by Logan Keys
Together they checked her head to toe, but miraculously nothing seemed as bruised as her ego.
Bob blew out a sigh of relief and pulled her into his arms. Her eyes watered because he was truly terrified of losing her. And she felt the same. “I’m okay,” she said quietly. “Nothing is going to happen to me,” Michelle promised.
Bob helped her to her feet and together they made their way to the bridge a lot quicker than they thought possible. There were many cars on the bridge, all stuck from the last time people tried to come cross. As they made their way to the other side, Michelle cringed to notice a few inhabitants had not made it out. A few vehicles still held their drivers and passengers, now slumped over and gone.
She grew apprehensive as they passed the middle of the bridge, thinking about the anarchists who might be on the other side.
“Look!” Bob shouted, and she could already see it. The far side of the bridge was melted down to passable streets. Once they got to that side they could ditch the skis.
Michelle breathed a sigh of relief. Bob had lost Donny, but the rest of his family might still be okay.
They swished down the rest of the bridge, and then happily took off the skis and grinned at one another. “It’s all right. It’s fine,” she said. “The city looks the same.”
“Yeah.” His features darkened. “But for how long?”
The freeze could move in this direction at any time. “We have to move south,” Michelle said and Bob nodded.
Chapter Seven
Illinois
Chuck had stopped at the state line just for her. She knew that. Because Brittany noticed that he realized she was saying goodbye for good to her friends once she left the state. She had felt the change before already, but now, it was official. The chances of them being alive were already slim…but if they were, they’d never find her now. She was hundreds of miles away.
“We can go,” she said, sniffling back the tears. “I know you’re waiting for me to be okay, but…”
“You will never be okay.” Paige crossed her arms. “No one expects that. But he’s giving you time. It heals all wounds, or so they say.”
Brittany shook her head. “Not this one.”
Chuck had started to rush as soon as the snow began again. Every day was colder. He wanted to get down south as quickly as possible but had been waiting for Brittany to decide. All of that…for her.
She choked back emotions. Colton, Bart, and the kids had been like family. Nothing could replace them. But this felt nice, too.
Paige smiled at her. “We are going to a campground not far from here. We will be staying the night anyway, so, no rush, okay, kiddo?”
“Sure, grandma.”
Paige’s mouth dropped wide. “What? Is that a joke? Chuck! Get over here! Our girl just made her first joke!”
Brittany laughed as Chuck came running over. “What!” he crowed, pulling his hat off his head and slapping it on this thigh. “You’re kidding?”
“Nope. She called me grandma.”
He roared with laughter. “Oh yes, Brittany, she needs put in her place, don’t she?”
Brittany couldn’t help but blush at all of the attention the two people gave her. They were entirely too kind, and she felt good for the first time in a long while.
“So, you get the info on the campground? Looks good?” Paige asked.
Chuck shrugged. “As good as it’s gonna get, I suppose.”
Paige started getting everyone to the cars and trucks. She gave them the details and they all drove to the spot. Brittany noticed with surprise that George had re-appeared. He had to have gotten out of his lock down with the military and hitched a ride to catch up with the group. Paige grumbled about it when they got into her truck. “He’s gonna be the death of us. Chuck needs to grow some stones and kick his ass to the curb.”
“I agree.”
Paige turned with a smile. “Knew I liked you. Knew it right when you first started fighting us off from helping you. One step from road-kill, and still fighting. Don’t forget that, girl. You are a survivor and you may not believe in yourself, but I believe in you.”
Brittany bit her lip before it wobbled, and her eyes burned. Finally, she said, “I can never repay you or your brother’s kindness. Not in a million years.”
Paige snorted as they pulled onto the highway. “Lucky for you, we ain’t got that long left by the looks of it.”
**
Rain. Rain was a weird event now to Brittany because it was all snowing and ice and earthquakes before. So a slow drizzle that soaked her to the bone was new. And if she sat too long, it was uncomfortably cold, but still, it’s not as cold at the new stop. And not being completely frozen was a strange feeling for once. But also proof that they were closer to the middle of the country than before, and therefore escaping the total freeze…for now.
“You all right?” Chuck asked leaning in. He motioned for Brittany to sit closer to the fire but she waved him off.
“I’m not actually that cold for once. Weird, right?”
Chuck nodded. “I can’t remember last time I didn’t need a big heavy snow jacket.”
“You think we still need to head south though?”
“Yeah,” he said, his expression guarded. “Yeah, I do. Thing is, it’s best to be safe than sorry. The quakes might have hit everywhere, but the snow and ice…? That’s going to work its way down if this keeps up and being hungry is bad enough without being freezing. I know others have the same idea, but if we have it quicker than they do, it might pay off.”
Brittany nodded slowly, and Chuck went on and said, “I know it was hard to leave that farmhouse behind. Hard to leave your friends if they’re out there somewhere, but, and I’m just sayin’, what if they have the same idea? You said you were on your way to New York, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, they have no reason to go now, do they?”
She sighed. “If they are alive…the kids still need to get home. And Colton…” Brittany swallowed. “He would try to get them there. I know he would.”
