by Logan Keys
“Getting cold,” he said, feeling guilty for not being the mature adult and trying to brighten a very dark horizon for them both.
He glanced over and cringed at what he saw. Siri was sixteen at most, and he felt ancient taking in her smudged makeup, multi-colored ‘screw the man’ hair, and worst of all were the ashes smeared across her hair and clothing. Her wide blue eyes were sunk deeper from lack of sleep, and perhaps dehydration. She needed rest, water, food, and a shower. She needed normalcy.
Clive told himself that he’d do better.
“How long have you known Lila and Daniel?” he asked. “When did you all meet?”
“I ran away from home. Not this home, like three before it. I was sort of backpacking and got in with these really rough people. They were kind of scary.” Siri hugged herself and glanced away, and Clive wondered if she’d gotten hurt but knew better than to ask. She’d tell him what she wanted to when she wanted to. He was practically a stranger. The fact that she was still so trusting in someone like him was a miracle after the life she had. “My stepdad around that time was uber religious and he liked to use a belt.” This time there was no laugh. “Anyway. The people I was hanging with stayed under bridges or hiked through the orchards and stole fruit. This is when they still grew oranges there. I wound up getting lost from them on purpose. Daniel found me nearly frozen, under a tree, and he told me to come to their house until I got back on my feet. They eventually reported my stepfather and got me back in the system. They wanted to keep me forever, and honestly, I wanted to stay, but CPS can’t show up at a house with a crap ton of weed out back every month so…”
Clive’s heart hurt hearing her story. She really sounded like she cared for these people, and they were good to her, too, but at the same time, had every adult ever let her down? Sounded like it.
He pocketed that thought for later, rubbing his brow, and then flinching.
“Yeah,” Siri said, staring at his head. “You need to clean that cut and maybe we should get some antibiotics in you.”
“Maybe. Yeah.”
She laughed. “Clive’s go to.” She mimicked his voice. “Yeah. Maybe. Sure. Okay.”
“I’m not a big talker.”
She gasped. “No way?”
They both chuckled, and she told him where to turn.
“Man,” Siri said, glancing at the charred fields. “I hope their house made it. I hope the fire didn’t reach their property.”
“If so,” Clive said quietly. “Prepare to get higher than you ever have in your life.”
Siri burst out laughing and smacked his arm. “Finally! A joke!”
They’d found the house and Siri said it was pretty much how she remembered it but the orchards all around for miles were still smoldering. The burning roots and stumps left over were making it hard to breathe. Smoke billowed around them, but luckily, as they drove up the drive of Daniel’s and Lila’s house, the air cleared on the hill.
Clive sucked in a deep, clean breath and sighed.
He put the truck into park, and before they even exited all the way, two people came from inside the house, one of them holding a shotgun.
“Go back the way you came!” the man barked, and it was a strange thing to see the long-haired Californian holding the gun like he was in a nineteen forties western. But there he was.
“Danny! It’s me!” Siri shouted, and she shot forward before Clive could tell her to wait.
Daniel hesitated and then lowered the weapon. “Siri?” he said in disbelief.
“What on earth!” Lila shrieked and then she ran forward to scoop the girl up in her arms.
Clive waited as the reunion turned from excitement to tears.
“Is this your…friend?” Lila said, eyeing Clive with suspicion and partial disgust.
“Yes, Lila,” Siri said rolling her eyes. “I’ve up and married an old man—”
“Hey. I’m not that old.”
Siri snorted. “We met downtown.”
“Met? You spilled coffee on me.”
She finger-gunned him. “And then I saved your life. I think that makes us even. No. I think that means you owe me a life debt.”
Clive couldn’t help but smile. “Deal.”
“Well,” Daniel said, frowning at the conversation but obviously put at ease that Clive wasn’t arriving with a child bride. “Come inside.”
Siri motioned for Clive to follow. He did and when they stepped inside, his jaw dropped open.
“What is all this?” Siri asked.
Apparently, the huge filtration system and more was a new addition.
“It cleans the air,” Lila said. “This one cleans water. There’s more in the bunker.”
“Bunker…?” Clive said.
“Yeah,” Daniel answered giving his wife a glance. “I mean we shouldn’t tell everyone who visits about it, but you don’t know where it is, so I guess that’s okay then.”
Siri was already eating some of the jerky laid out on the table to dry. “Want some?” she asked Clive, and his stomach grumbled.
“Go ahead,” Lila said. “Plenty more where that came from.”
Clive grabbed a clump and sank his teeth in. He bit back a moan of joy as the taste of sweet teriyaki and black pepper flooded his mouth.
“Wow,” he said, and Daniel handed him a bottle of water.
“Rough out there?” Daniel asked.
Between drinks, Clive replied, “I’m not even sure how to describe it.”
“I am,” Siri interjected, but her usual peppy self was replaced with candor. “Everyone’s dying. Millions and millions of people. Day one killed off a huge percentage of the world’s population, and soon, the rest are gonna probably peck each other off one-by-one. The weather’s turning. The air’s crappy. If we don’t end up like the dinosaurs, it’ll be a miracle.”
