Evergreen

by Cox, Matthew S.

  “Hey, Cliff?” asked Harper as they left the store.

  “Hmm?”

  “How did people wash clothes before laundry machines? Or did they?”

  He laughed. “By hand, then hang them up on a line to dry.”

  “Oh.”

  “Shit,” muttered Cliff.

  She pulled her gaze off the floor, looked at him, and followed his stare to a group of men emerging from a cookie shop, all wearing various types of blue fabric scraps as necklaces.

  One guy swung a compound crossbow off his shoulder and aimed it toward Cliff. “Hey old man. Hand over the girls and maybe you get to walk away.”

  “Dude,” whispered a guy next to him, armed with a metal bat. “Sick. The one’s way too little.”

  “She won’t be little forever, dumbass,” said Crossbow Man. “Gotta catch ’em all.”

  “Down!” yelled Cliff.

  The barked command punched Harper straight in her childhood, and she obeyed without thinking. Whether or not he’d meant it for her or only the smaller kids, she ducked behind a vendor cart full of cheap earrings, grabbing Madison close. Jonathan scrambled over and she clamped onto him, too.

  Cliff drew his pistol, diving to the right. A strange thwoonk preceded a distant crack. Wherever the crossbow shot went, it hadn’t hit anyone. Two quick gunshots came from Cliff’s direction. A man screamed in pain. Multiple other men shouted war cries.

  Harper cringed each time the pistol fired. Sneakers squeaked on tile, and the grunting of men fighting accompanied deep meaty thuds and groans.

  A guy in cargo shorts and a Marlboro T-shirt zipped around the earring cart and smiled down at her. “Hey, Red. Relax, baby. We’ll take good care of you.”

  She raised the shotgun at him.

  “Aww, don’t be like that.”

  They stared at each other for a few long seconds, the grunts and thumps of Cliff fighting still going on behind her.

  Marlboro grinned. He grasped the front of the shotgun and pushed it aside.

  “Harper,” said Jonathan. “What are you doing? Shoot him.”

  “Screw off, kid.” Marlboro pulled a knife from his belt and pointed it at Jonathan. “Get outta here while you still have a tongue.”

  Madison whimpered.

  “Aww, it’s okay, girlie.” Marlboro smiled. “You ain’t gotta do anything ’til you grow up.”

  Dad’s death replayed in her mind over the span of a half second. Harper lunged to her feet. She tried to aim the shotgun at him, but he controlled the end, keeping it pointed into a video game store.

  Jonathan looked about ready to attack the guy, but hesitated, staring at the knife.

  Another man came around the cash register side of the earring cart and grabbed Madison from behind.

  Harper screamed in anger and lunged forward, ramming her knee into Marlboro’s crotch. He let out a gasping oof and doubled over. The instant he lost his grip on the shotgun, she mashed the butt end into his face, knocking him over backward with blood streaming out of his mouth. She spun, putting the barrel of the gun inches from the other guy’s nose.

  “Let go of her.”

  The guy dropped Madison and took a step back, hands in the air. Despite her calm expression, Madison dashed over and clamped onto Harper with a fierce hug. The man who’d grabbed her backed up another step. They stared at each other for three seconds. Evidently convinced she wouldn’t shoot, he bolted off.

  Harper’s eyes welled with tears. “I’m sorr—”

  “Look out!” shouted Jonathan.

  Marlboro jumped on her from behind, knife at her throat, other hand around her waist. “Bitch. You’re gonna bleed for that. Drop the goddamned cannon.”

  She tightened her grip on the shotgun. He wants to rape me. He’s not gonna kill me.

  A gunshot went off nearby, along with Marlboro twitching. The strength left his arms and his knife fell from her throat, clattering to the ground beside the body. She shifted her gaze to the left at Cliff, six feet away, his handgun still up.

  He didn’t appear seriously hurt, though had a bloody lip. “You okay?”

  “Y-yeah.” Harper looked down, overcome with shame.

  “Hey…” Cliff hurried over and put a hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay. You’re still a kid yourself. I’d be more worried if you could shoot people like it was nothing.”

