Two men and a woman, all adult but younger than her parents, emerged from the haze at a full run. A loud bang broke the stillness. Madison twitched.
“I said, stop!” yelled the same man. “Next one won’t be a warning shot.”
The three slowed to a halt and raised their hands.
Another figure crept up behind them, rifle trained on the three. The smoke thinned as he approached, revealing a green camouflage military uniform. Another apparent soldier followed, also with a combat rifle aimed at the three civilians.
Harper kept quiet, watching as the soldiers ordered the people flat on the ground, tied their hands with plastic binders, and proceeded to search them. None of them wore a necklace of blue fabric, so she didn’t think they belonged to the gang that killed her parents… but why would soldiers arrest them? Why would anyone ‘arrest’ anyone anymore?
She tightened and relaxed her grip on the shotgun. While she didn’t consider herself a ‘gun expert’ like her father, she’d played enough video games to understand that military combat rifles had a much longer range than a shotgun. Not that she had the least bit of intention to get into a gunfight with them, but if she had to, she’d need to be much closer to have any chance at all of survival. While it might be possible that the country hadn’t been totally destroyed and some fragments of real military remained, she worried these two maybe just found some uniforms and weapons. They had as much chance of being legit soldiers as they did of being thugs from a different gang. Even if they had been real soldiers, with the country destroyed, they might’ve gone crazy, too.
Those three people might have done something bad and been chased, or simply run in a panic from two men with rifles. If those men were actual soldiers, they’d probably protect a pair of young girls. Of course, if they only dressed up like soldiers… they could do anything to her or Madison.
After nuclear war, the difference between arrest and kidnapping didn’t amount to much.
Harper decided not to risk it and stay hidden.
“Why are we hiding?” whispered Madison.
“I don’t trust them. Maybe the government’s doing bad stuff, or they’re not real soldiers.”
Madison muted the iPhone. “Are we going to the mall?”
“Past it, to the mountains, but yeah. Gonna stop there.”
“I need new clothes. I’ve been wearing the same stuff for days. It’s itchy.”
Harper scooted away from the bush after the soldiers dragged their prisoners off into the fog. “’Mon.”
She crept along between two houses, cutting across a backyard to the street she’d skipped. The dead guy should be far enough back that Madison wouldn’t see him. A few minutes after reaching the sidewalk, it occurred to her that the constant patter of flip-flops behind her had ceased.
About to panic, Harper whirled around. Madison hovered mere inches behind her, unharmed, clutching her iPhone and flip flops to her chest. Too wound up to speak, Harper looked down at the girl’s bare feet and legs, covered in grey ash. Both of them had been out in it so long their hair, clothes, every inch of them had a coating of pale grey.
“Put your shoes back on. Your toes will freeze.”
“They’re too loud. Bad people will hear them and find us.”
“Not so loud it’s worth getting hurt.”
Madison dropped the foam shoes and stepped into them. “I want a bath.”
“There’s no hot water.”
“I don’t care. I’m itchy everywhere.”
Harper trudged on. Wanting a bath seemed like the most random, ridiculous thing in the world given their present situation. But, all that ash came from a nuclear explosion. It might be—probably was—radioactive. Getting rid of it sounded like a good idea.
“Okay… I’ll think about it.”
5
Not Quite Normal
Harper marched across a long strip of dirt, her sneakers crunching over the burnt remains of grass.
She skirted a street on the right, too packed with dead cars to walk on. All had been abandoned with their doors open, a handful burned down to their frames. Seeing them there made her think about all the money people had spent on them. How many millions of dollars sat useless on roads across what remained of the country? Driving around had been such a normal thing to do. She struggled to process the idea of never again being in a functioning vehicle. If the nukes had knocked out all the cars in the world, it would’ve definitely killed the factories that made them, too.
