I took the bottle away. “Hey, go easy on that, ok?”
“Up yours,” Louie grunted, heading to back of the boat.
I looked at Ashley and she shrugged. Travel changes people. Long, hopeless, going-nowhere-fast travel especially. Throw a few near-death experiences in there and anyone would tend to go off the deep end.
The sun sank lower, the temperature now in the comfortable zone, but we knew it wouldn’t last. We had to get ourselves wrapped up again. At night we didn’t put the cover on the boat, just over ourselves. Then we told stories for 8 hours. Then went to bed. But not that night. I decided we had to stop this cruise ship.
“Tommy – get back in here,” I yelled over board. Tommy swam to the boat, climbed the ladder, and shook the water off of him like a mutt. “We’re pulling over. We’ll make better time on land. If we stay on the river we’ll end up in Kentucky.”
I took the wheel of the boat and steered it hard to the right. Starboard, Tommy called it. Learned it all from fishing with his dad, he told me. He always looked away when he mentioned his dad. Like it was my fault.
We slowly drifted to the side, and within a few minutes ran aground on sand and mud, still ten feet out. “Let’s go,” I said, picking up the backpack. We climbed over the side, dropped into about three feet of water, and slugged our way to land.
I’d never been so happy to step on solid ground in my life. I hoped like hell we had advanced ahead of Hill's army, but the plume of black smoke in the distance made me think otherwise.
We walked through dark woods, the moon now only a fingernail in the black sky. We could see light up ahead, the familiar flickering orange light of a man-made fire. As we came to a clearing in the wood, across a blacktop road, however, we could see the fires in the distance stretching far too high to be just providing light.
The street stretched on, black and empty, a car or two pulled over to the side of the road. We listened but heard no screams, no rushing people. The fire must've been going for a while. Nature is the only fireman left – the world had gotten too big for the bucket brigades we used a century before.
The town had a single main street, with small, formerly well-kept boutique shops on either side. Now doors hung open near piles of rubble and brick, and canopies lay dead on their side. The earthquake stopped by here as well.
The fire rose from an office building down the street from us. We walked down the middle of the street, the flames lighting our way and reflecting off the glass of the shop windows still standing. Toys & Hobbies. Goodwill. The First Place saloon with its sign hanging at an angle by a small chain and swinging in the breeze. Cutter’s – a hair cutting place. I had to smile at that one.
A dog ran into The First Place and came out with a hunk of something I didn't want to identify in its mouth.
“Where is everyone?” Ashley asked.
“Probably in bed,” I replied, grabbing her hand.
A small boy darted out in front of us with a gun and shouted “Bang! You’re dead.” I grabbed the gun away from him, leaving a shocked, screaming, crying mess of a tiny human. I popped out the clip of the forty-five, and counted six shots in the clip. If the safety hadn’t been on I would’ve been dead. I pulled the chamber back and another bullet popped out, landing on the ground with a metallic bounce.
“Give it!” the boy cried. I put the clip in my pocket and handed him the gun. He took it with a squeal and ran off, shooting other imaginary bad guys. I probably should've stopped him and taken him with us - his mom and dad were more than likely dead. They certainly didn’t care where he was at three in the morning. But honestly, I was too fucking tired.
We walked to the town hall building – Millersville, Ohio, a sign said in front. Founded in 1788, the first incorporated town in Ohio. Good for you.
“This place have an earthquake too?” Tommy asked.
I just looked at him. Tommy was a good guy to have on your side, but didn’t have the brains to feed a starving zombie.
“We must be closer to the epicenter,” Tolbert said.
“New Madrid,” Louie whispered.
I turned to him. “What was that?”
Louie looked up at us with a tired expression of defeat. “New Madrid fault line. It was the main storyline in a video game called Deadly Future: Aftershocks. Anyway, it’s near Memphis. Runs all the way up to St. Louis. That or the Ramapo fault line, which cuts right through New York City. If those two went off, the whole country felt it. Terrible game, by the way. Boring as hell."
