by C. G. Cooper
“Deal,” I said. “Let me make a couple more stops first before I bring the family in.”
Chapter 2
I looked around the tiny room; its four used mattresses laid in a tight row. It was our version of an extra-large king mattress. It would be our home until we came up with a new living situation. It wasn’t ideal, but we were together, safe, and dry, and there was even a bathroom downstairs. As soon as Jane and I had everything unpacked, the kids begged to take a walk around town.
I groaned. The last thing I wanted to do was go sightseeing, but the longing looks in my kids’ eyes told me there was no use being the spoilsport. They never came into town; I was always the one who came to restock our supplies. Just the act of walking straight into Pete’s place, and our new lodgings, left their mouths agape, eyes wide with wonder.
It made me smile until I thought about what Franklin used to look like. The Collapse had changed that, probably forever. Like cavemen stepping into the future, my kids walked into Franklin as if the place was some kind of wonderland, full of marvels, new smells, and people, real people.
“Let’s go out for an hour,” I compromised. All three kids jumped up and down, even Charlie, who probably didn’t have a clue as to what we were talking about. Jane gave me a wink and I rolled my eyes, quickly covered by a genuine smile.
We kept to the vendors I knew, and I surprised myself by loosening up enough to act as the tour guide. I told them about the statue that used to be in the roundabout, and I explained how during the holidays the city would put on a Dickens’ Christmas. Andrew asked who Dickens was and Sybil piped up, “Charles Dickens, dummy. He was a writer.”
Andrew stuck his tongue out at his big sister; she responded with her best patronizing scowl.
“Sybil’s right,” I said, moving them both along to cut off any forthcoming snarky remarks. “Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol. They made like ten movies of it.” I remembered watching them all with my mother, even the black and white versions. She used to love those old movies, with all their nostalgia and life lessons. She’d be devastated to see what the country had become. America was one of her great loves, the land where she’d made a home and a family, her own nostalgic black and white movie.
Jane must have seen me drift off because she took over the tour. “And right over there, kids, was where Daddy and I first kissed.”
“Ew!” said Sybil.
Andrew started making kissing sounds, Charlie right behind him with his two-year-old air smooches.
“Come here, you,” Jane said, sweeping Andrew up in her arms and smothering him with kisses. He squealed and squirmed as I grabbed the other two and planted wet kisses on their foreheads.
Sybil had just managed to wriggle away when I felt eyes boring into my back. When I looked up, all I could see was someone ducking into the shadows.
“What is it?” Jane asked quickly. She knew me, my quirks and little habits. Jane could read me with better reliability than the old world’s most expensive lie detector.
“Nothing,” I said, smiling.
She cocked her head seeking reassurance. All I could do was shrug.
The outings became part of our daily routine. The kids had school, of course, courtesy of my eclectically educated wife. However, once their lessons were over for the day, and I’d finished the last box of ammunition for Pete, we would head out.
While the kids jabbered on, we walked down crumbling brick sidewalks. Jane and I discussed our limited options. She thought it might be a good idea to stay in town for a while. The kids were enjoying it, and they’d even made some friends with the locals. I was torn. Pete had enough supplies to keep me busy making ammunition for a year, and we’d come to the agreement that I’d get a quarter of the output in return for my labor. It was a good deal for all involved, and as long as I could find a place to store my share, we could be set for years.
“We could make a go of it,” Jane said.
“I don’t know,” I said. The truth was that I felt exposed. After nearly ten years of living in concealment, my antennae were sounding alerts day and night. I’d learned to be careful and, up until the attack at our little cabin, I’d kept us all safe. “Maybe I should start looking for a place.”
“Promise me you’ll look in town, too?”
I nodded, not wanting to disappoint her. Jane had learned to be careful like me, but she had a trusting heart. It allowed her to nurture and grow a loving family. She had enjoyed a brief career as a flight nurse; she was used to caring for others and seeing the good in them. It hadn’t been easy to bring her over to my more jaded and cynical way of thinking in our early days together, but The Collapse pushed her the rest of the way with all the subtlety of an avalanche.
