These Times of Sedition: A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Survivor Thriller (The Abandon Series Book 4)

by Ryan Schow

  Beside him, he felt Marley beaming.

  Isaiah then turned to Marley, pulling her into a deep, heartfelt hug. Marley said to him, “Your family would be so proud of you, Isaiah.”

  He pulled back and said, “We’ll see about that.” The man paused, took a breath, then added, “I can’t tell you how many times I thought of leaving you and Adi behind.”

  “I suspected this to be the case on more than a few occasions,” she replied.

  “The point is, I’m glad we got this far together,” he said with a smile. “I underestimated you. I was wrong. Thank you for everything you’ve done for us, and for the country.”

  She nodded, trying to be strong despite the shine in her eyes.

  Hwa-Young told Rowan and Marley to get in the car, that she’d follow August to whatever car he had for them. They said their final good-byes then followed August about a half mile away to an abandoned house. There, in the back of the house, was an old car ready and waiting.

  When they got out, Rowan looked the car over and said, “What the hell is it?”

  August smiled big. “It’s a 1951 Buick Special. It runs a bit rough, and it smells like cat piss inside, but the oil is fresh, the brakes are good, and the tranny doesn’t feel like it’s going to fall out on the way home.”

  “You drove it?” Marley asked.

  “Around the block, yeah,” August said. “But I can make other arrangements if you’re not satisfied. The motorcycle is more comfortable than I thought.”

  Marley smiled, looking unsure of what to say. Then, she managed to say, “Thank you.”

  August handed Rowan the key to the rusted Buick as well as a siphoning hose. “This is for when you need gas. It’s full now.”

  Rowan knuckle-bumped the man, then said, “Thank you for everything.”

  August smiled. “It’s your war, brother. I’m just a spectator. Take care of your sister and be safe.”

  Marley hugged him tight, then said, “It sucks that we won’t see you again.”

  “Who knows what the future holds?” he said, stepping back with a knowing grin. “There are guns and extra mags in the back seat, plus food and water. Oh, and Savannah sends her regards.”

  Rowan looked at his sister; it was like she’d seen a ghost. Never before had he seen her speechless, but there was a first time for everything.

  August saddled up, fired up the bike, then left Marley staring at him, her mouth hanging open low enough to draw flies.

  “What was that about?” Rowan asked Marley.

  She snapped her mouth shut then said, “I’ll tell you on the way home. I need a real bed, a shower, and some hot chow.”

  “Did he just say Savannah?” Hwa-Young asked, a bit startled herself.

  Marley nodded her head.

  “You know her?”

  “No, but…well, she sent me a video message.”

  “I got one, too,” Hwa-Young said.

  The two women looked at each other, dumbstruck. “Do you think we’ll ever know how she knew the things she knew?” Marley asked.

  Hwa-Young slowly shook her head and said, “I don’t think so.”

  “Yeah, me neither. I can hope though, right?”

  Hwa-Young shrugged her shoulders, then looked at the Buick. “Start it up, make sure it works,” Hwa-Young said from where she sat in the old car she and Rowan had been driving.

  Rowan got in the Buick. Marley got in after him, plopping down on the bench seat with a smile. He cranked the engine and it turned over fine. Rowan gave Hwa-Young the thumbs up; she waved good-bye. As he watched her drive off, there was a deep sadness in his heart. He’d seen and felt her pain, and then when she had the chance to retaliate, she was robbed of the opportunity. He hoped this wouldn’t be the case for long. She needed a reprieve.

  “Are you worried about them?” Marley asked. Before he could ask who she was referring to, Marley said, “Constanza and the baby?”

  He’d been thinking of Hwa-Young and The Underground. Now his head and heart changed directions. The mere thought of Constanza and Rose was like a bullet cutting through his core. It seemed like ever since he left Columbus, Rowan had been praying to God that his parents got them home safely.

  “I just want to get home as soon as possible to see if she’s there,” he replied. “If she’s not, if something happened, I’ll head up to her brother’s house and see if she’s there.”

