“No. You’re right. We’ll find help,” I said.
Caleb slapped his palms on his knees and stood. He stretched out his hand. “We should get started.”
I took his hand. What I wanted was to get out of the rain for even a few minutes. Ever since we left the farmhouse, we’d been assaulted by the rain and while it wasn’t pouring down anymore, it was still terribly annoying. And cold.
“Which way should we go first?” I asked.
Caleb looked around. “There was a gas station on the corner. Maybe we’ll find some stuff scattered around over there.”
We walked down the sidewalk, slowly scanning the yards for anything that we could use. The little black kitten hopped up alongside me, jumping over items that were in her way.
“Guess you made a friend,” Caleb said.
“She’s probably hungry.”
I crouched down and held out my hand. The kitten crept closer and touched my fingers with her cold, wet nose.
“You poor thing,” I said. “You must be so hungry.”
The kitten meowed.
I reached over and looked at the name on her collar. “Your name is Clover?”
The kitten stared.
“We don’t get to pick our names, do we?” I said scratching her ear. “We’ll see if we can find you some food, okay?”
“Hey,” Caleb said. I turned to see him climbing out of a pile of rubble. “We can use this.”
He was holding a rectangular gym bag. It wouldn’t be easy to carry with its long strap but at least it was something.
There was an increase in items as we approached the area where the gas station had once been. It was as though the little store that we had often visited before the storm had just exploded.
“Hey Clover,” I sang as I held up a can of dog food. “Look what I found.”
“Hopefully, she won’t notice the difference,” Caleb said with a smile as he kicked through the items on the ground, sorting through them with his eyes.
“Well, she’s just going to have to learn to eat what we have for her,” I said pulling the tab off the top of the can.
Caleb raised a brow. “Does that mean you’re keeping her?”
“I can’t just leave her,” I said bending down to offer the food.
Clover looked at the food. She gave it a little lick and after walking around the can for a minute, she decided to eat the dog food.
“I’ll keep my eyes peeled for cat food then,” Caleb said.
I smiled at Clover. “You can stay with us if you like.”
She ignored me and kept eating.
I stood. My eyes shifted from area to area as I searched the ground but I wasn’t exactly sure what I was looking for. I started to feel overwhelmed. It was like there was a massive weight on my shoulders and I was sinking.
I felt like I was on the edge of a breakdown. My chest rose and fell with my rapid breaths. I couldn’t let myself fall down into a hole of despair because I wouldn’t be able to get back out.
“You okay?” Caleb asked.
I must have looked like I’d been frozen in place. My body shook like a wet dog after an unwanted bath.
“Yeah,” I said forcing a smile. “What should I be looking for exactly?”
“Let’s see,” Caleb said. “I have some water, soda, snacks, a few cans of dog food—” he looked at Clover “—sorry, Clover cat. We could use a first aid kit and more water. Just more of everything.”
I nodded and cocked an eyebrow at the building. “We could try to climb around in there.”
“Don’t think that would be safe,” Caleb said. “We just need enough to make it until we get to the city.”
“How long do you think that would take?”
Caleb’s eyebrows squeezed together. “I’m not sure. As you know, I only walked if I had to. My feet are already killing me from walking back here and it sure doesn’t help that my socks are soaked. I keep sliding around in my shoes and I’m pretty sure I’m getting a blister. It’ll go faster if we can get to a car at some point.”
Caleb continued to put stuff in the duffel bag as he talked. It looked like it was so stuffed it would be heavy to carry. Clover dashed over to me as if she were afraid we would leave without her.
I picked up the tiny, wet cat and she nuzzled against my shoulder. I took one last look at the town I’d lived in all of my life. The pain and sadness were too much. I looked away and followed Caleb out of town.
17
Adam
It was like walking on a sponge and not just in the places where there were puddles several inches deep. All of the ground was soaked to the point it couldn’t hold any more water.
The rain was relentless. Puddles deepened with every passing minute. Gray clouds blanketed the sky for as far as the eye could see.
There had been storms and rain before but it hadn’t even come close to what we were experiencing. Maybe there was some truth to Mike’s ramblings. Whatever had caused that flash was perhaps what was also behind the devastating earthquake and the continuous rain.
I’d told both Eva and Chloe I wanted to check my house. Chloe had shrugged and Eva thought it was a waste of time.
It hadn’t taken us long to get to my house from where we were. It also hadn’t taken long for me to realize no one could have survived.
“Let’s just go,” Eva said.
“Hang on,” I said. We stood shoulder to shoulder on the front lawn twenty feet away from the house. I pointed at the ground. “Wait here.”
“You lived here?” Chloe’s eyes were wide with fascination. “This place must have been something else. Are you like a celebrity or something?”
Eva didn’t even bother to hide her laugh.
“No,” I said. “Stay here, okay? I’ll only be a second.”
Eva crossed her arms and I took that as an okay. I jogged up to the house, stepping on the front door to get inside.
All of our things were on the ground. Parts of the ceiling were scattered all over the floor and the left living room wall had nearly entirely fallen back into what had been my dad’s office.
