The Age of Embers (Book 4): The Age of Exodus

by Schow, Ryan

“I’m going to duct tape this side window again, then we’ll move some more of the trailer’s supplies inside the bus.”

  Looking at the metal, flatbed trailer and it’s rails, I’m thinking we need to make room for Ross. No, I’m sure of it.

  “Get Ross set up with Constanza,” I finally say.

  “Are you sure?” Adeline asks.

  “I am.”

  I try not to think of the kid as a forgone conclusion, but these are different, scary times. I look at Ross with his full head of black hair, his narrow shoulders, his skinny legs. His face is agony. He doesn’t know what’s happening to him.

  My heart breaks thinking he won’t make it, but the truth is, I know deep down not all of us are going to survive the trip to California. I knew it the day we left Chicago. Now I’m imagining how losing members of our caravan will effect me.

  This is just the beginning, I remind myself.

  It’s bound to get worse...

  Chapter Fourteen

  The four of us are now able to shoulder the trailer frame completely out of the way, making the pathway wide enough for our entire caravan to fit through. I walk through the ash, in between the charred rig and the bare frame, and then I wave the bus through. Ice and company pull through slowly because it’s a tight fit, but they clear the mess without incident and pull ahead to wait. Xavier and Draven drive their sixties style sedans through next, the pathway easier for them than the bus. When I hop in the ‘Cuda, drop it in gear and pull away from last night’s camp, I exhale and tell myself to relax. We’re finally underway.

  It takes time navigating our way through more of the dead congestion, but after a stretch of creative driving, we’re blessed with a few open roads ahead. It’s not long before we’re slowing back down for obstacles.

  “This is going to take forever,” I gripe, more from annoyance than anything else.

  The first neighborhood we find, we pull in hoping to God to find some medication. Eliana and Xavier stay with the vehicles and the kids while Ice, Draven and I move through the houses looking for aspirin, ibuprofen and any prescription drugs that end with “icillin.”

  Around five houses in, Draven finds some Advil; an hour later, Ice scores half a bottle of freshly-expired Amoxicillin.

  “Do you think they’ll be okay?” he asks me.

  “With this, I hope so.”

  We give the kids the antibiotics, assure them that the medicine will make them better. I won’t say we’re the heroes of the day, but between you and me, we are.

  But this isn’t about us. It’s about the kids, and now they have some hope. We all do. This alone has the pressure coming off.

  “What else did you find there?” Adeline asks, seeing that we have some extra loot.

  Along with the medicinal scores, we grabbed an unopened package of painter’s masks, a box of rubber gloves and some lancets—small needles in a hard plastic housing that Brooklyn says the girls use to pop pimples and subcutaneous cysts. We also took a spray bottle and a bottle of rubbing alcohol, which we’ll use for disinfecting the wounds.

  “What’s a subcutaneous cyst?” I ask.

  “When you shave your pubic hair,” Brooklyn says, “it’s those hard bumps you get…”

  I quickly cover my ears and say, “I don’t want to hear this. I’m sorry I asked.”

  Adeline and Brooklyn start laughing at me. As much as I hate to think my little Brooklyn has grown up, it feels nice to just be with my family on the open road without all the fear, worry, tension or drama of earlier.

  Later that afternoon, when we pull over for a bathroom break, we check on Constanza. Her eyes are dark, with little spots of blood in them, and there are more black boils on her skin, but she says she’s feeling better.

  I can’t make sense of how this is possible.

  The girl is finally alert enough to talk, so Eliana asks her again about the other times this has happened to her. She asks, “What did they do to help you?”

  “I told you,” she said. “They poked them and gave me medicine.”

  “Did it help?” I ask.

  “Yes,” she says, looking up at me with eyes so fatigued looking I’m surprised they’re still open.

  While everyone else is out stretching their legs, grabbing a bush to water, talking about how far they think we can get today, Adeline is in the bus wiping it down with the rubbing alcohol. She already did that earlier today, but after seeing Constanza’s condition, I think she’s now more paranoid than ever. I don’t blame her. In fact, I grab a rag and head inside and help.

