by Dave Bowman
He was never caught.
A year later, Frank was released from prison.
He had had enough of the corrections system. So he cleaned up his act. Got a job, a truck, and apartment. He stopped running around with his old crowd. He didn’t want to go back to live in a cage.
And finally, he found his girl.
Cynthia Allen.
He fell for that woman like he had for no one else. She made him forget all the bad times. She even had him give up the bottle for a while. He could hardly recognize himself.
But after they got married and moved in together, things changed.
Everything was about her and her disease. And, well, things kind of lost their sparkle.
He turned to drinking, and then using, again. And everything got ugly between them.
But they would have worked it out. Things would have gotten better.
But Cynthia’s little brat of a daughter had to get involved.
Frank had never liked Naomi. He didn’t like the bond Cynthia and Naomi had. Whenever Naomi was around, Cynthia seemed to forget all about Frank.
One time, Frank had heard the phone conversation between Cynthia and her daughter. Naomi was telling Cynthia to leave him.
Frank had become enraged. How dare that little brat try to get in between him and his wife?
Not long after that, Frank came home from work to find Cynthia gone. She had taken her things and left.
Frank was served with divorce papers and a restraining order.
The hatred and rage seethed through his core. Cynthia had left him. And he didn’t even know where she had gone. She had abandoned him, without any regard for his feelings.
Any love he once felt for her was replaced with fury. She had hurt him. Cynthia – and her daughter – would pay for his suffering.
That had been a year ago. Each day, the pain had grown stronger. Each day, his desire to make them pay had grown, as well.
Several weeks ago, he looked up an old friend. Someone who had connections.
For just a day’s pay, Frank got their address.
He had gone to scope it out a few times now. A shabby little East Side apartment. A crummy neighborhood.
Cynthia had been crazy to leave him.
He kept track of Naomi’s comings and goings. Followed her to work, knew her schedule.
And Frank had waited. Patiently. Just biding his time till his chance came.
Until now.
He approached the neighborhood with screams and gunshots in the distance. The chaos gave him a thrill. Other people’s fear gave him strength.
Cynthia had opened the door when he knocked. She had always been too trusting. The look on her face when she saw him was worth it.
She had looked like a frightened, trapped animal.
And she was.
She tried to back up in her wheelchair and close the door in his face, but she was too late. He pushed the door open, and grabbed her from her chair.
If only she had been better, this wouldn’t have happened to her. If only she had loved him enough, he wouldn’t have had to hurt her.
But that love was all gone. There was only hate left. White-hot hatred that coursed through his veins as he took care of her with his knife.
When it was over, some of the pressure inside him was relieved. That awful, relentless pressure that had built up inside his head.
But he knew he wouldn’t feel better until Naomi was gone, too.
Naomi, the sniveling brat who had turned his wife against him. She had taken Cynthia from him.
Naomi didn’t deserve to walk the Earth any longer.
Knowing that the EMP would delay Naomi’s return home from work that day, Frank waited for her.
He hid himself behind the couch in the living room, listening for the sound of her key in the door.
As he sat in silence, he smiled at his good fortune. Law enforcement was out of the picture. The cops were busy trying to keep things in order after the EMP. Or else they had given up and gone home to keep themselves and their families safe.
And with the city in ruins and everyone panicking, no one would even pay attention to Cynthia’s and Naomi’s screams.
His time in prison had taught him well.
It paid to wait for the best opportunity, to bide one’s time. Some of the other guys had been so stupid. They let their emotions take them over and push them to act out in the heat of the moment.
But not Frank. He had complete control over himself. He could have waited years for this moment.
His heart sped up when he heard footsteps outside the front door. Finally, his chance was coming.
But then – something was wrong. There was a man with Naomi. Frank heard the guy’s deep voice. And then there was a second male voice.
Without hesitation, Frank sprang to his feet. Quietly, he slid open the glass door to the balcony and slipped out.
He used the key he had found in Cynthia’s purse to lock the glass door from the outside.
Quickly, he climbed over the railing to the side and jumped, landing silently on the balcony of the neighboring apartment.
He peered in the glass door of the neighbor’s apartment. It looked like no one was home. The glass door was locked, and he didn’t want to make any noise by breaking in. So he stood behind the wall separating the two balconies, out of sight.
He’d always had an uncanny knack for knowing the best places to hide, he thought with a smile.
At that moment, Naomi and the two men entered the apartment. He heard Naomi calling for her mother. Then a muffled scream.
She must have found her.
Frank strained to hear what followed, but it sounded like the guy with the deeper voice was checking the apartment for intruders.
What a busybody.
To avoid being caught, Frank picked the lock of the glass door to the neighbor’s apartment. He slid it open and stepped inside.
It was indeed empty. He had lucked out again.
Pressing his ear to the shared wall, he could just barely make out some of their conversation.
The one guy, Jack, was the kind of man Frank couldn’t stand. A do-gooder.
