Once Abby had rappelled as far as she could, she guessed that she was still about eight feet off the ground. She sighed and braced herself for impact, then let herself drop. She hit the ground and crumpled, rolling over on her side, her body racked with pain. She cried out for a second, but bit into her knuckle to muffle the sound.
Abby forced herself up on unsteady feet, her legs shaking. She undid her Swiss seat and put that and the carabiner back into her ruck. Her other rope she was going to have to leave. She looked around and saw that she was standing in an alley that ended just ten feet or so to her left. Straight ahead of her was a deserted parking lot, and to her right, at the end of the alley, was a tall chain-link fence. With no other option but to go straight, Abby headed for the parking lot.
She stumbled slowly through the snow and ice, keeping to the shadows along the outside of the building to her right. She was still very scared. She had no idea where she was, she was hurt, and she was a fugitive. Where could she go? Who could she ask for help? She knew nobody. She came to the end of the building and the edge of the parking lot, only about twenty feet away from a road.
Abby was trying to remain calm and think clearly, but she couldn’t figure out what to do. She needed to get stitched up and rest for a few days, but there was no way she could go to a doctor. She had some medical supplies of her own, but nothing with which to sew up a wound. So what to do? “Just keep walking, I guess,” she thought.
She peeked around the corner, hoping that most people were inside on such a cold night. She took a step out into the open but jumped back into the shadows when she saw headlights moving towards her from her right. A 7-ton, the same type of large, military truck in which Abby and Zach had escaped a horde of zombies, drove past Abby’s position and down the road. Abby waited for a few more moments before stepping out into the open, bumping right into an old man.
“Sorry,” she mumbled as she tried to hurry by him, but he grabbed her arm.
“You’re that girl from upstairs, right?” he asked.
Abby said nothing but she gave the man a stern look as she wondered whether she would actually have to hurt an old man to get away, or if she even could in her condition.
“Don’t you worry, honey,” he said in a hushed tone, as if he had read her mind, “My name is Ben and I want to help you. Come to my home with me and I’ll get you patched up.”
Still Abby said nothing, and a look of distrust flashed across her eyes. She’d learned that you can never take strangers at face value, and seemingly harmless folks can be the most dangerous. But what choice did she have? She could go on her own and either die in a gutter or get caught, or she could go with the old man who would either betray her or help her. The latter option seemed to be her best bet, so she gave the man a single nod.
Still holding her arm, he directed her down the street, whispering instructions to her as they went. “Now you’re not from around here, so you should know that there’s curfews in place and right now we’re out past the curfew. We’ll be fine though. I’m a doctor at the hospital, so I have a permit to be out at any hour. I don’t think we’ll be stopped, but if we are, you need to put on a damn good act, young lady. I mean don’t look scared and absolutely, positively do not look hurt. If they ask, you are my granddaughter visiting from across town and you wanted to see where I worked. I’m done with my shift now so we’re going home and tomorrow you’ll go back to your parents’ house. You got that?”
Abby nodded but said nothing.
“That story will work because it’s mostly true,” Ben continued. “My granddaughter is visiting from across town but she’s at home. I was supposed to work on you, but when I peeked into your window I saw you fiddling around with that rope. So I told one of the nurses, a good friend of mine, what I was going to do, and she covered for me so I could hustle out here and find you before you got too far away. Now rest assured, your secret is safe with us. Truth be told, we don’t like the soldiers around here. Ever since they got their emergency powers, they’ve been nothing short of tyrannical. The whole system is tyrannical, and I’m ashamed that we let it get this bad.”
“Look at you, you’ve only been here for a couple hours and you’ve seen firsthand the corruption we deal with. I think you’re a nice girl who wouldn’t try to murder anybody. But they weren’t even going to give you a chance. Mark my words, honey. That man was not exaggerating. You would have gone to prison and a sweet thing like you would not have survived for long. Uh oh, look sharp.”
