by T. L. Payne
Jacob jumped the man from behind, placing his forearm around the man’s massive neck. The behemoth slung Jacob to the ground in front of him and kicked him in the ribs with a large work boot. Jacob grunted and curled into a ball on the floor just feet from Zach.
The man stepped over Jacob and was just about to grab Zach when Chief Baker and a sheriff’s deputy stepped into the room.
“Freeze! Hands in the air. Step away from the kids. Do it now. Get your hands up. Do it now,” the deputy barked, his taser raised and pointed at the man.
The other men at the man's table stood and backed away. The big guy raised his hands, but his gaze remained fixed on Zach.
“I said back away from the kid. Do it now, or I will taze you.”
Something came from Zach’s mouth that shocked even him.
“I’m sorry I disrespected you by rolling my eyes. My dad raised me better than that.”
The man’s gaze dropped to Zach’s bag lying on the ground next to his feet. Zach looked down at his dad’s Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal pinned to the strap of his pack. The man raised his head in an acknowledging nod and backed away while keeping his hands in the air.
Chief Baker rushed over and placed handcuffs on the man. He did not resist. They escorted him out of the building.
Connor milked his injury for all it was worth with the girls. Jacob sat with his arms folded across his chest. His head down. Zach tried to tell him he had nothing to be ashamed of being beat by the man. The guy was at least one hundred pounds heavier than Jacob. But Zach realized he only had made it worse. They sat together on a pew in the sanctuary looking glum.
“Why did you apologize to that asshole, Zach?” Jacob asked, breaking the silence.
“I don’t know. It surprised me too after I said it. I just—well, I saw his tattoo, and I thought of my dad.”
“What tattoo?”
“As he raised his massive forearm, I saw he had the Marine Corps’ eagle, globe, and anchor insignia tattooed on his bicep. My dad had one similar.”
“Yeah, but he was just about to wrap that big Marine Corps eagle, globe, and anchor around your scrawny neck and pop that ugly mug off your shoulders with it,” Jacob laughed.
“I know. Sheesh, that was intense.”
A loud explosion shook the church, startling Zach and Jacob. Jacob jumped to his feet, and Zach followed him as they rushed to look out the window. The two deputies who were guarding the church to keep the travelers in were now pointing shotguns at a group of town residents. They could hear raised voices but could not make out what the men were yelling.
The door flew open, and Chief Baker appeared.
“Everyone get downstairs to the basement. Now! Go, go, go,” he yelled, waving his hands wildly.
Mothers grabbed their children, and an elderly couple struggled to get to the door through the crowd of people. Most of Zach’s class just stood staring at the Chief, stunned by the explosion.
Mr. Dean and the other teachers ran around grabbing students by the arms and pushing them toward the door to the basement. Instead of heading toward the basement, Zach, Jacob, and Connor ran over to the door. The deputies were fighting back a growing crowd of residents gathered outside the church.
“We want them gone, Sheriff. You said they’d be gone today, and they are still here—and now someone done broke into my home and stole my rifle.
"Margrette’s little girl said a man snuck into her room last night,” a man waving a bat called out.
“He ain't gonna be breaking into any other little girls’ rooms cause he’s lying on my back porch with some new air holes in his belly,” a short man in bib overalls yelled.
“You folks all just need to calm down. There are women and kids in that church. You people don’t want to traumatize a bunch of already scared little ones, do you?” the sheriff said, waving his arms over his head.
The crowd all turned in unison as the big tour bus rounded the corner and pulled up in front of the church. The group stepped back and let the bus pull forward.
“All right, folks, as you can see their bus is here and they’ll be leaving soon, so why don’t all you fine folks just go back to your houses and let us get them on their way?”
The sign on the bus read, “Red Cross.” Zach had expected it to say, “FEMA.” Zach wondered for a moment how they had working buses when no one else did. A second bus arrived as the first bus was pulling away from the church. They had boarded the families with small children and the elderly first. Zach and his class would fill an entire bus alone, so they would be the last ones picked up.
Zach had a funny feeling about getting on the bus and losing control of where he went. He debated with himself about heading out on his own. It was the angry look on the faces of the residents that convinced him to stay with his class. People had already developed an "us vs. them" mentality.
Getting home by himself, having to walk through towns just like this one, would be dangerous. He could use back roads and go around cities, but without a weapon to defend himself, he would still be at the mercy of anyone wanting to take his pack or hurt him for sport.
Zach boarded the last bus filled with his classmates and teachers and took a seat near the driver. As it pulled away from the church, Zach hoped it would head toward St. Louis and home.
Chapter 16
The Old Plank Road Trail
Southwest of Chicago, Illinois
Event +2 days
After scavenging a few outbuildings and the house near Mannheim Street, Maddie and Emma had a jar of peanut butter and a package of crackers to share between them. They jogged toward the trailhead of the Old Plank Road Trail, turned right, and headed west toward Joliet.
Maddie had to keep reminding herself to match Emma’s pace. She explained to Emma the rhythmic breathing technique that her running coach had taught her.
“Alternating footfalls and exhales helps prevent too much repetitive force on your joints and helps control your breathing,” Maddie explained.
