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by Kyle Danvers

  Ashley climbed out of the truck, pulling the shotgun and her duffel bag behind her. When her feet hit the ground, she hoisted the bag onto her shoulders, diagonally to be able to carry it and still hold the shotgun appropriately. She set off at a crouch through the tangle of abandoned cars, the gun weighty and powerful in her hands.

  “Ashley, wait,” Joel called after her, and she froze. She waited while he caught up, an awkward, lumbering mass thanks to the backpack he carried and his injured arm.

  “Stay close and follow me,” Ashley said and again set off. They crept along, dodging the fires, debris—and dead bodies—that lined the streets. Ashley did her best not to pay any attention to the bodies, nor to how deteriorated the city had become in just five days.

  She didn’t want to think about what that might mean for her father.

  The buildings and houses whipped passed in a blur as she ran from car to car, always staying low, always making sure her head never stuck out above anything else just to be safe.

  If there were gangs, they weren’t likely to be organized enough to spot someone like her and Joel running through the city, but she couldn’t be too careful. She was so close now, the last thing she needed was a run in with people like that, who would kill her for nothing more than the shoes off her feet.

  Miraculously, they reached the driveway of her father’s house without running into anyone at all. The streets were so silent that Ashley’s own feet against the pavement pounded like drums. She stood in the driveway, the shotgun dangling in her hands, unable to go any further. Her father’s old Buick was still there, untouched. Everything looked like it usually did.

  The sight of the house and her fear of what she might find inside it choked Ashley. After all the years she’d sworn she’d never come back, there she was. Ashley stood frozen in the driveway, unsure of what to do.

  Maybe he was still alive; maybe he was holed up inside and ready to shoot any intruder—including Ashley. She had to be careful, just in case, but she also couldn’t just knock on the door.

  “What do we do?” Joel whispered, looking over his shoulder.

  “I don’t know. Maybe we can go through the back door,” Ashley said, and without waiting for him, she crept around the side, staying low behind the shrubs that grew underneath the windows. If her father was alive and waiting for intruders, she didn’t want to tip him off ahead of time, didn’t want to make him think she’d come to rob him.

  It struck her for the first time that, if he was alive, she didn’t know what she would do. Would she stay with him? She’d have to, though the idea killed her in a way. What about Joel? What about Shelby? After learning about Shelby, Ashley’s relationship with Joel had changed in ways she couldn’t explain. She owed him, more than she’d realized, and she wanted to help him see his journey through.

  If he was still alive, a stodgy old man didn’t have a place in that journey, but Ashley would cross that bridge when and if she came to it.

  They reached the back door quickly, both of them crouched down in the darkness, and Ashley’s heart sank when she realized it was cracked open. A survivor like her father, someone cautious and savvy, wouldn’t have left his back door open. It could only mean one thing, but Ashley wasn’t ready for that, couldn’t face it.

  As if outside herself, she charged through the back door, the shotgun raised, ready to fire. She stood in the darkness, heaving, listening for anything. There was no sound.

  “Dad! Dad, it’s me, Ashley!” she shouted, but nothing returned to her except for the echoes of her voice.

  “Keep it down, we don’t know who’s in here,” Joel whispered, but Ashley ignored him. She ran to the most logical place, her father’s bedroom at the back of the house, and screamed.

  There he was, lying on the bed, looking peaceful except for the puddle of dried blood that had crusted on the comforter around his head. A small pistol laid on the floor next to him, where it must’ve fallen from his lifeless hand dangling over the side.

  It was impossible. It couldn’t be her father. The Bob Jenkins she knew would never have been so afraid as to take his own life, no matter how bad things had gotten. Her father was a survivor, the kind of man who’d keep going when no one else could.

  Ashley ran to him, threw herself on the bed, and held his head in her hands. His cheeks were frigid, and sobs wracked Ashley as reality took hold of her.

  Her father was dead.

