Shots came from Dennis and Roy’s direction. Inside the house, Katherine continued screaming. Fortunately, she didn’t sound pained, merely terrified. Marcie shouted at them to stop shooting and talk.
“Hell with this,” yelled an unfamiliar man inside. “There’s too many.”
Harper sprinted from the tree to the back corner of the house, raising the Mossberg up to cover the back door—which burst open.
A thirtyish guy in dingy suburbanite clothing scrambled out, carrying a Colt M4.
“Drop it!” shouted Harper.
He turned his head toward her, the color draining from his cheeks at the sight of the shotgun pointing at him.
Recognition flickered across Harper’s brain. She knew him from… somewhere. Why did he look so familiar?
“C’mon. Drop the gun. Let’s talk,” said Harper, tensing her finger on the trigger. If that Colt moved even a quarter inch higher…
He blinked. “Skinny mocha.”
Two gunshots inside the house accompanied a spurt of blood leaping forward from the man’s chest. Dead on his feet, he collapsed in an unceremonious heap.
She cringed, but pushed her feelings aside and advanced to the door, peering around.
Roy Ellis, in the living room, aimed down the hall at her for a half-second before lowering his weapon. Another man she didn’t know lay dead on the floor by his boots. Katherine’s rapid whispery mumbles came from under the kitchen table.
Harper stepped inside. “Ms. Bowden, are you okay?”
The woman looked up at her. “I think so.”
“Clear,” shouted Roy.
Dennis, Darnell, and Marcie entered the house via the front door.
Harper relaxed, bowing her head. “What the heck just happened?” She slung the shotgun over her shoulder and crouched to check on Katherine. The woman appeared to be on the verge of passing out from fear, but didn’t have any injuries.
Roy walked and checked the guy on the ground outside. He crouched, set the man’s rifle aside, then searched his belt and pockets. “The hell gets into people?”
Satisfied Katherine was okay, Harper crept out to stand by Roy. “Why’d you shoot him? I think he would’ve given up.”
“Both of these guys were firing on us. That doesn’t encourage me to talk to them.” Roy took an ammo belt off the dead guy. “And yeah, I know you talked the supermarket sniper down, but that guy was defending his stash. These two invaded a home.”
“I knew this guy.” Harper pictured him in a green shirt, talking to Mom. “He worked at the Starbucks we used to always go to. Scott, maybe. I can’t… why the hell is he shooting at us?”
Roy winced. “Sorry. Guess that explains why you didn’t take the shot.”
“I would have if he tried to point his gun at me. Had him from a blind angle. I… think he was gonna give up, but…” Images of the guy handing her coffee, handing Madison hot cocoa, and trying to tempt Mom with cake pops clashed with the sight in front of her. She had no idea which of the two men had tried to shoot her, and both of them had been trying to kill Marcie.
“No damn idea.” Marcie stepped out the back door. “You okay, Harper?”
“Yeah. Just, wow. This guy used to make coffee for us. We saw him a couple times a week.”
“People change.” Roy stood from his crouch, gathering the confiscated weapons and ammo. “People change faster during war.”
“He remembered I always got the skinny mocha.” She looked over at Marcie. “How’d it start?”
“Just walking down the street, see these two carrying rifles. They’re not militia, so I approached to talk. Told ’em this place ain’t for scavenging, settled and such. The guys seemed reasonable until I told them about checking in and they’d have to surrender the rifles to the militia or join it. The one inside didn’t like that one little bit. I barely got behind that tree before your barista could shoot me in the face. Kept me pinned there ’til you showed up.”
Harper whistled. “That’s just so weird. You weren’t going to take their guns, they could’ve walked away and not stayed here.”
“Yeah.” Marcie closed her eyes and let out a long, slow breath.
Dennis dragged the dead guy out of the house. “Probably means these two weren’t interested in settling.”
“Yeah.” Darnell frowned. “These dudes just opened fire like that? Whatever they wanted, it couldn’t be good.”
