Cost of Survival

by B.R. Paulson

  ***

  Mom nudged my shoulder. She didn’t whisper exactly, but in the quiet of the room, she could have and it would’ve been easy to hear. “Kelly, time to wake up. We need to go.”

  When had I fallen asleep? I picked my head up from my arms braced on my knees. I didn’t remember sliding to the ground to sit. The last few hours blurred in my mind, melding together to create a confusing mish mash of realities.

  We’d seen more than our share of horror movies and what happens when people split up. Self-quarantined in the room, Mom and I hadn’t even gone to the bathroom except to use the toilet – which didn’t work – in the adjoining bathroom.

  But now it was time to put our plan into action and hope for the best. Or in Mom’s case, hope your prayers did something.

  I grimaced and pushed myself to stand. “How long did I sleep?” The afternoon light had dimmed. I blinked in the darkening room.

  “About an hour.” Mom rolled her head to one side and the other.

  “Did you sleep?” I pulled my shoulders back to stretch them, tight from sleeping in a sitting position.

  “No. I’ve been praying.” Matter-of-factly, she didn’t show any embarrassment. Why should she? I knew her beliefs, her faith. We planned to risk our lives for a book about her faith for crying out loud.

  Of course, I grasped its importance. Even a hardcore atheist would understand – which I wasn’t. I just didn’t know that I could’ve prayed for an hour. Or a minute.

  I nodded. What would I say? Sounds uncomfortable? Mom did most things old school and prayed as much as possible on her knees. I can’t imagine she would shift to sitting or anything less than kneeling for even an hour straight of monologue with the Almighty.

  For some reason, we hadn’t discussed the reasons behind the co-op morphing into some kind of trafficking operation after only a couple of days. Or that they wanted to sell me pretty quick. “Why do you think Charlie is willing to get rid of me after he promised you he’d protect us?” I tugged my hair back into a manageable ponytail, off my neck and face. Plus, didn’t he consider Mom paid up or anything after the night before?

  Mom shrugged, twisting her own hair into a bun and drawing on her pack. “Do you think he’s the type of guy to keep his word? I only agreed because I needed to buy us some time. But I was thinking more like months or weeks instead of hours.” She offered me a small smile. “I’m sorry things didn’t work out here. I really hoped they would.”

  “You’re okay, Mom. I’m sorry it didn’t work out here.” For so many reasons I felt bad about the camp’s failure. She invested a lot of her personal time and money toward the future the group had advertised. Because she hadn’t planned on a power coup didn’t mean her intentions sucked. Pulling on my pack, I welcomed the sturdy weight against my lower back and the tug on my shoulders. Something secure in the solidness of a plan.

  She sighed. “You’re disappointed.”

  “No, I’m not. At least not in you. In the group, yes, but you couldn’t help the craziness.” I arched my eyebrow. “Can you imagine if you had the kind of power to control all this? You could go and solve this entire crapshoot and we’d be able to go home.” The longing for home reared its ugly head and engulfed me, bringing tears to my eyes.

  Mom reached for me, drawing me close. “It’s okay. I know this isn’t ideal. None of this is even fun, but we’re getting out. We’ll survive. Remember the rules.”

  “Is that our mantra? ‘Cause I think we could come up with something better.” Anything would be better than Stay alive, trust no one, and pray. “Like, pee in someone else’s yard, or something?”

  Her laugh burst from her in a shocked gasp. “Kelly, you’re so weird.” But her smile softened the angry edges of the bruises on her face and the seemingly permanent sadness in the tilt of her lips.

  I grinned back. We hadn’t laughed together in so long. Usually our memories tied together in Dad and Braden. Their loss was just… sad. If we weren’t reminiscing, we talked about survival. How to survive. What to do when. When and where and why and who. Everything was about surviving, like we forgot how to live.

  Our gazes met and held. For a moment we basked in each other’s company. As many problems as we had I wouldn’t choose anyone else to go with me to the end of the world.

  A scratching sounded at the doorway. Sitting benignly on the floor, like a small white rug, a scrap of paper had been shoved under the door. Mom claimed it, opening the folded piece to read its message.

  The blood drained from her face. Her pallor more noticeable against the backdrop of her mahogany colored hair. She faced the window, the light beginning to dim.

  “What? What’s wrong?” Our situation crashed around us, banishing all humor from the room. We were back to survival.

  “Jeanine says we have to do it now. They’re coming for you at dark.” Shoving the note into her front pocket, Mom twisted the door handle to Charlie’s room. She didn’t knock. Nothing. “He’s locked it.” She checked the window again.

  The trees had turned to shadows against a darkening sky. A small amount of light kept everything from blending together, but not by much and not for long.

