by Roger Hayden
“We all will be.” His brash voice had become smooth and silky.
Harper kept her tongue for a moment. “I’ll drop you and Eli off at a hospital.”
“No.” His touch was light, but his voice was firm.
“My unit needs me,” said Harper defiantly.
Outside, her son vomited weakly.
James let go of her hand. He quickly scanned over the army gadgets and gizmos bolted to the dash. From the footwell, he fished out some loose napkins. A patterned boot print covered the first one. He opened the door and swiveled his body to the outer world. “We are a family, Harper.”
He left the door open as he met his hunched-over son, offering him a napkin for the bile trickling from his thin, chapped lips.
Harper’s mind traveled back to the theater of war. Where the massacre of friends and strangers had erupted across the Francis Scott Key Bridge. The same bridge that had paved her way for escape against a tide of stonehearted opponents. Like her, the privates in her supply regiment were trained for war but not yet bloodied. That had changed over the course of the last fourteen hours.
Harper chewed her lip and winced, not realizing that it had been busted. Her rib throbbed, her muscles up and down her arms and legs felt knotted, and a gash stung above her cheekbone. She touched it gently. One inch over, and the bullet would’ve taken more than her flesh. What other parts of her were broken? she wondered.
Eli shooed away his father and shuffled into the backseat. He swept a number of M60 shell casings from the hard cushions, causing the metal casings to clink softly next to a few duffels of unloaded supplies. Harper had yet to check them. Guns, ammo, and hopefully medical supplies lay within the zipped bags. Eli sprawled himself out, caressing his cast-covered forearm. Dirt, grime, and a stench of char lingered in his thick brown mop. He groaned while shutting his eyes.
Harper felt a tightening in her heart when looking at him. A dense fear latched on to her like a fat tick as she thought of what trauma he’d endured. She’d thought violent video games had tainted her teenage son. How much more harmful was witnessing dismembered bodies and the deaths of children before his eye? A shiver scurried up her spine.
He’ll be safe soon, she told herself, attempting to soothe her heavy maternal grief. Switching the gear into drive, Harper continued down the flat and wooded road.
James stiffened in his seat when he saw it. Leaning over the thin, dusty dashboard, he let out a single long-winded curse. Harper slowed to a crawl. Her fingers constricted around the ridged grip of the steering wheel until they were snowy white. Eli sat up. His yawn met a swift end when he looked through the cracked windshield.
Harper’s daylong migraine throbbed to life as she looked out at the long highway. Miles and miles of abandoned cars, trucks, and motorcycles cluttered the interstate she had just merged with. Endless blackness and disabled vehicles met with slammed bumpers as far as the eye could see.
“Are you kidding me?” James hammered his fist on the dash. Red faced, he swore harshly with every violent jab to the dashboard.
“This is the blast zone.” Eli bit his lip. “We have to be close to the edge, right?”
James let out a quick bout of frustrated laughter.
“Right, Mom?”
Harper bounced her eyes from car to car, scanning for movement. “I was led to believe that the pulse which hit the District of Columbia was a centralized ground attack. To be this far out…”
“How big are we talking?” Eli leaned forward between the two seats.
Harper hated herself for saying it. Every fiber of her being wanted to dispute the facts. “No doubt the whole eastern half of the States. Depending on the detonation altitude, say three hundred miles up, it could be country wide.”
James opened and closed his swelling fist. Defeat covered his face. “What the hell do we do now?”
“We endure.”
The Murphys let it soak in and then started down the endless road. Eventually, their sliver of light vanished within the metal graveyard.
The next two days were hell.
The first night, they decided to “rest” on the side of the street. Locked in complete darkness, pain and worry kept them from getting more than three hours sleep. Uncomfortable seats, cramping joints, and Eli’s gasping night terrors disturbed what little rest they had. Eli claimed that he always had nightmares. Harper was too tired to contest his lie. In the morning, they all popped some light pain medication discovered in one of the army duffels. Against Harper’s request, James kept his burgundy-stained bandage around his thigh. She believed that her husband thought of himself as resourceful, when in reality, his wound could be festering.