  In the driver’s seat, I see Alma. She’s so small, and terribly cute for being as dirty as she is—as dirty as we all are. Her eyes are closed, her hands are folded and she appears to be praying, her little mouth moving as if she’s trying to hold her concentration.

  That’s not a bad idea, I think to myself.

  We’re back on the road in no time, the miles adding up despite the obstacles we encounter and the mostly slower speeds we’re forced to travel.

  As we approach sundown, we come upon a neighborhood. I pull in and the caravan follows. I drive us into an empty looking cul-de-sac, then park the muscle car. Draven and Morgan go door to door to see if anyone will answer. I stand just off to the side of them with Eliana’s knife just in case they need backup. Finally an older man answers through the door.

  “What the hell d’yall want?” he grumbles.

  “I just want to tell you we are passing through,” Draven says. “But we’d like to make camp in the street, if that’s okay.”

  “We won’t be any trouble,” Morgan adds.

  The man opens the door, looks at Draven, then up and down at Morgan. Finally he says, “I’ll expect you not to leave a bunch of garbage behind.”

  “No, sir,” Morgan says. “Thank you.”

  Apparently a gruff nod and the promise of cleanliness is what passes for permission these days. Grateful, we circle the vehicles, make a fire and set up camp. We give the kids more antibiotics, but Ross looks like he’s taken a turn for the worse.

  “How is Constanza?” I ask Eliana when I see her.

  “She’s maintaining,” she replies.

  No one wants to be around either of them. Morgan puts on a mask and gloves when she checks on them. I worry for her.

  An hour later, Constanza starts to moan. Ross says he’s breaking out in the same scary bumps. He can’t stop pushing on them.

  Phillip wants to see his brother, but Chase grabs him by the shoulders and says, “Not while he’s sick.”

  The youngest of the three brothers shrugs off Chase’s hand, then asks, “Is he going to die?”

  With only the fire for light, it’s hard to see if he’s crying. You can hear in his voice he’s scared for his brother. We all are. We’re scared for all of us.

  “I think so,” Chase says to my surprise. “So you’d better be prepared.”

  The nine year old slowly nods at his older brother’s suggestion. Then: “Constanza, too?”

  “Probably,” Chase says, cold.

  “You don’t know that,” Brooklyn tells him. She’s sitting next to Veronica, who’s lying her head against Orlando.

  “He’s right to worry,” Eliana says.

  She’s got Alma and Bianca around her. Both girls are drifting off to sleep, their eyelids heavy, slowly bobbing shut. It’s the same with Kamal and Nasr. Nyanath is quiet, sitting next to Xavier, but Xavier refrains from commenting. He knows the score. Everyone does.

  After a moment—and I didn’t see when this happened, but part of me is glad it did—I see that Nyanath has taken Xavier’s hand. I know the second I see it that this is a support thing, not a “falling in love” thing. Nyanath is a pretty woman, but she’s no Giselle. Not that looks would matter. They don’t, not now. With both of them losing their spouses, and Nyanath her child, I imagine having someone to hang on to is just about everything.

  Eventually Eliana puts the girls down for the night, then she gets a mask and puts on her g
loves. I excuse myself then get up and go with her.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Are you checking on the children?” I ask.

  “I am,” she replies.

  “Me, too,” I say.

  She hands me a mask and I grumble out a thanks. In the open air trailer, the kids are bundled up for the night. I expect them to be shaking, sweating, moaning, but Ross is asleep and Constanza is just lying there, looking up at the sky and the brilliant swath of stars.

  “How are you feeling?” Eliana asks in Spanish.

  “Better,” she says.

  I feel something in my chest loosen up. Thank God.

  “I was wondering, did other people in your family get these, too?” Eliana asks. Constanza nods. “And did they just pop them and take some pills, too?”

  “Yes.”

  We hear someone coming around the bus, the sounds of two feet heading our way.

  Nyanath appears. She looks deeply concerned.

