Evergreen

by Cox, Matthew S.

  “The house has four bedrooms.” Anne-Marie smiled. “And it’s kinda lonely.”

  “That’s fine. I don’t exactly have much stuff to move.” Summer emitted a weak laugh. “And not being alone sounds good.”

  Mayor Ned backed up to address everyone. “We don’t have quite the population we did before the shit hit the fan, but we’re trying to keep things running as much like the society we’re used to as possible. Food is communal. We’ve got a quartermaster set up across the street and up a ways in the big building next to the old dog place. Provisions are assigned out. We’re still living off whatever canned and dry goods we can collect until the farm’s up and running, but we hope to be self-sustaining by next summer.”

  “When you leave here, head back out onto 74 Frontage for a little ways. The next street’s Hilltop. Go left and keep walking until you pass Butternut Lane. That one doesn’t have a street sign. It’s the one that’s at like a forty-five degree angle. Your new house is the fourth one on the left.” Anne-Marie pointed at the map. “It’s not very far from here at all. Close to the quartermaster as well. Call it a militia perk. Normally, we place families with school-age kids closer to the school, but it’s more critical that you two are more central for response purposes.”

  “All right. Easy enough,” said Cliff.

  “So, what do we do now?” asked Harper.

  “Now? Go and get settled in, swing by the quartermaster and talk to Liz. She’ll allocate you some food. You two are on the militia, so, just sit tight until Walt sends word about what to do. Might be a day or two to enjoy as a settling in period.” Ned again shook hands with Harper, Summer, and Cliff. “Glad to have you here.”

  By the time they left the mayor’s office, the sky looked ready to give up for the day.

  The directions to their new house proved simple to follow since the building containing the mayor’s office sat at the corner of Hilltop Drive and Route 74. Summer hugged everyone, repeatedly thanking them over and over for helping her get away from ‘those bastards’ and bringing her here. Anne-Marie’s house also basically sat on Hilltop, but only like 200 feet from the mayor’s office recessed a little bit on a side street. Despite the woman’s emotional ‘farewell for now,’ it wasn’t like they’d never see her again.

  Harper headed down Hilltop Drive heading east, looking for the street going off at an angle.

  A woman carrying an AK47 in a flannel shirt, jeans, and work boots coming the other way slowed to observe them. She appeared a little older than Summer but still probably in her twenties, with fluffy-curly brown hair.

  “Hey.” The woman waved once the group came close enough not to require shouting. “Guessing you’re new since I haven’t seen you before.” She eyed the Mossberg. “Damn, that’s a howitzer.”

  “Yeah. We just got here.” She fought back the urge to shy away from a new person. Introvert Prime is now a cop. Yeah. That’s going to work. Of course, the idea of standing in front of a whole class of students potentially as a teacher frightened her more than having to maybe shout at (or shoot) a small number of people. “I’m Harper. This is my sister, Madison, my brother, Jonathan, and our father, Cliff.”

  Jonathan beamed.

  “Leigh Preston.” The woman nodded in greeting.

  Madison peered up at Harper with a confused expression.

  “Getting a look around on your first day here?” asked Leigh.

  “Actually, we’re heading, uhh, home.” Harper let a silent sigh leak out her nose. “Fourth house past Butternut.”

  “Oh, yeah, right over here. C’mon, I’ll show you.” Leigh pivoted and began walking. “Your dad on the militia?”

  “Yeah. Me too.” She patted the shotgun.

  “Cool. You’re a little young, but we could use all the help we can get.”

  Cliff glanced over. “That bad? You see a lot of trouble here?”

  “We had a couple idiots since I got here. Usually, it’s kinda quiet like in terms of people attacking us or causing problems. Other than that, we have the usual crap like this guy Tommy slapping his wife. Also, militia’s responsible for going out and looking for supplies and useful stuff. Spreads us a little thin back in town. So, more people means the civilians stay safer whenever there’s a scavenging run.”

