She clenched her jaw, hoping with all the energy she could project into the universe that Evergreen would be safe.
I’ve been through a horrible experience. The whole world can’t be full of crazy people trying to have sex with everything that moves.
Once bathroom breaks finished, they continued walking. She glanced left at the hints of houses in the haze, at the top of a hill covered in ashy grass. A woman’s scream drew her attention further back. Harper stopped and squinted into the fog. Cliff, evidently having heard the woman as well, also stopped.
Madison and Jonathan scurried off to the side, taking cover by a small box truck abandoned in the middle of the highway.
A woman emerged from the haze at a full run. Something about the way she moved seemed strange… until she drew closer and it became clear her arms were tied behind her back—and she had nothing on from the waist down. Three men with blue sashes came running after her, one carrying a baseball bat, the other two apparently unarmed.
The woman veered to the right, sprinting straight at her. “Help!” she shouted. “Please!”
Harper raised the shotgun, aiming at the guy with the bat. “Stop!”
All three thugs skidded to a halt, staring at her. Bat Man looked ready to wet his pants. The guy on the right leered at Harper while the other man narrowed his eyes in anger. The woman ran up to her, bare feet kicking up an ash cloud. She doubled over, gasping for breath, wheezing and crying.
“Get out of here and don’t let me see you again,” shouted Harper.
The three men stared at her for a few seconds in uneasy silence.
A gun went off to her right, nearly startling her into pulling the trigger. Squinty’s head rocked back, a spurt of blood flying as he collapsed. The other two men ran off, screaming and zig-zagging around. Harper glanced over at Cliff. He lowered his arm and replaced his gun in its holster.
I could’ve shot them if they came after us. She flinched at the mental image of that one man’s face exploding when she’d shot him. I’d do it, again and again, to keep Maddie safe.
Harper turned toward the woman. She looked thin, early twenties with long brown hair and light brown skin. Her grungy T-shirt gave off a ‘worn for a couple weeks’ vibe. Given the lack of dirt on her lower body, she’d only been recently deprived of pants. Thick plastic cable ties secured her wrists behind her back, so tight her hands had turned red. Seeing this woman reminded her of the ‘soldiers’ arresting people, but she didn’t look like the same woman who’d been taken away by the men in camo.
“That lady doesn’t have any pants.” Madison crept over.
“Thank you!” The woman squirmed, cringed, and turned her back. “Hey, could you please cut me loose?”
“Why’d you shoot that guy?” Harper looked at Cliff. “They were probably going to run.”
“One, they were gonna do… stuff to this woman. Two, she needs clothes and he was the closest in size.”
Harper blinked. “You killed a guy for his clothes?”
Cliff smiled. “Not entirely. He was about to pull a gun. Just got lucky on the size thing.”
Her mouth hung open.
“I know you didn’t notice. That’s why I shot him.” Cliff walked over to the dead guy and rolled him onto his chest, revealing a handgun tucked in the waist of his pants. “Lotta guys hide weapons back here. In a situation like that standoff, always watch their hands, not their eyes.”
The boy approached, blushing but unable to stop looking at the woman. “Hi. I’m Jon.”
“Summer.”
“It’s winter.” Madison shot her a confused look.
“Her name is Summer. I’m Harper. So, umm, what’s your story?” Despite the woman’s present state of clear helplessness, she didn’t fully trust her.
“Why don’t you have pants?” asked Madison. “It’s too cold for flip flops, so you should have pants on.”
“Uhh, I lost them.” Summer looked off to the side.
“How do you lose your pants?” Madison scrunched up her nose.
“I’ll explain later.” Harper nudged her sister toward Jonathan. “You two go sit by that truck and stay down for a bit, okay?”
Madison leaned against Harper, stare fixed on the woman. “Why are you tied up? Did you get arrested?”
Summer went scarlet in the face, shivering. “No. I was kidnapped.”
Cliff removed the dead man’s sneakers, socks, and pants—leaving the underwear on him.
