“Ya’ll need help?” The young man on the dirt bike clicked down a kick stand and dismounted, pulling a pair of black goggles up onto his wide-brimmed hat. Fifty feet or so down the road, the RV pulled off, but no one got out. Vicki focused on the man in front of them. She could see he was wearing a dark vest over his bare chest, riding chaps, and a black cowboy hat.
But what she noticed first was the ridiculous amount of ammo strapped to his chest, arms, and legs. A knife strap wound around his upper arm, and each leg had a pistol tied to the chaps. Across his chest wasn’t a vest, she saw, but Kevlar. His dirty blond hair was trimmed across the hatband as he pulled the goggles onto his hat.
Ambrose looked at the man. “Yes, my…” he glanced back at Vicki. “My girl and I need some help. We…” He trailed off, pointing to his arm, and Vicki’s ripped jeans.
“You folks look like you’re in a heap of trouble. Escaping the bombing, too, are you?”
“Yeah, we are.” Vicki rubbed her stomach. “We’re sorry to bother you, but we are low on supplies and need to get to a hospital. As you can see, I’m…”
The man eyed Ambrose up and down, staring at the sling over his shoulder. For a terrifying moment, Vicki thought he would say something racist, or even worse, shoot them where they stood. They were taking a huge risk, and she knew it. But his face softened quickly when his eyes rested on her belly, which she stuck out as much as she could. There was a small bump, she knew, but it was barely visible. She was, for the most part, still in physically fit condition. Would her plan work?
“Ya’ll had a run in with the military?” he said finally.
Ambrose nodded. “Barely made it out alive. My girl here is pregnant, and I need a doctor,” he added.
The cowboy narrowed his eyes at them, and Vicki sucked in a breath and held it.
“You the daddy?” he asked Ambrose.
With his good arm, Ambrose circled Vicki’s waist and pressed his hand to her small baby bump. It sent a shock running through her at first, but she forced a smile on her face, pretending this was all normal.
“He sure is,” she told the stranger.
“Ya’ll married or…”
Vicki held up her hand where her ring used to be. “Yes, sir, but I’ve lost my ring…”
He took off his hat and dusted it against his thigh.
Vicki felt his muscles tense next to her.
“Well, alrighty then!” The cowboy chuckled. “That’s a good thing then! But, I say, fuck the system. We’re Americans, by God,” he looked pointedly at Ambrose, “even if ya do look like a Mexican, you sure do speak good. My ma taught me not to judge. Ya’ll must know someone high up to get a marriage like that to go through. Cole!” He shouted in direction of the RV. “Get your fat ass out here and help this lady! She’s preggers, too!”
Vicki watched the front door of the RV open, and out tumbled a man with a round belly under a stained undershirt. Just after him a small, shaking dog leapt to the ground. The man shut the RV door, but it bounced back open, and Vicki could just make out two tiny faces pressed against the window.
Children? Vicki looked at Ambrose, and he shrugged, but his eyes were wide. He’d seen it too.
Oh, no, Vicki thought. This wasn’t a good idea after all. Children were a liability. They screamed and cried and…
You hypocrite, Vicki Morel, her inner voice said.
“I’m Randy.” The man on the dirt bike stuck his hand out to Ambrose. “This here’s Cole, and his two brats over there are Jilly and Ricky.” He pointed towards the RV.
Cole approached them. “Randy says ya’ll need help?”
“A hospital,” Ambrose told him.
“Nearest one ain’t for a hundred miles, near into Klamath Falls,” Cole replied. “Even then, the military may have overrun it. We dunno, son. We dunno where they could be.”
Randy nodded. “We’re headed for Chemault ourselves, coming from north of Bend, Government Camp area. Ya’ll know the military has Bend surrounded?”
Vicki nodded. “We came through that way.”
“On foot?” Cole narrowed his eyes at them.
“We had a truck,” Ambrose blurted before Vicki could panic about this part of the script. “But it was stolen in the middle of the night.”
“Assholes!” Randy spit to the side and shook his head. “America gets invaded and people just get stupid an’ turn to lootin’.”
Vicki resisted the urge to laugh.
