by Cooper, DJ
I looked around and could see no place that felt truly safe to stay the night. Moving slower now, we could really look at the area. Everything that looked like people could stay had been burned. Rich shook his head saying, “This is bad, very bad. The people died here.”
I gasped, “How do you know that?”
He said, “Do you see the big X on the door?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“It is put there by FEMA and tells us what was found in these buildings and when.”
“Well, what does it say?”
“It’s odd, the agency that searched is supposed to be on the left side of the X. I don’t know what that code is.” Continuing he said, “On the top is the date searched. To the right is the hazard, in this case, it tells us it is a biohazard, and the bottom numbers are live occupants and corpses.”
Lia looked at it and said, “It is the same one they put on my door when they took my parents away.”
Rich looked over at me and asked if I could check the glove box for something to write on. He scribbled down the X and its markings saying, “I’ll have to check this out later. Right now we need to get a move on. I’m feeling really uneasy in this place; something doesn’t add up.”
Trying to recall how to get to the highway proved to be difficult. I had the map spread between Doc and I. No one had taken note of the exit or any signage when we exited the highway, so we had no idea where we were. After driving through burned out areas for more than an hour we found a sign at an intersection pointing right and said, Somerset. It was difficult to tell with the map we had but this made sense.
I said, “We are near Somerset.”
Rich asked, “Does the map show where this road goes?”
“Not that I can tell,” I said. “We need to stop someplace and look this over. Somerset is getting close to Pittsburgh and even I know, we don’t want to go there.”
Rich said, “Everyone start looking for a place we can stop.”
He drove slowly as the last light of the day began to fade. On the left was a small auto repair garage. Pulling in he said, “Keep it running, I’m going to check it out.”
A tense moment, I was scared. Opening my eyes wider staring into the darkness of the building he’d just entered, I strained to see. For a few moments, there was not a sound; the silence was agonizing. The sound of the garage door opening sounded like thunder. It was so loud; I was sure they’d heard it in the next county over. Rich came running over and hopped into the driver’s seat. Turning the truck around, with the skill of a pro, and a seamless motion he backed it into the garage. He hopped out again, and the thunder returned when he closed the bay door.
We climbed out of the truck and stretched some. Jennifer remained in the back seat. She’d still not said a word and looked pale. I propped up the bag with some clothes in it for her to lay her head on. She was sweaty and clammy feeling. I was sure this was not good.
Doc was coming with some water for her; I moved out of the way so that he could see how she was doing. He looked at her and took her pulse. Holding her hand, he brushed a wisp of hair from her eye and said softly, “I love you dear one.” and gave her a kiss on the forehead. Handing me the water he said, “Take this and could you bring me another bag from the back to put her legs up on?” Stopping me as I climbed out he said, “And a blanket.” Smiling back at her he began to speak in soft tones like nothing had gone wrong.
I didn’t understand what was going on but got what he wanted and immediately brought it to him. He raised her feet and legs and lay her down saying it would help her leg feel better. Telling her, he would return shortly he took me aside and said, “She’s going into shock, it is paramount that we make her calm and reassure her. Can you sit with her while I see if I can find some pain relievers for her leg?”
I said, “Absolutely, I’m glad to.”
Returning to Jennifer, I sat and tucked in the blanket he set over her feet and started chatting with her. “I think we are in a good spot here for the night. We are out of the weather and away from those terrible bad guys. Things are going to get better now.” She turned and looked at me but said nothing. I continued, “I can’t wait to get to Kentucky to see my son, he’s not as old as you are but he is so handsome.” She blinked and looked somewhat interested, so I continued, “I think you will like him, he isn’t one of those mean boys that pulls the girls hair. He is actually pretty nice to all the girls.” I laughed as I continued, “When we get there, I know he will be happy to meet you. You’re so pretty; he’ll fall head over heels for you.” She actually made a small smile when I said that. I just continued to jabber on like we were old pals playing catch up on a quiet evening with not a care in the world.
