Stranded Box Set

by Theresa Shaver

  Laura Davis raised a dirty bloody hand to her daughter’s face and cupped her cheek.

  “All my love, my life for you, my precious baby girl.” The last word came on a gasp and blood bubbled out of her mouth to trickle down her cheek.

  Looking into her mom’s eyes, memories swirled through her head like flashes. Letting go of her hand that clutched so tight on the first day of kindergarten. Meeting her love-filled eyes in the mirror as she braided her hair. Seeing her on the sidelines as she cheered the loudest during her first soccer game. So many memories flashed and all the anger disappeared from her heart. It didn’t matter what had happened in the last few years. This was the one person who loved her the most and she was leaving.

  “Mommy, don’t go,” she whispered. The soft smile that spread across her mom’s face stayed there as her eyes lost focus and went blank. April felt like her heart had been ripped out of her chest. This was the second time she’d lost her mom and now it was final. Too late to make amends. Too late to start over. Too late for a future of memories.

  Hands slid under her arms and April was pulled away from her mom’s body. She didn’t fight or resist. Her whole body was numb from shock and she let the others strip her sweatshirt off her body. She didn’t even flinch when Mrs. Moore hastily cleaned and bandaged the graze on her arm that had come from the bullet that took her mother’s life. She blinked and she was on her feet being dragged at a quick pace but nothing around her registered until the sun and light went away and she was pushed into a chair.

  Liam’s dim face in front of her came into focus for a second before a bright flashlight was shone directly into her eyes. She yanked her head away and batted the light to the side. His voice rang out in an echo that caused her to look around their surroundings.

  “Mrs. Moore, she’s back!”

  April had a moment of panic that they were back in the dark tunnels but the light shining through high dirty windows said otherwise.

  Mrs. Moore’s hands cupped her face and directed it towards her.

  “April, can you understand me?”

  April tried to nod and then asked, “Where are we?” But all that came out was a dry croak.

  The teacher reached down and grabbed a water bottle and wrapped April’s fingers around it. She stared at it for a few seconds before lifting it to drink. April felt like she was wading through thick syrup. She felt slow and confused. After taking a deep drink, she leaned back against the chair and felt pain flare in her arm. Glancing down at the bandage she tried again to speak with more success.

  “Where are we? Why does my arm hurt?” she asked in a clearer voice as she looked from Mrs. Moore to Jessica and Liam who were gathered around her chair.

  The three shared a look before her teacher kneeled before her and took her hands into hers.

  “April, do you remember what happened when we came out of the tunnel?”

  April sipped her water and nodded with a frown.

  “My mom attacked Marco and he shot her. She…died.”

  Mrs. Moore squeezed her hands in comfort.

  “Yes, she saved us. She saved you. Your mother loved you very much, April, and she will always be remembered by us as a hero.”

  April swallowed past the ache in her chest and tried to hold back the tears that filled her eyes. After everything that had happened between them and the last few months of her deteriorating mental health, April had gotten her mom back long enough for her to give the ultimate sacrifice to her daughter. April wasn’t ready to talk about her mother yet so she looked around at the dim space they were in and asked again, “Where are we?”

  Mrs. Moore studied her face for a few seconds before nodding and moving on.

  “We had to get away from the entrance to the tunnels before any more of the men came looking for Marco. Walt and I have been stocking fallback points throughout the park for emergencies. This is one of them. Hopefully he and his group made it to theirs. This is a maintenance building on the far northeast corner of the park. We picked it because it has an exit door out of the park. We won’t need to go to any of the gates to get out.” The teacher reached up and adjusted the bandage wrapped around April’s arm before continuing, “When Marco shot your Mother, the bullet grazed your arm. It’s not deep enough to need stitches but I’m sure it’ll hurt and bruise. You must keep it clean and dry to avoid any chance of infection. We have a small stock of antibiotics but you shouldn’t need them. Here are a couple of painkillers.” Mrs. Moore handed her two over the counter pain pills and April swallowed them gratefully before the older woman continued. “Do you have another sweater you can put on? I know it’s warm up here but you need to keep the bandage covered.”

  April looked around as she nodded. “I packed an extra one in my pack but I think I must have dropped it.”

  Jessica stepped forward and lifted April’s pack onto her lap. “I snagged it when we started to run.”

  April gave her friend a small smile of gratitude before opening it and rummaging through it. As they helped her get her sweater on over her wounded arm Mrs. Moore explained what they planned to do next.

  “One of the first things we had the scouts bring back was bicycles and carriers. We all knew we’d need them eventually when we decided to leave the city. Thankfully, they managed to find many in those first weeks and Walter and I, with the help of Ben and Liam, stored enough for both our groups in the two fallback buildings. We have also been slowly stocking supplies. It won’t be enough to see us all the way home but with rationing it should last all of us for at least a week. My hope is once we get away from the city, we’ll find communities along the way that will be willing to help us. It’s now the end of August, almost five months since the event that trapped us here. I believe that there has been enough time for the survivors to have grown crops and they may be more willing to help strangers. It’ll be a challenge but everyone in our group is in good health and can ride a bicycle so we have transportation. I don’t know what we’ll face in the coming journey but I believe in all of my students and if we stay and work together, we WILL get home!”