  “No,” Ashley groaned, barely getting the word out through the tightness in her throat. Bob was right. Ashley should never have left for the stupid meditation retreat, should never have left him alone. She should’ve answered his texts, told him where she was and that she loved him, even if she hadn’t meant it at the time.

  If she had, if her father had known someone out there still cared about him, it might’ve been enough to keep him going.

  It was all her fault.

  “Ashley, I’m so sorry,” Joel said, but she didn’t register his words, didn’t pay them any attention. Her father was gone. She couldn’t accept it, even as she held his body in her lap.

  She sat staring down at him, at the wisps of hair he still had on the top of his head, the age spots on his hands. Ashley couldn’t believe her eyes, nor her hands. It wasn’t possible.

  “Ashley,” Joel hissed, his voice distant and irritating like the buzzing of an insect in her ear. “Ashley! We need to go!” he shouted, and she jolted back into reality, away from her memories.

  A rustling sound carried in from outside and shouts from people who weren’t Joel, but Ashley was frozen. She couldn’t tear herself away from her father, couldn’t stand the idea of walking away from him, even though there was nothing she could do.

  Ashley had failed him, yet again. She couldn’t make him happy as his daughter, couldn’t be the patriot he wanted her to be, and she couldn’t protect him when he needed her most.

  Her world spun, one giant blur, as her emotions bundled in her chest. She fell back on the bed, letting her father go, for the last time, and turned to find a small group of armed men pouring through the front door of the house.

  Ashley reached for the shotgun on the bed beside her but froze when a shout rang through the house.

  “Don’t fucking move! Hands up, assholes,” someone called. A man in a tank top stepped slowly inside the bedroom, a rifle raised and aimed in his hands. He turned and nodded at his friends to come forward, and Ashley spotted a devil shaved into the back of his hair.

  So they were a gang then. El Diablo, is that what they called themselves? It would explain the devil and the sign they’d seen outside the city limits.

  “What do you want?” Joel asked, his hands raised, his pistol still inside his good hand.

  “Shut the fuck up,” the guy spat, aiming his rifle at Joel as his friends came into the room. “Pat this one down, he’s got a mouth on him,” he said, nodding at Joel. “Drop the gun,” he commanded, and Joel kneeled slowly to lay the pistol down on the carpet.

  “You on the bed, get away from the shotty,” the man said, aiming his rifle at Ashley as his friends searched Joel. “Stand up. Slowly.”

  Ashley did as she was told, holding her hands up to make sure the man didn’t think she was trying anything funny. The only way they might get out of this alive would be if they played it smart.

  Satisfied with their search of Joel, the two other men came to Ashley next, wearing smiles. Each of them were missing teeth, and they smelled worse than a sewer. Ashley refused to let anything other than strength show on her face as they searched her, their hands touching parts of her they had no business touching, lingering too long.

  Ashley couldn’t prove it, but these men, this gang, must’ve had something to do with the death of her father. What else would have pushed him over the edge, made him do something irrevocable like he’d done?

  She’d kill them, every one of them, as soon as she saw the opportunity.

  “They look like they’d be good,” one of the men said to the a
pparent leader. Good for what? Ashley chanced eye contact with Joel, and he shook his head almost imperceptibly as if he were begging her not to do whatever he thought she might do.

  “Then tie and load ‘em up,” the leader said, and Ashley’s heart jumped. Load them up? What kind of sick racket were these thugs running?

  Smirking, one of the two lackeys pulled a coil of rope out of his back pocket and forced Ashley’s hands down in front of her.

  “Who are you?” Ashley asked as the rope dug into her wrists, winding far tighter than was necessary.

  “None of your fucking business,” the leader snapped, charging forward to rest the point of the rifle underneath Ashley’s chin. “And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll stop asking stupid questions.”

  “Move,” one of the lackeys said, shoving Ashley forward. Her hands were bound, tied tightly together, but she wasn’t afraid. With a gun jabbed into her back, she walked through the front door.

  On the street outside a pickup truck sat idling, empty. The lackeys led her to the back of the truck and opened the bed.