“I’ll look in town, too,” I said when I saw my nod wasn’t good enough. “But that doesn’t mean I won’t find a place somewhere out there.” I pointed to the trees in the distance, my blanket of safety, my hiding spot where only I got to see my family.
She seemed mollified, and I took her hand. Charlie was doing his waddle-run up ahead, and the older two were giggling right behind him.
Another week went by. In the mornings, while the kids were in school, I went “dwelling hunting.” There were some promising places, shanties really, on the outskirts of town. Without any kind of government to enforce property rights, whoever laid claim first was the new owner, provided they could enforce the property rights themselves.
With a few options in mind for Jane, I expanded my search radius. I hiked miles from memory, thinking back to those years before The Collapse, when driving down the winding two-lane roads of Leiper’s Fork was a weekend ritual. The roads were overgrown now, surrendering the rest of the real estate, day-by-day, to wild grasses and creeping tree lines.
I’d pass the occasional traveler, our exchanged looks always wary. It was the way of things to trust no one.
By the fifth day out, my spirits were sinking. I hadn’t found a single property that wasn’t taken, unlivable or completely indefensible. If it had been my choice alone, our bags would’ve been packed and our travels renewed.
But it was hard to ignore the light in my kids’ eyes, the way Jane chattered on about the new friend she’d made or all the people she could help. She had her mind set on establishing a clinic. There wasn’t much available for supplies, especially without assistance from The Tennessee Zone’s government, but Jane felt that she could scrounge up enough to provide help. She’d even talked to Pete about going into business together, possibly even renting a spot adjoining his shop.
Unfortunately, that’s not how things worked out. One sunny morning, Jane left me with the kids so she could go out foraging for medicinal herbs she’d been reading about in an old Herbology tome Pete had somehow scrounged up.
Noon fluttered by; still there was no sign of Jane. We were supposed to have a look at one of the houses I’d found, and it wasn’t like Jane to be late. She was armed, of course, and she knew how to use every weapon in our possession. That did little to settle my nerves as noon became 4pm, and Jane still was not home.
Then, just as I was about to go down and ask Pete to watch the kids, I heard the lock on our little hovel click open. Jane was carrying the satchel she’d taken earlier, but it looked empty. Then I saw that her hands were empty except for the room key. She didn’t have the shotgun.
Jane didn’t look up; she just turned to lock the door. I couldn’t see her face, but I did see that her hands were shaking.
“Jane,” I said as calmly as I could. The kids were playing a board game on the floor and I didn’t want to alarm them. “Are you okay?”
She nodded without saying a word, but she wouldn’t look up. Her long hair hung over her downturned face. I moved closer, suddenly noticing the torn pants leg, and the way she shifted uncomfortably as I stepped forward. She actually flinched when I touched her arm.
“What happened?” I asked quietly, so the kids couldn’t hear.
Her face rose slowly and, painful
ly, I thought. Despite my conditioning, despite everything I’d seen before and after The Collapse, I couldn’t prevent my sharp inhale. Jane’s left eye was swollen shut and a deep red cut seeped blood from her lip. Dirt smeared her beautiful face and something inside of me broke.
“What happened?” I asked again, my voice quivering now, rage bubbling to the surface.
Jane shook her head like she didn’t want to tell me. I grabbed her hand but said in a soothing voice, “Jane, are you okay?”
That’s when she flew into my arms, her body pressed to mine in an unbreakable hold. I felt the warm tears running down the side of my neck, then down my shirt. I just held her there, wanting more than anything for her to tell me. But I kept myself in check, knowing she needed this, that there would be a time for talk.
So as her emotions spilled forth, her agony silent and shattering, I made a new promise. I would find whoever had done this to my wife, and I would make them pay.