  “They almost got Maddie.”

  “They didn’t.” Cliff grasped her head in both hands, forcing her to make eye contact. “You’re okay. Your sister’s okay. Jon’s okay. C’mon. We’re getting out of here. Evergreen’s safe, right? No idiots there with blue sashes.”

  Harper managed to nod. “Sorry, Termite. I’m sorry.”

  “Dad doesn’t like hurting people either. He only did it to protect us.” Madison stared into her eyes for a long moment that left Harper unsure if she’d meant Dad or Cliff by that statement.

  Her mind swam with nausea and guilt. Again, she had hesitated. This time, it might not have meant someone she loved would die, but being locked up in some nightmare harem situation with her little sister sounded worse than death. The nausea came partly from that, but also at the thought Cliff had shot Marlboro in the head while he held her from behind. That bullet had come within inches of her head, too.

  Jonathan gathered up the shopping bags he’d been carrying. Cliff took the crossbow and a nylon case with more bolts. They returned to the TGI Friday’s in silence, fortunately without any more contact from the ‘blue gang.’ Madison headed to a wall outlet near the kitchen door, plugged in her phone charger, and sat with the device in her lap, staring at it while waiting for it to get enough power to turn on.

  Harper sighed. Does she really think it’s going to work?

  Cliff took the shopping bags and transferred their contents to one giant duffel, carefully folding each piece to maximize how much he could cram into it. “Gonna go grab a couple of other things real quick. Are you okay to stay here and keep an eye on the kids?”

  He knows I messed up again. Is this some kinda test or did he really not realize I’m a chickenshit? “Uhh, sure.”

  “Good. I won’t be long. Gonna lock the front gate after I leave.”

  She blinked at him.

  “You’re not trapped. Back door goes to the employee hallway, but it can only be opened from inside. I’d rather get started on a long walk earlier in the day. Figure we’ll head out first light tomorrow.”

  “Okay.” Harper sat on the floor next to Madison, setting the shotgun down to her right.

  She kept quiet, too ashamed of herself to even apologize. Her brain threw her into a waking nightmare that spanned every scenario between the gang treating her like a battered wife in a relatively normal house to her and Maddie winding up chained in a basement like slaves.

  The rattle of the security gate closing pulled her back from the precipice of sobbing uncontrollably. Cliff’s blurry figure headed off into the mall. She wiped at her teary eyes and picked the shotgun up.

  Madison kept staring at the dead iPhone, outwardly calm.

  After a few minutes of puttering around inside the ‘bedroom,’ Jonathan wandered over and sat on Harper’s right. “Nice shot.”

  “What? I didn’t… I couldn’t…”

  He grinned and mimed bashing someone in the head with a rifle. “Naw. You whacked him in the face.”

  “She protected us,” said Madison, matter-of-factly. “I think the man who grabbed me crapped his pants when she pointed the gun at him.”

  Jonathan laughed. “Yeah. Never saw anyone run that fast before.”

  No. No. No. I didn’t protect you guys, I messed up. If Cliff didn’t shoot him… She started to cry again. At least he hadn’t been killed for saving her like Dad.

  Madison hugged the iPhone to her chest. “Mom’s trying to call us. Come on. Work.”

  Jonathan leaned against Harper, a big, trusting smile on his face.

  Stop looking at me like that. I’m gonna mess up and get you kill
ed. She squeezed the shotgun. I can’t mess up again. I won’t let anyone hurt you guys. Harper let a slow breath out of her nose. Killing a man trying to hurt them couldn’t possibly be as bad as listening to Madison scream in pain. How old would they let her get before they…

  Harper shuddered at the thought, then stared at the Mossberg in her hands. Next time she hesitated, Cliff might not be able to help. If she chickened out again, horrible, evil things would happen to Madison. Jonathan would have it easy. They’d only kill him.

  She couldn’t allow there to be a ‘next time.’