  “Is everything okay?” I ask.

  “Kamal is complaining of a headache,” she says. “He just told me his armpit is sore, and that his knees hurt, too.”

  “Dammit,” I hear myself growl. Both women look at me, aghast. Constanza is now appraising my behavior as well. I shouldn’t have acted this way, but I can’t help it.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, sheepishly.

  “Get it together,” Eliana mutters, her eyes ripe with condemnation.

  “I need to give him one of those pills,” Nyanath says. “Maybe we can stop it before he gets like Ross.”

  “We have to ration the pills,” Eliana warns.

  “I can get more tomorrow,” I tell her. “We can all look for more. Like last time.”

  “How did they get the girls across the border?” Morgan asks, startling us all. We didn’t even hear her coming.

  “She was sold to a man who said she was his daughter,” Eliana says.

  “And border patrol bought that?” Morgan replies.

  “They used to do DNA testing before the border got overrun,” I tell her. “But in the end, before everything went to hell, the detention facilities were overrun and they couldn’t hold them more than a few days, let alone check for DNA or treat them for diseases.”

  “I heard stories of kids being rented for border crossings…” Morgan says, grim. “But the news said that was all just a bunch of right wing propaganda.”

  Eliana and I look at each other, then shrug our shoulders. I finally say, “This isn’t a talking point, or some left/right debate, Morgan. This is a child. What happened to her was wrong. But this is who she is, how she is, and this is what’s happening to her.”

  “They should have tested her at the border,” Morgan says, a little lower in her voice.

  “Everyone thinks they know what should be done,” I say. “Everyone thinks they know what’s right and moral. Try asking the children…”

  Ice appears, heading to Eliana’s side. He’s apparently privy to the conversation, and now he’s weighing in on the issue as he has firsthand knowledge of this subject.

  He says, “Kids like Constanza were anchor babies, throwaways, or worse. If they didn’t die crossing the border, they were farmed out to day laborers, sex trafficked, or just sent back to Mexico to be sold, rented or stolen again.”

  “How is this possible?” Morgan asks.

  “It doesn’t really matter how, does it?” Ice says. “Because while you’re sitting here trying to rationalize how our country would just let diseased people into the interior, this girl is dying of some slow moving sickness we have yet to figure out.”

  “Stop scaring her,” Eliana says to him.

  “I’m sorry to be so forthright,” Ice says, not backing down, “but being scared is the new norm, so it’s best to get used to operating in fear.”

  “Can I have that pill now?” Nyanath says.

  Eliana gives her one, and then I see the Guatemalan sneak her another. The way this sickness is spreading, how we’re using our hearts to care for these kids and not our logic to assess this situation, it has me fearing more and more for my own kids’ lives.

  Chapter Fifteen

  DAY 8…

  Three days have passed since we broke through the trailer and found the ibuprofen and expired antibiotics. They haven’t been easy days by any stretch. Then, after a mid-morning pee break, Adeline gets back in the car and says, “We’re out of Amoxicillin and the kids are getting worse. Especially Ross. Morgan is officially freaking out.”

  “Morgan has been freaking out since we met her,” I say, trying not to get worked up the way Adeline is. They say anxiety is contagious, then again, so is calm. I try to project reason and tranquility in the hope that it will work.

  “She’s come down a level or two, but with the kids suffering like this, and not getting better, I think she’s measuring her quest for redemption as a mounting failure.”

  “Why do you say that?” I ask.

  “Because Ross now has the same black boils Constanza has.”

  I draw a deep, frustrated breath, blow it out.

  “What about Kamal?”

  “He’s definitely got a fever,” she reports. “Red eyes, sweat all over his body, he says his joints hurt.”

  “We’ve got Davenport ahead,” I tell her, scrambling for answers. “Maybe we can find something there.”

  “Won’t the city be dangerous?”

  “Davenport, for sure. Extremely dangerous. But we have to try or we’re going to lose the kids.”

