by Ryan Schow
Shaking his head in disgust, he cupped his hand, swiped the puddled-blood out, then pulled off one of his shoes to get to a sock. He pulled that off as well, then tried to wipe the seat clean. Using the other sock, he wiped the window as clean as he could and then he jumped again when someone else honked their horn.
“Let’s go, sweetheart!” one of them called out.
Frowning, he flipped them off, then couldn’t help smiling when they laid on the horn and stayed on it. Cursing to himself, but laughing bitterly, he got in the car and started it up.
“Just when I start to think you might be a one- or two-trick pony,” Hwa-Young said, “you decide to show up to the party and prove me wrong again.”
He looked down at the mask on the floor, then back up at her, and then back down to the mask. He picked it up, put it on and said, “Better or worse?”
“Scary,” she said, grabbing her mask off the dashboard.
She donned her mask, then looked back at him. For a second, he thought, yeah, scary for sure.
Hwa-Young shoved her arm out the window, waved the group forward, then watched as the march forward continued, one vehicle at a time. A crackle of two-way static startled them both. Hwa-Young reached under the seat and pulled out a two-way. She keyed the mic, then said, “Say again?
The former VP said, “You look like us now,” while managing to sound pleased.
Hwa-Young handed the two-way to Rowan who keyed the mic and said, “I’m smiling behind the mask. By the way, why are we wearing these things?”
“Because it freaks people out. And psychologically, this makes them less likely to attack. At least, that’s the hope.”
“Doesn’t it block your view?” Rowan asked.
“That’s why we travel in twos,” Aldrich replied. “One guy navigates and keeps watch, the other drives. We’re all armed and ready to rock ‘n roll.”
“To what end?” Rowan asked.
“Brother, there is almost no end, only failures and victories.”
“Look around, Marshall,” Rowan said. “This is the ultimate American failure.”
“Copy that. But are you dead? No. Not yet. That thing thumping in your chest is a heart. It’s bigger and more powerful than any gun, and it has the ability to push you harder than you expect. If you want to survive this war, if you want to make headway and keep this dumpster fire from getting worse, you have to be a racehorse with a racehorse heart.”
Rowan looked at Hwa-Young’s bloody mask; she shrugged her shoulders.
“What do you mean, a racehorse?” Rowan asked.
“Any good race horse will run until their heart explodes. That’s us. We’re those horses who will run until our hearts explode.”
“Where are we going, Marshall?” he asked again.
“We’re going to win a big battle. But that’s not today, that’s tomorrow. Later tonight, we’ll find someplace to eat and sleep, then we’ll call it a day. Just try not to get shot between now and then.”
“I’ve already been shot, albeit barely.”
“A guy like you who’s not afraid to go hard when it’s necessary, or go soft when you can—like last night—you’re a guy I want right beside me when things get hairy. That’s why you’re in the car and not the trunk.”
“Whatever you say, man,” Rowan replied. “This is your show.”
After a long day of travel, most of it trying to get around the dead and abandoned cars, they squatted at a looted gas station, roasted some meat out back, then ate and jaw-jacked for a bit. After that, they slept by the fire. Rowan had offered to take the first watch, which everyone appreciated. Looking back, he wished he hadn’t. He was exhausted.
After the guys had fallen asleep, Hwa-Young scooted next to him and said, “The fire’s warm, but when it’s not, I’ll need your body heat.”
He didn’t feel all that great knowing he had a woman curled into him when Constanza and their unborn child were now in another state. But Aldrich said she was with his parents, so hopefully they were alright. He tried to put thoughts of Constanza’s well-being out of his head, because he hated being afraid, but then he thought: What if Aldrich had lied? What if his parents hadn’t collected Constanza? Part of that conversation hit him again—a piece of the conversation with Aldrich that Rowan had either overlooked or misunderstood in the heat of the moment.
He had said, Your fiancée, your child, and your parents are gone. They are currently headed back to your parents’ home.
My child? he wondered. Why didn’t he just say my pregnant fiancée?
As Hwa-Young curled even closer to him, he felt a sickness eating at his core. Did Constanza…could she have had…had Rose been born already?
Rowan’s eyes fell upon the sleeping form of the man. If Aldrich failed to tell him that Rose had been born, that she was alive…what would Rowan do? Kill him? Let it go? Just turn and leave Hwa-Young and this group known as The Underground behind?
One of the guys woke up, saw him, and then said, “I’ll take watch from here, man. You get some shut-eye.”
“You sure?” he asked.
“Positive.”
Rowan finally lay down facing the fire. Hwa-Young shifted position with him, but she did not leave. Her body heat felt good against the cold night. Instead of reading too deeply into the situation, he curled his body into hers, giving her comfort, finding comfort himself. While sleep took its sweet time taking him, he couldn’t stop thinking about her or her plight. After she was done with these people, these monsters, when she had gone as high as she could go on the killing totem pole, who would she be? What would she have to look forward to in life? Would she even make it out of this alive?