  Harper suppressed a shiver. She hadn’t signed up for that. Leaving Evergreen did not fit her plan. Weeks of daydreaming about going to the safe place had no room in it for being a dumbass and leaving said safe place on purpose. Shooting those idiots back in Lakewood happened because she had to in order to escape. Roaming around looking for trouble sounded like a horrible idea. Maybe they’d let the ‘kid’ stay back here for a few years. And… well, if things got too hairy, she could always give up the shotgun and ‘go civilian.’

  But… could she bring herself to surrender her fate to other people? As long as she had the shotgun, she could protect Madison. And, she had Jonathan depending on her now, too. They all had Cliff, but one man couldn’t protect everyone—as her real Dad had so aptly proven. Harper squeezed the shotgun strap. No… she couldn’t hesitate, not ever again.

  Leigh stopped in front of a nice, but small, square house painted in light blue. The front had a tiny concrete porch in front of a central door, one window to the left, two to the right, one small—probably the bathroom. “Here it is. Fourth one from Butternut.”

  “What happened to whoever lived here?” asked Cliff. “They gonna come back and want their house?”

  Leigh shrugged. “I suppose that’s possible. Anne-Marie assigns people to houses that have been abandoned. Heard the Army came through here rounding people up for evacuation like a week after the blast. Not sure where they took them.”

  “Rounded them up?” asked Harper. “Like forced?”

  “I don’t think so, but I wasn’t here then so I can’t really answer that.” Leigh wandered over to the door. “Anyway, it’s intact and in good shape. There’s no keys, and Gage removed the locks already. Got a deadbolt still, so if you’re inside, you can lock it.”

  “All right…” Cliff looked the place over.

  Jonathan dashed inside.

  “Oh, one more thing, in case no one told you this yet.” Leigh glanced back and forth between Cliff and Harper. “Until further notice, whenever it rains, everyone’s required to stay inside. Mayor Ned’s concerned there might be radiation in the rain due to airborne fallout. He said it might take like five years for that to stop being a worry.” She put on a bizarrely cheerful smile after such a statement. “Welcome home! Go on and get settled in. Holler if you need anything.”

  “Yeah, uhh… thanks.” Cliff chuckled and headed inside.

  Harper gazed up at the sky. Radioactive rain? Ugh. Talk about nightmare fuel. She smiled at Leigh and approached the door. At least this place isn’t covered in smoke and ash.

  18

  Hilltop Drive

  The house on Hilltop Drive had two bedrooms and a smaller room with a computer desk. Its modest living room and dining room merged without much of a division between them. A cup still lay on the floor by the coffee table, perhaps dropped by the former resident when they saw a news report of the nuclear attack and ran straight out.

  Evidently, the presence of a fireplace had been one of the criteria for assignable houses. For the next hour or so, they explored their new home. The two bedroom closets held an assortment of linens and comforters. A hall closet had bath towels, a broom, vacuum, and other cleaning supplies. A bit of empty plastic hinted that there may once have been toilet paper there, but someone had taken it.

  Harper and Madison got the second bedroom with Cliff taking the master. Jonathan claimed the little computer room for himself. Since they had no way to tell if the computer still worked (due to a lack of electrical power) he gently relocated it to the dining room. If ever power returned, they could try it out. A back door led from the kitchen to a modest yard with a few trees, separated from the property behind them by a wooden fence.

  It fe
lt awkward just walking in and taking over a house. How would the town handle it if a prior resident returned and found their home occupied by strangers? Would they just give them some other random house? The person could get violent, but that idea made her doubly glad to have kept the shotgun, even if it did make her think about Dad’s death. Being in this place had a surreal quality like she’d started off having a nightmare that ceased being scary and took a turn for the weird.

  Though on the small side, the bathroom was clean and functional in all ways except hot water. The sight of it made Harper crave a steamy shower, but, alas. Cliff found some candles in a kitchen drawer and set them out in preparation for later when it became too dark to see. With the survey of the house and bedroom assignments worked out, the girls gathered the packs of canned goods they’d carried with them—as well as their coffee stash—into the kitchen. Cliff tested the sink, which also worked.

  “Well, that’s something. No idea how much longer that’ll last.”

  She grimaced. “It’s gonna stop?”