  11

  Exodus

  Harper spent the time waiting for Cliff to return thinking about playing Fortnite, Call of Duty, and any number of a dozen other games where shooting people had been no big deal. Of course, it had all been pixels, not real people. Dad had taken her to the shooting range all the time. She’d been around guns for years, even winning competitions. She never had a problem with guns or paper targets. Even her vegetarian tree-hugging little sister found target practice fun. Hunting, not so much. Fortunately, their father hadn’t been a big proponent of hunting to begin with and the first time Madison had a freak-out at the thought of shooting a deer, he’d given it up.

  Cliff returned not quite an hour later with a huge hiker’s backpack and some other supplies he’d likely raided from the Sports Authority, mostly camping stuff. He’d also brought winter coats for everyone. Jonathan broke out an Uno set, and they whiled away the remainder of the daylight with that. Cliff went to sleep two hours before anyone else, right after dinner, after telling Harper to put the kids to bed and wake him up as close as she could guess to two hours after sunset.

  She felt like she’d gotten away with a horrible crime by his trusting her to ‘stand watch’ while he slept. Again, she questioned if he knew how badly she’d wimped out. Though, if anyone tried to break into the restaurant, she wouldn’t have to kill them. If that shotgun went off once, even if she missed on purpose, it would wake everyone up.

  Jonathan wore only his briefs to bed. Madison didn’t react much to that other than blushing. She retreated to the bathroom to change again into the big white T-shirt, and crawled into the same sleeping bag she’d used the previous night.

  Harper wandered the restaurant, the only one awake, trying to picture it normal and open for business. It couldn’t be that late yet. The place would’ve still been open at this hour if not for a nuclear strike. She leaned against a column and daydreamed about people eating. More than the quiet emptiness, standing there with a loaded shotgun and not the least bit of worry that a cop would show up to arrest her felt unreal. It didn’t seem probable that the gang would roam the mall looking for girls at night, since no one could see a damn thing. Still, she kept away from the front gate to avoid being seen.

  After waking Cliff at the appointed time, Harper decided to accept a little comfort, and changed into one of his T-shirts before sharing the cot with Madison. Even asleep, her sister noticed her presence and snuggled. Harper held her like a living doll. Overcome with guilt, she cried herself to sleep.

  For breakfast, they ate pre-wrapped brownies, likely a smaller component of some 10,000 calorie ‘diabetes-on-a-plate’ dessert the restaurant had once served. Still, the things would probably last twenty years. The toilets remained dry and nonfunctional, likely due to all the water being loose downstairs. Still, using them beat going outside.

  Cliff distributed their supplies for the trip. He took the huge backpack and the duffel bag full of everyone’s clothes. Harper carried her backpack of canned food as well as her giant purse. Madison had the toiletry bag plus her little backpack of things she liked from Hot Topic. Jonathan wore a child-sized hiker’s backpack with some provisions, extra shoes, and some of the camping supplies. Cliff handed out white facemasks like something house painters might wear.

  Surprisingly, Madison didn’t protest, even if the mask wound up being big on her.

  “Ain’t much, but it’ll help a bit with all the dust in the air,” said Cliff.

  Upon exiting the restaurant, he shut and locked the security gate.

  “Umm?” Harper raised an eyebrow.

  “Just in case we need a place to come back to.”

  She cringed. Never had it even occurred to her that Evergreen could be a lie. It made sense to at least take the precaution of locking the gate. She nodded, grateful he hadn’t aired his doubts aloud and worried the kids.

  They made their way around to the escalator. Everyone except Cliff removed their shoes. Then again, he had some kind of Army boots on that looked like they could handle getting wet much better than sneakers. Harper rolled her jean legs up. Jonathan removed his jeans entirely, content to deal with the flooded downstairs in his briefs. Madison peeled her socks off but made no effort to protect her jeans from water.

  “Maddie…” Harper put a hand on her shoulder. “Might not be a bad idea to keep your clothes as dry as possible. It’s cold out.”

  Her sister looked at Jonathan, shrugged, and took her pants off. “I feel stupid being outside in my underpants with a winter coat on.”

