Ravaged: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller (Taken World Book 1)

by Flint Maxwell

“Brad!” his mom said. “I’m all right. I’m all right. I’m so sorry. I just got cell service back. I’m not sure what happened.”

  “I think I can guess…”

  “So you’ve heard about them, huh?”

  “How could I not? They’re all over the place,” Brad said. “But you’re okay?”

  “Yes, sweetie, I’m fine. They’ll get this sorted out soon, I’m sure. Now you quit worrying about me. How are you? How are classes?”

  He almost said, ‘Mom, it’s summer,’ but caught himself before he could, because he actually was supposed to be in class. He had signed up for the summer semester right after his visit home during the Christmas holidays, like he had told his mom he would. It was all she could talk about during those three-plus weeks.

  What he had neglected telling her—as of yet—was that his latest spring semester hadn’t gone too well. He was pulling a solid C in Principles of Mathematics, an INCOMPLETE in World Governments, and Ds to Fs everywhere else. Not too good, not too good at all.

  He’d gotten the letter from the dean’s office two weeks after the semester ended. The subject: Academic Probation. Because of this, he’d withdrawn from his summer classes, deciding it best to gather himself before heading into the following fall semester. Since he was only technically in his third year—not quite a senior yet, according to his lack of credits—he’d really have to bust his ass and hit the books to get out of the hole he’d dug himself into. He hadn’t told his mom because he was embarrassed.

  She’d ask him why his grades were suffering, why he was on academic probation, and since it was his mother, he’d tell her the truth: he didn’t know.

  He was sure if he dug down deep enough, he could find the root of the problem—Dad’s suicide—but that was something he wasn’t completely ready to do. Not yet. He was suffering from a slight depression, that was true, but he wouldn’t tell his mom that either, because she’d just worry and think the worst, like she was so prone to do.

  He could hear her voice in his head now. ‘Oh no, Brad, don’t tell me that. After your father…’

  Bringing up Kevin Long didn’t always exactly go well for the two of them. It just felt too recent, the way it would feel for the rest of their lives.

  “Bradley…?”

  His mother’s voice brought him back to the present. He had blanked, thinking about everything that had spiraled out of control since his father took his own life four years before.

  “Sorry,” Brad mumbled. “Yeah, yeah, everything is okay.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. I miss you.”

  “I miss you, too, Mom.”

  Brad had managed to squeeze around a semi. A sign saying WOODHAVEN 5 stood ahead. He pressed on the gas again, not caring about the deathly wheeze coming from the Taurus’s engine. Out here, if he broke down, his mom could just pick him up…or, hell, he could walk. Walking would do me good, he thought, help clear my head. It felt stuffed to the very brim, near to bursting.

  But the Taurus held strong.

  “So, are you coming down in a couple weeks for your birthday?” Mom asked.

  “Well…actually, I was wondering if I could come down a little earlier, if that’s okay…?”

  “Oh, sure! How early?”

  “How about today?” Brad asked, and for a long while, at least for one of the five miles to Woodhaven, his mother remained silent. He thought the call might’ve dropped, so he pulled the phone away from his face to check the signal in the top right corner of his screen. Three bars. He put the phone back to his ear. “Mom? Are you there?”

  She made a noise. A sob?

  “Mom?”

  “Oh,” she said, sniffling. “That would be great, Bradley! Ever since you left for school and, you know, with your father… I’ve been so alone.”

  Alone. That was a painful word. Thinking of his mother suffering from loneliness…ouch.

  “Mom…” His own eyes welled with tears. He didn’t like that, but he did like making his mother happy. For that, he smiled.

  “When will you be here? An hour? Two?”

  “How about in fifteen minutes?”

  “Bradley, don’t you joke with me!”

  “I’m serious, Mom. Not joking. I’m about to drive into town now.”

  “You are?” The hope in her voice was enough to make his heart swell.

  “Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

  She was waiting for him on the front porch when he pulled into the driveway behind her Kia, which was parked off to the side of the garage—an old habit that went back years so Dad could get his car inside for his famous tinkering.