Harper stared at Scott’s face for a moment before turning away with a shudder. So much for things feeling normal. She clung to the scant comfort that she hadn’t been the one to take the life of someone she knew. Still, watching him die jarred her back to a state of lingering unease. No matter how ordinary things in Evergreen had started to feel, running into a man she sorta knew who tried to shoot her offered a stark reminder that the world had forever changed.
Darnell and Ken comforted Katherine inside the house.
“You okay?” Roy put a hand on her shoulder.
“Depends on what you mean by okay. In general, no not really. My life is pretty damn far from anything I ever imagined. But, if you mean here and now? Yeah, I’m okay.” She patted his hand. “Guess I’ll go grab the cart for the bodies. Should get them out of here before school’s done for the day. Don’t want kids seeing this. Katherine’s got a son.”
“Good idea. Need a hand?”
She glanced back at him. “I’m bringing the empty cart here. You can haul it when it’s not empty.”
“Heh. Fair enough.”
Head down, Harper trudged past the house and headed south toward the former municipal road crew garage. Someone had repurposed a flatbed trailer once used to transport small excavators into something that could be dragged along by hand. When Jeanette and her people didn’t need it for moving solar panel stuff around, the militia mostly used it for transporting bodies. They’d improvised a new cemetery in the empty land southwest of the Safeway like something out of the Old West, with wooden grave markers—though outsiders killed by the militia usually ended up being cremated.
She stopped in the middle of the road, bent forward, hands on her knees, shaking. The reality of being shot at finally pierced the adrenaline wall. It took her a few breaths to calm down, clinging to the thought she hadn’t killed anyone or even fired a shot. Harper straightened, exhaled, and kept walking, hoping that she’d live to see a day where the idea of having to collect random bodies once again felt like something from a movie rather than just another day.
4
Surreal
Clouds slid across the sky overhead, puffy and peaceful, as if the Earth had forgotten entirely about billions of lives lost only eight months ago.
Her siblings ambushed her on the way out of school with word that the town decided to open the giant swimming pool at the former country club located in the middle of the golf-course-turned-cornfield. Naturally, the kids all begged to go. Not one of them had a swimsuit, but Madison countered with ‘no one did,’ suggesting they’d swim in their shorts, or in Lorelei’s case, dress.
Since she had nothing in particular to do other than keep an eye on her younger siblings for the rest of the day, Harper relented, figuring an hour or two at the pool might offer the kids a much-needed escape. Every one of them could use as much potential joy as possible to hold back whatever mental damage they’d suffered.
They followed a line of kids—pretty much the entire class—straight from the school into the cornfield and past the rows of cornstalks planted on the former golf holes to the country club area. The kids had heard the gunfire from the school, but taken it mostly in stride—except for this girl Emmy who thought the ‘sky fire’ came for her and had a panic attack. On the walk to the pool, Harper gave them the basic explanation that a couple of bad people started trouble. She didn’t tell Madison about Scott the Barista, since she kinda knew him. They guy had sometimes talked to her about her dance classes.
Harper made her way around the giant pool and sat cross-legged on a lounge chair, marv
eling at how the day could start off with a home invasion and gunfight in the streets then proceed from there to the kids wanting to go swimming. Real life decided to compete with her ‘toast dream’ for surrealism. Corn stalks surrounded the pool area on three sides. To the north, paving led out to a parking lot repurposed into a solar farm.
The pool managed to survive both the past winter and nuclear war in reasonably good shape. Its water even still smelled like chlorine, though no one expected it to last too much longer since they couldn’t exactly buy more chemicals, though the attached maintenance garage had a decent amount of supplies stocked up.
Despite a lingering chill in the air, the kids had summer fever with the idea of school ending next week. It seemed every resident of Evergreen between the ages of six and sixteen had learned the town decided to remove the pool cover today and wanted to jump in.
Only a few people wore actual swimsuits as they hadn’t been a high priority for scavenging. Most of the kids had on shorts or jumped in wearing their skivvies, except for Lorelei the extreme case. She decided to go full on nature child and toss all her clothes on the ground by the lounge chair, running off giggling fast enough to avoid Harper’s attempt to grab her. Two boys a little younger than Jonathan took inspiration from that and decided to keep their clothes dry as well.