Chapter 3
Her shaking stopped, but her breathing was still labored. The kids were watching us now, and I had to give my ever-vigilant Sybil a reassuring nod.
Inside I felt anything but calm. Jane was as tough a woman as I’d ever met. She never complained, even when she broke her ankle a month after having Andrew. It was one of the things I loved about her, and maybe it was the reason we’d both gotten careless. I vowed never to let her venture out alone again, all the while knowing that Jane would fight me on that with bare knuckles.
“Let’s go outside,” she said to me softly. Then to the kids she said, “Sybil, you’re in charge, okay?”
I saw Sybil’s lower lip quiver, but she said, “Yes, Mommy.”
When we were safely outside the sturdy apartment door, I waited for Jane to collect herself. She was pacing back and forth along the concrete hallway, slowly, like the motion was soothing her back to her normal state of mind. The minutes ticked by, and even though I felt like bursting, like every atom of my being would explode at any moment, I waited. She’d taught me that, my Jane, that not everything happened in an instant, that the answers would come. And so they did.
“I went to some of the spots you mentioned, the ones close to town. There were some people out. Nothing to be concerned about.” Her voice was flat and emotionless. It could’ve been a robot saying those words instead of my wife. It didn’t sound like her, like my Jane. “My bag was only half full so I went farther.” Her breath caught and she looked up at me furtively. “You told me not to go far; I know you did…”
She was crying again, and I went to her, wrapping her in my arms once more so that her battered face lay against my chest.
“It’s okay,” I said, soothingly. “It’s not your fault. Just tell me what happened.”
Jane’s cheek stayed glued to me while she said, “They found me on my way to Leiper’s Fork. There were three of them, and at first I thought I could outrun them. Two of them I did, but the third – Ryker, he was just a boy. He caught up to me and tackled me to the ground. I tried to fight him, to get to the gun, but he was too fast. He punched me in the face, and I think I lost consciousness.” I felt her tears again, the heaving of her chest against my stomach. I clenched my teeth as she continued. “The next thing I remember was that they had me tied up. We walked for a long way until we got to an untended farm. They took me to a metal farmhouse, big and dark, like a silo. Their whole family was there, even the women, dirty and quiet, and they looked at me like a sow being brought home for slaughter.” Her words turned cold, a twinge of anger in her tone.
Good, I thought, Get angry, Jane. Stay angry.
“The women just watched as the three men dragged me to the back. I tried to get loose, but every time I did they punched me again or kneed me in the leg to make it go limp.”
I did my best to control my breathing, but my thoughts overwhelmed my body. My mind skipped to the end, to the only conclusion my brain would come to.
“Did they take advantage of you?” I asked, trying to make the question sound clinical, but Jane was still tense in my arms, and I thought I felt her move a centimeter away.
“I should have listened to you,” she said. “You always tell me to be careful, to stay close, to shoot first and think later.”
I had to know. No matter the pain. No matter the anguish it would cause, I had to know.
“Did they do it?” I asked again, my voice more forceful this time.
Jane’s face raised to meet mine, her one good eye searching, like she was bracing for impact, that whatever she had to say would shatter our perfect little world in ways unimaginable.
“They tried to,” she said quickly. “But I got loose. I don’t know how. I don’t even remember, but suddenly I was outside and running. They came looking; I heard them yelling, and I saw them with their guns. But I hid, like you showed me. I didn’t move even though I wanted to. Finally, long after my legs had fallen asleep, they gave up. That’s when I came the long way back. It’s why it took me so long, because I had to be careful. I promise I’ll be careful from now on, I promise. Oh, God, I’m so sorry; I’m so sorry!”
I pressed her to me, smelling the sweat and grime in her hair, kissing the top of her head.
“It’s okay, honey. It’s okay.”
I was so relieved that she’d gotten away, that she’d fought them off before the most despicable act a man could level against a woman had come to pass. They were animals, another symptom of The Collapse, when the lack of law enforcement in now rural towns like Franklin bred a new kind of civil disobedience. But that also presented the solution.
