Extinction Level Event (Book 4): Rescue

by Jones, K. J.

  “But they’d use them to build the world they want.”

  “That’s is unbelievably creepy. Worse than the meth head cannibals.”

  “We are at a serious disadvantage as newcomers.”

  “A problem we need to overcome.”

  “I think we have two world builders. Our new buddies are world builders too. Democracy and all that shit going on.”

  “More reason the supremacists would want an all-out war with all the rest of us.”

  “I’m fucking pissed as shit. They have to be ended.”

  “Working on it.” Mazy used a magnifying glass to enlarge smaller print. “I really want something more than a street map to tell me about this place, street views, not aerial. Do we not have any functioning digital cameras or cells? I’d like pictures. Or I go on the recon op too. Which way is it?”

  She stood up and stared at them for an answer.

  “Let’s look for digital cameras,” said Ben.

  “Don’t like the idea of me going, Running Elk?”

  “The last time you were in intel, you were captured and made a POW.”

  “Ooh. That’s unpleasant of you.”

  Peter said, “We’re doing overprotective, sexist caveman today. All women restricted to the house.”

  “They struck a heart cord, didn’t they, boys?”

  “Fuck them. Target our women. Our girls. They gotta die. Simple as that.”

  “Don’t get too emotional and ego about this, Sully. People get their asses dead when they do that.”

  “He’ll cool down during our camera search, right, Sul?”

  “Something like that,” Peter grumbled.

  Chapter Four

  1.

  Vi’s surgery went well, and she returned to her tribe with the others – along with a bunch of jokes that she’d not only turn white, but turn into a redneck from Chris’s blood transfusion. Mackey was filled with mockery on how she’d start listening to country music and have a hankering for a pickup truck.

  . Tyler showed off his stitched-up wounds to everyone – showed them off several times to everyone. His first battle wounds. He couldn’t be more proud.

  Peter and Ben conducted nightly recon missions. They had digital cameras.

  At nights, Matt had the attic sniper nest.

  Phebe found it difficult to sleep while the guys were gone. Though still fuming over her house arrest confinement, she nonetheless worried. Just never mentioned it to Peter. It would appear she cared. And she didn’t want that appearance right now.

  She told herself not to worry about them, but the subconscious mind rarely listened to its conscious frontal lobe. Especially at night in the silence.

  Reading books without electricity was not fun at night. Either candlelight or lantern or headlamp was the illumination.

  In bed, she read her second book on candle making. Only the pages spotlighted by her headlamp. The rest of the room deep in shadows.

  For a person who had lived her entire life with the microprocessor, the adjustments to no electricity were frustrating. Fortunately, batteries were numerous in houses. But in the back of her mind, a nagging voice reminded that eventually there would be no batteries left. The idea of reading by candlelight seemed like it begged for early vision problems. Supposedly, Abe Lincoln did this. Or maybe it was merely American folklore. Since reading by headlamp was obnoxious enough.

  She slammed the book shut. A puff of dust caused her to cough.

  “Yikes. Gonna put you over there, bad book.”

  She slipped out of her warm bed. The floorboards were chilly on her feet. Wearing an oversized t-shirt and men’s pajama pants wasn’t enough against the ambient temperature. She located an old man cardigan Peter had worn during his recovery and old lady slippers looted from a house. Then placed the dusty book on top of a stack of books on a lowboy dresser. The spine titles read of gardening, woodworking, and how life was in the nineteenth century.

  Her conclusion on the adjustment to a post-electricity, post-easy fuel lifestyle was they were going to starve to death while legally blind. More reason to take out that bad guy tribe – take their canned foods. And batteries.

  But canned foods – and batteries – could only last so long. After some years, it would all go off. She decided to worry about that later. This dismissal had become her mantra.

  Her shin banged into something hard plastic.

  “Fuck!”

  She dropped on the loveseat, holding her leg.

  “Ow, fuck!”

