She popped three of the pills in her mouth letting her body go numb. Her heart rate started to come back down; the rolling weight of dullness fell upon her. Her thoughts started to scramble. She couldn’t remember what she was thinking about anymore. She could only feel herself sinking into the bed beneath her and the warm sun beating on her legs through the window.
The crash of the front door swinging open snapped her out of her daze. She could hear the shuffling of feet and the sliding of furniture. There were voices she couldn’t recognize.
Her legs felt heavy when she moved them. Her whole body was heavy. She moved toward the door of her room, slightly swaying back and forth. When she reached for the doorknob everything seemed to move in slow motion.
Kalen’s hands padded along the walls of the hallway, as she tried to steady herself. She could see people moving in the living room. She saw two young girls staring back at her, their faces smudged in dirt and their nightgowns covered in grass and mud.
The two girls were holding each other’s hands. That’s all Kalen could focus on. Then there was a slight buzzing in her ears. Her eyes shifted from the two small hands laced together to her mother mouthing words at her, until finally the sound broke through the humming in her mind.
“Kalen!” Anne said.
“What?” Kalen asked.
“Grab the antibiotics out of Grandpa’s bag and a bottle of water out of the kitchen and give them to Ray.”
“Okay.”
Kalen tried to focus on the task. She made herself walk to the bag, search it until she heard the sound of pills rattling in a bottle, then put one foot in front of the other to grab a bottle of water from the cabinet.
On the walk back a third girl was staring at her. She was around Kalen’s age, a little bit taller than she was though, and had the same dirt smudged face as the younger girls. The three of them looked alike.
Kalen twisted the top of the bottle off. Ray’s face was dripping with sweat. She could feel the heat coming off of his body just standing next to him. She shut her eyes, hard. Her thoughts felt jumbled. She tried focusing on the task at hand.
Tilt his head up. Give him the pill. Have him drink the water.
She recited it a few more times in her head, making sure she had it correctly. She opened her eyes and tilted Ray’s head up. His mouth opened and she placed the pill on his tongue. She placed the bottle of the rim to his lips. She slowly tilted the water into his mouth. Most of it went down his chin and onto his shirt, but enough made it into his mouth for him to swallow the pill.
She fell onto the floor, her butt landing hard against the wooden planks. Her thoughts became jumbled again. She felt a hand pulling her up then pushing her down the hallway. She felt the hand guide her into bed where she collapsed into a dreamless sleep she desperately needed.
***
The room was dark when Kalen opened her eyes. The sunlight that had come through the window earlier in the day had been replaced by the silver glow of the moon. The pills had worn off. She started to remember again. She reached for the drawer of the nightstand.
The familiar rattle of pills was gone. She pulled the drawer open further, her hand running along the bare sides and bottom. Nothing.
A glow of light from under her door caught her attention. The glow faded, as if moving down the hall. When she opened the door she saw a girl, around her age, her face lit by candlelight. She looked familiar.
“Hi,” Mary said.
“Hi.”
“I didn’t mean to wake you up. I was just getting some water.”
“You came in with my grandfather earlier today didn’t you?”
“Yeah. He found us in town and brought us up here.”
“I’m Kalen.”
“Mary.”
The two girls shook hands. Kalen could feel the dryness in her mouth. She followed Mary to the kitchen for some water.
Kalen tipped the bottle back and downed half of it immediately. She didn’t realize how thirsty she was until the water hit her lips. Her stomach growled.
“I think there was still some meat left over from dinner,” Mary said.
Anne had cooked some of the canned chicken from the supplies downstairs. Mary had saved some for a snack later, but gave it to Kalen instead.
Kalen wolfed the food down. The fork scraped the sides of the bowl until there was nothing left, and placed it on the counter. She wiped her mouth with the corners of her sleeve.
“Are you okay?” Mary asked.
“Yeah, why?”
“It’s just I don’t’ see how someone who has an entire basement stock piled with food acts like they haven’t eaten in days.”
That’s because she hadn’t eaten in days. Her last meal had been in their old house. A house she watched go up in flames with her father inside.
“Who were the girls with you?” Kalen asked.
“My sisters.”
“What about your parents?”
Kalen recognized the look on Mary’s face. It was the same look she’d been wearing for the past three days. Kalen changed the subject.
“Where are you from?” Kalen asked.
“California.”
“What are you doing in Ohio?”
“We were on vacation. My dad wanted to have his daughters experience the world of the small town. We’ve been on a road trip all summer. We were planning on heading back the day everything turned off.”