Harper inhaled a breath to yell at her about putting her dress back on, but chickened out. She still couldn’t bring herself to do ‘angry mom’ with her. She’s had such a crummy life… I really shouldn’t be letting her run wild, but I can’t stay mad at her. The other kids didn’t seem to react much except for a few laughs. Some parents shot Harper disapproving looks, but no one said anything.
I’ll talk to her once we’re home.
Mortified, Harper kept quiet, watching the kids playing in the water. Some threw an improvised Frisbee back and forth, others swatted a volleyball around. Sadie Walker from the militia kept an official eye on things. She’d come prepared for lifeguard duty in a one-piece blue swimsuit, though she wore a towel around her shoulders to ward off the chilly breeze.
Mrs. Wheatley, mother of seven-year-old Robin, walked up, chuckling. “That girl of yours sure is a free spirit. She’s going to rekindle the hippie revolution.”
“Yeah. We’ve apparently gone hillbilly.” Harper blushed again. “She had it rough before. Her mom neglected her pretty bad. Basically ignored her. Kinda think she was allowed to run around with nothing on most of the time. That poor kid has no idea what normal is. I’m trying like hell to fix her, but I just don’t know what to do. Yelling at her makes me feel so damn guilty. It’s a battle keeping clothes on her.”
Mrs. Wheatley laughed. “Robin was the same way at three, but she grew out of it. She absolutely hated clothes.”
“Oh, Lore doesn’t hate them. She just… doesn’t care one way or the other.” Harper smirked off to the side, remembering Mom embarrassing her with stories of how she’d been a ‘nature girl’ too as a toddler.
“Kids, right?”
“Yeah. I should probably yell at her for ignoring me, but she’s so brittle I’m afraid to. I don’t want her being afraid of me like she feared her mom. And look at her… she’s so happy. I’d feel like a complete monster if I made her cry.”
Mrs. Wheatley pondered. “Definitely going to have your hands full with that one.”
“Yeah.” She smiled. “That’s true.”
“It’s a bit cold today. Might not want to let them spend too long in the water.” Mrs. Wheatley gazed up at the sky. “Can you believe we’re having a day at the pool after everything?”
Harper chuckled. “I know, right? I’m still not convinced I’m awake right now. Of all the things we could be doing to survive, this feels so weird. Like we’re wasting time we should be doing something else.”
“Time spent to soothe the soul is never wasted. It does them good. No point always being glum, even if that old Grim Reaper is hiding around the corner. Surprised you’re not going in.”
“Nah. Wet jeans suck. And… my underwear is white. I’m a little too old to pull a Lorelei. Skinny dipping is cute at six, feels totally different for adults. Besides, I don’t want to leave this shotgun sitting here unattended.”
Mrs. Wheatley grimaced. “Ooh. Yes. White would be a little, erm, revealing when it got wet.”
Harper chatted with her about the school, the summer break, and the oddity of Evergreen’s particular mixture of surreal and normal. Aside from the majority of kids not having actual bathing suits on, no one looking at the scene in front of her could have imagined most of the world’s population had been incinerated so recently.
It made no sense how a seemingly normal guy like Scott the barista who’d handed her coffee countless times with a smile or a joke could have ended up trying to kill Marcie, possibly even shooting at Harper. She didn’t know which one of the men fired on her since both had M4s. Mostly, she thanked whatever powers that be for not making her kill a man she knew. He appeared to remember her at the last minute, but if Roy hadn’t shot him, Scott might very well have called her bluff and pointed his gun at her.
She didn’t want to think about that, knowing she would have shot him if he made her.
As much as she thought Roy should have waited to see if Scott surrendered, she felt grateful to him for sparing her the need to kill a man she sorta knew.
Madison leapt up out of the water and punched the volleyball back over an imaginary net, whooping and laughing at making a save. The sight of her having fun got Harper crying from relief and happiness. Whatever moments like this they could find, she’d savor. And, she’d fight as hard as she could to give her siblings every chance at innocence the world had left to offer them.
