The Age of Embers: A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller

by Ryan Schow

  He looked at her face, then smiled and gave her a solid smack across the cheek. She took a breath, said nothing, then turned her cheek. He smacked the dust off her other cheek and she took a deep breath, faltering to the point where he stepped forward and caught her.

  She came around, pushed his arms away and said, “Pretty as a princess.”

  “Is that all?” he asked, standing right in front of her.

  She put one hand on his shoulder and another on his arm to steady herself. Then, to his surprise, she stood on her tippy-toes and quickly kissed him on the mouth. He wasn’t sure how to respond, but by then it was over.

  She stepped away from him and said, “I’m terrible at saying thank you.”

  “Before we leave,” Ice replied, his mind still spinning, “we need to check for survivors.”

  People were already mulling about the hotel wreckage, checking for those who were still alive but trapped inside. A Sheriff’s car with the light bar blazing sped into the lot. He pulled up front, got out of the cruiser and immediately began checking on people.

  “We have to go, Isadoro,” she said. “If this is what’s happening all across the country, we need to get ahead of it as fast as we can. There’s no telling how much worse it will get. Plus my head is pounding and I feel sick.”

  “I agree,” he said with a heavy heart. “I’m just not sure I’m going to be able to live with myself if I leave these people here.”

  “I cannot live with half the things we’ve done on this trek so far,” she said with a fair amount of morbidity, and some obvious pain related to her injuries. “But if I can get Carolina back, then perhaps it will be worth something in the end.”

  The two of them eased their sore bodies into the Civic and got on the road. Fortunately a lot of the traffic was cleared off the highway due to people not wanting to be out in the open. There were, however, more than a few trouble spots that required some creative navigating.

  They stuck to the 54 up through the corner of Texas, the pan handle of Oklahoma and up into Kansas. They stopped for gas once, but decided against it. There was a long line of people and a handmade sign saying, CASH ONLY. 10 GALLONS MAX.

  Instead of waiting in line, he found an old GMC Yukon a few miles up. It was nosed onto the soft shoulder of the road, crashed and completely disabled. Ice opened the door, popped the hood and found the windshield washer fluid container. There was a long rubber hose leading into the container. He pulled it out, found the other end and pulled that out, too.

  “What are you doing?” Eliana said.

  “Getting gas,” he said, blowing into one end to clear the line of possible debris. They were on a small section of highway that had been attacked by guns rather than missiles or bombs. “Go through these cars, find me a container to put this gas in. The bigger and cleaner, the better.”

  Eliana gingerly made her way toward a stack of cars but returned rather quickly. He was feeding the rubber tube down into the Yukon’s gas tank. With a wan smile and two hands, she held up a large red gas can.

  “Nice!” he said.

  She gave it a shake, a fair amount of liquid sloshing around inside. He took it from her, unscrewed the cap then gave it a sniff.

  It felt like the better part of five gallons.

  “What kind of vehicle was that from?” he asked, wanting to make absolutely certain they weren’t putting diesel fuel into the Civic. That would kill the Honda’s engine for sure.

  She turned and pointed to a small sedan full of luggage.

  “The blue one,” she said.

  He stopped what he was doing, went and poured the contents into the Civic, then came back and showed Eliana how to siphon gas from a tank. Stealing gas as opposed to pumping it was less than ideal, but it was a hell of a lot better than paying twenty or even fifty dollars a gallon, or whatever it was gas station owners were going to charge as fuel supplies dwindled.

  When the Civic’s tank was finally full, they topped off the gas can, stuck it in the trunk and went through the other cars as quickly as they could, grabbing whatever they could find of value: water, protein bars, some music, a couple of coats and a can of mace, just in case.

  “Now I officially feel terrible,” Eliana said. “We just robbed the dead.”

  “Have you heard the saying, ‘Survival of the fittest?’”

  “Yes.”

  “Today we’re the fittest.”

  In Kansas, just outside Wichita and right inside the Minneola city limits, they followed the signs to Dodge City, which took them up Hwy 283. When they arrived, they didn’t venture inside the city because there was quite a bit of smoke and lots of destruction. Instead, they detoured around the city using Hwy 400, which took them right back to 283. The 283 became Hwy 50, which took them to the 183; the 183 then took them straight north into the moderately sized town of Hays, which had not been hit by drones.

  “I need to use a bathroom,” Eliana said as they drove into town, weary and in need of real food. “And if we could find some pills, that would be great.”

  “Is it your head?” he asked.

  “My back.”

  They found a few fast food restaurants, but none of them were open. Then they found a long line of cars just outside a Taco Bell. They turned in and got in line.

  “If you need to use the restroom, go now,” he said.

  Eliana got out of the car, went inside and came back out a couple of minutes later. There were still two cars in line in front of them. By the time they made it to the drive-up window, all the restaurant had left were bean burritos and Diet Coke.

  They ordered four burritos and two Diet Coke’s, then drove to a nearby parking lot and ate.

  “I can drive for another hour or two,” he said. “Traffic will be minimal at night. And we can probably get up as far as Holdrege.”