Kalen watched Mary’s eyes drift down when she mentioned her father. She had said “dad” very softly.
“What about you?” Mary asked.
“Pennsylvania.”
“Were you guys here when everything went out?”
“No, we were back home in Pittsburgh.”
“You walked all the way from Pittsburgh to here?”
“We drove.”
Mary laughed.
“I’m serious,” Kalen said. “The Jeep out front works. That’s what we came here in,” she said.
“You’re telling me that you have a working car?”
“Yeah.”
Mary’s smile faded. Her face turned serious. She rushed over seizing Kalen by her shoulders.
“We have to get out of here,” Mary said.
Kalen felt Mary’s fingers digging into her shoulders. She squeezed hard, pulling her closer.
“Why? We came here because it was safe. My grandfather brought you here because it’s safe,” Kalen said.
“You don’t understand. That town, Carrollton, that’s just a few miles from here, is overrun. There’s this gang there. You want to know what happened to my parents? They killed my dad and raped my mom in front of me.”
When the words hit Kalen’s ears she didn’t have the reaction she thought she would. She’d been scared of facing what had happened to her in the woods. She didn’t want to give it a name. She couldn’t force the words from her lips. It wasn’t until Mary had said the words that she finally felt something about what had happened.
She felt angry.
“They raped her?” Kalen asked.
Mary didn’t cry. She kept the same rushed tone as before. She spoke not out of remorse for what happened to her mother, but of the fact that she didn’t want it to happen to her sisters.
“One of them burst down the door of the room we were in. My dad tried to stop them, but the guy pulled a knife on him. After he stabbed my dad he pulled a gun on me, my mom, and my sisters.”
Kalen felt herself being drawn into Mary’s story, her anger rising with every word leaving Mary’s mouth.
“He grabbed my arm and threw me on the bed. Before he could do anything to me my mom stepped in. She took her clothes off and let him…”
“Rape her,” Kalen said.
It was the first time those words left Kalen’s mouth. The man who had tried to rape her shared the same face in her mind as the man who raped Mary’s mom. They were the same person. She never asked what her grandfather did to that man in the woods, but she had imagined a few scenarios
. The satisfaction of revenge on her assailant by her hands could no longer come to fruition, but maybe she could do something about the man who hurt Mary’s mom.
“He’s still alive?” Kalen asked.
“I think so. I mean I don’t know what happened afterwards. I just grabbed my sisters and we ran. We hid in the fields for almost two days.”
Kalen’s grip on the water bottle tightened, causing the plastic to crack and crumple from the pressure.
“How many?” Kalen asked.
“How many?” Mary repeated.
“How many gang members were there?”
“I’m not sure. I only saw around ten, but there could be more, that’s why we have to get out of here. We need to get in that Jeep and drive as far away from this place as fast as we can.”
“And go where?”
“Some place safe.”
“There isn’t any place safe anymore.”
“We can’t just stay here forever.”
“No, but we’ll stay here for as long as we can and do what we need to do to make this place safe.”
“What are you talking about? Those people out number us. They have guns. They don’t care who they kill. They don’t care who they hurt. They’re animals.”
“Then we’ll hunt them down and kill them like animals.”
Chapter 10: Day 10 (Mike’s Journey)
The “Welcome to Ohio” sign dripped with water from the storm that blew through earlier. Once Mike saw that sign he knew they were at the halfway mark. The caravan of people behind him was spaced out along the highway, huddled in their own separate groups.
The To family walked directly behind Mike. Fay, Nelson, and Sean were to his left. Tom and Clarence brought up the rear.
They hadn’t run into another person for almost three hours, and Mike was glad. The people they ran into were interested in either one of two things: following them or hurting them. So far they’d been lucky enough to avoid the latter, but Mike knew it was only a matter of time. If they ran into a group large enough with the guns and manpower to take them they’d be in trouble.
Everyone, but Mike, seemed to think that the road was safer than staying at the airport, but they hadn’t experienced true desperation yet. They hadn’t felt it put its hands around their necks, trying to squeeze the life out of them, draining their energy and resources until there was nothing left.
Mike feared that the people he was helping now would soon turn out to be his enemies. He desperately wanted to believe that the people walking behind him were good, decent people, but he also knew what a man could do when he was hungry enough. And what happened to the man who was foolish enough to feed him.
Jung walked up beside Mike, carrying his daughter, Claire, on his back, her head resting there, her thick black hair clinging to her forehead from the sweat collecting on her face.