“Well, what if it was colder and colder? He wouldn’t risk their lives, would he?”
Brittany shook her head.
Paige came over and rolled her eyes. “Bro, leave her alone already. What’s he doing? Telling you lame knock-knock jokes?”
Brittany smiled. “He’s giving me a bit of the hope you two seem to keep on having.”
“Ah,” Paige said with a wink. “That’s just…”
“That’s just what?” Brittany asked but Paige was looking over at a spot of campsite that was not part of their group.
“Bro,” Paige said softly, and he stood.
“On it,” he said and they both separated as if it were planned, going in opposite directions.
Chuck was at his truck and he pulled out a shotgun but kept it low. Paige was on Brittany’s left circling wide when five people came out of the brush. Three men and two women, and they all held weapons.
Brittany gasped and the people around the campfire finally realized they were being held up, robbed, and they lifted their hands. Chuck’s group had a hand-full of children; a few startled and whimpered.
“What do you want?” George demanded, ripping a marshmallow off the end of a stick as if he had been ready for this every day for a year and couldn’t care less.
The woman closest to him spat to the side and lifted her pistol to point at George’s head. That got him to stop chewing. “Your food. Your vehicles.”
She must be the leader, Brittany thought. Brittany was busy trying to make herself small, as she was still in the shadows. She glanced to where Chuck had been before, but he was now gone. She looked for Paige too…nowhere to be found.
The men came forward and started digging through the group’s things. “Keys,” one demanded, and then shoved his gun in the woman’s face. “Keys.”
When she froze, he smacked her with the weapon hard enough to make blood spray. Brittany couldn’t tell who it wa
s, but the woman was wailing as she handed over the keys and others sacked together their food in offering. The husband with the woman, or whatever he was to her, stood braced, ready to fight, even if it meant getting shot.
But the shadows moved behind the thugs and rising out of them was Chuck and Paige. She pushed her rifle into the back of the leader woman’s head, and Chuck kept his shotgun softly aimed at the three men, bouncing it to one then the other then the next.
“Tell them to put down their weapons,” Paige said in a deadly quiet voice.
Chuck cocked the shotgun. “Slowly,” he added.
When nobody moved, Paige forced her rifle into the woman hard enough to make her stumble. “Now.”
The woman glanced back at Paige and lifted her pistol, but Paige didn’t hesitate. She fired a head shot directly between the woman’s eyes. Chuck was already rushing forward and the men, two of them, backed away with hands up, weapons dropping swiftly. While one of them rushed towards Paige screaming the woman’s name.
“I’m not gonna shoot you!” he said when Paige lifted the rifle. He leaned over the woman and sobbed for her to be okay, but she hadn’t moved, not a bit, since being put down like a monster that she was.
“You shot her!” he shouted at Paige who stared back with steely eyes.
“Maybe robbing innocent folks is bad for your health,” Paige snapped. “These people don’t deserve this.” And Brittany’s blood chilled at how cold she sounded. The funny, lively woman that Brittany knew was gone. This was a soldier, and a deadly one at that.
If you harmed the people she cared about, you’d pay the price.
“Get out of here,” Chuck said.
Again, Brittany saw a side of Chuck she’d never seen before. These two siblings would protect their group with their lives. None of them were lucky enough to deserve it, but there it was.
George grabbed the guns from the ground and nodded at Chuck who nodded back. “You heard him. Get the hell out of here!” George bellowed and all but the one man and two women ran off.
“Help me carry her,” the man said, and together he and the other woman carried the dead one with them back into the brush.
**
“You okay?”
“Am I okay?” Brittany said to Paige in disbelief. “What about you? Or Chuck!”
“He’s fine. Were fine. Poor Rosie will have a scar on her lip.” Paige’s gaze filled with guilt. “If we’d circled round sooner---”
“Maybe we’d all be dead. That scar is the least of what could have happened, Paige. You have to know that you two saved everyone. Honest.”
Paige shook her head. “It’s going to get worse, ya know.”
Brittany stared hard at the woman. She was guilty over killing that person, Brittany could tell. “You did what you had to.”
“Did I? I think I could have done it a million other ways. Ways where people didn’t have to die. They were probably hungry.”
Brittany shook her head. “They seemed…I dunno…practiced. If they had started shooting, how many people would have died before you could stop them?”
Paige shrugged, her head falling into her hands. They sat near the dying fire, almost everyone else was trying to sleep, but no one really would be able to tonight.
Brittany reached up and touched the woman’s shoulder. “You’re a hero. Stop beating yourself up. Like you said, it will only get worse. That’s not our fault.”
Paige chuckled under her breath. “Rich, coming from you. I think you beat yourself up all the time. Your friends, that fire, whatever happened to them. That’s not your fault either.”
Brittany swallowed. “That’s different.”
“Look,” Paige said with a sigh. “I’ll stop beating myself up, if you stop doing it, too. Deal?”
Brittany sighed then noticed Chuck leaning against his truck. “You should probably go talk to Chuck. He looks exhausted. He should get some sleep. I’ll stay up if you need.”