The Doc had returned a few times feeling her and taking a pulse nodding to me to continue. A little while had passed as I made up stories of how the place in Kentucky was warm and safe with a nice stream to play in was nearby. Noted how Dez had ducks and chickens that would eat out of her hand when she got there. She gripped my hand tighter for a moment and grimaced as she tried to move her leg to get more comfortable.
Her breathing got shallow and slower while her hand became colder. Her eyes closed and she lost consciousness. She looked peaceful, and I wondered if she’d just gone to sleep but was worried. I extracted my hand from hers and ran to get Doc. He returned and felt her pulse. Panicked he shook her to wake and began to check her pupils. Her breathing was shallow to the point of almost not at all when he hoisted her out of the seat and onto the floor.
She lay there so small and limp, again he shook her. There was no response from her at all. Listening, her breathing stopped altogether. Tears rolled down my face as I watched the Doctor perform CPR on his young daughter. An eternity seemed to pass in my mind during this time, wondering if I could have done something more. Rich came over and helped him, but she failed to respond.
The doctor hung his head and sobbed without restraint. Rich reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. Lia had come over to hug me, and we stood holding one another. Joshua was angry; he would not approach his sister. He only paced cursing the tattoo that had done this, vowing to kill anyone that bore it.
Chapter 10
“Close, yet far away.”
“Distance is not for the fearful; it’s for the bold. It’s for those whom are willing to spend a lot of time alone in exchange for a little time with the one they love. It’s for those who know a good thing when they see it, even if they don’t see it nearly enough.”
-Meghan Daum
What was truly amazing was that it had been nigh a week since we left the camp, yet it felt like so long ago. Much had happened in a short time, which made me wonder if Matty was truly ok. Everything I’d been hoping and counting on now felt so far away. Fear…fear that I would never again see my son shook me inside. I was crying for Jennifer, yet crying for myself as well. The fear set in that the distance was too great and we would never make it.
Rich looked and must have seen something in me, I was breaking, and he knew it. Seemingly the only one able to hold it together at this moment, he grasped at anything he could to bring us all back from whatever personal demon had possessed us. Doc was sobbing over the loss of his daughter saying, “My family, this is all my fault…why did we leave the camp? If we’d stayed, they’d still be alive.”
Rich assuring him it would not have been for long, shaking him he said, “They had no intentions of releasing your family after you’d finished with Rita.”
He looked up at him, tears in his eyes. The anger behind them, he stood, holding a menacing stance. Rich looked at him hard, walked to the truck and pulled out the case we’d taken when we left. Flinging it into the doctor’s chest, he said, “Don’t believe me? Have a look for yourself.”
Joshua, hearing this regained his composure and walked over, snatched the case, and opened it. Everyone walked to the back of the truck except Lia, she took the blanket from the truck, stretching it over Jennifer, began tucking her in as
though she were asleep. She gave her a soft kiss on the forehead and came up beside me. Hugging her close, we looked at the contents of the case. A file was in there for the occupants of the camp. The Hostin family was marked as useless to be taken to the red camp. A note showed that when Rita arrived at camp, the Doctor might be useful and the transfer was postponed.
What looked like all of the worst emotions flared in his eyes. He was angry, horrified, sad and helpless all in one moment. Realizing he never actually had any control over their destiny the rage nearly exploded. He looked to Joshua saying, “They will all pay for this, the tattoo, the black suits…all of them!” Looking to Rich, he continued, “I had no idea how deep this was. I thought it was a rogue group and the Lieutenant was just off his rocker.”
Rich nodded slowly side to side meaning negative and said, “There are many that have known, and we have been trying to help as many as we can. It was Roger and Ray who started letting others know early on. This is why they seek them, not only did they spread the information that eventually got to us, but they have the outline of the hierarchy of who is involved. Those who perpetrated this never knew it would get so out of hand. Initially, they wanted to scare people into camps and herd them to be easily managed when the financial crash came. But there were others with a different idea, and when terrorists used the leaked information to attack the power grid, those at the heart of it all lost control.”
