by Mike Kraus
Jane nodded but Rick could tell she was barely paying attention to him. He sat his backpack on a chair down from her and put the gun case with the rifle inside of it over his back, picked up his shotgun from the floor and moved toward the front of the building. The sun was still high in the sky and the heat showed no signs of letting up as he scanned the street up and down in front of the building. So much for that fall weather, huh? Who builds a city in the middle of the desert like this. I mean come on already.
Rick sighed and headed back inside the building and grabbed his backpack. The jacket he had been wearing went into his backpack and he pulled out one of his last remaining bottles of water and a couple of energy bars. “It looks clear out there. We should get moving and see if we can find the convoy or something. We can at least get moving towards the air base and hopefully get there by tonight or tomorrow.”
Jane nodded and stood up slowly, holding her stomach as she walked towards the entrance to the building. “Here.” Rick held out one of the energy bars and Jane accepted it gratefully. “Try to take it slow there, okay? No telling how beat up you are inside.”
As Jane ate the energy bar, Rick stepped out of the building and into the hot sun. The variation in temperatures—down into the forties the previous night and what felt like the nineties or hundreds in the Vegas sun—turned his stomach. “If you’re ready,” he said as he put his pack back on, “then we should get going.”
Jane nodded and followed Rick out of the building and they started down the street, heading in the general direction of both the convoy and the gunshots from earlier. The shots had died down and Rick hadn’t heard any more in the last few minutes, though he was still wary as they walked down the street. “I really wish we had a map. I think we came in at the south or southwest side of the city, though, so as long as we keep heading northeast I would think we’ll see signs for Nellis at some point soon.”
Rick stayed close to the buildings on their side of the street as he and Jane went along. He kept his walking speed slow, both for his sake and hers. As his adrenaline from running into the building and away from the gunfire started to dissipate he realized that his hands were still hurting. He looked at one of them and grimaced at the myriad of small cuts in it as well as the bits of metal and rock that had been ground into the skin. Probably should have cleaned that up when we were back there. Rick sighed and tried to ignore the pain in his hands as he adjusted his grip on the shotgun.
After half an hour of walking passed, Rick finally saw a street sign that indicated they were on the right path. “Hey!” Rick turned to Jane and pointed at the sign. “Nellis is only fifteen miles away. We can make that by tonight if we hurry.”
Jane tried to put on a smile but the pain in her eyes was immediately obvious to Rick. “Are you okay?” She put her hand out on the building next to them to prop herself up, but she began to sink down as her knees started to buckle.
“Jane?” Rick ran back to her and grabbed her, then looked for a place where they could rest. A sign across the street caught his eye and he started walking towards it while supporting her on his shoulder. “A lumber yard? I guess it’s better than nothing.”
Chapter 6
Ellisville, VA
The entire two-story house was engulfed in flames that licked toward the sky as they sent torrents of grey and black clouds billowing upward. The conflagration was so intense that Dianne had to back the truck up and park off the side of the driveway before stepping out for fear of the intense heat.
“Jacob, Josie—I want you two in the truck. Mark, you get in the back and get the rifle. Don’t load it, just sit in the back with it, okay?”
Mark nodded and jumped out and into the back of the truck. Dianne got out and held her rifle in both hands, her eyes scanning the fields and tree line around the house in search for what could have started the blaze. It had only taken them around thirty minutes to visit the Statler’s house and in that time she found it hard to imagine what could have caused the Carson’s house to erupt into an inferno.
“Had to have been someone out here.” Dianne whispered to herself as she crouched next to the truck. Inside, Jacob and Josie had climbed into the front passenger seat where they were squished together watching the house burn with slack-jawed expressions.
“Kids,” Dianne said, keeping her voice low. “Back in your seats now. Mark, stow the rifle and get back in the front. We’re getting home right now.”
After her children were in their seats, Dianne got back into the driver’s seat and started up the truck. She backed down the driveway quickly, wanting to get away from the house as quickly as possible. The nervous feeling that was gnawing at the back of her mind when they pulled up had erupted into full-blown fear as she thought about the implications of the house going up in flames so quickly.
“Mom, what about Mrs. Carson? Shouldn’t we check on her and Mr. Carson?” Jacob piped up from the back seat. “Or do you think they were inside the house?”
“I don’t think so, bud.” The truck skidded as Dianne pulled out onto the road and she threw it into drive. “The Carsons like to go on trips a lot so I bet they weren’t even home.”
“Their house was fine when we drove by earlier.” Mark kept his nose pressed up against the window watching behind them as they hurtled down the road back towards their home. “What happened to it?”
“I don’t know. But I don’t think it just randomly caught fire and went up like that so quickly. We were only at the Statler’s place for half an hour. Somebody had to have set the house on fire.”
“Was it an accident, do you think?”
Dianne shrugged. “No idea. But I don’t want to take any chances. As soon as we get home I’m going to check our house out to make sure everything’s safe inside. I want you three inside once I’m done. Mark, I’m putting you in charge of keeping everyone safe until I get back. Take the rifle and keep a lookout, got it?”