He’d spent so much time in there that I was afraid to enter the room. There were just some things I didn’t want to see.
“Hello?” I called but of course, there wasn’t any sound but the pitter-patter of rain hitting what was left of the house. “Anyone here? It’s Adam. I’m home.”
Nothing.
I walked over to the table where we always threw our keys when we walked into the house. The bowl was there with both of my parent's sets of keys inside.
“Dammit.” I swallowed hard, nearly choking on the sourness.
Next to the bowl was a pad of paper. A note was written in my dad’s messy handwriting on the first sheet.
Adam,
If you get this, we’ve left with the Tate’s to their ski resort in Colorado via his personal plane. Please head there at your earliest convenience.
Dad
There was a card under the note with the name of a ski resort and an address. I tucked both the note and the business card into my pocket and left my home.
I wasn’t sure why I was keeping the note. It sounded more like a business communication than it sounded like a note from father to son. Either way, if it was all I’d have left of my dad, then I wanted it.
There was a loud creaking sound in the kitchen followed by a crash. It sounded like part of the roof had fallen to the kitchen floor, along with an enormous puddle of water.
I dashed out of the house and made my way to Eva and Chloe. Eva was tapping her foot on the ground, splashing the water around her shoe.
“Told you,” she said.
“My dad left a note. They headed to a ski resort in Colorado,” I said. “Higher ground, I’m guessing.”
“Who’s resort?” Eva asked.
My eyebrows squeezed together, trying to remember the name. “The Tate’s?”
“Could this get any worse?” Eva asked.
“Do I kno
w the Tate’s?” I asked. “The name doesn’t ring a bell.”
“Bianca Tate is like a world-class bitch,” Eva said. “And I’m not just saying that.”
She was probably just saying that. There weren’t many other girls Eva got along with, even if she had pretended to when they were around.
“Well, it’s somewhere to go. And hopefully, it’s safe,” I said.
“I guess,” Eva said. “We should really get on with it then. Not entirely sure how we’re going to make it to Colorado.”
We started walking east toward the city limits. It would take us forever to get to Colorado on foot but hopefully, at some point, we’d be able to find transportation of some kind.
“I remembered something,” Chloe said.
Her voice had slightly startled me from a mild trance-like state I was in from listening to the raindrop falling around us.
“Yeah?” I asked curiosity raising the pitch of my voice.
“Yeah,” Chloe said looking frustrated. Her eyebrows squeezed together. “There are a lot of missing pieces. I think I hit my head harder than I thought but I remembered something I heard before I ran out of my apartment.”
Eva walked in front of us, leading the way out of the city. If she was even mildly interested in what Chloe had to say, she didn’t bother to show it.
“I had the radio on and normally I listen to music but for some reason, I stopped on these two guys who were having some kind of argument,” Chloe said. “One of them said something about a device that could be launched into the atmosphere to reset the planet. To fix the climate stuff. Sulfur dioxide gas, maybe? I can’t remember exactly. My boyfriend would have remembered and likely understood.”
Chloe frowned.
“I should have kept up with current events, I guess,” I muttered.
“Why?” Eva snapped. “Even if you would have, it's not like you would have been able to stop this from happening.”
I hated it when she was right. “I could have been more prepared. Everyone could have.”
“Yeah, like not taking me to the top of a mountain the night the world ended,” Eva said.
“It wasn’t a mountain,” I said defensively
Chloe ignored our bickering. I didn’t blame her one bit.
“They did this… someone did this… who did this?” I knew neither of them had the answers and apparently, Eva didn’t even care who was responsible for destroying life as we knew it.
Eva groaned. “We need to stop speculating and work on finding help or getting to your dad. I mean, seriously, none of that even matters. Will finding someone to blame fix any of this? No. It won’t.”
Eva took ten more steps forward and then turned sharply to face us. She didn’t blink.
“My leg hurts, Chloe’s arm is messed up and she needs stitches.” Eva shook her head. “And you just want to know why, why, why. Stop wasting our time and pick up your feet. Why doesn’t matter and probably never will.”
I was tempted to turn on my heel and walk away from her. Instead, I sighed and kept following.
It took us longer than expected to reach the east side of the city because of the soggy terrain. Things didn’t look any better at the city limits then they had at the center of the city.
The earthquake must have been felt for miles and miles. But I should have already figured that much.
“I wonder if they’ll send help,” Chloe said hugging her arm against her wet body. “Helicopters or something.”
“If it’s like this everywhere, there won’t be any helicopters,” Eva said. “If they reset the planet like you heard well, then, we’re probably screwed.”
Chloe frowned and started blinking rapidly. She was on the verge of tears. Chloe had been trying to reach out for a thread of hope to cling on to and Eva just yanked it out of reach.
“Jesus, Eva,” I said.
“What?” Eva snarled. “She’s going to need to toughen up. You know, face reality.”
It took everything for me not to laugh in her face. The girl who did her nails twice a week and cried if one of them broke was giving Chloe advice to toughen up.