“The bad people wanted to do bad things to her,” said Harper.
“They started doing bad things to me, but I got away.”
“Oh. Are you cold?” asked Madison.
“F-freezing.” Summer looked at Harper as if searching her. “You got a knife or something? Will you please cut me loose?”
Madison pulled her iPhone out. “I’ll call 911.”
“I don’t have a knife and I don’t think you want me to use this”—Harper hefted the shotgun—“on zip ties.”
“I’ve been stuck like this for hours,” said Summer. “Running all over trying to hide, but they kept finding me somehow.”
Jonathan pointed at the ash on the road. “Footprints.”
Cliff hurried over, handed the pants/socks/sneakers bundle to Jonathan, and pulled a knife from a sheath on his belt. “I gotcha.”
He gingerly sawed at the plastic binding Summer’s wrists, trying not to draw blood. While he worked, Jonathan held the pants so she could step into them. He pulled them up, buttoned them, and even did the zipper.
Eventually, the plastic gave way. Cliff grasped her left arm, slipped the knife under the remaining cable tie, and sliced it off.
“Oh, holy shit…” Summer waved her arms around. “Major pins and needles.”
“The cops aren’t answering,” said Madison in a solemn tone.
“Cliff Barton.” He offered a hand.
“Summer Vasquez.” She shook hands, then hugged him. “You guys are awesome. Thank you so much. I barely got away from those bastards.” She let go of him, hugged Harper, then sat on the road to put on the socks and sneakers, which looked a bit big on her. When she stood, Cliff gave her his winter coat. He took two sweaters out of the duffel to keep warm, then once again hoisted the large backpack on.
“Welcome to come with us if you want,” said Cliff.
“Yeah… okay. That’s cool. Where are you guys going?”
“Evergreen,” said Jonathan. “Supposed to be people there.”
Summer nodded. “Anywhere away from those lunatics is good with me.”
Cliff resumed walking.
“So… how’s a guy wind up with three kids?” asked Summer a few minutes later.
“You’re not much older than me.” Harper smirked.
“Thanks, but I’m older than I look. Twenty-two. You’re what, seventeen or eighteen? Maybe sixteen?”
“Seventeen,” grumbled Harper.
“Nothing wrong with being that age. I wish I could go back now that I know what’s gonna happen. Wouldn’t have wasted four years in college.” Summer pulled her shirt up over her mouth and coughed. “Or I wouldn’t have majored in business with a marketing minor.”
“That’ll come in handy,” said Harper with a roll of the eyes. She sighed mentally at her parents taking her on various college tours. They must’ve wandered the campus of every college or university within an hour-and-a-half ride from home. Strange tidbits of randomness jumped out in her memory like a water fountain that squeaked at one place, a statue in a courtyard somewhere else or a funny glue-like smell in the dorms at the farthest campus. Driving almost two hours each way would’ve made commuting painful enough that she considered rooming at the school if she’d gone there. But she wanted to stay closer to home.
Summer laughed. “Yeah, seriously. I should’ve studied something useful like civil engineering. Took me months to even find a job after graduating. Everyone and their mother goes for business. Only got hired last May.”
“Rough bre
ak.” Cliff chuckled.
“Not really.” Summer flapped her arms. “I’m still alive. We got nuked and all I lost was my job, that’s pretty tame. Well, okay… my job, my apartment, car, I’ve got no idea where my friends are. No idea if my parents or brother are even still alive. Having a useless degree is pretty low on my list of things to be in a bad mood about. And I don’t have to worry about repaying student loans anymore.”
“You’re in a bad mood?” asked Madison.
“Not so much at the moment. Still feeling pretty damn relieved that I got away from those guys.”
Harper shuddered at the idea of being stuck half naked with her hands tied for hours while trying to run away from men. She clutched the shotgun like a security blanket and edged a little closer to Cliff.
“How’d that happen?” asked Cliff. “If you don’t mind saying.”