  “Let’s leave them.” Mom turned toward the hall, sadness and worry warring for room on her face.

  I grabbed her pack. “No. Mom, we need those. Come on.” I pushed around her, opening our door and turning toward Charlie’s room from the hall. Emboldened by the complex yet simplistic nature of our escape and the fact that I honestly didn’t think we were going to be stopped, I turned the handle to his door and shoved my shoulder against the light wood.

  My extra physical roughness wasn’t necessary. The panel swung open easily and I stumbled inside, my momentum thrown off by the unexpected give.

  Mom followed me inside, shutting the door behind us. She faced me, then glanced over my shoulder. Her eyes grew round and she spun me, grabbing the bottom panel of my backpack and yanking out the gun. The movement so fast, she had the gun out and aimed at Charlie before I even registered he had frozen in a half-standing, half-bending over position to pull on his pants.

  Opening and closing, my mouth waited for direction from me that wasn’t coming. I’m not completely sure where my confidence disappeared to, but if I found it, I would do something fearsome.

  Charlie’s smug grin pinched at the sides of his eyes, giving them a half-slanted appearance. He finished pulling up his pants and fastening them shut. Thank goodness. He tucked in the hem of his flannel and wiggled his eyebrow at Mom. “Are you bringing your daughter in for the fun tonight, Megan? I’m not gonna lie, I’ve been interested in you for a while now. Making this a mother-daughter event is very intriguing.”

  “Shut up. We’re here for our things.” Mom pushed me to the side, holding the gun steady at shoulder height. Got to hand it to her, she didn’t shake when she held the weapon aimed on a man.

  He nodded slightly toward her weapon. “I see you’re not as forthcoming as your faith would demand.”

  “You don’t know a thing about my faith or beliefs. Where’s my stuff?” Mom’s shoulders tightened more as she clenched the gun harder. “I have no problem shooting you, Charlie. After last night? Well, let’s just say I’m looking for anything to pull this trigger.”

  Something on Mom’s face must have testified to the truth because Charlie’s humor vanished and something resembling fear and anger darkened his expression. “Where do you think you’ll go? Huh? I run this place. You’re not leaving unless I say.” He stepped forward, his finger thrusting into the air between them.

  “Take one more step. Please.” Mom’s silky, challenging tone sent chills to my toes. I never pushed her so far she stopped yelling or stopped talking normally. Her low dulcet tone… oh, I couldn’t even imagine how much anger she tamped down.

  He glanced to the side and back at Mom, staring her down. Mom didn’t flinch. Charlie laughed, throwing his head back in so calculated a way, as if he tried holding our attention or changing
our focus.

  Following where he had looked, I searched the corner. A dresser and a lamp stood together. The empty top of the dresser seemed out of place in a man’s bedroom. I crossed to the chest of drawers and pulled open the top.

  Charlie stopped laughing. “Hey, you can’t touch my things.”

  Mom’s voice sharpened behind me. “Shut up.”

  Digging through the contents, I gripped the edges of Mom’s Bible and waved the fluttering pages in the air. A small picture frame, silver and gold two-tone glinted in the corner under a leather-banded wristwatch. Jeanine sat in the photo with two boys about eight and twelve and a little girl around six. A handsome man draped his arm around her and the children and smiled with pride at the camera.

  I added the photo to my collection.

  The next drawer held our gun. Among other handguns and some extra ammo. “Mom, he has more ammunition in here.” We could take it all, but we’d have a hard time carrying it.

  “Good, grab out any that say .9 mm. We can take that with us.” She didn’t join me and I’m certain she wanted to, but she had to keep an eye on the bastard who wanted to trade me for toilet paper or whatever.

  I tucked the orange and black boxes of rounds into my jacket pockets, as many as I could hold which left only two more boxes of the .9 mm caliber in the drawer.

  “What did I say?” Mom’s mild shriek made me spin. Charlie had advanced another step and smirked at her like he knew she was bluffing about shooting.

  Something in his expression pushed Mom over the edge. She pulled the trigger, the crack sounding through the room like a clap of thunder.

  Charlie’s eyes jerked wide and he toppled backward, landing in a half-slump in the wing-backed chair. Blood brightened the upper sleeve of his arm. He moaned. At least he hadn’t fallen on the bed.

  Watching someone get shot was a heckuva lot easier than doing the actual shooting.

  Mom faced me, gun still trained on the barely-clipped man. “We need to go. I’m betting that shot tipped our hand.”

  I tucked Jeanine’s frame into an inside pocket of my jacket. Hopefully, I had a chance to give the photo to her. Hopefully, I didn’t die in the next few minutes.

  Better yet? Hopefully, I woke up and had breakfast with Dad and Braden in our old home because I didn’t want to run again.