“How far along are we?” Jung asked.
“We’re halfway. If we keep us this pace we should be there in less than forty-eight hours.”
“That’s great news.”
Mike glanced down at Jung’s belt. He held no knives, pistols, or weapons of any kind.
“Jung, you should carry the extra pistol. If something happens or if we get separated you’ll need to protect your family.”
“I am protecting my family, Mike. Men fool themselves into thinking that the justification of violence for protection safeguards them from it. All it does is paint a target on your back signaling those who share your views that you will have to face each other and fight until one of you dies.”
“You think that because I carry a gun that it invites, rather than deters, danger?”
“No. It’s the mentality of how you carry the gun and why you have it. If someone came out of those bushes with a knife in his hand and saw that you had a gun, he’d know the only way to get what he wants is to kill you. If he doesn’t kill you, then you’d kill him. If a man pops out of those bushes and pulls a gun on me and I have nothing to counter him he’ll be less likely to pull the trigger.”
“Only if you give him what he wants.”
“What I want is my life and the lives of my family to be safe. That’s what I want. I want to be able to ensure that my family has the chance to survive and go on.”
“Well, your family won’t survive for very long without the supplies those people with guns take from you. You can only go three days without water and a week without food. If what you have on your back is it, then that is your life. You keep that, then you’ll have a chance at survival. You don’t get to keep it, well, then you’re better off having the robber shoot you then and there.”
“Don’t lose your faith in people, Mike.”
“I haven’t lost my faith in people. I’ve just lost caring about them.”
The thunder from the storm clouds in front of them rumbled through the sky. The storm was moving away, but in the same direction they were heading.
Sean and Jung Jr. splashed in the puddles left in the road when the storm passed through earlier. Claire frowned, but Jung and Nelson both gave their boys a good-natured smile. With all of the things that were going on in the world, seeing their boys laugh and act like kids was worth the cost of their shoes and clothes getting muddy.
Sean kept pretending that there was something in one of the larger puddles, trying to pull him in. Fay kept egging him on with her laughter.
“Your boy’s quite the comedian,” she said, looking at Nelson.
“His mother’s the funny one. I’ve been told I have the sense of humor of paint thinner.”
“Well, depending on how much paint thinner you sniff you could have one hell of a time.”
Fay held the other rifle in her hands that Mike and Clarence grabbed from the weapons cache at the airport. She kept the barrel leaned up against her shoulder as she walked.
“What happened?” Fay asked.
“To what?” Nelson said.
“Your wife.”
“She’s a Vice President for an engineering company in Pittsburgh. She was in the city when everything stopped working. We stayed at the house for almost a week, waiting for her to come home, but after what happened in our neighborhood, we left with Mike.”
“What happened to your neighborhood?”
“The same thing that happens to people who give up.”
“Which is?”
“We forget how to be human.”
“Maybe it’s just how we really are.”
“You really think that? You think that we’re such a depraved species that at the first sign of trouble we all turn on each other like animals?”
“Nelson, we’ve both seen what people can do when they’re desperate. They don’t have any rules. They don’t have any principles. They just go by what they need at the moment. With everything that’s happened people aren’t planning for the future, they’re not showing restraint. They’re only worried about what they’re going to get for their next meal, and they don’t care how they get it.”
“I don’t think so. I think we can still get out of this. ”
Fay raised her arm, her gesture encompassing the scene around them: the scattered abandoned cars with their windows smashed, the rising of fires in the distance sent smoke into the sky.
“Look around, Nelson.”
“I am.”
Fay noticed that Nelson wasn’t looking at her when he said that. His eyes were focused on Mike, up ahead.
Fay remembered her conversation with Mike the night before they left the airport. She wanted to believe what Nelson was saying was true. She wanted to believe that Mike could get them out of harm’s way and keep them safe. She wasn’t sure what was more frightening though: the fact that she was actually able to believe it, or that she was resisting it so much.
***
With the sun fading in the sky Mike decided to call it a day. The sighs of relief immediately followed.
A forest ran parallel along the highway. Mike picked out a spot on the tree line where they’d be c
oncealed from view by anyone on the road, but still close enough to jump back on it quickly if they needed to get out in a hurry.
Just as in the airport the group set up shifts to keep watch. Tom had the first shift and posted up against a tree with the rifle across his lap.
No Power: EMP Post Apocalyptic Fiction Thriller Super Boxset Page 115