“Would you?” Paige asked, pulling her rifle strap over her head. “It’s loaded. Just point and shoot if you need.” Paige winked at Brittany. “Try not to shoot any of us, all right?”
“Well…um… I’m not sure…um…”
Paige covered Brittany’s hand on top of the rifle. “I trust ya.”
And then she was gone and Brittany sat with the rifle on her lap, keeping watch, feeling like she was part of something once more.
Chapter Eight
Just Outside of Chicago, Illinois
“Let’s say those aren’t your friends and brother. Where do you recon they’d be?” Rufus asked, as Colton and he returned to the truck ready to leave.
“No clue,” Colton said with a sigh.
They had to wait to pull out as military vehicles were passing at a crawl. “Son, you better get down just in case.”
Colton did. He climbed down into the flooring of the truck as the military trucks stopped right in front of them.
Rufus got out, shooting Colton a glance, telling him to stay put with his gaze. Colton hoped that no one would remember the older man since he’d helped Colton get away.
From his place, he could hear that Rufus was asking someone what was holding up the traffic and then he returned shaking his head. “Everyone is moving south now. The ones who have gas anyway. And my daughter and them are part of transport now, all being moved as well.”
“So I guess we have our direction, then,” Colton said.
When Rufus gave him a questioning glance, Colton shrugged. “I can’t ask you to do more than you have, Rufus. If you’re headed south, that’s as good a direction as any. If my brother is out there…somewhere, and Brittany too, maybe they will see this line of traffic and start to follow.”
Rufus nodded and pulled out into line with the other vehicles. It was slow moving, but they had nowhere to be.
**
“Colton!” Rufus shouted, and Colton jerked in his seat. He must have fallen asleep.
“What is it?” he was immediately alert looking for his rifle. “Something isn’t…” The ground shook and Colton knew exactly why he’d been woken up. “Earthquake,” he said.
Rufus shook his head, his eyes wide. “Tornado.”
Colton saw it the same time Rufus said it. “My God,” Colton breathed.
It was the finger of God himself. Had to be. The thing blocked out the sky, a black twister as wide as a small town. And it was ripping up the road and vehicles like they were nothing, tossing them out into the sky with terrible abandon.
This thing was a creation of desperation. Mother nature, fighting back at them blindly.
“We’re blocked in!” Rufus shouted, pounding the wheel. “I can’t even get off the road!”
People started to get out of their vehicles and were running past the truck.
“Run for it?” Colton asked, but Rufus was already throwing his door open. It was coming their way, and fast.
Colton stumbled from the truck. He whistled. “Rex!” he shouted over his shoulder.
“Into the corn field!” Rufus shouted, and they both rushed for the side of the road.
Colton smacked the corn out of the way, Rufus hot on his heels, and more were following the path that they cut.
A woman screamed something he couldn’t understand, she had a baby in her arms. “What do we do?” she cried once more.
“Just keep going!” Rufus shouted to her.
The tornado was much wider than the road, so they still had not cleared out of the pathway, even as they broke free of the first field and entered another. The monstrosity had stayed its course but could turn at any moment. Colton was fighting the stalks of corn, shoving the brittle vegetables out of the way. Luckily the bad weather had torn it up enough that they were thinning as they went.
The tornado shifted, and the wind started to pick up. Debris rushed through at a cutting speed. Colton ducked as a piece of road flew over their heads. “Get down!” he called and the woman, a few others, and Rufus all dove for the gr
ound just in time. An entire tree flew above them.
“Go-go-go!” Rufus shouted, and they were up and running again.
In the distance was a barn that was the only shelter he could see. Colton rushed to it and threw open the door with the group behind him, who all tripped inside as soon as they arrived. Rufus and Colton were making sure everyone made it before they closed the barn door.
When they did, darkness descended with only cracks of light through the slats for guidance.
“Is everyone in?” Colton called but then his heart stopped.
“Rex!” he cried. “Rex, boy, here boy!”
The dog wasn’t anywhere where he could feel.
He panicked. Colton rushed towards the door. A man stood as a shadow in his way. “Get out of my way! My dog’s out there.”
The man tried to block his path. “You can’t open that door!” he cried, shoving Colton.
Colton rushed him, colliding with his shoulder into the man’s collar bone, driving him back. Together they crashed into the barn door, and it flew open. Colton kept going, not stopping.
The storm blocked out the sun, and everywhere was nearly as dark as the farmhouse had been now. The cornfields were swaying shadows, eerie as wind ripped through them, pulling up stalks like they were toothpicks.
“Rex!” Colton shouted, not seeing the dog in the gloom.
How had they gotten separated?
Colton glanced up and saw the tornado was bearing down right on the farmhouse. “Rex!” he shouted, rushing into the stalks anyway. The wind was so loud he couldn’t hear himself think. Debris blew into his eyes and larger pieces were striking his skin with such force, he was quickly scratched and bloody.
“Rex!” but he knew nothing could be heard over the growl of the tornado. It was like a train rushing by, wrecking, and blowing its horn right on top of you all at the same time.
He ran in every direction, about to give up hope, when the distant sound of barking drew his attention. Back towards the road, he was certain he’d heard a dog barking.