Abby looked up and saw a man in black clothes walking towards them, wearing a look of smug superiority. “It’s 10:09, old-timer,” he said as he glanced at what looked to be a very expensive watch. “Now I know you old fuckers have memory problems, but surely you’d know that curfew starts at 10 o’clock sharp.”
“I have a permit, sir,” Ben said with respect, though Abby could hear a fierce undertone to his words, like a proud old oak tree bending to the mighty winds but refusing to break. He pulled out a small identification card and held it in front of him. The younger man snatched it out of his hand and scrutinized it carefully, looking from the picture on the card to the old man’s face again and again, as if unsure that this was the same man.
“190 pounds. Pretty fat for a short, old guy,” the man said, still smiling. “Who’s the kid?”
“My granddaughter. She is spending the weekend with me, but she wanted to see my work at the hospital. We’re just going home,” Ben replied. He pulled an official looking letter out of his coat pocket and handed this to the man. “Here’s the Temporary Change of Address paper from the mayor’s office.”
The man took this and looked it over, once again scrutinizing every last word, just to be annoying. All the while, Abby was dying inside. She fought hard to hold her composure despite the growing pain in her chest and she hoped that her façade was holding up.
The man stopped looking at the paper and stared at Abby, as if he could tell she was hiding something. Then he smirked and said, “Trying to be a doctor like dear old pappy, kid?”
“Yes sir,” she replied, wanting to spend as little time talking as possible.
“Well with looks like yours, you probably won’t have to work too hard in school,” the man said with a chuckle. He held out Ben’s permit and paper but pulled them back when he reached for them. “Oh, too slow,” he said as he tossed them both over his shoulder. And with that last act of bullying, the man walked away.
Abby bent down to retrieve Ben’s things, wincing in pain as she did. “Thank you,” Ben said as he took these back from Abby.
“What’s this paper about?” Abby asked.
“If you’re going to be away from your permanent address for more than 24 hours for whatever reason, you have to get this permission form from the city beforehand,” Ben said.
“That’s so bizarre,” Abby said.
After a few more minutes of walking, Abby arrived with Ben at his home, a small, two-story house. He unlocked the front door with a key that he pulled out of his pants pocket and held it open for Abby.
“Benjamin, who is this?” an elderly woman, Ben’s wife, asked when she saw Abby.
“A girl from the hospital, Susan. She’s hurt and I’m going to help her,” Ben said as he took off his coat and hat and hung them up.
“What? You couldn’t do that at work?” Susan asked.
“This girl’s in trouble. Some soldiers were saying she’s a criminal, but we’ve all heard that one before. Anyone who stands up for themselves is a criminal,” Ben said as he opened a closet and took out a medical bag.
“Oh dear. So what are you going to do?”
“I’m gonna stitch her up and you’re gonna contact Steve. Tell him to get her out of here. We can hold off on reporting her missing for a couple of hours, but we can’t put it off for too long without raising suspicion.”
“Okay, I’ll give him a call.”
“If he gives you trouble, just remind him that he owes me big time. Now, come with
me upstairs, young lady.”
Susan went to call their friend Steve while Ben led Abby upstairs. He briefly introduced her to his real granddaughter, asked her to bring him one of her shirts, then took Abby into his bedroom, grabbing a towel from the bathroom on the way. He laid the towel on the bed alongside the shirt from his granddaughter and said, “Okay, lay on the towel there on your side and pull your shirt up a bit,” Ben said as he opened up his medical bag and put on some gloves.
Abby did what he said, pulling her shirt up past her midriff so Ben could see her wound. He made a ‘tsk’ noise and said, “Now this is sloppy work. This pressure bandage isn’t tight at all! Damn soldiers. You know, it’s a miracle you didn’t bleed to death when they drove you here.”
“Where exactly is ‘here’, anyway?” Abby asked as Ben undid the dressing around her stomach.