They had three supply bags total. One was full of semiautomatic assault rifles and a tactical shotgun. Harper checked the ammo magazines and found them to be empty. The second duffel contained half a dozen first-aid kits with a few extra bandage rolls used to stuff the bag. This was probably their best find and helped Harper patch up her own wounds and those of her family. The final bag consisted of hand-cranked lanterns, compasses, and fresh blankets fit for gurneys. When Harper had arrived at the bridge checkpoint the night before, she was able to unload most of the supplies before the attack started. Because of this, she only had a box of .45 caliber pistol ammo, useless with their current arsenal, and however much ammo still remained in the gunner turret up top.
Harper did a quick check of the large M60. Bullets dented the metal guard that bowed around the cannon’s bottom. The large ammo box attached to the side was half empty. As she realigned the sight, humanoid phantoms enveloped the vehicle and shot their ghostly guns at her. She remembered the harsh recoil that had punched her shoulder with every bullet slung from the M60’s barrel and the way her adversaries’ appendages had gone pop in puffs of red. She wanted to dehumanize her enemies by the way they indiscriminately mowed down hordes of innocent people. Still, tiny voices told her that they had families and sons of their own. Regardless of these thoughts, Harper felt no remorse for putting them down. All monsters must die, she told herself. And man is the most vicious of them all.
The pain from yesterday made her body feel like it had been crushed with falling bricks. Moreover, her stomach hungered for substance while her throat was as dry as a desert. Her voice cracked when she spoke. Luckily, no one talked much. They drove on, rolling by the yellow farm fields and green-tree-swarmed mountains of Virginia. They passed civilians backpacking to their homes. Out on the road, most of the bystanders stuck together. There was no sign of insurgent activity yet, but nonviolent tribal communities sprouted up around truck stops and lonely gas stations. By the way the people gawked at her vehicle, Harper kept the Humvee rolling whenever she saw others. A creeping fear birthed during her time in DC awoke anytime she saw strangers.
After stopping in the nearest town, Harper learned quickly that the hospital was out of the question. Most had been either filled up or barred up. The vast majority of the pedestrians living there hoarded their nonperishables and families indoors. The ones on the streets were either law keepers or lawbreakers.
Harper came to terms with the fact that professional medical help was out of the question, especially with most doctors and nurses treating their own kin. Even if she could find a friendly physician, he’d still be tending to those injured in car accidents after the initial blast.
Stopping at a vacant gas station, Harper equipped James and Eli with unloaded assault rifles to frighten away any unexpected rabble while she went inside and grabbed a shirt-full of snacks and drinks. Holding her shirt-knapsack closed with her clenched teeth, Harper returned to her seat. She drove some ways away from the gas station and handed the food out.
“We have food and water. Now we need shelter.” Harper twisted the cap off a lukewarm water bottle.
“The gas station,” James said with a full mouth.
“Too much attention. We need to stay away from other people or any place they may go. At least until we’re sure help is on th
e way.” Harper took a swig of water. It was manna to her lips.
“How will we know?” Eli asked, starting on his second protein bar.
“We’ll know.”
They spent the next night in the Humvee covered by a camo net. Late-spring bugs munched at the Murphys’ sweaty flesh, and nothing killed their collective body odor. At least Harper’s ACU jacket hindered the stench slightly. The same could not be said for James or Eli.
When they tried to start the car the next morning, nothing happened. Worse, a downpour began as soon as they started walking. With mostly Virginian fields around them, it took them a while to find blanketing trees, and much to their dismay, the branches didn’t fare well in terms of cover. Around their feet, blood and dirt swirled in dark puddles. Harper turned her face to the leaking clouds and let the rain be her shower. The thick drops massaged her skin and stung her cuts. More blood drained from her hair and down her clothed back, sneaking into her boots and socks. She was tempted to strip down and dance in the late-spring storm. Before she could explore the thought further, the rain died into a calm sprinkle. Eli shook his head, sending dirty water spraying across his mother and father. After James called him Dog Boy, he stopped.