We all stood mouths agape; the doctor was the first to speak saying, “You mean this is an inside job?”
Rich said, “Not exactly, but in the most basic sense…Yes.”
I asked, “Why are they so interested in me then?”
Rich responded, “They didn’t care about you, and would have killed you once they got the information. They wanted to know where Roger and Ray went. They knew only that they left with your group.”
“Why didn’t you tell us this before?” Doc asked.
Rich shrugged saying, “We were too busy escaping.”
Putting a handout, the doctor reached to shake his hand. Rich shook it, saying, “What’s this for?”
Doc said, “For getting us out of there.”
Dumbfounded I stood staring at the papers strewn across the bed of the truck. Thinking, frantically trying to piece together the events past and present to find a solid picture in my mind. Something didn’t sit right with me, with fear in my voice I squeaked out, “The tattoo?”
Rich looked at me quizzically asking, “What about it?”
Pacing, trying to put the pieces together I said, “The tattoo, this fits somewhere, but I can’t place it.”
Doc shrugged it off saying, “Just a bunch of thugs capitalizing on the chaos.”
Looking at us, Lia said, “I think Rita is right, something is off about it. They have stuff. And lots of supplies that we couldn’t get when my parents were still there.”
Rich held me in place to stop the pacing and said, “What are you thinking?”
“I’m not sure; something just isn’t right here. We were being chased by a gang when I was with the others. I can’t be sure, but I think it is the same gang.”
Rich looked horrified, saying, “Why do you think that?”
“It’s the tattoo, I thought I’d seen it before, but until now it didn’t really click, because it is different.” I said.
“Listen,” He said, “This is important. Did the gang chasing your group have this same tattoo?”
“I’m not even sure I remember what it looked like.” I sobbed, feeling fearful for Matty even more than I had before.
Lia said, “I can draw it for you.”
Rich asked her if she remembered it and she assured him she would never forget it. She flipped over one of the papers while Doc found up a pen. She began with a circle adding two not quite horizontal lines. One a line in from the two o’clock position that the other another line opposing from eight o’clock. Stopping just inside the opposite sides of the circle. Holding it up, she eyed it and said, “Not quite, one second.” Putting the paper back down she changed the lines to arrows, saying, “This…this is it.”
There was something that was throwing me off; I knew it was something and said, “I think this is the basic one but some seem to have other things inside the circle. The ones at the trailer had what looked like a lower case Q going right through it from the space in the region of eleven o’clock. The ones chasing us had this too, but it was different. In this space.” I pointed to the eleven o’clock space. “Here it had a lightning bolt.”
Rich was pacing and talking to himself, like a person trying to solve a math problem, his arms motioning, and making notations in the air. Stopping, he finally said, “I think the other things inside the circle might be some kind of regional gang affiliation. Possibly meaning a banding together of gangs? This is bad, very bad.”
Joshua asked, “Aren’t they all gang members?”
Rich said, “Yes, I believe they are, but what I think is going on here is that someone has mobilized many gangs to do things…like the dirty work.”
Rushing to the front of the truck he grabbed the walkie and asked if we could be ready to go within thirty minutes. Lia and I looked at Doc and Joshua. Doc looked lovingly at his daughter, who lie tucked in neatly with the blanket and said, “Rich, let’s hold off on any communication until we can take care of my Jennifer.” Tears welling up he looked down speaking in almost a whisper, “Please.”