  “Get in,” one said, prodding her with the gun.

  “I can’t climb up without my hands. I need to turn around and sit,” Ashley said. Joel appeared in her peripheral vision, his eyes wide, still begging her not to try anything. What else could she do? She wasn’t going to let these thugs take her and Joel away to whatever hell they had in mind.

  The second lackey pointed his gun at the back of Joel’s head.

  “Fine. But if you so much as breathe the wrong way, your boy loses his head. Got it?” he asked.

  “Got it,” Ashley said and slowly turned around. She crouched until the open bed of the truck met the back of her legs, then pulled them up into the truck along with the rest of her.

  “Your turn,” the guy said to Joel. Joel did the same, and when he was all the way inside, the two grunts climbed in after them and closed the bed. They sat on either side of the truck, on the upper part of the bed so they could look down on Ashley and Joel. Their leader walked to the cabin and got behind the wheel, slamming the door closed behind him. He tapped the glass with his rifle and the two others nodded.

  The truck lurched into gear, and they rolled down the street toward a cul-de-sac. The man sitting across from Ashley stared at her, smiling, and winked. Ashley’s skin crawled. Where were they going? It didn’t make any sense. Why hadn’t these goons just killed them, taken their supplies, and went on their way?

  They circled the dead end and turned around, back out toward the main street of the neighborhood—and to what else Ashley could only guess—but she had no intention of finding out. With her back to the other guy, she’d get one chance before he blew her away with the pistol in his hand, so she needed to get Joel on the same page.

  Ashley locked eyes with him, pointed her eyes upward to indicate the man behind her, and met Joel’s gaze again. He furrowed his brows. He seemed to have understood what she was suggesting—but didn’t want any part of it.

  But if she made the first move, Joel would have no choice but to join her. Otherwise, they’d both be dead. The truck gained speed, swerving and dodging the crap and cars that littered the road. The two thugs sat watching the world whip by and Ashley saw her one opportunity.

  She leaped to her feet and ran forward, colliding with the man across the truck from her. He sprawled and fell backward, tumbling across the asphalt as the truck left him in the dust. Shouts filled Ashley’s ears as she collapsed on the bed of the truck, the air knocked from her lungs.

  A gunshot rang out, making her ears ring, and she flinched, her eyes squeezed shut. When she opened them again moments later, she found Joel lying beside her, holding out his hands to her to have her untie him. He must’ve knocked the other man off the truck too, and that meant they only had to deal with the driver.

  Ashley rolled to her side to lift her hands and desperately fiddled with Joel’s rope as the truck swerved. Had the driver not realized his friends were gone or did he just not care? Ashley freed Joel in a matter of seconds and waited with bated breath as he untied her.

  “Now what?” Joel asked over the howling wind.

  “We take out the driver,” Ashley said.

  “How? We don’t have any weapons, and he’s got a rifle in there,” Joel said.

  “Leave it to me,” Ashley said and reached into the front pocket of her jeans. The key to her Topaz was still there. It wouldn’t help her in the slightest in a gunfight, but that’s why it couldn’t come to that. It was sharp enough that it could do significant damage—if she hit the right target.

  “Distract him. Beat on the window or something,” Ashley said, showing Joel the key. He looked at her like she was crazy, and maybe she was, but they were out of weapons and out of options.

  Crouching, Joel went to the pane of glass separating the bed of the truck from the cabin and beat on it with his fist. The driver whirled, saw Joel, and slammed on the brakes, sending he and Ashley tumbling forward.

  Ashley jumped back to her feet, ran to the driver’s side of the truck and reached through the window for the man’s throat. He howled, reaching back to try and grab her, and as he flailed, Ashley rammed the point of the key into his left eye and twisted it.

  His blood and screams filled the cabin, and the truck lurched to the left, heading straight for a ditch as the man went limp.

  “Jump!” Ashley screamed and leaped over the side, rolling across the pavement like a stone. The truck crashed into the ditch but stayed upright, and when Ashley got her bearings, she sat up and found Joel a few feet further down the road, groaning but alive.