Mark nodded. “Where are you going?”
Dianne chewed on her lip as she zig-zagged along the road, trying to hit as few potholes as possible. “We’re back in the woods far enough that I don’t think anyone will be coming out here. The Carson’s house was pretty close to the road, so if somebody was trying to break in or do… I don’t know, whatever they were doing, it was a pretty easy target. I want to check out all the buildings and make sure we start locking them anytime we’re not actively outside and using them. At least for the next few days or until we find out more about what’s going on.”
Mark, Jacob and Josie stayed quiet as Dianne drove the rest of the way home. She, meanwhile, spent the whole way home thinking about how she was going to clear the house, barns and outbuildings. She and Rick had spent a few weeks years ago taking intensive home self-defense classes that included instructions from former Marines and special forces operatives as part of their survival and preparedness mindset. It had been long enough that she had forgotten a few of the details, but the general principles were still firmly lodged in her mind.
Clearing a house with only one person was ill advised, but despite Mark’s knowledge and handiness with firearms she wasn’t willing to expose him or his siblings to any potential dangers inside. After unlocking and relocking the gate on the driveway, Dianne stopped the car short of the house by a good fifty feet and turned off the engine. She then hopped out, grabbed the rifle and magazines from the back of the truck and passed them to Mark who had followed her around.
“Remember what we taught you, kiddo. And if you hear shots, I want you to take your brother and sister off to your fort in the woods, okay? Don’t come up to the house until you get an all-clear signal from me. Got it?”
Dianne could see the nervousness written on Mark’s face as she gave him his instructions, but he nodded obediently and took the rifle. “Yes, ma’am. Got it.”
Dianne nodded and took off toward the house, keeping to the tree line as far as she could before making a break for the back door. She peeked through the window before unl
ocking and entering through the back, confirming that the living room was empty. Everything appeared to be untouched and she proceeded from the living room into the kitchen, taking fast but deliberate steps along the way.
Each corner she approached was quickly scanned with her eyes and the barrel of the rifle, her finger resting on the trigger guard and her thumb on a small switch that would engage the flashlight attached to the rail. After the kitchen was cleared she moved through the rest of the rooms on the ground floor, finding no signs of disturbance nor any indication that anyone had broken in. The doors were all secured, the windows were still locked and nothing had been moved or touched.
With all appearances pointing to the house being secure, Dianne relaxed substantially, but still proceeded upstairs and cleared each of the bedrooms and bathrooms before heading back downstairs and going through the basement. She was still on alert, but after double checking every room she finally felt comfortable with declaring the house secure.
After unlocking the front door and stepping out onto the front porch, Dianne looked out at the truck and saw Mark, Jacob and Josie staring back at her expectantly. She gave Mark a thumbs up and jogged out to meet the children as they all got out of the truck and started walking toward the house.
“Jacob and Josie, I want you two upstairs in Mark’s room until I get back. Mark, stay upstairs next to a window and make sure it’s open. If you hear any vehicles or strange voices outside I want you back in your room with them. Lock the door and do what we taught you, okay?”
Mark nodded and the three children raced inside and up the stairs. Dianne went in after them and locked the front door, then went out the back door and locked it after her. Clearing the house was merely the first step in ensuring that no one was on their property, and she still had quite a bit more work to do. The fact that the house was safe was a big relief, though as she headed down toward the lake and barns with her rifle at the ready, she couldn’t shake the image of the Carson’s burning house from her mind.
Chapter 7
Las Vegas, NV
The sun had nearly set in the sky by the time Jane regained consciousness. She had passed out just as Rick brought her inside the lumberyard and found a few cushions from lawn furniture to lay her on. Her skin was flushed and she felt hot to the touch, and Rick figured that the combination of her injury and them walking in the hot sun for so long had caused her to suffer from heat exhaustion or heatstroke.
“Should’ve paid more attention in that emergency training course.” Rick mumbled to himself as he poured more water onto a rag and dabbed it across Jane’s face. He had thought more than once about what the extra time delay might mean in terms of getting safely through the city and to the Air Force base, but he wasn’t about to leave Jane behind, especially after what had happened to Jack and Samantha.
“You did a good job.” The faintly spoken words surprised Rick and he glanced up at Jane to see her eyes open.
“Hey! You’re awake!”
Jane smiled weakly and nodded. “Thank you.”
“No problem. By the way, you should probably stay still and keep resting. I think we need to stay here for the night. I don’t like the look and sound of the city right now and you’re in no condition to travel.”
“What’s going on?”
Rick stood up and walked past an overturned vending machine from which he had procured several more bottles of water and looked out of a window. “Scattered gunfire, a lot of yelling and a few cars went by.”
“Did you see the buses or the soldiers?”
Rick sighed. “Nope. Not so much as a sign of them.”
Jane groaned and Rick turned before running back to her as she tried to sit up. “Hey, you need to take it easy.”
“I want to sit up.”
“Okay, okay. Hang on.” Rick grabbed a few more cushions and stuffed them between Jane and the wall behind her to prop her up in a sitting position. “That better?”