  “Nebraska?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Do you need to go to the bathroom?” she asked with a burrito-filled mouth.

  “Not yet. You look like you’re eating a dirty diaper.”

  She opened her mouth all the way and he broke into an unexpected fit of laughter. Then, adjusting herself, she pulled a gigantic ball of wadded up toilet paper out of her pocket, stuffed it in the cup holder. He also saw she had a small bottle of Advil.

  “Where did you get that?” he asked, opening the bottle and shaking out three pills for her.

  “I already took some,” she said. “A nice lady inside said she had more at home.”

  He took the pills, chased them down with a sip of his soda. “Good call on the toilet paper,” he said, impressed.

  “You never know,” she said.

  He smiled, took another bite of the burrito and began to think he could really like this woman. She was from another world, though. One that was hard, cold and brutal. He understood that, to some degree having lived in Juarez for a couple of years, but not to the extent that she did. He was a tourist; she was a permanent resident.

  “What happened to make you leave the United States?” she finally asked.

  He thought about it, sipped from the horrible drink, then made a face as he took another bite of his burrito.

  When he didn’t answer right away, she said, “This is supposed to be the greatest country in the world. Everything is free. People smile. Why would you leave here?”

  “Because I died.”

  She looked at him, stopped chewing. “You said that.”

  “I did.”

  “But what does that mean?”

  “I don’t have the easiest family to get along with,” he said. “It was because of my father. He was a hard ass. Very unforgiving.”

  “I know the type,” she said, sipping the last of her drink and looking at it like there should be more. He handed her his soda. She thanked him then took a small sip.

  “There was an issue with my father. It came on the heels of an issue with my wife and daughters.”

  “You’re married?” she asked, nearly spitting out her fo
od.

  “I was.”

  “But not now?”

  “They were collateral damage in a war that never ends. I used to be an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agent. ICE for short. We mostly served warrants on felons living illegally in the country and people trafficking women and children. Chicago turned their backs on us as an agency, which gave the people we were hunting a false sense of confidence. Anyway, we broke up this child trafficking ring, but Chicago wouldn’t officially sign them over to us, so they let these people back into the community with a court date and their promise to return.”

  “Did they return?”

  “They never do. Inside of a week, they slaughtered my family.”

  She fell completely still. He’d never said those words out loud. The night it happened, Ice went after the people responsible the only way he knew how. In the process of a 5150 shakedown, he learned some high level lieutenants in the DTO responsible had just taken his father.

  But his father hadn’t been taken.

  His father, former Chicago PD, had been advising the DTO on trafficking routes, police procedure, contacts, etc. Ice’s father was doing all this to supplement the otherwise dismal retirement pay he received from the Chicago Police pension fund. The retirement pay ended up not being bad at all, his father just had a gambling problem he didn’t want to admit to, as well as an alcohol addiction. This wasn’t uncommon for guys on the force, especially if their career was less than stellar, which his father’s career was.

  “How did…” Eliana started to say before not knowing how to finish the sentence.

  “They waited for my wife to pick the kids up from school,” he said, strangely detached, yet acutely aware of the details. “When my wife had both my girls in the car, men with machine guns walked out into the street and killed all three of them.”

  Her eyes watered as she heard this, her hand coming to her mouth as she looked right at him. He could not hold her eyes. He could barely even stomach the words, let alone the emotions that fought desperately to overwhelm him.

  “Did they ever get the men who did this?” she asked, softly.

  “I don’t know.”

  The answer was “maybe.” As in maybe they were killed, but maybe they weren’t. He’d found his father outside the DTO’s secondary mansion. He was talking with a pair of lieutenants when they turned on him. By then, Ice had destroyed one of their businesses, killing seven of their soldiers, robbing the joint, and burning it to the ground. Apparently they knew he was Ice’s father and were holding it against him.

  Isadoro arrived the moment the first shot was fired into his father’s chest. Apparently an APB was out on Ice for the massacre in a DTO-run guns and ammo shop fronting as a tobacco shop. He assumed that’s how the DTO made the connection between him and his father. By the time Ice put holes into the heads of the two lieutenants who shot his father, the old man had taken another round to the chest. Ice found him lying on the ground, blood everywhere.

  He sunk to a knee before his old man, sobbing and screaming at him at the same time. Even now, as he went totally silent with Eliana, he felt the rain from that night peppering his back and neck, the whiskey burn in the back of his throat, and both the love and the hatred he had for his father.

  “I’m sorry, Ice,” he said, coughing up blood as he spoke. “You don’t know what it’s like to be old, to hurt, to have nothing but a terrible, forgettable life behind you.”

  “My family is dead,” Ice said, tears of rage and ruin mixing with the rain, and the smell of death in the air.

  Whatever fight there was left in his father to live slipped away with that single revelation.

  “I…I didn’t know,” he said.

  “Now you do,” Ice replied, bitter, his heart now aching for altogether different reasons. For a few minutes, the two of them just sat there, son holding his father, both of them having lost everything, both of them having each other to blame.

  “I’m not going to make it,” his father said.

  “I know.”

