Lavender Dreams: Life After Us: Book Two

by Rebekah Dodson

  Cole slowed to a crawl, and Vicki really wished he wouldn’t stop.

  “Can we make it to Klamath? I’m sure there are more survivors there—” Vicki started to say.

  “No can do, Miss,” Cole interrupted. “As much as I’d like to get to my Mary faster, we’ve got to get gas. We gave most of what we had to that gal back up in Bend. This old baby won’t go another twenty miles.” He patted the dashboard and flashed a confident smile, as they turned into the parking lot adjacent to the station. A sign overhead read “Southern Oregon’s Best Motel.”

  It was so uncreative, and Vicki was so stressed out, she almost laughed. Especially since the motel looked far from best. The doors to each room were scratched and worn, a few of them sporting holes. The windows were all boarded up, in front of the remains of tattered curtains. The railing on the second floor hadn’t had a coat of paint in many years. Probably before Vicki was born, if she had to guess. Of all the deserted stops in town, however, this one had cars; a long sedan, a beat-up minivan, and a familiar looking truck were all parked in front of the shop.

  Vicki never thought she’d be so glad to see cars in her life – even if one of them looked like... she swallowed hard and tugged on Ambrose’s arm.

  Ambrose exhaled slowly, rubbing his hand on his knee. Despite his calm movement, he looked at Vicki with such intensity she wasn’t sure it was prudent for anyone get out of the RV.

  “Well, I suppose we don’t have a choice.” He exchanged a look with Vicki. She eyed the forest line behind the town buildings. Ambrose and she could hide easily, she knew. They’d managed it before. And this kind of cover was better than the open field they had walked across that morning. Before she could ask Ambrose about the truck she had seen, the RV lurched to the left as Cole pulled up the to the main part of the building, throwing Vicki against the tiny side door of the RV and nearly knocking the wind out of her. The rusted, peeling door had rusted letters on the door, an “O,” “C,” and “E.” Vicki struggled to upright herself, and peered closer at the door. Maybe once upon a time it was supposed to read “OFFICE,” she figured, but time had not been very kind.

  Beside the RV, Vicki could hear the roar of Randy’s dirt bike, and the harsh rumble as he shut it down. He appeared in the window next to Cole. “Whaddya think?”

  “I think you’re the guns of this operation,” Cole looked at Randy, “you oughta check it out.”

  “I’ll go with,” Ambrose said.

  Randy eyed Ambrose from the side. “No offense, mister, but you’re in no shape…”

  Vicki watched Ambrose flip a knife into hand. “I’m faster with a knife than anyone around here, I bet.”

  Vicki nodded at Randy. “We survived three days in the woods.”

  Randy whistled. “Well, then. You and me, let’s go check it out.”

  She started to panic then and put her arm on Ambrose’s shoulder to stop him. He winced as she realized she’d grabbed the injured one. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

  “Protect those kids,” he whispered. “Whatever you do.”

  “Don’t do this,” Vicki pleaded. “If something happened to you…”

  She didn’t get to finish. He kissed her quickly, hard, snaking an arm around her waist. Her hand curled around his as she kissed him back. The warm brush of his lips was interrupted when the side door next to Vicki flew open, and she turned abruptly from Ambrose, coming face to face with the black barrel of a rifle.

  “Step out with your hands up!” a voice barked, making her jump. She couldn’t get a clear view of who was out there. The military? Or maybe worse, trigger happy locals? She’d rather have the later.

  Jilly wrapped her arms around Vicki’s leg. “What’s goin’ on, papa?” She stared at Cole. Ricky was standing frozen in the doorway to the tiny bathroom, his hands bracing on the door frame.

  Cole had his hands up and Vicki could see he was clearly shaking. He didn’t answer his daughter.

  “I guess we should do as they say,” Randy mumbled. Vicki turned and saw another black barrel pointed tightly against Randy’s cheek.

  She looked at Ambrose, who nodded, his eyes glassy and full of worry. He raised his hands slowly.

  Vicki dropped his hand and lifted hers into the air, too.

  Damn it.

  “That’s it, step out nice and slow,” the voice behind the door told Vicki.