“That true?” Lila asked and Clive nodded.
“Then it’s just like we knew it would be,” she said.
That stopped Clive from finishing the bottle. “Knew it would be?”
“What?” Siri asked with suspicion. “Like biblical knew or something else?”
Daniel sighed. “How about you two shower and get a change of clothes? Clive, you better check the wound on that head of yours and let my wife have a look. She has some medical training. The story is long, and, you might want to be cleaned up, maybe get some rest before we tell it. Take that jerky with you, Clive.” He smiled.
Clive took a shower in a small space that ran off some sort of pump rigged up in their back room. He had to help charge it by winding it up first with a crank. It was interesting and obviously homemade. He didn’t want to use up all their fresh water, so he bathed as quickly as possible. Daniel left him some clothing, too, but Clive was a bit wider through the chest and arms, so he stretched out the cotton shirt to the max.
When Siri saw him, she laughed while holding her belly. “Those pants….”
They were flowing and nothing he would ever have worn if by choice.
They returned to the dining room where Lila and Daniel proceeded to tell them a long tale about how they came to know what was going to occur and prepare for it. They’d sold all the weed and used the money to buy the bunker and everything they’d stocked up in it. They had a plan and they were trying to stick to it, but part of their issue with going below ground and closing up shop forever was morality.
“Think of all the people we could save. People like you,” Lila said.
Siri nodded but Clive frowned. “But if you told others…”
Daniel nodded. “Panic, and then we lose our shelter as well. We went below when the flare hit, but when we saw that our house was okay, we came back. With the air getting worse, we plan on returning. But should we take people in? I’m not sure what to do. We have more than enough for more people but…”
“I’m not here to go into your bunker,” Clive said. “I’ve got to find my family.”
He told them about Sara and the children. About how he didn�
�t even know if they were alive or not.
They listened with their hearts in their eyes, and Clive realized they were good people, and he felt sorry for their predicament but had no advice.
Bringing up his family set Clive into an emotional spiral. “I think I need a minute,” he said, and he escaped out the front door just as the first tears came.
He went out into what was left of one grove that had not burned yet and he wept. When he returned before sundown, Siri was waiting for him. “You okay?” she asked.
“Yeah. It’s…I feel like I’ve given up on my family just by taking a shower. How crazy is that? I should be looking for them not holing up here with strangers in a bunker.”
Siri nodded and after a minute or two she took his hand. “If I say we’ll figure out a way to get across the river, will you believe me?”
“Yes,” he said desperately.
“Then we will. You and me. We won’t stay in a bunker; I’m scared of closed in spaces anyway.”
She smiled, and Clive chuckled. “You aren’t afraid of anything, Siri.”
She cocked her head to think and then said, “True.”
“Well, that’s good. Because I’m afraid of everything right now, it feels like. You can be the brave one.”
“Deal,” She said.
As Clive turned to go back inside, he noticed a sign next to the door. It was their last name burned into a piece of petrified wood. “Welcome to the Griggs house.”
6
Arizona
Sara had a migraine the size of Texas. Her head was throbbing, and she wasn’t sure she didn’t still have a concussion. The day had gone by in a blur of pain and frustration, but how could she stay angry? The children were safe—she was safe. And all that she needed to know to be complete was that Clive was safe, as well.
The flare had struck, and their house had been nearly destroyed. Only the small area where she and the kids had hidden in the bathroom had remained intact. It had, for a moment, felt as if the sun itself had landed on them, but when the bright light died down, she realized they were safe but trapped.
When they’d been dug free, the last person on earth she expected to see had reached out his hand for her. “Darryl?” she’d gasped, and he’d grinned his toothy, lopsided grin that reminded her of Clive in his younger years. The same Clive she’d fallen in love with.
The world was one giant explosion, and there was Clive’s wayward brother, pulling her from the rubble, a halo of light around his handsome face and blond, wavy hair.
Clive and she had changed since having the kids. They’d become more serious, and Darryl, well, he’d never grown up had he? Never had to. And so, it only irritated her to see him smiling while she and the kids barely scraped out of the accident alive.
And it had been an accident. The flare had struck Earth but that’s not really what had almost killed Sara and the two little ones she held dear. Once free, she’d found that a plane had crashed on their street and a few pieces of it had leveled her house. Darryl, had been her knight in shining armor, and nothing could have surprised her more.
“Are you even sober?” she’d asked a day later and a state away from her home.
He’d scoffed at her question but didn’t answer.
She had wanted to wait for Clive, but he’d assured her that the first strike wasn’t the only one, and they needed to get away. She’d told Clive she’d go to her parents if there was trouble. That’s what he’d told her to do. That’s where he’d look for her second to the house. But with the house destroyed and her gone, he’d have to know she’d left.
Traveling with Darryl was last on her list of things she enjoyed, but he’d saved her. How could she tell him no?
They were driving in an old truck he’d said he’d borrowed to come and find her and the kids.