At that moment, he started to feel bad for her, to see her in a far different light. She wasn’t American, yet she was risking her life to avenge this country and her people. Hwa-Young wasn’t overtly hostile and violent, he realized. She was hurting, aching, just trying to get something back, something that was taken from her long ago. But there was no real way to fill that hole. There was only murder and distraction.
Chapter Eighteen
Constanza Navarro
The second the man worked the hand-crank flashlight, Rose began to cry. Constanza tried to cover the child’s mouth, but that just raised Rose’s volume. She saw the light illuminate the space under the closet door and knew she was done, caught.
“Is that a child?” one of them asked.
“You little sneak,” the other guy said.
Constanza heard guns come out, and then she heard one of them say, “If there’s a baby in there, there’s probably a father or mother nearby.”
“They’re probably in there with it, you moron,” the other one said.
Were they so stupid they were thinking out loud, or were they talking to her in their own round about way?
“Come out,” one of them said, “we won’t hurt you.”
She didn’t trust them. She didn’t trust anyone after giving birth to Rose, losing her, and then barely getting her back.
Someone pulled the door open and shined a light on her. “What the heck are you doing in there?” the man behind the light asked.
“Please don’t hurt us,” she said.
“That’s the smallest baby I’ve ever seen,” his buddy said from behind him. “How old is he?”
“Her name is Rose and I just had her a few days ago.”
They put the guns away and said, “Well then, you need to get something to eat. It’s freezing in here and you must be hungry.”
“There’s not enough food, Earl,” one guy whispered to the other.
“She can have my share. Good Lord, Gerald, she just had a baby.”
The man lowered the light, took a deep breath, then said, “You can have some of my share, too, if you need.”
Apparently Gerald wasn’t so selfish.
The men helped her up, then they helped her walk downstairs. She wasn’t sure if she was being brought to food, or if she was being brought to slaugh
ter. With some of the things she’d seen lately, there was no way to be sure about anything.
When she got down to the parking lot camp and saw people with their tents and sleeping bags circled around the campfire, a few of them sat up and looked at her.
Rose had stopped crying, but Constanza was rocking her in her arms and the infant was falling back into a calm, sleepy state. She looked at her child extra long in case she never saw her again.
When Constanza looked up, it was with the knowledge that Colt and Faith were gone. And if they were gone, then Rowan was gone, too. She knew that now. It was time to accept it and move on, if anything, to save her child and herself.
Letting go wasn’t that easy, though. Then again, she imagined it would never be easy, for she was in love with Rowan, and she cherished the kindness his parents had shown her recently. She needed Rowan, and Rose would need a father, grandparents, aunts.
Earl put together a plate of food for her, which she tried to eat slowly. She ended up wolfing the entire plate down, doing everything but licking it like an animal when she was finished. Not long after she’d swallowed her last bite, she started to feel a slight ache in her stomach, and stabbing pains in her perineum where she had her stitches.
Now what? she thought. Being around these people felt wrong. Just as wrong as trying to live in this world alone with Rose. She couldn’t so easily write off the McDaniel family. And certainly not Rowan. That’s when she decided that no matter what, she was going to find her way to Nicholasville. She wasn’t sure where he lived, but maybe she could ask around. Maybe someone would know. Besides, if she didn’t at least try to get back to Rowan, who would she be as a fiancée, as a mother? The answer came easy. If she abandoned the other half of Rose’s family, she’d be the same selfish girl she was before all this kicked off.
Yeah, she was going to Nicholasville.
As she warmed herself and Rose by the fire, she quietly rocked her child. The idea that she’d be alone for a while, out in the wild with no one for protection, caused a spike of fear to set in. But then she pushed it away. She didn’t need protection as much as Rose did. That made her the protector, not the one needing protection. This small mental shift changed everything. Something in her began to change, to harden up, to transform.
These people who were laying waste to America had burned down her house, separated her from her family, left her alone in this world to fend for her child. From this basic set of facts, she began to feel anger, and in that anger she gathered strength, willpower, determination. She was a mother now, and mothers were warriors, fierce when you crossed them, lethal if you tried to mess with their children.
Looking down at Rose, she said to herself, This is my child and I’m going to do whatever it takes to protect her and to get back to Rowan.
She looked around at these people she didn’t know with different eyes. She locked eyes with a woman, but her mind was on Rowan, how she wished he were there. From this desire to have him by her side, with her, an incredible sadness boiled up inside of her and the thought of never seeing him again left her cold, detached, paralyzed. The world began to spiral in on her. She felt dizzy one second, and then she felt herself falling over the next.
The woman quickly caught her and said, “We need to lay you down.”
“I just feel faint,” Constanza said, embarrassed. She lay down and the woman tucked her in a blanket. “Why are you being so good to me?”
“With everything happening, the world has turned dark, giving people an excuse to become ugly and cruel,” the woman said. “Not everyone is like that. Not everyone should have to fight to stay alive. We need people, a community.” Sniffing the air, she said, “Either you crapped yourself or your kid did a number two.”
“It’s Rose, not me.”
“I’m going to change her if that’s okay,” the woman said.
When she reached for Rose, Constanza pulled her back, eyes flashing.