Frank looked forward to taking care of him, too.
So they’re going to Texas.
Frank smiled. He had been to Texas before, decades ago when he had worked in the oil fields in the desert.
Frank pulled at his long, gray beard. He didn’t expect he’d have to follow them all the way to Texas. He imagined he would dispose of them long before that.
But if he had to travel all that way, he would.
Because, after all, Frank wasn’t a man who needed instant gratification. He had waited almost a year to crush the life out of Naomi Allen. He could wait a while longer.
Besides, adding two annoying Boy Scout type guys into the mix made it more interesting. It would be an adventure, he thought with a grin.
When he heard the three of them leave, he climbed back out on the balcony and entered Naomi’s apartment. He left soon after they did, wanting to stay close on their tail.
“Goodbye, Cynthia,” he said under his breath as he left the apartment and the dead woman inside.
He watched the trio turn at the end of the block, and he set off behind them. He kept to the shadows. And with night closing in, keeping his presence unknown would be even easier.
It was almost going to be too easy.
But he couldn’t get overconfident. He had learned that in prison, too. You never knew what surprises even the weakest people might have.
Either way, he was ready.
The time had finally come to put an end to Naomi Allen.
16
Annie watched in horror as the mob of people surrounded the vehicle.
Dan fought against the two men grabbing his arms and shoulders. They tried to pull him out of the car, which was swerving wildly as Dan lost his grasp of the wheel.
He gunned the gas pedal, trying to outrun the men. But the guys started t
o pull him through the window. The car lurched as his foot slipped off the pedal.
They were losing speed, fast.
From the backseat, Charlotte kicked at the men reaching inside the Porsche.
Annie grabbed the steering wheel as Dan fought against the two men, steering the vehicle out of the collision course it had been on with the RV.
But a third man was grabbing her arm through her window.
She fought against him, but he pulled her toward the open window. She felt herself being lifted out of her seat. She screamed as she thrashed and struggled, trying to keep her grip on the wheel.
Meanwhile, the car was slowing down, and the rest of the group were catching up to it.
“Let me go!” she shouted at the man. Using all her might, she swung her elbow at his face. But he didn’t loosen his grip on her.
She was furious.
She had been through too much to have it end like this.
But he had her around her waist. She grabbed hold of the door frame, bracing herself against it, and fought against being pulled out of the car completely.
Charlotte pulled her leg back and furiously kicked one of the men squarely in the face.
He fell back, letting go of Dan.
Dan twisted out of the reach of the other guy and sank back down into the car seat.
He punched the gas pedal to the floor just as Annie was about to be pulled out of the car. Charlotte grabbed hold of Annie’s legs.
For a moment, Annie felt like she was being split in two.
Finally, the guy let her go as the car sped off. He fell to the pavement, cursing them as they drove off.
Annie slid back down into her seat, panting.
Her heart was pounding from fighting off her attacker.
She glanced at Dan as he caught his breath as well. His eyes met hers, and they exchanged a look of relief. In the backseat, Charlotte fumbled around for her medication.
“Are you okay, Charlotte?” Annie asked.
Charlotte nodded as she swallowed a pill. “Yeah, are you?”
“I’m fine,” Annie said. But her belly ached from where the man had grabbed hold of her so tightly. And she was still shaking from the fright.
“Thanks for your help back there,” Dan said, looking at Charlotte in the rearview mirror. “Those were some well-placed kicks.”
Charlotte smiled and waved him off. “It was nothing.”
Annie looked back at the group of people they had left behind. The people grew smaller until she could no longer see them.
“How far are we from your house?” Annie asked nervously. “It must’ve been fifteen or twenty minutes since the explosion.”
Dan slowed down to make a turn. “We’re almost there now.”
Thankfully, there weren’t as many people on the streets of the neighborhood they now entered. Annie wasn’t sure how much more fight she had left in her. She needed to get to a safe place and rest. They all did.
And they didn’t have much time before they would risk radiation poisoning.
Annie could see the lake in the distance as they drove. The road went down toward the lakeside as they passed several large houses.
“Here we are,” Dan said, slowing down in front of a large estate. “I’ll get us inside as quickly as possible.”
Annie looked up at a sprawling, luxurious house when they stopped in front of the gate.
“Be right back,” Dan said. “The electric gate’s not working, of course.”
Dan got out of the car and Annie spun around to face Charlotte. The two women raised their eyebrows at each other.
“I’ve never actually been in one of these houses in this part of town,” Annie whispered.
“Me neither,” Charlotte said. “I didn’t know an attorney’s salary would buy a place like this. I thought this was just where celebrities and tech millionaires owned their vacation houses.”
Dan returned to the car and closed the door. “You’re right, Charlotte. An attorney’s salary doesn’t quite get you a place like this,” he said as he took off down the long driveway.
Annie could just make out Charlotte’s reddened face in the dim light.
“Sorry,” Charlotte said, embarrassed. “I didn’t want you to hear that.”