  “What about your house?” she asked.

  “The Hayseed Rebellion set our house on fire,” he told her.

  “What?” she stammered.

  “That’s why I went with Aldrich in the first place. Constanza was already gone by the time I got there. At least, that’s what Aldrich said. He said Mom and Dad got her out and that they were already on their way back home. Aside from finding my house in flames, Aldrich was holding me and had Hwa-Young at gunpoint.”

  “How did you handle it?” she asked. “The emotions, I mean. That had to be torturous knowing you couldn’t be with them, and that you were being pulled in an entirely different direction.”

  “I learned to compartmentalize things,” he said. “In my line of work, you see the ugly truth beneath the levers of power, the brazen criminality, the flat-out evil, and you learn to create boxes in your mind, places to store all these horrors so they don’t overwhelm you 24/7.”

  “I learned to do that being in the heart of D.C.,” Marley said. “When you think about it, we’re kind of in the same business, just seeing things from two different sides. You saw the conspiracy from the outside and the underside while I experienced it from the inside.”

  “I suppose you did, being that close to the source of power.”

  “They’re more corrupt and vile than you’d think.”

  “You killed the President,” he said, still racked with disbelief. “Right now I’m not discounting anything you say.”

  “The truth is, I was coming out of my skin most days. I never knew how much of a strain it would put on my mind, but we strive to be the best, right?”

  “That we do,” he said, glancing over at her.

  “When the nation started circling the toilet,” she said, “I channeled my emotions into rage, a sort of blind hostility I’ve been taking out on the scumbags who destroyed our country. Truthfully, these morons don’t know their assholes from next Tuesday and it doesn’t feel horrible watching them choke to death on their own medicine. Now that there’s really no one left to be angry at, and the fight is about to be behind us, these awful feelings I have…I can’t seem to get rid of them.”

  “What are they like?” he asked, afraid he knew exactly what she was feeling.

  “I feel like I want to puke all the time, like I’m stuck in a nightmare I can’t seem to crawl out of. It’s like this is my life and it’s not. It’s like every waking minute I’m stuck in a nightmare, and when I sleep, it’s just more of the same.”

  He opened up his right arm and said, “Come over here.” She scooted toward him and gave him a good sideways hug. “You did good, sis. We both did. We’re now nuttier than squirrel shit, but we sort of rocked the apocalypse, right?”

  “We sure did,” she said with a bit of satisfaction in her voice. “I love you, brother.”

  “I love you, too,” he replied.

  “For what it’s worth, I almost started crying when I saw you in that boardroom. I didn’t think I’d see any of our family again, so to find you there, to see you, somehow I felt safe, and emboldened.”

  He pulled her a bit tighter against him and said, “I felt exactly the same.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Marley McDaniel

  “So, there’s someone else we need to take with us,” Marley said. “A little guy I picked up along the way.”

  “Is this little guy an animal or a person?” Rowan asked.

  “Person,” she said.

  He looked at her and said, “Alright, spill it.”

  “I already told you about the kid, the one whose parents
were shot to death in front of him.”

  “I remember,” he said.

  “His name is Adelard Schmidt, Adi for short,” she said. “I’m not leaving him behind.”

  Rowan nodded, then said, “I’m fully on board. Lead the way.”

  Marley guided him to the place where she and Isaiah had dropped Adi off earlier. She pointed to the dumpster; he pulled over and she got out. Heading for the dumpster, she called out his name. She got to the dumpster and said, “Adi, it’s me, Marley.”

  In those first few moments of silence, she prayed to God he’d answer. Then some of the trash moved the slightest little bit and she almost broke into tears. She started pulling the garbage away, searching for him in the filthy darkness.

  A scared face peeked up and her heart nearly broke.

  “Marley,” he said, relieved. His face started to pinch with emotion. He was so overwhelmed to see her, he started to cry.