  A warning light came on the Ford’s dashboard, telling him the engine was overheating. He’d had the car for a while now and could tell when the engine was going to die on him by the way the steering wheel would start getting heavy with each turn, by the little clicks and groans that came from under the hood. The Ford wasn’t quite at that point yet, but it was close. Thank God he’d gotten here when he did.

  He stepped out, and before the door closed behind him, his mom had made her way over and wrapped her arms around his midsection. He had to bend down to hug her back.

  She had lost weight since Christmas. That was expected; the anniversary of his father’s death was coming up soon. Still, feeling her ribs jutting out beneath the cardigan sweater she wore made Brad feel sick. If there was ever a clear sign for him to drop out of college and move back in with his mother, it was this right here, right now. He could enroll in a local community college, or even go to a trade school. Living here, he’d at least avoid all the partying and bullshit that came with living on campus.

  His mother needed him.

  “I’m so glad to see you, honey,” Mom said. She gave his midsection another squeeze. “Have you been eating? You don’t feel like you’ve been eating.”

  “I’ve been eating, Ma.”

  “Junk. That’s what you’ve been eating.” She narrowed her eyes at him as they parted, eyes damp with tears. “I remember the college diet. Your body can handle the booze and greasy burgers and pizza now, but it’s shaving years off your life, Bradley. Mark my words.”

  He grinned. “I know, Ma. I know.”

  “Come inside. I’ll cook you up something nutritious and nourishing. You poor thing.” She turned and headed up the walkway.

  It was then that Brad noticed just how bad the house looked. The place wasn’t much to begin with, two bedrooms and one and a half baths, and an upstairs that felt like the floor was going to give with each step. Even the ‘half bath’ was just a toilet standing in the middle of the basement floor, covered in cobwebs and dark rust stains from years of disuse. As for the rest of the house, the paint on the siding was peeling; some of the siding had come off altogether, in fact. The attached garage had a few cracked windows. The concrete driveway was cracked, too, weeds sprouting up where they could. And the lawn…

  Oh, sweet Mother Mary, the lawn.

  If Brad had stepped out into the grass, it would have easily come up past his shins. Mom had never neglected the yard work before; it was usually something she relished. As soon as the first warm day of spring came, she’d pull out the lawn mower, dust off of the cobwebs, fuel it up, and get to cutting. Not this year, apparently.

  Brad peered around the house as he followed her up the walkway. Her garden was in the backyard, contained within a little chicken wire fence square that took up a corner of the lawn. This, too, was overgrown.

  Brad didn’t know much about gardening, but he was pretty sure he’d never seen one that was practically swallowing the fence it was contained in. That couldn’t be good. He was sure he’d also seen a few dead flowers to go along with the overgrown weeds. Mom probably got to growing the garden when the weather broke then neglected it ever since. That was totally unlike her.

  The inside of the house still smelled like home. Brad had been removed enough to notice the smell like an outsider would. French vanilla. Mom had one of those wax melts; you put a cube of swee
t smelling wax over a lightbulb, the heat melted it, and then the scent filled the whole house. It made Brad smile. Smiling was good, especially after seeing how much work needed to be done on the house; a sign that his mom was slowly slipping away, not into old age, but into insane loneliness.

  “What would you like?” she asked.

  “Aw, Ma, you don’t have to cook for me. I’m really not that hungry.”

  “Nonsense,” his mom said. “You look like you’ve been stranded on an island for six months. Your ribs are practically showing through your t-shirt, Bradley.”

  I could say the same about you, Ma. Maybe you should let me cook you something.

  “You know what? Just let me surprise you.” She was grinning again.

  He could tell she hadn’t grinned much in the last six-odd months. It was good to see.

  “Have a seat,” she urged. “I bet you’re tired. That’s a long drive up here.”

  “It wasn’t too bad.”