“Mostly,” he said, answering the question of his sobriety minutes later. “Right now, I am.” He chuckled and smacked the dashboard. “Sorry it’s so cold in here. The damned heater isn’t working on this thing.”
“It’s fine,” she said, trying not to sound irritated. “Thank you,” Sara added more softly. “For saving me and the kids.”
“That’s what uncles are for, right?” He winked at her, his gaze lingering a beat.
Sara was no idiot. Darryl had always sort of had a thing for her. And if she was honest, she’d noticed that irritation for him often turned into a heated exchange that wasn’t exactly all hatred.
Not that he’d ever act on it. Not that she would. She just wished genetics didn’t give him her high school sweetheart’s gestures and expressions.
He may have been Clive’s younger, dumber brother, but even he wouldn’t push Clive that far and ever step over the line. And neither would she. She loved Clive with all her heart.
Even so, she could sense that Darryl was gloating about being the one to pull them from the rubble.
“Just say it,” she said, smiling despite her eye roll.
He hooted. “The black sheep of the family finally did it right, right?”
“Yes,” she agreed, peeking back to check the sleeping kids, and feeling a relief she’d never known before. “Yes.”
She reached across the seats and touched his shoulder before letting her arm fall.
“You get some sleep,” he said. “We’re almost out of Arizona and into New Mexico, and I’m planning on taking the long way around the big cities. Expect the trip to take a while.”
7
Outside of Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Kentucky’s eyes burned from saltwater. Or was it just dirty water? He wasn’t sure, but they’d had waves crashing over the side for at least an hour.
The group was huddled against the side, arms wrapped through the rope, holding on for dear life.
The rocking of the raft lulled Kentucky, and he was fighting sleep. He couldn’t remember ever being as tired as he was, and that was saying something. He’d been on guard duty for days at a time overseas, but this, was something altogether different. He was in a fog, his brain forcing shutdown.
His one arm was through the rope, the other one was linked arm and arm with Sophie.
A wave struck and rocked the raft to the side and then it landed flat.
For a few minutes, it almost seemed as though the storm was easing up, and then the next thing Kentucky knew, he was waking up.
He had no idea how long he’d slept, and the waves still crashed over the side. He’d fallen asleep during a lull and had woken up to an even worse storm.
At some point, he’d let go of the rope, and now was laying on his side with free hands.
He’d let go of Sophie….
Rocking into a body, he desperately sat up. The sky was blacked out by dark clouds, only a slight greenish glow peeked through. He found Ida next to him as he searched the raft. The couple, Tristan, and Ida only. They were all dark forms, hunched over, trying to keep from being washed over the side.
“Sophie!” Kentucky shouted.
He checked twice more but she was gone.
“Sophie!”
Ida twisted around; her eyes wide. “What?” she shouted and then glanced about wildly when she realized the girl wasn’t in the raft.
“She must have washed over!” Kentucky yelled next to Ida’s ear.
“I thought you had her!”
He shook his head, lurched to the side of the raft, while searching the waves.
“Sophie!” they yelled, and the others must have figured out what happened because they were all looking over the side with him.
“There!” Tristan called, pointing into the waves.
Sophie had been wearing an orange shirt, and lucky that she was, because Kentucky was able spot something that color in the distance.
He didn’t think, he just let the guilt of letting her go on his watch propel him forward. Diving over the side, he started swimming in the direction he thought he’d seen her.
The waves rose between him and where he’d spotted Sophie, and
the water was musky and disgusting. It was warmer, despite the dropped temperature. Most of the water had rushed in from the gulf and that ocean was usually tepid this time of year.
Gobs of the algae-ridden swamp-turned-lake kept splashing into his mouth and ears and nostrils. He choked it down on accident, fighting through the storm.
He breathed it in every so often, having to force himself to stop coughing and gagging to keep stroking through the chop.
Sophie was closer now. She was holding onto a piece of wood, but it was breaking up.
He drew next to her, grabbing some of the wood himself. “This won’t hold!” he shouted, and she nodded, her face dipping into the water, before he hauled her up by the armpit.
She looked limp and overwhelmed. She could float away any moment.
Kentucky grabbed her and tried to pull her towards the raft, but she clung like a kitten, nails and all, to her safety. She said something between gulps of water, and he didn’t have to hear it to know what she’d said.
It was the same thing she’d said before. It was the same thing he’d dreaded hearing subconsciously so much that he’d ignored it.
“I can’t swim,” Sophie had said in the raft and now she repeated herself.
Kentucky closed his eyes, holding the wood, thinking about the father who’d passed her along assuring them she was a great swimmer.
He would have done anything to get her out of there, and while Kentucky understood a parent’s love, he cursed the man now.
They would both drown. His body was already pushed to the limit.
She tried to smile, though her eyes were wide with fright… “At least…I don’t have to go to the bathroom anymore.”
Kentucky wiped the water from his face, and then he laughed. “Yeah.”
Sophie was watching him. Waiting.
“I’ll get you out of this. All right?”
She nodded.
“Okay,” he said, “Just grab hold of my back, and I’ll try to swim for the raft.”