by Chris Bostic
My thoughts instantly went back to Dad’s newspaper.
“Probably.” Dad tugged at her arm. “We really should go.”
“This’ll make your paper tomorrow,” she said.
“As if we’ll see one,” I muttered as I struggled to take in the scene below us, physically and mentally.
“I’d rather not be one of the casualties.” Dad hurried to the Jeep and held the door open for Maddie to slide in. She was the definition of shell-shocked. Her body moved numbly; her eyes were glassed over. Mine burned from the acrid air. Tears built in the corners, which I’m sure were totally due to the smoke.
Austin was agitatedly hopping from one foot to another. There was no restraining him when he was in the middle of one of his jumpy fits. Mom wouldn’t medicate him, at least not with anything a doctor might prescribe. In contrast to Maddie, his eyes were wild.
Mom had to practically shove him into the Jeep to keep him caged. I felt the vehicle rock as I stepped in and mashed myself next to my sister.
Dad threw a duffel bag on top of me, which I passed off to Maddie. After he tossed in another one for my lap, he hurried to the driver’s seat.
“So this is the new reality?” I asked once we were settled in.
“I just, I just, uhm…I didn’t think it would be this soon,” Dad said cryptically. “My God. What’s this country come to?”
“It’s like I’ve been saying, Harold. Folks are desperate. What else would you expect them to do?”
“Not them, the Feds. How could they?” He muttered more gibberish and ran his hands through what remained of his salt-and-peppered dark hair. I wished he’d put them back on the wheel as we sped out of the parking lot. “I mean, I’m not okay with the bombs, you know. But…the shootings…our own people.”
“It’s a new civil war,” Mom said. My stomach clenched again. If we took many more curves, I was definitely going to need the window rolled down, but it wasn’t entirely from his driving.
“Sorta. Not exactly brother versus brother.”
“More like the weak versus the strong,” she said so softly I could barely hear her over the sound of the tires flying along the pavement.
“Brother versus Big Brother.” He turned to Mom. “I hope you’re prepared.”
“For once you’ll be happy to know I am. Ready as we’ll ever be.”
I don’t know why, but I blurted out, “For how long?”
“There ain’t no goin’ back,” Austin said. He brushed sweaty black hair off his forehead, while Maddie buried her face in her hands to cry.
“That’s not true, hon,” Mom said. She spun around to check on Maddie. “It’ll calm down. We’ll get back.”
I didn’t pay much attention to the road other than to notice Dad was driving way too fast for the time of night. The sun had set back around nine o’clock, meaning we were already pushing bedtime for my parents. All the while, my mind was busy trying to process things that never should’ve happened, and wondering if our non-vacation would change from weeks to months, or more.
If this kind of thing could happen in little Gatlinburg, I wondered what was going on in Knoxville. Maybe even back home in our neighborhood. My buddies could get caught up in something. Especially Joe, who was always finding a new way to get into trouble.
My thoughts instantly turned to Katelyn. Though it was looking hopeless for my family, at least we had a head start to nowhere. I couldn’t bear to think of her trapped in our neighborhood as riots flared and homes burned.
Before I knew it, Dad was slowing at the bottom of a big hill. He kept the headlights off and crept toward the intersection with a wider road.
“Clear your way?” he asked.
“No roadblocks,” Mom replied.
“Good. About time we caught a break.”
“Gun it!” Austin shouted from the back seat. His leg twitching was getting totally out of control. I thought he might jump out and run if Dad didn’t start moving.
I strained to see anything through the side window, but the world had lost definition. Obviously, we were still deep in the woods. Other than a few clearings, the whole National Park was nothing but forest for thousands of acres. I could tell there was a little ribbon of a gap curving away from us, which was the road we needed to cross.
Dad pushed down on the accelerator, but not enough to make the tires complain. It probably wasn’t fast enough for Austin. If his future career in wildlife management or something else outdoorsy didn’t work out, he’d have made a great racecar driver. If there would be such a thing as actual jobs in the future. A bleak future.