  This, of course, was a lie. The ride had been complete hell. He hadn’t seen the interstate that choked up with traffic in all his twenty-one years. All of the commuters going in the wrong direction, toward Ohio and the void, not away from it like they should’ve been.

  But what were you doing, Brad? he asked himself. Getting in line at the slaughterhouse with the rest of them, huh?

  “Whatever the case,” Mom said, “sit back and relax. Turn on the TV. I’ll have some food ready in about an hour.”

  Brad didn’t sit down. Instead, he crossed the living room and headed into the kitchen.

  “The lawn mower still work?” he asked.

  “Last I checked.”

  How long has that been? Brad looked out the front door, which was still open, the screen offering a good view of the overgrown lawn. “Doesn’t look like it,” he said with a sly smile on his face. “Pretty soon, the city’s gonna come around and make you cut it…or cut it for you.”

  “Screw ‘em,” Ma said. She sounded so unlike herself that Brad took a step back in surprise. “I’m—I’m sorry. I just haven’t been feeling up to it. I keep meaning to do it, but it slips my mind. I’m so busy these days.”

  She wasn’t. He knew this.

  “Don’t worry about it, Ma. I’ll do it.”

  “No, honey, you don’t have to do that.” She put a hand on his forearm. He didn’t like how cold her palm felt.

  “I insist. It’s the least I can do for room and board.”

  She must’ve seen he wasn’t taking no for an answer because she only smiled and backed away, letting him gravitate again toward the garage door.

  “Fine,” she said, “but as soon as dinner’s ready—”

  “I’ll be in,” he said.

  She stood on tiptoe and kissed him on the cheek. “It’s so good to have you back home, Bradley.”

  “It’s good to be back, Ma.”

  He went through the garage door and closed it behind him. The dust floated heavily through the air, illuminated by the streaks of sunlight coming through the west side window. His mom’s car wasn’t parked in here, but there was another car, a Toyota Camry. His father’s car; the same car he’d killed himself in. Matter of fact, Brad stood in the same garage where Kevin Long had done the deed almost four years ago. Dad had connected a garden hose to the tail pipe, run the hose through his back window, leaned back in his seat, and gone to sleep. Forever.

  Brad was the one who’d found him. His friend Dominic had just dropped him off, and the garage door was closed—Brad knew something was off right then for his Dad always had the door open as he tinkered, even during the cool fall days. Dad was a man of habit, like most humans; whenever he’d come home from work, which, on Fridays, was at about two in the afternoon, he’d crack open a beer and get to work on something in the garage. ‘Tinkering,’ was what he called it, and he’d usually tinker with something that didn’t need to be tinkered with: the lawnmower, the Camry, Mom’s Taurus (which she eventually gave to Brad as a high school graduation present), or some other contraption.

  Mom had said Dad had a loud mind, that he needed to be working on something all the time or he’d probably go crazy. It all got backed up when he was at work, all those crazy ideas, and he’d have to come home and let it all out before he self-destructed.

  There had been music playing when Brad entered through the side door that day. He remembered not being able to push it open…something was lodged in the crack at the bottom. He’d had to throw his shoulder into it, and when the door opened, a terrible smell leaked out. Exhaust. It reminded him of the days when he used to ride the school bus; the fumes had always been headache-inducing.

  Through a haze behind the glass, his father sat in the front seat, chair reclined, music loud: “Life’s Been Good,” by Joe Walsh.

  The car door was locked.

  “Dad?” Brad said frantically.

  The window had been cracked just wide enough for the garden hose to fit through. Brad was no dummy. He knew a suicide attempt when he saw it. But that was the thing: he thought it was just an attempt, that Dad hadn’t succeeded yet. At least that was what his crazed brain was trying to hold on to.

  Seeing his dad there, head lolling, eyes half-open and bloodshot, Brad thought there was still a chance.

  With the doors locked, he acted fast. He picked up one of his father’s hammers and smashed the backseat window. More of that terrible smell blasted out.