  “It’s okay, sweetheart,” she said, pulling him out. “I wouldn’t leave you. Not as long as I was alive.”

  “I was afraid you died,” he cried in her shoulder, holding her so tight, his body shaking.

  Rowan tapped the outside of the door and said, “We’re kind of exposed here.”

  She nodded, then they walked to the car. “Can I sit up front with you two?” he asked.

  There was plenty of room on the bench seat between them. “Sure you can,” she said. “By the way, Adi, this is my younger brother, Rowan.”

  “Hi,” Adi said in his small German voice. He put out his hand and said, “My name is Adelard Schmidt.”

  Rowan grinned, then shook Adi’s hand. “It looks like you’re going to be part of the McDaniel family for awhile.”

  “Do I have to change my name?” he asked when Rowan let go of his hand.

  “No,” Rowan said. “Schmidt is a strong name. No sense in trying to fix something that isn’t broke.”

  The boy nodded, smiling. Marley figured Adi was just happy not to have been left behind. Then, in a sweet display, Adi leaned against Marley and stared at the road ahead. Whatever he was feeling in that moment, Marley would have killed to know. If anything, just to be able to better console him when the real pain hit. Maybe it would come in a few hours, a few days, or even a few months. Either way, when the gravity of his situation finally struck the boy at his heart, he would need her more than ever. She planned on being there for him.

  Rowan took I-64 most of the way home, running into some traffic here and there. They stopped more than once to siphon gas, and though they were exposed, they didn’t feel like they were in any real danger because there just didn’t seem to be that many people on the interstate.

  On I-75 nearing the last leg of the journey outside Lexington, they passed a caravan of cars stopped on the side of the road. The cavalcade had pulled over near the Man O War Boulevard exit. One of the cars was a matte-black ’57.

  “Keep your head down, don’t make eye contact,” Rowan said to them both over the noise.

  “Okay,” Adi and Marley said together.

  There were people getting out of the cars, stretching. They passed them up moving quickly, heads down, just outside of Lexington.

  “We could’ve taken that exit,” Marley said turning around. She was watching them through the dusty back window. “We could have cut right through Lexington.”

  “I’d rather stay out of the city proper as long as I can,” he said. “Besides, the going’s been good on the interstate so far and I don’t want to press our luck.”

  They got off on Route 418, and then Delong Road; the final leg of the journey was surprisingly peaceful. When they got to Nicholasville, Rowan remained vigilant which kept Marley at high alert. They took Business 27/Main Street which was fairly vacant. Marley had one of the guns ready just in case.

  When they got to Walnut and Main, someone walked out of the Nicholasville Café where the front glass had been broken. This meathead started to run at the Buick, awkwardly pulling a handgun from his waistband. Marley shot him twice; Rowan never even let off the gas.

  She swallowed hard, then wondered what had happened to them that killing could become second nature. She supposed she would have to get used to a fair number of things being in the apocalypse. Maybe that would be the new fight—becoming someone different. Surviving a violent, powerless world.

  Too many people had talked about the possibility of the grid going down, and what a total collapse would mean, not just for the nation, but for the survivors. Whether people were right or wrong about their apocalyptic theories would become clear in the weeks and months to come. For Marley, her siblings, and her parents, they would at least have their family home, their big garden, a means of surviving the long-term madness.

  When they turned up the street to their parents’ home, she felt the heaviness in her chest start to loosen and a smile crept onto her face. She was practically beaming.

  Pulling Adi close, she said, “You’re going to love it here.”

  When they drove up Watts Mill Road, however, they saw a dead guy laid out on the road and a burned-down front of the house. Whatever joy she thought she’d have coming home turned dark quickly. A sickness swept through her, cold and surreal.

  “My God,” Rowan said, speechless.

  They drove up the driveway, the tires crunching on gravel, the harrowing scene unfolding before their eyes. To the right, the garden looked ruined, but to the left, it looked like a bomb had gone off in the front of the house. Even worse, dead men were roasted in front of the porch, much of their bodies devastated beyond belief. Their flesh was blackened with dried blood, their skin just ribbons of charred meat.