This is so weird. I can’t believe we’re sitting at a pool right now. What’s normal supposed to be anymore?
A slender dark-skinned boy of about twelve walked by, a pair of soaked khaki cargo shorts struggling to cling to his hips without falling off. He paused to look at her with a hint of recognition in his eye, backed up, and sat on the chair to her left. “Hey.”
She nodded in greeting… He’s one of the boys who’d been stealing food. “Hey. T-Bone, right?”
“Naw. Just Terrence now.” He grinned. “Dropped the old street name. The ’hood’s gone. So, you think them rich bastards what used ta run this place be looking at us kids contaminating their pool and freakin’ out?”
Mrs. Wheatley smiled at him. “Hello, Terrence.”
Harper tracked the volleyball zooming around the pool. “Maybe. But it’s not like money means anything now.”
“Yeah, exactly. My Momma said the greedy sons o’ bitches what nuked us did it ’cause they got all the money and didn’t need us no more.”
“The bombs killed them, too.”
Terrence stretched. Water trails ran down his bony chest past a set of dog tags, clearly not his due to his young age. “’Cept the ones with big-ass underground mansion-bunkers.”
She chuckled. “You really think that’s true?”
“Maybe.” He offered a noncommittal shrug. “The one-percent wouldn’t have let them hit the button if they didn’t have a place to hide. What I heard, the East Coast didn’t get much warning. Even bein’ two hours ahead of us, they didn’t even have ’nuff time ta panic before the skies burned.”
Harper looked down. The nukes hit Lakewood minutes before six in the morning. People in the East Coast would’ve been on the way to school and work if not there already when everything went to hell. “Yeah. Maybe that ended up being better. Everyone on the road trying to escape the cities would’ve caused traffic jams. They all would have been right out in the open with no cover.”
“You gotta figure the government knew shit was goin’ down. Kinda messed up of them they didn’t give us no warning.”
“At that hour of the morning, who would have noticed?” Mrs. Wheatley shook her head, frowning.
Harper stretched her legs out straight. “Yeah, but what would’ve been the
point? Everyone would have had what, fifteen minutes of complete panic and terror before dying anyway? Though it is kinda strange that so many people are missing from Evergreen. Didn’t this place have a couple thousand people in it? Now it’s like 400. Where’d they all go?”
“They had some warning,” said Mrs. Wheatley. “I forget their names, but this couple who lived here had a son or something in the Air Force. The boy called with a warning to get somewhere safe. Good number of people figured this area would get lit up big due to Cheyenne Mountain up north, so they wanted to get on the far side of the Rockies. Army came through a couple days after the blast, took more people off to survivor centers. We lost a bunch more when the prisoners attacked.”
“Prisoners?” asked Harper, wide-eyed.
Mrs. Wheatley’s eyes brimmed with tears. “About a week after the strike, a couple hundred inmates from the SuperMax showed up to loot. Walter Holman calls it the First Battle of Evergreen. He and some of the sheriff’s deputies put up enough of a fight that the inmates moved on, but we lost around ninety people. A lot more didn’t feel secure here after that, so they picked up and left. My husband Neal died keeping Robin and me safe.”
“I’m sorry.” Harper bit her lip.
“There isn’t anyone in this place who hasn’t lost someone. Thanks, hon. You don’t have to feel sorry for us. You got your own sorrows to live with.”
“Them Lawless sons of bitches got my momma,” said Terrence in a voice barely over a whisper.
The patter of small feet approached.
Lorelei walked up, dripping. “I’m tired.”
Harper tried to grab her with a towel, but she zipped away, running around the end of the lounge chair to hug Robin’s mother. “Hi, Mrs. Wheatley.” She darted back to hug Terrence. “Hi!”
He chuckled. “Hey, kid.”
Lorelei grinned and plopped down to sit beside Harper, casual as anything.
Harper wrapped her in a towel-hug. “Your lips are blue.”
The Lucky Ones (Evergreen Book 3) Page 5