  It’s not the military, the little voice in Vicki’s head sprang to life. The images of her face on Lucy and Spencer’s TV flooded her mind. But it might as well be. Once they see me, it’s all over.

  She threw a panicked stare at Ambrose, who was reaching for the passenger door handle next to him.

  “Hang on, we’ve got kids in here!” Cole was saying to the man holding the gun at Randy. Vicki could see past Cole where Randy was unbuckling his gun belt and heard the thump as it hit the ground.

  Cole looked at Ambrose, and Vicki saw Cole dip his head towards the glove compartment.

  Vicki realized no one had a gun on Ambrose.

  “It’s okay, honey,” she told Jilly loudly. “These men just want to be safe, okay?”

  Jilly just whimpered. Vicki reached down and picked her up. “I’m going to step out now.” She looked towards the back, where her brother had escaped earlier. He was nowhere to be seen. What was going on?

  Vicki didn’t know what was going on between Cole and Ambrose up front, but she knew she had to protect this little life. There were only two men out there she could see, but they could be surrounded for all she knew.

  The click of the glove compartment sent off the alarms in her head. Oh, Ambrose, don’t do anything stupid! She wanted to scream at him as she toed the first step out of the RV.

  “Hurry up!” the voice with the gun shouted.

  Before she could take another step down, the front door of the RV flew open, a resounding smack and grunt as it smashed into the man with the gun.

  “Vicki, run!” Ambrose screamed.

  Vicki looked down into Jilly’s dirt-smeared face, her light eyes, nearly the shade of Ambrose’s, stared up at her. She was shaking in Vicki’s arms, clinging to a half-dressed doll with raggedy hair. Vicki risked a glance towards the back of the RV. Ricky had disappeared from the bathroom doorway. Where was the little boy? At least he was older than his sister, she figured, but not by much. There was no time to figure out where he went, but she hoped he could take care of himself.

  If she saved Jilly, she wouldn’t be able to grab her pack. The little girl was heavy enough, and Vicki knew her limit. And what would she do then, stranded in the forest with a five-year-old? Seventy miles from the nearest town that could help them?

  Half a second went by with this tumult tossing in Vicki’s head. She made her decision. Hoisting Jilly higher on her hip, she stepped out of the RV. To her left, a man in a plaid shirt and tight jeans was sprawled on the ground, a hunting rifle laying out of reach to his right, and a red bruise forming on his forehead. Ambrose was perched behind the hood, aiming a small pistol at the man next to Randy, which Vicki couldn’t see.

  Cole was just getting out of the front seat and yelling something at Randy that Vicki couldn’t make out. Right behind Cole, his young son, Ricky, scrambled out. He was holding a gun of his own pointed at the man next to Randy.

  “Vicki, go!” Ambrose hissed without taking his eyes off the two men. “There could be more!”

  Vicki sat Jilly down and grabbed her hand. “Come on, sweetie, as fast as you can!” she shouted to the little girl.

  “But Ricky and Papa…”

  “Come on!” Vicki yelled. It spooked her enough to get her feet moving away from the hotel. They dashed down the length of the RV, and carefully rounded the corner, Vicki peeking on the other side. There was a six-foot distance between the RV and the corner of the motel. Between the motel and a crumbling wall for a trailer park, Vicki could see the edge of the forest. The vivid memory of jumping into the creek outside Lucy and Spencer’s farm was still in her min
d.

  The coast was clear, at least for now.

  She leaned down towards Jilly. “We’re going to make a break for those trees, see just there?” she whispered, pointing at the narrow spot between the motel and the wall.

  Jilly nodded, holding her doll up to her face and covering most of it.

  “Are you ready?”

  Jilly nodded again. Vicki noticed she had terrified tears streaming down her cheeks. “It’s okay; I won’t let anyone hurt you.” Vicki forced a smile and grabbed her hand. She tugged as they started across the opening, away from the driver’s side of the RV. She dared a glance down the RV side and locked eyes with a man in overalls, his thick, large beard sticking out at stray angles under his bald head. He looked at Vicki sadly.

  Vicki shook her head and they made for the tree line.

