I sat staring at the screen for a long time, feeling sick to my stomach. Tom Dallard, in my mind, was the last American hero, and he deserves to be remembered with the rest of them.
6
January 4th, two days after the live broadcast death of Tom Dallard, was the day I realized I was going to have to fight to survive, and to perhaps do things that no 15-year old kid ... no kid at all ... should have to do.
That was the day looters came to my neighborhood. It had been at least a week since I had seen anybody in our street – not really surprising considering most of the people living there had been around the same age as the Fosters, their children already grown and gone.
I was flicking through the channels on the television trying to find anything at all when I heard the rumble of a car engine. I ran to the window and peered through a crack in the blinds.
A red Toyota pickup truck was cruising slowly down the street, its exhaust pluming in the cold winter air. Excited to see someone – anyone – alive, I nearly ran right out to wave them down. Something, a feeling maybe, stopped me and I decided to watch them through the blinds instead.
It slowly cruised right to the end of the street and turned the corner. I was suddenly regretful. Maybe they were looking for survivors? Just people trying to help? I had to find out. I quickly grabbed my coat, pulled on my shoes and ran for the front door, my heart beating hard.
As I grasped the door handle, I heard the rumble again. They had gone around the block and were coming my direction again and it sounded like they were driving more slowly than before. Again, I decided against running out to wave them down and went back to my position at the window.
Within a few seconds they came into view and then stopped in front of Judge Petersen’s house; it was across the street and two houses down. The doors opened and three people got out, one was a man with greyish hair, the others looked to be teenagers, one about my age and the other as big as the man. The man stopped just after getting out of the driver’s door to lean across the hood, coughing. As he straightened up, I was shocked to see he had a long gun in his hands. As I watched, the teens reached into the cab of the pickup and took out more guns.
I didn’t know that much about guns then, everything I knew about them came from television and movies, but I recognized that the two younger figures carried double barreled shotguns and the one held by the coughing man was a rifle.
From my vantage point behind the blinds, I saw the man wave toward the Petersen house, directing the teenagers to the front door. The boy tried the handle and when he found it locked, he stepped aside for the man, who busted it open with one strong kick. They disappeared inside.
Maybe five minutes later they emerged, each carrying a large black garbage bag filled, I assume, with whatever they had looted from Petersen’s home. They trotted back to the pickup and dropped the bags in the bed.
The sick man then pointed to the house next door to the Petersen residence and the teenagers disappeared inside.
A sliver of fear shot through me – what if they came to my house? I didn’t know what they were looking for, money, jewelry, or just food and supplies, but given the fact that they were armed, I was more concerned about what they might do if they found me here.
Just as worrying was the idea that if I managed to hide and they didn’t find me, what would I do if they took all the food? One thing I knew for certain, I’d have a better chance against armed men if I was armed myself, so with gritted teeth I left the window and ran to Alan and Eleanor’s bedroom.
It had been a week, and the smell of spoiling meat hit me as soon as I opened the door. I tried not to look at the bodies of my foster parents as I paused at the threshold of the darkened room. To say I was creeped out would be sugarcoating it and, for a second, I almost turned around, armed looters or no armed looters.
In the end, I took a deep breath and crossed the room. Still averting my gaze from them, I bent and reached out for shape of the revolver on the floor. That was when my elbow bumped the bed and Eleanor’s cold, stiff hand fell onto mine. The shriek that escaped my throat would have been right at home in a horror movie. I snatched up the weapon and jumped away from the bed and stopped, my heart hammering painfully in my chest.
I was about to leave when my eyes fell upon the open gun case sitting on the dresser. It was lined with foam cut out in the shape of the gun and had another rectangular cut out which contained a box marked Remington .38 SPECIAL.
I pulled out the box and opened it. It was full of extra bullets. Grateful, I slipped it under my coat and into the pocket of my gray hooded sweatshirt before heading out and back to the front window.
Although it had seemed like an eternity, my trip to the Fosters’ bedroom had been brief enough that the two teenagers had not yet returned to the truck from the second home. I watched the driver. He was now slumped against the front fender of the pickup, his hacking cough clearly audible to me. I wondered vaguely how much longer he’d last, certainly not more than another day but then he must have been tough to last this long.
I know it might seem horrible, me thinking about the life of another person in such an abstract way, with no real sense of pity, but survivors adapt and one of the first things that seems to go is compassion. I think the previous couple of years had already stunted my empathy toward my fellow human beings, so maybe I already had a leg up on the other survivors.
A minute after I returned to the window, the looters returned to the truck and dumped their goods. Almost in slow motion I saw the man point in my direction. Not at me, of course, but at my home. The older teen, perhaps only a few years older than me, maybe 16 or 17, but large for his age gestured to the younger guy and they crossed the road and started across the snowy lawn towards my front door. Time was up.
7
I dug under my coat and pulled out the gun. Now I was committed to using it, the weapon seemed heavier; I was reminded of Frodo’s ring approaching Mordor. With shaking hands I stuck the barrel through the blinds and the cold steel muzzle chattered against the glass pane.