Ambrose looked serious, but Vicki could see him struggle to suppress a smile. “So, will you give us a lift to Chemault at least? Maybe we can find help there?”
Randy looked at Cole, who had his arms crossed around his ample chest. Finally, Cole nodded.
“If ya don’t mind, ya can ride with Cole and the brats, but just warnin’ ya, Cole likes to speed.” Randy guffawed at them. He mounted his bike and kicked up the stand, sending the throttle roaring to life.
Vicki had a sick feeling in her stomach that something wasn’t right, but what choice did they have? Chemault was still 30 miles away, maybe 3 days on foot, according to Ambrose. They needed to make it at least that far to get help. She looked at Ambrose, whose face was still bright, sweat beaded on his forehead. The thought occurred to her that he was in worse shape than he let on, despite the muscles that rippled down his arms and wound across his wounded shoulder and chest. She nodded at him, and he shrugged.
Armed with only a knife, a flashlight, a half-empty bottle of water, one can of food, a sleeping bag and a tent between them, they followed Cole to the RV and stepped in.
Chapter Six
Ambrose gulped as he climbed the last step into the side of the RV. At least his knife was hidden in his belt with the remnants of his sling hanging over it, despite Vicki’s assuring glance it would all be okay. He didn’t trust anyone, let alone a bunch of uneducated backwoods…
“Ricky! Gimme back my bear, he’s mine!”
The small child’s outburst violated Ambrose’s thoughts as the door closed behind him. He was surprised to find the interior of the RV immaculate. The table cushions were covered in a worn, outdated orange fabric and the chipped, tan cabinets about the stove and mini fridge had certainly seen better days. The interior looked like something gaudy from the early 21st century, almost forty years old, maybe more. Other than that, it was clean, and no signs two children resided here. He wondered how long they’d been on the road, because he knew from having so many sisters that children were never clean.
Vicki sat heavily on the couch with lime green and yellow upholstery, which sat opposite the small table. Her attention was on the boy and girl standing in front of the closed sliding doors leading to a back room. A bedroom maybe, Ambrose surmised. The girl was dressed in a simple, obviously homemade navy-blue dress. It reminded Ambrose of one of the giant flour sacks his grandmother kept in her cellar for the Christmas baking season. The little boy wore more modern clothes, with a stained red t-shirt and jeans that ended a few inches above his ankle. They were both wearing sneakers covered in dirt. Ricky, the little girl had screeched a moment ago, and his sister was Jilly, Ambrose remembered Randy saying. They blinked at the newcomers, then went back to fighting.
“Stop being a stupid girl,” Ricky yelled at his sister. He was holding a teddy bear high above his head, out of his sister’s reach. Ambrose noticed the poor bear had likely been through many young owners. It had matted fur and wore a little green corduroy vest missing two buttons. It was also missing an eye that had been stitched shut with bright red thread.
“Hey! Ricky, you give your sister back her teddy!” Cole shouted back, grunting as he pulled himself into the driver’s seat.
Ricky stuck his tongue out at his sister and threw the bear on the ground. The little girl scooped it up and looked at Vicki. “Hi,” she said shyly. “I’m Jilly.”
The RV engine sputtered to life, then. “Hang on tight, we only got a few miles to go,” he shouted back. Ricky stood up and ran to the back room. Ambrose set his
pack down next to Vicki’s, just behind the passenger seat, and took a seat next to Vicki, bracing against the cushions as the RV lurched forward down the highway. Behind him, a small box slid from one of the cupboards. Vicki nudged it with her foot, pushing it back in place as quietly as she could. Ambrose looked back at her. Phone, she mouthed.
There was no way he could ask her what she meant, but he frowned at her anyway. Phones had been obsolete for nearly a decade—everyone had used those Alex glasses. Why would Cole have a phone? Once they stopped, he’d ask her what she had meant.
Vicki was busy smiling at Jilly now, though Ambrose could tell she wasn’t feeling up to it, as she stuck out her hand. “I’m Vicki, and this is my friend, Ambrose.” She nodded up at him.
Instead of shaking her hand, the little girl wrapped her free arm around Vicki in a hug. “I like you. You smell pretty.”
Vicki laughed, shook her head, and looked at Ambrose. “Well, thank you, I guess?”