As if sensing my resolve, Jane grabbed my arm.
“Let’s just go to bed. I need to go to bed.”
The way Jane looked at it, the thing at the cabin had been born out of necessity. It was either me killing those two men or the two men killing us. In her mind, that was reasonable. What was now searing a triple crosshair in my vision wasn’t in Jane’s code; it was what she was glad I’d left in the past.
“I need to go,” I said, releasing her and moving to go. She held on stubbornly.
“Please, Ryker, don’t go.”
She knew me so well, and while we were meant to be together, we were different people. Jane meant for us to run, to leave the trouble behind. But that wasn’t me, and it never had been.
“It’ll be okay. I’ll take care of everything,” I said. Then, in a voice saved just for her I said, “I love you, Jane, and if you love me, you’ll let me do what I need to do.”
+++
I knew the area in and around Franklin. Leiper’s Fork was southwest of downtown Franklin, and from my travels it was pretty easy to pinpoint where they’d taken Jane. Originally one of my concerns was the possible presence of dogs. Since The Collapse, and the death of consumer-grade surveillance and alarm systems, wary homesteaders had taken to breeding dogs like landowners had over preceding centuries. The dogs came in all shapes, but their sizes were typically large to quite large. They had to be. I’d heard of whole packs of trained dogs helping farmers fight off roaming bandits and even organized assaults by rebel militias.
But Jane’s description of her capture hadn’t included dogs, and when I settled in to watch the nightly routine of the humble homestead, not a single bark or snarl answered the call of crickets and hooting owls in the falling night.
I did hear yelling, mostly male, although there was a female voice that screamed out in pain. That normally would’ve been enough to spur me forward, but I waited. Whatever had been done to the woman was now in the past. There was nothing I could do to help her now.
I took my time circling the property, noting the lanes of approach, the tamped down paths through the fields of untended wheat. I’d never visited this particular property before, and I’d almost passed by it. It was tucked into a small valley, sheltered and cozy, like a snake nestled into a shallow hole. Smoke rose from the chimney and candlelight flickered from a single window. I could smell cedar in the air, and the odor reminded me of whe
re we’d lived just weeks before—in relative safety, or so I’d thought. It angered me again that our lives had been turned upside down, that everything that was wrong in the world had chosen to knock on my front door.
I slid the curved hunting knife from its sheath, preparing to steal across the open ground. There was enough waist-high tangle to obscure me from view, but I would still have to be careful, moving with measured steps.
I was about to lift myself off the ground when something hit me on the cheek. At first I thought it was an errant bug flying off course, but when I turned, I caught the faint outline of something maybe twenty feet away. The dark mass shifted and I flinched, grabbing the pistol from my hip holster and pointing it at the figure.
“Shh,” the shadowed figure admonished.
“Who are you?” I asked, my aim dead center of the blob.
I saw what must have been an appendage point deliberately away from the house, towards the woods from where I’d just come. Whoever this was definitely desired my staying clear of the farmhouse.
“No,” I hissed.
The appendage disappeared and a moment later something hard landed next to my boot. Keeping my aim on the ambiguous form, I reached down and grabbed the object. It was roughly rectangular, and it felt metallic. It still felt warm, like it had been resting next to the warmth of a person’s skin. When I flipped it over, I felt the raised button on one corner. I’d possessed something comparable years before – it was a method of identification. Simple and useful.
I depressed the button. Sensing the darkness around me, the identification badge illuminated in a dull red, like the red lens flashlights of old. Similar to the Stars and Stripes I’d worn in the past, the image was that of a flag, very similar to the American flag. It still held the thirteen stripes of the original thirteen British colonies that claimed independence in 1776, but instead of the fifty stars in the top left corner that had adorned the nation’s symbol since 1960 (a random fact I somehow remembered from boot camp), the circle and three stars of the former Tennessee flag now resided there.