  “Depends on where it’s coming from. Some of the more remote houses around here feed off their own wells. Without electricity to work the pumps, they’re SOL. This might be coming from a water tower, but I don’t remember seeing one. So, umm. Try not to run it too much. We should prepare for the eventuality that we’ll wind up having to live rough. Bringing in water from elsewhere by bucket.”

  She nodded. “Like in a movie about a long time ago.”

  “Yeah. Something like that.” He scratched at his beard. “Hell, who knows. It might stay working. This place has doctors, so it might still have a plumber.”

  She held up a hand, fingers crossed.

  “Gonna go see about a bed for Jonathan.” Cliff patted Harper on the shoulder, Madison and Jonathan on the head, then headed out the front door.

  Harper searched the cabinets, finding them bare of food. They held plenty of glasses, plates, bowls, mugs, cookware, and cups. She figured the townspeople had gone around to all the abandoned homes after giving up on the residents coming back and took all the cans. Against her better judgement, she checked the fridge. At least whoever raided the house had cleaned it out. No science projects or mold demons waited to ambush her. Without electricity, it would serve primarily as another storage space.

  Jonathan opened the door that led from the kitchen to the back yard, and went outside.

  Madison opened the backpack and passed cans to Harper, with little emotion on her face. She put them away in the cabinet above the countertop, wondering if she’d have to deal with a meltdown at some point when her sister realized this place had become home and they’d never be going back to the house they grew up in. She tried not to think about how much she missed it, or she’d wind up bawling right there. If Madison ever did freak out over their old house, she’d break down right alongside her.

  Jonathan walked in carrying an armload of firewood.

  “Where’d you get that?” asked Harper.

  “There’s a big pile of it two houses over.”

  “I think you just stole someone’s firewood.”

  He walked by into the living room, dropped the wood on a cradle next to the fireplace, then placed two logs inside it. “They share food here, right? Gotta share firewood, too.” He crawled over to Cliff’s backpack, rummaged a few things out of it, and returned to the fireplace.

  “What are you doing?” called Harper.

  “Getting a fire started.”

  “Don’t play with fire. You’re not old enough.” She shoved the two cans she held into the cabinet and hurried over to him.

  Jonathan arranged a small pile of wood shavings on top of one of the logs. “It’s okay. Cliff showed me how to do it. And I’m not ‘playing with fire.’ I’m trying not to freeze. It’s cold in here.”

  Never in her life had she thought fireplaces did anything but look pretty. The idea of heating a house with one didn’t even seem possible. The boy picked up a combat knife and an eight-inch metal rod about as thick around as her finger. She started to relax at the lack of matches, but jumped back with a startled yelp when sparks flew. Each time Jonathan scraped the knife down the rod, a shower of bright orange sprayed forth.

  She stared in awe, too confused at the sight of a plain metal rod doing that to say anything. Eventually, the wood shavings smoldered. He leaned in and blew on them until a fire sprang to life. Cliff had obviously showed him how to start a fire, so maybe she didn’t need to hover over him.

  “Ferrocerium rod,” said Jonathan, throwing another shower of sparks on the shavings for good measure.

  “Umm…”

  “The metal. It’s called ferrocerium. It’s prophylactic.”

  Harper burst into laughter.

  Jonathan paused scraping to look up at her. “What’s funny?”

  “Did Cliff tell you it was prophylactic?”

  He bit his lip. “Umm. Maybe not exactly that.”

  It didn’t seem completely smart to leave a ten-year-old alone with an active fireplace, but nothing about the past two months had been normal.

  “Be careful with it, okay? You need to stay here and watch it until someone else is in the room. We can’t leave it burning with no one here.”

  He looked up at her. “I will.”

  Harper dragged the duffel bag down the short hallway to the bedroom she’d be sharing with Madison. Her little sister followed close behind, perching on the bed with her iPhone in both hands.

  The room already contained a small dresser, which had been emptied of all contents. Most likely, whoever raided all the canned goods had taken the clothes as well. Harper unzipped the duffel and rummaged out the clothing they’d taken from the mall for themselves, leaving Cliff’s and Jonathan’s stuff in the bag.