“Like campfires and marshmallows.” She looked up at Vicki. “Hey, you wanna see my dolls?”
Vicki nodded at the little girl, and she pulled out a flat tote filled with an array of naked Barbie dolls, taller baby dolls, and a chaos of tiny shoes, dresses, and other accessories. Ambrose recognized them because his sisters had a pile at home, the younger ones preferring the new Alex-integrated ones that walked and talked on their own. Those had always creeped him out.
“Where ya’ll hail from?” Cole was asking from the front seat, gazing in the crooked rear-view mirror at them. Vicki and Ambrose exchanged glances, and Ambrose slid in the seat next to Cole.
“Albany,” Ambrose said, and Vicki exhaled when he didn’t mention Portland.
“Was it overrun?”
Ambrose nodded. “Everyone was vaporized.”
Cole whistled and shook his head. “We heard about that a few miles back from some girly in a red truck. She ran out of gas, but we helped her on her way. She’s probably…”
“I’m sorry, what did you just say?” Ambrose had a hard time concentrating on what Cole was saying, as flashes of red erupted in front of his eyes.
Cole frowned. “A girly, like sixteen, seventeen or so. She seemed in an awful hurry to get away from Bend, that’s how we knew not to stop there. We skirted it, sure did.”
Ambrose swallowed hard and looked back at Vicki. In front of her, Jilly was busy pulling out dolls by their hair and lining them up on the floor of the RV. Next, she reached for a dress and a shirt, and two little plastic shoes. Ambrose could see Vicki was trying desperately to listen to Cole and Ambrose, while still giving Jilly her full attention. Ricky was busy scrawling the stub of a pencil over parchment paper at the little table next to them.
“You don’t say?” Ambrose glanced at Vicki, alarm in his eyes but calm in his voice. “Was she blonde, by any chance?”
Behind him, Ambrose could hear Vicki gasp, and then follow it up with an obviously forced cough. She really was a terrible actor, he thought. He tried to focus on what Cole was saying.
“Yeah, and that blonde was skinny as a rail,” Cole was saying with a laugh. “A man needs a good handful of woman, ya know? Like Ricky and Jilly’s mama, now she is a woman all the way around…”
Cole continued to talk, but Ambrose tuned it out. He felt his jaw grind and his fist ball down at his side. He kept nodding and forced a smile. Vicki flashed him a small smile when he looked at her. He knew she was trying to tell him he was playing his part so well.
Ambrose wasn’t a violent man. He learned as a child with ten sisters running underfoot, accidents would happen, and things would be broken. Fights would ensue, guaranteed. His father had been an infinitely patient man, who taught Ambrose the value of words over fists, and to never, ever hit a woman.
But just now his father was absent from his head, as he tried to fight away the anger that washed over him. He was sure it was Danielle, and even though he thought she’d been headed back northwest, maybe she got doubled around. He couldn’t be sure; most of what transpired after he’d been shot was a blur, that was, until he woke that day in the bed at the farmhouse.
He felt a hand on his shoulder then and looked up to see Vicki standing next to him. She smiled down at him and pecked him on the cheek, quickly and softly.
The small gestures leeched the anger from Ambrose almost immediately. Without realizing it, he placed his good hand on top of hers, and smiled back.
“Ain’t you two the sweetest couple.” Cole sneaked peeks at them from the road. “I can’t wait to see my old lady, Mary.”
“Where is she, by the way?” Vicki inquired, looking toward the back of the RV.
Ambrose stared at her, knowing she was trying to change the subject. He breathed a sigh of relief that Cole had been focusing on the road and not on how upset Ambrose appeared.
“She’s down in Klamath.” Cole smiled widely. “She went to visit her sister a few weeks ago. When all the shit went down up north, me and the kids got in the RV and headed down there as fast as we could.”
“So you’re from Portland, then?” Vicki asked.
“Naw. Spokane, Washington. We’ve been on the road nigh on a week or so,” Cole told them.
A week. Portland was hit a week ago. Ambrose threw a look at Vicki.
“You were certainly prepared,” Vicki said quietly, but her eyes were wide, terrified.