  The three students gave her uncertain nods before she pulled a small watch face attached to a chain from inside her sweater and checked the time.

  “Alright, we still have around six hours of daylight left and we can move many miles in that time so, April, if you feel alright, you and the others should help the rest of the students and pick a bike to ride. Liam, Mrs. Hardsky and I will all be pulling carriers but the rest of you need to be sure your backpacks are filled with as much as you can carry.”

  April frowned at her teacher. Even though the older woman seemed strong she wasn’t sure she should have the extra weight of a carrier. She decided not to argue but reminded herself to talk to the others about taking turns pulling it. April looked around the dim building and saw her fellow students packing backpacks and the three carriers. The only other adult was moving from group to group giving advice and testing pack weights. She felt a flare of panic at only two adults to help and guide eleven teenagers through the dangers ahead. An image of her mom barking out commands with flapping hands came to mind and her eyes immediately filled with tears. April would give anything to have her here trying to control and micromanage every part of the journey. With a hard swallow, April ruthlessly pushed her grief to the side. Jessica’s words from earlier in the day came back to her. If she wanted to survive, she’d have to push her feelings aside and focus on the future. Once they were safe, she could grieve.

  By the time everyone was ready and lined up at the exit door, the pain pills had taken effect and the pain in April’s arm was a dull throb. She watched Liam slip out the door and held her breath until he came back and waved the all clear. He held the door as Mrs. Moore exited first, helping her guide her bike and the bulky carrier through the doorway. The teacher would be leading the group with Mrs. Hardsky in the middle and Liam bringing up the rear. Mrs. Moore had told them the route they would try to take and had given them all
locations to try to reach if for any reason they got separated. They would be using the freeways as much as possible and first heading northeast before swinging northwest once they cleared most of the urban sprawl. Mrs. Moore wanted them to travel north through California’s central valley. She had explained that it was a four hundred mile stretch of farmland that had been used to supply the United States with most of its fruit and vegetables. She was confident that they would find surviving communities along that stretch that would help them. None of them knew that the first part of their journey through the city was the exact same route that other students from their school had taken all those months ago.

  As the line of bikes moved through the door April took a deep breath. This would be the first time she and the others would leave the safety of the park since the day it all began. She just hoped they were ready for what they would find.

  Chapter Eleven

  The first thing April noticed about the streets they were travelling on was the silence. The day this all began when the group had left the park and walked to their hotel, there had been many human-made noises from screaming and crying to gunfire. Now the only sound was their tires humming on the pavement and the occasional piece of garbage blown by the light wind. The street was still filled with abandoned and crashed vehicles but there were no people in sight. April felt a cold chill creep down her back at the emptiness all around her. When they biked past an apartment building the blank windows felt like eyes condemning them for violating the silence. When the overhead sign announcing the freeway they would take north came into view, she breathed a sigh of relief. April knew she’d feel better on the concrete walled road than here on the wide-open surface streets. She felt like they were being watched and was afraid that they would be attacked at every building they had to pass. Once they were on the freeway, she hoped the sound barrier walls that lined it would provide some protection.

  Her arm throbbed in time with her pedaling and her bottom had gone numb, but she was grateful for the bikes and the distance they ate up with every revolution of the tires. In less than an hour, they had probably covered more miles than they ever could have walking all day and the speed gave her a small sense of safety. The freeway was just as covered with vehicles but there was a clear path along the side that they travelled along and except for a few tight spots they made good time. She had stopped watching the others in their group and just concentrated on the bike in front of her. Her mind constantly flashed back to her mother and the memories of before the fateful school trip as well as the past few months in the tunnels. April had no idea that a steady trail of tears flowed from her eyes.

  Murmurs and gasps ahead of her made her look up and slow her bike down. Looking ahead, April saw some of the girls looking off the freeway to the west. When she looked that way a gasp of her own escaped her mouth. A huge burned-out mall was destroyed but what was so amazing was the clear outline of a large airplane that jutted out of the wreckage. Looking the area over, she could see that the fire had spread and a major swath of homes and businesses had been burned. Shaking her head and getting up to speed again, April tried to imagine the chaos and terror of those first few days when people and families had been forced to flee. With no emergency services and no news outlets to inform them, so many people would’ve stayed in their homes until the fire consumed them. With a jolt of realization, she understood that this had happened all over the country, and millions would’ve died. It had been so easy not to think about the huge scope of the disaster while being safe underground. The anger and bitterness in Marco’s eyes started to make more sense. He’d been on the streets and watched life as they knew it die along with many people while the Disney tunnel survivors had enjoyed electricity and safety.