  “For what it’s worth, I loved you kids.”

  “I know,” he said.

  The front door of the DTO home opened up; Ice sent two rounds their way. The men scurried back inside, slammed the door and locked it.

  “Just do it,” his father said. “Don’t make me take the long way into this thing.”

  He didn’t hear the police cruiser roll up because it was raining hard and he was lost in his headspace, not sure if he could live without his wife and kids.

  He certainly didn’t want to.

  And he didn’t know if he could do what his father wanted him to do, but he had to. He told himself this was the best way—he’d put a round into the old man, then one in himself and be done with it.

  “I’ll see you on the other side, Pops,” he said.

  “See you on the other side.”

  Car doors opened and car doors shut. He didn’t care. Soon enough it would be over.

  “Ice!” a voice boomed from behind him.

  Roque. His brother. Beat cop with Chicago PD and his father’s pride and joy. Ice fired the first round into his father’s head, gave him the exit he so desperately wanted.

  Before he could get the gun up under his chin, two shots were fired, both of them hitting him high and in the back. He slumped over, the gun falling from his grip. Roque came bounding down the stairs, both of them not fifteen feet from the front of the DTO home’s front door.

  “You shot me!” he said.

  “You killed our dad,” Roque replied, horrified.

  In the background, a bevy of sirens grew in pitch and volume. That’s when the first fires were started inside the home. With the help of what investigators would later say was accelerant, the flames quickly licked up the side of the massive house, a few windows splintering from the heat.

  The DTO was destroying the house and everything in it.

  Ice managed to get to his feet, grab his gun and stagger into the house where he thought he’d have a better death. Roque called to him, but didn’t go after him. Ice didn’t blame him. All Roque knew was that Ice had gone on a killing spree, the last victim being their father. Roque didn’t see how much pain Ice was in.

  He didn’t even know about Ice’s family.

  Ice kicked in a glass panel by the front door, reached in and turned the lock from the inside. He opened the front door, then stumbled inside and flopped down on the tile floor. That was his end. It was the worst ending he could give himself.

  The heat and smoke nearly consumed him, but a set of hands pulled him to safety, then patted down his back and chest where he’d caught fire.

  It wasn’t his brother.

  To this day, he thought it had to be someone from inside the home. Some of the same people who took the lives of his family had dragged him clear of the inferno, effectively saving his life.

  Realizing what happened, how much trouble he was in, Ice dragged himself to his feet, staggered to a crappy motel, kicked in the cheap door and squatted. He managed to clean the wounds, but that didn’t stop the infections that had started. That week was the worst week of his life. When motel staff found him in the motel room, they threatened to call the cops. He gave them cash instead. The wad paid for another week.

  No one ever asked for his ID.

  An off-duty EMT showed up that night. Someone played good Samaritan for him when he couldn’t help himself. The EMT patched him up, gave him extra antibiotic ointment, sedatives, a bottle of Codeine for the pain and a bottle of Amoxicillin for the infection.

  A week later, he left the motel and made his way down to Mexico, crossing over the border in El Paso and finding a place in Juarez.

  The American news showed pictures of the DTO home. It was burnt to the ground. They announced several casualties, one of them being an ICE agent—himself—and three members of the cartel. The remains of the suspected victims, according to the news, could not officially be confirmed because accelerant was used around the hou
se. The hot burn did a number on the bodies, and all that remained were the bones of the deceased, much of them crushed when the second story collapsed.

  So yeah, he was dead.

  A set of little snapping fingers in his face pulled him from his reverie. He saw Eliana on the other end of those fingers.

  “Isadoro,” she said. “Ice!”

  “What?” he asked, coming back, not realizing his eyes were watering.

  “Where did you go?”

  “Too far back,” he said.

  “I said I’m sorry to hear about your family.”

  “They died quick.”

  He ate the rest of his burrito, put the other one in back, then started the car and pulled out into the main road. Two and a half hours later, they got into Holdrege, drove around for about thirty-five minutes before Eliana spotted a half destroyed house for sale.

  The sign in the front yard read: NEEDS SOME TLC – BELOW MARKET.

  Ice peeked in the windows then said, “Looks empty.”

  They knocked on the front door even though it was late. No one answered. They knocked harder. Still no one. Around back with his weapon at his side, Ice kicked in the kitchen door, then cleared the house with Eliana on his six.

  There was no power, so it was cold, but the house not completely abandoned. Someone was clearly working on a whole house renovation, so there was toilet paper, six beers in the fridge (all of them cool but not cold) and a mattress on the master bedroom floor. The master had fresh carpet, which put a distinct smell into the air. The rest of the house was a dump.

  “This will do,” he said.

  “Where are you going to sleep?” Eliana asked.

  He couldn’t tell if she was joking or not. She was too serious all the time, so he thought it was better to clarify than to assume.

  “I was going to ask you the same thing,” he replied, joking back but weary and not selling his humor very well. “I’m sleeping in the bed.”

  “We’re both sleeping in the bed,” she said.

  She pulled back the blankets, sniffed the sheets, hand-brushed them vigorously, then took off her pants and crawled inside.