“Aspen. Well, near Aspen, that is. You’ve likely never heard of our town, but I assume you’re more familiar with Aspen,” he replied as he wiped down Abby’s wound with rubbing alcohol.
“It won’t be safe for you here, so we’re contacting a friend of mine who’s with the ReFounding Fathers,” Ben continued, lowering his voice. He threaded a needle he had pulled out of his bag and said, “They’re a resistance movement that fights the government. Anyway, my friend owes me big for saving an important guy in his organization, so he’ll get you over to Salt Lake City, which is the new American capital and far enough away from here that you won’t likely be discovered. He’s a smuggler, see. They’ll make some papers for you. Citizenship papers, so you can start a life there. Now hold still, this’ll hurt.”
It did hurt, but Abby didn’t squirm at all. Ben was good at his job, and it was not long before both the entrance wound in her back and the exit wound in her stomach were properly sewn up. He wrapped a fresh dressing around her again and then packed his things up.
“Thanks,” Abby said as she sat up straight on the bed.
“You don’t need to thank me, young lady,” Ben replied. “This actually doesn’t look so bad, looks like the bullet went straight through you without even slowing down. That must have been an armor-piercing round.”
“How long will it take to heal?”
“Perhaps a month, if you take it easy. Now go ahead and change shirts. We’ll get rid of this bloody one for you.”
Ben turned his back to Abby and faced the door, giving Abby the privacy to remove her old shirt and pull the new one over her head.
Susan came into the bedroom now and said, “I got a hold of Steve. He’s expecting a body.”
“What?” Abby said, suddenly startled.
“Don’t worry, miss,” Ben said, laughing. “That’s the code we use. Steve owns a mortuary near the edge of the city. It’s a rendezvous for the ReFounding Fathers where they pick up people that need to be smuggled out of here under the guise of being dead. I’ve got a body bag here, we’ll put you in it, put you in the back of my car, and I’ll drive you over there. Some guys will meet us there and they’ll get you out of here.”
“Oh,” Abby replied.
“Alright, let’s get ready then,” Ben said.
They went downstairs where Ben pulled a body bag out of a closet and carried it into the garage where his old Plymouth station wagon waited. He placed the bag in the back seat and had Abby lay down in it while he zipped her up, leaving it partially undone so she could see. Susan put Abby’s ruck in the trunk and then said goodbye to Abby, wishing her luck.
“Now if we get stopped, you have to be dead quiet, and I mean that literally,” Ben cautioned her. Abby nodded her head. Ben closed the back door of the car, opened up the garage door, then got into the driver’s seat and started his old Plymouth. He turned the old, yellow headlights on and drove into the snowy night.
Fortunately, they managed to drive the short distance to Steve’s mortuary without being stopped. Ben pulled up to the main entrance and said, “Okay, we’re clear. Grab your stuff and go on inside.”
“You’re not going to go in with me?” Abby asked as she pulled herself out of the body bag and grabbed her ruck.
“No, that won’t be necessary. I try to avoid seeing any of the resistance members when possible. That way, if for whatever reason I was interrogated about them, it would be impossible for me to describe them,” Ben replied.
“That’s… really noble,” Abby said, but Ben just shrugged his shoulders. She put her hand on the door handle, but didn’t open it yet. She looked back to Ben and said, “You know, you never asked me for my name.”
Ben waved his hand dismissively and said, “You were a young lady in trouble, that’s all I needed to know.”
Abby was silent for a few moments after that. She leaned over the front seat and softly kissed Ben on the cheek. “It’s Abby,” she whispered.
“I’m glad to have met you, Abby. Good luck,” Ben replied with a smile.
Abby climbed out of the car with her ruck and jogged into the mortuary. Steve was in the front room waiting for her.
“You must be the girl we’re smuggling,” Steve said in a British accent. Abby nodded her head. “Very well. Follow.”