Dan laughed. “No harm done. This was my parents’ place. They left it to me when they passed a few years ago.”
He pulled around to the garage on the side of the house. He got out again to open it by hand. Finally, Dan parked the car, secured the garage, and led them through the entrance.
At last, they were inside.
Annie followed him into the dark interior. She could see almost nothing, and she and Charlotte waited while he went ahead.
“Sorry about the darkness, ladies,” Dan said as he walked into an adjacent room. “I’ll just get some candles.”
The two women waited in silence.
Annie was still disappointed and upset that Dan had taken them to his own house instead of hers. But even so, she was relieved to finally retreat from the chaos of the city.
Besides, she had no choice but to stay.
She decided to take his words at face value. Maybe he was right. Maybe there hadn’t been enough time to drive to her house.
Charlotte’s stomach growled as they waited.
“I wish I would’ve ordered something to eat at that restaurant this afternoon,” Charlotte said. “Not a margarita.”
Annie shook her head sadly. “That feels like a million years ago.”
Dan returned carrying a flickering candle and some towels. The flame lit up his face in a warm glow.
“This way, please.”
They followed him through a long hallway. They passed several closed doors until Dan finally stopped at the last door in the hall. He opened this door and the three of them filed in the room.
Annie looked around. “There are no windows in here. That’s good.”
“Yes, that’s why I chose this room,” Dan said. “That will help protect us from the radiation.”
“Good thinking,” Charlotte said. “And there’s a lot of space, too.”
“We’ll need to bring some food from the kitchen in here so we can hunker down for the next two days,” Dan said. “I don’t think we should leave this area if we can avoid it. The other parts of the house have too many windows.”
Annie nodded. “Okay, but we need to hurry. We should really be closed up in here before the fallout begins.”
The two women followed Dan around the corner into the kitchen. They loaded up a few bags full of fresh food from the fridge, which they would eat first, and shelf-stable food and drinks. It took them a couple trips to carry it all back to the room he had shown them before.
But soon, they were tucked away in the room with the door shut tightly.
Dan walked around the interior, lighting candles. Flickering light filled the space.
Annie saw that the room was a beautiful library. The light from the candles revealed the details of the ornate decorations.
“Wow,” Charlotte commented as she looked around.
Bookcases lined the wall from floor to ceiling. In between the shelves of books were oil paintings covering almost every open space.
“This is like a museum,” Annie marveled.
Dan finished lighting the candles and clasped his hands behind his back. “My parents were art collectors.”
He gestured at the seating arrangement, a collection of upholstered couches and leather chairs.
“Please, make yourselves comfortable,” he said.
Dan walked over to a door on the side wall and opened it. “This opens up to a connecting room. I’ll sleep in there and let you two have this room. Also no windows, so no risk of contamination.”
Annie peered over his shoulder into the unlit, adjoining room.
She was glad he was planning on sleeping in a separate space. The tension she’d been carrying in her belly loosened a bit.
“Those towels are for you,�
� Dan said, gesturing at the stack he had brought to the library. “I thought you might like to dry your hair.”
Charlotte reached for one. “Awesome,” she said rubbing the fluffy towel over her damp hair.
Dan reached inside one of the bags they had brought from the kitchen and retrieved a red pouch. He handed it to Annie.
“And I thought this first aid kit might come in handy,” he said. “It looks like your foot was bleeding.”
Annie smiled at Dan gratefully. “Thank you.”
She felt a pang of guilt. She had thought the worst of him, and he was just trying to be nice.
For dinner, they made ham and cheese sandwiches and polished off the gallon of milk that was starting to get warm in the fridge.
“I’m sorry I can’t offer you a better meal,” Dan said. “I suppose I live a bachelor life. Lots of takeout.”
“This is great,” Charlotte said between bites. “I was famished.”
Annie tore into her sandwich, then made herself another, eating large handfuls of potato chips between bites.
Dan smiled as he watched her eat. “I guess you worked up an appetite.”
Annie nodded, her mouth full. She hadn’t realized how hungry she had gotten.
When she was finished, she leaned back in her chair. She could finally think clearly without the hunger gnawing away at her.
I’m alive. I survived this day.
It was a miracle that she and Charlotte had made it. And Annie had to admit that Dan had played a role in their survival.
If he hadn’t stopped and given them a ride, they might not have found a shelter that would protect them from the fallout.
Maybe he’s not so bad after all.
His smile didn’t seem as terrible as she remembered. She didn’t have that uneasy feeling anymore. Maybe she had been wrong about Dan the whole time.
After all, he was being so generous with her and Charlotte. He had opened up his house to them, fed them, helped them. He was being a perfect gentleman.
It had been such a nightmarish day. Annie felt like she could finally relax and let her guard down.
She would have preferred to have been in her own home, but maybe Dan had been right. Maybe it had been for the best to come here.
Though she was feeling more comfortable, her heart still ached for Jack.