The load in the back shifted as we lurched forward. Nothing fell on me at first, but Dad soon made a sharp turn to the left to take the main road. I leaned to my right, bumping against Maddie. Several of the water jugs gave way, tumbling away from me onto Maddie and Austin. We never should’ve messed with them at the overlook. They’d gone miles of bumpy road without bothering us.
Maddie freaked out like a spider had crawled on her. “Get them off me!” She couldn’t move her arms much, but her body twisted side to side, her feet pounding away like she was trying to kick them.
“Chill, dude,” Austin said, fighting back against the jugs. “You’re the one that wanted the drink.”
“That was you,” she shrieked.
Dad slowed, but Mom wasn’t about to have that. “Relax, children. Deal with it and we’ll be there in a second.” She spun back to the front. “Now move it, Harold.”
Maddie’s face suddenly scrunched up, and she gasped. “Awww, man, now they’re leaking.” She shot upright, shoulders thrown back. “Oh my God, it’s so cold!”
“Sit still, sis.” I tried to help her out without getting soaked myself.
A jug had lodged itself behind her back during all her squirming. I pulled out the mangled bottle eventually, drizzling water all over the bags we were holding—and our pant legs.
She was right. The water was surprisingly cold. It went straight through my jeans and ran with a trickle to my shoes. I managed to shove the crumpled bottle to the floor of the Jeep and sat back with a sigh.
“Jeez, finally.” I said, releasing a huge breath. “That sucked.”
“I’m soaked,” Maddie said.
Austin couldn’t just drop it. “I don’t know how.”
“The cap came off, and the top was all smashed in.” I looked over at him with my sternest ‘leave her alone’ look, not that I expected it to work.
“It’s just water. You’ll dry out.”
“That’s right,” Mom added encouragingly. “We’ve got plenty of it.”
“True that,” I mumbled, still working to move fallen bottles from our crowded seat to the equally crowded floor.
With that mini-crisis solved, I sat back to look out the window. A knee-high wall of stone pinched the road. Dad slowed as we passed over the bridge and stepped on the gas once we were clear of the little choke point. The water bottle waterfall wasn’t exactly a nice distraction, but it had helped pass the time while we were dangerously exposed on the main road.
“Almost there,” he said to Mom. “Help me out.”
“I’m looking.”
I assumed he meant to find the turn off to wherever we were headed. As we rounded a curve to the right, I figured as long as we didn’t see headlights coming, we’d be all right. So, of course, we did.
CHAPTER 11
“Harold!” Mom screamed louder than I’d ever heard her before.
Yellow beams punched through the darkness, lighting up the trees outside my window. Dad jerked the wheel and we flew off the road. The nose of the Jeep dipped, sending another avalanche of water jugs onto us.
A shriek escaped from Maddie as we slammed into a hole. I held my breath, and the Jeep bucked like a mechanical bull. My head smacked the side wall, adding a few more stars to the thousands plastered in the sky.
I was certain the front axle should’ve ripped off the Jeep, but it kept plowing ahead like a plane crash la
nding in a forest. I gripped my head, readying to plummet.
We didn’t tumble down a hill. The Jeep climbed instead, escaping from the headlights before the other vehicle fully rounded the curve.
It was dead quiet inside the Jeep, other than Dad grunting as he fought the wheel. Outside, branches beat against our windows as the rugged vehicle bounced up the hill. It was going as fast as a racehorse when a pack mule would’ve been more appropriate.
Eventually, I realized we were actually on a driveway. At first, I’d been too busy wondering about the headlights bearing down on us. Had they seen us?
As the oncoming vehicle rounded the curve in the main road, I imagined them looking for us like the searchlights at a prison. We would’ve been caught dead to rights in the wide open, but the mountain path was dark, narrow, and steep. It was ideal for hiding.
