Fallen Earth | Book 1 | Remnants

by Morrow, Jason D.

  She went back into the kitchen then to the living room and sat on the sofa. She would wait until her dad came home and he would be able to explain everything. If there was one advantage to being the daughter of the sheriff, it was being one of the first people to know what was going on. He would tell her about arrests. He would tell her about road closures. He would eventually tell her why the power was out, even if it was for some mundane reason. She didn’t admit it to him, but she liked it when he offered all the details. It made her feel special to know things before everyone else did.

  Gwen’s head jerked to the side when she heard a noise outside the front door. She knew it wasn’t her dad since the cruiser hadn’t pulled into the driveway.

  Her shoulders tensed and she barely breathed as she tried to listen. She couldn’t place the noise. It had sounded like someone was walking in the gravel driveway, but she couldn’t see anyone.

  Someone pounded on the front door. Five rapid knocks. A pause. Five more knocks.

  Gwen’s throat felt tight. She didn’t know what time it was, but it was late. Too late to be having visitors. She thought about the gun under her dad’s bed, wondering if she should at least have it with her.

  The pounding continued. She thought about peeking through the window next to the door, but she decided against it, not wanting the visitor to see her.

  “Sheriff!” It was a man’s voice. “Sheriff, I need your help!”

  Gwen had grown up hearing some terrible stories from her dad. Some, he had told her, some, she had heard while she was supposed to be in bed but decided to stay up and listen anyway. She remembered several where someone had feigned needing help, and at the end of the story, someone else ended up dead.

  Instead of going to the door, she headed straight for her dad’s bedroom. She reached under the mattress and pulled out a Colt 1911. She pulled out the magazine and confirmed it was loaded.

  Gwen actually hated guns, but Leland West was not going to have a daughter who didn’t know how to use one. She couldn’t count the number of times he had taken her shooting, particularly with this gun. There was a bit of recoil to it, but nothing she couldn’t handle.

  She wasn’t always so paranoid, but at what had to be around three in the morning and being in the house by herself, she wasn’t going to answer the door without protection. And if it was someone who really needed her dad, she didn’t feel right about turning them away either.

  The knocking echoed through the house as Gwen made her way to the front door. She paused for a moment to calm her nerves. She cocked the gun, then hid it behind her back as she reached for the lock, then she opened the door just a crack.

  Tension left her face and shoulders when she saw it was Jack Tinsley, the grocer. She didn’t know the man well, but he had a reputation for being nice to everyone. Of course, Gwen had heard all the stories about seemingly nice people, too. So many of the homicides happened to and by nice people.

  “Hi Gwen, sorry to bother you so late. Is your dad around?”

  She hesitated to answer, but she decided she was being crazy and had no rational reason to lie to the man.

  “He’s out,” she said as though it was normal for him to be out in the middle of the night.

  “Dealing with what’s going on in the streets?”

  “Huh? What do you mean?”

  “Someone threw a brick through my grocery store window, and now there are people ransacking the place. I heard crashing glass in other stores down the street, too. I would have called, but the phone lines are down. Everything is down!”

  “Yeah, I know,” Gwen said. “Ransacking the place?”

  “I didn’t get a good look at them, because I didn’t know if they were dangerous. So, I thought I would come here. I bet it’s the McClures again.”

  Gwen shook her head. “Dad’s not here. I honestly don’t know where he went. He was here when I went to bed, but when I got up the power was off and he was gone.”

  “Maybe he responded to a call and got stranded,” Jack said. “My car wouldn’t even start. When I say everything is down, I mean everything.”

  Gwen watched him, his worried look, his tired eyes. Nervous fingers tightened around her pistol. It wasn’t Jack now. It was the whole situation with her dad gone.

  “I’ll tell him what you told me when he gets back,” she said. “And I will call him the moment my cell phone turns back on or we get power.”

  “This is all very strange,” Jack said, no longer looking at Gwen. He scratched the top of his head. “It just seems like someone is trying to take advantage of a big power outage and they’re going to get away with it.”

  “If I know Leland West,” Gwen said, “no one is getting away with anything.”

  “Well, he has to be here to stop it, and he’s not.” There was a hint of bitterness to Jack’s words, but Gwen figured it was just out of frustration.

  “Goodnight,” she said, closing the door.

  She sighed and locked the door, then set the gun on the kitchen counter. People throwing bricks through windows? Ransacking the place? That didn’t seem like Hope at all. Even the McClures, who had made a name for themselves by causing trouble, wouldn’t do something like that. Although her dad had just locked up one of them today, she remembered.

  She tapped a finger on the counter, unsure of what to do. Part of her wanted to go back to bed and let her dad deal with it when he got back. But again, something just didn’t feel right about this. It was so strange, so foreign to this little town. There had been power outages before, sure, but looting? That didn’t make any sense to her. And where was her dad? Why were cars not starting? If something was wrong with all the cars, her dad could be stranded anywhere.