“Now, here’s how our operation works,” Steve said to Abby as he walked her towards the back door of the building. “We’ve got a lorry that’s headed to Salt Lake City to deliver the bodies of three soldiers who were killed the other day out in the Wild. There’s a cemetery up there for any slain service member, like a new Arlington. It was supposed to leave half an hour ago, but this is our best bet for making sure you get out of here safely.”
“Will that be a problem?” Abby asked as she and Steve stepped back out into the cold, snowy night. A plain, white van was parked in front of them and two men other men stood next to it.
“No, not at all,” Steve replied. “We rarely leave on time, precisely for situations such as this. We’re actually quite a nuisance to the guards who run the checkpoints. They know of all comings and goings in the city, so they just yell at us for being lazy and quickly send us on our way.”
“So, if I’m following you correctly,” Abby interrupted, “I’m going to have to lay in the back of a truck with three dead bodies all the way to Salt Lake City?”
“It’s better than being a dead body, wouldn’t you say?” one of the men said, as he walked up to Abby and motioned for her to give him her pack. She did so and he tossed it into the front seat.
“Not entirely, no,” Steve said. “You’ll start off in the back, but you can sit up front for most of the ride. When we near military outposts, you will need to slip into the back and do your best performance of a cadaver. But you needn’t worry, we’ve done this dozens of times without a problem.”
“Well, I guess it isn’t the worst thing I’ve ever had to do,” Abby said. “Thanks, by the way.”
“Cheers. Now off you go.”
Abby walked around to the back of the van, observing the inside of it before hopping in. Three body bags, all of which clearly contained a body, were laying on small, bed-like surfaces attached to the walls. Clips of some kind held the bodies down to prevent them from rolling. There was a fourth bag that lay open, waiting for Abby. She climbed into the van but was almost knocked off her feet by the nauseating stench of the bodies. She clambered into the open bag and allowed one of the men to zip her up most of the way, leaving only a little space for breathing. She felt entirely uncomfortable placing her life in the hands of complete strangers, but what other choice had she?
“There’s only three checkpoints on our route,” the man said. “It’s freezing tonight, and the wind is picking up, so I can’t imagine them doing a more thorough check than opening the back and peeking inside. Even so, do not make a move or a sound at these times.”
“Got it,” Abby replied.
“Alright, let’s roll,” the man said before climbing out of the van and slamming the door closed. He then got into the driver’s seat alongside of Steve, started the vehicle, and slowly drove into the street.
; After a few minutes, Abby felt the van come to a stop and could hear the two men in front talking, though she couldn’t make out any words. One of the voices coming from outside sounded very angry, but the men up front remained calm.
The back doors suddenly opened up and Abby felt an icy chill as the wind shrieked inside and tossed a flurry of snow all around. A man jumped into the back, so Abby closed her eyes, held her breath, and lay motionless. She could hear the man cursing the weather and the occupants of this van, both the living ones and the dead ones, as he quickly ran a gloved hand up and down each body bag.
Abby remained still, suppressing the violent urge to recoil when his hand ran down her arm, hip, and leg. His inspection lasted for only a few ticks of the second hand, and then he jumped back outside, closing the van door behind him.
Abby slowly blew her breath out and opened her eyes again. She was fortunate that the weather was so bad tonight, otherwise the search might have been more thorough. She heard the men outside exchange a few more angry words with the driver of the van, and then they were moving again.
Once safely away from the town, the van stopped so that Abby could get up into the front with the two men. At each checkpoint, including the brief stop at a government fuel station to refuel the van, she retreated into the back of the van to play the part of a corpse, and then return to the front again once it was safe. Hours later, the van came to another halt just outside the city limits of Salt Lake City, and Abby prepared one last time for an inspection of the van.
The men upfront told Abby that this time she was to stay back there until they came to their final stop, as the capital had higher security than most places. The search began just like every other check, with angry words being exchanged outside and one man opening the back door and hopping in. Abby again closed her eyes and held in her breath.
His Name Was Zach (Book 2): Her Name Was Abby Page 14