“Slow down,” Mom said through gritted teeth, while she gripped the dashboard and bounced in her seat.
“Sorry about that bump,” Dad said, apologizing for something that seemed like minutes ago. “I couldn’t hit the brakes or they’d see us light up.”
“I thought you ran off the road,” Maddie said softly.
I whispered to her, “So did I.”
“Not much of a road, is it?” Mom said, though she already knew the answer. It turned out that she’d been this way a couple times before with Dad scouting the woods and trails around our hideout.
“The worst one yet,” I said.
“That’s what we want,” Mom replied. “We’re gonna be fine now.” But I noticed she kept turning to look behind us as if she expected the other vehicle to follow. Thankfully, nothing but moonlight chased us up the bumpy hill.
If it hadn’t been so steep, I would’ve been ready to get out of the Jeep and walk. When my mind and body were at their breaking points, the road finally leveled out into a little clearing. I sat up but noticed little more than the grassy opening in the woods initially.
Dad swung the Jeep around the edge of the clearing, and a dark structure came into view. It was surprisingly large, almost as big as a barn. A metal roof glimmered in the moonlight.
Tall, narrow windows lined the side of the building. They were more of a kaleidoscope of black, gray, and brown than an allover kind of dark.
“There’s our new home,” Dad said.
Mom shot him a questioning look. “We’re not staying there.”
It was Dad’s turn to frown. “What do you mean?”
“No buildings.” She shook her head. “Seriously, Harold. We talked about this.”
“What are you two talking about?” Maddie asked, but our parents lowered their voices and ignored her.
The Jeep ground to a halt. I imagined it breathing a huge sigh of relief like a winded pony after a long run, but maybe that was just me.
I rearranged the cargo enough that I could open the door without waiting for help. I wasn’t exactly eager to see this new home—or whatever it was. But anything felt better than the small, hard bench seat of our bucking bronco.
Maddie stumbled out and collapsed against the side of the vehicle. She wasn’t going to be much help carrying anything, not that I could blame her. She kept her mouth pinched tight, though she’d open it briefly to suck in huge breaths of cool mountain air. Her face was as sickly white as the moon, and I stepped back in case she was about to throw up.
Austin came around our side, and that got her talking.
He laughed and pointed at the dark stain on her pants that showed up all too well in the moonlight. “You’ve wet yourself.”
“Did not,” she snapped.
He looked at me and chuckled louder. “So did Zach.”
“Dude, you know it was the water.”
“Sure it was. Keep telling yourself that.”
My fingers curled into a ball. “I’ll tell you-”
“Children,” Mom said sharply. “Save your energy for unpacking. Go give your father a hand.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I trudged to the back of the Jeep to find Dad struggling to untie his massive knot. He was muttering under his breath, and it didn’t appear to be just from the knot. Mom had him bothered. But the untangling was going to be a challenge, much like the kind of bird’s nest that fishing line would make, and I was totally useless untying those.
The tower of tubs, nearly as tall as the Jeep, leaned to the side. If the rope came off, the higher ones would topple onto the ground.
“What’s what here?” Austin asked.
“Camping stuff in the green ones. Food in the blues.” Dad grunted as he struggled against the knot. “Might have to cut it.”
“Don’t waste the rope,” Mom said from over my shoulder.
“Easy for you to say,” Dad mumbled as she walked off with a duffel bag slung over each shoulder. With a muffled curse, the rope finally slipped and Dad braced himself to give it a yank. It unwound slowly, and the top tub wavered on the precipice. “About time. Start taking ‘em down.”
I pulled a green tub off the top of the stack and sat it beside me before grabbing another. They were fairly light, but too bulky to carry more than two at a time.
I looked up to find Mom over by the door to the old church.
“Are we going inside?” I asked Dad.
“You better ask her.” He panted as he leaned over with hands on his knees.
I trudged over to the building and watched with curiosity as Mom disappeared inside. After hesitating at the bottom of the steps, I took a deep breath and climbed into the darkness. The ancient boards creaked, sounding like they would collapse with every step. If the tubs were heavier, I would’ve carried them one at a time.