“Sure as shit we were.” Cole glanced back at her quickly. “’Cuz I knew ever since those attacks in Georgia it’s been comin’. The end of the world that is. Had this baby packed for weeks.” He patted the dashboard to demonstrate. “When the bombs hit Spokane, well, it was time to go.”
Vicki and Ambrose exchanged a look.
“Spokane was hit, too?”
Cole risked a brief glance at them. “Haven’t ya heard?”
“We, uh,” Ambrose licked his lips, “we’ve been out of radio contact.”
“Well, alls we got is the old AM, didn’t think that had been used in twenty years or more, but Randy, he loved his talk radio. Anyways, we heard Portland, Seattle, and Spokane are gone. L.A., too, but Randy didn’t hear much on that one, only that there were multiple landings.”
“So it’s true, then,” Vicki said, “America has been invaded.”
“By a massive force,” Cole mumbled. “Somethin’ strange, though.”
They waited.
“It seems to be several countries invading.”
“What?” Vicki and Ambrose asked at the same time.
“Yeah.” Cole dropped his voice. “It’s not just the WWA, ya know? It’s… well, they musta been recruitin’ from other places. It’s Arabians, Indians, Japs…”
“Japan?” Vicki couldn’t believe it. Japan had been at peace with America for almost a hundred years.
Cole shook his head. “All sorts a flags flying during the invasion. Not the Russians, though. Guess they learned their lesson years ago…”
Ambrose cleared his throat, changing the subject. “How far is it, to Klamath, anyway?” He knew about how far but didn’t want to pull out his map and demonstrate.
“It’s about… whoops, there’s a sign, right there.” Cole pointed to the edge of the highway.
Vicki and Ambrose looked out the window. The green highway sign flew past, marking Redding, Reno, and at last, Klamath Falls in white mileage numbers.
“Seventy miles?” Vicki exclaimed. Ambrose could hear the stress in her voice.
“Ain’t that far. Look, we already to Chemault.”
Ambrose could feel the RV slowing as another sign passed, this time, announcing reduced speed. They crested a hill with no signs of civilization, and the RV trucked along slowly.
Vicki squatted down next to him, her hand on her pack. What? Ambrose mouthed silently.
She shook her head slightly, and then put her hand over her heart.
It took him a few seconds, but he finally got it. Something didn’t feel right.
And she was always right about that. She’d been right abo
ut the military at the rest stop and again at the farmhouse. Her special sense had saved their lives more than once.
The peaks of the lone yellow gas station in town, followed by tips of a two-story building of some kind, arched over the horizon as they passed the last hill.
Ambrose grabbed the handle of his pack, and stuck his hand down to his side, out of Cole’s line of sight. He moved his first two fingers rapidly.
She nodded and mouthed, run.
He closed his eyes for a moment. He didn’t have a good feeling either. The town looked deserted, but somehow, he knew someone was here, waiting. It was too quiet.
As Cole slowed near the gas station parking lot, Vicki tugged his sleeve urgently and nodded out his window.
Ambrose spotted a red truck parked in front of the crumbling motel across the street.
His red truck.
Chapter Seven
Vicki’s heart pounded so loudly, she didn’t know why anyone else couldn’t hear it. As the town came into view, a migraine pinched the left side of her head and her stomach took a leap. There were supposed to be survivors here, saviors, to take them to safety. They had radioed out, calling for help. They could take her to Will, take Ambrose… well, wherever he wanted to go, she guessed. They passed the gas station, one bigger than anything Vicki had ever seen in Portland, but it was powered down and devoid of any signs of life.
“Damn,” Cole cursed under his breath, but Vicki still heard him. “We were hoping the survivors here would have fuel.” He rolled his window down and stuck his arm out, which Vicki assumed meant he was motioning to Randy on the dirt bike.
After the gas station, a wood-cabin styled two-story house, on the left side of the road, had all the invitations of home. Bright flowers hung from baskets around the front door, an array of wind chimes swinging slowly in the spring breeze. Vicki saw a light was on in the upper story but wasn’t sure if that meant anything or not. A hand painted, crooked wooden sign hung above the door that read, “Gift Shop & Deli” and that was all.
Lavender Dreams: Life After Us: Book Two Page 6