Though, perhaps some places—like third-world countries—hadn’t been as affected by the war. Why would any superpower waste one of their nukes on a place like that? What about Australia? If someone shot a nuke all the way down there, it would’ve only been out of spite or cruelty. Central America and large parts of Africa probably hadn’t changed much. Those places had become the new First World, assuming the war hadn’t thrown so much dust into the air that the whole planet died from nuclear winter.
Maybe since no one is driving anymore it’ll balance out. No more carbon monoxide emissions.
The field ended at a big highway. Despite the condition of everything, she paused at the edge and looked both ways before continuing. Madison’s flip-flops pattered over the paving. Ash obscured any sense of lane markings, though she figured they’d crossed roughly twelve lanes. Though the area looked totally different than what she remembered, it had to be Route 6.
She climbed a dirt hill on the other side and trekked across a large field. So much ash had fallen there, the landscape resembled the surface of the moon. They passed a few cindered trees, one of which still smoldered. The chemical-plastic stink in the air lessened, giving way to a mostly wood smoke aroma which she found pleasant by comparison.
The field came to an end at a small bit of residential area directly across from the Colorado Mills Mall. She paused at the corner and wiped ash from a street sign that indicated the corner of Gardenia Street and West Seventh Ave.
“No one’s called yet. Do you think they’re mad at us for getting lost?” asked Madison.
“They’re not mad at us, Termite. They’re…” Harper bit her lip before saying ‘dead.’ Of course, she knew their parents had died, but had no clue what happened to her sister’s friends. “Busy.”
She gazed down while plodding along, mesmerized at the way the ash billowed around her shoes. Both she and her sister had turned grey from an overall dusting. Ugh. How radioactive is this crap? Maybe we should take a quick bath or something.
Harper randomly chose the second house on the right, a white single-story duplex with a two-car garage in the middle. She headed to the farther door, closer to the mall, since someone left it open.
“Hello?” called Harper—but not too loud—while leaning in behind her shotgun. “Is anyone here?”
She counted to ten before stepping inside. Ash had blown into the living room via the open door, but the rest of the house didn’t show much sign of damage. She went from room to room, checking for sleeping occupants, intending to leave as fast and quiet as possible if she disturbed anyone. The place was empty, so she headed into the bathroom.
Madison stepped out of her flip flops, set down the toilet paper bag, then removed her jacket and bloody T-shirt. Ash had somehow gotten under it, covering her pale skin in grey blotches.
“I’m gonna check the house while you clean up, okay?”
“Please stay.” Madison spun to look up at her, a faint trace of fear in her eyes. “I don’t want to be alone.”
“Are you sure? You yelled at me not to look when you peed.”
“That’s different.” Madison shoved her shorts down, noticeably paler where they had covered her. Darker grime coated her arms and legs. “I’m more scared of being alone.”
Harper pulled the bathroom door shut. “Okay. Remember, there’s no hot water. There might not even be water at all.”
Madison leaned into the tub, flicked the stopper, and turned only the hot water faucet on. Water came out in no great hurry. She tested
it every few seconds with her fingers, but gave up after a short while and cranked the cold water spigot open as well, increasing the pressure.
Eventually, enough water had collected in the tub that she cut the faucets and gingerly stepped in. She gasped, but didn’t scream or make much noise at all as she lowered herself to sit. Her teeth chattered in seconds, but she picked up a bar of soap and proceeded to wash herself.
“Oh, hell with it,” muttered Harper.
She set her backpack, shotgun, and purse down, stripped, and approached the tub. Madison scooted forward to make room. It took every ounce of willpower Harper had not to shriek when she put a foot in the water. It reminded her of summer camp one year where the river they used for swimming had been so cold it should’ve been ice.
As she did back then, she repeated here: getting it over with as fast as possible. She dropped in, gasping. Once the paralysis wore off, she washed herself with a focus entirely on speed since no way in hell could she ever relax in a cold bath. It also didn’t strike her as too healthy to sit in cold water in an unheated house.