“Mom? I thought we were camping?”
“So did I.” Her voice carried to me like an echo. “We will…eventually.”
“Huh?”
“Go ahead and get stretched out for the night. It’s late.”
Ordinarily, I would’ve disagreed. It was nothing new for me to stay up past midnight, but the events of the day were weighing heavily on me. I was definitely ready to lie down, but not quite ready to sleep.
Mom’s boots clunked over the floor. I didn’t know how she could see where she was walking. She was beside me before I could make out her silhouette. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
“Me, too. I need to help Dad unload.” My eagerness to help had almost nothing to do with the dank, dark aura of the abandoned church, and I hadn’t even spotted the little graveyard yet.
Austin was coming up the steps with loaded arms as we headed out. We had to step back inside to let him go first. Maddie trailed behind him holding a backpack in her hands.
“Wow, this place is cool,” he said, which was probably the first time he’d ever thought that about a church. His eyes must’ve adjusted quicker than mine, though I was finally able to make out the shapes of wooden benches arranged in two rows with an aisle leading up to the front.
Maddie mumbled an inaudible reply. She stretched her arms way out in front of herself, and shuffled her feet like a zombie. Even so, she stubbed a foot on the closest pew and nearly tumbled over the back of the seat into it.
“That was graceful,” Austin teased, knowing that she took her dance classes very seriously.
She replied with something unkind. Mom shushed her, though he obviously deserved it.
“You okay?” Mom asked.
Maddie nodded and offered a weak, “Uh huh.”
“Just drop the stuff by the door and go get more.” Mom hurried outside, and I followed behind her.
“Can we turn a light on?” Maddie’s voice trailed behind us.
“No, sweetie,” Mom replied over her shoulder. “We better not.”
“Why not?”
“Don’t argue with your mother,” Dad said. He passed us on his way to the church carrying a pair of stacked tubs.
We made five more trips back and forth to the Jeep before it was finally unloaded, except for all the water bottles. I stood outside next to the church steps and t
ook in our surroundings.
The woods were close in all directions. The largest part of the clearing was right in front of the building where we’d pulled up. There was a cleared patch in the back too, but I didn’t head off to explore right then. It was time to collapse and try to get some sleep.
Mom stuck her head out the door. “Pull the Jeep around back, Harold? Please.”
“Sure.” He threw the rope into the back and ran around to the driver’s seat. The engine growled to life, but the grumbling noise didn’t quit when it should have. A thunderous sound built from the direction of the road.
I grabbed the top step to steady myself and squinted, waiting for a vehicle to appear on the driveway. But the roar grew impossibly loud. I covered my ears and trembled, unable to move, as the noise turned to a piercing, throaty screech.
A low-flying jet screamed up from the valley, hurtling toward us. In the distance, back in the direction of Gatlinburg, a boom echoed through the hills. I swore the ground rumbled like an earthquake, though we were miles from town.
CHAPTER 12
“That’s why we’re not turning any lights on!” Mom screamed over the sound of the departing jet plane.
“The brake lights were on,” I mumbled, and Mom spun her head around to look at the Jeep. Gravel flew as Dad whipped the vehicle around the back of the building out of sight from the driveway.
Mom covered her mouth and muttered, “Oh, crap. You’re right.”
I turned my eyes back to the sky, expecting the plane to reappear any second. Or another to follow the first.
My heart beat as many RPMs as the Jeep’s engine until my stomach felt queasy. I leaned heavily against the steps but couldn’t see the sky well enough. Though I didn’t want to be any more exposed, I pushed off the building and staggered out into the clearing. Everything was so confusing. I couldn’t wrap my head around whether or not my parents were right about this end of the world stuff. I’d gone so long thinking they were crazy.
“Maybe you were right about camping outside tonight,” Dad told Mom when he returned.