“I can change her on your stomach if you want,” the woman said, “but it’s going to stink.”
“I breastfeed her, so it shouldn’t be that bad.”
“We’ll see,” the woman said.
“I don’t want her out of my sight,” Constanza said. “Someone already took her once.”
“Really?” the woman asked.
She nodded her head, causing a pained, saddened look on the woman’s face. With Constanza’s permission, the woman changed Rose’s dirty diaper, proving she was right about the smell. She then got Rose tucked into her arms where Constanza could hold her close.
“I wrapped her in clean cloth, so you’ll have to watch her closely. The fit is loose if you know what I mean.”
“Thank you,” she said, lying uncomfortably on a yoga mat someone had offered up.
“Try to get some sleep,” she said. “If it gets too cold, let me know. I’ll drag my tent nearby and you can take it, if you want.”
“I’ll be fine, thanks. But if Rose begins to get too cold, I may take you up on that.”
“Don’t hesitate,” the woman said, taking her hand. “Where are you going, by the way?”
“I don’t know, Kentucky I think. Nicholasville.”
“Where’s that?”
“Just south of Lexington.”
“What’s in Nicholasville?” she asked.
Constanza gulped when she said this, fighting back the tears. “Family. I have family there.”
Just saying this out loud had her thinking about the brother she’d never see, her folks who passed on and told her and her brother to take care of each other. She missed her brother. Even though they weren’t that close, he was still blood.
“We’re heading down to Birmingham,” the woman said, “and I know for a fact that one of the suggested routes takes us past Lexington. You’d have to make the rest of the journey on your own, but we can get you there with protection if you’d like.”
“You would do that for me?” she asked, tears now shining in her eyes.
“Of course,” she said.
“Where did you come from?” Constanza asked.
“Detroit,” she replied. “These boys are soft of heart, but they have big fists, if you know what I mean.”
She nodded. That’s how Colt was, and Rowan. That was also how her brother was.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Sleep,” the woman purred, brushing her hair off her forehead. Constanza was pretty sure she wouldn’t be able to sleep, but then she felt the whisper of sleep upon her, taking her down that long tunnel and into a deep, dark place.
Chapter Nineteen
Faith McDaniel
Faith was dragged by six men into a building, pulled up the stairs with precious little concern for her back and bones, then thrown against the farthest wall of a large, open room. She sat up under a pair of windows then glared at the six guys who took her.
“Why are you here?” one of them asked her. He looked like the alpha of the group.
“What do I call you?” she asked. “Or should I just think of you as dickhead number one?”
One of the guys laughed, but the alpha said, “My name is Guy.”
“So if I said, ‘Hey guy,’ you’d actually respond to that?”
No one laughed this time.
“Yes,” he hissed. “I would.”
For the next thirty to forty-five minutes, they interrogated her, asking her untold questions, many of which she didn’t have the answers to. Those questions that were personal to her, she refused to answer. Her refusals didn’t last long.
Guy finally got fed up and took to hitting her. Several shots rocked her pretty good. It started out as a heavy slapping on the top of her head, but then he cracked her in the jaw with a fist, rattling her teeth.
“What kind of a dickhead beats up a helpless woman?” she snarled.
He thumped her nose with the back of his fingers. This had her seeing stars for a second. She came around when her nose started to drain blood on her shirt.
“Oh yeah,” she said. “Just a guy. A regular dickheaded guy.”
He shoved his open palm into her face, smashing her head against the wall, bringing about unbearable pain and fear. Her lip opened up in a small cut. She tasted blood. Sliding down the wall, she fell into a seated position, which scared her. She’d never felt so vulnerable in her life.
The other four guys closed in on her, one of them pulling a knife. The one with the knife leaned down, touched the tip to her knee, started to spin it on her skin. She felt the point break the skin, but she tried not to show pain. She was terrified, but that was the point.
“You need to tell us where you’re going, where you live, what you can give us to keep us from doing what determined, sexually aggressive men do.” This was from Guy. The alpha, the head maggot.
“I don’t have to tell you squat, Harvey Weinstein.”
He started to laugh, then said, “Relax, we don’t want anything from you sexually.”
“I do,” the one with the knife said, his eyes soft and lustful.
“Yeah, I do too,” another one said.
The one with the knife reached for her breast, but she slapped his hand away.
“Personally, I don’t like a fighter,” Guy said, his breath rancid and offensive. “Makes things extra bloody. But these guys, I don’t know, I think they like the ones who resist.”
“I do.”
“Yeah, me, too.”
Heckle and freaking Jekyll, she thought.
“You realize mutants like you fantasizing about raping women in the apocalypse is worse than a lame cliché, right?” she asked with disdain. “It’s downright stupid.”
They frowned and exchanged looks.
“It’s like saying you are so disgusting in real life that no good woman would ever want you,” Faith continued, every bit as pissed off as she was scared. “Maybe it’s your small dicks, your smelly balls, or all the blemishes on your skin. You’re both skinny, not a single one of you has a butt on you, and you’re ugly. I mean, really ugly. Like you’re going to have to hit me with a firehose down there to even get me wet.”