  The other side of the room, once dominated by the fireplace and loveseat, had grown baby stuff. It felt like it was escalating by itself. Just sprouting right out of the floor and walls. She hadn’t participated in, nor gave permission for, baby supply looting.

  Not even completing her first trimester – she thought, though it was harder than ever to keep track of dates – she found this nursery stuff premature. Stanton was probably the ring leader. He was limited, though, for he feared going beyond the wall. So how he was orchestrating this, she did not know.

  What she did know was there was a lot of shit in her bedroom. Including a crib tucked into the corner, overflowing with more baby stuff inside it.

  She shook her head.

  Well, at least it gave Stanton something to do. She didn’t doubt she’d come in one day and find it entirely decked out as a nursery. He was good at decorating. And it made him happy, while little else did.

  Getting up and moving forward by headlamp, she tripped over something.

  “Fuck!”

  The headlamp illuminated a wooden cane.

  “Why does he have this in here?”

  She remembered it from the trawler. His disability cane. It was a nice one, she thought as she stood it back up, leaning it against the dresser. Not an off the rack kind. A specially made wooden one.

  Navigating in the dark.

  Candles worried her. She could see herself setting everything on fire. So she retrieved a flashlight. That was safer. The two beams of light working in conjunction made navigation easier as she exited her bedroom. But everything was pitch black outside the beams.

  “Phebe.”

  She jumped and screeched. Heart raced. Her hand instinctively moved to hit with the flashlight.

  “It’s me,” said Eric’s voice. “I want to give this to you.”

  “What are you doing out of bed?” she whispered, hoping not to disturb the others.

  “I want to give this to you.”

  He handed her a dollar bill.

  She sighed.

  “We have gone over this. I am not a ghost.”

  “Do you need food?”

  “No. Stop it. You’re not supposed to hoard food for ghosts. We have to eat that food. The living. As in me, the living.”

  “Tell me what you want?”

  “I want you to go back to bed and stay there. Preferably, not be insane when you wake up in the morning. Can you do that for me?”

  “Here.”

  “No. Go away.”

  She continued towards the stairs, grumbling to herself about the place was turning into an insane asylum from the nineteenth century. That part of the pre-electricity past they were replicating nicely.

  Slip-on slippers made traversing the elliptical stairs more precarious than bare feet. She carried them down.

  No amount of antidepressants helped Eric. He was cheery enough. So they worked in that capacity.

  Poor kid.

  Annoying, pitiful kid.

  At the bottom of the stairs, she put the slippers back on and shuffled through the rooms.

  The grandfather clock had stopped making any noise. It was probably one of the wind-up ones. Or something. She hadn’t read a book on old fashion clocks yet.

  All the shutters had been opened long ago, or what felt like ages ago. Scant light came through from the stars. It was a new moon night.

  The moon phases were significant. Barely noticeable in the Before, except when it was a plump full
moon, pretty to look at. It was now a timekeeper method of sorts. That old plump, pretty full moon meant vastly more light and less stumbling around in the dark with flashlights. Marine guard duty was easier that way.

  Not that she was permitted to do that anymore, since it was beyond the wall.

  Slippers scraped along the floor of an orderly, immaculately clean kitchen. She stopped. To fulfill her craving for hot chocolate would require making a fire. That was a lot of work just for a mug full.

  “Damn it.”

  She poured a glass of water instead.

  “Fucking zombie apocalypse.”

  Though Angela was still birthing babies at the other camp, a team effort kept the kitchen to her standards. Stanton didn’t seem to mind, except that his manicure was long gone. But Nia and her, they hated it and grumbled the entire time like conscripted shanghaied sailors on a tall sailing vessel.

  Her mind was too far in the past. Every reference was to pre-electricity.

  “Going nuts, I am.” She sang in a deep voice, “King ‘Enry the Eighth I am.”

  She giggled.

  The front door was not locked. With the ever faithful, albeit house arrest inmate, too, Jayce, no one was going to surprise the household. She opened the front door. Jayce jumped to his feet.