“Nah. You’ve already seen all my secrets. Not a big deal.”
He chuckled.
“I had a little apartment on the north side of my building, so it avoided the worst of the blast. Spent a couple weeks raiding other apartments and nearby houses for stuff to eat. Didn’t really have much of a plan where to go or what to do. Saw some soldiers rounding people up, but something about them didn’t feel right.”
“Soldiers?” Cliff glanced at her.
“I saw them, too.” Harper explained watching three people being ‘arrested.’ “I didn’t think they were real soldiers. Just guys in camo.”
“That’s a possibility.” Cliff turned his attention forward. “You see them grab anyone, Summer?”
“Yeah. But they didn’t like arrest them. Looked more like forced evacuation.”
“Doesn’t make sense. Evacuate to where?” Harper gazed up. “Hey, is the smoke clearing?”
“A bit.” Cliff nodded. “We’re out of the city now. Should keep getting better the farther we go. And if they’re genuine military, probably trying to get people away from irradiated areas.”
“How much is destroyed?” asked Summer.
“No idea. We’re in a dead spot here. EMP knocked everything out. The entire country could be like this, or just big metro areas. Hard to tell.” Cliff pulled his facemask down to spit.
“So, anyway… I fell asleep on this couch. Woke up with those guys grabbing me. It’s kind of a blur really. As soon as they ripped my pants off, I freaked out. Pretty sure I kicked one guy where it hurt, mashed my head into the face of the dude holding me down, and ran like hell.”
Cliff nodded, emitting a grunt of approval.
“Why do the bad people wanna steal pants?” asked Madison.
Harper’s brain seized up, stuck between not wanting to break her sister’s innocence and thinking she deserved to be afraid of those guys.
“Because they’re bad. It’s winter. It’s really mean to steal someone’s pants when it’s cold out.” Cliff looked back, wagged his eyebrows, and resumed scanning the area ahead of them.
“Yeah, it is.” Madison nodded. “911 still isn’t answering. I don’t think they’re going to.”
Harper looked back at the haze, unable to see any sign of Lakewood, only grey nothingness. The only home she’d ever known lay miles behind her, overrun with likely harmful smoke and even more dangerous people. Some of the blue gang were women, which baffled her. She didn’t bother trying to figure out how some women joined the gang while others became prey.
Crazy didn’t follow rules. Maybe they liked violence, being able to kill without fear of going to jail. It didn’t fall on Harper to make sense of a world gone mad.
She only had to survive it.
13
Full Steam Ahead
They stopped on the dirt median for a quick lunch of granola bars and canned peaches.
Two smallish bottles of water made the rounds. Cliff hadn’t brought all that much water, due to weight. Of course, Evergreen wouldn’t take too long to reach. Twelve bottles should be plenty. Madison huddled close to her while eating, though didn’t appear outwardly upset or frightened.
I-70 lay strewn with cars, many of them askew or crashed. The smoky haze remained, though not as dense as nearer the city. Visibility lengthened to about fifty yards, give or take drifting clouds.
A dead electronic traffic sign came into view up ahead, a short distance in front of an overpass covering a brief swath of ash-free road. Another two overpasses followed close together. Beyond them, the highway stretched straight ahead as far as the smoke let her see, running along the top of a narrow manmade ridge. On either side of the road, the land sloped down at perilous angles, making a climb down an unwelcome prospect.
After another hour or so, a large rocky wall rose up on the right side. They soon passed a sign—or at least what remained of it—indicating exit 259 up ahead for Morrison. A tractor-trailer had mowed it down, coming to a halt on its side at the start of the off ramp.
Cliff decided to investigate the trailer, hoping for useful stuff, but after battling the lock for some time, they discovered the rig carried appliances. He kicked the trailer door in protest and resumed walking.
“It’s getting dark,” said Madison, a short while later.
Harper looked up. Sure enough, the sky appeared to be dimming. “Already? It hasn’t been that long, has it?”