  She went back to her dad’s room and grabbed his spare set of keys off the dresser. The sheriff’s office was just a couple of blocks away. She hadn’t thought to ask if Jack had checked for her dad there, but she was curious enough to make the hike.

  She put on a pair of shoes and tied back her hair, then she grabbed the gun off the counter. She made sure the safety was on and tucked it into the large pocket on the front of her hoodie, then slipped out the back door.

  If there was any ruckus happening downtown with the shops or grocery store, she couldn’t hear it from here, and she probably wouldn’t hear it from the sheriff’s office. Still, the dark streets, normally lit by orange glowing lights, felt strange. The moon and the stars shined unusually bright in the sky.

  The cold air nipped at her face, and she folded her arms over her chest as she walked. When she got to the sheriff’s office, she found the parking spaces empty. She looked in every direction before going to the door, slipping in the key, and going inside. She locked the door behind her and made her way to her dad’s desk.

  The office was small and nothing special. It reminded her of the old reruns of The Andy Griffith Show, where it was one big open room with a jail cell on the other side. Only Andy’s sheriff’s office was a lot nicer. Her dad’s office had water-stained ceiling tiles and grimy walls. Residue and condensation collected between the windowpanes, and the floor was a brown tile, though she wasn’t sure it had always been brown. At some point in history, someone was proud of this building, this room. It was the room for their sheriff, their protector. It only takes a few decades before people stop caring so much—before budgets dry up or are allocated to more important things.

  Gwen nearly screamed when she heard a grunting noise from the other side of the room near the jail cell. The grunt was followed by soft snores.

  She walked to one of the large windows, looking through one of the few remaining clear spots toward Main Street. It was hard to make out anything with the streetlights out.

  “Didn’t expect such a pretty visitor.”

  Gwen jumped and looked toward the jail cell. She hadn’t noticed that the snores had stopped and the man was standing next to the bars. He was probably a year or two older than she was. High school dropout. Lived a mile up the road. When the
McClures were mentioned, it was rarely connected to a pleasant story. It typically had something to do with drugs, alcohol, vandalism, or a fight.

  The man in the cell was Bryson McClure. Gwen had lost count how many times her dad had picked him up for something, throwing him into the cell for petty crimes.

  “Have you seen my dad?” she asked.

  “Well, he put me here.” He grinned at his own joke.

  “I mean have you seen him recently? Something bad is happening and I need to get a hold of him.”

  “Can’t you just call him?”

  “No,” she said, not offering an explanation.

  Bryson rubbed his arms and yawned. “Cold in here, isn’t it?”

  “The power is out,” Gwen said.

  “You wanna come in here and keep me warm? The bed’s big enough for two.”

  Gwen glared at him. “My dad would actually shoot you. And that’s just for hitting on me.”

  Bryson snickered and was about to say something when a loud crash interrupted him. Glass shattered to the floor and Gwen yelled, jumping back. Everything happened so quickly, she could barely comprehend what was going on.

  The door smashed open, and laughter erupted all around her. She brought her pistol up, but since she didn’t know who was coming in, she didn’t have the confidence to fire. That lack of confidence, that hesitation, was all the intruders needed. One in the group saw her immediately and charged her, knocking her to the ground while her gun fell from her grip.

  When her back hit the ground, she gasped for air, but it wouldn’t enter her lungs. She felt like she had just been hit by a truck.

  “Look at this!”

  “Oh, jackpot!”

  “She’s pretty.”

  Someone pulled her up by the hair, and she was on her knees, staring up at four men, darkness shrouding their faces. She gasped, finally getting enough air in her lungs. The darkness didn’t hide her enemy’s clothing.

  Jumpsuits from Lone Oak Prison.

  “Oh look, a gun!”

  She was about to say something, but before the words could come out, one of them hit her in the side of the head and she was knocked out cold.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Leland had seen Lone Oak Prison countless times on his drives through the county. From this distance, he should have been able to see guard tower lights, windows, cars in the parking lot. Instead, he saw nothing but a building shrouded in darkness where only the edges visible by the flooding moonlight.

  Henry had been right. At least, he may have been right. Just because there wasn’t any power to the prison didn’t mean any of the prisoners had gotten out. Leland had reminded Henry that the prison would have been on lockdown after they had discovered him missing. Henry didn’t say anything, probably wanting to hold on to the hope of a jailbreak. At least then, Leland wouldn’t have a good reason to take him back to that hellhole.

  Leland glanced at Henry in the darkness, seeing just a hint of anticipation in the young prisoner’s face.

  Leland would have to watch him. If there had been a prison break, Henry could make a run for it, meet up with one of his friends, and get away for good. Although if there had been a prison break, Henry’s escape was the least of Leland’s worries. Would the prisoners know that law enforcement was just as disabled and broken as the lights in the prison? If they made that connection, some of them would head straight for Hope. They could vandalize, loot, kill. Leland would be the town’s line of defense against such a force. Of course, that depended on the number of inmates he might have to face. Lone Oak held hundreds of criminals. If even a tenth of them made their way to Hope, he wouldn’t be able to do anything. His best bet at that point would be to sneak in and get Gwen.