  “At ease, private.”

  “Why are you awake?”

  “Didn’t you hear? Hungry ghosts don’t need sleep.”

  “Oh. Eric’s awake?”

  “And prowling the halls with cash.”

  Closing the front door, she shuffled to a lounger.

  “Ya know how to distract him?”

  “Fleeing quickly?”

  “No. You give him a complex math problem.”

  “That is totally bizarre.”

  “His brain still works. He just has a problem with reality.”

  “Well, reality does kind of bite.”

  “His new version bites too. We’re all dead.”

  “What I don’t get, is he dead too?”

  “I’m not entirely sure.”

  He clicked on his lantern and messed with his bedroll. She spotted something. Cans of food.

  “He’s feeding you, too, isn’t he?”

  “I’m a growing young man.”

  “Yeah. I forget you’re only sixteen.”

  “Since Mama went over there, y’all are bad at feeding the growing correct rations.”

  “Take mine. Everything is gross to me.”

  “You’re pregnant.”

  “If one more damn person tells me that, the beatings will begin.”

  “Don’t beat your friends.”

  “If you can’t beat your friends, who can you beat? It all starts at home.”

  “They’ll talk about you more.”

  “Crap!” She pulled a throw blanket around her. It always seemed to be on the lounger. Slightly damp from the atmosphere, but warm enough. “You chop off a few heads and everyone judges you.”

  “Yeah.” He sat on his bedroll.

  She held back a laugh. He rarely stepped too far from the door. As if he couldn’t manage to run from the table back to the door in time if something happened.

  Whatever, she dismissed. The inmates of the asylum shouldn’t judge each other’s insanity.

  Except when it was annoying like Eric’s.

  Or Stanton’s nursery thing.

  “Hey,” she said. “Why are baby things multiplying in my room? What’s going on there?”

  “Stanton.”

  “I deduced that. But he doesn’t go beyond the wall.”

  “He gets others to do it for him.”

  “Is he turning into the mastermind leader?”

  “Doubt that. He kicks up a fuss when he doesn’t get his way. They find it easier just to do what he wants.”

  “Ah. I see.” She sipped her boring water, wishing it was hot chocolate.

  Then lurched upward, spilling the water on herself.

  “I’ll get it.” Jayce extracted himself from door guard detail to pursue a rat that had run under her lounger.

  “Fucking hell.” She swiped at the water pool on her shirt. “Fucking rats.”

  A check that her blanket wasn’t near the ground in any direction. Chopping off heads in battle didn’t equate tolerance to rat’s touching her.

  His big teenager feet pounded along the piazza floor in hot pursuit. The animal felt the vibration and leaped off the side, into the bushes.

  “Shit.”

  He jumped onto the ground and shined his light under the bushes.

  “Come out, you bastard.”

  “You’ll never get it that way.”

  “I need Ty or Nie.”

  “The rat killers extraordinaire.” She laughed. “Yet, somehow they’re not crazy, huh?”

  He stood and shrugged. “Somebody’s gotta kill the rats.”

  “But not the bad guys? Not getting the dif.”

  “I don’t know. It’s not me calling you crazy.”

  She smiled at him. “Thank you, Jayce. I appreciate that. After I get a divorce and you’re older, we can run away together.”

  He knew she was kidding. “To where? The Molly?”

  “I hope our lives aren’t that limited by then.”

  “Would be nice if we could, like, walk around and stuff without being heavily armed constantly.”

  “Oh, I’d like to just walk around, period. It’s not like Big Moe is after me.”

  “No. But those evil fuckers are.”

  She looked back at the windows.

  “Mama’s not here.”

  “Sorry. Force of habit whenever you curse.”

  “Yeah, I know. Expect a flying wooden spoon to come at me.”

  “Did she turn ninja?”

  “She’s threatening to.”

  “Nice. At least she’s working on her throwing arm.”