Jane nodded. “My stomach hurts, though.” Rick lifted her shirt a few inches and nodded. “Yeah, I was looking at the bruising earlier. You probably have some internal bleeding. I don’t know what I can do for you except tell you to keep still for at least tonight. We’ll see how you’re feeling in the morning, okay?”
Jane nodded and closed her eyes as she leaned her head back against the cushion behind her. “That sounds good. Then tomorrow we can get to that base and we can both get home.”
“Yeah.” Rick forced a smile as he watched Jane wriggle on the pile of cushions, trying to get comfortable. “I sure hope so.” After watching Jane for a few more minutes until he was sure she was back asleep, Rick stood up and walked back to the window.
“How the hell did I get myself into this mess?” He mumbled to himself again as he watched the rapidly waning sun. The natural sunlight would normally have been replaced by innumerable artificial lights from Sin City, but the only source of lighting he could see were the flickering twinkles of distant fires. Gunfire and screaming echoed from some far-off portion of the city and he turned to look at the room he had chosen for them to hole up in for the night.
The lumberyard was the type that was mostly outdoors with only a large roof to provide shade and minimal weather protection. The building attached to the roofed area, however, was fully enclosed and consisted of a sales floor, small warehouse, a few offices and a break room. The break room was where Rick had placed Jane before dropping everything except his shotgun and racing onto the sales floor. There he had grabbed the cushions off of several lawn chairs and brought them back to the break room where he arranged a bed for Jane to lay on.
After breaking the plastic on one of the vending machines and tipping the other one over to open it from the back, Rick had pulled out all of the food and drink from both. He then proceeded to use a roll of paper towels and a few bottles of water to make wet rags that he draped on Jane’s forehead, arms and legs to try and cool her down. As she had drifted in and out of consciousness he had forced her to drink as much water as he could, though he only managed to get a bottle of it into her.
As he stood with his back to the window watching Jane’s slow but steady breathing he realized that they would need a source of light in the next half hour before things got too dark. “Crap.” He had a flashlight in his bag but didn’t want to use it unless absolutely necessary and decided to see what the building had to offer instead. Rick headed back out onto the sales floor and scoured the place, eventually finding a pair of small battery-powered lanterns on a shelf behind one of the sales counters. He brought them back to the break room and set one on one of the tables before turning it on and stashing the second away in his backpack. The glow wasn’t enough to fill the entire room but it was bright enough that Rick could walk around without tripping on anything.
Don’t want it too bright anyway. Last thing we need to do is attract attention. He arranged a few more cushions on the opposite side of the room from Jane before checking on her again. Temperature’s going down. Good. Maybe she’ll feel better in the morning.
Chapter 8
Ellisville, VA
After thirty minutes of careful searching, Dianne sat down on a stump just outside the last outbuilding and breathed an enormous sigh. Her search had been fruitless, and for that she was exceptionally grateful. Not only were there no signs of anyone inside any of the buildings, there were no signs that anyone had been in them except for her and the kids. Not wanting to leave anything to chance, though, Dianne had spent a few minutes in the last building digging around in a collection of junk boxes until she found what she was looking for.
Five large, brass and steel padlocks with matching keys had been stored in one of the boxes. Dianne took four of them and used a Sharpie to mark each key and matching lock with a number. After doing so she tested the locks to make sure they closed and opened smoothly before stuffing the keys in her pocket and hanging the locks on her belt loop.
These should work well. Going to be a pain in the rear for letting al
l the animals in and out, but maybe we can let up some in a few days. Not knowing the source of the fire at the Carson’s house was still eating at her though having a bit of time to not think about it was helping her process the possibilities in a more rational manner.
It could have just been an accident. Their car wasn’t there so they had to have been gone. Maybe it was an electrical problem or part of their heat pump failed. The more Dianne thought about all of the possible sources for the fire the less worried she felt about herself, her property and—most especially—her children.
“Still.” Dianne started talking out loud to herself as she stood up and moved back toward the building she had just cleared. “It never hurts to be prepared.”
The first of the four brass locks went on a thick piece of chain hanging around the handles of the entrance to the barn. The next three locks went on the next three buildings, including the small shed that was built around their backup generator. Instead of moving the truck into the barn Dianne positioned it behind the house so that it wasn’t visible to anyone walking down the driveway and then she popped the hood, disconnected one of the battery cables and closed the hood back down.
“Should keep anyone from driving off with you.” Dianne patted the side of the truck and looked down at the buildings, fields and pond as she went through a mental checklist. All the buildings are safe and secured. Truck’s safe. House is safe. Okay, time to try and have a normal evening with the kids.
Dianne looked up at one of the second story windows and saw Mark peering back at her, the rifle in his hands. She waved at him and he opened the window and shouted down at her. “You coming inside, mom?”
Dianne held a finger to her lips before nodded vigorously. She headed for the back door and was about to unlock it when Mark appeared in the living room and undid the latch and the safety bar before sliding it open for her. “What’s wrong?” His face was covered in concern after she had motioned for him to be quiet.