  We’re going to make it, she thought elatedly.

  “Come on, Jilly, we’re going to…”

  Too late, Vicki saw a shadow step out from one of the last doors on the end of the motel, right in their collision path. Vicki had time to see a short, slender figure in a black hoodie, and as they passed the figure, it reached out and tugged on Vicki’s long straight hair, yanking sharp and hard.

  “Ow!” Fire erupted along her scalp and Vicki collapsed backwards to the ground She hit hard, losing her grip on Jilly’s hand, and Vicki cried out as her head bounced off the hard cement. Her vision went blurry and everything tilted sideways as she pressed her hands to her head to stop the ringing in her ears.

  A face appeared over her.

  A face she never thought she’d have to look at ever again.

  “Danielle,” she murmured, and the world slipped away into darkness.

  Chapter Eight

  Ambrose sat on the thin mattress at the edge of the steel bed, staring into the fading light that shone through the slits of the bars on the window. He didn’t expect this town to have a police station, let alone a jail cell, but it turns out they had both, right across the street from the motel.

  He kept replaying the scene backwards and forwards in his mind like a bad computer animated movie from the 20th century. They had the upper hand. Randy had his guns; Cole and even his son were armed, though little Ricky had thrown down the rifle that was much too big for him and ran to help his sister. How had these towns people over taken them?

  It didn’t help when Danielle pushed the barrel of a shot gun into Ambrose’s back from behind.

  “Hey, you’re that girl that we helped—” Cole started to say. He was cut off mid-sentence as another man rounded the back of the RV and leveled a gun on him.

  Ambrose still didn’t know how such a waif of a teenage girl could manage a shot gun and drag a grown woman by her hair. Vicki’s screams were the only sound splitting the air. The little girl, Jilly, was nowhere to be seen.

  Ambrose tossed the pistol and threw up his hands when he heard her screaming. It was a shrill cry of anger and pain, even worse than when the cougar had run into Vicki in the woods two nights ago. He’d know that cry anywhere, only now it was ear splitting.

  Danielle had instructed him to turn around, and he had obliged. Two more men circled Randy and Cole, just as Ricky broke off into a run, screaming his sister’s name.

  “She the one on the news?” one of the men behind Ambrose said. He circled the RV and picked Vicki up from the ground. She screamed again, her hand circling her waist.

  “Don’t hurt her,” Ambrose pleaded, “please.”

  “I’d know her anywhere,” Danielle sneered at Ambrose. “She’s traveling with this Khaki.”

  “I hate Khakis.” The other man leveled his gun at Cole and Randy.

  “I thought you was a Mexican?” Cole said behind Ambrose, his voice bewildered and shaking.

  Ambrose heard a smack and an ‘umph’ as Cole’s heavy body slumped to the ground.

  “Hey!” Randy yelled.

  “You better watch your mouth,” the first man told Randy. “Don’t open it again or I’ll open it for you.”

  “What about them kids?” The second man motioned the direction Ricky and Jilly had run.

  “Let them go,” Danielle answered, “little brats can’t hurt anything.”

  “What about her?” The man holding Vicki shook her by the hair as he spoke.

  Danielle reached in her pocket and tossed him an old-fashioned key. “Put her in room 68 and watch her. Watch her close. Grab Joe to stand guard.”

  Vicki threw Ambrose a look of desperation. He could see her panting as she struggled to pry the firm grasp on her hair. She cried again.

  “Shut up!” The man whacked her across the cheek with his pistol, and she crumbled to the ground, moaning and holding the side of her face.

  “Vicki!” Ambrose shouted. He stepped towards her.

  “Uh, uh,” Danielle pointed her gun right as his chest. “You stay right there.”

  Ambrose didn’t know what to do, what to say. His safety was vital to helping Vicki. He froze, helpless, as he watched them drag her to the darkened motel.

  Between Danielle and the two men, they escorted Ambrose and Randy across the deserted highway to a squat, single store cubed building. Behind them, Ambrose could hear a fourth man dragging Cole’s body across the road as well. Ambrose recognized the building in front of them, considering the peeling “P..L..C..E” stickers on the glass front door.