  * * *

  Sounds woke her up. She hadn’t realized she fell asleep on the lounger. Dawn dampness clung to her clothes.

  Peter and Ben filed through the door. They wore all black, throat mics, and carried long rifles. Black grease paint on their faces completed the picture. Jayce locked the door behind them.

  “What are you doing out here?” Peter asked her.

  “I was bored.”

  “Change of scenery?” He squatted beside her lounger. “You’re damp, babe.”

  “I’ll survive some dampness.”

  “Still pissed at me, I see.”

  “Absolutely.”

  Ben looked on with a smirk.

  “Have you two found their weakness so you can kill them all and I can get released?”

  “Who says you’re released when they’re gone?”

  “Hate you, Peter Sullivan.”

  “You’ll get over it, Phebe Sullivan.”

  They walked on, softly chatting to each other.

  She glared at Peter’s back.

  2.

  The recon insomniacs took naps, then regrouped with Chris, Mazy, and Brandon in the war room – formerly the billiard’s room—on the newest intel. Whenever Phebe tried to sneak in or eavesdrop, she was chased away. They wouldn’t permit any of the young guys or Nia in either, because they knew she’d use them as her spies.

  Emily was the only one they trusted to keep their secrets. But Emily didn’t really get what they were talking about, so she was of no help.

  They locked the room when not occupying it.

  The bastards.

  Since Peter was on recon ops every night, he didn’t face the full cold shoulder in the bedroom. During the day, Phebe often threw things at him.

  He was getting used to being pelted by objects.

  The others, always sensitive and sympathetic, laughed.

  He caught or blocked many objects, making her irritation with him into a game. For him.

  Once he tried to take a nap at the same time as her. She put her feet against him and pushed him out of the bed onto the floor.

  Subtle, she was n
ot.

  Knitting stuff appeared for her, either looted by him or by one of his minions. So she stabbed his pillows with the knitting needles. He walked into the bedroom and found the large needles sticking out of his pillows. Of course, he made a joke out of it, calling it Phebe’s version of a voodoo doll. But he had to track down new pillows.

  The machete had disappeared. Where he hid it, she had not discovered. She suspected it was on the trawler, where she was forbidden to go. Jayce would not defy the order. And she didn’t want to hurt the kid.

  But she had sent Tyler out to search the boat. He was her most loyal minion. Her flying monkey.

  Albeit, she couldn’t get her flying monkey to attack Peter. Damn it.

  The former military people were gathered in the war room. Peter and Ben undoubtedly sharing their intel from the night of reconnaissance. The door was locked.

  So Phebe took her frustration out on rats infiltrating the yard. Nia helped. The tweener smiled a lot as if this was woman-to-woman bonding they were doing.

  Though Nia had a chip on her shoulder that could cripple a horse when it came to her mother, she seemed eager to be accepted by the other women.

  Phebe wasn’t sure if this was healthy bonding. To chase and bludgeon rats. Yet it seemed to befit the asylum inmates who weren’t allowed beyond the wall.

  “I like Sully,” Nia said.

  “So, you won’t attack him for me?”

  “No. Afraid not. Sorry.”

  “Damn it. Somebody has to be my flying monkey.”

  “What’s a flying monkey?”

  “Wizard of Oz reference.”

  “Oh. I’ve seen that.” She put a dead rat in a plastic shopping bag. A local supermarket’s logo on the front. “I get it now. Flying monkeys.”

  “There ya go.”

  “Doesn’t that make you the wicked witch?”

  “I’m feeling a little on the wicked witch side.”

  “Don’t be. He’s just trying to protect you and the baby.”

  “Me and the baby. Me and the baby. That’s all I hear about. I’m no longer a person. I’m a walking baby incubator.”

  “Everyone’s excited about the baby.” She stepped on a fleeing rat’s tail and banged its brains out with a hammer.

  “People do know this takes a while, right? Months. A grand total of nine months, rumor has it.”