  Later that day, we find a place to make camp just on the outskirts of Davenport. There’s a dirt path off the side of the freeway that leads us to open land, which gives us good visibility in case anyone tries to sneak up on us. Ice asks if I want to go with him tonight to find supplies. Obviously I’m down for that. Anything to back off some of this growing tension. Anything to keep these kids from dying.

  “Does everyone else know we’re going?” I ask.

  “Yeah, that leaves us three solid fighters watching our cars, our people and our supplies, limited as they are.”

  My brother and I slink through the pitch black night using an old flashlight where it’s necessary, one that’s dim and casts a faint yellowish hue. The light is beyond poor at best, but once we get inside a house, it’s better than operating blind.

  With our situational awareness as high as it can get for feeling flat out exhausted, we move from house to house in stealth, sneaking through the neighborhoods, breaking and entering as quietly as we can on a perfectly silent night. On the plus side, neither of us trip over a stack of cans or step on someone’s cat’s tail, so there’s that.

  Occasionally we come across a window emitting the soft glow of candlelight, or a chimney with ribbons of smoke curling into the night sky, but by and large, most of the homes have that vacant, abandoned feel about them. The worst part about all this is the dank smell of garbage in the air. It’s piled up in the streets, overflowing in trash cans, tossed out the front door of homes that were never really nice to begin with. The garbage problem in the more residential ends of these last few cities is like nothing I’ve even seen before, and that’s saying something where I come from.

  After a few houses, we switch tools. Ice hands me the crowbar and the flashlight; I hand him the rifle with its single round. We’re both carrying blades, which doesn’t mean squat in a gun fight, but will come in handy should we encounter an “up close and personal” problem.

  We head into the backyard of the next house, Ice watching the perimeter while I use the crowbar to pry open the back door. There’s no real way to guarantee silence when you’re breaking into a house by force, but whatever…speed over stealth if that’s all you’ve got.

  In the back of my mind, I know I can’t keep doing this. Being so loud. One of these times I’m going to wake up the wrong person. Even now, my senses are flaring. For real, I keep waiting to get shot the moment I force the lock from its slot and the door swings open. Fortunately both my br
other and I are good at what we do.

  Eventually we find what we’re looking for. Not at first, but within a few hours. We locate antibiotic creams, Band-Aids, medical supplies, hydrogen peroxide. We also find several big jugs we can use for water storage, but carrying those will tie our hands if we’re attacked.

  We stuff the medical supplies in our backpacks so as to stay hands-free, but the smart move here is to leave the water jugs on the side of the street and hidden. We can pick them up on the way out of town, providing we’re not being chased or shot at. As for the medical supplies, they’re excellent finds, but they aren’t what we set out looking for.

  We need antibiotics!

  Closer to midnight we find exactly what we’re looking for: three full bottles of Amoxicillin, only one of them expired, and that was last month.

  “Halle-freaking-lujah,” Ice says, so tired it almost sounds like sarcasm. He’s the one who found the antibiotics, and thank God because I’m dead on my feet.

  “No kidding,” I tell him.

  As we’re walking back through the neighborhood, I say, “I can’t believe we didn’t find any guns or ammo.”

  “Yeah, same here.”

  Iowa is the opposite of Illinois in their gun laws. I was sure we’d find some ammo, maybe even a throwaway handgun. But nothing. As for food, that’s been hard, too. We’ve got a couple of cans of beets, though. My mouth is watering just thinking of them.

  Back at camp, we give Constanza, Ross and Kamal the antibiotics as well as the ibuprofen, and then Eliana goes to work draining Constanza’s boils.

  “Here,” I say, handing Eliana one of the Amoxicillin pills. She takes it, then thanks me and goes back to work.

  I leave the hydrogen peroxide for her to clean the open wounds, then ask Ross how he’s doing.

  “I hurt,” he says. His tone alone speaks volumes.

  “Well hopefully this medicine will make you better,” I tell him. “How are your armpits?”

  “Sore,” he says, still unable to completely let his arms hang.

  “I’ll check on you in the morning. In the mean time, we’re all going to pray for you to get better, and to get your strength back.”