Her dad had used a similar technique when he had run with her, but his included his military cadence calls.
By the time they passed a row of houses that abutted the trail, they were running at a good pace. Maddie heard children playing. As they drew closer, a group of kids maybe eight or ten years old were playing in a yard. As she and Emma approached them, everything appeared quite normal. Maddie thought perhaps the lights were on here.
“Hey, kids, did your lights come back on yet?” Maddie asked, slowing her pace to a jog.
“Nope,” said a sandy-haired boy holding a basketball in his hands.
Two little kids sat in a sandbox having a tug-of-war over a dump truck.
“I’m gonna tell Momma,” the smaller of the two said.
“Momma ain’t here, dumbass,” said the older boy with the ball.
“Did your parents make it home?” Maddie asked.
“Nope. Jeremy’s dad said that when the lights went out, all the cars stopped working. So, I guess Momma can’t get home until the lights come back on.”
Maddie nodded her head and gave them a wave as she picked up her pace. Two doors down, a gruff male voice called out behind then.
“Hey, pretty ladies. Where you girls running off too?”
Maddie patted the pocket knife in the pouch under her left arm, grabbed Emma’s hand and increased her pace. Maddie turned her head to her side to check on Emma. She was pumping her arms and breathing through her mouth. She returned Maddie’s concerned look.
Visions of the young girl being yanked off her feet by the men back by the dumpsters made her heart rate soar. She could feel she was reaching her upper limit. She was not properly hydrated and lacked the energy to push much harder. Emma was no doubt struggling even harder. Maddie started counting out loud to gage her ability to speak and breathe.
“Count out loud with me, Emma.”
Emma was having difficulty speaking. It was uncomfortable for Maddie, but she was still able to tal
k while she ran. They couldn’t slow down yet. Not with creeper dude back there.
When they reached a point where Maddie felt they had put enough distance between them and the man, she slowed her pace and returned to her rhythmic breathing. She was experiencing the after-effects of pushing too hard. She popped a couple of sports beans in her mouth and was relieved when she felt the caffeine kick in. She slowed and handed Emma a few sports beans and a flask of water from her pack.
The trail crossed over a city street, and Maddie instinctually slowed down and looked both ways to check for traffic.
At the city of Joliet, Maddie and Emma stepped onto the railroad tracks and crossed through town. It was much quieter than the streets in Chicago and its suburbs. Maddie spotted a roadblock of cop cars down one street and picked up the pace.
After crossing the Des Plaines River on the railroad bridge, Maddie and Emma continued walking south on the rail bed. They took a water and bathroom break at the trailhead before picking up the Illinois-Michigan Canal Trail on the southwest side of town.
The trail ran along side of the Illinois-Michigan Canal. It looked like a creek to Maddie. Parts of the path were paved for a while until the path turned to crushed stone.
Trees, bushes, and tall grasses lined each side of the trail. The girls stopped in a heavily wooded area and took another bathroom break. Maddie checked their water supply and gave Emma her last flask. She handed her a packet of energy gel and several sports beans. Maddie popped several in her mouth, took the last sip from her water bladder, and got back on the trail. Maddie set a slower pace, knowing they were short on water. She was surprised that Emma never complained about the speed. Her feet must have been hurting by that time.
As they ran, Maddie’s breathing slowed and her mind drifted to school and her boyfriend, Lane. He had been there when she had crossed the finish line at the New Hampshire 100 on Labor Day. It had been three in the morning when she had finished the race, and she’d smelled wretched and must have looked her worst, but he grabbed her up in a big hug, anyway. She liked him. There was a lot to like. Handsome, funny, and he supported her running. She wondered where he was and if the power was out on campus. Was there rioting and looting there?
She thought of her brother on the interstate with his class. Had they left the McDonald’s before the lights went out?
Probably not, they had just got there.
She had just received Zach’s text that he was in line for food before everything went dark.
Her mom was at her grandmothers. They were far enough away from any commercial districts back in their residential subdivision that if there was looting, it would not be near them. She did not know if her grandmother had passed away. How would they bury her if the power were out there? How was Mom going to get home? At least she and Zach were within a few days walking distance from home. But her mom—she was too far away.
An explosion behind her made Maddie turn just enough to throw her off balance. She lunged forward, landing first on the palms of her hands, gravel burrowing into her skin. Then her face bounced hard off the surface of the gravel path.
Sound was compressed, as if her head was inside a rubber ball, just before her vision faded to black.
Chapter 17
Grundy County, Illinois
Event + 2 days
Kelly knocked on the door of the old farmhouse. The rhythmic clack, clack, clack of Grandpa Goff’s walker increased in volume as the old man crept closer to the door.
The clacking stopped and the door slowly creaked open.
“What the hell do you want?” Grandpa Goff said, his wrinkled, weathered hand on the screen door handle, holding it closed.
Kelly looked down when his grandfather turned the lock on the knob.
He wasn’t welcome here—but not for anything he’d done directly. It was a matter of guilt by association. He hadn’t been the one who’d stolen his grandmother’s pain pills when she was on hospice for cancer. That had been his brother.