I looked at the burning building, the broken store fronts. The splits in the road beneath my feet that jutted up like something underneath trying to escape. Jesus, what did the rest of the country look like?
As we walked further, closer to the burning building, the heat grew intense, but felt good in the cold air. Guilt blended with that relief - never thought I'd be glad to see a three story building in the middle of a small town burn down.
As we arrived at the crossroad to Main Street in the heart of the town, something in our perception of the scene changed. Bullet holes surrounded shattered windows in a spray pattern. Parts of the building on fire didn’t just crumble from an earthquake. Rubble lay strewn across the street, blown out rather than fallen.
Tolbert recognized it immediately. "This place was a battlefield," he said. Once that realization set in, the camouflaged bodies of soldiers and civilians littering the scenery became clear.
“Oh my God,” Ashley said, grabbing Tommy's hand this time.
A hand grabbed my pants leg and I jumped. One more step and I would’ve tripped right over him. A soldier, lying face up, face burned to a black, wrinkled mess. Spit bubbles popped from long, raspy breathing. When the shock wore off I was able to yell. “He’s alive!”
I knelt down beside him. His shirt bore the name “Jaworski”. Tolbert knelt down next to me as I took my backpack off. What the hell was I gonna do, use gauze and a bandage? This guy was a pile of blood and charred flesh. There was nothing I could do.
Jaworski’s mouth moved. I bent down over his head, my ear nearly touching his wet mouth, smelling burnt flesh and hair. “St..”
“What? I can’t hear you,” I said to him.
“Stop…” Jaworski gasped. “Stop. Them.”
Them? Tolbert was way ahead of me. “Who? Stop who?”
“The.” His white eyes drifted over to me, flames dancing in them. “Non. Believers.”
We worked the rest of the night throwing the bodies onto the burning rubble and wood, turning an office building to a funeral pyre. In all, we dropped fourteen bodies onto the pile. When dawn set in and the air began to warm, we collapsed, exhausted and swallowing gulps of air as much as we could.
“We need to keep moving,” I said.
“I. Can’t.” Tommy said in between breaths. “I need a break.”
I looked at the others. They all nodded. Same thing.
“Fine. We’ll hole up in a store. See if we can find one with fresh clothes.”
Didn’t take long to find one, and even less time for us to fall asleep.
21.
I woke up with a jolt; couldn't remember the dream, but could feel that I didn't want to. The sun set, lowering the temperature, leaving me to marvel at how nocturnal we'd become, our bodies now used to the change in sleeping habits.
I looked around at the clothing store we had holed up in. Looked like a consignment shop, with used clothes clinging to their hangers or dropped on the floor like worthless rags. I walked about looking for men’s clothes, found a pair of jeans and some shirts. I ripped off my tattered hoodie and put on another. The fourth one in what, three weeks? Long sleeve - old cutter habit. I checked my cut, just below the tiger tattoo, and made sure it was healing ok. I had to flick my hair out of my face – it likes to grow long when it’s allowed to. I haven’t had time for a haircut.
I pulled the shirt over me, over my necklace, and started with the pants.
“Wait,” Ashley said behind me. “Sorr
y.” She hurried into a dressing room and slid the well-worn shower curtain closed. A thought flashed through my mind. Did she sleep with Tolbert? Tommy? A protective instinct, I figured. I looked around, couldn’t see Tolbert. Did he split?
Tommy came up with some riotous bed head. “Yo,” he muttered, then shifted through the clothes as well. When he found something that looked like it’d fit, he disappeared into the bathroom behind me. Louie shuffled clothes around in the kid’s section. At five foot three and maybe eighty pounds, he wasn’t gonna fit in anything around us. I heard a “YES!” from that area and before I knew it, Louie came strolling back with a Mario and Luigi T-shirt. The kid found his suit of armor.
Ashley came out with a pale green T-shirt and jeans. Her body had taken on a different shape since she announced her real age. Like watching my little sis grow up.
“I need food,” she said.