  During those first few hours, April kept her head down and didn’t look at the passing scenery until Mrs. Moore called for a break. Lost in her own dark thoughts, she’d ignored her body and it wasn’t until she tried to dismount from her bike that she realized how dry her mouth and throat were. Even worse was the first step she took that had her staggering painfully to her knees. After months of inactivity and hardly any exercise her legs felt like wet noodles that wouldn’t hold her up. She let herself fall back onto her butt and struggled to get the heavy pack off of her back. When the strap scraped along her wounded arm, she could only groan. It was just one more ache to join the many others in her body. Finally locating a bottle of water, the first drink dropped into her empty belly and made it cramp. April had burned many calories and hadn’t eaten anything since early that morning. She tore the wrapper off a granola bar with her teeth and took tiny bites in between sips of water. Once her head stopped being dizzy and her belly settled she looked around at the others in her group.

  Only Mrs. Moore and Mrs. Hardsky were still on their feet. All the other students were sprawled out on the hot pavement like she was. Everyone was feeling the effects of biking for the last few hours. The pain and misery on the faces around her matched her own and with a pang of guilt, April saw how isolated she’d made herself. She had gone to school with most of these girls since grade one and she knew each of their names but in the last five months she’d hardly spoken to any of them except Liam and Jessica. At first, it was the shock of leaving her mom and then when she had shown up, it was embarrassment at her condition. This group of people was her only connection to home and she’d ignored them and not given any thought to how they were feeling just as lost and alone as she was. Mrs. Moore had said that they needed to stick together and help each other if they wanted to make it home. April finally understood that just travelling together wouldn’t be enough. She’d have to make more of an effort if they were going to be a team.

  A distant scream shattered the silence and almost everyone flinched. It was the first human-made sound they had heard since they had left the park. Everyone, including April, scrambled to their feet and looked around trying to locate where it had come from. Molly and Kara yelled out and pointed to the east in confusion. The two girls were best friends and April couldn’t remember ever seeing them apart since this all started.

  Mrs. Moore had stopped them on the top of a rise for their break and they had a wide-open view of the neighbourhoods all around them. Everyone rushed to the side of the road and leaned against the guardrail to see what the girls had pointed to. The freeway was high enough that it didn’t have a concrete sound barrier wall, only a chain-link fence. April scanned the streets below them looking for the source of the scream. Movement caught her eye as two people dashed out of the parking lot of what looked like a major grocery store. From this distance, it was impossible to tell if they were male or female. As the two figures moved quickly down the street April wondered what had caused them to scream with such terror.

  “Oh my God! What is that?” came from Molly, and had April looking around to see what had caused the girl’s outburst.

  At first, she thought it was leaves blowing across the grocery store’s parking lot in the direction the two people had run but the rolling carpet of brown soon revealed itself as something living. The harshly whispered gasp from Mrs. Moore had April’s eyes widening in shocked disbelief.

  “RATS!”

  April couldn’t take her eyes off of the sea of moving brown that spilled out of the parking lot and erased the black of the roadway. She couldn’t wrap her mind around the thousands of rodents it would have to be to cover such an area and more and more were still filling the parking lot.

  Mrs. Moore and Mrs. Hardsky started to pull students away from the guardrail. Once they had all the shell-shocked teens back at their bikes, the teacher addressed them.

  “That was one of the dangers we’ll have to be on guard for. With so many people dying and no intervention, the rat population would’ve exploded. We’ll also have to watch for roaches and other insect swarms. We were very lucky at the park because they had control poison in storage that Walter and the scouts made sure to lay out often. It kept the rat population from venturing into the pa
rk and overwhelming us.

  “I know everyone is tired and sore from the bikes but the sooner we get out of the urban area the less chance we’ll have of running into this problem. When we find shelter for the night, we’ll be careful to select somewhere that didn’t house any food source and that will help a lot.

  “We have at least three more hours of good light and at the rate we have been travelling I believe we’ll make it to the junction where we’ll change freeways and start heading northwest. I would like us to get at least that far before finding shelter for the night so if everyone has rested enough and tended to their needs we should get going.”

  April wasn’t the only one groaning as she swung her leg over the seat of her bike. She had high hopes that after a few more hours of pedaling her whole body would be numb, not just her behind.

  For the first hour after their rest, April marveled at the scenery. In some areas they biked past, there were huge swaths of burnt-out destruction. It was jolting to pass from such areas into neighbourhoods that looked completely normal and untouched except for brown overgrown lawns. With no water flowing and no one to tend to once lush green spaces, the grass had baked in the hot California sun. April knew that the urban area around Los Angeles was huge but the scale of it really hit home as they rode mile after mile through the urban wasteland. There were stretches of the road that passed through industrial areas with silent factories. What bothered her the most was the lack of people. With a population in the millions, she just couldn’t figure out where everyone had gone. Were they all dead inside their homes or had the entire population just walked away from the area? She couldn’t understand how that many people could disappear.