Wet, fatigued, but surprisingly relaxed, they returned to the road, tin gas canister in hand.
James put his hands on his hips and looked up at the semi-truck abandoned on the street. “Diesel?”
“Uh-huh,” Harper replied on her way to the truck’s tank.
“All right. Guess I best get started,” said James when Harper popped open the hatch.
Harper gave him a rubber tube she had procured from the gas station, and room to waddle over. James slid the tube into the gas tank and put his mouth on the end. Harper popped the lid off the portable metal gas canister she had grabbed from the Humvee and got ready. With a strong inhale, James sucked in his cheeks. After a moment, green liquid shot up the tube and into his mouth. With a disgusted expression, he spat the jade mess out across the concrete and yelled, “Go!”
Harper placed the overflowing tube inside the canister. The diesel sloshed at the bottom and started to fill it up. James moved a few paces away, spitting the remnants of the liquid on the road.
Eli grinned with surprise. “Where’d you learn that?”
James smiled back, the tight gaps between his teeth outlined in black. “Your mother and I used to be quite the hell-raisers. Isn’t that right, babe?”
“Well, I married you, didn’t I?”
All three of them smiled at that. Harper sealed the canister. Its weight caused her to slump to one side.
We might be starving and half-dead, but at least we’re family, Harper thought. She looked at James and was soon reminded of his adultery and the way he’d looked into that blonde’s sultry eyes with lusty hunger until he noticed Harper in the doorway. Despite everything, that six-month-old wound felt fresher than all the unhealed cuts on her bruised and bloody body.
Upon returning to the Humvee, Harper filled up the tank, and they were back on the road. She kept her eyes out for any uninhabited shelter. It was not long before they spotted a small farmhouse hidden at the end of a windy driveway. It was a quaint two-story old-style Virginia home with a barn and fenced-in horse field. Harper parked in front of the house and started for the door. On the other side of the fence, the horses followed her. Harper knocked on the door. No response. She turned the knob. Locked.
“What are you thinking?” James shouted from the vehicle.
Harper peeked into the window. Above the fireplace was a picture of a mother, father, and two infants. Rubbing her hand through her damp hair, Harper turned back.
“What’s wrong?” James shouted.
“We’ll find somewhere else.” Harper climbed back into the front seat and ignited the engine.
“But--”
“James. Please.”
Her husband opened his mouth to speak but then stopped himself. In silence, they followed the curvy driveway back to the two-lane road.
Again, they spent the next night in the car. This time, they crashed a lot faster. Harper dreamed of her old Pennsylvania farmhouse. When she was a child, she used to jump into the fresh creek that snaked through their backyard. But, in her dream, the fall leaves that slowly drifted across the glassy surface as she waded waist deep were replaced with dead bodies. The current carried pale and open-eyed men, women, and children all around her. Their rotting gazes followed her as they vanished down the way. At first, they were strangers. Then it was her platoon. Private Walker, Corporal Bennett, Commander McCulloch, all of them bobbing on the surface and violating the water with their blood.
Her dream warped, and she was hunting with her father in the woods. When the buck came into view, it twisted its antlered head to her. Its face was of a man. She pleaded with her father, but in the end, she still pulled the trigger. The animal screamed and died, thrashing before her eyes. They tacked the buck to the truck's hood and skinned it when they arrived at the house.
“Survival, Harper,” her father told her while holding the buck’s heart in his bloody hands. “It’s a necessary and nasty business.” The deer’s heart transformed into a human’s heart and started beating rapidly, pumping blood down her father’s meaty hands and spilling across the wooden floor.
Harper’s eyes shot open. Around her, night crickets chirped and owls hooted. From under the camo net, Harper gazed up at the starry sky. The galaxy had never looked so big and foreboding. She let her father’s words sink in and had never felt more terrified.