“We’ll hit up a pharmacy or grocery store, see what’s left. Take a look,” I said, pointing to the map I laid out on a check-out counter. Ashley cocked her head to see. “We’re here, Millersville. Columbus is up here, middle of the state. About a hundred miles or so. We should be able to make it in about five days if we keep at twenty miles a day. Think we can do that?”
She nodded. I touched her head, the bandage now dirt covered and fraying. “Your head’s ok?”
“Headaches, still. But not too bad. Need more aspirin.” She lifted the bandage off.
“Shoulder? Lemme see.” I turned her around. Without protest she lifted up her shirt and I looked down at the scarring dots and the purple bruise that spread like a wall map. “Looks good.”
She touched my arm. “And you?”
“It’s healing. No problems.”
She held my hand again. “That’s not what I meant. You’re not gonna do it again, right?”
I swallowed. “Right.”
“Promise?”
A kid with those big blue eyes making you promise – that should be illegal. It’s not playing fair. “Yeah, I promise.”
She smiled. “Good. Let’s go.”
A short middle-aged man burst into the store, shouting “Maryann?” He looked around. Saw us. “Sorry, you know where Maryann is?”
Shock and survival instincts prohibited us from saying anything. I just shook my head ‘no’. “She owns this place,” the guy went on. “If you see her, tell her we got another one! We’re gonna try him tonight.”
Got another what?
Tommy came out of the bathroom with a flush. And a stink.
Louie sifted through a small stack of used video games, throwing most of them away.
Ashley grabbed two school backpacks. “We’ll need these,” she said. She tossed one to Tommy.
Tolbert was…nowhere. “Where’s, Tolbert?” I asked.
A crowd was gathering outside. A mob. Crying for an execution.
“Shit,” I packed up the map and shot outside.
The crowd of about twenty people dragged an unconscious Tolbert across the street to the courthouse steps. “Another one,” they shouted. Some called for sanity. Other called for hanging. One guy stood up in front of them all. “They did this!” he said, pointing to the burning warehouse, its fire diminished from yesterday. “They’re all crazy, they want to destroy us! Look at this place! Because of them!”
They’re crazy? Dude, you’re the one leading a mob. A mob that was going to kill Tolbert.
“Did anyone see him with the troops that came through here?” the guy yelled. Several shouted ‘yes’.
“Guilty?” He shouted again. The crowd roared.
“Wait!” I shouted. I muscled my way through the group. “This guy’s with us, but we’re not with the troops. We’re following them. We’re on your side.”
“How do we know that?” the guy asked me. I made it up to the steps. “He’s a soldier with the U.S. Army. The real army, not this Army for God crap. He saved our lives.” I turned to the crowd. “Not everyone in uniform is our enemy. We need people like him. Against those other people.”
Ashley knelt down and cradled Tolbert’s head. Blood trickled down the back of his head to his neck. Ashley pulled some gauze out of her backpack.
The crowd settled down. I kept going. “What the hell happened here? What happened to us? Christ, have you all lost your mind? We’re better than this. We’re better than them.”
One older, barrel of a guy with crew top that he probably combed with sandpaper, came forward. “What unit?” he said.
"What?" I had no fucking clue where this guy was going.
“What unit was he with?” the guy repeated.
“First armored division, second platoon, Charlie Company,” Tommy said behind us. He came forward from the crowd and looked right at Sergeant Slaughter with the grey flattop. “Sniper support. Served two tours in Iraq, one in Afghanistan. His dog tags are around his neck, his Big Red One patch is right here,” Tommy pointed to Tolbert’s patch on his arm. A big, red, number one. The old guy looked, grunted, and nodded at the leader of the horde. The crowd milled away.
Tolbert came to. “What happened?” he said.
I knelt beside him and looked into his eyes as they reflected the dusk’s fading light and the flames of the torches around us. “You got mugged,” I said.
His swollen eye searched or something, anything to make sense of this. He reached for the back of his head. The drill sergeant knelt down beside us, also inspecting Tolbert.
“Where you folks from?” he asked.
“We came here from Philadelphia. I’m Adam,” I said.
He held out his hand. “Captain William Finnegan. Retired.” I introduced the others, explaining where we were headed as we lifted Tolbert up to a stand.