  Gunshots rang out from behind them, and Ashley turned to find the two other thugs running down the street toward them, very much still alive.

  Ashley stood and ran to Joel, despite the pain in her limbs from the fall. They had to get to the truck and get the hell out of there, and they had to do it before the gang members caught them.

  She pulled Joel up by his good hand and, their arms wrapped around each other’s shoulders, they ran for the truck, Ashley catching Joel each time he stumbled, shoving him back to his feet.

  They reached the truck and Ashley threw the driver’s side door open. The leader’s body slumped out of the seat and fell to the grass below. Joel climbed inside the passenger door, and Ashley sat down in the driver’s seat. She put the truck in reverse and slammed on the gas, sending the vehicle bounding backward out of the ditch.

  When they were back on the street, she rammed the gear into drive and stomped on the gas again. The truck roared and peeled away, swerving left and right as Ashley desperately wiped at the blood on the windshield with her sleeve.

  They’d lost their things, lost their weapons, but they were free, and there was only one place left for them to go: Los Angeles.

  23

  Joel was home.

  Finally, after days spent wandering the streets, fighting for his life to get back to his family, he was home. As they pulled up the road toward his house, Joel held his breath. Anxiety riddled him, making his heart pound so hard it hurt.

  For as long as he’d been dreaming of this moment, he couldn’t prepare himself for it. How could he? Everything he’d done had been for this, for his family, and he didn’t know what he would do if he came home to anything other than their smiling faces.

  The street was dead, save for the typical abandoned cars, the discarded possessions and left behind pieces of clothing. As they pulled up the hill, toward the house, Joel could barely contain himself. If it hadn't been such a climb, he would've run the rest of the way. At the top of the hill, he brought the truck to a stop.

  There were two bodies in the street, lying face down, their blood staining the pavement. Joel’s heart leaped up into his throat, and for a moment, he believed he might find the worst. He jumped out of the truck and ran to the bodies, rolled one of them over, and realized with relief he had no idea who the person was.

  But they were right across the stree
t from his house. The brick exterior stood stark against the backdrop of the twilight, and just the sight of the home gave Joel hope—something he hadn’t felt in days, not since he’d left for what could easily have been the last time.

  The front door was open, and the oversized window in the living room lay in shards on the grass. What if the same gang they'd run into in Ventura had torn through the suburbs of LA already? What if Shelby, Cass, and Nate were sitting in the back of a truck on their way to the same hellish place the gang had tried to take he and Ashley to for God only knew what purpose?

  Chills ran down Joel’s spine, and he ran toward the house, not listening to anything that Ashley screamed from behind him. It didn’t matter. If anything had happened to his family, if all this had been for nothing, then he would’ve been happy to be gunned down.

  But he refused to believe that the same fate had befallen his family that'd happened to Ashley’s. Joel came to a halt in the main entrance of the house, crunching on the glass from the front window, and tried to catch his breath. He was crazed, couldn’t think straight, but there was no one around.

  A cold draft from outside blew through the open window and door, giving Joel another case of chills.

  “Cass! Nate! Shelby!” Joel shouted, his voice echoing back to him. There was no answer, not that he expected one, but the silence gave no comfort. Maybe they were hiding somewhere, locked up in their bedrooms, waiting for him to come home and save them.

  He dashed up the stairs, taking them two and three at a time until he reached the top stair, which squeaked under his weight. All the bedroom doors were open, including his own, and Joel’s voice caught in his throat as he let out a groan.

  He slammed the door out of his way as he charged into Nate’s room. His bed was there, unmade as usual, but Nate wasn’t. The same was true of Cass’s bedroom, as was the case for his bedroom. The bed Joel had shared with his wife, with Shelby, was pristine. The sheets were unwrinkled, folded neatly at each of the corners the way Shelby liked them. It was as if this one bedroom had been trapped in time, immune and removed from all the chaos outside.