I think they saw me at the last second, but it didn’t matter. I pulled the trigger. The handgun bucked in my hands, the report far louder than I had expected but the bullet made nothing more than a jagged little hole as it passed through the glass.
The man leaning against the fender jerked and grabbed at his thigh, his scream of agony cutting like a laser through the ringing in my ears. I hadn’t been aiming at him. I hadn’t been aiming at anything in particular, I just wanted to scare them off but my round had found him anyway.
He was sliding down onto the road holding his leg when everything exploded.
The window detonated, the blast ripping through the wooden blinds. The blinds themselves protected me from the majority of the flying glass and the shotgun pellets had struck about a foot to my right. I fell to my knees and scrambled behind the sofa.
Another shot blew the blinds completely off the window and they clattered onto the floor. I thought about going back to the window and shooting back, but I was clearly outgunned. They didn’t know that though, and I realized my best chance of survival was for them to give up, precisely because they didn’t know what awaited them inside.
If not I would put a bullet in the first one through the door. I slithered along the floor in front of the sofa until I could see the front door through the opening into the hallway.
I lay there watching the front door with the gun at the ready for what may have been a minute when it dawned on me that they might circle around the house and come in the back. Shit!
I was about to get up when I heard the man I shot scream to his partners in crime.
“Forget it! Get me home you eejits!”
I held my breath until I heard the truck start up. Keeping low, I crawled across the room to the second window and, half expecting to find myself looking down the barrel of a gun, I parted the blinds and peeked through.
The wounded man had been loaded into the bed of the p
ickup and was sitting with his back to the rear wall of the cab, his face a rictus of agony as the younger boy climbed in. He had barely settled when the pickup, now driven by the older boy, took off with a squeal of tires.
Luckily for me, they had cut their losses and run. I let out a long sigh.
The encounter prompted me to take stock of my situation. I had probably a week’s worth of canned goods left. The milk, eggs, and other perishables from the refrigerator were gone, all except for half a bottle of Eleanor’s prune juice. I had never touched the stuff and didn’t plan on starting now, no matter how thirsty I got.
There was also a six-pack of beer Alan had bought to share with John on Christmas Day. I stayed away from the beer too, not because I had any aversion to alcohol or anything, but I wasn’t a huge fan of the taste. In any case, my mind needed to stay sharp and alert in case more looters came.
The danger presented by the looters had given me quite a wakeup call. So, after a meal of canned baked beans, I did a Karate workout, running through my old sparring drills and doing push-ups and sit ups. While I worked out, I thought about the prospect of the looters returning for revenge, perhaps a bigger danger than my dwindling supplies.
I seriously considered packing up what I could in the Fosters’ car and driving away right then. Two things stopped me. First was lack of a clear destination; where would I go? I had some vague notion of going to Canada. Even though I had seen some reports that the flu had spread there, I didn’t think they were the real target of the Chinese, just collateral damage.
Second – I didn’t really know how to drive.
The power went out sometime before dawn the next morning and the decision was made for me. Whether or not I could drive or had a place to go, it was clear I couldn’t stay where I was.
I found the keys to Eleanor’s car in her purse on the kitchen counter and gathered some warm clothes, a couple of blankets and what food I had left and loaded it into the back seat of her Honda Accord. I opened the garage door, lucky it was not powered, and started her car. Again, lucky it was an auto. I let it run as I went inside to grab the gun and ammo.
On the way out I stopped by the Foster’s bedroom door and placed my hand on it. I had cried a few times since they had passed, mainly at night when I went to sleep, but I still had a tear or two left for them.
“Thanks for everything,” I said quietly before turning and heading out the front door without looking back.
Driving was not as difficult as I had thought it would be, although I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have gotten three feet if it had been a manual. I had managed to reverse the old Honda out of the garage and down the driveway onto the road without hitting anything. Once I was on my way, the stiff steering took a bit to get used to, but the fact that there was no traffic (and probably wouldn’t ever be again) helped me get the hang of it. I still didn’t have a clear idea of where I wanted to go, so I decided to head on over to Main Street.
Fort Carter is, or rather was, a small town between Providence and Woonsocket. Main Street is the only place that could be considered a business district. There were the customary diners, antique stores, bakeries, and boutiques, along with City Hall, the police and fire stations, a small town museum, and a supermarket. The United General Hospital, where Eleanor had tried to take Alan the day after Christmas, was located out of town, halfway between Fort Carter and Mapleville, the neighboring town.
At the far end of Main Street, where it ended at a T junction with state highway 102, was the newest addition to the town, a Walmart that had opened just six months prior, to much excitement from the locals. I decided to head there but when I spotted the sign for the grocery store in the distance, I thought it might be worth a look. Maybe I could grab some more supplies of the edible kind.
The streets of the town were deserted and dusted in a light snowfall, but I kept my eyes peeled as I drove. At least the red pickup would stand out like a beacon if it was anywhere nearby.