  “Get in there where you belong, Khaki.” Danielle threw open one of the two cells at the back of the tiny office. She pressed the gun so hard into his back he clenched down on his tongue to keep from crying out. He wouldn’t give her any satisfaction.

  “You shot me,” he glared at her once he heard the click on other side. To his left, he could see Randy and Cole shoved in an identical cell.

  “So I did.” Danielle chuckled and tucked the keys around her belt.

  “Thought you were headed north back to Albany,” Ambrose sneered.

  “I did.”

  “And?”

  “And there was nothing left.” She glared back at him. “Luckily, the military was kind enough to pick me up and question me, and when they found out I knew where you were going, well, here we are, aren’t we?”

  “You bitch,” Ambrose spat at her.

  She wiped the spittle from her face, closing her eyes briefly. She continued in a completely level voice: “You know, they even leveled the airport. When you kidnapped me, it cost my father his life. I didn’t make it back in time.”

  “I’m sorry,” Ambrose scoffed. “Wait, we didn’t kidnap anyone! You went with us! Willingly!”

  “Excuse me, boss, but shouldn’t we go find those brats?” The other man, the one Ambrose had knocked out cold with the RV door, appeared behind Danielle.

  She waved her hand. “Yes, Vince, take Terry and go find them, I suppose.”

  “How the hell are you the boss?” Ambrose asked that vile girl.

  “Well, it takes a while for the WWA troops to mobilize, you see. And they had a tip from some old guy you were holed up in their cabin. Turned out to be a false alarm, though. We thought we found you both, but we scoured the place and wasn’t no one there.”

  Ambrose was silent. Cuz we jumped in the river, he thought.

  Danielle continued, ignoring him and examining her chipped bright pink nails instead. “So, I went ahead with a few soldiers to scout the place, hoping you’d show up, and these guys were just waiting it out when I got here. When I saw them execute a few rogue khakis that came through before me, I just figured they needed a leader. I was head cashier, you know,” she stuck her chin out, “so I know something about management.”

  Ambrose just shook his head. He wanted to ask her about the executions, but instead the vision of Vicki being dragged to the motel was still burned in his brain. “Leave Vicki alone. She’s not the one you want. I’m the Khaki. Kill me. You got the Khaki you came for.”

  Danielle laughed. “Did you think they were after you this whole time? Oh, you’re such an idiot!” Danielle smirke
d at him. “The Supreme Leader wants her very, very badly, and he’ll do nothing short of burning down this entire state to get her.”

  “But why?” Ambrose probed, hoping the longer he made her talk the more he could think of a plan to get out of here.

  Danielle shrugged and turned away. “I couldn’t care less, as long as I get the bitch and get my money he’s promised me.”

  “Jesus,” Ambrose murmured. “You really are a cold-hearted bitch.”

  She looked over her shoulder and grinned. “I know. But the question is, why are you so concerned for her, now? If I recall, you hated her as much as you did me when we traveled together. What’s changed, hmm?” She turned and strode back to the cage.

  Ambrose didn’t answer, just seethed at her, his chest heaving. “If you harm a hair on her head, I swear…” He gripped the bars and shook them with all his strength. The jail was old, and Ambrose wondered if it had even been in use recently, as tendrils of the ceiling flittered loose with his tugs.

  “Oh, I see,” Danielle interrupted, but dodged just out of reach of arm’s length. Ambrose could tell he’d scared her.

  She was nothing if not cautious, Ambrose thought, disappointed he couldn’t get his hands around her neck. “You don’t know anything,” he spat at her, “and what you think you know is wrong.”

  “You fucked her.” Danielle laughed.

  “I—we—never—” Ambrose sputtered, dropping his hands from the bars. Even in the low light, with his dark skin, he knew he was probably as red as a beet. He’d never been a good liar.

  “Yes, yes you did!” She clapped her hands together and jumped with both feet off the ground. “Oh, I can’t wait to tell the Supreme Leader. He will be happy to have your head!” She giggled and turned to prance out of the room.

  As soon as she reached the door, Vince stepped back into the room. “Terry’s got the boy, but he’s still looking for the girl. You want them in the room next to the woman?”