  He unlocked the doors and grabbed his father, who’d half-fallen out. His body was limp, heavy. Dead weight, his mind screamed, and then Brad himself started screaming. Tears shot down his face. He began to shake his father, demanding he wake up.

  But Kevin Long never did.

  Now it was almost four years later, and the car was still here. They couldn’t afford to get rid of it at the time, with Mom’s Taurus always breaking down, and then she’d gotten some kind of life insurance for Dad’s death and bought the Kia and gave Brad the Taurus, but she still wouldn’t sell the Camry—couldn’t sell it, though he thought she should’ve.

  Brad walked past it now, rolled the lawnmower out of the corner, gassed it up, and began cutting the grass; a task that would take him twice as long as it usually did.

  Over the next few days, the world continued changing. Brad saw the voids wherever he looked. He couldn’t even turn the television on without coming across some sort of coverage. The religious stations were even doing pieces on them, some calling them ‘God’s Gift,’ while others called them ‘God’s Fury’.

  Mom was beside herself. Though she wouldn’t outright say it, he knew she thought their arrival meant the end of the world.

  A lot of people had begun to think that, as Brad slowly came to find out.

  He had brought up the void that first night he’d been back, mentioned going out to Stone Park and seeing it in person—from a safe distance, that was—and his mother had been on the verge of tears. He hadn’t brought it up since.

  A week after Brad had arrived home and eight days after the void first appeared in Stone Park, a military man came to the front door. Brad had seen his fair share of military men and women trundling through Woodhaven in trucks almost too big to fit on the unpainted blacktop of Woodhaven’s roads, coming from somewhere south. Scores and scores of them, just like the news vans. He hadn’t talked to any of the troops, though, like some of Mom’s neighbors had. Like cops, military people unsettled Brad. They made him feel like he was up to no good, even when he was clearly not up to no good. So he avoided them, keeping his head low and his eyes lower if he saw one walking down the street or shopping at Everson’s Grocery. It had worked for him.

  Until now.

  He opened the door, and there stood a woman in full camouflage. She was tall. Her frame was corded with ropy muscle, face harsh, eyes narrow slits, nose and jawline sharp enough to cut stone. She held a stack of paper in her hands and wore a service pistol on her belt.

  Brad didn’t say anything; neither did she.

  She just hande
d him a piece of paper from the top of the stack. He looked it over a couple of times. Didn’t really comprehend it. For one, it was early in the morning, earlier than Brad had been up since the spring semester, and even then he was more likely to skip class and sleep in than attend. For two, he didn’t particularly feel comfortable in his pajama pants, which were adorned with various Star Wars characters, and his Batman t-shirt, the usual sleeping attire he wore while staying with his mother.

  The soldier was waiting for him to ask a question, he knew that. He had no questions.

  To make her go away, he just said, “Thanks.”

  She nodded and turned and walked off the porch, heading in the direction of the Flowers’ house.

  The paper was an order of evacuation, effective by 2200 tonight (10:00 p.m.), about fourteen hours from now—which was, Brad considered, hardly enough time for one to get all their affairs in order. For those who had no place to go, the army was offering beds and meals at Infocision Stadium in downtown Akron, where the Zips played their home football games.

  Brad wracked his brain, thinking of a place he and his mother could go. None came to mind. They had family out in Texas, but they hadn’t talked to them in a while, so heading that way was out of the question. Besides, there was one of those voids in Dallas. Brad didn’t care how big Texas was; he’d rather go to a state that didn’t currently have one of those weird things anywhere within its borders. Pennsylvania, maybe, he thought, but what was he going to do, bring his mom to his apartment with the rest of his constantly-drunken friends?

  A wave of anger rippled through him. Mandatory evacuation. Seriously? Who were they to tell him where he and his mother had to go? This house was bought and paid for, and his mom paid the property taxes on it, too, didn’t she?

  He was now very awake. The urge to drop the paper and run after the soldier to give her a piece of his mind came over him. That feeling left when he thought of the service pistol she kept holstered on her belt.

  He closed the door, locked the deadbolt, and went back to sleep.