It was the fourth day when Harper submitted to her instincts. Driving on the country road had grown tiring, and the ranch home was so inviting. With her trembling hands, Harper dug a large rock from the dirt and slung it through the window. Glass shattered violently, and they were inside. Judging by the old colonial-fashion decor and quaint size, it was owned by two elders, assumedly Christian from the number of biblical quotes and Jesus portraits hanging about. That afternoon, the Murphys had cold beans and cold soup robbed from the owners’ pantry. Eli made the mistake of opening the fridge, and the house stunk of rotten egg and cream cheese. After hiding the Humvee in the wooded backyard and storing the duffels within reach, the three of them rested for two days.
“Harper.” James shook her shoulder. Moonlight glowed on his gaunt face and sunken eyes. “There’s someone out there.”
Wrapped in covers, Harper tiptoed to the window, feeling the cold wood under her feet. Around them, the woods bent to the chilling breeze. Her eyes scanned across the bushes, and then she noticed the dark silhouette standing amidst the trees.
“You see it?” James asked in a whisper.
Harper moved her attention to the covered Humvee tucked next to an unattended shed and then back to the shadowed figure.
“Gun,” she commanded, not turning away.
Dressed in her uniform, Harper quietly moved across the downstairs floor. In the darkness, she paused in front of the sliding glass door facing the backyard, woods, and Humvee. Her grip tightened around the cold metal of the assault rifle. The shiny kitchen knife tucked in the waistband of her pants rubbed its sharp edge on Harper’s hip. She waited, ready to scare whoever or whatever was hiding in the trees. The dark figure didn’t move. James’s breathing and her own were the only sounds Harper heard. After a long moment, the figure took a step back. Harper exchanged a quick glance with James and coiled her fingers around the sliding door’s wooden handle. Hunching slightly, the figure stepped back into the foliage. Bushes brushed its humanoid body until it was no more. James moved to the kitchen window.
Harper heard her heartbeat thumping in her chest as she looked at the ominous woods. She waited. And waited. And waited…
Cloaked in darkness, James shook his head at her. Harper removed her hand from the door handle. “Get Eli.”
They slipped out the sliding door and across the grass. James’s waddle and the heavy duffels slowed them. Thankfully, the Humvee wasn’t far. Without stopping,
they yanked away the camouflage net like a tablecloth and shoved it in the backseat. They tossed each duffel they were carrying into it and huddled inside. James moved to the driver’s seat while Harper snaked up into the gunner station. The Hummer rumbled to life. James killed its headlight, and they started across the grass, bumping with every dip in the terrain. Soon they were back out on the road.
On day seven and with empty stomachs, they stuck to the back roads. They moved southwest, clearing Virginia mile by mile. James drove until his injured right leg couldn’t take any more pain. Eli sprawled out in the backseat, downing pain pills to ease the crippling throb of his broken forearm. Harper could feel herself become lighter from starvation as her sight became more and more blurry. They tucked themselves in a tight mountain pass and took inventory.
“Where do you think we are?” James yawned. His stubble had turned into a faint beard that grew on his pale neck.
Harper stretched out her joints before returning to her pill-bottle count. “Edge of the Piedmont. We aren’t that far from the Smokies. See ’em?”
James craned his neck to the massive mountains permanently patched with hazy clouds. “Wow. You think it’s safer?”
“Less people. More wildlife.”
James pointed to the mountaintops. “I bet that I can build us a nice cabin up there.”
“Oh yeah?” Harper smiled.
“Yep. I’ll kill a bear, too. Make it into a nice rug.”
“So romantic,” Harper mocked him with a coy grin.
Hands on his hips, James turned back to her. “I’m serious. You can be my forest wife.”
“Your what?”
“Forest wife.” His eyes sparkled. “You know, leaves in your hair, hairy armpits, cooking a squirrel in an iron pot after I return from a long hunt. The whole nine yards.”
“Sounds horrible.” Harper chuckled.
“Eli can be Dog Boy. Keep us safe while we repopulate the earth.”
“We were hit by an EMP, James. Not some genocidal plague.”