Rich realizing he’d forgotten an unpleasant task yet to do, sheepishly placed the walkie on the seat and without a word, grabbed the shovel from the rear of the truck. To let Doc and Joshua spend some time with Jennifer, Lia and I followed Rich out the door. As we crept out the rear door, looking for anything… or anyone in the area, each of us stood to watch for Rich and his task. Behind a row of bushes that lined the parking lot Rich began to do that solemn task of digging yet another grave. We had no time for Rebecca and Jakob, to offer them a quiet moment or even a decent burial. Rich said as he began to dig, “We will make this nice for her. Can you two look for some nice rocks while you are keeping watch?”
Both of us began to gather a number of medium-sized rocks, piling them off to the side of the gravesite. It took nearly till dawn to dig the grave, wrap Jennifer, and carefully place her in the grave. Each of us took a moment to gaze upon her and whisper a small prayer before covering her with the sweet smelling freshly turned earth. The rocks were carefully placed in a circle around the grave with the three largest ones supporting the cross. No one realized that during the digging, Lia had sat quietly carving her name into a section of fallen trim wood from the rear of the building.
The truck was loaded with some items we found in the garage, a hydraulic floor jack and what Rich called a come along. Two, five-gallon jugs of spring water from the water fountain area, toilet paper, and paper towels. A large sledgehammer and chainsaw. There was a whole box of oil, sprays, and chemicals we didn’t even bother to see what it all was, just loaded it in the back. There were cans of soda and snacks in vending machines in the front, along with paper, markers and a few local maps in the office. Emptying the contents of the giant first aid kit that hung on the wall effectively cleaned out the office area.
The car on the lift in the next bay had practically a full tank of gas that would be summarily drained and added to our own. Rich was quite handy when it came to things, but this bright idea belonged to Joshua. He gathered a length of garden hose from the water spigot and cut it so that it would fit into the gas tank of the truck and was long enough to stretch to the other car. At the end of the hose going to the car on the lift, he shoved a funnel. Once this was ready, I held the end into the gas tank of our truck while Lia was to hold the end of the hose with the funnel.
Joshua punched a hole in the bottom of the gas tank with a screwdriver and hammer, and the gas streamed into the funnel, through the hose and right into our tank. What was in the car filled our tank and was still coming out. The rest was put into one of the empty five-gall
on water jugs.
Rich and Doc looked at the maps to try and figure out where we would need to be to meet Lia’s parents. We would not be returning to the highway, and the new maps from the garage helped them sort it out because they were some of the local town maps with all the small roads on them. Rich said, “I can’t believe how much we’ve relied on technology.”
Doc agreed, “When everything began to go bad, I couldn’t even remember my wife’s phone number.”
Rich nodded slightly with pursed lips before saying, “A lesson learned too late. To keep these things on hard copy or memorize numbers. Does anyone even remember what an address book looked like?”
We all laughed a little, but it was not a laugh that indicated something was funny, but more at our own lack of foresight. We would be using the radio again that might offer some an opportunity to triangulate on our location. At least this is what Rich feared would happen so we held off on doing that until we were sure everything was ready to go. Our new plan was to try and navigate more at night so we would be less obvious. For now we sat talking about the ones we’d lost and the journey ahead.
At dusk we were all packed and waiting for directions we sat anxiously in the truck. Rich keyed the mic three times and waited. There was a long pause, and we heard nothing in response to our signal. Doc said, “Do you think the signal is not getting out of the building strong enough? It does have a metal roof and block walls.”
Rich said, “I really don’t know that much about them, but we do know the general direction and at least the first few hours’ worth of travel directions from the map. I say we head out and try again in an hour.”
Doc nodded in agreement and Joshua jumped out of the rear passenger side to operate the garage door. I sat in the back with one of the guns we’d appropriated from the gang on the driver’s side watching out the window while Doc was in the front passenger window with another. After we exited he closed the door to the garage and opened the door leaping back into the seat, poising himself shotgun in the rear, Lia had one of the 9.mm handguns watching out the rear slider window while Rich had the other in his lap. We felt as ready as we were going to be, cautiously exiting the small auto repair shop driveway we edged out onto the road scanning every direction.