  “It’s not any of our family,” Rowan said as he drove by them.

  Marley let out a sigh of relief.

  “Don’t look at that, Adi,” she said. She turned to Rowan. “We need to do something with them. Bury them, or haul them off.”

  “Or make a fire of them,” Rowan said. “That would be easiest and cleanest.”

  They got out of the Buick and walked toward the house. Marley was struck with a surreal feeling, a sort of dizziness that came with grief. This was their home. It had been in the family for generations. Now it looked like it was ground zero of a war zone.

  “We need to see if there’s anyone inside,” Rowan said.

  “Let’s get it over with,” Marley mumbled.

  A quick tour of the place showed them no dead bodies, thank God, but that begged the question, where is everyone?

  Out front, Rowan said, “I’m going to pull the car around back, just in case.”

  He parked the car out of sight so no one would think they were there. After that, they found their father’s man cave—Colt McDaniel’s home away from home. It was comfortable, clean, and somewhat stocked with provisions.

  Marley and Adi lay down on the couch, both of them falling asleep rather quickly despite the monumental disappointments they’d encountered of late. Strangely, however, right before she had drifted off to sleep, Marley felt herself smile.

  No matter the state of affairs, she was finally home.

  The next morning, she heard a four wheeler arrive. Yanked out of a good dream, she sat up fast and tried to open her eyes. They felt swollen shut and raw. She stood and tried to shake off the stiffness and the abuse in her body.

  She nudged Rowan awake and said, “Someone’s here.”

  He opened his eyes, sat up fast.

  The two of them crept outside, stopping when they saw the four wheeler sitting there. They exchanged a look, but said nothing. Heading inside the house, they followed someone’s noises, relaxing when they saw their little sister. Leighton had been walking through the house, crying. Marley called her sister’s name, but she didn’t hear her.

  “The EMP must have zapped her hearing aids,” Rowan said.

  “She’s carrying a gun,” Marley noted.

  Instead of approaching her directly, Rowan stomped on the floor. Leighton turned quickly, the gun up and
on him in a flash, something ferocious in her otherwise watery eyes.

  The second she saw them, that vicious look broke and she ran to them. The three of them held each other for what felt like an eternity.

  Marley stood back and started to sign, but Leighton said, “I can read your lips just fine. It came back to me pretty quickly. And I’ve had lots of practice lately, as I’m sure you can imagine.”

  “Thank God,” Rowan said. He was looking her over the same as Marley was. She looked like she’d been stuffed in the washer with rocks and broken glass then left on spin cycle for a few days too long. “What in God’s name happened to you?”

  “It’s been a rough run lately,” Leighton admitted.

  “Where are Mom and Dad?” Marley asked.

  Leighton made a face, shook her head and said, “Gator told me they went to look for me, and then Rowan. After that, they were going to find you. How did you two…wait…weren’t you in D.C.?”

  “It’s a long story,” Marley said.

  “Does Dad still hate President Kennicot?” Rowan asked.

  Leighton laughed and said, “Is that a real question? Of course, he does.”

  “Well, Marley’s about to become his new favorite child,” Rowan said, earning him a punch in the arm from Marley.

  “Why is that?” Leighton asked.

  “We have some stories to tell you,” Rowan said. “Have you seen Constanza at all?”

  Leighton shook her head again. “She’s not with you?”

  Rowan seemed to shrink before their very eyes. He began to tear up. “The HR burned our house down. I…I don’t know where she is.”

  Just then, Adi walked into the house and stood there, listening.

  “Well, who do we have here?” Leighton asked. He smiled. “You’re a cutie. What’s your name?”

  “Adelard Schmidt,” he said, so low Marley could hardly hear him. That wouldn’t have mattered to Leighton, not when she could read his lips. “Pleased to meet you.”

  “Come meet my little sister,” Marley said.