  “Stupid is better than pneumonia.” Harper frowned at her pitiful attempt to roll her jean legs up, and also pulled them off. “I hate floods.”

  “So do most people.” Cliff led the way down the stairs, sloshing into the not-quite-knee-deep water.

  “Any idea where all this water came from?” asked Harper. The instant her foot touched the freezing liquid, she squealed.

  “Main gave out in the boiler room. The water tower down the road emptied into the mall,” said Cliff.

  He avoided the front entrance, opting instead to take a maintenance hallway in back that led to a loading ramp for trucks. Trash bags, mops, and other debris floated by in the flooded passage. The air stank of rotting garbage strong enough that Madison gagged a few times. Harper decided to hold her breath as much as she could. They waded across the storage room and climbed up out of the water to the inside of the loading dock by a row of large roll-top doors.

  Harper fished a towel out of her giant purse and handed it to Madison.

  “If you ever run out of ammo for that Mossberg, you can use that bag as a club,” said Cliff.

  Harper smirked, but couldn’t resist a slight chuckle.

  Once everyone had dried off and gotten dressed, they exited the mall in a single file line with Cliff in the lead, Jonathan behind him, then Madison, Harper bringing up the rear. Spending two days inside the mall made the smoky haze outside feel thicker and more claustrophobic. The suggestion of facemask sounded a bit lame before, but with it on, the air tasted less like burning. She coughed a few times at the mere thought she’d been breathing this stuff.

  They crossed the parking lot to the edge of the mall property and kept heading west. Cliff had snagged a compass when he’d gone off on his solo scavenger hunt, so Harper didn’t pay too much attention to the surroundings, grateful to be able to let someone else deal with figuring out which way to go. Having to do that plus keep an eye out for danger had been nerve wracking.

  Everywhere she looked, for the thirty or so feet the fog let her see, she found broken windows, scorched buildings, and half-melted cars. Harper thought back to hiding in the basement of her home with her parents and Madison for several days after the blast. No official warning ever came from the government; not until detonations started happening along the East Coast did media outlets have a clue the proverbial shit had hit the fan.

  She’d been convinced a nuclear wave would tear the house away above them, but after a few days passed, she accepted it wouldn’t happen. Harper tried to make a deal with the universe in her head, willing to give anything to go back in time to when she’d been cowering in her basement, shaking whenever a terrifying rumble came from distant explosions. The loudest one had to have been the hit on Colorado Springs, since tornado force winds ripped by overhead soon after. The instant the power went out, the world became a scary dream. When the gang first showed up a
month or so later, the scary dream had become a terrible reality. If she could go back to that point, she wouldn’t hesitate. Dad would still be alive. Better, she’d protest going upstairs.

  But time travel only existed in movies. She shook the shotgun to chase away a light coating of ash. Cliff headed out of the parking lot, up onto Route 70. Ash flakes, or maybe actual snow, stirred in the wind. The haze cut off vision after about forty feet, making the city she’d grown up in feel like an alien environment. Every lamp post they passed tilted to one side, no doubt a result of the blast wave.

  They walked in silence, save for the rattle of cans in her backpack. Harper gazed around at smashed cars, bent traffic signs, patches of dried blood here and there, and even a few bodies strewn about. She couldn’t keep both hands on her shotgun and make sure Madison didn’t look at any of the gore, so she hoped her kid sister remained preoccupied with her iPhone. Like everything else electronic, it had blown out the first day. She wondered if Madison truly believed the battery had gone dead, or if she refused to accept reality. Dad’s horrible joke about the EMP wave frying the banks made her tear up again.

  Well, the house is paid off!

  Shouts came from the left. Harper swiveled in that direction, aiming at a pack of men rushing toward them from a Hyundai dealership. They whooped, hollered, and pointed at the highway.

  Harper’s tears retreated back into her eyes. Her heart raced.

  “C’mere, Red,” shouted one. “That one’s mine! I call dibs!”

  “The hell you say, Spider,” roared another, before laughing.

  “Get ’em!” yelled another. “You all come wif us an don’ fight none, we promise not ta hurt ’cha.”