought occurred to him. Why should he leave the mall and these people?
The thought jolted him. Leaving had seemed like common sense, after all. The mall provided shelter, but no resources to cultivate. The food here eventually would run out. Maybe not in the next week, and if Carl understood the mall’s current supply of provisions correctly, maybe not even in the next mouth. But inevitably the survivors would ru
n through the remaining supplies, and then the people would have to leave to find new food and water to live on.
But he could find a nearby source of food, couldn’t he? The countryside wasn’t that far away. Surely there had to be workable farms out there, with wells and crops that could supply food for everyone. This mall could, in time, be modified to serve as a habitat.
Carl stopped near a wall and leaned his head against it. He was ignoring his years of training and common sense. They were too near a city that had suffered complete power failure and breakdown of order. Even though Carl and his friends helped clear out a small band of brutish killers, there were likely many more still in the city preying upon the weak. When the resources there dried up, they likely would branch out to find more, and God help anyone they ran across.
And then there are those who just want to look for more prey, Carl thought. Jason and his band were prime examples. They figured the suburbs offered more opportunities for hunting. No, the best bet was to flee to the countryside. He had to get away from large population centers. The sad truth is that if no help arrived from the government, millions of people would die in the cities from starvation or exposure. In a few months, the danger from roaming bands would be reduced, though it may never completely go away until civilization was restored.
Besides, he had one more reason to leave here. He had to see if his mother and father still were alive.
Before he had left to speak at the Rally for Rights, Carl had a teleconference call with his father on his farm. They spoke for a while before Carl had to leave. The farm was in northern Virginia, south of the D.C. metro area and not far from Camp Jefferson. Carl’s family was experienced in the outdoors, but his parents also were getting up there in years and had suffered some health setbacks recently. To Carl’s horror, he did not know where his brother Andy was. He did not ask his dad about Andy’s whereabouts before he logged off. Andy lived in suburban Loudoun County, not far from his dad’s farm, but he also made occasional trips out of state. Carl only could hope that Andy was not far away and would try to make it to the farm.
He lifted his head from the wall. No, he had to leave the mall. But the question remained, would his friends want to leave as well?
Chapter Three
Carl gathered Tara, Preston, and Shyanne together at a table in the mall’s food court. He wanted to have this conversation with his original traveling companions to make sure he understood their plans for the future. At the moment, the court was mostly empty, except for one of the few restaurant employees who remained in the mall tinkering with the local Italian eatery’s oven. Carl wasn’t sure what Eric Valenti was up to and decided to leave him be while he conversed with his friends.
“I might have made a few promises I couldn’t keep about leaving,” Carl said as he paced around the table. “I plan to get going soon, but I’d rather wait at least one more day to get over my little party with Jason.” He stretched his right arm. “I guess when you have the adrenalin going through your veins, you’ll promise the Moon, the sun and the stars.”
“So you actually admit you’re mortal?” Preston asked.
“Well, I certainly feel that way.” Carl massaged his right arm. “I’m going to spend today looking for gear to bring along when I leave. But…” He stopped and faced his friends. “I do want to make something clear. I’m not forcing any of you to come along with me.”
“I didn’t think you were,” Tara said. “I thought that was the plan all along, that we would head north after we took care of business here.”
“Sure. But we’ve had a whole day to spend here and I’ve noticed you seem to be getting along well with everyone. And you have to admit this mall is a pretty nice place to live, at least compared to the chaos we’ve just lived through.” Carl then sat down in between Tara and Preston. “Of course, it doesn’t have its own sustainable food or water sources. But if somehow, someway, supplies ever made it here, you could live here if you had to.”
“Carl, what are you getting at?” Preston asked.
Carl eyed Preston Wilson with great interest. The two of them had started out as adversaries of a sort, with the liberal Preston decrying the military and American overreach as the cause of many of the ills of the world, while Carl was more concerned with making sure the people prepared for a possible catastrophe as best as they could without relying upon rescue from authorities who could be decimated in a disaster. Since then Preston had been increasingly mellow regarding his political beliefs, but Carl knew the young man also was troubled by his recent decision to pull a gun’s trigger and shoot another human being. Preston saved Carl’s life, but Preston did not digest his actions easily. Carl wondered if it would be better for Preston to stay in this community of survivors, which was the closest thing there was to a “normal” situation.