Granted, Eva was acting like someone different but that’s all it was… an act. And she might have had Chloe fooled but she didn’t have me fooled.
Eva glanced at Chloe over her shoulder, looking down her nose. “We should probably find you a shirt that isn’t see-through too.”
Chloe looked down at herself, horrified. Her cheeks reddened and she raised her good arm higher to keep herself covered.
“We can’t just sit around, hoping help will come,” Eva said. “We have to be our own help. It’s just too bad we won’t be able to travel by car with the roads in this condition.”
I cleared my throat and gestured to a building that was still mostly together, even though it was slanted like the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
There was a sign on the ground welcoming us to O’Grady’s Pub. Chloe hesitated as we walked toward the open doorway.
“This looks promising,” I said trying to give Chloe a bit of hope again.
“Should we really just go in there?” Chloe asked. “What if it falls down on us? You saw what almost happened to her.”
I shrugged. “There’s probably stuff in here that will keep us alive. We have to at least check it out.”
“Eva,” Eva said sharply. “My name is Eva.”
Chloe flicked a look in her direction but ignored her. “Are you sure about this?”
“Yeah,” I said giving her a soft smile. “I think it’ll be okay but if you want to wait out here, you can. We won’t leave you or anything like that.”
I didn’t see Eva roll her eyes but I knew she’d rolled them nonetheless. But dammit, I didn’t care. I didn’t even know who she was anymore. Maybe I never had.
“No,” Chloe said taking a step closer to me. “I don’t want to be by myself. I’m afraid neither of you would come out again or maybe that I’m imagining both of you.”
“We’re real,” I said.
Chloe’s head bobbed repeatedly and eventually, she took a step forward to follow me inside what was left of O’Grady’s Pub.
18
Stevie
We stayed on the sandy roads as we headed northeast in search of other survivors and supplies. The further we got away from the ocean, the better our chances would be. Although with the rain continuing to pour down, I wasn’t exactly sure how true that would be.
Gage and I both knew exactly how hard it was going to be to walk inland. Maybe we both knew it would be nearly impossible but neither of us said so.
There were sections of the road that were under several inches of rainwater. Dead fish littered the street. Both the sight and the stench made my almost empty stomach swirl.
“What the hell is that?” I asked narrowing my eyes at something big and lumpy floating in one of the deeper puddles. When I realized what I was seeing, I covered my mouth and bit my cheek so I didn’t vomit.
Gage turned me away from the swollen, pale-faced dead body.
“You might want to get used to it,” Gage said.
“What? How?” I managed to eek out before I had to press my lips together.
“That’s like the fourth body we’ve gone by since leaving,” Gage said.
I exhaled slowly. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to that.”
“Honestly, I’m kind of surprised we haven’t seen more,” Gage said.
“I guess most were pulled back into the ocean.”
Gage nodded at a two-story house a block away. “Maybe we should check some of these houses. See what, if anything, we can salvage.”
“Sounds like a plan,” I said.
My feet were already hurting from sliding around in my wet shoes. We hadn’t traveled far but it would be nice to sit down for a few minutes and maybe have a snack.
The front door of the home didn’t seem to fit inside the frame. It squeaked like a dying mouse as Gage pushed the door open.
“Hello?”
Gage called out.
I met his eyes and blinked several times. We both knew there was no way there was anyone alive inside the home.
“It just feels weird walking in here,” Gage explained.
The carpet squished as we walked through the living room. There were stains on the walls from the water and the entire house smelled like a package of expired mushrooms.
“There isn’t going to be anything in here,” I said sitting down on one of the wooden kitchen chairs. It wobbled slightly but it held my weight. “Even if something wasn’t destroyed by the water, it would smell like this place.”
“Yeah,” Gage said. “You’re probably right.”
He opened the kitchen pantry and froze for a long moment as he stared at the contents. I could see boxes of cereal had dropped to the floor and there were soggy, inflated pieces of puffs sprinkled on the tile.
“Except you’re wrong.” Gage held up cans of soup and vegetables. “We can take these.”
The labels were faded but not to the point that we couldn’t read what was inside the cans. Gage started stuffing them in our backpack.
“Check the closets,” Gage said. “Maybe we can find another backpack.”
“It’ll be soaked,” I said.
“Not sure it matters when the second we step outside everything gets soaked.”
I nodded and pushed myself out of the chair. “It’ll stink, though.”
“We’ll get used to it,” Gage said.
“Maybe I don’t want to get used to it,” I muttered.
I dug around through the downstairs closets first. As I figured, everything was drenched.
I pulled a pink backpack out of the hall closet and looked it over. It was in good condition and it didn’t stink too bad. The only negative was the big unicorn patch on the back.
“Found something,” I said holding it up.
“It suits you,” Gage said as he attempted to zip his overstuffed backpack up.
“I figured you’d carry this one,” I said bending down to take two of the cans out of the backpack. He zipped it and smiled as he shook his head. He slipped the good backpack over his shoulders.
The Reset Series (Book 1): Flood Page 9