It was surreal. Most of the homes I passed didn’t have cars in the driveways and I assumed most people had fled, because the streets were mostly empty of vehicles as well.
When I got to the parking lot of Dave’s Marketplace, I saw maybe a half-dozen cars parked there, but from the snow on then, it was obvious they had been there quite a while. There were no lights on anywhere which meant the entire town had lost power, not just our neighborhood.
Pulling up close to the doors of the supermarket, I surveyed the windows looking for signs of movement before finally switching the car off. I got out of the car as quietly as I could and walked to the doors with my hand in my coat pocket on the reassuring shape of the gun. The doors failed to hiss open like they normally did, and for a moment I stood there, perplexed before I remembered the power was out.
How am I going to get them open? I thought.
I placed my hands on either side of the join and attempted to get my fingers between the panes so I could pull them open.
“Isaac ... Isaac Race!”
I jumped as the deep, muffled voice ripped through the frigid silence, and spun around to locate the owner of the voice. Standing at the corner of the building, a tall figure with a strange black face and huge eyes glared at me.
8
I took two hurried steps back, scrabbling to pull the gun from my pocket as the figure stepped forward and reached up to its face, which I only realized then, was covered by a gas mask.
The figure pulled away the mask to reveal the familiar smile and red curls of my classmate, Luke.
“Isaac, it’s me, Luke!”
“Luke? Jeez… you scared the hell out of me,” I said, regaining my composure. I released the .38’s grip, surprised and happy to see someone I actually knew. It was like finding a gold coin in a pile of shit. A small miracle.
Luke seemed to think so too and crossed to me in three big strides, his long arms opened wide. Never one for shows of affection, I stuck my hand out to shake and avoid his embrace, but he was having none of it. He neatly dodged my hand and engulfed me in a bear hug that lifted me clean off my feet.
“Holy crap Isaac, I thought I was the only one left around here,” he said, dropping me back to Earth and gripping my shoulders.
“Are you feeling okay?” he asked, looking into my eyes. “No sniffles or aches?”
“Nothing but some cracked ribs thanks to your hug,” I said, catching a little of his enthusiasm.
His rich laugh bounced around the empty carpark.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. It was a pretty lame question to ask someone you just found after the end of the world, but it was all I could come up with at short notice.
“Same thing as you, I imagine,” he said, grinning. “I came to do some shopping.”
“What’s with the gas mask? You know you’d already be dead if it was going to kill you, right?”
“Yeah, but I found it in the disposals store and it looked kind of cool ...” He shrugged and threw it aside. I felt kind of mean for calling him out on it. I nodded to the supermarket.
“Is there anything left in there, do you think? It’s been over a week since the shit hit the fan.” I thought of Alan when I said it, and quickly suppressed the stab of pain it brought with it.
“I hope so, man,” he replied. “I ran out of food yesterday and I’m hungry as all get out.”
“Well, let’s do this then.”
Luke had a small hunting knife in a leather case on his belt, and he used it to wedge between the doors and pry them slightly open so that we could get a grip. Working together, we managed to pull them open with some sweating and cussing. Luke reached out and grabbed a shopping cart to wedge between the doors. He knuckle bumped me.
“Ready?”
“Yep,” I said, and we scrambled over and entered the dark supermarket.
“It’s a good idea to keep our lines of retreat clear,” he said, looking back. “Never know what – or who – you might run into.”
“The place looks desert
ed,” I replied.
“They always do,” he said, with a derisive snort as he led the way down the first aisle. “Dude, haven’t you ever played Wasteland Four?”
I grabbed an abandoned cart and we began our ‘shopping’ in earnest. We stayed away from the produce and meat sections in the last aisles, where the stench of spoiling food was strong, but found the rest of the store surprisingly well-stocked for a week after an apocalypse.
The poorly lit, messy supermarket was a little spooky at first, but Luke made it fun and we were anything but stealthy. We filled my shopping cart with cans of food, and Luke grabbed a second one. He had the presence of mind to fill his cart with as much bottled water as he could. I grabbed a 12-pack of Coke, thinking I might need something to keep me awake when I was travelling.
Of course, being kids, we also hit the candy section ... hard. We cleared entire shelves of M&Ms, Milky Ways, and Snickers (my favorite).
“So, what’s your plan once we’re stocked up?” Luke asked, as we pushed our carts toward the front doors.
“I’m not sure,” I replied. “Do you know if Canada was hit by the attack?”
“Canada’s gone man,” he said, shaking his head. “Last I heard, everything north of the Southern Mexico border had been hit.”
“Damn. So, all that’s left of United States is now made up of Hawaii, Guam, and Puerto Rico?”
“I guess so, but I don’t think the US still exists at all,” he said with a shrug. “I think this is just the North American province of China or something now.”
“How could somebody, anybody, do something like this?”
“I don’t know, man,” he said. “It’s pretty messed up.”
Fight Like Hell [America Falls Series | Books 1-6] Page 4