They helped themselves to the former resident’s shampoo. Harper dumped some in her hand and worked it into her thick, red hair. Other than having her kid sister sitting in front of her, taking a bath in an actual bathroom again made her feel strange, a peek at normality that didn’t seem believable. If she closed her eyes, she could pretend she’d dreamed it all, and didn’t have a loaded shotgun on the floor in arms reach. She could pretend she might not have to kill someone just to stay alive. If she thought really hard, she might even be able to imagine she had to still worry about getting into a college good enough to please her parents but close enough to let her stay at home.
“Are we gonna get in trouble for stealing someone’s bathroom?” asked Madison in a whispery voice that echoed.
“No.” Harper almost chuckled. “The people who lived here are gone. This isn’t anyone’s house now.”
“Sorry,” whispered Madison.
“What for?”
“Being scared. It’s kinda weird taking a bath at the same time, but…”
“It’s okay. Bad people are out there and will hurt us. I don’t have the luxury of being embarrassed anymore. Besides, you’re my sister. We used to share baths before when you were like two.”
“We did?” asked Madison in a dead tone.
“Yeah. Guess you don’t remember, but you were really small. I was your age then. You know I pretended I was your mother giving my baby a bath.”
Madison stopped moving. She sat still for a few seconds, then leaned back against her.
Harper couldn’t say a word past the lump in her throat. She wrapped her arms around Madison and kissed the top of her head. I’m all she’s got left. Tears started, and she squeezed her kid sister tight.
The girl remained eerily stoic, responding to Harper sniffling at the back of her head by grasping the arms encircling her chest. They sat in total silence for a few minutes, except for the faint sloshing of water from their shivering.
Once the emotional storm subsided, Harper released the hug and ruffled her sister’s soaked hair.
“C’mon. We need to dry off before we get hypothermia.”
They rushed the rest of a bath and got out of the tub. Madison went straight to the toilet. Though she didn’t demand Harper not watch, she turned her back anyway. The water had become nearly black, leaving a nasty ring on the tub once it drained. It didn’t seem a worthwhile use of time to rinse it since they’d never come back here, so Harper grabbed towels and dried herself off as fast as she could. Madison sat on the toilet, still dripping, staring at the iPhone in her hands. Harper offered her a towel. It took her a moment to notice. With a soft sigh at the phone, her sister got up and took the towel. Harper blushed but also used the toilet.
Madison dried herself off, then stared down, prodding her jacket with a toe. “If we have fallout on our clothes, are we gonna get sick? Should we do laundry?”
Harper stood and flushed. “Do you want to wear wet clothes or spend all day in this house naked until they dry?”
Madison shook her head. “No and no. We can like wear these towels, or the comforter.”
“No way. It’s not safe enough here to sit here that long.”
“Maybe there’s stuff here we can wear instead?
She briefly pondered going to check the bedroom instead of putting her filthy jeans and T-shirt back on. I’m not ransacking a house bare-assed. “We’re right across the street from the mall. We can get new stuff in our size there. I don’t wanna wait as long as it would take our things to dry, and it’s way too cold to go outside wearing damp clothing. We have to get to Evergreen. The bad people are right behind us.”
“Is that where Mom and Dad went?”
Harper stared at her sister, worried that her ribs had become so noticeable. We’re not eating enough. “They wanted to go there, yeah.”
Madison nodded and got dressed.
Screams from behind drew Harper’s attention. She swiveled around to face the toilet, peering over it out a tiny window. A pack of men wearing the blue cloth scraps chased a lone man across a field behind the house, waving bats, axes, and pipes over their heads.
Oh… shit. We have to get the hell out of here!
Harper ducked down below the window level and scrambled back into her clothes. While she pulled the backpack on, Madison added a couple more rolls of toilet paper from the cabinet under the sink to her plastic bag, as well as soap bars and some toothpaste.
“Ready?”
Madison pulled the iPhone out and stared at it. “What if Mom is trying to call me? She knows I have dance class later. I gotta charge it.”