“Could be bad weather coming in.” Cliff waved for everyone to get moving. “Let’s look for a place to find some cover.”
Not long after, a huge, curved wall on the right with numerous tall light posts beyond it suggested some kind of complex up ahead. The brick wall eventually reached the road right beside them, without any obvious way up. Cliff veered to the right, hiking up a hill of sparse grass. This area didn’t have much of any ash on the ground, which she thought might be a good sign. They passed a few boulders on the way up the hill, eventually reaching level ground: a huge parking lot. Cliff kept going toward a red awning on the far side of the lot.
Harper glanced at a sign reading ‘Wooly Mammoth Lot,’ unable to help but giggle at the oddity of it. The red awning turned out to belong to a Conoco station. The right half of the building, darker beige than the rest, had a sign reading ‘Full Steam Ahead’ coffee. Both the gas station convenience store and the coffee shop doors had been broken open already.
Cliff pulled his handgun and approached the coffee shop. Harper hung back a few steps with the kids and Summer huddling behind her. It felt a bit strange to have a twenty-two-year-old woman looking to her for protection, but she did have a giant shotgun. Harper paused, realizing she hadn’t reloaded since the attack by the Hyundai dealership.
“Sec,” whispered Harper.
Two steps from the door, Cliff looked back at her.
Harper reached into her purse and grabbed shells, stuffing them into the shotgun one after the next until it wouldn’t hold any more. She dropped the extra two back into her bag, and grasped the weapon in both hands.
Cliff entered the coffee shop with his gun up. It didn’t take him long to reappear and wave everyone inside. “Empty.”
“Cool.” Harper put her back to the wall next to the door, waiting for the kids and Summer to go in before following them. She did her best to close the battered door, wedging a chair under it.
“Not bad.” Cliff pulled his facemask down and grinned. “Where’d you learn that?”
“Bad movies.” She shrugged.
A thin layer of dust coated all the tables, the floor, even the counter, though the air didn’t smell like burnt everything in here. Harper pulled off her facemask and tucked it into her coat pocket. Everyone unburdened themselves of backpacks or bags, arranging them behind the sales counter out of sight. The case still had an assortment of giant pre-packaged cupcakes the size of baseballs. Cliff opened a cooler cabinet, yelped in alarm, and slammed the lid.
“The power of Christ compels you!” He half-shouted, waving his hand in a funny gesture.
“Say what?” asked Harper.
He pointed at the case. “Don’t open that. I’ve seen som
e nasty shit overseas, but that”—he wagged his pointing finger—“almost made me throw up.”
She laughed, certain he overacted for their amusement.
The cupcakes, being the only food in the place even close to edible, made for a sweet but stale dinner. Neither Madison nor Jonathan objected. Summer eyed the cupcake with a grimace that said ‘oh, this is so totally off my diet’.
“You’re kidding, right?” Harper stared at her.
“Eating healthy was just such an ingrained habit. I stopped even realizing what stuff tasted like, just saw calorie numbers.” Summer picked up the huge cupcake and bit it. “Now I don’t care what stuff tastes like as long as it exists. Still, this thing is so rich I couldn’t help but flinch.”
“Heh, yeah.” Harper smiled, then took a big bite. The overwhelming flavor of dark chocolate surprised her. She adored it for only a moment before thinking she may well be eating the last cupcake on Earth. Who in their right mind would bother making cake now? For that matter, didn’t chocolate come from overseas? No one grew cocoa beans in the US. She stared at the confection in her hands, seeing this thing that had always been such a non-thought feeling like an exotic, foreign treat.
“What’s wrong?” Summer bumped her knee under the table. “Did they go bad? You look like you’re either going to throw up all over me or you’re about to burst into tears.”
“Umm…” Harper sighed. “I was just thinking about how this is probably the last time I’ll ever have a cupcake, or chocolate.”
“Oh, wow.” Summer eyed her ‘meal.’ “I guess we should eat it slow and enjoy it then.”
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