“I just want to make sure you want to take this trip with me,” Carl said. “If you have found any reason to want to stay with the people here, I won’t stop you.”
“But Mister Carl, I don’t want to leave you!” Shyanne piped up.
Shyanne’s sudden outburst drew Carl’s interest. “Don’t worry. Like I said, it’s your choice. But, maybe staying here is worth thinking about. There are other kids here, even families. You were having a good time with them earlier. Maybe you could find a new life with some of the people here.”
Shyanne shrank back. “I…I think they’re nice, but…”
“It’s alright. I’m not forcing you to make a quick decision. In fact, I could delay leaving for a few days to give you time.”
“No!” Shyanne stood up. “I’m leaving with you! That’s what I want! That’s it! Final!”
Carl smiled. “Okay, okay. Looks like I will have a traveling companion.” Then he glanced at Tara and Preston. “Like I said, if you need time to think it over, I’ll wait.”
“No.” Tara shook her head. “We both have the same hometown up north, so I really should keep going with you anyway. I want to try bringing Michael there, too. Maybe we can find his folks, or his friends, or anybody up there.” She sighed.
Carl was both pleased and a little concerned. As he expected, if he got Tara, he also received Michael with her, a package deal. Except Carl wondered how the mentally scarred Michael would deal with the wilderness trip to come. Still, Carl would not reject Michael. He deserved a chance to try making it home.
“Well, why would I back out now? Might as well go all the way, right?” Preston then chuckled, but his face quivered a little as if he wasn’t entirely comfortable with what he was saying. Carl decided to let it go. He was happy that his traveling party would not split up.
“Great.” Carl stood up. “Then it’s settled. We’ll set off probably tomorrow if we can find the right gear.”
“I hate to ask this, but how do we know for sure where we’re going?” Preston asked. “I mean, my phone’s junk. I can’t dial up driving instructions…” He winced. “…excuse me, walking instructions, to get to where we’re going.”
“You know the roads to get to Camp Jefferson, right?” Tara asked.
“Sure, but knowing the roads is one thing. What about the wilderness that surrounds it?” Carl asked.
“I don’t follow,” Preston asked. “Why do we need to know what the wilderness is going to be like when we’re just going to follow the roads?”
“Because we might not follow the roads,” Carl replied. “In fact, I’m almost sure we’re going to have to divert off those main arteries sometime. You remember our great escape from those anarchists off the overpass?”
Preston trembled. “Don’t ever talk about that again.”
“It’s too tall of a tale for him,” Tara said with a giggle.
Preston rolled his eyes. He knew Tara was referring to his acrophobia that practically had crippled him as he had tried hiking across the towering Earhart overpass. If it wasn’t for Tara providing her jacket to cover his eyes so he couldn’t see the elevated surroundings, he might never have gotten off that ove
rpass.
Carl cleared his throat. “The point is that state roads can be magnets for large bands of survivors. Sometimes that can be good, but it also can be very bad, as we remember, or in Preston’s case, would prefer to forget. We could run into the wrong crowd and even if we find new weapons, we easily could be outnumbered. So, our trip likely is going to take us into the woods. I would prefer to have a map handy, so I can judge landmarks, like rivers, canals and mountains so we don’t get lost.”
“Well, since the internet’s gone to crap, we’re just going to have to go the Stone Age route and find us a paper map,” Tara said.
Preston scratched his head. “So, who around here has a map?”
Preston’s question proved hard to answer. Carl approached Chad, one of the leaders of the mall survivors, to ask him if he had a map, but Chad shook his head and said “No.” “And I never asked anybody if they had one,” he replied. “I’ll help you ask around.”
But survivor after survivor simply shrugged and said “No” whenever Carl asked. Deciding that maybe finding a map among the survivors was a dead end, he chose to investigate the stores themselves. However, the stores were not any better. No store sold any maps.
“Here’s the problem,” Tara said as they strolled down the mall corridor. “If you’re looking for street maps, those would be carried at gas stations. A mall like this, yeah, I think we’re out of luck.”
“I just can’t believe there are no maps around here,” Carl said.
“It’s because people use GPS or online directions,” Preston said. “I’ve never had to ask for a paper map before.” Preston then frowned. “Hey, why don’t you have one? I thought you were prepared for all this.”
“I am, or I was. It was in my go home bag in my car. Remember? I couldn’t get to it,” Carl replied.
Silent Interruption (Book 3): An Uncertain Passage Page 2