“She’ll understand. The power’s out.”
“For how long?”
“It’s gonna be a while before they fix it.” Harper put on a plastic smile. Yeah. A while. Like decades if ever.
“C’mon. Let’s go before those idiots find us here.”
Madison went wide-eyed, stuffed the iPhone in her jacket pocket, and picked up the plastic bag of toiletries.
Though she’d searched the house before, Harper crept into the hall outside like a cop making entry to an unknown crime scene. She did her best Resident Evil sweep, feeling a bit like the video game character exploring a dangerous ruin.
Maybe if I think of them like monsters in a game, I can shoot. She closed her eyes for a few seconds. Whether or not Madison had intended it, that moment she leaned against her in the bathtub had been as good as her begging Harper to protect her like a mother.
She never took karate lessons, didn’t even do sports. Harper couldn’t fight at all.
But she had a shotgun.
If only she had the nerve to use it.
6
Colorado Mills
Upon exiting the house, Harper headed to the right and trudged into the hazy miasma the world had become.
Ash blew diagonally from the left, the wind stirring up small cyclones of grey here and there. She followed Gardenia Street to a T-intersection and crossed the passing road to a short dirt hill where a waist-high iron fence blocked the way. From that vantage point, she could barely make out the enormous shape of the mall building up ahead. Harper glanced back at the way they’d walked. Huh, wow. That had to be cool, living close enough to walk to the mall.
After boosting Madison over the fence, she slung the shotgun on her shoulder via its carrying strap and jumped down the five or so feet to the ground beyond. Another drop, like ten feet—too far to jump—separated her from the parking lot. Grass here had survived, shielded from the nuclear flash by a shallow wall and a series of terraces. Harper went right, following a downhill grade until she reached a spot where the jump down didn’t look scary. Small pine trees remained mostly green, though the ash coating looked eerily like dirty snow.
They crossed the ring road surrounding the mall, entering a giant parking lot that held only two cars: an older green Ford pickup truck with a bunch of Army
bumper stickers, and a white SUV with the word ‘security’ on the door in black lettering and amber emergency lights. The pickup had a toolbox in the back with handprints in the ash dust, but whoever fussed with it must’ve given up as the lid remained closed.
She headed straight for the mall, going past the Sports Authority doors to a main mall entrance at the end of a small courtyard. Four large signs labeled ‘Colorado Mills Entry 5’ depicted various images of outdoor activities, biking, swimming, maybe mountain climbing. One sign had stopped halfway rotated to the next image, its slats pivoted open, stuck between two different scenes. She remembered the courtyard having red paver stones, though ash had turned everything grey.
Voices came from behind along with the clatter of aluminum. It sounded as though a group of people walked out of Sports Authority. Without a sound, she grabbed Madison’s wrist and pulled her to the right, hiding in a small grove of pine trees by some benches. Her little sister crouched low, but didn’t appear worried.
Harper took a knee, raising the shotgun in the direction of the voices. Six men walked past the corner into view. Two, she recognized from school, both a year ahead of her, already graduated. Jeff and Louis had been part of the ‘bad’ crowd: drugs, drinking, even getting in trouble with the law. She figured they would’ve only become worse with the collapse of order. Alarmingly, they both wore scraps of blue fabric around their necks. The others looked older, the eldest well into his thirties. All carried weapons ranging from new baseball bats to handguns.
“Yo, check this out,” shouted a woman who hadn’t walked past the corner yet. The men stopped, looked back, then sauntered once more out of sight behind the corner.
Harper leapt to her feet and rushed at a sprint for the mall entrance, pulling her sister along by the arm. Madison’s flip-flops clapped on the concrete deck a few times before the pat of bare feet took over.
“Harp!” said Madison.
“Carry them,” whisper-shouted Harper. She skidded to a stop, let go of her sister’s wrist, and swiveled to point the shotgun at the corner in case anyone came running to check out the noise they made.
Evergreen Page 4