  A larger fear grew inside Leland. If the prisoners had broken free, that meant there was one man who would be out looking for him.

  Jim Savage.

  Leland’s short history with Savage hadn’t been a lot different than how he had caught Henry Tash. Leland had trusted his gut and figured out where Savage was hiding.

  To the public, to the news, to everyone who didn’t normally lock their doors at night, the capture had been the highlight of Leland’s career. To Leland, it had been the worst night of his career.

  The story was covered in its entirety, but the media mostly glossed over the fact that Leland had accidentally killed Savage’s daughter.

  I didn’t know she was there. I couldn’t have known.

  Still, he felt guilty and ashamed, and he hated it when the people of Hope and the newspapers from all over Wisconsin lavished him with praise.

  The night had ended with Savage in cuffs. Pictures in the paper showed a man with tears streaming down his face like he was disappointed he’d been caught. Leland knew it was because he was mourning his daughter.

  Leland had a clipping of that newspaper in his desk at home to remind him that his job carried consequences. Sometimes good. Sometimes awful.

  The headline read: Sheriff of Hope Apprehends Savage.

  Leland recognized the play on words—some journalist sitting at his desk with a smirk on his face thinking he was so clever for the headline. The large picture on the front showed the grieving man’s face as he was being pushed down into a patrol vehicle. Lower down in the article was a small picture of Leland, the picture taken for county records, grinning like an idiot.

  Mere seconds after that picture had been taken, Savage pulled himself up from the car, causing quite a stir. But he had just wanted to get a word in to Leland, a promise: “One day I’m getting out, and I will find you…I will kill you. If you have family, I will kill them too!”

  Someone could have taken the words as a mourning father. Empty threats. For a solid year, the words haunted him. Then, things got a little easier. He thought of it less often. But the promise had remained in the back of his mind. When Leland had gotten word of the escape late last night, his stomach had dropped and he thought perhaps it had been Savage. When the report came in that it was Henry Tash, he was relieved.

  But now, with the possibility of an entire prison breakout, the fear churned in his stomach again.

  “We need to get closer,” Leland said, and he pushed Henry to move quickly, faster than they had moved all night.

  He could already be too late. If the prisoners had gotten out, they could have already trekked the five miles to town.

  Leland subconsciously edged to the side of the road as though he would be able to hide in the ditch if they came up on a group of prisoners.

  There were a lot of stories about Savage—crimes that weren’t even brought up in his trial. He was actually in prison for the death of three people, but the true number of victims was much more than that. Some threw out the number twenty-seven. Leland had even read somewhere that he could have been responsible for more than a hundred murders over the years. Whatever the case, Leland took the man at his word when he said he would kill him and his family.

  The closer they got to the prison, the more Leland realized he wouldn’t be taking Henry there, and the more he wondered if it was worth it taking Henry to Hope with him. He also noticed Henry getting more nervous. He looked all around him constantly, almost as if he were expecting someone to jump out at them from the side of the road. Leland supposed it wasn’t the craziest scenario, considering how the night had gone, and he tightened his grip on his shotgun.

  When they got near the road leading to the prison, Leland had the two of them hunker down behind a row of wild bushes near the ditch. They took a moment to catch their breaths. He could hear voices in the darkness, but couldn’t make out what they were saying so he couldn’t tell if they were guards or if they were prisoners.

  “Why don’t you just let me go now?” Henry whispered. “Taking me in doesn’t get you anything.”

  Leland raised an eyebrow at him though he wasn’t sure Henry could see his expression under the moonlight.

  They held for a minute or two, waiting to see if the voices would move on or
if they were going to stay. Finally, Leland pulled Henry up by his arm and whispered, “Let’s see what happens.”

  Henry tried to protest but stopped as they started moving forward. Leland could only see silhouettes, three of them, under the shadow of trees, and when they had heard Leland and Henry approaching, they stopped talking.

  “Evening!” Leland shouted. “Pretty crazy night for you all as well?”

  No one answered and Leland stopped with Henry in the middle of the road. His heart beat faster and he had a feeling in his gut that these men weren’t guards waiting to see what had happened to the local power grid.

  “Who are you?” one of the voices called out.

  Leland weighed whether or not to tell the truth. If they were prisoners, the truth wouldn’t matter to them. If they weren’t, surely the guards would understand the deception once they realized who he was.

  “Just passing through,” Leland said. “Car died a few miles back. Who am I speaking with?”

  A pause.

  Henry turned to Leland and whispered, “I’m telling you, if they are in jumpsuits, shoot them.”

  Leland regarded him for a moment, then turned back to the silhouettes.

  “We’re nobody,” one of the men said. “Same as you, just passing through.”

  He could hear one of the men laugh. These weren’t the voices of prison guards in the midst of a crisis.

  The same voice called out. “How much money you got?”

  Leland didn’t respond, instead he stepped forward with his shotgun leveled in front of him. “I don’t want any trouble. What’s the state of the prison?”

  “Oh, nice gun!”