“I just wanted to check on you. The electric is out in town and phones don’t work. I wanted to make sure you were okay. See if you needed anything.”
“Since when do you give a shit about me. What the hell do you want? I ain’t got no drugs, so you might as well be on your way,” Grandpa Goff said, stepping back and turning his walker around.
“Grandpa, I’m not Carl. I don’t do drugs. I never took nothing from you—ever. I really did just come by to check on you. See if you need anything. I know the well pump won’t work without electric—and the microwave neither.”
“Yeah, so what? What the hell you gonna do about it?” he asked, turning back toward the door.
“I could draw you up some water from the old spring and boil it for drinking. Grandma had me do that once when the storm blew that big oak tree over and the power went out. Then, I could chop you up some firewood for the cook stove on the back porch. At least you could heat some soup if you wanted.”
Kelly’s grandmother had been raised during the great depression. When his grandfather built the farmhouse, she had insisted on a cooking porch, as she called it. It was a screened-in porch off the kitchen that held a large wood cook stove and a long, cast iron, double-drain board sink for her summer canning.
“You wanna do that for me—but what do you want in return?” his grandfather asked. The scowl on his face ripped at Kelly’s heart.
Kelly fought the urge to fidget. It was his tell. Carl had helpfully tried to train him not to fidget by smacking him on the back of the head when it happened, but the method didn’t produce much success. Kelly was mindfully concentrating to ensure he’d get it right this time. Besides, he did want to help Grandpa. They used to be close—before his grandmother died, anyway. Grandma and Grandpa Goff had raised Carl and Kelly until their mother was released from prison. Kelly had been eight and Carl had been fourteen years old then.
“I don’t want nothing, I swear. I’ll just go fetch you some wood and water and be on my way. You don’t even have to speak to me if you don’t want to,” Kelly said, with a genuine hitch in his throat.
It had hurt him when he hadn’t been welcomed in the house after his grandmother passed. Everyone on his mom’s side of the family treated him like he was the druggie. But Kelly was just trying to keep his little family together. He didn’t find it as easy to throw away family members as they did. Yes, his mother and brother were junkies, but they were still family.
“You didn’t just throw away family,” Grandma had said, when they’d talked about his mom and dad. She understood, but the rest of her family did not.
“Well go on, then. Get the water and wood, then get the hell off my property.”
“I’ll need the key to the barn so I can get the wheeler out.”
“Wait here while I fetch it,” Grandpa Goff said, turning and shutting the door.
He had done it. At least Carl would be proud of him.
Carl rolled the ancient wooden door open as light flooded into the barn. Kelly doubted the four-wheeler would start on the first try. He doubted it had been started in years. The battery was likely dead and the gas was old.
Carl walked over and flipped the machine’s power switch on before swinging a leg over the seat. He turned the key and, to Kelly’s surprise, the engine not only turned over, but also ran smoothly.
“Hook up the trailer,” Carl called over the noise of the motor.
Kelly manually pulled the small trailer over, put the hitch down over the ball of the ATV, and cross-hooked the trailer chains to the receiver. Carl revved the engine and pulled through the doors of the barn. Kelly pulled the barn door closed and hopped into the bed of the trailer.
Kelly hopped off at the back of the house. When Carl looked back and saw him standing next to the well, he circled back around.
“What the hell are you doing? We have to go.”
“I said I’d get grandpa wood and water. I’m gonna do that. It won’t take twenty minutes, then I’ll meet up with you wher
e we planned.”
Kelly never stood up to his brother. It usually didn’t end well if he tried, and he hadn’t expected this time to be any different, but this was something he had to do.
“All right, but hurry. We got shit to do,” Carl said, accelerating toward the road.
Kelly stacked the split wood just inside the door of the back porch and put some thinner sticks into the firebox on the old cook stove. His grandma loved cooking on that stove. She said she preferred it to the new electric range she had in her modern kitchen, as she called it.
He thought, if the lights stayed off too long, maybe he’d come back and maybe stay with Grandpa for a while. He needed more help getting water and wood, so perhaps Grandpa wouldn’t turn him away next time. He doubted Grandpa would allow Carl to stay, but Carl had plans that didn’t appear to include staying at Grandpa’s anyway.
“Gramps, I lit the firebox and boiled a stock pot full of water. It is cooling on to the counter in the kitchen next to the sink,” Kelly said, poking his head into the sitting room at the front of the house.
“You want I should warm you a bowl of soup or something?”
“Nah, I ain’t hungry right yet. I’ll get some later.”
A box of crackers and a jar of peanut butter were set on a television tray next to the recliner his grandfather sat in.
“Okay then. I’ll come back in a day or two and check on you—see if you need some more water and wood.”
Kelly turned to go but stopped with his hand on the door knob. He looked back at the room. It hadn’t changed a bit since his childhood. Their baby pictures still hung on the wall down the hall to his grandparents' bedroom. The fireplace mantle still held his grandmother’s handmade doilies. The same quilt was draped over the back of the sofa that his grandmother had laid on the last time he saw her.