  She opened four packets of underwear for Madison, packing them on one side of the top drawer and threw the other packets, presently too big for her, into the closet. The assortment of shirts, dresses, leggings, jeans, and socks amounted to barely a sixth of the stuff they had back home, but it beat having only one outfit.

  The front door opened with a clatter. Harper froze, listening. After ten seconds and Jonathan not shouting, she relaxed. A moment later, Cliff’s laughter bellowed from the living room. He came down the hallway carrying a twin mattress and leaned into the girls’ room long enough to say “pyrophoric” before dragging it into Jonathan’s bedroom.

  “Huh?” asked Harper.

  “Not prophylactic,” shouted Cliff.

  Harper giggled.

  A young Chinese man she hadn’t seen before went by carrying a box spring. On the way back out, he paused at the door.

  “Hey, Harper?”

  She looked over at him. “Yeah.”

  “Ken Zhang. Welcome to Evergreen. I’m on the militia as well. Good to have you.”

  “Hey.” She waved.

  “Hi,” said Madison barely over a whisper.

  Cliff appeared in the doorway.

  “Need a hand with the frame?” asked Ken.

  “Sure. That’ll speed things up.” Cliff glanced at Harper. “Be back in a few minutes.”

  “Okay.” Harper proceeded to pack her clothes in the third drawer.

  Madison flopped on the bed and emitted a groan.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Tired from all the walking.”

  “Yeah. Me too.” Harper stuffed a sweater into the drawer. Tonight, she’d be in a strange bed in a strange house, but she doubted she’d have any trouble falling asleep.

  “How long do we have to stay here before we can go home?” asked Madison in a toneless voice.

  Harper’s breath caught in her throat. She froze, leaning on the drawer, a pair of jeans under her hand. A barrage of memories from her old life ran by in her thoughts, birthdays, holidays, funny moments, sad moments… more than the house, she missed her parents. The house could rot in Hell for all she cared if she could have Mom and Dad back. All the grief she’d been holding in at their deaths thr
eatened to come crashing down over the wall she’d built to contain it. The sense of security offered by the mundanity of a doctor visit and a new home far removed from roving bands of criminals offered a reprieve from the hypervigilance she’d been running on.

  “Harp?”

  She pushed herself up and went over to sit on the edge of the bed. As much as she tried to look brave and tough for her sister’s benefit, tears still rolled down her cheeks. “Hey, Termite. You remember how that big explosion happened?”

  Madison swiped her finger around the black iPhone screen. “I’m ten, not five. I know we had nuclear war.”

  “Yeah. There’s no more police or anything. It’s not safe back home. It might not be safe there for a very long time. All the good people left, trying to find places like this, up in the mountains where no bombs came down.” She paused long enough to get her quivering voice under control. “This house we’re in is gonna be our home now.”

  “I don’t like it here,” said Madison, her voice still emotionless. “This is someone else’s house.”

  “It’s what we have.” Harper sniffled, hating herself for ‘giving up’ on the place she spent her entire life, less the past two weeks. “I want to go back there, too. But we can’t. It’s too dangerous. I won’t let you get hurt, you know that.”

  Madison dropped the iPhone in her lap, sat up, and leaned against her. “I know. You shot people.”

  Harper hugged her tight. “Yeah. I hated it, but I didn’t have a choice.”

  “How are Mom and Dad gonna find us here?” Madison swiped her hand at the phone. “Or my friends? I miss them. Are they okay? Did the bad people kidnap them?”

  She might’ve tried to tell her that their parents had died—if she could’ve made her voice work.

  “Mom would’ve called if her phone had charge.”

  The dam broke; Harper lapsed into sobs. Her sister remaining blank-faced made her weep harder. She’s broken… and I don’t know how to fix her. “I’m sorry.” She sniffled. “I’m sorry.” She held Madison like a giant teddy bear, rocking her side to side, no longer able to contain her grief. Both of her parents had died right in front of her, but only Dad had been her fault. Panic had kept her from feeling much of anything at all about losing them—until that moment.