Tolbert swayed a little with a “whoa”, holding his head.
“Easy there soldier. You’ll be ok.”
Tolbert looked at Captain Bill, recognizing the tone. “Yes, sir. Who are you with, sir?”
“Were. Screamin’ Eagles. Desert Storm. Let’s get you somewhere comfortable.”
We walked Tolbert down to a house past the smoldering warehouse. “RPG did that,” Bill said nodding to the warehouse. “Took out the whole side of it. Some dumb-ass civvie thinking they’re playing with a toy rocket launcher.”
“FUBAR,” Tolbert said.
“Goddamn right,” Bill replied. “Whole fuckin’ thing is FUBAR.”
“FUBAR?” Ashley asked.
“Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition,” Bill replied.
In front of us stood an old Victorian bed & breakfast called “The Northwinds”. Bill led us up the stairs, with Tolbert's arms around his and my shoulders. “This yours?” Tolbert said as we climbed the wooden steps.
“My wife’s idea. I wanted to open up a gun shop. We compromised. She got the B&B and I got to take folks out on hunting tours.” He opened up the front door.
Inside the house seemed in decent shape, relatively speaking. I looked around and barely saw any cracks. “The earthquake didn’t do much damage.”
“Nope. Built this place myself. Used a few tricks to keep it standing. Fuckin’ nukes couldn’t take it down.” He led Tolbert to a parlor immediately to the right and lied him down on a fancy antique couch. Tolbert went back to sleep almost immediately. “He'll be all right. If he's seen action then he's seen worse. C’mon, let’s get you some food.”
We followed him into the kitchen. He lit a fire in a wood-burning stove and soon had water boiling. He put on an apron, forcing an unstoppable, but muffled giggle from Louie and Tommy. Bill looked at them sharply and shut them up faster than if he had smacked 'em shut himself. He pulled out some vegetables and other items to make a soup. I didn’t care if he pulled out garbage and boiled it, I needed hot food.
Soon the kitchen smelled of chicken broth and vegetables, a homemade chicken soup that made me, even for a moment, feel normal. Like we were visiting neighbors. Like the world outside hadn’t just gone to shit. My stomach speeded past hunger and kicked into famished g
ear.
“Why Chicago?” Bill asked as he put bowls of hot soup in front of us.
I dug in, blowing away the heat but not really giving a fuck if it burned away the roof of my mouth. The others did the same. I had to remind myself he was talking to me.
“Oh. My father’s there. At least, I hope he is. He may know what’s going on.” I slurped up the soup.
“You’re a long way away,” he said. “Probably a good five-hundred miles. Could take you all year.”
I nodded. “I know, but we’re actually trying to get ahead of the troops that came by. There’s gonna be a fight.”
“Already was,” Bill replied, nodding outside. “You won’t get ahead of them. They’re two days gone.”
“I thought this all happened yesterday,” Tommy said.
“That was the rear guard. The main force came through two days ago. Probably groups of thousands of people mobilizing all across America. This troop only had about five hundred men, women and children. But they were all armed, and fought hard.”
Ashley swallowed. “Children?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Bill said as he stood up to clean his mess. “Children. Some of them as young as four or five with a twenty-two almost as big as they are. Probably just carrying it, but still. You saw what happened to the warehouse. These people don’t know what the fuck they’re doing.”
“They’re crazy,” Louie said.
“They’re more than that,” Bill said, picking up my empty bowl. “They’re organized and passionate. They believe in what they’re doing. They honestly believe this is Armageddon. The last great fight the Bible tells about, clearing the path for the second coming.”
He took Ashley and Tommy’s bowl. Louie took his own sweet time. “Murder doesn’t seem very Christian, sir,” Tommy said.
“A lot of Christians agree with you. Myself included. But they don’t see it as murder. This, whatever it is, has affected them so much they truly believe anyone who stands in their way isn’t human.” He rinsed the bowls in the sink, saying, “I doubt they're the only ones. People all over the globe trying to make sense of it. Using religion as an explanation for this randomness.”
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